If you take a look, every single failure can be tracked back to the same cause: Sony's obsession with kowtowing to Hollywood rather than the consumers. Beta went down in flames because Sony didn't want people to have a recording time long enough for a movie. "One hour is enough for a TV show." Beta video tape. 8mm video tape. (By the time they did this, VHS owned their lunch.) Magnetic audio disks. (Low-capacity, hard to use, lousy recording time(again!) DAT.(OMG, perfect copies of the *sound* AARGH! Piracy!!!, Can't let this loose!) Memory stick.(Copying controls and, *really* slow load times, somebody might load mp3s after all...)
Sony's earned the failures by not having the cojones to tell Hollywood off.
You shunta wan' anythin' to happen to it. We can mak' sure it don't, for just a small fee. Oh, what's in the violin case? (wink) Just a violin. Call me Guido, cuz I'm sure we're gonna be buddies.
"There were no limitations beyond those stated. Copy freely and share with whomever you like. You have the Boy Scouts mailing list? Share with the boy Scouts."
My wife would agree with you about the theater and big screen, except:
a: Last movie we saw on a big screen, the sound was crappy
and
b: At $10/ticket, it costs thirty dollars for our family to go out. That doesn't include having to be at the theater in time for the show, gasoline, having to sit through twenty minutes of advertising for crappy movies (trailers), and having to put up with rude, noisy, inconsiderate fellow viewers.
Or haven't you heard about the Texas incident where a woman who gently tapped a cell-phone talker on her shoulder to ask her to quiet down/shut up ended up in court charged with assault?
I fall into the category of "casual gamer." Which means I've got a day job that lets me *afford* games, I don't have the time to cope with anything that's going to eat my life learning how to play. But that's not the major reason I've pretty much quit buying games.
The major reason is the nasty, intrusive and ugly copy protection, and yes, I mean *YOU*, Half-Life 2. The dozen or so times I tried to play the game, EVERY STINKING TIME I STARTED IT UP the program would run out to Steam's servers and ask "mother may I," making it VERY plain that Valve regards everybody who buys its game as a thief or thief wannabe. It also extended what should have been a less than thirty second startup time into five to ten minutes.
I got tired of being bitch-slapped by Valve's nastiness. Also, consider this: I can't sell the game to the used market because, once registered, you're pretty much stuck with the thing.
Washington is a town where, to quote Robert Heinlein in another context:
Its inhabitants brag that... anything in the explored universe can be had by a man with cash, from a starship to ten grains of stardust, from the ruin of a reputation to the robes of a senator with the senator inside.
Considering the crud coming out of Hollyweird lately, filling this thing with something that's worth playing even once is going to be a major challenge.
I got so turned off by the customer-hostile DRM in Half-Life2 I haven't bothered to look at a game since. So why should I care if WoW crashed the entire industry?
Yes. I can still remember him as the detective in the original Outer Limits episode "Expanding Human." He did a good job of projecting a cop who wasn't about to buy anything other than evidence, but wasn't a "tough bully."
is, in fact, to give them exactly what they want. Broadcast flags, DRM-crippled video/audio, the whole nine yards. By the time they wake up to the fact that they've made their customers so miserable that their customers don't want any more of the crap they're trying to sell, they'll be in Chapter 7.
And the rest of us can sit back and watch them and their lackeys go bungee-jumping out of their fancy offices without the bungees.
I've already trashed my dead-tree copy without finishing it. Anybody got Gabe Newell's mailing address, so I can congratulate him on such a superb defense of his "intellectual property" that it destroyed all the fun (aka reason to buy and play) the game?
I proofread books, both treeware and e-books for three different publishers, including doing scan-and-proof of old books for electronic republication. It's a great way to relax and put my computer skills to use without having to dive into the details of the bits-and-bytes after hours.
You err badly in the "could have been a really great book" department on this review. The characters, even the villains, come alive, as do the cultural and religious background. The dialogue alone is a treat, and the solid underlying themes of faith, obligation, and responsibility all ring true as the purest cast bell. This book gave me a major "Aha!" moment, something only one other author has done.
THIS book will be, at the very least, a Nebula Award nominee, and I'm betting it will be the winner. I've already read it three times, and will be returning to it again in the future.
Slashdot Mirror
If you take a look, every single failure can be tracked back to the same cause: Sony's obsession with kowtowing to Hollywood rather than the consumers. Beta went down in flames because Sony didn't want people to have a recording time long enough for a movie. "One hour is enough for a TV show." Beta video tape.
8mm video tape. (By the time they did this, VHS owned their lunch.) Magnetic audio disks. (Low-capacity, hard to use, lousy recording time(again!) DAT.(OMG, perfect copies of the *sound* AARGH! Piracy!!!, Can't let this loose!) Memory stick.(Copying controls and, *really* slow load times, somebody might load mp3s after all...)
Sony's earned the failures by not having the cojones to tell Hollywood off.
You shunta wan' anythin' to happen to it. We can mak' sure it don't, for just a small fee. Oh, what's in the violin case? (wink) Just a violin. Call me Guido, cuz I'm sure we're gonna be buddies.
From a post on his web board today:
"There were no limitations beyond those stated. Copy freely and share with
whomever you like. You have the Boy Scouts mailing list? Share with the boy
Scouts."
My wife would agree with you about the theater and big screen, except:
a: Last movie we saw on a big screen, the sound was crappy
and
b: At $10/ticket, it costs thirty dollars for our family to go out. That doesn't
include having to be at the theater in time for the show, gasoline, having to sit through
twenty minutes of advertising for crappy movies (trailers), and having to put up with rude,
noisy, inconsiderate fellow viewers.
Or haven't you heard about the Texas incident where a woman who gently tapped a cell-phone talker
on her shoulder to ask her to quiet down/shut up ended up in court charged with assault?
I, for one, welcome our new Corporate Rights Propaganda overlords.
I fall into the category of "casual gamer." Which means I've got a day job that lets me *afford* games, I don't have the time to cope with anything that's going to eat my life learning how to play. But that's not the major reason I've pretty much quit buying games.
The major reason is the nasty, intrusive and ugly copy protection, and yes, I mean *YOU*, Half-Life 2. The dozen or so times I tried to play the game, EVERY STINKING TIME I STARTED IT UP the program would run out to Steam's servers and ask "mother may I," making it VERY plain that Valve regards everybody who buys its game as a thief or thief wannabe. It also extended what should have been a less than thirty second startup time into five to ten minutes.
I got tired of being bitch-slapped by Valve's nastiness. Also, consider this: I can't sell the game to the used market because, once registered, you're pretty much stuck with the thing.
Feh!
Giving a whole new meaning to the term "road hazard."
Washington is a town where, to quote Robert Heinlein in another context:
... anything in the explored universe can be had by a man with cash, from a starship to ten grains of stardust, from the ruin of a reputation to the robes of a senator with the senator inside.
Its inhabitants brag that
And how will we know Sony isn't trying something *ELSE* with their dissatisfied customers as guinea pigs?
1. That the crud they deliver is WORTH paying $0.99 to watch in the first place.
2. If the "bought" episode becomes unavailable when the next one is broadcast, what happens if you go on vacation and miss it?
Considering the crud coming out of Hollyweird lately, filling this thing with something that's worth playing even once is going to be a major challenge.
What about all those hours playing solitaire and sharpening hand-eye coordination?
I got so turned off by the customer-hostile DRM in Half-Life2 I haven't bothered to look at a game since. So why should I care if WoW crashed the entire industry?
Could give a whole new meaning to the term "disk crash."
Given that attempting to silence honest security research is a form of lying, perhaps they'll change the name to Pinokia?
Sounds like the **AA organizations continuing efforts to sink a siphon into EVERYBODY'S wallets, whether they want it sunk or not.
The FCC will be investigating the "pixel malfunction" in GTASA, obviously.
Yes. I can still remember him as the detective in the original Outer Limits episode "Expanding Human." He did a good job of projecting a cop who wasn't about to buy anything other than evidence, but wasn't a "tough bully."
RIP.
the eating-somebodys-lunch department?
Is the director of the organization pushing for this the infamous Ben Dover?
is, in fact, to give them exactly what they want. Broadcast flags, DRM-crippled video/audio, the whole nine yards. By the time they wake up to the fact that they've made their customers so miserable that their customers don't want any more of the crap they're trying to sell, they'll be in Chapter 7.
And the rest of us can sit back and watch them and their lackeys go bungee-jumping out of their fancy offices without the bungees.
ZOE: Preacher, don't the Bible have some pretty specific things to say about killing?
BOOK: Quite specific. It is, however, somewhat fuzzier on the subject of kneecaps.
I've already trashed my dead-tree copy without finishing it. Anybody got Gabe Newell's mailing address, so I can congratulate him on such a superb defense of his "intellectual property" that it destroyed all the fun (aka reason to buy and play) the game?
I proofread books, both treeware and e-books for three different publishers, including doing scan-and-proof of old books for electronic republication. It's a great way to relax and put my computer skills to use without having to dive into the details of the bits-and-bytes after hours.
You err badly in the "could have been a really great book" department on this review. The characters, even the villains, come alive, as do the cultural and religious background. The dialogue alone is a treat, and the solid underlying themes of faith, obligation, and responsibility all ring true as the purest cast bell. This book gave me a major "Aha!" moment, something only one other author has done.
THIS book will be, at the very least, a Nebula Award nominee, and I'm betting it will be the winner. I've already read it three times, and will be returning to it again in the future.