I feel your pain...been trying to hunt down a copy locally as well, and have been coming up blank for quite a while. Definitely one of the tougher DC games to find nowadays.
Considering how close the Xbox is to a "normal" PC, I'd think they could probably port FFXI without all THAT much trouble.
As for the others, you're probably right. It all depends on which direction Square decides to go in the future. We know they'll be releasing for PS2, and they're releasing at least *some* games for GCN (Crystal Chronicles being the big one at the moment)... It wouldn't be a long jump in logic for them to release something for the Xbox - but, given what they've shown with the GCN (all matters of Square vs. Nintendo history aside), it probably won't be one of the main FF "series" games, but a side-story game like CC. (XI, of course, aside)
This raises the question: Will the wireless capability be compatible with pre-existing link games? Will future link games allow the use of wired cables if two wireless adapters are not present? Is it possible to mix wired and wireless play?
I wouldn't think so, as the GBA only has one link port, and thus only one link adapter can be attached (wired or wireless). Unless someone puts out a combo adapter, I'd say the two camps will probably have to play in their own sandboxes.
Just so long as there's a reasonably affordable way for a "normal", non-corporate customer to get a non-blocked, static ip, I'm OK with most others blocking port 25.
If one were to extrapolate, the problems arising from the former include the engine -taking the turret out of a tank doesn't make it a sportscar.
Well, no...but pulling off most of the heavy armor, removing the non-essential systems, pulling off the turret (mail), but realizing it's still a perfectly good cannon, and handing it off to a second team to tweak and make into a mobile artillery platform (Thunderbird) leaves them with a fairly light (in comparison) frame, driven by the same engine that's used to driving a much heavier vehicle around. The result is a vehicle that's quite fast, but looks like hell;P Just need to slap a fiberglass body (skin) on it to make it look nice::grin::
Mods please note: The proper moderation for the above post is "Funny", not "Informative". Pay special attention to the address (which is obviously fake), and the Attn: line.
There's a big difference between manufacturing process patents and business process patents. The scenario you describe is obviously a manufacturing process - and I'd have no problems with anyone patenting that kind of thing.
OTOH, patenting a business process (like providing purchase history, or remembering customer information between visits a la "One-Click") is completely the opposite. Saying "You can't offer that service to your customers because we're the ones who own it - we'll license it to you if you pay us TEN BILLION DOLLARS (cue Dr. Evil pinky-finger pose) and 50% of all sales - which, of course, we know you'll never agree to" is insane. This sort of thing needs to be fixed, otherwise in a few years noone except the incredibly rich will be able to afford to run a business in this country.
I should apply for a patent "covering any process by which goods and services are brought to potential customers' attention by carefully crafted aural and/or visual cues emphasizing their use, value, or other attributes" and see how far it gets...
You stole potential money by copying the magazine from the shopkeeper.
You can't steal "potential" anything. "Potential" means, roughly "what is possible". And while it was indeed possible that you might have purchased said magazine, the fact that you did not is not stealing - regardless of whatever copyright infringement may have taken place.
See, a sale is the exchange of money for goods. In this case, the exchange of money for the magazine. The lack of a sale doesn't imply stealing.
The magazine is still on the shelf in saleable condition. Someone else might buy it - therefore the "potential to be sold" is still there, with regards to that magazine. The shopowner may still sell that magazine. There is no guarantee that he will. He is not entitled to sell it - he takes a chance when he orders stock from his supplier that the magazine will sell, and that he will make profit from it. In fact, it's not even that much of a chance, because he will (generally) be reimbursed for some portion of his initial investment if and when he sends the unsold copies back to the manufacturer to be pulped. His loss per title will most likely be fairly minimal (excepting the case that he REALLY stocked up on a magazine that sold poorly)
Let's check states with regards to the shop, shall we? Before the person enters, there's a shopkeeper, a shop, and a number of magazines for sale.
Person enters.
Scenario A: Person looks around, then exits the shop without buying anything.
State: We have a shopkeeper, a shop, and the same number of magazines for sale as before.
Scenario B: Person looks around, and takes a few shots of a magazine with his phonecam, then exits the shop without buying anything.
State: We have a shopkeeper, a shop, and the same number of magazines for sale as before.
No difference in state with regards to the shop. There is no loss. Let's look at Scenario C...
Scenario C: Person looks around the shop, tucks a magazine under his jacket, and leaves the shop without buying anything.
State: We have a shopkeeper, a shop, and one less magazine.
We have loss in this scenario - so theft has indeed taken place. The shop owner was deprived of property. He no longer can sell that magazine to anyone, because he no longer has that magazine.
See the difference?
Now, copying that magazine without first paying for it is wrong. I won't argue with that. But it's not stealing/theft in any sense of the word.
I don't mind commercials on TV (as long as the ratio between actual content and advertisements is at least 5:1),
Commercials, at regular, scheduled intervals, at a 5:1 ratio with the real content would be good.
Cutting out this crap of taking over 1/3-1/2 of the screen for a big, animated ad during a show would be a nice addition.
Playing the commercials at a normal volume, instead of jacking it up in relation to the volume of the real content would also be nice.
ads in the classifieds section of the newspaper, or ads in the Yellow Pages. THAT is how we would find the products or services we would need.
Indeed. I have no problems with either of these, as they are placed such that someone actively looking for them will find them, and people uninterested never need see them. Advertising need not be shoved down people's throats to be effective - it need only be accessible when people need it.
I think I can sum things up pretty cleanly with one piece of advice:
Advertisers: Annoying your potential customers is bad. Cut it out.
Does anyone know how to find out where a telemarketer is REALLY calling you from?
Well, the way I understand it, it works something like this:
Company A is trying to sell a widget, and hires Company B (a marketing company) to help them sell more widgets
Company B basically coordinates things, but does nothing itself. They outsource to several different companies specializing in various forms of advertising - one for print ads in magazines and newspapers, possibly another to make/run a commerical on the radio or TV, and, of course, Company C, who does telemarketing. (Possibly also having Companies D, E and F do it as well...)
Company C's real business is not telemarketing, but selling customer lists, containing phone, email, street addresses, etc... They outsource the actual calling job (along with a calling list) to Company G.
Company G has an automated calling device, instead of an actual phone center. They make the call, play a pre-recorded pitch, and refer you to call Company H for more details. Since there's no actual PERSON to talk to, you can't ask to be put on their "Do Not Call" list.
Company H (who does no calling, only taking calls, and orders, passing them back to Company C, who then passes it back on to Company A) answers your (rather irate) phone call, asking to be put on their "Do Not Call" list. Since they do no calling, they don't have a "Do Not Call" list at all, and can't help. When you ask who they work for, so that you may be put on their "Do Not Call" list, they may or may not give you an answer, depending on whether they are allowed to give out such "confidential company information".
Even if you manage to track it back to Company C, and speak to someone there, since they only outsource to calling companies, and do no calling themselves, their "Do Not Call" list is also useless to you, as it would only be binding for them, not the company doing the actual calling. Again, depending on their policy, you may or may not be able to actually get information on the calling company itself. Most likely not, as it would sabotage their business model if they were to give out that information.
Even if you do manage to get added to one calling company's "Do Not Call" list, other calling companies aren't bound by that (and the one you did get on may "expire" after 3 months or so)
Yes, I speak from personal experience, after attempting to track down and get onto the "Do Not Call" list for whatever companies Disney hires to telemarket their cruises. Whomever they use (I wasn't able to get a company name, because it's "confidential") uses an automated dialer, with a 15 minute sales pitch recording that doesn't care if it's talking to an answering machine or not. My answering machine only holds 15 minutes worth of messages - so one of their pitches makes my machine useless.
The problem is that there's so many layers, each independant of the others, and each wary of giving out "company secrets" regarding their "business partners", that it's like pulling teeth to get any kind of information out of them. And heaven forbid you actually tell them you're trying to stop the telemarketing calls -- that's grounds for them to immediately hang up on you in most cases.
Apple charges it because people will pay it. Microsoft does the same thing, just a hell of a lot slower, and gives you a hell of a lot less.
No argument there.
It'll never fucking happen. Why the fuck should you care how much Apple charges for OS upgrades when you aren't even a customer?
Maybe because I research things before I buy them. The yearly update cost of $120 or so is an additional cost to figure in when considering the purchase of a Mac.
Let's face it, the Mac software is at least half the reason to buy a Mac...possibly more. If you just want the hardware, you can get a comparable PC system for quite a bit less, on the average. It's the software you can't get elsewhere.
I could understand $120 or so for a major version upgrade (9->X, X->XI, etc...), but for a point release, it seems rather expensive. $49 or so would seem the reasonable price to me.
If a completely optional $120 once a year scares you away, then why would you be willing to pay $1000+ for a Mac?
I won't argue there, either. It's actually one of the reasons that, while I have really enjoyed using Macs in the past, and would like to own one, I don't. The total cost, all things considered (including replacing software I already have, like Photoshop) is a bit more than I'd care to spend right now.
If Apple were to lower their prices a bit, they'd likely sell more Macs to folks like me who view their current prices as prohibitive. Of course, they also have to recoup their development costs - which I would imagine are quite high - so any decision to lower prices would also have to take that into account.
BTW, could you name at least one new game for Linux? Anything 2-year old doesnt count.
Shadows of Undrentide. Sure, we don't get movies or the toolset, but the game is playable (and the toolset runs under wine with a bit of coaxing). The "final" NWN client (same thing, really) was just released too (NWN being slightly ove 1 year old, IIRC)
UT2K3 is another one (also a little under a year old, but was out much earlier for linux than NWN, yes?)
Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. Released...what...a month ago?
Err...you mean Shadows of Undrentide? It shipped with linux binaries for the player and DM clients (sadly, no toolset). Small issue being that the install script got pooched during the CD mastering process, so it's in DOS format rather than UNIX format - but there are workarounds.
It's not the quality of the movies - it's the fact that for the main storyline to make sense, you need at least the narrative that is given during the movies. The impression I get from the folks in the nwn.bioware.com forums is that quite a few people would be happy if they just gave static image with a sound-only voiceover, or even just displayed the text of the storyline to be read at the appropriate time.
Cursive DOES have a purpose, and that is to provide an easier way to write than 'printing'. It is FASTER and MORE FLUID than printing is.
Faster and more fluid to write, but quite a bit harder to read (in most cases I've encountered).
Since the ultimate goal of "writing" in any format is to communicate, wouldn't the easiest to read be most important? Wouldn't it make sense that the harder to read a given medium is, the less popular it would become over time?
So the RIAA knows they haven't a leg to stand on (unless you can believe they were being altruistic in not forcing a black mark on the student's permanent record -- yeah, right), and still somehow forces him to pay them all his money.
See, that's the evil part. They didn't "force" him to do anything. They gave him a choice. (Also known as "An offer he could not refuse", to paraphrase a certain movie...)
"Spend every last cent you have defending yourself against our baseless accusations, missing classes that you've already paid for, setting yourself at least a semester behind in your schooling, as we drag out the court proceedings until you can no longer afford to pay for your defense in court, and have to give in to us anyway, leading to a legal judgement against you and further damages that you will be required by law to pay...or "simply" give us your life's savings of $12,000.00 and we'll go away, and you can continue to claim you did nothing wrong."
I believe the legal term for this, as mentioned by a post above, is "Barratry". The only thing that sets this apart from the kind of extortion the Mafia was famous for is the RIAA's Guido has a law degree, and carries a stack of filing papers rather than a rusty iron pipe.
The iTMS wasn't going to make or break Apple, I don't think he'd have mortgaged the store to bring it to iTunes, which is, speculatively, why he may have been looking to buy Universal. "Okay, if you don't wanna play, then I'll buy my own music company, do my own distribution and we'll just see how long it takes y'all to catch up." Which is not to say that the RIAA didn't come back and say "Well, okay, but we reserve the right to comment on any shady stuff that comes out of this situation", but I don't think Steve likes being told how to do things.:)
LOL - Too true. I'd forgotten about the rumors he was looking at buying Universal. I'd love to have been a fly on the wall during the Apple/RIAA negotiations though - just to see how the deal was actually "struck". It'll be interesting to see if the RIAA tries to pull strings at Apple - and how Apple responds.
Of course you're entitled to your opinion, but it read like you were saying "I don't, but you should". If that's not what you were going for, then I respectfully retract that statement.
More like "I don't, but if I did, I'd be doing this." How you take that is up to you, but it definitely wasn't meant as advice. I tend to shoot from the hip too much to be giving advice all over the place;P
I know the position of the RIAA, but Apple's position on this issue has historically been pro-use, contrasted with what I see as MS's restrictive, tied-down, kowtowing to the RI/MP-AA use of DRM. If Apple changes their position dramatically, then I will be looking for other products that are not as restrictive, and I'm sure they'll spring up, roaching much of what Apple's worked for in this whole iLife thing.
Agreed - the public isn't keen on DRM, and if it gets in their way (as the RIAA wants, and MS intends to implement), they will look elsewhere. It'll be sad if iTMS goes that way - it at least tries to keep DRM out of the customer's way, but I agree that there will definitely be more "open" alternatives if it does (the legality of those options, however, may be open to debate;P )
We can hope. But I'm an optimist, and your original reply smacked of pessimism.:)
Pegged me there. I'm a pessimist by nature when it comes to corporate matters. The whole process should be interesting to watch, though, either way =)
While they're at it, think they could do the same to the Korean ones? 90-95% of the spam I get is Korean in origin, and language. You'd think they'd want to send their spam to people who can actually read it;P
If their software is enabling piracy, then yes, they are "right" to disable the feature.
Admittedly, I don't have first-hand experience, but it's my impression that it's not iTunes sharing that was really the "enabler" - that it was a set of third-party plugins that made ripping the streams possible. Correct me if I'm wrong on this.
Additionally, as I understand it, the streams would only play on an "authorized" machine -- of which there can be up to three for any given music file. Presumably, this serves to prevent "rampant" copyright infringement (by folks who, by virtue of shopping at the ITMS, aren't infringers anyway, right?) - so why would the same-subnet restriction be necessary to prevent "piracy"? (as you like to call it, even if there's no looting/pillaging/naval combat involved;P )
It seems that you are expecting there to be a next step, which is an assumption made under the slippery slope logical fallacy. There may not be another step.
True, that. The possibility exists that another step wouldn't be taken. But, if you're Steve Jobs, and you have this fabulously-profitable and popular service, that depends on a tenuous contract with the RIAA...and the RIAA says "You'll make this change, or we'll nullify your contract, and you can kiss your license to sell our music goodbye"...what do you do? Apple's placed themselves in a precarious position, and it'll be interesting to see how far this goes.
And I would almost say that your admission of not using a Mac at all precludes you from this conversation. You can say "I'll never use their stuff because it looks like they're going this way" or "I like all my software and hardware open", but to say you don't use and won't use, then give advice to people who do use on what they should say is somewhat backhanded. "I've never driven or owned a Ford because they suck. You shouldn't drive one, and call Ford and tell them they suck." would seem to be an appropriate analogy, which doesn't make sense to me.
I'm just giving my observations and opinions. As far as I know, I'm entitled to have an opinion. Whether or not you agree with me is another matter entirely! =)
And I'm not being backhanded - nor did I ever say that Apples "suck". I actually like their machines quite a bit, and I'd own one if it weren't so darned expensive - both for the hardware, as well as the software (mildly expensive yearly OS upgrades, iLife,.Mac, etc...) and other gadgets (iPod) that make up the whole "Apple Experience". Trust me, I'd have one if the money was there. Finances, however, dictate that this geek make do with what he's got, or can acquire for cheap. Right now, that's not a Mac.::shrug:: I still go into CompUSA and drool over the big Cinema display (not literally, of course - that would get messy, and they'd probably want me to pay for the monitor, which I can't afford;P ).
My comments of what I would do, weren't meant as advice, either - just statements of what I'd do. My concerns about how far this goes are warranted, I think. History shows the RIAA as being notoriously anti-Fair-Use. Apple managed to make a tenuous agreement to allow for (slightly limited) Fair Use, while making an effort to appease the RIAA's demands. I actually admire Apple for doing this - but I'm concerned that the various Fair Use abilities of their implementation will be stripped away one-by-one as the RIAA brings up concerns, and threatens their license to sell.
But, if non-Mac-users can't be a part of the conversation here, I'll stop after this reply. I definitely didn't mean to offend with my non-Mac-ness.
On their iTunes 4.0.1 update page it states: "iTunes 4.0.1 includes a number of performance and network access enhancements, and only allows music sharing between computers using iTunes 4.0.1 or later on a local network (in the same subnet)." This does not sound to me like a positive spin, but a plain statemen
I haven't read the posts here yet, but I hope there's not a lot of grousing about it. Apple is fully in the right on this, if their software is being used in a way they don't like, they can certainly change it. They've never been up for pirating, and shouldn't be.
I think the expression you're looking for is "Apple is fully within their rights on this" - which I won't argue with. If they want to remove a feature from their software, that's their perogative.
Disclaimer: I'm not an iTunes user. I don't own a Mac, or any other piece of Apple hardware. I haven't used the iTMS, nor do I plan to.
I think the biggest issue I have with this whole debacle is that they took away a feature that may have been the reason some users actually purchased music from the iTMS. To put it another way, some users of the iTMS may not have purchased music there, had this feature not been present, or had it been crippled in the way it is now.
Were I in that situation I would be more than a little upset. I would also be letting Apple know of my distress, that I would no longer be purchasing music from their store until such time as it is re-instated, and asking for a refund.
As has been said countless other times in this thread, there exist quite a few ways of getting music - Apple's way has the benefit of being legal, but comes with some extra baggage in the form of DRM. While I applaud them for instituting a fairly minimum DRM to begin with, I see this move as the first step down a very slippery slope.
We don't know their motivations for removing this feature - but it's reasonable to think that a complaint from the "Big 5" may have been the catalyst. If this is the case, how long will it be until the next step down the slope?
If they take too many steps down the slope, they will alienate their userbase, who will turn back to other, possibly less-than-legal methods for obtaining their music. Remember, the users of this service aren't criminals, however the RIAA and/or Apple would like to treat them.
There's also an argument to be made about calling the removal/neutering of a popular feature an "improvement"...I would expect every iTunes user that used this feature to complain to Apple about "spinning" this as an improvement. It's a slap in the face to the customers that are responsible for their success.
Slashdot Mirror
"Gentleman Mr. (DO) introduction to theoretical physics"
;P
Isn't quantum physics encompassed in the whole 'theoretical' subclass of physics?
Mr. Do is giving a theoretical physics lecture? Cool - I always wanted to know how that bicycle-pump weapon worked!
I feel your pain...been trying to hunt down a copy locally as well, and have been coming up blank for quite a while. Definitely one of the tougher DC games to find nowadays.
Considering how close the Xbox is to a "normal" PC, I'd think they could probably port FFXI without all THAT much trouble.
As for the others, you're probably right. It all depends on which direction Square decides to go in the future. We know they'll be releasing for PS2, and they're releasing at least *some* games for GCN (Crystal Chronicles being the big one at the moment)... It wouldn't be a long jump in logic for them to release something for the Xbox - but, given what they've shown with the GCN (all matters of Square vs. Nintendo history aside), it probably won't be one of the main FF "series" games, but a side-story game like CC. (XI, of course, aside)
There was no DNS and people passed around a text file full of FTP sites and nobody had come up with the idea of a URI or a URL.
;P
<GrumpyOldMan>...and we LIKED it!</GrumpyOldMan>
This raises the question: Will the wireless capability be compatible with pre-existing link games? Will future link games allow the use of wired cables if two wireless adapters are not present? Is it possible to mix wired and wireless play?
I wouldn't think so, as the GBA only has one link port, and thus only one link adapter can be attached (wired or wireless). Unless someone puts out a combo adapter, I'd say the two camps will probably have to play in their own sandboxes.
Tokyo Kid in Cambridge, MA also has a Power Battles arcade unit. =)
Just so long as there's a reasonably affordable way for a "normal", non-corporate customer to get a non-blocked, static ip, I'm OK with most others blocking port 25.
If they could make a orbital version of 'Survivor' or 'Big Brother' a weekly episode it might pay for itself.
"I'm sorry Jim, you've been voted out the airlock this week."
50 songs at 5 min each, that is 250 minutes. That is 8+ hours a day.
250 min / 60 min/hr = 4hr,10min
A far cry from "8+ hours a day"
Well, no...but pulling off most of the heavy armor, removing the non-essential systems, pulling off the turret (mail), but realizing it's still a perfectly good cannon, and handing it off to a second team to tweak and make into a mobile artillery platform (Thunderbird) leaves them with a fairly light (in comparison) frame, driven by the same engine that's used to driving a much heavier vehicle around. The result is a vehicle that's quite fast, but looks like hell
Mods please note: The proper moderation for the above post is "Funny", not "Informative". Pay special attention to the address (which is obviously fake), and the Attn: line.
There's a big difference between manufacturing process patents and business process patents. The scenario you describe is obviously a manufacturing process - and I'd have no problems with anyone patenting that kind of thing.
OTOH, patenting a business process (like providing purchase history, or remembering customer information between visits a la "One-Click") is completely the opposite. Saying "You can't offer that service to your customers because we're the ones who own it - we'll license it to you if you pay us TEN BILLION DOLLARS (cue Dr. Evil pinky-finger pose) and 50% of all sales - which, of course, we know you'll never agree to" is insane. This sort of thing needs to be fixed, otherwise in a few years noone except the incredibly rich will be able to afford to run a business in this country.
I should apply for a patent "covering any process by which goods and services are brought to potential customers' attention by carefully crafted aural and/or visual cues emphasizing their use, value, or other attributes" and see how far it gets...
You stole potential money by copying the magazine from the shopkeeper.
You can't steal "potential" anything. "Potential" means, roughly "what is possible". And while it was indeed possible that you might have purchased said magazine, the fact that you did not is not stealing - regardless of whatever copyright infringement may have taken place.
See, a sale is the exchange of money for goods. In this case, the exchange of money for the magazine. The lack of a sale doesn't imply stealing.
The magazine is still on the shelf in saleable condition. Someone else might buy it - therefore the "potential to be sold" is still there, with regards to that magazine. The shopowner may still sell that magazine. There is no guarantee that he will. He is not entitled to sell it - he takes a chance when he orders stock from his supplier that the magazine will sell, and that he will make profit from it. In fact, it's not even that much of a chance, because he will (generally) be reimbursed for some portion of his initial investment if and when he sends the unsold copies back to the manufacturer to be pulped. His loss per title will most likely be fairly minimal (excepting the case that he REALLY stocked up on a magazine that sold poorly)
Let's check states with regards to the shop, shall we? Before the person enters, there's a shopkeeper, a shop, and a number of magazines for sale.
Person enters.
Scenario A: Person looks around, then exits the shop without buying anything.
State: We have a shopkeeper, a shop, and the same number of magazines for sale as before.
Scenario B: Person looks around, and takes a few shots of a magazine with his phonecam, then exits the shop without buying anything.
State: We have a shopkeeper, a shop, and the same number of magazines for sale as before.
No difference in state with regards to the shop. There is no loss. Let's look at Scenario C...
Scenario C: Person looks around the shop, tucks a magazine under his jacket, and leaves the shop without buying anything.
State: We have a shopkeeper, a shop, and one less magazine.
We have loss in this scenario - so theft has indeed taken place. The shop owner was deprived of property. He no longer can sell that magazine to anyone, because he no longer has that magazine.
See the difference?
Now, copying that magazine without first paying for it is wrong. I won't argue with that. But it's not stealing/theft in any sense of the word.
(OT: I love that Carlin sketch too =) )
Agreed. 100%.
Commercials, at regular, scheduled intervals, at a 5:1 ratio with the real content would be good.
Cutting out this crap of taking over 1/3-1/2 of the screen for a big, animated ad during a show would be a nice addition.
Playing the commercials at a normal volume, instead of jacking it up in relation to the volume of the real content would also be nice.
Indeed. I have no problems with either of these, as they are placed such that someone actively looking for them will find them, and people uninterested never need see them. Advertising need not be shoved down people's throats to be effective - it need only be accessible when people need it.
I think I can sum things up pretty cleanly with one piece of advice:
Advertisers: Annoying your potential customers is bad. Cut it out.
Well, the way I understand it, it works something like this:
- Company A is trying to sell a widget, and hires Company B (a marketing company) to help them sell more widgets
- Company B basically coordinates things, but does nothing itself. They outsource to several different companies specializing in various forms of advertising - one for print ads in magazines and newspapers, possibly another to make/run a commerical on the radio or TV, and, of course, Company C, who does telemarketing. (Possibly also having Companies D, E and F do it as well...)
- Company C's real business is not telemarketing, but selling customer lists, containing phone, email, street addresses, etc... They outsource the actual calling job (along with a calling list) to Company G.
- Company G has an automated calling device, instead of an actual phone center. They make the call, play a pre-recorded pitch, and refer you to call Company H for more details. Since there's no actual PERSON to talk to, you can't ask to be put on their "Do Not Call" list.
- Company H (who does no calling, only taking calls, and orders, passing them back to Company C, who then passes it back on to Company A) answers your (rather irate) phone call, asking to be put on their "Do Not Call" list. Since they do no calling, they don't have a "Do Not Call" list at all, and can't help. When you ask who they work for, so that you may be put on their "Do Not Call" list, they may or may not give you an answer, depending on whether they are allowed to give out such "confidential company information".
- Even if you manage to track it back to Company C, and speak to someone there, since they only outsource to calling companies, and do no calling themselves, their "Do Not Call" list is also useless to you, as it would only be binding for them, not the company doing the actual calling. Again, depending on their policy, you may or may not be able to actually get information on the calling company itself. Most likely not, as it would sabotage their business model if they were to give out that information.
- Even if you do manage to get added to one calling company's "Do Not Call" list, other calling companies aren't bound by that (and the one you did get on may "expire" after 3 months or so)
Yes, I speak from personal experience, after attempting to track down and get onto the "Do Not Call" list for whatever companies Disney hires to telemarket their cruises. Whomever they use (I wasn't able to get a company name, because it's "confidential") uses an automated dialer, with a 15 minute sales pitch recording that doesn't care if it's talking to an answering machine or not. My answering machine only holds 15 minutes worth of messages - so one of their pitches makes my machine useless.The problem is that there's so many layers, each independant of the others, and each wary of giving out "company secrets" regarding their "business partners", that it's like pulling teeth to get any kind of information out of them. And heaven forbid you actually tell them you're trying to stop the telemarketing calls -- that's grounds for them to immediately hang up on you in most cases.
Apple charges it because people will pay it. Microsoft does the same thing, just a hell of a lot slower, and gives you a hell of a lot less.
No argument there.
It'll never fucking happen. Why the fuck should you care how much Apple charges for OS upgrades when you aren't even a customer?
Maybe because I research things before I buy them. The yearly update cost of $120 or so is an additional cost to figure in when considering the purchase of a Mac.
Let's face it, the Mac software is at least half the reason to buy a Mac...possibly more. If you just want the hardware, you can get a comparable PC system for quite a bit less, on the average. It's the software you can't get elsewhere.
I could understand $120 or so for a major version upgrade (9->X, X->XI, etc...), but for a point release, it seems rather expensive. $49 or so would seem the reasonable price to me.
If a completely optional $120 once a year scares you away, then why would you be willing to pay $1000+ for a Mac?
I won't argue there, either. It's actually one of the reasons that, while I have really enjoyed using Macs in the past, and would like to own one, I don't. The total cost, all things considered (including replacing software I already have, like Photoshop) is a bit more than I'd care to spend right now.
If Apple were to lower their prices a bit, they'd likely sell more Macs to folks like me who view their current prices as prohibitive. Of course, they also have to recoup their development costs - which I would imagine are quite high - so any decision to lower prices would also have to take that into account.
BTW, could you name at least one new game for Linux? Anything 2-year old doesnt count.
Shadows of Undrentide. Sure, we don't get movies or the toolset, but the game is playable (and the toolset runs under wine with a bit of coaxing). The "final" NWN client (same thing, really) was just released too (NWN being slightly ove 1 year old, IIRC)
UT2K3 is another one (also a little under a year old, but was out much earlier for linux than NWN, yes?)
Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. Released...what...a month ago?
^_^
Err...you mean Shadows of Undrentide? It shipped with linux binaries for the player and DM clients (sadly, no toolset). Small issue being that the install script got pooched during the CD mastering process, so it's in DOS format rather than UNIX format - but there are workarounds.
Check out http://nwn.bioware.com - all the info is there, or in the forums.
It's not the quality of the movies - it's the fact that for the main storyline to make sense, you need at least the narrative that is given during the movies. The impression I get from the folks in the nwn.bioware.com forums is that quite a few people would be happy if they just gave static image with a sound-only voiceover, or even just displayed the text of the storyline to be read at the appropriate time.
Cursive DOES have a purpose, and that is to provide an easier way to write than 'printing'. It is FASTER and MORE FLUID than printing is.
Faster and more fluid to write, but quite a bit harder to read (in most cases I've encountered).
Since the ultimate goal of "writing" in any format is to communicate, wouldn't the easiest to read be most important? Wouldn't it make sense that the harder to read a given medium is, the less popular it would become over time?
Survival of the fittest.
So the RIAA knows they haven't a leg to stand on (unless you can believe they were being altruistic in not forcing a black mark on the student's permanent record -- yeah, right), and still somehow forces him to pay them all his money.
See, that's the evil part. They didn't "force" him to do anything. They gave him a choice. (Also known as "An offer he could not refuse", to paraphrase a certain movie...)
"Spend every last cent you have defending yourself against our baseless accusations, missing classes that you've already paid for, setting yourself at least a semester behind in your schooling, as we drag out the court proceedings until you can no longer afford to pay for your defense in court, and have to give in to us anyway, leading to a legal judgement against you and further damages that you will be required by law to pay...or "simply" give us your life's savings of $12,000.00 and we'll go away, and you can continue to claim you did nothing wrong."
I believe the legal term for this, as mentioned by a post above, is "Barratry". The only thing that sets this apart from the kind of extortion the Mafia was famous for is the RIAA's Guido has a law degree, and carries a stack of filing papers rather than a rusty iron pipe.
The iTMS wasn't going to make or break Apple, I don't think he'd have mortgaged the store to bring it to iTunes, which is, speculatively, why he may have been looking to buy Universal. "Okay, if you don't wanna play, then I'll buy my own music company, do my own distribution and we'll just see how long it takes y'all to catch up." Which is not to say that the RIAA didn't come back and say "Well, okay, but we reserve the right to comment on any shady stuff that comes out of this situation", but I don't think Steve likes being told how to do things. :)
;P
;P )
:)
LOL - Too true. I'd forgotten about the rumors he was looking at buying Universal. I'd love to have been a fly on the wall during the Apple/RIAA negotiations though - just to see how the deal was actually "struck". It'll be interesting to see if the RIAA tries to pull strings at Apple - and how Apple responds.
Of course you're entitled to your opinion, but it read like you were saying "I don't, but you should". If that's not what you were going for, then I respectfully retract that statement.
More like "I don't, but if I did, I'd be doing this." How you take that is up to you, but it definitely wasn't meant as advice. I tend to shoot from the hip too much to be giving advice all over the place
I know the position of the RIAA, but Apple's position on this issue has historically been pro-use, contrasted with what I see as MS's restrictive, tied-down, kowtowing to the RI/MP-AA use of DRM. If Apple changes their position dramatically, then I will be looking for other products that are not as restrictive, and I'm sure they'll spring up, roaching much of what Apple's worked for in this whole iLife thing.
Agreed - the public isn't keen on DRM, and if it gets in their way (as the RIAA wants, and MS intends to implement), they will look elsewhere. It'll be sad if iTMS goes that way - it at least tries to keep DRM out of the customer's way, but I agree that there will definitely be more "open" alternatives if it does (the legality of those options, however, may be open to debate
We can hope. But I'm an optimist, and your original reply smacked of pessimism.
Pegged me there. I'm a pessimist by nature when it comes to corporate matters. The whole process should be interesting to watch, though, either way =)
While they're at it, think they could do the same to the Korean ones? 90-95% of the spam I get is Korean in origin, and language. You'd think they'd want to send their spam to people who can actually read it ;P
If their software is enabling piracy, then yes, they are "right" to disable the feature.
;P )
.Mac, etc...) and other gadgets (iPod) that make up the whole "Apple Experience". Trust me, I'd have one if the money was there. Finances, however, dictate that this geek make do with what he's got, or can acquire for cheap. Right now, that's not a Mac. ::shrug:: I still go into CompUSA and drool over the big Cinema display (not literally, of course - that would get messy, and they'd probably want me to pay for the monitor, which I can't afford ;P ).
Admittedly, I don't have first-hand experience, but it's my impression that it's not iTunes sharing that was really the "enabler" - that it was a set of third-party plugins that made ripping the streams possible. Correct me if I'm wrong on this.
Additionally, as I understand it, the streams would only play on an "authorized" machine -- of which there can be up to three for any given music file. Presumably, this serves to prevent "rampant" copyright infringement (by folks who, by virtue of shopping at the ITMS, aren't infringers anyway, right?) - so why would the same-subnet restriction be necessary to prevent "piracy"? (as you like to call it, even if there's no looting/pillaging/naval combat involved
It seems that you are expecting there to be a next step, which is an assumption made under the slippery slope logical fallacy. There may not be another step.
True, that. The possibility exists that another step wouldn't be taken. But, if you're Steve Jobs, and you have this fabulously-profitable and popular service, that depends on a tenuous contract with the RIAA...and the RIAA says "You'll make this change, or we'll nullify your contract, and you can kiss your license to sell our music goodbye"...what do you do? Apple's placed themselves in a precarious position, and it'll be interesting to see how far this goes.
And I would almost say that your admission of not using a Mac at all precludes you from this conversation. You can say "I'll never use their stuff because it looks like they're going this way" or "I like all my software and hardware open", but to say you don't use and won't use, then give advice to people who do use on what they should say is somewhat backhanded. "I've never driven or owned a Ford because they suck. You shouldn't drive one, and call Ford and tell them they suck." would seem to be an appropriate analogy, which doesn't make sense to me.
I'm just giving my observations and opinions. As far as I know, I'm entitled to have an opinion. Whether or not you agree with me is another matter entirely! =)
And I'm not being backhanded - nor did I ever say that Apples "suck". I actually like their machines quite a bit, and I'd own one if it weren't so darned expensive - both for the hardware, as well as the software (mildly expensive yearly OS upgrades, iLife,
My comments of what I would do, weren't meant as advice, either - just statements of what I'd do. My concerns about how far this goes are warranted, I think. History shows the RIAA as being notoriously anti-Fair-Use. Apple managed to make a tenuous agreement to allow for (slightly limited) Fair Use, while making an effort to appease the RIAA's demands. I actually admire Apple for doing this - but I'm concerned that the various Fair Use abilities of their implementation will be stripped away one-by-one as the RIAA brings up concerns, and threatens their license to sell.
But, if non-Mac-users can't be a part of the conversation here, I'll stop after this reply. I definitely didn't mean to offend with my non-Mac-ness.
On their iTunes 4.0.1 update page it states: "iTunes 4.0.1 includes a number of performance and network access enhancements, and only allows music sharing between computers using iTunes 4.0.1 or later on a local network (in the same subnet)." This does not sound to me like a positive spin, but a plain statemen
I haven't read the posts here yet, but I hope there's not a lot of grousing about it. Apple is fully in the right on this, if their software is being used in a way they don't like, they can certainly change it. They've never been up for pirating, and shouldn't be.
I think the expression you're looking for is "Apple is fully within their rights on this" - which I won't argue with. If they want to remove a feature from their software, that's their perogative.
Disclaimer: I'm not an iTunes user. I don't own a Mac, or any other piece of Apple hardware. I haven't used the iTMS, nor do I plan to.
I think the biggest issue I have with this whole debacle is that they took away a feature that may have been the reason some users actually purchased music from the iTMS. To put it another way, some users of the iTMS may not have purchased music there, had this feature not been present, or had it been crippled in the way it is now.
Were I in that situation I would be more than a little upset. I would also be letting Apple know of my distress, that I would no longer be purchasing music from their store until such time as it is re-instated, and asking for a refund.
As has been said countless other times in this thread, there exist quite a few ways of getting music - Apple's way has the benefit of being legal, but comes with some extra baggage in the form of DRM. While I applaud them for instituting a fairly minimum DRM to begin with, I see this move as the first step down a very slippery slope.
We don't know their motivations for removing this feature - but it's reasonable to think that a complaint from the "Big 5" may have been the catalyst. If this is the case, how long will it be until the next step down the slope?
If they take too many steps down the slope, they will alienate their userbase, who will turn back to other, possibly less-than-legal methods for obtaining their music. Remember, the users of this service aren't criminals, however the RIAA and/or Apple would like to treat them.
There's also an argument to be made about calling the removal/neutering of a popular feature an "improvement"...I would expect every iTunes user that used this feature to complain to Apple about "spinning" this as an improvement. It's a slap in the face to the customers that are responsible for their success.