In the history of this country has anything truly been changed by people writing letters to their lawmakers?
I've written plenty of those letters, nobody reads them (okay, somebody reads them and sends back a worthless form letter). It changes nothing.
I also donate to the EFF.
In the meantime I chose to live in the real world, not the world defined by the RIAA and MPAA, and in that world no one feels particularly bad downloading a video of a performance of a Star Wars-themed musical, and no one feels that they should tread lightly around encouraging others to do the same.
If we let the RIAA and MPAA define how this world is with the laws that they've purchased, if we all refrain from listening to any mp3s that might be pirated, if we delete mp3s from our computer upon losing the CD that we ripped it from, if we wait for the Desperate Housewives season 2 DVD rather than downloading missed episodes, and we all step very carefully and never break any of these ridiculous rules, and just write letters to lawmakers that nobody really reads, pretty soon that becomes normal and accepted, and the laws get harsher and more absurd.
That's my take anyway, and I don't mind burning up some of my karma to say so.
spoken like someone who has truly been indoctrinated in the Religion of Intellectual Property.
Those of us (and judging from his post, I suspect this includes CmdrTaco), who do not subscribe to your religion have less ideological views of right and wrong with respect to so called Intellectual Property. I won't try to explain it to you, that would be like trying to explain to Pat Robertson why there's nothing wrong with swear words and why it's okay for two people to live together outside of marriage. But suffice as to say that with your crazy talk you sound to me not unlike Pat Robertson when he says that hurricanes are caused by too many gays and that sort of thing.
$60 has already been pretty well established as the price for next gen games (hopely only until they realize that people aren't excited about paying that much) and Halo 3 won't be available at launch.
As for the rest, I totally agree, 20 XBox 360's per site? They'd sell out if they had 100. However, this info is not for the U.S., perhaps stores here will get more inventory.
This "tough luck" line - if you don't like the software don't use it; if you didn't read the EULA, too bad for you, etc - gets kind of old.
You see, it's like this. What if someone wants to play WOW but doesn't want spyware on their computer? Well, you say, find another MMORPG that doesn't have spyware. Then one day all of them do. Then what? Then one day every game you buy, every utility you buy - from tax prep to antivirus - installs it's own little bit of spyware and rootkits. It's all in the EULAs, and you always have the option of not using that software, but pretty soon you can't do anything on your computer if you want to stick to your principal of my computer is my computer because everything has rootkits and DRM and spyware.
So what reasonable people are doing is fighting this shit whereever it pops up. We say fuck this EULA nonsense, fuck this "if you don't like it don't use it attitude" no software should ever install spyware or rootkits, that crosses a line that just shouldn't be crossed.
So that's how I see it, and it's part of why I donate quite liberally to the EFF.
I have a question. Why are Ask Slashdot questions always so stupid? They are more interesting for their amusement factor than for their content. I especially enjoy the self-serving questions like the high school kid who is so much smarter than his peers and asks slashdot "do other people have this problem? How do you cope?" or the unemployed engineer who says "I'm so smart and qualified but I can't find a job. Anyone else having this problem?" I have a question that I've been meaning to submit, but haven't gotten around to it yet:
"Why do I have such a big penis? Does everyone else have a big penis or am I alone in having such a great big penis?"
Fortunately, Best Buy will pressure you into buying the 'extended guarantee' (or some such) for your used game for only $15 so that you can bring it back for replacement if the CD is scratched too badly or important pages are missing from the manual. This of course ads up to more than the game would cost new, but isn't peace of mind worth it?
Jobs like you describe do not exist. At least 50% of every job sucks.
Let's say you love programming, so you find a job writing code for a living. That's great. But you also have to document your code. Debug your code. Test your code. Integrate it with other people's code.
Let's say you love playing video games. So you find a job as video game tester. It doesn't pay well, the hours are long. You have to spend 10 hours a day playing the same parts of the same game over and over again.
There's no such thing as the perfect job. If there were it wouldn't be work and you wouldn't get paid.
It's illegal to buy a laptop from someone if it turns out that laptop was stolen, even if you didn't know that when you bought it? Is it also illegal for me to think that's excessive?
What you are describing has more to do with how marketing works than anyone being snobby.
Let's take two companies A and B. Company B makes midrange components, company A makes high-end - maybe for bicycles, maybe for stereos, maybe for computers, whatever.
Company C steps in and starts selling a modified version of one of company B's widgets for twice as much, with only tiny changes - offering it in a shiny chrome color, for example - and it sells a surprisingly high number of them, even though it is basically the exact same as the midrange product.
What is this phenomenon of company C? It is because of people who can't quite afford the high-end products of company A, but they want something a little bit better than company B's mid-range stuff. However, they aren't actually getting anything better, they are just paying more. Fans of Company A look upon these people with pitty and disdain.
There is a company that fills this niche in every consumer industry - snowboards, mountain bikes, motherboards, etc.
Uncultured - absolutely, shithole - not at all. Plenty of great mountain right outside my backdoor, a ski resort that's about a 30 minute drive from downtown Boise, a beautiful 'green belt' running alongside the river that snakes through downtown Boise - a river that many people float down in inner tubes in the summer. And the prices on potatoes and milk (pretty much the only things made here) are unbelievable, so if your idea of an afternoon snack is potato pieces dipped in milk, this place is a little slice of heaven.
Unfortunately, you're favorite bands will never play here - even Boise-based Built to Spill rarely plays here. The locals like to pretend this state is libertarian but the truth is that it's redneck conservative. It is illegal for an un-related male and female to live in the same residence. That's right, no living together before marriage, unless you plan to marry your sister.
But all that is improving bit by bit, especially as Californians move here looking for a bit o' country livin', and try to make things a bit more ordinary and less hick.
All things considered, if you can make 75% here of what you could make in silicon valley, it's probably a worthy trade-off
Exactly.
And can someone please clarify this part:
Pictures can then be viewed with Nikon's powerful yet fun-to-use and easy PictureProject software
can? or must? I'm sure Nikon thinks their software is "powerful" and "fun-to-use" but I've never ever liked the software included with any peripheral I've ever bought - scanners, cameras, printers, etc.
That was an excellent post, I commend you. However, I think your argument is made considerably weaker by these two items:
The US claims to spread democracy, yet holds presidential elections so biased towards two near-identical candidates that the only thing separating them is how effectively they rigged the impossible ballots.
Utter nonsense. Including this with your otherwise excellent points is like accusing someone of being a murderer and then adding "I also heard that he might have smoked pot once." That ballot-rigging stuff is for the sorts of conspiracists who believe that we never landed on the moon, and to those of us who vote here, believe me, our candidates are far from identical.
The US is fighting a war on terror, yet has consistently been the biggest state sponsor of terrorism for decades, and remains the only nation in history ever to have actually used a weapon of mass destruction that cost millions of civilian lives.
Here I only want to take issue with your second point, your little reference to the dropping of a few nukes on Japan. It is an action that has to be considered in context, and it doesn't really have anything to do with the reasons why the USA is the primary bulls-eye for terrorists.
Yeah, I find that practice very annoying. half.com does it too. (does half.com even exist any more?) If a buyer bought to items from you they still had to pay the same per-item shipping costs (no savings), but they only pass on to the seller a tiny bit more than they would give you to ship one item.
Slashdot Mirror
In the history of this country has anything truly been changed by people writing letters to their lawmakers?
I've written plenty of those letters, nobody reads them (okay, somebody reads them and sends back a worthless form letter). It changes nothing.
I also donate to the EFF.
In the meantime I chose to live in the real world, not the world defined by the RIAA and MPAA, and in that world no one feels particularly bad downloading a video of a performance of a Star Wars-themed musical, and no one feels that they should tread lightly around encouraging others to do the same.
If we let the RIAA and MPAA define how this world is with the laws that they've purchased, if we all refrain from listening to any mp3s that might be pirated, if we delete mp3s from our computer upon losing the CD that we ripped it from, if we wait for the Desperate Housewives season 2 DVD rather than downloading missed episodes, and we all step very carefully and never break any of these ridiculous rules, and just write letters to lawmakers that nobody really reads, pretty soon that becomes normal and accepted, and the laws get harsher and more absurd.
That's my take anyway, and I don't mind burning up some of my karma to say so.
spoken like someone who has truly been indoctrinated in the Religion of Intellectual Property.
Those of us (and judging from his post, I suspect this includes CmdrTaco), who do not subscribe to your religion have less ideological views of right and wrong with respect to so called Intellectual Property. I won't try to explain it to you, that would be like trying to explain to Pat Robertson why there's nothing wrong with swear words and why it's okay for two people to live together outside of marriage. But suffice as to say that with your crazy talk you sound to me not unlike Pat Robertson when he says that hurricanes are caused by too many gays and that sort of thing.
$60 has already been pretty well established as the price for next gen games (hopely only until they realize that people aren't excited about paying that much) and Halo 3 won't be available at launch.
As for the rest, I totally agree, 20 XBox 360's per site? They'd sell out if they had 100. However, this info is not for the U.S., perhaps stores here will get more inventory.
This "tough luck" line - if you don't like the software don't use it; if you didn't read the EULA, too bad for you, etc - gets kind of old.
You see, it's like this. What if someone wants to play WOW but doesn't want spyware on their computer? Well, you say, find another MMORPG that doesn't have spyware. Then one day all of them do. Then what? Then one day every game you buy, every utility you buy - from tax prep to antivirus - installs it's own little bit of spyware and rootkits. It's all in the EULAs, and you always have the option of not using that software, but pretty soon you can't do anything on your computer if you want to stick to your principal of my computer is my computer because everything has rootkits and DRM and spyware.
So what reasonable people are doing is fighting this shit whereever it pops up. We say fuck this EULA nonsense, fuck this "if you don't like it don't use it attitude" no software should ever install spyware or rootkits, that crosses a line that just shouldn't be crossed.
So that's how I see it, and it's part of why I donate quite liberally to the EFF.
I hear they are very popular at Star Wars conventions.
I have a question. Why are Ask Slashdot questions always so stupid? They are more interesting for their amusement factor than for their content. I especially enjoy the self-serving questions like the high school kid who is so much smarter than his peers and asks slashdot "do other people have this problem? How do you cope?" or the unemployed engineer who says "I'm so smart and qualified but I can't find a job. Anyone else having this problem?" I have a question that I've been meaning to submit, but haven't gotten around to it yet:
"Why do I have such a big penis? Does everyone else have a big penis or am I alone in having such a great big penis?"
I remember in elementary school that I was told many times by teachers and my parents that bullies would go away if you ignored them.
However, I never actually encountered a bully that went away when ignored.
Has anyone? Seriously, who makes this stuff up? Jack Thompson will go away if ignored?
I don't know what elementary school you went to, but at mine the only way to stop bullies was violent dismemberment.
So the fact that some 11 year olds are now 14 - and thus not into "kid stuff" anymore - does not, in fact, explain a decline in video gaming.
Fortunately, Best Buy will pressure you into buying the 'extended guarantee' (or some such) for your used game for only $15 so that you can bring it back for replacement if the CD is scratched too badly or important pages are missing from the manual. This of course ads up to more than the game would cost new, but isn't peace of mind worth it?
----
theTshirtClub.com - You've got problems, we've got t-shirts
Spoken like an elementary school teacher.
Jobs like you describe do not exist. At least 50% of every job sucks.
Let's say you love programming, so you find a job writing code for a living. That's great. But you also have to document your code. Debug your code. Test your code. Integrate it with other people's code.
Let's say you love playing video games. So you find a job as video game tester. It doesn't pay well, the hours are long. You have to spend 10 hours a day playing the same parts of the same game over and over again.
There's no such thing as the perfect job. If there were it wouldn't be work and you wouldn't get paid.
It's illegal to buy a laptop from someone if it turns out that laptop was stolen, even if you didn't know that when you bought it? Is it also illegal for me to think that's excessive?
---------
theTshirtClub.com - you've got problems, we've got t-shirts.
What you are describing has more to do with how marketing works than anyone being snobby.
Let's take two companies A and B. Company B makes midrange components, company A makes high-end - maybe for bicycles, maybe for stereos, maybe for computers, whatever.
Company C steps in and starts selling a modified version of one of company B's widgets for twice as much, with only tiny changes - offering it in a shiny chrome color, for example - and it sells a surprisingly high number of them, even though it is basically the exact same as the midrange product.
What is this phenomenon of company C? It is because of people who can't quite afford the high-end products of company A, but they want something a little bit better than company B's mid-range stuff. However, they aren't actually getting anything better, they are just paying more. Fans of Company A look upon these people with pitty and disdain.
There is a company that fills this niche in every consumer industry - snowboards, mountain bikes, motherboards, etc.
what's the difference between a light bulb and a pregnant woman?
You can unscrew a lightbulb.
Not everything can be undone.
So I guess the question is, will the XBOX 360 be more like a lightbulb or a pregnant woman?
I live in Idaho.
Uncultured - absolutely, shithole - not at all. Plenty of great mountain right outside my backdoor, a ski resort that's about a 30 minute drive from downtown Boise, a beautiful 'green belt' running alongside the river that snakes through downtown Boise - a river that many people float down in inner tubes in the summer. And the prices on potatoes and milk (pretty much the only things made here) are unbelievable, so if your idea of an afternoon snack is potato pieces dipped in milk, this place is a little slice of heaven.
Unfortunately, you're favorite bands will never play here - even Boise-based Built to Spill rarely plays here. The locals like to pretend this state is libertarian but the truth is that it's redneck conservative. It is illegal for an un-related male and female to live in the same residence. That's right, no living together before marriage, unless you plan to marry your sister.
But all that is improving bit by bit, especially as Californians move here looking for a bit o' country livin', and try to make things a bit more ordinary and less hick.
All things considered, if you can make 75% here of what you could make in silicon valley, it's probably a worthy trade-off
J'Accuse!
Pictures can then be viewed with Nikon's powerful yet fun-to-use and easy PictureProject software
can? or must? I'm sure Nikon thinks their software is "powerful" and "fun-to-use" but I've never ever liked the software included with any peripheral I've ever bought - scanners, cameras, printers, etc.
The US claims to spread democracy, yet holds presidential elections so biased towards two near-identical candidates that the only thing separating them is how effectively they rigged the impossible ballots.
Utter nonsense. Including this with your otherwise excellent points is like accusing someone of being a murderer and then adding "I also heard that he might have smoked pot once." That ballot-rigging stuff is for the sorts of conspiracists who believe that we never landed on the moon, and to those of us who vote here, believe me, our candidates are far from identical.
The US is fighting a war on terror, yet has consistently been the biggest state sponsor of terrorism for decades, and remains the only nation in history ever to have actually used a weapon of mass destruction that cost millions of civilian lives.
Here I only want to take issue with your second point, your little reference to the dropping of a few nukes on Japan. It is an action that has to be considered in context, and it doesn't really have anything to do with the reasons why the USA is the primary bulls-eye for terrorists.
You forgot to mention:
Anyone who says they will be modded as a Troll will be modded +5
Yeah, I find that practice very annoying. half.com does it too. (does half.com even exist any more?) If a buyer bought to items from you they still had to pay the same per-item shipping costs (no savings), but they only pass on to the seller a tiny bit more than they would give you to ship one item.
Lame.
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That's where you're wrong, cowboy. You have to convert it to analog audio to listen to it. It's lossy, so it sounds like crap.
there's a sucker born every minute
P.T. Barnum said that about a century ago. These days it's more like 20 a minute.
10 bucks says this special coating causes cancer somehow. That's always the case with these types of things.
I've never met anyone with cancer. Therefore I don't believe that anyone ever gets cancer.
> Housing prices have jumped up about 40% each year for the past few years...
Not in Iowa they haven't. Or most of the U.S. Only in certain very select areas of California where people have lost their common sense.