Nintendo doesn't even allow you to redownload online purchases on a replacement system. I'd hardly compare to Nintendo as some bastion of consumer fairness. They have a long history of proprietary storage formats, while the Playstations have used CDs, DVDs, and Blu-Rays.
It's been known since last June that the Vita would use NGV memory cards due to size, weight, lack of noise, and other factors. The only difference with this story is that Slashdot has posted a summary slanting it in a certain direction, because this site hates Sony.
Nintendo has a history of proprietary storage formats for every single one of its game systems, from the NES to the Wii. Sony has used CD, DVD, and Blu-Ray for the Playstation series.
Hell, the Wii won't even let you plug an external flash drive into its USB port.
The NES, SNES, N64, Gamecube, Wii, Gameboy, Gameboy Advance, DS, and 3DS all use proprietary storage for games. Sony used CDs, DVDs, and Blu-Rays for the Playstation series.
So, er, they copied results from Google. Thank you for confirming this. Does your head hurt from talking out of both sides of your mouth so much?
No, it's not like that (as you know). Bing bar had an opt-in feature that used the results of user searches, and the results the user chooses, as feedback for Bing's accuracy. Normally, searches on other sites are a small data point. Because the example Google used was such a unique search term, it was an edge case that was the only data Bing had to go on, and so it appeared as if Bing was simply scraping Google's results.
Again, you know all this, but your eternal hatred of all things Microsoft and eternal love of all things Google prevents you from admitting it.
Not to mention the fact that I've seen you whip out multi-paragraph responses as a first post to stories that have only been on the page for less than a few seconds. You obviously have an agenda and care nothing for facts only how you can twist them to convince yourself that you are right. Sad. And pathetic.
What on Earth does this have to do with anything? I have a subscription, you moron. I see stories on the front page before you do.
I definitely purchase something if I find it's worth it. I will NEVER purchase anything without having previously seen enough of it to be able to verify if it's worth it. Take for example the TV show Father Ted. I saw it and enjoyed it enough to get all seasons on DVD. Same goes for Invader Zim.
You saw one or two episodes and then bought all the seasons. You didn't pirate all the seasons and then buy them.
Music is along the same vein, but instead of 'buy CD', it's 'see live, usually buy shirt or otherwise give directly to band'.
This is a very old and tired argument. People think that they can negate their self-guilt in this way, as if bands make so much money off of friggin' t-shirts.
But one way or another, I stand by my point that making music is not an infinite money machine. You cannot make a song, then profit off of it for all eternity.
Nobody anywhere said anything about an "infinite money machine," nor did they say anything about profiting "for all eternity." All that was mentioned was compensation for an album rather than someone pirating it and never paying the artist. How is that an infinite money machine or an eternity of profit? Talk about a wild straw man.
I'm not even going to address the absurdity of your contention that MS didn't copy Google's results.
Of course you won't. It's already been proved that they weren't simply copying Google's results, and that the reason it appeared so was the fact Google's edge case was the only example of that particular search result that the Bing bar could draw from. This has been covered extensively--which you know already, of course.
The fact that a mere description of MS' behavior is indicative of "having a chip" is more damning than anything I could ever say.
And then another dismissive response that doesn't actually say anything. It's pretty clear you don't actually have an argument to give.
What makes "piloseo.com" any more authoritative on the issue than any of the other thousands of citable links that have exactly the opposite of their take on this?
What "thousands of citable links?" Name one that isn't just a repeat linking back to Google's original post.
Bing copied Google's search results. Hand waving, spin, and long-winded explanations don't make this any less true.
It's been proven that they did not. You don't want to admit the they didn't because you are a Google fanboy and have a chip on your shoulder against Microsoft.
As many times as it takes to completely refute it because it's not true. The Bing bar has an opt-in feature that collects what a user searched for on any site. Because Google used a specific edge case, it clearly showed up in Bing, but for normal results, it's just another data point.
Google has a major financial interest in making you think Microsoft is evil and a thief and just copying Google results and blah blah blah please don't use Bing blah blah blah.
That's right, people are actually trumpeting the use of a browser made by a company with a financial interest in snooping your data and delivering web ads. Slashdot has gone 180 degrees.
I don't get this. Why would someone pay for something they already got for free? Are people really still using the argument that piracy is "free advertising?" The article claims that game pirates play more games and music downloaders visit more concerts, but that doesn't mean piracy is contributing to that--it just means that people who are more into games and music than average are therefore more likely to be obtaining them in as many ways as they can, piracy or otherwise. If there wasn't rampant piracy, how many more games would they be purchasing or albums would they be buying?
I mean, it's not as if a system works where everyone just works for free without any compensation. It's probably just too difficult and expensive for the Swiss government to try to squash piracy, so it's easier to throw up their hands. Plus, this article is posted on TorrentFreak, so it's not exactly an objective analysis.
I just don't get the mindset that not only thinks they are entitled to something they didn't pay for but also justifies it as some kind of culture movement, or a strike against the RIAA, or whatever. I've never respected that mindset. The only mindset I respect is the one that admits the basic human desire of getting something for free, because they're at least being honest about what exactly is happening. The lengths some people go to try to establish themselves as freedom fighters, setting up a "Pirate Party" or ranting about the evils of copyright (but don't you dare steal copyrighted GPL code!) signifies a level of denial I can't even begin to imagine suffering under.
I'm posting an anti-piracy position on Slashdot, so I know I'm opening myself up to a possible modbombing of epic proportions, as this site has become extremely pro-piracy in the last 10 years (getting Linux software for free means everything must be free, apparently), but I felt like I should risk the karma and make whatever points needed to be made.
I didn't say iOS was any less vulnerable to Android when it comes to security; I thought I was clear that I was discussing the lack of carrier intrusion in the shipping operating system. As the story claims, HTC and Samsung aren't even responding to these security issues, and as you point out, Android manufacturers might not even have quality control measures or may be dependent on revenue from crapware, which just adds to my point.
I don't mean to imply that Apple is "magically invulnerable" to security issues. The point is that software out of their control doesn't come pre-installed on the phones at the whim of the carriers. It also puts responsibility on Apple rather than obtuse vendors like HTC or Samsung who won't respond to security issues, according to this story. Hell, most Android phones never even get an official update to their software.
At least with a lot of Android phones you can do something about it without getting too much shit (if any) from your carrier.
If you think rooting a phone is a realistic solution for the average consumer, you don't get the average consumer.
The lack of control the carriers have over iOS is just one of the reasons I prefer it over Android. They wanted to pre-install a bunch of junk on the iPhone, and Apple wouldn't have it. The difficulty reporting these vulnerabilities to HTC and Samsung is not surprising.
The Kyoto Protocol has been criticized for years, so much so that it has its own Wikipedia page. It's not so much that "economics trumps the environment" as it is that economics and climate legislation are actually intricately tied, as well as the fact that there is still new data coming out on climate change that proves we don't know as much as we think we do (global temperature hasn't risen since 1998, a fact that has led to a lot of sideways explanations and justifications). Emissions trading is an obviously ineffective system. Government regulatory agencies tend to have a poor track record in solving anything like this, and the apparent lack of visible evidence of a problem in the first place means societies don't consider it an urgent problem to solve.
It was covered at Kuro5hin. A Slashdot editor was modding the post down in spite of positive user moderations, and anyone who replied to it was flagged (I don't remember the name of the flag in Slashcode). People started referring to it as "The Post." In all these years, I've never seen the moderation controls on Slashdot because I've never gotten mod points (not that I care to).
There's a karma cap. You can call shenanigans all you want, but multiple negative moderations can easily go from Excellent to Neutral in a day, then from Neutral to Bad the next. Your post history will get attacked by multiple accounts using tons of Overrated moderations so that they can't be meta-moderated. It's happened for years and years.
Even innocuous content that wasn't controversial in the slightest would receive mysterious Overrated moderations a day later, driving them into -1 territory. I started submitting more articles just to get karma back up because I was clearly being targeted whenever I posted.
My theory is that most of the sane people left Slashdot for Reddit and Hacker News, leaving behind the hardcore fundies who want a strict, predictable cycle of news on the front page:
1.) Patents are evil 2.) Linux rocks 3.) RIAA is evil, piracy rocks 4.) Google rocks 5.) Apple sucks (now that they're a rival to Google) 6.) Laugh at some bit of Microsoft news 7.) Random gadget advertisement
I mean Slashdot is literally like reddit in the sense that allowing any schmuck to moderate you are basically asking for a hivemind mentality. True, slashdot relies on a semi-random sampling (of people that like to moderate no less) of the user base, but overall you get the same net-effect.
Reddit's system is vastly superior because everyone can vote, there's no adjective attached to the moderation, and there's no Overrated/Underrated loophole. The final score isn't simply a net sum of the votes, either.
The whole system should just be scraped. Disallow anonymous posting and consider implementing a short "lurk" time on new accounts (more for the spam) and the quality of comments is going to improve.
CmdrTaco used to promise a new moderation system was coming. It never came, unless he was just referring to the current Javascript-driven mess.
It's actually quite remarkable how quickly Slashdot became obsolete. It posts news that I've seen elsewhere days before. I don't know why it hasn't made front page submissions an algorithmic decision like Reddit and Hacker News did, because it has enough of a community (dwindling though it may be) to make that kind of site interesting to follow, and news would suddenly start being up to date. Dupes would take care of themselves.
That is to say, users of one political/ideological persuasion who play a "game" of holding multiple accounts ("extra tickets" in the modpoint lottery), and then expend them en masse against other users if they find ones who they disagree with on political grounds. Mostly, this is used to mass-attack someone's karma.
I deal with this all the time because I often post from a position that is critical of Google. My karma goes from Excellent to Terrible to Excellent to Terrible, based entirely on how much I express my opinions on favored heroes like Google or Android.
The weirdest issue I've seen lately is a visible increase in the use of Overrated/Underrated moderations, which to my knowledge are not subject to metamoderation. I can't tell you how many +3 or +0 posts I see these days with no moderation adjective.
Of course, some of us still can't moderate because we replied to The Post nearly a decade ago. That's right, that flag is apparently permanent.
This trend in the comments to label anything listed on the front page that is for sale anywhere as an "advert" is amusing. Even more amusing is the implication that this a journalistic news site and not just a link aggregator.
Slashdot Mirror
Nintendo doesn't even allow you to redownload online purchases on a replacement system. I'd hardly compare to Nintendo as some bastion of consumer fairness. They have a long history of proprietary storage formats, while the Playstations have used CDs, DVDs, and Blu-Rays.
It's been known since last June that the Vita would use NGV memory cards due to size, weight, lack of noise, and other factors. The only difference with this story is that Slashdot has posted a summary slanting it in a certain direction, because this site hates Sony.
Nintendo has a history of proprietary storage formats for every single one of its game systems, from the NES to the Wii. Sony has used CD, DVD, and Blu-Ray for the Playstation series.
Hell, the Wii won't even let you plug an external flash drive into its USB port.
The NES, SNES, N64, Gamecube, Wii, Gameboy, Gameboy Advance, DS, and 3DS all use proprietary storage for games. Sony used CDs, DVDs, and Blu-Rays for the Playstation series.
No, it's not like that (as you know). Bing bar had an opt-in feature that used the results of user searches, and the results the user chooses, as feedback for Bing's accuracy. Normally, searches on other sites are a small data point. Because the example Google used was such a unique search term, it was an edge case that was the only data Bing had to go on, and so it appeared as if Bing was simply scraping Google's results.
Again, you know all this, but your eternal hatred of all things Microsoft and eternal love of all things Google prevents you from admitting it.
What on Earth does this have to do with anything? I have a subscription, you moron. I see stories on the front page before you do.
You saw one or two episodes and then bought all the seasons. You didn't pirate all the seasons and then buy them.
This is a very old and tired argument. People think that they can negate their self-guilt in this way, as if bands make so much money off of friggin' t-shirts.
Nobody anywhere said anything about an "infinite money machine," nor did they say anything about profiting "for all eternity." All that was mentioned was compensation for an album rather than someone pirating it and never paying the artist. How is that an infinite money machine or an eternity of profit? Talk about a wild straw man.
Of course you won't. It's already been proved that they weren't simply copying Google's results, and that the reason it appeared so was the fact Google's edge case was the only example of that particular search result that the Bing bar could draw from. This has been covered extensively--which you know already, of course.
And then another dismissive response that doesn't actually say anything. It's pretty clear you don't actually have an argument to give.
Don't worry, I'm sure another "Google is great" or "Copyright sucks" article is in the queue.
Good thing competitors like Nintendo use standard media for everyth...oh, wait.
What "thousands of citable links?" Name one that isn't just a repeat linking back to Google's original post.
It's been proven that they did not. You don't want to admit the they didn't because you are a Google fanboy and have a chip on your shoulder against Microsoft.
As many times as it takes to completely refute it because it's not true. The Bing bar has an opt-in feature that collects what a user searched for on any site. Because Google used a specific edge case, it clearly showed up in Bing, but for normal results, it's just another data point.
Google has a major financial interest in making you think Microsoft is evil and a thief and just copying Google results and blah blah blah please don't use Bing blah blah blah.
Because Google's revenue comes from web ads.
That's right, people are actually trumpeting the use of a browser made by a company with a financial interest in snooping your data and delivering web ads. Slashdot has gone 180 degrees.
You're saying that Chrome reports to Google by default? That's even worse.
Microsoft defenders said things like that in 1998.
I don't get this. Why would someone pay for something they already got for free? Are people really still using the argument that piracy is "free advertising?" The article claims that game pirates play more games and music downloaders visit more concerts, but that doesn't mean piracy is contributing to that--it just means that people who are more into games and music than average are therefore more likely to be obtaining them in as many ways as they can, piracy or otherwise. If there wasn't rampant piracy, how many more games would they be purchasing or albums would they be buying?
I mean, it's not as if a system works where everyone just works for free without any compensation. It's probably just too difficult and expensive for the Swiss government to try to squash piracy, so it's easier to throw up their hands. Plus, this article is posted on TorrentFreak, so it's not exactly an objective analysis.
I just don't get the mindset that not only thinks they are entitled to something they didn't pay for but also justifies it as some kind of culture movement, or a strike against the RIAA, or whatever. I've never respected that mindset. The only mindset I respect is the one that admits the basic human desire of getting something for free, because they're at least being honest about what exactly is happening. The lengths some people go to try to establish themselves as freedom fighters, setting up a "Pirate Party" or ranting about the evils of copyright (but don't you dare steal copyrighted GPL code!) signifies a level of denial I can't even begin to imagine suffering under.
I'm posting an anti-piracy position on Slashdot, so I know I'm opening myself up to a possible modbombing of epic proportions, as this site has become extremely pro-piracy in the last 10 years (getting Linux software for free means everything must be free, apparently), but I felt like I should risk the karma and make whatever points needed to be made.
I didn't say iOS was any less vulnerable to Android when it comes to security; I thought I was clear that I was discussing the lack of carrier intrusion in the shipping operating system. As the story claims, HTC and Samsung aren't even responding to these security issues, and as you point out, Android manufacturers might not even have quality control measures or may be dependent on revenue from crapware, which just adds to my point.
I don't mean to imply that Apple is "magically invulnerable" to security issues. The point is that software out of their control doesn't come pre-installed on the phones at the whim of the carriers. It also puts responsibility on Apple rather than obtuse vendors like HTC or Samsung who won't respond to security issues, according to this story. Hell, most Android phones never even get an official update to their software.
If you think rooting a phone is a realistic solution for the average consumer, you don't get the average consumer.
The lack of control the carriers have over iOS is just one of the reasons I prefer it over Android. They wanted to pre-install a bunch of junk on the iPhone, and Apple wouldn't have it. The difficulty reporting these vulnerabilities to HTC and Samsung is not surprising.
The Kyoto Protocol has been criticized for years, so much so that it has its own Wikipedia page. It's not so much that "economics trumps the environment" as it is that economics and climate legislation are actually intricately tied, as well as the fact that there is still new data coming out on climate change that proves we don't know as much as we think we do (global temperature hasn't risen since 1998, a fact that has led to a lot of sideways explanations and justifications). Emissions trading is an obviously ineffective system. Government regulatory agencies tend to have a poor track record in solving anything like this, and the apparent lack of visible evidence of a problem in the first place means societies don't consider it an urgent problem to solve.
It was covered at Kuro5hin. A Slashdot editor was modding the post down in spite of positive user moderations, and anyone who replied to it was flagged (I don't remember the name of the flag in Slashcode). People started referring to it as "The Post." In all these years, I've never seen the moderation controls on Slashdot because I've never gotten mod points (not that I care to).
There's a karma cap. You can call shenanigans all you want, but multiple negative moderations can easily go from Excellent to Neutral in a day, then from Neutral to Bad the next. Your post history will get attacked by multiple accounts using tons of Overrated moderations so that they can't be meta-moderated. It's happened for years and years.
Even innocuous content that wasn't controversial in the slightest would receive mysterious Overrated moderations a day later, driving them into -1 territory. I started submitting more articles just to get karma back up because I was clearly being targeted whenever I posted.
My theory is that most of the sane people left Slashdot for Reddit and Hacker News, leaving behind the hardcore fundies who want a strict, predictable cycle of news on the front page:
1.) Patents are evil
2.) Linux rocks
3.) RIAA is evil, piracy rocks
4.) Google rocks
5.) Apple sucks (now that they're a rival to Google)
6.) Laugh at some bit of Microsoft news
7.) Random gadget advertisement
Reddit's system is vastly superior because everyone can vote, there's no adjective attached to the moderation, and there's no Overrated/Underrated loophole. The final score isn't simply a net sum of the votes, either.
CmdrTaco used to promise a new moderation system was coming. It never came, unless he was just referring to the current Javascript-driven mess.
It's actually quite remarkable how quickly Slashdot became obsolete. It posts news that I've seen elsewhere days before. I don't know why it hasn't made front page submissions an algorithmic decision like Reddit and Hacker News did, because it has enough of a community (dwindling though it may be) to make that kind of site interesting to follow, and news would suddenly start being up to date. Dupes would take care of themselves.
I deal with this all the time because I often post from a position that is critical of Google. My karma goes from Excellent to Terrible to Excellent to Terrible, based entirely on how much I express my opinions on favored heroes like Google or Android.
The weirdest issue I've seen lately is a visible increase in the use of Overrated/Underrated moderations, which to my knowledge are not subject to metamoderation. I can't tell you how many +3 or +0 posts I see these days with no moderation adjective.
Of course, some of us still can't moderate because we replied to The Post nearly a decade ago. That's right, that flag is apparently permanent.
This trend in the comments to label anything listed on the front page that is for sale anywhere as an "advert" is amusing. Even more amusing is the implication that this a journalistic news site and not just a link aggregator.
Good thing nobody is claiming this is "FOSS."