"Apple's top-end laptop runs Vista better than a high-end Sony Vaio" So, the Mac he bought a few months ago performs better than a Sony he bough almost a year ago? How is that not expected? You compare two PC laptops of the same age difference and you're going to get the same result.
It's like saying 'Gee, my brand new Mac is faster than the old PC I'm replacing, Macs are so much better'
"everyone not bright enough to use free software will pay."
I'm sorry, but I've used Linux... I've tried to get a nice, usable desktop environment that does what I WANT with linux... but you know what?
* I like to play games * I like/use Office * I like/use Photoshop (business and pleasure) * I tend to like to be able to just plug in my printer/camera/phone and have it work.
And you know what? Linux can't give me that... it just can't.
MacOS, pretty damn close, other than the games thing.
XP, well, it does all those things, and does them well... hence I use XP.
Does that make me not bright? No, that makes me unwilling to either a) Give up on the functionality that I want/need of a paid operating system or b) Unwilling to spend frigging ages trying to get the most simple of things to work on Linux, and having to dive into command line commands just to get things to do as they should.
You may like Linux and other free software, but don't DARE just call people stupid or not bright because they don't want to fuck around with software that isn't quite there yet. That's juvenile and quite frankly damaging to the Open Source movement.
I did read the article thanks. And she does actually state that these games are that violent by her measure. She's of the opinion that because games that are rated E are played by such young children, they may not be able to distinguish that it's all make believe and may consider it violent.
I'm not entirely sure how a kid can possible feel that Pac Man is violent, but hey, that's me being subjective.
I notice you didn't quote anything from the article which could suggest that she wasn't saying that.
It really doesn't matter at all how many degrees and certificates she has. They prove that she has studied, and is able to write reports.
Trying to say how violent a game is by how many minutes of 'violence' there is a game without ANY weighting to the context or impact of said violence is ridiculous. To say that Centipede is 100% violent because the entire game is spent being chased by something that intends 'harm' is just stupid. It's a reflex/puzzle game... and it's a game of tag effectively. To rate it higher than GTA because there are stretches in GTA where there is no violence is just plain moronic.
You can't apply an objective measure to something so plainly subjective as violence in the media.
But they're asking for interested 'scientists' to contact them to 'verify their claims'. Scientists, and a whole lot of people who are interested in science read magazines like Scientific American, Discover, New Scientist etc. I know a big fat zero people who read The Economist.
Regardless of whether The Economist is a NEWS magazine, it's still called THE ECONOMIST, it attracts those interested in the ECONOMY and related matters... like money and politics.
Yeah, heaven forbid that the challenge be published in a SCIENCE journal, even a POPULAR one like, oh, I don't know, Scientific American or Discover.
"Steorn has decided to publish its challenge in The Economist because of the breadth of its readership. "We chose it over a purely scientific magazine simply because we want to make the general public aware that this process is about to commence and to generate public support, awareness, interest etc for what we are doing."
Oh, because the Economist has a broad, far reaching readership, not limited to only those interested in MONEY... unlike the science magazines who have a readership that actually may be interested, and, heaven forbid, know something about energy.
a) How many of us don't have or want a PDA? Answer: Lots b) Even if we did have a PDA we'd still need the laptop in order to either work on when we get to our work destination, or, in my case, use as a portable entertainment unit for watching movies etc. when at my travel destination, and also to be able to offload and edit photos I've taken while out and about.
Nice post... but do you need to pay the $100 just to run software other people have coded in this platform? I seriously doubt it. What kind of homebrew game developer world is that where anyone who wants to run your game/app has to pay $100 a year to do so?
Hmm, maybe I was wrong indeed about how popular it was here in Aus... I guess I had my subscription to Your Sinclair, and the cover cassettes (ahh, cassettes) kept me occupied!
I still have my speccy and tapes, although I seriously doubt many of them would actually load these days.
It almost always is left off lists like these (thanks to them being US centric). But in the UK, where I lived at the time of its launch, and even here in Australia, the Spectrum was a landmark computer.
Did you? As I doubt it... he says Vista is behind, he gives full credos to Apple for releasing features well ahead of Microsoft and doing so very, very well, and he says himself in ways which are probably better than Vista will at launch.
BUT
He has the very same problem with Apple as I do at the moment. Grandstanding and putting down the competition. They are directly putting down the competition (Vista/Windows) in their ads and other marketing and they talk up everything they do to the point of it being the next coming of Christ.
These OS releases that Mac users are paying for are just a collection of things that Windows users get for free over the life of the operating system.
SP1 and SP2 along with all the apps and add-ons that XP users have been getting for nothing since it came out are all things that Apple would charge for.
Why is a point release of the operating system charged for?
Why do they have to do these combative ads?
Why, when I clicked on the link to watch the keynote did Quicktime crash? An Apple product... not because this is an XP box... it was Quicktime that crashed... XP didn't flinch... but Apple's 'never crash' software crashed.
Bah.
* Please note I do really like OSX, I think Macs are dead sexy machines... I just really take offence at Apple's current marketing angle.
"Sure, Apple have had problems, but not as many as Dell,"
Are you able to back that up with any kind of figures?
Mac apologists are just scary...
MA: "What? Macs are failing and having all sorts of issues? (read the post further up for someone's experience so far)... well that's just Gen 1." Me: "Erm, so why is ok for the machine to break and have all these faults just because it's a new one? You don't see people saying. 'Well, those Dell's broke, but it's ok, it's a first gen, you expect that'. WHY IS IT OK?" MA: "Well, it's Mac... Macs are just better, they're cutting edge, you have to expect to be cut when you're on the edge" Me: "Not at that pricepoint I don't"
What a load of crud.
And yes, I own a Dell laptop, and it's running A+ perfect since I got it... as does a Dell server we have here at work.
Not only is it only reaching Slashdot a long, long time after its arrival (It's been here in Australia for ages too)... but the actual artical is very recent too... that's a long lag in release dates around the world!
Sure, you can continue to get Firefox the normal way. But them including themselves with RealPlayer (Which is one of the most horrendous apps known to man for installing things superfluous to the user's needs) is therefore agreeing with Real's horrible install process, which is as close to spyware and malware as is possible while not 'quite' actually being so.
It's a case of 'a means to an end'... well, it's not ok to align yourselves with a horrible product that installs in an invasive manner just so you can get a few more installs of Firefox out there, you're just going to be having their bad name rub off on you.
I'm sorry, I like Jason Lee as much as the next guy, and I've had other people say that 'My name is Earl' is the best thing since chopped up bread, but I don't see it.
I tried watching an episode and just never laughed... not once.
It'll die the death in Australia (it just started airing), mark my words.
But that's still a case of someone making profit from cutting bits out of other people's artistic works.
Sure, you can do it yourself, on a copy you bought in your own time without being paid to do it and that's no problem. (well, I still find it a problem to do that to a piece of art, but hey, it's your copy, go nuts)
It's when people start making money from doing something that's just artistically wrong that it is a problem.
There's a quick succession of shots of people having sex... oooh, naughty.
Such a wonderous film, and people's fear over shock! Horror! Seeing a woman's breasts or a man's penis! OH MY GOD!
(No, there was no penis... I think you could see breasts, don't really remember as I don't scour films looking for naked bits because I find it to just be part of the film.)
What is the difference between someone buying a copy of Amelié and hacking it himself, or buying a copy through a third-party source and adding extra to have someone else hack it up?
Because that company is making money from hacking up other people's works to their visions of 'correctness'. That's it. This ruling is saying that no company should be alowed to make money from taking someone else's work and hacking away at it and reselling the hacked version.
Simple.
If you want to do a hack job on a movie, go ahead, you should be able to if you bought it yourself. (if you go on to give it away to your family and friends, well that's wrong). The hacking in and of itself is a horrendous thing to do to a piece of art (yes, movies are art, just as are books and paintings), but if you want to do it to a copy that you bought then you should be able to.
Just don't go trying to make money from selling your hacked version on.
From the Judge: "Their objective... is to stop the infringement because of its irreparable injury to the creative artistic expression in the copyrighted movies," the judge wrote. "There is a public interest in providing such protection."
From the Directors: 'Audiences can now be assured that the films they buy or rent are the vision of the filmmakers who made them and not the arbitrary choices of a third-party editor.'-Michael Apted, the president of the Directors Guild of America
"These films carry our name and reflect our reputations. So we have great passion about protecting our work... against unauthorized editing," said Apted in a statement on the guild's website.
Basically, it's a creativity thing. If you made a film or a book or a piece of music, and you felt passionately about it, and the message in it, you would not like some non-artistic rednecks coming in and chopping out bits that they found offensive with no regard for how that changed the feel/meaning or message of the work.
In a larger picture. Imagine if there were a movie that had huge mass-market appeal, but also said a few things against the current ruling political party. Then imagine if the largest retail distributer paid a company to make an edit of said film without the political message... how is that right? A host of people would end up seeing the movie without an intended message/point of view intact.
As much as I'm all for people's rights to do so, I'm just wondering in what cases do you decide that "Hey, I like what this movie is saying to my kids... well all except for that bit of maiming half way through. If I could only cut that out."
What movies/shows are there which are good for kids other than one little bit? Surely it's an all or nothing approach. If it's coming down to a case of they say "Shit" at one stage or a boob is flashed, then come on, that's a bit ridiculous.
* With your ridiculous 'windoze' spelling. * With your incomplete understanding of the operating system you're bashing 'DirectX vs ActiveX' * With your lack of any kind of empathy for people who may wish to, oh, I dunno, play games on their PC as well as just surf the web and read emails. * I just DON'T get viruses, malware, spyware or ANYTHING like that. Yes I do have a virus checker running, but it's a free one (AVG) and I don't even notice it doing it's job... and it hasn't found anything for years now, so it's hardly required. So your ridiculous "I'm not prepared to spend time on all that stuff I don't want to", while at the same time you DO have to spend time working out how to install programs etc. in the Linux world... I'm quite happy with double clicking on 'setup' thanks.
"By definition, the malware writers are one step ahead of your scanner."
Or... I don't get ANY popups, slowdowns, unwelcome websites or ANYTHING.
So, really by definition... you're talking out of your butt.
I mean, come on... I had never heard of 4chan, but after just bringing it up then in my browser and just looking at the links on the front page (girls sucking horses, Japanese Lesbians etc.) then I'd say you've pretty much only got yourself to blame.
Sorry, but true.
Yes, spyware is damn evil, and if they would just go away, the web might be a nicer place. BUT you browsing a porn site (and not a reputable one either... such as Playboy or the like) are just asking for trouble.
And as you were saying you were looking for images for your site, insomuch as 'taking without permission', I have no sympathy.
You play in filthy places you're going to get dirty.
Maybe he likes building things that blow up? An RA in our dorm loved building bombs in his room and going up into the mountains to see how high they would make boulders fly. There are many engineers who are proud to build things that go BOOM!
Erm, why should it matter at all if he likes building things that blow up? Building things that blow up for the government to use to kill people is not ok just because he happens to be amused by it.
Hell, I like a good explosion as much as the next guy, but it should never be in a weapon designed to kill.
I suppose building any weapon at all is ok by you as it'd just be by someone who likes explosions?
Slashdot Mirror
"Apple's top-end laptop runs Vista better than a high-end Sony Vaio"
So, the Mac he bought a few months ago performs better than a Sony he bough almost a year ago? How is that not expected? You compare two PC laptops of the same age difference and you're going to get the same result.
It's like saying 'Gee, my brand new Mac is faster than the old PC I'm replacing, Macs are so much better'
Bah and humbug.
"everyone not bright enough to use free software will pay."
I'm sorry, but I've used Linux... I've tried to get a nice, usable desktop environment that does what I WANT with linux... but you know what?
* I like to play games
* I like/use Office
* I like/use Photoshop (business and pleasure)
* I tend to like to be able to just plug in my printer/camera/phone and have it work.
And you know what? Linux can't give me that... it just can't.
MacOS, pretty damn close, other than the games thing.
XP, well, it does all those things, and does them well... hence I use XP.
Does that make me not bright? No, that makes me unwilling to either a) Give up on the functionality that I want/need of a paid operating system or b) Unwilling to spend frigging ages trying to get the most simple of things to work on Linux, and having to dive into command line commands just to get things to do as they should.
You may like Linux and other free software, but don't DARE just call people stupid or not bright because they don't want to fuck around with software that isn't quite there yet. That's juvenile and quite frankly damaging to the Open Source movement.
I did read the article thanks. And she does actually state that these games are that violent by her measure. She's of the opinion that because games that are rated E are played by such young children, they may not be able to distinguish that it's all make believe and may consider it violent.
I'm not entirely sure how a kid can possible feel that Pac Man is violent, but hey, that's me being subjective.
I notice you didn't quote anything from the article which could suggest that she wasn't saying that.
It really doesn't matter at all how many degrees and certificates she has. They prove that she has studied, and is able to write reports.
Trying to say how violent a game is by how many minutes of 'violence' there is a game without ANY weighting to the context or impact of said violence is ridiculous. To say that Centipede is 100% violent because the entire game is spent being chased by something that intends 'harm' is just stupid. It's a reflex/puzzle game... and it's a game of tag effectively. To rate it higher than GTA because there are stretches in GTA where there is no violence is just plain moronic.
You can't apply an objective measure to something so plainly subjective as violence in the media.
I don't care how many pieces of paper she has.
But they're asking for interested 'scientists' to contact them to 'verify their claims'. Scientists, and a whole lot of people who are interested in science read magazines like Scientific American, Discover, New Scientist etc. I know a big fat zero people who read The Economist.
Regardless of whether The Economist is a NEWS magazine, it's still called THE ECONOMIST, it attracts those interested in the ECONOMY and related matters... like money and politics.
It's a scam, pure and damn simple.
Yeah, heaven forbid that the challenge be published in a SCIENCE journal, even a POPULAR one like, oh, I don't know, Scientific American or Discover.
"Steorn has decided to publish its challenge in The Economist because of the breadth of its readership. "We chose it over a purely scientific magazine simply because we want to make the general public aware that this process is about to commence and to generate public support, awareness, interest etc for what we are doing."
Oh, because the Economist has a broad, far reaching readership, not limited to only those interested in MONEY... unlike the science magazines who have a readership that actually may be interested, and, heaven forbid, know something about energy.
My god what a load of shite.
I mean really... just a complete troll.
a) How many of us don't have or want a PDA? Answer: Lots
b) Even if we did have a PDA we'd still need the laptop in order to either work on when we get to our work destination, or, in my case, use as a portable entertainment unit for watching movies etc. when at my travel destination, and also to be able to offload and edit photos I've taken while out and about.
Urgh, what a post!
Nice post... but do you need to pay the $100 just to run software other people have coded in this platform? I seriously doubt it. What kind of homebrew game developer world is that where anyone who wants to run your game/app has to pay $100 a year to do so?
I think it's only $100 a year for the developers.
Hmm, maybe I was wrong indeed about how popular it was here in Aus... I guess I had my subscription to Your Sinclair, and the cover cassettes (ahh, cassettes) kept me occupied!
I still have my speccy and tapes, although I seriously doubt many of them would actually load these days.
It almost always is left off lists like these (thanks to them being US centric). But in the UK, where I lived at the time of its launch, and even here in Australia, the Spectrum was a landmark computer.
:)
And the one I learnt to program on!
Did you? As I doubt it... he says Vista is behind, he gives full credos to Apple for releasing features well ahead of Microsoft and doing so very, very well, and he says himself in ways which are probably better than Vista will at launch.
BUT
He has the very same problem with Apple as I do at the moment. Grandstanding and putting down the competition. They are directly putting down the competition (Vista/Windows) in their ads and other marketing and they talk up everything they do to the point of it being the next coming of Christ.
These OS releases that Mac users are paying for are just a collection of things that Windows users get for free over the life of the operating system.
SP1 and SP2 along with all the apps and add-ons that XP users have been getting for nothing since it came out are all things that Apple would charge for.
Why is a point release of the operating system charged for?
Why do they have to do these combative ads?
Why, when I clicked on the link to watch the keynote did Quicktime crash? An Apple product... not because this is an XP box... it was Quicktime that crashed... XP didn't flinch... but Apple's 'never crash' software crashed.
Bah.
* Please note I do really like OSX, I think Macs are dead sexy machines... I just really take offence at Apple's current marketing angle.
"Sure, Apple have had problems, but not as many as Dell,"
Are you able to back that up with any kind of figures?
Mac apologists are just scary...
MA: "What? Macs are failing and having all sorts of issues? (read the post further up for someone's experience so far)... well that's just Gen 1."
Me: "Erm, so why is ok for the machine to break and have all these faults just because it's a new one? You don't see people saying. 'Well, those Dell's broke, but it's ok, it's a first gen, you expect that'. WHY IS IT OK?"
MA: "Well, it's Mac... Macs are just better, they're cutting edge, you have to expect to be cut when you're on the edge"
Me: "Not at that pricepoint I don't"
What a load of crud.
And yes, I own a Dell laptop, and it's running A+ perfect since I got it... as does a Dell server we have here at work.
Not only is it only reaching Slashdot a long, long time after its arrival (It's been here in Australia for ages too)... but the actual artical is very recent too... that's a long lag in release dates around the world!
Sure, you can continue to get Firefox the normal way. But them including themselves with RealPlayer (Which is one of the most horrendous apps known to man for installing things superfluous to the user's needs) is therefore agreeing with Real's horrible install process, which is as close to spyware and malware as is possible while not 'quite' actually being so.
It's a case of 'a means to an end'... well, it's not ok to align yourselves with a horrible product that installs in an invasive manner just so you can get a few more installs of Firefox out there, you're just going to be having their bad name rub off on you.
Bad move Mozilla... bad, bad move.
I'm sorry, I like Jason Lee as much as the next guy, and I've had other people say that 'My name is Earl' is the best thing since chopped up bread, but I don't see it.
I tried watching an episode and just never laughed... not once.
It'll die the death in Australia (it just started airing), mark my words.
Yup... because you're not just selling your time, you're selling your time chopping up someone's artistic works, and therefore profiting from it...
Do it for free, and it's not something they can really get annoyed about, but start trying to make a business out of it, and that's wrong.
But that's still a case of someone making profit from cutting bits out of other people's artistic works.
Sure, you can do it yourself, on a copy you bought in your own time without being paid to do it and that's no problem. (well, I still find it a problem to do that to a piece of art, but hey, it's your copy, go nuts)
It's when people start making money from doing something that's just artistically wrong that it is a problem.
There's a quick succession of shots of people having sex... oooh, naughty.
Such a wonderous film, and people's fear over shock! Horror! Seeing a woman's breasts or a man's penis! OH MY GOD!
(No, there was no penis... I think you could see breasts, don't really remember as I don't scour films looking for naked bits because I find it to just be part of the film.)
What is the difference between someone buying a copy of Amelié and hacking it himself, or buying a copy through a third-party source and adding extra to have someone else hack it up?
Because that company is making money from hacking up other people's works to their visions of 'correctness'. That's it. This ruling is saying that no company should be alowed to make money from taking someone else's work and hacking away at it and reselling the hacked version.
Simple.
If you want to do a hack job on a movie, go ahead, you should be able to if you bought it yourself. (if you go on to give it away to your family and friends, well that's wrong). The hacking in and of itself is a horrendous thing to do to a piece of art (yes, movies are art, just as are books and paintings), but if you want to do it to a copy that you bought then you should be able to.
Just don't go trying to make money from selling your hacked version on.
From the Judge: ... is to stop the infringement because of its irreparable injury to the creative artistic expression in the copyrighted movies," the judge wrote. "There is a public interest in providing such protection."
... against unauthorized editing," said Apted in a statement on the guild's website.
"Their objective
From the Directors:
'Audiences can now be assured that the films they buy or rent are the vision of the filmmakers who made them and not the arbitrary choices of a third-party editor.'-Michael Apted, the president of the Directors Guild of America
"These films carry our name and reflect our reputations. So we have great passion about protecting our work
Basically, it's a creativity thing. If you made a film or a book or a piece of music, and you felt passionately about it, and the message in it, you would not like some non-artistic rednecks coming in and chopping out bits that they found offensive with no regard for how that changed the feel/meaning or message of the work.
In a larger picture. Imagine if there were a movie that had huge mass-market appeal, but also said a few things against the current ruling political party. Then imagine if the largest retail distributer paid a company to make an edit of said film without the political message... how is that right? A host of people would end up seeing the movie without an intended message/point of view intact.
As much as I'm all for people's rights to do so, I'm just wondering in what cases do you decide that "Hey, I like what this movie is saying to my kids... well all except for that bit of maiming half way through. If I could only cut that out."
What movies/shows are there which are good for kids other than one little bit? Surely it's an all or nothing approach. If it's coming down to a case of they say "Shit" at one stage or a boob is flashed, then come on, that's a bit ridiculous.
* With your ridiculous 'windoze' spelling.
* With your incomplete understanding of the operating system you're bashing 'DirectX vs ActiveX'
* With your lack of any kind of empathy for people who may wish to, oh, I dunno, play games on their PC as well as just surf the web and read emails.
* I just DON'T get viruses, malware, spyware or ANYTHING like that. Yes I do have a virus checker running, but it's a free one (AVG) and I don't even notice it doing it's job... and it hasn't found anything for years now, so it's hardly required. So your ridiculous "I'm not prepared to spend time on all that stuff I don't want to", while at the same time you DO have to spend time working out how to install programs etc. in the Linux world... I'm quite happy with double clicking on 'setup' thanks.
"By definition, the malware writers are one step ahead of your scanner."
Or... I don't get ANY popups, slowdowns, unwelcome websites or ANYTHING.
So, really by definition... you're talking out of your butt.
And the 'popular' software mentioned is ... Kazaa.
Why the hell would people use that program anymore anyway? It's not like there aren't free alternatives galore.
I mean, come on... I had never heard of 4chan, but after just bringing it up then in my browser and just looking at the links on the front page (girls sucking horses, Japanese Lesbians etc.) then I'd say you've pretty much only got yourself to blame.
Sorry, but true.
Yes, spyware is damn evil, and if they would just go away, the web might be a nicer place. BUT you browsing a porn site (and not a reputable one either... such as Playboy or the like) are just asking for trouble.
And as you were saying you were looking for images for your site, insomuch as 'taking without permission', I have no sympathy.
You play in filthy places you're going to get dirty.
Maybe he likes building things that blow up? An RA in our dorm loved building bombs in his room and going up into the mountains to see how high they would make boulders fly. There are many engineers who are proud to build things that go BOOM!
Erm, why should it matter at all if he likes building things that blow up? Building things that blow up for the government to use to kill people is not ok just because he happens to be amused by it.
Hell, I like a good explosion as much as the next guy, but it should never be in a weapon designed to kill.
I suppose building any weapon at all is ok by you as it'd just be by someone who likes explosions?