Actually, it's been almost 42 years since I was born, and despite not being a teenager, I think using the word "MAFIAA" reflects very nicely their tactics, the way that I've seen them to shake people down. I'm no proponent of piracy (even though I *am* a sailor...;) ), and in fact advocate against it whenever I see evidence of my customers having done so when I fix their systems.
Yet the heavy-handed tactics, their sense of entitlement, their buying of politicians, their often scant evidence turned into a weapon of overwhelming force when wielded by their army of lawyers, and the expense incurred upon *innocent people* to fight these oftentimes spurious claims makes me regard them with no sense of respect, none at all. So my disrespect is shown here in a textual manner by the use of a descriptive and IMO demeaning name.
Sorry if that sparked *your own* angst there, pal, but I can't help what you choose to get upset about.
Don't take them, or this article, serious. It's a puff-piece, something to make Joe Public think that what the MAFIAA is doing is a legitimate way to identify offenders, and to make them think that their methods are so technologically complex that they can't be wrong. It's also another big-publication article the MAFIAA can point out to Congresscritters they are trying to influence/buy.
Just stay away from MAFIAA music - support indies, and those artists who have broken out from under the "protection" they had foisted on them by signing a contract with a big label.
Based on what I've seen in my logs the past few years, the 90% figure for IE share in browsers is no longer accurate at all, and in fact hasn't been for some time. Firefox broke those numbers a couple years ago, and continues to gain share. Currently I'd put Firefox use at about 30-35% of what I'm seeing being used by "regular folks", or non-techs.
Because I felt that it was the Right Thing to do, I've always coded for standards compliant browsers first, and hacked it to work for IE later. So with this announcement by MS, it's interesting and ironically funny to me that it a move by MS (albeit after many years of loud public complaining by web devs) is going to for once make me work *less* than those who code for IE only.:)
I never thought I'd say this (and reserve the right to take back this statement until I've seen that IE8 *really* does have compliance to W3 standards when it's released), but, well, here it is: Good job, MS IE Team!
It's funny because there is some truth in it - regarding the root cause behind *all* of the environmental issues facing humans. IMO, a comment by "Walter" @ the LA Times page said it pretty succinctly:
Cute notion but as off the mark as every other cause...the only issue that is never seriously addressed is the only issue that really needs to be; this planet is severely over-populated. Every 'serious global problem' is simply a result of this fundamental fact. Good luck reconciling ever increasing population with rapidly dwindling resources. Be fruitful, dummy...multiply.
Posted by: Walter | May 17, 2008 at 10:06 AM
Disclaimer: I'm not "Walter", and I don't even play him on teh internets.
It gets said even better in Ishmael, a novel by Daniel Quinn. Great book.
While it is a much smaller number, $3 million is a lot. Remember: staples like rice and grains, canned foods, basic medical supplies - they don't cost nearly as much as modern weaponry.
I'd lay odds that $3,000,000 buys quite a large amount of the supplies needed for _emergency_ relief, especially in an area of the world where those things are would be relatively cheap. If they took the 3 mil, they would probably be able to get even more, later. Like in Indo, when the tsunami hit:
Federal Government: The United States government has allocated USD 400,000 (GBP 200,000, EUR 300,000) to India, Indonesia, the Maldives and Sri Lanka. Officials are currently working on a USD 4m (GBP 2m) aid package to help the Red Cross. Also, the United States has dispatched disaster teams to aid the nations affected. The United States is also preparing an initial USD 15 million (GBP 8m) aid package for affected nations. An additional USD 20m (GBP 11m) has been offered as an emergency line of credit. On 31 December the aid was raised to USD 350m (GBP 190m, EUR 260m).
$350 million, that last number. That's more of a fairly significant proportion of $4 trillion. And that's without figuring in a time frame; Iraq has gone on longer than the relief effort, 2 or 3 times longer, I bet.
It's been done, and it worked somewhat; Xandros. They had a very similar UI to the standard MS UI. Years back, it was the distro I recommended to newbies, because it was laid out so similarly, and also because they kept it simple with a "only 1 app per category" menu layout. That did make it easy.
I haven't kept up with it, so I don't know what the state of that distro is today. They signed up with MS on the patent protection racket, IIRC, and also I think they are the distro that is used on the Eee, or one of the other recent mini-laptops.
For general consumption, though: My brother is building an RV-7A in his perhaps 10'x18' shop out in the garage, which itself is not large enough to hold the completed airplane. He started it in a 10'x15' miniwarehouse. He is building it in stages; tail kit first, wings nearly finished, and the fuselage kit is staged for his next step in the process. Eventually he'll load the completed parts on to a trailer, haul it to a hangar at the airport for final assembly before getting it checked over by an FAA inspector and the first flight.
It was surprising to me how little space it takes.
I lived in Indy for a few years, and worked for a guy who had a winning race team. I was told that the Indy cars, which weigh approx 1200 lbs at rest, produce over 6,000 lbs of effective downforce when running at speed.
This is due to the *overall* aerodynamics of the car. Not just because of the wings/spoilers, it is as much a factor of the underbody shape of the car as well.
I'm with the above poster, I don't see conventional street cars being able to use aerodynamic forces at the speeds they commonly run, not for downforce or handling reasons, at least. I wouldn't be surprised if the stock spoilers/wings on street cars are there simply for looks and 'gee whiz', and perhaps to improve fuel efficiency by changing the shape of the airflow around the car.
Jimmy Franklin mounted an engine from a jet fighter/trainer under the fuselage of his Waco biplane. It was an incredible thing to see flying, something that was so powerfully implausible it just made you sort of giggle.
It was even more amazing as part of the Masters of Disaster airshow routine, which was quite possibly the coolest thing I have ever seen (@ Oshkosh, in '04 IIRC). That they lost several people in just a few short years is testimony to the risk-taking feats that they were performing. That they performed their show so many times without any untoward incident was evidence of their skill. The show was so stupendously crazy, and done in such a small area, that I do think some sort of crash was an eventuality.
Just think - the CIA/NSA/current administration somehow managed to purchase foreign-flagged ships of the line from arguably 'enemy' countries, hiding said purchases from both those governments, our own goverment, and the rest of the world, and then they somehow managed to get them to drop their anchors in just the places needed to cut the proper cables lying submerged on the seabed. They pulled all this off successfully - until YOU managed to figure it out.
I am a geek/nerd/technologist, but I'd wager that a much, much larger portion of their client base isn't, and so that much larger percentage just goes ahead and pays whatever bill they get in regards to domain costs. A surprising number of people who come to me for web work are still paying NS $35 a year, with no clue that that is a very high price. So, if for some reason they ever find themselves in this situation, they still pay, forgetting the policy and the possibility of a registrar change after a few weeks.
That is what makes a policy like this profitable for these companies, at least in the short-term. They'll continue it for the next several years, I bet, until the current generation of younger tech-savvy folks start teaching their kids that $35 is too much, and a tipping point is reached where the public won't support with their wallets any company which has such BS as a policy.
Yes, NS does it too, it has happened to me. BUT...
If you tell NS that you are trying/going to move the domain due to their (exorbitant) pricing, they will offer you a new price, much more in line with what other registrars like GoDaddy charge ($8.75/yr in my case). So basically, problem solved...
I do think the lock-down policy is a simple ploy to retain customers, no matter who implements it.
As far as running Linux, it looks like the NEC LUI is a poor, proprietary cousin of
LinuxMCE , which you *can* get in the States, and just about everywhere, for that matter...
I'd rather be in a home surrounded by nuke plants than by coal/oil plants, anyway.
During peacetime, things would be much cleaner in my environment.
And, if the missiles ever really start flying, I would be assured of a quick ticket outta here, before having to live in a screwed up world full of nuclear winter.
Besides - power plants used to be targeted anyway, I'd bet - *regardless* of what source/type of fuel they used.
Mod story "boring and pointless fearmongering (again)"...
...now they are only charging half what it used to cost, which is still 100% more than a free torrent to a pirate who simply *must* have Vista (for some unfathomable reason).
And, for those of us who prefer not to break the law, that 'half off' price is still 100% more than just about any given Linux distro.
A Linux distro which, BTW, will have more capabilities, better security, faster updates, more and better default applications, likely free office suite, and in fact more of just about anything you can name than a default MS OS install will have.
Except of course, the ridiculous "security" prompts, bloatware and crapware...
Glad to see there is some justice still floating around out there...
Re:It's fine that the source is closed, for them..
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OOOH! LOL - and agreed.:)
Re:It's fine that the source is closed, for them..
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Thanks for all your hard work, Don, nice resume you've got there.
But you obviously still don't understand what I wrote.:)
Plain as day, I wrote that I WILL PAY RETAIL, and DON'T NEED THE SOURCE, and that I think that you and your fellow EA devs *deserve* to earn whatever money your product of work can produce.
From my OP: "I wouldn't mind paying retail for a copy of this game, based on what I've seen of it. I give money to developers for their work on other apps I use, why wouldn't I do the same for a game? I understand that it took years for them to develop, and they need to make money for what they've done. I don't need the source to play it."
I'm all good with that! Not a problem at all. I hope you are getting rich, actually - because I understand that good coding isn't something that just anyone can do.
That makes me neither a "crybaby" nor "greedy". Quite the opposite, I'd think.
Despite your insinuation, neither did I attempt to "evangelize" anyone to use Linux. I just stated that that is what I use (yep, my own choice, made in the full knowledge of what that entails), and have, for 9 years, closing in on 10, on a daily basis as my own source of income. And that I personally would like it (WILL like it, the day is coming) when companies such as yours begin releasing games for the Linux platform.
That, my friend, is just an expressed personal desire, nothing more, and certainly nothing to ream me out over, or to get so upset about. IMO, of course.
Best of luck to you.
Re:It's fine that the source is closed, for them..
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Take a chill pill, bro. I wonder if you work for them, based on the handle. I'm surprised at the anger that came out of your misconstruing what it was that I wrote... You might need a re-read.
Though apparently you took it that way, my post was not criticism, it was observation. I'm just saying it would be nice if game companies would make their products cross-platform, including *nix users in the mix.
If they started out doing that from the beginning of development, they would have games at the end which they could sell to everyone, *without* needing to port them to different architectures.
There's lots more than a few hundred Linux users out there now, too. And more every day. Emerging market, and all that.
It's fine that the source is closed, for them...
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I just wish they would have made it cross-platform or Linux compatible.
As a die-hard Linux user, I wouldn't mind paying retail for a copy of this game, based on what I've seen of it. I give money to developers for their work on other apps I use, why wouldn't I do the same for a game? I understand that it took years for them to develop, and they need to make money for what they've done. I don't need the source to play it.
Game Devs don't have/need to give us their work for free, IMO, but if they'd make it to where *anyone* could use the games they write, they'd sell more, and I for one would sure appreciate it.
I think that the creator of this series has done an *excellent* job, in a very funny and original way, of explaining why these particular works are regarded so highly in the art community (not by everyone, of course, but in general).
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, it's been almost 42 years since I was born, and despite not being a teenager, I think using the word "MAFIAA" reflects very nicely their tactics, the way that I've seen them to shake people down. I'm no proponent of piracy (even though I *am* a sailor...;) ), and in fact advocate against it whenever I see evidence of my customers having done so when I fix their systems.
Yet the heavy-handed tactics, their sense of entitlement, their buying of politicians, their often scant evidence turned into a weapon of overwhelming force when wielded by their army of lawyers, and the expense incurred upon *innocent people* to fight these oftentimes spurious claims makes me regard them with no sense of respect, none at all. So my disrespect is shown here in a textual manner by the use of a descriptive and IMO demeaning name.
Sorry if that sparked *your own* angst there, pal, but I can't help what you choose to get upset about.
Don't take them, or this article, serious. It's a puff-piece, something to make Joe Public think that what the MAFIAA is doing is a legitimate way to identify offenders, and to make them think that their methods are so technologically complex that they can't be wrong. It's also another big-publication article the MAFIAA can point out to Congresscritters they are trying to influence/buy.
Just stay away from MAFIAA music - support indies, and those artists who have broken out from under the "protection" they had foisted on them by signing a contract with a big label.
Based on what I've seen in my logs the past few years, the 90% figure for IE share in browsers is no longer accurate at all, and in fact hasn't been for some time. Firefox broke those numbers a couple years ago, and continues to gain share. Currently I'd put Firefox use at about 30-35% of what I'm seeing being used by "regular folks", or non-techs.
:)
Because I felt that it was the Right Thing to do, I've always coded for standards compliant browsers first, and hacked it to work for IE later. So with this announcement by MS, it's interesting and ironically funny to me that it a move by MS (albeit after many years of loud public complaining by web devs) is going to for once make me work *less* than those who code for IE only.
I never thought I'd say this (and reserve the right to take back this statement until I've seen that IE8 *really* does have compliance to W3 standards when it's released), but, well, here it is: Good job, MS IE Team!
...for hearing what the customers and public are saying, and...
Paying Attention to us.
It's a win-win situation; we get happy, they get good street cred - we stay happy, they keep making money.
Refreshing, when most manufacturers like to backpedal and deny.
Kudos to Asus.
It's funny because there is some truth in it - regarding the root cause behind *all* of the environmental issues facing humans. IMO, a comment by "Walter" @ the LA Times page said it pretty succinctly:
Cute notion but as off the mark as every other cause...the only issue that is never seriously addressed is the only issue that really needs to be; this planet is severely over-populated. Every 'serious global problem' is simply a result of this fundamental fact. Good luck reconciling ever increasing population with rapidly dwindling resources. Be fruitful, dummy...multiply.
Posted by: Walter | May 17, 2008 at 10:06 AM
Disclaimer: I'm not "Walter", and I don't even play him on teh internets.
It gets said even better in Ishmael, a novel by Daniel Quinn. Great book.
While it is a much smaller number, $3 million is a lot. Remember: staples like rice and grains, canned foods, basic medical supplies - they don't cost nearly as much as modern weaponry.
:)
I'd lay odds that $3,000,000 buys quite a large amount of the supplies needed for _emergency_ relief, especially in an area of the world where those things are would be relatively cheap. If they took the 3 mil, they would probably be able to get even more, later. Like in Indo, when the tsunami hit:
Federal Government: The United States government has allocated USD 400,000 (GBP 200,000, EUR 300,000) to India, Indonesia, the Maldives and Sri Lanka. Officials are currently working on a USD 4m (GBP 2m) aid package to help the Red Cross. Also, the United States has dispatched disaster teams to aid the nations affected. The United States is also preparing an initial USD 15 million (GBP 8m) aid package for affected nations. An additional USD 20m (GBP 11m) has been offered as an emergency line of credit. On 31 December the aid was raised to USD 350m (GBP 190m, EUR 260m).
Source: Wikipedia, FWIW
$350 million, that last number. That's more of a fairly significant proportion of $4 trillion. And that's without figuring in a time frame; Iraq has gone on longer than the relief effort, 2 or 3 times longer, I bet.
Perspective, like the title says.
It's been done, and it worked somewhat; Xandros. They had a very similar UI to the standard MS UI. Years back, it was the distro I recommended to newbies, because it was laid out so similarly, and also because they kept it simple with a "only 1 app per category" menu layout. That did make it easy. I haven't kept up with it, so I don't know what the state of that distro is today. They signed up with MS on the patent protection racket, IIRC, and also I think they are the distro that is used on the Eee, or one of the other recent mini-laptops.
Funny, somersault, I'll relay the comment. :)
For general consumption, though: My brother is building an RV-7A in his perhaps 10'x18' shop out in the garage, which itself is not large enough to hold the completed airplane. He started it in a 10'x15' miniwarehouse. He is building it in stages; tail kit first, wings nearly finished, and the fuselage kit is staged for his next step in the process. Eventually he'll load the completed parts on to a trailer, haul it to a hangar at the airport for final assembly before getting it checked over by an FAA inspector and the first flight.
It was surprising to me how little space it takes.
I lived in Indy for a few years, and worked for a guy who had a winning race team. I was told that the Indy cars, which weigh approx 1200 lbs at rest, produce over 6,000 lbs of effective downforce when running at speed.
This is due to the *overall* aerodynamics of the car. Not just because of the wings/spoilers, it is as much a factor of the underbody shape of the car as well.
I'm with the above poster, I don't see conventional street cars being able to use aerodynamic forces at the speeds they commonly run, not for downforce or handling reasons, at least. I wouldn't be surprised if the stock spoilers/wings on street cars are there simply for looks and 'gee whiz', and perhaps to improve fuel efficiency by changing the shape of the airflow around the car.
Jimmy Franklin mounted an engine from a jet fighter/trainer under the fuselage of his Waco biplane. It was an incredible thing to see flying, something that was so powerfully implausible it just made you sort of giggle.
It was even more amazing as part of the Masters of Disaster airshow routine, which was quite possibly the coolest thing I have ever seen (@ Oshkosh, in '04 IIRC). That they lost several people in just a few short years is testimony to the risk-taking feats that they were performing. That they performed their show so many times without any untoward incident was evidence of their skill. The show was so stupendously crazy, and done in such a small area, that I do think some sort of crash was an eventuality.
Just think - the CIA/NSA/current administration somehow managed to purchase foreign-flagged ships of the line from arguably 'enemy' countries, hiding said purchases from both those governments, our own goverment, and the rest of the world, and then they somehow managed to get them to drop their anchors in just the places needed to cut the proper cables lying submerged on the seabed. They pulled all this off successfully - until YOU managed to figure it out.
Brilliant!
Huh? Occam who???
I agree, dj, but then I remind myself:
I am a geek/nerd/technologist, but I'd wager that a much, much larger portion of their client base isn't, and so that much larger percentage just goes ahead and pays whatever bill they get in regards to domain costs. A surprising number of people who come to me for web work are still paying NS $35 a year, with no clue that that is a very high price. So, if for some reason they ever find themselves in this situation, they still pay, forgetting the policy and the possibility of a registrar change after a few weeks.
That is what makes a policy like this profitable for these companies, at least in the short-term. They'll continue it for the next several years, I bet, until the current generation of younger tech-savvy folks start teaching their kids that $35 is too much, and a tipping point is reached where the public won't support with their wallets any company which has such BS as a policy.
Yes, NS does it too, it has happened to me. BUT...
If you tell NS that you are trying/going to move the domain due to their (exorbitant) pricing, they will offer you a new price, much more in line with what other registrars like GoDaddy charge ($8.75/yr in my case). So basically, problem solved...
I do think the lock-down policy is a simple ploy to retain customers, no matter who implements it.
As far as running Linux, it looks like the NEC LUI is a poor, proprietary cousin of LinuxMCE , which you *can* get in the States, and just about everywhere, for that matter...
I'd rather be in a home surrounded by nuke plants than by coal/oil plants, anyway.
During peacetime, things would be much cleaner in my environment.
And, if the missiles ever really start flying, I would be assured of a quick ticket outta here, before having to live in a screwed up world full of nuclear winter.
Besides - power plants used to be targeted anyway, I'd bet - *regardless* of what source/type of fuel they used.
Mod story "boring and pointless fearmongering (again)"...
...now they are only charging half what it used to cost, which is still 100% more than a free torrent to a pirate who simply *must* have Vista (for some unfathomable reason).
And, for those of us who prefer not to break the law, that 'half off' price is still 100% more than just about any given Linux distro.
A Linux distro which, BTW, will have more capabilities, better security, faster updates, more and better default applications, likely free office suite, and in fact more of just about anything you can name than a default MS OS install will have.
Except of course, the ridiculous "security" prompts, bloatware and crapware...
...or maybe "openmouthinsertfoot". :)
Glad to see there is some justice still floating around out there...
OOOH! LOL - and agreed. :)
Thanks for all your hard work, Don, nice resume you've got there.
:)
But you obviously still don't understand what I wrote.
Plain as day, I wrote that I WILL PAY RETAIL, and DON'T NEED THE SOURCE, and that I think that you and your fellow EA devs *deserve* to earn whatever money your product of work can produce.
From my OP: "I wouldn't mind paying retail for a copy of this game, based on what I've seen of it. I give money to developers for their work on other apps I use, why wouldn't I do the same for a game? I understand that it took years for them to develop, and they need to make money for what they've done. I don't need the source to play it."
I'm all good with that! Not a problem at all. I hope you are getting rich, actually - because I understand that good coding isn't something that just anyone can do.
That makes me neither a "crybaby" nor "greedy". Quite the opposite, I'd think.
Despite your insinuation, neither did I attempt to "evangelize" anyone to use Linux. I just stated that that is what I use (yep, my own choice, made in the full knowledge of what that entails), and have, for 9 years, closing in on 10, on a daily basis as my own source of income. And that I personally would like it (WILL like it, the day is coming) when companies such as yours begin releasing games for the Linux platform.
That, my friend, is just an expressed personal desire, nothing more, and certainly nothing to ream me out over, or to get so upset about. IMO, of course.
Best of luck to you.
Take a chill pill, bro. I wonder if you work for them, based on the handle. I'm surprised at the anger that came out of your misconstruing what it was that I wrote... You might need a re-read.
Though apparently you took it that way, my post was not criticism, it was observation. I'm just saying it would be nice if game companies would make their products cross-platform, including *nix users in the mix.
If they started out doing that from the beginning of development, they would have games at the end which they could sell to everyone, *without* needing to port them to different architectures.
There's lots more than a few hundred Linux users out there now, too. And more every day. Emerging market, and all that.
I just wish they would have made it cross-platform or Linux compatible.
As a die-hard Linux user, I wouldn't mind paying retail for a copy of this game, based on what I've seen of it. I give money to developers for their work on other apps I use, why wouldn't I do the same for a game? I understand that it took years for them to develop, and they need to make money for what they've done. I don't need the source to play it.
Game Devs don't have/need to give us their work for free, IMO, but if they'd make it to where *anyone* could use the games they write, they'd sell more, and I for one would sure appreciate it.
I looked up MS' cash reserve amount, and the number I found was $49 Billion.
;) :D
So, if all the Yahoo folks would take cash instead of MS stock, that would leave MS with only ~$4.5 Billion in reserve.
*Only* ~$4.5 Billion.
(Sheesh...)
So then... we get SCO to sue 'em!!!
You know that by now Darl et al have got to be hungry for some limelight and shillpress like they had in the good ol' days, so they'll do it...
Having seen more, some of them are just silly, but even so, still clever.
..."geeks"? :)
I think that the creator of this series has done an *excellent* job, in a very funny and original way, of explaining why these particular works are regarded so highly in the art community (not by everyone, of course, but in general).
Kudos to the author of the series!