"... when your enemies praise your architecture of aggression"

I wonder when you get to join Night Watch, and wear those neat armbands...

Pebbles, don't wait for the avalanche to take away your voting rights, start your own avalanche today ;)

Modern PLC-system? Seriously, PLC-systems are NOT upgraded at the rate some people upgrade their gaming systems. Sure, sometimes they get an overhaul, but I need only look at what was in use at the place I was at just 1 month ago. Big multinational company. What did they use? A lot of old PLCs, including ones as old as the Simatic S5-family. Why? Because they don't change them if they work and they can get spare parts. One really old system broke down some time back, and while they couldn't get a new one, they did have a transformer they could use instead of the original one, so they did. What kind of connection did they use most of the time? You guessed it; 9-pin RS-232 :P Instead of getting a bigger PLC when needing to upgrade, they added blocks with more I/O. You simply don't replace a whole system because there is something newer/better available.

Otoh, I have to wonder.. If people can indeed get access from outside, the security must be a joke.

First off, yes, I know, it's not their job to make sense, just to find new ways to get paid several times for the same crap.

Anyway. If the station pays for the music, and lets ANYONE listen to it, where you are shouldn't matter. Heck, maybe hairdressers should just let you borrow a radio and a pair of plugs and not play anything through speakers. Might cost a bit in plugs now and then since they'll probably cut a cord or two, but hey, most likely cheaper, right? ;)

Only way I'll ever pay for listening to radio is if they give me bacon as well. Mmm, bacon.

I think it depends on your perspective.. Personally, as a consumer I absolutely loathe any attempt to control what I can buy, and from where, regardles of whether it's a game, CD, DVD, BD, etc, or digital downloads of those.. Or the hardware, for that matter. They should just STFU and sell. They exist because we want their products, regardless of how we came to want them. When I buy a movie, I don't give a damn which version they want to sell in my country; I buy the version that has what I want, with price being semi-important factor..

From movies with differing aspect ratios, audio tracks, and extras, via which music I can buy, to what games I get to play, it's all pissing me off enough to make me want to bash some heads :P

Well, the argument about international law is not really relevant anymore.. Since the US doesn't care about it, why should anyone else? ;)
Nukes are bad, to be sure, but I can't really argue that some can have them, and other's can't, not with a straight face anyway.
I do agree on the deterrent-vs defense part though, and I can't say I'd be happy to see Iran getting nukes, but I can't really say that about any country having them either..

This reminds me of The Big Bang, in which Sweden nukes itself.. Kind of hard to do without nukes :D

Addendum; The US doesn't care about international law as long as it's about them obeying it. If non-alies don't, it's another thing alltogether.

Because they thought they were sending it to G-man!

... because most users of P2P-software use it for copyright infringement.. Then how about we ban guns?

I don't have any hard numbers, but lets look at how many people actually use them to comit crimes vs. how many use them for legitimate purposes, such as hunting, or actually preventing a crime..

After that's done, we could look at the same ratio for people who aren't cops or soldiers. And byt this I also mean the times when they are off-duty.

Just to make things more interesting, lets say that aggression, state-sponsored terror and the like, are also crimes (which they indeed are).. How many legit uses did you say there were for guns?

Oh, and yes, this does include stuff done by 'the good guys' of the world. Most countries have war crimes on their conscience.

Now, don't get your panties in a bunch because I'm talking about guns, or, even worse, because you feel I'm talking about things done by specific countries. Keep on track; this is about using an example in another scenario :P

I'm surprised they haven't done so allready..

In the begining there were no region restrictions, and among the tracks in my playlists I had a bunch of asian tracks.. Now, the asian tracks I've found are either classical music performed by asian musicians, or chinese pop.. Actually, I think I found some soundtrack for some Filipino movie, but there are no Japanese or Korean tracks (non-classical) that I can find..

According to Spotify, no tracks have been removed, but labels have insisted on regions, and if it's not available in Asia, I have to wonder who gets to listen to those tracks. Along with some US-released tracks that were removed from my playlists..

Regions are a thing of the past; I want to listen to what I want, not what labels think I should listen to.

This is, however, along with the absence of certain big acts, not Spotify's fault..

(I'm in Sweden)

Well, yeah.. But then, why do people use credit cards? Monthly installments? Could it be because they can't afford it all at once?

Sure, in the long run it's more expensive, but they get what they want now, and can pay over time..

Oh, and not all cpntracts are that evil.. When I got my Nokia E90, which was something like 8000 SEK (Swedish currency) in most stores at the time, I signed up for 2 years with a carrier that I'd been using for the last 7 years anyway, got a deal for like 500 SEK/month, which does sound expensive.. But hey, what's this? I can call for 299 of those 500? Of the remaining 200, 150 is additional payment for the phone, and 50 is insurance in case I do something really bad, like break the internal screen, which I was actually close to doing recently :P

So, what do I pay in the long run? Since I end up using those 299 SEK anyways, and usually a little more, the real price is more like 200/month.. 200*24 = 4800, and that includes an insurance that I know some people whish they'd gotten.. Even if I'd been lucky, and gotten it fro 7500, that's still 7500 - 4800 = 2700 SEK saved..

Had I bought it right away, I'd not have to pay every month, which would in itself be a good thing, but I'd still have to pay for the subscription to actually use it, as prepaid is not all that great for everyone :P

Read the fine-print, decide ona a carrier you can live with, and do what is best for YOU.

That is, if you actually have a choice :)

Actually.. I have a friend who has a 360, but no internet connection at all. He's seriously anoyed about all the downloadable content, which he feels should be on the disc. I try to tell him that there's a balance to be kept; something for the offline-customers, as well as for the online ones.. And that he's a minority..

Why does this remind me of The Cuckoo's Egg?

Same problem with default passwords, some 20+ years ago..

I'm well aware that the problems there weren't limited to default passwords, but it's one of those issues you'd think people would be more carefull about these days, at least when it comes to that kind of system.. It's one thing to have a homesystem with lax security, but this? Seriously? I guess it might be a case in point for me to use when explaining to people why it's actually important to try and use proper grammar all the time; skimp on it in one place and others easilly follow..

I still prefer physical media, like CDs, but I'm warming up to the idea of downloads (legal)..

Now, why not have streaming AND downloading? They both serve a purpose..

Take Spotify; I like having a lot of music at my fingertips, being able to try new stuff, find new stuff by pure coincidence, etc..

The only black cloud on the music-sky is really the labels.. They insist on regions for music. Wait a minute.. regions? I can buy a CD from whichever country I want (unless there's some embargo-crap going on), but once it's online distribution, they want to tell me what I can and cannot listen to? Hell no!

I remember having various odd tracks in my playlists.. I had the theme from Psycho Soldier, The Bottlerockets - Nancy Sinatra, Kim Chi - Octopus Song, and a remix from some DJ-mixalbum of Hyo-ri's Dark Angel.. All those were removed from my view..

Here's a novel idea; let anyone who wants to pay, stream and/or download, no matter where they are.

*joking* I guess culture really IS the new munitions! */joking*

"The trouble with law is lawyers." - Clarence Darrow :)

Well, no, not a SINGLE disk.. But, hey, I'm using a backplane/port-multiplier combo that allows me to connect 5 drives to a single SATA-connector..
(I think someone actually mentioned something like this, far above in the earlier comments)

Besides, having interfaces be ahead of the drives, performance-wise, is not a bad thing, it's actually a very good idea, so that drives can advance without hitting the roof..