I think, technically speaking, you're supposed to report any online purchases on your taxes so that they can tax you on them. Nobody ever does, of course. I don't know, maybe that's just a Wisconsin thing...I pretty much skip that line every year (as does most everyone else) so I can't really remember.
I made a joke on Facebook when Steve Jobs died. Something about how God was mad at him because iPhone 4S was just a minor upgrade to iPhone 4, rather than the long-awaited iPhone 5, etc etc. Some of the flames I got were seriously crazy;
Same. That's when I truly realized that it really is a cult to some people. I mean, we all joke about the iCult, but I never truly believed so many people felt that way deep down until Steve Jobs died and I saw the Princess Diana-esque outpouring of grief.
For the record, my joke was something like "In the end, vendor lock-in and lack of user replaceable parts killed Steve Jobs". Oh holy fuck did the shitstorm start a-brewin'...
Were you around in the early days of DOS, Apple II+, Apple IIe, the 1984 era, etc? Steve Jobs did more than anybody to bring computing usability to the masses.
Yes I was, but that Steve Jobs, and the Steve Job's we've been seeing over the past 10 years or so are so different it's like they're not the same person. I have a feeling Young Steve Jobs would not have cared much for Old Steve Jobs. Young Steve Jobs would have been jailbreaking iPhones, Old Steve Jobs would have called him a thief and tried to destroy him.
The funny thing is, though, that Steve Jobs is not a parent to anyone here. He is a complete stranger, but has been elevated to such a messiah like stature that people that didn't even know him outside of his press releases literally went out of their way to buy fucking flowers and leave them at the Apple Store.
I think the lack of perspective most of these mourners display is the most discouraging thing. I read a few "Man, that sucks" comments and didn't have a problem, but when people call him the most important man of our time I get a little incredulous. The man made consumer goods for crying out loud, and what did he pioneer? Devices that look nice? It's bad enough when people say idiotic things like "Steve Jobs invented the personal computer/tablet/pda/smartphone/internet/{insert any modern convenience here}" but now that he's gone people are actually comparing him to Edison or Tesla in their grief. It's embarrassing to those of us with a brain.
It's pretty sad that our kids are going to hear stories about how good things were back in our day. I'm not putting my kids into this kind of crap, no way. I'll home school them in the evenings after work if that's what it takes.
It ignores it, because it deals with the reality that a pirated copy of a movie, song, game, whatever is not necessarily a lost sale.
My hard drive is full of movies and music that I would have never paid a dime for. As a matter of fact, there are many things I pirated that I eventually went out and bought legit (movies and games, mostly) based solely on my experience with the pirated one.
Yeah, that's pretty much the only way Hollywood gets money out of me these days. I don't mind going to a matinee showing of a movie every month or so because I get to watch the movie on a 100' screen in surround sound at a volume far exceeding anything I could get away with in my apartment. If the movies good, great; if not, I'm out $10. No biggie.
But as far as buying DVD's and BD's, I've pretty much quit. It's just too easy to get good quality, HD copies on the internet for free, and my 1,000+ DVD collection has convinced me I've given them enough money already.
Yeah, because if there's one thing that's going strong on consoles, it's single-console multiplayer...there's a ton of games out there that support that, amirite?
Oh, wait...they've been phasing that out for years now, too. The only games you can play co-op on a single console anymore are cheap-o arcade games and party games like the average Wii crap. Almost everything requires each player to have a console, TV, controller, and a copy of the game (and if on the 360, Xbox Live as well).
According to the inflation calculator $49.99 in 1996 is equivalent to $68.75 as of 2010, so not only is it not double, it's actually less than it should be (if that was the only consideration, which I know it is not).
Shit, I remember buying NES games for $49.99 back in like 1987. According to the same site, that's the equivalent of $94.66 in today's dollars, and I remember my father paying at least $200 for a Colecovision console back in 1982, the equivalent of $445.79 today.
The moral of the story is, we've always paid out the ass for video games...a lot of us just don't realize it because we weren't necessarily the ones actually paying out the ass.
So Instead of being the center of my video gaming universe, my PS3 is now relegated to being a niche piece of hardware for playing a couple of games. Kind of sad, really.
That's been my PS3 since day one. I bought it primarily for the Blu-Ray player and ability to play media files via the network, which at the time was pretty reasonable given the cost of the average BD player at the time.
Once my PS3 kicks the bucket, I'll just build a proper HTPC and be done with it.
I totally agree, what I don't understand is why are people ok with Steam and other PC Games publishers practising this but get their knickers all bunched up when consoles try to follow the same DRM model.
I'm betting a lot of the people that disagree with Sony doing this bullshit also disagree with Steam and other platforms with lock-in like Battle.net.
I propose that there is a third option, which are the people that weigh the pros and cons and decide what is more important to them. Personally, I won't touch a modern Blizzard game due to the Battle.net requirement (not legally, anyway), and the only thing I use Steam for is MMO's and Free to Play games because they've historically been tied to one user anyway, or didn't cost me a dime so I don't care about resale.
This is going to make me less inclined to buy certain PS3 games because the resale isn't there. I'm not gonna punt my PS3 out the window in a rage over it (although the hacking crap made me want to, that's for sure) but at the same time, when the next installment of God of War or whatever other franchise Sony owns comes out (which I can't even think of off the top of my head) I may not be as quick to buy it.
I think this is silly, because if anything Sony should be doing everything they can to drum up more business, and this doesn't seem like it's going to do anything but cost them early software sales.
Fuck the snobs, it's a good story and a good series. Peter Dinklage as Tyrion Lannister is fucking perfect. I haven't seen such a good casting job in a long, long time.
Slashdot Mirror
I think, technically speaking, you're supposed to report any online purchases on your taxes so that they can tax you on them. Nobody ever does, of course. I don't know, maybe that's just a Wisconsin thing...I pretty much skip that line every year (as does most everyone else) so I can't really remember.
And Keyboard Cat will keep on playing his sad, sad song.
Yes, because protecting the devices from malware and bad apps...
Or apps that point out the exploitative basis from which all cell phones are produced.
Or comic adaptations of James Joyce's Ulysses because of some extremely minor incidental nudity.
But don't worry, there are still plenty of Bible apps chock full of rape, sodomy, incest, murder...
I made a joke on Facebook when Steve Jobs died. Something about how God was mad at him because iPhone 4S was just a minor upgrade to iPhone 4, rather than the long-awaited iPhone 5, etc etc. Some of the flames I got were seriously crazy;
Same. That's when I truly realized that it really is a cult to some people. I mean, we all joke about the iCult, but I never truly believed so many people felt that way deep down until Steve Jobs died and I saw the Princess Diana-esque outpouring of grief.
For the record, my joke was something like "In the end, vendor lock-in and lack of user replaceable parts killed Steve Jobs". Oh holy fuck did the shitstorm start a-brewin'...
Were you around in the early days of DOS, Apple II+, Apple IIe, the 1984 era, etc? Steve Jobs did more than anybody to bring computing usability to the masses.
Yes I was, but that Steve Jobs, and the Steve Job's we've been seeing over the past 10 years or so are so different it's like they're not the same person. I have a feeling Young Steve Jobs would not have cared much for Old Steve Jobs. Young Steve Jobs would have been jailbreaking iPhones, Old Steve Jobs would have called him a thief and tried to destroy him.
The funny thing is, though, that Steve Jobs is not a parent to anyone here. He is a complete stranger, but has been elevated to such a messiah like stature that people that didn't even know him outside of his press releases literally went out of their way to buy fucking flowers and leave them at the Apple Store.
I think the lack of perspective most of these mourners display is the most discouraging thing. I read a few "Man, that sucks" comments and didn't have a problem, but when people call him the most important man of our time I get a little incredulous. The man made consumer goods for crying out loud, and what did he pioneer? Devices that look nice? It's bad enough when people say idiotic things like "Steve Jobs invented the personal computer/tablet/pda/smartphone/internet/{insert any modern convenience here}" but now that he's gone people are actually comparing him to Edison or Tesla in their grief. It's embarrassing to those of us with a brain.
It's pretty sad that our kids are going to hear stories about how good things were back in our day. I'm not putting my kids into this kind of crap, no way. I'll home school them in the evenings after work if that's what it takes.
Jesus Christ. The teachers have nothing to do with this stupid bullshit. Clean the tea out of your brain.
It ignores it, because it deals with the reality that a pirated copy of a movie, song, game, whatever is not necessarily a lost sale.
My hard drive is full of movies and music that I would have never paid a dime for. As a matter of fact, there are many things I pirated that I eventually went out and bought legit (movies and games, mostly) based solely on my experience with the pirated one.
Yeah, that's pretty much the only way Hollywood gets money out of me these days. I don't mind going to a matinee showing of a movie every month or so because I get to watch the movie on a 100' screen in surround sound at a volume far exceeding anything I could get away with in my apartment. If the movies good, great; if not, I'm out $10. No biggie.
But as far as buying DVD's and BD's, I've pretty much quit. It's just too easy to get good quality, HD copies on the internet for free, and my 1,000+ DVD collection has convinced me I've given them enough money already.
The first AC comment I've ever seen worthy of an upmod. I don't have points...but I salute you, AC!
God I fucking hate people that do that stupid hashtag shit in places where they're not used.
My God, it's full of bloat!
Yeah, because if there's one thing that's going strong on consoles, it's single-console multiplayer...there's a ton of games out there that support that, amirite?
Oh, wait...they've been phasing that out for years now, too. The only games you can play co-op on a single console anymore are cheap-o arcade games and party games like the average Wii crap. Almost everything requires each player to have a console, TV, controller, and a copy of the game (and if on the 360, Xbox Live as well).
According to the inflation calculator $49.99 in 1996 is equivalent to $68.75 as of 2010, so not only is it not double, it's actually less than it should be (if that was the only consideration, which I know it is not).
Shit, I remember buying NES games for $49.99 back in like 1987. According to the same site, that's the equivalent of $94.66 in today's dollars, and I remember my father paying at least $200 for a Colecovision console back in 1982, the equivalent of $445.79 today.
The moral of the story is, we've always paid out the ass for video games...a lot of us just don't realize it because we weren't necessarily the ones actually paying out the ass.
...Another reason to switch to PC gaming
The smart people never left in the first place.
So Instead of being the center of my video gaming universe, my PS3 is now relegated to being a niche piece of hardware for playing a couple of games. Kind of sad, really.
That's been my PS3 since day one. I bought it primarily for the Blu-Ray player and ability to play media files via the network, which at the time was pretty reasonable given the cost of the average BD player at the time.
Once my PS3 kicks the bucket, I'll just build a proper HTPC and be done with it.
I would sit in the cantina and tell everyone how you were into Star Wars before it was cool and how Star Trek is better anwyays...
I totally agree, what I don't understand is why are people ok with Steam and other PC Games publishers practising this but get their knickers all bunched up when consoles try to follow the same DRM model.
I'm betting a lot of the people that disagree with Sony doing this bullshit also disagree with Steam and other platforms with lock-in like Battle.net.
I propose that there is a third option, which are the people that weigh the pros and cons and decide what is more important to them. Personally, I won't touch a modern Blizzard game due to the Battle.net requirement (not legally, anyway), and the only thing I use Steam for is MMO's and Free to Play games because they've historically been tied to one user anyway, or didn't cost me a dime so I don't care about resale.
This is going to make me less inclined to buy certain PS3 games because the resale isn't there. I'm not gonna punt my PS3 out the window in a rage over it (although the hacking crap made me want to, that's for sure) but at the same time, when the next installment of God of War or whatever other franchise Sony owns comes out (which I can't even think of off the top of my head) I may not be as quick to buy it.
I think this is silly, because if anything Sony should be doing everything they can to drum up more business, and this doesn't seem like it's going to do anything but cost them early software sales.
That was the most amazing thing I've ever seen in my life.
I wish I could mod you up.
Fuck the snobs, it's a good story and a good series. Peter Dinklage as Tyrion Lannister is fucking perfect. I haven't seen such a good casting job in a long, long time.
Wow, wish they favored American-made goods over foreign imports here in the US. Our economy might not be in the fucking toilet if they did...
"We are a puny and fickle folk. Avarice, hesitation, and following are our diseases."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
I'd love to know who the fuck modded that insightful.
No, only idiots run software that is questionable enough to require UAC in the first place.