I own a Sony Playstation Portable (PSP). It's a great handheld gaming device—blows away everything else I've seen. However, the one big battle that PSP owners have had w/Sony is wanting to run "homebrew" applications (these are unsigned applications written by users for the PSP and not officially released software.) The original firmware 1.2 had some holes in it that allowed you to pretty easily bypass the mechanisms Sony built-in to allow only signed content to play.
Every since hackers figured out a way to hack the PSP's firmware, it's been a battle between Sony and the hackers. Sony releases a new firmware that fixes the holes and hackers try to figure out another way to bypass the Sony security mechanism to only allow signed content to play.
Each time Sony releases a new firmware, they've generally added some new functionality to the unit. The original PSP firmware didn't include a browser—which was added in the 2.0 release (I believe.) Anyway, Sony tries to entice users to upgrade by offering new features and even having newer games force a user to upgrade. Some hackers are living on old firmware just so they can continue to run their "homebrew" applications.
Leave it to something like the Air Conditioning (AC) going out to really realize how lucky and sometimes spoiled most of us are. Here in Central Ohio, we've had the hottest 3 days we've had in a long while—certainly the hottest 3 day stretch I can recall for May in this area. It was 88 degrees on Saturday and it's been in the 90s the past Sunday through Tuesday. Today's expected to be 89 degrees, with a high probability of T-storms—which at least should cool things off. If 90 degrees doesn't sound hot to you, also consider that we Ohioans put up w/very high humidity levels as well. Heck, the last few nights it's still been in the 80s at 11:00 o'clock.
Anyway, all these hot weather brings me to my point. Having your AC go out during a heat spell really makes you realize just how lucky you are to have modern amenities. Too many times in my day-to-day life I forget just how lucky I truly am and spend time concentrating on issues, while most of the world would love having only that to worry about—when they're struggling with surviving.
Anyway, it's times like this, when a luxury amenity I've come to take for granted goes away, that I really understand just how fortunate I am to be living in this day and age. I really appreciate all my parents did for me to put me in the opportunity to succeed in life.