"I think it's this sort of defensive vitriolic reply that defeats the point of the article. That being, if you are considering playing EQ than you should probably save your money for something else."
If that were the point, he'd have done a better comparison of the alternatives. The point was to rehash the same bitching that's been going on since the game's release, but with a few new occurrences.
"I myself found the game to be unfun after about 6 months running into many of the same problems."
6 months? 40 bucks for the game, and about 65 for subscription. 105 bucks for 6 months of gameplay. I paid 40 bucks for Max Payne, got about 20 hours of play out of it, and I'm not writing long articles to/. about the evils of Remedy and how they're just out to get my money.
Rants like this are pathetic. Scores of people write on and on about how their lives are controlled by Sony. "Help, I'm allowing myself to be controlled by a giant corporation, and I don't know what to do!" There are so many alternatives, and they aren't just DAoC and AC. Play a MUD. Make a MUD. Get a job in the industry. Take control of your life-- don't just bitch on/. because they stopped responding to rants on the Sony forums.
The article actually had some interesting substance. Sure, we all know they exchange money for favors, but this is the first time I've seen a story about a politician sending a direct invoice to a corporation for regulatory services rendered. This is pretty nuts:
"As you recall in our conversation some weeks ago, you agreed to upgrade your Team 100 membership to the Regent program ($250,000) when the merger was approved," Republican Party fund-raiser Mel Sembler wrote in 2000 to the chief of the now-bankrupt Global Crossing telecommunications company, which had already given $100,000.
"Thankfully this has now been approved, so I am taking the liberty of enclosing an invoice for the additional upgrade,"
"A company (or entity with money) that represents you can speak for you and the thousands below it."
Yeah, but MS isn't the most accurate representative for its shareholders and employees. If only there were a way to take this power from MS, and give each citizen of the United States of America a way to represent him or her self.
Hmm.... A way to allow every citizen to choose how they're represented at the state and federal level.... Nope, can't think of anything.
If you played Everquest, you'd be well aware that half the fun of playing a persistent online game is paying them money while simultaneously complaining about how bad it is.
In fact, some people buy second or third accounts for the sole purpose of being able to say "I'm going to cancel any day now, watch out!" twice or three times as often.
Watch for upcoming world-shattering Sims Online events, such as the mass threatened cancellation following the first anchovie pizza nerf, or the mass threatened pizza making work slowdown when a customer service rep says something that isn't very nice.
People have been panicking, but the final scoop seems to be that they're not banning it permanently. XBox-scene says they're having no trouble getting previously detected modded boxes online after disabling the chip.
What is MS gonna want to do-- make a modder go back to the store and buy another XBox they can lose money on? It looks like they're just blocking chips online, which is great, because the last thing I want is to have to worry about punks using auto-aim hacks in my online console games. As long as they let me hack on it all I want while I'm offline, it's fine.
"Imagine 5 computer programmers, worked together through the dotcom bubble, with high-paying secured jobs. Life was good - not terribly swamped in work, maybe surfed the web a little too much on the job, but still managed to get work done."
That bears no fucking resemblance to work at a dot com startup. Not terribly swamped in work? Ha. Ha ha. It'd be funny if I hadn't burned so many nights (mornings) and weekends on projects that ended up not doing anything for anyone when the bubble burst.
Truth is, most people I talk to are doing less work now, not more.
Yeah, but between 103.3 (thanks AC), 90.1, 89.7, 91.1 (sometimes some real nice jazz; sometimes "smooth jazz" ugh), and 88.5 (KQED, NPR affiliate), it's not often I have to listen to crap. I haven't even fixed my CD player that's been broken for a few years. Also, maybe they've boosted their signal or maybe your antenna was bad or something, but I don't lose KZSU until I pass SFO.
It kicks ass that I have tons of people going out and finding good music for me. It's telling, though, that with those great stations out there, most people still listen to the big commercial radio stations so they can hear the latest Insane Clown Posse over and over again. It's okay, though-- obviously, I'm just a better person than all of them.
What you say might sound convincing if I didn't hear hundreds of new, quality, original songs by lots of small-time bands every month.
I listen to a couple good college stations in my area (college stations vary, of course-- some are horrible): KFJC 89.7 and KZSU 90.1 in the Bay Area. The DJs are passionate about the music they listen to, and most of them tend to play really, really good music that you'll never hear on a mainstream station.
Can't dance to it? Bullshit-- local DJs come down and spin all sorts of supremely danceable tracks several times a week. Extremely lo-fi? Unpolished? Hardly-- lots of these bands have been around for a while, and use some pretty solid studios to record in. This isn't the straight-ahead indie garage rock your pappy used to listen to.
The truth of the matter is that mainstream radio today is so narrow, there's a huge range of artists that don't get any major play (and many not on major labels) that have talent, experience, and dedication. In addition to the totally indie artists, there's all the other great music that doesn't get much play here-- international stuff, old stuff, etc.. Since those types don't get any mainstream radio play, the owners might be willing to allow free webcast of it just to get interest back. Hell, when's the last time you heard your local station playing Sun Ra?
"My dad's worked in cable engineering since its inception and has always said that ala carte pricing is not a good idea."
"New York City fans of HBO's Sex & The City who couldn't care less about the 20 or more channels that must be bought to get that particular premium service could slash their monthly cable bill from $56 to about $31. The smaller fee would get HBO and the major TV networks."
Actually, this is almost precisely my situation (I'm not in NYC, but pricing is similar where I am). I want the networks and HBO. This will let me save over $20 a month. About the only way you're going to persuade me this isn't a good idea is showing me they kill small, cute animals every time they lose a premium subscriber (or perhaps it makes baby Jesus cry, or it takes food away from starving children in Ethiopia, or...).
I see tons of surveys of "likely voters" where the margin of victory is easily covered by "undecided". I've seen plenty where either side has in the mid-30's to mid-40's, and the other 20 or so percent is undecided. If they just voted based on party, why would they be undecided?
I know plenty of people who, despite Democratic or Republican leanings, vote on both sides of the line in every election.
Do you have any evidence to back up your statement? It certainly seems contrary to what I've observed, but if it's true, I'd be interested to see more detail.
I don't see how this has anything to do with the tragedy of the commons (which is good, because it's a bunch of contrived bullshit). There's no "commons" in this story-- they charge for access to their network, and can boot anyone off at any time. Additionally, the people feeling the ill effects of overuse are generally not the users, but the shareholders of the corporations running the broadband businesses.
It's not tragedy of the commons-- it's simple business. In general, a service provider should charge its customers more than it costs the provider to provide the service. If they fail to do that, they lose money, which is what's happening here. Having figured out that they'll scare off the bulk of their customers by uniformly raising rates, the providers have decided to only raise the rates of people costing them more.
"there is also $75M in CDs to be given away to non-profits."
Oh, fuck-- there's the catch. They delayed the Bon Jovi album with "patent issues" until this was settles, and now they're going to extort the $67M back from defenseless non-profits as "protection money"-- or else they'll be subjected to the latest Bon Jovi over, and over, and over again.
No kidding. With quotes like this, too: "'There's still plenty of good revenue and good growth in PCs. If anybody wants to quit making PC games, Electronic Arts is more than happy to take the business from them.' So says Jeff Brown, spokesman for Electronic Arts, the world's largest maker of computer games."
And now we get a bunch of fucking posts about how PC gaming isn't dying, the article is all wrong. No, it is dying, and here's why, I can get a console for $200, video cards are $200, console games are better, PC games suck, Donkey Kong sucks, you suck!
I know, I know. I should just pretend this story doesn't exist, and not read any of the horribly inane comments. But it's like watching a fucking train wreck. Come witness, as the level of discourse on/. plummets to the insightfulness of your
The contributor was wrong. As usual, RTFA.:) Adams wrote a script, but it wasn't quite "complete" before his death-- it was edited, but I guess not final yet. So the head scriptwriter for Chicken Run is finishing it up.
You misunderstood what I said. I don't patch my system all the time, because I don't need to-- I don't open unnecessary ports, and I don't run unnecessary programs. Currently, the only thing my box runs is a NWN server. So I just need to watch for security updates to the NWN server.
Of course, after I posted this, I realized he did mention using his box to serve up a few pages for his family. I missed that the first time around, which is why I was puzzled his box was vulnerable. If I were running SSL, then unfortunately, I'd have to check two pages frequently for updates, instead of just one.:)
"I'm running a vulnerable system and it isn't because I'm "lazy" as you so kindly put it. I run Linux on my *desktop* and use it to play Quake, surf the web, and share out some HTML pages for my family."
I agree with you about the attitude, but there's no reason a system used for what you're mentioning would be vulnerable. I'm horrible about updating my box, but since I have so few ports open and so few services running, no one can get to my box. Forwarding the range for the Neverwinter Nights server doesn't open up a whole lot of exploits. Well, except for all the buffer overflows I'm sure are there in their NWN server code....
"They are in keeping with the widespread notion that 'belief' in open souce/free software gives you a right to steal with impunity."
Interesting. From what I could gather from the article, it sounded like they were distributing an additional piece of software, DVD Enabler. Where's the stealing part?
"I still buy CD's, but I download way more from EMusic. Flat-rate subscriptions encourage gluttony and now I need to buy a new hard disk. (eyes roll here)"
No kidding-- I don't know how I'm paying enough for their server bandwidth. I don't have the hard disk problem though. I've accidentally wiped the partition holding my mp3s twice in the last 4 months. Here's to unlimited downloads.
"Fair enough, but by your own admission you're triggering RIAA royalties to be paid."
I said almost all, because I'm not entirely sure. It's possible a band I checked on switched labels between albums. I certainly don't check every album for every band-- I check to make sure a band is on an indie label, and download. It's quite likely that I have never downloaded RIAA music from emusic, however, given that the RIAA-label albums from a band are usually the ones that aren't offered through emusic.
To be constructive, yes, your original post contained an important detail: emusic doesn't automatically mean you're boycotting the RIAA. You still have to check the list. But I don't think the fact that emusic allows you freedom in your music purchases is a count against it. I wish everyone would boycott the RIAA, but obviously most people feel differently.
Venturing OT (that's right, anyone still reading this old topic, now's when my post gets useless-- move along:) ), I want to clarify:
"It was said and in all truthfulness and your own comments affirm it as such."
Was it? Did you really "hate to burst [my] bubble"? You seem to be pursuing your attempt with a great deal of glee, actually. I suspect that you thought you were bursting my bubble, and enjoyed it.
I'm sorry to disappoint. However, if you really want to burst my bubble, I post fairly often here and on k5, and sometimes I make inaccurate or totally incorrect statements. If you check on my posts frequently, I'm sure you'll get an opportunity to do your bubble-bursting soon. If you're feeling really ambitious, I've got quite a posting history both places, and I'm sure there are a few inaccurate statements waiting for you. Enjoy.:)
Almost all of the music I download there is from non-RIAA labels. For example, Metropolis is one of my favorites, and non-RIAA. If I'm triggering royalties to be paid to a non-RIAA label, I don't really care-- Metropolis isn't funding draconian assaults on freedom. In fact, they're a great alternative to the RIAA members, and a lot of bands have switched to them because of bullshit from the big labels.
"Well, I hate to burst your bubble,"
BTW, I've never heard anyone say that truthfully. Any time someone says that, I immediately downgrade my estimate of the veracity of what they're saying, because they're already lying.:)
I subscribe to emusic, and have for a long time. Unlimited downloads, mp3 format. It's mostly not major label stuff, which is a good thing for me-- why should I support the RIAA?
The only drawback is sometimes they don't add music as quickly as I wish they would. Still, they've got enough music in there to keep me busy exploring new genres and bands at no risk to me but the downloading and listening time (and their transfer rates are so high that download time is negligible).
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"I think it's this sort of defensive vitriolic reply that defeats the point of the article. That being, if you are considering playing EQ than you should probably save your money for something else."
/. about the evils of Remedy and how they're just out to get my money.
/. because they stopped responding to rants on the Sony forums.
If that were the point, he'd have done a better comparison of the alternatives. The point was to rehash the same bitching that's been going on since the game's release, but with a few new occurrences.
"I myself found the game to be unfun after about 6 months running into many of the same problems."
6 months? 40 bucks for the game, and about 65 for subscription. 105 bucks for 6 months of gameplay. I paid 40 bucks for Max Payne, got about 20 hours of play out of it, and I'm not writing long articles to
Rants like this are pathetic. Scores of people write on and on about how their lives are controlled by Sony. "Help, I'm allowing myself to be controlled by a giant corporation, and I don't know what to do!" There are so many alternatives, and they aren't just DAoC and AC. Play a MUD. Make a MUD. Get a job in the industry. Take control of your life-- don't just bitch on
Oh, you're so hip and cynical.
The article actually had some interesting substance. Sure, we all know they exchange money for favors, but this is the first time I've seen a story about a politician sending a direct invoice to a corporation for regulatory services rendered. This is pretty nuts:
"As you recall in our conversation some weeks ago, you agreed to upgrade your Team 100 membership to the Regent program ($250,000) when the merger was approved," Republican Party fund-raiser Mel Sembler wrote in 2000 to the chief of the now-bankrupt Global Crossing telecommunications company, which had already given $100,000.
"Thankfully this has now been approved, so I am taking the liberty of enclosing an invoice for the additional upgrade,"
"A company (or entity with money) that represents you can speak for you and the thousands below it."
Yeah, but MS isn't the most accurate representative for its shareholders and employees. If only there were a way to take this power from MS, and give each citizen of the United States of America a way to represent him or her self.
Hmm.... A way to allow every citizen to choose how they're represented at the state and federal level.... Nope, can't think of anything.
* Must continue giving money to RIAA labels, who are leading an assault against civil liberties.
If you played Everquest, you'd be well aware that half the fun of playing a persistent online game is paying them money while simultaneously complaining about how bad it is.
In fact, some people buy second or third accounts for the sole purpose of being able to say "I'm going to cancel any day now, watch out!" twice or three times as often.
Watch for upcoming world-shattering Sims Online events, such as the mass threatened cancellation following the first anchovie pizza nerf, or the mass threatened pizza making work slowdown when a customer service rep says something that isn't very nice.
People have been panicking, but the final scoop seems to be that they're not banning it permanently. XBox-scene says they're having no trouble getting previously detected modded boxes online after disabling the chip.
What is MS gonna want to do-- make a modder go back to the store and buy another XBox they can lose money on? It looks like they're just blocking chips online, which is great, because the last thing I want is to have to worry about punks using auto-aim hacks in my online console games. As long as they let me hack on it all I want while I'm offline, it's fine.
"Imagine 5 computer programmers, worked together through the dotcom bubble, with high-paying secured jobs. Life was good - not terribly swamped in work, maybe surfed the web a little too much on the job, but still managed to get work done."
That bears no fucking resemblance to work at a dot com startup. Not terribly swamped in work? Ha. Ha ha. It'd be funny if I hadn't burned so many nights (mornings) and weekends on projects that ended up not doing anything for anyone when the bubble burst.
Truth is, most people I talk to are doing less work now, not more.
Yeah, but between 103.3 (thanks AC), 90.1, 89.7, 91.1 (sometimes some real nice jazz; sometimes "smooth jazz" ugh), and 88.5 (KQED, NPR affiliate), it's not often I have to listen to crap. I haven't even fixed my CD player that's been broken for a few years. Also, maybe they've boosted their signal or maybe your antenna was bad or something, but I don't lose KZSU until I pass SFO.
It kicks ass that I have tons of people going out and finding good music for me. It's telling, though, that with those great stations out there, most people still listen to the big commercial radio stations so they can hear the latest Insane Clown Posse over and over again. It's okay, though-- obviously, I'm just a better person than all of them.
What you say might sound convincing if I didn't hear hundreds of new, quality, original songs by lots of small-time bands every month.
I listen to a couple good college stations in my area (college stations vary, of course-- some are horrible): KFJC 89.7 and KZSU 90.1 in the Bay Area. The DJs are passionate about the music they listen to, and most of them tend to play really, really good music that you'll never hear on a mainstream station.
Can't dance to it? Bullshit-- local DJs come down and spin all sorts of supremely danceable tracks several times a week. Extremely lo-fi? Unpolished? Hardly-- lots of these bands have been around for a while, and use some pretty solid studios to record in. This isn't the straight-ahead indie garage rock your pappy used to listen to.
The truth of the matter is that mainstream radio today is so narrow, there's a huge range of artists that don't get any major play (and many not on major labels) that have talent, experience, and dedication. In addition to the totally indie artists, there's all the other great music that doesn't get much play here-- international stuff, old stuff, etc.. Since those types don't get any mainstream radio play, the owners might be willing to allow free webcast of it just to get interest back. Hell, when's the last time you heard your local station playing Sun Ra?
"My dad's worked in cable engineering since its inception and has always said that ala carte pricing is not a good idea."
"New York City fans of HBO's Sex & The City who couldn't care less about the 20 or more channels that must be bought to get that particular premium service could slash their monthly cable bill from $56 to about $31. The smaller fee would get HBO and the major TV networks."
Actually, this is almost precisely my situation (I'm not in NYC, but pricing is similar where I am). I want the networks and HBO. This will let me save over $20 a month. About the only way you're going to persuade me this isn't a good idea is showing me they kill small, cute animals every time they lose a premium subscriber (or perhaps it makes baby Jesus cry, or it takes food away from starving children in Ethiopia, or...).
I see tons of surveys of "likely voters" where the margin of victory is easily covered by "undecided". I've seen plenty where either side has in the mid-30's to mid-40's, and the other 20 or so percent is undecided. If they just voted based on party, why would they be undecided?
I know plenty of people who, despite Democratic or Republican leanings, vote on both sides of the line in every election.
Do you have any evidence to back up your statement? It certainly seems contrary to what I've observed, but if it's true, I'd be interested to see more detail.
I don't see how this has anything to do with the tragedy of the commons (which is good, because it's a bunch of contrived bullshit). There's no "commons" in this story-- they charge for access to their network, and can boot anyone off at any time. Additionally, the people feeling the ill effects of overuse are generally not the users, but the shareholders of the corporations running the broadband businesses.
It's not tragedy of the commons-- it's simple business. In general, a service provider should charge its customers more than it costs the provider to provide the service. If they fail to do that, they lose money, which is what's happening here. Having figured out that they'll scare off the bulk of their customers by uniformly raising rates, the providers have decided to only raise the rates of people costing them more.
Well, TotC or not, we agree on the result.
"there is also $75M in CDs to be given away to non-profits."
Oh, fuck-- there's the catch. They delayed the Bon Jovi album with "patent issues" until this was settles, and now they're going to extort the $67M back from defenseless non-profits as "protection money"-- or else they'll be subjected to the latest Bon Jovi over, and over, and over again.
The heartless bastards.
Congrats! Sounds very exciting.
:)
Now, about getting ME a job in the industry....
"You can blame Bush for appointing Ashcroft. But who can we blame for Congress? The American people."
Indeed. But it's a lot easier to slap a few hundred congresspeople (persons?) and call them damned fools than every single American.
No kidding. With quotes like this, too: "'There's still plenty of good revenue and good growth in PCs. If anybody wants to quit making PC games, Electronic Arts is more than happy to take the business from them.' So says Jeff Brown, spokesman for Electronic Arts, the world's largest maker of computer games."
/. plummets to the insightfulness of your
And now we get a bunch of fucking posts about how PC gaming isn't dying, the article is all wrong. No, it is dying, and here's why, I can get a console for $200, video cards are $200, console games are better, PC games suck, Donkey Kong sucks, you suck!
I know, I know. I should just pretend this story doesn't exist, and not read any of the horribly inane comments. But it's like watching a fucking train wreck. Come witness, as the level of discourse on
Once these kids graduate and are living on their own, think of the language gap!
The contributor was wrong. As usual, RTFA. :) Adams wrote a script, but it wasn't quite "complete" before his death-- it was edited, but I guess not final yet. So the head scriptwriter for Chicken Run is finishing it up.
You misunderstood what I said. I don't patch my system all the time, because I don't need to-- I don't open unnecessary ports, and I don't run unnecessary programs. Currently, the only thing my box runs is a NWN server. So I just need to watch for security updates to the NWN server.
:)
Of course, after I posted this, I realized he did mention using his box to serve up a few pages for his family. I missed that the first time around, which is why I was puzzled his box was vulnerable. If I were running SSL, then unfortunately, I'd have to check two pages frequently for updates, instead of just one.
"I'm running a vulnerable system and it isn't because I'm "lazy" as you so kindly put it. I run Linux on my *desktop* and use it to play Quake, surf the web, and share out some HTML pages for my family."
I agree with you about the attitude, but there's no reason a system used for what you're mentioning would be vulnerable. I'm horrible about updating my box, but since I have so few ports open and so few services running, no one can get to my box. Forwarding the range for the Neverwinter Nights server doesn't open up a whole lot of exploits. Well, except for all the buffer overflows I'm sure are there in their NWN server code....
"They are in keeping with the widespread notion that 'belief' in open souce/free software gives you a right to steal with impunity."
Interesting. From what I could gather from the article, it sounded like they were distributing an additional piece of software, DVD Enabler. Where's the stealing part?
"I still buy CD's, but I download way more from EMusic. Flat-rate subscriptions encourage gluttony and now I need to buy a new hard disk. (eyes roll here)"
No kidding-- I don't know how I'm paying enough for their server bandwidth. I don't have the hard disk problem though. I've accidentally wiped the partition holding my mp3s twice in the last 4 months. Here's to unlimited downloads.
"Fair enough, but by your own admission you're triggering RIAA royalties to be paid."
:) ), I want to clarify:
:)
I said almost all, because I'm not entirely sure. It's possible a band I checked on switched labels between albums. I certainly don't check every album for every band-- I check to make sure a band is on an indie label, and download. It's quite likely that I have never downloaded RIAA music from emusic, however, given that the RIAA-label albums from a band are usually the ones that aren't offered through emusic.
To be constructive, yes, your original post contained an important detail: emusic doesn't automatically mean you're boycotting the RIAA. You still have to check the list. But I don't think the fact that emusic allows you freedom in your music purchases is a count against it. I wish everyone would boycott the RIAA, but obviously most people feel differently.
Venturing OT (that's right, anyone still reading this old topic, now's when my post gets useless-- move along
"It was said and in all truthfulness and your own comments affirm it as such."
Was it? Did you really "hate to burst [my] bubble"? You seem to be pursuing your attempt with a great deal of glee, actually. I suspect that you thought you were bursting my bubble, and enjoyed it.
I'm sorry to disappoint. However, if you really want to burst my bubble, I post fairly often here and on k5, and sometimes I make inaccurate or totally incorrect statements. If you check on my posts frequently, I'm sure you'll get an opportunity to do your bubble-bursting soon. If you're feeling really ambitious, I've got quite a posting history both places, and I'm sure there are a few inaccurate statements waiting for you. Enjoy.
Almost all of the music I download there is from non-RIAA labels. For example, Metropolis is one of my favorites, and non-RIAA. If I'm triggering royalties to be paid to a non-RIAA label, I don't really care-- Metropolis isn't funding draconian assaults on freedom. In fact, they're a great alternative to the RIAA members, and a lot of bands have switched to them because of bullshit from the big labels.
:)
"Well, I hate to burst your bubble,"
BTW, I've never heard anyone say that truthfully. Any time someone says that, I immediately downgrade my estimate of the veracity of what they're saying, because they're already lying.
I subscribe to emusic, and have for a long time. Unlimited downloads, mp3 format. It's mostly not major label stuff, which is a good thing for me-- why should I support the RIAA?
The only drawback is sometimes they don't add music as quickly as I wish they would. Still, they've got enough music in there to keep me busy exploring new genres and bands at no risk to me but the downloading and listening time (and their transfer rates are so high that download time is negligible).