I would hardly consider 2 - 3 years of prison term a "slap on the wrist". That was my point.
I have 2 children and the thought of only spending a couple of months behind bars, and missing out on all that I would in that time, is enough to make me almost break down in tears at the thought. I couldn't handle it.. let alone 3 years. Let alone 25.
Like I said, I don't think it should go unpunished. But stealing $11 billion is still just theft. So yes, since there was no blood spilled I do think that 25 years is insanely excessive. You're basically taking the rest of this guy's life away because he stole something.
And of course the ammount that you steal should dictate your sentence. But there should be a maximum of like 5 - 10 years. 25 is bullshit.
"Err, you mean Bernie Ebbers. But the real question is: will he actually spend 25 years in jail?"
I fail to see how ANY crime besides murder, rape etc. could justify 25 years in jail.
Tax evasion, fraud, conspiracy etc. are all crimes that are worth punishing... but taking 25 years of someone's life away for such crimes is bullshit. 2 - 3 years is fine IMO.
Quake3 was extremely fun IMO. I got completely addicted to the early tests that ID put out for free... and played it for years. I still play it every once in a while.
But I never even got past the 1st level on Doom3. It just bore me to death... and that was a huge dissapointment considering I had been waiting for it ever since ID announced they were doing a Doom3.. and I even bought my new computer in anticipation for it.
What's really worth noting is that when we're talking about ID and it's "Crown".. you have to realize that ID doesn't really have a big foundation to rest on at all. They have a grand total of 3 titles (Wolfenstien, Dooma and Quake) plus their sequels.
ID desperately needs to come out with something completely new. Or if their business model is really just to sell engines then maybe they should start making just cutting edge engines with really good APIs that are extremely easy to use and expand and sell those to other game companies rather than making boring games to showcase them and letting other companies steal the engine market (last I heard the current Unreal engine is the big FPS engine being used rather than Doom3's).
Software takes testing on all platforms that are to be "supported". That's why even truly web-based services sometimes say "we only support Windows and IE blah blah" even though it's just HTML and it might work just fine in Firefox or Saffari etc.
One point of view to take on this is that if you really want Linux support you're going to have shell out more tax dollars for it. Whether or not the developers wrote it to be as portable as possible, they would still need to hire Linux testers to make sure it works before they can claim that it's "supported". And I highly doubt most people would recommend using non-tested software to file their taxes... incase someone recommends the AU government release a "non supported / tested" Linux port etc.
"A $55USD technology demo marketed as a highly anticipated video game. The $15-20 you can buy it for today is closer to what it should have been sold for. Better - he should have skipped the game and just released it as a benchmarking tool for those wanting to focus on the engine.
I know I feel robbed."
I agree with you completely, but in the past IDs games have been mainly a way to showcase their engines. And the better the games sell, the better they can sell their engines.
Doom3 probably wasn't a complete failure, as it did sell a lot of copies initially... but the Unreal3 engine is beating them out so I hear.
Obviously ID needs to focus on competiting with other game companies now. For too long they kind of held a "virtual monopoly" on the high end 3d game engine realm. I say virtual because it wasn't really a monopoly, they were just by far the most successful. Around the time that QuakeIII came out we started seeing a lot of other great 3d games like Soldier of Fortune, Half Life, Unreal Tournament etc. and ever since then ID's stake in the market has been diminishing.
The big difference is, Quake3 was extremely fun. Doom3 just wasn't. And they really don't have that big a foundation to rest on anyway. Their "virtual monopoly" only really lasted 5-7 years.. and only included like 3 titles (Wolfenstein, Doom and Quake) and their sequels. They desperately need to come out with something completely new.
Of course if they want to stay in the engine market they could also just start making engines alone and focus on easy to use and expandable APIs and forget making games all together.
I can't shop at ThinkGeek either mostly due to the shipping costs... and with the american exchange rate and the fact that I might have to pay duty on whatever crosses the border it just makes it not worth it for me.
Usually customs doesn't screw me, but I bought a used guitar pedal from an online friend once for $140 USD and they charged me $50 CAD duty!
After that I really can't afford to buy from the US unless the prices are right... and that includes shipping of course.
Which is a shame, because ThinkGeek has a ton of stuff that I wouldn't just buy for myself, but also as gifts etc. My wife loves a lot of their clothes etc.:(
I have two children, 3 and 5 and I would let them play GTA.
Why ? Because, like the author in the article says, the gamer CHOSES what he does in the game. My two children, given the controller, would just run around or drive around depending on the state of the game when they received the controller.. and they would have a grand ol' time.
When they're a little older, 7 - 10, then they can figure out more what to do with the game. However, they still CHOSE to engage in violent activity or not. At this stage I would certainly not hand them the controller and walk away, but I would still let them play the game while I watch. If they did chose to engage in violent activity then I would discuss things with them and make sure that they understand that it's just a game etc. etc.
The idea that videogames thrust violence at kids and have "effects" on them etc. is not giving very much credit to children. And I get a little annoyed when I hear about "innocent children" being so "impressionable" and unable to comprehend the difference between right and wrong etc.
My children are very young yet they know that violence is wrong.. and no videogame is going to change their minds of that. How do I know ? Because as their PARENT I will not let that happen. That doesn't mean I need to shield them from it either.
My philosophy is that "protecting" and "sheilding" children from violence and sexuality only increases their curiosity and weakens their ability to comprehend and understand those matters when they're older. My mother was the same way as I. She didn't shield me from anything.. and I have never even started a fight, let alone kill anyone.
Kid's movies are the absolute worst for this. Not because they do it more (although up until recently I had noticed it more on my kid's movies).. but because parents often times put in a DVD so their kids have something to do while they go do something important.
No parent wants to have to stay there for 10 minutes when they have better things to do just to watch all the damned previews and warnings so they can finally get to the god damned menu and hit "play".
The marketing geniuses who thought that these forced ads would actually make someone more likely to buy their product need to go back to school. They'd get way better returns on their investments marketing to the niche who enjoy watching previews.
"Or to put it another way, when you're in the book store you want the best book on Perl/Flash/Solaris? Would you like, every time you were to by a book, to have to spend the evening before reading reviews of all the books available?"
When I'm spending $50 - $100 on a computer book then yes, I almost always spend the evening before reading reviews of different books so I can feel confident in my purchasing decision. I might ask people for recommendations so I know which books to look at... but I'd never take one person's sole opinion on a book that expensive.
Though of course when I'm grabbing a $10 - $20 book to read for pure entertainment / leisure then I would almost always use someone's recommendation.
Also don't forget that the majority of users who are "afraid" of computers, or can only do basic tasks.. are those who did not grow up using computers.
The personal computer in general is still very new. It still took until the late 90's before there were more homes with computers than without. Computers are becoming more and more important in people's lives.
My daughter is in junior kindergarten right now and I know they spend quite a bit of time learning to use computers at school.
So the way I see it is that in coming generations this will be a much lesser problem in general. As more and more people grow up using computers every single day.. and using computers to do more and different tasks the whole concept of "computer illiterate" will disappear.. and people will be more comfortable moving from one system to another.
"Doesn't appear to exist on IMDB anymore. So is it still going to have this name? Because, uh, "Alice" is a MUCH less lame sounding name than "Dark Wonderland.""
Yeah but "Alice" isn't something that's "in" right now. The American public wouldn't "get it". We need cool names like "The Wickeds", "Seed Of Chucky", "Dark Town".. and let's not forget the best movie name ever... "Gothica" !!!!
</sarcasm>
P.S.. I intentionally avoided seeing Gothica solely because of the name... oh and because of Halley Barry.
The term "marketers" has kind of turned into a "bad word" on/. and for many people.. and that's a shame.
The online industry, if you can lump it into one general industry, largely consists of individual affiliates who promote products for a company. It's a symbiotic relationship in that it allows people to make money on their web pages and it allows companies to find customers that they would not have necessarily been able to find on their own.
Obviously there are a lot of companies out there who are looking to rip off users. There are also affiliates out there who try to do whatever they can to generate traffic to the sponsor companies that they promote. This had led to people getting burned with pop-ups, tracking cookies, spyware, viruses etc. in the past and present.. it will probably continue into the future.
However, to lump all such business ventures into one big label "marketers" and then bash the whole lot of 'em is generalizing to an extreme extent.
The problem is, the online industry depends on cookies.. not to track you so that they know all the different places that you've been.. but to track you so they know who referred you to them so that they credit affiliates for doing their job.. and so that they can have a better idea of where their traffic comes from so that they can directly target it better.. which can help the consumer.
Not all companies are evil.. even those who are profit driven. The world depends on products and services and it seems like people on/. think that anyone who tries to sell them anything is evil.. and that they can live without ever buying stuff or something. Sure there are tons of marketing tactics that I despise.. telemarketing, pop-ups, spyware etc. But people here seem to lump companies that don't resort to intrusive advertising and marketing with the ones that do.
I don't have a "home theater system". Just an old 28" full screen TV with a 7 year-old DVD player. No surround sound, no HD, no wide screen. Just your run of the mill mid-90's television set up.
But I still prefer to watch movies at home. In fact, my loving wife and children are kind enough to go visit relatives every friday and saturday and so it's become a weekend ritual for me to buy movies to add to our ever increasing DVD collection to watch on the weekends.
My problem is that the best sound and image in the world does not compensate for idiots who talk during the movie, the 1/2 hour of commercials before the movie, the fact a single ticket costs the same and some times more than the DVD (most of the movies I buy are in the $10 - $15 canadian range which is the same as movie tickets here).
Not to mention it's just plain comfortable to sit at home in my underwear with the air conditioner cranked, curled up in a blanket, eating a nice meal (often times I'll order pizza or something with the money I saved not going to the theater) while I watch a movie that will not get interrupted and that I can pause/rewind/fast forward at any time that I want.
Because the people voting for those government officials are the parents who are too lazy (or "busy" as they like to euphamize it now adays) to do that.
I agree that the Simpsons aren't funny anymore.. but not because it's the same old gags over and over.. but because the NEW jokes aren't funny.
In fact the show has gotten CORNY.
I own the first 5 seasons on DVD... and even though I still very much enjoy the 5th season episodes.. it already shows signs of why the Simpsons are completely unwatchable now..
In the 4th or 5th season episode "Marge On A Lamb", their next door neighbour, Ruth, comes over and asks Marge if she can borrow a power sander. Marge asks Homer if he owns one to wich he responds "No" and then there's a cut scene of homer's feet resting on a power sander currently sanding up the carpet.
It's lame jokes like similar to that that the new episodes seem to be all about. Just dumb slapstick comedy.. rather than smart political and social satire that the earlier episodes were all about.
Even in completely animated films actors still do the voices. And even when characters are animated they often have actors do the motion.
It's easy to create scenery, effects, explosions etc. entirely in CGI.. but anything that tries to replicate human motion and emotion pretty much requires a human behind the scenes to believable.
It's actually much, much worse than the cancer analogy with ecological issues.. because many people understand that if humans ever do make the world uninhabitable for themselves, it won't be during their life time. Life is much too short and stressful to spend it dealing with things that are only going to affect people that we will never even meet because we'll be dead.
The problem that I see.. is that saving the world takes too much effort. As a parent of two who runs his own business, life is stressful and busy enough. Yes I'm one of those people who slashdotters always bitch about because I just don't care as long as I get my American Idol and Survivor.
If people really care about the environment and the future of the planet a hundred years from now and they want people like me to change our lifestyles and make a difference.. then saving the world better start getting damned convenient and rewarding.
<rant>
A few examples of why I don't partake in saving the planet...
1) Recyle boxes should be free (we have to pay for them here).
2) No sorting or separating or anything of the sort should need to be done. In fact, I should be able to throw everything away from chicken bones to styrofoam right into my recycle / trash bin and the people who care should be doing the sorting and recycling.
3) Don't up my taxes for a recyling program.
4) Want me to drive an electric car ? Better make it as fast and as macho-manly as any fuel combustion car.. and it better cost the same or less in terms of fuel and the vehicle itself. I drive to increase the size of my balls.. not to save the planet.
5) Save the rain forest if you want to but if the price of my home goes up even one penny because we can't get cheap lumber anymore then sorry you've lost my vote.
6) Want me to take public transportation ? Lower the prices of bus fares rather than raising them by $0.20 every year and start following your own damned schedules. Honestly, who is gonna ride the bus when it's -10 deg. C outside and they have to wait for 1/2 hour because the earlier bus was 10 minutes early and they missed it?
"And what, exactly, is wrong with blocking a domain? ISPs will have to make that choice for themselves, and it's a marketing decision. It will create a new market for ISPs who cater exclusively to parents of small children, it won't somehow censor all the other ISPs out there. I can't see there being a stigma against 'adult' ISPs, since at least 9 out of 10 are 'adult' right now. This is not a market-killer. If you want porn, there will be plenty of ISPs out there who will offer.xxx because they can charge more for it."
What I should have said was that it provides a single point of attack in case ISPs come under fire from governments.
"And if you choose to own hundreds of domains, it's your own damn fault if your choice is expensive. The reason adult businesses own so many domains is that $6/yr domains are way, WAY below normal meatspace advertising costs. Now they want to charge $60/yr, which is still much less than even a newspaper ad in some places. The adult industry won't be destroyed because their marketing costs are now closer to normal. They can suck it up as a cost of doing business."
I said this in another post.. but those 100 or so domains I'm talking about are not owned by paysites and used for advertising. The bulk of the adult industry does not consist of big companies that run several paysites and have lots of change to spare and a big accounting department who can work around the clock to save them as much cash as possible.
The majority of the business out there are independant affiliates, which the pay sites rely on to sell them traffic (ie: free porn sites). The majority of those affiliates are college students, house wifes, programmers etc. who do it either to earn spare change on the side or in the hopes of building a decent mid-sized business out of it so they can quit their 9-5.
In terms of "advertising", the pay sites don't put up anything. The cost of the domains are put are on the independant affiliates who rely on those domains to generate traffic to sell to the pay sites.
While I do have a few friends in the biz who run free sites and make way more than most programmers here on/. would ever dream of, they are far and few between and are the people who got lucky early on when the online industry was just exploding in the mid-late 90's. Most affiliates make just enough to pay the bills with a bit of pocket change left over.
If these people have to start paying $60 / domain rather than $10 / domain and they need to renew 5 domains per month then their cost of opperation just went up by $250 / month.. which is a lot when you only net $3k / month.
"Yes, this will cost the adult Internet market. What are they getting in return? Well, if they all move to.xxx, there is a lot lower chance that Johnny will accidently stumble across their site on the school's computer (think whitehouse.com), meaning a lower chance they get sued by some indignant parent. There's also a lot of lobbying pressure taken off the development of advanced porn filters and other censorship tools. Going to.xxx could actually reduce censorship research. It also means that adult sites can more effectively target their consumers without violating local laws."
Adult sites getting sued by parents and conservatives in general is pretty unheard of. In fact, the only law suits to come against any adult sites that I know of just started after George W. took office... and they revolve around obsenity law violations. The most well known case is The US. Vs. Extreme Associates..XXX will not help the adult industry at all... except for a few big players who stand to profit off of the sale of these domains. Such as IFFOR, ASACP and Helmy... 3 organizations that are losing support from the industry in a huge way now that they have announced their support for the new TLD.
It is becoming harder to make money from adult sites.. but the key to profiting is being extremely niche targetted. You need to stick to one area and work it well. Find what the surfer wants and offer them a site that caters a lot of that.
It's true that there is tons of free porn on the 'net.. but for someone who's looking for something very specific it's often hard to find enough galleries featuring that specific content.. searching on google is cumbersome and even if you have a few favourite TGPs they only list a limited amount of content.
This is especially true for single model sites. If a surfer finds one girl that he feels connected to he'll be inclined to buy a membership to her site so that he can get access to as much content as he wants of only her.. whereas searching the net will produce limited results.
Another reason people buy memberships is because paysites offer a lot more than just pictures or movies. They usually have forums and chat boards where the member can chat with the girl(s) directly. They can make special requests, they can even buy the girl(s) clothes to see them wear them in their next shoot.
Innovation is they key to success in the adult business just like in any industry. Finding something that free porn just doesn't offer and pushing the hell out of it.
Domains are paid annually.. but not all domains are registered on Janary 1st.
Domain renewals very much are a monthly expense. If you own 100 domains, many of which do not generate thousands of dollars / year (in many cases domains are held with plans of being used, or they redirect to other domains etc.) then the cost of a domain goes up by $50 and you have 5 domains to renew per month, your monthly expenses just got raised by $250 / month.
That's considerable when you net about $3k / month and you have kids to feed and bills to pay.
I don't know why people keep thinking that porn businesses are huge corporations or businesses who can afford price hikes and increases.. the majority of adult site owners are in it either to pay the rent, college tuition or put food on the table.
2) If any country decides to introduce legislation mandating the use of.xxx for adult sites it will SEVERELY hurt the adult industry as many people who own hundreds of domains would have to pay much greater amount than they currently do for.xxx equivalents... and you can bet that domain squatters are going to do whatever they can to make a fortune off of registering.xxx equivalents of popular adult sites.
It's already known that $10 off of each domain sale is designated to go to IFFOR to "contribute to issues facing the adult online industry".. however, most savvy webmasters pay less than $10 / domain as it is right now... and any adult organization supporting the new.xxx is undoubtedly only in it for personal financial gain.. as the overwhelming disapproval of adopting the TLD by the adult industry as a whole has been seen time and time again.
The cheapest DVD ROM I can find online is $39.95 (Canadian) and it's only 16x. At 16x I'd much rather install a game off of 4 cds using my 52x CD drive. Even though I have to change the cd it will still be installed much faster.
But you're right.. if software were released on DVD it would press me to go buy a DVD-ROM. Until then I'm content with CDs.
I have a very fast PC... but still only a single CD drive.. which is my CDR. Why ? Becuase I have no reason to buy a DVD-ROM yet. I don't watch DVDs on my PC, software doesn't come on DVDs yet and I don't burn enough data to CDs to warrant the move to DVD-R.
Writable CDs are cheaper than writable DVDs too.. as are the drives themselves. So until I absolutely need a DVD-ROM / DVD-R I have no reason to buy one.
Re:All your base are belong to me
on
A Gamer's Manifesto
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
IE: the most overhyped product to come out. Take GTA: San Andreas for instance, that game to me was a big fudge up compared to VC. First they promised us so many things, then didn't deliver. Some of the things they did give us were lacking some of the depth and options they said they'd give us.
I'd really like to hear some specifics. Because VC was probably my all time favourite game until SA came out... and now I find that going back to VC is like going back to GTAIII after playing VC.. there's just so many things that I miss.
Honestly, I love how big SA is huge compared to VC which felt really small. I love how you can work on skill levels for weapons and driving and how you can build your stamina, muscels etc. I love that there's schools for learning to drive, bike, fly and ride a boat. How you can fly planes and parachute out of them.. all features which are missing in VC.
VC is a great game but I seriously can't understand how you can say that it was better than SA.
Slashdot Mirror
I would hardly consider 2 - 3 years of prison term a "slap on the wrist". That was my point.
.. let alone 3 years. Let alone 25.
I have 2 children and the thought of only spending a couple of months behind bars, and missing out on all that I would in that time, is enough to make me almost break down in tears at the thought. I couldn't handle it
Like I said, I don't think it should go unpunished. But stealing $11 billion is still just theft. So yes, since there was no blood spilled I do think that 25 years is insanely excessive. You're basically taking the rest of this guy's life away because he stole something.
And of course the ammount that you steal should dictate your sentence. But there should be a maximum of like 5 - 10 years. 25 is bullshit.
"Err, you mean Bernie Ebbers. But the real question is: will he actually spend 25 years in jail?"
I fail to see how ANY crime besides murder, rape etc. could justify 25 years in jail.
Tax evasion, fraud, conspiracy etc. are all crimes that are worth punishing... but taking 25 years of someone's life away for such crimes is bullshit. 2 - 3 years is fine IMO.
" But censoring the intarweb was sooooo 90s, and it didn't succeed, so now they're going after video games."
Oh, they are very much still trying to censor the Interweb.
Quake3 was extremely fun IMO. I got completely addicted to the early tests that ID put out for free... and played it for years. I still play it every once in a while.
.. and I even bought my new computer in anticipation for it.
.. you have to realize that ID doesn't really have a big foundation to rest on at all. They have a grand total of 3 titles (Wolfenstien, Dooma and Quake) plus their sequels.
But I never even got past the 1st level on Doom3. It just bore me to death... and that was a huge dissapointment considering I had been waiting for it ever since ID announced they were doing a Doom3
What's really worth noting is that when we're talking about ID and it's "Crown"
ID desperately needs to come out with something completely new. Or if their business model is really just to sell engines then maybe they should start making just cutting edge engines with really good APIs that are extremely easy to use and expand and sell those to other game companies rather than making boring games to showcase them and letting other companies steal the engine market (last I heard the current Unreal engine is the big FPS engine being used rather than Doom3's).
Software takes testing on all platforms that are to be "supported". That's why even truly web-based services sometimes say "we only support Windows and IE blah blah" even though it's just HTML and it might work just fine in Firefox or Saffari etc.
One point of view to take on this is that if you really want Linux support you're going to have shell out more tax dollars for it. Whether or not the developers wrote it to be as portable as possible, they would still need to hire Linux testers to make sure it works before they can claim that it's "supported". And I highly doubt most people would recommend using non-tested software to file their taxes... incase someone recommends the AU government release a "non supported / tested" Linux port etc.
"A $55USD technology demo marketed as a highly anticipated video game. The $15-20 you can buy it for today is closer to what it should have been sold for. Better - he should have skipped the game and just released it as a benchmarking tool for those wanting to focus on the engine.
... but the Unreal3 engine is beating them out so I hear.
I know I feel robbed."
I agree with you completely, but in the past IDs games have been mainly a way to showcase their engines. And the better the games sell, the better they can sell their engines.
Doom3 probably wasn't a complete failure, as it did sell a lot of copies initially
Obviously ID needs to focus on competiting with other game companies now. For too long they kind of held a "virtual monopoly" on the high end 3d game engine realm. I say virtual because it wasn't really a monopoly, they were just by far the most successful. Around the time that QuakeIII came out we started seeing a lot of other great 3d games like Soldier of Fortune, Half Life, Unreal Tournament etc. and ever since then ID's stake in the market has been diminishing.
The big difference is, Quake3 was extremely fun. Doom3 just wasn't. And they really don't have that big a foundation to rest on anyway. Their "virtual monopoly" only really lasted 5-7 years.. and only included like 3 titles (Wolfenstein, Doom and Quake) and their sequels. They desperately need to come out with something completely new.
Of course if they want to stay in the engine market they could also just start making engines alone and focus on easy to use and expandable APIs and forget making games all together.
I can't shop at ThinkGeek either mostly due to the shipping costs... and with the american exchange rate and the fact that I might have to pay duty on whatever crosses the border it just makes it not worth it for me.
:(
Usually customs doesn't screw me, but I bought a used guitar pedal from an online friend once for $140 USD and they charged me $50 CAD duty!
After that I really can't afford to buy from the US unless the prices are right... and that includes shipping of course.
Which is a shame, because ThinkGeek has a ton of stuff that I wouldn't just buy for myself, but also as gifts etc. My wife loves a lot of their clothes etc.
I have two children, 3 and 5 and I would let them play GTA.
Why ? Because, like the author in the article says, the gamer CHOSES what he does in the game. My two children, given the controller, would just run around or drive around depending on the state of the game when they received the controller.. and they would have a grand ol' time.
When they're a little older, 7 - 10, then they can figure out more what to do with the game. However, they still CHOSE to engage in violent activity or not. At this stage I would certainly not hand them the controller and walk away, but I would still let them play the game while I watch. If they did chose to engage in violent activity then I would discuss things with them and make sure that they understand that it's just a game etc. etc.
The idea that videogames thrust violence at kids and have "effects" on them etc. is not giving very much credit to children. And I get a little annoyed when I hear about "innocent children" being so "impressionable" and unable to comprehend the difference between right and wrong etc.
My children are very young yet they know that violence is wrong.. and no videogame is going to change their minds of that. How do I know ? Because as their PARENT I will not let that happen. That doesn't mean I need to shield them from it either.
My philosophy is that "protecting" and "sheilding" children from violence and sexuality only increases their curiosity and weakens their ability to comprehend and understand those matters when they're older. My mother was the same way as I. She didn't shield me from anything.. and I have never even started a fight, let alone kill anyone.
Kid's movies are the absolute worst for this. Not because they do it more (although up until recently I had noticed it more on my kid's movies) .. but because parents often times put in a DVD so their kids have something to do while they go do something important.
No parent wants to have to stay there for 10 minutes when they have better things to do just to watch all the damned previews and warnings so they can finally get to the god damned menu and hit "play".
The marketing geniuses who thought that these forced ads would actually make someone more likely to buy their product need to go back to school. They'd get way better returns on their investments marketing to the niche who enjoy watching previews.
"Or to put it another way, when you're in the book store you want the best book on Perl/Flash/Solaris? Would you like, every time you were to by a book, to have to spend the evening before reading reviews of all the books available?"
When I'm spending $50 - $100 on a computer book then yes, I almost always spend the evening before reading reviews of different books so I can feel confident in my purchasing decision. I might ask people for recommendations so I know which books to look at... but I'd never take one person's sole opinion on a book that expensive.
Though of course when I'm grabbing a $10 - $20 book to read for pure entertainment / leisure then I would almost always use someone's recommendation.
Also don't forget that the majority of users who are "afraid" of computers, or can only do basic tasks.. are those who did not grow up using computers.
.. and using computers to do more and different tasks the whole concept of "computer illiterate" will disappear.. and people will be more comfortable moving from one system to another.
:)
The personal computer in general is still very new. It still took until the late 90's before there were more homes with computers than without. Computers are becoming more and more important in people's lives.
My daughter is in junior kindergarten right now and I know they spend quite a bit of time learning to use computers at school.
So the way I see it is that in coming generations this will be a much lesser problem in general. As more and more people grow up using computers every single day
Hopefully, anyway
"Doesn't appear to exist on IMDB anymore. So is it still going to have this name? Because, uh, "Alice" is a MUCH less lame sounding name than "Dark Wonderland.""
.. and let's not forget the best movie name ever ... "Gothica" !!!!
.. I intentionally avoided seeing Gothica solely because of the name... oh and because of Halley Barry.
Yeah but "Alice" isn't something that's "in" right now. The American public wouldn't "get it". We need cool names like "The Wickeds", "Seed Of Chucky", "Dark Town"
</sarcasm>
P.S
The term "marketers" has kind of turned into a "bad word" on /. and for many people.. and that's a shame.
.. not to track you so that they know all the different places that you've been .. but to track you so they know who referred you to them so that they credit affiliates for doing their job.. and so that they can have a better idea of where their traffic comes from so that they can directly target it better.. which can help the consumer.
/. think that anyone who tries to sell them anything is evil .. and that they can live without ever buying stuff or something. Sure there are tons of marketing tactics that I despise.. telemarketing, pop-ups, spyware etc. But people here seem to lump companies that don't resort to intrusive advertising and marketing with the ones that do.
The online industry, if you can lump it into one general industry, largely consists of individual affiliates who promote products for a company. It's a symbiotic relationship in that it allows people to make money on their web pages and it allows companies to find customers that they would not have necessarily been able to find on their own.
Obviously there are a lot of companies out there who are looking to rip off users. There are also affiliates out there who try to do whatever they can to generate traffic to the sponsor companies that they promote. This had led to people getting burned with pop-ups, tracking cookies, spyware, viruses etc. in the past and present.. it will probably continue into the future.
However, to lump all such business ventures into one big label "marketers" and then bash the whole lot of 'em is generalizing to an extreme extent.
The problem is, the online industry depends on cookies
Not all companies are evil.. even those who are profit driven. The world depends on products and services and it seems like people on
Enough with the generalizing already.
</rant>
I don't have a "home theater system". Just an old 28" full screen TV with a 7 year-old DVD player.
No surround sound, no HD, no wide screen. Just your run of the mill mid-90's television set up.
But I still prefer to watch movies at home. In fact, my loving wife and children are kind enough to go visit relatives every friday and saturday and so it's become a weekend ritual for me to buy movies to add to our ever increasing DVD collection to watch on the weekends.
My problem is that the best sound and image in the world does not compensate for idiots who talk during the movie, the 1/2 hour of commercials before the movie, the fact a single ticket costs the same and some times more than the DVD (most of the movies I buy are in the $10 - $15 canadian range which is the same as movie tickets here).
Not to mention it's just plain comfortable to sit at home in my underwear with the air conditioner cranked, curled up in a blanket, eating a nice meal (often times I'll order pizza or something with the money I saved not going to the theater) while I watch a movie that will not get interrupted and that I can pause/rewind/fast forward at any time that I want.
Because the people voting for those government officials are the parents who are too lazy (or "busy" as they like to euphamize it now adays) to do that.
I agree that the Simpsons aren't funny anymore .. but not because it's the same old gags over and over .. but because the NEW jokes aren't funny.
... and even though I still very much enjoy the 5th season episodes.. it already shows signs of why the Simpsons are completely unwatchable now ..
In fact the show has gotten CORNY.
I own the first 5 seasons on DVD
In the 4th or 5th season episode "Marge On A Lamb", their next door neighbour, Ruth, comes over and asks Marge if she can borrow a power sander. Marge asks Homer if he owns one to wich he responds "No" and then there's a cut scene of homer's feet resting on a power sander currently sanding up the carpet.
It's lame jokes like similar to that that the new episodes seem to be all about. Just dumb slapstick comedy.. rather than smart political and social satire that the earlier episodes were all about.
Even in completely animated films actors still do the voices. And even when characters are animated they often have actors do the motion.
.. but anything that tries to replicate human motion and emotion pretty much requires a human behind the scenes to believable.
It's easy to create scenery, effects, explosions etc. entirely in CGI
It's actually much, much worse than the cancer analogy with ecological issues .. because many people understand that if humans ever do make the world uninhabitable for themselves, it won't be during their life time. Life is much too short and stressful to spend it dealing with things that are only going to affect people that we will never even meet because we'll be dead.
.. is that saving the world takes too much effort. As a parent of two who runs his own business, life is stressful and busy enough. Yes I'm one of those people who slashdotters always bitch about because I just don't care as long as I get my American Idol and Survivor.
...
.. not to save the planet.
The problem that I see
If people really care about the environment and the future of the planet a hundred years from now and they want people like me to change our lifestyles and make a difference.. then saving the world better start getting damned convenient and rewarding.
<rant>
A few examples of why I don't partake in saving the planet
1) Recyle boxes should be free (we have to pay for them here).
2) No sorting or separating or anything of the sort should need to be done. In fact, I should be able to throw everything away from chicken bones to styrofoam right into my recycle / trash bin and the people who care should be doing the sorting and recycling.
3) Don't up my taxes for a recyling program.
4) Want me to drive an electric car ? Better make it as fast and as macho-manly as any fuel combustion car.. and it better cost the same or less in terms of fuel and the vehicle itself. I drive to increase the size of my balls
5) Save the rain forest if you want to but if the price of my home goes up even one penny because we can't get cheap lumber anymore then sorry you've lost my vote.
6) Want me to take public transportation ? Lower the prices of bus fares rather than raising them by $0.20 every year and start following your own damned schedules. Honestly, who is gonna ride the bus when it's -10 deg. C outside and they have to wait for 1/2 hour because the earlier bus was 10 minutes early and they missed it?
</rant>
"And what, exactly, is wrong with blocking a domain? ISPs will have to make that choice for themselves, and it's a marketing decision. It will create a new market for ISPs who cater exclusively to parents of small children, it won't somehow censor all the other ISPs out there. I can't see there being a stigma against 'adult' ISPs, since at least 9 out of 10 are 'adult' right now. This is not a market-killer. If you want porn, there will be plenty of ISPs out there who will offer .xxx because they can charge more for it."
.. but those 100 or so domains I'm talking about are not owned by paysites and used for advertising. The bulk of the adult industry does not consist of big companies that run several paysites and have lots of change to spare and a big accounting department who can work around the clock to save them as much cash as possible.
/. would ever dream of, they are far and few between and are the people who got lucky early on when the online industry was just exploding in the mid-late 90's. Most affiliates make just enough to pay the bills with a bit of pocket change left over.
.. which is a lot when you only net $3k / month.
.xxx, there is a lot lower chance that Johnny will accidently stumble across their site on the school's computer (think whitehouse.com), meaning a lower chance they get sued by some indignant parent. There's also a lot of lobbying pressure taken off the development of advanced porn filters and other censorship tools. Going to .xxx could actually reduce censorship research. It also means that adult sites can more effectively target their consumers without violating local laws."
.XXX will not help the adult industry at all... except for a few big players who stand to profit off of the sale of these domains. Such as IFFOR, ASACP and Helmy ... 3 organizations that are losing support from the industry in a huge way now that they have announced their support for the new TLD.
What I should have said was that it provides a single point of attack in case ISPs come under fire from governments.
"And if you choose to own hundreds of domains, it's your own damn fault if your choice is expensive. The reason adult businesses own so many domains is that $6/yr domains are way, WAY below normal meatspace advertising costs. Now they want to charge $60/yr, which is still much less than even a newspaper ad in some places. The adult industry won't be destroyed because their marketing costs are now closer to normal. They can suck it up as a cost of doing business."
I said this in another post
The majority of the business out there are independant affiliates, which the pay sites rely on to sell them traffic (ie: free porn sites). The majority of those affiliates are college students, house wifes, programmers etc. who do it either to earn spare change on the side or in the hopes of building a decent mid-sized business out of it so they can quit their 9-5.
In terms of "advertising", the pay sites don't put up anything. The cost of the domains are put are on the independant affiliates who rely on those domains to generate traffic to sell to the pay sites.
While I do have a few friends in the biz who run free sites and make way more than most programmers here on
If these people have to start paying $60 / domain rather than $10 / domain and they need to renew 5 domains per month then their cost of opperation just went up by $250 / month
"Yes, this will cost the adult Internet market. What are they getting in return? Well, if they all move to
Adult sites getting sued by parents and conservatives in general is pretty unheard of. In fact, the only law suits to come against any adult sites that I know of just started after George W. took office... and they revolve around obsenity law violations. The most well known case is The US. Vs. Extreme Associates.
As for filtering
It is becoming harder to make money from adult sites .. but the key to profiting is being extremely niche targetted. You need to stick to one area and work it well. Find what the surfer wants and offer them a site that caters a lot of that.
It's true that there is tons of free porn on the 'net.. but for someone who's looking for something very specific it's often hard to find enough galleries featuring that specific content.. searching on google is cumbersome and even if you have a few favourite TGPs they only list a limited amount of content.
This is especially true for single model sites. If a surfer finds one girl that he feels connected to he'll be inclined to buy a membership to her site so that he can get access to as much content as he wants of only her.. whereas searching the net will produce limited results.
Another reason people buy memberships is because paysites offer a lot more than just pictures or movies. They usually have forums and chat boards where the member can chat with the girl(s) directly. They can make special requests, they can even buy the girl(s) clothes to see them wear them in their next shoot.
Innovation is they key to success in the adult business just like in any industry. Finding something that free porn just doesn't offer and pushing the hell out of it.
Domains are paid annually .. but not all domains are registered on Janary 1st.
Domain renewals very much are a monthly expense. If you own 100 domains, many of which do not generate thousands of dollars / year (in many cases domains are held with plans of being used, or they redirect to other domains etc.) then the cost of a domain goes up by $50 and you have 5 domains to renew per month, your monthly expenses just got raised by $250 / month.
That's considerable when you net about $3k / month and you have kids to feed and bills to pay.
I don't know why people keep thinking that porn businesses are huge corporations or businesses who can afford price hikes and increases.. the majority of adult site owners are in it either to pay the rent, college tuition or put food on the table.
This is NOT good news.
.xxx
.xxx for adult sites it will SEVERELY hurt the adult industry as many people who own hundreds of domains would have to pay much greater amount than they currently do for .xxx equivalents ... and you can bet that domain squatters are going to do whatever they can to make a fortune off of registering .xxx equivalents of popular adult sites.
.. however, most savvy webmasters pay less than $10 / domain as it is right now... and any adult organization supporting the new .xxx is undoubtedly only in it for personal financial gain .. as the overwhelming disapproval of adopting the TLD by the adult industry as a whole has been seen time and time again.
1) ISPs can and many will undoubtedly block
2) If any country decides to introduce legislation mandating the use of
It's already known that $10 off of each domain sale is designated to go to IFFOR to "contribute to issues facing the adult online industry"
The cheapest DVD ROM I can find online is $39.95 (Canadian) and it's only 16x. At 16x I'd much rather install a game off of 4 cds using my 52x CD drive. Even though I have to change the cd it will still be installed much faster.
.. if software were released on DVD it would press me to go buy a DVD-ROM. Until then I'm content with CDs.
But you're right
That's not necessarily true.
.. which is my CDR. Why ? Becuase I have no reason to buy a DVD-ROM yet. I don't watch DVDs on my PC, software doesn't come on DVDs yet and I don't burn enough data to CDs to warrant the move to DVD-R.
.. as are the drives themselves. So until I absolutely need a DVD-ROM / DVD-R I have no reason to buy one.
I have a very fast PC... but still only a single CD drive
Writable CDs are cheaper than writable DVDs too
IE: the most overhyped product to come out. Take GTA: San Andreas for instance, that game to me was a big fudge up compared to VC. First they promised us so many things, then didn't deliver. Some of the things they did give us were lacking some of the depth and options they said they'd give us.
.. there's just so many things that I miss.
I'd really like to hear some specifics. Because VC was probably my all time favourite game until SA came out... and now I find that going back to VC is like going back to GTAIII after playing VC
Honestly, I love how big SA is huge compared to VC which felt really small. I love how you can work on skill levels for weapons and driving and how you can build your stamina, muscels etc. I love that there's schools for learning to drive, bike, fly and ride a boat. How you can fly planes and parachute out of them.. all features which are missing in VC.
VC is a great game but I seriously can't understand how you can say that it was better than SA.