Music they pay the artists a pittance, in some cases nothing at all, games cost nearly 100 MILLION a game for a triple A rated title...do you HONESTLY think they are gonna put you on the "honor system' for a 100 million dollar plus product and the entire company on the line? BTW you brought up music...has music piracy gone down since they switched to MP3? Not really, their numbers fall every year...you think the game companies are gonna trust you to be nice and pay them?
Piracy will always exist. A smart company will accept that anti-piracy measures are often too draconian and discourage loyalty if it causes issues. Particularly since almost all games DRM is cracked anyway (Steam has been cracked for ages), and it's trivial to fix nowadays, there's even YouTube videos on the stuff. Given how easy it is to bypass DRM (as least until cloud-streaming stuff like OnLive becomes mainstream), why worry about piracy? It'll happen anyway, so it's better to foster loyalty and keep customers happy rather than foster them with DRM shit.
GOG.com's main selling point is the lack of DRM, and they're getting more and more modern games all the time. Alan Wake, ARMA 2, the Witcher series, there's games aren't particularly old and they're not trash either. Don't know how much they cost to make but likely they weren't cheap.
Either you accept the rules or you don't get the product, its THAT simple. Now seeing as Valve has made PC gaming on windows frankly one of the cheapest entertainment platforms on the planet, free patches, matchmaking, full support that responds quickly to problems, well I think they have EVERY right to insure they aren't ripped off like the games you see on TPB.
But it's INEFFECTIVE. There's no net gain for anyone to use the DRM. That's the issue I have with it. The games will be pirated anyway.
But you do seem like a reasonable person, but sadly your beliefs are held by too many of the devs, which is why Linux on Steam will fail. I think too many of the FOSS camp live their lives by the "is ought" fallacy in that they have decided how the world OUGHT to be and refuse to see how it IS, and how it is is this, Steam is the ONLY company that have doubled their profits every year for the last 7 years, while companies like EA and Activision are on the auction block.....why do you think that is? i'll tell you, because you have to buy from Valve if you want to play on Steam with full functionality, hell more and more retail games I'm seeing are just Steam games in a box.
Someone said that Steam isn't a monopoly and instead are a market leader. But like you said, most PC games sold as retail items end up requiring Steam anyway. So Steam becomes the focal point for almost all PC games anyway, and if you don't feel comfortable in marrying all your gaming to Steam then it sucks as there are few options (apart from GOG.com and a few other places, mostly the developer sites themselves).
So I'm sorry but sadly your beliefs will win, to the detriment of Linux and the community. Linux will never have the triple A titles, won't ever get photoshop or Quickbooks or any of the other software people buy Windows for, thus insuring that MSFT can put out a turkey every other release and still make enough sales to do as they please. Like it or not the world will NEVER switch to a GPL model, you've had over 30 years of the GPL now and things haven't changed, over 20 years of Linux and yet not a single box in any store, because its the politics and beliefs such as yours that will insure that non GPL software never runs on Linux, thus making sure Apple and MSFT will own the desktop and from the looks of things mobile too, especially if MSFT has full DirectX support on their tablets.
I know what you're trying to say. That I should give a bit and get a bit (accept a bit of DRM and get a shitload of games). That's fine for most people, I'm just not wired lik
The technical merits of Linux are a bit tricky for me. Whenever I'm using one of the latest Linux distros they often have the feeling of using old tech that hasn't caught up with what the rest of the proprietary operating system market has been using for a few years.
An example - if the graphics driver shits itself in Vista/7 (and presumably 8), the display will disappear for a couple of seconds and the desktop will reappear with a message stating what happened. All your programs will still be running (bar the game/app that actually crash the graphics subsystem), and nothing really has been lost. If this happens in X, the whole server dies, taking everything with it.
Hibernation and suspend are a mixed bag with Linux as well. In Windows 7/OS X these work, nothing more to be said - in Ubuntu 12.04 I had to find a hack to re-enable Hibernation because Canonical disables it by default in 12.04, since they have so very little faith in Linux's ability to restore from hibernation. And this is suppose to be a sign that Linux is ready for the desktop/laptop?
There are a multitude of other little things that piss me off about Linux distros. No doubt a Linux guru would be pissed off for a multitude of little things in Windows that I either don't see as an issue, or have fixed/worked-around years ago. But hey, Linux has still failed to prove itself on the desktop and so listening to those angry Linux users about problems with Windows kinda falls on deaf ears after a while.
This is what annoys me the most about Steam. Try as I might I just cannot seem to mentally accept purchasing a whole lot of games tied to a single point of failure who's existence and functionality is basically out of my control.
I often want to go back to being ignorant of open platforms and DRM because honestly, it was nicer not being aware of the long-term issues of DRM so long as it worked in the short-term (which it generally does). But I can't, and I can't seem to just accept it as a necessity when frankly it doesn't have to be.
But just because I won't deal with Steam due to its DRM doesn't mean I don't want to see it thrive on Linux. There are side benefits to having it available on Linux which benefit everyone including people like me who only play games with traditionally launched binaries. I don't want to ruin people's fun.:)
Hairy, you're painting too broad a brush on some of us.
I have no problem running proprietary software in Linux. I do have a problem with DRM, since it means I no longer have full control over my ability to run things how I want without interference from the vendor (or a connection to the vendor's servers, or the existence of the vendor in the future in order to continue using said software). So I try to avoid buying anything with DRM. This is hardly an unreasonable position to be in I think, given how one-sided software licenses are these days.
My fear is that if Steam in Linux is successful, people will become accepting on account-based DRM (which is what Steam is of course). They'll be invariably tied into Valve's ecosystem and that increased dependency seems dangerous for long-term security. If you could run everything on Steam without Steam, if Steam was merely a purchasing UI and launcher (but not authenticator) then it'd be great.
So if people are used to having the vendor define all the rules instead of the customer who's basically perpetually-renting access to all the games, this make it normal, accepted. Everyone then starts doing this, we dry up the marked for DRM-free games, and then we've lost what little power as consumers we once had. Not a great direction to be going in I think.
But once again, this doesn't seem unreasonable. Music no longer has DRM (in most places anyway), it's just gaming that people are sufficiently addicted to that means it can still be accepted even in Steam form. But proprietary? Don't really give a shit to be honest.
Tablets have ruined the computing environment. If it weren't for tablets we wouldn't have the clusterfuck of desktop UIs that are being pushed on us (Metro/Modern in Windows 8, Unity and GNOME 3 in Linux). I like my desktop interface, particularly the one used in Windows 7 - I hope it lives forever as I'm getting to the point in my life where the less things change, the happier I am. But it seems like something as sacred as a traditional desktop UI is an endangered species now.
Whenever I travel, I use a netbook. They're cheap (often cheaper than a tablet) but still have the power to run a full desktop OS like Windows 7, or Linux if it's your fancy. Plus it's not locked down like a lot of tablets are becoming - we're heading into a future of computing where things are non-upgradable and closed, and when I see even DRM-locked app stores like Steam being accepted by traditional Linux users simply because they're gaming addicts and MUST have games and would prefer giving up control over the stuff they buy just for some shooter, then it's clear we've failed.
We've hit the peak. I'm ready to become a grumpy old man at this point. Fuck the world.
What do you expect Microsoft to do? They have to compete with Apple on their own turf, and there's a significant ecosystem around Windows as well as a massive developer base they can leverage which might end up working in their favor.
Despite everything that Slashdotters have bashed Microsoft for doing, they're still doing alright and I'm hesitant to believe they've totally screwed up yet. The last time they screwed up was with Vista, and everyone thought this was the end, Microsoft was finished, Linux would rule. Then Windows 7 came out and to many people (including myself) it was everything I've ever wanted in an OS. I doubt Microsoft are going to allow themselves to suicide and will make whatever changes are necessary to stick around.
How is this modded Score: 5? No-one uses the Yahoo search engine anymore, but you can bet there are tons of users of Yahoo email, Delicious, Flickr, and so on.
Geeks should know better than to throw out statements just for karma.
It's needless bashing of the competition from CEOs (not just Apple, Microsoft and a shit-ton of other tech companies are guilty as well) that gives me such a headache. It does nothing but rile up the fanboys and push out crap "stories" for the media to get giddy over.
Seems like everyone is trying to out-do each other in terms of being negative, and it's very off-putting. Plus it's dangerous - you might find yourself trying to sell something later which is curiously familiar to the very thing you bashed in the past.
A quality post. One of the reasons Slashdot, for all it's flaws and ills, is still one of the few places on the Internet where I can find intelligent and thoughtful discussions. Though reading at a 4/5 threshold certainly helps.
You're assuming of course that the Q aren't just letting the puny humans think they're out-smarting them. Perhaps Q is more interested in how the humans solve problems and deal with situations and prefer to appear on the back foot sometimes, even though they know they could easily counter whatever's thrown at them.
Either that or it's a plot hole. But hey, John de Lancie's fun to watch.:)
but sounds perfect for travel or catching up on email on the train on the way to work. (the keyboard makes it more convenient than a tablet for replying to emalis)
So why not get a netbook? I bought an Acer Aspire One late last year for use on an overseas trip. Light, cheap, great battery life and could work anywhere without being dependent on net access. The only downside was that it's kinda slow and sluggish, but again, it's cheap and it suits its purpose. Cheap is good - if it goes missing then it's less painful than losing an iPad for example. I have an inherent distrust with the cloud which is why I'm not really willing to go with a Chromebook even for travel purposes, when netbooks already exist and fit that niche quite well.
Nobody gives a shit because the FSF aren't seen as particularly revelant anymore. The young and upcoming geeks of the world are more interested in iOS rather than Linux because it's cooler despite being far more closed, and what few geeks who are genuinely interested in Linux are getting tired with the FSF and their advocacy appropaches, which are often themselves full of FUD and can be debunked quite easily (I'm reminded of the failed Windows7sins campaign that did absolutely nothing of value and was full of blatant lies). Not to mention Richard Stallman, who even with some good ideas (a lot of good ideas), is more interested in telling people about what they should not being doing, rather than giving them realistic alternatives (oh, you shouldn't be using that propritary piece of software - but I need it for work! So what, quit your job then).
No-one sane cares much about the FSF. Unless they realize that they've lost relevance and their image is rubbish then they won't be able to restore some sense of respect with the greater community.
Funny you say that; the MythBusters did in fact do a test on the idea you can blow up a propane tank with a gun. Turns out, you can't... not easily anyway. From memory it took incendiary rounds and a fucking minigun (cos you know, you can get those at any corner story) before they got something resembling an explosion.
There's no reason to believe that you need something like a steam:// handler to launch via shortcut. Surely Steam can be coded such that shortcuts instead point to the Steam executable with a parameter to the relevant game ID (e.g. C:\Steam\Steam.exe -launch 9520). This would bypass the issue of abuse at least partially.
The purpose for the handler is only because Steam is part browser, and so launching stuff within Steam is made easier via the handler. But for shortcuts? Shouldn't be necessary.
Heh, look I was joking after all. I'm actually anti-Steam (in its current form) due to the DRM... it's more of a reflection of the fact that if it weren't for the Steam keys that you get with the Humble Bundles, they probably wouldn't be raking in quite so much cash as they do.
Indeed, and that's one of the issues I have with Steam. So many PC games nowadays require Steam. If I want to play Dishonored for example, I have no choice but to use Steam as it uses Steamworks. You can't get a non-DRM standalone version in case you don't wish to lock yourself into Valve's platform and have the ability to play your games tied into the validity of an account. But so many people do it, and they do it because they don't think Valve can die or get any worse. Unfortunately it's this level of confidence makes it almost impossible to play newer games without Steam, since everyone seems to have succumbed to its sweet addictive nature.
People dont use linux because it sucks, it lacks what windows can do, you cant play good games on it and no one supports it.
How many times does it need to be explained to you people?
Computers are used because they can perform the tasks that people want done. Whether it's something trivial like gaming, or something important like a tax return. If an operating system doesn't do what people want it to do, then it SUCKS. It sucks because it doesn't do what most people want from it. That's why we use computers - operating systems should be about the end, not the journey.
Thats the point; its a job. But unlike ones job in the real world, in your fantasy job you can actually feel important!
But it does expose some interesting psychological aspects about life - there's no rule or law which states that effort expended into something will, overtime, reap rewards. You can work hard at your job, do good work and yet remain unrecognized with either social approval (i.e. "good work mate!") or a pay increase. Yet games are designed specifically to dole out little packages of dopamine every so often because that's what people expect, but rarely get in real life - the idea that work hard and achieve a goal at something will provide you with rewards. You complete a game goal, you get gold or a weapon or some skill points to improve your character. Such immediate benefits are not often visible in the real world, and so it's no wonder why some people don't mind treating gaming as a second job.
And that is a real pity - when the virtual world is more desirable than the real world. "Fuck the red pill, I'd rather take the blue and stay in wonderland given what reality is actually like".
I thought I was the only one who noticed that (Psychonauts being a publisher-backed game on an indie bundle). Not that I was complaining since it was DRM-free and ported to Linux. In fact, I'd actually be quite happy if we had more big titles from publishers appear on the Humble Indie Bundles. You'd have to rename the title though, but imagine Deus Ex - Human Revolution appearing as a Steam-free DRM-free download with a Linux version as well...
But wait... Joe-the-plumber wouldn't even be aware of Diaspora, much less have any need to use anything other than Facebook. Think we're getting our audiences mixed up there - this would be strictly for nerds.
Slashdot Mirror
Piracy will always exist. A smart company will accept that anti-piracy measures are often too draconian and discourage loyalty if it causes issues. Particularly since almost all games DRM is cracked anyway (Steam has been cracked for ages), and it's trivial to fix nowadays, there's even YouTube videos on the stuff. Given how easy it is to bypass DRM (as least until cloud-streaming stuff like OnLive becomes mainstream), why worry about piracy? It'll happen anyway, so it's better to foster loyalty and keep customers happy rather than foster them with DRM shit.
GOG.com's main selling point is the lack of DRM, and they're getting more and more modern games all the time. Alan Wake, ARMA 2, the Witcher series, there's games aren't particularly old and they're not trash either. Don't know how much they cost to make but likely they weren't cheap.
But it's INEFFECTIVE. There's no net gain for anyone to use the DRM. That's the issue I have with it. The games will be pirated anyway.
Someone said that Steam isn't a monopoly and instead are a market leader. But like you said, most PC games sold as retail items end up requiring Steam anyway. So Steam becomes the focal point for almost all PC games anyway, and if you don't feel comfortable in marrying all your gaming to Steam then it sucks as there are few options (apart from GOG.com and a few other places, mostly the developer sites themselves).
I know what you're trying to say. That I should give a bit and get a bit (accept a bit of DRM and get a shitload of games). That's fine for most people, I'm just not wired lik
The technical merits of Linux are a bit tricky for me. Whenever I'm using one of the latest Linux distros they often have the feeling of using old tech that hasn't caught up with what the rest of the proprietary operating system market has been using for a few years.
An example - if the graphics driver shits itself in Vista/7 (and presumably 8), the display will disappear for a couple of seconds and the desktop will reappear with a message stating what happened. All your programs will still be running (bar the game/app that actually crash the graphics subsystem), and nothing really has been lost. If this happens in X, the whole server dies, taking everything with it.
Hibernation and suspend are a mixed bag with Linux as well. In Windows 7/OS X these work, nothing more to be said - in Ubuntu 12.04 I had to find a hack to re-enable Hibernation because Canonical disables it by default in 12.04, since they have so very little faith in Linux's ability to restore from hibernation. And this is suppose to be a sign that Linux is ready for the desktop/laptop?
There are a multitude of other little things that piss me off about Linux distros. No doubt a Linux guru would be pissed off for a multitude of little things in Windows that I either don't see as an issue, or have fixed/worked-around years ago. But hey, Linux has still failed to prove itself on the desktop and so listening to those angry Linux users about problems with Windows kinda falls on deaf ears after a while.
This is what annoys me the most about Steam. Try as I might I just cannot seem to mentally accept purchasing a whole lot of games tied to a single point of failure who's existence and functionality is basically out of my control.
I often want to go back to being ignorant of open platforms and DRM because honestly, it was nicer not being aware of the long-term issues of DRM so long as it worked in the short-term (which it generally does). But I can't, and I can't seem to just accept it as a necessity when frankly it doesn't have to be.
But just because I won't deal with Steam due to its DRM doesn't mean I don't want to see it thrive on Linux. There are side benefits to having it available on Linux which benefit everyone including people like me who only play games with traditionally launched binaries. I don't want to ruin people's fun. :)
Hairy, you're painting too broad a brush on some of us.
I have no problem running proprietary software in Linux. I do have a problem with DRM, since it means I no longer have full control over my ability to run things how I want without interference from the vendor (or a connection to the vendor's servers, or the existence of the vendor in the future in order to continue using said software). So I try to avoid buying anything with DRM. This is hardly an unreasonable position to be in I think, given how one-sided software licenses are these days.
My fear is that if Steam in Linux is successful, people will become accepting on account-based DRM (which is what Steam is of course). They'll be invariably tied into Valve's ecosystem and that increased dependency seems dangerous for long-term security. If you could run everything on Steam without Steam, if Steam was merely a purchasing UI and launcher (but not authenticator) then it'd be great.
So if people are used to having the vendor define all the rules instead of the customer who's basically perpetually-renting access to all the games, this make it normal, accepted. Everyone then starts doing this, we dry up the marked for DRM-free games, and then we've lost what little power as consumers we once had. Not a great direction to be going in I think.
But once again, this doesn't seem unreasonable. Music no longer has DRM (in most places anyway), it's just gaming that people are sufficiently addicted to that means it can still be accepted even in Steam form. But proprietary? Don't really give a shit to be honest.
Tablets have ruined the computing environment. If it weren't for tablets we wouldn't have the clusterfuck of desktop UIs that are being pushed on us (Metro/Modern in Windows 8, Unity and GNOME 3 in Linux). I like my desktop interface, particularly the one used in Windows 7 - I hope it lives forever as I'm getting to the point in my life where the less things change, the happier I am. But it seems like something as sacred as a traditional desktop UI is an endangered species now.
Whenever I travel, I use a netbook. They're cheap (often cheaper than a tablet) but still have the power to run a full desktop OS like Windows 7, or Linux if it's your fancy. Plus it's not locked down like a lot of tablets are becoming - we're heading into a future of computing where things are non-upgradable and closed, and when I see even DRM-locked app stores like Steam being accepted by traditional Linux users simply because they're gaming addicts and MUST have games and would prefer giving up control over the stuff they buy just for some shooter, then it's clear we've failed.
We've hit the peak. I'm ready to become a grumpy old man at this point. Fuck the world.
What do you expect Microsoft to do? They have to compete with Apple on their own turf, and there's a significant ecosystem around Windows as well as a massive developer base they can leverage which might end up working in their favor.
Despite everything that Slashdotters have bashed Microsoft for doing, they're still doing alright and I'm hesitant to believe they've totally screwed up yet. The last time they screwed up was with Vista, and everyone thought this was the end, Microsoft was finished, Linux would rule. Then Windows 7 came out and to many people (including myself) it was everything I've ever wanted in an OS. I doubt Microsoft are going to allow themselves to suicide and will make whatever changes are necessary to stick around.
How is this modded Score: 5? No-one uses the Yahoo search engine anymore, but you can bet there are tons of users of Yahoo email, Delicious, Flickr, and so on.
Geeks should know better than to throw out statements just for karma.
It's needless bashing of the competition from CEOs (not just Apple, Microsoft and a shit-ton of other tech companies are guilty as well) that gives me such a headache. It does nothing but rile up the fanboys and push out crap "stories" for the media to get giddy over.
Seems like everyone is trying to out-do each other in terms of being negative, and it's very off-putting. Plus it's dangerous - you might find yourself trying to sell something later which is curiously familiar to the very thing you bashed in the past.
A quality post. One of the reasons Slashdot, for all it's flaws and ills, is still one of the few places on the Internet where I can find intelligent and thoughtful discussions. Though reading at a 4/5 threshold certainly helps.
"In the Pale Moonlight" was a great episode.
You're assuming of course that the Q aren't just letting the puny humans think they're out-smarting them. Perhaps Q is more interested in how the humans solve problems and deal with situations and prefer to appear on the back foot sometimes, even though they know they could easily counter whatever's thrown at them.
Either that or it's a plot hole. But hey, John de Lancie's fun to watch. :)
You avoided episodes with Q? Those were often the best ones!
So why not get a netbook? I bought an Acer Aspire One late last year for use on an overseas trip. Light, cheap, great battery life and could work anywhere without being dependent on net access. The only downside was that it's kinda slow and sluggish, but again, it's cheap and it suits its purpose. Cheap is good - if it goes missing then it's less painful than losing an iPad for example. I have an inherent distrust with the cloud which is why I'm not really willing to go with a Chromebook even for travel purposes, when netbooks already exist and fit that niche quite well.
Nobody gives a shit because the FSF aren't seen as particularly revelant anymore. The young and upcoming geeks of the world are more interested in iOS rather than Linux because it's cooler despite being far more closed, and what few geeks who are genuinely interested in Linux are getting tired with the FSF and their advocacy appropaches, which are often themselves full of FUD and can be debunked quite easily (I'm reminded of the failed Windows7sins campaign that did absolutely nothing of value and was full of blatant lies). Not to mention Richard Stallman, who even with some good ideas (a lot of good ideas), is more interested in telling people about what they should not being doing, rather than giving them realistic alternatives (oh, you shouldn't be using that propritary piece of software - but I need it for work! So what, quit your job then).
No-one sane cares much about the FSF. Unless they realize that they've lost relevance and their image is rubbish then they won't be able to restore some sense of respect with the greater community.
Funny you say that; the MythBusters did in fact do a test on the idea you can blow up a propane tank with a gun. Turns out, you can't... not easily anyway. From memory it took incendiary rounds and a fucking minigun (cos you know, you can get those at any corner story) before they got something resembling an explosion.
There's no reason to believe that you need something like a steam:// handler to launch via shortcut. Surely Steam can be coded such that shortcuts instead point to the Steam executable with a parameter to the relevant game ID (e.g. C:\Steam\Steam.exe -launch 9520). This would bypass the issue of abuse at least partially.
The purpose for the handler is only because Steam is part browser, and so launching stuff within Steam is made easier via the handler. But for shortcuts? Shouldn't be necessary.
Heh, look I was joking after all. I'm actually anti-Steam (in its current form) due to the DRM... it's more of a reflection of the fact that if it weren't for the Steam keys that you get with the Humble Bundles, they probably wouldn't be raking in quite so much cash as they do.
So... do they provide Steam keys? How do they expect to get $1M without them?
Indeed, and that's one of the issues I have with Steam. So many PC games nowadays require Steam. If I want to play Dishonored for example, I have no choice but to use Steam as it uses Steamworks. You can't get a non-DRM standalone version in case you don't wish to lock yourself into Valve's platform and have the ability to play your games tied into the validity of an account. But so many people do it, and they do it because they don't think Valve can die or get any worse. Unfortunately it's this level of confidence makes it almost impossible to play newer games without Steam, since everyone seems to have succumbed to its sweet addictive nature.
It's hard to have a minority opinion sometimes.
How many times does it need to be explained to you people?
Computers are used because they can perform the tasks that people want done. Whether it's something trivial like gaming, or something important like a tax return. If an operating system doesn't do what people want it to do, then it SUCKS. It sucks because it doesn't do what most people want from it. That's why we use computers - operating systems should be about the end, not the journey.
But it does expose some interesting psychological aspects about life - there's no rule or law which states that effort expended into something will, overtime, reap rewards. You can work hard at your job, do good work and yet remain unrecognized with either social approval (i.e. "good work mate!") or a pay increase. Yet games are designed specifically to dole out little packages of dopamine every so often because that's what people expect, but rarely get in real life - the idea that work hard and achieve a goal at something will provide you with rewards. You complete a game goal, you get gold or a weapon or some skill points to improve your character. Such immediate benefits are not often visible in the real world, and so it's no wonder why some people don't mind treating gaming as a second job.
And that is a real pity - when the virtual world is more desirable than the real world. "Fuck the red pill, I'd rather take the blue and stay in wonderland given what reality is actually like".
I thought I was the only one who noticed that (Psychonauts being a publisher-backed game on an indie bundle). Not that I was complaining since it was DRM-free and ported to Linux. In fact, I'd actually be quite happy if we had more big titles from publishers appear on the Humble Indie Bundles. You'd have to rename the title though, but imagine Deus Ex - Human Revolution appearing as a Steam-free DRM-free download with a Linux version as well...
Really? You're a Slashdotter and haven't glanced at or read at least one other Diaspora story here?
That's like me asking for clarification on what BitCoins are. Some things you should just KNOW by now. :)
But wait... Joe-the-plumber wouldn't even be aware of Diaspora, much less have any need to use anything other than Facebook. Think we're getting our audiences mixed up there - this would be strictly for nerds.
Thanks for that. Seems to explain a lot and rid me of my ignorance.
Thought somehow I got modded to (Score:5, Insightful) in the space of around 10 minutes so I can't complain either way. :)