I dunno how it is in America, but in Australia, apart from going for no-brand Taiwanese graphics cards off ebay, it's always been cheaper just to go down to the local cheap computer stores (always manned by Asians). The most popular in Melbourne probably being MSY (which is like...a tiny store which every geek in the Eastern Suburbs goes to =P).
A good *game* is quite often *not* realistic. Take the whole controversy over the graphics in Diablo III - it can look a lot better, and its unrealistically bright, but they chose it for gameplay. Taking racing games - why did the Need For Speed saga do so well? It aimed at casual gamers who don't care about realism...and thus it's fun to play.
It takes a bit more seriousness to tackle a more simulator type game. I play Forza Motorsport, which aims to be a simulator. It's fucking hard. It took me months just to be able to drive around the downhill map in a relatively slow car without crashing into every corner.
Going up again, take something like Live for Speed. That game is *hard*. You even have clutch control and all.
I think by distancing themselves from games, they are saying directly - "We *are* going to be sacrificing 'fun, easy gameplay' for realism. Realism is gonna be teh focus". And that's fair enough really.
Yes, it is a publicity stunt...but it's also a bit more than that.
Up until now, nVidia held SLi to only their nForce chipsets to try to force users to buy them. But in general, the Intel ones were better - so unless someone was really, really fixated on SLi, they just went for the Intel ones and got a single Graphics card. But if they were really out for top performance, they'd just go for Intel with 2 ATi chips - it only hurt nVidia in the end. Their fixation on trying to force people onto their nForce chips just slightly injured their graphics card sales.
It's the same problem as gun laws in a America. It's a problem without a viable solution - nothing can fix it. You're never gonna stop piracy at its roots, so don't try.
You can try workarounds. For instance, multiplayer games thrive because you *can't* pirate them. Oh sure, you can get a version of CS which only works on LAN...or WoW that works on private servers. But ultimately, you miss out on the main playing experience - so people are forced to pay and buy. Of course, this doesn't work for singleplayer games. If you tried to implement such a feature, then it would alienate those without internet connections, and still be pirated and broken.
As for the actual people who pirate these games? I'd imagine most of them do it for fun - for the hell of it - because they can. The people who crack these games and throw it up somewhere do it for that reason. I doubt they play half the games they crack.
The people who actually download 'em? We all try to justify it, but ultimately...we do it because it's free. Why would I go pay $100 for Crysis when I can get a burnt copy from a dozen of my friends?
1. It's easy 2. The chances you'll have negative consequences are very low. 3. It's free 4. Morally acceptable in today's society - ie, everyone does it 5. It's very hard to find personal moral issues in it
Summed up, it's got high gains and very, very low risks. No one's gonna think any less of you, and hell, can you even personally find any moral qualm about it? Oh sure, you are, in essence, gaining something you did not pay for. At the most fundamental level you can say that's wrong. But whether you get it or not, the actual companies don't really feel anything different. I'd imagine that's what most people who download stuff feel.
Everyone runs into dicks. Everyone runs into bullies. But those that go and snap and kill themselves probably have *other* issues.
I doubt this person logged onto MySpace all joly and happy, got bullied, and killed herself. It could've happened another way. She could've been fired from work, or had a rough day at school. This was, as you said, the "Straw on the camels back".
We haven't gotten to that stage yet in Melborune, but now all the supermarkets have these shitty uber thin, weak, small plastic bags we get.
We use them in our garbage bins - all of them. But these smaller ones barely fit as much, so we need to use a lot more. Plus, don't get me started on carrying them from the supermarket. So many times I've had my milk bottles fall out the bottom of these really weak plastics which just fall apart as you're walking from the supermarket home, hell, even to the car!
So bloody annoying. I'm glad I still have my garbage bags though and don't need to go buy those seperately.
In smaller styles, like non-mainstream metal, thrives on piracy. I mean, are you going to order an album off a website in Sweden for a band you've never heard? No!
Instead you download it. And while most people don't do this, a lot of people *do* eventually buy the album from the tiny labels and whatnot that are selling them.
My Progressive Black Metal band just released our album. We've self-produced about 200 copies, and they're very, very slowly being sold - mainly to people who know us really and at gigs. However, we've already seen torrents up, and weird Russian sites trying to sell it. >_>
But I'm sure we'll get more popularity and acknowledgement through the torrent downloads than the sales.
For the last few years, most benchmarking and reviewing sites have suggested that unless you want SLi features, the Intel's lineup have been a lot better. Cheaper, faster and with better and more effective features. The mainboards that are sold with the Intel chipsets seem to be cheaper too (in general).
I've noticed a flux of Flash-based puzzle games online people seem content with spending hours and hours wasting time on. It's not quite the same as playing an RPG or FPS with puzzles though...they're doing it to waste time while doing other things - probably chatting on MSN, browsing the web, etc etc.
Arguably, if you looked at the probability that the RIAA actually caught you and do a risk assessment, it'd still come considerably cheaper to risk paying the fine than buying the album.
Think bitmap vs JPEG. Because that's essentially what it is. Converting something from RAW RGB to something with lossy compression. MPEG2 has even more compressing with null frames, i-frames, b-frames and p-frames.
That being said - do they really keep it raw during editing? Or do they use lossless codecs like Lagarith or HuffyYUV (Or rather, whatever the industry standard is)?
I hate to sound sexist, but in my experience, in areas like Maths and Physics, boys and girls might get similar marks. HOWEVER. Out of the ones who get the highest marks, the guys barely study at all, where the girls get those marks by working hard and studying their asses off.
Does this point to the fact there's no difference in ability? Or that some boys are naturally more talented at the sciences and maths, whereas girls have the natural ability to be more disciplined and study harder?
I reckon it's the latter.
Girls seem to be able to get disciplined studying going a lot more than boys do, but boys seem to get similar marks without any study at all. Both get the A+, but one got it from talent, and one got it from hard work.
Have the main copy as completely streamlined. Very light. But release a whole bunch of additional features that can be installed with the browser (cutting down time scavenging around for add-ons). So all the additional features to say Firefox, like spell-check, sessionrestore, RSS, hell, even the bookmarks manager, are all completely modular. Obviously you'd have a 'standard recommended' version for most users to download, but yeah.
Oh yeah, agreed. Developers are really really important.
But Ballmer seems focused on forgetting about end-consumers. He seems to be more focused on how to push the OS on the consumer than making a quality product the public want to buy.
Things became so bitter that, on one occasion, Gates stormed out of a meeting in a huff after a shouting match in which Mr. Ballmer jumped to the defense of several colleagues, according to an individual present at the time. After the exchange, Mr. Ballmer seemed "remorseful," the person said.
Really makes you think - what happens behind the closed doors?
Ballmer: We will create a monopoly. The next version of Windows will not run any non-Microsoft software! Muwahahaha! Gates: But that is wrong! That destroys the market! Ballmer: What did you say to me boy!? Gates: B-B-But that'll lower the quality of our product. W-W-We need to take care of our customers! Ballmer: *narrows eyes* You've been reading Slashdot, haven't you boy? Gates: N-No! Ballmer: Don't make me use the chair on you...Have you forgotten all I've taught you? GateS:N-No! Ballmer: Then tell me, what matters?! Gates: Developers? Ballmer: Indeed. Now run along now. And if I hear any of this nonsense again, I bring out the chair.
Taking a break is a bit different and yes, when you sit down focusing for a while, taking a break is recommended.
I can multitask fine and do all those tasks fairly well, but trying to focus on one thing is exceedingly hard. Just because I'm so used to multitasking, I just can't keep focused. Hell, in an exam my mind will keep wandering and not be able to stay focused on the exam the whole time. I mean, I can still do the exam fine, but I'm sure a longer period of focus would be better at times.
That being in mind, for normal day-to-day running, I think the ability to multi-task is better than the ability to focus. And yes, I do think it's very hard to have both of them. =/
"Mr Hawking, her Majesty the Queen has personally wanted to offer you the honour of being knighted.
Stephen Hawking (Thought): Sounds great! The highest honour in Britain, I definitely want it!
STephen Hawking (Robot Voice): "The Queen can shove her knighthood up her ass and fuck herself!"
Stephen Hawking (Thought): Oh noes! My mouse is moving by itself!!!!!!
It didn't seem that CEOs were psychopathic sociopaths like today's CEOs, and we didn't reward those CEOs for failure like we do now, and those CEOs didn't starve our lowest paid workers. Err, right. And I suppose the reason why Communism was such a big thing in the early 1900s wasn't because workers were underpaid, overworked and jobless? Yes, today's CEO's are a lot more evil than that.
There's a reason for that movement. The problem was without any union cover, or government protection, added with a huge influx of workers coming to the city with delusions of 'good, working jobs' managers could get away with underpaying workers and forcing them to work for *hours*. Go read some of the stories you get - women going into labour at the factory because if they went home they'd be fired, or their kids being forced to work at young ages.
Somehow I don't think today's "psychopathic sociopaths" even get *close*.
Well, he's a primarily strength attributed tank character but with no good nukes. Keep your distance, get some int heroes, slow him then nuke him. Easy enough.
Noone has been deprived of any property. Most of what you say makes sense. Like the way the couch is on the sidewalk.
But I disagree about the no one being deprived of property. They're being deprived of a *service*.
Bandwidth is limited. And we all probably know how significant it is, especially when we're on the edge of being capped/shaped every month. It is a consumable product.
Using your analogy, I think a better one would be someone leaving a membership card on a table somewhere. You pick it up, you go use up all the remaining points on that membership card for a service. While you're not stealing a product, you are using up credit for a service, which costs money.
That being said, I don't think the defence of "I *willfully* attempted to connect to that wireless network" works. IT's the same as "Willfully" taking someone's membership card which you know is theirs and using it. Sure, they were the ones who left it there, but you used it. On the other hand, arguing that your computer automatically seeked out and connected to their network is another thing.
I'm sure according to the law, that'd be like seeing someone with their front door open, walking inside and taking their stuff.
Now of course, tech peopel know better, but most people (Ie, lawyers, judges and jury) would probably see it like that. Even if it *was* open, you still intentionally logged on knowing that it was not your wireless network.
In that case, it would be best playing dumb and not mentioning "IP address" or "gateway" at all and pretending "I thought computers came with internet! I just opened Internet Explorer and it worked!"
Slashdot Mirror
I dunno how it is in America, but in Australia, apart from going for no-brand Taiwanese graphics cards off ebay, it's always been cheaper just to go down to the local cheap computer stores (always manned by Asians). The most popular in Melbourne probably being MSY (which is like...a tiny store which every geek in the Eastern Suburbs goes to =P).
Setting a goal is also important.
A good *game* is quite often *not* realistic. Take the whole controversy over the graphics in Diablo III - it can look a lot better, and its unrealistically bright, but they chose it for gameplay. Taking racing games - why did the Need For Speed saga do so well? It aimed at casual gamers who don't care about realism...and thus it's fun to play.
It takes a bit more seriousness to tackle a more simulator type game. I play Forza Motorsport, which aims to be a simulator. It's fucking hard. It took me months just to be able to drive around the downhill map in a relatively slow car without crashing into every corner.
Going up again, take something like Live for Speed. That game is *hard*. You even have clutch control and all.
I think by distancing themselves from games, they are saying directly - "We *are* going to be sacrificing 'fun, easy gameplay' for realism. Realism is gonna be teh focus". And that's fair enough really.
Yes, it is a publicity stunt...but it's also a bit more than that.
`Jarik
'bout time!
Up until now, nVidia held SLi to only their nForce chipsets to try to force users to buy them. But in general, the Intel ones were better - so unless someone was really, really fixated on SLi, they just went for the Intel ones and got a single Graphics card. But if they were really out for top performance, they'd just go for Intel with 2 ATi chips - it only hurt nVidia in the end. Their fixation on trying to force people onto their nForce chips just slightly injured their graphics card sales.
`Jarik
It's the same problem as gun laws in a America. It's a problem without a viable solution - nothing can fix it. You're never gonna stop piracy at its roots, so don't try.
You can try workarounds. For instance, multiplayer games thrive because you *can't* pirate them. Oh sure, you can get a version of CS which only works on LAN...or WoW that works on private servers. But ultimately, you miss out on the main playing experience - so people are forced to pay and buy. Of course, this doesn't work for singleplayer games. If you tried to implement such a feature, then it would alienate those without internet connections, and still be pirated and broken.
As for the actual people who pirate these games? I'd imagine most of them do it for fun - for the hell of it - because they can. The people who crack these games and throw it up somewhere do it for that reason. I doubt they play half the games they crack.
The people who actually download 'em? We all try to justify it, but ultimately...we do it because it's free. Why would I go pay $100 for Crysis when I can get a burnt copy from a dozen of my friends?
1. It's easy
2. The chances you'll have negative consequences are very low.
3. It's free
4. Morally acceptable in today's society - ie, everyone does it
5. It's very hard to find personal moral issues in it
Summed up, it's got high gains and very, very low risks. No one's gonna think any less of you, and hell, can you even personally find any moral qualm about it? Oh sure, you are, in essence, gaining something you did not pay for. At the most fundamental level you can say that's wrong. But whether you get it or not, the actual companies don't really feel anything different. I'd imagine that's what most people who download stuff feel.
~Jarik
Agreed.
Everyone runs into dicks. Everyone runs into bullies. But those that go and snap and kill themselves probably have *other* issues.
I doubt this person logged onto MySpace all joly and happy, got bullied, and killed herself. It could've happened another way. She could've been fired from work, or had a rough day at school. This was, as you said, the "Straw on the camels back".
We haven't gotten to that stage yet in Melborune, but now all the supermarkets have these shitty uber thin, weak, small plastic bags we get.
We use them in our garbage bins - all of them. But these smaller ones barely fit as much, so we need to use a lot more. Plus, don't get me started on carrying them from the supermarket. So many times I've had my milk bottles fall out the bottom of these really weak plastics which just fall apart as you're walking from the supermarket home, hell, even to the car!
So bloody annoying. I'm glad I still have my garbage bags though and don't need to go buy those seperately.
That being said, one could argue a defense organisation shouldn't really be having to worry about the pedantics of DMCA's and whatnot.
Of course, you could also argue they shouldn't be above the law.
~Jarik
In smaller styles, like non-mainstream metal, thrives on piracy. I mean, are you going to order an album off a website in Sweden for a band you've never heard? No!
Instead you download it. And while most people don't do this, a lot of people *do* eventually buy the album from the tiny labels and whatnot that are selling them.
My Progressive Black Metal band just released our album. We've self-produced about 200 copies, and they're very, very slowly being sold - mainly to people who know us really and at gigs. However, we've already seen torrents up, and weird Russian sites trying to sell it. >_>
But I'm sure we'll get more popularity and acknowledgement through the torrent downloads than the sales.
`Jarik
For the last few years, most benchmarking and reviewing sites have suggested that unless you want SLi features, the Intel's lineup have been a lot better. Cheaper, faster and with better and more effective features. The mainboards that are sold with the Intel chipsets seem to be cheaper too (in general).
I've noticed a flux of Flash-based puzzle games online people seem content with spending hours and hours wasting time on. It's not quite the same as playing an RPG or FPS with puzzles though...they're doing it to waste time while doing other things - probably chatting on MSN, browsing the web, etc etc.
Arguably, if you looked at the probability that the RIAA actually caught you and do a risk assessment, it'd still come considerably cheaper to risk paying the fine than buying the album.
Think bitmap vs JPEG. Because that's essentially what it is. Converting something from RAW RGB to something with lossy compression. MPEG2 has even more compressing with null frames, i-frames, b-frames and p-frames.
That being said - do they really keep it raw during editing? Or do they use lossless codecs like Lagarith or HuffyYUV (Or rather, whatever the industry standard is)?
I hate to sound sexist, but in my experience, in areas like Maths and Physics, boys and girls might get similar marks. HOWEVER. Out of the ones who get the highest marks, the guys barely study at all, where the girls get those marks by working hard and studying their asses off.
Does this point to the fact there's no difference in ability? Or that some boys are naturally more talented at the sciences and maths, whereas girls have the natural ability to be more disciplined and study harder?
I reckon it's the latter.
Girls seem to be able to get disciplined studying going a lot more than boys do, but boys seem to get similar marks without any study at all. Both get the A+, but one got it from talent, and one got it from hard work.
~Jarik
What's confusing is CTO versus CIO. Sometimes they're equal. Sometimes the CIO reports to the CTO. Sometimes the CTO reports to the CIO.
What's the difference? Who does what? Who reports to who!? What's the difference between 'IT' and 'Technology' in a typical tier 1 business!?
`Jarik
Have the main copy as completely streamlined. Very light. But release a whole bunch of additional features that can be installed with the browser (cutting down time scavenging around for add-ons). So all the additional features to say Firefox, like spell-check, sessionrestore, RSS, hell, even the bookmarks manager, are all completely modular. Obviously you'd have a 'standard recommended' version for most users to download, but yeah.
~Jarik
Great, queue the hacker movies where hackers can do anything and control anything from their basements.
Oh yeah, agreed. Developers are really really important.
But Ballmer seems focused on forgetting about end-consumers. He seems to be more focused on how to push the OS on the consumer than making a quality product the public want to buy.
~Jarik
Things became so bitter that, on one occasion, Gates stormed out of a meeting in a huff after a shouting match in which Mr. Ballmer jumped to the defense of several colleagues, according to an individual present at the time. After the exchange, Mr. Ballmer seemed "remorseful," the person said.
Really makes you think - what happens behind the closed doors?
Ballmer: We will create a monopoly. The next version of Windows will not run any non-Microsoft software! Muwahahaha!
Gates: But that is wrong! That destroys the market!
Ballmer: What did you say to me boy!?
Gates: B-B-But that'll lower the quality of our product. W-W-We need to take care of our customers!
Ballmer: *narrows eyes* You've been reading Slashdot, haven't you boy?
Gates: N-No!
Ballmer: Don't make me use the chair on you...Have you forgotten all I've taught you?
GateS:N-No!
Ballmer: Then tell me, what matters?!
Gates: Developers?
Ballmer: Indeed. Now run along now. And if I hear any of this nonsense again, I bring out the chair.
~Jarik
Yeah, the more Ballmer gets in control, the worse Microsoft seems to become. I just wish Gates had the balls to fire Ballmer and take control himself.
`Jarik
Taking a break is a bit different and yes, when you sit down focusing for a while, taking a break is recommended.
I can multitask fine and do all those tasks fairly well, but trying to focus on one thing is exceedingly hard. Just because I'm so used to multitasking, I just can't keep focused. Hell, in an exam my mind will keep wandering and not be able to stay focused on the exam the whole time. I mean, I can still do the exam fine, but I'm sure a longer period of focus would be better at times.
That being in mind, for normal day-to-day running, I think the ability to multi-task is better than the ability to focus. And yes, I do think it's very hard to have both of them. =/
~Jarik
What *really* happened:
"Mr Hawking, her Majesty the Queen has personally wanted to offer you the honour of being knighted.
Stephen Hawking (Thought): Sounds great! The highest honour in Britain, I definitely want it!
STephen Hawking (Robot Voice): "The Queen can shove her knighthood up her ass and fuck herself!"
Stephen Hawking (Thought): Oh noes! My mouse is moving by itself!!!!!!
Moral of this story? Have an antivirus.
~Jarik
There's a reason for that movement. The problem was without any union cover, or government protection, added with a huge influx of workers coming to the city with delusions of 'good, working jobs' managers could get away with underpaying workers and forcing them to work for *hours*. Go read some of the stories you get - women going into labour at the factory because if they went home they'd be fired, or their kids being forced to work at young ages.
Somehow I don't think today's "psychopathic sociopaths" even get *close*.
~Jarik
Having trouble with 'big brother' Sven ey?
Well, he's a primarily strength attributed tank character but with no good nukes. Keep your distance, get some int heroes, slow him then nuke him. Easy enough.
~Jarik
But I disagree about the no one being deprived of property. They're being deprived of a *service*.
Bandwidth is limited. And we all probably know how significant it is, especially when we're on the edge of being capped/shaped every month. It is a consumable product.
Using your analogy, I think a better one would be someone leaving a membership card on a table somewhere. You pick it up, you go use up all the remaining points on that membership card for a service. While you're not stealing a product, you are using up credit for a service, which costs money.
That being said, I don't think the defence of "I *willfully* attempted to connect to that wireless network" works. IT's the same as "Willfully" taking someone's membership card which you know is theirs and using it. Sure, they were the ones who left it there, but you used it. On the other hand, arguing that your computer automatically seeked out and connected to their network is another thing.
~Jarik
I'm sure according to the law, that'd be like seeing someone with their front door open, walking inside and taking their stuff.
Now of course, tech peopel know better, but most people (Ie, lawyers, judges and jury) would probably see it like that. Even if it *was* open, you still intentionally logged on knowing that it was not your wireless network.
In that case, it would be best playing dumb and not mentioning "IP address" or "gateway" at all and pretending "I thought computers came with internet! I just opened Internet Explorer and it worked!"
~Jarik