The Celine Dion CD is from Sony. I was not aware of this and I stand corrected. If you have moderator points, please do me a favor and mod the stupid crap that I wrote above right down into obscurity.
This from the same company that used the DMCA as reported here on slashdot last fall to shutdown one fan/hack site."
Yeah, and they should be applauded for being Reformed Assholes. Instead, every article about them on every tech site includes a little disclaimer like this after it, much like the ones that follow Current Assholes like Senator Hollings ("This is the man that supposed --insert evil bill here--") or any of the other Slashdot enemies of the week.
We should be patting them on the back for reforming themselves, rather than pointing out their past failures every time they pop up in the news. We're not going to get anywhere with these companies if we push and push against them, but then keep pushing once they come over to our side.
Well, that's a new one on me, because Peter Main, Nintendo's Vice President of Marketing and Sales, admitted last year that "We expect to incur a small loss on the GameCube hardware initially, and you're right that it hasn't been our habit in the past but we expect it to turn okay early next year." The year isn't even half over and the GameCube is already slashing its price by one fourth, which I would estimate is the profit margin. So it seems that Mr. Harrison, a Nintendo "marketing executive" (his position is not stated) is claiming that Nintendo learned over the course of the last few months how to make their manufacturing process roughly 20-25% more efficient than they expected they would be at this time, putting their improved efficiency since November at about 35-40%. That's quite a claim, especially for someone that also claims that Nintendo had been planning a price cut all along and that they were apparently just lying when they said that they had no plans to do so roughly a week ago.
Also, Acts of Gord has a pretty good explanation of why the PS2 is actually profiting from its sales. The math works out, but what really sells it is the simple explanation that Sony is a hardware company, rather than a video game company that's buying off-the-shelf or proprietary parts from third party vendors. Hardware costs much, much less when you make it yourself.
Actually, Nintendo was losing money on each GameCube sale when it was at $200. With no new manufacturing changes and a new price drop, they are now losing at least $60-$80 on each GameCube sale, if not much more.
Nintendo is selling a console at a loss for the first time. The only one that's actually making money on each console sale is Sony, because they make their own hardware instead of buying parts from third parties.
I think the funniest part of this whole "losses from piracy" thing is that newspapers around the country run a story about piracy whenever a big movie is bootlegged before its release and then go on to mention the "threat" that these bootlegs pose to the box office revenues of the movie... but they never do follow-ups saying, "Oh, I guess not" whenever that massively marketed movie breaks a dozen box office records in a single day.
Gee, could these big corporate newspapers be writing in the favor of their even bigger corporate owners?;)
Well, I doubt most news organizations are pro-terrorists, but they still report on everything relevant that terrorists do. It's called "journalism". You report on what is news and what would interest people, regardless of your feelings on the subject.
Chris Carter mentions something in TV Guide about a lot of characters "coming back" for Mulder's trial, which is the plot of the last episode. It sounds like quite a few characters are going to turn out to be alive. I certainly wouldn't be surprised if we end up finding out that guys like X and The Cigarette Smoking Man are back, and I know that some characters that were definitely dead just a few episodes a go will be alive for the last episode.
And I don't mean flashbacks or anything like that, either. Some of these characters have just been alive all along and either faked their deaths or were resurrected somehow.
All you need now is a few supervillains and a well-meaning, but deeply troubled borderline psychopath in a batsuit and all of the West Coast's cities will officially be entered in the Gotham City look-alike contest.
(Yeah, so only about five people will get this joke, but all five of them are going to get a good laugh out of it.)
Thank you. I knew there was something wrong with this bill, but I couldn't quite remember what it was. Kind of ironic that Slashdot portrayed it as pro-business before and everyone bashed it, but now that it's referred to as some sort of Holy Defender Of Our Freedom And Privacy, everyone defends it.
The ironic part is whether the digitized versions will last/be usable longer then the clay tablets.
People, this is a RHETORICAL statement, meant to imply that the tablets will last longer. Your "Um, no, the TABLETS will last longer, asshole" posts are not pointing out the idiocy of the Slashdot editors, but instead pointing out your own second grade reading level.
It isn't a "disturbing trend", at least not a new one. There's always been a subsection of science fiction that deals more with the fiction than with the science. It's existed at least as long as comic books and the adventures of Flash Gordon and his ilk. And personally, I don't have a problem with it. There's a place for both bullshit science fiction and science fiction, just like there's a place for both bullshit historical fiction (almost any fantasy novel) and historical fiction. Both can have very potent and interesting ideas.
I know that people prefer to read news that directly affects them, but it just seems ridiculous that the smallest POTENTIAL infringements of free speech in the US or the UK make the front page of Slashdot every day, but astronomical infringements of free speech in smaller countries get tossed into the bin of obscurity that is the Your Rights Online section.
Couldn't you guys just give these stories a try some time and see if they spark any real discussion? I have a feeling that they would.
For those of us that aren't really into sports games, and thus have very little experience with Electronic Arts, how are EA's practices "about as bad as Microsoft's"? I've never heard many negative things about them, but then again, sports games are probably the only genre of video game that I really don't touch.
The Matrix, much like Star Wars, is really a fantasy movie that's trying to tell a story that's almost wholly removed from science fiction (in the traditional "fiction with loads of science in it" sense). Trying to find scientific holes in the quick and easy explanations they give for complex technology is like complaining that lightsabers are "scientifically unsound" and that The Force "has no basis in reality". Star Wars is a story about Flash Gordon-esque fantastic adventures and The Matrix is a story about enslavement by a race completely removed from humans; neither is really about science, but both use science as a thin background for a story, much like fantasy novels use a twisted version of medieval Europe as their setting. Which, by the way, could also be called a historically ridiculous portrayal of medieval Europe.
If MS drops the msrp price $100 why should they absorb the $100 and not a part of that only?
The Dreamcast tried that and received a big, loud "Fuck you" from retailers. Expecting retailers to absorb a financial hit in addition to the one created by the X-Box's poor sales is an insult, as well as a perceived sign that the X-Box is on the same death row that the Dreamcast was on when it did the same thing. The entire idea does nothing but lessen sales to retailers and undermine the confidence that the consumers and the press have in the system.
This is the Alamo Drafthouse. It's the home of several talks, movie marathons, and things that could almost be called movie fan conventions. From what I've heard, there are LOTS of people there when movies aren't on.
As I've said in other posts, I've never actually seen a Neo Geo in action in real life, but judging from other cartridge-based systems, a fast computer is actually faster for Neo Geo games because you don't even have to wait for the machine to boot up. However, that was just a small footnote among the much larger issues of internet multiplayer and instant swappability. It's so small that I probably shouldn't have even mentioned it.
There are still quite a few arcades that have the multi-video system cabinets for you to try them out on.
I've been visiting arcades since I was about four and I live in an area that has much more popular arcades than most other places in the country. Beyond the occasional rotting machine with only Samurai Shodown 1 loaded on it in Wal-Mart, I have never seen an active MVS machine outside of pictures on web pages. Maybe these things are popular on the West Coast, and I know they're popular in Asia, but they certainly aren't within a few hundred miles of where I live. And according to most of the posts I've seen in the Neo Geo boards, I'm not alone.
It kills me how hyporitical people are on free speech issues. To be consistent on free speech, if you fight for porn you have to fight for SPAM as well.
Don't call people hypocritical until you've seen them make two directly contradictory statements. I, for one, do not want laws against spam. If people want to get their message, even their corporate message out to others, more power to them. However, I do delete and block spam in my inbox. The difference between that and this ruling is that I control what comes into MY home, without whining to the government to enforce my preferences upon everyone. If you don't like what someone's saying, you can ignore it. If you don't like the e-mail they're sending you, you can block it or delete it. You should not, however, go whining to the legislators and the courts of your country to have other people's mouths sewn shut. If people don't want their kids to see pornography, then they can install filtering software, or better yet, they could actually watch their kids. What they shouldn't be doing, which is unfortunately what they have chosen to do instead of watching their kids, is put a legal and financial burden upon others to censor the world for their kids.
Don't assume that we're all hypocritical. Some of us really have examined where we stand on an entire issue and not only stick by it, but stick by it because we believe in it, rather than for showy consistency.
Please try to think past what a law says and into what it DOES. Laws like these are intentionally try to deceive you and unfortunately, most people fall for it. This law says that it's protecting minors from pornography on the internet, but the only way to verify age on the internet is through a credit card, which is more easily falsified than any fake ID, because anyone can take anyone else's credit card and claim that they're the person whose name is on it. Thus, in any prosecutory case that's trying to shut down a porn site, the prosecutors just have to prove that a handful of minors are able to get into the site using false identification, and then the site will be held accountable in the same way that brick-and-mortar liquor stores that ignore blatantly false IDs are.
Slashdot Mirror
The Celine Dion CD is from Sony. I was not aware of this and I stand corrected. If you have moderator points, please do me a favor and mod the stupid crap that I wrote above right down into obscurity.
This from the same company that used the DMCA as reported here on slashdot last fall to shutdown one fan/hack site."
Yeah, and they should be applauded for being Reformed Assholes. Instead, every article about them on every tech site includes a little disclaimer like this after it, much like the ones that follow Current Assholes like Senator Hollings ("This is the man that supposed --insert evil bill here--") or any of the other Slashdot enemies of the week.
We should be patting them on the back for reforming themselves, rather than pointing out their past failures every time they pop up in the news. We're not going to get anywhere with these companies if we push and push against them, but then keep pushing once they come over to our side.
Well, that's a new one on me, because Peter Main, Nintendo's Vice President of Marketing and Sales, admitted last year that "We expect to incur a small loss on the GameCube hardware initially, and you're right that it hasn't been our habit in the past but we expect it to turn okay early next year." The year isn't even half over and the GameCube is already slashing its price by one fourth, which I would estimate is the profit margin. So it seems that Mr. Harrison, a Nintendo "marketing executive" (his position is not stated) is claiming that Nintendo learned over the course of the last few months how to make their manufacturing process roughly 20-25% more efficient than they expected they would be at this time, putting their improved efficiency since November at about 35-40%. That's quite a claim, especially for someone that also claims that Nintendo had been planning a price cut all along and that they were apparently just lying when they said that they had no plans to do so roughly a week ago.
Also, Acts of Gord has a pretty good explanation of why the PS2 is actually profiting from its sales. The math works out, but what really sells it is the simple explanation that Sony is a hardware company, rather than a video game company that's buying off-the-shelf or proprietary parts from third party vendors. Hardware costs much, much less when you make it yourself.
Nintendo can sell the cube at a profit forever.
Actually, Nintendo was losing money on each GameCube sale when it was at $200. With no new manufacturing changes and a new price drop, they are now losing at least $60-$80 on each GameCube sale, if not much more.
Nintendo is selling a console at a loss for the first time. The only one that's actually making money on each console sale is Sony, because they make their own hardware instead of buying parts from third parties.
If the PS1 is obsolete, then why are there still games coming out for it?
I think the funniest part of this whole "losses from piracy" thing is that newspapers around the country run a story about piracy whenever a big movie is bootlegged before its release and then go on to mention the "threat" that these bootlegs pose to the box office revenues of the movie... but they never do follow-ups saying, "Oh, I guess not" whenever that massively marketed movie breaks a dozen box office records in a single day.
;)
Gee, could these big corporate newspapers be writing in the favor of their even bigger corporate owners?
Well, I doubt most news organizations are pro-terrorists, but they still report on everything relevant that terrorists do. It's called "journalism". You report on what is news and what would interest people, regardless of your feelings on the subject.
Chris Carter mentions something in TV Guide about a lot of characters "coming back" for Mulder's trial, which is the plot of the last episode. It sounds like quite a few characters are going to turn out to be alive. I certainly wouldn't be surprised if we end up finding out that guys like X and The Cigarette Smoking Man are back, and I know that some characters that were definitely dead just a few episodes a go will be alive for the last episode.
And I don't mean flashbacks or anything like that, either. Some of these characters have just been alive all along and either faked their deaths or were resurrected somehow.
All you need now is a few supervillains and a well-meaning, but deeply troubled borderline psychopath in a batsuit and all of the West Coast's cities will officially be entered in the Gotham City look-alike contest.
(Yeah, so only about five people will get this joke, but all five of them are going to get a good laugh out of it.)
Thank you. I knew there was something wrong with this bill, but I couldn't quite remember what it was. Kind of ironic that Slashdot portrayed it as pro-business before and everyone bashed it, but now that it's referred to as some sort of Holy Defender Of Our Freedom And Privacy, everyone defends it.
The ironic part is whether the digitized versions will last/be usable longer then the clay tablets.
People, this is a RHETORICAL statement, meant to imply that the tablets will last longer. Your "Um, no, the TABLETS will last longer, asshole" posts are not pointing out the idiocy of the Slashdot editors, but instead pointing out your own second grade reading level.
It isn't a "disturbing trend", at least not a new one. There's always been a subsection of science fiction that deals more with the fiction than with the science. It's existed at least as long as comic books and the adventures of Flash Gordon and his ilk. And personally, I don't have a problem with it. There's a place for both bullshit science fiction and science fiction, just like there's a place for both bullshit historical fiction (almost any fantasy novel) and historical fiction. Both can have very potent and interesting ideas.
Judging solely on what you have written here, I suggest that you have her committed, at least temporarily.
Her mother having been Queen of Naboo has *nothing* to do with this.
;)
Which is really, REALLY fucked up a confusing.
I know that people prefer to read news that directly affects them, but it just seems ridiculous that the smallest POTENTIAL infringements of free speech in the US or the UK make the front page of Slashdot every day, but astronomical infringements of free speech in smaller countries get tossed into the bin of obscurity that is the Your Rights Online section.
Couldn't you guys just give these stories a try some time and see if they spark any real discussion? I have a feeling that they would.
For those of us that aren't really into sports games, and thus have very little experience with Electronic Arts, how are EA's practices "about as bad as Microsoft's"? I've never heard many negative things about them, but then again, sports games are probably the only genre of video game that I really don't touch.
The Matrix, much like Star Wars, is really a fantasy movie that's trying to tell a story that's almost wholly removed from science fiction (in the traditional "fiction with loads of science in it" sense). Trying to find scientific holes in the quick and easy explanations they give for complex technology is like complaining that lightsabers are "scientifically unsound" and that The Force "has no basis in reality". Star Wars is a story about Flash Gordon-esque fantastic adventures and The Matrix is a story about enslavement by a race completely removed from humans; neither is really about science, but both use science as a thin background for a story, much like fantasy novels use a twisted version of medieval Europe as their setting. Which, by the way, could also be called a historically ridiculous portrayal of medieval Europe.
If MS drops the msrp price $100 why should they absorb the $100 and not a part of that only?
The Dreamcast tried that and received a big, loud "Fuck you" from retailers. Expecting retailers to absorb a financial hit in addition to the one created by the X-Box's poor sales is an insult, as well as a perceived sign that the X-Box is on the same death row that the Dreamcast was on when it did the same thing. The entire idea does nothing but lessen sales to retailers and undermine the confidence that the consumers and the press have in the system.
MPAA = Motion Picture Association of America, not "Motion Picture Artists Association".
Preach it, brother. Preach it.
This is the Alamo Drafthouse. It's the home of several talks, movie marathons, and things that could almost be called movie fan conventions. From what I've heard, there are LOTS of people there when movies aren't on.
As I've said in other posts, I've never actually seen a Neo Geo in action in real life, but judging from other cartridge-based systems, a fast computer is actually faster for Neo Geo games because you don't even have to wait for the machine to boot up. However, that was just a small footnote among the much larger issues of internet multiplayer and instant swappability. It's so small that I probably shouldn't have even mentioned it.
There are still quite a few arcades that have the multi-video system cabinets for you to try them out on.
I've been visiting arcades since I was about four and I live in an area that has much more popular arcades than most other places in the country. Beyond the occasional rotting machine with only Samurai Shodown 1 loaded on it in Wal-Mart, I have never seen an active MVS machine outside of pictures on web pages. Maybe these things are popular on the West Coast, and I know they're popular in Asia, but they certainly aren't within a few hundred miles of where I live. And according to most of the posts I've seen in the Neo Geo boards, I'm not alone.
It kills me how hyporitical people are on free speech issues. To be consistent on free speech, if you fight for porn you have to fight for SPAM as well.
Don't call people hypocritical until you've seen them make two directly contradictory statements. I, for one, do not want laws against spam. If people want to get their message, even their corporate message out to others, more power to them. However, I do delete and block spam in my inbox. The difference between that and this ruling is that I control what comes into MY home, without whining to the government to enforce my preferences upon everyone. If you don't like what someone's saying, you can ignore it. If you don't like the e-mail they're sending you, you can block it or delete it. You should not, however, go whining to the legislators and the courts of your country to have other people's mouths sewn shut. If people don't want their kids to see pornography, then they can install filtering software, or better yet, they could actually watch their kids. What they shouldn't be doing, which is unfortunately what they have chosen to do instead of watching their kids, is put a legal and financial burden upon others to censor the world for their kids.
Don't assume that we're all hypocritical. Some of us really have examined where we stand on an entire issue and not only stick by it, but stick by it because we believe in it, rather than for showy consistency.
Please try to think past what a law says and into what it DOES. Laws like these are intentionally try to deceive you and unfortunately, most people fall for it. This law says that it's protecting minors from pornography on the internet, but the only way to verify age on the internet is through a credit card, which is more easily falsified than any fake ID, because anyone can take anyone else's credit card and claim that they're the person whose name is on it. Thus, in any prosecutory case that's trying to shut down a porn site, the prosecutors just have to prove that a handful of minors are able to get into the site using false identification, and then the site will be held accountable in the same way that brick-and-mortar liquor stores that ignore blatantly false IDs are.