Lev's forum posts
It's a frigging grocery store for christsake - with a meager, overpriced selection of shit titles already opened being sold as new.
Yeah, big loss COOP.
" The bad thing is usually not the tax, but the absurd fees the delivery company is charging. Once paid 3 CHF tax + 20 CHF handling charge (1.3 CHF = 1 EUR) "Agreed - most often it's the companies charging an outrageous margin for shipping over what they really pay to have it shipped. I buy stuff off ebay all the time, and 90% of the time I end up paying 3 times as much for shipping as I see they clearly paid when I get the package. :(
But on the subject of the import tax; it is also ridiculous how much it costs (though dependent on each country in the EU; some pay more and some pay less). Since I live in the socialist utopia of Sweden, we have one of the highest tax rates. My ex bought me a DVD film off amazon many years ago for a birthday gift. The film cost $25 (this is back when DVDs were bluray prices), and when it arrived, we couldn't pick it up without paying an import tax. The tax was 25% off the value of the time, plus 50 Swedish kronor as a fee for them being nice enough to rummage through our goods and check it out, PLUS a 25% tax on the 50 kronor fee for them searching the package.
All in all, the $25 DVD ended up costing close to $40 because of import taxes, and a fee for them searching the import, and a tax on the fee for searching the import.
Nahhh... that's not excessive.
I feel for you - the whole EU import taxes are incredibly unjustified and boil down to nothing other than simple extortion. A similar thing happened to me when I had bought a bunch of shirts off thinkGeek - I picked it up at DHL, and had to pay $30 fee as well (when the shirts totaled like 60-70 dollars).
There are some "tricks" to getting around... ehr, I should say *avoiding* those fees. One is always avoid anyone using DHL. DHL will always hit it on you if the value of the item exceeds something like 30 Euro. If you have a friend/family member state-side, you could have it sent to them and they could send it over as a "gift" which would prevent you from having to pay extra.
I read a long while ago that Ebay was on a quest to finally reform these archaic EU customs laws since it dramatically cuts into their business.. I wish they had done more about it than talk about it, because I'd be all for doing anything to get those EU import laws changed. For too long companies have used Europe as a way to exploit differences in currency-exchange and the presence of an import barrier to keep you in place.
/end political rant
I turned on my Wii today...
Now see... this is the sort of thing the news stations should be covering. I'm tired of hearing the same ol' "war/poverty/uprising/dissent in [insert country's name here". It's not everyday someone turns on their Wii, so this is worth hearing about.How was it? Did it still work? Did you feel like you were moving around in the game?I wish I could report I've turned mine on in the past year.
Due to the nature of how quickly web technologies change, I advise against buying a book.
First of all, like I said; if you're really interested in CSS3 & HTML5, then you're treading in "under progress" waters, and buying a book is just going to hook you up with 50% what you need to know, and 50% rubbish which is no longer the case. Case and point: I got a jQuery cookbook for Christmas (either this previous year or the one before - I forget).. It was released barely a month earlier in the end of November. Well, then came January and a whole new version was released, making much of the approach outlined in the book no longer relevant. Now, I'll admit comparing a framework to the languages themselves is not really fair, but you might also consider that they have been publishing PHP6 books for well over 5 years, and PHP6 still isn't released, nor has it had a release announced for it.
Computer books are alright if you just want some background, but if you're looking for specifics, I think they can be dangerous because of the amount of antiquated information they often contain.
Plus, a major problem with books is they have this enormous barrier from try as you learn, since they aren't on the computer, and you seldom sit at your computer while you're reading the book. Online resources are great, because as you learn something, you open up your editor and begin trying it. Plus, when you want to develop something, you usually are looking for "how do I do this", and it's easy to find results for such queries with search engines at your disposal, whereas you'd otherwise be thumbing through an incomplete and castrated index in a book.
Keep in mind that HTML5 is still a working draft, so its functionality is subject to change.
Now that IE9 is out, pretty much all 5 of the big browsers support some amount of HTML5 and CSS3. Actually, IMHO, I'm completely fed up with Firefox's archaic JavaScript engine and prefer IE9 over Firefox. All support canvas to some extent, and all support many of the new CSS properties (box shadows, rounded corners, gradients).
Here are some good examples of CSS3 properties (though not quite in the same API context as the link mentioned earlier in this thread on HTML)
http://www.css3.info/
Though this isn't a how-to or API reference, here is a great site of powerful applications/experiments people are creating with HTML5 canvas (using both the 2d context, and the more experimental webGL context):
http://www.chromeexperiments.com/
Just start playing - read anywhere and everywhere, and VIEW SOURCE. :)
And if you have questions, I recommend politely asking @ stackoverflow.com or daniweb.com - both good sites for getting help.
After reading countless articles today about how Sony basically handed your personal details over to hackers, I eventually saw Sony had commented today on - what they are calling - an "Outage" (talk about whipping out the euphemisms...)
http://faq.en.playstation.com/cgi-bin/scee_gb.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?locale=en_GB&p_faqid=5593
I read the whole thing, and after being frustrated I wasn't being giving the whole story, I decided to do a little research until I came across the original/unabridged answers to the interview.Here is the original interview before they cleaned it up a bit.
Update on PSN Service Outages
Q.1 When did you realise the system had been intruded?
When you guys did - we heard about it from reports in the media and then decided to check it out ourselves.
Q.2 How did you know that the system was intruded?
Shit was broken.
Q.3 What is the main reason to this problem? Which parts of the system were vulnerable to the intrusion?
Our entire system was & is vulnerable because our engineers are incompetent.
Q.4 What action did you take (are you taking)? Is there any possibility of further unauthorized access?
We shut shit down. We figure: 'shit can't happen if shit ain't runnin'.
Q.5 How many were affected? How many per each region? What is the latest status of PlayStation Network registered account/ operating countries.
A lot, plus a lot in the different region places. Overall, a whole lot. Stuff is still kind of broken in many places. We're trying to figure out what to do so we can fix things - do you have any ideas?
Q.6 Does that mean all users’ information was compromised? Tell us more in details of what personal information leaked.
All sensitive user-details were taken. It's awful - I know! Worst of all, evidence suggests the illegal hackers took the credit card details for all 3 of our PSN Plus subscribers. We need that money more than those illegal hackers. This will not do!
Q.7 Have you notified those users?
We thought about it, but the general feeling here is that most people think people aren't keen on hearing "oh, sorry to break it to you, but we didn't really take our system's security seriously and now some illegal hackers know where you live and might be using your credit card". It's the kind of thing that's a little hard to tell; know what I mean. Maybe you want to tell them..?
Q.8 Have you received reports or claims that their PSN ID information/ credit card had been used improperly?
We really don't feel like commenting on more shit that will bum ya'll out.
Q.9 I want to know if my account has been affected.
It might have - do you really want to know? Rest assured, we will use the law to go after these illegal hackors and get them for you.
Q.10 What should I do to prevent any unauthorized use of my (credit card) personal information?
Well, Microsoft has a pretty good security streak lately with their gaming platform, and since they haven't been stepping on everyone's nuts by going after the few ingenuitive people that want to do more with the system... well, maybe you can use them for now. We'll catch up one day .. just you wait!
Q.11 Since when have PSN/Qriocity become unavailable and in which region?
It was a while ago. We sorta suppressed a lot of the details surrounding this incident because it bums us out. Sorry, next question..?
Q.12 How come it is taking so much time to resume the service?
Like we said, our engineers aren't really the brightest pennies in the fountain... Remember, these are the guys are hired by the some ones who hired our engineers that devised the most powerful security feature on our awesome Cell-processor, well... which later proved to be useless when those illegal hackers figured out they could completely bypass it altogther. So yeah, we're still learning so be patient! Oh, and the Nuclear reactor problem over here is making matters worse, cause it's scary.
Q.13 How serious is this? Have the hackers broken the security on PSN/Qriocity? Are you taking necessary measures to prevent such outage happening in the future?
Look again - no questions that are only going to bum us, you and everyone else out. Have you played the latest Little Big Planet lately? There's a pirate outfit, some other cool cute stuff, and it's all powered by a cell processor.
Q.14 When will the service resume?
We when figure this shit out.
Q.15 Seems like SOE service was also not available/ suffering outage. Is this true? Is this due to the same reason as the PSN/Qriocity outage?
We're not sure, have you heard anything about why?
Q.16 I want my money back (subscription fee, content) since the PSN/Qriocity was not available.
But we kind of hoped we could keep it. Plus, remember we just had this big earthquake, and a lot of stuff got broken. We need time to make things better; please be patient.
Q.17 There seems to be some games that cannot be played even offline?
It's called digital rights management you n00b; it's our way of saying: "you paid for it, you have the right to play it, but we're going to make allowing you to use it a nightmare - because we can, because the law is on our side and because it's the most important course of action to secure our profits". Oh, but securing our network isn't that important.. Maybe you can help with that?
When you guys did - we heard about it from reports in the media and then decided to check it out ourselves.
Q.2 How did you know that the system was intruded?
Shit was broken.
Q.3 What is the main reason to this problem? Which parts of the system were vulnerable to the intrusion?
Our entire system was & is vulnerable because our engineers are incompetent.
Q.4 What action did you take (are you taking)? Is there any possibility of further unauthorized access?
We shut shit down. We figure: 'shit can't happen if shit ain't runnin'.
Q.5 How many were affected? How many per each region? What is the latest status of PlayStation Network registered account/ operating countries.
A lot, plus a lot in the different region places. Overall, a whole lot. Stuff is still kind of broken in many places. We're trying to figure out what to do so we can fix things - do you have any ideas?
Q.6 Does that mean all users’ information was compromised? Tell us more in details of what personal information leaked.
All sensitive user-details were taken. It's awful - I know! Worst of all, evidence suggests the illegal hackers took the credit card details for all 3 of our PSN Plus subscribers. We need that money more than those illegal hackers. This will not do!
Q.7 Have you notified those users?
We thought about it, but the general feeling here is that most people think people aren't keen on hearing "oh, sorry to break it to you, but we didn't really take our system's security seriously and now some illegal hackers know where you live and might be using your credit card". It's the kind of thing that's a little hard to tell; know what I mean. Maybe you want to tell them..?
Q.8 Have you received reports or claims that their PSN ID information/ credit card had been used improperly?
We really don't feel like commenting on more shit that will bum ya'll out.
Q.9 I want to know if my account has been affected.
It might have - do you really want to know? Rest assured, we will use the law to go after these illegal hackors and get them for you.
Q.10 What should I do to prevent any unauthorized use of my (credit card) personal information?
Well, Microsoft has a pretty good security streak lately with their gaming platform, and since they haven't been stepping on everyone's nuts by going after the few ingenuitive people that want to do more with the system... well, maybe you can use them for now. We'll catch up one day .. just you wait!
Q.11 Since when have PSN/Qriocity become unavailable and in which region?
It was a while ago. We sorta suppressed a lot of the details surrounding this incident because it bums us out. Sorry, next question..?
Q.12 How come it is taking so much time to resume the service?
Like we said, our engineers aren't really the brightest pennies in the fountain... Remember, these are the guys are hired by the some ones who hired our engineers that devised the most powerful security feature on our awesome Cell-processor, well... which later proved to be useless when those illegal hackers figured out they could completely bypass it altogther. So yeah, we're still learning so be patient! Oh, and the Nuclear reactor problem over here is making matters worse, cause it's scary.
Q.13 How serious is this? Have the hackers broken the security on PSN/Qriocity? Are you taking necessary measures to prevent such outage happening in the future?
Look again - no questions that are only going to bum us, you and everyone else out. Have you played the latest Little Big Planet lately? There's a pirate outfit, some other cool cute stuff, and it's all powered by a cell processor.
Q.14 When will the service resume?
We when figure this shit out.
Q.15 Seems like SOE service was also not available/ suffering outage. Is this true? Is this due to the same reason as the PSN/Qriocity outage?
We're not sure, have you heard anything about why?
Q.16 I want my money back (subscription fee, content) since the PSN/Qriocity was not available.
But we kind of hoped we could keep it. Plus, remember we just had this big earthquake, and a lot of stuff got broken. We need time to make things better; please be patient.
Q.17 There seems to be some games that cannot be played even offline?
It's called digital rights management you n00b; it's our way of saying: "you paid for it, you have the right to play it, but we're going to make allowing you to use it a nightmare - because we can, because the law is on our side and because it's the most important course of action to secure our profits". Oh, but securing our network isn't that important.. Maybe you can help with that?
" I don't really care. Nothing to hide. "IMHO this is the mentality that has damned the word to the state that it is in today.
Being diverted from the focus of personal liberty and quickly excusing such acts in he belief that it doesn't effect you (personally) anyhow.
It might not affect *you* now. Right now you may not have anything to hide. Right now you may be completely innocent, but you can continue doing the same thing for everyday only to be labeled guilty at a later time.
If one day breathing oxygen without paying an 'oxygen license' is outlawed, you then have something "to hide". You can be living your life peacefully for years on end, but all it takes is the world to change for what you consider to be normal to now be outside the line of what is acceptable.
If you think the oxygen metaphor is an unrealistic one; just think back to the third reich. A whole lot of people didn't think they they had anything to hide either. Throw a man gone kookoo bananas into the picture and all of the sudden they have something to hide. This is not an isolate incident. Throughout history acceptable behavior has shifted based on those in power. And I hate to say it, but humans have a real knack for cherry-picking some of the most hate-mongering minds we've ever created to lead us.
My point here is very simple: you may not have anything to hide today, but one day when some very uncool dudes decide to change the rules, you might.
I'm not trying to turn a mound into a mountain or anything, but I take serious offense to whenever people say this same thing over and over because it just echoes why we are where we are today.
That's quite an impressive collection.
My 360 collection is that size, but my PS3 collection isn't as large as your 360 collection (maybe half it).
Nice to see there is someone else who hordes games in plastic wrapping without getting time to play them all.
Bargain bins are our friends - it's a shame others don't seem to realize that.
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