So, here's another question: this article is called "The Psychology of Mac Zealots"; what's the "psychology" of people who instantly call anyone who posts anything about Apple a "fanboy"?
I agree with you. I thought the notion that fanboys root for the underdog is ludicrous. I mean... how long have Playstation supporters been being called Sony fanboys? And the PS2 was SO not an underdog last gen. According to this mentality, there is no such thing as a Microsoft fanboy, or a Square-game (i.e. Final Fantasy) fanboy. That's just pure nonsense.
This is a very poor way to attempt to classify fanboys. I doubt this guy even uses teh intranets. (itsajoke. If someone's a fanboy of his, I dont need to be lectured on how he's a long-time internet journalist, or whatever, if that's indeed the case.)
This is all true... But that's because the parties have reversed roles, somewhat. The Democrats used to be the conservative party, and the Republicans used to be the liberal party.
Which party is the one resisting the moves towards equal gay rights and recognition these days? Do you really think that our *current* Republican party would have stood up to abolish slavery back in the day? You're not discussing the differences in Republicans vs. Democrat mindsets, you're discussing the differences in liberal vs. conservative mindsets.
some idiotic troll company that has nothing better to do, like, say, SCO, could patent "SCO Linux" or "Linux" for their product and then sue the shit out of other distribution makers or OSS projects for "patent infringement" because the others "Linux" infringe on theirs
Uhh, wrong. Note a key phrase in your own post: "patent infringement". A patent is very much NOT a trademark, and a trademark is very much NOT a patent. They are mostly unrelated topics.
That was the entire point of my original statement. This article came out as if the Linux trademark and ownership thereof has something to do with the Microsoft patent infringement claim. It DOESNT. GAIM/Pidgin only further proves my example. If AOL had proved that they had done "patent infringement", they would have had to discontinue the product, or rewrite it or alter it in some fundamental way. As it is, they changed the name, and everything is fixed. Not a big deal.
Trademarks should not be confused with patents. They're completely different in almost every way. Whether or not Linus owns the Linux trademark has absolutely zero to do with whether or not they are infringing on patents, and therefore the OS is or isnt illegal. If Linux WAS infringing on patents, and changed its name to, I dunno, "Dustfish OS", it wouldnt have any impact whatsoever on patent issues.
Does it really matter? This seems to be more of a discussion on trademarks rather than copyright/ownership issues. This is about the name "Linux", rather than what Linux actually IS. Even if the Linux trademark WAS what Microsoft was having disputes with (which it's not), it'd just be a "rose by any other name" scenario. Kinda like the way Gaim just changed its name to Pidgin. It's still Gaim, and it doesnt seem to me that people have had much trouble accepting the name change.
Im not saying this is completely uninteresting. But I think it's a little strong to tie it to the "noise by Microsoft about Linux".
I did some research, and look around, you seem to be right on this. I was fairly certain the original NES and SNES were sold at a loss as well, but it seems to be a false piece of information I picked up from somewhere. Therefore, I apologize for my incorrect statement.
This still doesnt mean Ive changed my mind, and decided Nintendo is as great as everyone's acting, or that I care enough about the Wii to purchase one. However, I felt that since I was simply outright wrong on this point, it was only fair to revoke it.
...the money on videogames has always been made on game sales and licensing. I am by no means saying "Game makers shouldnt make a profit!" Im saying "They dont need to make more of a profit. They dont need to be making a profit coming and going."
To me, the mindset like yours is a problem. It's like how 10 years ago, everyone was saying "We need to help poor telecommunications companies! they shouldnt have to bare such a huge initial investment! they should be able to show some profits immediately!" And now what state are they in? They own all of the telecommunications lines, which government programs effectively paid for, they claim they have the right to dictate their usage, and they whine "Well we put all of the up-front effort in. How come other people should just be able to come in and use it?" When there was, in fact, no up-front effort.
If Nintendo is making profit on console sales now, then why do they still need to completely control all licensing for the system? Previously, building a console was a huge monetary investment. And by licensing all the games, and getting a cut of those profits, the endeavor still worked out to be QUITE profitable. Now, they're literally profiting coming AND going. They're making the profit up-front, as their "investment" into the industry, and yet they're still going to license and control all content on the system, and get a cut of every piece of software sold as well.
My point is, there's still no good reason for Nintendo to have jacked their prices up. They didnt to it "So they could make a profit." they're going to make a profit anyway. If they had sold the systems at a reasonable loss, then they could have provided a BETTER product to the customer, at the same PRICE to the customer, and Nintendo would have STILL. PROFITED.
How can anyone think that there's anything except for pure opportunistic price-gouging in this?
Im sure Im going to get lynched for being anti-nintendo on/., but still. The thing that bothers me the most about the Wii isnt that it's a Gamecube 1.5. It's that it's a Gamecube 1.5, AND nintendo jacked the price up to the point where they were making a profit on per-console sales. This is unheard of, ESPECIALLY for Nintendo, who is the longest running console maker, and knows the ins and outs of console sales better than anyone. And I think there are 2 major factors for that. 1. They were unconfident of the Wii, because of previous experimental flops like the Virtual Boy, and previous difficult launches such as the DS (which has turned things around now, but still had a rough first year or more). and 2. They knew they COULD jack the price up, and still undercut M$ and Sony.
But that's what bothers me. They jacked the price up completely for their own benefit... but with no real reason! Absolutely NO love for the consumer is shown there, despite everyone marching around preaching the Nintendo is the new "man of the people". If they were going to jack the price up to the level that they did... then why not put some tech improvements into the thing, and still sell it at a regular loss margin, like consoles have been for aeons? There's no reason they could have at LEAST put the Wii up over the original XBox's level, and kept the price tag EXACTLY the same, in the current market technology state. Or if they didnt want to do that... they could EASILY be selling Wii's for 100 dollars cheaper. But like every company, they're going in for the whole "We'll charge more because we can. what's to stop us? people will still pay it." And I think that's just as dangerous of a trend for future games as the M$ and Sony approach is. Same evil, different flavor. It reminds me of how the oil companies nowadays keep bumping up gas prices, even though barrel prices arent fluctuating at all. It's just a matter of raising price for no reason OTHER than to raise profit margins.
Mind you, Im not saying Nintendo is worse than Sony or M$. That would be insane. But I do think they're getting way too much credit for being the "good guy" than they really deserve. They're just like the other guys. The only reason they're playing nice this generation is because they lost out so hard last generation, and it humbled them, and forced them to change tact.
The penny boys hold gaming corps to a fairly high standards, it will be interesting to see if there game can live up to their own standards
With the Rain-Slicked Precipice of Darkness, Tycho and Gabe have already said they're trying to make something simple, and fun. Something they can sell to their fans for 10 or 20 bucks a pop, and that people who love the comics can really appreciate, and people who dont love the comics might can still find some entertainment value in. I dont really think they can or should be expected to live up to their own expectations of game companies who drop millions of dollars, and thousands of hours of man-time into games, to turn around and sell at premium 50+ dollar prices, possibly with extra for peripherals.
And since the code went gold and was available to you (via MSDN) in November of 2006, even though Vista wasn't released to retail until February of 2007, I would submit that you had plenty of time to work out the issues and that your complaining is just for the sake of having something to complain about.
And Im pretty sure this mentality right here is why so many companies, and even many end-users, are saying "We have no intention to upgrade to Vista. Ever." Just because you had "plenty of time to work out the issues" doesnt mean you WANT to spend the time doing it. Especially when the "benefits" of upgrading are shady at best, and by and far seem to be NOTHING more than marketing mumbo-jumbo.
SELinux actually has something like that now, with the Audit-to-allow system, where it will show you all of the various messages where it has blocked a process from accessing something, and you can go through and tell it which ones are acceptable, and it will automagically create the corresponding policy files so that it doesnt block that process anymore. It turned me from completely hating SELinux because of the overwhelming amount of work it was to completely loving how simple AND powerful it was at the same time. And this actually does still force the user to go and manually say "This. I want to allow this." Of course, this doesnt prevent a user from just blanketly saying "Allow all of these!" But if someone's doing that, without reading their messages... they probably dont need to have SElinux on in the first place.
You may have already known about this, since you seem familiar with SELinux via FC, but I figured Id mention it for others. ^^
I dont disagree with your statement here, necessarily, but it does sound to me like an issue of pointing out a problem, without really offering any notions for improvement. You say that new sysadmins are too "inexperienced" and dont necessarily know enough about Legacy systems. Well... how would they? I mean, if you've worked on any mainframe systems, you'll know that knowing one set of commands doesnt do you ANY good on the very next mainframe you might be forced to work on. And how exactly does one become an "experienced" sysadmin? Go to sysadmin school? Really? Sign me up!
It seems to me that things are the way they are because... well, they have to be. When an old sysadmin leaves, you're not going to be able to replace him with someone who knows everything about your current infrastructure, and happens to have niche knowledge of all of your various legacy machines. If such a person exist, chances are very high that they're currently still employed somewhere else, or are about to retire. Employees dont stay in circulation forever. Eventually mass amounts of experience starts falling out of the market, and has to be replaced with "noobs".
Im not saying huge companies should necessarily be hiring inexperienced sysadmins. But someone has to, or inexperienced sysadmins can NEVER become experienced sysadmins. Im fortunate, in that I was hired on as a sysadmin at a University, during a complete infrastructure rebuild. So while Ive been forced to learn a passing familiarity with the mainframe systems, it's mostly been to help usher them out entirely. And Ive been, for the most part, at liberty to build the new infrastructure around her to my own personal standards and benefits, meaning Ive got a pretty good grip on things. Gradually, I run into problems that I cant solve with a simple script, so Ive been forced to learn things like sed and awk, as you mentioned, more and more over time. And even those, btw, arent a universal solution, especially if old IBM-era mainframes are involved.
Even if what you're saying is the problem, if sysadmins with "not enough" experience for a particular job are being thrown into them... there's no real solution for that. I mean, if you draw up a requirement for all of the systems you want a sysadmin to know, chances are NOT good that you're going to find someone who A. Meets all the requirements, including experience with all of your legacy systems at your company B. Lives nearby or is willing to relocate to where you are and C. Is looking for a salary exactly where you're offering it.
What is your point? It's not as if this never happens under our current system. Or, even more likely, I invent something, but didnt know that some other company already had some really *vague* patent idea that allows them to cast a wing over what I invented.
The fact of the matter is our patent system IS getting abused. Left and right. And part of the problem there is that it has just become so profitable, and is really handy at trying to create a state of monopoly or semi-monopoly. Like how Verizon is trying to make certain that new technologies cant spring up to challenge the old archaic phone companies. And they're succeeding.
I think the idea of "restricting" the damages is a good thing. If the idea behind patents is to protect the "little" guy, then there's no reason that you should be able to use a patent to levy out millions and millions of dollars in damages against patent offenders, at least IMO. If I invent something, and then some other company steals my idea, and goes out and does something better with it, maybe because they had the capital to invest and I didnt... well, then, it sucks to be me. But it's GOOD for the industry, because whatever I invented is now out there, helping consumers. And yes, I do think I should be able to get some reparations. But do I think I should be able to grind that infringing company back into the ground, earn a vast majority of the profits when THEY did all of the work, and send the industry one step backwards so I can retire forever? No. Absolutely not.
And I never made any comment whatsoever about the other part, the "whomever patents first" notion, so dont presume to know my take on it, please. I was just saying that I dont think this reform is ALL bad. It may be bad overall, but at least there seems to be one nice element to it, IMO.
...restrict damages that patent holders can receive for infringement lawsuits...
I really like the sound of that. It seems to me like it's probably the most overdue thing here. Patents are there to protect the little man from being run over by big companies. Not to allow big companies an extra avenue to milk millions out of the industry by patent-sitting. If the amount of money you could get from having patents was dramatically reduced, it's entirely possible some of the nonsense in the industry right now might start to thin a little.
But, realistically, it's probably just a pretty ephemeral dream. Like Communism.
I know of this. I looked around and didnt see if anyone said anything, but it has something to do with the word length. Any words of those exact lengths should always cause the problem. I believe a popular one at one point was "Bush hid the truth", which really had some people freaking out when they say that they really couldnt save that in Notepad, thinking there was some greater conspiracy going on.
Here in America, do we all really get that much more reasonable when we turn 18, though? I mean... Madonna could probably make a pretty good run at the White House anyway. Or maybe some less disenfranchised celebrity bimbo. She could certainly fund one heck of a campaign, at any rate.
Fortunately, the apathy of us youngsters keeps us (mildly) safe. They could probably set the voting age limit at 42, and wouldnt knock out too large of a percentage of voters.
I wonder if these people are being assigned personal IDs? I wonder if they started at like, 000000001, or something. If so, in about 400 or so more people... are we going to have the man whose number is 666? If so, maybe we should kill that man (or woman, or little girl, whatever), just to be safe. It'd be the reasonable thing to do, I think. In FACT, they should go ahead and make the 666 chip, put it in someone, kill them, and then announce that they've single-handedly stopped the apocalypse, and God and his silly prophecies have no more power here. This is 'MERICA!
Seriously, why do people do these things? I mean, Im not a big believer in the bible, koran, or Nostradamus, but when you've got a horrible "this will signal the end of the world" prophecy, shouldnt you avoid it rather than run straight at fulfilling it ASAP? I have the same issue with all the scientists who seem to be determined to make killbots and "true" AI. Have we not seen enough Terminator/Matrix movies? What more must hollywood do to show us our folly! OUR FOLLY!!
I dont know why you're modded down. I thought it was a funny comment. I also dont know why your only moderation is -1 Overrated... if I still had mod points, Id mod you up, but I spent my last yesterday.
I dont think that was GP's point. From what I read of his comment, he wasnt defending piracy. He was simply pointing out the bull that the RIAA uses. They say "Piracy is hurting the music industry!" so they can justify going after pirates as "getting back what they deserved". Really, though, the RIAA has just realized that they make lots of easy money with these lawsuits, and probably couldnt care less about piracy, because they know it doesnt really hurt them. In fact, they probably dont WANT piracy to end, because then they could stop suing people for exorbitant amounts of cash.
The point isnt about whether or not piracy's right or wrong. Heck, if the RIAA was just saying "if you take our music (make no mistake, it's the RIAA's music, not the artists. the artists get pretty much zilch out of all of this), we're going to make you pay for it retroactively", I dont think people would get nearly as up-in-arms about it. It's their whole take on "piracy destroys the world and changes reality! If there was no piracy, we'd all live in a happy paradise and everyone would have what they want and we'd get paid what we deserve!" that pisses everyone off.
On a side note, not entirely related to this, if I could actually buy albums directly from the artists, in cash, and make sure that they were getting all of the profit off of my sales, Id happily go out and buy music. However, since the recent things Ive heard about how much the RIAA or studios like Sony cuts out of an artist's payment, Ive refused to continue buying music. Did I turn to piracy? No. Actually, I guess Im a bit of a coward when it comes to legal matters, so the RIAA's FUD has worked on me, and I dont pirate music out of fear of them coming for me in the night. Instead, I just listen to the music I already have, or use radio/webcasts. Now here's a question for you... since Ive completely stopped buying music regardless... how has the RIAA benefited from me at all, since they have kept me from pirating? None whatsoever. The fact that I dont pirate doesnt force me to buy music. The fact that most music that comes out these days is crap makes it a lot easier on me, too. Really, they dont make a dime off of me. They dont get my money legally, and they cant take it from me in court. And you know what? That's the absolute last thing the RIAA wants from anyone.
This reminds of me of Kratos, from God of War. I know that he's "spartan", and all, but from the way they designed the character, both in appearance and voice, I always thought he seemed more like a black guy than a white guy. And since his skin was covered in ash to make him perma-pale, it made it even harder to be sure, for lots of the game. At least, in my opinion. Maybe others dont agree.
I thought it was a nice touch, though, all-in-all. I mean, there's a bit of "badassness" to certain black character traits, both physically and in attitude, and I think Kratos's personality is a lot stronger than it would have been if they hadnt borrowed those traits. But I have to admit, if Kratos had been modeled after Ice-T or something, I probably wouldnt enjoy the game nearly as much.
Personally, I get tired of the whole racism debate. Ive always felt this way about japanese games. I dont like it when the characters are DECIDELY Japanese. I liked Cloud (from FFVII) a lot more back when it was unclear what he was rather than now, when he has been remade into a more clearly japanese appearance. Really, unless race is a specific issue in a game's plot, I think it should be left out as much as possible, so Im all for the racial ambiguity thing.
Yeah, I agree with you. More poignantly, though, I think we're seeing more and more these days that you cant have one single organization who has too much complete say over a field of commerce. For example, look at the troubles we're having with the RIAA, for whom the entire music industry is a personal (or professional, I suppose) interest. I'm sure there are several music studios who DONT think you need to go after music pirates all blood and vinegar, but it doesnt matter, because the RIAA isnt acting under music studio's interests, or consumer interests, or anything. They operating under their own agenda. The FCC, who has obviously been MUCH more reasonable in their history, could have dangers of turning that direction, if they got to a point where it was their business to mandate everything about how these media formats are delivered, handled, AND protected.
Im not even saying that there shouldnt be someone doing this, maybe. I dont know where I stand on that. I mean, standards and consistency can be a nice thing, and maybe there SHOULD be someone trying to enforce certain security aspects over the entire playing field. But, I personally think if there should be such an organization, it shouldnt be the FCC. I know that that seems counterintuitive, because they would be almost everyone's first vote since they're already a close thing to that, but I think that's where we get ourselves in trouble with creating these mega-establishments.
Of course, this is just my opinion. I dont even try to maintain it as fact.
From what I gather, the PS3 natively functions on a dual-boot system. Which means once you install yellowdog linux, you can then choose to boot into it whenever you want, but if you instead opt to boot from the PS3's primary OS, you can do so, and you change no part of the base functionality of the system whatsoever.
It's kinda like how if you have a Windows machine, and install linux on a separate partition. Having the linux partition there doesnt hurt the running of your primary windows partition. Generally, Windows is too dumb to even notice that it exists at all. But when you boot, you now have the option to NOT go into Windows, if you so choose.
I cant personally speak as to why someone would feel the need to have their PS3 functioning on linux... but because of the dual-booting thing, I dont see any reason to not play around with it (if I ever bought one).
I'm sorry. Windows and Mac OS X aren't "competition". Linux isn't out there to "compete". It's out there to offer a free unix-like operating system to people who are interested in that. If people prefer to pay for Windows or OS X it's not a big loss for linux. Only when developers prefer Windows or OS X does it become a problem for future linux development. Even then, linux users should worry more about having fun, than dominating the market. Even if every computer on earth ran linux, it wouldn't put a cent in your pocket!
Wow, I really like this post. I think you put a nice perspective on some of this. There's really too much in-fighting between all of us these days, especially here on Slashdot. Not to be all hippy-love-and-peace or anything, but (as long as we're all moving away from Microsoft), cant we just be happy for one another for finding a distribution that fits us personally? Im a Fedora Core person. And Ive taken some flack here on Slashdot for being a Fedora person. And Ive given flack to both Slackware users for one reason, and Ubuntu users for another reason. But like parent said, really, if every person switches to Fedora... I dont gain anything. If every person switches to slackware, slackware users dont gain anything. I mean, at least not anything drastically more than we already have. We have our own communities, we have our own supporters, we really shouldnt be making so much war with each other. The only reason I hate Microsoft is their usual complete ignoring of what users wants/needs are. Bill Gates himself even came out a little while ago saying Microsoft's DRM was getting too much in the user's way, and it needed to change. But if somebody wants to pay for OSX because it fits them better... then good for them! As long as they're not trying to force me to use it as well.
I know this is Slashdot, and this sort of post has probably been made 400 times, and the whole spirit of anything like this well probably be rapidly swept away be swift angst and bitterness, but... c'est la vie.
Oh man. I laughed so hard at "Has the Desktop Linux Bubble Jumped the Shark?", that I made it my MSN screenname. Might even make it my Slashdot sig, but I havent decided yet. Man that's awesome.
Thank you!
Enough people dont highlight this point. I hear way too much stat-fighting between PC gamers and console gamers, who dont even realize they're in COMPLETELY different realms of technology. If I had mod points, Id mod you up.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree with you. I thought the notion that fanboys root for the underdog is ludicrous. I mean... how long have Playstation supporters been being called Sony fanboys? And the PS2 was SO not an underdog last gen. According to this mentality, there is no such thing as a Microsoft fanboy, or a Square-game (i.e. Final Fantasy) fanboy. That's just pure nonsense.
This is a very poor way to attempt to classify fanboys. I doubt this guy even uses teh intranets. (itsajoke. If someone's a fanboy of his, I dont need to be lectured on how he's a long-time internet journalist, or whatever, if that's indeed the case.)
This is all true... But that's because the parties have reversed roles, somewhat. The Democrats used to be the conservative party, and the Republicans used to be the liberal party.
Which party is the one resisting the moves towards equal gay rights and recognition these days? Do you really think that our *current* Republican party would have stood up to abolish slavery back in the day? You're not discussing the differences in Republicans vs. Democrat mindsets, you're discussing the differences in liberal vs. conservative mindsets.
Uhh, wrong. Note a key phrase in your own post: "patent infringement". A patent is very much NOT a trademark, and a trademark is very much NOT a patent. They are mostly unrelated topics.
That was the entire point of my original statement. This article came out as if the Linux trademark and ownership thereof has something to do with the Microsoft patent infringement claim. It DOESNT. GAIM/Pidgin only further proves my example. If AOL had proved that they had done "patent infringement", they would have had to discontinue the product, or rewrite it or alter it in some fundamental way. As it is, they changed the name, and everything is fixed. Not a big deal.
Trademarks should not be confused with patents. They're completely different in almost every way. Whether or not Linus owns the Linux trademark has absolutely zero to do with whether or not they are infringing on patents, and therefore the OS is or isnt illegal. If Linux WAS infringing on patents, and changed its name to, I dunno, "Dustfish OS", it wouldnt have any impact whatsoever on patent issues.
Does it really matter? This seems to be more of a discussion on trademarks rather than copyright/ownership issues. This is about the name "Linux", rather than what Linux actually IS. Even if the Linux trademark WAS what Microsoft was having disputes with (which it's not), it'd just be a "rose by any other name" scenario. Kinda like the way Gaim just changed its name to Pidgin. It's still Gaim, and it doesnt seem to me that people have had much trouble accepting the name change.
Im not saying this is completely uninteresting. But I think it's a little strong to tie it to the "noise by Microsoft about Linux".
I did some research, and look around, you seem to be right on this. I was fairly certain the original NES and SNES were sold at a loss as well, but it seems to be a false piece of information I picked up from somewhere. Therefore, I apologize for my incorrect statement.
This still doesnt mean Ive changed my mind, and decided Nintendo is as great as everyone's acting, or that I care enough about the Wii to purchase one. However, I felt that since I was simply outright wrong on this point, it was only fair to revoke it.
...the money on videogames has always been made on game sales and licensing. I am by no means saying "Game makers shouldnt make a profit!" Im saying "They dont need to make more of a profit. They dont need to be making a profit coming and going."
To me, the mindset like yours is a problem. It's like how 10 years ago, everyone was saying "We need to help poor telecommunications companies! they shouldnt have to bare such a huge initial investment! they should be able to show some profits immediately!" And now what state are they in? They own all of the telecommunications lines, which government programs effectively paid for, they claim they have the right to dictate their usage, and they whine "Well we put all of the up-front effort in. How come other people should just be able to come in and use it?" When there was, in fact, no up-front effort.
If Nintendo is making profit on console sales now, then why do they still need to completely control all licensing for the system? Previously, building a console was a huge monetary investment. And by licensing all the games, and getting a cut of those profits, the endeavor still worked out to be QUITE profitable. Now, they're literally profiting coming AND going. They're making the profit up-front, as their "investment" into the industry, and yet they're still going to license and control all content on the system, and get a cut of every piece of software sold as well.
My point is, there's still no good reason for Nintendo to have jacked their prices up. They didnt to it "So they could make a profit." they're going to make a profit anyway. If they had sold the systems at a reasonable loss, then they could have provided a BETTER product to the customer, at the same PRICE to the customer, and Nintendo would have STILL. PROFITED.
How can anyone think that there's anything except for pure opportunistic price-gouging in this?
4) cheaper is better
/., but still. The thing that bothers me the most about the Wii isnt that it's a Gamecube 1.5. It's that it's a Gamecube 1.5, AND nintendo jacked the price up to the point where they were making a profit on per-console sales. This is unheard of, ESPECIALLY for Nintendo, who is the longest running console maker, and knows the ins and outs of console sales better than anyone. And I think there are 2 major factors for that. 1. They were unconfident of the Wii, because of previous experimental flops like the Virtual Boy, and previous difficult launches such as the DS (which has turned things around now, but still had a rough first year or more). and 2. They knew they COULD jack the price up, and still undercut M$ and Sony.
Im sure Im going to get lynched for being anti-nintendo on
But that's what bothers me. They jacked the price up completely for their own benefit... but with no real reason! Absolutely NO love for the consumer is shown there, despite everyone marching around preaching the Nintendo is the new "man of the people". If they were going to jack the price up to the level that they did... then why not put some tech improvements into the thing, and still sell it at a regular loss margin, like consoles have been for aeons? There's no reason they could have at LEAST put the Wii up over the original XBox's level, and kept the price tag EXACTLY the same, in the current market technology state. Or if they didnt want to do that... they could EASILY be selling Wii's for 100 dollars cheaper. But like every company, they're going in for the whole "We'll charge more because we can. what's to stop us? people will still pay it." And I think that's just as dangerous of a trend for future games as the M$ and Sony approach is. Same evil, different flavor. It reminds me of how the oil companies nowadays keep bumping up gas prices, even though barrel prices arent fluctuating at all. It's just a matter of raising price for no reason OTHER than to raise profit margins.
Mind you, Im not saying Nintendo is worse than Sony or M$. That would be insane. But I do think they're getting way too much credit for being the "good guy" than they really deserve. They're just like the other guys. The only reason they're playing nice this generation is because they lost out so hard last generation, and it humbled them, and forced them to change tact.
The penny boys hold gaming corps to a fairly high standards, it will be interesting to see if there game can live up to their own standards
With the Rain-Slicked Precipice of Darkness, Tycho and Gabe have already said they're trying to make something simple, and fun. Something they can sell to their fans for 10 or 20 bucks a pop, and that people who love the comics can really appreciate, and people who dont love the comics might can still find some entertainment value in. I dont really think they can or should be expected to live up to their own expectations of game companies who drop millions of dollars, and thousands of hours of man-time into games, to turn around and sell at premium 50+ dollar prices, possibly with extra for peripherals.
And since the code went gold and was available to you (via MSDN) in November of 2006, even though Vista wasn't released to retail until February of 2007, I would submit that you had plenty of time to work out the issues and that your complaining is just for the sake of having something to complain about.
And Im pretty sure this mentality right here is why so many companies, and even many end-users, are saying "We have no intention to upgrade to Vista. Ever." Just because you had "plenty of time to work out the issues" doesnt mean you WANT to spend the time doing it. Especially when the "benefits" of upgrading are shady at best, and by and far seem to be NOTHING more than marketing mumbo-jumbo.
SELinux actually has something like that now, with the Audit-to-allow system, where it will show you all of the various messages where it has blocked a process from accessing something, and you can go through and tell it which ones are acceptable, and it will automagically create the corresponding policy files so that it doesnt block that process anymore. It turned me from completely hating SELinux because of the overwhelming amount of work it was to completely loving how simple AND powerful it was at the same time. And this actually does still force the user to go and manually say "This. I want to allow this." Of course, this doesnt prevent a user from just blanketly saying "Allow all of these!" But if someone's doing that, without reading their messages... they probably dont need to have SElinux on in the first place.
You may have already known about this, since you seem familiar with SELinux via FC, but I figured Id mention it for others. ^^
I dont disagree with your statement here, necessarily, but it does sound to me like an issue of pointing out a problem, without really offering any notions for improvement. You say that new sysadmins are too "inexperienced" and dont necessarily know enough about Legacy systems. Well... how would they? I mean, if you've worked on any mainframe systems, you'll know that knowing one set of commands doesnt do you ANY good on the very next mainframe you might be forced to work on. And how exactly does one become an "experienced" sysadmin? Go to sysadmin school? Really? Sign me up!
It seems to me that things are the way they are because... well, they have to be. When an old sysadmin leaves, you're not going to be able to replace him with someone who knows everything about your current infrastructure, and happens to have niche knowledge of all of your various legacy machines. If such a person exist, chances are very high that they're currently still employed somewhere else, or are about to retire. Employees dont stay in circulation forever. Eventually mass amounts of experience starts falling out of the market, and has to be replaced with "noobs".
Im not saying huge companies should necessarily be hiring inexperienced sysadmins. But someone has to, or inexperienced sysadmins can NEVER become experienced sysadmins. Im fortunate, in that I was hired on as a sysadmin at a University, during a complete infrastructure rebuild. So while Ive been forced to learn a passing familiarity with the mainframe systems, it's mostly been to help usher them out entirely. And Ive been, for the most part, at liberty to build the new infrastructure around her to my own personal standards and benefits, meaning Ive got a pretty good grip on things. Gradually, I run into problems that I cant solve with a simple script, so Ive been forced to learn things like sed and awk, as you mentioned, more and more over time. And even those, btw, arent a universal solution, especially if old IBM-era mainframes are involved.
Even if what you're saying is the problem, if sysadmins with "not enough" experience for a particular job are being thrown into them... there's no real solution for that. I mean, if you draw up a requirement for all of the systems you want a sysadmin to know, chances are NOT good that you're going to find someone who A. Meets all the requirements, including experience with all of your legacy systems at your company B. Lives nearby or is willing to relocate to where you are and C. Is looking for a salary exactly where you're offering it.
I went through 14 hours of Homeland Security training before I walked out telling the instructor that if I wanted to be a racist I'd join the KKK.
That is a fantastic quote.
What is your point? It's not as if this never happens under our current system. Or, even more likely, I invent something, but didnt know that some other company already had some really *vague* patent idea that allows them to cast a wing over what I invented.
The fact of the matter is our patent system IS getting abused. Left and right. And part of the problem there is that it has just become so profitable, and is really handy at trying to create a state of monopoly or semi-monopoly. Like how Verizon is trying to make certain that new technologies cant spring up to challenge the old archaic phone companies. And they're succeeding.
I think the idea of "restricting" the damages is a good thing. If the idea behind patents is to protect the "little" guy, then there's no reason that you should be able to use a patent to levy out millions and millions of dollars in damages against patent offenders, at least IMO. If I invent something, and then some other company steals my idea, and goes out and does something better with it, maybe because they had the capital to invest and I didnt... well, then, it sucks to be me. But it's GOOD for the industry, because whatever I invented is now out there, helping consumers. And yes, I do think I should be able to get some reparations. But do I think I should be able to grind that infringing company back into the ground, earn a vast majority of the profits when THEY did all of the work, and send the industry one step backwards so I can retire forever? No. Absolutely not.
And I never made any comment whatsoever about the other part, the "whomever patents first" notion, so dont presume to know my take on it, please. I was just saying that I dont think this reform is ALL bad. It may be bad overall, but at least there seems to be one nice element to it, IMO.
...restrict damages that patent holders can receive for infringement lawsuits...
I really like the sound of that. It seems to me like it's probably the most overdue thing here. Patents are there to protect the little man from being run over by big companies. Not to allow big companies an extra avenue to milk millions out of the industry by patent-sitting. If the amount of money you could get from having patents was dramatically reduced, it's entirely possible some of the nonsense in the industry right now might start to thin a little.
But, realistically, it's probably just a pretty ephemeral dream. Like Communism.
I know of this. I looked around and didnt see if anyone said anything, but it has something to do with the word length. Any words of those exact lengths should always cause the problem. I believe a popular one at one point was "Bush hid the truth", which really had some people freaking out when they say that they really couldnt save that in Notepad, thinking there was some greater conspiracy going on.
Good times... good times.
Here in America, do we all really get that much more reasonable when we turn 18, though? I mean... Madonna could probably make a pretty good run at the White House anyway. Or maybe some less disenfranchised celebrity bimbo. She could certainly fund one heck of a campaign, at any rate.
Fortunately, the apathy of us youngsters keeps us (mildly) safe. They could probably set the voting age limit at 42, and wouldnt knock out too large of a percentage of voters.
I wonder if these people are being assigned personal IDs? I wonder if they started at like, 000000001, or something. If so, in about 400 or so more people... are we going to have the man whose number is 666? If so, maybe we should kill that man (or woman, or little girl, whatever), just to be safe. It'd be the reasonable thing to do, I think. In FACT, they should go ahead and make the 666 chip, put it in someone, kill them, and then announce that they've single-handedly stopped the apocalypse, and God and his silly prophecies have no more power here. This is 'MERICA!
Seriously, why do people do these things? I mean, Im not a big believer in the bible, koran, or Nostradamus, but when you've got a horrible "this will signal the end of the world" prophecy, shouldnt you avoid it rather than run straight at fulfilling it ASAP? I have the same issue with all the scientists who seem to be determined to make killbots and "true" AI. Have we not seen enough Terminator/Matrix movies? What more must hollywood do to show us our folly! OUR FOLLY!!
I dont know why you're modded down. I thought it was a funny comment. I also dont know why your only moderation is -1 Overrated... if I still had mod points, Id mod you up, but I spent my last yesterday.
I dont think that was GP's point. From what I read of his comment, he wasnt defending piracy. He was simply pointing out the bull that the RIAA uses. They say "Piracy is hurting the music industry!" so they can justify going after pirates as "getting back what they deserved". Really, though, the RIAA has just realized that they make lots of easy money with these lawsuits, and probably couldnt care less about piracy, because they know it doesnt really hurt them. In fact, they probably dont WANT piracy to end, because then they could stop suing people for exorbitant amounts of cash.
The point isnt about whether or not piracy's right or wrong. Heck, if the RIAA was just saying "if you take our music (make no mistake, it's the RIAA's music, not the artists. the artists get pretty much zilch out of all of this), we're going to make you pay for it retroactively", I dont think people would get nearly as up-in-arms about it. It's their whole take on "piracy destroys the world and changes reality! If there was no piracy, we'd all live in a happy paradise and everyone would have what they want and we'd get paid what we deserve!" that pisses everyone off.
On a side note, not entirely related to this, if I could actually buy albums directly from the artists, in cash, and make sure that they were getting all of the profit off of my sales, Id happily go out and buy music. However, since the recent things Ive heard about how much the RIAA or studios like Sony cuts out of an artist's payment, Ive refused to continue buying music. Did I turn to piracy? No. Actually, I guess Im a bit of a coward when it comes to legal matters, so the RIAA's FUD has worked on me, and I dont pirate music out of fear of them coming for me in the night. Instead, I just listen to the music I already have, or use radio/webcasts. Now here's a question for you... since Ive completely stopped buying music regardless... how has the RIAA benefited from me at all, since they have kept me from pirating? None whatsoever. The fact that I dont pirate doesnt force me to buy music. The fact that most music that comes out these days is crap makes it a lot easier on me, too. Really, they dont make a dime off of me. They dont get my money legally, and they cant take it from me in court. And you know what? That's the absolute last thing the RIAA wants from anyone.
This reminds of me of Kratos, from God of War. I know that he's "spartan", and all, but from the way they designed the character, both in appearance and voice, I always thought he seemed more like a black guy than a white guy. And since his skin was covered in ash to make him perma-pale, it made it even harder to be sure, for lots of the game. At least, in my opinion. Maybe others dont agree.
I thought it was a nice touch, though, all-in-all. I mean, there's a bit of "badassness" to certain black character traits, both physically and in attitude, and I think Kratos's personality is a lot stronger than it would have been if they hadnt borrowed those traits. But I have to admit, if Kratos had been modeled after Ice-T or something, I probably wouldnt enjoy the game nearly as much.
Personally, I get tired of the whole racism debate. Ive always felt this way about japanese games. I dont like it when the characters are DECIDELY Japanese. I liked Cloud (from FFVII) a lot more back when it was unclear what he was rather than now, when he has been remade into a more clearly japanese appearance. Really, unless race is a specific issue in a game's plot, I think it should be left out as much as possible, so Im all for the racial ambiguity thing.
Yeah, I agree with you. More poignantly, though, I think we're seeing more and more these days that you cant have one single organization who has too much complete say over a field of commerce. For example, look at the troubles we're having with the RIAA, for whom the entire music industry is a personal (or professional, I suppose) interest. I'm sure there are several music studios who DONT think you need to go after music pirates all blood and vinegar, but it doesnt matter, because the RIAA isnt acting under music studio's interests, or consumer interests, or anything. They operating under their own agenda. The FCC, who has obviously been MUCH more reasonable in their history, could have dangers of turning that direction, if they got to a point where it was their business to mandate everything about how these media formats are delivered, handled, AND protected.
Im not even saying that there shouldnt be someone doing this, maybe. I dont know where I stand on that. I mean, standards and consistency can be a nice thing, and maybe there SHOULD be someone trying to enforce certain security aspects over the entire playing field. But, I personally think if there should be such an organization, it shouldnt be the FCC. I know that that seems counterintuitive, because they would be almost everyone's first vote since they're already a close thing to that, but I think that's where we get ourselves in trouble with creating these mega-establishments.
Of course, this is just my opinion. I dont even try to maintain it as fact.
From what I gather, the PS3 natively functions on a dual-boot system. Which means once you install yellowdog linux, you can then choose to boot into it whenever you want, but if you instead opt to boot from the PS3's primary OS, you can do so, and you change no part of the base functionality of the system whatsoever.
It's kinda like how if you have a Windows machine, and install linux on a separate partition. Having the linux partition there doesnt hurt the running of your primary windows partition. Generally, Windows is too dumb to even notice that it exists at all. But when you boot, you now have the option to NOT go into Windows, if you so choose.
I cant personally speak as to why someone would feel the need to have their PS3 functioning on linux... but because of the dual-booting thing, I dont see any reason to not play around with it (if I ever bought one).
I know this is Slashdot, and this sort of post has probably been made 400 times, and the whole spirit of anything like this well probably be rapidly swept away be swift angst and bitterness, but... c'est la vie.
Oh man. I laughed so hard at "Has the Desktop Linux Bubble Jumped the Shark?", that I made it my MSN screenname. Might even make it my Slashdot sig, but I havent decided yet. Man that's awesome.
Thank you! Enough people dont highlight this point. I hear way too much stat-fighting between PC gamers and console gamers, who dont even realize they're in COMPLETELY different realms of technology. If I had mod points, Id mod you up.