I live in a country that thinks it's very hip and cool, but it's more like a 3rd world country (no offense to them!)... So, basically, between low coverage and monopolistic practices, I only have 4 (four!) TV channels.
Anyway, I read about Futurama on the net, and I downloaded a couple of episodes (shame on me!). I got adicted!:D So much that I bought the whole 4 seasons on Amazon! (Yeah, we don't have much TV series on DVD on the retail stores around here either). And I got some seasons of South Park too! And now I'm waiting for "Penn & Teller's B*llshit" to arrive!
And you know what? If it weren't for P2P, I wound have never get contact with those shows and I would never bought the DVDs...
Like someone said, P2P would be a awesome way to distribute low-quality "teasers" of TV shows. It worked for me, and I believe it worked for many more people.
Family Guy is another example. I never saw it (I intend to download an episode or two to try it), but I read that the DVD sales were great. I guess that one might presume that an portion of those sales were directly related with people downloading episodes and enjoying it.
Maybe the media industry (music, movies, TV, and games) should start listening to their customers, instead of the army of lawyers that they have. And by saying "listening" I really mean "LISTENING", as in opinion polls and stuff.
And the games industry should really wrap their heads around the whole emulation scene. I mean, emulating a PS2 is wrong, but I sure would pay for the change to have (for example) a thingamajig that I could hook to the TV and get me to play a bunch of Megadrive games or SNES games (you know, like they did for the Atari, the controler-thingy).
Sorry for the long rant, but it ticks me that we the paying customers are being treated as thiefs, when we are actually willing to pay (and paying!) for the entertainment. Just listen to us, for real, and don't try to ram your both arms and legs up our collective asses...
I think that a way around the validation will be found, and at least a part of the XP boxes around will be updated, by people that knows a little about these things and actualy understands that updates are important. The boxes that will stay "outdated" are probably owned by someone that either doesn't know / doesn't care about updates in the first place, so there is no garanty that they would update the boxes even if their Windows copy was legit.
Like someone mentioned, there is a much more efective method in sorting out the bad files from the good ones: "peer review". If someone posts on a forum a give hash (in case of eMule), and if a couple of people confirm that it's the real stuff, there is no need for algorithms and thingamajigs like that. If someone tries to sneak a bad one in, it will be easely spoted and exposed. If you still want to search "in the wild" for your stuff, there are a couple of sites that keep a "fakes database", and it's pretty easy to check a given search result against those databases.
This aplies to emule/edonkey networks, since it's the ones that I.. er... read more about... in a book... cof cof...
Every single time, Rockstar stated, "altering the game's source code". They never said the content wasn't in there. That was a complete misinterpretation of their statement.
Well, if you tell me how to "alter the game source code" using just a PS2, a Action Replay and a couple of cheats, I'll congratulate you.
The thing is you DON'T alter any source code of the game, any more than you alter the "source code" of windows when you teak the registry or something like that.
And to give you a better analogy, everyone and their cat jumps on Microsoft when they don't anticipate the wholes on windows, or when they code slopy or when some patch is buggy. But in this case "poor Rockstar guys, it's just a big company, see, making games is complex, see..."
The thing is, if they wanted to keep the mini game, they should have gone all the way. If they didn't wanted, they should have taken it all from the content of the final game. Because, let's face it, with today comunity of modders and stuff, do you really think that the content would be hidden for long?
And, more important, do you really think that the politics would let go of such a juicy bit like that? Politics don't care if coding is complex or simple or if it's demanding or if we are all humans after all! Politis only care about "black/white" issues, long moral crusades, finding the "evil" and expose it, they are the suposed "watchdogs" of the society, expect no one asked them to do that.
You got a point, but the image that will get across is that they lied, period. What do you think that the media or the politics will say? "Eh, it's not their fault, you see, the game making process is very complex blablabla"...
They are going to jump on Rockstar all over, and on top of all the shit that they already say about Rockstar, they'll add "and they lied to protect themselves!"
It's too easy a target to pickup on, I don't think that the politics and the media will overlook it.
I just think that Rockstar should have handled this whole "incident" in a diferent way...
...instead of hidding behind the "hacker boogeyman". Now they made matters worst for themselves, since everyone will look at them as liars...
The question here is not the (stupid and harmless) "sex" content that the game might have, the question is that Rockstar lied, plain and simple.
It's very bad that Rockstar didn't had the balls to just say that the content was there, they tryed to duck out and now they are in a worst situation...
Way to go, Rockstar... we want the games industry to be seen as mature and respectfull and you pull an 15-year-old stunt on us all. Shame on you...
"Hey, I only take my car out to go to the mall, so I don't know what's this fuss about trafic accidents"
Altough you are right about the right/safe browsing habits, Microsoft must patch their systems, so reduce the risk to the people that don't have those habits... Like an airbag. I don't need an airbag to drive to the mall (if I go slowly) but I might need one if, if something unexpected (or deliberate) happens.
Now that you mention it, I wonder: do the people that you mention, that want to retain the power, really see the west as "imoral and evil"? My bet is that they are as "imoral and evil" as any of us, you and me and any of us, they just use the religious view on the matter as a smokescreen... and it's much easier to rally people's support if you say that you do A or B "in the name of (any) god", and not because you are a filthy greedy corrupt bastard...
Come to think about it, that sort of behaviour is not something exclusive to middle east nations...
Let this be a lesson for Londoners and the rest of the world that terrorism can strike anywhere, and appeasing them will only make them stronger.
Er... I guess that all those years dealing with the IRA bombings were, what? some sort of joke? And the truce that exists today with IRA was acomplished how? By hunting all those "thugs and animals" from IRA? I don't think so.
Look, I hate the terrorist's guts as much the next guy right now, but I don't think that any "War on Terror" will ever acomplish anything except more terror! Because, in the end, it's always the small man that gets it, the people that were comuting to work, the people going about their bussiness in Iraq, the foot soldiers having to fight injust wars.
I don't defend the terrorists, nor the "western civilization", I'm just saying that the course of action on both sides will only lead to an "arm's race" of unknown consequences...
We have a sort of hot-cold-war, and if we as a race, as a whole, don't start looking at it with a "cold" head, it might as well be our downfall...
Well, he sure spells it out: the fault is mainly the PARENTS. And I agree.
If you leave your kid all day around games/movies/music/newspaper/TV, and you don't spend the time educating him, telling him about right or wrong, loving him, that sort of "old fashioned" stuff, well, maybe he will grow up with a skewed view of life.
The thing is that parents (even bad ones) are voters, so it's hard from the policital point of view to say "hey, you're bad parents! you're to blame!". It's much "safer" to blame "those darn videogames and rock music!" because videogames and songs don't vote!
Anyway, maybe we as a society should start paying a bit more atention to parenting. After all, to put it in Scott Adam's words, we need a license to drive/fish/whatever but to be a parent we only need a couple of organs. And maybe between all the people that have those organs there are some who can't take care of themselves, let alone a child...
Reading your title, I thought that he filled up a bathtub with LEGOs and procede to take a "bath" in them!:D Like those money-showers Scrooge McDuck had in the Disney comics, but with LEGOs:D now that would be neat!
Excuse me but when someone wants to "improve" a standard, isn't there a well-know, generally acepted method to do it? you know, with peer-reviewing and stuff?
It just ticks me when Microsoft wants to "improve" something, but at the same time making it "unilateral", so that only their customer could benefict from the "improvements". If they want to do something that's Windows-only and that it's based in RSS, so do it, but call it something else and cut the associations with RSS!
It reminds me of the "protected" CDs from RIAA... technically they aren't CD-DA, so stop calling it "CDs" and start calling it "round things with protected music that only play in selected equipements"...
Do you call this an "exploit"? It seems more like a loopwhole to me, something like using a valid cd-key from a genuine wraped up box to install a pirated copy of the same software.
I mean, come on! They let you download something that checks for the validity of the installed windows and returns a code, how long would it take for someone to try a valid code on a pirated windows?
For what I read, it's goes something like this: there is this building with several diferent apartments: A, B, C, etc... and there is a key in each. But for you to get in, you need to check your key to see if it's valid: "they gave me this key to aparment B, is it valid?"
And the system validates your key, then you can get into ANY aparment, because ultimatly the system doesn't check if the key you are using has any conection to the apartment that you are trying to acess: "yes, the key you present is valid, please fell free to try it in any apartment, we don't check to see if its ACTUALLY the key to aparment B, we just check to see if it's a couterfeit"
But, hey, maybe this is an exploit afterall, the "hole" is there, but it's in the process, not in the coding or programing itself.
In a diferent more modern "note" (pum intented), there is a guy that makes terrific game music: Akira Yamaoka.
Just listen to the music in any of the 4 Silent Hill games and you'll see. The music/soundscape IS definitly part of the game and the OSTs stand on their own legs as far as good music is concerned.
I highly recommend it!
"(...)if a literal interpretation of the Bible is correct(...)"
Well, if this is true, then the least of our concerns is evolution. How about the parts that imply that incest (for example) is "ok"?...
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I live in a country that thinks it's very hip and cool, but it's more like a 3rd world country (no offense to them!)... So, basically, between low coverage and monopolistic practices, I only have 4 (four!) TV channels.
Anyway, I read about Futurama on the net, and I downloaded a couple of episodes (shame on me!). I got adicted! :D So much that I bought the whole 4 seasons on Amazon! (Yeah, we don't have much TV series on DVD on the retail stores around here either). And I got some seasons of South Park too! And now I'm waiting for "Penn & Teller's B*llshit" to arrive!
And you know what? If it weren't for P2P, I wound have never get contact with those shows and I would never bought the DVDs...
Like someone said, P2P would be a awesome way to distribute low-quality "teasers" of TV shows. It worked for me, and I believe it worked for many more people.
Family Guy is another example. I never saw it (I intend to download an episode or two to try it), but I read that the DVD sales were great. I guess that one might presume that an portion of those sales were directly related with people downloading episodes and enjoying it.
Maybe the media industry (music, movies, TV, and games) should start listening to their customers, instead of the army of lawyers that they have. And by saying "listening" I really mean "LISTENING", as in opinion polls and stuff.
And the games industry should really wrap their heads around the whole emulation scene. I mean, emulating a PS2 is wrong, but I sure would pay for the change to have (for example) a thingamajig that I could hook to the TV and get me to play a bunch of Megadrive games or SNES games (you know, like they did for the Atari, the controler-thingy).
Sorry for the long rant, but it ticks me that we the paying customers are being treated as thiefs, when we are actually willing to pay (and paying!) for the entertainment. Just listen to us, for real, and don't try to ram your both arms and legs up our collective asses...
And it features "tabbed" conversation windows! Awesome!! :D
Here it is! http://www.google.com/talk/
I think that a way around the validation will be found, and at least a part of the XP boxes around will be updated, by people that knows a little about these things and actualy understands that updates are important. The boxes that will stay "outdated" are probably owned by someone that either doesn't know / doesn't care about updates in the first place, so there is no garanty that they would update the boxes even if their Windows copy was legit.
This aplies to emule/edonkey networks, since it's the ones that I.. er... read more about... in a book... cof cof...
Well, if you tell me how to "alter the game source code" using just a PS2, a Action Replay and a couple of cheats, I'll congratulate you.
The thing is you DON'T alter any source code of the game, any more than you alter the "source code" of windows when you teak the registry or something like that.
And to give you a better analogy, everyone and their cat jumps on Microsoft when they don't anticipate the wholes on windows, or when they code slopy or when some patch is buggy. But in this case "poor Rockstar guys, it's just a big company, see, making games is complex, see..."
The thing is, if they wanted to keep the mini game, they should have gone all the way. If they didn't wanted, they should have taken it all from the content of the final game. Because, let's face it, with today comunity of modders and stuff, do you really think that the content would be hidden for long?
And, more important, do you really think that the politics would let go of such a juicy bit like that? Politics don't care if coding is complex or simple or if it's demanding or if we are all humans after all! Politis only care about "black/white" issues, long moral crusades, finding the "evil" and expose it, they are the suposed "watchdogs" of the society, expect no one asked them to do that.
They are going to jump on Rockstar all over, and on top of all the shit that they already say about Rockstar, they'll add "and they lied to protect themselves!"
It's too easy a target to pickup on, I don't think that the politics and the media will overlook it.
I just think that Rockstar should have handled this whole "incident" in a diferent way...
The question here is not the (stupid and harmless) "sex" content that the game might have, the question is that Rockstar lied, plain and simple.
It's very bad that Rockstar didn't had the balls to just say that the content was there, they tryed to duck out and now they are in a worst situation...
Way to go, Rockstar... we want the games industry to be seen as mature and respectfull and you pull an 15-year-old stunt on us all. Shame on you...
"Hey, I only take my car out to go to the mall, so I don't know what's this fuss about trafic accidents" Altough you are right about the right/safe browsing habits, Microsoft must patch their systems, so reduce the risk to the people that don't have those habits... Like an airbag. I don't need an airbag to drive to the mall (if I go slowly) but I might need one if, if something unexpected (or deliberate) happens.
Microsoft doesn't sell any firewall. There is a firewall in XP, but that's it. At least for now.
Come to think about it, that sort of behaviour is not something exclusive to middle east nations...
Er... I guess that all those years dealing with the IRA bombings were, what? some sort of joke? And the truce that exists today with IRA was acomplished how? By hunting all those "thugs and animals" from IRA? I don't think so.
Look, I hate the terrorist's guts as much the next guy right now, but I don't think that any "War on Terror" will ever acomplish anything except more terror! Because, in the end, it's always the small man that gets it, the people that were comuting to work, the people going about their bussiness in Iraq, the foot soldiers having to fight injust wars.
I don't defend the terrorists, nor the "western civilization", I'm just saying that the course of action on both sides will only lead to an "arm's race" of unknown consequences...
We have a sort of hot-cold-war, and if we as a race, as a whole, don't start looking at it with a "cold" head, it might as well be our downfall...
Could you repeat who are the "sponsors" of this "study"?...
If you leave your kid all day around games/movies/music/newspaper/TV, and you don't spend the time educating him, telling him about right or wrong, loving him, that sort of "old fashioned" stuff, well, maybe he will grow up with a skewed view of life.
The thing is that parents (even bad ones) are voters, so it's hard from the policital point of view to say "hey, you're bad parents! you're to blame!". It's much "safer" to blame "those darn videogames and rock music!" because videogames and songs don't vote!
Anyway, maybe we as a society should start paying a bit more atention to parenting. After all, to put it in Scott Adam's words, we need a license to drive/fish/whatever but to be a parent we only need a couple of organs. And maybe between all the people that have those organs there are some who can't take care of themselves, let alone a child...
I'm acessing with Opera. Identify as Opera and javascript off and I can access the site without problem.
Reading your title, I thought that he filled up a bathtub with LEGOs and procede to take a "bath" in them! :D Like those money-showers Scrooge McDuck had in the Disney comics, but with LEGOs :D now that would be neat!
Excuse me but when someone wants to "improve" a standard, isn't there a well-know, generally acepted method to do it? you know, with peer-reviewing and stuff? It just ticks me when Microsoft wants to "improve" something, but at the same time making it "unilateral", so that only their customer could benefict from the "improvements". If they want to do something that's Windows-only and that it's based in RSS, so do it, but call it something else and cut the associations with RSS! It reminds me of the "protected" CDs from RIAA... technically they aren't CD-DA, so stop calling it "CDs" and start calling it "round things with protected music that only play in selected equipements"...
Hey, as long as they don't trigger a ressonance cascade... ;)
Do you call this an "exploit"? It seems more like a loopwhole to me, something like using a valid cd-key from a genuine wraped up box to install a pirated copy of the same software. I mean, come on! They let you download something that checks for the validity of the installed windows and returns a code, how long would it take for someone to try a valid code on a pirated windows? For what I read, it's goes something like this: there is this building with several diferent apartments: A, B, C, etc... and there is a key in each. But for you to get in, you need to check your key to see if it's valid: "they gave me this key to aparment B, is it valid?" And the system validates your key, then you can get into ANY aparment, because ultimatly the system doesn't check if the key you are using has any conection to the apartment that you are trying to acess: "yes, the key you present is valid, please fell free to try it in any apartment, we don't check to see if its ACTUALLY the key to aparment B, we just check to see if it's a couterfeit" But, hey, maybe this is an exploit afterall, the "hole" is there, but it's in the process, not in the coding or programing itself.
You're under 25, right? ;)
Well, I still think that Natalie Portman would be a better Alice... But, hey, "Buffy" was pretty good in "The Grudge", so maybe she can pull it off :D
In a diferent more modern "note" (pum intented), there is a guy that makes terrific game music: Akira Yamaoka. Just listen to the music in any of the 4 Silent Hill games and you'll see. The music/soundscape IS definitly part of the game and the OSTs stand on their own legs as far as good music is concerned. I highly recommend it!
Hummm... no "Top Quality Exercycle For Sale" adds then, hun?
Here, here! The (rare) times I got a BSOD in XP, I could pinpoint them back to some stupid tweak I did (normaly on the BIOS)...
"(...)if a literal interpretation of the Bible is correct(...)" Well, if this is true, then the least of our concerns is evolution. How about the parts that imply that incest (for example) is "ok"?...