You're sounding like a conspiracy theorist out to justify your anti-Nintendo rage at all cost.
Actually, I'm a former Nintendo Fan Boy who got burned by crappy hardware.
I LOVED the Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Game Boy, Game Boy Color and many of the games that came out on the Game Boy Advance. Super Mario Brothers and Zelda, "A Link to the Past" make up many fond gaming memories.
I'm not trying to justify a burning hatred of Nintendo, just explaining some of the reasons I lost interest in new generations of their hardware. I will admit, I came off as far more hostile than I intended to.
At no time did the SP headphone adapter cost $40 US. That is an absolute lie.
The actual price isn't really relevant. My point was, you had to buy extra hardware to use headphones.
I'm so pissed about it because of how I found out about the need for an adapter. A friend of mine bought his kid the damn thing, and found out Christmas morning that the brand new headphones couldn't plug into the brand new game system. The kid was cool with it, and played with the sound turned WAAAAAYYYY down, but I shudder to think what it would have been like had the kid been a bit of a brat. I can guarantee a lot of parents out up with a lot of screaming that morning.
The game system should have come with a big sticker that said "WARNING: Headphone adapter needed if you want to use headphones."
Penny Arcade had a great comic on the topic of the headphone adapters.
I don't care if they were $10, $20 or $30. The fact that they were necessary was either incompetent design, or an attempt to gouge the users just a little bit more.
You liked your GBC and got pissed when Nintendo released a new model with games you couldn't play
No, I got pissed when I got a Game Boy Advance the week it came out and found out I could only see the screen in ideal lighting circumstances or if I had a light hooked to the damn thing and was holding it at just the right angle.
Every company in the world regularly releases new and better editions of their hardware.
And here we get to the heart of my beef with Nintendo.
The new Game Boys may have faster processors and better graphics, but overall, they're less playable, less durable and poorly designed. You have to shell out the cost of a good game to get the extras (Light, Headphone adapter and so on) just to make the new Game Boys get close to being as playable in as many situations as the earlier models. (Outside for example.)
They're not "Better" in terms of offering a better game play experience. I tried the SP in a store, seriously thinking of getting one to replace my POS GBA, but quickly decided not to bother. I could barely see the screen in a well lit Mall, how am I going to see it in a subway car???
How long ago did the GBA come out? And they're just NOW offering a Game Boy with back lighting comparable to the Game Boy and Game Boy Color?
As for the "If you want to play, you have to pay" argument, I DON'T want to play the new Game Boys. My whole point is they're so poorly designed that I have no interest in buying one.
Having to buy a new light wasn't the main issue. It was one of many problems with the product line. I mentioned it as an illustration of Nintendo's general trend. Whenever they CAN redesign the hardware to make the users spend more money, they do. The actual convenience of the customer isn't even a factor.
"Can we milk them by releasing the product with a crappy screen, so they end up buying a new one? Good, we'll leave the back light out of the first model. Even if they don;t WANT to buy a new one, if it's for a kid, their whining will force them to do it."
"Design the sucker so you have to buy a $40 adapter to use headphones? Excellent. We'll do that to."
"Leave off the C and D buttons, even though we'll be porting Super Nintendo games to the platform? Cool, we can force them to wait four years for the next model to get those buttons. Even if they're otherwise happy with the platform, some people will buy the new one."
Yeah, but Microsoft was already convicted, got less than a slap on the wrist, and went on it's way without changing anything.
When you have a war chest large enough to fund the Iraq war for a year ALL ON YOUR OWN, the laws don't apply.
"Whoever has the gold makes the rules."
Bill Gates would have to go on national television, kill the president and eat a baby to go to jail, and even then some lawyer would use the Twinkie Defense or a "Stress from battling Linux made him do it" to get is charges reduced to manslaughter.
Of course, if he used the latter defense, Linux would then be deionized as evil, and driving people to kill, which would work great for Microsoft.
I liked my first generation Game Boy, and even my Game Boy color, but I'll never buy another game boy again.
The Game Boy Advance was a miserable abortion of technology.
First, there was the terrible backlight, or lack thereof.
Then, they started porting old Super Nintendo games to it, which was cool, but it made some of them difficult to play as the Game Boy Advance was missing a few buttons the Super Nintendo controllers had.
The glare off the screen didn't help any.
Then there were the lights.
There were light available to clip onto your Game Boy * that would make the screen visible. The actual plug was exactly the same in the Game Boy Color and the GBA, but they rotated it 90 degrees.
This meant that the lights I had for my GBC wouldn't work with my GBA.
It's a petty thing, I know, but it annoyed me.
Then came the next model of the Game Boy line, the one where you had to buy a special adapter to plug in headphones.
My original Game Boy had included head phones, but the new one required a frigging adapter to use them.
Game Boy died for me at that point. I realized that they really were just trying to milk their customer base for all it's worth, and the needless cycle of new models with changes like a "better" screen tells me that they intended to do this.
"Why give them a decent screen and backlight in the first model, when we can make some of them pay for a second device????"
And it's not like this is a "New" problem for them. The lack of decent back lighting has been an issue for a few generations of the hardware.
No, Nintendo is dead to me. I eagerly anticipate the day I read a headline about them closing shop. I'll be a long time coming, because they still have plenty of fans out there, and it'll be sad to see the end of new Link games, but since I don't buy Nintendo hardware anymore anyway, I won't be getting any new Link games anyhow.
Raising prices is a no lose situation for the RIAA members. Either they make more money from iTunes, or they hurt iTunes sales, which will reduce it's popularity and thus open things up a little more for other networks.
The goal of course, is to force users to purchase their entire music library again with every change. Switching form iPod to MD? Great, you gotta buy all those albums again if you want to listen to them on the new hardware. Switching computers? Same deal.
It has come to our attention that you have illegality produced and recorded a reproduction of track 5 on the 2005 release "Brittany Spears Favorite Outtakes"
If you do not comply with the following within 48 hours, we will pursue legal action against you to seize all properly listed under your name and garnish your wages for damages.
Send all recordings to us.
Destroy the snare drum used in the creation of this track. Send us the remains.
Send us the micro cassette recorder.
Send us any and all hardware you possess capable of recording audio, video or still images in an analog or digital format.
Pay $30,000 in damages for each copy of the recording produced.
Pay an additional $90,000 in damages for each copy of the recording distributed by yourself or others.
Why do you think Ted Kennedy is still a Senator in MA, even though he's universally reviled as a murderer and a drunkard?
Diebold actually sends out ads offering to guarantee a given election. Local votes can be had for a few hundred thousand, while something like the presidency costs 30 million or more!
They had a massive "Exposed process" fee for 2004 because of all the scrutiny that because of the 2000 mess.
The best part is, whenever anyone asks if they would have won without paying off the vote counters, the response is "Its in everyone's best interest if that kind of information doesn't even exist. You can't have a 'Deep Throat' if there's no trail to follow."
Great argument, but it means the party buying the elections have to cough up, even if they would have won hands down anyway!
Sinister. If only I'd thought of starting a voting machine company myself. I could be filthy stinking rich. No real R&D, just slap things together, ship consumer parts with a paint job and off you go!
While networking, memory management and multitasking were lacking, Windows 3.1 was a decent OS, and DOS is second only to a good BASH prompt in overall power.
And they were both fairly light on processor usage.
Slashdot Mirror
I found the source:
/s/b *.mp3 >> List_of_Evil_Pirate_files.txt /s/b *.avi >> List_of_Evil_Pirate_files.txt /s/b *.jpg >> List_of_Evil_Pirate_files.txt /s/b *.ogg >> List_of_Evil_Pirate_files.txt /s/b *.mp? >> List_of_Evil_Pirate_files.txt /s/b *.mov >> List_of_Evil_Pirate_files.txt
....
c:
cd \
dir
dir
dir
dir
dir
dir
d:
It just goes on from there
Damn, which I'd thought of writing that. It looks pretty simple.
Remember, as far as the RIAA is concerned, ripping your own CDs is illegal. Only pirates do it you know. You're not a pirate, are you?
It deleted all the songs I bought through iTunes!
And the sound files for my computer games!
And all my digital photos!!
WTF??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
Damn glad I have a backup on my Linux Box.
Oh well, better uninstall this damn thing.
Wait a second, why isn't there an entry for it in "Add / Remove Programs"?
I guess I'll just delete the install fold--
What do you mean "Access Denied"????? I logged into the frigging Administrator account to do this!
Damn it, this Windows install is only six months old. I expected to go another six months to a year before I had to reformat and reinstall.
I recommend one of the following:
Computer Phobic Executive
Computers Scare Me
Stupid User Tricks
Afraid of Computers
Too Dumb to Compute
A dictator once said, "He who casts the vote decides nothing, he who counts the vote decides everything."
Diebold has more power than we do.
Your vote, it is worthless, and has been for a good eight years or so.
You're sounding like a conspiracy theorist out to justify your anti-Nintendo rage at all cost.
Actually, I'm a former Nintendo Fan Boy who got burned by crappy hardware.
I LOVED the Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Game Boy, Game Boy Color and many of the games that came out on the Game Boy Advance. Super Mario Brothers and Zelda, "A Link to the Past" make up many fond gaming memories.
I'm not trying to justify a burning hatred of Nintendo, just explaining some of the reasons I lost interest in new generations of their hardware. I will admit, I came off as far more hostile than I intended to.
At no time did the SP headphone adapter cost $40 US. That is an absolute lie.
The actual price isn't really relevant. My point was, you had to buy extra hardware to use headphones.
I'm so pissed about it because of how I found out about the need for an adapter. A friend of mine bought his kid the damn thing, and found out Christmas morning that the brand new headphones couldn't plug into the brand new game system. The kid was cool with it, and played with the sound turned WAAAAAYYYY down, but I shudder to think what it would have been like had the kid been a bit of a brat. I can guarantee a lot of parents out up with a lot of screaming that morning.
The game system should have come with a big sticker that said "WARNING: Headphone adapter needed if you want to use headphones."
Penny Arcade had a great comic on the topic of the headphone adapters.
I don't care if they were $10, $20 or $30. The fact that they were necessary was either incompetent design, or an attempt to gouge the users just a little bit more.
You liked your GBC and got pissed when Nintendo released a new model with games you couldn't play
No, I got pissed when I got a Game Boy Advance the week it came out and found out I could only see the screen in ideal lighting circumstances or if I had a light hooked to the damn thing and was holding it at just the right angle.
Every company in the world regularly releases new and better editions of their hardware.
And here we get to the heart of my beef with Nintendo.
The new Game Boys may have faster processors and better graphics, but overall, they're less playable, less durable and poorly designed. You have to shell out the cost of a good game to get the extras (Light, Headphone adapter and so on) just to make the new Game Boys get close to being as playable in as many situations as the earlier models. (Outside for example.)
They're not "Better" in terms of offering a better game play experience. I tried the SP in a store, seriously thinking of getting one to replace my POS GBA, but quickly decided not to bother. I could barely see the screen in a well lit Mall, how am I going to see it in a subway car???
How long ago did the GBA come out? And they're just NOW offering a Game Boy with back lighting comparable to the Game Boy and Game Boy Color?
As for the "If you want to play, you have to pay" argument, I DON'T want to play the new Game Boys. My whole point is they're so poorly designed that I have no interest in buying one.
Having to buy a new light wasn't the main issue. It was one of many problems with the product line. I mentioned it as an illustration of Nintendo's general trend. Whenever they CAN redesign the hardware to make the users spend more money, they do. The actual convenience of the customer isn't even a factor.
"Can we milk them by releasing the product with a crappy screen, so they end up buying a new one? Good, we'll leave the back light out of the first model. Even if they don;t WANT to buy a new one, if it's for a kid, their whining will force them to do it."
"Design the sucker so you have to buy a $40 adapter to use headphones? Excellent. We'll do that to."
"Leave off the C and D buttons, even though we'll be porting Super Nintendo games to the platform? Cool, we can force them to wait four years for the next model to get those buttons. Even if they're otherwise happy with the platform, some people will buy the new one."
Yeah, but Microsoft was already convicted, got less than a slap on the wrist, and went on it's way without changing anything.
When you have a war chest large enough to fund the Iraq war for a year ALL ON YOUR OWN, the laws don't apply.
"Whoever has the gold makes the rules."
Bill Gates would have to go on national television, kill the president and eat a baby to go to jail, and even then some lawyer would use the Twinkie Defense or a "Stress from battling Linux made him do it" to get is charges reduced to manslaughter.
Of course, if he used the latter defense, Linux would then be deionized as evil, and driving people to kill, which would work great for Microsoft.
Gave up on Game boy line ages ago.
I liked my first generation Game Boy, and even my Game Boy color, but I'll never buy another game boy again.
The Game Boy Advance was a miserable abortion of technology.
First, there was the terrible backlight, or lack thereof.
Then, they started porting old Super Nintendo games to it, which was cool, but it made some of them difficult to play as the Game Boy Advance was missing a few buttons the Super Nintendo controllers had.
The glare off the screen didn't help any.
Then there were the lights.
There were light available to clip onto your Game Boy * that would make the screen visible. The actual plug was exactly the same in the Game Boy Color and the GBA, but they rotated it 90 degrees.
This meant that the lights I had for my GBC wouldn't work with my GBA.
It's a petty thing, I know, but it annoyed me.
Then came the next model of the Game Boy line, the one where you had to buy a special adapter to plug in headphones.
My original Game Boy had included head phones, but the new one required a frigging adapter to use them.
Game Boy died for me at that point. I realized that they really were just trying to milk their customer base for all it's worth, and the needless cycle of new models with changes like a "better" screen tells me that they intended to do this.
"Why give them a decent screen and backlight in the first model, when we can make some of them pay for a second device????"
And it's not like this is a "New" problem for them. The lack of decent back lighting has been an issue for a few generations of the hardware.
No, Nintendo is dead to me. I eagerly anticipate the day I read a headline about them closing shop. I'll be a long time coming, because they still have plenty of fans out there, and it'll be sad to see the end of new Link games, but since I don't buy Nintendo hardware anymore anyway, I won't be getting any new Link games anyhow.
From what you describe, Taiwan would work nicely.
Oh, wait, they're not on good terms with China.
Never mind.
My days of Porn under Linux probably predate mplayerplug-in. It's been a while since I bothered.
I forgot the big one for those single geeks out there.
To watch pirated porn that's in WMV format.
That's a lot easier if you just run Windows Media Player under Linux.
... Is so I can play Freedom Force without having to reboot.
And so I can open that Excel doc a client sent that uses VB for part of it's calculations.
See! Windows and IE ARE more secure!!!
MWHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!
The larger number of exploits in Firefox is just the tip of the ice berg!
Open Source, you are going DOWN!
And I for one, welcome our new DRM laden overlords.
Oh, wait, they're not NEW overlords, they've been the overlords for a few decades now.
Well, I welcome them anyway.
Raising prices is a no lose situation for the RIAA members. Either they make more money from iTunes, or they hurt iTunes sales, which will reduce it's popularity and thus open things up a little more for other networks.
The goal of course, is to force users to purchase their entire music library again with every change. Switching form iPod to MD? Great, you gotta buy all those albums again if you want to listen to them on the new hardware. Switching computers? Same deal.
iTunes is a threat to that model.
All your bass are belong to us?
Had to be done.
Come on, you laughed!
Dear Sir / Madame,
It has come to our attention that you have illegality produced and recorded a reproduction of track 5 on the 2005 release "Brittany Spears Favorite Outtakes"
If you do not comply with the following within 48 hours, we will pursue legal action against you to seize all properly listed under your name and garnish your wages for damages.
Send all recordings to us.
Destroy the snare drum used in the creation of this track. Send us the remains.
Send us the micro cassette recorder.
Send us any and all hardware you possess capable of recording audio, video or still images in an analog or digital format.
Pay $30,000 in damages for each copy of the recording produced.
Pay an additional $90,000 in damages for each copy of the recording distributed by yourself or others.
Have a nice day.
The RIAA
Why do you think Ted Kennedy is still a Senator in MA, even though he's universally reviled as a murderer and a drunkard?
Diebold actually sends out ads offering to guarantee a given election. Local votes can be had for a few hundred thousand, while something like the presidency costs 30 million or more!
They had a massive "Exposed process" fee for 2004 because of all the scrutiny that because of the 2000 mess.
The best part is, whenever anyone asks if they would have won without paying off the vote counters, the response is "Its in everyone's best interest if that kind of information doesn't even exist. You can't have a 'Deep Throat' if there's no trail to follow."
Great argument, but it means the party buying the elections have to cough up, even if they would have won hands down anyway!
Sinister. If only I'd thought of starting a voting machine company myself. I could be filthy stinking rich. No real R&D, just slap things together, ship consumer parts with a paint job and off you go!
I think the quote is: "Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything."
All I know about Emacs is that all the Emacs books are in the MAC/Apple section of my local Barnes and Noble.
So it must be a MAC thing, and since I use Windows...
Emacs is a great operating system, but it needs a better text editor.
Today's music industry would never have given Hendrix, The Dead or most the popular artists of the 60's and 70's.
Well, at least it's not from Microsoft Press. If it were, we'd know it was an unintentional catalog of "This is how NOT to do it" advice.
I don't know about that.
While networking, memory management and multitasking were lacking, Windows 3.1 was a decent OS, and DOS is second only to a good BASH prompt in overall power.
And they were both fairly light on processor usage.
If Apple gets more positive press than it does negative, it seems clear that they DO more positive things than negative.
No, it just means the press is reporting more of the good things they do.
Remember, the "News" media is there to get our eyeballs delivered to advertisers, not to actually inform us.