It *is* about Big Brother watching you, when the agents of the government can monitor the citizenry with impunity and charge crimes based on movements. This case is a sign that Big Brother is still struggling for power -- in other words, there's still integrity in the citizen/government relationship.
"I'm fine with that, as long as there's a setting to control whether or not to honor the flag."
If you don't honor that flag, you night as well be burnin' it, and mister, that's just unamerican.
How many adwriters fought and died for that flag? Who will tell the sons and daughters of this great nation the heroic stories of our pop-up heritage? Will the anthems still ring across the wiggling fields of flash and the home of the blink? WHY DO YOU HATE AMERICA, SIR?
Call me strange, but I really liked the little scenes in Mrs. Mac Man between levels. Pac runs this way, ghosts run that... just little sprites zipping in straight lines, but there was a sense of pursuit, danger, and wily cleverness to them.
I started programming on my C64 when I was seven years old. Commodore Magazine had reams of printed code to type in every month, and I was fascinated to learn how it all hung together to make a working program.
In high school, I noticed a BASIC programming class offered, and I took it knowing I was in for an easy A. (I was a bored D student with an A+ brain, so that class appealed to me.) The first program was the usual HELLO WORLD deal with a few extras thrown in for interest. I coded it in the way I'd learned how. It was fast and easy.
The next day, I found my printed program hanging up on the door with the words "NEVER DO THIS" in red ink blazing at the top. I brought it to my teacher and demanded an explanation. The code worked, it ran, it gave the desired output. What gave?
Turns out the class was in *Structured* BASIC, which I'd never encountered before.
My Teacher, Mister Maier, told me that it was obvious that I knew what I was doing with BASIC programming concepts, but learning how to structure my code wouldn't be significant work for me. I was already learning PASCAL and other structured languages anyway; it was easy to apply those ideas to BASIC, which I'd always thought of in terms of line numbers and GOTOs.
Mr Maier offered to make me his aide: I wouldn't have to do all the boring programs and I would have unfettered access to the computer lab. In return, I would help him in class by assisting students debug their code and get ideas about how to tackle problems.
His was a brilliant solution. He elevated the challenge level of the class to meet my skills. He showed insight and trust in *me*, which was something teachers didn't generally feel inspired to do around me previously. He gave me the opportunity to TEACH, and that kept my investment in the class surprisingly high. Suddenly my expertise in this esoteric arena began to pay off.
Because of that, I became more invested in my own formal education, my confidence skyrocketed, I went on to college (which surprised everyone), graduated with honors, and pursued a Masters in Education.
Mr Maier literally changed my life, and I have spaghetti coding practices to thank for opening that door.
Microsoft will adopt the a scheme of releasing incremental versions once a year like clockwork, starting with Windows 7 in 2009, Windows 8 in 2010, as so on.
Finally, in 2097, Microsoft will re-release vintage Windows 95 as the OS of choice for ancient computers dug from the rubble of the post-apocalyptic nightmare world.
Never let it be said that Microsoft doesn't have its corporate eye on the future.
Lever back on the testosterone, pal. If the movie Aliens taught us anything, it's that sheer rough-n-ready manpower is not always the answer.
Marines cost to feed and shelter. They take up space that could otherwise be used for crew and cargo. They cost to train. They want to be paid all the time they're on guard. They're not easily replicated or rapidly distributed for a high-demand world. And they're still fragile meatsacks, whatever their will to fight might be.
It makes sense to layer technological solutions onto the manpower ones.
Put that way, you've got a sensible argument. Profit was made, sure.
The market isn't locked into a 150% rate of return, though. Some movies boast much better numbers, returning multiple hundreds or thousands of percent back in profits. As a producer/investor, THOSE are the movies I want to own a piece of. Bang for buck.
So it's not a question of "did I make a profit." The question is, "Where can I invest to make the most profit possible."
If my friend and I each invest $100 into separate movies, and he gets back $200 versus my $125, it's obvious somebody made a better deal, and I want to know why my deal didn't stand up to his. That's the nature of the debate here.
Vladimir Propp, Russian folklorist, had a lot to say in this regard. He systemically broke down Russian folklore into fundamental narratemes that were shuffled, combined, and retold over and over. One might think from his work that all the stories that can be told have been told to one degree or another. People use this as some sort of mathematical proof that there's nothing new under the sun.
Personally, I think it's bunk: mental dross for the unimaginative.
A similar argument can be made about a finite deck of cards and playing poker. There are only so many combinations to go around. Yet a good game can be worth playing now and again.
And don't even get me started and that boring old periodic table. And hey! DNA only contains *4* molecular components! Talk about a shallow pool of possibilities! Why keep reproducing? It's all been done before...
You're giving up too soon, old man. Take comfort in the unplumbed depths of Nature Vs. Self, Nature vs. Tragedy, Nature vs. Comedy... Some of the new Self Vs. Comedy work is really quite sublime.
And you can broaden the scope of stories even more if you use permutations instead of combinations! Why, that's at *least* 6000 more years of storytelling right there!
(Shilling a bit here. I am not affiliated, I just love the company.)
Good Old Games (gog.com) provides excellent games on the long tail, completely DRM free. Buy it, it's yours. Plus you'll typically get extras like the soundtrack, the manual in PDF, desktop backgrounds, and add-ons.
It's a great system. I hope more businesses adopt it.
I appreciate how time mitigates the risk factor too. For fifty bucks, I know I'm paying to cover the marketing push of the company that made the Shiny New Game, but I don't know that I'm paying for a game that's worth it.
After a few months -- or even years -- the true value of the game will come through, and marketing will no longer be a factor. The game will have shown that it had the chops or not, and price will probably be much lower. I risk less cash for a better proven experience.
Gaming on the Long Tail makes a lot of sense. Digital distribution makes long tail gaming easy and cheap.
PLUG: I started the Long Tail Gamer videocast of favorite games with just this philosophy in mind. See my sig. (Ur-Quan Masters was my first review a few weeks ago. The next will be out shortly.)
Okay, so if the government wages "the war on privacy" by using invasive techniques, and is justified in doing so by saying "we're at war," then there's obviously no privacy, right?
So can we say they've won the war on privacy, declare the war over, and thereby rescind the powers it used to wage such a war?
Admittedly the Terms of Service make it pretty clear that you can lose your account for certain behaviors.
They should still let the guy keep the books he paid for, though. Regardless of future behaviors, they were happy enough to take his money and give him something in return for it in the past.
Subscription-based models and DRM both make this kind of retro-dickery possible. That's why GP has a point.
I wouldn't be surprised if a condition of attendance of the school would be to sign papers to the effect of, "You walk the campus at our sufferance, and you agree that we can seize your property if we want to in the course of investigations done under the edict of our own authority."
Standard Operating Procedure these days. Your school is paranoid of you, and you can't take classes until you justify their application of that paranoia.
"Ok, this comment comes up every. single. time. Can we please put it to rest?"
As long as the OMG BOYCOTT ZING crowd keeps up their end of the conversation, the STFU ITS LEGAL crowd will keep up theirs.
Thanks for holding up your end too: the "oh god this argument is so old" part. Now that I've played my part as well, I expect the Godwin response to follow soon.
I can't even get my apartment building to leave out the recycling bins they got from the city. I'm already loading down my car with cardboard and paper materials to drive to the city's always-crammed recycle dumps ten miles away.
Now I have to make another stop somewhere else to get rid of goddamn poison light bulbs?
Fuck it. I'm burning enough gas just driving my trash around to negate any recycling or low-energy effects. Penny-wise and pound foolish, I say. I'm going back to incandescent and tipping the CFEs in the bin.
I never actually *knew* that these bulbs were hazardous.
I guess it's a good thing that I haven't had any burn out, but come ON: it strikes me as stupid to trade off a few cents a month on my electric bill for a freaking VAPOROUS TOXIN in my home.
Wasn't this somehow about protecting the environment? Why am I getting fucked in exciting new ways with so-called enviro-friendly technologies?
Yeah, because piracy is the hallmark ad campaign of the 21st century. And it's free! YAY PIRATES.
Nice try, guy. I've never had a pirate pitch a product to me that I didn't already own through monetary exchange elsewhere.
I have plenty of NO-CD cracks, etc, sure. I hunted those down for my convenience to preserve the media I'd already purchased, not for dubious "try-before-you-buy" practices. There's usually a "if you like it, buy it" disclaimer in there somewhere, but to me those always seem flat, half-assed dodges toward looking like something approaching respectability.
Software pirates are not team players in the market, dude. Practically by definition.
I don't *want* to work my ass off in a game for another 20 years before I can get decent jobs, buy a house, start a business, etc. I invested that energy elsewhere: my actual life.
My life is fun and challenging, and I love it. But, I do sometimes want to escape into a fantasy where, right off the bat, I'm fraking awesome and I can go to town.
Slashdot Mirror
What, Big Brother can't be sloppy now and again?
It *is* about Big Brother watching you, when the agents of the government can monitor the citizenry with impunity and charge crimes based on movements. This case is a sign that Big Brother is still struggling for power -- in other words, there's still integrity in the citizen/government relationship.
"I'm fine with that, as long as there's a setting to control whether or not to honor the flag."
If you don't honor that flag, you night as well be burnin' it, and mister, that's just unamerican.
How many adwriters fought and died for that flag? Who will tell the sons and daughters of this great nation the heroic stories of our pop-up heritage? Will the anthems still ring across the wiggling fields of flash and the home of the blink? WHY DO YOU HATE AMERICA, SIR?
Call me strange, but I really liked the little scenes in Mrs. Mac Man between levels. Pac runs this way, ghosts run that ... just little sprites zipping in straight lines, but there was a sense of pursuit, danger, and wily cleverness to them.
Plus it was a nice breather after a hectic level.
I started programming on my C64 when I was seven years old. Commodore Magazine had reams of printed code to type in every month, and I was fascinated to learn how it all hung together to make a working program.
In high school, I noticed a BASIC programming class offered, and I took it knowing I was in for an easy A. (I was a bored D student with an A+ brain, so that class appealed to me.) The first program was the usual HELLO WORLD deal with a few extras thrown in for interest. I coded it in the way I'd learned how. It was fast and easy.
The next day, I found my printed program hanging up on the door with the words "NEVER DO THIS" in red ink blazing at the top. I brought it to my teacher and demanded an explanation. The code worked, it ran, it gave the desired output. What gave?
Turns out the class was in *Structured* BASIC, which I'd never encountered before.
My Teacher, Mister Maier, told me that it was obvious that I knew what I was doing with BASIC programming concepts, but learning how to structure my code wouldn't be significant work for me. I was already learning PASCAL and other structured languages anyway; it was easy to apply those ideas to BASIC, which I'd always thought of in terms of line numbers and GOTOs.
Mr Maier offered to make me his aide: I wouldn't have to do all the boring programs and I would have unfettered access to the computer lab. In return, I would help him in class by assisting students debug their code and get ideas about how to tackle problems.
His was a brilliant solution. He elevated the challenge level of the class to meet my skills. He showed insight and trust in *me*, which was something teachers didn't generally feel inspired to do around me previously. He gave me the opportunity to TEACH, and that kept my investment in the class surprisingly high. Suddenly my expertise in this esoteric arena began to pay off.
Because of that, I became more invested in my own formal education, my confidence skyrocketed, I went on to college (which surprised everyone), graduated with honors, and pursued a Masters in Education.
Mr Maier literally changed my life, and I have spaghetti coding practices to thank for opening that door.
That, and a damn fine teacher.
Microsoft will adopt the a scheme of releasing incremental versions once a year like clockwork, starting with Windows 7 in 2009, Windows 8 in 2010, as so on.
Finally, in 2097, Microsoft will re-release vintage Windows 95 as the OS of choice for ancient computers dug from the rubble of the post-apocalyptic nightmare world.
Never let it be said that Microsoft doesn't have its corporate eye on the future.
Lever back on the testosterone, pal. If the movie Aliens taught us anything, it's that sheer rough-n-ready manpower is not always the answer.
Marines cost to feed and shelter. They take up space that could otherwise be used for crew and cargo. They cost to train. They want to be paid all the time they're on guard. They're not easily replicated or rapidly distributed for a high-demand world. And they're still fragile meatsacks, whatever their will to fight might be.
It makes sense to layer technological solutions onto the manpower ones.
Put that way, you've got a sensible argument. Profit was made, sure.
The market isn't locked into a 150% rate of return, though. Some movies boast much better numbers, returning multiple hundreds or thousands of percent back in profits. As a producer/investor, THOSE are the movies I want to own a piece of. Bang for buck.
So it's not a question of "did I make a profit." The question is, "Where can I invest to make the most profit possible."
If my friend and I each invest $100 into separate movies, and he gets back $200 versus my $125, it's obvious somebody made a better deal, and I want to know why my deal didn't stand up to his. That's the nature of the debate here.
Vladimir Propp, Russian folklorist, had a lot to say in this regard. He systemically broke down Russian folklore into fundamental narratemes that were shuffled, combined, and retold over and over. One might think from his work that all the stories that can be told have been told to one degree or another. People use this as some sort of mathematical proof that there's nothing new under the sun.
Personally, I think it's bunk: mental dross for the unimaginative.
A similar argument can be made about a finite deck of cards and playing poker. There are only so many combinations to go around. Yet a good game can be worth playing now and again.
And don't even get me started and that boring old periodic table. And hey! DNA only contains *4* molecular components! Talk about a shallow pool of possibilities! Why keep reproducing? It's all been done before...
You're giving up too soon, old man. Take comfort in the unplumbed depths of Nature Vs. Self, Nature vs. Tragedy, Nature vs. Comedy ... Some of the new Self Vs. Comedy work is really quite sublime.
And you can broaden the scope of stories even more if you use permutations instead of combinations! Why, that's at *least* 6000 more years of storytelling right there!
(Shilling a bit here. I am not affiliated, I just love the company.)
Good Old Games (gog.com) provides excellent games on the long tail, completely DRM free. Buy it, it's yours. Plus you'll typically get extras like the soundtrack, the manual in PDF, desktop backgrounds, and add-ons.
It's a great system. I hope more businesses adopt it.
I appreciate how time mitigates the risk factor too. For fifty bucks, I know I'm paying to cover the marketing push of the company that made the Shiny New Game, but I don't know that I'm paying for a game that's worth it.
After a few months -- or even years -- the true value of the game will come through, and marketing will no longer be a factor. The game will have shown that it had the chops or not, and price will probably be much lower. I risk less cash for a better proven experience.
Gaming on the Long Tail makes a lot of sense. Digital distribution makes long tail gaming easy and cheap.
PLUG: I started the Long Tail Gamer videocast of favorite games with just this philosophy in mind. See my sig. (Ur-Quan Masters was my first review a few weeks ago. The next will be out shortly.)
Okay, so if the government wages "the war on privacy" by using invasive techniques, and is justified in doing so by saying "we're at war," then there's obviously no privacy, right?
So can we say they've won the war on privacy, declare the war over, and thereby rescind the powers it used to wage such a war?
Whoa. Headspins. Gotta sit down.
Admittedly the Terms of Service make it pretty clear that you can lose your account for certain behaviors.
They should still let the guy keep the books he paid for, though. Regardless of future behaviors, they were happy enough to take his money and give him something in return for it in the past.
Subscription-based models and DRM both make this kind of retro-dickery possible. That's why GP has a point.
That's the most sensible thing I've heard all day.
I wouldn't be surprised if a condition of attendance of the school would be to sign papers to the effect of, "You walk the campus at our sufferance, and you agree that we can seize your property if we want to in the course of investigations done under the edict of our own authority."
Standard Operating Procedure these days. Your school is paranoid of you, and you can't take classes until you justify their application of that paranoia.
They'd hit him with a five dollar wrench over and over until he confessed his encryption crimes.
Unless by "no good" you mean "potentially evil."
Not only do we predict it, we're doing our best to make sure it happens.
So far, we're refreshingly ahead of schedule. We are, however, a bit over budget.
"Ok, this comment comes up every. single. time. Can we please put it to rest?"
As long as the OMG BOYCOTT ZING crowd keeps up their end of the conversation, the STFU ITS LEGAL crowd will keep up theirs.
Thanks for holding up your end too: the "oh god this argument is so old" part. Now that I've played my part as well, I expect the Godwin response to follow soon.
And so the great /. wheel turns once again...
Reconciling "Average user" with "BSD installation" ... *pzzzt* *poing* *fotz* (mushroom cloud erupts from brain)
Sorry, that's out of my league. Do you have a how-to on using a vmware image?
I can't even get my apartment building to leave out the recycling bins they got from the city. I'm already loading down my car with cardboard and paper materials to drive to the city's always-crammed recycle dumps ten miles away.
Now I have to make another stop somewhere else to get rid of goddamn poison light bulbs?
Fuck it. I'm burning enough gas just driving my trash around to negate any recycling or low-energy effects. Penny-wise and pound foolish, I say. I'm going back to incandescent and tipping the CFEs in the bin.
I never actually *knew* that these bulbs were hazardous.
I guess it's a good thing that I haven't had any burn out, but come ON: it strikes me as stupid to trade off a few cents a month on my electric bill for a freaking VAPOROUS TOXIN in my home.
Wasn't this somehow about protecting the environment? Why am I getting fucked in exciting new ways with so-called enviro-friendly technologies?
Yeah, because piracy is the hallmark ad campaign of the 21st century. And it's free! YAY PIRATES.
Nice try, guy. I've never had a pirate pitch a product to me that I didn't already own through monetary exchange elsewhere.
I have plenty of NO-CD cracks, etc, sure. I hunted those down for my convenience to preserve the media I'd already purchased, not for dubious "try-before-you-buy" practices. There's usually a "if you like it, buy it" disclaimer in there somewhere, but to me those always seem flat, half-assed dodges toward looking like something approaching respectability.
Software pirates are not team players in the market, dude. Practically by definition.
"Just like real life."
That's the problem.
I don't *want* to work my ass off in a game for another 20 years before I can get decent jobs, buy a house, start a business, etc. I invested that energy elsewhere: my actual life.
My life is fun and challenging, and I love it. But, I do sometimes want to escape into a fantasy where, right off the bat, I'm fraking awesome and I can go to town.