You provide some interesting information but I wasn't claiming that it was true (hence the supposedly), only that the US Gov likely thinks that it has a vested interest in fighting piracy.
The resources used to fight piracy could indeed be used to fight something else, but that the system as a whole hasn't gained is not a certainty. If they shifted resources from focusing on finding snails breaking speeding laws to piracy, then I don't see how everyone isn't technically better off.
Everything you say about the effects of cracking down on piracy are true. Indeed, not all pirates will purchase in lieu of not using at all, but some will. There is some gain there, whether it is substantial or not, nobody knows.
As for the shifting money from private sector to government. That is an economic concern, and while I'm sure the government would prefer economic growth, I doubt they are averse to shifting money their way in this manner.
A good point, however, fighting piracy supposedly increases spending since the pirates can't free-ride, which means more tax dollars; so both sides have a vested interest in that.
In this case, the tax revenue from MS is still substantial, so Uncle Sam is probably better off with them here than overseas. Whether MS would be better off overseas is unclear.
Who will blink first?
Maybe the government can fight back by hinting at tariffs on software imports if they go overseas? I'm sure US sales are a significant portion of MS's revenue.
Anyone know of a similar occurrence in recent history (obviously won't be of this magnitude)?
MKV is a video container file format, it stores the video/audio/subtitles in a documented fashion that allows media players with a proper MKV splitter to be able to parse and use the streams within. Similar file formats are AVI, and MP4.
Matroska does not aim to supplant DVD/Blu-ray. I think you might be assuming that MKV is a disc format that claims to be able to play on all hardware DVD players, which is not the case.
I have no mod points so you'll have to settle for kudos. That made me laugh pretty hard.
What perplexes me though is why anyone would bother to click on the pictures (or even include more than one picture in an article like this) to begin with. It's not a Miss Teen USA pageant where I need hi-res closeups of the participants to make my judgment on their 'moral character'.
Unless what you mean by 'distribution issues' is that there is more than one distribution, then it is certainly not just a distribution issue.
The real issue is when a developer goes to develop a sound application for Linux, and he has absolutely no idea what sound interface his users may be using. So he either attempts to support them all, which is a nightmare when he's getting bug reports from users of 5 different sound interfaces which have 3 different major revisions possible each, that have 30 different distribution specific patches each, and so on.
Or he picks one and supports only that, which means some % of his users won't even have it in their package repositories. Some % will again have some distribution specific patches applied, some % will have some hacked version that translates to a different API, some % won't even by able to use the one he chose to support because it doesn't play nice with one or more of the others. It is just a mess and he hasn't even gotten to the user interface yet.
This is precisely Google's complaint, and it is a fair one.
Because at the moment Chrome has about 1-2% of browser market share, while Firefox has between 20-30%.
People don't use Firefox because of the Google integration; so unless Chrome starts making some headway, Mozilla can still count on their check from Google.
Yeah, if only SOE had open sourced the Matrix world...
Where Morpheus makes Neo read the matrix mailing list archives instead of giving him the pill.
And instead of the climactic battle with Agent Smith, watch as Neo instead goes to the Matrix bugzilla and files a dupe bug report of an Agent attempting to kill him that's been open since the first alpha.
In the exciting conclusion, the bug is patched but Neo doesn't have the right version of the new sound library they threw in with the bugfix release.
Will he track down the new library version, compile and install the new dependencies that aren't in his package manager, install the library, and compile the new Matrix in time?!
And I should be safe to walk the streets wherever I please in my country but that's not true either.
I don't want to pay 100x the taxes so there's a cop on every corner; so I live with the fact that I can't take a late night stroll around Compton.
I don't want to wait 10 years in between OS releases or pay out the nose for them either, so you compromise. This is what is commonly referred to as reality.
Right, because every other software company ports their products to *nix.
It couldn't possibly be that it makes perfect sense to not spend tremendous time and effort porting and maintaining a desktop application for an OS that holds at best 1% of the desktop market.
I would not agree to that. Having been on Ubuntu as my primary desktop for 9 months now, I can say that there are no reasons for loosing any time.
And your needs are exactly the same as everyone elses.
Maybe you should remove those critic's goggles and approach Linux with a more open mind. Because your commentary stinks of prejudice.
Sounds like you need to approach computing with a more open mind because not everyone is like you.
Some people require Windows applications. Some people have hardware that has no Linux driver. Some people don't give a crap about what license their driver/software is released under as long as it works. Some people like PC games. Some people like Windows.
You are not a representative sample of computer users. The sooner you come to terms with this, the better.
An operating system is complex. There are millions of lines of code here. An operating system also performs a critical role in the functioning of your computer, thus its stability is a high priority (incoming snarky comment about win95/98/ME).
These things take longer to be sure of than KWobblyWindow 0.0.4 RC.
(And please don't give me that Ubuntu ships a new release every year crap, because we both know the portion of the OS that makes it Ubuntu is less than 5% of the actual codebase. These guys lean heavily on the efforts of the maintainers of the thousands of packages they use in their releases.)
Umm, when have they ever done so? Unless you count offering a means of playing back DRM'd media; and if faced with a choice of being able to play it or not, MS knows people prefer play. It's quite simple really. No bogey man under your OS. You can come out from under the covers.
But of course you don't care, you're just trying to spread FUD anyway. So, carry on my wayward son.
Seriously, what is it about the gameplay of these old JRPGs is so awesome to you?
Is it the turn-based battle system where you arm 2-4 characters with items from progressively better item shops to fight progressively stronger enemies that award progressively better abilities?
Or perhaps how you navigate the main characters through world map, town, and dungeon to reach the next town/dungeon.
The only real difference in gameplay is that instead of cutscenes and FMV there are dialog bubbles I read and press through. This leads me to believe that you are perhaps quickly frustrated in new games because cutscenes are generally paced for you, which make them much longer than they would be simply spelled out in dialog bubbles.
Is this the crucial difference that makes or breaks a JRPG for you? If not, please be specific what the hell these old games have that new ones don't aside from the lack of adequate technology to use anything but chat bubbles to present dialog and the in-game engine to present events.
blah blah blah you should watch movies if you want story
This is just a simple failure to realize that things can be improved upon. Offering complementary gameplay to a good story makes it better than a passive watching experience. You may not agree, but there are many who would and do. This is simply a matter of taste.
Most cutscenes in FFX were grating, I couldn't stand the horrible voice acting of Yuna and the jarring incongruency of the lack of lip synching because it was originally modelled for japanese dialogue.
'Jarring incongruency' of poor lip sync ?? While that blatant over-dramatization would have served you well on the evening news it doesn't help your case here. Only recently has lip sync come anywhere close to being done well in an in game engine, and it still frequently fails miserably even on native english titles. If this is still a shock to you, then you've probably been living in a cave for the last 10 years in which case I'd suggest a shower and some perspective.
Yes, the voice acting was bad. Voice acting in games generally is. I've been hoping for an option to turn off voice acting ever since it was introduced. This is not game breaking to me, but I can see how it may be for some.
They are what is holding RPG's back from greatness, diablo and diablo 2 were great in both gameplay and story.
Those are action-RPGs, people like you is what this genre is for.
To summarize, please explain why the gameplay of old JRPGs is superior to the newer ones, because the simple lack of cutscenes doesn't suffice.
Ugh, so you're suggesting taking out the cutscenes (story) from a JRPG? This is why current JRPGs like FFXII and Last Remnant are total garbage.
Hate to break it to you (and Square for that matter), but JRPGs are supposed to be story-driven games. That means you must, from time to time, take a break from smashing the controller against your forehead for dialog and events to take place.
It seems like you'd be better served playing (For Square: developing) a MMORPG, because that is basically what a JRPG with the story gutted would be, except without what makes MMORPGs fun: cooperative and competitive gameplay.
Shining examples: FFXII and Last Remnant - not surprisingly the two most recent Square-Enix attempts at the JRPG genre. What did I do in the first hours of Last Remnant? Well, I ran the same dungeons over and over gathering materials to make my guys stronger. Well goddamn that's exactly what I'd be doing in a MMO.
These types of games are fundamentally incompatible and that is how it should be. Fuck these 'next-gen' JRPGs that are trying to prove otherwise. You don't play MMOs for the story just like you don't play JRPGs for the battle system. In both cases they are there as seasoning only, and like seasoning will spoil the dish if overemphasized.
Maybe there is a misunderstanding by you of what your companies' needs are. Most of the time more is involved in running a corporate network than hooking computer to router with NAT like at home. Many companies utilize Active Directory to administer their network and switching workstations to Linux makes that somewhere between extremely difficult and impossible.
Second, companies are averse to changing anything that currently works adequately because there are (usually significant) costs involved in moving to a new platform in the form of testing, rollout, training, and support time.
Finally, even outside of corporate environments you need to provide a compelling reason to switch to something else from what's been in use for a long period of time. Debatable feature parity simply does not qualify.
That is the adventure of Linux man! You haven't lived until you've rebuilt library dependencies from glibc up for an app update only to find your glibc update broke something else and had to do it all over again for another app.
I like to think of it like I'm flying around a big circuit board with lasers shooting every which way and giant columns I have to constantly fix the structural integrity of as I go.
Filefront, while a little obnoxious in presentation, is(was?*) one of the better file hosting sites.
It was generally fast enough, had no registration requirement for download (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), did not have those stupid timers you have to wait on, which you inevitably forget about, then when you finally remember, they are expired and you have to start the process over again, and had a generous size limit.
Would you be so kind as to provide examples of non-trivial predictions made by the Bible proven to have been made prior to the event itself, the event itself proven to have been accurately recorded, and the people ivolved proven to have no prior knowledge of the prophecy beforehand to influence their actions?
The real reason you think people dismiss these prophecies on 'faith' is that, since the emergence of the Bible, there have been zero verifyable prophets. In fact, since we began taking the reocrding of history seriously, there have been zero proven prophets.
Does this not strike you as strange, considering all of the history that has occured between now and then that if God were so concerned with the world and the decline of his following that he might want to do something about it? You think he just sits there and fumes over the non-believers even though he has the power to convert them with ease?
It seems sort of cruel of God, that he offers eternal damnation as your fate if you don't subscribe to specific beliefs, but offers no real proof of his existence to people. This is akin to me pointing a gun to your head and asking you if you believe I own a working magic wand. If you don't, I'll kill you, and when you ask why you should believe me, I will give you a note from the last guy I pointed the gun at who claims full faith in my wand as proof.
There are so many problems with this situation. First I have a gun to your head so anything you say is going to be influenced by it. Second, I offer you no reason to believe me other than the gun to your head and the word of someone else who had a gun to their head. Third, you've never seen a magic wand in your lifetime nor provable existence of one, yet I'm asking you to believe in mine, and your life is forfeit if you don't. You see the problem?
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not a Linux fan myself but that is actually a pretty attractive feature set for $100 and I would seriously consider buying one if they were:
1. Fully supported: I don't have to hack anything to get something working, ever. That means after updates too.
2. Battery life was really ~10 hours.
3. Flash worked (sadly a web necessity).
4. Hibernate works flawlessly.
5. ARM repository is respectable and frequently updated.
6. It at least works as fast as my P3 1GHz on WinXP.
6 check marks there and you've got a check from me for a nice light web browsing / word processing computer.
Has the font situation improved in Linux since like 4 years ago?
After a code review it was revealed the button1.onclick was vote++ instead of vote==1 and some people are doubletapping the screen.
I knew we shouldn't have outsourced that function to Mrs. Stewart's 4th grade computer class, but hey times are tough.
You provide some interesting information but I wasn't claiming that it was true (hence the supposedly), only that the US Gov likely thinks that it has a vested interest in fighting piracy.
The resources used to fight piracy could indeed be used to fight something else, but that the system as a whole hasn't gained is not a certainty. If they shifted resources from focusing on finding snails breaking speeding laws to piracy, then I don't see how everyone isn't technically better off.
Everything you say about the effects of cracking down on piracy are true. Indeed, not all pirates will purchase in lieu of not using at all, but some will. There is some gain there, whether it is substantial or not, nobody knows.
As for the shifting money from private sector to government. That is an economic concern, and while I'm sure the government would prefer economic growth, I doubt they are averse to shifting money their way in this manner.
A good point, however, fighting piracy supposedly increases spending since the pirates can't free-ride, which means more tax dollars; so both sides have a vested interest in that.
In this case, the tax revenue from MS is still substantial, so Uncle Sam is probably better off with them here than overseas. Whether MS would be better off overseas is unclear.
Who will blink first?
Maybe the government can fight back by hinting at tariffs on software imports if they go overseas? I'm sure US sales are a significant portion of MS's revenue.
Anyone know of a similar occurrence in recent history (obviously won't be of this magnitude)?
What in the hell are you talking about?
MKV is a video container file format, it stores the video/audio/subtitles in a documented fashion that allows media players with a proper MKV splitter to be able to parse and use the streams within. Similar file formats are AVI, and MP4.
Matroska does not aim to supplant DVD/Blu-ray. I think you might be assuming that MKV is a disc format that claims to be able to play on all hardware DVD players, which is not the case.
I have no mod points so you'll have to settle for kudos. That made me laugh pretty hard.
What perplexes me though is why anyone would bother to click on the pictures (or even include more than one picture in an article like this) to begin with. It's not a Miss Teen USA pageant where I need hi-res closeups of the participants to make my judgment on their 'moral character'.
Unless what you mean by 'distribution issues' is that there is more than one distribution, then it is certainly not just a distribution issue.
The real issue is when a developer goes to develop a sound application for Linux, and he has absolutely no idea what sound interface his users may be using. So he either attempts to support them all, which is a nightmare when he's getting bug reports from users of 5 different sound interfaces which have 3 different major revisions possible each, that have 30 different distribution specific patches each, and so on.
Or he picks one and supports only that, which means some % of his users won't even have it in their package repositories. Some % will again have some distribution specific patches applied, some % will have some hacked version that translates to a different API, some % won't even by able to use the one he chose to support because it doesn't play nice with one or more of the others. It is just a mess and he hasn't even gotten to the user interface yet.
This is precisely Google's complaint, and it is a fair one.
Because at the moment Chrome has about 1-2% of browser market share, while Firefox has between 20-30%.
People don't use Firefox because of the Google integration; so unless Chrome starts making some headway, Mozilla can still count on their check from Google.
Yeah, if only SOE had open sourced the Matrix world...
Where Morpheus makes Neo read the matrix mailing list archives instead of giving him the pill.
And instead of the climactic battle with Agent Smith, watch as Neo instead goes to the Matrix bugzilla and files a dupe bug report of an Agent attempting to kill him that's been open since the first alpha.
In the exciting conclusion, the bug is patched but Neo doesn't have the right version of the new sound library they threw in with the bugfix release.
Will he track down the new library version, compile and install the new dependencies that aren't in his package manager, install the library, and compile the new Matrix in time?!
Stay tuned.
And I should be safe to walk the streets wherever I please in my country but that's not true either.
I don't want to pay 100x the taxes so there's a cop on every corner; so I live with the fact that I can't take a late night stroll around Compton.
I don't want to wait 10 years in between OS releases or pay out the nose for them either, so you compromise. This is what is commonly referred to as reality.
Right, because every other software company ports their products to *nix.
It couldn't possibly be that it makes perfect sense to not spend tremendous time and effort porting and maintaining a desktop application for an OS that holds at best 1% of the desktop market.
Where'd you get the idea they have the WoW server source code?
I would not agree to that. Having been on Ubuntu as my primary desktop for 9 months now, I can say that there are no reasons for loosing any time.
And your needs are exactly the same as everyone elses.
Maybe you should remove those critic's goggles and approach Linux with a more open mind. Because your commentary stinks of prejudice.
Sounds like you need to approach computing with a more open mind because not everyone is like you.
Some people require Windows applications. Some people have hardware that has no Linux driver. Some people don't give a crap about what license their driver/software is released under as long as it works. Some people like PC games. Some people like Windows.
You are not a representative sample of computer users. The sooner you come to terms with this, the better.
If you get the rated speed and it's reliable, need we delve further?
Do we have to go through this EVERY TIME?
An operating system is complex. There are millions of lines of code here. An operating system also performs a critical role in the functioning of your computer, thus its stability is a high priority (incoming snarky comment about win95/98/ME).
These things take longer to be sure of than KWobblyWindow 0.0.4 RC.
(And please don't give me that Ubuntu ships a new release every year crap, because we both know the portion of the OS that makes it Ubuntu is less than 5% of the actual codebase. These guys lean heavily on the efforts of the maintainers of the thousands of packages they use in their releases.)
Umm, when have they ever done so? Unless you count offering a means of playing back DRM'd media; and if faced with a choice of being able to play it or not, MS knows people prefer play. It's quite simple really. No bogey man under your OS. You can come out from under the covers.
But of course you don't care, you're just trying to spread FUD anyway. So, carry on my wayward son.
http://lifehacker.com/5144757/first-look-at-windows-7s-backup-and-restore-center
Seriously, what is it about the gameplay of these old JRPGs is so awesome to you?
Is it the turn-based battle system where you arm 2-4 characters with items from progressively better item shops to fight progressively stronger enemies that award progressively better abilities?
Or perhaps how you navigate the main characters through world map, town, and dungeon to reach the next town/dungeon.
The only real difference in gameplay is that instead of cutscenes and FMV there are dialog bubbles I read and press through. This leads me to believe that you are perhaps quickly frustrated in new games because cutscenes are generally paced for you, which make them much longer than they would be simply spelled out in dialog bubbles.
Is this the crucial difference that makes or breaks a JRPG for you? If not, please be specific what the hell these old games have that new ones don't aside from the lack of adequate technology to use anything but chat bubbles to present dialog and the in-game engine to present events.
blah blah blah you should watch movies if you want story
This is just a simple failure to realize that things can be improved upon. Offering complementary gameplay to a good story makes it better than a passive watching experience. You may not agree, but there are many who would and do. This is simply a matter of taste.
Most cutscenes in FFX were grating, I couldn't stand the horrible voice acting of Yuna and the jarring incongruency of the lack of lip synching because it was originally modelled for japanese dialogue.
'Jarring incongruency' of poor lip sync ?? While that blatant over-dramatization would have served you well on the evening news it doesn't help your case here. Only recently has lip sync come anywhere close to being done well in an in game engine, and it still frequently fails miserably even on native english titles. If this is still a shock to you, then you've probably been living in a cave for the last 10 years in which case I'd suggest a shower and some perspective.
Yes, the voice acting was bad. Voice acting in games generally is. I've been hoping for an option to turn off voice acting ever since it was introduced. This is not game breaking to me, but I can see how it may be for some.
They are what is holding RPG's back from greatness, diablo and diablo 2 were great in both gameplay and story.
Those are action-RPGs, people like you is what this genre is for.
To summarize, please explain why the gameplay of old JRPGs is superior to the newer ones, because the simple lack of cutscenes doesn't suffice.
Ugh, so you're suggesting taking out the cutscenes (story) from a JRPG? This is why current JRPGs like FFXII and Last Remnant are total garbage.
Hate to break it to you (and Square for that matter), but JRPGs are supposed to be story-driven games. That means you must, from time to time, take a break from smashing the controller against your forehead for dialog and events to take place.
It seems like you'd be better served playing (For Square: developing) a MMORPG, because that is basically what a JRPG with the story gutted would be, except without what makes MMORPGs fun: cooperative and competitive gameplay.
Shining examples: FFXII and Last Remnant - not surprisingly the two most recent Square-Enix attempts at the JRPG genre. What did I do in the first hours of Last Remnant? Well, I ran the same dungeons over and over gathering materials to make my guys stronger. Well goddamn that's exactly what I'd be doing in a MMO.
These types of games are fundamentally incompatible and that is how it should be. Fuck these 'next-gen' JRPGs that are trying to prove otherwise. You don't play MMOs for the story just like you don't play JRPGs for the battle system. In both cases they are there as seasoning only, and like seasoning will spoil the dish if overemphasized.
Maybe there is a misunderstanding by you of what your companies' needs are. Most of the time more is involved in running a corporate network than hooking computer to router with NAT like at home. Many companies utilize Active Directory to administer their network and switching workstations to Linux makes that somewhere between extremely difficult and impossible.
Second, companies are averse to changing anything that currently works adequately because there are (usually significant) costs involved in moving to a new platform in the form of testing, rollout, training, and support time.
Finally, even outside of corporate environments you need to provide a compelling reason to switch to something else from what's been in use for a long period of time. Debatable feature parity simply does not qualify.
That is the adventure of Linux man! You haven't lived until you've rebuilt library dependencies from glibc up for an app update only to find your glibc update broke something else and had to do it all over again for another app.
I like to think of it like I'm flying around a big circuit board with lasers shooting every which way and giant columns I have to constantly fix the structural integrity of as I go.
Filefront, while a little obnoxious in presentation, is(was?*) one of the better file hosting sites.
It was generally fast enough, had no registration requirement for download (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), did not have those stupid timers you have to wait on, which you inevitably forget about, then when you finally remember, they are expired and you have to start the process over again, and had a generous size limit.
*I haven't used filefront in roughly three years.
I dont consider it to be a crime.
(Un)fortunately the judge is not going to ask whether or not you considered it a crime at your trial.
Would you be so kind as to provide examples of non-trivial predictions made by the Bible proven to have been made prior to the event itself, the event itself proven to have been accurately recorded, and the people ivolved proven to have no prior knowledge of the prophecy beforehand to influence their actions?
The real reason you think people dismiss these prophecies on 'faith' is that, since the emergence of the Bible, there have been zero verifyable prophets. In fact, since we began taking the reocrding of history seriously, there have been zero proven prophets.
Does this not strike you as strange, considering all of the history that has occured between now and then that if God were so concerned with the world and the decline of his following that he might want to do something about it? You think he just sits there and fumes over the non-believers even though he has the power to convert them with ease?
It seems sort of cruel of God, that he offers eternal damnation as your fate if you don't subscribe to specific beliefs, but offers no real proof of his existence to people. This is akin to me pointing a gun to your head and asking you if you believe I own a working magic wand. If you don't, I'll kill you, and when you ask why you should believe me, I will give you a note from the last guy I pointed the gun at who claims full faith in my wand as proof.
There are so many problems with this situation. First I have a gun to your head so anything you say is going to be influenced by it. Second, I offer you no reason to believe me other than the gun to your head and the word of someone else who had a gun to their head. Third, you've never seen a magic wand in your lifetime nor provable existence of one, yet I'm asking you to believe in mine, and your life is forfeit if you don't. You see the problem?
I think it's more a legal issue so they can cover their asses for their advertising insinuations that OSX is immune to viruses.
Now people can't blame/sue Apple when the first big Mac virus does hit.