"I am of the opinion that activism is amoral whereas civil disobedience is not only moral, but one's duty. I think a good portion of hackitivism is not civil disobedience but instead just activism."
The essay posits a new, more constructive definition for hacktivism, which doesn't include what you're using the word for. Here's the relative bit:
Our definition of hacktivism is, "using technology to advance human rights through electronic media....." From the cDc's perspective, creation is good; destruction is bad. Hackers should promote the free flow of information, and causing anything to disrupt, prevent, or retard that flow is improper. For instance, cDc does not consider Web defacements or Denial of Service (DoS) attacks to be legitimate hacktivist actions.
Your example of defacing a web page certainly doesn't fit into this definition. What you stated as noble (hacking through government censors) is what the article supports as hacktivism, and I agree with its classification as activism rather than civil disobedience. Regardless of the definition of hacktivism, activism and civil disobedience are well-defined and agreed upon.
Civil disobedience requires putting yourself out in the open, blatantly violating the law and likely getting arrested. Activism is simply working hard to support a cause-- there's nothing amoral about it. You can be amorally acitivist just as much as you can be amorally civilly disobedient.
The problem, as you've aptly demonstrated, is that certain words take on connotations that people don't want associated with them, and have to be wary of. While I've rarely seen activism associated with amoral (it's generally seen as highly moral), "hack" is one of those big bad words in the public eye. Calling someone a hacktivist will likely have most of the world thinking they're some evil guy who steals their credit card numbers from Amazon and uses them to buy guns for guerrillas.
"If the patent office is so underfunded, then why don't they charge more to apply for a patent?"
Damn, you were so close to the reason, but needed to skim a bit further. Quoth the article: "application fees go into the general government budget, rather than being used specifically to fund patent examinations".
They could charge a million bucks an application, and still not get any more money.
In most cases, lying isn't illegal. Since they're not technically offering legal counsel, I think this is fine. If someone sued for false advertising, they'd just change the wording. None of these are ever followed up on, and when they are, there are no real penalties.
Q. Why should a donor include the operating system with their PC donation?
A. It is a legal requirement that pre-installed operating systems remain with a machine for the life of the machine. If a company or individual donates a machine to your school, it must be donated with the operating system that was installed on the PC.
Actually, they do tell a little fib. You can throw away the pre-installed OS, and not give it to anyone.
If you want to take a drug that no one knows how it works, go for it. However, I will not be taking a drug that scientists are clueless about.
Exactly. Now's your chance to get ahead of the curve, while normal people (see above) are worried about "long term effects" and other such nonsense. Once it's certified healthy, we're back to square one with heightened expectations, when everyone's using it. So don't delay-- start using it now, and get 10 years up on everyone else!
it means that 20 years from now, my children will be growing up in a society free of random murders, pedophilia, assault, and all the rest, I'm for it.
That's a good point-- and that's why so many of these things get through. But what else is illegal? Distributing DeCSS, apparently. Giving a lecture on flaws in the latest digital watermarking scheme. In the past, it has been effectively illegal to espouse Communist values, or to be Japanese and not in a camp.
The more power you give the government, the more extreme these laws get. Maybe it'll be illegal to criticize the president, or write a program to copy bits without government-approved copy protection built in (but hey, now I'm just getting way outside the realm of possibility).
I'm happy to give up some power to a central government-- because, like you said, I much prefer a society without murder and assault. But it's incredibly naive to believe that the government will use any power you give it responsibly. There's plenty of corruption now-- and it increases the more power they get.
Ironically, XP is the best OS they've made. It's the most stable one, certainly, and is a lot more customizeable once you dig around a bit. The hardware detection is great, too.
Despite how good it is, there are two problems: one, people are sick of the upgrade your OS every year track (hey, what's another $200?); and two, every week someone seems to find out some more info they're sending back to MS, totally authorized by the EULA. That's turned a lot of people off to it.
...without showing ANY evidence of reading the article, or making any factual statements whatsoever?
Ironically, that's what you've just done. I have to ask-- did you read the article? This isn't a helpful heads up. It's not going to alarm just the parents who think the kid's ordering a lot of expensive stuff. It's gonna have parents saying:
Parent: "Hey son, we need to sit down and have a talk." Kiddi3: "WTF? I already know about sex, dad." P: "We heard something bad about the IROC-Z we bought you. Have you been using it for hacking?" K: "..." P: "I knew it! You've been in those chat rooms! You need to turn yourself in." K: "Oh, IRC? Sure, yeah. I hang out with Devastat0r and _pr0nKat_. We talk about how high school sucks, and cigarettes." P: "Cigarettes? You smoke?" K: "Ah, fuck." (... parent comes back 3 weeks later, after losing money gambling) P: "Hey. Uh.... So on that IRC. Do you think you could get me a credit card? Just one time." K: "Great role model, Dad."
Yeah. Good thing we have CNN to report on this stuff.
Exactly. If the RIAA would devote a little bit of the millions of dollars they're spending on their intimidation tactics and lobbying to come up with attractive alternatives and marketing those alternatives....
How is it the record labels aren't even operating like normal businesses in this arena? Find out what the customer is willing to pay for, provide it, market it. How much have you heard about PressPlay or whatever the fuck their thing is called? And from what you've heard about it, how much does it sound like anything you'd want to use?
Gateway, OTOH, is actually trying to operate like a capitalist business. "Hey, this is what our product does. Pretty cool, huh? You want it, right? Buy it!" The labels do that just fine with conventional distribution methods. How is it that in their hysteria over digital distribution, the word capitalism seems to have fallen out of their dictionary? Unfortunately they didn't lose up through E; they still have extortion.
How can soldout-within-24-hours and sold for twice as much on ebay be "not as strongly as expected"?
If you're talking about day one as launch, it was a totally botched launch-- they had production problems leading to a huge supply problems. Afterwards, both MS and Nintendo went on and on about how they weren't going to screw up day 1 like Sony. It's CW at this point.
If you're talking about the first few months, sales slowed dramatically. The people not lucky enough to get an early one said, "great! I can get one now! Wait, what games can I play? Just my old ones? What was the big deal?". Sales picked up and got really strong once a few decent titles came out.
GTA3 IS a system seller. It is selling systems right now. People buy PS2s in a large part because of GTA3.
Exclusives are EVERYTHING for a secondary system, and you can't be a primary system without being a secondary one.... Microsoft needs to find a niche - and to do that, it needs exclusive titles.
That, I agree with to an extent. That's what Nintendo's doing. Unfortunately, we see what that's done for them. It got them to the "handhold" point you referred to, which MS can still only hope for. But it certainly isn't enough-- they've been playing second fiddle to Sony for quite some time, and will continue to do so, having squandered any advantage gained by having the dominant console twice in a row.
Still, I don't think totally exclusive is necessarily crucial. MGS2, the biggest PS2 system seller, looks like it's going to be released in some version for the XBox. Is this the right approach for all titles? No-- Nintendo would be nowhere if they decided to license off Zelda and Mario games for other consoles. OTOH, it makes people think they're getting "sloppy seconds" off the other consoles. Do PS2 owners care that the XBox, PC, and Cube owners are getting the same titles they bought their system for-- a year later? No. It just makes the XBox guys wonder why they're getting Tony Hawk 2X (or whatever it's called) when the PS2 people are playing Tony Hawk 3.
I think that's hurting MS as much as non-exclusives. Many of their good games are just better looking versions of old franchises. DOA3, Tony Hawk Whatever, MGSX supposedly, Oddworld goes 3D, Resident Evil Somethingorother, JSRF, etc.. You can't even worry about exclusivity until you make a decent original title.
Well, two sides of the same coin I guess. To abuse your metaphor even more, MS only has one piece of climbing gear, called Halo.
Which is also why it's premature to call the console dead. The PS2 also didn't launch as strongly as expected, despite the huge effort from Sony's hype machine. Why? All the launch titles sucked. Its launch titles were actually much weaker than the XBox's-- but initial console sales were stronger
So, why is XBox doing worse with stronger launch titles? For one, people loved their Playstations, so they figured the PS2 would be good. Also, the competition was much weaker-- they killed the DC with hype alone, and launched in essentially an empty market. But perhaps most importantly, Sony had great developer relations built up from their time courting developers for the original PS. Coming into this brutal market now, the XBox has to build up a following from scratch. Nintendo will carve out a fanboy niche, but if it's anything like their "success" with the 64, no one else will care.
So is it possible to topple Sony, or will they just continue on with PS3, PS4, PS5...? Actually, I think they'll founder with the next one. They're already getting somewhat arrogant with developer relations, and despite their recent attempts to be a bit nicer to fight off recent encroachments by Nintendo, people remember. Some of the bigger studios wouldn't have considered inking a deal with Nintendo or MS a year and a half ago-- but are now.
Of course, for Sony to fall behind, they have to have a real challenge. Is Nintendo up to it? Hard to say-- their recent deals have been in the right direction, but the console itself is most certainly not (ugh). Is MS? Well, they've been persistent in the past. Whether this is a building experience or just a spectacular flop is too soon to say.
You should note the pattern here - the main problem is that Microsoft isn't forcing exclusives to remain exclusive. You have to - completely. Otherwise people won't buy the console - they'll just hope that it gets ported to the console they have.
Entirely, totally, completely wrong. You bought a PS1 for FF7? So did a lot of people, like me. Guess what-- it's out on the PC. GTA3 is out for the PC soon. Tony Hawk 3 is on the PC, and it looks great. They're basically complete ports. The hugest PS/PS2 games are on the PC.
OTOH, Halo's supposedly going to be on the PC, but guess what-- not for a LONG time. And when (if) it ever comes, it might not even be the same game.
Exclusives are not the problem. It's simply that right now, the PS2 has the largest library of high quality games of any of the 3 big consoles. XBox's library looks pitiful compared to it, and Cube's is downright pathetic. Do people buy on future potential of a console? Maybe not as much as people think-- PS2 started selling really well after its library got better (after weaker than expected sales when its library sucked), and XBox and Cube are a little weak despite their next-gen hardware. Most people buy based on what they can play today.
Uh-oh. It appears you've given your audience too much credit again. In the future, you may want to refer to this article, which spells out how to, well, spell it out for an audience not entirely up to the task of catching nuance.
I want a digital camera with integrated GPS and digital compass. When I get home from a trip, I should be able to download all of my images and see them as icons on a map, indicating where the picture was taken, in what direction, and at what time.
So short-sighted! We've just got to high-res, 3-D scan in the entire world, accurately simulate moving objects and light sources, and put it together in a big database. Then you simply indicate where, in what direction, and at what time you'd like the picture to be from, and you instantly have it. Cameras will no longer need expensive lenses, just GPS. And you won't even have to go on vacation! The benefits go on and on.
Re:The most important thing developers must note:
on
The Future of MMORPGs
·
· Score: 2
"More games are coming out, but the gaming populace doesn't seem to be joining in."
Do you have any figures to back that up? I haven't been able to get exact numbers, but subscription numbers for both Everquest and Dark Age of Camelot seem to be quite high. (EQ over 370,000 last I looked; DAoC over 150,000?) Verant recently mentioned that every successive MMOG rollout has actually increased EQ numbers, possibly because it increased interest in the genre in general.
I highly doubt the Sims Online will take away from EQ subscribers; it'll likely increase the market by a huge amount. Neocron, Planetside, and other games with a twitch factor will increase the market once again; the space games like EVE will make it even larger; franchises like Star Wars and World of Warcraft will bring in casual gamers (if the games are accessible enough), making the market huge.
Current numbers don't seem to support your claim, and the future looks even brighter for the genre. I agree that to be successful they need to get away from the stupid leveling treadmills you mentioned, but even if they screwed that up (which the Sims won't, for example), they'd still be able to bring in a pile of cash.
"While it is possible to use such devices to develop games, that is not the intended market for this product."
Did they tell you this personally, or are you just pulling it out of thin air? Because they must have fucked up their marketing message with me. I've been using it to dev on for several months now, and I have never once put a commercial ROM on it. Where did I find out about it? From a promotion on a GBA development site, where they give a commission to the guy running the site if you buy one.
So how is GBA development not the intended market for the product, given the fact that they advertise heavily on all of the GBA amateur dev sites I visit?
Imagine a games mag with the cover page: "All the games reviewed this month suck." Would you buy it? Probably not, but that's exactly the kind of issue you should buy.
Are you kidding? I would buy that mag in a fucking second.
Well, sure, strictly speaking I'd rather pay more than less. But I wouldn't mind paying about twice as much as the low end customer. I'm still getting a better bargain from it-- the low end users check their e-mail and that's about it.
Plus, $110 Canadian? Damn, that's not much more than you have to fork over for AT&T cable modem. And if AT&T offered better upload speeds for a few extra bucks, I'd seriously consider it.
...
The new Doom likely will require a no less powerful chip than the soon-to-be-released Nvidia GeForce3.
I would argue that when it comes to tech matters, it often takes a nerd to write news for nerds. This guy's so far from any real understanding of the tech world that what he says, well, just doesn't matter.
Interestingly, all of your arguments are refuted simply by the fact that this is Ambrosia Software we're talking about; if you knew much about Mac shareware, you probably wouldn't have written the post. Ambrosia consistently releases the highest quality shareware you can find anywhere. Talk to just about any Mac-using college student, and they'll testify about their dozens, or even hundreds, of hours lost to Ambrosia titles. I have plenty of friends who rarely installed a new product that wasn't from Ambrosia.
So the overpriced argument is ridiculous (especially since we're talking about a product that has a TON of alternatives-- that reeks of a troll). Difficulty of payment? Again, this is Ambrosia. They're established, everyone on a Mac knows they are, they securely take credit card; it's a hell of a lot more secure and no more difficult than paying for dinner. Lack of support? Once again, they have a support staff, which is amply discussed in the article. Poorly designed protection mechanisms? "Just don't release it"? If I found a single rational point in there, I'd attempt to refute it.
To me, the most disgusting thing about this article is that I know first-hand that Ambrosia's software is all top quality, easy to pay for, and now requires you to go search for a crack (rather than just clicking register later). If they made on-line products and required centralized authentication a la Quake 3, I have no doubts these guys would be making a lot more money than they are now. Depending on how you look at this, it's a convincing argument for a) on-line authentication of all software, b) Free Software, or c) giving up on humanity altogether.
I know this is redundant, but EVERYONE'S getting it wrong.
"he is blocking Windows users who are unwilling to accomodate his oddness (by munging their headers)"
No: "No, the attachment bug is far more subtle than that. It
doesn't happen based on headers, which are rightfully the section of
an e-mail that mail readers are SUPPOSED to process. Instead, the bug
is that any message that has the word "begin" at the beginning of a
line will be treated as a garbled attachment from that point on."
I'm finding that the number of/. readers who actually read the link is far lower than usual on this post. Was it unavailable or slow for a while?
Good job reading the link: "I don't do it to win people over (and yes, it definitely
generates a lot of ill-will for free software among those who
mistakenly associate it with the cause)".
In one line, he addressed your association of this with the Free Software movement (it's not connected), and your criticism that this wouldn't convert people (it's not intended to). If you disagree with those points and want to rebut them, fine-- but perhaps you should at least read them first?
Slashdot Mirror
"I am of the opinion that activism is amoral whereas civil disobedience is not only moral, but one's duty. I think a good portion of hackitivism is not civil disobedience but instead just activism."
The essay posits a new, more constructive definition for hacktivism, which doesn't include what you're using the word for. Here's the relative bit:
Our definition of hacktivism is, "using technology to advance human rights through electronic media....." From the cDc's perspective, creation is good; destruction is bad. Hackers should promote the free flow of information, and causing anything to disrupt, prevent, or retard that flow is improper. For instance, cDc does not consider Web defacements or Denial of Service (DoS) attacks to be legitimate hacktivist actions.
Your example of defacing a web page certainly doesn't fit into this definition. What you stated as noble (hacking through government censors) is what the article supports as hacktivism, and I agree with its classification as activism rather than civil disobedience. Regardless of the definition of hacktivism, activism and civil disobedience are well-defined and agreed upon.
Civil disobedience requires putting yourself out in the open, blatantly violating the law and likely getting arrested. Activism is simply working hard to support a cause-- there's nothing amoral about it. You can be amorally acitivist just as much as you can be amorally civilly disobedient.
The problem, as you've aptly demonstrated, is that certain words take on connotations that people don't want associated with them, and have to be wary of. While I've rarely seen activism associated with amoral (it's generally seen as highly moral), "hack" is one of those big bad words in the public eye. Calling someone a hacktivist will likely have most of the world thinking they're some evil guy who steals their credit card numbers from Amazon and uses them to buy guns for guerrillas.
"If the patent office is so underfunded, then why don't they charge more to apply for a patent?"
Damn, you were so close to the reason, but needed to skim a bit further. Quoth the article: "application fees go into the general government budget, rather than being used specifically to fund patent examinations".
They could charge a million bucks an application, and still not get any more money.
In most cases, lying isn't illegal. Since they're not technically offering legal counsel, I think this is fine. If someone sued for false advertising, they'd just change the wording. None of these are ever followed up on, and when they are, there are no real penalties.
Q. Why should a donor include the operating system with their PC donation?
A. It is a legal requirement that pre-installed operating systems remain with a machine for the life of the machine. If a company or individual donates a machine to your school, it must be donated with the operating system that was installed on the PC.
Actually, they do tell a little fib. You can throw away the pre-installed OS, and not give it to anyone.
If you want to take a drug that no one knows how it works, go for it. However, I will not be taking a drug that scientists are clueless about.
Exactly. Now's your chance to get ahead of the curve, while normal people (see above) are worried about "long term effects" and other such nonsense. Once it's certified healthy, we're back to square one with heightened expectations, when everyone's using it. So don't delay-- start using it now, and get 10 years up on everyone else!
it means that 20 years from now, my children will be growing up in a society free of random murders, pedophilia, assault, and all the rest, I'm for it.
That's a good point-- and that's why so many of these things get through. But what else is illegal? Distributing DeCSS, apparently. Giving a lecture on flaws in the latest digital watermarking scheme. In the past, it has been effectively illegal to espouse Communist values, or to be Japanese and not in a camp.
The more power you give the government, the more extreme these laws get. Maybe it'll be illegal to criticize the president, or write a program to copy bits without government-approved copy protection built in (but hey, now I'm just getting way outside the realm of possibility).
I'm happy to give up some power to a central government-- because, like you said, I much prefer a society without murder and assault. But it's incredibly naive to believe that the government will use any power you give it responsibly. There's plenty of corruption now-- and it increases the more power they get.
Ironically, XP is the best OS they've made. It's the most stable one, certainly, and is a lot more customizeable once you dig around a bit. The hardware detection is great, too.
Despite how good it is, there are two problems: one, people are sick of the upgrade your OS every year track (hey, what's another $200?); and two, every week someone seems to find out some more info they're sending back to MS, totally authorized by the EULA. That's turned a lot of people off to it.
...without showing ANY evidence of reading the article, or making any factual statements whatsoever?
Ironically, that's what you've just done. I have to ask-- did you read the article? This isn't a helpful heads up. It's not going to alarm just the parents who think the kid's ordering a lot of expensive stuff. It's gonna have parents saying:
Parent: "Hey son, we need to sit down and have a talk."
Kiddi3: "WTF? I already know about sex, dad."
P: "We heard something bad about the IROC-Z we bought you. Have you been using it for hacking?"
K: "..."
P: "I knew it! You've been in those chat rooms! You need to turn yourself in."
K: "Oh, IRC? Sure, yeah. I hang out with Devastat0r and _pr0nKat_. We talk about how high school sucks, and cigarettes."
P: "Cigarettes? You smoke?"
K: "Ah, fuck."
(... parent comes back 3 weeks later, after losing money gambling)
P: "Hey. Uh.... So on that IRC. Do you think you could get me a credit card? Just one time."
K: "Great role model, Dad."
Yeah. Good thing we have CNN to report on this stuff.
Exactly. If the RIAA would devote a little bit of the millions of dollars they're spending on their intimidation tactics and lobbying to come up with attractive alternatives and marketing those alternatives....
How is it the record labels aren't even operating like normal businesses in this arena? Find out what the customer is willing to pay for, provide it, market it. How much have you heard about PressPlay or whatever the fuck their thing is called? And from what you've heard about it, how much does it sound like anything you'd want to use?
Gateway, OTOH, is actually trying to operate like a capitalist business. "Hey, this is what our product does. Pretty cool, huh? You want it, right? Buy it!" The labels do that just fine with conventional distribution methods. How is it that in their hysteria over digital distribution, the word capitalism seems to have fallen out of their dictionary? Unfortunately they didn't lose up through E; they still have extortion.
How can soldout-within-24-hours and sold for twice as much on ebay be "not as strongly as expected"?
If you're talking about day one as launch, it was a totally botched launch-- they had production problems leading to a huge supply problems. Afterwards, both MS and Nintendo went on and on about how they weren't going to screw up day 1 like Sony. It's CW at this point.
If you're talking about the first few months, sales slowed dramatically. The people not lucky enough to get an early one said, "great! I can get one now! Wait, what games can I play? Just my old ones? What was the big deal?". Sales picked up and got really strong once a few decent titles came out.
GTA3 wasn't a system seller
GTA3 IS a system seller. It is selling systems right now. People buy PS2s in a large part because of GTA3.
Exclusives are EVERYTHING for a secondary system, and you can't be a primary system without being a secondary one.... Microsoft needs to find a niche - and to do that, it needs exclusive titles.
That, I agree with to an extent. That's what Nintendo's doing. Unfortunately, we see what that's done for them. It got them to the "handhold" point you referred to, which MS can still only hope for. But it certainly isn't enough-- they've been playing second fiddle to Sony for quite some time, and will continue to do so, having squandered any advantage gained by having the dominant console twice in a row.
Still, I don't think totally exclusive is necessarily crucial. MGS2, the biggest PS2 system seller, looks like it's going to be released in some version for the XBox. Is this the right approach for all titles? No-- Nintendo would be nowhere if they decided to license off Zelda and Mario games for other consoles. OTOH, it makes people think they're getting "sloppy seconds" off the other consoles. Do PS2 owners care that the XBox, PC, and Cube owners are getting the same titles they bought their system for-- a year later? No. It just makes the XBox guys wonder why they're getting Tony Hawk 2X (or whatever it's called) when the PS2 people are playing Tony Hawk 3.
I think that's hurting MS as much as non-exclusives. Many of their good games are just better looking versions of old franchises. DOA3, Tony Hawk Whatever, MGSX supposedly, Oddworld goes 3D, Resident Evil Somethingorother, JSRF, etc.. You can't even worry about exclusivity until you make a decent original title.
Well, two sides of the same coin I guess. To abuse your metaphor even more, MS only has one piece of climbing gear, called Halo.
Which is also why it's premature to call the console dead. The PS2 also didn't launch as strongly as expected, despite the huge effort from Sony's hype machine. Why? All the launch titles sucked. Its launch titles were actually much weaker than the XBox's-- but initial console sales were stronger
So, why is XBox doing worse with stronger launch titles? For one, people loved their Playstations, so they figured the PS2 would be good. Also, the competition was much weaker-- they killed the DC with hype alone, and launched in essentially an empty market. But perhaps most importantly, Sony had great developer relations built up from their time courting developers for the original PS. Coming into this brutal market now, the XBox has to build up a following from scratch. Nintendo will carve out a fanboy niche, but if it's anything like their "success" with the 64, no one else will care.
So is it possible to topple Sony, or will they just continue on with PS3, PS4, PS5...? Actually, I think they'll founder with the next one. They're already getting somewhat arrogant with developer relations, and despite their recent attempts to be a bit nicer to fight off recent encroachments by Nintendo, people remember. Some of the bigger studios wouldn't have considered inking a deal with Nintendo or MS a year and a half ago-- but are now.
Of course, for Sony to fall behind, they have to have a real challenge. Is Nintendo up to it? Hard to say-- their recent deals have been in the right direction, but the console itself is most certainly not (ugh). Is MS? Well, they've been persistent in the past. Whether this is a building experience or just a spectacular flop is too soon to say.
You should note the pattern here - the main problem is that Microsoft isn't forcing exclusives to remain exclusive. You have to - completely. Otherwise people won't buy the console - they'll just hope that it gets ported to the console they have.
Entirely, totally, completely wrong. You bought a PS1 for FF7? So did a lot of people, like me. Guess what-- it's out on the PC. GTA3 is out for the PC soon. Tony Hawk 3 is on the PC, and it looks great. They're basically complete ports. The hugest PS/PS2 games are on the PC.
OTOH, Halo's supposedly going to be on the PC, but guess what-- not for a LONG time. And when (if) it ever comes, it might not even be the same game.
Exclusives are not the problem. It's simply that right now, the PS2 has the largest library of high quality games of any of the 3 big consoles. XBox's library looks pitiful compared to it, and Cube's is downright pathetic. Do people buy on future potential of a console? Maybe not as much as people think-- PS2 started selling really well after its library got better (after weaker than expected sales when its library sucked), and XBox and Cube are a little weak despite their next-gen hardware. Most people buy based on what they can play today.
Uh-oh. It appears you've given your audience too much credit again. In the future, you may want to refer to this article, which spells out how to, well, spell it out for an audience not entirely up to the task of catching nuance.
I want a digital camera with integrated GPS and digital compass. When I get home from a trip, I should be able to download all of my images and see them as icons on a map, indicating where the picture was taken, in what direction, and at what time.
So short-sighted! We've just got to high-res, 3-D scan in the entire world, accurately simulate moving objects and light sources, and put it together in a big database. Then you simply indicate where, in what direction, and at what time you'd like the picture to be from, and you instantly have it. Cameras will no longer need expensive lenses, just GPS. And you won't even have to go on vacation! The benefits go on and on.
"More games are coming out, but the gaming populace doesn't seem to be joining in."
Do you have any figures to back that up? I haven't been able to get exact numbers, but subscription numbers for both Everquest and Dark Age of Camelot seem to be quite high. (EQ over 370,000 last I looked; DAoC over 150,000?) Verant recently mentioned that every successive MMOG rollout has actually increased EQ numbers, possibly because it increased interest in the genre in general.
I highly doubt the Sims Online will take away from EQ subscribers; it'll likely increase the market by a huge amount. Neocron, Planetside, and other games with a twitch factor will increase the market once again; the space games like EVE will make it even larger; franchises like Star Wars and World of Warcraft will bring in casual gamers (if the games are accessible enough), making the market huge.
Current numbers don't seem to support your claim, and the future looks even brighter for the genre. I agree that to be successful they need to get away from the stupid leveling treadmills you mentioned, but even if they screwed that up (which the Sims won't, for example), they'd still be able to bring in a pile of cash.
"While it is possible to use such devices to develop games, that is not the intended market for this product."
Did they tell you this personally, or are you just pulling it out of thin air? Because they must have fucked up their marketing message with me. I've been using it to dev on for several months now, and I have never once put a commercial ROM on it. Where did I find out about it? From a promotion on a GBA development site, where they give a commission to the guy running the site if you buy one.
So how is GBA development not the intended market for the product, given the fact that they advertise heavily on all of the GBA amateur dev sites I visit?
Imagine a games mag with the cover page: "All the games reviewed this month suck." Would you buy it? Probably not, but that's exactly the kind of issue you should buy.
Are you kidding? I would buy that mag in a fucking second.
"100 dollars off when you buy Pagemaker and Photoshop, and register them on-line after installation!"
I think I just fixed your problem for you.
Doh. Fucking typos. :P
Well, sure, strictly speaking I'd rather pay more than less. But I wouldn't mind paying about twice as much as the low end customer. I'm still getting a better bargain from it-- the low end users check their e-mail and that's about it.
Plus, $110 Canadian? Damn, that's not much more than you have to fork over for AT&T cable modem. And if AT&T offered better upload speeds for a few extra bucks, I'd seriously consider it.
By Dean Takahashi
February 1, 2002
...
The new Doom likely will require a no less powerful chip than the soon-to-be-released Nvidia GeForce3.
I would argue that when it comes to tech matters, it often takes a nerd to write news for nerds. This guy's so far from any real understanding of the tech world that what he says, well, just doesn't matter.
Interestingly, all of your arguments are refuted simply by the fact that this is Ambrosia Software we're talking about; if you knew much about Mac shareware, you probably wouldn't have written the post. Ambrosia consistently releases the highest quality shareware you can find anywhere. Talk to just about any Mac-using college student, and they'll testify about their dozens, or even hundreds, of hours lost to Ambrosia titles. I have plenty of friends who rarely installed a new product that wasn't from Ambrosia.
So the overpriced argument is ridiculous (especially since we're talking about a product that has a TON of alternatives-- that reeks of a troll). Difficulty of payment? Again, this is Ambrosia. They're established, everyone on a Mac knows they are, they securely take credit card; it's a hell of a lot more secure and no more difficult than paying for dinner. Lack of support? Once again, they have a support staff, which is amply discussed in the article. Poorly designed protection mechanisms? "Just don't release it"? If I found a single rational point in there, I'd attempt to refute it.
To me, the most disgusting thing about this article is that I know first-hand that Ambrosia's software is all top quality, easy to pay for, and now requires you to go search for a crack (rather than just clicking register later). If they made on-line products and required centralized authentication a la Quake 3, I have no doubts these guys would be making a lot more money than they are now. Depending on how you look at this, it's a convincing argument for a) on-line authentication of all software, b) Free Software, or c) giving up on humanity altogether.
I know this is redundant, but EVERYONE'S getting it wrong.
/. readers who actually read the link is far lower than usual on this post. Was it unavailable or slow for a while?
"he is blocking Windows users who are unwilling to accomodate his oddness (by munging their headers)"
No: "No, the attachment bug is far more subtle than that. It
doesn't happen based on headers, which are rightfully the section of
an e-mail that mail readers are SUPPOSED to process. Instead, the bug
is that any message that has the word "begin" at the beginning of a
line will be treated as a garbled attachment from that point on."
I'm finding that the number of
Good job reading the link: "I don't do it to win people over (and yes, it definitely
generates a lot of ill-will for free software among those who
mistakenly associate it with the cause)".
In one line, he addressed your association of this with the Free Software movement (it's not connected), and your criticism that this wouldn't convert people (it's not intended to). If you disagree with those points and want to rebut them, fine-- but perhaps you should at least read them first?