I think we're throwing law to the wind. From the article......it does not say any actual copyright infringement must take place--only that the file be available in a shared folder, Web site or FTP (File Transfer Protocol) site. "It says we don't care if anybody got any of these copies," Jaszi said. "We're going to conclude that at least 10 people did. It relieves the copyright owner of having to prove that any violation of their rights actually happened."
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this blatantly the opposite of "innocent until proven guilty"? Moral nits aside, I fail to see how this could be legal.
But if the net came under UN control, the RIAA, DMCA and PATRIOT Act could still be enforced on US citizens. Because laws apply to WANs doesn't mean there aren't going to be additional laws applied under LANs. Typically (assuming we take the current US paradigm of state vs. federal government) the larger bodies apply their laws in a general sense, then allow the smaller bodies to refine the laws down to a micro level. Hence why Federal government may say that smoking is legal, state law may agree but the individual city within a state may outlaw smoking in buildings.
With a UN controlled net, you're not trading one set of restrictions for another, you're adding a whole new set of (possibly) more restrictive laws.
Interesting comparison...the Catholic church maintains its power because of peoples' belief that without the grace the church provides, they will spend an eternity in hell. The UN, OTOH, being for 'atheists' doesn't have the threat of eternal damnation so it must threaten its members with a present day form of Hell; economic sanctions and reduction of military support. Remarkably similar, you're right.
Don't forget the Bosnia/Serbia fiasco of the late 90's. Not necessarily a war, but genocide should count for something. Not only that, it was because of the lack of action on the part of the UN that it wasn't nipped in the butt.
These articles are so lame brained. I live with a recovering alcoholic (3rd times a charm!), and I can tell you this...some people just have addictive personalities. My roommate will take any substance and go to an extreme with it. Smoking? check. Drinking? check. Drugs? check. He takes anything that should be consumed in small, controlled amounts and runs wild with it. Why? It's who he is. He has to fight very hard to not let these substances take control of him.
I would like video game "addiction" to substance abuse, sure, but that doesn't mean that the substance in question should be made illegal. That means that you have to <gasp!> exert self-control when dealing with said substance. At some point I hope that we as a collective people can stop trying to blame others and accept some personal responsibility...if not for our kids, then at least for ourselves. However, given the way lawsuits seem to be going, I don't hold a lot of hope...
I believe this is the way most NCAA D1 programs work...the football team is completely self-sufficient. My alma mater is the same way; our football program supports itself so there's no good way to argue that it takes money from taxpayers.
I can't speak for all, but Morrowind did that on purpose. Morrowind was supposed to be a completely open ended game...you could play it seemingly forever and still not progress at all on the main quest that would win you the game. Your character in Morrowind actually had a compelling backstory....and the lore surrounding your quest to be named the Hortator and fulfil the prophecy of the Nerevarine was amazing. A good example of how complex the backstory was can is to look at the number of books throughout the game that fill you in on the history of Vvardenfall. Dear god, you couldn't possibly read and comprehend all that information the first time through, it's just too much.
The funny part is, Loretta Lynn didn't get bubkus because of copyright, she got where she was because she worked her tail off performing live and distributing her music to every radio station around, usually by hand. People weren't trying to copy her music...in fact, while she was 'rising to the top' she would have been only too happy to have someone play her music and make it more famous.
Neverminding that bridges DO indeed collapse on occasion, there are siginificant differences between a bridge and software. When you build a bridge, it's inspected frequently to make sure nothing has been overlooked, no cracks have surfaced, and nobody has attached a bomb (okay, they don't actually inspect for that, but follow me anyway). Software is inspected too...but finding a crack in Windows involves having millions of people work to fix their copies. A bridge has a single team of repairmen come out, patch the hole, and you're done.
And Microsoft can't even write a program to send email without massive defects?
Were a bridge builder designing something as multifunctioned and compatible as Outlook, they'd have issues as well. That would be like building a bridge that transported your car across the river for you, serving you breakfast at the same time and reading you the morning news.
Lastly, how long has mankind been building bridges? After a couple *millenia*, I'll be more confident about people writing software. We're still in the "sticks tied together with reeds and palm leaves" stage of building, compared to bridges. It's really a silly comparison.
I'm not so sure about this study...I have a friggin MAME cabinet in my living room, but can't remember to drop off my rented movies within two weeks time. I would constantly forget about little stuff if not for my girlfriend reminding me. She thinks I'm getting the early form of alzheimers:)
Any software that is sufficiently large is going to have bugs...no one person, no team of people are going to be able to find them all. Are they going to be critical problems? When you release software, you hope not, but it does happen.
Hello World is about as far as I'll go trusting someone to write bug free code.
proof that you're a geek: you took the time to post the math proving him wrong proof that I'm a geek: I'm replying, teling you you're a geek proof that we're all geeks here: you got a +4 insightful out of it
Amen, and additionally, I wish publishers would stop making games that are cool to the majority. Games like Soul Calibur are great fun to play, but they aren't what I would consider an enthralling video game. Something that requires me to think, be logical and, maybe, a little 'outside the box' are what I'm looking for. Not something that just requires a lot of time to get through a linear story line.
The closest thing to unique that the gaming industry has spit out in the past couple of years is Morrowind...that game is freakin cool in an old school way. Yeah, the graphics rocked, but after having played the game for close to a year, I'm still a long way from finding/finishing all the quests. Fallout would be my runner-up pick, and I wish they would produce another one.
The musicians that are "harmed" by P2P downloading are not the starving artists like yourself. In order for someone to be harmed by P2P, they must have a sellable product that, instead of being sold is simply downloaded instead, thus depriving them of the sale. If nobody knows about you, it's difficult for you to claim a loss.
On the other hand, I found bands like O.A.R. before they "made it" (I still consider them a small band, but when you're playing in large venues, there's a grey area) by grabbing stuff off Napster or Scour. They weren't getting radio/MTV air time, so there was no way I was going to get a glimpse of them through mainstream media. However, because of their presence in the digital world, I've been to two concerts and own 3 of their CDs. P2P definitely has something to offer the non-media glitzed bands.
Well...okay yes, that does leave the other 60%, but considering the difference in land area between "inner cities" and "everything else", 40% is a *LOT*. You figure that any given state is, perhaps, 10% city, 40-50% suburban, the rest rural, you're talking about a lot of concentrated drug use in the cities. Even considering population density, the numbers are skewed towards cities.
While I don't pretend to speak for the parent, let me attempt this one...
It's not so much that drugs have a direct connection with race, more like a roundabout one. Drugs, violence and crime rates are all much higher in the economically poor sections of this country. Because the poor are typically minorities (black, hispanic and immigrants in general), drugs and race are commonly linked together. I don't believe there's been enough data on white/asian poor to show whether or not it's a race issue (I'm sure someone will post a link to some site saying it isn't).
Anyways, the "not being able to talk about it" comment I'm assuming is a reference to the fact that whenever people in power start talking about racial issues, other than how good a race is doing, they get flamed unless they happen to be that race. Since there aren't a lot of minority representatives in the legislature, it's a difficult topic to approach.
Well, you've got a point, but examine where this list stems from. By wanting to call yourself a 'serious gamer', there's a certain amount of self-imposed elitism present. I think this guy (or organization, whatever) is just trying to establish a list of games that, were you to want to call yourself a serious gamer, you probably should have played prior to assigning yourself the title. In the same sense that I would question anyone saying they were well read without knowledge of Shakespeare, I would question someone calling themselves a serious gamer without being able to name 3 Sim games, telling me the password to get up the beanstalk in KQ1, or telling me the Mad God's name in Bard's Tale.
Personally, I just wouldn't assign myself the title of serious gamer, I think that's kinda pretentious.
But you're always going to have people assuming they're something, so why not attempt to establish a list by which to measure it by. Someone had to create the purity test by which half my freakin high school measured their purity, and I thought that was a load of bull too. Same holds true for movies, books, tv, really anything one can obsess over.
Also, add the following games: Might and Magic: see what NOT to do with a great game. It was cool the first 5 times, after M&M V, though, it got repetitive.
Starcraft II: maybe he meant to say that when he included SC, dunno
Duck Hunt: under arcade, I suppose, but certainly a classic everyone should play
Galaga: just because
Minesweeper: not sure how this got left off the list, since everyone and their brother has played it sometime. Not a great game, but definitely a gaming fundamental.
The Dungeon: Not sure if anyone remembers these two, but they were awesome on the Atari my buddy had. First timed combat based RPG I ever played, had a huge explorable area, guilds, etc. Never been duplicated, to my knowledge.
Hey, compared to Hackers, Swordfish and Sneakers, it was conceivable. That, to me, made it a pretty decent movie.
--trb
Re:This is really missing the point
on
Death of the PDA?
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· Score: 1
They're basing the article on sales charts, and currently the sale of laptops and desktops are both strong. Whereas smartphones are incorporating PDA functionality, laptops serve a completely different purpose than desktops. The two are not interchangable for the majority of computer users. Smartphones can replace PDAs.
How does this dispel NASA's credibility? Upon initial inspection, a hypothesis is made. Upon further inspection, a different hypothesis is reached because of data being added to the situation (Concorde flight paths). Were someone to come forward and produce a very large blowtorch, yet another hypothesis could be reached.
What we have here is a lack of data, not lack of credibility. If anything, this should teach us to question the first, second and Nth hypothesis until it's proven beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Thinking about it, video games have only recently become mainstream and poppy. By that I mean that even the cool jock (hell, *especially* the cool jock) sits around with his buddies and plays games. Typically (and I'm making a horrible generalization) the 'cool' kids will play the most mainstream of games...fighting games, GTA type games, etc, where the main objective doesn't take a lot of thought.
Zelda wasn't for someone who couldn't take a few hours each day for a couple of weeks to finish. Back before the internet, there was Nintendo Power and that's it as far as hints and tips. You couldn't find your way through death mountain? Tough.
Linear games are much easier and take less thought, hence why they become arcade games (or arcade games become linear console games...take your pick). They are popular with the masses precisely for that reason. The selection of games that these kids were given really sucks if you're going for mainstream appeal. I like pong for its nostalgia and historical siginificance, but damn, even I would get bored of it after a few minutes. Donkey I still play on my standup MAME arcade, but for similar reasons. Space Invaders surprised me, I would think kids would recognize this as the precursor to every space game ever played, but whatever. E.T.? Welcome to your first bad acid trip, kiddies.
There are more than a few problems with comparing books/CDs/games, but here are a few...
1) People like convenience. Pick it up, put it down, easy access, portable. CDs and books qualify under all of these, games decidedly don't.
2) People have such differing social desires at different times. I may want to play a single player game now, a MUD/Massively Multiplayer game later, then finish off with some PvP Starcraft with my roommate. Music and movies offer this kind of multilateral socialism, a single game usually doesn't.
3) Access...let's face it, computers are still pricey and not widely available. A CD (as outrageously priced as they are) is less than half of a new game, not including the monthly subscription that comes with many commercial MMORPGs. A book is similar. Both have user interfaces that an 8 year old can figure out on his first attempt. Computers aren't like that.
It's an unfair comparison. Though, I will say, I played the Sims Online for about 3 months and thought that with a few tweaks it would be the closest thing we had to a universally accepted game. It drew it guys, girls, kids, adults, seniors. Something for everyone, from decorating to competition to sociallizing. It just got old eventually, and I'm not sure I could suggest what they needed to add.
MMORPGs are more problematic because developers inherently want a theme and a role for the character to play, but in doing so they alienate a good portion of the population.
Slashdot Mirror
I think we're throwing law to the wind. From the article... ...it does not say any actual copyright infringement must take place--only that the file be available in a shared folder, Web site or FTP (File Transfer Protocol) site. "It says we don't care if anybody got any of these copies," Jaszi said. "We're going to conclude that at least 10 people did. It relieves the copyright owner of having to prove that any violation of their rights actually happened."
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this blatantly the opposite of "innocent until proven guilty"? Moral nits aside, I fail to see how this could be legal.
--trb
But if the net came under UN control, the RIAA, DMCA and PATRIOT Act could still be enforced on US citizens. Because laws apply to WANs doesn't mean there aren't going to be additional laws applied under LANs. Typically (assuming we take the current US paradigm of state vs. federal government) the larger bodies apply their laws in a general sense, then allow the smaller bodies to refine the laws down to a micro level. Hence why Federal government may say that smoking is legal, state law may agree but the individual city within a state may outlaw smoking in buildings.
With a UN controlled net, you're not trading one set of restrictions for another, you're adding a whole new set of (possibly) more restrictive laws.
--trb
Interesting comparison...the Catholic church maintains its power because of peoples' belief that without the grace the church provides, they will spend an eternity in hell. The UN, OTOH, being for 'atheists' doesn't have the threat of eternal damnation so it must threaten its members with a present day form of Hell; economic sanctions and reduction of military support. Remarkably similar, you're right.
--trb
Don't forget the Bosnia/Serbia fiasco of the late 90's. Not necessarily a war, but genocide should count for something. Not only that, it was because of the lack of action on the part of the UN that it wasn't nipped in the butt.
--trb
These articles are so lame brained. I live with a recovering alcoholic (3rd times a charm!), and I can tell you this...some people just have addictive personalities. My roommate will take any substance and go to an extreme with it. Smoking? check. Drinking? check. Drugs? check. He takes anything that should be consumed in small, controlled amounts and runs wild with it. Why? It's who he is. He has to fight very hard to not let these substances take control of him.
I would like video game "addiction" to substance abuse, sure, but that doesn't mean that the substance in question should be made illegal. That means that you have to <gasp!> exert self-control when dealing with said substance. At some point I hope that we as a collective people can stop trying to blame others and accept some personal responsibility...if not for our kids, then at least for ourselves. However, given the way lawsuits seem to be going, I don't hold a lot of hope...
--trb
I believe this is the way most NCAA D1 programs work...the football team is completely self-sufficient. My alma mater is the same way; our football program supports itself so there's no good way to argue that it takes money from taxpayers.
:)
As an aside, Pitt's going down this weekend
--trb
I can't speak for all, but Morrowind did that on purpose. Morrowind was supposed to be a completely open ended game...you could play it seemingly forever and still not progress at all on the main quest that would win you the game. Your character in Morrowind actually had a compelling backstory....and the lore surrounding your quest to be named the Hortator and fulfil the prophecy of the Nerevarine was amazing. A good example of how complex the backstory was can is to look at the number of books throughout the game that fill you in on the history of Vvardenfall. Dear god, you couldn't possibly read and comprehend all that information the first time through, it's just too much.
--trb
The funny part is, Loretta Lynn didn't get bubkus because of copyright, she got where she was because she worked her tail off performing live and distributing her music to every radio station around, usually by hand. People weren't trying to copy her music...in fact, while she was 'rising to the top' she would have been only too happy to have someone play her music and make it more famous.
--trb
Neverminding that bridges DO indeed collapse on occasion, there are siginificant differences between a bridge and software. When you build a bridge, it's inspected frequently to make sure nothing has been overlooked, no cracks have surfaced, and nobody has attached a bomb (okay, they don't actually inspect for that, but follow me anyway). Software is inspected too...but finding a crack in Windows involves having millions of people work to fix their copies. A bridge has a single team of repairmen come out, patch the hole, and you're done.
And Microsoft can't even write a program to send email without massive defects?
Were a bridge builder designing something as multifunctioned and compatible as Outlook, they'd have issues as well. That would be like building a bridge that transported your car across the river for you, serving you breakfast at the same time and reading you the morning news.
Lastly, how long has mankind been building bridges? After a couple *millenia*, I'll be more confident about people writing software. We're still in the "sticks tied together with reeds and palm leaves" stage of building, compared to bridges. It's really a silly comparison.
--trb
I'm not so sure about this study...I have a friggin MAME cabinet in my living room, but can't remember to drop off my rented movies within two weeks time. I would constantly forget about little stuff if not for my girlfriend reminding me. She thinks I'm getting the early form of alzheimers :)
--trb
Any software that is sufficiently large is going to have bugs...no one person, no team of people are going to be able to find them all. Are they going to be critical problems? When you release software, you hope not, but it does happen.
Hello World is about as far as I'll go trusting someone to write bug free code.
--trb
proof that you're a geek: you took the time to post the math proving him wrong
proof that I'm a geek: I'm replying, teling you you're a geek
proof that we're all geeks here: you got a +4 insightful out of it
--trb
Amen, and additionally, I wish publishers would stop making games that are cool to the majority. Games like Soul Calibur are great fun to play, but they aren't what I would consider an enthralling video game. Something that requires me to think, be logical and, maybe, a little 'outside the box' are what I'm looking for. Not something that just requires a lot of time to get through a linear story line.
The closest thing to unique that the gaming industry has spit out in the past couple of years is Morrowind...that game is freakin cool in an old school way. Yeah, the graphics rocked, but after having played the game for close to a year, I'm still a long way from finding/finishing all the quests. Fallout would be my runner-up pick, and I wish they would produce another one.
--trb
I dunno about April 1st, but this sure does explain the flying pigs on the way in to work this morning...
--trb
The musicians that are "harmed" by P2P downloading are not the starving artists like yourself. In order for someone to be harmed by P2P, they must have a sellable product that, instead of being sold is simply downloaded instead, thus depriving them of the sale. If nobody knows about you, it's difficult for you to claim a loss.
On the other hand, I found bands like O.A.R. before they "made it" (I still consider them a small band, but when you're playing in large venues, there's a grey area) by grabbing stuff off Napster or Scour. They weren't getting radio/MTV air time, so there was no way I was going to get a glimpse of them through mainstream media. However, because of their presence in the digital world, I've been to two concerts and own 3 of their CDs. P2P definitely has something to offer the non-media glitzed bands.
--trb
Well...okay yes, that does leave the other 60%, but considering the difference in land area between "inner cities" and "everything else", 40% is a *LOT*. You figure that any given state is, perhaps, 10% city, 40-50% suburban, the rest rural, you're talking about a lot of concentrated drug use in the cities. Even considering population density, the numbers are skewed towards cities.
--trb
I'm a moron...s/Starcraft II/Star Control II/...thank you, I'm here all week.
--trb
While I don't pretend to speak for the parent, let me attempt this one...
It's not so much that drugs have a direct connection with race, more like a roundabout one. Drugs, violence and crime rates are all much higher in the economically poor sections of this country. Because the poor are typically minorities (black, hispanic and immigrants in general), drugs and race are commonly linked together. I don't believe there's been enough data on white/asian poor to show whether or not it's a race issue (I'm sure someone will post a link to some site saying it isn't).
Anyways, the "not being able to talk about it" comment I'm assuming is a reference to the fact that whenever people in power start talking about racial issues, other than how good a race is doing, they get flamed unless they happen to be that race. Since there aren't a lot of minority representatives in the legislature, it's a difficult topic to approach.
--trb
Well, you've got a point, but examine where this list stems from. By wanting to call yourself a 'serious gamer', there's a certain amount of self-imposed elitism present. I think this guy (or organization, whatever) is just trying to establish a list of games that, were you to want to call yourself a serious gamer, you probably should have played prior to assigning yourself the title. In the same sense that I would question anyone saying they were well read without knowledge of Shakespeare, I would question someone calling themselves a serious gamer without being able to name 3 Sim games, telling me the password to get up the beanstalk in KQ1, or telling me the Mad God's name in Bard's Tale.
Personally, I just wouldn't assign myself the title of serious gamer, I think that's kinda pretentious.
But you're always going to have people assuming they're something, so why not attempt to establish a list by which to measure it by. Someone had to create the purity test by which half my freakin high school measured their purity, and I thought that was a load of bull too. Same holds true for movies, books, tv, really anything one can obsess over.
--trb
Add an entire category: handheld
Game-n-Watch
Gameboy
Sega's Handheld (can't remember name)
Also, add the following games:
Might and Magic: see what NOT to do with a great game. It was cool the first 5 times, after M&M V, though, it got repetitive.
Starcraft II: maybe he meant to say that when he included SC, dunno
Duck Hunt: under arcade, I suppose, but certainly a classic everyone should play
Galaga: just because
Minesweeper: not sure how this got left off the list, since everyone and their brother has played it sometime. Not a great game, but definitely a gaming fundamental.
The Dungeon: Not sure if anyone remembers these two, but they were awesome on the Atari my buddy had. First timed combat based RPG I ever played, had a huge explorable area, guilds, etc. Never been duplicated, to my knowledge.
Just my $.02
--trb
Hey, compared to Hackers, Swordfish and Sneakers, it was conceivable. That, to me, made it a pretty decent movie.
--trb
They're basing the article on sales charts, and currently the sale of laptops and desktops are both strong. Whereas smartphones are incorporating PDA functionality, laptops serve a completely different purpose than desktops. The two are not interchangable for the majority of computer users. Smartphones can replace PDAs.
--trb
How does this dispel NASA's credibility? Upon initial inspection, a hypothesis is made. Upon further inspection, a different hypothesis is reached because of data being added to the situation (Concorde flight paths). Were someone to come forward and produce a very large blowtorch, yet another hypothesis could be reached.
What we have here is a lack of data, not lack of credibility. If anything, this should teach us to question the first, second and Nth hypothesis until it's proven beyond a shadow of a doubt.
--trb
Thinking about it, video games have only recently become mainstream and poppy. By that I mean that even the cool jock (hell, *especially* the cool jock) sits around with his buddies and plays games. Typically (and I'm making a horrible generalization) the 'cool' kids will play the most mainstream of games...fighting games, GTA type games, etc, where the main objective doesn't take a lot of thought.
Zelda wasn't for someone who couldn't take a few hours each day for a couple of weeks to finish. Back before the internet, there was Nintendo Power and that's it as far as hints and tips. You couldn't find your way through death mountain? Tough.
Linear games are much easier and take less thought, hence why they become arcade games (or arcade games become linear console games...take your pick). They are popular with the masses precisely for that reason. The selection of games that these kids were given really sucks if you're going for mainstream appeal. I like pong for its nostalgia and historical siginificance, but damn, even I would get bored of it after a few minutes. Donkey I still play on my standup MAME arcade, but for similar reasons. Space Invaders surprised me, I would think kids would recognize this as the precursor to every space game ever played, but whatever. E.T.? Welcome to your first bad acid trip, kiddies.
--trb
There are more than a few problems with comparing books/CDs/games, but here are a few...
1) People like convenience. Pick it up, put it down, easy access, portable. CDs and books qualify under all of these, games decidedly don't.
2) People have such differing social desires at different times. I may want to play a single player game now, a MUD/Massively Multiplayer game later, then finish off with some PvP Starcraft with my roommate. Music and movies offer this kind of multilateral socialism, a single game usually doesn't.
3) Access...let's face it, computers are still pricey and not widely available. A CD (as outrageously priced as they are) is less than half of a new game, not including the monthly subscription that comes with many commercial MMORPGs. A book is similar. Both have user interfaces that an 8 year old can figure out on his first attempt. Computers aren't like that.
It's an unfair comparison. Though, I will say, I played the Sims Online for about 3 months and thought that with a few tweaks it would be the closest thing we had to a universally accepted game. It drew it guys, girls, kids, adults, seniors. Something for everyone, from decorating to competition to sociallizing. It just got old eventually, and I'm not sure I could suggest what they needed to add.
MMORPGs are more problematic because developers inherently want a theme and a role for the character to play, but in doing so they alienate a good portion of the population.
--trb