No, not the DRM prevents people from pirating a game; usually, it's the long torrent downloads that do, and sometimes, people want to support the developers, but DRM doesn't do anything except punishing those who legally bought the game (and are too lazy/possess not enough knowledge because they are casual gamers/etc to download a crack). A couple of days ago, I installed a game legally bought on my computer - guess what: it came with SecuROM and caused a lot of problems. Only when I removed all SecuROM files and started using a crack, I was not only able to play the game properly but also use my system again (the SecuROM stuff messed around pretty badly and caused my explorer.exe [yes, I use Windows for gaming, who doesn't?] to crash every couple of minutes). I never experienced anything comparable when using a game I downloaded via Bittorrent.
Well, the difference here is - people who pirate games are not going to buy them anyways. Also, you can't compare police to DRM; the police does (or at least, should, here in Austria the police doesn't do much) prevent crime, but DRM doesn't prevent piracy. DRM only affects the buyer, but not the pirates. What happens now in the game industry is just some kind of arms race that the gaming industry can't win, as for every sophisticated copy protection, there are dozens of sophisticated crackers who can crack that copy protection in less than half a day. If you would not implement copy protection in the first time, you would save time and money and also wouldn't punish people for buying the game legally, as pirates usually play their games free from DRM-idiocy.
Steam games on CD/DVD are mainly meant for people who don't want to or can't download the whole game. It's pretty much the same version as the game you can download, except that it lacks the newest patch, and that you use the CD key in the box instead of your credit card to activate the game. Both need activation over Steam though.
Why spend time and money on copy protection in the first place anyways? It's just a matter of time until it gets cracked, and many highly anticipated games get cracked and torrented on the day of their release so that pirates don't even have to wait much longer to play the game than legit buyers have to. I download pirated games very frequently (as I don't have much money and also don't want to buy German games as they usually suck compared to their English counterpart), and interestingly, I experience a lot less bugs when I play them than I do when I play a game I bought in a store on CD/DVD. While occasionally, when I have the money, I buy games, I usually only buy games of which I know that they are good and I also buy them over online stores where I can download the games legally and play them without CD like Steam or EA Store - and if I don't want to connect to the Internet to play my games, I just use a crack or a Steam emulator.
Voters also don't know much about politics, but nobody cares about that. Quite in contrary, to those in power, it is pretty good, as one can easily compensate his lack of political skill with charisma.
Well, but there's a difference between Tarot and Genetics. Tarot is nothing short of idiocy, and people who actually believe in it are either very naive or plain stupid, but Genetics? Yes, we do not know much about it yet, and some people misuse it, but I think it's foolish to compare something we know that it is nonsense with something we just know very few about.
This is a good reason why copyright laws should be restricted to, say, 5 years (at least for software). This way, Microsoft would actually be forced to create a good OS, since it would have to compete with itself - since WinXP would be free to download then, Microsoft would have to give customers a good reason to buy their new OS.
Yes, but only because they are used to it. Not all people are afraid of change. The library I frequently visit switched all their computers Operating Systems to a Linux distribution about one or two years ago, and it's working very fine there.
So, if they can get sick, would that really be a proof of them being "alive"? What exactly is "alive"? Just fulfilling certain jobs, being able to reproduce? Or rather having a brain and being able of achieving consciousness?
Well, if you don't want to carry a heavy book around with you (shame on you, you should always have a book around), just buy a PDA with a cam function, or use a personal wiki. You even get the latter ones for free and even open source, so why buy or torrent commercial software to do this for you?
How do you think about cryogenics? Do they provide a good alternative for everybody who can't live long enough to be treated with anti-aging technology?
It may be that French grammar rules might be easier to learn, but as a German native speaker, I have to say there's not only a HUGE difficulty to learn it, but also to pronounce it correctly. Pronouncing German is pretty easy though, and while it's harder to learn than English (as most languages are), it is surely a lot easier than French, Italian or Spanish.
It isn't true that US soldiers have legal immunity against the atrocieties they may have committed. Every soldier involved in the Abu Ghraib abuses was brought before a court martial. Also, Abu Ghraib abuse was, unlike Saddam's state terrorism, an incident, and by no ways deliberately used by the US government. And that's the most important difference here - all of Saddam Hussein's atrocities were planned and used as a tool to stay in power and keep opposition against his government down, the coalition soldier's atrocities however are the act of an individual, by no way supported by his government. Guantanamo; you act as if the US was the only nation in which prisoners are abused, and every nation takes innocents into jails occasionally, but you act as if the US was the only one. Besides, I'd rather be imprisoned in Guantanamo as in one of Saddam's jails.
Nah, sure, Saddam never gave the order to gas thousands of people. The police never used extreme amounts of torture, "Saddam's Cubs" are an urban legend, Kurds were always treated nicely. You see, all the evil things you hear about Saddam's Regime are a lie told by the, unlike him, really evil US government. Sorry, but as said - you can argue about a lot of things, and members or contractors of the United States may have done much wrong, but the human rights overall increased very much.
Eh, sorry, I admit that I confused Iraq with Afghanistan again. I apologize. Though this doesn't change my point of view that human rights got much better after the war.
What I find that is too funny is that you rely on some obscure anti-islam-webpages for your informations. While there is certainly no love lost between me and any religion, calling Islam a "sick, evil cult" is exactly as wrong as calling Christianity or Evangelism such.
This is offtopic now, although of course I see your point. I just go a little step further from "strong" Agnosticism ("There is no evidence that god does exist, therefore it is foolish to pray to him") to Atheism ("God does not exist") - it's exactly that lack of evidence that I feel speaks against the existence of any god. I believe that there is no such thing as supernatural beings or forces because there is no evidence speaking for it's existence, but many aspects of spirituality/mysticism/etc have been proved to be wrong, and I see no difference between the concept of "God" and, say, astrology.
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+1 Insightful if you want to improve his karma. +1 Funny doesn't count for that as far I know.
No, not the DRM prevents people from pirating a game; usually, it's the long torrent downloads that do, and sometimes, people want to support the developers, but DRM doesn't do anything except punishing those who legally bought the game (and are too lazy/possess not enough knowledge because they are casual gamers/etc to download a crack). A couple of days ago, I installed a game legally bought on my computer - guess what: it came with SecuROM and caused a lot of problems. Only when I removed all SecuROM files and started using a crack, I was not only able to play the game properly but also use my system again (the SecuROM stuff messed around pretty badly and caused my explorer.exe [yes, I use Windows for gaming, who doesn't?] to crash every couple of minutes). I never experienced anything comparable when using a game I downloaded via Bittorrent.
Well, the difference here is - people who pirate games are not going to buy them anyways. Also, you can't compare police to DRM; the police does (or at least, should, here in Austria the police doesn't do much) prevent crime, but DRM doesn't prevent piracy. DRM only affects the buyer, but not the pirates. What happens now in the game industry is just some kind of arms race that the gaming industry can't win, as for every sophisticated copy protection, there are dozens of sophisticated crackers who can crack that copy protection in less than half a day. If you would not implement copy protection in the first time, you would save time and money and also wouldn't punish people for buying the game legally, as pirates usually play their games free from DRM-idiocy.
Steam games on CD/DVD are mainly meant for people who don't want to or can't download the whole game. It's pretty much the same version as the game you can download, except that it lacks the newest patch, and that you use the CD key in the box instead of your credit card to activate the game. Both need activation over Steam though.
Why spend time and money on copy protection in the first place anyways? It's just a matter of time until it gets cracked, and many highly anticipated games get cracked and torrented on the day of their release so that pirates don't even have to wait much longer to play the game than legit buyers have to. I download pirated games very frequently (as I don't have much money and also don't want to buy German games as they usually suck compared to their English counterpart), and interestingly, I experience a lot less bugs when I play them than I do when I play a game I bought in a store on CD/DVD. While occasionally, when I have the money, I buy games, I usually only buy games of which I know that they are good and I also buy them over online stores where I can download the games legally and play them without CD like Steam or EA Store - and if I don't want to connect to the Internet to play my games, I just use a crack or a Steam emulator.
Voters also don't know much about politics, but nobody cares about that. Quite in contrary, to those in power, it is pretty good, as one can easily compensate his lack of political skill with charisma.
Seriously, as sad as it might be, is anyone here truly surprised by this?
Well, but there's a difference between Tarot and Genetics. Tarot is nothing short of idiocy, and people who actually believe in it are either very naive or plain stupid, but Genetics? Yes, we do not know much about it yet, and some people misuse it, but I think it's foolish to compare something we know that it is nonsense with something we just know very few about.
This is a good reason why copyright laws should be restricted to, say, 5 years (at least for software). This way, Microsoft would actually be forced to create a good OS, since it would have to compete with itself - since WinXP would be free to download then, Microsoft would have to give customers a good reason to buy their new OS.
Yes, but only because they are used to it. Not all people are afraid of change. The library I frequently visit switched all their computers Operating Systems to a Linux distribution about one or two years ago, and it's working very fine there.
You must be new here. This is Slashdot. We Slashdotters know women only from those...documentaries on the Internet.
So, if they can get sick, would that really be a proof of them being "alive"? What exactly is "alive"? Just fulfilling certain jobs, being able to reproduce? Or rather having a brain and being able of achieving consciousness?
Mass drivers may work.
Well, if you don't want to carry a heavy book around with you (shame on you, you should always have a book around), just buy a PDA with a cam function, or use a personal wiki. You even get the latter ones for free and even open source, so why buy or torrent commercial software to do this for you?
Because it works better than the more recent one of it's product line?
Not officially, at least.
Some of Jehova's Witnesses live strictly by the Bible, as far I know.
How do you think about cryogenics? Do they provide a good alternative for everybody who can't live long enough to be treated with anti-aging technology?
It may be that French grammar rules might be easier to learn, but as a German native speaker, I have to say there's not only a HUGE difficulty to learn it, but also to pronounce it correctly. Pronouncing German is pretty easy though, and while it's harder to learn than English (as most languages are), it is surely a lot easier than French, Italian or Spanish.
fsck, they got me.
It isn't true that US soldiers have legal immunity against the atrocieties they may have committed. Every soldier involved in the Abu Ghraib abuses was brought before a court martial. Also, Abu Ghraib abuse was, unlike Saddam's state terrorism, an incident, and by no ways deliberately used by the US government. And that's the most important difference here - all of Saddam Hussein's atrocities were planned and used as a tool to stay in power and keep opposition against his government down, the coalition soldier's atrocities however are the act of an individual, by no way supported by his government. Guantanamo; you act as if the US was the only nation in which prisoners are abused, and every nation takes innocents into jails occasionally, but you act as if the US was the only one. Besides, I'd rather be imprisoned in Guantanamo as in one of Saddam's jails.
Nah, sure, Saddam never gave the order to gas thousands of people. The police never used extreme amounts of torture, "Saddam's Cubs" are an urban legend, Kurds were always treated nicely. You see, all the evil things you hear about Saddam's Regime are a lie told by the, unlike him, really evil US government. Sorry, but as said - you can argue about a lot of things, and members or contractors of the United States may have done much wrong, but the human rights overall increased very much.
Eh, sorry, I admit that I confused Iraq with Afghanistan again. I apologize. Though this doesn't change my point of view that human rights got much better after the war.
What I find that is too funny is that you rely on some obscure anti-islam-webpages for your informations. While there is certainly no love lost between me and any religion, calling Islam a "sick, evil cult" is exactly as wrong as calling Christianity or Evangelism such.
This is offtopic now, although of course I see your point. I just go a little step further from "strong" Agnosticism ("There is no evidence that god does exist, therefore it is foolish to pray to him") to Atheism ("God does not exist") - it's exactly that lack of evidence that I feel speaks against the existence of any god. I believe that there is no such thing as supernatural beings or forces because there is no evidence speaking for it's existence, but many aspects of spirituality/mysticism/etc have been proved to be wrong, and I see no difference between the concept of "God" and, say, astrology.