They made assumptions that the device was static, incapable of becoming the device of today.
Again, all I can say is that the review was about the product that was being offered. It WAS expensive, it DIDN'T have that much space. The comments were to what Apple offered at that time which was AN EXPENSIVE AND RELATIVELY LOW CAPACITY DEVICE, not the potential of future revisions. When you look at a product whose specs don't look too great, do you say to yourself "well, that doesn't look too great" or do you say "THIS IS GONNA BE GREAT WITH AWESOME POTENTIAL!" Please. These guys were judging it by Apple's history and the raw specs, they were reviewing THE SPECIFIC PRODUCT, not future revisions they couldn't possibly have known about.
Many even tied its downfall to stereotypical Apple weaknesses, such as underperforming hardware, high prices, impracticality, and too much focus on external appearance at the expense of functionality.
That I agree with, but at the time I believe that was a reasonable assumption to make given Apple's history. Remember Newton? At this point, I think Apple has broken out of that stigma a lot, but those days were different and they've earned themselves a lot of faith. When MS talks about Longhorn,/.ers assume it's going to be buggy and full of anti-consumer type shit. Given their history, this is justified. At that time, thinking Apple was going to put out an under-speced, overpriced, but pretty device was a fair thing to assume.
In hindsight (especially), do these arguments not seem foolish to any logical person?
Purely in hindsight, of course they do, but at the time it made sense to look at the iPod and say "OK, 5 gigs isn't a lot and this thing costs a mint. Reminds me of, oh, NEWTON." So no, I don't think at the time it was foolish to think what the majority of posters were thinking. As an owner of a Powerbook, a Powermac, and an iPod, I'm EXTREMELY glad that those people and myself were wrong, but given Apple's stigma and track record, I would say it was at least understandable at the time. It's REAL easy to say after the fact "Duh... weren't you guys idiots for thinking that?"
In short, these idiots were fucking wrong.
Wrong, yes. Idiots, no. The specs were not impressive and people don't react to specs by saying "oh, well who cares about this one, the FUTURE ones are gonna be great!" If you can't understand why one might think that the iPod actually wasn't a great deal when it was first announced, you either weren't there and don't remember Apple's reputation at the time, are a total zealot, or are yourself an idiot for not understanding why people thought the way they did.
But wtf do you expect from mainstream radio stations?
I expect them to play watered down pop music, such as what U2 is producing.
Relevance" is just a way for musical elitists to try and put down a band that is popular but not up to their "high standards."
Don't get defensive. I say they're not relevant because they're not breaking any new ground and their sound is, well, old. They're writing totally forgettable music, which is OK, but not "relevant."
If you don't like U2, that's fine. Don't hide behind stupid malapropisms.
I do like U2, but I realize they're not relevant anymore. "Relevant" is what I use when there's a band that's influencing instead of being influenced, and pushing an envelope in some interesting way. They used to be that, and that's more than 95% of musicians today can say. They used to be edgy and controversial and interesting, not anymore. The music itself was great, now it's merely poppy sounding rock with the same U2 stuff we've already heard. Don't get me wrong, I like some of the modern U2 stuff, but it's not made of the same calibre stuff that Joshua Tree was. It's forgettable.
If you can't handle that because you don't agree with me, then fine, but don't hide behind "OMG UR A MUSICAL ELITEST" tripe. Their stuff in the 80s was revolutionary, but just because they continue to put out music doesn't mean they're still relevant.
Regardless of whether or not the incarnation they were talking about was anything impressive
That was the whole topic, and they were not dead wrong, the iPod did not get it's marketshare until afterwards. To imply that/.ers were idiots for saying the first one would not be successful is a bit harsh.
U2 aren't relevant anymore, really. They're watered down pop music.
That appeals to a whole lot of people, but their music hasn't been relevant since the late 80s. Noone is going to look back at what they've been doing for the past 10 years.
Did you see who else won grammies that year?
(I don't really think a U2 iPod is a bad thing, just commenting on my opinion of U2)
Yeah, and at the time it was only 5GB, so the real benefits (massive amounts of space to store ALL your music, and the power of the scroll wheel) weren't there yet. That's what made it really catch on, and the quotes you're posting were before all of that.
The iPod didn't REALLY catch on until towards the THIRD generation, a good two years after the posting of the article.
I'm a huge iPod supporter, but you shouldn't imply that/.ers were stupid for thinking the 1st gen was really all that hot. It wasn't until the interface was polished and the space went up that the iPod took off, and that was most definitely not at the same time as the quotes you put up there.
Slashdotters should have assumed that Apple's iPod was going to be a smash hit three years later eventually given that the 1st gen was expensive and had low capacity? I think 99% of the posters were talking about that first gen iPod, not the whole series. The first gen was NOT much of a hit, it was niche toy.
Doesn't everyone already have a digital camera that has "real" features, higher resolution, etc? If I just want a low res camera, practically every cellphone now features one.
The issue is that this sort of thing unnecessarily limits what you can do with the game. It seems probable that I won't be able to copy this game on my laptop and my desktop so a friend can come over and play it on my LAN, that I wont' be able to play the game if I don't have an internet connection present (laptop, cable outage, whatever), etc.
But again, who are you to say they've made enough and decide that you can just give it to whoever you want? Huh?
Noone has a problem with them wanting to make a profit. That's not the issue.
Don't buy the game. Don't like what their doing, don't buy it. Plain and simple.
Well, that's the idea. It's just a shame they're crippling their software. If anything, this is going to promote more cracks and encourage people not to buy this cripplewear. I have my copy pre-ordered, but this has seriously given me second thoughts about the whole thing. Valve seems to be doing some pretty stupid things lately.
But no, I'm sure you'll go and get a cracked copy of it because you think you're "stickin it to the man".
Settle down, squirt. The folks talking about cracking the game (at least so far) are willing to buy the game and then crack it so these BS restrictions won't be present.
justify it somehow in your brain that you're doing the right thing because Valve wanted a fucking little program on your computer. HOW DARE THEY!
I don't think you get it. There are many nasty implications about this scattered through these comments. Your posts on this thread are vehemently backing it up, though; are you sure you're not the one making justifications?
It's this simple. They're inconveniencing the PAYING customer. That is never good. I'm sure there are who people won't buy this game based on this, and the sad thing is that it's going to get cracked anyhow. So what we have here is another case where the pirates will be unaffected and the buyers of the software will be the ones who get screwed a little bit.
I mean come on... I need an internet connection to be able to play a single player game?
if the owner is not there, and nobody is actually watching the TV, you have a right to take nondestructive actions like turning the thing off
I doubt anyone has a real problem with that nor was that even brought up because it should be common sense.
Oh, it's not my table, I don't have the right to move it"? No, you move it because it's not harming anything.
Noone is arguing that...
Would you not find it handy to have a remote, so that in a situation where nobody is watching a TV (you just asked, remember, because you are a polite and considerate person), and there is no remote nearby, and you would rather have it off because you want to read, or sleep, or have a conversation without a flickering screen just behind your friend's shoulder to distract you?
It would be convenient, but again the case in which the action of turning off the TV is not detrimental to anyone isn't what's being argued here. That's obvious.
If the damaged area is damaged enough that nothing in the near physical area could be read, the disc would either have an enormous gouge in it or be EXTREMELY scratched.
Orrrrrrrr if you're a smart buyer, you'll choose the "right" format after prices on the media and players have dropped due to competition, which none of us should forget is a good thing, especially when we're talking about cost.
It's amazing how this canned argument always ends up getting modded up.
The canned response is that the discs are actually "safer" because there's a whole lot more room for error correction and redundancy. It's that simple.
Nope, just get the one that's not the special edition platinum or whatever. I've got a few choices of rental places around here, so it's not really a big deal for me.
but you have to admit that you're exaggerating the alternative view
I don't think so. The alternative view is that it's not your TV, so you shouldn't be able to turn it off.
but it's pretty clear that it's not really hurting anyone.
Yeah, but that works both ways. I like being able to watch CNN or something if I have nothing else to do. It's not really hurting anyone to have a TV on, and if it is, don't be at that place.
I think in most situations it's pretty obvious whether turning off the TV would be acceptable. If all else fails, you can stand up and say, "Hey, is anybody watching this?"
Yes, but just turning TVs off at public places if people are watching them or if the owner of the TV doesn't want it off is an asshole thing to do (illegal in some situations?).
While I personally agree with everything that you said, the fact that remains that you do not and SHOULD NOT have the right to manipulate property that isn't yours. If we were talking about some sort of law being passed or something, then the merits of TV's harm on society might be a factor.
However, this is just a (not even technically interesting) device designed for people who don't feel they should be annoyed by other people's rights. That's bullshit, and to me, that's where the conversation ends.
What if someone designed a remote that turned all TVs on because they actually LIKE TV?
This isn't about TVs or smoking or whatever you mentioned, it's about fucking with other people's stuff.
Right or not, if I can turn off tvs in my vicinity I'll do it. Think that's obnoxious?
If you can't handle a TV being on and are incapable of either looking for or realizing that there are many places to go without TVs, I would say yes, that's incredibly obnoxious and offer that the issue isn't TVs, it's your incapability of dealing with their existence.
One of these, a portable cell phone jammer, and a can of minivan repellent and I'm set.
It's humorous that promoting that sort of intrustion by taking away people's abilities gets modded up. If you really have as much of a tolerance issue that you're making it out to be, move somewhere you won't be emotionally raped by phones and TVs.
Really, is it THAT HARD to avoid TVs?
Some of these comments' tunes would probably be different if this was about jamming 802.11 or something on that idea.
Then don't sit in front of a TV or go places there are TVs if you're that sensitive about it. The fact remains that it's not your property and have no real say in it. Noone's forcing you to sit in front of a TV nor is anyone forcing you to go to that airport nor is anyone forcing you to fly in the first place.
They should do what I saw in a gym once, broadcast the sound portion over a radio frequency so people with radios could listen to it and those who didn't want to hear it weren't forced to.
The opposition would probably tell you that would be "forcing" them to have to buy headphones.
Majority of the people that buy ipods aren't technically inclined.
90% of my techy friends who own a portable music player own the iPod. I totally agree with your status symbol theory for the non-techy inclined, but I believe the sexiness for the techies is that the iPod does one thing, and it does it very well.
The iPod is an excellent and rare example of a product that has both form and function in spades.
Sure, why not support it if it's free. Having more options is good. Nothing to lose (except if you're Apple, who probably don't support it since there really isn't a mainstream demand for it and its addition would probably only serve to confuse some users... just a theory).
As to whether or not an actual consumer force exists that will only buy players that support Ogg exists, I highly doubt it.
Slashdot Mirror
They made assumptions that the device was static, incapable of becoming the device of today.
/.ers assume it's going to be buggy and full of anti-consumer type shit. Given their history, this is justified. At that time, thinking Apple was going to put out an under-speced, overpriced, but pretty device was a fair thing to assume.
Again, all I can say is that the review was about the product that was being offered. It WAS expensive, it DIDN'T have that much space. The comments were to what Apple offered at that time which was AN EXPENSIVE AND RELATIVELY LOW CAPACITY DEVICE, not the potential of future revisions. When you look at a product whose specs don't look too great, do you say to yourself "well, that doesn't look too great" or do you say "THIS IS GONNA BE GREAT WITH AWESOME POTENTIAL!" Please. These guys were judging it by Apple's history and the raw specs, they were reviewing THE SPECIFIC PRODUCT, not future revisions they couldn't possibly have known about.
Many even tied its downfall to stereotypical Apple weaknesses, such as underperforming hardware, high prices, impracticality, and too much focus on external appearance at the expense of functionality.
That I agree with, but at the time I believe that was a reasonable assumption to make given Apple's history. Remember Newton? At this point, I think Apple has broken out of that stigma a lot, but those days were different and they've earned themselves a lot of faith. When MS talks about Longhorn,
In hindsight (especially), do these arguments not seem foolish to any logical person?
Purely in hindsight, of course they do, but at the time it made sense to look at the iPod and say "OK, 5 gigs isn't a lot and this thing costs a mint. Reminds me of, oh, NEWTON." So no, I don't think at the time it was foolish to think what the majority of posters were thinking. As an owner of a Powerbook, a Powermac, and an iPod, I'm EXTREMELY glad that those people and myself were wrong, but given Apple's stigma and track record, I would say it was at least understandable at the time. It's REAL easy to say after the fact "Duh... weren't you guys idiots for thinking that?"
In short, these idiots were fucking wrong.
Wrong, yes. Idiots, no. The specs were not impressive and people don't react to specs by saying "oh, well who cares about this one, the FUTURE ones are gonna be great!" If you can't understand why one might think that the iPod actually wasn't a great deal when it was first announced, you either weren't there and don't remember Apple's reputation at the time, are a total zealot, or are yourself an idiot for not understanding why people thought the way they did.
But wtf do you expect from mainstream radio stations?
I expect them to play watered down pop music, such as what U2 is producing.
Relevance" is just a way for musical elitists to try and put down a band that is popular but not up to their "high standards."
Don't get defensive. I say they're not relevant because they're not breaking any new ground and their sound is, well, old. They're writing totally forgettable music, which is OK, but not "relevant."
If you don't like U2, that's fine. Don't hide behind stupid malapropisms.
I do like U2, but I realize they're not relevant anymore. "Relevant" is what I use when there's a band that's influencing instead of being influenced, and pushing an envelope in some interesting way. They used to be that, and that's more than 95% of musicians today can say. They used to be edgy and controversial and interesting, not anymore. The music itself was great, now it's merely poppy sounding rock with the same U2 stuff we've already heard. Don't get me wrong, I like some of the modern U2 stuff, but it's not made of the same calibre stuff that Joshua Tree was. It's forgettable.
If you can't handle that because you don't agree with me, then fine, but don't hide behind "OMG UR A MUSICAL ELITEST" tripe. Their stuff in the 80s was revolutionary, but just because they continue to put out music doesn't mean they're still relevant.
I'm with you 100%.
They're out there, but these are games that are practically guaranteed to be heavy hitters.
Regardless of whether or not the incarnation they were talking about was anything impressive
/.ers were idiots for saying the first one would not be successful is a bit harsh.
That was the whole topic, and they were not dead wrong, the iPod did not get it's marketshare until afterwards. To imply that
U2 aren't relevant anymore, really. They're watered down pop music.
That appeals to a whole lot of people, but their music hasn't been relevant since the late 80s. Noone is going to look back at what they've been doing for the past 10 years.
Did you see who else won grammies that year?
(I don't really think a U2 iPod is a bad thing, just commenting on my opinion of U2)
Yeah, and at the time it was only 5GB, so the real benefits (massive amounts of space to store ALL your music, and the power of the scroll wheel) weren't there yet. That's what made it really catch on, and the quotes you're posting were before all of that.
/.ers were stupid for thinking the 1st gen was really all that hot. It wasn't until the interface was polished and the space went up that the iPod took off, and that was most definitely not at the same time as the quotes you put up there.
The iPod didn't REALLY catch on until towards the THIRD generation, a good two years after the posting of the article.
I'm a huge iPod supporter, but you shouldn't imply that
Slashdotters should have assumed that Apple's iPod was going to be a smash hit three years later eventually given that the 1st gen was expensive and had low capacity? I think 99% of the posters were talking about that first gen iPod, not the whole series. The first gen was NOT much of a hit, it was niche toy.
What point are you trying to make?
Doesn't everyone already have a digital camera that has "real" features, higher resolution, etc? If I just want a low res camera, practically every cellphone now features one.
... if the new iPod actually took pictures.
These would all be factors...
Not everyone takes the time to read every comment posted, skippy.
Chill out.
Ah. Thanks for the clarification.
The issue isn't that Valve is profiting.
The issue is that this sort of thing unnecessarily limits what you can do with the game. It seems probable that I won't be able to copy this game on my laptop and my desktop so a friend can come over and play it on my LAN, that I wont' be able to play the game if I don't have an internet connection present (laptop, cable outage, whatever), etc.
But again, who are you to say they've made enough and decide that you can just give it to whoever you want? Huh?
Noone has a problem with them wanting to make a profit. That's not the issue.
Don't buy the game. Don't like what their doing, don't buy it. Plain and simple.
Well, that's the idea. It's just a shame they're crippling their software. If anything, this is going to promote more cracks and encourage people not to buy this cripplewear. I have my copy pre-ordered, but this has seriously given me second thoughts about the whole thing. Valve seems to be doing some pretty stupid things lately.
But no, I'm sure you'll go and get a cracked copy of it because you think you're "stickin it to the man".
Settle down, squirt. The folks talking about cracking the game (at least so far) are willing to buy the game and then crack it so these BS restrictions won't be present.
justify it somehow in your brain that you're doing the right thing because Valve wanted a fucking little program on your computer. HOW DARE THEY!
I don't think you get it. There are many nasty implications about this scattered through these comments. Your posts on this thread are vehemently backing it up, though; are you sure you're not the one making justifications?
It's this simple. They're inconveniencing the PAYING customer. That is never good. I'm sure there are who people won't buy this game based on this, and the sad thing is that it's going to get cracked anyhow. So what we have here is another case where the pirates will be unaffected and the buyers of the software will be the ones who get screwed a little bit.
I mean come on... I need an internet connection to be able to play a single player game?
they think their so goddamn clever.
Irony.
A constant internet connection is something the majority of us don't have, unlike 3D cards and CD-ROMs. That's simplifying it a bit much.
What if I install it on a laptop and want to play it on a plane or a hotel or anywhere without a connection?
if the owner is not there, and nobody is actually watching the TV, you have a right to take nondestructive actions like turning the thing off
I doubt anyone has a real problem with that nor was that even brought up because it should be common sense.
Oh, it's not my table, I don't have the right to move it"? No, you move it because it's not harming anything.
Noone is arguing that...
Would you not find it handy to have a remote, so that in a situation where nobody is watching a TV (you just asked, remember, because you are a polite and considerate person), and there is no remote nearby, and you would rather have it off because you want to read, or sleep, or have a conversation without a flickering screen just behind your friend's shoulder to distract you?
It would be convenient, but again the case in which the action of turning off the TV is not detrimental to anyone isn't what's being argued here. That's obvious.
If the damaged area is damaged enough that nothing in the near physical area could be read, the disc would either have an enormous gouge in it or be EXTREMELY scratched.
Orrrrrrrr if you're a smart buyer, you'll choose the "right" format after prices on the media and players have dropped due to competition, which none of us should forget is a good thing, especially when we're talking about cost.
It's amazing how this canned argument always ends up getting modded up.
The canned response is that the discs are actually "safer" because there's a whole lot more room for error correction and redundancy. It's that simple.
Unfortunately it will also jack up prices for the media and will take up a lot more space while storing it.
The article also states "one thing is for sure - neither Blu-Ray nor HD DVD will be using them (cartridges) in the future."
RTFA, mods.
Nope, just get the one that's not the special edition platinum or whatever. I've got a few choices of rental places around here, so it's not really a big deal for me.
but you have to admit that you're exaggerating the alternative view
I don't think so. The alternative view is that it's not your TV, so you shouldn't be able to turn it off.
but it's pretty clear that it's not really hurting anyone.
Yeah, but that works both ways. I like being able to watch CNN or something if I have nothing else to do. It's not really hurting anyone to have a TV on, and if it is, don't be at that place.
I think in most situations it's pretty obvious whether turning off the TV would be acceptable. If all else fails, you can stand up and say, "Hey, is anybody watching this?"
Yes, but just turning TVs off at public places if people are watching them or if the owner of the TV doesn't want it off is an asshole thing to do (illegal in some situations?).
While I personally agree with everything that you said, the fact that remains that you do not and SHOULD NOT have the right to manipulate property that isn't yours. If we were talking about some sort of law being passed or something, then the merits of TV's harm on society might be a factor.
However, this is just a (not even technically interesting) device designed for people who don't feel they should be annoyed by other people's rights. That's bullshit, and to me, that's where the conversation ends.
What if someone designed a remote that turned all TVs on because they actually LIKE TV?
This isn't about TVs or smoking or whatever you mentioned, it's about fucking with other people's stuff.
Right or not, if I can turn off tvs in my vicinity I'll do it. Think that's obnoxious?
If you can't handle a TV being on and are incapable of either looking for or realizing that there are many places to go without TVs, I would say yes, that's incredibly obnoxious and offer that the issue isn't TVs, it's your incapability of dealing with their existence.
One of these, a portable cell phone jammer, and a can of minivan repellent and I'm set.
It's humorous that promoting that sort of intrustion by taking away people's abilities gets modded up. If you really have as much of a tolerance issue that you're making it out to be, move somewhere you won't be emotionally raped by phones and TVs.
Really, is it THAT HARD to avoid TVs?
Some of these comments' tunes would probably be different if this was about jamming 802.11 or something on that idea.
So then the solution would be to disable the gun, which isn't your property?
Right.
Then don't sit in front of a TV or go places there are TVs if you're that sensitive about it. The fact remains that it's not your property and have no real say in it. Noone's forcing you to sit in front of a TV nor is anyone forcing you to go to that airport nor is anyone forcing you to fly in the first place.
They should do what I saw in a gym once, broadcast the sound portion over a radio frequency so people with radios could listen to it and those who didn't want to hear it weren't forced to.
The opposition would probably tell you that would be "forcing" them to have to buy headphones.
Majority of the people that buy ipods aren't technically inclined.
90% of my techy friends who own a portable music player own the iPod. I totally agree with your status symbol theory for the non-techy inclined, but I believe the sexiness for the techies is that the iPod does one thing, and it does it very well.
The iPod is an excellent and rare example of a product that has both form and function in spades.
Sure, why not support it if it's free. Having more options is good. Nothing to lose (except if you're Apple, who probably don't support it since there really isn't a mainstream demand for it and its addition would probably only serve to confuse some users... just a theory).
As to whether or not an actual consumer force exists that will only buy players that support Ogg exists, I highly doubt it.