I think Square-Enix needs to collaborate with Nintendo to make another Super Mario RPG. Few RPGs have the level of actual -fun- that Super Mario RPG had. Paper Mario and Mario and Luigi are pathetic imitations when it comes to Super Mario RPG. And above all the game seemed "fresh", having a lot of the same Nintendo characters but added a lot of new ones with impressive depth. Mix that with graphics that still look great today and it is a game just dying to be re-made as a DS or Wii game.
The thing though about the Wii is, sure, its trivial to set up homebrew and from there pirate random crap, but most people who buy Wii consoles don't know how and don't want to know how leading to a lower % of piracy.
Ended up cracked -years- later. After the SNES had ended its production run for the most part. Plus, back then to "pirate" a game you bought the game from some shady guy for $5, today that wouldn't fly, we want our games for free if we are going to pirate them. Today what people do is simply place them on a flash cart and go. The DS is unique in the fact that its going to be hard to truly emulate the experience of having a real DS on a computer. So all they need to do is release a chip with the games and stop most casual piracy. Will it be cracked? Of course, will it happen after the game is profitable, yes.
First, think about the actual copying being done. Sure, using a p2p client you are downloading one copy of the song. But chances are, you are seeding to many, many individual copies of the same song, sometimes as many as thousands over the course of a download.
Sometimes though. It can't be proven. And thats the thing, you should not be able to sue over imagined damages, they must be -proven- otherwise I could say that I'm suing SETI because when using SETI @Home it contacted an alien to the exact location of my computer and ended up abducting me for what was a second on earth time but one thousand years where they took me even though I can't prove it.
Second, damages are generous in copyright cases by design. Plaintiffs can recover treble damages. They're also eligible for special damages, which cover the victor's court costs, attorney's fees, and punitive damages. There are certain fields of law where enforcement is difficult and litigation cumbersome and expensive, so the courts are willing to heap large damages to keep rights holders from being dissuaded from bringing a strong claim (treble damages) and to try hard to dissuade people from infringing in the first place (punitive damages).
Which is a flaw in the legal system which judges both have the right and obligation to correct.
Third, you're looking at copyright wrong. Wal*Mart did buy the initial CD. But Wal*Mart didn't pay for the rights for all the people who downloaded the songs off the defendant. The defendant didn't, either. It's not a "well they wouldn't have made a sale" argument, or a "what was their actual cost" argument. This isn't an action for unjust enrichment, it's an action stating that a copyright holder's rights have been infringed. Lost profits and costs feed into the consideration, but they're not nearly central.
But without lost profits you don't really have any damages to sue for which should really be the only available option to sue for. The judicial system has rights to overturn unjust legislation, clearly the legal system is unjust and clearly it goes against the founding principles for it.
The problem is, the RIAA executives are so screwed up in the head that -any- drop in profits means "ZOMG PIRATES!!!!1!1!11" they don't think rationally. Any drop in profits to them is always caused by "pirates" not that the song was crap, that people are boycotting the RIAA, etc. its always "pirates" to them. So while its good and all to boycott them, thinking its going to make a change is quite idealist and won't make a drop of difference in the world really, but keep trying.
...In case you didn't read it, something tells me the person who sold you the gun would not be at fault... My post was entirely about how it would be perfectly legal for the person selling the item to sell it to you if there was no way of knowing where you were from or how it would be used.
Its not the fact that its against the law its the fact that A) these people are convicted for -insane- damages. Ok, how much is a song worth? About $.99 right? But to the RIAA they can sue for -hundreds- and -thousands- for a single song. So what do you think would happen if I stole a CD from Wal-Mart and they found out about it? They would probably charge me a few hundred dollars, perhaps ban me from the store, etc. they wouldn't sue me for many thousand dollars. Wait, but here is the thing, Wal-Mart -bought- the CD wholesale, Wal-Mart paid money for it, for digital copies they don't cost a cent to make so there are no lost profits. B) They are convicted for little to no evidence. It would be like a murder investigation throwing someone in prison because they were on the same street that the murder took place at the time of the murder. That wouldn't fly.
The law states that penalties should not be outrageous, I think anything more than $20-$30 a song is outrageous. The RIAA did not lose much of anything whenever a song is "pirated".
I would assume that it would. Think of it in an analog analogy, if i had something that was legal in my state and gave it away for free with a sign saying basically "Note: This item is prohibited in the states of California, Virgina and Utah" and someone came in and got one of these free items. There is nothing wrong with me giving them to them if they are going to use it in the same state (use it as fair use) and there are public laws saying you can't download without fair use. However, if that person took my freely-given items then took them into another state, should I be at fault?
I'm not exactly sure what the big deal is. Yes, tornados do happen, however -every- place has its risks. Any place located on any cost has the possibility of hurricanes, California has a lot of earthquakes, etc. And honestly the chances of a tornado hitting that exact same place and causing any sort of major damage is slim.
Yes, but even more interesting was the general reluctance of any country not suffering direct attack by the Japanese or by Nazi Germany to join the war. Until Nazi Germany decided they weren't going to stop at just a few countries most of the world just sat back and hoped they didn't come for them.
Sure, but submarines are not totally safe. Lets say a group of people manage to board the ship and with some aid from some crew, hey, they have 160 nukes that can reach pretty much an entire continent or more. Or lets say two subs manage to crash into each other as had previously happened ( http://i.gizmodo.com/5154315/two-nuclear-submarines-collide-in-the-atlantic ) and lets say for some reason some safety measures failed and if this happens in a populated area it becomes another Chernobyl even with an incomplete detonation. The USSR is no longer in power, and a nuke or two is all it takes to neutralize any potential other nuclear threat from a non-stable nation, so why risk it?
The reasons why there aren't any wars after WWII isn't necessarily nukes, but the general enlightenment that comes with technology. Other than the Soviet Union, during the Cold War no one really wanted to fight on a global scale, and the only reason that Soviet Russia did was that the people were brainwashed. Before WWI and WWII young men -wanted- war, they wanted the "glory" of victory, they wanted if they died to be remembered as a patriot with every girl they ever knew wishing that they were still alive and crying at the funeral. Than WWI hit and so did the media, and suddenly war didn't seem to be all that great to the masses except for in the propaganda and brainwashed cultures of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. The rest of them fought for pure necessity and to save their own skin. After that, very few people really -wanted- another war, sure, they did have a few small wars, but they couldn't convince the people that war was really necessary anymore. No longer in most cultures did you have the father or grandfather speak proudly about his accomplishments in war, making it sound no more dangerous than hunting with some friends. But after the world wars you had most of them quiet, traumatized, mix that in with the fact that most people no longer saw a need for war (hippie movement) and improvements in journalism made it possible for everyone to see the horrors of war lead to many cultures who refused to go to war. The reason why we haven't had WWIII isn't totally because we have nukes but because there would be very few willing fighters.
That doesn't stop the US and a lot of other nuclear armed countries fitting nuclear weapons on just about everything that flies or sails. Really, having a few nuclear ICBMs is simply sane with other hostile countries. However, loading submarines with multiple warheads is not. If you must have nuclear armed subs, arm each one with one low-yield nuke. Any more and you are just begging for an accident.
I never have understood why managers love meetings. I mean, it kills productivity, usually ends up being boring or unrelated and in general a waste of time.
It depends though, some of us might be richer, however some of us might be poorer because we made a lot of money doing tech support with issues that wouldn't have been there if it wasn't for Windows. Now, I don't think this is an excuse for how buggy Windows is, but its an interesting aspect.
BASIC is good only for teaching the "programmers mindset" in how to reason and think with code. The language itself does nothing but teach you terribly bad habits that will plague your code if you use anything else.
The problem is that you need to keep spending in IT to have enough money to run IT. Generally they cut the budget on you when you don't spend much so IT people are forced to upgrade hardware when it really doesn't need upgraded to have enough cash to spend when you really need to upgrade (server breaks, get a new system that requires new hardware, etc) along with management's love for conferences thinking it will "inspire", leads to a bloated IT budget but with no real way to cut it without losing valuable funds. Some years you may not have to upgrade a single desktop, other years you replace every single computer in the building. But if you don't spend during the non-upgrading year you won't get the funds needed for a smooth transition.
I think they say its number two, but that doesn't make any sense because the point of DDoS attacks are so you can't access the site, so what does AT&T do? Blocks the site.
The problem is, I know AT&T sucks but I have to use them (at least for cell service) because they are the only phone provider where I live. Perhaps some day that will change and I can get T-Mobile and a nice Android handset, but in 2009 the only way I can get service it with AT&T, no matter how badly they suck.
For you, for me its totally different. If I need to communicate to a colleague I send them an e-mail or call them. I see no need in hand-writing or using a typewriter for anything technical, its a heck of a lot easier to use a computer. A lot less mistakes too. Add with the fact that I can copy+paste names or odd words and not have to worry about spelling them all the time makes it also better.
My response to getting something in cursive is mostly "Why didn't you just e-mail this to me?" and it seems to be the response of most people. All my cursive and a bunch of other people's cursive says is "Hey, I suck at penmanship". Myself I'd rather have a few e-mails, a phone call or an IM conversation than communicate via letters.
No one says there is anything wrong with porting Windows to the X-O laptop, the problem results from when you bend over backwards to add in things simply to please MS so they can use XP and when you start making it with XP.
You complainers about Windows support need to learn that it's BECAUSE OLPC is an open platform that Microsoft is able to port Windows XP for it. You are completely ridiculous not understanding that for OLPC to not support Windows XP, they would have had to build a closed proprietary system. Since specs of XO are opened, and it's X86 based, Microsoft is obviously able to read the specs on the Wiki and build a port of Windows XP for it. It's just plain stupid to keep asking for OLPC to somehow block Microsoft.
The problem isn't that MS can port Windows to it, it is the fact that the OLPC is effectively marketing Windows and bending the specs to fit Windows. Very similar to how Dell bundles Windows with its computers. There is nothing wrong with MS deciding one day "Hey I feel like porting Windows to this" but they didn't, they changed the direction of it.
Give 1 Get 1 program was not a failure at all. Tens of thousands of laptops were given for free in dozens of countries. To create those dozens of hundred or thousand-laptop OLPC pilot projects. Those projects would not have been financed if it wasn't for the G1G1 program.
But if they were to simply sell the laptop they could have made more money in the long run. We are talking about 2007, back then even an iPod touch cost $300, a device with a keyboard that could have apps and surf the web and sold for $230 would have sold like hotcakes.
People in rich countries are greedy, they only care to pay for stuff that they can get for themselves.
Exactly, so leverage it to your benefit. If they would have sold individual laptops at a slight price premium ($30-50 dollars) and than invested that into more computers and better components it would have helped them in two ways. One they got money and for another they sell more so they get cheaper hardware so they can distribute more. Sounds like a win-win situation to me.
The problem was the unwillingness to tap the first world. Back in 2007 you can bet that the would would have somewhat embraced a laptop that cost only $230, even if the specs were somewhat pathetic. Add that into the fact the machine is nearly indestructible and can be read in sunlight and you would have had a fast selling machine and made $30 on top of it. But of course the OLPC said no to that and instead came up with "give one get one" where for $400 you could effectively get the same laptop and make a $200 contribution to the OLPC fund. Hm, would I rather buy a $400 durable laptop that has about the same specs as my ancient PIII locked in my basement that I never use, or buy a laptop with a decent CPU and a usable amount of RAM.
Just look at how well the iPod touch sold and it cost $300 in the same time period and at launch had 0 apps. An iPod touch with a keyboard would have sold very well when priced even lower. The unwillingness to sell the OLPC computers to the first world was a huge mistake.
The OLPC project was a failure for a few reasons. For one it never got to the promised $100 price point. And not even close to there, its current price is ~$200. Another reasons it was a failure was because it was meant to bring the benefits of F/OSS software to places where both free as in beer and free as in speech software was crucial. However, they compromised on that point too. Then was the fact of feature creep, they wanted it to do more, more and more. While perfection is always good, it can harm the project by not letting the price fall. Then was the failure of the give one get one program, it would have been better to give the masses a cheap PC while making a profit to further development. At the time of its release, a $220 netbook would have sold like crazy because no other computer would have been cheaper. Today though other simply as a donation why would I get an XO-1? I mean, its specs are pathetic (256 MB of memory, 1 gig SSD and an underpowered CPU). The first world sadly was an untapped market that could have raised a lot of money for the cause.
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I think Square-Enix needs to collaborate with Nintendo to make another Super Mario RPG. Few RPGs have the level of actual -fun- that Super Mario RPG had. Paper Mario and Mario and Luigi are pathetic imitations when it comes to Super Mario RPG. And above all the game seemed "fresh", having a lot of the same Nintendo characters but added a lot of new ones with impressive depth. Mix that with graphics that still look great today and it is a game just dying to be re-made as a DS or Wii game.
The thing though about the Wii is, sure, its trivial to set up homebrew and from there pirate random crap, but most people who buy Wii consoles don't know how and don't want to know how leading to a lower % of piracy.
Ended up cracked -years- later. After the SNES had ended its production run for the most part. Plus, back then to "pirate" a game you bought the game from some shady guy for $5, today that wouldn't fly, we want our games for free if we are going to pirate them. Today what people do is simply place them on a flash cart and go. The DS is unique in the fact that its going to be hard to truly emulate the experience of having a real DS on a computer. So all they need to do is release a chip with the games and stop most casual piracy. Will it be cracked? Of course, will it happen after the game is profitable, yes.
First, think about the actual copying being done. Sure, using a p2p client you are downloading one copy of the song. But chances are, you are seeding to many, many individual copies of the same song, sometimes as many as thousands over the course of a download.
Sometimes though. It can't be proven. And thats the thing, you should not be able to sue over imagined damages, they must be -proven- otherwise I could say that I'm suing SETI because when using SETI @Home it contacted an alien to the exact location of my computer and ended up abducting me for what was a second on earth time but one thousand years where they took me even though I can't prove it.
Second, damages are generous in copyright cases by design. Plaintiffs can recover treble damages. They're also eligible for special damages, which cover the victor's court costs, attorney's fees, and punitive damages. There are certain fields of law where enforcement is difficult and litigation cumbersome and expensive, so the courts are willing to heap large damages to keep rights holders from being dissuaded from bringing a strong claim (treble damages) and to try hard to dissuade people from infringing in the first place (punitive damages).
Which is a flaw in the legal system which judges both have the right and obligation to correct.
Third, you're looking at copyright wrong. Wal*Mart did buy the initial CD. But Wal*Mart didn't pay for the rights for all the people who downloaded the songs off the defendant. The defendant didn't, either. It's not a "well they wouldn't have made a sale" argument, or a "what was their actual cost" argument. This isn't an action for unjust enrichment, it's an action stating that a copyright holder's rights have been infringed. Lost profits and costs feed into the consideration, but they're not nearly central.
But without lost profits you don't really have any damages to sue for which should really be the only available option to sue for. The judicial system has rights to overturn unjust legislation, clearly the legal system is unjust and clearly it goes against the founding principles for it.
The problem is, the RIAA executives are so screwed up in the head that -any- drop in profits means "ZOMG PIRATES!!!!1!1!11" they don't think rationally. Any drop in profits to them is always caused by "pirates" not that the song was crap, that people are boycotting the RIAA, etc. its always "pirates" to them. So while its good and all to boycott them, thinking its going to make a change is quite idealist and won't make a drop of difference in the world really, but keep trying.
...In case you didn't read it, something tells me the person who sold you the gun would not be at fault... My post was entirely about how it would be perfectly legal for the person selling the item to sell it to you if there was no way of knowing where you were from or how it would be used.
Its not the fact that its against the law its the fact that A) these people are convicted for -insane- damages. Ok, how much is a song worth? About $.99 right? But to the RIAA they can sue for -hundreds- and -thousands- for a single song. So what do you think would happen if I stole a CD from Wal-Mart and they found out about it? They would probably charge me a few hundred dollars, perhaps ban me from the store, etc. they wouldn't sue me for many thousand dollars. Wait, but here is the thing, Wal-Mart -bought- the CD wholesale, Wal-Mart paid money for it, for digital copies they don't cost a cent to make so there are no lost profits. B) They are convicted for little to no evidence. It would be like a murder investigation throwing someone in prison because they were on the same street that the murder took place at the time of the murder. That wouldn't fly.
The law states that penalties should not be outrageous, I think anything more than $20-$30 a song is outrageous. The RIAA did not lose much of anything whenever a song is "pirated".
I would assume that it would. Think of it in an analog analogy, if i had something that was legal in my state and gave it away for free with a sign saying basically "Note: This item is prohibited in the states of California, Virgina and Utah" and someone came in and got one of these free items. There is nothing wrong with me giving them to them if they are going to use it in the same state (use it as fair use) and there are public laws saying you can't download without fair use. However, if that person took my freely-given items then took them into another state, should I be at fault?
I'm not exactly sure what the big deal is. Yes, tornados do happen, however -every- place has its risks. Any place located on any cost has the possibility of hurricanes, California has a lot of earthquakes, etc. And honestly the chances of a tornado hitting that exact same place and causing any sort of major damage is slim.
Yes, but even more interesting was the general reluctance of any country not suffering direct attack by the Japanese or by Nazi Germany to join the war. Until Nazi Germany decided they weren't going to stop at just a few countries most of the world just sat back and hoped they didn't come for them.
Sure, but submarines are not totally safe. Lets say a group of people manage to board the ship and with some aid from some crew, hey, they have 160 nukes that can reach pretty much an entire continent or more. Or lets say two subs manage to crash into each other as had previously happened ( http://i.gizmodo.com/5154315/two-nuclear-submarines-collide-in-the-atlantic ) and lets say for some reason some safety measures failed and if this happens in a populated area it becomes another Chernobyl even with an incomplete detonation. The USSR is no longer in power, and a nuke or two is all it takes to neutralize any potential other nuclear threat from a non-stable nation, so why risk it?
The reasons why there aren't any wars after WWII isn't necessarily nukes, but the general enlightenment that comes with technology. Other than the Soviet Union, during the Cold War no one really wanted to fight on a global scale, and the only reason that Soviet Russia did was that the people were brainwashed. Before WWI and WWII young men -wanted- war, they wanted the "glory" of victory, they wanted if they died to be remembered as a patriot with every girl they ever knew wishing that they were still alive and crying at the funeral. Than WWI hit and so did the media, and suddenly war didn't seem to be all that great to the masses except for in the propaganda and brainwashed cultures of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. The rest of them fought for pure necessity and to save their own skin. After that, very few people really -wanted- another war, sure, they did have a few small wars, but they couldn't convince the people that war was really necessary anymore. No longer in most cultures did you have the father or grandfather speak proudly about his accomplishments in war, making it sound no more dangerous than hunting with some friends. But after the world wars you had most of them quiet, traumatized, mix that in with the fact that most people no longer saw a need for war (hippie movement) and improvements in journalism made it possible for everyone to see the horrors of war lead to many cultures who refused to go to war. The reason why we haven't had WWIII isn't totally because we have nukes but because there would be very few willing fighters.
That doesn't stop the US and a lot of other nuclear armed countries fitting nuclear weapons on just about everything that flies or sails. Really, having a few nuclear ICBMs is simply sane with other hostile countries. However, loading submarines with multiple warheads is not. If you must have nuclear armed subs, arm each one with one low-yield nuke. Any more and you are just begging for an accident.
I never have understood why managers love meetings. I mean, it kills productivity, usually ends up being boring or unrelated and in general a waste of time.
It depends though, some of us might be richer, however some of us might be poorer because we made a lot of money doing tech support with issues that wouldn't have been there if it wasn't for Windows. Now, I don't think this is an excuse for how buggy Windows is, but its an interesting aspect.
BASIC is good only for teaching the "programmers mindset" in how to reason and think with code. The language itself does nothing but teach you terribly bad habits that will plague your code if you use anything else.
The problem is that you need to keep spending in IT to have enough money to run IT. Generally they cut the budget on you when you don't spend much so IT people are forced to upgrade hardware when it really doesn't need upgraded to have enough cash to spend when you really need to upgrade (server breaks, get a new system that requires new hardware, etc) along with management's love for conferences thinking it will "inspire", leads to a bloated IT budget but with no real way to cut it without losing valuable funds. Some years you may not have to upgrade a single desktop, other years you replace every single computer in the building. But if you don't spend during the non-upgrading year you won't get the funds needed for a smooth transition.
I think they say its number two, but that doesn't make any sense because the point of DDoS attacks are so you can't access the site, so what does AT&T do? Blocks the site.
The problem is, I know AT&T sucks but I have to use them (at least for cell service) because they are the only phone provider where I live. Perhaps some day that will change and I can get T-Mobile and a nice Android handset, but in 2009 the only way I can get service it with AT&T, no matter how badly they suck.
For you, for me its totally different. If I need to communicate to a colleague I send them an e-mail or call them. I see no need in hand-writing or using a typewriter for anything technical, its a heck of a lot easier to use a computer. A lot less mistakes too. Add with the fact that I can copy+paste names or odd words and not have to worry about spelling them all the time makes it also better.
My response to getting something in cursive is mostly "Why didn't you just e-mail this to me?" and it seems to be the response of most people. All my cursive and a bunch of other people's cursive says is "Hey, I suck at penmanship". Myself I'd rather have a few e-mails, a phone call or an IM conversation than communicate via letters.
No one says there is anything wrong with porting Windows to the X-O laptop, the problem results from when you bend over backwards to add in things simply to please MS so they can use XP and when you start making it with XP.
You complainers about Windows support need to learn that it's BECAUSE OLPC is an open platform that Microsoft is able to port Windows XP for it. You are completely ridiculous not understanding that for OLPC to not support Windows XP, they would have had to build a closed proprietary system. Since specs of XO are opened, and it's X86 based, Microsoft is obviously able to read the specs on the Wiki and build a port of Windows XP for it. It's just plain stupid to keep asking for OLPC to somehow block Microsoft.
The problem isn't that MS can port Windows to it, it is the fact that the OLPC is effectively marketing Windows and bending the specs to fit Windows. Very similar to how Dell bundles Windows with its computers. There is nothing wrong with MS deciding one day "Hey I feel like porting Windows to this" but they didn't, they changed the direction of it.
Give 1 Get 1 program was not a failure at all. Tens of thousands of laptops were given for free in dozens of countries. To create those dozens of hundred or thousand-laptop OLPC pilot projects. Those projects would not have been financed if it wasn't for the G1G1 program.
But if they were to simply sell the laptop they could have made more money in the long run. We are talking about 2007, back then even an iPod touch cost $300, a device with a keyboard that could have apps and surf the web and sold for $230 would have sold like hotcakes.
People in rich countries are greedy, they only care to pay for stuff that they can get for themselves.
Exactly, so leverage it to your benefit. If they would have sold individual laptops at a slight price premium ($30-50 dollars) and than invested that into more computers and better components it would have helped them in two ways. One they got money and for another they sell more so they get cheaper hardware so they can distribute more. Sounds like a win-win situation to me.
The problem was the unwillingness to tap the first world. Back in 2007 you can bet that the would would have somewhat embraced a laptop that cost only $230, even if the specs were somewhat pathetic. Add that into the fact the machine is nearly indestructible and can be read in sunlight and you would have had a fast selling machine and made $30 on top of it. But of course the OLPC said no to that and instead came up with "give one get one" where for $400 you could effectively get the same laptop and make a $200 contribution to the OLPC fund. Hm, would I rather buy a $400 durable laptop that has about the same specs as my ancient PIII locked in my basement that I never use, or buy a laptop with a decent CPU and a usable amount of RAM.
Just look at how well the iPod touch sold and it cost $300 in the same time period and at launch had 0 apps. An iPod touch with a keyboard would have sold very well when priced even lower. The unwillingness to sell the OLPC computers to the first world was a huge mistake.
The OLPC project was a failure for a few reasons. For one it never got to the promised $100 price point. And not even close to there, its current price is ~$200. Another reasons it was a failure was because it was meant to bring the benefits of F/OSS software to places where both free as in beer and free as in speech software was crucial. However, they compromised on that point too. Then was the fact of feature creep, they wanted it to do more, more and more. While perfection is always good, it can harm the project by not letting the price fall. Then was the failure of the give one get one program, it would have been better to give the masses a cheap PC while making a profit to further development. At the time of its release, a $220 netbook would have sold like crazy because no other computer would have been cheaper. Today though other simply as a donation why would I get an XO-1? I mean, its specs are pathetic (256 MB of memory, 1 gig SSD and an underpowered CPU). The first world sadly was an untapped market that could have raised a lot of money for the cause.
For the clueless /. mods, this is an Xkcd reference http://xkcd.com/327/