the slippery slope implies that there is no rational thinking people in the room
its the same argument used by those who stand against gay's right to marry: "if we let gays marry, then people will be marrying sheep! polygamy will be legal too!" bullshit. people understand that homosexual marriage is not bestiality or multiple wives
or howabout: "if they legalize marijuana they will legalize meth and heroin too!" no. meth is not marijuana. heroin is not marijuana. everyone understands the radical differences between these drugs
if you can understand that those who use the bullshit tactic of the slippery slope against gay marriage or marijuana legalization are trafficking in fear and hysteria, then maybe you can see that in your own words, is the exact same fear and hysteria
so, just so you clearly understand... no: a cyberattack is not piracy. a cyberattack is not pedophilia. common sense attempts to secure a network is not going to be confused with efforts against piracy. or pedophilia
really. we all understand the difference. really
people, please: shut up with the bullshit slippery slope arguments. whenever you find yourself arguing in terms of the slippery slope, you have lost your grasp on rationality and reason and are simply fearful, hysterical, and confused. there is no such thing as a slippery slope. repeat: there is no such thing as a slippery slope
While I agree that the slippery slope argument is bull to most rational people you have to realize the government is not rational and espeically lawyers who like to sue and overactive partens who believe that the law should be used to secure then when they feel scared even over the dumbest thing. These people would use the slippery slope to there advantage to try and pass more crap through the government.
So I think we should not allow this as I don't want idiots who are scared to push through more crap.
Big difference between playing a game for years without paying for it then buying it at a fraction of the cost and waiting for a PS3 to drop in value before purchasing as you don't get to play the PS3 while you are waitining for the cost to drop.
My argument is that once they realized they liked the game and played it all the time they should have saved up and purchased the game. As I said I had friends who never purchased starcraft and played it for years with pirated copies. I was not happy with this not because I purchased copies but because Blizzard made a game that was so good they should have purchased it.
I agree that pirating a game can cause you to buy a game that you wouldn't have otherwise purchased but to pirate and play a game knowing how much you like it without purchasing it is wrong in my book.
My friends and I used to play cracked Warcraft and Starcraft copies on our PCs. After we graduated and eventually had jobs, some of my friends bought authentic CDs because they felt that it was the right thing to do. They said that they've always wanted to buy the real thing but they didn't have money to do so. It was then that I realized that the figures that some companies claim to have lost to piracy are just a bunch of BS. I also realized that in order for a software company to be profitable, they need to make quality software that people actually use. Attempting to control how people copy their software is a waste of time.
So instead of purchasing a game new for say $50 then the expansion for another $30 they waited till the set was $20 then purchased them all the while getting full use of a game that others paid full price for. That is stealing and is wrong in my book as they took something they liked then continued to play the game(although I know many people that did the same thing).
This is why Blizzard is adding DRM and removing LAN play because people can easily pirate the game with friends and play locally with one copy. Battle.net eliminates this which is why I think they did it.
As far as lost sales I think Blizzard is the only company that has a foot to stand on as there games have a lot of replay value in multiplayer. I still break out Starcraft and Diablo II every once in a while and don't feel guilty at all spending $55 dollars on them the day they came out as they are terrific games worth the price compared to most other games I've played a few times then left on the side wishing I had saved my money.
This is why I purchase everything with a credit card. Mine has a 30 day return policy built into it and when I hear "You can't return this" I say well that is fine I will call up the credit card company and have them cancel the purchase. Typically this works very well and I end up getting it credited.
This also works when you purchase an item and they do not tell you about a restocking fee if it is opened when you go to return said item (or in my case lie and say there isn't one).
I have to say this is the biggest problem. I remember in college I had a friend who had never owned a CD he always recorded songs off the radio until he started downloading MP3s. Well each song he downloaded according to the record industry is a lost sale when he had never purchased a music CD to begin with.
The problem is you have people that pirate without having any intention of purchasing and they skew the numbers. After all without MP3s my friend would have just continued recording from the radio.
My only question is will the makers of Gran Turismo 5 go back to the drawing board to make the game 3D?? I have been waiting for year for this game to come out in its full form and I can see them delaying it longer to add 3D. If this is the case please wait until the game is released before the update. I don't want this to be a repeat of Duke Nukem Forever.
This bill while sounding like an okay step (I haven't read the entire bill). I say this because although I didn't understand it at the time I witnessed my Nana go from being self sufficient to living with my Aunt all because her insurance company refused to help her when she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
Due to the insurance company not covering her she had a choice of dying and leaving some money to her kids and grandkids or spending every penny she had. This debate delayed her actions and she ended up dying with nothing as she used her entire savings as well as selling her assets to try and stay alive. If the insurance company had just done what she was paying them to do she wouldn't have died at that time but she was afraid of being a burdon on her kids.
However I still think the goverment should have changed the private companies by making them not for profit companies that could hold money to cover claims but could not have shareholders so they would not be at the mercy of profits to give to shareholders.
"We will no longer be loaning either the US or EU any more money. Furthermore we've decided it's time to collect our 5 trillion in loans. If you don't have the money, we'll be happy to take Alaska and Spain as payment instead."
Yeah. Who cares about China?
Don't affect us at all!
(rolls eyes)
Ok I hear this all the time that China owns tons of T Bills and yes they do but they cannot just call us and say they want the money now. Just like your mortgage company cannot call and say we want to collect the 200,000 you owe us on your mortgage 10 years early.
The only recourse China has would be to dump the securities on the market which would drop the value and cause the government to raise rates or discount prices when selling Treasuries. Remember though if China did this the Trillions of Treasuries they own would be worth less and less which could sink them into major financial problems sort of like what happened on Wall Street from having assets that are sinking in value causing more institutions to sell.
So no China cannot hurt us financially unless they wish to really screw themselves
Interesting way to spin Apple's accomplishment... that it was somehow evil to unlock iTunes. Wow, how could anyone win with this kind of logic?
What actually happened was that Apple dominated the music business because of the popularity of their HARDWARE and the way it worked seamlessly with their SOFTWARE (iTunes). They made a music store that SELLS MUSIC, in an environment where it was almost as easy to anonymously steal the same stuff.
Steve Jobs wrote an open letter to the music industry where he essentially said, why don't we eliminate this DRM bullshit, because it doesn't work. One by one, they eventually relented, and now most music stores sell music without DRM. You can now buy music from iTunes that plays on any modern music device.
Yet you're convinced Apple only did this because they somehow are now "safe" with this iPod monopoly. Does this make any sense? They removed one factor that might lock someone into their iPod the most -- their music library's portability -- and decimated it. Yet, in your mind this was just a crock of shit or something?
Wow.
I think the reason Apple wanted to remove DRM is for two reasons.
First Amazon.com was selling non DRM MP3 files. Who is going to purchase from Apple if they can get the same song without DRM from Amazon.com?
Second if the Apple store grew too large they could be considered a monopoly due to the hardware lockin which would have come with a new set of problems.
I think this is primarily due to the snack foods. For a while I stopped playing games at night and started watching TV during that time and I gained about 10 lbs and was not sure why. So I started to track what I was eating and I noticed that while I watched TV I would eat ice cream or something that required two hands.
Then I purchased some games for my PS3 and started playing those at night instead (as I realized nothing on TV interested me) and noticed that while I might eat while I play it was typically a lot less and I typically grabbed some almonds or something that is at least not as bad.
While this is just my experience I think TV makes it easier to eat. I also notice this when football season starts as I tend to watch a lot of games and eat and drink while at the same time.
Several DRM schemes have only involked a reaction in the tech community such as slashdot while the general public carried on not caring.
This shambles has made it painfully obvious to the masses of the dangers of DRM.
The 45 page thread is evidence of it and is quickly filling up with hatred. Comments such as "I'll never buy from you again" which usually tend to be hyperbole this time ring true.
Hopefully the end result of this is that the public won't have a short attention span and make true on their threats of not buying from them again.
Well I went to that link and it appears the forum is down as well. So not only can people not play the game they are not allowed to complain about it to Ubisoft as well!
Don't tell your friends to crack the game. Tell them to go to the store and demand their money back.
The software is fundamentally broken. You haven't gotten what you've paid for. Returns will be a lot more painful for Ubisoft. Pose 90% returned games vs 90% pirated games at a stock holders meeting, and they'd probably prefer 90% pirated, as the 90% returned will be more expensive in the long run.
Actually we should all buy a copy of the game take it home install it claim it didn't work and take it back to the store and demand our money back. This will really hurt Ubisoft as it will involve more claims and require more resources to make up for the amount of products being shipped back.
All these comments and no one noticed that when they did the search for Church one of the queries that came up when they had only typed 'Chu' was 'Chuck Norris'
Which makes this the coolest ad and now the Google employees better watch out for roundhouse kick related incidents.
The only reason for that I like this is if they can get a different way to play media files such as XMBC to work so I can play MKV files without conversion on my PS3.
Also I didn't download these MKV files I have the disks, but this will prevent my son from ruining them and also allow me to change shows faster when one is done.
will make it possible to identify individuals at check points
Thats great so when the guards come around to check the car for bombs with a dog my 3 yr old son will be afraid and they will sense his fear and come over making him more affraid.
So in the end I get arrested because a 3yr old is affraid of a stranger and dog coming up to the car.
I have yet to find that my movie watching experience was in any way noticably improved by watching a film on Blu-Ray instead of DVD.
While I will agree it does depend on the movie, but if you can't see the difference between Planet Earth or the Pixar movies when you compare the DVD to Blu-Ray then I have to say your TV just isn't big enough as Blu-Ray difference really is noticable when you get around the 50" mark on TVs.
What I think is interesting is that if Microsoft had done this most of the people in here would be up in arms. But because it is Apple it's ok and we should forgive them.
Where Apple first started to release good products I was excited but the more I see them do the more I realize I do not want to support their business practices.
I'm sure I'll get modded down but I can't deny that they seem to be more anticompetative then MS.
You are right this is the biggest problem are the cheap phones we have. Most people do not need a new phone every two years but due to the way the plans work you pay for the phone whether you want a new one or not.
If this continues I think that the rate should drop once the subsidized phone is paid for. So after the two year contract your rate must drop by how much they subsidized the phone. This way they can still have $99 phones but I don't end up paying for it for 5 years if I decide not to upgrade.
I remember playing Railroad Tycoon where instead I would build a small railroad then take over the first competing company by buying the majority of the stock. I would then shift the money to my railroad and sell the majority. In doing this the first thing they would do is take out a bond then I would take over the company again and continue doing this until the company would go under.
I was able to beat the game with having unlimited funds just as the true Railroad Tycoons of old would have done.
I think this is a ploy to get people into lucrative monthly plans where you will almost never send the amount of text messages you need to cost them any money. As an example I sometimes send 150 text messages a month luckily I have a $5 plan that allows 250. However the next three months I might send 5 text messages and Verizon wins as I used no where near that amount.
Saying that I would love to see the companies not be allowed to run one plan that subsidizes the phones even after you ran through the two year contract. I feel I have to get a new phone every two years or I'm ripping myself off as I'm still paying for a phone that I have not received due to the contracts being overpriced.
I think it's pretty obvious what Pandora is angling at here, they're attacking the obvious double-standard. Problem is that if it goes the other way, then that's pretty much the last nail in the coffin of broadcast radio; it's already only a marginally profitable business to be in anymore, and having to pay more royalties will kill most of them off for good.
Actually my wife works in radio and most of the stations are loosing money as advertising quickly dried up while being overstaffed. This caused rampant mangement cuts and commission cuts for sales reps. Not to mention the cutback in events which is meant to bring in more listeners.
Of course what I really find interesting is how broadcast radio companies like to link with companies or products that are dying such as AOL or Microsoft Zune.
Even with my wife working for a radio company I still hope Pandora wins just to level the playing field with Satellite Radio which I prefer.
Slashdot Mirror
the slippery slope implies that there is no rational thinking people in the room
its the same argument used by those who stand against gay's right to marry: "if we let gays marry, then people will be marrying sheep! polygamy will be legal too!" bullshit. people understand that homosexual marriage is not bestiality or multiple wives
or howabout: "if they legalize marijuana they will legalize meth and heroin too!" no. meth is not marijuana. heroin is not marijuana. everyone understands the radical differences between these drugs
if you can understand that those who use the bullshit tactic of the slippery slope against gay marriage or marijuana legalization are trafficking in fear and hysteria, then maybe you can see that in your own words, is the exact same fear and hysteria
so, just so you clearly understand... no: a cyberattack is not piracy. a cyberattack is not pedophilia. common sense attempts to secure a network is not going to be confused with efforts against piracy. or pedophilia
really. we all understand the difference. really
people, please: shut up with the bullshit slippery slope arguments. whenever you find yourself arguing in terms of the slippery slope, you have lost your grasp on rationality and reason and are simply fearful, hysterical, and confused. there is no such thing as a slippery slope. repeat: there is no such thing as a slippery slope
While I agree that the slippery slope argument is bull to most rational people you have to realize the government is not rational and espeically lawyers who like to sue and overactive partens who believe that the law should be used to secure then when they feel scared even over the dumbest thing. These people would use the slippery slope to there advantage to try and pass more crap through the government.
So I think we should not allow this as I don't want idiots who are scared to push through more crap.
Big difference between playing a game for years without paying for it then buying it at a fraction of the cost and waiting for a PS3 to drop in value before purchasing as you don't get to play the PS3 while you are waitining for the cost to drop.
My argument is that once they realized they liked the game and played it all the time they should have saved up and purchased the game. As I said I had friends who never purchased starcraft and played it for years with pirated copies. I was not happy with this not because I purchased copies but because Blizzard made a game that was so good they should have purchased it.
I agree that pirating a game can cause you to buy a game that you wouldn't have otherwise purchased but to pirate and play a game knowing how much you like it without purchasing it is wrong in my book.
My friends and I used to play cracked Warcraft and Starcraft copies on our PCs. After we graduated and eventually had jobs, some of my friends bought authentic CDs because they felt that it was the right thing to do. They said that they've always wanted to buy the real thing but they didn't have money to do so. It was then that I realized that the figures that some companies claim to have lost to piracy are just a bunch of BS. I also realized that in order for a software company to be profitable, they need to make quality software that people actually use. Attempting to control how people copy their software is a waste of time.
So instead of purchasing a game new for say $50 then the expansion for another $30 they waited till the set was $20 then purchased them all the while getting full use of a game that others paid full price for. That is stealing and is wrong in my book as they took something they liked then continued to play the game(although I know many people that did the same thing).
This is why Blizzard is adding DRM and removing LAN play because people can easily pirate the game with friends and play locally with one copy. Battle.net eliminates this which is why I think they did it.
As far as lost sales I think Blizzard is the only company that has a foot to stand on as there games have a lot of replay value in multiplayer. I still break out Starcraft and Diablo II every once in a while and don't feel guilty at all spending $55 dollars on them the day they came out as they are terrific games worth the price compared to most other games I've played a few times then left on the side wishing I had saved my money.
This is why I purchase everything with a credit card. Mine has a 30 day return policy built into it and when I hear "You can't return this" I say well that is fine I will call up the credit card company and have them cancel the purchase. Typically this works very well and I end up getting it credited.
This also works when you purchase an item and they do not tell you about a restocking fee if it is opened when you go to return said item (or in my case lie and say there isn't one).
I have to say this is the biggest problem. I remember in college I had a friend who had never owned a CD he always recorded songs off the radio until he started downloading MP3s. Well each song he downloaded according to the record industry is a lost sale when he had never purchased a music CD to begin with.
The problem is you have people that pirate without having any intention of purchasing and they skew the numbers. After all without MP3s my friend would have just continued recording from the radio.
Yeah, the pilots should go back to bangin' the steward/ess from First Class...
They would except they can't open the door once the flight takes off so that leaves only the pilot and copilot.
My only question is will the makers of Gran Turismo 5 go back to the drawing board to make the game 3D?? I have been waiting for year for this game to come out in its full form and I can see them delaying it longer to add 3D. If this is the case please wait until the game is released before the update. I don't want this to be a repeat of Duke Nukem Forever.
This bill while sounding like an okay step (I haven't read the entire bill). I say this because although I didn't understand it at the time I witnessed my Nana go from being self sufficient to living with my Aunt all because her insurance company refused to help her when she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
Due to the insurance company not covering her she had a choice of dying and leaving some money to her kids and grandkids or spending every penny she had. This debate delayed her actions and she ended up dying with nothing as she used her entire savings as well as selling her assets to try and stay alive. If the insurance company had just done what she was paying them to do she wouldn't have died at that time but she was afraid of being a burdon on her kids.
However I still think the goverment should have changed the private companies by making them not for profit companies that could hold money to cover claims but could not have shareholders so they would not be at the mercy of profits to give to shareholders.
>>>Who cares about China. Seriously.
"We will no longer be loaning either the US or EU any more money. Furthermore we've decided it's time to collect our 5 trillion in loans. If you don't have the money, we'll be happy to take Alaska and Spain as payment instead."
Yeah. Who cares about China? Don't affect us at all! (rolls eyes)
Ok I hear this all the time that China owns tons of T Bills and yes they do but they cannot just call us and say they want the money now. Just like your mortgage company cannot call and say we want to collect the 200,000 you owe us on your mortgage 10 years early.
The only recourse China has would be to dump the securities on the market which would drop the value and cause the government to raise rates or discount prices when selling Treasuries. Remember though if China did this the Trillions of Treasuries they own would be worth less and less which could sink them into major financial problems sort of like what happened on Wall Street from having assets that are sinking in value causing more institutions to sell.
So no China cannot hurt us financially unless they wish to really screw themselves
Interesting way to spin Apple's accomplishment... that it was somehow evil to unlock iTunes. Wow, how could anyone win with this kind of logic?
What actually happened was that Apple dominated the music business because of the popularity of their HARDWARE and the way it worked seamlessly with their SOFTWARE (iTunes). They made a music store that SELLS MUSIC, in an environment where it was almost as easy to anonymously steal the same stuff.
Steve Jobs wrote an open letter to the music industry where he essentially said, why don't we eliminate this DRM bullshit, because it doesn't work. One by one, they eventually relented, and now most music stores sell music without DRM. You can now buy music from iTunes that plays on any modern music device.
Yet you're convinced Apple only did this because they somehow are now "safe" with this iPod monopoly. Does this make any sense? They removed one factor that might lock someone into their iPod the most -- their music library's portability -- and decimated it. Yet, in your mind this was just a crock of shit or something?
Wow.
I think the reason Apple wanted to remove DRM is for two reasons.
First Amazon.com was selling non DRM MP3 files. Who is going to purchase from Apple if they can get the same song without DRM from Amazon.com?
Second if the Apple store grew too large they could be considered a monopoly due to the hardware lockin which would have come with a new set of problems.
I think this is primarily due to the snack foods. For a while I stopped playing games at night and started watching TV during that time and I gained about 10 lbs and was not sure why. So I started to track what I was eating and I noticed that while I watched TV I would eat ice cream or something that required two hands.
Then I purchased some games for my PS3 and started playing those at night instead (as I realized nothing on TV interested me) and noticed that while I might eat while I play it was typically a lot less and I typically grabbed some almonds or something that is at least not as bad.
While this is just my experience I think TV makes it easier to eat. I also notice this when football season starts as I tend to watch a lot of games and eat and drink while at the same time.
Several DRM schemes have only involked a reaction in the tech community such as slashdot while the general public carried on not caring. This shambles has made it painfully obvious to the masses of the dangers of DRM. The 45 page thread is evidence of it and is quickly filling up with hatred. Comments such as "I'll never buy from you again" which usually tend to be hyperbole this time ring true. Hopefully the end result of this is that the public won't have a short attention span and make true on their threats of not buying from them again.
Well I went to that link and it appears the forum is down as well. So not only can people not play the game they are not allowed to complain about it to Ubisoft as well!
Don't tell your friends to crack the game. Tell them to go to the store and demand their money back.
The software is fundamentally broken. You haven't gotten what you've paid for. Returns will be a lot more painful for Ubisoft. Pose 90% returned games vs 90% pirated games at a stock holders meeting, and they'd probably prefer 90% pirated, as the 90% returned will be more expensive in the long run.
Actually we should all buy a copy of the game take it home install it claim it didn't work and take it back to the store and demand our money back. This will really hurt Ubisoft as it will involve more claims and require more resources to make up for the amount of products being shipped back.
All these comments and no one noticed that when they did the search for Church one of the queries that came up when they had only typed 'Chu' was 'Chuck Norris' Which makes this the coolest ad and now the Google employees better watch out for roundhouse kick related incidents.
The only reason for that I like this is if they can get a different way to play media files such as XMBC to work so I can play MKV files without conversion on my PS3. Also I didn't download these MKV files I have the disks, but this will prevent my son from ruining them and also allow me to change shows faster when one is done.
Who said they'd be limited to airports?
will make it possible to identify individuals at check points
Thats great so when the guards come around to check the car for bombs with a dog my 3 yr old son will be afraid and they will sense his fear and come over making him more affraid.
So in the end I get arrested because a 3yr old is affraid of a stranger and dog coming up to the car.
I want mine to be Ballmer yelling "Developers" That will be a warning to everyone
You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.
I have yet to find that my movie watching experience was in any way noticably improved by watching a film on Blu-Ray instead of DVD.
While I will agree it does depend on the movie, but if you can't see the difference between Planet Earth or the Pixar movies when you compare the DVD to Blu-Ray then I have to say your TV just isn't big enough as Blu-Ray difference really is noticable when you get around the 50" mark on TVs.
What I think is interesting is that if Microsoft had done this most of the people in here would be up in arms. But because it is Apple it's ok and we should forgive them.
Where Apple first started to release good products I was excited but the more I see them do the more I realize I do not want to support their business practices.
I'm sure I'll get modded down but I can't deny that they seem to be more anticompetative then MS.
You are right this is the biggest problem are the cheap phones we have. Most people do not need a new phone every two years but due to the way the plans work you pay for the phone whether you want a new one or not.
If this continues I think that the rate should drop once the subsidized phone is paid for. So after the two year contract your rate must drop by how much they subsidized the phone. This way they can still have $99 phones but I don't end up paying for it for 5 years if I decide not to upgrade.
I remember playing Railroad Tycoon where instead I would build a small railroad then take over the first competing company by buying the majority of the stock. I would then shift the money to my railroad and sell the majority. In doing this the first thing they would do is take out a bond then I would take over the company again and continue doing this until the company would go under.
I was able to beat the game with having unlimited funds just as the true Railroad Tycoons of old would have done.
I think this is a ploy to get people into lucrative monthly plans where you will almost never send the amount of text messages you need to cost them any money. As an example I sometimes send 150 text messages a month luckily I have a $5 plan that allows 250. However the next three months I might send 5 text messages and Verizon wins as I used no where near that amount.
Saying that I would love to see the companies not be allowed to run one plan that subsidizes the phones even after you ran through the two year contract. I feel I have to get a new phone every two years or I'm ripping myself off as I'm still paying for a phone that I have not received due to the contracts being overpriced.
The recording industry has lost [CARL-SAGAN] Billions and BILLIONS [/CARL-SAGAN] due to those Evil Content Pirates(tm)!
You misspelled Trillions, since the recording industry believes their sales should be higher then the global GDP.
I think it's pretty obvious what Pandora is angling at here, they're attacking the obvious double-standard. Problem is that if it goes the other way, then that's pretty much the last nail in the coffin of broadcast radio; it's already only a marginally profitable business to be in anymore, and having to pay more royalties will kill most of them off for good.
Actually my wife works in radio and most of the stations are loosing money as advertising quickly dried up while being overstaffed. This caused rampant mangement cuts and commission cuts for sales reps. Not to mention the cutback in events which is meant to bring in more listeners.
Of course what I really find interesting is how broadcast radio companies like to link with companies or products that are dying such as AOL or Microsoft Zune.
Even with my wife working for a radio company I still hope Pandora wins just to level the playing field with Satellite Radio which I prefer.