Just because Apple has a patent on it, it doesn't mean that other phones won't have it. They may have to pay royalties, but most things on cell phones are patented.
They're not going to be "punished to death for their arrogance," if their phone didn't have it then they're in the same situation as everybody right now, and probably most of the people with phones. This is an extra feature... if people want it, they can buy phones with it.
I don't think see most people using this as an "emergency" such as a life-threatening situation. I see people using this as an "emergency" as in they're wasted and their phone is dead and they need to call for somebody to pick them up, or the "emergency" of being bored with a dead phone.
Maybe for the average person who doesn't know how to use the internet, but honestly if you want to get into indie music, go to Pitchfork. Yes, it's always great to "make your own opinion" instead of reading record reviews, but honestly the stuff they review has all been very good music (IMO).
Aside from that, there are TONS of ways to find new music - Pandora, Last.fm, Tastekid (and other find-similar-music sites), and just plain ol' Wikipedia has led me to some great finds.
And I only partially agree that "popular" music was better in the past. Yes, you've got some really good stuff, but there's also a heap of really bad, really repetitive tunes... just like today. People have a very skewed view of the "past music," and it's mostly nostalgia (once again, IMHO).
Everyone always brings this up when we talk about the music industry.
Give me a break. If you're listening solely to the radio, yes, you're going to be disappointed (and even disgusted) at what's there. But if you actually spend a bit of time looking, you can find some really great artists. Music is always going to be alive... just because the nostalgia you feel makes you just a teensy bit unopen to newer, different stuff doesn't mean the music is bad.
There are a ton of indie bands who write really good, smart, catchy music. I tend to like things that are a bit more experimental (TV on the Radio, Menomena, Modest Mouse, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah), but if that's not your cup of tea you can always try Andrew Bird, MGMT, Cut Copy, anything that Danger Mouse is involved in, The National, Elbow, Fleet Foxes... the list goes on.
Some of the popular music may be crap (though don't make the mistake of allowing that to be your representation of different genres like rap), but if you look even for a bit you can find some good stuff.
I might add that there seems to be at least some support that violent video games increase "aggression."
Please note that aggression is a hard thing to define and measure, and that lab settings have used... somewhat odd methods to do so. For example, one study had participants either play a violent video game or a non-violent video game, and then were given the opportunity to add whatever amount of hot sauce to another person's food (who wasn't in the room right then) that they wanted to. They DID find that those in the violent game category put more hot sauce in the food... but is that really aggression?
It seems obvious that video games don't cause violence... and that is the myth to go after. However, some validresearch has pointed towards increased aggression. Once you get there though, do you ban something that merely increases aggression slightly?
Wow, you've just spit out about every argument for piracy that's been said on Slashdot into one post! Impressive.
Maybe some people do, but I doubt that The Pirate Bay is the place to go to find new music. People hear a song on a show, or maybe see a youtube clip, or maybe use tastekid or Pandora, THEN they go download the stuff they want. I wouldn't even consider pawing through the "genre" section on TPB and picking some random band... I have much more specific tastes.
There are plenty of other ways of advertising that don't give away the actual album for free, yet are still free for the band. I'm not actually arguing against piracy, but just the notion that sending money directly to the band members is somehow more "right" than buying the CD.
If a band WANTS to put up their stuff on TPB for free... that's great, and will certainly increase their popularity. But saying that pirates are the biggest reason some bands are popular doesn't seem correct. If you look at some of the bigger indie bands that have gained popularity via the internet (See Arctic Monkeys or Clap Your Hands Say Yeah), it was through blogs, myspace pages, and REVIEWS (the Pitchfork review for CYHSY certainly propelled them to new heights).
While the following fact doesn't justify the high prices, giving money "directly to the band" does skip paying people who worked on other aspects of the music (promoting, recording, etc.). It seems to be a trend on/. to ignore that fact, and to assume that money goes to only the RIAA and a teensy part to the artist... which really isn't true. Some bands wouldn't be known at all if it weren't for these other people.
Re:Grand Theft Auto? Vintage?
on
Vintage Games
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· Score: 1
Vintage - referring to something from the past of high quality.
There's something about games where people expect to be entertained... no matter the price. It's incredible what people are willing to throw money away on, but games (and sometimes other media) tend to have strange, insanely high expectations.
Shouldn't people expect the same amount of satisfaction out of a 99 cent cheeseburger as they would get out of a 99 cent game? This is definitely a weird phenomenon.
While true in this case, consider the cases where the RIAA is just plain suing someone. Hundreds of thousands of dollars, even with the "making available" argument, is ridiculous.
Not to mention that the severity of punishment is a jump away from the severity of the offense.
Yes, downloading movies should be illegal, but why are the charges so incredibly much more than shoplifting the DVD out of a store? If he'd done that, he'd probably still have his dorm room.
And he's talking about downgrading to an old (unsupported) version... basically completely switching operating systems. If you were installing Linux (which of course is what you're talking about) on a new PC that came with Windows, you'd just reformat.
Claiming that installing Windows 7 will make reformatting impossible is silly, and that's what I was responding to.
When is this EVER the case with ANY beta test? People CHOOSE to beta test... they're not forced into it. Aside from that, the "payment" is usually the ability to get to try out new software before everyone else, and to help make sure that the issues YOU have with it are noticed.
Not to mention that because this is an OPEN beta, Microsoft would have to give every single person who ever "beta-tested" (read: "downloaded") the software a free copy.
If I get chosen for the Starcraft beta test, I'll not only be extremely excited, but I will most definitely buy the finished product.
What are you talking about? Who doesn't reformat when they install a new OS? Maybe the general public, but they probably don't even know that the RC exists.
Also... wanting to try the new mainstream OS makes me a diehard Windows fan?
I don't think that the problem that should be focused on is that people kill each other... but that kids, for some odd reason, are going on killing sprees across the world.
It's easy to point the finger at paintballing and video games, ban them, and say that you did something. Really, we do those things because we don't KNOW the exact causes of these outbursts, and that scares people.
Maybe the first step in preventing these things is to focus more on bullying in school, and attempting to reach out to kids who might be outsiders. How that can be accomplished... I don't know, but these seem to be calculated acts of rage on the part of the killer, and we should be focusing on where that rage is stemming from rather than fumbling at misguided "solutions."
Wasn't XP built off of NT? Wasn't 98 built off of 95? Obviously improvements were made.
The average user gets their operating system with their computer. In addition to that, the average user also wants the "newest" version out there. I HAVE heard of my friends' parents "upgrading" to ME when it came out.
In general, people aren't going to know that it's not even 5% faster, and they're still going to want it.
"Macs are overpriced for the components they have "
this has been shown to not be true many times.
Citation please? From my experience in looking at system specs at apple.com and the prices, this is absolutely true.
"e and are almost completely uncustomizable. "
most people don't customize there PC.
Note that I said that the average user is fine with their non-customizable parts. It's even-slightly-more-than-casual gamers that do at least a LITTLE customization.
"...but for actual gamers it's not as good. "
no, it's better.
BTW, must hard core gamers don't customize their PC anymore either. It's pretty pointless these days.
I'm not really sure what you're talking about here. I don't know the gamers you hang around, but go to ANY large LAN party and you'll find that the majority of the people there built or at least added parts to their PCs. The people there with some sort of weird Dell XPS are usually made fun of.
"When I can build a Mac from scratch..."
you're becoming a niche user. Very few people want to do that. maybe.001% of all people with a PC want to do that.
Good luck buying equivalent parts for less.
Of, and most importantly. If you were truly and hard core gamers, and you new shit about computers, you would WANT OSX to run games because they will run better do to how it manages memory and devices. You get more performance out of a slower chip.
I was really going to ignore your awful grammar... but that paragraph was just bad. I won't let it stop me from refuting your actual points, but just know that it makes you look silly.
.001% of people? That's 1 in every 100,000 FYI. In the small town I grew up in (which had a population of about 14,000) I knew at least 100 gamers, all of whom built their computers. I'm glad you're capable of spewing random numbers.
Good luck finding equivalent parts for less? Let's do a fun thing here, and look at apple's lowest priced iMac ($1,199). Now I spent 5 minutes composing semi-equivalent parts (some are better), and I have almost halved Apple's price.
Thanks for not knowing what you're talking about. When you buy Apple, you're buying the brand, not really the value.
Except that absolutely isn't the only reason PC gamers don't use Macs.
Macs are overpriced for the components they have and are almost completely uncustomizable. Obviously the very similar hardware that they all run on is good for the average user who just wants to play a simple game, but for actual gamers it's not as good.
When I can build a Mac from scratch and not have to spend a bazillion dollars on everything, I'll CONSIDER switching... until then the PC gives me the customizability that I want.
So John Stewart is liberal. Regardless, he calls people out on bullshit. He's an entertainer... not a reporter. It's not his fault that the right are more ridiculous.
I think the game is absolutely gorgeous... the backgrounds especially, but the entire pastel look is really cool. Show me a flash game that has something that's actually beautiful, not just "zomg 3d flash!"
Not to mention that the levels actually make you think. Did Mario do that for you? Prince of Persia maybe, but the time reversal mechanic of Prince of Persia was essentially just an extra life. In Braid you use it in... SO many ways. Get past world 1 and maybe you'll see.
It's generally considered a bad game if most people didn't like it, not if a few did. Part of making a good game/movie/anything is making it accessible... to a degree of course, some people just aren't interested in meaning.
However, you could name anything and I could find somebody who likes it and somebody who hates it. For Deus Ex IW, the problems I had with it were really odd animations and voice acting (I know, Deus Ex had these same things), extremely odd system requirements (it ran crappy on my Geforce 6800, which was considered a mid/high quality card), and generally dumbed down gameplay compared to the the original.
I think it's safe to say that poop tastes bad even when there are probably hundreds of people out in the world who enjoy it.
Slashdot Mirror
Just because Apple has a patent on it, it doesn't mean that other phones won't have it. They may have to pay royalties, but most things on cell phones are patented.
They're not going to be "punished to death for their arrogance," if their phone didn't have it then they're in the same situation as everybody right now, and probably most of the people with phones. This is an extra feature... if people want it, they can buy phones with it.
I don't think see most people using this as an "emergency" such as a life-threatening situation. I see people using this as an "emergency" as in they're wasted and their phone is dead and they need to call for somebody to pick them up, or the "emergency" of being bored with a dead phone.
Maybe for the average person who doesn't know how to use the internet, but honestly if you want to get into indie music, go to Pitchfork. Yes, it's always great to "make your own opinion" instead of reading record reviews, but honestly the stuff they review has all been very good music (IMO).
Aside from that, there are TONS of ways to find new music - Pandora, Last.fm, Tastekid (and other find-similar-music sites), and just plain ol' Wikipedia has led me to some great finds.
And I only partially agree that "popular" music was better in the past. Yes, you've got some really good stuff, but there's also a heap of really bad, really repetitive tunes... just like today. People have a very skewed view of the "past music," and it's mostly nostalgia (once again, IMHO).
Everyone always brings this up when we talk about the music industry.
Give me a break. If you're listening solely to the radio, yes, you're going to be disappointed (and even disgusted) at what's there. But if you actually spend a bit of time looking, you can find some really great artists. Music is always going to be alive... just because the nostalgia you feel makes you just a teensy bit unopen to newer, different stuff doesn't mean the music is bad.
There are a ton of indie bands who write really good, smart, catchy music. I tend to like things that are a bit more experimental (TV on the Radio, Menomena, Modest Mouse, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah), but if that's not your cup of tea you can always try Andrew Bird, MGMT, Cut Copy, anything that Danger Mouse is involved in, The National, Elbow, Fleet Foxes... the list goes on.
Some of the popular music may be crap (though don't make the mistake of allowing that to be your representation of different genres like rap), but if you look even for a bit you can find some good stuff.
Look at his crotch in panel 3. Incredible fidelity.
I might add that there seems to be at least some support that violent video games increase "aggression."
Please note that aggression is a hard thing to define and measure, and that lab settings have used... somewhat odd methods to do so. For example, one study had participants either play a violent video game or a non-violent video game, and then were given the opportunity to add whatever amount of hot sauce to another person's food (who wasn't in the room right then) that they wanted to. They DID find that those in the violent game category put more hot sauce in the food... but is that really aggression?
It seems obvious that video games don't cause violence... and that is the myth to go after. However, some validresearch has pointed towards increased aggression. Once you get there though, do you ban something that merely increases aggression slightly?
Wow, you've just spit out about every argument for piracy that's been said on Slashdot into one post! Impressive.
Maybe some people do, but I doubt that The Pirate Bay is the place to go to find new music. People hear a song on a show, or maybe see a youtube clip, or maybe use tastekid or Pandora, THEN they go download the stuff they want. I wouldn't even consider pawing through the "genre" section on TPB and picking some random band... I have much more specific tastes.
There are plenty of other ways of advertising that don't give away the actual album for free, yet are still free for the band. I'm not actually arguing against piracy, but just the notion that sending money directly to the band members is somehow more "right" than buying the CD.
If a band WANTS to put up their stuff on TPB for free... that's great, and will certainly increase their popularity. But saying that pirates are the biggest reason some bands are popular doesn't seem correct. If you look at some of the bigger indie bands that have gained popularity via the internet (See Arctic Monkeys or Clap Your Hands Say Yeah), it was through blogs, myspace pages, and REVIEWS (the Pitchfork review for CYHSY certainly propelled them to new heights).
While the following fact doesn't justify the high prices, giving money "directly to the band" does skip paying people who worked on other aspects of the music (promoting, recording, etc.). It seems to be a trend on /. to ignore that fact, and to assume that money goes to only the RIAA and a teensy part to the artist... which really isn't true. Some bands wouldn't be known at all if it weren't for these other people.
Vintage - referring to something from the past of high quality.
This makes me think of this
There's something about games where people expect to be entertained... no matter the price. It's incredible what people are willing to throw money away on, but games (and sometimes other media) tend to have strange, insanely high expectations.
Shouldn't people expect the same amount of satisfaction out of a 99 cent cheeseburger as they would get out of a 99 cent game? This is definitely a weird phenomenon.
While true in this case, consider the cases where the RIAA is just plain suing someone. Hundreds of thousands of dollars, even with the "making available" argument, is ridiculous.
Not to mention that the severity of punishment is a jump away from the severity of the offense.
Yes, downloading movies should be illegal, but why are the charges so incredibly much more than shoplifting the DVD out of a store? If he'd done that, he'd probably still have his dorm room.
Then your point is moot. We're talking about realtime graphics right now.
And he's talking about downgrading to an old (unsupported) version... basically completely switching operating systems. If you were installing Linux (which of course is what you're talking about) on a new PC that came with Windows, you'd just reformat.
Claiming that installing Windows 7 will make reformatting impossible is silly, and that's what I was responding to.
You've just won this year's award for nitpicking. Congrats.
When is this EVER the case with ANY beta test? People CHOOSE to beta test... they're not forced into it. Aside from that, the "payment" is usually the ability to get to try out new software before everyone else, and to help make sure that the issues YOU have with it are noticed.
Not to mention that because this is an OPEN beta, Microsoft would have to give every single person who ever "beta-tested" (read: "downloaded") the software a free copy.
If I get chosen for the Starcraft beta test, I'll not only be extremely excited, but I will most definitely buy the finished product.
What are you talking about? Who doesn't reformat when they install a new OS? Maybe the general public, but they probably don't even know that the RC exists.
Also... wanting to try the new mainstream OS makes me a diehard Windows fan?
I don't think that the problem that should be focused on is that people kill each other... but that kids, for some odd reason, are going on killing sprees across the world.
It's easy to point the finger at paintballing and video games, ban them, and say that you did something. Really, we do those things because we don't KNOW the exact causes of these outbursts, and that scares people.
Maybe the first step in preventing these things is to focus more on bullying in school, and attempting to reach out to kids who might be outsiders. How that can be accomplished... I don't know, but these seem to be calculated acts of rage on the part of the killer, and we should be focusing on where that rage is stemming from rather than fumbling at misguided "solutions."
Wasn't XP built off of NT? Wasn't 98 built off of 95? Obviously improvements were made.
The average user gets their operating system with their computer. In addition to that, the average user also wants the "newest" version out there. I HAVE heard of my friends' parents "upgrading" to ME when it came out.
In general, people aren't going to know that it's not even 5% faster, and they're still going to want it.
And even easier to do yourself!
Step 1: Turn off in-game music
Step 2: Start playing music in the media player of your choice
Step 3: Start game!
Step 4: ???
Step 5: Profit!
"Macs are overpriced for the components they have " this has been shown to not be true many times.
Citation please? From my experience in looking at system specs at apple.com and the prices, this is absolutely true.
"e and are almost completely uncustomizable. " most people don't customize there PC.
Note that I said that the average user is fine with their non-customizable parts. It's even-slightly-more-than-casual gamers that do at least a LITTLE customization.
"...but for actual gamers it's not as good. "
no, it's better.
BTW, must hard core gamers don't customize their PC anymore either. It's pretty pointless these days.
I'm not really sure what you're talking about here. I don't know the gamers you hang around, but go to ANY large LAN party and you'll find that the majority of the people there built or at least added parts to their PCs. The people there with some sort of weird Dell XPS are usually made fun of.
"When I can build a Mac from scratch..."
you're becoming a niche user. Very few people want to do that. maybe .001% of all people with a PC want to do that.
Good luck buying equivalent parts for less.
Of, and most importantly. If you were truly and hard core gamers, and you new shit about computers, you would WANT OSX to run games because they will run better do to how it manages memory and devices. You get more performance out of a slower chip.
I was really going to ignore your awful grammar... but that paragraph was just bad. I won't let it stop me from refuting your actual points, but just know that it makes you look silly.
.001% of people? That's 1 in every 100,000 FYI. In the small town I grew up in (which had a population of about 14,000) I knew at least 100 gamers, all of whom built their computers. I'm glad you're capable of spewing random numbers.
Good luck finding equivalent parts for less? Let's do a fun thing here, and look at apple's lowest priced iMac ($1,199). Now I spent 5 minutes composing semi-equivalent parts (some are better), and I have almost halved Apple's price.
Thanks for not knowing what you're talking about. When you buy Apple, you're buying the brand, not really the value.
Except that absolutely isn't the only reason PC gamers don't use Macs.
Macs are overpriced for the components they have and are almost completely uncustomizable. Obviously the very similar hardware that they all run on is good for the average user who just wants to play a simple game, but for actual gamers it's not as good.
When I can build a Mac from scratch and not have to spend a bazillion dollars on everything, I'll CONSIDER switching... until then the PC gives me the customizability that I want.
So John Stewart is liberal. Regardless, he calls people out on bullshit. He's an entertainer... not a reporter. It's not his fault that the right are more ridiculous.
ZOMG DRM SUX. It only hurts the customer experience! Pirates won't be stopped by it!
Remember, "better" is a subjective term.
I think the game is absolutely gorgeous... the backgrounds especially, but the entire pastel look is really cool. Show me a flash game that has something that's actually beautiful, not just "zomg 3d flash!"
Not to mention that the levels actually make you think. Did Mario do that for you? Prince of Persia maybe, but the time reversal mechanic of Prince of Persia was essentially just an extra life. In Braid you use it in... SO many ways. Get past world 1 and maybe you'll see.
It's generally considered a bad game if most people didn't like it, not if a few did. Part of making a good game/movie/anything is making it accessible... to a degree of course, some people just aren't interested in meaning.
However, you could name anything and I could find somebody who likes it and somebody who hates it. For Deus Ex IW, the problems I had with it were really odd animations and voice acting (I know, Deus Ex had these same things), extremely odd system requirements (it ran crappy on my Geforce 6800, which was considered a mid/high quality card), and generally dumbed down gameplay compared to the the original.
I think it's safe to say that poop tastes bad even when there are probably hundreds of people out in the world who enjoy it.