Climate Change – A matter of perspective.

As the world leaders attempt to wrangle out some cncensus agreement in Bali during the UN session, it struck me how wrongly most people perceive the climate issue.

A question of perception. 

Most people seem to have a miss-understanding that we are killing the planet. The actual truth of the matter is that we are in fact killing ourselves. Man will be his own destoyer in the bitter end. 

 The real problem is that we are changing the bio-chemical make-up of hte atmosphere and rising levels of pollution are changing the chemistry further. But we arent killing the planet, Earth will continue to exist long after humanity sees its last setting sun. Will the next inhabitants of this world treat it with respect or rape it as we have done.

Life on earth has evolved to exist in a neat symbiotic relationship with the environment around us. Change that environment dramatically and the parameters will shift and, not in our favour. I hope that a concensus agreement is met.

 So I offer this thought; Should the leaders of our time fail us, what will you do?

What do I do to try and alleviate the issues. 

What do I do? I dont own a car or even drive, I use public transport when necessary for the most part I cycle. I work from home some days and use energy saving bulbs. I dont own a TV and I switch off my electrical goods at night except for my energy efficient firdge. I only run an air conditioner for short periods and even then not at low temperatures. I very rarely travel anywhere that requires a plane.

Bearing that in mind, how many of you gave a colleague a lift into work this morning? Solving the climate issue starts with small changes that everyone can make.

The Death of Privacy (well in the UK).

You RIPA!

The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act is a piece of legislation that has been enacted in the UK for a few years.  Despite this, one component part of RIPA remained un-activated until October 1st 2007. UK Citizens are being told that if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear. Nothing to fear except their government perhaps.

The component of the legislation that was ‘activated’ deals with criminalising anyone who:-

1. Fails to present a decryption key for encrypted data upon demand from the authorities.
2. Tells anyone else that the  key has been requested except for their lawyer.

What if you genuinely cant remember your passphrase or password or can’t produce a decrypted form of the encrypted data? Simple if you fail to prove your innocence you will go to jail for 5 years. I don’t know about you, but I remember all my passwords from the past 15 years….

An abuse of your rights.

Lets say I don’t like you, and I decide to send to you a CD that contains an encrypted data file, lets say I tip-off the police anonymously that that person is part of a plot to kill the prime minister and that the plans were kept in an encrypted form.

How the hell would you be able to prove that you don’t have the passphrase? How could you prove that the CD is not yours if your finger prints got on it when you opened the envelope?

Ways around this stupidity.

For those who need it, there are methods that can be used to get around this issue. Using Truecrypt its possible to encrypt files and hide others completely so that they do not appear to exist. You can not decrypt what does not exist.

Re-house your data abroad, but not within the United States. I would suggest other nations such as Australia, Canada and European nations.

If you need to encrypt small quantities of sensitive data, Steganography (embeds encrypted data in an image) is a prospective solution.

Ensure your decryption and public keys expire so that if they are requested by the authorities they will become unusable at a certain time. Also changing a key and passphrase regularly can greatly improve your personal security.

In a situation where a draconian measure like this has been forced onto the general populace, the best form of defence is plausible deniability.

What the hell is wrong with the PS3?

Sony has held the top position in the Game console market for several years, but its grip on the market is loosening.

Technically speaking.

The PS3 is a killer of a console, and has some of the most incredible hardware available on the market, to be quite frank, there is only one hardware platform that can come close to it and that’s the PC and even then it would be a very expensive PC.

3.2GHz Cell Processor
nVidia RSX 550MHz
Dolby 5.1 DTS LPCM
1Gb NIC
11g/b Wi-Fi
Bluetooth
Blu-Ray Drive
Detachable HDD
256MB XDR Main RAM @3.2GHz
256MB GDDR3 VRAM @700MHz
HDMI Output

At launch there were two major problems that faced Sony and this is reflected in the disappointing sales figures encountered by the company. Firstly, HDTV had not entered mainstream and secondly the playstation 3 is a very expensive toy.

HDTV

At a time when 90% of all installed TV’s globally are Standard Definition, Sony chose to release a games console that could only truly deliver on a HDTV display. This is simply poor judgement on the part of the Japanese electronics giant.  A more appropriate strategy would have been to hold out for 12 more months until the market penetration for HDTV had started to make serious in-roads from the enthusiasts to the John Doe’s. Ultimately what happened was a console that was too much too soon made it to a market that was not ready for it.

Show me the money

Here in Australia the average retail price of a PS3 is $998. This is hugely expensive for what is a toy and prices it out of reach of most families. The scariest part of that price tag is that despite the expense Sony do not make a profit on any PS3 that they sell. The component costs are so great that Sony sell the machines at a considerable loss. Despite that fact the PS3 price tag is well out of reach of the average family.  And unfortunately for Sony that’s their target market.

Marketing

The PS3 is so powerful that it can do many things, but that in turn creates a marketing nightmare. The PS3 is being marketed as a digital entertainment hub, but it has two major competitors in that space. Microsoft and Apple, and frankly Sony’s message is being lost. The PS3 won’t find much buy-in with people who already have invested heavily in networked PC media systems who have a wide choice when it comes to media playback devices for the home.

The PS3 is expensive enough to present many potential customers with a quandary, do I buy the replacement Computer or the PS3, and the last time I checked Microsoft Office doesn’t run on a PS3. At this price point this is the reality its competing against. It is too in-flexible to replace a PC and its too expensive to be just a toy.

Catch 22

That’s just the start of the problems, the PS3 needs killer games fast. Games are what sell a games console, not fanciful services like Home. Home is interesting from a conceptual stand-point but a games console is not much without games, and quite frankly the PS3 doesn’t have those killer apps yet. Unless Sony can increase the sales of the PS3 dramatically it will not get the titles that it desperately needs. Without those titles the console will not sell. Especially when it comes with such a hefty price tag.

60GB? 80GB?

The next problem with the PS3 is the hard drive. Quite simply its too damn small. With 60GB you could maybe fit two blu-ray 25GB movie’s on it and that’s it full. 80GB is about the same. Most new Desktop PC’s are shipped with 500GB to 1TB of storage space. And with Only one disk slot on a PS3 what do we do when it fills? Buy a bigger one? How do we get the data and our purchases of the other drive, or do we need to swap the drives like an asshole every time we want to watch purchases downloaded on the other drive?

Big Mistake.

One great feature of the Playstation range has been superb backwards compatibility with earlier titles. But Sony slapped its fans in the face by stripping the hardware based emulation out of the PS3 and replacing it with ineffectual software emulation. This single decision served two purposes against Sony. 1. It alienated the Sony fanbase that had accumulated a large library of software. 2. That will have resulted in lost potential sales as the upgrade path was no longer guaranteed.

In order to help the situation Sony released a list of compatible software, however some games that it says run fine actually may execute correctly, but specialist controllers for the games wont work, Guitar Hero II springs to mind.

My Conclusions….

The PS3 was too much released too soon at too high a price. It will not break into the market easily with a price tag of more than US$500. The console tries to do too much as a result of its over-specced hardware, and Sony are paying a serious price for that. It can not compete against the Wii and many of the exclusive titles are rapidly becoming cross-platform as developers seek to minimise their exposure to a platform that is not meeting expectations.

As a media platform It can not compete against the fexibility of a PC. Many people who have heavily invested in home theatre and PC media based systems are extremely unlikely to purchase a PS3 to do the same task.

I believe that the right place for the PS3 is Christmas this year, however with global credit markets putting the squeeze on interest rates, home owners who are already struggling with mortgage repayments are going to find it tough to justify such a massive expense. The cost of the console is only the beginning, the display that you need to take advantage of it is going to be at least an additional AU$2000. This brings the TCO of a PS3 up to AU$3000.

The PS3 is a device for the future, unfortunately for Sony that future is being eroded as other technologies which are keeping pace with Consumer sentiment stay in line with the wallet, and not the aspiration.

Qualifier.

Iam not simply a PC fanboy or a Mac fanboy, I am a technology fanboy and as such I am still going to buy a PS3 because despite the short-comings its the cheapest Blu-Ray movie player on the market. It also supports DLNA which is handy from a PC perspective. Maybe one day the aspirations will be equal to the promise that the PS3 may live up to.

Pimp My Ride Pt. 2

A horse walks into a Bar…… 

Well… What can I say except that recently I upgraded my beautiful bicycle. The first pimpage that I have carried out on it to date has involved me buying some new handlebars to replace the original ones on it, which were a simple aluminium bar with Carbon Stryke clip-ons, that although are good were let down by virtue of the fact that they were clip-ons.

The original bars had what is referred to as ’standard’ aero bars these have a hockey stick like appearance. Here let me show you….

Carbon Stryke Aero Clip-On

I decided to go for something that was flatter and a little more integrated. Because if any of you have used clip-ons before you’ll know they have some short-comings.

Captain Clip-on

Clip-ons have a couple of problems that I have experienced, the first is simply feel and feedback. Firstly when you ride with clip-ons the very fact that they are not integrated into the handlebar makes the ride feel dull and to an extent un-responsive but the second issue is a bit more serious; Put enough force/weight on your clip-on and it will pitch forward. Which of course presents the prospect of sending you head over handlebars. Integrated bar extensions solve this problem because the extensions arent clamped to the bar, they are locked into the handlebars.

The Solution

Bontrager XXX Aerobar – Carbon

A US$600 sight to behold. Pictured above with the Standard aero bar extensions, I however ordered mine with what is reffered to as the S type extensions. The S-type have a very slight bend that bring the front of the bars under the palms of your hands with a very slight tip downwards. One important fact to note is that the main body of the aerobar is oversize, so you may need to purchase an oversize bar stem to make it fit your ride.

 A Drag at parties?

This has one major benefit when you move into the aero-dynamic tuck. Your back is flatter against the wind which reduces your drag! Handy in races, but it may not improve your performance at partays.

S Bend Aero Bars to be less of a drag.

How does the bike handle with my $600 love fest? Well it feels like a different bike. Because of the integration into the main body of the handlebars and also because of the stiffness of Carbon the feel of the ride has changed to something more dramatic.  The handling is much more direct and requires me to make a minor hint as to the direction I want to turn in order to make the bike go there. Climbs are easier because the ridgidity in the handlebars makes it easy to sit out of saddle to pump the peddles for up hill sections.

The final Package……

The Gospel of K0rs0: Chapter 1

It’s funny how difficult it is to have a rational debate with people who have long ago accepted a fairytale as reality. So I have decided to write my own bible, and because it is the bible it will be true. All references to works and characters already in existence are purely circumstantial.

The Beginning

In the beginning there was nothing because we weren’t around then there had to be nothing, and despite there being nothing there was a bloke with a beard (who is white of course, because gods only come in one colour) whom proclaimed “Bollocks its so dark around here I cant see a bloody thing.” The being who we’ll refer to as god because this is the bible and is utterly correct, then proclaimed “Let there be light for light shineth not from my behind!” Suddenly a star formed right in front of God just like that. None of this gaseous materials condensed into a fiery mass (over billions of years) great enough to initiate nuclear fusion reactions; no this one just appeared in front of god, and because it was a star it burnt god to death.

But this is the bible and since god is the one true god his spirit endured (just like Sauron’s in the Lord of the Rings trilogy and referenced in The Silmarillion but since these don’t exist yet we’ll need to skip that) and thus was created the spirit of god. The spirit of God thought to itself ‘that wasn’t very clever now was it? Next time I’ll be more careful and create objects between me and bright burny things.’ God Proclaimed “Let there be a gigantic collection of objects between me and the bright burning thing that killed me.” And just like that the universe formed, don’t ask questions because you could never understand it, it just happened RIGHT? The spirit form of God thought to itself ‘Jesus H. Christ, I need to be more careful.’

Stay tuned for the next chapter when god makes a planet or two and although the word ecology hasnt been invented by then he’ll invent ecology only he’ll call it something else because ecology sounds too scientific.

Today I’m Listening to:

Pretty Vacant by: The Sex Pistols

Religion vs the environment.

You know I have a real problem when it comes to Organised Religion. The problem can basically be summed up thus: ‘Organised religion is a pile of horse shit.’ Don’t come preaching to me, because quite frankly you can blow it out of your ass.

Environmental concerns=Morality

Scientists have an obligation to report the facts and only the facts that can be supported by a proven theory. This is not a question of belief, of prayer power or even a question of faith. This is a question of fact. You can not argue with a fact because despite the arguments the fact will remain. You can try to cover up the fact but that creates a problem because the fact hasn’t changed. Changing facts that are proven is simply fraudulent, untruthful and immoral. You may even want the facts to be changed, but faith can not change a fact or make it less true.

 I find it interesting how big oil companies and religion have met on common ground, and that common ground is the thought that we can squeeze as much out of this planet as we want without any issue at all. I hate to tell you this, but there are consequences to our actions and in a relatively short space of time we’ll see them in a more profound way.

I want to ensure that there is a provision of resources available to future generations of people. I want to ensure that this planet can continue to support life but the immorality of religion is to maintain the status quo as if blind faith in (a/the/any) God will stop the planet from becoming a desolate wasteland. All the faith in the world will not produce another barrel of oil from a dry well. All the faith in the world will not make it rain any more in the catchments than it is presently. But a cut in Carbon Dioxide emissions might help us curb the disaster that is already in motion.

“Glacier” National Park no longer deserves the title. I encourage American conservatives to look in their own back yards for signs of global climate change. Mountain glaciers such as the one that used to exist in Glacier National Park are decreasing in mass.

Medieval warming period.

Yes indeed there was a medieval warming period, but let me put it to you like this; The glaciers survived. This is not the case now. Once the glaciers disappear, 40% of the worlds fresh drinking water will disappear with them. What will blind faith do to deliver fresh water to the places that will (in some cases) lose their only supply of it?

Religion=immorality.

Blind faith can get you into trouble. Every place organised religion has touched has resulted in a disaster. Organised religion seems to have only two purposes, 1) consume, 2) copulate. Although rather funnily enough, sex is a huge issue for religion which is something I find most amusing. With these two single religious directives in place the population of this planet will reach 9.2 billion by 2050 when there wont be enough food and water available to feed that many people. This is not immoral, it is irresponsible. The natural resources of this planet CAN NOT support it at the current rate of consumption, so what are you going to do? Blindly let it happen or heed a warning? When a traffic light says stop do you keep driving regardless? Or do you stop? If we took the same approach to traffic control as we are with the environment the rate of traffic related death and injury would soar to pandemic levels. So why heed the stop light when you wont heed the issue staring you right in the face?

Rising sea-levels.

“But the scientists have been telling us that the sea-levels will rise, but I haven’t seen it.” Its easy to say that when you live in Middle America where the closest you get to water is a long soak in a bathtub. Try telling that to the small pacific island nations whose land mass is being consumed by a rising sea. It is no longer a case of when sea-levels will rise, because they already are rising. The rate of rise can be reduced to an extent if we act now.

Sex

How can you morally encourage people to procreate on one hand and not deal with the consequences on the other? Where is the morality in that?

You can not claim that being gay is against nature as an argument as religion has absolutely nothing to do with nature. The Fact is that there are gay horses, cats, dogs, birds, fish, amphibians, pigs, dolphins (and our closest relatives, chimpanzees – but oh I forgot, you deny that too don’t you). Why should we as humans be any different from our other related animal compatriots. When you accept this fact, you must accept that it is immoral to oust one group of people because of their sexual preference. How does who Joe down the street sleep with have any bearing on your life or how you chose to live it? The Fact of the matter is that it has no impact, because quite frankly it is none of your business.

Fairytales Vs. Reality

If I don’t see it, it can’t be real. I don’t see Global warming so it can’t be real.  If you continue to do nothing, you will see, and it will be real and it will be too late. Where is your moral imperative? In an era of consequences, you face a choice between what is right and what is easy. You will create an apocalypse and it will be of our making because unless I’m wrong there are no laws absolving people of their personal responsibility. When the worst comes will you blame a vengeful god?  I’ll tell you now I and future generations will be blaming your lack of responsibility over your own personal actions.

God will save us!

Really? I find it amusing that you think death is preferable to living, after all your choices are filling our atmosphere with carbon dioxide, turning entire countries and continents into desert lands and destroying the future for billions of people. God will not float down and make a dry oil well produce more oil. He won’t reach down and lift the people of Manhattan to higher ground.  No hand-outs of extra oxygen.  Blind faith will get you killed.

You have the power to effect a global change, I advise you to stop it.

Today I’m listening to:

Mr E’s Beautiful Blues by Eels

Paris; You’re somebody else’s bitch now!

That’s Right Paris Hilton the socialite with the brains of a slice of toast was sent down today and will now be enjoying 45 days in the sumptuous surroundings at the Century Regional Detention Facility.

Look at my hair-do

I guess that ‘The simple life’ will really hit home this month with beautiful concrete and barbed wire enclosures and being surrounded by big men with guns. All standard fair for Paris who appeared to not really know what to do with big guns in various videos doing the rounds on the internet.

Maybe this case will help us answer a question that Paris had posed on her very own CD released by Heiress Records (because we all love having our noses rubbed in the fact that she’s an heiress to a multi-billion dollar empire) ‘Do Ya think I’m Sexy?’ In short no, but I think you might be bloody stupid.

I’m a dunce.

“I didn’t mean to do it!” This has to be one of the dumbest defence pleas this year. Did she not mean to pick up her keys get in the car put her foot down on the accelerator and drive around the place? Life is going to be interesting for Paris as she spends the next 45 days mingling with people who have been sent to prison for various crimes the majority of which will revolve around money.

What will her reaction be to the mother who stole meds or clothes for her baby because the system did not offer enough support? What will Paris’s personal opinion of the crack addict who became a prostitute so she could afford her addiction? Or even the car jacker who stole a car worth less than Paris’s latest hair-do. Will the reality that real people don’t have money that comes to them easily sink in? Or is it more likely that she’ll just brush it all off as a bad dream..

Still the parents must be proud.

I even wonder if her parents look at her and think to themselves we did such a wonderful job on that one. We’re so proud of our daughters performance in the unauthorised sex viideo, we just love how she thinks that because shes rich she can ignore the law.We’re very proud of the fact that her face is splashed on every newspaper around the planet so that while she’s being sent down everyone can think ‘wow what a waste of time that was.’

Jobs are for other people.

At the end of the day Paris is just a person, who can aford to be an idiot with no respect for anyone because her livelihood does not depend on her abilities. But the reality of life for the rest of us is that we have to be damned good at what we do or they’ll out-source our jobs.

Yes I’m not usually a bitchy celeb blogger, in part because I’m a bloke and in part because I couldn’t care less about celebrities; But for Paris I’ll make an exception afterall the media does.

Today I’m Listening To:
Common People by Pulp

Why Valve and SteamPowered.com blows.

You know, once upon a time there was a software company that had the good fortune to make a game that was considered critically as one of the finest around at the time. That game was called half-life. A few years later an enthusiast created a modification for Half-Life that was released for free as an add-on pack you could download. The add-on known as Counter Strike, was even better. People actually bought half-life just so they could play the free add-on.

Steam

Using this as an opportunity to turn computer games into a service Valve launched a service called Steam. Steam made it impossible to play a Valve game without an internet connection because if you don’t have a net connection your user id and password can’t be checked. Steam rather cynically, has turned computer games into a service that you pay for and if you want to play you have to use the Steam client.

Steam Hacked

In order to buy software from valve you have to use the steam client which posts your personal details and credit card information to an un-secure database that has been hacked. But if you are a Steam customer you could be forgiven for not knowing that this was the case, because Valve have been covering it up.

Any reference or question about the hack has been deleted from their forums. Valve, instead of asking the hackers who contacted them about the hack how it was done and improve the security of their system, have issued take down requests to have the hackers web sites removed. I would like to point out that taking down the web site of someone who contacted Valve to let them know that their system is insecure does not make that system secure.

Since January.

There are files available on the net that contain thousands of Valve customers personal information and credit card details, and to make matters worse the hack discovered in January 2007 is still exploitable nearly 4 months later.

Steam… Creamed…

But you know I’m an ideas man, and I have a solution. I’ve decided to launch my own service called CreamPowered.com. Where customers can come along and pay to get fleeced. We won’t even pretend to sell intangibles like software, instead we’ll issue creamed points. The more that’s stolen from your credit card the more creamed points you’ll earn. You wont be able to redeem the points but at least you’ll have a better idea of how much suffering you’ll go through than you would with steam.

Why is ‘The Media’ lying to us?

The Iraq War, Climate Change, Violent Crime, and Terrorism to name but a few of the hot media topics of the past year. On all of these fronts I personally hold media organisations culpable for either completely miss-representing the facts on these issues, ignoring them, or worse presenting a fiction as factual analysis.

This is the first of a number of subjects I want to post on, under the banner of the media.

Climate Change

“God gave us the earth. We have dominion over the plants, the animals, the trees. God said, ‘Earth is yours. Take it. Rape it. It’s yours.’”—Ann Coulter

If you accept the postulate that mankind evolved alongside our animal compatriots then you must accept that the above statement is both morally and factually reprehensible. This planet supports us all, and its resources are far from infinite.

The moral issue is one of our place within this planet’s ecology. We are on top because we have put ourselves on top. Of all the animals that inhabit this planet we can by far radically alter our environment to support our life choices. We rationalise the destruction of the planet and balance that destruction against profit. Rightly or wrongly that is what separates us from our animal compatriots.

Placing ourselves in this elevated position carries with it a huge moral responsibility. Since we rationalise the destruction of our only supply of resources, and those resources are shared by all that live on this planet. The only thing that determines whether a resource is left alone, or destroyed and packaged for our convenience, is the cost of the extraction and distribution of the resource vs the resale cost of the resource. Where is the morality in that choice?

Global warming is “the greatest hoax perpetrated on the American people.”— James Inhofe

It is a miracle of miss-information that there are people who believe that Global Warming and Climate Change are a hoax. It is important to point out that there is one constant, within the scientific community, and that is simply thus; There is no dispute, there is no disagreement Global Warming is real and it’s happening.

The media have told us it is part of the natural cycle of the planet. It is true that there is a natural cycle, however it is also true that the level of Carbon Dioxide in our atmosphere is presently around 1.5 – 2 times the maximum peak encountered in the last 650,000 years. We put that Carbon dioxide there, so why is it that the media is telling us a different story?

They say that they need to present both the story that global warming is real, and the notion that global warming is not. The issue that I have is that the media does not highlight the difference between the two sides. There was once a time when the media reported news and real events occurring in the world.

The story that global warming is a hoax is fraudulent and yet is being presented blindly as fact. That people find it easier to believe this falsehood rather than accept the truth is harrowing. That the media present the idea that Global Warming is disputed in the scientific community is a criminal miss-representation of the facts as currently understood.

The following figures are extracted from a study performed by Dr. Naomi Oreskes highlighted in the movie “An Inconvenient Truth”

Number of peer reviewed articles dealing with Climate change published in Scientific journals during the last 10 years : 928
Percentage of Articles in doubt as to the cause of Global Warming: 0%

Number of articles in the popular press about Global Warming during the past 14 years: 636
Percentage of Articles in doubt as to the cause of Global Warming: 53%

This is not a question of belief.

Today I’m Listening To:

Life Wasted by: Pearl Jam

WinRage (or why hardware manufacturers really suck.)

I’ve absolutely had enough of this crap. Really. I have a problem, and the problem that I have is not the fact that I use Windows Vista, the real problem is that the manufacturers of hardware are un-willing to get their products working correctly under Vista.

Windows Vista is not new, its been in development for the past five years, it’s been fairly publicly Beta tested for the past 2 years, and for the past 9 months has been available in one Release Candidate form or another.

During these past 5 years Microsoft has been tirelessly working with hardware manufacturers, application and driver developers and offered assistance and residency at its own campuses to assist in the production of Vista ready hardware/software and drivers.

Despite these efforts we have had a driver support response from hardware manufacturers that is tantamount to an abuse of their position. Ladies and Gentlemen I give you the world leaders in two separate hardware categories.

The award for sound goes to…… Creative Labs!

Creative Labs is the manufacturer of choice for audio hardware among the computer gaming fraternity for two reasons. Firstly their cards are full audio processors, they do not need a CPU to perform functions in software as the card can do it all. Secondly their cards offer incredible feature ranges that are simply second to none in the price bracket.

Being in this position has made Creative one of the largest hardware (add-in card) manufacturers in the world. Millions of high performance computers have Creative audio hardware in them. And how do Creative re-pay their consumer base? By eliminating support for older products under Vista and not having any fully functional drivers available in time for a product that has been in development for 5 years.

Once the public outcry over their lack of support reached fever-pitch Creative relented and started to work on drivers for older hardware. They are nasty and aren’t at all user friendly, but they just about function. Which is more than I can say for their driver support for premium products like the X-Fi. 

The award for cinematography goes to…… NVidia!

The market leader in high performance video processors for the PC, Mac, and PS3 seems to be employing a policy of let them suffer for as long as possible before we do anything about it. They claim to have spent huge volumes of time working on Vista drivers for their hardware, they have very little to show for it.

Beta drivers that don’t support the functionality of cards that were top-of-the-line 6 months ago. Beta Drivers that don’t support the functionality of cards that were new at the beginning of this year. Yet they badge them as being Vista ready.

Users

Windows Vista is being used as a prospective cash-cow by hardware manufacturers to squeeze more out of consumers than the consumer reckoned. We are being played ironically by the companies that are supported by gamers. Want vista, well that’ll be another $500 video card, and a $300 Sound Card, cause we’ve got support and drivers for those! This is a dream come true for the manufacturers.

Microsoft is being played as the bad guy in this, taking the blame for having a product that isn’t ready. The reality is that after 5 years Vista is ready, it is the hardware manufacturers who aren’t.