Why is parent modded funny? I'd think "Informative" is way more appropriate. I don't find it particularly amusing that the journalistic field work of/. editors is now reduced to reading web comics.
Of course, we all know the (rightful) bashing that would happen if someone actually posted an article on/. reading:
"Oh, so this other day, while reading online webcomics, I heard about this sweet expensive gaming table! And guess what? It actually exists! See, here's a link to the company who sells it!"
Obviously, that would instantly make the poster even less popular than kdawson, for spamming an already degrading/. with complete and utter crap commercials.
The last time someone did that to me, I quickly resurrected IE, uninstalled FF and told my "well-meaning" friend to leave his elitist policy at the door and not mess up my computer.
But Windows isn't a "good deal"; it's actually quite expensive and overpriced, given that the same functionality is available even in free operating systems.
The *only* thing IE leads in is, as you have pointed out, default installs.
Uhm. IE seems to be ahead on both those linked graphs. If you wanna claim there's something IE doesn't lead at, how about finding a source confirming that?
Did you miss the part about playing Oblivion then? A mac is definitely more stable, in the sense that it won't *ever* run Oblivion. At least Windows CAN play games in between the BSOD's.
Privacy going down the drain may be strongly put, but replacing preventive measures with reactive measures means taking a stance like "minor damages are okay", which should definitely be looked critically upon when said by a private company.
Some 95 +/- 5% of us don't ever have to care about the negative impact of seeing ourselves in compromising situations, so for us Youtube is all about the lulz and freedom of speech and all these great things. A tiny minority however has to face the fact of having their personal privacy ignored from the time a comprimising video was posted, till someone who found it unamusing reported it to the admins. Question is if the trade-off is worth it, and if alternate measures are really *that* unreasonable.
If Youtube was forced by law to implement preventive rather than reactive measures by pre-approving any content, a video like the one mentioned here would probably never have ended up online, and if it did anyway, it would be still feasible to hold Youtube responsible for content made available through Youtube. That's the advantage. The disadvantage would of course be a complete change in the content flow on Youtube.
If they were forced to pre-approve all content, they would probably figure a way to have poster ratings influence priority, so that long-term posters of high quality content would be pushed on top of the stack, while young kids singing along to Shakira would be dealt with later. Possibly, this would lead to frustrated teens who are bothered by the 6-month queue, assuming Youtube is not willing to hire 100K+ man hours per day to preview all the uploaded content, and niché sites might start popping up, turning Youtube into a highquality content heaven instead of the current mess, and spawning sites like bored-teens.com, i-has-a-webcam.com and untalented-singers.net.
Or it could end some entirely different way.
Anyway, the issue is that appearently everyone assumes that it's perfectly ok for Youtube to be unaccountable for anything however briefly available on their service, "cause it's user submitted", when in fact it's their choice to automate approval of content, and the discussion is dismissed because "it would be too hard".
It would probably be hard indeed, but it's the success of Youtube that makes it so bad to end up in compromising videos on their site. Since it's a private company and not a public service (even though we all take it for granted), I think it's fair to ask:
Does the benefits of legalised automatic approval of graphical user content really outweigh the potential dangers?
I'm not against free speech, but like most of you (appearent when the discussion is about copyright infringement), I believe the internet is still so young that the lawmakers still haven't quite figured out the querks, pros and cons, and there might be a need for exact laws defining the difference between discussion boards and content sharing. They might need to follow seperate sets of rules.
Many newspapers publish letters from the readers. The difference is that they go through and editorial process.
What would actually happen if every site was responsible of any content hosted on their site? It would probably spell certain doom for services as popular as youtube, but let's face it - 80% of the videos there are crap that the world could do without anyway.
Rather than assuming the creative sharing would come to a complete halt, could we imagine that niché sites would flourish?
I'd rather go to icanhascheezburger.com than do a Google picture search on "funny cats", because the editorial process on that site ensures that only decent quality is immediately available, and I don't need to weed out so much trash on my own.
Assuming Youtube was forced to close down, or only, say, 50-1000 new videos actually got released per day, since everything had to be manually reviewed and approved in accordance with how-many sets of local legislation, would it be unreasonable to assume new sites would surface, specializing in videos within certain fields of interest?
It would be a tedious process indeed, and user-submitted videos would become a different world than what it is now. However, we need to keep in mind that there was a world before Youtube. Just because *they* can't be asked to approve everything submitted, does that mean an editorial process of graphic material published to the entire world should be entirely optional?
Please mod parent up.
While we can all agree that it's impractical for Google to review every single video, this is not a reason to dismiss the discussion of whether or not it's acceptable for privacy to go down the drain simply because we're happily amused by all non-objectional use of their service.
MMO games by definition require extensive server farms, meaning continous maintenance costs for the developers. (I'm not suggesting Blizzard isn't rolling in massive dough on their subscriber base, but they couldn't keep WoW profitable if it was free to play).
FPS's are different, since everyone and their mother has adequate hardware to act as host for some 16-64 players, and that's all it takes for a good experience.
I seriously doubt that online fees is the general direction for the PC.
I'm pretty sure they didn't change any dates. Shutdowns starting March, completely useless by June sounds very familiar. Unfortunately, I can't dig out hard evidence. Neither can you, I suspect.
You have only yourself to blame for missing it. It was NOT hidden in a obscure paragraph in tiny letters.
Truth be told, 3 months of "harassment" is highly preferable to simply having your PC intentionally bricked from one day to the next.
Classic "damned if you do, damned if you don't". I can hear/. screaming even louder that M$ intentionally made every fucking thing on your PC entirely unavailable without any warning what-so-ever.
No offense to the poster, but... modded Informative?
To Not Be Said In Next Smoke Break:
"You know what? Some guy who calls himself Grimbleton on/. won't be installing Ubisoft games anymore!"
RTFA. They do. I think I still hate the idea, but in every case where you're not annoyed beyond believe, it does seem to come with a few nice features.
Nothing measurable on any standards what-so-ever. The time and energy spent re-distributing and re-reading old news would otherwise have been spent on actual news, leaving you slightly more informed, but with the same end result on entropy added.
I'm gonna cry if entropy ever becomes "the new CO2".
He's astonished he's never heard of Linux before I showed it to him. WTF are we doing wrong in getting the word out?!?
Primarily, you're wrongly assuming that the average consumer can be bothered to worry about these "operating systems". Windows is the only thing that works if you expect to pick up any of the commercial plastic-wrapped software shelved all over the local PC store. The average user just want things to work, and is not gonna go home and start googleing free alternatives to the software that was already included in the price paid for the PC.
The only time these people are exposed to the term "Linux", is through intimidating encounters with nerds who get all religious with their MS bashing, and considers it intuitive to install applications by typing apt-get funandgames.
Slashdot Mirror
At the very least, they'll probably be forced to read with their left hand.
Why is parent modded funny? I'd think "Informative" is way more appropriate. I don't find it particularly amusing that the journalistic field work of /. editors is now reduced to reading web comics.
Of course, we all know the (rightful) bashing that would happen if someone actually posted an article on /. reading: /. with complete and utter crap commercials.
"Oh, so this other day, while reading online webcomics, I heard about this sweet expensive gaming table! And guess what? It actually exists! See, here's a link to the company who sells it!"
Obviously, that would instantly make the poster even less popular than kdawson, for spamming an already degrading
The last time someone did that to me, I quickly resurrected IE, uninstalled FF and told my "well-meaning" friend to leave his elitist policy at the door and not mess up my computer.
But Windows isn't a "good deal"; it's actually quite expensive and overpriced, given that the same functionality is available even in free operating systems.
How do I get a free OS to run DirectX-apps?
The *only* thing IE leads in is, as you have pointed out, default installs.
Uhm. IE seems to be ahead on both those linked graphs. If you wanna claim there's something IE doesn't lead at, how about finding a source confirming that?
Did you miss the part about playing Oblivion then? A mac is definitely more stable, in the sense that it won't *ever* run Oblivion. At least Windows CAN play games in between the BSOD's.
Privacy going down the drain may be strongly put, but replacing preventive measures with reactive measures means taking a stance like "minor damages are okay", which should definitely be looked critically upon when said by a private company.
Some 95 +/- 5% of us don't ever have to care about the negative impact of seeing ourselves in compromising situations, so for us Youtube is all about the lulz and freedom of speech and all these great things. A tiny minority however has to face the fact of having their personal privacy ignored from the time a comprimising video was posted, till someone who found it unamusing reported it to the admins. Question is if the trade-off is worth it, and if alternate measures are really *that* unreasonable.
If Youtube was forced by law to implement preventive rather than reactive measures by pre-approving any content, a video like the one mentioned here would probably never have ended up online, and if it did anyway, it would be still feasible to hold Youtube responsible for content made available through Youtube. That's the advantage. The disadvantage would of course be a complete change in the content flow on Youtube.
If they were forced to pre-approve all content, they would probably figure a way to have poster ratings influence priority, so that long-term posters of high quality content would be pushed on top of the stack, while young kids singing along to Shakira would be dealt with later. Possibly, this would lead to frustrated teens who are bothered by the 6-month queue, assuming Youtube is not willing to hire 100K+ man hours per day to preview all the uploaded content, and niché sites might start popping up, turning Youtube into a highquality content heaven instead of the current mess, and spawning sites like bored-teens.com, i-has-a-webcam.com and untalented-singers.net.
Or it could end some entirely different way.
Anyway, the issue is that appearently everyone assumes that it's perfectly ok for Youtube to be unaccountable for anything however briefly available on their service, "cause it's user submitted", when in fact it's their choice to automate approval of content, and the discussion is dismissed because "it would be too hard".
It would probably be hard indeed, but it's the success of Youtube that makes it so bad to end up in compromising videos on their site. Since it's a private company and not a public service (even though we all take it for granted), I think it's fair to ask:
Does the benefits of legalised automatic approval of graphical user content really outweigh the potential dangers?
I'm not against free speech, but like most of you (appearent when the discussion is about copyright infringement), I believe the internet is still so young that the lawmakers still haven't quite figured out the querks, pros and cons, and there might be a need for exact laws defining the difference between discussion boards and content sharing. They might need to follow seperate sets of rules.
Many newspapers publish letters from the readers. The difference is that they go through and editorial process.
What would actually happen if every site was responsible of any content hosted on their site? It would probably spell certain doom for services as popular as youtube, but let's face it - 80% of the videos there are crap that the world could do without anyway.
Rather than assuming the creative sharing would come to a complete halt, could we imagine that niché sites would flourish?
I'd rather go to icanhascheezburger.com than do a Google picture search on "funny cats", because the editorial process on that site ensures that only decent quality is immediately available, and I don't need to weed out so much trash on my own.
Assuming Youtube was forced to close down, or only, say, 50-1000 new videos actually got released per day, since everything had to be manually reviewed and approved in accordance with how-many sets of local legislation, would it be unreasonable to assume new sites would surface, specializing in videos within certain fields of interest?
It would be a tedious process indeed, and user-submitted videos would become a different world than what it is now. However, we need to keep in mind that there was a world before Youtube. Just because *they* can't be asked to approve everything submitted, does that mean an editorial process of graphic material published to the entire world should be entirely optional?
Please mod parent up.
While we can all agree that it's impractical for Google to review every single video, this is not a reason to dismiss the discussion of whether or not it's acceptable for privacy to go down the drain simply because we're happily amused by all non-objectional use of their service.
Which is the most likely demographic to pay for online gaming subscriptions? That's right. Annoying tards.
Anything remotely resembling statistics to back that up? My gut feeling disagrees entirely.
MMO games by definition require extensive server farms, meaning continous maintenance costs for the developers. (I'm not suggesting Blizzard isn't rolling in massive dough on their subscriber base, but they couldn't keep WoW profitable if it was free to play).
FPS's are different, since everyone and their mother has adequate hardware to act as host for some 16-64 players, and that's all it takes for a good experience.
I seriously doubt that online fees is the general direction for the PC.
I'm pretty sure they didn't change any dates. Shutdowns starting March, completely useless by June sounds very familiar. Unfortunately, I can't dig out hard evidence. Neither can you, I suspect.
You have only yourself to blame for missing it. It was NOT hidden in a obscure paragraph in tiny letters. /. screaming even louder that M$ intentionally made every fucking thing on your PC entirely unavailable without any warning what-so-ever.
Truth be told, 3 months of "harassment" is highly preferable to simply having your PC intentionally bricked from one day to the next.
Classic "damned if you do, damned if you don't". I can hear
Is that it? Pfft, I'll pass.
Fine, the Apple tablet doesn't appeal to you, why even bother making a comment?
Cause Apple fanbois are fun! Basically the same reasons why fundamentalistic atheists finds it amusing to tease religious people.
No offense to the poster, but... modded Informative? /. won't be installing Ubisoft games anymore!"
To Not Be Said In Next Smoke Break:
"You know what? Some guy who calls himself Grimbleton on
If only the mods went to +6
... then 6 would be the new 5.
RTFA. They do. I think I still hate the idea, but in every case where you're not annoyed beyond believe, it does seem to come with a few nice features.
Nothing measurable on any standards what-so-ever. The time and energy spent re-distributing and re-reading old news would otherwise have been spent on actual news, leaving you slightly more informed, but with the same end result on entropy added.
I'm gonna cry if entropy ever becomes "the new CO2".
He's astonished he's never heard of Linux before I showed it to him. WTF are we doing wrong in getting the word out?!?
Primarily, you're wrongly assuming that the average consumer can be bothered to worry about these "operating systems". Windows is the only thing that works if you expect to pick up any of the commercial plastic-wrapped software shelved all over the local PC store. The average user just want things to work, and is not gonna go home and start googleing free alternatives to the software that was already included in the price paid for the PC.
The only time these people are exposed to the term "Linux", is through intimidating encounters with nerds who get all religious with their MS bashing, and considers it intuitive to install applications by typing apt-get funandgames.
I cast... Magic Missile!
CoH is not the first MMORPG with a level editor.
http://www.ryzom.com/en/ryzom_ring.html
Couple of years old, and the game itself is indeed MMO *and* RPG.
Still not the first. http://www.ryzom.com/en/ryzom_ring.html
Ryzom