I played a few here in the US that would let me skip it or fast forward through it. I just mute the volume if it doesn't as I can't stand the music they use. The ironic part is I recall seeing a story a while back that said they didn't license the music used in that trailer.
This most certainly is worth the attention that it is getting, but I have a feeling you are just one of the many StarForce stooges prowling various forums and doing damage control. As stated by the others it is their hypocrisy that is causing all this attention. They violated their own forum rules about posting links to illegal content and then left the link up until well after the intial news post on Stardock's site about them doing so. Anyone else making posts like that or posts too critical of their product sees their post promptly edited or outright deleted by the moderators and this was one of their own admins who posted the link in the first place. They left their own link up for a week though until the influx of users from Stardock's forums, Slashdot and Digg brought them a lot of bad publicity. I went to their forums after the story posted here on the 11th and the link was still there and working.
There was also another admin in a different thread requesting scans of a PC Gamer magazine article that mentioned their product because the editor had problems with their protection and wrote a piece on it. This is a company selling products to protect copyright, yet they have no qualms against violating copyright themselves. One of their admins, sage386, also advertises his ties to the cracking group UCF. You can google him and find his name listed in nfo files. This should show you the type of company we are dealing with here and why it is important to get this news out and let the publishers know we do not want to support them if they use StarForce on their products. Since the linking to the torrent they have already lost the support of one publisher, with hopefully more to come. Aspyr Media will not include StarForce in the North American release of Spellforce 2, even though the demo currently uses it.
"I've noticed that Best Buy makes a point to talk about the minimum number of items like $500 laptops they have in each store.............. it made me think that they could avoid being accused of bait and switch as long as they had at least a certain number of the products to actually sell."
If you talk to the employees about the minimum number, you will generally find out the store received less of the advertised minimum for most of those items. While around here at least they will usually have more of bonus DVDs and items of that sorts, items like laptops, hard drives and other more expensive items they receive less than the minimum. This seems to happen quite a bit with the Black Friday doorbusters. I remember an employee of my local store complaining a few years ago about how they only received 3 of the hard drives in the doorbuster specials instead of at least 20 and how they then have to deal with all the irate customers when they realized they didn't have enough. He said it was a common occurance with the bigger ticket items as they hope you'll buy something else that they'll make more money on. It seemed to be working with the hard drive as I saw many people grabbing a more expensive drive that was shelved where the sale one was supposed to be, though I'm not sure how many left them sitting at the checkout when they realized how much more expensive that model was.
Kind of funny that you mention that. I saw a similar couch on the news maybe a year ago on a local Milwaukee station (home of Harley). I can't remember all the details on it, but I believe the guys who built it make custom motorcycles and built a motorized loveseat just for fun. They drive it around to local bars and give patrons rides, mostly women since that was one of their reasons for building it.
"Never set-foot in a Walmart? Best Buy is very, very terrible, but Walmart is still worse."
Actually I have, but I think I could count on one hand the number of times they got any of my money and it was very little when they did. That is one store that I would rank much lower overall than Best Buy, but I can't comment too much on their service since I try to never even set foot in one. I will say though that they need more checkouts open there from what I have seen and heard. My mother was there once to get an item she couldn't find elsewhere and it took her almost 45 minutes to check out in an express lane. I'd hate to see how long it would have taken in a normal checkout. The only problem with my boycott is I am a member of Sam's Club, though I generally don't seem to spend more than a few hundred a year there tops so I'm not helping Walmart grow much.
"They do website price matching without any arguments; it's explicitly in their terms."
I first tried that there with a printout from Walmart's website for the Two Towers box set and it was a piece of cake. The clerk wasn't aware they did that so made a quick call to her manager who said yes. I wasn't even sure myself if they would do it as I don't recall seeing it in the policy back then. She rang me up and then said she was going to end up doing the same thing since with the 10% difference it was cheaper than buying it with her employee discount. I love Circuit City's price matching, I have yet to have any hassles with them and they make it a lot faster process than Best Buy since it doesn't require special receipts that they have to write on and Circuit City also has their big competitors in a list to select from so the clerk doesn't have to type it in. I can usually have a pricematch completed there before a clerk at Best Buy could even pull out the special reciept to get started. The only real complaint I do have is their POS systems are a bit sluggish if you aren't paying with cash. I have looked at their display of those gadgets a few times, but have yet to try any of them. A few looked interesting so maybe I will give them a try.
My sister and I had this problem with them a couple years ago when buying a digital camera for our mother at Best Buy. They were running a deal online where you would get a $50 gift card with purchase of a digital camera and I asked the salesman in that department if they would honor that in store also and was told that it wouldn't be a problem. The next day my sister met me at the store near me and that salesman wasn't working, so the one who got the camera out of the case told us to go up to customer service. I went up there and was very rudely informed that they don't match online prices. I told the girl that it was their website and one of their employees in that department said it wouldn't be a problem. She continued acting very rudely to me while I was trying to remain calm and polite. She kept using that excuse that they are different divisions and keep different inventory so it wasn't possible. I asked her if that was the case how come I could order it online, get the deal and choose in store pickup, thus taking it out of their store inventory. I finally asked to speak to her manager and when he came over and I explained the situation, he said it wouldn't be a problem and apologized for the misunderstanding. I ended up getting the gift card after he intervened and then used it five minutes later to buy a SD card for the camera. I also got quite the dirty look from the clerk since I went over her head, but with that attitude of hers it shocked me they would even let her work customer service. Usually it is the customer that can get quite rude and they should be able to deal with that, not be rude to a customer that is being polite, especially when we were also buying their extended warrenty since our mom had a habit of dropping cameras.
I try not to buy as much from Best Buy these days because of their policies, their prices really aren't the best and they have the absolute worst staff of any retail establishment I have ever set foot in. It's rather convenient that a Circuit City opened up next door to my local Best Buy so I usually shop there and mostly use Newegg for hardware purchases. Not once have I had a problem with a Circuit City employee and generally on the products I am after the prices are better also. I used to consider Best Buy my favorite store years ago and have spent a lot of money there, but the way they treat their customers has turned them more into a window shopping store for me now. Many of my trips in there are to look at something in person and then I end up buying elsewhere.
I'm not sure what the absolute latest is on the deal right now, but what I read was ABC is interested in picking it up with a one season commitment and Showtime is willing to commit to 2 seasons. It sounds like Showtime might be the one to get it, but the deal is contingent on the creator Mitch Hurwitz coming with it.
Unless I'm mistaken, he's an undergraduate. Any place that calls itself a "University" should be providing a full liberal arts education to undergrads (heck, even my school does, and it calls itself an "Institute" instead).
Unfortunately you are, for admittance to MU's School of Dentistry you need 90 credits of liberal arts study. I'm not sure if or how much that has changed over the years, but my dentist and all her family at their office are MU alumni and the dental school was graduate level for them.
http://www.walmartstores.com/GlobalWMStoresWeb/nav igate.do?catg=14 You don't need to live in the US to know about them, they have international stores and their mere existance affects more than just the US. Unfortunately they have grown so large that many products won't even make it to the market if they can't convice Wal-Mart to carry it.
It is even worse if you use Road Runner like myself or are an AOL subscriber. Then not only are they using your bandwidth to distribute their content, but you are also paying them for the bandwidth they are leeching. It's a win-win for them though and I'm sure they'll be laughing all the way to the bank.
I had to leave soon when I wrote that post or I would have made it clearer that the comment about the new music was referring to RIAA member companies specifically. I do have CDs from independents and local bands, though I haven't bought any of those lately either. I'm not boycotting them, but I haven't been looking very hard and most of my friends and family don't listen to much that the RIAA doesn't fill their heads with. I should look around for more though as there are a lot more independents out there now and I'm probably missing out on a lot of music I'd like.
I shouldn't even respond to a post with that kind of attitude, but maybe I didn't word it clearly enough for you to understand. I know there are ways around the protections, but I stated I don't want to support that kind of behaviour if there is protection on it. Have you seen all the news reports about how well protected audio CDs sell that the RIAA members like to spread around? My copy goes back if it has protection no matter how easy it might be to bypass. A lost sale is more effective in fighting back than bypassing the protection or they'll just think we are happily accepting their crap. It's just a shame that they think they can just buy politicians to protect their outdated business model instead of adapting to the changing times.
Does anyone know how reliable Amazon's notice is? I bought my first CD in years (The Legend of Johnny Cash) and it is still sealed because I want to make sure there is no protection. Even if I would only listen to the actual CD and never make a backup I don't plan on supporting that type of behaviour. The RIAA members have really hurt themselves with this type of behaviour. Years ago I averaged at least one CD purchase a week, now they are lucky if I buy one a year and that has been to give as gifts only. The lack of good new music doesn't help, but there are old releases I wouldn't mind buying if they'd stop treating customers like criminals.
No, they were referring to all new and renewing passports as of 10/06 will contain RFID. They aren't requiring all citizens to have one. I don't have one or know many people here who do, but after I heard this announcement the other day I hit their site looking into how to obtain one of the current ones. I haven't left the country yet, but I'd like to, so I figure I might as well get myself one soon. They don't need to make passports compulsory as the Senate already passed the Real ID Act in May without debate, which will effectively create a national ID.
It's nice they provide On-Demand free to you, but here Warner wants an extra $6.95 a month. It is a nice service, but the cable bill is way too high as it is, so they aren't getting that extra money from me. HBO has made enough off me and my family already, seeing as how my parents first subscribed in the 70s when I was young and I've never been without it, though my sister's house just unsubscribed until new episodes of Sopranos. I've thought about doing the same to save money, but I like their other content too. I just want some new episodes of Sopranos and The Wire soon.
Maybe the parent meant to say Metroid Prime 2: Echoes? I know it's been a long time since I picked up my copy of MP and I never did play through the whole game yet, but I sure don't remember multiplayer in it either.
Actually you do know the Xbox program as that is the one called Platinum Hits, Sony calls their program Greatest Hits. I believe I heard something about Super Smash Brothers Melee finally dropping in price though I don't notice any change yet, but price is one area Nintendo's Players Choice games could really use improvement. With Xbox and PS2 games I know any of the titles in the program I can pick up for $20 or even less during a sale, but not so with Nintendo's titles as different titles get different prices.
I agree with the parent about Nintendo's previous stance on the rental market as I remember those days, but since then they have embraced it as the handful of rental only N64 games and Starfox Assault's early release to rental demonstrated, even if that last plan failed. I wasn't planning on renting it, but I couldn't even find copies early at the rental stores here that were out early. I ended up seeing it in retail stores first, but that is probably the rental chains fault as the one shipped the wrong movie out with the UPC for Steamboy and still hasn't shipped the local store their copies of Steamboy even though it has been 2 months.
I've got to disagree with the parent though about Nintendo embracing multiplayer as I feel they really dropped the ball on that. They've got their work cut out for them now catching up to Microsoft and Sony on the multiplayer side of things. I didn't think Live would do as well as it has since it required an extra fee, but it has done quite well and was probably helped quite a bit by the built in networking. When Sony first released their network adapter it was rather hard to find in the stores around me and the fact that it wasn't just built in from the start I'm sure has hurt.
Would you happen to know of any investment forums that aren't infested with this type of user? I agree with your comment on Yahoo's, they are next to useless because of people like that. The users of the forum for my previous employer seem to have turned that type of behaviour into an art form. I do get a kick out of some of the users there claiming to have tens of thousands of shares, yet seem unable to write a coherent post. They should use some of those stacks of cash they have lying around and take an English class.
I thought the random quote at the bottom of the page for this story was fitting: It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this. -- Bertrand Russell
I'm not a football fan so I'm not too sure on this, but I seem to recall hearing that part of a players contract involves giving the NFL the right to license the use of your name and likeness for promotional purposes to companies like EA.
While there is the possibility a company could prevail in court using a tactic like you mentioned, the NFL has enough money to drag out the legal battle until they bankrupt the small game studio. With the exclusive license EA has right now they would probably end up facing EA lawyers also.
In addition to that and the other games mentioned, Dominos had some advertising games. There was Avoid the Noid on the C64 and Yo Noid! on the NES so 7-Up may have gotten the idea from Dominos. As I said in another post, Cool Spot was actually quite fun, especially considering it was a giant advertisement.
Slashdot Mirror
I played a few here in the US that would let me skip it or fast forward through it. I just mute the volume if it doesn't as I can't stand the music they use. The ironic part is I recall seeing a story a while back that said they didn't license the music used in that trailer.
This most certainly is worth the attention that it is getting, but I have a feeling you are just one of the many StarForce stooges prowling various forums and doing damage control. As stated by the others it is their hypocrisy that is causing all this attention. They violated their own forum rules about posting links to illegal content and then left the link up until well after the intial news post on Stardock's site about them doing so. Anyone else making posts like that or posts too critical of their product sees their post promptly edited or outright deleted by the moderators and this was one of their own admins who posted the link in the first place. They left their own link up for a week though until the influx of users from Stardock's forums, Slashdot and Digg brought them a lot of bad publicity. I went to their forums after the story posted here on the 11th and the link was still there and working.
There was also another admin in a different thread requesting scans of a PC Gamer magazine article that mentioned their product because the editor had problems with their protection and wrote a piece on it. This is a company selling products to protect copyright, yet they have no qualms against violating copyright themselves. One of their admins, sage386, also advertises his ties to the cracking group UCF. You can google him and find his name listed in nfo files. This should show you the type of company we are dealing with here and why it is important to get this news out and let the publishers know we do not want to support them if they use StarForce on their products. Since the linking to the torrent they have already lost the support of one publisher, with hopefully more to come. Aspyr Media will not include StarForce in the North American release of Spellforce 2, even though the demo currently uses it.
There have already been multiple lawsuits filed.
"I've noticed that Best Buy makes a point to talk about the minimum number of items like $500 laptops they have in each store.............. it made me think that they could avoid being accused of bait and switch as long as they had at least a certain number of the products to actually sell."
If you talk to the employees about the minimum number, you will generally find out the store received less of the advertised minimum for most of those items. While around here at least they will usually have more of bonus DVDs and items of that sorts, items like laptops, hard drives and other more expensive items they receive less than the minimum. This seems to happen quite a bit with the Black Friday doorbusters. I remember an employee of my local store complaining a few years ago about how they only received 3 of the hard drives in the doorbuster specials instead of at least 20 and how they then have to deal with all the irate customers when they realized they didn't have enough. He said it was a common occurance with the bigger ticket items as they hope you'll buy something else that they'll make more money on. It seemed to be working with the hard drive as I saw many people grabbing a more expensive drive that was shelved where the sale one was supposed to be, though I'm not sure how many left them sitting at the checkout when they realized how much more expensive that model was.
Kind of funny that you mention that. I saw a similar couch on the news maybe a year ago on a local Milwaukee station (home of Harley). I can't remember all the details on it, but I believe the guys who built it make custom motorcycles and built a motorized loveseat just for fun. They drive it around to local bars and give patrons rides, mostly women since that was one of their reasons for building it.
I believe the parent was referring to the division of Microsoft which is responsible for the Xbox. That is Robert J. Bach, not Bill Gates.
"Never set-foot in a Walmart? Best Buy is very, very terrible, but Walmart is still worse."
Actually I have, but I think I could count on one hand the number of times they got any of my money and it was very little when they did. That is one store that I would rank much lower overall than Best Buy, but I can't comment too much on their service since I try to never even set foot in one. I will say though that they need more checkouts open there from what I have seen and heard. My mother was there once to get an item she couldn't find elsewhere and it took her almost 45 minutes to check out in an express lane. I'd hate to see how long it would have taken in a normal checkout. The only problem with my boycott is I am a member of Sam's Club, though I generally don't seem to spend more than a few hundred a year there tops so I'm not helping Walmart grow much.
"They do website price matching without any arguments; it's explicitly in their terms."
I first tried that there with a printout from Walmart's website for the Two Towers box set and it was a piece of cake. The clerk wasn't aware they did that so made a quick call to her manager who said yes. I wasn't even sure myself if they would do it as I don't recall seeing it in the policy back then. She rang me up and then said she was going to end up doing the same thing since with the 10% difference it was cheaper than buying it with her employee discount. I love Circuit City's price matching, I have yet to have any hassles with them and they make it a lot faster process than Best Buy since it doesn't require special receipts that they have to write on and Circuit City also has their big competitors in a list to select from so the clerk doesn't have to type it in. I can usually have a pricematch completed there before a clerk at Best Buy could even pull out the special reciept to get started. The only real complaint I do have is their POS systems are a bit sluggish if you aren't paying with cash. I have looked at their display of those gadgets a few times, but have yet to try any of them. A few looked interesting so maybe I will give them a try.
My sister and I had this problem with them a couple years ago when buying a digital camera for our mother at Best Buy. They were running a deal online where you would get a $50 gift card with purchase of a digital camera and I asked the salesman in that department if they would honor that in store also and was told that it wouldn't be a problem. The next day my sister met me at the store near me and that salesman wasn't working, so the one who got the camera out of the case told us to go up to customer service. I went up there and was very rudely informed that they don't match online prices. I told the girl that it was their website and one of their employees in that department said it wouldn't be a problem. She continued acting very rudely to me while I was trying to remain calm and polite. She kept using that excuse that they are different divisions and keep different inventory so it wasn't possible. I asked her if that was the case how come I could order it online, get the deal and choose in store pickup, thus taking it out of their store inventory. I finally asked to speak to her manager and when he came over and I explained the situation, he said it wouldn't be a problem and apologized for the misunderstanding. I ended up getting the gift card after he intervened and then used it five minutes later to buy a SD card for the camera. I also got quite the dirty look from the clerk since I went over her head, but with that attitude of hers it shocked me they would even let her work customer service. Usually it is the customer that can get quite rude and they should be able to deal with that, not be rude to a customer that is being polite, especially when we were also buying their extended warrenty since our mom had a habit of dropping cameras.
I try not to buy as much from Best Buy these days because of their policies, their prices really aren't the best and they have the absolute worst staff of any retail establishment I have ever set foot in. It's rather convenient that a Circuit City opened up next door to my local Best Buy so I usually shop there and mostly use Newegg for hardware purchases. Not once have I had a problem with a Circuit City employee and generally on the products I am after the prices are better also. I used to consider Best Buy my favorite store years ago and have spent a lot of money there, but the way they treat their customers has turned them more into a window shopping store for me now. Many of my trips in there are to look at something in person and then I end up buying elsewhere.
I'm not sure what the absolute latest is on the deal right now, but what I read was ABC is interested in picking it up with a one season commitment and Showtime is willing to commit to 2 seasons. It sounds like Showtime might be the one to get it, but the deal is contingent on the creator Mitch Hurwitz coming with it.
Yes this was also in another post, but here you go:n /MS06-001.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/Bulleti
I was able to download the XP and 2000 patches just fine with Firefox from that link.
Unless I'm mistaken, he's an undergraduate. Any place that calls itself a "University" should be providing a full liberal arts education to undergrads (heck, even my school does, and it calls itself an "Institute" instead).
Unfortunately you are, for admittance to MU's School of Dentistry you need 90 credits of liberal arts study. I'm not sure if or how much that has changed over the years, but my dentist and all her family at their office are MU alumni and the dental school was graduate level for them.
http://www.walmartstores.com/GlobalWMStoresWeb/nav igate.do?catg=14
You don't need to live in the US to know about them, they have international stores and their mere existance affects more than just the US. Unfortunately they have grown so large that many products won't even make it to the market if they can't convice Wal-Mart to carry it.
It is even worse if you use Road Runner like myself or are an AOL subscriber. Then not only are they using your bandwidth to distribute their content, but you are also paying them for the bandwidth they are leeching. It's a win-win for them though and I'm sure they'll be laughing all the way to the bank.
I had to leave soon when I wrote that post or I would have made it clearer that the comment about the new music was referring to RIAA member companies specifically. I do have CDs from independents and local bands, though I haven't bought any of those lately either. I'm not boycotting them, but I haven't been looking very hard and most of my friends and family don't listen to much that the RIAA doesn't fill their heads with. I should look around for more though as there are a lot more independents out there now and I'm probably missing out on a lot of music I'd like.
I shouldn't even respond to a post with that kind of attitude, but maybe I didn't word it clearly enough for you to understand. I know there are ways around the protections, but I stated I don't want to support that kind of behaviour if there is protection on it. Have you seen all the news reports about how well protected audio CDs sell that the RIAA members like to spread around? My copy goes back if it has protection no matter how easy it might be to bypass. A lost sale is more effective in fighting back than bypassing the protection or they'll just think we are happily accepting their crap. It's just a shame that they think they can just buy politicians to protect their outdated business model instead of adapting to the changing times.
Does anyone know how reliable Amazon's notice is? I bought my first CD in years (The Legend of Johnny Cash) and it is still sealed because I want to make sure there is no protection. Even if I would only listen to the actual CD and never make a backup I don't plan on supporting that type of behaviour. The RIAA members have really hurt themselves with this type of behaviour. Years ago I averaged at least one CD purchase a week, now they are lucky if I buy one a year and that has been to give as gifts only. The lack of good new music doesn't help, but there are old releases I wouldn't mind buying if they'd stop treating customers like criminals.
No, they were referring to all new and renewing passports as of 10/06 will contain RFID. They aren't requiring all citizens to have one. I don't have one or know many people here who do, but after I heard this announcement the other day I hit their site looking into how to obtain one of the current ones. I haven't left the country yet, but I'd like to, so I figure I might as well get myself one soon. They don't need to make passports compulsory as the Senate already passed the Real ID Act in May without debate, which will effectively create a national ID.
Warner has not made any statements that they are dropping HD-DVD, they will most likely release in both formats like Paramount plans.i ng_article.cfm?article_id=8150
http://www.homemediaretailing.com/news/html/break
It's nice they provide On-Demand free to you, but here Warner wants an extra $6.95 a month. It is a nice service, but the cable bill is way too high as it is, so they aren't getting that extra money from me. HBO has made enough off me and my family already, seeing as how my parents first subscribed in the 70s when I was young and I've never been without it, though my sister's house just unsubscribed until new episodes of Sopranos. I've thought about doing the same to save money, but I like their other content too. I just want some new episodes of Sopranos and The Wire soon.
Maybe the parent meant to say Metroid Prime 2: Echoes? I know it's been a long time since I picked up my copy of MP and I never did play through the whole game yet, but I sure don't remember multiplayer in it either.
Actually you do know the Xbox program as that is the one called Platinum Hits, Sony calls their program Greatest Hits. I believe I heard something about Super Smash Brothers Melee finally dropping in price though I don't notice any change yet, but price is one area Nintendo's Players Choice games could really use improvement. With Xbox and PS2 games I know any of the titles in the program I can pick up for $20 or even less during a sale, but not so with Nintendo's titles as different titles get different prices.
I agree with the parent about Nintendo's previous stance on the rental market as I remember those days, but since then they have embraced it as the handful of rental only N64 games and Starfox Assault's early release to rental demonstrated, even if that last plan failed. I wasn't planning on renting it, but I couldn't even find copies early at the rental stores here that were out early. I ended up seeing it in retail stores first, but that is probably the rental chains fault as the one shipped the wrong movie out with the UPC for Steamboy and still hasn't shipped the local store their copies of Steamboy even though it has been 2 months.
I've got to disagree with the parent though about Nintendo embracing multiplayer as I feel they really dropped the ball on that. They've got their work cut out for them now catching up to Microsoft and Sony on the multiplayer side of things. I didn't think Live would do as well as it has since it required an extra fee, but it has done quite well and was probably helped quite a bit by the built in networking. When Sony first released their network adapter it was rather hard to find in the stores around me and the fact that it wasn't just built in from the start I'm sure has hurt.
Would you happen to know of any investment forums that aren't infested with this type of user? I agree with your comment on Yahoo's, they are next to useless because of people like that. The users of the forum for my previous employer seem to have turned that type of behaviour into an art form. I do get a kick out of some of the users there claiming to have tens of thousands of shares, yet seem unable to write a coherent post. They should use some of those stacks of cash they have lying around and take an English class.
I thought the random quote at the bottom of the page for this story was fitting: It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this. -- Bertrand Russell
I'm not a football fan so I'm not too sure on this, but I seem to recall hearing that part of a players contract involves giving the NFL the right to license the use of your name and likeness for promotional purposes to companies like EA.
While there is the possibility a company could prevail in court using a tactic like you mentioned, the NFL has enough money to drag out the legal battle until they bankrupt the small game studio. With the exclusive license EA has right now they would probably end up facing EA lawyers also.
In addition to that and the other games mentioned, Dominos had some advertising games. There was Avoid the Noid on the C64 and Yo Noid! on the NES so 7-Up may have gotten the idea from Dominos. As I said in another post, Cool Spot was actually quite fun, especially considering it was a giant advertisement.