I interviewed with CSE a few years back. If anyone wants to hear some details about a really invasive background check, I can provide some when I'm not at work:)
The rationale is, they want to know anything and everything you might have in your skeleton closet, so to speak. They also do psychological profiling to see if any of this material could be used as blackmail against you. The unfortunate part is, the interviewing is done by retired RCMP officers, so it's much like a Catholic confession, except to your middle aged father, and you can see the disapproving look on his face at everything you say.
I just found it kinda neat. Most Canadians have no idea that we have anything approaching this level of secret agencies. We just figure the guys on horses in red jackets are about it.
You have supply and demand working in reverse to the real world. So does the music industry.
Just imagine if all retail worked like this (your suggestion). You'd go to a clothing store, and instead of last year's stuff being marked down, it would actually increase in price.
Note that this is pretty much how DVD sales go. Seems to work for them. Video games too. New, popular stuff expensive, older items that don't sell well become cheaper. Eventually it's pennies on the dollar. Why does this work? Because by that time, the manufacturer/retailer has ALREADY MADE THEIR PROFIT. The rest is gravy.
Music is one of the only things that starts cheap, and gets more expensive as time goes on. It's weird, really. They can get away with it because of two factors:
1. Music is one of the only products that people will continue to buy decades after release.
"so I'll rip it off, instead" without any sense whatsover of causality (when it comes to the consequences
A lot of us are fully aware of the consequences. The market will change. The RIAA will no longer rake in billions while talented artists end up actually owing money for a platinum album.
Music won't go away. People made music for centuries before it could be recorded. People will still make music in the future, even if all recorded copies become 100% free (as in beer) and 100% legal to do so. The vast majority of music today doesn't earn the person who wrote or performed it a dime.
Well, either that, or we're going to have to triple the prison population (again).
Re:What I hear form all my non /. friends
on
The Rise of Digg.com
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
So I guess this means that the trolls are doing their thing here on/. (driving people away), and that the common user simply wants to know what's going on in their world. Not to discuss it, or defend their viewpoint against a bunch of Linux hounds, or holyier-than-thou type responses.
You nailed it, in a sort of derogatory way. Allow me to reciprocate (maybe not directly targetted at yourself, but oh well:)
Slashdot, as long as I've known it (6, 7 years?), has always been targetted towards more technical types. More nerdy types (hey, it's in the tagline!). More obsessive types. We're the ones who get addicted to Evercrack. We're the ones who laugh at every obscure Simpsons joke, because we know damn near every line off the top of our heads. We're the ones who compusively try out every new Linux distro, spending hours of time playing with obscure computer minutiae (probably spelled that one wrong!) instead of doing things the rest of the world sees as normal.
It's always been this way. There has always been a very visible pro-Linux, anti-Microsoft slant here. Because overall, that's how the really geeky think. We also think we're smarter than everyone else, and that our viewpoint is the correct one.
THAT IS THE POINT OF SLASHDOT. I've never heard Rob whining that he doesn't get enough of the "common person" checking out his site. Most long-time readers aren't whining about the lack of MCSEs commenting on Linux stories. No one who actually spends any time here can seriously think of this as a general tech news site, aimed at anyone with a slight technical leaning.
I don't think it's so much a matter of trolls driving people away, it's just that most normal people look at Slashdot and realize it's not for them.
If you want to point out that Linux is hard for your Mom, that's one thing. If you're going to complain that you simply aren't interested in learning how your OS works, and that you shouldn't have to edit text files, and that Open Source is useless because not everyone is a coder, then guess what?
This site is not for you.
Apply those sorts of criteria to virtually any other discussion we have here. Hell, we just had a poll for "the most realistic nerd portrayal on TV". We're geeks. The majority of us like Linux. If you can accept that, you can have fun here, even if you're not as weird as the rest of us. If you can't, you're just going to find this site frustrating. There are plenty of other places to go for news. Even pro-Microsoft sites, and places where people almost never mention the Simpsons.
Personally, like the small marketshare of desktop Linux, I love it this way.
Hopefully the people who like Digg better will go there instead, and stop bitching about how their stories got rejected in off topic slashdot comments.
Hear, hear!
Can I make a request that anyone who uses the phrases "groupthink" or "Slashdot bias" when bitching about the moderation system also move on over to Digg?
Most components of the Oil and Gas industry, for one. You may have heard of it. Huge companies, record profits, millions of employees? We have an entire province of people in Canada set up just to run this part of the business world. There just isn't a lot of competition for some of these products, and Windows is a necessary evil.
It's funny, because when reading that list I immediately thought "hey, this guy works with me!":)
Surely they should be logging your internet activity at the network gateway? Isn't that a hell of a lot easier than maintaining spyware on every individual machine?
You'd think so. At least, to check for the usual NSFW sites, viruses, etc.
These days it's not about that though. It's about knowing each and every minute spent "not being productive". Spyware can track to the second just what it is you're doing on company time.
I'd hate to see my Slashdot allotment:)
Thankfully, most employers I've seen don't use this sort of stuff for actively searching out problems. Mostly it's to have some more ammo when firing an unproductive employee.
Buying an Xbox360 and hooking it up to a 20 year old TV.. or buying an Xbox and hooking it up to a new, $200 TV. The former will look like complete crap, and have very few games available to play. The latter will get you hundreds of games, with better visual quality.
Seeing as the sole reason for the Xbox360 is the improvement in graphics capabilities (unless there's some new feature I'm missing), I'd agree with the parent. Stupid.
I wouldn't blame Sony too much since they're just trying to stop pirates from copying their music
I would. Mostly because anyone with more than a basic level of knowledge about computers (read: 2nd year Comp Sci student) should realize that what they've done does *absolutely nothing* to stop "pirates" from copying their music.
Any company that's this incompetent deserves whatever blame comes their way.
The frightening thing about that article is that I didn't realize it was satire until I noticed your moderation here. With what's come out of Sony (and others) recently, that story will well become normal soon.
On that note, I think it's time to start up a campaign to LIMIT Linux adoption by the masses. The way things are today, I'd be terrified to use damn near anything on a Windows PC.
Yeah, I'm being pedantic. Just sick of the re-definition of the words "chemical" and "organic" over the past 10-20 years. Makes it very hard to actually explain anything about chemisty to a layman.
everybody, including nintendo, is pushing "more of the same" but with minor twists (better graphics, innovative controller)
And how is this different than any other console release in the past 20 years?
The NES brought us better graphics with an innovative controller. The Genesis brought us better graphics without the innovative controller. The PS2 brought us better graphics with the exact same controller.
About the only real change has been the move from 2D to 3D during the PS1 and N64 years, and this arguably didn't even happen at a console launch. 3D games existed before these, they just brought it to us with (wait for it!) better graphics and an innovative controller.
Xbox Live is a pretty cool enhancement to video gaming, but seriously: every single console launch in history, after the VCS, pretty much amounts to "better graphics, new controller".
I think people are expecting far too much this time around, and forgetting history. The cool stuff tends to happen well after a console is released.
Looks to be about the price of low-end DVD players back when they first came out. Excellent. I've been waiting for a device that has:
network connectivity
optical drive (a surprising number of these don't)
support for ALL major formats (not just mp3s up to 192kbps, for instance)
And most importantly,
natively outputs a signal to a television set
Sorry, a HTPC doesn't work for some of us. I just don't want a computer sitting by my television. I don't want to wait more than a few seconds for the thing to "boot" an OS. I don't want to run awkward VGA->svideo outputs. I don't want to have to write, install, or even mess with software.
Basically, give me a DVD player with an ethernet jack. This thing looks to be the closest I've seen yet. The USB etc are all gravy.
That is the system that totally killed Nintendo's video game image completely and made them into a "kiddy company" or "Nintendo is for kids", what BS, before that Nintendo was for gamers of all stripes, for both the NES and the SNES, it had mortal kombat, street fighter 2, etc.
Nah, you're remembering things wrong. Sega and Nintendo already fought the "kiddy vs adult" console wars, back in the early 90s. The Genesis was the "mature" console, and the SNES was "just for kids". Remember, while the SNES had MK, it didn't have blood. Ergo, it was a "kiddy" console. Hell, this is the very reasoning people use today to call the Gamecube a "kiddy" console - lack of gore.
Sometimes I wonder if I'm the only person on the planet who actually preferred the N64 to the PS1. In a BIG way. Analog controller, FAR superior graphics, and FAST load times. I found more than enough games to keep me happy, not being a Final Fantasy fan.
Most of the time I'd visit friends with a Playstation, and marvel at just how long it took them to load their games - only to find lower quality graphics, with a ton of FMV cutscenes. Personally, I'll take faster load times over excess content any day. I find this same issue with the Gamecube vs say an Xbox even today. CD-audio was nice, I'll give them that - but many N64 games had amazing music considering. Then again, I find some NES music to still be enjoyable:)
Nintendo will do just fine with the Revolution. One of the great mysteries to me is how, with very similar worldwide sales numbers, the Xbox is considered such a success, while the GC is considered a failure.
Nice guy answer: because Nintendo has been in the business for 2 decades, and Microsoft was a n00b.
More realistic answer: Most young'uns have short memories, but when the Xbox was first announced, it was pretty much the laughing stock of the gaming industry. Microsoft? an x86 console? WTF? When it was released it was even more of a joke. Until Halo came around, hardly anyone wanted what was basically the Saturn for a new generation. I won't bring up the absolutely STUPIDLY LARGE controller more than once, I promise.
Seriously, when the Xbox actually started to sell, I remember people falling out of their chairs. It's a serious lame-duck console on most fronts, and without Halo, would probably have lost Microsoft twice the $4 billion it already did. Live was about the only unique feature on it; otherwise, it was just another PS2 from all appearances. I think there was a bit of an anti-Sony backlash in the past couple of years as well, and the Gamecube just never cut it with the 14-21 year old market. They only want "M" games.
But yeah. Compaing the GC and the Xbox, it's pretty obvious the GC beat the pants off of MS. It made at miniumum $4 billion more than the Xbox. It was a system that only "kids" played, according to damn near every media talking head. Nintendo was going the way of Sega after their drubbing by Sony in round 1. They still pulled out 2nd in the "race".
Yet, somehow the Xbox did very well. Yup, because no one seriously thought it would go anywhere until after Halo.
That's the beauty of it! We already DO live in a world like this.
Look at the facts:
Anyone (well, anyone who's likely to be listening to digital music, anyway) can RIGHT NOW go and never buy another CD again. They can get all the free music they want. Easily, forever, without hassles. This has been the case for several years now.
Now look at music sales for 2005.
The hitch here is whether or not the recording industry would be happy with (numbers out of my ass here) 80-90% of their sales. Unquestionably they're losing some money because some people have stopped buying music. I personally know many people who fall into this category (mostly university students, but irrelevant).
DRM is not being introduced to keep the recording industry profitable. They already are, even with free music being available to anyone. It's being introduced to capture that 10-20% (remember, out of my ass, but most certainly NOT the majority) of the market that would otherwise not pay.
Music, and people who will pay for it, are not going away. Period. There will always be a market very similar to what we saw 20 years ago, which is very similar to what we see today. It might just have slightly smaller profit margins.
I keep seeing comments to the effect of "Java could do this!", and I'm going to pick on yours:)
See, Java *could* do this. Sure. I'll give you that. In fact, most people until recently HAD a JVM in their browser. Java applets should have taken over the world.
Why didn't they? Why is AJAX getting all the press Java should have gotten?
Me, I simply look at 2 things: gmail, and Google Maps. They both work, work well, and work better than anything else. Apparently millions of people agree with me, just look at the buzz around them. Are we all brainwashed by Google? Could these have been done as a Java applet? Maybe.
The fact is, they WEREN'T. Or if they were, no one used them. The way I see it, AJAX is the end all and be all (for now) because it WORKS. Maybe Java is just too slow (and here come a dozen posts claiming it's not). Maybe the wait time to load a JVM into memory, plus download an applet is too long. I don't know why Java hasn't been used, but it's not like no one's thought of it before.
I get the hype, myself. It means that I can sit at virtually any computer, type a URL, and BAM! Instant application. I've yet to see another technology that works this well.
The record companies want to make money, people want to control their stuff.
We have the answer today. It's called mp3, or Ogg if you want to be idealistic. It allows full control for the user, and history has shown that people will still buy goods and services, even if there's a free alternative, so long as their money gets them convenience, choice, extra perks, or what have you.
Then why are people still buying CDs? Why are they still buying DVDs? Why is iTunes selling millions of tracks?
All of the above are very easily downloaded or copied by anyone with the slightest idea how to use a computer. Hell, my 60-something year old boss used to use Napster, and he didn't know the difference between single and double clicking. Yet, he mostly bought CDs.
Fact of the matter is, most things are trivially easy to "steal", and yet most people don't do it. Those that do are certainly not going to be affected by DRM.
If you don't like DRM, suggest another way for them to sell music.
Ok, here's one: sell music without DRM. CDs, mp3s, DVDs, whatever floats your boat.
CD burners have been available for nearly a decade now. Mass copying of digital music has been feasible, and known to your average Joe, for years now. Broadband is pretty standard in most countries. Yet people still buy CDs by the millions.
Why?
Because the vast majority of people are honest. They'd LIKE to pay for things. I know it's easy to assume everyone is out to steal from everyone else, but the numbers simply don't reflect this. Mass copying of free digital music has been available and easy to use for years now, and yet people still buy CDs by the truckload.
You're always going to lose some sales due to piracy, sure. Maybe even a decent percentage (10-20%). But overall, most people are quite willing to give up some money for a quality product. Don't believe me? Here in Canada, copying CDs for personal use is 100% legal. Most interpretations of the law say that sharing/downloading mp3s is also 100% legal. Yet CDs still sell, and sell well. Record stores aren't going out of business in droves, people still have a collection of CDs in their cars, and the music industry is still making a profit.
Should copying be illegal? Maybe. That'll stop the casual users. DRM will never stop the dedicated. They're just not interested in buying your music. Short of not releasing it, you'll never stop these people. But the masses will happily pay for unencumbered mp3s.
It's kind of like bottled water. Water is free, right? Then why is bottled water a multi-million dollar industry?
Convenience. Imagine a music store with everything, and no DRM. I'd be paying thousands every year for music at the rate I chew through it, even though I could easily get it for free. DRM doesn't stop music from getting onto P2P networks, and it never will. All it does is stop me from buying music from iTunes, etc.
Point taken, but I think this says more about the mental prowess of the average poster:)
How exactly would the Malaysian government restrict gaming after midnight at your home? Random house-to-house raids? Mandatory timed blocking of known gaming ports on all ISP infrastructure?
I've never heard of a government-imposed curfew that has anything to do with what you do in your home. Curfews are pretty much always restrictions on your activities in public places.
Then again, maybe the 2 seconds of thought necessary to realize this is just too hard for folks here:)
Slashdot Mirror
I interviewed with CSE a few years back. If anyone wants to hear some details about a really invasive background check, I can provide some when I'm not at work :)
The rationale is, they want to know anything and everything you might have in your skeleton closet, so to speak. They also do psychological profiling to see if any of this material could be used as blackmail against you. The unfortunate part is, the interviewing is done by retired RCMP officers, so it's much like a Catholic confession, except to your middle aged father, and you can see the disapproving look on his face at everything you say.
I just found it kinda neat. Most Canadians have no idea that we have anything approaching this level of secret agencies. We just figure the guys on horses in red jackets are about it.
You have supply and demand working in reverse to the real world. So does the music industry.
Just imagine if all retail worked like this (your suggestion). You'd go to a clothing store, and instead of last year's stuff being marked down, it would actually increase in price.
Note that this is pretty much how DVD sales go. Seems to work for them. Video games too. New, popular stuff expensive, older items that don't sell well become cheaper. Eventually it's pennies on the dollar. Why does this work? Because by that time, the manufacturer/retailer has ALREADY MADE THEIR PROFIT. The rest is gravy.
Music is one of the only things that starts cheap, and gets more expensive as time goes on. It's weird, really. They can get away with it because of two factors:
1. Music is one of the only products that people will continue to buy decades after release.
2. Perpetual copyright.
"so I'll rip it off, instead" without any sense whatsover of causality (when it comes to the consequences
A lot of us are fully aware of the consequences. The market will change. The RIAA will no longer rake in billions while talented artists end up actually owing money for a platinum album.
Music won't go away. People made music for centuries before it could be recorded. People will still make music in the future, even if all recorded copies become 100% free (as in beer) and 100% legal to do so. The vast majority of music today doesn't earn the person who wrote or performed it a dime.
Well, either that, or we're going to have to triple the prison population (again).
So I guess this means that the trolls are doing their thing here on /. (driving people away), and that the common user simply wants to know what's going on in their world. Not to discuss it, or defend their viewpoint against a bunch of Linux hounds, or holyier-than-thou type responses.
:)
You nailed it, in a sort of derogatory way. Allow me to reciprocate (maybe not directly targetted at yourself, but oh well
Slashdot, as long as I've known it (6, 7 years?), has always been targetted towards more technical types. More nerdy types (hey, it's in the tagline!). More obsessive types. We're the ones who get addicted to Evercrack. We're the ones who laugh at every obscure Simpsons joke, because we know damn near every line off the top of our heads. We're the ones who compusively try out every new Linux distro, spending hours of time playing with obscure computer minutiae (probably spelled that one wrong!) instead of doing things the rest of the world sees as normal.
It's always been this way. There has always been a very visible pro-Linux, anti-Microsoft slant here. Because overall, that's how the really geeky think. We also think we're smarter than everyone else, and that our viewpoint is the correct one.
THAT IS THE POINT OF SLASHDOT. I've never heard Rob whining that he doesn't get enough of the "common person" checking out his site. Most long-time readers aren't whining about the lack of MCSEs commenting on Linux stories. No one who actually spends any time here can seriously think of this as a general tech news site, aimed at anyone with a slight technical leaning.
I don't think it's so much a matter of trolls driving people away, it's just that most normal people look at Slashdot and realize it's not for them.
If you want to point out that Linux is hard for your Mom, that's one thing. If you're going to complain that you simply aren't interested in learning how your OS works, and that you shouldn't have to edit text files, and that Open Source is useless because not everyone is a coder, then guess what?
This site is not for you.
Apply those sorts of criteria to virtually any other discussion we have here. Hell, we just had a poll for "the most realistic nerd portrayal on TV". We're geeks. The majority of us like Linux. If you can accept that, you can have fun here, even if you're not as weird as the rest of us. If you can't, you're just going to find this site frustrating. There are plenty of other places to go for news. Even pro-Microsoft sites, and places where people almost never mention the Simpsons.
Personally, like the small marketshare of desktop Linux, I love it this way.
Re:A Critical Difference (Score:5, Interesting)
by mcho (878145)
Of course this comment won't see the light of day
Always kills me to see a poster disproven by their own comment.
Or is this a new, subtle version of the "I know I'm going to be modded down for this, but..." type of karma-whoring?
Hopefully the people who like Digg better will go there instead, and stop bitching about how their stories got rejected in off topic slashdot comments.
Hear, hear!
Can I make a request that anyone who uses the phrases "groupthink" or "Slashdot bias" when bitching about the moderation system also move on over to Digg?
Come on now, how many people use those products?
:)
Most components of the Oil and Gas industry, for one. You may have heard of it. Huge companies, record profits, millions of employees? We have an entire province of people in Canada set up just to run this part of the business world. There just isn't a lot of competition for some of these products, and Windows is a necessary evil.
It's funny, because when reading that list I immediately thought "hey, this guy works with me!"
Surely they should be logging your internet activity at the network gateway? Isn't that a hell of a lot easier than maintaining spyware on every individual machine?
:)
You'd think so. At least, to check for the usual NSFW sites, viruses, etc.
These days it's not about that though. It's about knowing each and every minute spent "not being productive". Spyware can track to the second just what it is you're doing on company time.
I'd hate to see my Slashdot allotment
Thankfully, most employers I've seen don't use this sort of stuff for actively searching out problems. Mostly it's to have some more ammo when firing an unproductive employee.
Nope. It's how the SPEND the money.
Buying an Xbox360 and hooking it up to a 20 year old TV.. or buying an Xbox and hooking it up to a new, $200 TV. The former will look like complete crap, and have very few games available to play. The latter will get you hundreds of games, with better visual quality.
Seeing as the sole reason for the Xbox360 is the improvement in graphics capabilities (unless there's some new feature I'm missing), I'd agree with the parent. Stupid.
I wouldn't blame Sony too much since they're just trying to stop pirates from copying their music
I would. Mostly because anyone with more than a basic level of knowledge about computers (read: 2nd year Comp Sci student) should realize that what they've done does *absolutely nothing* to stop "pirates" from copying their music.
Any company that's this incompetent deserves whatever blame comes their way.
The frightening thing about that article is that I didn't realize it was satire until I noticed your moderation here. With what's come out of Sony (and others) recently, that story will well become normal soon.
On that note, I think it's time to start up a campaign to LIMIT Linux adoption by the masses. The way things are today, I'd be terrified to use damn near anything on a Windows PC.
Water's still a chemical.
Yeah, I'm being pedantic. Just sick of the re-definition of the words "chemical" and "organic" over the past 10-20 years. Makes it very hard to actually explain anything about chemisty to a layman.
Hey, thanks! This thing looks to be exactly what I'm looking for. At $409cdn it's cheaper than a Mac Mini also, which was the next obvious choice.
everybody, including nintendo, is pushing "more of the same" but with minor twists (better graphics, innovative controller)
And how is this different than any other console release in the past 20 years?
The NES brought us better graphics with an innovative controller. The Genesis brought us better graphics without the innovative controller. The PS2 brought us better graphics with the exact same controller.
About the only real change has been the move from 2D to 3D during the PS1 and N64 years, and this arguably didn't even happen at a console launch. 3D games existed before these, they just brought it to us with (wait for it!) better graphics and an innovative controller.
Xbox Live is a pretty cool enhancement to video gaming, but seriously: every single console launch in history, after the VCS, pretty much amounts to "better graphics, new controller".
I think people are expecting far too much this time around, and forgetting history. The cool stuff tends to happen well after a console is released.
network connectivity
optical drive (a surprising number of these don't)
support for ALL major formats (not just mp3s up to 192kbps, for instance)
And most importantly,
natively outputs a signal to a television set
Sorry, a HTPC doesn't work for some of us. I just don't want a computer sitting by my television. I don't want to wait more than a few seconds for the thing to "boot" an OS. I don't want to run awkward VGA->svideo outputs. I don't want to have to write, install, or even mess with software.
Basically, give me a DVD player with an ethernet jack. This thing looks to be the closest I've seen yet. The USB etc are all gravy.
If what you said was true, no one would have CD's or cassettes, we'd just use radio.
No, we'd just have iTunes.
Nah, that'll never work.
Nope. Not a single other person has thought this before.
Especially no one on Slashdot. Those thousands of other posts you think you might have perhaps seen actually don't exist.
We also like Linux, but you wouldn't know it due to the lack of posts on that subject as well.
That is the system that totally killed Nintendo's video game image completely and made them into a "kiddy company" or "Nintendo is for kids", what BS, before that Nintendo was for gamers of all stripes, for both the NES and the SNES, it had mortal kombat, street fighter 2, etc.
:)
Nah, you're remembering things wrong. Sega and Nintendo already fought the "kiddy vs adult" console wars, back in the early 90s. The Genesis was the "mature" console, and the SNES was "just for kids". Remember, while the SNES had MK, it didn't have blood. Ergo, it was a "kiddy" console. Hell, this is the very reasoning people use today to call the Gamecube a "kiddy" console - lack of gore.
Sometimes I wonder if I'm the only person on the planet who actually preferred the N64 to the PS1. In a BIG way. Analog controller, FAR superior graphics, and FAST load times. I found more than enough games to keep me happy, not being a Final Fantasy fan.
Most of the time I'd visit friends with a Playstation, and marvel at just how long it took them to load their games - only to find lower quality graphics, with a ton of FMV cutscenes. Personally, I'll take faster load times over excess content any day. I find this same issue with the Gamecube vs say an Xbox even today. CD-audio was nice, I'll give them that - but many N64 games had amazing music considering. Then again, I find some NES music to still be enjoyable
Nintendo will do just fine with the Revolution. One of the great mysteries to me is how, with very similar worldwide sales numbers, the Xbox is considered such a success, while the GC is considered a failure.
Nice guy answer: because Nintendo has been in the business for 2 decades, and Microsoft was a n00b.
More realistic answer: Most young'uns have short memories, but when the Xbox was first announced, it was pretty much the laughing stock of the gaming industry. Microsoft? an x86 console? WTF? When it was released it was even more of a joke. Until Halo came around, hardly anyone wanted what was basically the Saturn for a new generation. I won't bring up the absolutely STUPIDLY LARGE controller more than once, I promise.
Seriously, when the Xbox actually started to sell, I remember people falling out of their chairs. It's a serious lame-duck console on most fronts, and without Halo, would probably have lost Microsoft twice the $4 billion it already did. Live was about the only unique feature on it; otherwise, it was just another PS2 from all appearances. I think there was a bit of an anti-Sony backlash in the past couple of years as well, and the Gamecube just never cut it with the 14-21 year old market. They only want "M" games.
But yeah. Compaing the GC and the Xbox, it's pretty obvious the GC beat the pants off of MS. It made at miniumum $4 billion more than the Xbox. It was a system that only "kids" played, according to damn near every media talking head. Nintendo was going the way of Sega after their drubbing by Sony in round 1. They still pulled out 2nd in the "race".
Yet, somehow the Xbox did very well. Yup, because no one seriously thought it would go anywhere until after Halo.
That's the beauty of it! We already DO live in a world like this.
Look at the facts:
Anyone (well, anyone who's likely to be listening to digital music, anyway) can RIGHT NOW go and never buy another CD again. They can get all the free music they want. Easily, forever, without hassles. This has been the case for several years now.
Now look at music sales for 2005.
The hitch here is whether or not the recording industry would be happy with (numbers out of my ass here) 80-90% of their sales. Unquestionably they're losing some money because some people have stopped buying music. I personally know many people who fall into this category (mostly university students, but irrelevant).
DRM is not being introduced to keep the recording industry profitable. They already are, even with free music being available to anyone. It's being introduced to capture that 10-20% (remember, out of my ass, but most certainly NOT the majority) of the market that would otherwise not pay.
Music, and people who will pay for it, are not going away. Period. There will always be a market very similar to what we saw 20 years ago, which is very similar to what we see today. It might just have slightly smaller profit margins.
I keep seeing comments to the effect of "Java could do this!", and I'm going to pick on yours :)
See, Java *could* do this. Sure. I'll give you that. In fact, most people until recently HAD a JVM in their browser. Java applets should have taken over the world.
Why didn't they? Why is AJAX getting all the press Java should have gotten?
Me, I simply look at 2 things: gmail, and Google Maps. They both work, work well, and work better than anything else. Apparently millions of people agree with me, just look at the buzz around them. Are we all brainwashed by Google? Could these have been done as a Java applet? Maybe.
The fact is, they WEREN'T. Or if they were, no one used them. The way I see it, AJAX is the end all and be all (for now) because it WORKS. Maybe Java is just too slow (and here come a dozen posts claiming it's not). Maybe the wait time to load a JVM into memory, plus download an applet is too long. I don't know why Java hasn't been used, but it's not like no one's thought of it before.
I get the hype, myself. It means that I can sit at virtually any computer, type a URL, and BAM! Instant application. I've yet to see another technology that works this well.
The record companies want to make money, people want to control their stuff.
We have the answer today. It's called mp3, or Ogg if you want to be idealistic. It allows full control for the user, and history has shown that people will still buy goods and services, even if there's a free alternative, so long as their money gets them convenience, choice, extra perks, or what have you.
If people *can* steal something, they will.
Then why are people still buying CDs? Why are they still buying DVDs? Why is iTunes selling millions of tracks?
All of the above are very easily downloaded or copied by anyone with the slightest idea how to use a computer. Hell, my 60-something year old boss used to use Napster, and he didn't know the difference between single and double clicking. Yet, he mostly bought CDs.
Fact of the matter is, most things are trivially easy to "steal", and yet most people don't do it. Those that do are certainly not going to be affected by DRM.
If you don't like DRM, suggest another way for them to sell music.
Ok, here's one: sell music without DRM. CDs, mp3s, DVDs, whatever floats your boat.
CD burners have been available for nearly a decade now. Mass copying of digital music has been feasible, and known to your average Joe, for years now. Broadband is pretty standard in most countries. Yet people still buy CDs by the millions.
Why?
Because the vast majority of people are honest. They'd LIKE to pay for things. I know it's easy to assume everyone is out to steal from everyone else, but the numbers simply don't reflect this. Mass copying of free digital music has been available and easy to use for years now, and yet people still buy CDs by the truckload.
You're always going to lose some sales due to piracy, sure. Maybe even a decent percentage (10-20%). But overall, most people are quite willing to give up some money for a quality product. Don't believe me? Here in Canada, copying CDs for personal use is 100% legal. Most interpretations of the law say that sharing/downloading mp3s is also 100% legal. Yet CDs still sell, and sell well. Record stores aren't going out of business in droves, people still have a collection of CDs in their cars, and the music industry is still making a profit.
Should copying be illegal? Maybe. That'll stop the casual users. DRM will never stop the dedicated. They're just not interested in buying your music. Short of not releasing it, you'll never stop these people. But the masses will happily pay for unencumbered mp3s.
It's kind of like bottled water. Water is free, right? Then why is bottled water a multi-million dollar industry?
Convenience. Imagine a music store with everything, and no DRM. I'd be paying thousands every year for music at the rate I chew through it, even though I could easily get it for free. DRM doesn't stop music from getting onto P2P networks, and it never will. All it does is stop me from buying music from iTunes, etc.
Point taken, but I think this says more about the mental prowess of the average poster :)
:)
How exactly would the Malaysian government restrict gaming after midnight at your home? Random house-to-house raids? Mandatory timed blocking of known gaming ports on all ISP infrastructure?
I've never heard of a government-imposed curfew that has anything to do with what you do in your home. Curfews are pretty much always restrictions on your activities in public places.
Then again, maybe the 2 seconds of thought necessary to realize this is just too hard for folks here