These additional options that do a better job reaching the target audience may artificially inflate the piracy figures for PC downloads. i.e. It's not that the game is heavily pirated, it's that the PC version is less popular among paying customers and thus at a statistical disadvantage.
That's the kind of the objective thinking the world needs more of.
One versus one? Hardly a definitive sample size. This doesn't really tell us anything about the state of copyright infringement (NOT PIRACY GOD DAMNIT) or DRM, it just tells us about these two games.
Reminds me of this elderly couple I help with the computers working at the college. They've fallen for this pyramid scheme that is just so painfully obvious, but the old man just keeps explaining he's had enough experience (that is, has gotten fucked before) to know better and the old woman just follows along and doesn't ask any questions.
Actually, this doesn't effect me, but I do know someone else who just did this a couple houses down from me because they bought their house years before a fire station was built just a little ways away from us.
Their child wouldn't go back to sleep all night after the firetrucks came by so they spent over 10k (if I remember correctly) getting the room they slept in soundproofed. He even spent another few hundred on some fancy white noise machine.
With all this money, though, I'd think he'd just think to move to a better neighborhood, I don't exactly live in Bel Air.
Or the even more sensitive situation of having already soundproofed a room at great expense on a popular street so your baby can get some damned sleep.
That was 2008, now it's the Year After The Year For Linux, which is incidentally The Year That Microsoft Still Doesn't Care, which is also the year before The Year Microsoft Got Knocked Out Because They Weren't Paying Attention To Open Source. This is all part of the Decade Of Users Realizing Software Can't Always Be Spoon Fed To Them If They Want To Like What They Taste.
If it's comparable to fingerprints, and if fingerprints are already cross-referenced with DNA, iris and voice patterns, psychological profiles, and many other personally identifying traits of someone, then what does that do when you add odor to the list of what makes a person a person?
I was about to say something like that. This does have quite a bit of relevance to forensic examination, biometrics, chilling effects, avenues for technology, it's practically a topic for Slashdot paradise. I'm sure Microsoft will find a way to, dare I say it... stick their noses in it?
Maybe if you'd spend less time being witty on Slashdot and properly worshiping and pampering your queen and Goddess you'd find yourself in a slightly more forgiving situation, you insensitive clod!
It is bullshit that they do that, right now my computer's hard at work converting 50 gigs of music to M4A like it has been for the last 3 days. Interesting timing for this article to sprout up really.
I tried Xiph.org's qtcomponents to use OGG in iTunes on this Pismo and it doesn't really work very well, it uses more processing power than M4A's and MP3's and there's a massive gap between songs.
I tried Cog, Play, and a PPC build of Songbird. All of them had serious problems. I tried using VLC to play my music but it just doesn't cut it.
I hate iTunes, but it really seems like my only reliable choice on this computer, and it really is reliable and uses less memory than Firefox or Adium.
I like this computer and it does everything I need and I got it for free, and OS X has some really nice qualities to it. It's just so frustrating the shit Apple pulls now that it can get away with it. It couldn't do this 5 years ago, it couldn't fuck the user before the iPod came out.
I'm actually expecting some memory to come in today for it, I just hope it works. I know I'm beating a dead horse, but beating a dead horse is cheaper than buying a new one.
That's where transcoding and a couple days to let your processor work is nice.
If someone is so seriously worried about listening to their music on the go in high enough quality they'll drag their laptop around with them. And I do believe the ArchOS can play FLACs but I'm not sure.
I'm not too worried about the quality of my music. Since I mostly listen to noize, industrial and EBM, the occasional scratching, pop, siren, explosion, grinding metal and screaming only accentuate the already apparent awesomeness of what I'm burning holes in my ear drums with.
I love KDE but it kind of overloads me on options, I ended appreciating Gnome much more but I still use KDE applications a lot of the time.
I really do like the way OS X looks, much like I like the way a geode looks, but they both feel like they're splendor is fixed and can't really be altered.
I like my Powerbook as old as it is, it runs just fine for what little I do on it which is basically play music and talk on Adium.
I can tell you exactly what Apple expects of you by explaining the process of install 10.4, which I've done several times on my ancient Pismo Powerbook someone stole for me from a computer recycling center that had a habit of throwing perfectly good hardware out into the dumpster.
You put the disk in, hold the command key, select the DVD.
You're put through a very linear installation, you can use certain utilities such as the partitioner, but overall even though it resembles a LiveCD environment remarkably your only options are essentially to install or cancel, or limited utility for fixing broken environments.
When you choose to customize your install, you can save yourself several hundred megs of space by not installing other languages or you can additionally install XFree, God knows why, of all the things to install optionally it's only XFree.
You wait, you restart, you get forced to watch some shitty FMV with a bunch of salutations in different languages. After that, you register.
No, you can't skip the registration, you can't do it later, you can lie if you want to but you have to fill these fields out, and if you don't have an internet connection availible it will strongly suggest you register later.
You get to your desktop, and it's beautiful. You can customize the window decorations, you have the whole choice between 'Aqua' and 'Graphite'. Basically, Graphite is a colorless Aqua.
You can change the background, but what your given is the choice between a million swooshes that look the same but are differently colored or some pictures of flowers and sunsets.
You go into iTunes, and basically all you can load into it are MP3s, AACs and AIFFs. Oh, you can load PCM WAV files, but, why would you want to? You want to download album art? You have to have an iTunes account, never mind why. You want to use the Genius playlist generator? You need an iTunes account, never mind why. You want an iTunes account? You HAVE to give them your verified payment information on the spot, no way to collect from you, no account, not even if you want to only use free things and occasionally pick up free songs.
You go into Safari, your home page is the Apple site and 9 out of 10 they're showing you things to buy.
You go into Mail and your default option is a.Mac account, which you can try on a trial basis, and if you say no, then suddenly you can get a whole month free. What, I couldn't get that free month if I said SURE SIGN ME UP right away?
You go into Quicktime and play a video and you want to maximize it, what's that? You want to see your video in full screen the way you can with any other video player? You have to buy Quicktime Pro.
I love Tiger, it's so nice feeling when I want to get something done, but I am no fan of proprietary software and it disgusts me how every avenue you choose to go down Apple is trying to get more money out of you before you even get a chance to blink. If you want to play on a Mac, you have to play the Apple way, otherwise.. why the fuck did you get a Mac?
so, how is iTunes the opposite of everything they stand for?
I think open source contenders are failing to understand the mentality of the average Mac user, the ones that put them in the powerful position they are.
Apple wants you to 'Think Different', but not freely. They want you to think differently than Windows, but more like Apple everything.
Many people accept this, they get drafted into a specific process and the only efficient way to use OS X is to do it the way Apple intends for you to, but it's DAMNED EASY to work with and that's incredibly easy to appreciate.
Open Sourcers want freedom, options, the preemptibility that if there comes a point when something needs to change, it can be done. Mac users don't want that, they don't need it. They want their shit to work, and if you eliminate the variables, it almost always will.
Expecting Apple to open up is like expecting McDonalds to eliminate their fatty foods; What they're doing now is working for them INCREDIBLY WELL, ethics are a hard thing to propose when the process in indisputably effective.
Slashdot Mirror
Just say you are!
These additional options that do a better job reaching the target audience may artificially inflate the piracy figures for PC downloads. i.e. It's not that the game is heavily pirated, it's that the PC version is less popular among paying customers and thus at a statistical disadvantage.
That's the kind of the objective thinking the world needs more of.
One versus one? Hardly a definitive sample size. This doesn't really tell us anything about the state of copyright infringement (NOT PIRACY GOD DAMNIT) or DRM, it just tells us about these two games.
Now I'm thinking of getting an overpriced noisemaker, myself...
That's what I grew up with! Unfortunately now that I've moved to the very cold midwest, it's not such a comforting thing sometimes.
Reminds me of this elderly couple I help with the computers working at the college. They've fallen for this pyramid scheme that is just so painfully obvious, but the old man just keeps explaining he's had enough experience (that is, has gotten fucked before) to know better and the old woman just follows along and doesn't ask any questions.
"It's not a scam, it's a high yield investment!"
Actually, this doesn't effect me, but I do know someone else who just did this a couple houses down from me because they bought their house years before a fire station was built just a little ways away from us.
Their child wouldn't go back to sleep all night after the firetrucks came by so they spent over 10k (if I remember correctly) getting the room they slept in soundproofed. He even spent another few hundred on some fancy white noise machine.
With all this money, though, I'd think he'd just think to move to a better neighborhood, I don't exactly live in Bel Air.
Or the even more sensitive situation of having already soundproofed a room at great expense on a popular street so your baby can get some damned sleep.
That was 2008, now it's the Year After The Year For Linux, which is incidentally The Year That Microsoft Still Doesn't Care, which is also the year before The Year Microsoft Got Knocked Out Because They Weren't Paying Attention To Open Source. This is all part of the Decade Of Users Realizing Software Can't Always Be Spoon Fed To Them If They Want To Like What They Taste.
If it's comparable to fingerprints, and if fingerprints are already cross-referenced with DNA, iris and voice patterns, psychological profiles, and many other personally identifying traits of someone, then what does that do when you add odor to the list of what makes a person a person?
Well, if idle has good articles what's the difference between Idle and not-Idle...?
An overabundance of free time and an inability to occupy it with anything meaningful.
What would Shampoo do?
I was about to say something like that. This does have quite a bit of relevance to forensic examination, biometrics, chilling effects, avenues for technology, it's practically a topic for Slashdot paradise. I'm sure Microsoft will find a way to, dare I say it... stick their noses in it?
I see what you did there.
Oh, wait, this is Slashdot, not 4chan
Maybe if you'd spend less time being witty on Slashdot and properly worshiping and pampering your queen and Goddess you'd find yourself in a slightly more forgiving situation, you insensitive clod!
It is bullshit that they do that, right now my computer's hard at work converting 50 gigs of music to M4A like it has been for the last 3 days. Interesting timing for this article to sprout up really.
I tried Xiph.org's qtcomponents to use OGG in iTunes on this Pismo and it doesn't really work very well, it uses more processing power than M4A's and MP3's and there's a massive gap between songs.
I tried Cog, Play, and a PPC build of Songbird. All of them had serious problems. I tried using VLC to play my music but it just doesn't cut it.
I hate iTunes, but it really seems like my only reliable choice on this computer, and it really is reliable and uses less memory than Firefox or Adium.
I like this computer and it does everything I need and I got it for free, and OS X has some really nice qualities to it. It's just so frustrating the shit Apple pulls now that it can get away with it. It couldn't do this 5 years ago, it couldn't fuck the user before the iPod came out.
I'm actually expecting some memory to come in today for it, I just hope it works. I know I'm beating a dead horse, but beating a dead horse is cheaper than buying a new one.
That's where transcoding and a couple days to let your processor work is nice.
If someone is so seriously worried about listening to their music on the go in high enough quality they'll drag their laptop around with them. And I do believe the ArchOS can play FLACs but I'm not sure.
Haven't you heard of this new fangled software stuff that can do that stuff for you?
If someone cares so much about how stuff sounds I would always expect them to rip lossless.
I'm not too worried about the quality of my music. Since I mostly listen to noize, industrial and EBM, the occasional scratching, pop, siren, explosion, grinding metal and screaming only accentuate the already apparent awesomeness of what I'm burning holes in my ear drums with.
You're already fucked if someone's going to either humor your proposal or fire you over something like that.
Many questions can be answered with another question, especially this one.
Boss: "Just how important do you think your IT department is?"
You: "I don't know, how would you like to try running your business without it a few months?"
I love KDE but it kind of overloads me on options, I ended appreciating Gnome much more but I still use KDE applications a lot of the time.
I really do like the way OS X looks, much like I like the way a geode looks, but they both feel like they're splendor is fixed and can't really be altered.
I like my Powerbook as old as it is, it runs just fine for what little I do on it which is basically play music and talk on Adium.
I can tell you exactly what Apple expects of you by explaining the process of install 10.4, which I've done several times on my ancient Pismo Powerbook someone stole for me from a computer recycling center that had a habit of throwing perfectly good hardware out into the dumpster.
You put the disk in, hold the command key, select the DVD.
You're put through a very linear installation, you can use certain utilities such as the partitioner, but overall even though it resembles a LiveCD environment remarkably your only options are essentially to install or cancel, or limited utility for fixing broken environments.
When you choose to customize your install, you can save yourself several hundred megs of space by not installing other languages or you can additionally install XFree, God knows why, of all the things to install optionally it's only XFree.
You wait, you restart, you get forced to watch some shitty FMV with a bunch of salutations in different languages. After that, you register.
No, you can't skip the registration, you can't do it later, you can lie if you want to but you have to fill these fields out, and if you don't have an internet connection availible it will strongly suggest you register later.
You get to your desktop, and it's beautiful. You can customize the window decorations, you have the whole choice between 'Aqua' and 'Graphite'. Basically, Graphite is a colorless Aqua.
You can change the background, but what your given is the choice between a million swooshes that look the same but are differently colored or some pictures of flowers and sunsets.
You go into iTunes, and basically all you can load into it are MP3s, AACs and AIFFs. Oh, you can load PCM WAV files, but, why would you want to? You want to download album art? You have to have an iTunes account, never mind why. You want to use the Genius playlist generator? You need an iTunes account, never mind why. You want an iTunes account? You HAVE to give them your verified payment information on the spot, no way to collect from you, no account, not even if you want to only use free things and occasionally pick up free songs.
You go into Safari, your home page is the Apple site and 9 out of 10 they're showing you things to buy.
You go into Mail and your default option is a .Mac account, which you can try on a trial basis, and if you say no, then suddenly you can get a whole month free. What, I couldn't get that free month if I said SURE SIGN ME UP right away?
You go into Quicktime and play a video and you want to maximize it, what's that? You want to see your video in full screen the way you can with any other video player? You have to buy Quicktime Pro.
I love Tiger, it's so nice feeling when I want to get something done, but I am no fan of proprietary software and it disgusts me how every avenue you choose to go down Apple is trying to get more money out of you before you even get a chance to blink. If you want to play on a Mac, you have to play the Apple way, otherwise.. why the fuck did you get a Mac?
so, how is iTunes the opposite of everything they stand for?
I think open source contenders are failing to understand the mentality of the average Mac user, the ones that put them in the powerful position they are.
Apple wants you to 'Think Different', but not freely. They want you to think differently than Windows, but more like Apple everything.
Many people accept this, they get drafted into a specific process and the only efficient way to use OS X is to do it the way Apple intends for you to, but it's DAMNED EASY to work with and that's incredibly easy to appreciate.
Open Sourcers want freedom, options, the preemptibility that if there comes a point when something needs to change, it can be done. Mac users don't want that, they don't need it. They want their shit to work, and if you eliminate the variables, it almost always will.
Expecting Apple to open up is like expecting McDonalds to eliminate their fatty foods; What they're doing now is working for them INCREDIBLY WELL, ethics are a hard thing to propose when the process in indisputably effective.
I'm used to it. Or am I? I suddenly want to find out who did it and shoot them with the BFG9000.
Not to mention the awesome ASCII porn.