Microsoft "We have your money, screw you!"

My Xbox 360 stopped working today. I followed all the instructions on the page...http://support.microsoft.com/kb/907534 .

I followed the advice they give on their page.
Unplugging and replugging the unit entirely as stated in their page only resulted in tripping the circuit breakers in my house.
I then disconnected the hard rive and this did nothing to solve the problem.
I then called customer support only to be told after five minutes of a call I have no doubt I will be charged for even though it is an eight hundred number, that they claim it was never registered. I know I filled out the paperwork.

The 360 is now in the trash.
It will stay there.
Microsoft has once again found way to screw a customer.

NSA Wiretaps Found Unconstitutional

From Eweek.com:

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2005330,00.asp


Federal Court Finds NSA Wiretaps Unconstitutional
By Wayne Rash August 18, 2006

A federal judge in Detroit has rejected the Bush administration's argument that the National Security Agency's wiretap program, which has been conducted for nearly five years, is allowed by the U.S. Constitution.
In a sharply worded statement that cites precedents from as far back as the late 18th century, and quotes extensively from the Framers of the Constitution, Judge Anna Diggs Taylor of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, said: "We must note that the Office of the Chief Executive has itself been created, with its powers, by the Constitution. There are no hereditary Kings in America, and no powers not created by the Constitution."

The judge rejected the administration's claims that the defendants did not have the standing to sue the government, saying that they had each suffered in their ability to carry on communications protected by the First Amendment. She also rejected the administration's claims that the activity was protected because it was a state secret. She said that the information provided by the President of the United States in a series of public statements about the NSA surveillance program was itself sufficient for the plaintiffs to make their case.

More Pointless Grinding of Teeth

From: PC Magazine
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1998079,00.asp

House Wants to Kick MySpace Out of Schools
By Errol Pierre-Louis
Social networking sites such as Myspace.com could soon be banned from schools and libraries, pending the passage of a new law aimed to protect kids. The Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA) is intended to limit a pedophiles access to networking sites which have become immensely popular among kids and young teens. Critics believe the act is too broad and does not necessarily accomplish anything meaningful other then cutting off users from popular Web sites. The act already passed the House of Representatives on July 26th by a sweeping 410 to 15 margin.
Congressman Michael Fitzpatrick (R-Ohio) introduced the DOPA act. In his speech before the vote, he described social networking sites as "a happy hunting ground for child predators." The act covers all federal institutions receiving funding for computers and Web access via the US E-Rate scheme, which primarily means schools and libraries. The American Library Association (ALA) estimates that two-thirds of US libraries receive this funding.
The act would require these institutions to install filters to block social networking sites where children might be subject to "unlawful sexual advances." The act leaves the final definition of a social network up to the Federal Communications Commission, but suggests that any site that enables users to build personal profiles and converse with other users should be banned from libraries and schools. This definition would include many sites, like Amazon.com, Slashdot.org, blogging sites, and interactive news pages.Leslie Burger, president of the ALA, in a statement called the act "redundant and unnecessary legislation," pointing out that the Children's Internet Protection Act already requires libraries to block Web content that is harmful to children. Other critics believe the act only succeeds in limiting children and teen access to popular sites rather than actually "deleting" online predators.
Sites like "Save Your Space" have popped up with an online petition looking to rally support against the impending act. Their organization's goal is to collect 1 million signatures in a month.
In order for the act to become law it must pass the Senate in a vote likely to take place in early August.

Here my view.
This is just a grand bit of saber rattling. If Congress wanted to deter crimes against children they would make the punishment a great deal stronger.
This is a typical over reaction that will punish the innocent and have absolutely no effect on the perpetrators.

Welcome To The Row

I have been playing the demo to a new game called Saints Row.

This is being called the Grand Theft Auto killer.

This game is much like the most recent installment of the Grand Theft Auto series San Andreas.
You can customize your cars, listen to music on you car radio, steal cars, commit murders, and on and on.

No doubt there will be a great deal of hand wringing and teeth gnashing over this game as there was with San Andreas.

As for the demo itself it shows smooth control, nice graphics and audio.

If you like the GTA:SA game you may want to look into Saints Row.

Don't Drink and Vote

I found this fall over funny item on The Fox News website.

A Maryland candidate for Senate paid a Baltimore drug-treatment center to drive recovering addicts to a debate last week, where they held up signs supporting his campaign.
A consultant to Democrat Josh Rales campaign paid the I Can't, We Can drug counseling center to transport the 20 patients to the event... where they were supposed to help post signs. But the addicts — who pay about $350 a month for treatment, and some of whom have criminal records — ended up holding the signs themselves.
Rales campaign manager tells the Washington Times that the addicts were recruited without the campaign's knowledge, and the contractor called paying the center for volunteers, "a real error in judgment."

Chips Annoy

I have learned not to eat potato chips anymore.
I had half a bag of chips and felt horrible.
One more on my growing list of thing not to do.

Felling Better All The Time.

I saw my heart doctor recently (last week) and he said I was doing very well and does not need to see me until November.
(I can't wait for November 30th as it marks the end of hurricane season)

I'm still playing Oblivion and the more I play this game the more impressed I am.
I finally bought a house in the game called Arbor Watch. The house is big and lots of places to store stuff.
However I have a few complaints about the game.
Comparing Oblivion to Morrowind there are a few things missing.
First the spells.
The spells of Mark and Recall are gone. These spells let you set a point in the game called a Mark. You then used the spell Recall to be transported instantly (well almost) to that point.
This came in very handy when cleaning out tombs. You could set the Mark in front of a shop then go raid tomb. Once you had all you could carry you use Recall and ZAP you are in front of the store where you can sell your items.
This has been replaced by "Fats Travel" which requires you to be one the surface outside a tomb and ready to travel to where ever you want on the map. It does however take the same amount of game time that normal travel does.
Also you can no longer decorate you house with lights as you could in the old game. In the old game I had candles and lanterns placed on the outside of my house so it would be easy to find from a distance.
They have also removed the ability to place items where you want. In the old game you could place items more or less where you wanted.
In my house I had a shelf full of helmets of bad guys I had killed.
Now you may only drop and move object.
You can move the objects around using telekineses but it extremely difficult to have an item face a certain way.
This is very annoying.
Other than that I give Oblivion a five star review.

A Bridge To Nonsense

Senator Ted Stevens a Republican form Alaska gave his view on Net Neutrality.
Stevens is the man behind the $453 million dollar bridge to no where.
Stevens spoke for ten minutes before congress.
Frankly he should have just sat down and kept quite.
You can hear his speech here: http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/497 .
Steven in an unfocused and rambling diatribe he compared the internet to plumping.
The Senator dose not understand the workings of the net.
Stevens has no understanding of even how Netflicks works.
He also seems to need an explanation of how consumerism and capitalism works.
Stevens, like a lot of people, do not understand or does not care that services who use the Internet like Netflicks, Google, and Ebay do not get a free ride.
They pay their own Internet Service Providers, their pay for the own net security and the pay for server systems that keep them on the net.
The people pushing this are doing so as a money grab. They want to charge services like Google and Ebay extra to use their cable which the customers are already paid for.
They claim the these services will swallow the expenses. No, they will, as with all things pass the expense to the customers.
You will as a result see the prices at Ebay, Netflicks and others go up.
This bill should be watched with great care.

Flags of Ill Advice

Broadcast flag From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A broadcast flag is a set of status bits or "flags" sent in the data stream of a digital television program that indicates
whether or not it can be recorded, or if there are any restrictions on recorded content. Possible restrictions include
inability to save a digital program to a hard disk or other non-volatile storage, inability to make secondary copies of
recorded content in order to share or archive, forceful reduction of quality when recording such as reducing high-definition
video to the resolution of standard TVs, and inability to skip over commercials.

In the United States, new television receivers using the ATSC standard were supposed to incorporate this functionality by July 1, 2005, but a federal court struck
down the Federal Communications Commission's rule to this effect on May 6. The stated intention of the broadcast flag was to
prevent copyright infringement, but many have asserted that broadcast flags interfere with the fair use rights of the viewing
public.
The broad rewrite of US telecommunications laws makes it to the Senate floor, it will include the broadcast flag. Despite
objections voiced by Sen. John Sununu (R-NH), the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation has left both the
audio and video broadcast flags.
However, individual senators would still be able to offer amendments to the legislation that would remove the controversial
flags. Sen. Sununu has indicated he might do exactly that.
The Commerce Committee will continue reviewing the bill, amendment by amendment, with network neutrality next on the list.
Once they have finished marking up the bill, Chairman Ted Stevens (R-AK) still has to make the call on whether to send it to
the full Senate for a vote. Right now, he's undecided, as he believes it is doubtful the bill's proponents could muster the
60 votes necessary to stop a possible filibuster.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), is opposing any telecom legislation that does not include a provision safeguarding network neutrality.
"I will do anything I can to block a major telecom rewrite that undermines what makes the Internet special. I will block it.
I will do anything I can to derail it," said Wyden. That may include placing a hold on the bill to further delay attempts at
passage.
The House of Representatives, the House Energy and Commerce Committee held hearings on the net neutrality issue. RIAA CEO Mitch Bainwol, EVP Fritz Attaway from the MPAA, and Gary Shapiro, the CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association all testified before the comity. They said the flags are essential to the survival of the music and movie industries. The CEA's Shapiro disputed that, telling the Committee that "we have to stop measuring creativity by the financial interests of ten companies."

Net Neutrality

The Senate Commerce Committee approved on Wednesday the telecommunications reform bill with a bi-partisan vote of 15-7.

The bill now named "The Advanced Telecommunications and Opportunity Reform" was initially introduced by Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska)
The bill addresses a wide range of communications-related issues, including municipal broadband services, video franchise reform and more.

Several senators, consumer advocate groups, and e-commerce corporations have stated they felt the bill did not address Internet Neutrality effectively.

"Internet Neutrality" has been described as being able to transmit any kind of content is important, to the well being of Internet as a whole and to eLearning in particular.

Jeanine Kenny of the Consumers Union said: "Right now under current law, there's nothing to stop the phone and cable companies from striking a deal to offer high-speed access to a company like Google and refusing to provide any deal at all to a different company like Yahoo. There's not even a rule on the books that would prevent them from blocking Web sites."

Senators Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) proposed an amendment to the bill to "ensure fair treatment of all Internet content." The amendment incorporated the following non-discriminatory principle: "to promote broadband deployment, and presence and promote the open and interconnected nature of the Internet, a broadband service provider shall not discriminate Internet traffic based on source, ownership, or destination of such traffic as part of any publicly available Internet offering."

I recommend read THIS article by Cory Doctorow. Mr. Doctorow does a good job of explaining why we should support Internet Neutrality.
But that just my opinion.

Oblivion

I have been playing Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.
Oblivion is the latest installment in the Elder Scrolls series.
Elder Scrolls is a long running award winning series of games for the PC, X-Box, and X-Box 360.
The X-Box game Morrowwind was an award winning game that pressed the X-Box system to it's limits. The game was so big in fact that a great number of people never finished.
Oblivion is graphically breath taking, has wonderful audio, and an amazingly deep story. You can freely wander around the world to your hearts content. The are trolls and goblins to fight. There are caves and mines to explore.
All in all I think is a excellent game, and a must have for Role Playing Game lovers with a X-Box 360.

Wild Weather

On way to the grocery store the was a light sprinkle. Then we came to a major intersection which was flooded. Just in the one crossroads it was absolutely puring rain. Once we crossed the intersection all the rain had stop and the streets where bone dry.

One Good Deed ?

Long time no post.
There is so little going on here that I have little to say but here is a brief summery of the past few months.
The local grocery store had a basket with a sign stating "Book Drop Off". So I decided I drop off some books I had. As I dropped off the books I noticed in tiny print..."for children". By that time it was too late. My contrabution... Frankenstein, Dracula, and The Mummy. Well I may have a hand in the development of the next Steven King.
I have a new GP. He a nice guy and fellow lover if comic books. He gave me a physical and then he listened to my heart. Not often you hear a doctor go "Woe!"
I have abandoned my Hotmail account as the new password can not be remembered and every time I try to get into the account I have to try five or six tries. This also makes getting into my XBox Live account impossible. Lets see Tom Cruise deal with Microsoft for once.
I took my chair to the mall to visit a friend who celebrating her birthday.
The mall is now one sixth empty. Also the price of popcorn and drinks have skyrocketed.
We are days deep into hurricane season and so far so good.
I am staying out of the heat the best I can and being a good boy with what I eat.

A Glitch In The Dark

I have been playing Perfect Dark Zero.
It is so far my favorite game by far.
And I have discovered there are glitches in the game. So have very interesting effects.

GAME GLITCHESThe see through wall in the Desert map game glitch: At the Desert multi-player map, there is an area where you can take cover and see through the wall. In order to do this, you must have Bases 2 and 4 open. Go into the cave temple base. Once you go through the hall, go up the sand hill, and not the stairs. Go in the little courtyard from either entrance then turn left. There should be a bowl near the wall. Stand as close to the wall and as far in as you can into the wedge created. While standing, go into cover. If done correctly, you should be able to see through the wall. This is most effective during the Infection game type with the Plasma Rifle. Hide there and whenever you see a skeleton, use the secondary function (invisibility). They will usually walk out because it is very difficult to see you. The dummy flag game glitch: In a capture the flag game, have one player get the flag and bring it back to his base to score. Before he scores, have the party leader go to the enemy base and stand on the enemy flag holder (the colored circle under where the flag starts). Stand over it in a position so that he can see the color on every part inside of the circle. Once he is positioned, score the flag and stay there. Every time you score it should say "Enemy flag returned" at the bottom. After that, the flag will come back out as though you dropped it before you made it to the scoring spot. If you stand there, the flag will score very quickly, but you will not be able to tell until the round is over and it shows the scores. If the player on the enemy flag holder dies or moves too far away for any reason, the flag will come back to the enemy base. The Hawk's barrier game glitch: Have a Hawk and one of the two vehicles. Throw the Hawk and get on the vehicle. While driving around, hold the RB and the secondary function of the Hawk will activate. Usually the Hawk's secondary function will protect you from explosions and have a white lined barrier appear around you. However this glitch will only provide the visual effect and will not protect you. This does not work on the gunner position of the hovercraft. The floating game glitch: Get in a hovercraft. get in. Have another player shoot you in the head and kill you. Then, have them jump in and quickly jump out of the hovercraft.. Do not press a button to respawn until they are out of the hovercraft. When you respawn, you will be able to walk on air, including walking above the desert wall. To get down, you have two options. Either walk into a wall and press A, or have someone shoot you in the head and kill you if you are to high to reach a wall. You can keep stair stepping up the mountains to get even higher.

For even more try http://www.gameskanker.com/gs_xbox360/x360_perfectdarkzero.htm

Is Buster Busted?

In yet another Busterless episode of The Mythbusters they explore the myth than you can paint a room by placing a stick of dynamite in a can of paint.
This is a myth?
They got the idea from the British TV series Mr. Bean.
Well the answer is no.
Now who couldn't see that coming.
Grant and the second team of Mythbusters looked into mind control.
They busted that myth.
Have the Mythbusters run out of ideas?
Have they run out of steam?
Have Adam and Jamie jumped the shark?
Where is Buster?
Did he get more mail than the other Mythbusters and therefore get fired?

Answer to those questions and more same Mythbusters time same Mythbusters channel.

The Outfit

I have been playing The Outfit.
It's a World War 2 shooter with a good sense of humor.
My favorite part is one of the playable charters is equipped with a flame thrower.
There is even a tank with a flame thrower.
The gimmick of the game is something called DOD or Destruction On Demand.
Just about every thing can be blown up. The building collapse nicely.
You can, for a price, buy air strikes, tanks, jeeps, and canons.
You make your money by killing the bad guys.
The game is slightly difficult but in the that you can accomplish a mission but it will take so doing.
The controls and nicely lay ed out. The graphics and audio or very good but not great.
So if you want to blow stuff up give this game a try.

Game Lie

I have canceled my service with GameFly.
On their website it states it will take around four days to get a game to you.
However it takes me a week, except for the most recent game I asked for TWO weeks ago.
GameFly says they are working on their problem but it seems the longer I am with them the wore the service gets.
GameFly is a great service if you live with the state of California.
But if you live else where forget it.

New Mythbusters

Tonight Adam and Jamie revisited some of the myths they have already looked into.
They built the confederate rocket but this time it was powered by meat.
They also delved into the splitting the arrow down the middle. They made arrows out of materials that would have would have been available at the time. They busted that myth but brought in an expert to try to split the arrow. He failed as well. Then they made an arrow out of bamboo which matches the arrow in the Robin Hood film. That worked splendidly.
Yet another Busterless show.

Perfect Dark Hero

I have been playing Perfect Dark Zero.
PDZ is the sequel to the classic game Perfect Dark. The game is actually as good if not better than the original. A rarity for video games or movies for that matter.
There is a wide variety of weapons and gadgets.
There is plenty to shoot at.
So if you have the chance give Perfect Dark Zero a try.

Tampering with the Cosmos

I have been watching Carl Sagan's "Cosmos" on The Science Chanel.
If you have never seen Cosmos you have missed out.
Carl Sagan has a wonderful way of explaining the way the heavens move, breath, and behave.

However it is NOT the original series that ran on PBS.
It has been edited.
While Sagan discussed dinosaurs the simple line drawing where replaced by CGI of dinosaurs used in other TV series such a Dinosaurs Planet.

Is this necessary?
I doubt it.
It seems this is a case of not being able to leave well enough alone. People like this would draw eyebrows on the Mona Lisa.

Cheers to The Science Chanel for running Cosmos.
Boo to Science Channel for not being able to keep there hands off a classic.