"my question is: Why do you feel the need to lie rather than to just admit what everybody else knows? that you copied nintendo.."
A question like that, if posed in a courtroom, would draw a objection from opposing counsel before the witness could even inhale in preparation of answering.
Being that the goal of testimony in a courtroom is to uncover Truth, I propose that journalists should strive to keep their questions similar to those that an attorney would ask of a witness. Leave the leading questions, the spin, and the badgering at home.
The DS, on the other hand, is perhaps the least impressive of the new handheld consoles. I mean, apart from a funky touchscreen thingie and (very) slightly better graphics, is there really anything about the Wii that makes it more than an tiny incremental step up from the Gameboy Advance?
do you mean people actually prefer playability and fun over pure performance and graphics
One might be able to conclude that the specific people who comprise the voting panel for the E3 Game Critic Awards might, but I would hesitate to draw any conclusions broader than that.
Would you buy a car without taking it for a test drive?
Would you get arrested for grand theft auto if you took a car for a test drive, decided you liked it, and then never returned it to the lot?
How many times have you walked out of a theater after a film, or ejected a DVD from your DVD player, and wished for your money back?
Plenty. But how is that relevant? I may wish I could get my money back, but there's no legal reason compelling the theater or DVD seller to do so. I knew there was a risk that I wouldn't enjoy it when I put my money down.
All the actual hard data that has been collected shows that even hardcore filesharers DO go out and buy commercial DVDs and CDs; they like to own the tangibles and they like to support the artists and companies whose work they appreciate...
Some filesharers do. I'll concede that maybe MOST do, statistically. But if there's even one filesharer that downloads content, decides he likes it, and then does not purchase a legitimate copy of it... well, he's in violation of copyright law. Whether "piracy" is the correct term to describe his actions is a mere semantic argument, and one I do not wish to get into.
Making counterfeit physical copies of DVDs and CDs and selling them as the real thing for profit is piracy.
In no codification of copyright law that I'm aware of does it state that having a PHYSICAL copy of a work is a requisite condition for a copyright violation. Until the pre-digital laws are revised to state otherwise, one would have to assume that the law applies to bits on a hard drive the same as it would to tangible shiny discs on Canal Street.
the idea behind copyright was to limit who could print/sell stuff, taking power from printing press/distributor and giving it back to content creator, to allow people to create and distribute new content instead of letting the printing press have a field day selling us the same old crap making huge profits
More accurately, the concept of Copyright was introduced to ensure that the guy who owned the printing press had to enter into a contract with the guy who created the content if he wanted to print and distribute it.
I don't follow your allegation that "content distributors have too much power now"; all the power they wield today or ever is that which is granted to them by content creators. The RIAA member companies can't sell copies of a song that I recorded without my permission, the MPAA companies can't exhibit a movie I filmed without my permission.
We're in the Digital Age now, when the scarcity of printing presses and distribution channels has never been scarcer. I don't think it will be much longer before the content creators realize they DON'T need to accept a deal where they get 5 cents out of every ten dollars in sales in order to get their works out there. They'll find ways to make more money by remaining independent.
if someones signed a contract saying they'll buy so many shares at a certain price, you can't blame the other party for holding them to it
Since this is an Initial Public Offering, the contract also specifies WHEN those shares are to be sold. If Vonage was not able to distribute those shares to buyers in a timely fashion, there's a good argument that the entire contract is void.
Let's say I go to a car dealership and sign an agreement to buy a brand new car, with only 5 miles on the odometer, for $25K. But instead of letting me drive off the lot that day, the dealer insists on keeping the car overnight for "preparation". Then they get drunk and drive it around on the freeway all night.
When I arrive the next morning, I discover there's a fresh scratch on the driver side door, and the odometer reading has jumped up to 500 miles. The blue book value of the car is now no more than $20K -- am I still obligated to buy the car for the $25K I agreed to yesterday, even though the value of the car has decreased since I entered into the agreement?
Ubuntu's baseline support (i.e. drivers that ship with the OS) is a significant multiple of that available in Windows.
And what would that multiple be? 0.5? 0.2?
I don't really care how many working drivers for Hayes-compatible 110 baud acoustic coupler modems Ubuntu can fit on the install disc -- I want the hardware that's inside MY specific, current-model machine to work flawlessly.
Whether it's the Linux distro's fault or the hardware manufacturer's fault when it doesn't, doesn't matter to me as an end user -- the bottom line is that most leading-edge hardware is less thoroughly supported in Linux than in Windows.
I object to the practice of referring to iPod misbehavior due to a bad physical drive connection as "click of death".
Those of us who had to deal with Iomega Zip drives know the real meaning of "click of death". It involves drive heads snapping off their arms and the severed stump tearing a horrible gash through the media surface.
This isn't something common to all scripting languages. For example, when Python scripts are executed, they are compiled to byte-code, and the result is saved for faster execution next time.
It's not a True Scripting Language if there's a just-in-time compiler involved, now is it?
I'm still waiting for the French Fry vending machine!
I think you missed it.
About 7 or 8 years ago, I did buy french fries from a vending machine at a highway rest stop, on I-81 N in New York, just past the Pennsylvania border.
If my memory serves me, the results were not bad. Certainly closer to real fries than the "coffee with whitener" out of a rest stop vending machine is to real coffee.
They aren't "held back" by the same morality and environmental issues we are. When they want to build the largest dam in the world (which is an engineering marvel that will put out as much electricity as 15 nuclear power plants combined), they just do it, and don't worry about the environmental, social, or historical implications.
China has 35 people for every one of ours, so they could invade with nothing but chopsticks and probably win. But they also have huge natural resources and are progressing very, very fast.
They might not have those vast natural resources for much longer, if they keep building things like massive hydroelectric dams without assessing the environmental impacts first.
I don't like that kind of "do what I want, and fuck everyone else" attitude when it's espoused by fellow Americans -- why would I embrace it coming from the Chinese?
What I mean is that the wholesale conversion from VHS to DVD that occurred over the past 5 years or so is pretty much guaranteed not to happen again.
Oh, it will happen again... eventually. Just not in the 2006-07 timeframe, and not with an incrementally evolved version of the same technology we currently use.
Something big and revolutionary will come into common practice maybe 10 years from now, and then the market will adapt to it. But it's too early now to start deprecating DVDs and 480i television sets, and consumers can't be forced.
Like what was the point (other than the shortage of lites they had in Japan) of not releasing them all over? The DS isnt region encoded so you could always import one over to the US, so why wait to ship it?
The point IS the shortage, methinks.
If Nintendo can't produce enough units to meet Japanese demand, what hope do they have of producing enough units to meet WORLDWIDE demand?
By staggering the release dates in different markets, they're able to level off the demand curve a bit.
I'm still waiting patiently for the Canal Street date, when some DS lites "fall off the back of a truck" and I can haggle the distinguished proprietor down to $50.
You DO know that Canal Street merchandise is typically cheap knockoffs of the real thing, right?
You'll feel like a sucker once you realize you just paid fifty bucks for a "Neo Double Lite".
that was one of the core themes FC - how do you know what you've got if you never put it to the test?
But I DO know what I've got -- a complete lack of chronic pain.
I plan to enjoy the second half of my life at least as much as the first, and part of that plan involves not stupidly putting my corporeal self into harm's way intentionally.
Since these devices are preferably low noise, low power, and small in size, you obviously can't just keep throwing more drives in the box: a single drive is the best solution.
Actually, I'd say the BEST solution is to put a box with minimal or no drive capacity in the living room, and put in on a home network that connects to an arbitrarily large network storage box in the other room. But if that's not feasible for whatever reason, a single large disk in the media PC itself is the next-best solution.
You know what would be even better? If, when you clicked on an ad you were interested in, you were taken to the "INTERWEB HTTP SITE" of the advertiser, so you could "pursue a transaction" in the same medium you're currently engaged in, instead of having to switch to talking on the phone.
I'm surprised no one has tried implementing such a "hot link"-based system yet.
New Jersey doesn't have a monopoly on Plainfields. There are many other Plainfields like it, but this one is mine.;)
Yes, but New Jersey has THREE of them. We outnumber you! P-FUNK REPRESENT
Plainfield, NJ, is a small city in decline. Its residents are disproportionately poor, and I'm certain its public schools have bigger disciplinary problems to deal with than a nonviolent kid mentioning Columbine on his blog. So no, I don't think this story COULD have come from Plainfield, NJ. Mod submitter -1 Sloppy.
Slinging multiple games on 1 disk just sounds like a way to ensure the developer earns little or nothing from the sale.
It sounds like that, but it also sounds like the only way a lot of Indie titles can hope to get retail shelf space at all.
Problem is, bundling multiple titles together (especially if there's not a unifying theme) screams 'cheap' to the consumer. If a single game has a $20 price sticker on it, people are going to feel like the game is worth twenty bucks. But if a box with 10 games in it sells for $20, people aren't going to feel like they're getting a $200 value. They're going to place a value of only two dollars on each game.
there is a big difference between an OS that you will be using until it's time to upgrade (usually years) and a game you're gonna play for a while and then forget about.
In practice, yes. But as far as the law goes, I'd be surprised if there were any distinction to be made.
Doctrine of First Sale basically says you may use a product you have bought until you don't want it anymore, at which case you may resell it. I can't see how it matters whether it takes you three months or three years to decide you don't want it anymore.
many publishers are furious that they have to spend support money on consumers who have not actually contributed a dime to the company's coffers.
Maybe they should go with the strategy that IBM figured out like 50 years ago, and stop tying software support to sales.
If the $60 price tag for a shrinkwrapped game includes customer support for a fixed period of X years, it doesn't matter whether that game is owned by one person or 100 people over the course of those X years--as long as only one owner seeks support at any given time.
If the price does NOT include support, then the publishers have no justification for claiming that secondary sales have any effect on support costs.
Bowser has kidnapped Princess Peach and Mario has to save her.
Actually, it's "Bowser Jr." who has kidnapped the Princess this time around.
I'm not sure when relationship, if any, Junior has to the Koopa Kids introduced in SMB3. Continuity in the Super Mario Universe is not something worth losing sleep over.
Slashdot Mirror
"my question is: Why do you feel the need to lie rather than to just admit what everybody else knows? that you copied nintendo.."
A question like that, if posed in a courtroom, would draw a objection from opposing counsel before the witness could even inhale in preparation of answering.
Being that the goal of testimony in a courtroom is to uncover Truth, I propose that journalists should strive to keep their questions similar to those that an attorney would ask of a witness. Leave the leading questions, the spin, and the badgering at home.
The DS, on the other hand, is perhaps the least impressive of the new handheld consoles. I mean, apart from a funky touchscreen thingie and (very) slightly better graphics, is there really anything about the Wii that makes it more than an tiny incremental step up from the Gameboy Advance?
do you mean people actually prefer playability and fun over pure performance and graphics
One might be able to conclude that the specific people who comprise the voting panel for the E3 Game Critic Awards might, but I would hesitate to draw any conclusions broader than that.
Would you buy a car without taking it for a test drive?
Would you get arrested for grand theft auto if you took a car for a test drive, decided you liked it, and then never returned it to the lot?
How many times have you walked out of a theater after a film, or ejected a DVD from your DVD player, and wished for your money back?
Plenty. But how is that relevant? I may wish I could get my money back, but there's no legal reason compelling the theater or DVD seller to do so. I knew there was a risk that I wouldn't enjoy it when I put my money down.
All the actual hard data that has been collected shows that even hardcore filesharers DO go out and buy commercial DVDs and CDs; they like to own the tangibles and they like to support the artists and companies whose work they appreciate...
Some filesharers do. I'll concede that maybe MOST do, statistically. But if there's even one filesharer that downloads content, decides he likes it, and then does not purchase a legitimate copy of it... well, he's in violation of copyright law. Whether "piracy" is the correct term to describe his actions is a mere semantic argument, and one I do not wish to get into.
Making counterfeit physical copies of DVDs and CDs and selling them as the real thing for profit is piracy.
In no codification of copyright law that I'm aware of does it state that having a PHYSICAL copy of a work is a requisite condition for a copyright violation. Until the pre-digital laws are revised to state otherwise, one would have to assume that the law applies to bits on a hard drive the same as it would to tangible shiny discs on Canal Street.
the idea behind copyright was to limit who could print/sell stuff, taking power from printing press/distributor and giving it back to content creator, to allow people to create and distribute new content instead of letting the printing press have a field day selling us the same old crap making huge profits
More accurately, the concept of Copyright was introduced to ensure that the guy who owned the printing press had to enter into a contract with the guy who created the content if he wanted to print and distribute it.
I don't follow your allegation that "content distributors have too much power now"; all the power they wield today or ever is that which is granted to them by content creators. The RIAA member companies can't sell copies of a song that I recorded without my permission, the MPAA companies can't exhibit a movie I filmed without my permission.
We're in the Digital Age now, when the scarcity of printing presses and distribution channels has never been scarcer. I don't think it will be much longer before the content creators realize they DON'T need to accept a deal where they get 5 cents out of every ten dollars in sales in order to get their works out there. They'll find ways to make more money by remaining independent.
if someones signed a contract saying they'll buy so many shares at a certain price, you can't blame the other party for holding them to it
Since this is an Initial Public Offering, the contract also specifies WHEN those shares are to be sold. If Vonage was not able to distribute those shares to buyers in a timely fashion, there's a good argument that the entire contract is void.
Let's say I go to a car dealership and sign an agreement to buy a brand new car, with only 5 miles on the odometer, for $25K. But instead of letting me drive off the lot that day, the dealer insists on keeping the car overnight for "preparation". Then they get drunk and drive it around on the freeway all night.
When I arrive the next morning, I discover there's a fresh scratch on the driver side door, and the odometer reading has jumped up to 500 miles. The blue book value of the car is now no more than $20K -- am I still obligated to buy the car for the $25K I agreed to yesterday, even though the value of the car has decreased since I entered into the agreement?
Ubuntu's baseline support (i.e. drivers that ship with the OS) is a significant multiple of that available in Windows.
And what would that multiple be? 0.5? 0.2?
I don't really care how many working drivers for Hayes-compatible 110 baud acoustic coupler modems Ubuntu can fit on the install disc -- I want the hardware that's inside MY specific, current-model machine to work flawlessly.
Whether it's the Linux distro's fault or the hardware manufacturer's fault when it doesn't, doesn't matter to me as an end user -- the bottom line is that most leading-edge hardware is less thoroughly supported in Linux than in Windows.
Welcome to Intarweb 2.0
On Intarwebs 2.0, "Tom's Hardware" is nearly indistinguishable from "PC Magazine".
I object to the practice of referring to iPod misbehavior due to a bad physical drive connection as "click of death".
Those of us who had to deal with Iomega Zip drives know the real meaning of "click of death". It involves drive heads snapping off their arms and the severed stump tearing a horrible gash through the media surface.
You iPod nancies have it easy by comparison.
This isn't something common to all scripting languages. For example, when Python scripts are executed, they are compiled to byte-code, and the result is saved for faster execution next time.
It's not a True Scripting Language if there's a just-in-time compiler involved, now is it?
I'm still waiting for the French Fry vending machine!
I think you missed it.
About 7 or 8 years ago, I did buy french fries from a vending machine at a highway rest stop, on I-81 N in New York, just past the Pennsylvania border.
If my memory serves me, the results were not bad. Certainly closer to real fries than the "coffee with whitener" out of a rest stop vending machine is to real coffee.
They aren't "held back" by the same morality and environmental issues we are. When they want to build the largest dam in the world (which is an engineering marvel that will put out as much electricity as 15 nuclear power plants combined), they just do it, and don't worry about the environmental, social, or historical implications.
China has 35 people for every one of ours, so they could invade with nothing but chopsticks and probably win. But they also have huge natural resources and are progressing very, very fast.
They might not have those vast natural resources for much longer, if they keep building things like massive hydroelectric dams without assessing the environmental impacts first.
I don't like that kind of "do what I want, and fuck everyone else" attitude when it's espoused by fellow Americans -- why would I embrace it coming from the Chinese?
What I mean is that the wholesale conversion from VHS to DVD that occurred over the past 5 years or so is pretty much guaranteed not to happen again.
Oh, it will happen again... eventually. Just not in the 2006-07 timeframe, and not with an incrementally evolved version of the same technology we currently use.
Something big and revolutionary will come into common practice maybe 10 years from now, and then the market will adapt to it. But it's too early now to start deprecating DVDs and 480i television sets, and consumers can't be forced.
Like what was the point (other than the shortage of lites they had in Japan) of not releasing them all over? The DS isnt region encoded so you could always import one over to the US, so why wait to ship it?
The point IS the shortage, methinks.
If Nintendo can't produce enough units to meet Japanese demand, what hope do they have of producing enough units to meet WORLDWIDE demand?
By staggering the release dates in different markets, they're able to level off the demand curve a bit.
I'm still waiting patiently for the Canal Street date, when some DS lites "fall off the back of a truck" and I can haggle the distinguished proprietor down to $50.
You DO know that Canal Street merchandise is typically cheap knockoffs of the real thing, right?
You'll feel like a sucker once you realize you just paid fifty bucks for a "Neo Double Lite".
that was one of the core themes FC - how do you know what you've got if you never put it to the test?
But I DO know what I've got -- a complete lack of chronic pain.
I plan to enjoy the second half of my life at least as much as the first, and part of that plan involves not stupidly putting my corporeal self into harm's way intentionally.
Since these devices are preferably low noise, low power, and small in size, you obviously can't just keep throwing more drives in the box: a single drive is the best solution.
Actually, I'd say the BEST solution is to put a box with minimal or no drive capacity in the living room, and put in on a home network that connects to an arbitrarily large network storage box in the other room. But if that's not feasible for whatever reason, a single large disk in the media PC itself is the next-best solution.
You know what would be even better? If, when you clicked on an ad you were interested in, you were taken to the "INTERWEB HTTP SITE" of the advertiser, so you could "pursue a transaction" in the same medium you're currently engaged in, instead of having to switch to talking on the phone.
I'm surprised no one has tried implementing such a "hot link"-based system yet.
The only solution is abandon compulsory education. Kids would be better off without being forced to go.
Of course they would. I mean, just look at the career path of someone who drops out of high school at age 16 with that of someone who graduates...
Some kids want to learn, some don't. It's in society's best interest that we try to force those latter kids to learn anyway.
New Jersey doesn't have a monopoly on Plainfields. There are many other Plainfields like it, but this one is mine. ;)
Yes, but New Jersey has THREE of them. We outnumber you! P-FUNK REPRESENT
Plainfield, NJ, is a small city in decline. Its residents are disproportionately poor, and I'm certain its public schools have bigger disciplinary problems to deal with than a nonviolent kid mentioning Columbine on his blog. So no, I don't think this story COULD have come from Plainfield, NJ. Mod submitter -1 Sloppy.
Slinging multiple games on 1 disk just sounds like a way to ensure the developer earns little or nothing from the sale.
It sounds like that, but it also sounds like the only way a lot of Indie titles can hope to get retail shelf space at all.
Problem is, bundling multiple titles together (especially if there's not a unifying theme) screams 'cheap' to the consumer. If a single game has a $20 price sticker on it, people are going to feel like the game is worth twenty bucks. But if a box with 10 games in it sells for $20, people aren't going to feel like they're getting a $200 value. They're going to place a value of only two dollars on each game.
there is a big difference between an OS that you will be using until it's time to upgrade (usually years) and a game you're gonna play for a while and then forget about.
In practice, yes. But as far as the law goes, I'd be surprised if there were any distinction to be made.
Doctrine of First Sale basically says you may use a product you have bought until you don't want it anymore, at which case you may resell it. I can't see how it matters whether it takes you three months or three years to decide you don't want it anymore.
many publishers are furious that they have to spend support money on consumers who have not actually contributed a dime to the company's coffers.
Maybe they should go with the strategy that IBM figured out like 50 years ago, and stop tying software support to sales.
If the $60 price tag for a shrinkwrapped game includes customer support for a fixed period of X years, it doesn't matter whether that game is owned by one person or 100 people over the course of those X years--as long as only one owner seeks support at any given time.
If the price does NOT include support, then the publishers have no justification for claiming that secondary sales have any effect on support costs.
isn't her name supposed to be Princess Toadstool?
She is the princess of the Toadstool Kingdom. Peach is the name she signs on informal correspondence, as can be seen in the intro to Super Mario 64.
What I would like to know is whatever happened to Pauline.
Bowser has kidnapped Princess Peach and Mario has to save her.
Actually, it's "Bowser Jr." who has kidnapped the Princess this time around.
I'm not sure when relationship, if any, Junior has to the Koopa Kids introduced in SMB3. Continuity in the Super Mario Universe is not something worth losing sleep over.