I must have missed the CNN story where the cybernetic clones of Sam Walton burst into recording studios and game developer offices and started executing people at random until the content met their specifications. If, by force, you mean they refuse to sell content that a large portion of their clintelle, (particularly those in the Bible Belt South where Wal-Mart has their primary stronghold) might find offensive then get over yourself. They also don't sell the finest porno mags but I'm not going to boycott them because they don't sell what I want. Here's where someone says, "but Wal-Mart is a huge soul-crushing corporation" to which I say there is nothing that Wal-Mart sells that I can't get elsewhere. That's not saying I love Wal-Mart..I personally dislike them because when they come into town they are the equivalent of retail MOAB which has killed many downtown areas in small towns all across the country..but they don't have shock troops running around forcing content providers to change their plans..
When you live out in rural areas unless you are a bazillionaire high speed access is completely out of the question. I have a friend who has DirecWay, he's about ready to turn it into a big bowl for dips when he has party because that's all its good for. Anything that can cross that last mile, over the river, through the woods, and above the cow into my house with real speed, not a laggy, delayed trashed out bandwidth that vanishes when it rains is a plus.
Old White Guys??? Even the small rap and r&b lables. You forgot to attack America too. LOL
Yeah, whenever I see the RIAA members on television, or the "music industry" testifying before Congress in an attempt to keep their bloated, diseased carcass of a business plan alive I always see young hip-hop labels. Not to say that those labels aren't built on the foundation with the same type of greed and abusive contracts that have plagued the more "corporate" entities that we have all come to know and love but they are just following the plan established by those that came before them, which whether you like it or not, is primarily old white guys in ill fitting suits with trophy wives, cell phones that don't stop ringing and a Mercedes...at least that's what it looks like from CSPAN.
No it's not much harder than being an ER technician. But if what I do yields $8.4 million and I walk away with 40k you would bet I would be pissed. It's like everyone that takes issue with how much athletes make. When the owners (read old, white guys) make enough money to roll naked in it like Scrooge McDuck no one says anything. Want to pay a runningback that puts all those asses in the seat for the old white guys and the athletes are greedy uncaring sons of bitches. If what I do prompts people to put down their hard earned cash I shouldn't get bilked out of it by...surprise..a group of old white guys..
The digital divide may have been about people who have computers versus those who don't a decade ago, or even five years ago. With the drop in PC prices and the drop in ISP prices that's not an issue as much anymore. You don't need a 2.6 ghz rig with a gig of RAM to surf the Web, send e-mail or exchange files (NOTE: ANY ATTEMPT TO EXCHANGE MUSIC OR MOVIES WILL END WITH RABID CYBERNETIC SQUIRRELS SENT BY THE MP/RI/AA DEVOURING YOU) The divide now is one of high-speed access. I work with computers for a living so the technological midget theory is out the window. Money is not a big issue. What is I have ZERO real options for high-speed access. With ISDN not only do they want a boatload of cash, they also want my name signed in blood on a long-term contract. DSL, too far. Satellite, hahahaaha. Cable, too far. Let's face it. A modem connection, particularly a 26.4 kbps connection like the one that runs across my barbed-wire phone lines, just doesn't cut it anymore. As more applications go online and Web sites continue to bloat I find myself sitting here drumming my fingers waiting. If they can pipe in some bandwidth over those big fat wires that already come into my house great. At this point I'll take just about anything..
This sounds like the governments trying to take advantage of the situation the way the phone companies do (e.g., selling people's phone numbers while they sell the people caller ID). If the states want a new source of revenue over this, fine; they should give the consumers privacy for free and charge telemarketers exhorbitant rates to abuse that freedom.
I'm just going to go out on a limb here and say maintaining the database of everyone who doesn't want to get called, their numbers and handling the administrative side, including enforcement, isn't free. I don't think there's a bunch of hippies sitting around in a VW van running the do not call list for free and talking about the state of the universe. You can talk about how it should all you want but the bottom line is that information has to be compiled, maintained and updated by someone somewhere and last time I checked there was no universal benevolent force for good willing to do that for free.
So, because there is a potential for misuse so we should all be scared of it? Isn't there a potential for misuse in the current criminal justice system? Isn't there a potential that a crooked prosecutor, investigator to plant evidence at a crime scene and set up someone for a crime they didn't commit (and the first person that says OJ gets launched into the sun). There's always a CHANCE that SOMETHING could HAPPEN. I could go outside and a meteor shaped like Bill Gates' head could squash me like a bug. Lord knows I would rather have the REALITY of killers running around than the POSSIBILITY that something might happen. Isn't this the same slashdot that constantly says don't slam a technology that could be used for good just because of it's potential for evil? Or does that rule only apply when it helps wanna-be hippie activists with their berets and ferrets? On a side note, even mentioning that horrid film should get you at least five years in prison. Please send me a photo of your fingerprints so that I can set you up..
I think that all this will do is frustrate the average joe trying to make legit copies, as the various groups online distributing ISO's are sure to find a way to bypass yet this new technology."
This security software being used to thwart piracy of computer games has done nothing but force me to those sources in order to play the game at all. Three times in the last year I've bought software only to find that the "security software" on the CD is incompatible with my drive. I actually told the EA guy that the only thing this seemed to prevent was me from playing the game I bought legally. He said he was sorry and offered a refund but that still doesn't allow me to play the game. So I go to the dark side, download the crack, and play the game. My boxed copy sits on my bookshelf because I have to turn to the pirates to play a game that you want to keep out of the hands of pirates..oh the irony. And those bastards still have my money. I'm such a sucker.
No, to really be true to life every order you place would be wrong and when you order McChickenChunks they are always out of barbecue sauce but have plenty of that nasty honey dijon mustard. And your Sim should fall down to the ground gasping if you try to drink one of their shakes through one of those tiny ass straws.
If I remember correctly, there was already a downloadable addition to The Sims in the form of a Pepsi machine. Maybe it was their way of sticking their toe into the product placement arena to test it. The players obviously want this kind of thing. Just take a look at a lot of the user made items that have been made to try and bring the "real" feeling to the game, everything from G4 cube computers and Sony television sets. If EA can give players more of what they obviously want and pocket a little profit in the process more power to them. With that being said, I hope it won't be intrusive to the point of being annoying for the player. It's all in the execution..
For Apple products its always best to get wait for revision after a major product overhaul. Early adopters get burned. Outside of the obviously faster chips, graphics cards, etc, which just goes with the territory of buying computers, with Apple you get the industrial design quirks that haven't been worked out properly. In the original Titanium Powerbook the battery comes out if you twist the wrong way and the DVD drive can grind if the thing is at an angle at all. If you are going to "switch," always take the second or third product revision from Apple. You end up better in the long run.
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I must have missed the CNN story where the cybernetic clones of Sam Walton burst into recording studios and game developer offices and started executing people at random until the content met their specifications.
If, by force, you mean they refuse to sell content that a large portion of their clintelle, (particularly those in the Bible Belt South where Wal-Mart has their primary stronghold) might find offensive then get over yourself.
They also don't sell the finest porno mags but I'm not going to boycott them because they don't sell what I want.
Here's where someone says, "but Wal-Mart is a huge soul-crushing corporation" to which I say there is nothing that Wal-Mart sells that I can't get elsewhere.
That's not saying I love Wal-Mart..I personally dislike them because when they come into town they are the equivalent of retail MOAB which has killed many downtown areas in small towns all across the country..but they don't have shock troops running around forcing content providers to change their plans..
When you live out in rural areas unless you are a bazillionaire high speed access is completely out of the question. I have a friend who has DirecWay, he's about ready to turn it into a big bowl for dips when he has party because that's all its good for.
Anything that can cross that last mile, over the river, through the woods, and above the cow into my house with real speed, not a laggy, delayed trashed out bandwidth that vanishes when it rains is a plus.
Old White Guys??? Even the small rap and r&b lables. You forgot to attack America too. LOL
Yeah, whenever I see the RIAA members on television, or the "music industry" testifying before Congress in an attempt to keep their bloated, diseased carcass of a business plan alive I always see young hip-hop labels. Not to say that those labels aren't built on the foundation with the same type of greed and abusive contracts that have plagued the more "corporate" entities that we have all come to know and love but they are just following the plan established by those that came before them, which whether you like it or not, is primarily old white guys in ill fitting suits with trophy wives, cell phones that don't stop ringing and a Mercedes...at least that's what it looks like from CSPAN.
Oh my God that is one hell of a runon sentence..
No it's not much harder than being an ER technician. But if what I do yields $8.4 million and I walk away with 40k you would bet I would be pissed.
It's like everyone that takes issue with how much athletes make. When the owners (read old, white guys) make enough money to roll naked in it like Scrooge McDuck no one says anything. Want to pay a runningback that puts all those asses in the seat for the old white guys and the athletes are greedy uncaring sons of bitches.
If what I do prompts people to put down their hard earned cash I shouldn't get bilked out of it by...surprise..a group of old white guys..
The digital divide may have been about people who have computers versus those who don't a decade ago, or even five years ago.
With the drop in PC prices and the drop in ISP prices that's not an issue as much anymore. You don't need a 2.6 ghz rig with a gig of RAM to surf the Web, send e-mail or exchange files (NOTE: ANY ATTEMPT TO EXCHANGE MUSIC OR MOVIES WILL END WITH RABID CYBERNETIC SQUIRRELS SENT BY THE MP/RI/AA DEVOURING YOU)
The divide now is one of high-speed access. I work with computers for a living so the technological midget theory is out the window. Money is not a big issue. What is I have ZERO real options for high-speed access. With ISDN not only do they want a boatload of cash, they also want my name signed in blood on a long-term contract. DSL, too far. Satellite, hahahaaha. Cable, too far.
Let's face it. A modem connection, particularly a 26.4 kbps connection like the one that runs across my barbed-wire phone lines, just doesn't cut it anymore.
As more applications go online and Web sites continue to bloat I find myself sitting here drumming my fingers waiting. If they can pipe in some bandwidth over those big fat wires that already come into my house great. At this point I'll take just about anything..
This sounds like the governments trying to take advantage of the situation the way the phone companies do (e.g., selling people's phone numbers while they sell the people caller ID). If the states want a new source of revenue over this, fine; they should give the consumers privacy for free and charge telemarketers exhorbitant rates to abuse that freedom.
I'm just going to go out on a limb here and say maintaining the database of everyone who doesn't want to get called, their numbers and handling the administrative side, including enforcement, isn't free.
I don't think there's a bunch of hippies sitting around in a VW van running the do not call list for free and talking about the state of the universe.
You can talk about how it should all you want but the bottom line is that information has to be compiled, maintained and updated by someone somewhere and last time I checked there was no universal benevolent force for good willing to do that for free.
So, because there is a potential for misuse so we should all be scared of it?
Isn't there a potential for misuse in the current criminal justice system? Isn't there a potential that a crooked prosecutor, investigator to plant evidence at a crime scene and set up someone for a crime they didn't commit (and the first person that says OJ gets launched into the sun).
There's always a CHANCE that SOMETHING could HAPPEN. I could go outside and a meteor shaped like Bill Gates' head could squash me like a bug.
Lord knows I would rather have the REALITY of killers running around than the POSSIBILITY that something might happen.
Isn't this the same slashdot that constantly says don't slam a technology that could be used for good just because of it's potential for evil? Or does that rule only apply when it helps wanna-be hippie activists with their berets and ferrets?
On a side note, even mentioning that horrid film should get you at least five years in prison. Please send me a photo of your fingerprints so that I can set you up..
I think that all this will do is frustrate the average joe trying to make legit copies, as the various groups online distributing ISO's are sure to find a way to bypass yet this new technology."
This security software being used to thwart piracy of computer games has done nothing but force me to those sources in order to play the game at all.
Three times in the last year I've bought software only to find that the "security software" on the CD is incompatible with my drive.
I actually told the EA guy that the only thing this seemed to prevent was me from playing the game I bought legally. He said he was sorry and offered a refund but that still doesn't allow me to play the game.
So I go to the dark side, download the crack, and play the game.
My boxed copy sits on my bookshelf because I have to turn to the pirates to play a game that you want to keep out of the hands of pirates..oh the irony.
And those bastards still have my money. I'm such a sucker.
No, to really be true to life every order you place would be wrong and when you order McChickenChunks they are always out of barbecue sauce but have plenty of that nasty honey dijon mustard.
And your Sim should fall down to the ground gasping if you try to drink one of their shakes through one of those tiny ass straws.
If I remember correctly, there was already a downloadable addition to The Sims in the form of a Pepsi machine. Maybe it was their way of sticking their toe into the product placement arena to test it.
The players obviously want this kind of thing. Just take a look at a lot of the user made items that have been made to try and bring the "real" feeling to the game, everything from G4 cube computers and Sony television sets.
If EA can give players more of what they obviously want and pocket a little profit in the process more power to them.
With that being said, I hope it won't be intrusive to the point of being annoying for the player. It's all in the execution..
For Apple products its always best to get wait for revision after a major product overhaul.
Early adopters get burned. Outside of the obviously faster chips, graphics cards, etc, which just goes with the territory of buying computers, with Apple you get the industrial design quirks that haven't been worked out properly.
In the original Titanium Powerbook the battery comes out if you twist the wrong way and the DVD drive can grind if the thing is at an angle at all.
If you are going to "switch," always take the second or third product revision from Apple. You end up better in the long run.