Basically this is the same thing that exists on almost every single digital cable system today, the only difference is that it's owned and run by the school, they chose albums they thought the students wanted, and you can briefly control it at times. Essentially all they're doing is mixing a campus radio station with digital cable music systems.
Of course, this won't do a damn thing about piracy. I have very little choice in what to listen to, I must rely entirely on what they chose, I need a tv and cable (not certain if that's standard for students or not) when more students are likely to have a computer than a tv, and I sure as hell can't put it on my iPod and listen to on my way to class.
All they've really done is make a newer, more user-controlled campus radio station. Sure, 10 points for improving slightly on an old idea (at least, for some) but absolutely zero for doing anything about kids who can't be bothered to respect people's intellectual property rights.
I'm not certain how I feel about "sex depraved" girls. Really it depends on her kink. However, since I think she was intending to write "sex deprived" and is a student at MIT I wouldn't touch her either. I demand my geek girls to have slightly better spelling or at least know their way around a spell-checker.
I am going to look like such an idiot if I managed to mispell one word in this.
Well, that's also always been the downfall of Apple, you can only do what they think you might want to do with them and bugger all for anyone else. The biggest problem I've always had when using a Mac was that I felt like my hands were tied in a way I don't get with other systems nearly as much (not even Windows). I can't really change the system very much and most of my programs are too minimalistic lacking reasonable options or simply making things that much harder to understand.
The iPod is a great little piece of hardware, but honestly has some problems with the software. Almost every time I use it I think of minor changes that could easily have been made to give the user greater control, but were presumably left out because this method was simple and easy and the way they presumed everyone would want to use it.
The answer isn't minimalism any more than it is bloatware, you're either giving people too little (claiming it's only what they want) or far too much (and most of it being total crap).
A friend of mine goes to Swarthmore and has mentioned to me about how the administration is shutting down all students mirroring them. However, her boyfriend is also mirroring them.
Yeah, let's just forget about efficiency. People have bigger hard drives so I can write sloppy, bloated code and they'll be able to cram it in there... this just drives the cycle of needing bigger and bigger drives needlessly.
No, my complaint is more a matter of feature bloat rather than specific size (26MB is kinda big though). Considering that one of the "features" is basically just a built-in store for them I'm already getting pretty suspicious. Ultimately though I tend to think that the Unix philosophy is best, make one thing do one job and do it well. I want a good mp3 player and a good ripper. Not a half-assed ripper thrown into a decent mp3 player and using a less than stellar encoder.
Features like these just play on people's laziness and an attempt to make your program the end-all, be-all one-stop thing that they use. Typically it's not an attempt to make things genuinely better for users.
Damn, I'd also better take down that firewall and stop following basic anti-virus measures. I should probably also make friends with a lot of very stupid people that send me viruses. Guess this is why I haven't recieved a single virus or worm in my entire life.
As for the terms of the EULA, well... I read them at the time, I didn't agree with them, so I exercised my right to not install it. End of story.
Basically you should be blaming Microsoft. When they see a service pack as a means of forcing new licensing terms on the public, of putting highly questionable clauses in there, well... they're the ones not interested in security. Want to make things more secure? Test the hell out of it and release a good, solid patch with reasonable speed that doesn't try to force new crap on people who just want to fix problems that shouldn't be there in the first place.
Ah, so it's bloatware to functions mainly for them to try and sell me stuff and encode mp3s in a manner that's likely inferior to my current method of EAC and LAME? I really, really don't see the need for this.
More than just breaking systems Microsoft has a poor history of forcing new changes in licensing in patches. The license text that gives them complete access to my computer (IIRC) for installing SP 1 is the main reason I haven't done so. Now they'll have the option to force me to accept the terms of a license I didn't have any real option to turn down. I wonder what the possible legal implications of this are? Must I adapt to a new license at such time? Am I not allowed to continue to use the unpatched software under the previously licensed terms? How in the hell is this legal at all?
I've found that by and large whenever I want to know something (at least a basic level) I turn to e2. Want to make gnocchi? E2. Double check some info on Pallas Athena? E2. Find out more about a comic series I've heard good things about? E2. Rapidly it's becoming my source for almost all information: music, movies, dictionary, encyclopedia, almanac, cookbook, etc. Sure I still use more specialized resources for more in-depth info (IMDb, AMG) but if I want to know it fast and basic it has me covered for a quick search much faster than going to the library to look up something trivial.
This, I think, is at the source of this. More people are getting more information period by getting it online. If it required actual research you probably wouldn't be bothered to look into it, but a few minutes online will immediately fill you in.
At the student union the other day a guy was sharing music with everyone around wirelessly within a pretty hefty range. I was two floors up and behind some doors and still got pretty good fidelity. I really wish he would have stopped though. Ugh, what is it about terrible musicians that makes them think people want to hear them, even for free?
I think it's very important that children learn to say "cocksucker" at an early age. Never too soon to get started on career training.
Seriously though, I think the greater problem is that the company has already pre-censored the device and adds in the admonishment that these are "bad words" that shouldn't be used. This forms negative associations with children that (and I should state that I'm childfree) shouldn't be made. If anything they should be the province of uptight, prudish parents. Likely the sort that think there's some sort of biblical mandate against saying "fuck". It would have been just as simple for the doll to simply refuse to respond to the word as I'm assuming it is programmed to do for words it doesn't recognize.
Likewise the manufacturer set the vocabulary here. Most people probably don't consider "damn" to be anywhere close to offensive. If this is going to be a part of the doll it might have been nice if the settings were user-modifiable.
At what point does something become simple enough? There will always be some people for whom the most basic aspects of anything will be beyond reach. My assumption here is that since the majority of people have more or less successfully learned to use eject buttons on a variety of devices then it is indeed a failing of the person. Likewise the majority of people know that electronics are sensitive. You can't get them wet, hot, or very dirty without problems. Same common sense regards "if it doesn't work, don't force it"... something I learned from my mother when I was a very small child.
While the eject button was likely not labeled in this case it seems that the majority have learned to use and recognize them without much in the way of problems. The people who don't are the minority... not the other way 'round. Hell... a simple bit of logical thought can be applied: I stuck it in and now it won't come out, this button popped out when I pushed it in although it was depressed before. Even "hey... what does that button do?" is a better idea than pliers and butter (whether a fabrication or not it does fit in with many actual stories).
Getting back to your initial point though it's not limited to techs, geeks, and engineers. Anyone working with something will find something more obvious than a layman. I may not know what exactly is wrong with my car by the sound it's making, but a mechanic very well may. This doesn't make me stupid any more than someone who fails to understand the equivalent with the computer. Then again, if I hear a weird noise whenever I brake (or say... open a file and see the little hard drive light come on) I can induce the problem pretty easily. I also have the common sense not to slash my brake line because when I looked in on things there was all this weird fluid in there... I ask someone who knows something or take the car in. Not understanding is fine... everyone is ignorant about something. Attempting to do something that requires knowledge is stupid though, much like doing something that is well... obviously stupid ("smoke was coming out of my tail pipe so I stuck some rags up in there to make it stop") like targetting symptoms and assuming their absence means the problem is solved or potentially damaging something to try and "make it work (better)".
Some people are stupid, end of story. Sure, sometimes people can be a bit elitist and act like something should be simple, but that doesn't mean that it's always the case and anything stupid is someone else's fault.
In my experience almost every bad tech support call is due to the fact that someone on one end of the line or the other is very, very stupid and/or willfully ignorant. Sometimes it's a tech who doesn't know much more than to read a script and keep his mouth shut to keep the flies out. Sometimes it's a luser who needs a few weekly sessions with the clue by four, but someone is about one large predator short of natural selection.
Bah! That's like complaining that you just bought a particle accelerator but don't know how to make it work. Computers are complex devices that require people to learn how to make them work. I don't bitch that my lab equipment has bad a UI, I realize that I needed to spend 4 years learning biology, microbiology, genetics, and molecular biology to reach this point. The important thing is to realize what you don't know and how you can learn.
Even more most users don't need to know these things in detail to solve basic problems, but they haven't even learned how to do the simple tasks. I don't have to be a professional driver to get to work, but I do need to know the basics of what I'm doing. I can't just get in the car and complain that it isn't moving when in reality it's out of gas/I'm pushing on the brake/it's not in gear/I don't know how to drive stick/the wheels are missing.
Some people don't spend a great deal of time building and repairing cars either. Nor do they typically use them in any sort of high-end manner. No, they manage to get in, keep gas in it, do regular maintainence, and largely avoid killing people.
Hah! Most people have barely any idea how to properly follow traffic laws (or don't care), take horrible care of their trash-strewn cars and cause accidents on a daily basis. Even so we expect most people to have a pretty basic idea of how to drive properly. The same goes for a computer or anything else. Yes, it's not a life-or-death situation, but like with any piece of technology you should know how to use something and spend the time required to learn rather than expect it to just work for you immediately.
We live in a relatively advanced society, but a large number of people seem to resent that in a silent fashion. We need to learn how to use technology if we want to use it, not just expect it to be automatic and perfect.
Does it really need to? How many people have sucessfully learned to use disk drives, cd players, dvd players, tape decks and the various other eject-button-equipped devices that are around? Compare this to the number of people smart enough to know that pouring melted butter into an electronic device will damage it and the end result is that the person is a waste of carbon.
Paying someone to download files in a timely manner because they have a system designed to be hard on users unless they pay is a large part of my problem. The other part is that companies now feel that they can shift the burden of actually handling files off to someone else who will try to get me to pay them. I recall back in the old days when you got demos, patches and such off the developer or publisher's site.
Adding in extra incentives (exclusive demos, betas, etc) that also used to be open to all or handled in a reasonable beta program just help fuel my distaste for this.
I might be wrong, but I believe it was stated that all RPGs are third-person due to the need to manage NPCs, but most MMORPGs are first-person. I was simply correcting this as it was an essential point with regards to level of immersion.
Charities and political groups should be punished more if anything. I find them far more annoying since they're not just trying to sell me a piece of shit, but just begging. The political calls are the worst. I get them all hours of the day and night and because of exemptions they use pre-recorded messages exclusively.
I considered trying to actually let this sway my voting and kept a list of every candidate that called my house, but sadly, that was every single candidate in most local elections. What ever happened to the idea of politicians holding themselves to a higher standard or simply not trying to piss off the electorate?
Uhm... there are tons of first-person, party-based RPGs. Little things like the Eye of the Beholder trilogy, Dungeon Master, and Bard's Quest. Third-person isometric mainly has been a hallmark of the modern renaissance of RPGs. You still get first person in some, single character games as well Daggerfall being the first that comes to mind (and the next to make me seem horribly dated).
Then again your idea sounds a lot like System Shock/Deus Ex meets Team Fortress (not TFC, the original Quake mod), which is a wonderful idea.
Progress Quest even has wookies already! Well... double wookies, but still. When I get bored with my land squid runeloremage and the demi-Canadian isn't cutting it anymore.
With games like this (especially Star Wars, what with the actiony elements) I think that a traditional RPG style of combat isn't what is called for. Something more along the lines of System Shock/System Shock 2/Deus Ex seems to be better suited. You get your RPG elements, but you also get enough of your action elements to give it real strategy and make it interesting. It's no longer a matter of clicking a button to swing my lightsabre whenever I get a chance, but actually weaving and dodging and participating in an actual fight. When I shoot someone it's not just like hitting them with a lightsabre at range with different graphics, noises, and slightly different effects. I have to aim and shoot myself. If nothing else it eliminates the ability to just macro everything.
I think this is part of the problem with a lot of MMORPGs. First-person shooters I think have a bit more life online before you feel like you're doing the exact same thing over and over again for this reason. I want an RPG with depth, but as long as the focus is on boring, bland combat I wonder how long they'll last without being seen as a fad.
Going off-topic downloading it from Fileplanet costs me 3 days and a bunch of my personal information. Remember back when you could actually download demos and patches from the developer's website? Screw that when I can stand in a virtual line for 4 real hours.
Slashdot Mirror
Basically this is the same thing that exists on almost every single digital cable system today, the only difference is that it's owned and run by the school, they chose albums they thought the students wanted, and you can briefly control it at times. Essentially all they're doing is mixing a campus radio station with digital cable music systems.
Of course, this won't do a damn thing about piracy. I have very little choice in what to listen to, I must rely entirely on what they chose, I need a tv and cable (not certain if that's standard for students or not) when more students are likely to have a computer than a tv, and I sure as hell can't put it on my iPod and listen to on my way to class.
All they've really done is make a newer, more user-controlled campus radio station. Sure, 10 points for improving slightly on an old idea (at least, for some) but absolutely zero for doing anything about kids who can't be bothered to respect people's intellectual property rights.
I'm not certain how I feel about "sex depraved" girls. Really it depends on her kink. However, since I think she was intending to write "sex deprived" and is a student at MIT I wouldn't touch her either. I demand my geek girls to have slightly better spelling or at least know their way around a spell-checker.
I am going to look like such an idiot if I managed to mispell one word in this.
I'll agree with you until I'm blue in the face, but that unfortunately won't change much.
Well, that's also always been the downfall of Apple, you can only do what they think you might want to do with them and bugger all for anyone else. The biggest problem I've always had when using a Mac was that I felt like my hands were tied in a way I don't get with other systems nearly as much (not even Windows). I can't really change the system very much and most of my programs are too minimalistic lacking reasonable options or simply making things that much harder to understand.
The iPod is a great little piece of hardware, but honestly has some problems with the software. Almost every time I use it I think of minor changes that could easily have been made to give the user greater control, but were presumably left out because this method was simple and easy and the way they presumed everyone would want to use it.
The answer isn't minimalism any more than it is bloatware, you're either giving people too little (claiming it's only what they want) or far too much (and most of it being total crap).
http://www.plastic-idolatry.com/diebold [user: diebold, password: die]
A friend of mine goes to Swarthmore and has mentioned to me about how the administration is shutting down all students mirroring them. However, her boyfriend is also mirroring them.
http://www.plastic-idolatry.com/diebold [user: diebold, password: die]
Yeah, let's just forget about efficiency. People have bigger hard drives so I can write sloppy, bloated code and they'll be able to cram it in there... this just drives the cycle of needing bigger and bigger drives needlessly.
No, my complaint is more a matter of feature bloat rather than specific size (26MB is kinda big though). Considering that one of the "features" is basically just a built-in store for them I'm already getting pretty suspicious. Ultimately though I tend to think that the Unix philosophy is best, make one thing do one job and do it well. I want a good mp3 player and a good ripper. Not a half-assed ripper thrown into a decent mp3 player and using a less than stellar encoder.
Features like these just play on people's laziness and an attempt to make your program the end-all, be-all one-stop thing that they use. Typically it's not an attempt to make things genuinely better for users.
Damn, I'd also better take down that firewall and stop following basic anti-virus measures. I should probably also make friends with a lot of very stupid people that send me viruses. Guess this is why I haven't recieved a single virus or worm in my entire life.
As for the terms of the EULA, well... I read them at the time, I didn't agree with them, so I exercised my right to not install it. End of story.
Basically you should be blaming Microsoft. When they see a service pack as a means of forcing new licensing terms on the public, of putting highly questionable clauses in there, well... they're the ones not interested in security. Want to make things more secure? Test the hell out of it and release a good, solid patch with reasonable speed that doesn't try to force new crap on people who just want to fix problems that shouldn't be there in the first place.
Ah, so it's bloatware to functions mainly for them to try and sell me stuff and encode mp3s in a manner that's likely inferior to my current method of EAC and LAME? I really, really don't see the need for this.
More than just breaking systems Microsoft has a poor history of forcing new changes in licensing in patches. The license text that gives them complete access to my computer (IIRC) for installing SP 1 is the main reason I haven't done so. Now they'll have the option to force me to accept the terms of a license I didn't have any real option to turn down. I wonder what the possible legal implications of this are? Must I adapt to a new license at such time? Am I not allowed to continue to use the unpatched software under the previously licensed terms? How in the hell is this legal at all?
I've found that by and large whenever I want to know something (at least a basic level) I turn to e2. Want to make gnocchi? E2. Double check some info on Pallas Athena? E2. Find out more about a comic series I've heard good things about? E2. Rapidly it's becoming my source for almost all information: music, movies, dictionary, encyclopedia, almanac, cookbook, etc. Sure I still use more specialized resources for more in-depth info (IMDb, AMG) but if I want to know it fast and basic it has me covered for a quick search much faster than going to the library to look up something trivial.
This, I think, is at the source of this. More people are getting more information period by getting it online. If it required actual research you probably wouldn't be bothered to look into it, but a few minutes online will immediately fill you in.
At the student union the other day a guy was sharing music with everyone around wirelessly within a pretty hefty range. I was two floors up and behind some doors and still got pretty good fidelity. I really wish he would have stopped though. Ugh, what is it about terrible musicians that makes them think people want to hear them, even for free?
I think it's very important that children learn to say "cocksucker" at an early age. Never too soon to get started on career training.
Seriously though, I think the greater problem is that the company has already pre-censored the device and adds in the admonishment that these are "bad words" that shouldn't be used. This forms negative associations with children that (and I should state that I'm childfree) shouldn't be made. If anything they should be the province of uptight, prudish parents. Likely the sort that think there's some sort of biblical mandate against saying "fuck". It would have been just as simple for the doll to simply refuse to respond to the word as I'm assuming it is programmed to do for words it doesn't recognize.
Likewise the manufacturer set the vocabulary here. Most people probably don't consider "damn" to be anywhere close to offensive. If this is going to be a part of the doll it might have been nice if the settings were user-modifiable.
At what point does something become simple enough? There will always be some people for whom the most basic aspects of anything will be beyond reach. My assumption here is that since the majority of people have more or less successfully learned to use eject buttons on a variety of devices then it is indeed a failing of the person. Likewise the majority of people know that electronics are sensitive. You can't get them wet, hot, or very dirty without problems. Same common sense regards "if it doesn't work, don't force it"... something I learned from my mother when I was a very small child.
While the eject button was likely not labeled in this case it seems that the majority have learned to use and recognize them without much in the way of problems. The people who don't are the minority... not the other way 'round. Hell... a simple bit of logical thought can be applied: I stuck it in and now it won't come out, this button popped out when I pushed it in although it was depressed before. Even "hey... what does that button do?" is a better idea than pliers and butter (whether a fabrication or not it does fit in with many actual stories).
Getting back to your initial point though it's not limited to techs, geeks, and engineers. Anyone working with something will find something more obvious than a layman. I may not know what exactly is wrong with my car by the sound it's making, but a mechanic very well may. This doesn't make me stupid any more than someone who fails to understand the equivalent with the computer. Then again, if I hear a weird noise whenever I brake (or say... open a file and see the little hard drive light come on) I can induce the problem pretty easily. I also have the common sense not to slash my brake line because when I looked in on things there was all this weird fluid in there... I ask someone who knows something or take the car in. Not understanding is fine... everyone is ignorant about something. Attempting to do something that requires knowledge is stupid though, much like doing something that is well... obviously stupid ("smoke was coming out of my tail pipe so I stuck some rags up in there to make it stop") like targetting symptoms and assuming their absence means the problem is solved or potentially damaging something to try and "make it work (better)".
Some people are stupid, end of story. Sure, sometimes people can be a bit elitist and act like something should be simple, but that doesn't mean that it's always the case and anything stupid is someone else's fault.
In my experience almost every bad tech support call is due to the fact that someone on one end of the line or the other is very, very stupid and/or willfully ignorant. Sometimes it's a tech who doesn't know much more than to read a script and keep his mouth shut to keep the flies out. Sometimes it's a luser who needs a few weekly sessions with the clue by four, but someone is about one large predator short of natural selection.
Bah! That's like complaining that you just bought a particle accelerator but don't know how to make it work. Computers are complex devices that require people to learn how to make them work. I don't bitch that my lab equipment has bad a UI, I realize that I needed to spend 4 years learning biology, microbiology, genetics, and molecular biology to reach this point. The important thing is to realize what you don't know and how you can learn.
Even more most users don't need to know these things in detail to solve basic problems, but they haven't even learned how to do the simple tasks. I don't have to be a professional driver to get to work, but I do need to know the basics of what I'm doing. I can't just get in the car and complain that it isn't moving when in reality it's out of gas/I'm pushing on the brake/it's not in gear/I don't know how to drive stick/the wheels are missing.
Some people don't spend a great deal of time building and repairing cars either. Nor do they typically use them in any sort of high-end manner. No, they manage to get in, keep gas in it, do regular maintainence, and largely avoid killing people.
Hah! Most people have barely any idea how to properly follow traffic laws (or don't care), take horrible care of their trash-strewn cars and cause accidents on a daily basis. Even so we expect most people to have a pretty basic idea of how to drive properly. The same goes for a computer or anything else. Yes, it's not a life-or-death situation, but like with any piece of technology you should know how to use something and spend the time required to learn rather than expect it to just work for you immediately.
We live in a relatively advanced society, but a large number of people seem to resent that in a silent fashion. We need to learn how to use technology if we want to use it, not just expect it to be automatic and perfect.
Does it really need to? How many people have sucessfully learned to use disk drives, cd players, dvd players, tape decks and the various other eject-button-equipped devices that are around? Compare this to the number of people smart enough to know that pouring melted butter into an electronic device will damage it and the end result is that the person is a waste of carbon.
Paying someone to download files in a timely manner because they have a system designed to be hard on users unless they pay is a large part of my problem. The other part is that companies now feel that they can shift the burden of actually handling files off to someone else who will try to get me to pay them. I recall back in the old days when you got demos, patches and such off the developer or publisher's site.
Adding in extra incentives (exclusive demos, betas, etc) that also used to be open to all or handled in a reasonable beta program just help fuel my distaste for this.
I might be wrong, but I believe it was stated that all RPGs are third-person due to the need to manage NPCs, but most MMORPGs are first-person. I was simply correcting this as it was an essential point with regards to level of immersion.
Charities and political groups should be punished more if anything. I find them far more annoying since they're not just trying to sell me a piece of shit, but just begging. The political calls are the worst. I get them all hours of the day and night and because of exemptions they use pre-recorded messages exclusively.
I considered trying to actually let this sway my voting and kept a list of every candidate that called my house, but sadly, that was every single candidate in most local elections. What ever happened to the idea of politicians holding themselves to a higher standard or simply not trying to piss off the electorate?
Uhm... there are tons of first-person, party-based RPGs. Little things like the Eye of the Beholder trilogy, Dungeon Master, and Bard's Quest. Third-person isometric mainly has been a hallmark of the modern renaissance of RPGs. You still get first person in some, single character games as well Daggerfall being the first that comes to mind (and the next to make me seem horribly dated).
Then again your idea sounds a lot like System Shock/Deus Ex meets Team Fortress (not TFC, the original Quake mod), which is a wonderful idea.
Progress Quest even has wookies already! Well... double wookies, but still. When I get bored with my land squid runeloremage and the demi-Canadian isn't cutting it anymore.
With games like this (especially Star Wars, what with the actiony elements) I think that a traditional RPG style of combat isn't what is called for. Something more along the lines of System Shock/System Shock 2/Deus Ex seems to be better suited. You get your RPG elements, but you also get enough of your action elements to give it real strategy and make it interesting. It's no longer a matter of clicking a button to swing my lightsabre whenever I get a chance, but actually weaving and dodging and participating in an actual fight. When I shoot someone it's not just like hitting them with a lightsabre at range with different graphics, noises, and slightly different effects. I have to aim and shoot myself. If nothing else it eliminates the ability to just macro everything.
I think this is part of the problem with a lot of MMORPGs. First-person shooters I think have a bit more life online before you feel like you're doing the exact same thing over and over again for this reason. I want an RPG with depth, but as long as the focus is on boring, bland combat I wonder how long they'll last without being seen as a fad.
Going off-topic downloading it from Fileplanet costs me 3 days and a bunch of my personal information. Remember back when you could actually download demos and patches from the developer's website? Screw that when I can stand in a virtual line for 4 real hours.