Noulakaz

The blog of Avinash, Christina, Anya and Kyan Meetoo.

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The Sony PlayStation 3 tragedy

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Last December, Father Christmas gave me a Sony PlayStation 3.

Today, 1st April 2010, I am starting to regret that he did this.

You see, I am not a gamer. I use my PS3 mostly to watch movies and to browse the Web. The built-in Web browser is fine and supports Flash so I indulge in YouTube pleasure from time to time with it. The media playing capabilities of the PS3 are also very good and the PS3 supports a lot of video formats out of the box e.g. MPEG1, MPEG2 (VOB), MPEG4 (DivX and H264) and WMV. I routinely connect my PS3 to my DNS-323 NAS to enjoy the latest series and movies.

And, if I want to browse using a better browser than the built-in one or I want to watch something stored in a more esoteric format, I just reboot my PS3 and, voilà, I have a Ubuntu Linux computer in my living room! Yes, the PS3 allows installing third-party operating system and this makes the device more desirable (at least for me.) Interestingly, this is why the US Department of Defense and the US Air Force bought myriads of PS3 in the past: they used them in clusters to build supercomputers as the PS3 has a very powerful Cell processor inside.

Fools in April

Today, Sony released a new firmware update for the PS3 which essentially make Linux inoperative on it. As quoted on the Electronic Frontier Foundation website, Sony is stealing features from my PS3. Here is a quote from the EFF:

In short, Sony is effectively downgrading PS3s already sold and in the hands of consumers — when you bought it, it could play games, play Blu-ray discs, and run GNU/Linux. After April 1, it’s an inferior product.

To be fair, it seems Sony did that because a guy called George Hotz managed to

use the [Linux] feature [on the PS3] along with a bit of soldering in a manner that gave him more control over the PS3 hardware than Sony had intended.

So, today, Sony responded and killed Linux on the PS3. Sure, the upgrade is optional (meaning that my Ubuntu Linux is still perfectly functional as I do not intend to upgrade) but here is what I lose as a result of not upgrading:

(1) The ability to sign in to PlayStation Network

(2) The ability to use online features that require you to sign in to PlayStation Network, such as chat.

(3) The ability to use the online features of PlayStation 3 format software (like network play and software updates.)

(4) Playback of PlayStation 3 format software or Blu-ray Disc videos that require PS3 system software version 3.21 or later

(5) Playback of copyright-protected videos that are stored on a media server

I am going to lose a lot of capabilities but I’ll keep my Linux. The one thing that bothers me a lot is that I won’t be able to upgrade software (i.e. games) online so, as more and more of them are just being released full of bugs (and I won’t be able to patch the game), I’ll think at least twice or even thrice before buying a game for my kids (as I’m not a gamer myself.)

 

Why this is a stupid move

Sony should have patched the PS3 so that the hack by George Hotz stops working. Of course, another George Hotz would have come later with a new hack and Sony would have had to patch the PS3 again. But this is normal when you sell a product with DRM in it… because DRM is, well, a stupid idea.

DRM is about making people buy hardware and software controlled by a third-party. And, of course, people naturally want to be free. George Hotz is not a bad guy. He is just a guy like you and me who became fed up with the idea of owning a fantastically powerful device over which he had no full control: Sony allowed Linux to run (until yesterday) but, in parallel, disabled most of processing power of the Cell processor as well as the graphical processing unit just before booting the Linux kernel. So, in essence, Linux was running on a very crippled PS3.

My prediction

A lot of people (who had no earlier interest in the PS3) will now try to hack the new PS3 firmware. And I guess they’ll succeed in a more or less near future (ask the Nintendo people what they think of Wiibrew for instance.) Maybe we’ll see a PS3brew community emerge really soon now.

Thanks Sony for being stupid.

World class football players

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As you all know, the World Cup is starting in a few weeks in South Africa. I spent a few minutes today identifying some world class players from popular teams and this is what I found out.

Spain

According to me, Spain has the quality to win the World Cup: the goalkeepers, midfielders and strikers are fantastic even though the defense is not as good as the rest. David Villa and Fernando Torres play excellently together but, for me, Andrés Iniesta will be the key player.

  • Iker Casillas
  • Pepe Reina
  • Sergio Ramos
  • Xabi Alonso
  • Cesc Fabregas
  • Xavi
  • Andrés Iniesta
  • David Villa
  • Fernando Torres

Brazil

Brazil has a lot of talented players but not as many as the other top teams. Alves is arguably the best right wingback in the world and, well, Kaká is magic (most of the time.) Most pundits say that Brazil will play in the final because Dunga, the coach, has managed to build a very fluid team using innovative tactics.

  • Dani Alves
  • Kaká

 

Argentina

A lot of people have already discounted Argentina but I’m not so sure. Mascherano is a formidable defensive midfielder and captain of the team (yes, I know, he gets booked too many times… but he is just being like Roy Keane) who can protect and let Messi, Agüero, Higuaín and Tévez do their usual magical stuff in front.

  • Javier Mascherano
  • Sergio Agüero
  • Gonzalo Higuaín
  • Lionel Messi
  • Carlos Tévez

England

England has crap goalkeepers and will not win the World Cup… But, of course, being Mauritian, I would like England to go as far as possible in the tournament. Maybe England has a slight slight chance of winning if and only if (i) Rooney, who is the best English player this year, stays fit and (ii) Gerrard rediscovers his potency. Interesting how England’s future lies in the hands of two Scousers.

  • John Terry
  • Steven Gerrard
  • Frank Lampard
  • Wayne Rooney

Portugal

Can Ronaldo, who is the best player in the world, win the World Cup by himself? No. But he will try nevertheless.

  • Cristiano Ronaldo

The others…

Patrice Evra (France), Samuel Eto’o (Cameroon), Didier Drogba (Côte d’Ivoire), Michael Essien (Ghana) are world class players but, unfortunately, they play in somewhat worse teams than the ones I have mentioned above.

The outsider

Every four years, one small country (in the footballing sense) exceeds all expectations. Who will it be this year? Maybe the United States who played against Brazil at the last Confederation Cup final but who lost by a slight 2-3.

Stupid 24/7

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I live in Quatre-Bornes and, this week-end, we were victims of that stupid thing called 24/7.

My daughter, Anya, was still awake at midnight last night because, brace yourself, a concert was still on (at midnight!!!) at the Municipality of Quatre-Bornes and the noise was deafening (even though we were 1-2 km away…) Don’t the organisers know that kids should sleep early on Sundays to be fresh for school the next day?

What’s the purpose of organising a concert until midnight? The only reason I can think of is that the Human Resource Development Council knows that no one gives a s*it about that 24/7 thing and the only way to attract a few people is to have such a concert. But come on guys! On Sunday?!? At midnight?!?

I only hope the millions that are being wasted are going to be recouped one day. But I have my doubts… once more.