the PowerPoint document was prepared as a class project for a competition in Florida last month. It cost the six students a grand total of $173.95, including $18 for clip art...the contestants spent all of $173.95 on the idea, including printing and $20 to register the.com and.org domain names.
Wait... what? I made several power point presentations for classes. My budget for the presentation was always the same: zero dollars. I didn't even pay for the powerpoint I was using. How do you spend $18 on clipart?
Yes, this powerpoint wasn't really from us, therefore it is not possible that we independently going to carry out that beautifully crafted plan to achieve the goal of getting rid of net neutrality. In fact, that's not even our goal, never has been. And you know it was never our goal because we didn't make that powerpoint presentation.
Incidentally, can we borrow this fake powerpoint presentation for our next secret strategy meeting? You know, as an example of powerpoint presentations that DO NOT reflect our plans?
The government is telling people that by voicing their opinions they are actually harming their own cause. I can't imagine a greater way of suppressing political dissent.
Batons, pepper spray, guns, tear gas... Not to suggest that violence is required for a government to trample democracy, just let's not get into hyperbole here.
"So many things wrong with this" and you could only come up with three?
I don't know the specifics of this test, but genetic analysis is generally done multiple times, since it's not like DNA is limited in quantity. This lowers the error rate and mitigates both of your points. If the first run of the test indicates you have a marker for a disease, and you don't actually, you'd expect that the next run will disagree with that, and then next one too.
While chances aren't zero that a false positive would make it through multiple rounds, they do decrease, and the odds of that are easy enough to figure out. Out of self-interest, the company is going to make sure that is a low figure. False positives will also likely be discovered in followup if the disease is bad enough in some cases. If I were to get news that I had a marker for a bad disease, the first thing I would do would probably be get independent confirmation, not immediately jump into expensive preventative care.
But that doesn't fit the Slashdot worldview, so it was left out
Only if we're being extremely stupid about it. We don't deny there are parasitic gamers out there who would take advantage of lack of DRM to get something for nothing.
The analysis in the link you provided was dead on, with various reasons why some of that 25% wasn't actual piracy, but may have been multiple downloads, etc...
Anyway, it also demonstrates that some people are just not going to pay for games: they had the option to pay a cent, and they did not. I think that erodes the videogame industry's claim that every download is lost profits: they were never going to see that money. Furthermore, these guys spent -zero- dollars on DRM and only got 25% piracy. Those companies spending big bucks on DRM and still seeing comparable piracy rates have got to be wondering if their DRM schemes aren't a complete waste of money.
I'm taking that as sarcasm. I am wondering though, is net neutrality going to end up a victim of partisan politics? The FCC under Obama says "Net Neutrality good" so the GOP leadership says "Net Neutrality bad" for no reason other than taking the opposite side of Obama seems to be their strategy? While taking a good chunk of telecom money, of course. Combine that with the fact that many elected democrats aren't exactly the staunchest supporters of net neutrality, and obviously also take money from telecoms.
An executive at EA just blew his nose on $1,030,536.
And then tried to figure out how to best claim that indie game developers stole from EA.
"Let's see, a million dollars. That would be three million dollars that would have been spent on an EA licensed version of world of goo. FOUR million if you count the last half of the game as downloadable content. 6 times 4 million... 24 million...
Betty get in here! Immediate press release! Indie developers have just stolen 32 million dollars from the video game industry!"
They left out several data points they discovered that were simply too shocking to print:
Well, they're just being modest. After all, they are one of those few industries that "could withstand the theft of $51 billion worth of their products" (where theft here is defined as people not giving them money they feel entitled to.) If you were one of these "super industries" you'd probably see that there's no reason to overkill a point.
Not to brag, but I am in fact one of the few people who can survive having aproximately one trillion dollars stolen from me. Tragic, I know, but I have not been given a trillion dollars despite being better looking, better in bed, smarter, better looking, and better at heating up a hot pocket than most CEOs out there.
With online distribution (like steam) they could stop second hand sales altogether, and as a bonus you don't need a silo for your discs. Pretty awesome in my opinion.
I don't think "not needing a silo" is a good advantage when considering the downsides. If a game is terrible, it has faster turnover. Faster turnover decreases the publisher's profits: if used copies of a game start showing up on a the shelves the day after a game releases, that's a sale that EA isn't going to get. That to me seems like a check to make sure EA doesn't start putting out 2 hour games for $60, or games that are so terrible they get sold back almost immediately.
I don't trust EA or activision as far as I can throw them, they need every incentive to release quality that we can throw at them, but now they've continued taking steps to remove that check rather putting effort into making games we want to buy and keep.
The amazing thing is, if we allowed ocean drilling much closer to shore we wouldn't have these problems.
From what I've read, BP or one of their partners were to blame, this could have been avoided where it was, but corners were cut, regulations were eased, etc. I'm not convinced the way to prevent these things is to let those same idiots drill closer to the shore. I think the way to prevent these things is to not have idiots drilling anywhere.
ironically, it is the wacko environmentalists that are to blame for this situation
You have some odd views there. Environmentalists don't want drilling -anywhere-. They're not to blame.
Since these methane hydrates contain a significant amount of methane (i.e. natural gas), in the years since it was discovered that there are large deposits of them
The article says 168 liters of methane from 1 liter of methane hydrates... I have no idea how much methane hydrates would be released, or how much methane would have to be released before it became an issue, but that sounds like a lot of methane and I've heard methane is quite a bit better at soaking up heat from solar rays than carbon dioxide.
So, is that a concern, or would that just be a small drop in the bucket?
this is why I'm against sudden rapid expansions of industry into sensitive environmental areas.
Article says "Drillers have long been wary of methane hydrates because they can pack a powerful punch. One liter of water ice that has trapped individual methane molecules in the "cages" of its crystal structure can release 168 liters of methane gas when the ice decomposes."
Doesn't exactly sound like this was a new and unforseen problem, it doesn't sound like this happened because we were being hasty. It sounds like it happened because they were on some level being stupid and ignoring a well-known risk. In my book, that's an even stronger reason not to drill. We've known about that for a long time and the oil companies -still- haven't made sure this can't happen? These are not people who should be making potentially environment-altering decisions for the rest of us.
And if being a "distraction" isn't enough, soon you'll hear "all those electronic devices aren't good for the environment"..
Sure, because a democrat saying something will be good for the environment is a sure-fire way to get political capital necessary to defeat a powerful economic interest group or groups. You know, kind of like how they just waved the green flag and instantly got rid of SUVs and guns?
If you actually are concerned about this, and not just spreading partisan FUD (and it is just FUD, environmental concerns catch the attention of the public for a moment but that rarely translates into actual votes when opposed to tax cuts and industrial lobbies), then you should realize two things, one: it was offhand advice for the audience that was in front of him, not a plan. Second: the only way the democrats could lose even more seats this midterm election is if they tried to take away cell phones, computers, and other things we distract ourselves with. Well, I guess that's not true, they'll find plenty of ways to let me down.
Just as bad?" Really? Too much of my job consists of email, and somehow I don't think it fly if I switched all that time over to playing video games
Different dangers. From that part you quoted it was clear which he was talking about, people answering e-mails -away- from work. I know I've been out to dinner before, checked my e-mail, and started responding before realizing that my wife came back from the bathroom and I'm being "that guy."
It's creeping into jobs that really don't need 24/7 on call response to e-mails. Mine certainly doesn't. I'm doing biology, I'm not an on-call doctor or maintaining a 24/7 computer system. Even so, many other researchers have their phones alert instantly when they get an e-mail. Not too much of a jump to think that people are going to start expecting instant responses from e-mails even though an instant response isn't needed in most cases.
I don't see that happening with games, at least not for most people, games have clearer boundaries. I'm playing a game or not playing a game. I won't get a call to start playing left 4 dead 2 in the middle of dinner (unless my friends are really drunk I guess). So yeah, I agree with GP that e-mail can be more distracting than games.
barring hardware hacks on specific devices, or really stupid mistakes in media design).
Stupid mistakes like making the next gen disc media format even less versatile than the first gen, when fewer and fewer people are interested in the diminishing advantages to newer media formats, and streaming/downloaded videos are on the rise?
Then again, blu-ray 1 seems to be gaining ground so slowly, it might not matter at all what is in blu-ray 2. I know few people with TVs that will show much of a difference between blu-ray and DVD, fewer people who have bought a blu-ray player, and no one who has bought one that wasn't a PS3 for gaming. They might just assume that anyone buying a blu-ray 2 player isn't really going to be weighing cost vs benefit, so why not throw in restrictive crap like this?
Uh, it's not? I'm having a remarkably hard time finding your credit card number here on network node B.
I was guessing they're just trying to stop more of it than they are now, hoping that will mean more money for them. They don't need to make it completely impossible in all cases. Their people come up with a way to detect when someone uploads a clip from the NBC olympic coverage to youtube, and this method will detect it 2 hours faster than their current method, so they can take it down 2 hours faster. I'd guess the IOC would give them a decent sized check for just those 2 hours.
And that would be stupid, paranoid, greedy, and stupid again, but that's the IOC, MPAA, RIAA etc for you.
Those who use windows have less money due to having to pay for geeksquad for cleaning the scumware and viruses off their computers or buying new ones. Which reminds me, my computer is passing that 20 minute boot up time, probably need to buy a new one...
(...Kidding guys, don't flood me with suggestions)
Sony and Microsoft have the (gimmicky, as it was in the Wii) motion control. They have the developers. They have the hardware. Where do you think that leaves Nintendo in 5 years?
Sony has had motion controls since before the PS3 came out. No one cared about it then. Sony is going to try a little harder this time I guess, we'll see how that works out for them again. I'm going to guess it's going to be another weak attempt to copy what nintendo is doing, and won't work out well. They may have learned their lesson with the sixaxis: if you're going to do motion controls, do them at least as well as nintendo.
I suspect though that the situation with motion control games will be the reverse of what we see for most games though. If someone is going to make a game that uses the wand-style motion controls, they're probably going to make it for the wii, with it's huge user base, and then port it to the PS3 if they can. How many people are going to make a game with the "gimmicky" controls, and then market it exclusively to the much smaller customer base? Sony hasn't exactly been locking down the exclusives for the PS3.
Natal... I don't know. Maybe that could actually steal thunder from the wii. On the other hand, maybe no one will want to do anything besides "eye toy" type gimmicky games for an attachment that not everyone with a 360 is going to have.
I'd guess the price difference will continue to work for the wii, maybe. Those "casual gamers" that everyone says nintendo is catering to aren't all going to say "screw the $200 box I bought, I'm going to buy this $600 one!" Or however much the PS3 or 360 are, I really don't know, but I gather they're still more expensive.
In 5 years that leaves nintendo with plenty of time to make and sell games to the people who have wiis, I don't know. I don't see anything though to indicate nintendo is going to fritter away all the money it's gotten with the wii. And don't forget the handheld market. Nintendo's doing pretty good there too.
While BP are legally liable, it's entirely possible that Halliburton... could be to blame.
I'd argue that BP was probably not innocent in any shortcuts Halliburton took, and I'm not talking legally. And I see no reason to give BP the benefit of the doubt. But you're right, "obviously" was overstating things.
Slashdot Mirror
Stock photography/graphics combined with honest students.
I was and still am honest: I'm honestly not going to pay to fairly use an image I grabbed off google image to put it into a power point for a class.
the PowerPoint document was prepared as a class project for a competition in Florida last month. It cost the six students a grand total of $173.95, including $18 for clip art...the contestants spent all of $173.95 on the idea, including printing and $20 to register the .com and .org domain names.
Wait... what? I made several power point presentations for classes. My budget for the presentation was always the same: zero dollars. I didn't even pay for the powerpoint I was using. How do you spend $18 on clipart?
Yes, this powerpoint wasn't really from us, therefore it is not possible that we independently going to carry out that beautifully crafted plan to achieve the goal of getting rid of net neutrality. In fact, that's not even our goal, never has been. And you know it was never our goal because we didn't make that powerpoint presentation.
Incidentally, can we borrow this fake powerpoint presentation for our next secret strategy meeting? You know, as an example of powerpoint presentations that DO NOT reflect our plans?
I was just going to say, why is this on "idle?" This is HUGE news!
The government is telling people that by voicing their opinions they are actually harming their own cause. I can't imagine a greater way of suppressing political dissent.
Batons, pepper spray, guns, tear gas... Not to suggest that violence is required for a government to trample democracy, just let's not get into hyperbole here.
"So many things wrong with this" and you could only come up with three?
I don't know the specifics of this test, but genetic analysis is generally done multiple times, since it's not like DNA is limited in quantity. This lowers the error rate and mitigates both of your points. If the first run of the test indicates you have a marker for a disease, and you don't actually, you'd expect that the next run will disagree with that, and then next one too.
While chances aren't zero that a false positive would make it through multiple rounds, they do decrease, and the odds of that are easy enough to figure out. Out of self-interest, the company is going to make sure that is a low figure. False positives will also likely be discovered in followup if the disease is bad enough in some cases. If I were to get news that I had a marker for a bad disease, the first thing I would do would probably be get independent confirmation, not immediately jump into expensive preventative care.
Yeah...I could believe the first one to be an honest mistake, but there is no way this one wasn't planned. /tinfoil hat
Tinfoil hat? Why are you wearing a tinfoil hat in response to this? Are you saying the 4th gen iphone will be able to read your thoughts?!?
Man, I may have to actually start giving two shits about this if it requires a tinfoil hat.
But that doesn't fit the Slashdot worldview, so it was left out
Only if we're being extremely stupid about it. We don't deny there are parasitic gamers out there who would take advantage of lack of DRM to get something for nothing.
The analysis in the link you provided was dead on, with various reasons why some of that 25% wasn't actual piracy, but may have been multiple downloads, etc...
Anyway, it also demonstrates that some people are just not going to pay for games: they had the option to pay a cent, and they did not. I think that erodes the videogame industry's claim that every download is lost profits: they were never going to see that money. Furthermore, these guys spent -zero- dollars on DRM and only got 25% piracy. Those companies spending big bucks on DRM and still seeing comparable piracy rates have got to be wondering if their DRM schemes aren't a complete waste of money.
I'm happy using abstinence as a contraceptive.
See, you -say- you're happy, but then you say you're abstaining... which is it?
This isn't so much about Net Neutrality as it is about them not wanting the government to have control of the situation
Come on, man, your bosses at comcast are expecting a better effort than that!
I'm taking that as sarcasm. I am wondering though, is net neutrality going to end up a victim of partisan politics? The FCC under Obama says "Net Neutrality good" so the GOP leadership says "Net Neutrality bad" for no reason other than taking the opposite side of Obama seems to be their strategy? While taking a good chunk of telecom money, of course. Combine that with the fact that many elected democrats aren't exactly the staunchest supporters of net neutrality, and obviously also take money from telecoms.
An executive at EA just blew his nose on $1,030,536.
And then tried to figure out how to best claim that indie game developers stole from EA.
"Let's see, a million dollars. That would be three million dollars that would have been spent on an EA licensed version of world of goo. FOUR million if you count the last half of the game as downloadable content. 6 times 4 million... 24 million...
Betty get in here! Immediate press release! Indie developers have just stolen 32 million dollars from the video game industry!"
They left out several data points they discovered that were simply too shocking to print:
Well, they're just being modest. After all, they are one of those few industries that "could withstand the theft of $51 billion worth of their products" (where theft here is defined as people not giving them money they feel entitled to.) If you were one of these "super industries" you'd probably see that there's no reason to overkill a point.
Not to brag, but I am in fact one of the few people who can survive having aproximately one trillion dollars stolen from me. Tragic, I know, but I have not been given a trillion dollars despite being better looking, better in bed, smarter, better looking, and better at heating up a hot pocket than most CEOs out there.
With online distribution (like steam) they could stop second hand sales altogether, and as a bonus you don't need a silo for your discs. Pretty awesome in my opinion.
I don't think "not needing a silo" is a good advantage when considering the downsides. If a game is terrible, it has faster turnover. Faster turnover decreases the publisher's profits: if used copies of a game start showing up on a the shelves the day after a game releases, that's a sale that EA isn't going to get. That to me seems like a check to make sure EA doesn't start putting out 2 hour games for $60, or games that are so terrible they get sold back almost immediately.
I don't trust EA or activision as far as I can throw them, they need every incentive to release quality that we can throw at them, but now they've continued taking steps to remove that check rather putting effort into making games we want to buy and keep.
The amazing thing is, if we allowed ocean drilling much closer to shore we wouldn't have these problems.
From what I've read, BP or one of their partners were to blame, this could have been avoided where it was, but corners were cut, regulations were eased, etc. I'm not convinced the way to prevent these things is to let those same idiots drill closer to the shore. I think the way to prevent these things is to not have idiots drilling anywhere.
ironically, it is the wacko environmentalists that are to blame for this situation
You have some odd views there. Environmentalists don't want drilling -anywhere-. They're not to blame.
Since these methane hydrates contain a significant amount of methane (i.e. natural gas), in the years since it was discovered that there are large deposits of them
The article says 168 liters of methane from 1 liter of methane hydrates... I have no idea how much methane hydrates would be released, or how much methane would have to be released before it became an issue, but that sounds like a lot of methane and I've heard methane is quite a bit better at soaking up heat from solar rays than carbon dioxide.
So, is that a concern, or would that just be a small drop in the bucket?
this is why I'm against sudden rapid expansions of industry into sensitive environmental areas.
Article says "Drillers have long been wary of methane hydrates because they can pack a powerful punch. One liter of water ice that has trapped individual methane molecules in the "cages" of its crystal structure can release 168 liters of methane gas when the ice decomposes."
Doesn't exactly sound like this was a new and unforseen problem, it doesn't sound like this happened because we were being hasty. It sounds like it happened because they were on some level being stupid and ignoring a well-known risk. In my book, that's an even stronger reason not to drill. We've known about that for a long time and the oil companies -still- haven't made sure this can't happen? These are not people who should be making potentially environment-altering decisions for the rest of us.
And if being a "distraction" isn't enough, soon you'll hear "all those electronic devices aren't good for the environment"..
Sure, because a democrat saying something will be good for the environment is a sure-fire way to get political capital necessary to defeat a powerful economic interest group or groups. You know, kind of like how they just waved the green flag and instantly got rid of SUVs and guns?
If you actually are concerned about this, and not just spreading partisan FUD (and it is just FUD, environmental concerns catch the attention of the public for a moment but that rarely translates into actual votes when opposed to tax cuts and industrial lobbies), then you should realize two things, one: it was offhand advice for the audience that was in front of him, not a plan. Second: the only way the democrats could lose even more seats this midterm election is if they tried to take away cell phones, computers, and other things we distract ourselves with. Well, I guess that's not true, they'll find plenty of ways to let me down.
Just as bad?" Really? Too much of my job consists of email, and somehow I don't think it fly if I switched all that time over to playing video games
Different dangers. From that part you quoted it was clear which he was talking about, people answering e-mails -away- from work. I know I've been out to dinner before, checked my e-mail, and started responding before realizing that my wife came back from the bathroom and I'm being "that guy."
It's creeping into jobs that really don't need 24/7 on call response to e-mails. Mine certainly doesn't. I'm doing biology, I'm not an on-call doctor or maintaining a 24/7 computer system. Even so, many other researchers have their phones alert instantly when they get an e-mail. Not too much of a jump to think that people are going to start expecting instant responses from e-mails even though an instant response isn't needed in most cases.
I don't see that happening with games, at least not for most people, games have clearer boundaries. I'm playing a game or not playing a game. I won't get a call to start playing left 4 dead 2 in the middle of dinner (unless my friends are really drunk I guess). So yeah, I agree with GP that e-mail can be more distracting than games.
barring hardware hacks on specific devices, or really stupid mistakes in media design).
Stupid mistakes like making the next gen disc media format even less versatile than the first gen, when fewer and fewer people are interested in the diminishing advantages to newer media formats, and streaming/downloaded videos are on the rise?
Then again, blu-ray 1 seems to be gaining ground so slowly, it might not matter at all what is in blu-ray 2. I know few people with TVs that will show much of a difference between blu-ray and DVD, fewer people who have bought a blu-ray player, and no one who has bought one that wasn't a PS3 for gaming. They might just assume that anyone buying a blu-ray 2 player isn't really going to be weighing cost vs benefit, so why not throw in restrictive crap like this?
Uh, it's not? I'm having a remarkably hard time finding your credit card number here on network node B.
I was guessing they're just trying to stop more of it than they are now, hoping that will mean more money for them. They don't need to make it completely impossible in all cases. Their people come up with a way to detect when someone uploads a clip from the NBC olympic coverage to youtube, and this method will detect it 2 hours faster than their current method, so they can take it down 2 hours faster. I'd guess the IOC would give them a decent sized check for just those 2 hours.
And that would be stupid, paranoid, greedy, and stupid again, but that's the IOC, MPAA, RIAA etc for you.
Those who use windows have less money due to having to pay for geeksquad for cleaning the scumware and viruses off their computers or buying new ones. Which reminds me, my computer is passing that 20 minute boot up time, probably need to buy a new one...
(...Kidding guys, don't flood me with suggestions)
nude != porn.
Since we're talking about children, I think that equation may be incorrect on several levels. Notably, in the legal sense.
Sony and Microsoft have the (gimmicky, as it was in the Wii) motion control. They have the developers. They have the hardware. Where do you think that leaves Nintendo in 5 years?
Sony has had motion controls since before the PS3 came out. No one cared about it then. Sony is going to try a little harder this time I guess, we'll see how that works out for them again. I'm going to guess it's going to be another weak attempt to copy what nintendo is doing, and won't work out well. They may have learned their lesson with the sixaxis: if you're going to do motion controls, do them at least as well as nintendo.
I suspect though that the situation with motion control games will be the reverse of what we see for most games though. If someone is going to make a game that uses the wand-style motion controls, they're probably going to make it for the wii, with it's huge user base, and then port it to the PS3 if they can. How many people are going to make a game with the "gimmicky" controls, and then market it exclusively to the much smaller customer base? Sony hasn't exactly been locking down the exclusives for the PS3.
Natal... I don't know. Maybe that could actually steal thunder from the wii. On the other hand, maybe no one will want to do anything besides "eye toy" type gimmicky games for an attachment that not everyone with a 360 is going to have.
I'd guess the price difference will continue to work for the wii, maybe. Those "casual gamers" that everyone says nintendo is catering to aren't all going to say "screw the $200 box I bought, I'm going to buy this $600 one!" Or however much the PS3 or 360 are, I really don't know, but I gather they're still more expensive.
In 5 years that leaves nintendo with plenty of time to make and sell games to the people who have wiis, I don't know. I don't see anything though to indicate nintendo is going to fritter away all the money it's gotten with the wii. And don't forget the handheld market. Nintendo's doing pretty good there too.
While BP are legally liable, it's entirely possible that Halliburton... could be to blame.
I'd argue that BP was probably not innocent in any shortcuts Halliburton took, and I'm not talking legally. And I see no reason to give BP the benefit of the doubt. But you're right, "obviously" was overstating things.