Naturally, the demand for CS graduates would become greater than it already is, leading to more students pursuing CS, leading to more very capable graduates filling said demand, leading to higher quality software. What's the problem here?
Now, I've neglected to mention the role management plays in crappy software, but that's only due to my lack of firsthand experience in that area. Still, I think boneheaded CS graduates have their own place in the equation. Why can't CS curriculums do a little more weeding out? There's plenty of demand for the things EEs and MEs do, and EE and ME are much more stringent curriculums than CS and yet no harm has come from that.
In other engineering disciplines, there is little room for error and your mistakes are readily apparent -- you screw up, and you'll probably wreck a few million dollars worth of equipment during testing or kill someone when the product ships. Software engineering, on the other hand, allows the mediocre on the team to hide behind truly talented individuals.
Code doesn't work? No big deal, just fiddle around and recompile. Still doesn't work? The other guy will probably fix it. Product's shipping and the problem still isn't fixed? Eh, who cares? It's not going to kill anyone, and nobody will notice.
It is precisely because no one can "see" the shoddy workmanship of programs that such behavior exists (and I'm not saying open source programs are immune to this -- patching a crappy open source program is akin to patching up a crappy car engine with duct tape and staples). All those slackers who couldn't code a binary tree to save their life and were generally mediocre college students are writing the software you'll be using. Their mediocrity is hidden by the anonymity and zero-accountability inherent in large software projects. Essentially, they're doing the same thing in the real world as they did in college -- slack off and hope nobody notices.
This, folks, is why colleges need to implement tougher CS curriculums. This is why you need to be able to write code on paper. This is why colleges insist that you don't collaborate on projects in lower-level CS classes. This is why there shouldn't be curves that allow mediocre students to graduate with a CS degree when they should have been weeded out during their freshmen or sophomore year.
I'm almost finished with my CS degree, and it's depressing, even at this level, how few students there are who really have an understanding of and interest in computer science. Most of the students enrolled in CS at my school have never coded before college. The most popular reason for choosing CS? "I used to make webpages, and I figured it would be easy." No joke. Of course, this sort of behavior isn't strictly limited to CS -- I've met more than a few EE students (freshmen, admittedly) who couldn't identify basic electrical components, didn't know Ohm's Law, and chose EE because "I used to take apart telephones and put them back together, so I think electronics is fun." Inevitably though, these clueless students who enroll in other engineering disciplines tend to migrate over to CS since it's not as "balls-to-the-wall" difficult as say, EE or ME.
In short, software "sucks" because our colleges are allowing mediocre students to slip through the cracks into the professional world. Personally, I feel that the CS curriculums should tighten up a bit and put more emphasis on solo projects (and moderately challenging ones, at that) and writing code on paper at the lower levels. A message has to be sent to those students who want to be engineers but don't really have what it takes that CS is NOT an "easy major". Perhaps then it might not be the haven for slackers that it has become.
... why anime fans are so anxious to see unedited anime series on TV. It's not like you can't buy the unedited DVDs and then watch them at your leisure!
Personally, there's a lot of anime movies that I absolutely love, but I never really liked any of the serial shows... they just have hopelessly convoluted and complicated plots, and really aren't that interesting. Shrug. Maybe it's just because I have more important things to worry about than stories involving the ongoing struggle between giant robots hell-bent on destroying the earth:).
While I'm at it: what's the obsession with subtitled anime? I've watched my fair share of anime, and I've never once seen an instance where subtitles and dubs made a significant difference. The dubs are saying approximately the same thing that the subtitles are saying... it's not like the subtitled dialogue presents a completely different story than the dubbed dialogue does. Furthermore, don't you fanboys realize that anime distributors are taking you for a ride? Common sense dictates that subtitling costs less money than dubbing, yet subtitled animes cost more than dubbed ones. The reason they cost more is because the distributors know you're willing to pay extra for something that doesn't really make a big difference.
Hey, don't mod me down... no trolling here, I'm just interested to see what you guys think about these legitimate American anime issues.
They've been trying to solve this very problem all along... however, they can't seem to allow fair-use copying while at the same time preventing illegal redistribution. Why? Because there seems to be no way to prevent illegal redistribution without "infringing on consumer's rights". So yes, it IS your job to figure out what the solution is since no one else can seem to come up with an answer. You Slashdotters know what all the problems are but can't come up with a solution...
1. Cry me a river. For some reason, pity doesn't exactly gush from my heart for the poor, poor movie studios. The cost of any movie not considered a flop is recouped in the theatrical release. Making the DVD is gravy.
Some points:
* There are far more flops than hits. Hit movies have to recoup their own costs as well as a portion of the cost of a flop (or flops).
* It costs money to master a DVD, stuff it full of extras, and distribute it. As I pointed out, DVDs for flops are also produced... again, the cost of a flop might STILL not be recouped by DVDs.
* Are the studios not entitled to make money on DVDs? Are you asserting that it is the duty of the studios to give away DVDs for free (or at cost) simply because a movie has broken even or made a few million already?
2. Umm, studios make mediocre, derivative crap because they are afraid to take risks. This is why they make sequels. They know that enough people will go see it to make back their investment, and then some. This is what happens when a supposedly ``artistic'' industry is run by a bunch of accountants.
Making "non-mediocre crap" is a risk BECAUSE audiences generally don't go for stuff that's non-mainstream and "out there"! To place the blame solely on movie studios is laughable. Are you saying that studios need to constantly take risks? You can't do that and expect to stay in business long.
3. Like I said, theatrical release almost always makes the cost of the movie. They could *give away* digital copies of the film once it had made back the investment plus ten percent. What a wacky concept, eh?
And why should they, exactly? Have you ever taken an economics class before? Those who take risks are entitled to reap the benefits. AT&T has certainly made its investment plus ten percent back on its ventures... should they give away phone service for free too?
think we have two different perspectives here. Sure, piracy is illegal. But any technique that would supposedly prevent piracy would also prevent fair use. I'm sure the studios will be crying all the way to the bank.
Well, you know so much, so give me one good way that fair-use copying can be allowed while at the same time disallowing illegal redistribution of music and movies... didn't think so!
I'm having a really hard time believing you're a) serious, and b) not Jack Valenti.
I am serious... I just have an understanding of economics and respect for others.
Well, it's a little hard to cater to customer's wants on the internet music issue because:
* There's no way to guarantee that movies/music won't be freely redistributed. At least with physical mediums (CD, DVD), companies can (try to) prevent copying at the lowest level.
* Customers become up in arms when the music/movie companies try to protect their interests by stipulating that music can only be played on approved players, can't be redistributed, etc. They can't win because customers feel that giving away music is their right.
Music/movie companies are literally salivating at the thought of distributing music with almost no distribution/promotion costs... however, they need to figure out a way to protect their interests at the same time. This just doesn't seem possible at the moment.
P.S., you moderators are on crack. Thanks for modding me down to flamebait.
Movie studios took a risk a few years ago by putting money and support behind a new format (DVD -- and don't come back by asserting that there was no way the format could fail so therefore it wasn't a risk). DVD brought consumers high quality, non-degradable copies of their favorite movies in a small, convenient, and AFFORDABLE package. Why is everyone so intent on spitting in their faces? Let's take a look at some of the common reasons:
1. "If they would price DVDs reasonably, I wouldn't pirate them." $20 (or less) isn't a good enough for movies that are of excellent quality, will never degrade (theoretically), and usually come in very nice packaging? I've got news for you... just because it cost $1.00 or so to produce that DVD doesn't mean that companies are making $19.00 of profit when it's marked up to $20! These movies cost many millions of dollars to produce and market, and many fail to even break even. A lot of my favorite movies were complete box-office failures or are very obscure... I think it's very GENEROUS of movie companies to take a risk and produce thousands of copies of movies which they might lose money on just so a relatively small number of people can have high-quality copies of their favorite (obscure) movies!
2. "Sure, lots of movies bomb, but that wouldn't happen if the studios weren't making crappy movies." I've got news for you... studios aren't nearly as stupid as you may think. They've been in the business long enough to know what moviegoers want, AND THEY MAKE THE MOVIES THAT AUDIENCES WANT TO SEE! Teens love stupid teen movies, so movie companies produce them. Most people enjoy crude humor, so movie companies produce crude comedies. It's just that simple. Movie companies are only willing to take a risk on cutting-edge movies if they have a feeling that audiences will go for it, which usually doesn't happen. Maybe our society should broaden its tastes and then Hollywood will respond.
3. "Movie companies aren't willing to embrace the internet revolution and they're getting what they deserve." Okay, hotshot. You've just spent $50 million on a movie. Naturally you want to make that money back, right? How do you plan on doing that if you distribute your movie on the internet with no copy-protection whatsoever? Charge a "reasonable" price for a download of your movie (which can be viewed indefinitely)? What might be a reasonable price to you is a ludicrous price to someone else. You may think $5 to download your movie is reasonable, but there's a bunch of pirates and freeloaders who think your movie sucks far too much to be worth a whole $5. And, since you don't believe in copy-protection, it's even EASIER for said pirates to share your hard work with everyone on Morpheus. Good job. You're now bankrupt.
I think the whole pro-piracy/anti-RIAA/anti-MPAA issue boils down to this:
1. If given a choice, most people would take a movie at 90% of the quality for free over 100% quality for $20.
2. People who support pirating movies/music believe that if the tools to reproduce and redistribute movies/music are there that it is their God-given right to use them.
What you people have to realize is that movies and music ARE NOT PART OF YOUR INALIENABLE RIGHTS. Companies can charge WHATEVER THEY WANT for their products. Movies and music are LUXURIES, they are not necessities. Things would be different if the MPAA had a stranglehold on milk/bread/fruits/vegetables/etc. and started charging ridiculous prices for them -- BUT THAT ISN'T HOW IT IS. They have luxury (non-necessary) items that they spent billions of dollars on FOR YOUR ENJOYMENT -- all they ask of you is that you give them a modest amount of money to compensate their efforts. Grow up and stop trying to get a free ride.
Allow me to touch on a few points brought up in this forum.
Let's say you own a software company that sells an office suite for $500 (and let's assume this is the first release for an obscure company with little advertising money). The program is fast, cross-platform, and reads/writes MS Office files flawlessly. You put this product up for sale on your webpage. One person orders it. He is so captivated by the usefulness of this program that he decides that other people should be able to share in it as well. He puts it on his FTP server and posts a few messages on USENET to let others know about this incredible software (let's also assume that the feds aren't on his ass about this). Now, let's also assume that your office suite will send information to your servers whenever the software is run (usage information)... but wait, what's this? According to your logs, over 10,000 people are using your software! How can that be? You only sold one copy! On the one hand, you feel great that your software is enjoying immense popularity; on the other hand, you're wondering how you can pay your bills given that 10,000 people are using your software and all you have to show for it is $500 instead of $5 million.
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The scenario above may seem far-fetched, but it serves to illustrate the "piracy is theft" point. Anyone who thinks otherwise is TRYING TO RATIONALIZE THEFT. Yes, it's not "theft" in the classic sense, but preventing someone from having what is rightfully theirs (in this case, $5 million for 10,000 copies of software) IS THEFT NONETHELESS.
"Well too bad, it's overpriced! I won't spend $500 for software!" -- Well, you're not entitled to use it then. The company puts a price on their product... if you're not willing to pay that price, then you don't need to use it. You might say, "I won't pay $500, but $30 MAX is okay"... who decides what a "reasonable" price is for this software? You might say $30, but someone else might think $30 is absurd, and would only want to pay $10 (and therefore steal it because he feels the software isn't worth the given price). Then, someone else might think $10 is too much and...
Basically, that reasoning is a slippery slope where the bottom is "all software should be free, regardless of how much money it cost to produce". This kind of reasoning boggles me... if you're not willing to pay the given price for software, that means it is worth nothing to you... if it's worth nothing, then why do you insist on using it? Obviously, if you "need" to use the software, it has some value. Would you prefer that software companies allow you to download full versions of their software and give you the option of paying only what you think the software is worth? If you can't see how that kind of strategy would bankrupt ANY company, you need to wake up.
One last point: "I'm a college kid and I can't afford $500 for Photoshop/AutoCAD". Okay, let me get this straight: you're in school for graphic design and Photoshop is the industry standard... therefore, you need Photoshop skills before leaving college. You also NEED college to get into the industry, and you're paying $30,000 for college. Is $30,500 that much more to spend? You need college, you need Photoshop... am I missing something here?
Hmm, what's this on the back of my "Snatch" DVD? It says, in fine print, "unauthorized reporoduction, distribution or exhibition violates federal laws with severe penalties". Wait a minute, I think there's some on my Pulp Fiction DVD as well! It says "This DVD is for home viewing only. It is not licensed for any other use." Oh heavens, what does that small text on the back of my Clockwork Orange DVD say? Oh yes, it says "Federal law provides severe civil and criminal penalties for the unauthorized reproduction, distribution or exhibition of copyright motion pictures, video tapes or video discs."
In other words, yes there IS fine print on just about every DVD you'll buy that explicity states what you can and can't do with your DVD. Even if it's not explicity stated there are still laws in place that prevent you from doing "whatever the hell you want" with your DVD. Ever wonder what those funny little FBI warnings say? They tell you that it's illegal to make unauthorized copies of your movie! Well what do you know.
Am I the only one who's been noticing the HUGE amount of Pearl Harbor history specials/news coverage/etc. on TV, in magazines, and in the newspapers lately? Sure, it IS Memorial Day after all, but it would make more sense if these history specials were being shown in December rather than May. So why so much attention to Pearl Harbor right now? Because the movie is coming out! I get this sneaking suspicion that part of some movie's advertising budgets go towards getting the news media to play these sorts of specials. For instance, remember when Man on the Moon came out and all of a sudden there was a LOT of Andy Kaufman-related coverage on TV? Coincidence? I think not:).
I think that it may not be that easy to get a new format (media type) accepted by the public today. My theory is that (the majority of) people buy things that a) make it possible to be even lazier and/or b) complete mundane tasks faster. Take a look at the evolution of the audio formats:
1. Vinyl - decent quality, but you have to adjust speed, place the needle, etc.
2. Tapes - good quality, easier to use. Just pop it in and press play... but you have to ff/rew to the song you want.
3. CD - very good quality, very ease to use. Has track skipping.
These are the "big" formats; the ones that caught on. Notice the pattern: they each improve on the previous format, namely they require less effort from the listener and take less time to mess with (think having to fast-forward through a tape versus instant access on a CD). So why won't a new format replace the CD? Well, what can it improve on? Nothing that a consumer would care about. Quality? CD quality is pretty damn good, especially to your average clueless consumer. Faster seek times? Any cheap CD player can seek to the track you want pretty damn quick. Just about the only thing that can be improved on is size, but the failure of the MiniDisc shows that consumers don't really care about size; the CD is small enough for them to think it isn't cumbersome, and that's what matters.
Hell, look at the astonishingly fast acceptance of DVD. DVD is essentially the home video equivalent of CDs. Consumers recognized the convenience DVD offered, and ate the shit up. I think DVD is sitting where the CD is now: it's not really going to be replaceable because, aside from improving quality, you can't really improve on the convenience of the DVD.
Whether you like to hear it or not, he was right: support is a nightmare on Linux. Sure, having about twenty variants of Linux might sound great to a geek, but it *is* a nightmare to someone who has to make sure his game works "out of the box" on each of those variants. Consider the following:
1. Packaging - which format? Tar/gz? That would be the most "portable" packaging format, but will your version of Linux keep track of installation/uninstallation of tar/gz packages? Probably not. What about RPM? That could work, but not every distro has the RPM tool. Let's not even get into package dependencies.
2. Location - where do you install this? Should Q3 be installed in/usr/quake3,/usr/local/quake3,/usr/games/quake3,/usr/local/games/quake3, or/opt/quake3? Or will the user install it someplace completely different? Without something like the registry, how is Q3 supposed to know where the game is installed? If the installer wants to install the proper drivers, how is it supposed to know (without the user telling it) where to do so?
3. Desktops - how do you add a link to the game on the desktop/menu? Does the user have KDE1, KDE2, GNOME 1.0, or GNOME 1.2? Or does the user have some completely different WM (E, WindowMaker, Blackbox)? How can the installer figure out what it has to do to make a desktop shortcut? Answer: it doesn't. There's no standard way to add a desktop shortcut or menu shortcut across window managers/desktops.
4. Drivers - how do you figure out what to do with them? Are these kernel drivers, or are they X drivers? On that note, where is X located?/usr/X11,/usr/X11R6, or/usr/local/X11R6? Or, is it in some other place? Okay, let's have the installer ask the user where X is. Oh, the user doesn't know. What's this? This is a kernel driver? Now the user has to recompile his kernel. Does he even know how to do that? How can the installer tell the user how to do this if it has no idea where the Linux source tree is supposed to be?
Now you can mod this down if you want, but keep in mind that I'm not flaming Linux, I'm just trying to point out a serious issue. Yeah, it's really great that you have "choice" but you have to keep in mind that you need a STANDARD way to do things! Period! I'm a FreeBSD user myself, and despite the fact that I have no "choice" (there's only one FreeBSD), I'm quite content with it. Remember kids: even if there's just one Linux you can still pimp it out all you want.
I have to agree. I'm a student here and I really don't see WHY there are any Redhat machines here to begin with (and there aren't many either -- the only ones I've seen are in Leazar). Solaris and NT machines just plain do the job. As you said, the Solaris boxes don't have any of the GNOME crap... you can just sit there and get your work done on them. The NT machines -- while I don't like them -- get the job done as well (when you have to use Windows software, at least).
The E115 course that all (?) engineering undergrads have to take FOCUSES on using Redhat and GNOME, which IMHO is not a good idea. The focus should instead be on using the Solaris machines, which are pretty much all over campus.
Same idea, different execution...
on
3D Printers
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I once saw a "3D printer" for sale in an electronics magazine a few months back. Instead of creating the model out of a polymer/powder/etc. it would etch the design out of an aluminum/plastic block. It had its own scanner that would scan the model and send it to the PC in Truespace 4 format (it even included a copy of TS4). You could then alter the model and send it back to the "printer". Very cool indeed, and it had a price tag in the $2000 range. Anyone have any experience with one of these things?
Does anyone else think GNOME's versioning is a little... inflated? If "October GNOME" is any indication, GNOME should still be pre-1.0. I'm not trying to troll or flame here. Let's be realistic about GNOME. It's still slow. It's still big. The apps still spew numerous GTK+ warning messages (aren't you supposed to supress those in "stable" versions of software? Or at least FIX the problems?). When are they expecting GNOME 2.0? Not any time soon, right?
It always baffles me as to why hardly anyone ever compresses these massive ISO files. Are they just not very compressable or something? I remember seeing offerbots on IRC with ISO images that were RAR'd... so why isn't anyone doing this? Obviously it would take a while to compress the images, but other than that, it means a great savings in resources (disk space, download time).
To clarify, I don't mess with ISO files very much, but I don't really see what's so special about them that nobody wants to compress them. Can anyone explain?
... did you have problems with the keyboard input? When I tried GLHeretic, it only seemed to respond to keyboard input about once every 5 seconds. I have a 233Mhz Pentium with a Voodoo 1 card. Not exactly cutting-edge stuff, but more than enough to play GLHeretic, I'm sure. What's the deal?
Don't allow HTML tags -- period! Strip out ALL greater-than and less-than signs and replace them with (ampersand)gt; and (ampersand)lt;. If you absolutely must have tags, create your own custom tags (say, for instance, LINK("http://slashdot.org")) and let the CGI convert them to real HTML tags. And, if you're dealing with a link tag or some sort of tag where a URL is required, strip out question marks and "javascript" from the URL.
I think it's perfectly fine to make fun of clueless computer users who make no effort to actually learn something about computers. Win-tards who complain about not being able to understand computers and at the same time refuse to learn basic concepts deserve it.
Imagine, if you will, that you're a teacher and a student can't read but at the same time tells you "fuck learnin' 'bout letters" -- shouldn't you make fun of him?:)
I've been using Debian since 1.3 and I recently switched to Slackware 7.0.
While I think Debian is just about the best Linux distro you can get, packages have always been a sticking point for me.
I'm a DIY guy -- I like compiling and installing software myself. Packages are quite annoying, and Debian's packages are no exception. They install software in wacky places (compared to where the software would be installed had you issued "make install") and -- this is particularly evident with Debian -- they are usually out of date. If you aren't running the "unstable" branch of Debian, forget about having recent packages.
Don't get me wrong, I love Debian. I even bought a copy of it when I saw it at the store, despite having burned a CD set (I was quite pissed that it only came with *1* CD when many important packages are on the second CD). It's just that I think it relies too heavily on packages that install software in non-standard places... I prefer more of a "bare-bones" system where you install packages of the bare essentials and compile the rest (yes, I know, you can do this Debian, but bear in mind that by the time you're running the "stable" branch, the packages are severly out of date).
Still, Debian is a great distro and sure as hell is better than Redhat:).
BladeEnc is a great encoder, but there are a few issues:
1. It's slow. It takes the K6-2 300 in the other room about 2 times the length of the song being encoded to encode.
2. Avoid BladeEnc 0.80 and 0.81! They randomly produce fucked up MP3s when encoding in batch! I found this out the hard way. After encoding several CDs and listening to the MP3s on the Windoze machine in the other room, I tried listening to them on my machine using XMMS... some were okay, but some sounded like random noise, or were too slow/fast, etc. This is a bug that the author acknowledges was in 0.80 and was supposedly fixed in 0.81 (although it wasn't). I don't know if a new version is out that has fixed this, but it's safest to stick with 0.76.
Just an attempt at a little bit of humor. However, I think the fish applet signifies everything that's wrong with GNOME: bloatedness (it's about 1MB in size), it uses CORBA (for no good reason -- all the applets do), and it's linked to an incredibly large number of libraries. Pretty pathetic for an applet that the authors stress over and over again has no purpose...
Slashdot Mirror
A very good response. Thank you. If I could moderate this article I'd give you a few points.
Naturally, the demand for CS graduates would become greater than it already is, leading to more students pursuing CS, leading to more very capable graduates filling said demand, leading to higher quality software. What's the problem here?
Now, I've neglected to mention the role management plays in crappy software, but that's only due to my lack of firsthand experience in that area. Still, I think boneheaded CS graduates have their own place in the equation. Why can't CS curriculums do a little more weeding out? There's plenty of demand for the things EEs and MEs do, and EE and ME are much more stringent curriculums than CS and yet no harm has come from that.
In other engineering disciplines, there is little room for error and your mistakes are readily apparent -- you screw up, and you'll probably wreck a few million dollars worth of equipment during testing or kill someone when the product ships. Software engineering, on the other hand, allows the mediocre on the team to hide behind truly talented individuals.
Code doesn't work? No big deal, just fiddle around and recompile. Still doesn't work? The other guy will probably fix it. Product's shipping and the problem still isn't fixed? Eh, who cares? It's not going to kill anyone, and nobody will notice.
It is precisely because no one can "see" the shoddy workmanship of programs that such behavior exists (and I'm not saying open source programs are immune to this -- patching a crappy open source program is akin to patching up a crappy car engine with duct tape and staples). All those slackers who couldn't code a binary tree to save their life and were generally mediocre college students are writing the software you'll be using. Their mediocrity is hidden by the anonymity and zero-accountability inherent in large software projects. Essentially, they're doing the same thing in the real world as they did in college -- slack off and hope nobody notices.
This, folks, is why colleges need to implement tougher CS curriculums. This is why you need to be able to write code on paper. This is why colleges insist that you don't collaborate on projects in lower-level CS classes. This is why there shouldn't be curves that allow mediocre students to graduate with a CS degree when they should have been weeded out during their freshmen or sophomore year.
I'm almost finished with my CS degree, and it's depressing, even at this level, how few students there are who really have an understanding of and interest in computer science. Most of the students enrolled in CS at my school have never coded before college. The most popular reason for choosing CS? "I used to make webpages, and I figured it would be easy." No joke. Of course, this sort of behavior isn't strictly limited to CS -- I've met more than a few EE students (freshmen, admittedly) who couldn't identify basic electrical components, didn't know Ohm's Law, and chose EE because "I used to take apart telephones and put them back together, so I think electronics is fun." Inevitably though, these clueless students who enroll in other engineering disciplines tend to migrate over to CS since it's not as "balls-to-the-wall" difficult as say, EE or ME.
In short, software "sucks" because our colleges are allowing mediocre students to slip through the cracks into the professional world. Personally, I feel that the CS curriculums should tighten up a bit and put more emphasis on solo projects (and moderately challenging ones, at that) and writing code on paper at the lower levels. A message has to be sent to those students who want to be engineers but don't really have what it takes that CS is NOT an "easy major". Perhaps then it might not be the haven for slackers that it has become.
... why anime fans are so anxious to see unedited anime series on TV. It's not like you can't buy the unedited DVDs and then watch them at your leisure!
:).
Personally, there's a lot of anime movies that I absolutely love, but I never really liked any of the serial shows... they just have hopelessly convoluted and complicated plots, and really aren't that interesting. Shrug. Maybe it's just because I have more important things to worry about than stories involving the ongoing struggle between giant robots hell-bent on destroying the earth
While I'm at it: what's the obsession with subtitled anime? I've watched my fair share of anime, and I've never once seen an instance where subtitles and dubs made a significant difference. The dubs are saying approximately the same thing that the subtitles are saying... it's not like the subtitled dialogue presents a completely different story than the dubbed dialogue does. Furthermore, don't you fanboys realize that anime distributors are taking you for a ride? Common sense dictates that subtitling costs less money than dubbing, yet subtitled animes cost more than dubbed ones. The reason they cost more is because the distributors know you're willing to pay extra for something that doesn't really make a big difference.
Hey, don't mod me down... no trolling here, I'm just interested to see what you guys think about these legitimate American anime issues.
They've been trying to solve this very problem all along... however, they can't seem to allow fair-use copying while at the same time preventing illegal redistribution. Why? Because there seems to be no way to prevent illegal redistribution without "infringing on consumer's rights". So yes, it IS your job to figure out what the solution is since no one else can seem to come up with an answer. You Slashdotters know what all the problems are but can't come up with a solution...
1. Cry me a river. For some reason, pity doesn't exactly gush from my heart for the poor, poor movie studios. The cost of any movie not considered a flop is recouped in the theatrical release. Making the DVD is gravy.
Some points:
* There are far more flops than hits. Hit movies have to recoup their own costs as well as a portion of the cost of a flop (or flops).
* It costs money to master a DVD, stuff it full of extras, and distribute it. As I pointed out, DVDs for flops are also produced... again, the cost of a flop might STILL not be recouped by DVDs.
* Are the studios not entitled to make money on DVDs? Are you asserting that it is the duty of the studios to give away DVDs for free (or at cost) simply because a movie has broken even or made a few million already?
2. Umm, studios make mediocre, derivative crap because they are afraid to take risks. This is why they make sequels. They know that enough people will go see it to make back their investment, and then some. This is what happens when a supposedly ``artistic'' industry is run by a bunch of accountants.
Making "non-mediocre crap" is a risk BECAUSE audiences generally don't go for stuff that's non-mainstream and "out there"! To place the blame solely on movie studios is laughable. Are you saying that studios need to constantly take risks? You can't do that and expect to stay in business long.
3. Like I said, theatrical release almost always makes the cost of the movie. They could *give away* digital copies of the film once it had made back the investment plus ten percent. What a wacky concept, eh?
And why should they, exactly? Have you ever taken an economics class before? Those who take risks are entitled to reap the benefits. AT&T has certainly made its investment plus ten percent back on its ventures... should they give away phone service for free too?
think we have two different perspectives here. Sure, piracy is illegal. But any technique that would supposedly prevent piracy would also prevent fair use. I'm sure the studios will be crying all the way to the bank.
Well, you know so much, so give me one good way that fair-use copying can be allowed while at the same time disallowing illegal redistribution of music and movies... didn't think so!
I'm having a really hard time believing you're a) serious, and b) not Jack Valenti.
I am serious... I just have an understanding of economics and respect for others.
Well, it's a little hard to cater to customer's wants on the internet music issue because:
* There's no way to guarantee that movies/music won't be freely redistributed. At least with physical mediums (CD, DVD), companies can (try to) prevent copying at the lowest level.
* Customers become up in arms when the music/movie companies try to protect their interests by stipulating that music can only be played on approved players, can't be redistributed, etc. They can't win because customers feel that giving away music is their right.
Music/movie companies are literally salivating at the thought of distributing music with almost no distribution/promotion costs... however, they need to figure out a way to protect their interests at the same time. This just doesn't seem possible at the moment.
P.S., you moderators are on crack. Thanks for modding me down to flamebait.
Okay, let me get this straight:
Movie studios took a risk a few years ago by putting money and support behind a new format (DVD -- and don't come back by asserting that there was no way the format could fail so therefore it wasn't a risk). DVD brought consumers high quality, non-degradable copies of their favorite movies in a small, convenient, and AFFORDABLE package. Why is everyone so intent on spitting in their faces? Let's take a look at some of the common reasons:
1. "If they would price DVDs reasonably, I wouldn't pirate them." $20 (or less) isn't a good enough for movies that are of excellent quality, will never degrade (theoretically), and usually come in very nice packaging? I've got news for you... just because it cost $1.00 or so to produce that DVD doesn't mean that companies are making $19.00 of profit when it's marked up to $20! These movies cost many millions of dollars to produce and market, and many fail to even break even. A lot of my favorite movies were complete box-office failures or are very obscure... I think it's very GENEROUS of movie companies to take a risk and produce thousands of copies of movies which they might lose money on just so a relatively small number of people can have high-quality copies of their favorite (obscure) movies!
2. "Sure, lots of movies bomb, but that wouldn't happen if the studios weren't making crappy movies." I've got news for you... studios aren't nearly as stupid as you may think. They've been in the business long enough to know what moviegoers want, AND THEY MAKE THE MOVIES THAT AUDIENCES WANT TO SEE! Teens love stupid teen movies, so movie companies produce them. Most people enjoy crude humor, so movie companies produce crude comedies. It's just that simple. Movie companies are only willing to take a risk on cutting-edge movies if they have a feeling that audiences will go for it, which usually doesn't happen. Maybe our society should broaden its tastes and then Hollywood will respond.
3. "Movie companies aren't willing to embrace the internet revolution and they're getting what they deserve." Okay, hotshot. You've just spent $50 million on a movie. Naturally you want to make that money back, right? How do you plan on doing that if you distribute your movie on the internet with no copy-protection whatsoever? Charge a "reasonable" price for a download of your movie (which can be viewed indefinitely)? What might be a reasonable price to you is a ludicrous price to someone else. You may think $5 to download your movie is reasonable, but there's a bunch of pirates and freeloaders who think your movie sucks far too much to be worth a whole $5. And, since you don't believe in copy-protection, it's even EASIER for said pirates to share your hard work with everyone on Morpheus. Good job. You're now bankrupt.
I think the whole pro-piracy/anti-RIAA/anti-MPAA issue boils down to this:
1. If given a choice, most people would take a movie at 90% of the quality for free over 100% quality for $20.
2. People who support pirating movies/music believe that if the tools to reproduce and redistribute movies/music are there that it is their God-given right to use them.
What you people have to realize is that movies and music ARE NOT PART OF YOUR INALIENABLE RIGHTS. Companies can charge WHATEVER THEY WANT for their products. Movies and music are LUXURIES, they are not necessities. Things would be different if the MPAA had a stranglehold on milk/bread/fruits/vegetables/etc. and started charging ridiculous prices for them -- BUT THAT ISN'T HOW IT IS. They have luxury (non-necessary) items that they spent billions of dollars on FOR YOUR ENJOYMENT -- all they ask of you is that you give them a modest amount of money to compensate their efforts. Grow up and stop trying to get a free ride.
Allow me to touch on a few points brought up in this forum.
Let's say you own a software company that sells an office suite for $500 (and let's assume this is the first release for an obscure company with little advertising money). The program is fast, cross-platform, and reads/writes MS Office files flawlessly. You put this product up for sale on your webpage. One person orders it. He is so captivated by the usefulness of this program that he decides that other people should be able to share in it as well. He puts it on his FTP server and posts a few messages on USENET to let others know about this incredible software (let's also assume that the feds aren't on his ass about this). Now, let's also assume that your office suite will send information to your servers whenever the software is run (usage information)... but wait, what's this? According to your logs, over 10,000 people are using your software! How can that be? You only sold one copy! On the one hand, you feel great that your software is enjoying immense popularity; on the other hand, you're wondering how you can pay your bills given that 10,000 people are using your software and all you have to show for it is $500 instead of $5 million.
------
The scenario above may seem far-fetched, but it serves to illustrate the "piracy is theft" point. Anyone who thinks otherwise is TRYING TO RATIONALIZE THEFT. Yes, it's not "theft" in the classic sense, but preventing someone from having what is rightfully theirs (in this case, $5 million for 10,000 copies of software) IS THEFT NONETHELESS.
"Well too bad, it's overpriced! I won't spend $500 for software!" -- Well, you're not entitled to use it then. The company puts a price on their product... if you're not willing to pay that price, then you don't need to use it. You might say, "I won't pay $500, but $30 MAX is okay"... who decides what a "reasonable" price is for this software? You might say $30, but someone else might think $30 is absurd, and would only want to pay $10 (and therefore steal it because he feels the software isn't worth the given price). Then, someone else might think $10 is too much and...
Basically, that reasoning is a slippery slope where the bottom is "all software should be free, regardless of how much money it cost to produce". This kind of reasoning boggles me... if you're not willing to pay the given price for software, that means it is worth nothing to you... if it's worth nothing, then why do you insist on using it? Obviously, if you "need" to use the software, it has some value. Would you prefer that software companies allow you to download full versions of their software and give you the option of paying only what you think the software is worth? If you can't see how that kind of strategy would bankrupt ANY company, you need to wake up.
One last point: "I'm a college kid and I can't afford $500 for Photoshop/AutoCAD". Okay, let me get this straight: you're in school for graphic design and Photoshop is the industry standard... therefore, you need Photoshop skills before leaving college. You also NEED college to get into the industry, and you're paying $30,000 for college. Is $30,500 that much more to spend? You need college, you need Photoshop... am I missing something here?
Hmm, what's this on the back of my "Snatch" DVD? It says, in fine print, "unauthorized reporoduction, distribution or exhibition violates federal laws with severe penalties". Wait a minute, I think there's some on my Pulp Fiction DVD as well! It says "This DVD is for home viewing only. It is not licensed for any other use." Oh heavens, what does that small text on the back of my Clockwork Orange DVD say? Oh yes, it says "Federal law provides severe civil and criminal penalties for the unauthorized reproduction, distribution or exhibition of copyright motion pictures, video tapes or video discs."
In other words, yes there IS fine print on just about every DVD you'll buy that explicity states what you can and can't do with your DVD. Even if it's not explicity stated there are still laws in place that prevent you from doing "whatever the hell you want" with your DVD. Ever wonder what those funny little FBI warnings say? They tell you that it's illegal to make unauthorized copies of your movie! Well what do you know.
Am I the only one who's been noticing the HUGE amount of Pearl Harbor history specials/news coverage/etc. on TV, in magazines, and in the newspapers lately? Sure, it IS Memorial Day after all, but it would make more sense if these history specials were being shown in December rather than May. So why so much attention to Pearl Harbor right now? Because the movie is coming out! I get this sneaking suspicion that part of some movie's advertising budgets go towards getting the news media to play these sorts of specials. For instance, remember when Man on the Moon came out and all of a sudden there was a LOT of Andy Kaufman-related coverage on TV? Coincidence? I think not :).
I think that it may not be that easy to get a new format (media type) accepted by the public today. My theory is that (the majority of) people buy things that a) make it possible to be even lazier and/or b) complete mundane tasks faster. Take a look at the evolution of the audio formats:
1. Vinyl - decent quality, but you have to adjust speed, place the needle, etc.
2. Tapes - good quality, easier to use. Just pop it in and press play... but you have to ff/rew to the song you want.
3. CD - very good quality, very ease to use. Has track skipping.
These are the "big" formats; the ones that caught on. Notice the pattern: they each improve on the previous format, namely they require less effort from the listener and take less time to mess with (think having to fast-forward through a tape versus instant access on a CD). So why won't a new format replace the CD? Well, what can it improve on? Nothing that a consumer would care about. Quality? CD quality is pretty damn good, especially to your average clueless consumer. Faster seek times? Any cheap CD player can seek to the track you want pretty damn quick. Just about the only thing that can be improved on is size, but the failure of the MiniDisc shows that consumers don't really care about size; the CD is small enough for them to think it isn't cumbersome, and that's what matters.
Hell, look at the astonishingly fast acceptance of DVD. DVD is essentially the home video equivalent of CDs. Consumers recognized the convenience DVD offered, and ate the shit up. I think DVD is sitting where the CD is now: it's not really going to be replaceable because, aside from improving quality, you can't really improve on the convenience of the DVD.
The bottom line for consumers is convenience.
Whether you like to hear it or not, he was right: support is a nightmare on Linux. Sure, having about twenty variants of Linux might sound great to a geek, but it *is* a nightmare to someone who has to make sure his game works "out of the box" on each of those variants. Consider the following:
/usr/quake3, /usr/local/quake3, /usr/games/quake3, /usr/local/games/quake3, or /opt/quake3? Or will the user install it someplace completely different? Without something like the registry, how is Q3 supposed to know where the game is installed? If the installer wants to install the proper drivers, how is it supposed to know (without the user telling it) where to do so?
/usr/X11, /usr/X11R6, or /usr/local/X11R6? Or, is it in some other place? Okay, let's have the installer ask the user where X is. Oh, the user doesn't know. What's this? This is a kernel driver? Now the user has to recompile his kernel. Does he even know how to do that? How can the installer tell the user how to do this if it has no idea where the Linux source tree is supposed to be?
1. Packaging - which format? Tar/gz? That would be the most "portable" packaging format, but will your version of Linux keep track of installation/uninstallation of tar/gz packages? Probably not. What about RPM? That could work, but not every distro has the RPM tool. Let's not even get into package dependencies.
2. Location - where do you install this? Should Q3 be installed in
3. Desktops - how do you add a link to the game on the desktop/menu? Does the user have KDE1, KDE2, GNOME 1.0, or GNOME 1.2? Or does the user have some completely different WM (E, WindowMaker, Blackbox)? How can the installer figure out what it has to do to make a desktop shortcut? Answer: it doesn't. There's no standard way to add a desktop shortcut or menu shortcut across window managers/desktops.
4. Drivers - how do you figure out what to do with them? Are these kernel drivers, or are they X drivers? On that note, where is X located?
Now you can mod this down if you want, but keep in mind that I'm not flaming Linux, I'm just trying to point out a serious issue. Yeah, it's really great that you have "choice" but you have to keep in mind that you need a STANDARD way to do things! Period! I'm a FreeBSD user myself, and despite the fact that I have no "choice" (there's only one FreeBSD), I'm quite content with it. Remember kids: even if there's just one Linux you can still pimp it out all you want.
I have to agree. I'm a student here and I really don't see WHY there are any Redhat machines here to begin with (and there aren't many either -- the only ones I've seen are in Leazar). Solaris and NT machines just plain do the job. As you said, the Solaris boxes don't have any of the GNOME crap... you can just sit there and get your work done on them. The NT machines -- while I don't like them -- get the job done as well (when you have to use Windows software, at least).
The E115 course that all (?) engineering undergrads have to take FOCUSES on using Redhat and GNOME, which IMHO is not a good idea. The focus should instead be on using the Solaris machines, which are pretty much all over campus.
I once saw a "3D printer" for sale in an electronics magazine a few months back. Instead of creating the model out of a polymer/powder/etc. it would etch the design out of an aluminum/plastic block. It had its own scanner that would scan the model and send it to the PC in Truespace 4 format (it even included a copy of TS4). You could then alter the model and send it back to the "printer". Very cool indeed, and it had a price tag in the $2000 range. Anyone have any experience with one of these things?
Does anyone else think GNOME's versioning is a little... inflated? If "October GNOME" is any indication, GNOME should still be pre-1.0. I'm not trying to troll or flame here. Let's be realistic about GNOME. It's still slow. It's still big. The apps still spew numerous GTK+ warning messages (aren't you supposed to supress those in "stable" versions of software? Or at least FIX the problems?). When are they expecting GNOME 2.0? Not any time soon, right?
It always baffles me as to why hardly anyone ever compresses these massive ISO files. Are they just not very compressable or something? I remember seeing offerbots on IRC with ISO images that were RAR'd... so why isn't anyone doing this? Obviously it would take a while to compress the images, but other than that, it means a great savings in resources (disk space, download time).
To clarify, I don't mess with ISO files very much, but I don't really see what's so special about them that nobody wants to compress them. Can anyone explain?
... did you have problems with the keyboard input? When I tried GLHeretic, it only seemed to respond to keyboard input about once every 5 seconds. I have a 233Mhz Pentium with a Voodoo 1 card. Not exactly cutting-edge stuff, but more than enough to play GLHeretic, I'm sure. What's the deal?
Don't allow HTML tags -- period! Strip out ALL greater-than and less-than signs and replace them with (ampersand)gt; and (ampersand)lt;. If you absolutely must have tags, create your own custom tags (say, for instance, LINK("http://slashdot.org")) and let the CGI convert them to real HTML tags. And, if you're dealing with a link tag or some sort of tag where a URL is required, strip out question marks and "javascript" from the URL.
I think it's perfectly fine to make fun of clueless computer users who make no effort to actually learn something about computers. Win-tards who complain about not being able to understand computers and at the same time refuse to learn basic concepts deserve it.
:)
Imagine, if you will, that you're a teacher and a student can't read but at the same time tells you "fuck learnin' 'bout letters" -- shouldn't you make fun of him?
Hopefully this will be a wakeup call to the government and businesses: don't use old-ass COBOL-based systems!
Who wants to bet that in 2031 the media is gonna ride the Y2034 bug?
I've been using Debian since 1.3 and I recently switched to Slackware 7.0.
:).
While I think Debian is just about the best Linux distro you can get, packages have always been a sticking point for me.
I'm a DIY guy -- I like compiling and installing software myself. Packages are quite annoying, and Debian's packages are no exception. They install software in wacky places (compared to where the software would be installed had you issued "make install") and -- this is particularly evident with Debian -- they are usually out of date. If you aren't running the "unstable" branch of Debian, forget about having recent packages.
Don't get me wrong, I love Debian. I even bought a copy of it when I saw it at the store, despite having burned a CD set (I was quite pissed that it only came with *1* CD when many important packages are on the second CD). It's just that I think it relies too heavily on packages that install software in non-standard places... I prefer more of a "bare-bones" system where you install packages of the bare essentials and compile the rest (yes, I know, you can do this Debian, but bear in mind that by the time you're running the "stable" branch, the packages are severly out of date).
Still, Debian is a great distro and sure as hell is better than Redhat
Using your site to spread rumors about a company you own stock in? Have you no shame? :P
BladeEnc is a great encoder, but there are a few issues:
:).
1. It's slow. It takes the K6-2 300 in the other room about 2 times the length of the song being encoded to encode.
2. Avoid BladeEnc 0.80 and 0.81! They randomly produce fucked up MP3s when encoding in batch! I found this out the hard way. After encoding several CDs and listening to the MP3s on the Windoze machine in the other room, I tried listening to them on my machine using XMMS... some were okay, but some sounded like random noise, or were too slow/fast, etc. This is a bug that the author acknowledges was in 0.80 and was supposedly fixed in 0.81 (although it wasn't). I don't know if a new version is out that has fixed this, but it's safest to stick with 0.76.
Other than that, BladeEnc is a fine choice
Just an attempt at a little bit of humor. However, I think the fish applet signifies everything that's wrong with GNOME: bloatedness (it's about 1MB in size), it uses CORBA (for no good reason -- all the applets do), and it's linked to an incredibly large number of libraries. Pretty pathetic for an applet that the authors stress over and over again has no purpose...