What if the long term RIAA vision isn't that you can't get your DRM music off your CD
That's not going to happen. There will always be an analog hole because there will always be audiophiles who can strap on a double blindfold and hear the difference between a watermark and no watermark. Even the proposed CBDTPA bill had a rule stating that if the publishers were to encode a work so as to prohibit fair use, the motion picture companies would be liable for $2,500 per copy.
and they only allow themselves or their affiliates (Sony records - sony cd players?) manufacture the equipment that can read the CD's.
Either you have fair use via the analog hole labeled "Line Out" on the back of your computer, or you have a severe case of anti-trust violation.
I thought that once the DATA command was in progress, you couldn't interrupt it. So you'd probably have to take the data, anyhow unless you were willing to just drop the connection. And if you do that, the originating server is likely to just try again.
And after you get several pieces of spam from an IP address, you block/throttle connections from that IP address for 24 hours. Does that break any RFCs?
Define solicited mail as for an American company as requiring an American company to provide opt-in. That way American companies cannot receive opt-ins from foreign companies.
If that kind of law passes, the spammers will just set up wholly owned American subsidiaries for the sole purpose of "opting in" spam targets. And if the law is written so as to exclude American companies wholly owned by foreign entities, then it also excludes legitimate outfits such as Nintendo and (once the settlement becomes final) possibly Microsoft.
Are you sure? In some human spoken languages, the "gn" cluster is considered "more pronounceable" than the "ks" cluster. What's pronounceable is what you've been brought up with. Yes, speakers of English are at an advantage vs. French speakers at learning the consonant clusters of Russian because English speakers are used to clusters, but it's hard for anybody who didn't grow up in southern Africa to learn to make the hundreds of click sounds that typically start a word.
Would including Mozilla stop them from trying it out?
Including Mozilla 1.1 but not the AOL dialer would not allow users who pay AOL to give them access the Internet. AOL uses a proprietary protocol to dial the Internet, not standard PPP. Linux distributions support only standard PPP out of the box.
I know this system will be reinstalled with windows as soon as my sister in-law sends them a "homemade" greeting card generated by some windows greeting card generator that produces a dancing bear and plays a midi of happy birthday all wrapped up in B-day.exe.
Then associate.exe files to Wine. Besides, AOL has an interest in making birthday cards that use "Happy Birthday to You" work on Linux because AOL's music publishing division owns that song.
I tell them it does not run Windows and they are game for giving it a go.
Wow! You managed to use the word "Windows" and the word "game" in one sentence of a comment about Linux without complaining!
Uh...so, like how do I get to the installer? Through your ISP of course! My ISP is AOL.
This is not a catch-22, as you don't have to download the client software through the Internet but rather through the Postnet. Simply ask your ISP to send you a bisk[1]. Stick it in your computer's CD-ROM drive, and it'll mount the filesystem. Then, from nautilus or konqueror, open the CD and find the little "linux-install" icon. Open it, and You've Got Spam!
[1] "Bisk" refers to a copy of client software for any online service that uses a proprietary dialer and does not use standard PPP, especially such a copy distributed without charge (and often unsolicited) through the postal service.
He had created a pseudonym previously as a Cage with a different first name
Last name Cage... Postmodern composer named John Cage... Mortal Kombat character named Johnny Cage, who cameoed in the unreleased video game Indeterminacy 64...
Ownership of the TM != ownership of the meshes
on
Microsoft Buys Rare
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· Score: 1
it's a representation of a Nintendo trademarked franchise
But Rare still owns the copyright on the 3D mesh that represents a character under a Nintendo trademark. If Nintendo wanted to make another DK game, Nintendo would have to make new 3D models from scratch.
In other words, I feel they just wanted Rare (and Bungie for that matter) for the sake of owning Rare and preventing those popular franchises continuing to make mega$$$ for Nintendo.
Nintendo still owns the popular franchise and can have its "HAL" division develop them instead. The important things that Rare took with it are 1. banjo-kazooie, 2. conker, 3. perfect dark, and 4. the 3D model data for the characters in Donkey Kong.
I'm sure if Bungie had their way, HALO would be on every console available
But even though Nintendo owns the trademark on the name and likeness of Donkey Kong, Rare owns the copyright to the 3D model of Donkey Kong used in Mario Kart 64, Super Smash Bros., Super Smash Bros. Melee, and possibly other recent games. (Check the credits.) Now Nintendo will have to license something from Microsoft in order to make Super Smash Bros. 3.
Financially speaking it just makes more sense to develop games for consoles.
Not if you are an individual or a small company, and the console maker demands $$$$$$$, an NDA, a non-compete agreement, several published games, and a complete PC demo of your first title before it even gives you development hardware.
In the PC world, everyone typically plays on their own equipment. In the console world, the owner of the console usually ends up footing the $90 bill for 3 extra controllers.
What's cheaper: $500 for a TV plus a console plus three extra controllers (even less if you reuse the TV from your old NES), or $1500 for a PC plus twelve months of high-speed Internet access, provided that the family is lucky enough to live in a location where it is available?
The X-box is a dvd player but in order to unlock that functionality you need to buy their remote for an extra $30
No. The Xbox as shipped is not marketed as a "DVD player"; it's an "Xbox game console." For one thing, it doesn't have the "DVD Video" logo on the case. The DVD remote's receiver actually contains a ROM chip with the DVD decoder on it. Microsoft has to pay for the MPEG-2, AC-3, and CSS licensing somehow, no?
Even console games seem to be more expensive than PC games.
That's the cost of the console's operating system, rolled into the prices of the games. Distribute the price of Windows among the prices of all the games you buy for a PC, and it roughly evens out.
PS1 controller probably won't work with a PS2.
A Dual Shock controller for the PS1 works with a PS2, but some games require the analog buttons of the Dual Shock 2 controller. (I'm not sure whether or not all PS2 games require the Dual Shock 2 controller.) On the other hand, a PS2 controller does work with the GameCube through the "Nyko Play Cube" adapter.
OK, now find Halo for GameCube. Bungie (the original developer of Halo) was primarily a Mac developer until Microsoft bought the company. The insides of the GameCube are similar to the insides of a G4 Cube (powerpc cpu, ati video). Yet Microsoft still ports only Office and IE to the Mac, not Halo.
I play a lot of strategy games (something you won't find on a console)
Then what are Advance Wars and the forthcoming port of Final Fantasy Tactics to the Game Boy Advance?
Moreover, you don't have to upgrade to play ALL the latest new games, just the memory hogs.
The Game Boy has had only three major versions (1.0: game boy; 1.1: play it loud series; 1.5: gb pocket; 2.0: gb color; 3.0: gba), and all are at least 99.44 percent backward compatible. In addition, the GBA is essentially an open system, and even Nintendo uses GCC to develop for the system.
it may be a lot easier to get friends to join a game server over ICQ than to convince them to drive half way across town/state/country to play a few rounds of Super Smash Brothers (the best game ever made).
Did any PC game in the Street Fighter series support net play? Assuming that Super Smash Bros. 3 (rumored to introduce the Raccoon Powerup that gives you an extra couple little mid-air jumps) supports the network adapter, how are you going to play a game that depends on extremely precise (17-33 ms) timing over a link with a 150 millisecond (that's nine frames!) ping?
You can get a game PC that will beat any console for well under $1,000.
Not if I want to run Sunshine or Smash Bros. They don't even make a PC that will emulate a GameCube yet. Game Boy Advance, on the other hand... buy the cartridge from Toys Ya Us, put it in the cartridge drive made by Visoly, and emulate away, provided that you have the right joypad.
If I remember right, that was one of the reasons nintendo lost the FF series.
Nintendo lost the Final Fantasy series because Square wanted a cartridge with more space than Nintendo would provide. Then Square went around to other publishers and explained the limitations of cartridge technology. In response, Nintendo suspended Square's license until a couple weeks before Hiroshi Yamauchi stepped down from the office of Nintendo's CEO.
FF Tactics (a less storage-intensive game than FF7) is coming soon to Game Boy Advance.
If you're not intelligent enough to click 4 times to install a PC game, then yeah, you had best stick with consoles.
At the beginning of most games' installers is a legal document that you must sign with a click of the Agree button in order for the installer to continue. This document is often well beyond the reading level of the average high school graduate.
Even if gross revenues for console games are lower, the higher margins can result in higher profits. I am unfamiliar with licensing costs for PC vs. console.
It costs more than an individual to afford to get official development hardware, and a new publisher already has to have several published video games on the market. (Unofficial development tools for the Game Boy Advance are available here.) It typically costs a publisher $10 a piece to have the console company make a cartridge and stuff it in a box, and that's only if the console company approves the title.
Tetris attack Zoop? I can buy a 12 dollar gravis gamepad that is almost exactly like the playstation controller, you know, with directional pads.
I own a Gravis GamePad Pro USB. It may look like a PSX pad, but it sure doesn't feel like one. Its directional control feels really cheap. The only way to play console-style games on a PC and have them feel right is to buy an authentic console controller and a console->USB adapter.
The point was that there are some games that don't work well with a keyboard, and that most of the joypads out for the PC just don't feel right for console games that are all timing and muscle memory.
how about £800 initially, and about £300, every 5 years after that?
What's the $480 for? A new processor, motherboard, RAM, video card, and hard drive (newer games' minimal installs are more bloated)? You think you can fit all that into $480? And it's more like every 3 years because Unreal Tournament 2003 is targeting a system that was state of the art 2 years ago, and that's the MINIMAL requirement, for 320x240 in 8-bit color.
Slashdot Mirror
What if the long term RIAA vision isn't that you can't get your DRM music off your CD
That's not going to happen. There will always be an analog hole because there will always be audiophiles who can strap on a double blindfold and hear the difference between a watermark and no watermark. Even the proposed CBDTPA bill had a rule stating that if the publishers were to encode a work so as to prohibit fair use, the motion picture companies would be liable for $2,500 per copy.
and they only allow themselves or their affiliates (Sony records - sony cd players?) manufacture the equipment that can read the CD's.
Either you have fair use via the analog hole labeled "Line Out" on the back of your computer, or you have a severe case of anti-trust violation.
I thought that once the DATA command was in progress, you couldn't interrupt it. So you'd probably have to take the data, anyhow unless you were willing to just drop the connection. And if you do that, the originating server is likely to just try again.
And after you get several pieces of spam from an IP address, you block/throttle connections from that IP address for 24 hours. Does that break any RFCs?
Define solicited mail as for an American company as requiring an American company to provide opt-in. That way American companies cannot receive opt-ins from foreign companies.
If that kind of law passes, the spammers will just set up wholly owned American subsidiaries for the sole purpose of "opting in" spam targets. And if the law is written so as to exclude American companies wholly owned by foreign entities, then it also excludes legitimate outfits such as Nintendo and (once the settlement becomes final) possibly Microsoft.
"Linux" surely is more pronouncable than "GNU"
Are you sure? In some human spoken languages, the "gn" cluster is considered "more pronounceable" than the "ks" cluster. What's pronounceable is what you've been brought up with. Yes, speakers of English are at an advantage vs. French speakers at learning the consonant clusters of Russian because English speakers are used to clusters, but it's hard for anybody who didn't grow up in southern Africa to learn to make the hundreds of click sounds that typically start a word.
Would including Mozilla stop them from trying it out?
Including Mozilla 1.1 but not the AOL dialer would not allow users who pay AOL to give them access the Internet. AOL uses a proprietary protocol to dial the Internet, not standard PPP. Linux distributions support only standard PPP out of the box.
I know this system will be reinstalled with windows as soon as my sister in-law sends them a "homemade" greeting card generated by some windows greeting card generator that produces a dancing bear and plays a midi of happy birthday all wrapped up in B-day.exe.
Then associate .exe files to Wine. Besides, AOL has an interest in making birthday cards that use "Happy Birthday to You" work on Linux because AOL's music publishing division owns that song.
I tell them it does not run Windows and they are game for giving it a go.
Wow! You managed to use the word "Windows" and the word "game" in one sentence of a comment about Linux without complaining!
Uh...so, like how do I get to the installer? Through your ISP of course! My ISP is AOL.
This is not a catch-22, as you don't have to download the client software through the Internet but rather through the Postnet. Simply ask your ISP to send you a bisk[1]. Stick it in your computer's CD-ROM drive, and it'll mount the filesystem. Then, from nautilus or konqueror, open the CD and find the little "linux-install" icon. Open it, and You've Got Spam!
[1] "Bisk" refers to a copy of client software for any online service that uses a proprietary dialer and does not use standard PPP, especially such a copy distributed without charge (and often unsolicited) through the postal service.
He had created a pseudonym previously as a Cage with a different first name
Last name Cage... Postmodern composer named John Cage... Mortal Kombat character named Johnny Cage, who cameoed in the unreleased video game Indeterminacy 64...
it's a representation of a Nintendo trademarked franchise
But Rare still owns the copyright on the 3D mesh that represents a character under a Nintendo trademark. If Nintendo wanted to make another DK game, Nintendo would have to make new 3D models from scratch.
In other words, I feel they just wanted Rare (and Bungie for that matter) for the sake of owning Rare and preventing those popular franchises continuing to make mega$$$ for Nintendo.
Nintendo still owns the popular franchise and can have its "HAL" division develop them instead. The important things that Rare took with it are 1. banjo-kazooie, 2. conker, 3. perfect dark, and 4. the 3D model data for the characters in Donkey Kong.
I'm sure if Bungie had their way, HALO would be on every console available
Even the Game Boy Advance? Either they'd have to turn it into a side-scroller or they'd have to make it look like Doom 1 in 120x120 pixel "lo-detail" resolution at 15 frames per second.
donkey-kong is trademarked by nintendo
But even though Nintendo owns the trademark on the name and likeness of Donkey Kong, Rare owns the copyright to the 3D model of Donkey Kong used in Mario Kart 64, Super Smash Bros., Super Smash Bros. Melee, and possibly other recent games. (Check the credits.) Now Nintendo will have to license something from Microsoft in order to make Super Smash Bros. 3.
Financially speaking it just makes more sense to develop games for consoles.
Not if you are an individual or a small company, and the console maker demands $$$$$$$, an NDA, a non-compete agreement, several published games, and a complete PC demo of your first title before it even gives you development hardware.
In the PC world, everyone typically plays on their own equipment. In the console world, the owner of the console usually ends up footing the $90 bill for 3 extra controllers.
What's cheaper: $500 for a TV plus a console plus three extra controllers (even less if you reuse the TV from your old NES), or $1500 for a PC plus twelve months of high-speed Internet access, provided that the family is lucky enough to live in a location where it is available?
The X-box is a dvd player but in order to unlock that functionality you need to buy their remote for an extra $30
No. The Xbox as shipped is not marketed as a "DVD player"; it's an "Xbox game console." For one thing, it doesn't have the "DVD Video" logo on the case. The DVD remote's receiver actually contains a ROM chip with the DVD decoder on it. Microsoft has to pay for the MPEG-2, AC-3, and CSS licensing somehow, no?
Even console games seem to be more expensive than PC games.
That's the cost of the console's operating system, rolled into the prices of the games. Distribute the price of Windows among the prices of all the games you buy for a PC, and it roughly evens out.
PS1 controller probably won't work with a PS2.
A Dual Shock controller for the PS1 works with a PS2, but some games require the analog buttons of the Dual Shock 2 controller. (I'm not sure whether or not all PS2 games require the Dual Shock 2 controller.) On the other hand, a PS2 controller does work with the GameCube through the "Nyko Play Cube" adapter.
OK, Final Fantasy 10 1/2 is on the GameCube.
OK, now find Halo for GameCube. Bungie (the original developer of Halo) was primarily a Mac developer until Microsoft bought the company. The insides of the GameCube are similar to the insides of a G4 Cube (powerpc cpu, ati video). Yet Microsoft still ports only Office and IE to the Mac, not Halo.
I play a lot of strategy games (something you won't find on a console)
Then what are Advance Wars and the forthcoming port of Final Fantasy Tactics to the Game Boy Advance?
Moreover, you don't have to upgrade to play ALL the latest new games, just the memory hogs.
The Game Boy has had only three major versions (1.0: game boy; 1.1: play it loud series; 1.5: gb pocket; 2.0: gb color; 3.0: gba), and all are at least 99.44 percent backward compatible. In addition, the GBA is essentially an open system, and even Nintendo uses GCC to develop for the system.
it may be a lot easier to get friends to join a game server over ICQ than to convince them to drive half way across town/state/country to play a few rounds of Super Smash Brothers (the best game ever made).
Did any PC game in the Street Fighter series support net play? Assuming that Super Smash Bros. 3 (rumored to introduce the Raccoon Powerup that gives you an extra couple little mid-air jumps) supports the network adapter, how are you going to play a game that depends on extremely precise (17-33 ms) timing over a link with a 150 millisecond (that's nine frames!) ping?
You can get a game PC that will beat any console for well under $1,000.
Not if I want to run Sunshine or Smash Bros. They don't even make a PC that will emulate a GameCube yet. Game Boy Advance, on the other hand... buy the cartridge from Toys Ya Us, put it in the cartridge drive made by Visoly, and emulate away, provided that you have the right joypad.
If I remember right, that was one of the reasons nintendo lost the FF series.
Nintendo lost the Final Fantasy series because Square wanted a cartridge with more space than Nintendo would provide. Then Square went around to other publishers and explained the limitations of cartridge technology. In response, Nintendo suspended Square's license until a couple weeks before Hiroshi Yamauchi stepped down from the office of Nintendo's CEO.
FF Tactics (a less storage-intensive game than FF7) is coming soon to Game Boy Advance.
If you're not intelligent enough to click 4 times to install a PC game, then yeah, you had best stick with consoles.
At the beginning of most games' installers is a legal document that you must sign with a click of the Agree button in order for the installer to continue. This document is often well beyond the reading level of the average high school graduate.
Even if gross revenues for console games are lower, the higher margins can result in higher profits. I am unfamiliar with licensing costs for PC vs. console.
It costs more than an individual to afford to get official development hardware, and a new publisher already has to have several published video games on the market. (Unofficial development tools for the Game Boy Advance are available here.) It typically costs a publisher $10 a piece to have the console company make a cartridge and stuff it in a box, and that's only if the console company approves the title.
I can download a GBA emulator and Yoshi's island if I so desired.
You can download a GBA emulator and buy a cart reader, but Yoshi's Island doesn't come out until tomorrow.
Tetris attack Zoop? I can buy a 12 dollar gravis gamepad that is almost exactly like the playstation controller, you know, with directional pads.
I own a Gravis GamePad Pro USB. It may look like a PSX pad, but it sure doesn't feel like one. Its directional control feels really cheap. The only way to play console-style games on a PC and have them feel right is to buy an authentic console controller and a console->USB adapter.
The point was that there are some games that don't work well with a keyboard, and that most of the joypads out for the PC just don't feel right for console games that are all timing and muscle memory.
I expect to see webcams at the rate we're going
Been there, done that.
how about £800 initially, and about £300, every 5 years after that?
What's the $480 for? A new processor, motherboard, RAM, video card, and hard drive (newer games' minimal installs are more bloated)? You think you can fit all that into $480? And it's more like every 3 years because Unreal Tournament 2003 is targeting a system that was state of the art 2 years ago, and that's the MINIMAL requirement, for 320x240 in 8-bit color.
Regardless of how crappy I think my machine might be, it is all in how it's played.
That's no help when your only portable computer is a 333 MHz Pentium II laptop with software 3D. Virtually no new native PC games run on that.
Do you really want to work for a place that uses an OCR on a document to scan for buzzwords?
Would you rather flip burgers?