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Comment Re:Cold weather performance? (Score 1) 172

Never measured it but yes it is noticeable how much charge is lost warming the battery. It's not huge but it can be a problem. I plug in so I've never really noticed. We need to shift towards parking lots having charging. You used to have to stable and feed your horse while you visited... parking your horse wasn't free either... the city had to pay to have the roads cleaned; often! People are clueless wimps today.

Comment Re:Because smoking isn't the only cause of cancer (Score 2) 98

RADON. I think it was the #2 cause (not many breath in specific chemicals which would each get it's own classification and therefore not be close to radon.)
It leaks into your house and you don't know it. It is random; it can go away at random as the random pockets of the gas seep up from the ground.

Add to this the many forms of cancer some of which are so slow you'll die before it becomes a serious problem.

Comment Re:I predict Republicans will avoid this thread (Score 1) 110

They only then become "independents" because Republicans are so brainwashed they never convert to anything else. I've also rarely met an "independent" who isn't just too cowardly or ashamed to admit they are still a Republican but did some independent thinking for a short time period. I think this is because their culture is not accepting of too much deviation of thought (aka diversity;) when you break from the dictated party line you have to leave until things calm down, then all is forgotten and the hidden identity can come out again. Like how racists just go into hiding; even from themselves, until it's ok to peak out a bit.
Look how open their identity has been for the last few decades to the point they created the term "RINO" to shame and attack non-conformists. Then Trump's marketing psychology hijacked their identity and the rest just follow...few see the strategy of his use of RINO even if they are old enough to see the irony.

Comment Re:Would secret sabotage be better? (Score 1) 247

YES! but most data comes back... thing is, long term backups don't exist or the immediately important data is recent not old. So you may corrupt 6 months of backups and they have last years offline backups but those end up not being that valuable.

Say you have a cloud backup service... if they gain account access, they can go into that account and trash it all.

Comment Re:This is NOT evil (Score 1) 84

I have not heard about Nintendo stealing away purchased items; I would assume refunds would happen and in some places (like my state) it's unlikely they'd go against the law.

Reusing a game key doesn't prove anything more is going on; however, it doesn't prove otherwise. We simply do not know if they have 100s of these things hammering their servers in various ways - they wouldn't report that. We also don't know if they've done really stupid things that makes it a possible risk or if they unjustifiably view it as a risk. Well, knowing security, you assume the server is not secure - you can't prove it is secure but you can prove it is not secure with 1 breach. We have mitigating policies built upon theoretical failures that may never happen. This could be such a policy - do I agree with it? no. I'm just arguing it's not "clearly an act of evil."

evil---
Overly broad definitions ruin the purpose of the word and in this case, actually help real evil by conflating it with lesser instances, accidents, mentally ill acts, thoughtlessness, etc. The serious problem is how situations get humans to do horrible acts; when humans often do not act like they have free will...

Comment Re:Creating FUD (Score 1) 84

I wasn't looking for a full debate just bringing up ideas but ok:

I think it's NICE Nintendo allowed counterfeit games to be used; they only bricked online. They could brick games but decided not to do so. I'd like to know why because they obviously thought about the matter for a long time.

The PAID game remained (although not legit) and the PAID system remains; only the PAID online service agreement ended and likely a prorated refund would happen. They don't even have to provide free updates (you show me any law that requires support.) Purchased online games you can't download would get a refund since the law is pretty easy on that.

I am not in support of a total online ban; however, I can understand the policy behind doing so. I can see updates/downloads being allowed but online play for that game being banned... although Nintendo suffered a massive hack to their store that allows free game download (update/restore) which still works AFTER they shutdown those old system's online stores.

I don't know their new system; however, my guess would be digitally signed code with a unique ID integrated in that. If somebody modifies and exploits the scheme it could be made quite difficult to generate valid signature for code that has been hacked and if/when they do this they'd be using the same unique ID for each copy of the exploit. Assuming the whole thing doesn't break and they can sign anything or the signature isn't made irrelevant. This would then make any duplicates a possible threat which maybe you only worry about after X copies show up. Maybe this online store has already been hacked and patched?

I would hope their online system is immune from anything client software does. Don't just assume competent security from a locked down tiny proprietary ecosystem with static hardware and possibly a secured client only server. They had two really pathetic encryption passwords for the gamecube and wii.

It's true piracy doesn't kill off everything but it always depended upon difficulty to minimize the harm. SEGA got out of the console business. they had a huge piracy problem that contributed to other problems at the time. The lost income is quantified and amortized which likely goes into pricing or at least impacts profits which influences capital investment (where appearance matters.) This is not the past either, everybody is competing for our TIME - the impact of too much content is already here without piracy.

US law: "guilty until proven innocent" is an illogical precept for the legal system with cogent backing but it does not apply to private parties and even less when you have legal print in the user agreement. You may get some common sense relief if you can afford to go to court and they allow you to win without just breaking you in the system; which could also rule in their favor. They can just screw you over without providing you anything to grasp at for legal footing. If you pay, it doesn't make much difference other than some kind of partial refund may come your way.

Comment Re:This is NOT evil (Score 0) 84

Nintendo didn't brick the system. They didn't brick the game. They banned online access; download server access for purchased items opens them to possible lawsuit. I can see how given their download servers were massively hacked for years why they would be paranoid about allowing compromised systems access to it. I think their download/update servers can still be used on the WiiU to pirate software - provided by Nintendo! They are not yet bricking updates etc for past customers of old old products.

heretically... ha.
I derived my definition of evil from an old psychologist who was also religious and studied the nature of evil for years from the two different perspectives. He believed there was a supernatural force influencing people but he somehow also believed mental illness along with lapses in judgment are behind just about everything people do. It's hard to have an evil monster of a person in the science... the worse they are, the easier it is to find a severe illness to classify them under. SICK not evil and many are not even doing anything evil; just individual sick acts.

Adjective? word play. sometimes just add "ing." way too often we turn words into tools to over emphasize. We literally use evil so much it has little meaning anymore... today literally means figuratively way too often.

An act of evil would be facilitating the corruption. The acts carried out as a result, like say...murder, are an anti-social behavior and in itself not evil (We often support and praise murder.) If the murder is to create the conditions for another target to be driven to do something anti-social in response then the murder is an evil act; but it's a tool, like using propaganda.

A person can create conditions which influence themselves to act badly; not just others. A group of people can unknowingly do this as well. This is why primitive peoples thought supernatural forces were pulling the strings -- because humans have a bias to attributing intelligence to emergent patterns. Such as thinking geese plan, lead, or breed themselves into flying in a V pattern. It's just another behavioral fractal.

Comment Re:Creating FUD (Score 1) 84

This is as fair use for the company as fair use is for the consumer.

You buy shady stuff from a shady place you are taking a RISK. Neither the company or the customer are to blame but they have to deal with the mess the middleman created; however, the company doesn't know about it while the customer took the risky action.

Let us not attack everything involving a global corporation as being equivalent. Nuance...

Nintendo resolved this problem much better than anybody else I've heard about and they didn't brick the system or the game; just cut off online. maybe it should just be that game that blocked; although, attacks happen from such things sneaking past security. Nintendo's own servers were providing pirates easy to click and install copies at one point. Should people get upset? sure, maybe policies will improve. But unless it is a huge number of people, they do not have to do anything. They could have acted like Sony and been far worse - and Sony has been just fine; they know they could get away with so much more and yet they choose to be far more reasonable.

Comment Re:Creating FUD (Score 1) 84

1) The unique ID and encryption scheme also exist for SECURITY. Not just merely lip-service security as is often the excuse. Signed software access is greatly enhanced by unique access; allowing breaches to be contained while a shared key can only be revoked for everybody after just 1 breach.

2) Online cheating ruins gaming for everybody. There are difficult, expensive, complex ideas to counter this, some of which might work before online collaboration helps people circumvent everything; even good things.

3) You MUST block risky code. Legit copies will be banned when observed to be a threat. If you buy shady goods, it's you who take the risk. They can not allow every compromised system without putting them at eventual risk. Obviously they also of copy protection motivations; have you seen what has been done with the 3DS? It's nicer to use a hacked system than the real thing and it pulled games down from Nintendo's own servers (at least when I saw it.)

4) There is no business if everybody just copies it. Yes, they are a publicly traded company and could run lower costs by becoming a non-profit if they could maintain a large savings for capital investments (but after a series of failures they'd be unable to raise funds... quickly or as large as getting loans and being able to pay back those loans. The problem always is the minor loan sharks who end up running the operation; and the addiction to continual credit... which is kind of forced by your competition leveraging theirs against you. it's a dark pattern. )

5) Nintendo tried to create virtual game sharing with a serious effort to mimic the usage behavior of the past with about as much freedom as existed. They still sell physical games. They could be going the path of the other companies and taking away as many rights as possible. Google is free to shutdown your whole life and delete everything permanently; Apple likely also has the small print. Just because they do not (unless you are a falsely accused pedophile) does not mean it will not happen (like after Trump finds out what he could force them to do.)

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