This has very little to do about games, even though that's the slant that's being put on it. It also applies to books, movies, television, music, and theater. It also applies to non-fiction as well. I mean, how would world history look if we cut out all the bloody parts?
Still, I am glad that at least one more group has validated my addiction to GTA3 and Crimsonland.
At home, I've been using Linux for an all-purpose server for years (various versions of Slackware, for those of you that care). Mail, web, firewalling, NAT, etc. Works like a charm. In fact, it consistantly outperforms the faster Win2k server sitting right next to it. Great stuff. I've had the same luck with BSD, and there are many many places where Linux on the server side is the right way to go.
That being said, desktop Linux is completely awful.
Now, don't get me wrong, X, Gnome, KDE, etc are all excellent strides in the right direction. All the various office apps, Evolution, the windows-like file managers, and every other little applet that helps make the Linux GUI experience what it is are generally very good pieces of software. However, it is hardly ready for prime time.
For example, just for kicks I put a fresh hard drive in my trusty IBM Thinkpad A2Om (ok, not so trusty, but whatever). I grabbed the latest network install boot image of Mandrake Linux (which I have found has one of the better default GUI setups around) and went at it. A few hours later, I had a bootable machine. So far, so good. It detected everything I needed it to, was running at 1024x768, etc.
Things went downhill from there. I tried to set up mail, both through KMail and Evolution. Neither of them were too keen on getting hooked up to my IMAP server. I experienced several crashes, and when I moved the laptop into a different network, Gnome didn't like that it couldn't resolve my hostname (even though I was running DHCP). Also, even with 128mb of RAM and a 512mb swap file, things ran slightly slowly.
Anyhow, none of these things are serious problems that I couldn't have worked around, but all of them were annoying. Now, compare this to popping in a Win2k or XP disk and having a completely operational, optimized for the user experience, interface. Sure, it isn't going to work out of the box all the time, but it will sure do it more than Linux will.
Now, before you start in with your reasons why I could have done this or that or the other differently, don't. None of it matters. No matter what you say, what I did above will be the one and only test a "regular" user does. If it looks at all to them to be inferior to Windows in the first few minutes of use, it is all over. Sad? Maybe. True, hell yes.
I wonder if the same laws covering impersonations would apply here - in some way or another. For example, if I registered a domain name and pointed it to the website of a local police station or the FBI or somesuch, could I be charged with impersonating law enforcement?
Although I completely agree with your reasoning, we can't go around saying "just because it didn't hurt you in the past, we're going to keep doing it now - even though we're breaking the law in the process." It is too counterproductive.
Yes, the current laws for copyright are seriously skewed in favor of the large corporations. Yes, the laws should be used to protect the artist instead of the financial interest of the record labels. Still, right now it is the law. Instead of just breaking it, we should work to get it changed, and it is a lot harder to get a law changed to what people see as "your way" if they see you as a criminal.
In a democracy (or whatever it is that we have here in the US of A), perceptions are everything. If we just go around saying, "the law says we can't do this, but the law is wrong, so we're going to do it anyway," it isn't going to make people change their minds about the law.
Unfortunately, I just don't see enough people getting together to support changes to these laws. I mean, hell... We argue about abortion, gay marriages, the speed limit, drinking, smoking, drugs, airport security... On the list of laws that get debated heavily, I kind of see this one as way way way down towards the bottom of the list.
A law is a law, but we have systems in place that allow us to change laws.
If I don't like a law, I still need to follow it. Of course, there are some personal limits I will go to, but I think refreaining from downloading MP3s that I shouldn't isn't particularly harmful to anybody. Of course, while I'm following the law, I can do everything in my power to get it changed.
And that is exactly what is right with America. Too bad most people just sit back and complain instead of doing something to change it.
I agree that they probably will try to hide that they're doing this. If they were ever confronted on it, I wonder what would their be?
<dreamsequence>
"No, we did not release those professionally mixed and recorded advertisements onto Kaaza, despite the fact that the talent and studio time is all on our books and that the voice actors have made no secret that they were involved. In addition, the 1-800 number and special offer code referenced are obviously a hoax, since we would never put time and effort advertising to a community which we still believe to cause a significant negative impact on album sales."
</dreamsequence>
I think this is a really good tactic for the music industry to use in their struggle against P2P piracy. Yes, piracy. I mean, regardless of whether or not you personally are downloading music or other files in a legal fashion, there are tons of other people (likely the majority) of people who are using this to do something which is considered illegal by law. Is it a good law? Doesn't matter. It is the law.
So, when Joe College Student downloads the latest MTV-hyped band that sounds like metal, grunge, and rap all thrown together in a blender, he gets a 20 second clip and an advertisement. What is Joe going to do? This is kinda/sorta like the highschool kid who spends $60 on a bag of off-the-shelf herbs and spices.
Now, here's the thing that really makes this a Good Thing. If this becomes common practice amongst the music industry, it could very well have the unexpected side effect of thwarting legal attempts to get P2P services shut down. I'm not a lawyer, etc, etc, but I'd think that you would be hard pressed to present a case to shut down a service that you use yourself.
And of course, now that the ante has been upped, I'm sure the P2P community will respond by improving their software to add features to combat the music industry's latest tactics. I'm not sure what form this will take, but perhaps some sort of public key watermark by trusted encoders or preview features or something even better.
In an odd, preverse sort of way, this is almost the first step in making peace between the P2P community and the music industry.
At first, the whole $500 thing might seem a bit pricey, especially since you can get a full blown PC for about as much (monitor included). However, the cost of installing, configuring, and deploying a PC ends up making it cost much more. Also, I doubt you will need to upgrade the terminals for a long, long time.
Futerama would be good if it had better characters, better animation, better plots, better jokes, better acting, and better flow.
Compared to what?
The animation on Futurama is on-par, if not slightly better than the Simpsons (which is one of the best animated cartoons out there). If you don't like it, I'm guessing it is for purely asthetic reasons. Personally, I don't like how panning and rotation look, since computers give them a smoothness that just seems jarringly out of place to me - but then again, that's just me. The choice of colors is different as well. Where The Simpsons has a more cartoony look - the colors are brighter and have more contrast, Futurama tends to stray away from bright and primary colors, going for a paler and more blended palette.
The characters, plots, flow, and jokes in Futurama are very different than in The Simpsons. This has everything to do with the universe it is set in being based solely in Science Fiction rather than the mostly realistic universe that The Simpsons has built up over the years. Although most of the "rules" of both the shows are similar, you can easily get away with things in one that you couldn't in the other. Different sets of rules need different characters. Bender wouldn't fit in with The Simpsons just as much as Lisa wouldn't fit in with Futurama.
That being said, I prefer The Simpsons in its prime (although the Homer/Hulk episode this week was pretty good) to Futurama at its best. Why? Futurama's structure is so open that nearly anything can be done plot-wise. The Simpsons was based somewhat in reality, which gave the writing team a bit of focus. When absolutely anything can happen, it isn't as special when it does.
On the one hand, we shouldn't get so worked up about this. I'm no lawyer, but from what I understand about copyright laws, trademark laws, and other related laws, is that acting fast is one of the most important things you can do. Whether or not Blizzard actually wants to, they need to act like they are concerned, or they could be throwing away any chance they have to actually make a case out of it in the future.
On the other hand, we need to get more worked up about this. That people actually have this attitude about an Open Source project is a Bad Thing. People that aren't as knowledgable about what Open Source really is will take the few things they hear about this - or any other legal issue dealing with Open Source - and apply it to Open Source in general. And, of course, lawyers being lawyers, they will latch onto any misunderstanding they can in order to get judgements in their favor (and if they didn't, they're not very good lawyers).
The Chronicles of Amber were some of my favorite books growing up. Yeah, Merlin's chronicles weren't as good... There were good ideas, but they ended up getting drowned in a lot of not-so-good ideas that really changed the entire premise of the series. Still, Corwin's story was excellent.
Why do I think the series would fit in a big (or small) screen format? First, the books are short. Really short. Teeny, in fact. I'm sure that the entire Amber series (Merlin's series included) doesn't even reach the length of some of the books in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series (I mean, Lord of Chaos was what, 1000 pages?). The problem with most movie adaptations is that the source material is much longer and richer than could ever be put in the standard 2 hour movie format or in a mini-series of reasonable length (reasonable to the networks, not to the viewers).
Now, not only are the books short, a huge portion of those books are taken up by descriptions. Somebody up above mentioned Eric's "moist" beard and how Corwin hates getting hairs under his shirt. Stuff like that fills the books (unfortunately, it has been so long since I've read them that I couldn't think of my own examples, but oh well). You know how they say that a picture is worth a thousand words? With a good director, this would be more than true.
What about the rest of the book? The stuff that isn't description? Stuff happens, and it happens rather quickly - to the reader at least, if not in the book itself. Take the plot of the first book (ummm... *SPOLIERS*... yeah...): Corwin wakes up, escapes from a mental hospital, goes to Flora's house, beats the crap out of some shadow creatures, goes on a drive to Amber and sees lots of strange stuff on the way (wasn't there a big guy eating cars or something?), gets attacked by Julian's men, runs down to Remba, gets laid, walks the pattern (and lots of flashback scenes), heads on over to the castle, gets in a fight, runs to Bleys, builds an army (this would take, what, one or two scenes?), attacks Amber, and so on. This is pretty much one action scene after another, and with Corwin's initial memory loss, it wouldn't be so awkward when another character gets to explain the Nifty Science Fiction/Fantasy Laws of Physics (tm) to him. Pacing could be made quick without any huge spans of time (like the armies getting built) seeming to vanish due to time working differently in Shadow. Of course, that somewhat changes when Corwin gets thrown in the slammer, but it still could be done very well in a TV or movie format.
My only fear is that all the sword fights will be filled with Crouching Tiger meets The Matrix special effects.
I'm not quite sure why this got modded as funny. I think it is right on target.
You cannot expect "residential" ISP phone support to be able to handle every networking related situation that comes their way. That's why they don't support "home networks," UNIX, VPN connections, or anything that isn't on their tech support script.
In most cases, they sell the service, install the service for one computer (including a NIC in many cases) and expect the customer to use the service on that computer. When you call them for technical support, they expect that you are accessing the service in the way they set it up for you - down to the silly little ISP-customized browsers.
Think of it like this... You want a new engine in your car. It is going to be faster than your old engine. You go down to a mechanic and get it installed in your car. Everything checks out and works fine. The second you get home, you pop out the engine and stick it in a different car, or maybe you make some modifications to it. Two weeks later, the engine stops working, but you have a warranty. Do you think the mechanic that installed it would honor their standard warranty? Probably not.
Now, that's not the best anaolgy by far, however that's how most people (non-techies) think of their computers. They're like TVs, microwaves, and toasters. They work or they don't. When they don't, they want someone to fix it. To the ISP first level tech support, something as simple as switching browsers is akin to removing those annoying little "Warranty Void If Removed" or "No Servicable Parts Inside" stickers.
Slashdot Mirror
This has very little to do about games, even though that's the slant that's being put on it. It also applies to books, movies, television, music, and theater. It also applies to non-fiction as well. I mean, how would world history look if we cut out all the bloody parts?
Still, I am glad that at least one more group has validated my addiction to GTA3 and Crimsonland.
You can actually get both Fallouts to run under 2k if you manually copy the files. Its in the Readme.
At home, I've been using Linux for an all-purpose server for years (various versions of Slackware, for those of you that care). Mail, web, firewalling, NAT, etc. Works like a charm. In fact, it consistantly outperforms the faster Win2k server sitting right next to it. Great stuff. I've had the same luck with BSD, and there are many many places where Linux on the server side is the right way to go.
That being said, desktop Linux is completely awful.
Now, don't get me wrong, X, Gnome, KDE, etc are all excellent strides in the right direction. All the various office apps, Evolution, the windows-like file managers, and every other little applet that helps make the Linux GUI experience what it is are generally very good pieces of software. However, it is hardly ready for prime time.
For example, just for kicks I put a fresh hard drive in my trusty IBM Thinkpad A2Om (ok, not so trusty, but whatever). I grabbed the latest network install boot image of Mandrake Linux (which I have found has one of the better default GUI setups around) and went at it. A few hours later, I had a bootable machine. So far, so good. It detected everything I needed it to, was running at 1024x768, etc.
Things went downhill from there. I tried to set up mail, both through KMail and Evolution. Neither of them were too keen on getting hooked up to my IMAP server. I experienced several crashes, and when I moved the laptop into a different network, Gnome didn't like that it couldn't resolve my hostname (even though I was running DHCP). Also, even with 128mb of RAM and a 512mb swap file, things ran slightly slowly.
Anyhow, none of these things are serious problems that I couldn't have worked around, but all of them were annoying. Now, compare this to popping in a Win2k or XP disk and having a completely operational, optimized for the user experience, interface. Sure, it isn't going to work out of the box all the time, but it will sure do it more than Linux will.
Now, before you start in with your reasons why I could have done this or that or the other differently, don't. None of it matters. No matter what you say, what I did above will be the one and only test a "regular" user does. If it looks at all to them to be inferior to Windows in the first few minutes of use, it is all over. Sad? Maybe. True, hell yes.
"Keep your Power Glove off of my girl" ...or something like that...
You raise a very interesting point here.
I wonder if the same laws covering impersonations would apply here - in some way or another. For example, if I registered a domain name and pointed it to the website of a local police station or the FBI or somesuch, could I be charged with impersonating law enforcement?
Although I completely agree with your reasoning, we can't go around saying "just because it didn't hurt you in the past, we're going to keep doing it now - even though we're breaking the law in the process." It is too counterproductive.
Yes, the current laws for copyright are seriously skewed in favor of the large corporations. Yes, the laws should be used to protect the artist instead of the financial interest of the record labels. Still, right now it is the law. Instead of just breaking it, we should work to get it changed, and it is a lot harder to get a law changed to what people see as "your way" if they see you as a criminal.
In a democracy (or whatever it is that we have here in the US of A), perceptions are everything. If we just go around saying, "the law says we can't do this, but the law is wrong, so we're going to do it anyway," it isn't going to make people change their minds about the law.
Unfortunately, I just don't see enough people getting together to support changes to these laws. I mean, hell... We argue about abortion, gay marriages, the speed limit, drinking, smoking, drugs, airport security... On the list of laws that get debated heavily, I kind of see this one as way way way down towards the bottom of the list.
Not at all!
A law is a law, but we have systems in place that allow us to change laws.
If I don't like a law, I still need to follow it. Of course, there are some personal limits I will go to, but I think refreaining from downloading MP3s that I shouldn't isn't particularly harmful to anybody. Of course, while I'm following the law, I can do everything in my power to get it changed.
And that is exactly what is right with America. Too bad most people just sit back and complain instead of doing something to change it.
I agree that they probably will try to hide that they're doing this. If they were ever confronted on it, I wonder what would their be?
<dreamsequence>
"No, we did not release those professionally mixed and recorded advertisements onto Kaaza, despite the fact that the talent and studio time is all on our books and that the voice actors have made no secret that they were involved. In addition, the 1-800 number and special offer code referenced are obviously a hoax, since we would never put time and effort advertising to a community which we still believe to cause a significant negative impact on album sales."
</dreamsequence>
I wouldn't put it past them...
I think this is a really good tactic for the music industry to use in their struggle against P2P piracy. Yes, piracy. I mean, regardless of whether or not you personally are downloading music or other files in a legal fashion, there are tons of other people (likely the majority) of people who are using this to do something which is considered illegal by law. Is it a good law? Doesn't matter. It is the law.
So, when Joe College Student downloads the latest MTV-hyped band that sounds like metal, grunge, and rap all thrown together in a blender, he gets a 20 second clip and an advertisement. What is Joe going to do? This is kinda/sorta like the highschool kid who spends $60 on a bag of off-the-shelf herbs and spices.
Now, here's the thing that really makes this a Good Thing. If this becomes common practice amongst the music industry, it could very well have the unexpected side effect of thwarting legal attempts to get P2P services shut down. I'm not a lawyer, etc, etc, but I'd think that you would be hard pressed to present a case to shut down a service that you use yourself.
And of course, now that the ante has been upped, I'm sure the P2P community will respond by improving their software to add features to combat the music industry's latest tactics. I'm not sure what form this will take, but perhaps some sort of public key watermark by trusted encoders or preview features or something even better.
In an odd, preverse sort of way, this is almost the first step in making peace between the P2P community and the music industry.
At first, the whole $500 thing might seem a bit pricey, especially since you can get a full blown PC for about as much (monitor included). However, the cost of installing, configuring, and deploying a PC ends up making it cost much more. Also, I doubt you will need to upgrade the terminals for a long, long time.
Futerama would be good if it had better characters, better animation, better plots, better jokes, better acting, and better flow.
Compared to what?
The animation on Futurama is on-par, if not slightly better than the Simpsons (which is one of the best animated cartoons out there). If you don't like it, I'm guessing it is for purely asthetic reasons. Personally, I don't like how panning and rotation look, since computers give them a smoothness that just seems jarringly out of place to me - but then again, that's just me. The choice of colors is different as well. Where The Simpsons has a more cartoony look - the colors are brighter and have more contrast, Futurama tends to stray away from bright and primary colors, going for a paler and more blended palette.
The characters, plots, flow, and jokes in Futurama are very different than in The Simpsons. This has everything to do with the universe it is set in being based solely in Science Fiction rather than the mostly realistic universe that The Simpsons has built up over the years. Although most of the "rules" of both the shows are similar, you can easily get away with things in one that you couldn't in the other. Different sets of rules need different characters. Bender wouldn't fit in with The Simpsons just as much as Lisa wouldn't fit in with Futurama.
That being said, I prefer The Simpsons in its prime (although the Homer/Hulk episode this week was pretty good) to Futurama at its best. Why? Futurama's structure is so open that nearly anything can be done plot-wise. The Simpsons was based somewhat in reality, which gave the writing team a bit of focus. When absolutely anything can happen, it isn't as special when it does.
On the one hand, we shouldn't get so worked up about this. I'm no lawyer, but from what I understand about copyright laws, trademark laws, and other related laws, is that acting fast is one of the most important things you can do. Whether or not Blizzard actually wants to, they need to act like they are concerned, or they could be throwing away any chance they have to actually make a case out of it in the future. On the other hand, we need to get more worked up about this. That people actually have this attitude about an Open Source project is a Bad Thing. People that aren't as knowledgable about what Open Source really is will take the few things they hear about this - or any other legal issue dealing with Open Source - and apply it to Open Source in general. And, of course, lawyers being lawyers, they will latch onto any misunderstanding they can in order to get judgements in their favor (and if they didn't, they're not very good lawyers).
The Chronicles of Amber were some of my favorite books growing up. Yeah, Merlin's chronicles weren't as good... There were good ideas, but they ended up getting drowned in a lot of not-so-good ideas that really changed the entire premise of the series. Still, Corwin's story was excellent. Why do I think the series would fit in a big (or small) screen format? First, the books are short. Really short. Teeny, in fact. I'm sure that the entire Amber series (Merlin's series included) doesn't even reach the length of some of the books in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series (I mean, Lord of Chaos was what, 1000 pages?). The problem with most movie adaptations is that the source material is much longer and richer than could ever be put in the standard 2 hour movie format or in a mini-series of reasonable length (reasonable to the networks, not to the viewers). Now, not only are the books short, a huge portion of those books are taken up by descriptions. Somebody up above mentioned Eric's "moist" beard and how Corwin hates getting hairs under his shirt. Stuff like that fills the books (unfortunately, it has been so long since I've read them that I couldn't think of my own examples, but oh well). You know how they say that a picture is worth a thousand words? With a good director, this would be more than true. What about the rest of the book? The stuff that isn't description? Stuff happens, and it happens rather quickly - to the reader at least, if not in the book itself. Take the plot of the first book (ummm... *SPOLIERS*... yeah...): Corwin wakes up, escapes from a mental hospital, goes to Flora's house, beats the crap out of some shadow creatures, goes on a drive to Amber and sees lots of strange stuff on the way (wasn't there a big guy eating cars or something?), gets attacked by Julian's men, runs down to Remba, gets laid, walks the pattern (and lots of flashback scenes), heads on over to the castle, gets in a fight, runs to Bleys, builds an army (this would take, what, one or two scenes?), attacks Amber, and so on. This is pretty much one action scene after another, and with Corwin's initial memory loss, it wouldn't be so awkward when another character gets to explain the Nifty Science Fiction/Fantasy Laws of Physics (tm) to him. Pacing could be made quick without any huge spans of time (like the armies getting built) seeming to vanish due to time working differently in Shadow. Of course, that somewhat changes when Corwin gets thrown in the slammer, but it still could be done very well in a TV or movie format. My only fear is that all the sword fights will be filled with Crouching Tiger meets The Matrix special effects.
I'm not quite sure why this got modded as funny. I think it is right on target.
You cannot expect "residential" ISP phone support to be able to handle every networking related situation that comes their way. That's why they don't support "home networks," UNIX, VPN connections, or anything that isn't on their tech support script.
In most cases, they sell the service, install the service for one computer (including a NIC in many cases) and expect the customer to use the service on that computer. When you call them for technical support, they expect that you are accessing the service in the way they set it up for you - down to the silly little ISP-customized browsers.
Think of it like this... You want a new engine in your car. It is going to be faster than your old engine. You go down to a mechanic and get it installed in your car. Everything checks out and works fine. The second you get home, you pop out the engine and stick it in a different car, or maybe you make some modifications to it. Two weeks later, the engine stops working, but you have a warranty. Do you think the mechanic that installed it would honor their standard warranty? Probably not.
Now, that's not the best anaolgy by far, however that's how most people (non-techies) think of their computers. They're like TVs, microwaves, and toasters. They work or they don't. When they don't, they want someone to fix it. To the ISP first level tech support, something as simple as switching browsers is akin to removing those annoying little "Warranty Void If Removed" or "No Servicable Parts Inside" stickers.