And the first part means that if you are a good artist/programmer/whatever, you'll produce good work even with bad tools.
That's just not true. If the better the tools, the better the work, then the worse the tools, the worse the work. You can't have it both ways.
If you don't, then you just aren't a great artist/programmer/whatever...good talent deals with the limitations, bad talent just whines.
First off, game engines aren't tools. I thought we covered that. Secondly, you're still wrong. The best artist in the world is useless without the right tools, and the best developer in the world is also useless without being able to make deadlines. Conversely, the worst developer in the world can get a creative game out the door with the right ideas. We're not talking about the tools here, we're talking about ideas, and why no one is coming up with them.
As for OSS stuff...you might have noticed, but OSS only accounts for what, 5-10% of the market?
The software market? The games market? The game mods market? And so what? If there's even one talented development house working, that's all it takes to make a breakthrough game. Never mind the thousands of programmers working on OSS games at the moment.
Yeah...and the racing mod for Quake3 looks like quake...not; it looks a bit like Wipeout.
Basicaly your point is demonstrably not true.
Wow, one mod that doesn't look like the original game, and my argument crumbles. What about the thousands of mods that are almost identical to the original game? My point stands, which was that modifiable game engines are not the key to game creativity.
Take a look at Natural Selection where the gameplay is nothing at all like the original Half-Life.
Looks a lot like Half-Life to me. FPS, based on the Half-Life engine, with a little commander mode. Granted, it's a departure, but if you asked me which engine powered that game, I would have guessed Half-Life. Just from the screenshots.
Saying the engine is the limitation means you're blaming your tools...and everyone knows that that just means you're shifting the blame from where it belongs: you.
A game engine is not a tool. It's a framework. I'm not sure if using the same framewok for game after game after game for years stifles creativity, but your argument for the opposite is weak:
All I'm saying is that the better the tools get, the easier it is...it lowers the barrier to entry, meaning more people try and thus we get more and better stuff to play with.
OK, so if the tools are bad, that's no excuse, but if the tools are good, then it helps? I think you might be contradicting yourself. Also, more people trying does not necessarily equal quality and creativity. Especially in gaming. I haven't seen a single OSS game that comes anywhere near the polish of a top-selling proprietary title.
they'd have done it faster, with better gfx, more content and could have spent more time and effort on the game mechanics itself.
Or, maybe they'd just end up with effectively the same game, with slightly different models, sounds, maps, and rules. Which, for the most part, is what has happened. Which was also my point.
And as engines get more and more userfriendly and take more and more of the grunt work out of gamedev'ing, more and more time will be available to play around with game ideas and styles.
Wishful thinking. Easily mod-able game engines, while allowing non-professional programmers to essentially create their own games, are the shackles to which game creativity is bound.
What makes Counter-Strike all that different from multiplayer HL? Slightly different objectives? Different models and sounds for players and weapons? Some new maps? Not exactly innovative.
I'm not saying I know what the answer is, I'm just arguing that easily modifiable engines that hang around for five+ years is certainly not it.
I had the same question. Now, I know that X10 devices can be attached to nearly anything, and assigned a two-part code, ie 'A4'. Can someone point us to a site that explains X-10 from the ground up, including X-10 to Computer interface?
Please be aware that Office Depot is immediately requiring all products that connect to a Personal Computer and Notebook Computer must pass these Designed for Windows XP logo requirements to be considered for retail distribution through our stores.
I have never bought software from an Office Depot, but doesn't this mean that no MacOS or Linux products can be bought or sold there? That's a little alarming.
I have actually received a telemarketing call that went much like this. Not bragging, just reminding everyone that many sales calls may be worded as surveys in the future.
Of course the odds of that happening seems awfully weak.
When the headline's only a few sentences long, do we need this sort of pessimism occupying so much space?
I for one think there's plenty of promise in a pay-per-download music service. If it's easy to use, and, here's the most important part: accessible to teens and pre-teens. Allow for a charge account to be set up by the parents, with the kids spending "credits" to download music, games, cell ringers, etc. Are you listening, BMG?
steal: to take and carry away, feloniously; to take without right or leave, and with intent to keep wrongfully;
I agree, that's the definition of stealing. Now, how is downloading stealing? The dictionary's not going to do all your work for you.
The argument that stealing must necessarily involve deprivation has been floated and shot down so many times[...]
Huh. Well, since you say it's been shot down (by someone other than you, and certainly not as part of this thread) I'd better stop. Or, not. If the idea of stealing has been amended to include copying something you haven't been given permission to copy, that's one thing. But it certainly didn't originate that way, since only recently has it become possible to take something, yet still leave it behind. So, instead of stealing, what I am doing is "making illegal copies and enjoying them without the license to do so". Not as easy to villify, but far more accurate. Like sneaking into a movie, or recording an episode of the Simpsons, and giving it to your friend. Not legal, sure, but not stealing either, no matter how much media corporations want to make it so. Thanks, on their behalf, for helping them out. They need all the support they can get right now.
Of course I ignored it. I ignored it because it's absurd.
Then why reply at all? Why isn't this entire thread absurd? I have a sneaking feeling that you couldn't think of a witty or airtight way to shoot it down, so you just ignored it. The fact that you spent time calling it absurd indicates that you have the time to address it in some way, but not the ability to dispute it. So, it stands. And, therefore, you lose this argument. Sorry, man, I even pointed out my unrefuted line item, just to give you another chance, and you refused to refute it again.
The status quo is that downloading without permission is [...] morally equivalent to theft. The burden of proof is on you[...]
Since we're now playing catch with the burden of proof: THINK FAST! Right back atcha. The status quo is that millions of people are downloading music for free, and there is no law calling it "theft" that I am aware of. Who's making the "status quo" on morality these days? You? The Pope? My mom? Bad news: when it comes to that sort of thing, we're arguing in a vacuum. If you can't come up with some sort of logical proof that downloading is theft, then you lose, plain and simple. I've already supported why I think it isn't. Now it's time for you to either refute those points, or just quit typing.
Again, the burden of proof is on you to demonstrate that the status quo is flawed or insufficient.
You don't see any problem with the current music distribution system? How the RIAA has to litigate its business model out of obscurity? How artists sell millions of records, and still die in poverty, even while their records are still selling? Do you like what you hear when you turn on the radio? The music industry is broken. Badly. The very fact that it has become a matter of choice whether or not I will pay for the product I am already using is a symptom of a seriously flawed status quo. One that I am not keen on preserving. The promise that artists and labels will continue to make money, even when they are not performing is broken. It is unlike any real-world job you can have. It is unrealistic to expect people to pay your salary when you are in the bathtub, scrubbing your ass. The people have spoken, by and large by refusing to do so. THAT, my friend is the status quo.
You're not using the system in the same sense that a petty thief doesn't use the cash register.
Well, I'm not a thief, and you haven't proven I've stolen anything, but that I'm going around the system and theives are going around the system. Doesn't mean I'm going around the system like a thief. Your logic fails.
From the copyright holders.
Huh, really. So, they don't have it any more? Nope. Still have it. Depriving someone of profit is not the same as stealing, even assuming that anyone could prove I am depriving someone of profit. Are you going to respond to any of the other points I made? About how enjoying without paying != stealing? That was pretty much my main point, and you ignored it. Don't get frustrated, just calm down and think about what I'm saying. It seems wrong, but only because you've let companies convince you that any time you don't give them money, you're stealing. Sad, kinda.
The people who have the legally granted exclusive right to sell you a copy.
Wrong. I have been granted a license by the US Supreme Court to sell you my copy of a recording.
How do you respond to somebody who confesses to the act and then says, "No, I'm not?"
How you do that is by convincing me that downloading music is stealing from someone, using words and logic that make sense, not just flawed analogies that don't apply. Just because you say that downloading = stealing doesn't make it true. You have to prove it, and you're not really doing that.
If there's any justice in the world, your hard drive will crash and you'll lose all that music you've worked so hard for so long to steal.
Actually, if there's any justice in the world, musicians will have to actually play their instruments every single time they want to get paid.
Oh, you most definitely are using the system. Oh yeah? How so? The music I listen to isn't distributed to me by a record company, it's distributed via the internet. For free. Face it, I'm going around the system, which is what this discussion was all about. Were I to walk into Sam Goody and buy a CD, I'd be using the system, but I'm not, so I'm, uh, not.
No. It's the equivalent of shoplifting. You're taking something without paying for it.
Again: oh yeah? Taking it from whom? Who is deprived of the use of the IP I'm "taking". What you mean to say (hopefully) is "You're enjoying something without paying for it.". I don't see any problem with that at all. I'm enjoying Slashdot for free, too. Just because the RIAA would like me to give them money doesn't mean I'm stealing if I don't. Am I also stealing if I peek in my neighbor's window to check out the fight on HBO? I can answer that one for you: no. It's unfortunate that media companies have convinced people that information is property, and creators of information deserve to get paid every time that information is consumed. The first 10,000 years of human history went by without this concept. The next will, too.
Did you parents never teach you the phrase, "Two wrongs don't make a right?"
Oh, sure, but since downloading music isn't wrong, it doesn't apply.
You might think it's okay to steal from somebody you don't like, but it's not. It's neither legal nor right.
Like I said, it's not stealing. Just enjoying for free.
I'm not, hence the piracy. In addition to pirating music, I buy vinyl and used CDs. When it's easier to pirate, I pirate. When it's not, I don't. I expect that this is the attitude of anyone who can afford to buy music, and chooses to pirate it.
What if my excuse for beating the hell out of my next-door neighbor is, "I don't like him?"
This is the copying of IP we're talking about here. The equivilent of cheating at a video game, or descrambling cable. No one's getting beat up, except for maybe the consumer on occasion. If your neighbor had been stealing your money (see "Price Fixing Class Action Lawsuit"), ruining your favorite hobby (enjoyment of music), and putting your friends in jail (see "Jailing Owners of MP3s"), I might suggest he needs a good ass-kicking. That's exactly what the music biz is getting right now. A little too harsh, but long overdue.
It's time to see who is making excuses for their piracy and who really just doesn't like the system.
What if my excuse for piracy is "I don't like the system"?
The music industry loves to shovel blame on the tens of millions of "criminals" that download music for free. What is its part in the mass migration to P2P? Offering a solution to a problem the industry created in the first place is nice, but less-than-widespread adoption should be no indication of the character of P2P users.
This is the same industry that just now, years after Napster, is possibly offering a viable method to download one song at a time, and pay for it. Is it their entire consumer base's fault that they didn't spend their litigation budget on R&D instead? Is it our fault that their product isn't worth what they're selling it for? Is it our fault that the strategy they've developed to sell music (market the same 3 groups, ignore the undderground) has backfired? Why has the internet community managed to mobilize a number of services by which we can get whatever IP we want for free, and yet record companies can't get it together enough to adjust their business model? What are we paying them for??
Get them to Dallas, TX. I'll take care of the rest. Oh, and I don't have any programmer friends. Just because they don't smell bad doesn't mean I call them to chill.
being a good programmer and being a person with whom other people want to spend a lot of time, who has good hygiene and good social skills, are not correlated
Are people really still saying this about programmers? It's not 1989 any more. We may not be movie stars, but all the coders I know have sex at least semi-regularly, with people they don't have to pay. That indicates some level of grooming and social skills.
...until I see some really high caliber (and exclusive) games coming out for X-Box, I really have no reason to buy one.
Sure you do. It's the better console. I don't know anyone that has a PS2 with 5 or more games, and can honestly say that none of their games are available on any other console. If you bought a $200 console to play a specific $50 game, you just spent $250 on a single game. If I buy a $200 console, because it has more features than the others, I have made a wise choice, irregardless of what titles are currently availible. GTA Vice City is not worth $250, and we all know that eventually, all the best games will be available for the XBox.
Couple that with a unified one-time-fee online gaming service, and I'm sold, no matter how much I hate Microsoft. Not to mention the fact that while you have to keep shelling out money for new games, I can just download patches and new levels to the HARD DRIVE in my console.
Did you know you can create custom soundtracks on your computer, and listen to them from your computer? Not only that you can burn CD's, play PC games, check your e-mail, sign on to Instant Messanger clients and surf the web...
Did you know you can play games on your computer, too? Why'd you buy a console at all? You've obviously never found fault in the background music in games, or heard any you really liked. In fact, they should just make them all silent, so we can listen to Howard Stern on FM while we play. Face it, the ability to listen to your own CDs integrated into the game you're playing is a useful feature. One that PS2 doesn't have. Oh, and I forgot, XBox can play audio CDs, and PS2 can't. Yikes.
How much have you spent on memory cards for your PS2?
How can you not mention the fact that you never have to buy memory cards for your XBox, or that you can create custom soundtracks from your own CDs, and listen to them from the console? The XBox is clearly the better system. I'm not a huge fan of Microsoft products, but they make the best console going.
There's really nothing more to say here, except to hurl insults, which you aren't good at, and I'm tired of. Whatever is inside you that makes you blame women for being raped, use racial slurs as part of an argument, and get mad at little kids is something I don't want to be a part of anymore. It's creepy, and sick, and wrong. I'm sure your original point was more like "Being bullied is something that happens to you, how you react to it is up to you", but it came across wrong, and you wouldn't back down, and in order to defend it, you made some pretty ridiculous statements when you should have just clarified your point.
The banishment from Slashdot remark was a joke, because obviously there's only about half a dozen people that can do that, and also obviously, I'm not one of them. You didn't get the joke, which is not suprising, because you don't have a very good sense of humor.
The only thing that can come of this is anger, and anger's no fun. At least for me it isn't.
You say that little kids beating up other little kids isn't a bad thing. That's also sick. Little kids being beaten up is just... well, why try and explain it to you? You know kids shouldn't beat up other kids. Your parents told you it was wrong, your school told you it was wrong. The law says it's wrong. It's just wrong, and nothing you can say is going to change any of that.
Bullying is wrong. It just is. Even you know that. I would hate to be there when you ask your son or daughter what they did that made the other kid want to hurt them, instead of asking them if they are OK. Since you obviously don't have children of your own (please God, please no), your first reaction to that is going to be "It'll never happen to MY kid". If the thought of what your spawn would turn out like didn't make me physically ill, I'd love to be there when you found out your child was bullied. This is real life we're talking about, and if you don't get some help soon, your anger is going to ruin someone else's life. Someone who depends on you to be caring, rational, and compassionate. I feel sorry for you, that you need to blame children for something they didn't do in order to make yourself feel better about the life you've lead. It's really sad.
I didn't read the entirety of your little internet essay, and unlike you, I'm not so desperate for crowd approval as to be notified by email whenever someone replies to my posts, so I won't be reading anything you have to say from here. As far as I'm concerned, you have just ceased to exist. Goodbye.
Beautifully said. fucking whiney punks, happy being Mr. Superiority until they get a smack in the chops
Well said yourself, Mr. Internet Tough Guy. How are things down under? As soon as anyone gives a shit what your backwards rock thinks, they'll call you at 293***247 and ask. Your site sucks, by the way.
Slashdot Mirror
And the first part means that if you are a good artist/programmer/whatever, you'll produce good work even with bad tools.
That's just not true. If the better the tools, the better the work, then the worse the tools, the worse the work. You can't have it both ways.
If you don't, then you just aren't a great artist/programmer/whatever...good talent deals with the limitations, bad talent just whines.
First off, game engines aren't tools. I thought we covered that. Secondly, you're still wrong. The best artist in the world is useless without the right tools, and the best developer in the world is also useless without being able to make deadlines. Conversely, the worst developer in the world can get a creative game out the door with the right ideas. We're not talking about the tools here, we're talking about ideas, and why no one is coming up with them.
As for OSS stuff...you might have noticed, but OSS only accounts for what, 5-10% of the market?
The software market? The games market? The game mods market? And so what? If there's even one talented development house working, that's all it takes to make a breakthrough game. Never mind the thousands of programmers working on OSS games at the moment.
Yeah...and the racing mod for Quake3 looks like quake...not; it looks a bit like Wipeout.
Basicaly your point is demonstrably not true.
Wow, one mod that doesn't look like the original game, and my argument crumbles. What about the thousands of mods that are almost identical to the original game? My point stands, which was that modifiable game engines are not the key to game creativity.
Take a look at Natural Selection where the gameplay is nothing at all like the original Half-Life.
Looks a lot like Half-Life to me. FPS, based on the Half-Life engine, with a little commander mode. Granted, it's a departure, but if you asked me which engine powered that game, I would have guessed Half-Life. Just from the screenshots.
Saying the engine is the limitation means you're blaming your tools...and everyone knows that that just means you're shifting the blame from where it belongs: you.
A game engine is not a tool. It's a framework. I'm not sure if using the same framewok for game after game after game for years stifles creativity, but your argument for the opposite is weak:
All I'm saying is that the better the tools get, the easier it is...it lowers the barrier to entry, meaning more people try and thus we get more and better stuff to play with.
OK, so if the tools are bad, that's no excuse, but if the tools are good, then it helps? I think you might be contradicting yourself. Also, more people trying does not necessarily equal quality and creativity. Especially in gaming. I haven't seen a single OSS game that comes anywhere near the polish of a top-selling proprietary title.
they'd have done it faster, with better gfx, more content and could have spent more time and effort on the game mechanics itself.
Or, maybe they'd just end up with effectively the same game, with slightly different models, sounds, maps, and rules. Which, for the most part, is what has happened. Which was also my point.
buddy cop films, science fiction tv, books, comics, movies, etc... in each case there are rules that govern the form, some more strict than others.
There's no need to analogize here. What we're talking about are the internal workings of a game- its engine. Not a storytelling genre.
I am sure there are creative Doom mods out there.
Sure, but I bet they all seem a lot like Doom. That was my point.
And as engines get more and more userfriendly and take more and more of the grunt work out of gamedev'ing, more and more time will be available to play around with game ideas and styles.
Wishful thinking. Easily mod-able game engines, while allowing non-professional programmers to essentially create their own games, are the shackles to which game creativity is bound.
What makes Counter-Strike all that different from multiplayer HL? Slightly different objectives? Different models and sounds for players and weapons? Some new maps? Not exactly innovative.
I'm not saying I know what the answer is, I'm just arguing that easily modifiable engines that hang around for five+ years is certainly not it.
The fact that the loser wants to have another stab with what seems to be a low chance of success is not important.
Not unless you're a lawyer who gets paid either way. Damn lawyers...
Extremely helpful. Thanks so much.
I had the same question. Now, I know that X10 devices can be attached to nearly anything, and assigned a two-part code, ie 'A4'. Can someone point us to a site that explains X-10 from the ground up, including X-10 to Computer interface?
Radio Shack just didn't have the answers.
Thanks.
Like www.hsx.com, except with actual digital product. Genius.
From the article:
Please be aware that Office Depot is immediately requiring all products that connect to a Personal Computer and Notebook Computer must pass these Designed for Windows XP logo requirements to be considered for retail distribution through our stores.
I have never bought software from an Office Depot, but doesn't this mean that no MacOS or Linux products can be bought or sold there? That's a little alarming.
I have actually received a telemarketing call that went much like this. Not bragging, just reminding everyone that many sales calls may be worded as surveys in the future.
Of course the odds of that happening seems awfully weak.
When the headline's only a few sentences long, do we need this sort of pessimism occupying so much space?
I for one think there's plenty of promise in a pay-per-download music service. If it's easy to use, and, here's the most important part: accessible to teens and pre-teens. Allow for a charge account to be set up by the parents, with the kids spending "credits" to download music, games, cell ringers, etc. Are you listening, BMG?
steal: to take and carry away, feloniously; to take without right or leave, and with intent to keep wrongfully;
I agree, that's the definition of stealing. Now, how is downloading stealing? The dictionary's not going to do all your work for you.
The argument that stealing must necessarily involve deprivation has been floated and shot down so many times[...]
Huh. Well, since you say it's been shot down (by someone other than you, and certainly not as part of this thread) I'd better stop. Or, not. If the idea of stealing has been amended to include copying something you haven't been given permission to copy, that's one thing. But it certainly didn't originate that way, since only recently has it become possible to take something, yet still leave it behind. So, instead of stealing, what I am doing is "making illegal copies and enjoying them without the license to do so". Not as easy to villify, but far more accurate. Like sneaking into a movie, or recording an episode of the Simpsons, and giving it to your friend. Not legal, sure, but not stealing either, no matter how much media corporations want to make it so. Thanks, on their behalf, for helping them out. They need all the support they can get right now.
Of course I ignored it. I ignored it because it's absurd.
Then why reply at all? Why isn't this entire thread absurd? I have a sneaking feeling that you couldn't think of a witty or airtight way to shoot it down, so you just ignored it. The fact that you spent time calling it absurd indicates that you have the time to address it in some way, but not the ability to dispute it. So, it stands. And, therefore, you lose this argument. Sorry, man, I even pointed out my unrefuted line item, just to give you another chance, and you refused to refute it again.
The status quo is that downloading without permission is [...] morally equivalent to theft. The burden of proof is on you[...]
Since we're now playing catch with the burden of proof: THINK FAST! Right back atcha. The status quo is that millions of people are downloading music for free, and there is no law calling it "theft" that I am aware of. Who's making the "status quo" on morality these days? You? The Pope? My mom? Bad news: when it comes to that sort of thing, we're arguing in a vacuum. If you can't come up with some sort of logical proof that downloading is theft, then you lose, plain and simple. I've already supported why I think it isn't. Now it's time for you to either refute those points, or just quit typing.
Again, the burden of proof is on you to demonstrate that the status quo is flawed or insufficient.
You don't see any problem with the current music distribution system? How the RIAA has to litigate its business model out of obscurity? How artists sell millions of records, and still die in poverty, even while their records are still selling? Do you like what you hear when you turn on the radio? The music industry is broken. Badly. The very fact that it has become a matter of choice whether or not I will pay for the product I am already using is a symptom of a seriously flawed status quo. One that I am not keen on preserving. The promise that artists and labels will continue to make money, even when they are not performing is broken. It is unlike any real-world job you can have. It is unrealistic to expect people to pay your salary when you are in the bathtub, scrubbing your ass. The people have spoken, by and large by refusing to do so. THAT, my friend is the status quo.
You're not using the system in the same sense that a petty thief doesn't use the cash register.
Well, I'm not a thief, and you haven't proven I've stolen anything, but that I'm going around the system and theives are going around the system. Doesn't mean I'm going around the system like a thief. Your logic fails.
From the copyright holders.
Huh, really. So, they don't have it any more? Nope. Still have it. Depriving someone of profit is not the same as stealing, even assuming that anyone could prove I am depriving someone of profit. Are you going to respond to any of the other points I made? About how enjoying without paying != stealing? That was pretty much my main point, and you ignored it. Don't get frustrated, just calm down and think about what I'm saying. It seems wrong, but only because you've let companies convince you that any time you don't give them money, you're stealing. Sad, kinda.
The people who have the legally granted exclusive right to sell you a copy.
Wrong. I have been granted a license by the US Supreme Court to sell you my copy of a recording.
How do you respond to somebody who confesses to the act and then says, "No, I'm not?"
How you do that is by convincing me that downloading music is stealing from someone, using words and logic that make sense, not just flawed analogies that don't apply. Just because you say that downloading = stealing doesn't make it true. You have to prove it, and you're not really doing that.
If there's any justice in the world, your hard drive will crash and you'll lose all that music you've worked so hard for so long to steal.
Actually, if there's any justice in the world, musicians will have to actually play their instruments every single time they want to get paid.
Oh, you most definitely are using the system.
Oh yeah? How so? The music I listen to isn't distributed to me by a record company, it's distributed via the internet. For free. Face it, I'm going around the system, which is what this discussion was all about. Were I to walk into Sam Goody and buy a CD, I'd be using the system, but I'm not, so I'm, uh, not.
No. It's the equivalent of shoplifting. You're taking something without paying for it.
Again: oh yeah? Taking it from whom? Who is deprived of the use of the IP I'm "taking". What you mean to say (hopefully) is "You're enjoying something without paying for it.". I don't see any problem with that at all. I'm enjoying Slashdot for free, too. Just because the RIAA would like me to give them money doesn't mean I'm stealing if I don't. Am I also stealing if I peek in my neighbor's window to check out the fight on HBO? I can answer that one for you: no. It's unfortunate that media companies have convinced people that information is property, and creators of information deserve to get paid every time that information is consumed. The first 10,000 years of human history went by without this concept. The next will, too.
Did you parents never teach you the phrase, "Two wrongs don't make a right?"
Oh, sure, but since downloading music isn't wrong, it doesn't apply.
You might think it's okay to steal from somebody you don't like, but it's not. It's neither legal nor right.
Like I said, it's not stealing. Just enjoying for free.
Then don't use it.
I'm not, hence the piracy. In addition to pirating music, I buy vinyl and used CDs. When it's easier to pirate, I pirate. When it's not, I don't. I expect that this is the attitude of anyone who can afford to buy music, and chooses to pirate it.
What if my excuse for beating the hell out of my next-door neighbor is, "I don't like him?"
This is the copying of IP we're talking about here. The equivilent of cheating at a video game, or descrambling cable. No one's getting beat up, except for maybe the consumer on occasion. If your neighbor had been stealing your money (see "Price Fixing Class Action Lawsuit"), ruining your favorite hobby (enjoyment of music), and putting your friends in jail (see "Jailing Owners of MP3s"), I might suggest he needs a good ass-kicking. That's exactly what the music biz is getting right now. A little too harsh, but long overdue.
It's time to see who is making excuses for their piracy and who really just doesn't like the system.
What if my excuse for piracy is "I don't like the system"?
The music industry loves to shovel blame on the tens of millions of "criminals" that download music for free. What is its part in the mass migration to P2P? Offering a solution to a problem the industry created in the first place is nice, but less-than-widespread adoption should be no indication of the character of P2P users.
This is the same industry that just now, years after Napster, is possibly offering a viable method to download one song at a time, and pay for it. Is it their entire consumer base's fault that they didn't spend their litigation budget on R&D instead? Is it our fault that their product isn't worth what they're selling it for? Is it our fault that the strategy they've developed to sell music (market the same 3 groups, ignore the undderground) has backfired? Why has the internet community managed to mobilize a number of services by which we can get whatever IP we want for free, and yet record companies can't get it together enough to adjust their business model? What are we paying them for??
Get them to Dallas, TX. I'll take care of the rest. Oh, and I don't have any programmer friends. Just because they don't smell bad doesn't mean I call them to chill.
being a good programmer and being a person with whom other people want to spend a lot of time, who has good hygiene and good social skills, are not correlated
Are people really still saying this about programmers? It's not 1989 any more. We may not be movie stars, but all the coders I know have sex at least semi-regularly, with people they don't have to pay. That indicates some level of grooming and social skills.
...until I see some really high caliber (and exclusive) games coming out for X-Box, I really have no reason to buy one.
Sure you do. It's the better console. I don't know anyone that has a PS2 with 5 or more games, and can honestly say that none of their games are available on any other console. If you bought a $200 console to play a specific $50 game, you just spent $250 on a single game. If I buy a $200 console, because it has more features than the others, I have made a wise choice, irregardless of what titles are currently availible. GTA Vice City is not worth $250, and we all know that eventually, all the best games will be available for the XBox.
Couple that with a unified one-time-fee online gaming service, and I'm sold, no matter how much I hate Microsoft. Not to mention the fact that while you have to keep shelling out money for new games, I can just download patches and new levels to the HARD DRIVE in my console.
Did you know you can create custom soundtracks on your computer, and listen to them from your computer? Not only that you can burn CD's, play PC games, check your e-mail, sign on to Instant Messanger clients and surf the web...
Did you know you can play games on your computer, too? Why'd you buy a console at all? You've obviously never found fault in the background music in games, or heard any you really liked. In fact, they should just make them all silent, so we can listen to Howard Stern on FM while we play. Face it, the ability to listen to your own CDs integrated into the game you're playing is a useful feature. One that PS2 doesn't have. Oh, and I forgot, XBox can play audio CDs, and PS2 can't. Yikes.
How much have you spent on memory cards for your PS2?
How can you not mention the fact that you never have to buy memory cards for your XBox, or that you can create custom soundtracks from your own CDs, and listen to them from the console? The XBox is clearly the better system. I'm not a huge fan of Microsoft products, but they make the best console going.
True, except all of the truly successful dot-com hucksters were nerds themselves (i.e. Mark Cuban). Traitors!
OK, I went to lunch and cooled off a little bit.
There's really nothing more to say here, except to hurl insults, which you aren't good at, and I'm tired of. Whatever is inside you that makes you blame women for being raped, use racial slurs as part of an argument, and get mad at little kids is something I don't want to be a part of anymore. It's creepy, and sick, and wrong. I'm sure your original point was more like "Being bullied is something that happens to you, how you react to it is up to you", but it came across wrong, and you wouldn't back down, and in order to defend it, you made some pretty ridiculous statements when you should have just clarified your point.
The banishment from Slashdot remark was a joke, because obviously there's only about half a dozen people that can do that, and also obviously, I'm not one of them. You didn't get the joke, which is not suprising, because you don't have a very good sense of humor.
The only thing that can come of this is anger, and anger's no fun. At least for me it isn't.
You say that little kids beating up other little kids isn't a bad thing. That's also sick. Little kids being beaten up is just... well, why try and explain it to you? You know kids shouldn't beat up other kids. Your parents told you it was wrong, your school told you it was wrong. The law says it's wrong. It's just wrong, and nothing you can say is going to change any of that.
Bullying is wrong. It just is. Even you know that. I would hate to be there when you ask your son or daughter what they did that made the other kid want to hurt them, instead of asking them if they are OK. Since you obviously don't have children of your own (please God, please no), your first reaction to that is going to be "It'll never happen to MY kid". If the thought of what your spawn would turn out like didn't make me physically ill, I'd love to be there when you found out your child was bullied. This is real life we're talking about, and if you don't get some help soon, your anger is going to ruin someone else's life. Someone who depends on you to be caring, rational, and compassionate. I feel sorry for you, that you need to blame children for something they didn't do in order to make yourself feel better about the life you've lead. It's really sad.
I didn't read the entirety of your little internet essay, and unlike you, I'm not so desperate for crowd approval as to be notified by email whenever someone replies to my posts, so I won't be reading anything you have to say from here. As far as I'm concerned, you have just ceased to exist. Goodbye.
Beautifully said. fucking whiney punks, happy being Mr. Superiority until they get a smack in the chops
Well said yourself, Mr. Internet Tough Guy. How are things down under? As soon as anyone gives a shit what your backwards rock thinks, they'll call you at 293***247 and ask. Your site sucks, by the way.