In the mid-90s Apple wasn't doing well despite the fact their cult was still around. It wasn't until Steve Jobs came back that things turned around. Do you think it is just because he improved Apple's marketing?
No, it's because he dropped all of Apples work and took UNIX/FreeBSD, mixed in the Mach kernal and labeled it OSX. Not hard to stand on the shoulders of someone else's work.
More or less. The cult + those who are woefully uninformed about competing products. Half the people who are buying "ipods" dont even know there are alternatives. Much like most religions there are those who are the true believers and those who simply do not know anything else.
So what are all of these "better" alternatives -- especially to the Touch or the Nano? Every company but Apple has basically abandoned the high capacity market (except for Archos). So what's the alternative to the Classic?
I used to own an iPod (2 in fact, both broke within a year...) and after that I bought a COWON S9. Beats the crap out of the iPod in every way. Doesn't crash once a day like both iPods did (got to learn real well the restart command of an iPod), the sound is so much better (same files and headphones from the iPod), battery life rocks (55 hours'ish, no joke. I had to recharge the iPod daily, once ever few days for the S9), doesn't randomly freeze when I'm playing new songs, no 'special' software needed, the computer reads it like a USB drive and I just drag and drop. Beats the iPod in every way. As for the Nano, the SanDisk Clip+ is better.
However the ipod is just shit. Its highly proprietary and DRMed out the ass. I pods are more expensive their their equal quality competitors. iTunes is just a bastard of a bit of software. It causes massive stabability issues and is a complete and utter resource hog. Ipods are known to be fragile and scratch prone.
iTunes hasn't sold DRM'd music (or music videos) in over a year and where can you get DRM free video from any store -- either physical or electronic. The iPod plays bog standard MP3, WAV, AAC audio and H.264 and MPeg video. So where are all these cheaper better alternatives to the Touch, Nano, and Classic?
The DRM is in the hardware. Try to take any song/video on an iPod and put it back on the computer. You can't due to the iPod's DRM. As for the alternatives, look at the players on http://www.anythingbutipod.com/ which is for mp3 players, and you'll find many that are better.
Do you have a source for your claims of fragility and a comparison of the reliability of the iPod compared to other music players?
I've given you the links and shown you better ones. Just because you only know iPods, doesn't mean they are the only ones out there.
They presumably did not have any expertise with building online services when they started building their infrastructure for iTunes... Yet now they have a all division for Music store, App Store, Book Store, MobileMe, etc...i
This came from the fact that they did a massive ad campaign for the iPod (at the height of the campaign, where couldn't you find an iPod being mentioned? So electric rail stations I rode had had iPod ads taking over the whole station) and made sure to pack and make mandatory iTunes. Apple is good for marketing. Look at any of it's products and see the huge marketing campaign behind them. Apple knows that marketing is what sells something, not a good product. Look at every fad that has come and gone. Apple didn't make the mp3 player or the online store, they got the idea from looking at others and then made a huge marketing campaign to make it seem like it's their unique thing. Look at the iPad, it's a tablet pc like everyone else from the past 10 years with a huge marketing campaign. The only Apple product I can think of that didn't have a huge campaign to it was the Apple TV, and it's not selling well even though its built by Apple (they want to down play it as a 'hobby' since the numbers are low on it).
They presumably did not have any expertise dealing with cell phone technology, yet we all know what happened to iPhone...
It had the huge marketing campaign and just copied the concept of the Palm PDA (which the Palm cell phones predate the iPhone, not to mention Blackberry). There isn't really anything different in using it then I was using in PDA's ten years before beyond the phone function and updated parts(and I have used an iPhone). Again, nothing new from Apple just someone else technology with the Apple marketing campaign.
I think people assume that Apple is only good at UI stuff because Apple does not really advertise the core technologies that they have behind the eye candy...
They have a very good core OS technology behind their computers and other devices, but really not something that anybody cares about... It think it would be naive to believe that Apple cannot gain or acquire the expertise and technology needed for a search engine if they wanted too...
I don't think Apple really advertises the core technologies that are beyond the eye candy because it's not theirs, it's just technology they 'borrowed' and farmed out really. OSX at it's heart is running UNIX/FreeBSD mixed with NeXTSTEP which is made from the Mach kernal. Apple didn't make UNIX, FreeBSD or the Mach kernal, other people did. Apple just changed it a little and now people think it's their technology. Thing is, it isn't. In the end, Apple doesn't make anything new, they make ads for product idea's they borrowed and rehashed from others.
The better question would be, would they really want to, and for what purpose ?
that the product is not the only piece of IP being steamrollered? As late as Nov. 09, posts on http://icontrolpad.com/ have referred to the product under the shortened name 'iPad' (or Ipad, or ipad). Apple's iPad announcement probably put a formal stop to that (Jan 2010?)
MadTV also announced an iPad back in 2007 as well.
it's true the issue is to do with hardware, but note this: the iControlPad team are up in arms talking about 'their rights' and how they've been 'ripped off' and 'infringed' yet if you visit their site you will see they are more than happy to promote this - through screen-shots and videos - as method for running pirated games, such as Super Mario Kart and (what looks like) Mario Brothers DS. Could that be... 'hypocrisy'?
Maybe not hypocrisy since they aren't selling the methods of running those games and sometimes those games are more of a 'legal limbo' since if you own the games and the equipment you could format shift it. Their methods, while legally questionable, don't profit them with those games as I'm pretty sure it works above and beyond the few emulator styles they are using (not to mention I doubt they made that PSX emulator). With Apple trying to patent their design, they are most likely planning on selling the device and thus making money and profit off of their work, and Apple is trying to take full credit for their work. Money makes things more complicated as shown in the courts with file-sharing. No money = murky stance and sometimes falls out of court (not always granted). Making money off the piracy = Your screwed.
It also depends on how they are hired. If the papers they sign state that they are responsible for their own actions, it would get WB out of any counter-lawsuits for thing done.
No. In the US, anyway, WB cannot sign away their liability for having their employees do things that are illegal or would make them subject to civil action. As agents of WB, those kids might be liable -- but WB would still be liable.
Sorry to take it to the extreme -- but if I hire someone to kill my wife, and have them sign a contract stating they are fully liable for the action and indemnify me of any liability... well, guess what... I'm still liable.
Its not what WB would ask them to do is my thought, it's how the college kids will understand the instructions. In the case of your example, if you hire someone to handle your wife so you no longer have to deal with her (ie seduce her so you can divorce her or trail her to see if she's having an affair. Whatever you can use against her in divorce court) and the guy you hire doesn't understand what you mean and decides to kill her instead, there is no liability there. Same thing happens with these college kids, they might not understand to what limits they can do things legally and might take an instruction (like 'do everything you can to have those files removed from the site' ie take down notices to the user or report it to the sites admin or ISP) and they go to the extreme without knowing the legal aspects (they read 'takes files off = DOS web server or hack into someones computer through IRC and format their HD). While I'm sure they would know that this example is extreme, some of the finer details of the law might not be so clean cut (not to mention someone might do this anyways as a way to brownnose and show they can 'solve' problems).
WB UK doesn't want to get their hands soiled, so they get a bunch of job-hungry college kids to do their dirty work. I guess it wouldn't look seemly for a real -AA employee to "maintain accounts at private BitTorrent sites, develop link-scanning bots, [and] make trap purchases."
It also depends on how they are hired. If the papers they sign state that they are responsible for their own actions, it would get WB out of any counter-lawsuits for thing done. Like if a incorrect takedown notice was issued or if they write a bot to scan and it either causes Internet shortages on a site or even worse, then WB just walks away showing those signed papers and the college kid is D.O.A. Not to mention with papers signed like that hiring people who might not know the legal issues of finding and obtaining this information can lead to pirates being caught in less then ethical to down right illegal ways and WB won't have to care about the legal ramifications since the papers stated that the college kids are responsible for their own actions and don't reflect WB in any way, they just get the answers.
>>>Nintendo did have a great run in the 80's and 90's, but the last 10 years have not been kind to Nintendo and each time it seems to be getting a little worse
>>>
Late 80s - #1 with the NES
Early 90s - #1 with the Super NES (beat Sega)
Late 90s - #2 with the N64 (beat Sega again)
N64 was beaten by the Playstation due to the N64 usage of cartridges that cost more to manufacture, took longer to manufacture and coundn't hold as much information.
Early 2000s - #2 with the Gamecube (it was a statistical tie with Xbox)
Sales of the Gamecube were 22 million, 2 million short of the 24 million of the Xbox and way behind the 140 sold of the PS2. While it wasn't far behind the XBox, it was no where near the major player it had been compared to Sony's Playstation.
Late 2000s - #1 with the Wii (outselling X360 and PS3 approximately two-to-one)
Not sure if that will help them in the long run though, more so since Wii sales have been slowing down at a massive pace from 803,000 units Wii's sold in Oct 2008 to 507,000 sold in Oct 2009 while I'm aware of the other 2 systems have been gaining hardware sales, and software titles which is what really moves a system.
While Nintendo had a rough patch during the PS1/PS2 years, it appears they rose to the top again. Of course it helped that Sony made a major mistake with overpricing their console at $700 but still, the stats speak for themselves. I wouldn't call #1 a rough patch.
The stats are speaking for themselves, your right. Wii Publisher Backlash is a showing that publishers took a chance with the Wii and their sales stats aren't worth supporting the Wii. And a Wii without many third-party games is a system not many will want to play.
>>>only the rare non-Nintendo made game is worth playing let alone buying instead of renting
It's not totally implausible that the feature allows some sort of exploit, but I can't seem to find anything about one actually existing, or it having come up in the past as a security concern. Is that just a cover to remove it, or are there actually security concerns?
I think it's a huge security concern that Sony is trying to plug up without anyone noticing. Linux has access to all the hardware of the PS3 when it's the OS being ran (implementation isn't perfect yet though). Including it's blue ray disc reader that a lot of people don't normally have access to. This is how the Dreamcast was hacked even though it ran special 1 gig discs. People figured out how to hook the Dreamcast to a computer and make the Dreamcast become an external drive to read the discs and send them to the computer allowing everyone to pirate the games. Now we have the first signs of the PS3 being hacked, removing the Other OS feature removes one problem of Linux no longer being able to be used to install/flash the BIOS for the future cracked firmware (a la PSP style hacks), but it also removes the option of having the PS3 being turned into an external drive to read possible 'hidden' disc data that would only be read with PS3 firmware code.
I own a PC which could easily be called a 'gaming rig' and I own a PS3. When I want to buy a game like Fallout 3 I could buy the PS3 version that has the lower quality graphics (I could no doubt max it out on my PC) and lack of ability to get mods, or I could get the better looking PC version that could be expanded with a ton of mods, my choice was easy.... I bought the PS3 version. PC games have every advantage but are DOA in my eyes due to DRM (look at Assassin's Creed 2 and Command and Conquer). These made it a complete no-brainer of which one I'll buy. I don't need headache's and time wasted looking for a crack for the game I bought. I have Windows to play my computer games (World of Warcraft and Guild Wars, thats it. Will get Guild Wars 2 when out). That is all I use Windows for, playing 2 whole games because since they are online only I don't need to worry about horrible DRM killing my game play or my computer. The PC market is being held back by consoles for the reason that when I put in a game in my console I don't have it complain that the cd isn't in the drive (when it is), the console doesn't spend 2 minutes during the starting load to make sure the disc is real (Clive Barkers Undying always did that). Console games run, and they always run without a billion DRM induced headaches. PC games are like playing Russian Roulette every time I started up the game (and now don't even stop at that part) and that is why PC games aren't selling and console games will always get my money first.
>>>The Wii is a fisher price funbox designed for non-gamers and drunk idiots
Sure if you pretend that Nintendo doesn't have a 30 history of creating excellent games. I don't own a Wii but the games I've played (Zelda Twilight Princess, Metroid Prime 3) are just as good as those games I found on my Gamecube, N64, Super Nintendo, and NES. And just as good as on my Xbox, PS2, or PS1. I can't believe your comment was marked "insightful" since it's mostly just fanboyism..
While I agree with the fact that the Wii isn't a fisher price funbox for non-gamers and drunk idiots (though being drunk does help), the Wii as a console isn't much good. Nintendo did have a great run in the 80's and 90's, but the last 10 years have not been kind to Nintendo and each time it seems to be getting a little worse. I do own a Wii and to be honest, it's gathering dust and hasn't been turned on in months. It's not that it lacks amazing games like Zelda Twilight Princess and Metroid Prime 3, it's that those are pretty much the only good games on the systems. 99% of all the good games made on the Wii are made by Nintendo (which isn't many) and the other 95% of games are horrible games that are dumped by publishers hoping to score some easy money of the Wii's explosive demand in the beginning of it's life, only the rare non-Nintendo made game is worth playing let alone buying instead of renting. Now the Wii is just a flooded market of horrible games that make you feel suckered if you bought them. The Nintendo Seal of Quality has become a joke and it doesn't take people long to release that there just aren't many good games on the Wii. For everyone 1 good game there are at least 10 games that just plan shouldn't have been made and because I got burned with a few bought and rented I've learned to avoid any and all non-Nintendo developed games on the Wii. And I'm not alone in this opinion. Nintendo shot itself in the foot by allowing so many companies to pay the license and release these crappy games and now it's paying for it.
And anyway, GTA, with its focus on wanton violence and abuse, is somewhat dated. How about a completely different approach: A game where the objective is to drive in a safe, economical, environmentally responsible and polite way through London City in the rush hour, taking into account the one-way system, the roadworks, the tens of thousands of pedestrians crossing the street in front of you, the fact that the London streetmap looks a bit like a Mandelbrot fractal and that streetnames change on average every 20 meters. Now that WOULD be extreme.
Clearly the doctors and scientists didn't think he was crazy; they did after all bother to take the time to harshly dismiss his work. (He only went insane later, due to plain old nervous breakdown and/or syphilis.)
The social function of the odious meme at hand is to 1) keep the marginal kooks (not really crazy, but they think they are) buoyed up by the silly hope that they're really brilliant; 2) provide a just-so story by which normal people can ignore offensive, but nagging, ideas (after all, great ideas are indistinguishable from crazy ones so fuck it and accept the so-called "real world").
Thing is, they said he was insane, from the wikipedia article:
In 1865 János Balassa wrote a document referring Semmelweis to a mental institution. On July 30 Ferdinand von Hebra lured him, under the pretense of visiting one of Hebra's "new Institutes", to a Viennese insane asylum located in Lazarettgasse (Landes-Irren-anstalt in die Lazarettgasse).[5]:293 Semmelweis surmised what was happening and tried to leave. He was severely beaten by several guards, secured in a straitjacket and confined to a darkened cell. Apart from the straitjacket, treatments at the mental institution included dousing with cold water and administering castor oil, a laxative. He died after two weeks, on August 13, 1865, aged 47, from a gangrenous wound, possibly caused by the beating. The autopsy revealed extensive internal injuries, the cause of death pyemia—blood poisoning.[6]:76–78
He died an insane man who's beliefs were wrong and misplaced, from the article:
As accounts of the dramatic reduction in mortality rates in Vienna were being circulated throughout Europe, Semmelweis had reason to expect that the chlorine washings would be widely adopted, saving tens of thousands of lives. Early responses to his work also gave clear signs of coming trouble, however. Some physicians had clearly misinterpreted his claims. James Young Simpson, for instance, saw no difference between Semmelweis's groundbreaking findings and the British idea suggested by Oliver Wendell Holmes in 1843 that childbed fever was contagious (i.e. that infected persons could pass the infection to others).[4]:10–12* Indeed, initial responses to Semmelweis's findings were that he had said nothing new.[4]:31*
In fact, Semmelweis was warning against all decaying organic matter, not just against a specific contagion that originated from victims of childbed fever themselves. This misunderstanding, and others like it, occurred partly because Semmelweis's work was known only through secondhand reports written by his colleagues and students. At this crucial stage, Semmelweis himself had published nothing. These and similar misinterpretations would continue to cloud discussions of his work throughout the century.
His responses to the medical reviewers who didn't agree with him also help give rise to his 'insanity'::
After a number of unfavorable foreign reviews of his 1861 book, Semmelweis lashed out against his critics in series of Open Letters.[Note 14] They were addressed to various prominent European obstetricians, including Späth, Scanzoni, Siebold, and to "all obstetricians". They were full of bitterness, desperation, and fury and were "highly polemical and superlatively offensive"[4]:57 at times denouncing his critics as irresponsible murderers[6]:73 or ignoramuses.[4]:41 He also called upon Siebold to arrange a meeting of German obstetricians somewhere in Germany to provide a forum for discussions on puerperal fever where he would stay "until all have been converted to his theory."[13] The attacks undermined his professional credibility.
Try running that line past a psychologist, someone who has actually dealt with insanity.
I feel that they would agree. Consider things from history like everyone 'knew' that the world was flat and you were insane to believe it was round. You were insane to think that the sun didn't revolve around the earth, everyone 'knew' that. You were insane to believe in microscopic disease because it was undetectable for so long. Amazing how proof showed who was really insane and who was a genius. Not everyone that is insane is truly an undiscovered genius, but not everyone's insane ideas and beliefs the work of madness either.
I do wonder just how much damage this single ridiculous idea has caused, just in the U.S. (where it seems most prominent?), over the years. It is non-zero, I can say for sure.
Its not a ridiculous idea though. Think about it along the lines of germs and disease.
We all understand today how diseases work because they have been explained and shown, but before that if you tried to explain it people would think your mad. Something so small it's invisible, can float in the very air around you and has no smell or taste and can quite possibly kill. It multiples on random surfaces or in your body but can't be crushed under your feet. You can freeze it and when it thaws out its fine and keeps on going. A silent, invisible, undetectable life form who's only goal is to make people sick and/or die but won't actually 'eat' the persons body like any other thing on the planet. Without proof, sounds like your insane. With proof, your a genius who advances medical science forward.
Am I the only one who thinks this guy is getting off on all the attention he is getting by pretending to be a recluse who doesn't want any attention or money. If he had just taken the money the world would have forgotten about him by now.
I doubt if he left the money he would be left alone. To start with there would be a at least small ceremony for him when he received the prize money (something I doubt he wants), there would be many people that would want to interview him at the ceremony (again something I doubt he wants), his picture heavily plastered in lots of places for the achievement (again...), companies that now would want to hire him or at least 'work a deal out' with him because of him intelligence, schools that might want him to give a lecture, ect... Being rude and crabby would be the better option to get people to leave him alone and just be labeled 'that quite reclusive that won't talk to anyone'/
Well, I suspect his disposition is what enabled him to make this discovery. Human progress can't all be achieved by preppie facebook overachievers. Some crazy is needed for the truly genius results.
Yeah, just remember that genius and madness are only separated by a thin line.
Now I know how he figured it out at least. He went out, picked magic mushrooms, ate them and let the universe tell him the answer. No wonder he doesn't want the prize, it should be given to the great mushroom spirits.
So if you're such a badass programmer please link to your assembly-coded web browser that contains zero exploits. Oh, you don't have one and you're just a posturing tard? Yeah, that's what I thought.
You don't have to be a master of the subject to be able to point out it's flaws. Pointing them out helps to see the problems so they can be fixed. I can tell when a cars engine is not working, doesn't mean that I shouldn't keep quiet about it if I can't build a better one.
Apparently none of them wanted to take on Google Chrome..I believe no one was able to crack it last year.
Its possible that they didn't take Chrome on because it's still listed as a Beta on both Linux and OSX, and I'm pretty sure its still a Beta on Windows. I don't recall it being used last year (but I could be wrong).
Slashdot Mirror
In the mid-90s Apple wasn't doing well despite the fact their cult was still around. It wasn't until Steve Jobs came back that things turned around. Do you think it is just because he improved Apple's marketing?
No, it's because he dropped all of Apples work and took UNIX/FreeBSD, mixed in the Mach kernal and labeled it OSX. Not hard to stand on the shoulders of someone else's work.
So what are all of these "better" alternatives -- especially to the Touch or the Nano? Every company but Apple has basically abandoned the high capacity market (except for Archos). So what's the alternative to the Classic?
I used to own an iPod (2 in fact, both broke within a year...) and after that I bought a COWON S9. Beats the crap out of the iPod in every way. Doesn't crash once a day like both iPods did (got to learn real well the restart command of an iPod), the sound is so much better (same files and headphones from the iPod), battery life rocks (55 hours'ish, no joke. I had to recharge the iPod daily, once ever few days for the S9), doesn't randomly freeze when I'm playing new songs, no 'special' software needed, the computer reads it like a USB drive and I just drag and drop. Beats the iPod in every way. As for the Nano, the SanDisk Clip+ is better.
iTunes hasn't sold DRM'd music (or music videos) in over a year and where can you get DRM free video from any store -- either physical or electronic. The iPod plays bog standard MP3, WAV, AAC audio and H.264 and MPeg video. So where are all these cheaper better alternatives to the Touch, Nano, and Classic?
The DRM is in the hardware. Try to take any song/video on an iPod and put it back on the computer. You can't due to the iPod's DRM. As for the alternatives, look at the players on http://www.anythingbutipod.com/ which is for mp3 players, and you'll find many that are better.
Do you have a source for your claims of fragility and a comparison of the reliability of the iPod compared to other music players?
I've given you the links and shown you better ones. Just because you only know iPods, doesn't mean they are the only ones out there.
They presumably did not have any expertise with building online services when they started building their infrastructure for iTunes... Yet now they have a all division for Music store, App Store, Book Store, MobileMe, etc...i
This came from the fact that they did a massive ad campaign for the iPod (at the height of the campaign, where couldn't you find an iPod being mentioned? So electric rail stations I rode had had iPod ads taking over the whole station) and made sure to pack and make mandatory iTunes. Apple is good for marketing. Look at any of it's products and see the huge marketing campaign behind them. Apple knows that marketing is what sells something, not a good product. Look at every fad that has come and gone. Apple didn't make the mp3 player or the online store, they got the idea from looking at others and then made a huge marketing campaign to make it seem like it's their unique thing. Look at the iPad, it's a tablet pc like everyone else from the past 10 years with a huge marketing campaign. The only Apple product I can think of that didn't have a huge campaign to it was the Apple TV, and it's not selling well even though its built by Apple (they want to down play it as a 'hobby' since the numbers are low on it).
They presumably did not have any expertise dealing with cell phone technology, yet we all know what happened to iPhone...
It had the huge marketing campaign and just copied the concept of the Palm PDA (which the Palm cell phones predate the iPhone, not to mention Blackberry). There isn't really anything different in using it then I was using in PDA's ten years before beyond the phone function and updated parts(and I have used an iPhone). Again, nothing new from Apple just someone else technology with the Apple marketing campaign.
I think people assume that Apple is only good at UI stuff because Apple does not really advertise the core technologies that they have behind the eye candy...
They have a very good core OS technology behind their computers and other devices, but really not something that anybody cares about... It think it would be naive to believe that Apple cannot gain or acquire the expertise and technology needed for a search engine if they wanted too...
I don't think Apple really advertises the core technologies that are beyond the eye candy because it's not theirs, it's just technology they 'borrowed' and farmed out really. OSX at it's heart is running UNIX/FreeBSD mixed with NeXTSTEP which is made from the Mach kernal. Apple didn't make UNIX, FreeBSD or the Mach kernal, other people did. Apple just changed it a little and now people think it's their technology. Thing is, it isn't. In the end, Apple doesn't make anything new, they make ads for product idea's they borrowed and rehashed from others.
The better question would be, would they really want to, and for what purpose ?
Don't know if they will, considering there is already talk that Apple talking to Microsoft about making Bing the iPhone's default search engine.
that the product is not the only piece of IP being steamrollered? As late as Nov. 09, posts on http://icontrolpad.com/ have referred to the product under the shortened name 'iPad' (or Ipad, or ipad). Apple's iPad announcement probably put a formal stop to that (Jan 2010?)
MadTV also announced an iPad back in 2007 as well.
Apple is a pretty evil company. I know... -1 troll
Actually, playing on the anti-Apple sentiment gets you on the fast track to +5 Insightful.
Tell that to whoever did give them the flamebait mod
it's true the issue is to do with hardware, but note this: the iControlPad team are up in arms talking about 'their rights' and how they've been 'ripped off' and 'infringed' yet if you visit their site you will see they are more than happy to promote this - through screen-shots and videos - as method for running pirated games, such as Super Mario Kart and (what looks like) Mario Brothers DS. Could that be... 'hypocrisy'?
Maybe not hypocrisy since they aren't selling the methods of running those games and sometimes those games are more of a 'legal limbo' since if you own the games and the equipment you could format shift it. Their methods, while legally questionable, don't profit them with those games as I'm pretty sure it works above and beyond the few emulator styles they are using (not to mention I doubt they made that PSX emulator). With Apple trying to patent their design, they are most likely planning on selling the device and thus making money and profit off of their work, and Apple is trying to take full credit for their work. Money makes things more complicated as shown in the courts with file-sharing. No money = murky stance and sometimes falls out of court (not always granted). Making money off the piracy = Your screwed.
For the Claps big return
"the more attention you give morons, the more they'll act like morons."
I disagree with your sentiment. If you publicly embarrass somebody for acting stupidly. They often think twice before acting stupidly again.
May I introduce you to Mr Jack Thompson?
No. In the US, anyway, WB cannot sign away their liability for having their employees do things that are illegal or would make them subject to civil action. As agents of WB, those kids might be liable -- but WB would still be liable. Sorry to take it to the extreme -- but if I hire someone to kill my wife, and have them sign a contract stating they are fully liable for the action and indemnify me of any liability... well, guess what... I'm still liable.
Its not what WB would ask them to do is my thought, it's how the college kids will understand the instructions. In the case of your example, if you hire someone to handle your wife so you no longer have to deal with her (ie seduce her so you can divorce her or trail her to see if she's having an affair. Whatever you can use against her in divorce court) and the guy you hire doesn't understand what you mean and decides to kill her instead, there is no liability there. Same thing happens with these college kids, they might not understand to what limits they can do things legally and might take an instruction (like 'do everything you can to have those files removed from the site' ie take down notices to the user or report it to the sites admin or ISP) and they go to the extreme without knowing the legal aspects (they read 'takes files off = DOS web server or hack into someones computer through IRC and format their HD). While I'm sure they would know that this example is extreme, some of the finer details of the law might not be so clean cut (not to mention someone might do this anyways as a way to brownnose and show they can 'solve' problems).
WB UK doesn't want to get their hands soiled, so they get a bunch of job-hungry college kids to do their dirty work. I guess it wouldn't look seemly for a real -AA employee to "maintain accounts at private BitTorrent sites, develop link-scanning bots, [and] make trap purchases."
It also depends on how they are hired. If the papers they sign state that they are responsible for their own actions, it would get WB out of any counter-lawsuits for thing done. Like if a incorrect takedown notice was issued or if they write a bot to scan and it either causes Internet shortages on a site or even worse, then WB just walks away showing those signed papers and the college kid is D.O.A. Not to mention with papers signed like that hiring people who might not know the legal issues of finding and obtaining this information can lead to pirates being caught in less then ethical to down right illegal ways and WB won't have to care about the legal ramifications since the papers stated that the college kids are responsible for their own actions and don't reflect WB in any way, they just get the answers.
>>>Nintendo did have a great run in the 80's and 90's, but the last 10 years have not been kind to Nintendo and each time it seems to be getting a little worse >>>
Really? Well let's see:
Early 80s - #1 was Atari
Atari caused the North American Video Game Crash of 1983 which Nintendo made its coming into in 1985 (was released in 1983 in Japan, 1985 else where)
Late 80s - #1 with the NES Early 90s - #1 with the Super NES (beat Sega) Late 90s - #2 with the N64 (beat Sega again)
N64 was beaten by the Playstation due to the N64 usage of cartridges that cost more to manufacture, took longer to manufacture and coundn't hold as much information.
Early 2000s - #2 with the Gamecube (it was a statistical tie with Xbox)
Sales of the Gamecube were 22 million, 2 million short of the 24 million of the Xbox and way behind the 140 sold of the PS2. While it wasn't far behind the XBox, it was no where near the major player it had been compared to Sony's Playstation.
Late 2000s - #1 with the Wii (outselling X360 and PS3 approximately two-to-one)
Not sure if that will help them in the long run though, more so since Wii sales have been slowing down at a massive pace from 803,000 units Wii's sold in Oct 2008 to 507,000 sold in Oct 2009 while I'm aware of the other 2 systems have been gaining hardware sales, and software titles which is what really moves a system.
While Nintendo had a rough patch during the PS1/PS2 years, it appears they rose to the top again. Of course it helped that Sony made a major mistake with overpricing their console at $700 but still, the stats speak for themselves. I wouldn't call #1 a rough patch.
The stats are speaking for themselves, your right. Wii Publisher Backlash is a showing that publishers took a chance with the Wii and their sales stats aren't worth supporting the Wii. And a Wii without many third-party games is a system not many will want to play.
>>>only the rare non-Nintendo made game is worth playing let alone buying instead of renting
Sega games on Wii? They are still fun.
Sega games on the PS3 and XBox 360 are fun too.
It's not totally implausible that the feature allows some sort of exploit, but I can't seem to find anything about one actually existing, or it having come up in the past as a security concern. Is that just a cover to remove it, or are there actually security concerns?
I think it's a huge security concern that Sony is trying to plug up without anyone noticing. Linux has access to all the hardware of the PS3 when it's the OS being ran (implementation isn't perfect yet though). Including it's blue ray disc reader that a lot of people don't normally have access to. This is how the Dreamcast was hacked even though it ran special 1 gig discs. People figured out how to hook the Dreamcast to a computer and make the Dreamcast become an external drive to read the discs and send them to the computer allowing everyone to pirate the games. Now we have the first signs of the PS3 being hacked, removing the Other OS feature removes one problem of Linux no longer being able to be used to install/flash the BIOS for the future cracked firmware (a la PSP style hacks), but it also removes the option of having the PS3 being turned into an external drive to read possible 'hidden' disc data that would only be read with PS3 firmware code.
I own a PC which could easily be called a 'gaming rig' and I own a PS3. When I want to buy a game like Fallout 3 I could buy the PS3 version that has the lower quality graphics (I could no doubt max it out on my PC) and lack of ability to get mods, or I could get the better looking PC version that could be expanded with a ton of mods, my choice was easy.... I bought the PS3 version. PC games have every advantage but are DOA in my eyes due to DRM (look at Assassin's Creed 2 and Command and Conquer). These made it a complete no-brainer of which one I'll buy. I don't need headache's and time wasted looking for a crack for the game I bought. I have Windows to play my computer games (World of Warcraft and Guild Wars, thats it. Will get Guild Wars 2 when out). That is all I use Windows for, playing 2 whole games because since they are online only I don't need to worry about horrible DRM killing my game play or my computer. The PC market is being held back by consoles for the reason that when I put in a game in my console I don't have it complain that the cd isn't in the drive (when it is), the console doesn't spend 2 minutes during the starting load to make sure the disc is real (Clive Barkers Undying always did that). Console games run, and they always run without a billion DRM induced headaches. PC games are like playing Russian Roulette every time I started up the game (and now don't even stop at that part) and that is why PC games aren't selling and console games will always get my money first.
>>>The Wii is a fisher price funbox designed for non-gamers and drunk idiots
Sure if you pretend that Nintendo doesn't have a 30 history of creating excellent games. I don't own a Wii but the games I've played (Zelda Twilight Princess, Metroid Prime 3) are just as good as those games I found on my Gamecube, N64, Super Nintendo, and NES. And just as good as on my Xbox, PS2, or PS1. I can't believe your comment was marked "insightful" since it's mostly just fanboyism. .
While I agree with the fact that the Wii isn't a fisher price funbox for non-gamers and drunk idiots (though being drunk does help), the Wii as a console isn't much good. Nintendo did have a great run in the 80's and 90's, but the last 10 years have not been kind to Nintendo and each time it seems to be getting a little worse. I do own a Wii and to be honest, it's gathering dust and hasn't been turned on in months. It's not that it lacks amazing games like Zelda Twilight Princess and Metroid Prime 3, it's that those are pretty much the only good games on the systems. 99% of all the good games made on the Wii are made by Nintendo (which isn't many) and the other 95% of games are horrible games that are dumped by publishers hoping to score some easy money of the Wii's explosive demand in the beginning of it's life, only the rare non-Nintendo made game is worth playing let alone buying instead of renting. Now the Wii is just a flooded market of horrible games that make you feel suckered if you bought them. The Nintendo Seal of Quality has become a joke and it doesn't take people long to release that there just aren't many good games on the Wii. For everyone 1 good game there are at least 10 games that just plan shouldn't have been made and because I got burned with a few bought and rented I've learned to avoid any and all non-Nintendo developed games on the Wii. And I'm not alone in this opinion. Nintendo shot itself in the foot by allowing so many companies to pay the license and release these crappy games and now it's paying for it.
And anyway, GTA, with its focus on wanton violence and abuse, is somewhat dated. How about a completely different approach: A game where the objective is to drive in a safe, economical, environmentally responsible and polite way through London City in the rush hour, taking into account the one-way system, the roadworks, the tens of thousands of pedestrians crossing the street in front of you, the fact that the London streetmap looks a bit like a Mandelbrot fractal and that streetnames change on average every 20 meters. Now that WOULD be extreme.
I think that game is called SimCity
As you say, it "sounds like" you're insane. There's miles of difference, not a thin line. And we also have just such an example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis
Clearly the doctors and scientists didn't think he was crazy; they did after all bother to take the time to harshly dismiss his work. (He only went insane later, due to plain old nervous breakdown and/or syphilis.)
The social function of the odious meme at hand is to 1) keep the marginal kooks (not really crazy, but they think they are) buoyed up by the silly hope that they're really brilliant; 2) provide a just-so story by which normal people can ignore offensive, but nagging, ideas (after all, great ideas are indistinguishable from crazy ones so fuck it and accept the so-called "real world").
Thing is, they said he was insane, from the wikipedia article:
In 1865 János Balassa wrote a document referring Semmelweis to a mental institution. On July 30 Ferdinand von Hebra lured him, under the pretense of visiting one of Hebra's "new Institutes", to a Viennese insane asylum located in Lazarettgasse (Landes-Irren-anstalt in die Lazarettgasse).[5]:293 Semmelweis surmised what was happening and tried to leave. He was severely beaten by several guards, secured in a straitjacket and confined to a darkened cell. Apart from the straitjacket, treatments at the mental institution included dousing with cold water and administering castor oil, a laxative. He died after two weeks, on August 13, 1865, aged 47, from a gangrenous wound, possibly caused by the beating. The autopsy revealed extensive internal injuries, the cause of death pyemia—blood poisoning.[6]:76–78
He died an insane man who's beliefs were wrong and misplaced, from the article:
As accounts of the dramatic reduction in mortality rates in Vienna were being circulated throughout Europe, Semmelweis had reason to expect that the chlorine washings would be widely adopted, saving tens of thousands of lives. Early responses to his work also gave clear signs of coming trouble, however. Some physicians had clearly misinterpreted his claims. James Young Simpson, for instance, saw no difference between Semmelweis's groundbreaking findings and the British idea suggested by Oliver Wendell Holmes in 1843 that childbed fever was contagious (i.e. that infected persons could pass the infection to others).[4]:10–12* Indeed, initial responses to Semmelweis's findings were that he had said nothing new.[4]:31*
In fact, Semmelweis was warning against all decaying organic matter, not just against a specific contagion that originated from victims of childbed fever themselves. This misunderstanding, and others like it, occurred partly because Semmelweis's work was known only through secondhand reports written by his colleagues and students. At this crucial stage, Semmelweis himself had published nothing. These and similar misinterpretations would continue to cloud discussions of his work throughout the century.
His responses to the medical reviewers who didn't agree with him also help give rise to his 'insanity'::
After a number of unfavorable foreign reviews of his 1861 book, Semmelweis lashed out against his critics in series of Open Letters.[Note 14] They were addressed to various prominent European obstetricians, including Späth, Scanzoni, Siebold, and to "all obstetricians". They were full of bitterness, desperation, and fury and were "highly polemical and superlatively offensive"[4]:57 at times denouncing his critics as irresponsible murderers[6]:73 or ignoramuses.[4]:41 He also called upon Siebold to arrange a meeting of German obstetricians somewhere in Germany to provide a forum for discussions on puerperal fever where he would stay "until all have been converted to his theory."[13] The attacks undermined his professional credibility.
It took 20 years a
Try running that line past a psychologist, someone who has actually dealt with insanity.
I feel that they would agree. Consider things from history like everyone 'knew' that the world was flat and you were insane to believe it was round. You were insane to think that the sun didn't revolve around the earth, everyone 'knew' that. You were insane to believe in microscopic disease because it was undetectable for so long. Amazing how proof showed who was really insane and who was a genius. Not everyone that is insane is truly an undiscovered genius, but not everyone's insane ideas and beliefs the work of madness either.
I do wonder just how much damage this single ridiculous idea has caused, just in the U.S. (where it seems most prominent?), over the years. It is non-zero, I can say for sure.
Its not a ridiculous idea though. Think about it along the lines of germs and disease.
We all understand today how diseases work because they have been explained and shown, but before that if you tried to explain it people would think your mad. Something so small it's invisible, can float in the very air around you and has no smell or taste and can quite possibly kill. It multiples on random surfaces or in your body but can't be crushed under your feet. You can freeze it and when it thaws out its fine and keeps on going. A silent, invisible, undetectable life form who's only goal is to make people sick and/or die but won't actually 'eat' the persons body like any other thing on the planet. Without proof, sounds like your insane. With proof, your a genius who advances medical science forward.
Maybe leave the guy alone like he wants?
Am I the only one who thinks this guy is getting off on all the attention he is getting by pretending to be a recluse who doesn't want any attention or money. If he had just taken the money the world would have forgotten about him by now.
I doubt if he left the money he would be left alone. To start with there would be a at least small ceremony for him when he received the prize money (something I doubt he wants), there would be many people that would want to interview him at the ceremony (again something I doubt he wants), his picture heavily plastered in lots of places for the achievement (again...), companies that now would want to hire him or at least 'work a deal out' with him because of him intelligence, schools that might want him to give a lecture, ect... Being rude and crabby would be the better option to get people to leave him alone and just be labeled 'that quite reclusive that won't talk to anyone'/
Well, I suspect his disposition is what enabled him to make this discovery. Human progress can't all be achieved by preppie facebook overachievers. Some crazy is needed for the truly genius results.
Yeah, just remember that genius and madness are only separated by a thin line.
Now I know how he figured it out at least. He went out, picked magic mushrooms, ate them and let the universe tell him the answer. No wonder he doesn't want the prize, it should be given to the great mushroom spirits.
Chrome (on Windows) came out of beta back in 2008.
Gmail (again by Google) took over 5 years to leave Beta, so I could see it.
Instead Charlie Miller will show the vendors how to find the bugs themselves.
Well, there's an idea. Is it something that really can be taught?
The bugs he found can be taught on how to fix, but will it help them find different bugs is more the question.
So if you're such a badass programmer please link to your assembly-coded web browser that contains zero exploits. Oh, you don't have one and you're just a posturing tard? Yeah, that's what I thought.
You don't have to be a master of the subject to be able to point out it's flaws. Pointing them out helps to see the problems so they can be fixed. I can tell when a cars engine is not working, doesn't mean that I shouldn't keep quiet about it if I can't build a better one.
Apparently none of them wanted to take on Google Chrome..I believe no one was able to crack it last year.
Its possible that they didn't take Chrome on because it's still listed as a Beta on both Linux and OSX, and I'm pretty sure its still a Beta on Windows. I don't recall it being used last year (but I could be wrong).