Yeah, I agree. My girlfriend likes to play Mario Kart with me on my Nintendo 64. Simple to learn and fun to play. The game automatically gives players lagging behind a little boost, too. They get better power-ups than the players in the lead.
I agree. Paper ballots aren't broke. Sure, have a touch-screen system for disabled voters who cannot use a paper ballot. Hoewver, the touch-screen voting system should not tabulate any votes. It should simply print out a paper ballot that is deposited by the voter into the ballot box. Why is that so damn hard?
There's no way that IBM can convert to Linux until it has ported Lotus Notes. So far, employees using Linux have to run Notes using Wine. It is not very stable and some functions don't work. Until I see a Linux port, I won't believe this news.
Holy crap. You're right! Verizon does charge to receive text messages. That stinks. Seems a bit unfair that you can be billed for something that you have no control over. At least with an incoming call you can choose not to answer if you don't want to spend your minutes talking to the caller.
Reread the post. Nowhere does it mention any of the phrases you quoted. In fact, it fails to say that DRM should be abolished. I think most sane people realize that DRM is a required part of digital media.
However, the license agreements that DRM enforces must be balanced, fair, and clearly spelled out to the consumer. The DRM must be flexible enough to allow the consumer to have "reasonably free" use of the content that they have licensed. The content producers must not own all the control while the content consumers have none.
DRM raises some very complex questions with no clear answers, even for hardware and content producers. For an excellent example, read the following engadget article on the consequences of HDCP. Both the consumer and the manufacturer of the "cracked" hardware will lose.
I agree with some of your points, and my language wasn't clear. I'm not against DRM period. I'm against DRM that prevents users from doing "reasonable" things with content that they are licensed to use. Restrictive license agreements are BS.
People who bought an early HDTV with only composite inputs should not be prevented from getting a full HD signal when watching their (to be released) HD-DVDs or BlueRay discs.
People who buy a CD should not be prevented from ripping it to their portable music player, computer, or using custom or COTS network media player software/hardware.
DRM needs to work for the consumer first and the content owner second.
Also, if content owners to go the "you aren't buying the content, you're buying a license to use the content" route then I want cheap and easy replacement (for cost + shipping) of the physical media when it is destroyed, lost, or damaged. The current "go out and buy a new license at full price to get another physical copy" model is crap.
Locks and car alarms are "good enough" solutions to prevent vehicle theft. Are they fool proof? Of course not. Am I inconvenienced by having to carry around keys and remember to lock/unlock doors? Yes. But I prefer not to have bums sleeping in my car, or people yanking anything in view simply because they can without any effort. And yes, I've had my car broken into (security defeated). It makes me want to find ways to make things more secured, not less.
You're missing the point. I don't think anybody would argue that car locks and computer security measures are bad. These things prevent others from using your property. They don't prevent from using your own property. Your car's security system doesn't prevent it from driving on certain types of roads. Your computer security doesn't force you to pay $0.25 to log on each time you boot up.
The problem with DRM is that it stops the consumer from using content that they paid for. The rights of the consumer are more important than the rights of the content providers. Unfortunately, most of the populace doesn't care or understand that they are losing out because they have their whiz-bang iPod and plasma TV.
So a history of making poor quality products that hinder the consumer is a valid excuse for yet another crappy product? Come on! I'm sure the 360 is a great gaming machine, but MS's choice to hamper it by including a crappy power supply is a out-and-out mistake. Let's not try to white-wash it.
That's the point. The consumer experience is NOT different. Joe Consumer takes the computer (be it 386, P4, AMD, or Apple) home from Best Buy, plugs it in, and it works. It doesn't crash every 20 minutes when you put the P4 computer in the spot that used to house the 386 computer. The technology had to change to support a cohesive user experience. Joe Consumer doesn't even know what a heatsink is, nor should he have to. Joe Consumer has probably dealt with power supplies before and stuffed them in the space behind the desk or entertainment center. Why should this power supply have to be treated differently? Just so Microsoft can save some money on the production costs? That's bull. Design should be centered on the user. Period.
Again, just because things have been a certain way in the past doesn't mean they'll continue to be that way in the future. My 386 didn't require a heatsink or fan, but my modern CPU certainly does, or else it will fry within minutes of being powered on.
Don't you see how you're countering your own argument? A 386 can get by on passive cooling while a P4 requires a heatsink and fan to cool it. So, what did Intel do? They sure as hell didn't ship the P4 without the stuff it needed to function properly and leave it up to the consumer to sort it out. They ship the P4 with a heatsink and fan! The consumer's experience is no different in this regard. They expect the computer with the P4 to work just as well as the computer with the 386. They don't care that Intel had to slap extra cooling gear on one. Ditto for the 360. As a consumer, I don't care what MS has to do to make the thing work, but it damn well better work in the standard operating environment for game consoles: the home entertainment center.
A power supply is most certainly not a new technology. MS (and Sony and Nintendo who damn well better learn from this) knows damn well that the console is going to be stuffed into existing home entertainment centers and the power supply will live with the dust bunnies behind it. Who wants to spend $400 for a console only to have to have it sitting on a pedistal (with ugly power supply clearly visible) so that it doesn't crash every 20 minutes? This is clearly a design requirement that was missed or not properly covered by the QA testing. Especially when I have all sorts of devices that have power supplies that can survive the same sort of treatment without having any problems at all.
This isn't about "this is our product, follow our silly rules to use it" it is about "I'm (potentially) your customer, you'd better make a product that meets my needs." My needs include having a console that will not crash when I put it in my home entertainment center with the rest of my A/V gear. Especially when MS is marketing this damn thing as some sort of convergent home entertaiment center! This isn't some strange or outlandish use of the product, it is what most consumers (and thus MS) would consider normal use. If your product doesn't funciton properly during normal use, then what good is it?
Will you expect to fill a hydrogen car with unleaded fuel just because that's how things have always been with cars? No? Why not? Because you're aware of how the technology works and is supposed to work, right?
Let's correct this analogy. If I buy a hydrogen car, I know that it obviously requires hydrogen fuel and won't try to fill it up with unleaded. This is like trying to plug the original XBox power supply into the 360. The garage thing is a better argument against your point. Shouldn't your hydrogen car be comfortable in the same garage that housed the regular car that you used to have? All the other cars can go in the garage just fine, why can't "hydrogen 360" fit in there without bursting into flames?
The point is that P2P is harder in IPv4 than in IPv6 since you have to deal with NAT. In IPv6, you could communicate directly with somebody without going through NAT and therefore that part of the communication would be trivial. No fancy stuff would be required to account for NAT between the two peers. You'd still need an application to do the communication, but it would be pretty trivial.
Taxes pay for the services that you use. Is this guy using the roads to get to work? Are his kids going to the schools? No! Why should he pay for that stuff? The taxes he pays in his home state cover this stuff in his home state. The people who live in the other state should be paying for those services provided there.
Well, I'm still waiting for a post-modern abstractist style FPS
I know this was meant as a joke, but it really illustrates the lack of innovation in the game industry. They have so many options open to them, yet the exercise so few. I know many people don't feel the same, but gameplay is first for me. The fancy graphics won't win me over if the gamplay isn't there. Innovative gameplay and unique graphics are largely missing from most new games. Sad.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, I agree. My girlfriend likes to play Mario Kart with me on my Nintendo 64. Simple to learn and fun to play. The game automatically gives players lagging behind a little boost, too. They get better power-ups than the players in the lead.
I agree. Paper ballots aren't broke. Sure, have a touch-screen system for disabled voters who cannot use a paper ballot. Hoewver, the touch-screen voting system should not tabulate any votes. It should simply print out a paper ballot that is deposited by the voter into the ballot box. Why is that so damn hard?
There's no way that IBM can convert to Linux until it has ported Lotus Notes. So far, employees using Linux have to run Notes using Wine. It is not very stable and some functions don't work. Until I see a Linux port, I won't believe this news.
Holy crap. You're right! Verizon does charge to receive text messages. That stinks. Seems a bit unfair that you can be billed for something that you have no control over. At least with an incoming call you can choose not to answer if you don't want to spend your minutes talking to the caller.
i ce.jsp#Prices
https://www.vtext.com/customer_site/jsp/aboutserv
Verizon does not charge the recipient of a text message.
Your wisdom just silenced me.
Reread the post. Nowhere does it mention any of the phrases you quoted. In fact, it fails to say that DRM should be abolished. I think most sane people realize that DRM is a required part of digital media.
However, the license agreements that DRM enforces must be balanced, fair, and clearly spelled out to the consumer. The DRM must be flexible enough to allow the consumer to have "reasonably free" use of the content that they have licensed. The content producers must not own all the control while the content consumers have none.
DRM raises some very complex questions with no clear answers, even for hardware and content producers. For an excellent example, read the following engadget article on the consequences of HDCP. Both the consumer and the manufacturer of the "cracked" hardware will lose.
I agree with some of your points, and my language wasn't clear. I'm not against DRM period. I'm against DRM that prevents users from doing "reasonable" things with content that they are licensed to use. Restrictive license agreements are BS.
People who bought an early HDTV with only composite inputs should not be prevented from getting a full HD signal when watching their (to be released) HD-DVDs or BlueRay discs.
People who buy a CD should not be prevented from ripping it to their portable music player, computer, or using custom or COTS network media player software/hardware.
DRM needs to work for the consumer first and the content owner second.
Also, if content owners to go the "you aren't buying the content, you're buying a license to use the content" route then I want cheap and easy replacement (for cost + shipping) of the physical media when it is destroyed, lost, or damaged. The current "go out and buy a new license at full price to get another physical copy" model is crap.
Why do you have to pay a tax to have access to your fair use rights? Didn't those come with the purchase of the original content?
DVI and HDMI
They made it smaller so that more women would buy it? Huh. Perhaps they should have made it bigger. That's what they tell me, anyway...
Not only that, but it was made by the French
So a history of making poor quality products that hinder the consumer is a valid excuse for yet another crappy product? Come on! I'm sure the 360 is a great gaming machine, but MS's choice to hamper it by including a crappy power supply is a out-and-out mistake. Let's not try to white-wash it.
That's the point. The consumer experience is NOT different. Joe Consumer takes the computer (be it 386, P4, AMD, or Apple) home from Best Buy, plugs it in, and it works. It doesn't crash every 20 minutes when you put the P4 computer in the spot that used to house the 386 computer. The technology had to change to support a cohesive user experience. Joe Consumer doesn't even know what a heatsink is, nor should he have to. Joe Consumer has probably dealt with power supplies before and stuffed them in the space behind the desk or entertainment center. Why should this power supply have to be treated differently? Just so Microsoft can save some money on the production costs? That's bull. Design should be centered on the user. Period.
A power supply is most certainly not a new technology. MS (and Sony and Nintendo who damn well better learn from this) knows damn well that the console is going to be stuffed into existing home entertainment centers and the power supply will live with the dust bunnies behind it. Who wants to spend $400 for a console only to have to have it sitting on a pedistal (with ugly power supply clearly visible) so that it doesn't crash every 20 minutes? This is clearly a design requirement that was missed or not properly covered by the QA testing. Especially when I have all sorts of devices that have power supplies that can survive the same sort of treatment without having any problems at all.
This isn't about "this is our product, follow our silly rules to use it" it is about "I'm (potentially) your customer, you'd better make a product that meets my needs." My needs include having a console that will not crash when I put it in my home entertainment center with the rest of my A/V gear. Especially when MS is marketing this damn thing as some sort of convergent home entertaiment center! This isn't some strange or outlandish use of the product, it is what most consumers (and thus MS) would consider normal use. If your product doesn't funciton properly during normal use, then what good is it?
The point is that P2P is harder in IPv4 than in IPv6 since you have to deal with NAT. In IPv6, you could communicate directly with somebody without going through NAT and therefore that part of the communication would be trivial. No fancy stuff would be required to account for NAT between the two peers. You'd still need an application to do the communication, but it would be pretty trivial.
I used to play GURPS about 10 years ago. Also dabbled in GURPS Cyberpunk a little bit. Very cool stuff. I liked the flexibility much more than D&D
This is the reason that his employer pays taxes to that state
That's why his employer pays taxes...
I agree! Many people have mentioned this point, but I wasn't thinking of it in my original post.
Taxes pay for the services that you use. Is this guy using the roads to get to work? Are his kids going to the schools? No! Why should he pay for that stuff? The taxes he pays in his home state cover this stuff in his home state. The people who live in the other state should be paying for those services provided there.
I'm so sick of this. Style and realism are not opposites. Realism is just one of many visual styles that a game could adopt.