This is exactly the point of the most extreme remedy: breaking up Microsoft into an applications division and an OS division. The OS would be developed entirely separately from the applications, and they would never meet until an OEM installed them on a system to sell. This would prevent them (at least in theory) from using hidden, arcane APIs to make their own products work better than other peoples'. If this happened, and they actually stayed apart, we might actually see real competition in the OS world and the office-suite world.
*shrug* I don't have to. The RIAA and MPAA are doing a perfectly good job of it themselves.
It really doesn't matter a) what the financial and economic realities are, or b) how sane any particular definition of "piracy" is. They are defining, in legal terms, what "piracy" is, at least for the time being. I am quite confident that, within a few (~5-20) years, they, and their definitions, will be quite completely out of the picture, but for now, they're defining it perfectly to their satisfaction.
I could put forward my own definition, but it would probably be less legally sound (after all, I'm no lawyer and I don't have several thousand working for me), and it would definitely be totally ignored. So we might as well accept that theirs is the definition that's getting accepted and either do something constructive to change it in the law's eyes, or find our own ways to work around it.
After all, if I'm going to be punished one way or another, I might as well take advantage.
This is the exact same reason the murder rates were ridiculously high several hundred years ago in Europe (or at least Britain). There were so many poor people, the theft rate was quite high. The penalty for theft was made death by hanging, and hey, whaddaya know, that's the same as the punishment for murder. So why not kill the guy so you can take more of his stuff with less risk of getting caught?
If the punishments for minor infractions are made similar to those for greater infractions, people will tend to think less of committing the greater. If we're forced to pay more for using the Internet because of the people piracy, well then, why shouldn't we commit piracy, too? After all, we've already paid for it, haven't we?
Of course, they'll still sue you. And levy the taxes on a dozen forms of media, and raise CD/DVD/movie prices. Because they don't get that treating customers as criminals is not the way to handle this, and all they see is $$$$.
The reason Microsoft's OS is hit more than any other is more because Microsoft has a much larger share...
But that's their fault, too. They set out to become the greatest market-share, and used all kinds of underhanded and outright illegal tactics to do so, and still employ them so they can stay on top. They got themselves into this. Maybe they should start accepting the consequences of that a little more. Or maybe, as a good monopoly should, they could start encouraging their competition. And yes, they should encourage their competition, because they're no longer bound by the same rules as normal companies: they are a monopoly.
Honestly, I believe that the best way for Microsoft to decrease the number of Windows-only worms/viruses/trojans/etc is to see to it that other products grow in market share until Windows has no more than a simple majority (ie, around 50% marketshare). I think that with a diverse market like that, the whole world would a) be less vulnerable, b) have more competition, thus better products/lower prices (in theory, anyway), and c) be more interoperable.
Hi, I'm a liberal. I'm all for free trade. In the long run, it will allow poorer countries to come up to the level of the Western world. That's a good thing, even if it means that some (or even a lot) of the US's wealth is redistributed to the rest of the world.
But this isn't free trade.
This is huge multinational companies sending the jobs to places where they're cheaper to pay for and pocketing the difference. It helps exactly one entity: the company. Don't BS me about the stock market: that basically just helps the owners/execs/board members of the company a second time by letting them make the same money twice.
If the companies who were doing this were, in fact, passing real savings on to their customers, that would be one thing. Or if the quality of the service were significantly better. Or if they were able to provide comparable or better jobs, or the training for such, for the worker's they've just dumped in the back alley. But they don't do any of these things. Why should they? The American company today exists for one thing and one thing only: to make more and more and more money. In the end, that is all they care about, and the people who run them are no different.
Until and unless something is done to make it harder and/or less legal for them to keep growing and growing, purely concerned with making more money, they will continue to do this, and not care about product quality or consumer satisfaction or employee welfare. Nothing but the bottom line.
I generally like to believe this, and I generally think that higher taxes are good. However, I live in NYS, which, I believe, has one of the highest tax rates in the country (I haven't actually done any research, this is just based on "what I know/have heard"). We're also struggling with serious deficit issues. Of course, part of our financial problem is that our governor & legislature haven't been able to get a budget passed on time for the past 19 years (and probably will make it an even 20 this year), but I still have to wonder: where the heck's all the money going?
I am also a recent graduate of a small liberal-arts college which was recently named as something like the 5th most expensive institution in its class in the whole country. But it doesn't have better facilities than other local colleges, or newer equipment, or anything like that.
Sure, it's a smaller scale. But I look at both these cases and just wonder, where the heck is my money actually going??? I, as a pretty darn liberal Democrat, generally favor raising taxes...but only when I know that they're going to be used well and wisely. At the moment, I'm not sure raising (state) taxes would be such a good idea.
See, in the world where I live, if I, as an individual, ordinary person of the middle class, try doing this to a company with more than about 20 employees, they win practically just by showing up. They can afford to string it out way, way more than I can. That means I lose. Or, alternatively, they can just call up their team of guerrilla lawyers and make me garrotte myself with my own words. You know how when you're arrested, they say "Anything you say can and will be used against you"? Well, if a lawyer ever says that to you, run away, fast, and never speak again, because they mean it.
Of course, there are, supposedly, companies that will negotiate in good faith and actually care about justice and upholding their end of the deal. However, I think they are simply a myth.
OK, none of us are fond of EULAs (except those few of us who actually write the thrice-cursed things). We all agree that companies that put ridiculous "first-born-child" type clauses in there should be shot.
But this has nothing whatsoever to do with that. Nothing. Whatsoever.
Whether or not the guy was being serious (actually, I kind of agree with him, it might be an idea), you're coming from somewhere out in left field with this. This is way, way outside the area of EULAs and in the realm of more general contract law. In fact, it is probably far more similar to the contracts they signed when they signed on to the labels than anything we mere mortals have ever seen, and most likely they (or their lawyers) actually READ the stupid thing before they let them sign. If such a clause is in there, it's relatively reasonable, in the context. And it is nothing at all like putting stupid stuff in licensing agreements.
The greatest tradgity is that people have been convinced that a vote for a third party is a wasted vote. Don't fall for it.
Did you notice what happened in the 2000 election? In New Hampshire and Florida, about 3% of the votes went to Ralph Nader. Polls showed that the majority of those votes, had Nader not been there, would have gone to Gore.
If a majority of those who voted for Nader in 2000 in either of those states had voted for Gore instead, he would have had a very clear majority and become our president.
So I suppose that sometimes, yeah, votes for a third-party candidate can make a difference. They can achieve exactly the opposite of what you want. People voted for Nader because he was for the environment, basically. And...um...what has Bush done for the environment lately? (Note, for, not to)
Voting for a third-party candidate is throwing your vote away in the current political-economic climate. Someday, I think there will be third-party candidates who can stand a chance, but not until there's real, serious campaign finance reform.
By this I mean that what I hope to see is no election can be funded, at all, by private money. Everyone gets the same amount, from the government (yes, obviously, it means more taxes. Deal. We pay very low taxes compared to the rest of the Western world).
But, to get a little more back on topic, unless you can raise significantly more than any of the other candidates and get serious name recognition, you don't stand a chance as a third-party candidate these days. So voting for a third-party candidate is throwing your vote away. Vote Democrat, at least they say they want campaign finance reform, and have a much better record of standing up for what they believe in (no, I don't have specific examples. Find your own).
I think a 10 year term is much better than a 4 year term because it would give the office holder at least 5 - 7 years before they would have to worry about reelection right after they enter office
I've a better idea. How about we just never let a sitting president run for re-election? That way, they would actually pay attention to what they were supposed to be doing for four years, rather than taking a year or more off their job to campaign for re-election. Yes, they'd probably be supporting their favourite new candidate for the job, but I don't think that takes as much time away as actually campaigning does. If we expanded this to all elected political offices, I think this would go a long way toward helping our elected officials do their jobs right all the time. They could, of course, run again next time (provided they haven't already had their limit of terms). As it is, incumbents all over the political map have very significant advantages. Here in New York State, we've had very low turnover for the past 2 decades...and we also haven't passed a budget on time any year for the past 20 years. Getting some of the old deadwood out of the state legislature might help that.
I realize that in many cases the incumbents have good experience, and might do a better job than whoever replaces them. But they can run again next time, and prove it. At least that way, there would be change, rather than, in many places, the same faces for 20+ years straight. And, in the case of the Presidency, we'd have a national leader more focused on doing his job than getting money and support for his re-election campaign.
(Note, I'm responding to a couple of replies to me, not just you)
I was deliberately ignoring the logistics of it all, and merely responding to the part of the parent that suggested that there couldn't be anything that schools could do with the upload speed of a T1.
The problems of people knowing what they're doing is, I think, a temporary one, and a self-reinforcing one. Once the technology is there to do these things, schools will want to use it, and if the money is there, it won't be long before people are hired or trained to do them. And as more schools have technology in them, more people will use it from an early age, and thus be better able to use & support it later on...you see what I'm getting at.
The problem of it being "unrelated" to basic academic curriculum is a totally separate one, but also, I feel, a problem of outdated curriculum (or at least, curriculum that hasn't yet been updated to take advantage of the technology that they don't yet have;-) ). If you give teachers technology and the means to use it, they will find innovative ways to use it to teach.
Maybe they don't do anything right now that needs the upstream, but guess what? That's at least in part because it would cost $$$$ to get that upstream! If the state would pay for T1s for the schools, I guarantee you plenty of teachers (and administrators) would find good uses for them--like, oh, maybe running a decent school website? Providing streaming feeds of sporting events? Or graduation? I bet the art departments would love it, at least those with classes dealing in video--they could put the students' projects up online so that everyone could enjoy them, rather than just those who care enough to go find where they kept the VHS of it and borrow it.
Granted, it is expensive. But acting like it's useless is a dangerous attitude for schools these days--just about any technology can find its full potential in schools, if the interest and money are there.
If you need audio/video stuff, then you will find more for Mac (you wil find far more for MS Windows).
You may, in fact, be technically correct; I don't know. There may really be more commercial A/V apps for Windows. However, I think you'll find that all of them that are any good are available on the Mac, and some of the very best are only for the Mac, and come from Apple.
Actually, that's largely Roman Catholicism. As an Episcopalian, I basically believe that everyone will go to heaven...that was the whole point of the Jesus thing (which, if you're Jewish, you probably don't believe in, and I respect that...but it doesn't change my belief that you're going to heaven because of it).
Even though our church services are very nearly identical, the Catholic church doesn't even consider Episcopalianism to be a valid religion. Or, for that matter, anything outside of Catholicism. They're very mean, and quite hypocritical, given the teachings of Jesus. If you want to see what He intended, ignore the Catholics.
Who, by the way, are still going to Heaven. They'll just feel very guilty when they get there:-)
OK, I admit, I come across as pretty hypocritical.
However, I think the point I was trying to make (just attempting to save some face here) was something like this: you're stealing it just because you don't want to bother paying for it; I might steal it because I cannot morally justify paying for it. Also note that, like many others here have mentioned, there's a very good chance that I'll try it for a few minutes, decide "This runs like a really ugly dog," and delete it.
As a matter of fact, I might very well not even bother pirating it, so great is my disgust with Bungie.
It's not that Microsoft is a "factory coding house" that I object to; it's their monopolistic, anticompetitive, and illegal (and shady-side) business practices that I dislike. Thus, it's not the quality of their software that I'm protesting (a lot is bad, some is good, but it's not the point); it's their attitude toward the world--that is, that it should all be theirs.
I will not use Microsoft products (unless I can legitimately get them for free, like I can through an MSDNAA program my grad school has). This limits my options in what I can use, as you can probably imagine--no MS Office, no Virtual PC, no buying Windows at all. Ever. And no games from Microsoft. The only reason I'm even considering pirating Halo is because of how good it was supposed to have been. Also note that I'm still not sure I'm going to bother.
I will admit that, to me, it doesn't seem like too much of a loss, for 2 major reasons: 1) I don't consider any Microsoft products worth using in the first place, and 2) when I do use them, I honestly feel strangely unclean. (I know it sounds weird, but it's true, and I know I'm weird;-) )
Your example is deeply flawed, in that you are, in fact, treating cows badly (well, if by "treated badly" you mean the slaughtering process...). In my case, I'm still not giving them money, and thus not supporting them, which is all my stand is about in the first place.
Well, you're awfully well informed, to be able to tell us what every single person in the world who ever pirated is thinking. I've got some news for you: there's more to life than greed.
I have been seriously thinking about getting Halo, because from all I've heard it's still a good to great game. However, I cannot justify giving money to Microsoft, for reasons that anyone on Slashdot should know perfectly well. Thus, when college is out this summer, I'll probably copy my younger brother's copy, and get whatever cracks are necessary to play it.
Please note: I am doing this because, and solely because, I cannot justify giving any money to Microsoft, and some money would go to them if I bought Halo. My general policy is if a game is worth playing, it's worth paying for, and I do not currently own any games I have not paid for (unregistered shareware aside), except for games that can no longer be bought (ie, "abandonware"--I'd pay for it if I could find someone willing to take my money, but they won't). I am willing to bet you that there are plenty of other people in my position out there--people who honestly would have bought Halo if it had been from anyone but Microsoft, but who, like me, can't morally justify giving them money, or who just want to stick it to them (which I consider to be a less mature version of the same feeling).
I think that your view is somewhat over-cynical, and extremely absolutist. There will always be exceptions. Not everyone is like you. Some of us really do have moral standards above the common cockroach.
Man, that's pretty ugly! At my college in upstate NY, textbooks in the library are treated just like any other book: you can keep it out for the whole semester. There are even some there, usually, because most people buy the books (since the average student here is probably richer than the average most places--certainly richer than me!--we were something like #5 on a list of most expensive colleges). Of course, if you don't bring it back then, the late fee is the cost of the book, but that's to be expected. After all, that usually means the student brought it home, so it's perfectly reasonable to ask them to pay for it.
Final Fantasy IX follows your suggested pattern more; the difficulty ramps up over the course of the game; the final dungeon is particularly nasty, and the end boss is just horrible. Nice closing FMV as a reward, though:-)
That's one reason I like IX so much;-) I like VI very much, too, and though there aren't FMVs, of course (at least, in the original version, though there are opening & closing ones in the PS1 remake), I've always thought that its difficulty is perfectly balanced. If you just go through the game, doing basically what's expected of you (not all is necessary to complete, but most of the unnecessary bits add to the story), it's always moderately difficult to defeat bosses, and normal enemies take a reasonable amount of time to fight. I haven't played through V or IV the whole way, but I thought that V was mostly similar to VI in difficulty and IV was really hard. I find all the subsequent ones except IX much, much easier. (Though I haven't finished VIII, either...need to do that sometime soon!)
I think that IX was, in many ways, deliberately trying to emulate the successes of the earlier FFs before taking off in a new direction. It's also (quite OT, but who cares on/.?) the last so far to use the Final Fantasy theme in its ending (or anywhere in the game). It's definitely one of my 2 favourite FFs, and a lot of that (to come back on topic) is because of the excellent balance.
I generally subscribe to this school o f thought. I mostly play RPGs (on consoles, mostly Final Fantasies), and I consider the best reward to be a cool FMV sequence. It gives you no advantage, but it's also not a worthless item, like "proof of Nemesis" in FFX (which I've never gotten). I *hate* doing a hard sidequest and getting nothing but a worthless item for it, whether it's a certificate-type item ("you finished X sidequest") or just a moderate-to-boring regular game item.
FMVs are a lot of fun (I love watching them, anyway, and I'm shamelessly extrapolating to the rest of humanity), and it feels like you've gotten something at least somewhat worth it, but it doesn't give you any advantage over those who didn't complete the sidequest. That's not to say there can't be sidequests that get you useful stuff that makes other parts of the game easier; I think there's definitely a place for those, too.
However, I do think that the main game bosses/puzzles/whatever should get more difficult, significantly so. (speaking in Final Fantasy terms here because it's what I know; substitute whatever is appropriate for your favourite genre) Though it's reasonable to have a few sidequest bosses more difficult than the final boss, the final boss should definitely be tougher than all the previous regular-game bosses, and most of the sidequest bosses, unless there is a specific, given reason for him/her/it/them not to be.
Well, there's my game-related rant for the week. Someday, I'll make my own games, and probably not follow any of my own advice!;-)
The only thing all churches have in common is the belief that they hold exclusive right to the One Truth.
Actually, Episcopalians, at least most of the ones I know, believe basically that there is no One Truth: that God will accept you and forgive you whoever you are, so long as you're not actually evil. Our way is a good way, but there may be other ways, too.
Oh, yeah, if it were to put an alias on the desktop, it should definitely also remove it from the dock. My issue was that the person I was replying to didn't seem to see the Dock as a place where aliases are stored, but where documents are stored.
Personally, though, I like the Dock's behaviour the way it is now.
Slashdot Mirror
Try to find a 4GB flash card, 8 hour battery, LCD, and anodized aluminum block for less than $250.
Just to nitpick, it's not flash; it's a tiny hard drive.
Dan Aris
Should Windows come with no applications at all?
This is exactly the point of the most extreme remedy: breaking up Microsoft into an applications division and an OS division. The OS would be developed entirely separately from the applications, and they would never meet until an OEM installed them on a system to sell. This would prevent them (at least in theory) from using hidden, arcane APIs to make their own products work better than other peoples'. If this happened, and they actually stayed apart, we might actually see real competition in the OS world and the office-suite world.
Dan Aris
Please define in "legal" terms of what piracy is.
*shrug* I don't have to. The RIAA and MPAA are doing a perfectly good job of it themselves.
It really doesn't matter a) what the financial and economic realities are, or b) how sane any particular definition of "piracy" is. They are defining, in legal terms, what "piracy" is, at least for the time being. I am quite confident that, within a few (~5-20) years, they, and their definitions, will be quite completely out of the picture, but for now, they're defining it perfectly to their satisfaction.
I could put forward my own definition, but it would probably be less legally sound (after all, I'm no lawyer and I don't have several thousand working for me), and it would definitely be totally ignored. So we might as well accept that theirs is the definition that's getting accepted and either do something constructive to change it in the law's eyes, or find our own ways to work around it.
Dan Aris
After all, if I'm going to be punished one way or another, I might as well take advantage.
This is the exact same reason the murder rates were ridiculously high several hundred years ago in Europe (or at least Britain). There were so many poor people, the theft rate was quite high. The penalty for theft was made death by hanging, and hey, whaddaya know, that's the same as the punishment for murder. So why not kill the guy so you can take more of his stuff with less risk of getting caught?
If the punishments for minor infractions are made similar to those for greater infractions, people will tend to think less of committing the greater. If we're forced to pay more for using the Internet because of the people piracy, well then, why shouldn't we commit piracy, too? After all, we've already paid for it, haven't we?
Of course, they'll still sue you. And levy the taxes on a dozen forms of media, and raise CD/DVD/movie prices. Because they don't get that treating customers as criminals is not the way to handle this, and all they see is $$$$.
Dan Aris
The reason Microsoft's OS is hit more than any other is more because Microsoft has a much larger share...
But that's their fault, too. They set out to become the greatest market-share, and used all kinds of underhanded and outright illegal tactics to do so, and still employ them so they can stay on top. They got themselves into this. Maybe they should start accepting the consequences of that a little more. Or maybe, as a good monopoly should, they could start encouraging their competition. And yes, they should encourage their competition, because they're no longer bound by the same rules as normal companies: they are a monopoly.
Honestly, I believe that the best way for Microsoft to decrease the number of Windows-only worms/viruses/trojans/etc is to see to it that other products grow in market share until Windows has no more than a simple majority (ie, around 50% marketshare). I think that with a diverse market like that, the whole world would a) be less vulnerable, b) have more competition, thus better products/lower prices (in theory, anyway), and c) be more interoperable.
Dan Aris
Hi, I'm a liberal. I'm all for free trade. In the long run, it will allow poorer countries to come up to the level of the Western world. That's a good thing, even if it means that some (or even a lot) of the US's wealth is redistributed to the rest of the world.
But this isn't free trade.
This is huge multinational companies sending the jobs to places where they're cheaper to pay for and pocketing the difference. It helps exactly one entity: the company. Don't BS me about the stock market: that basically just helps the owners/execs/board members of the company a second time by letting them make the same money twice.
If the companies who were doing this were, in fact, passing real savings on to their customers, that would be one thing. Or if the quality of the service were significantly better. Or if they were able to provide comparable or better jobs, or the training for such, for the worker's they've just dumped in the back alley. But they don't do any of these things. Why should they? The American company today exists for one thing and one thing only: to make more and more and more money. In the end, that is all they care about, and the people who run them are no different.
Until and unless something is done to make it harder and/or less legal for them to keep growing and growing, purely concerned with making more money, they will continue to do this, and not care about product quality or consumer satisfaction or employee welfare. Nothing but the bottom line.
Is that really what you want--conservative?
Dan Aris
I generally like to believe this, and I generally think that higher taxes are good. However, I live in NYS, which, I believe, has one of the highest tax rates in the country (I haven't actually done any research, this is just based on "what I know/have heard"). We're also struggling with serious deficit issues. Of course, part of our financial problem is that our governor & legislature haven't been able to get a budget passed on time for the past 19 years (and probably will make it an even 20 this year), but I still have to wonder: where the heck's all the money going?
I am also a recent graduate of a small liberal-arts college which was recently named as something like the 5th most expensive institution in its class in the whole country. But it doesn't have better facilities than other local colleges, or newer equipment, or anything like that.
Sure, it's a smaller scale. But I look at both these cases and just wonder, where the heck is my money actually going??? I, as a pretty darn liberal Democrat, generally favor raising taxes...but only when I know that they're going to be used well and wisely. At the moment, I'm not sure raising (state) taxes would be such a good idea.
Where is all our money going??
Dan Aris
You must live in a very nice world.
See, in the world where I live, if I, as an individual, ordinary person of the middle class, try doing this to a company with more than about 20 employees, they win practically just by showing up. They can afford to string it out way, way more than I can. That means I lose. Or, alternatively, they can just call up their team of guerrilla lawyers and make me garrotte myself with my own words. You know how when you're arrested, they say "Anything you say can and will be used against you"? Well, if a lawyer ever says that to you, run away, fast, and never speak again, because they mean it.
Of course, there are, supposedly, companies that will negotiate in good faith and actually care about justice and upholding their end of the deal. However, I think they are simply a myth.
Dan Aris
Umm...hey, clueboy, I think he was giving advice, not guesses. Those are places Mr. Clinger can go to get help. Maybe if you paid more attention...
Dan Aris
OK, none of us are fond of EULAs (except those few of us who actually write the thrice-cursed things). We all agree that companies that put ridiculous "first-born-child" type clauses in there should be shot.
But this has nothing whatsoever to do with that. Nothing. Whatsoever.
Whether or not the guy was being serious (actually, I kind of agree with him, it might be an idea), you're coming from somewhere out in left field with this. This is way, way outside the area of EULAs and in the realm of more general contract law. In fact, it is probably far more similar to the contracts they signed when they signed on to the labels than anything we mere mortals have ever seen, and most likely they (or their lawyers) actually READ the stupid thing before they let them sign. If such a clause is in there, it's relatively reasonable, in the context. And it is nothing at all like putting stupid stuff in licensing agreements.
So go away and find something productive to do.
Dan Aris
The greatest tradgity is that people have been convinced that a vote for a third party is a wasted vote. Don't fall for it.
Did you notice what happened in the 2000 election? In New Hampshire and Florida, about 3% of the votes went to Ralph Nader. Polls showed that the majority of those votes, had Nader not been there, would have gone to Gore.
If a majority of those who voted for Nader in 2000 in either of those states had voted for Gore instead, he would have had a very clear majority and become our president.
So I suppose that sometimes, yeah, votes for a third-party candidate can make a difference. They can achieve exactly the opposite of what you want. People voted for Nader because he was for the environment, basically. And...um...what has Bush done for the environment lately? (Note, for, not to)
Voting for a third-party candidate is throwing your vote away in the current political-economic climate. Someday, I think there will be third-party candidates who can stand a chance, but not until there's real, serious campaign finance reform.
By this I mean that what I hope to see is no election can be funded, at all, by private money. Everyone gets the same amount, from the government (yes, obviously, it means more taxes. Deal. We pay very low taxes compared to the rest of the Western world).
But, to get a little more back on topic, unless you can raise significantly more than any of the other candidates and get serious name recognition, you don't stand a chance as a third-party candidate these days. So voting for a third-party candidate is throwing your vote away. Vote Democrat, at least they say they want campaign finance reform, and have a much better record of standing up for what they believe in (no, I don't have specific examples. Find your own).
Dan Aris
I think a 10 year term is much better than a 4 year term because it would give the office holder at least 5 - 7 years before they would have to worry about reelection right after they enter office
I've a better idea. How about we just never let a sitting president run for re-election? That way, they would actually pay attention to what they were supposed to be doing for four years, rather than taking a year or more off their job to campaign for re-election. Yes, they'd probably be supporting their favourite new candidate for the job, but I don't think that takes as much time away as actually campaigning does. If we expanded this to all elected political offices, I think this would go a long way toward helping our elected officials do their jobs right all the time. They could, of course, run again next time (provided they haven't already had their limit of terms). As it is, incumbents all over the political map have very significant advantages. Here in New York State, we've had very low turnover for the past 2 decades...and we also haven't passed a budget on time any year for the past 20 years. Getting some of the old deadwood out of the state legislature might help that.
I realize that in many cases the incumbents have good experience, and might do a better job than whoever replaces them. But they can run again next time, and prove it. At least that way, there would be change, rather than, in many places, the same faces for 20+ years straight. And, in the case of the Presidency, we'd have a national leader more focused on doing his job than getting money and support for his re-election campaign.
Dan Aris
(Note, I'm responding to a couple of replies to me, not just you)
I was deliberately ignoring the logistics of it all, and merely responding to the part of the parent that suggested that there couldn't be anything that schools could do with the upload speed of a T1.
The problems of people knowing what they're doing is, I think, a temporary one, and a self-reinforcing one. Once the technology is there to do these things, schools will want to use it, and if the money is there, it won't be long before people are hired or trained to do them. And as more schools have technology in them, more people will use it from an early age, and thus be better able to use & support it later on...you see what I'm getting at.
The problem of it being "unrelated" to basic academic curriculum is a totally separate one, but also, I feel, a problem of outdated curriculum (or at least, curriculum that hasn't yet been updated to take advantage of the technology that they don't yet have ;-) ). If you give teachers technology and the means to use it, they will find innovative ways to use it to teach.
Dan Aris
Maybe they don't do anything right now that needs the upstream, but guess what? That's at least in part because it would cost $$$$ to get that upstream! If the state would pay for T1s for the schools, I guarantee you plenty of teachers (and administrators) would find good uses for them--like, oh, maybe running a decent school website? Providing streaming feeds of sporting events? Or graduation? I bet the art departments would love it, at least those with classes dealing in video--they could put the students' projects up online so that everyone could enjoy them, rather than just those who care enough to go find where they kept the VHS of it and borrow it.
Granted, it is expensive. But acting like it's useless is a dangerous attitude for schools these days--just about any technology can find its full potential in schools, if the interest and money are there.
Dan Aris
If you need audio/video stuff, then you will find more for Mac (you wil find far more for MS Windows).
You may, in fact, be technically correct; I don't know. There may really be more commercial A/V apps for Windows. However, I think you'll find that all of them that are any good are available on the Mac, and some of the very best are only for the Mac, and come from Apple.
Dan Aris
Actually, that's largely Roman Catholicism. As an Episcopalian, I basically believe that everyone will go to heaven...that was the whole point of the Jesus thing (which, if you're Jewish, you probably don't believe in, and I respect that...but it doesn't change my belief that you're going to heaven because of it).
Even though our church services are very nearly identical, the Catholic church doesn't even consider Episcopalianism to be a valid religion. Or, for that matter, anything outside of Catholicism. They're very mean, and quite hypocritical, given the teachings of Jesus. If you want to see what He intended, ignore the Catholics.
Who, by the way, are still going to Heaven. They'll just feel very guilty when they get there :-)
Dan Aris
OK, I admit, I come across as pretty hypocritical.
However, I think the point I was trying to make (just attempting to save some face here) was something like this: you're stealing it just because you don't want to bother paying for it; I might steal it because I cannot morally justify paying for it. Also note that, like many others here have mentioned, there's a very good chance that I'll try it for a few minutes, decide "This runs like a really ugly dog," and delete it.
As a matter of fact, I might very well not even bother pirating it, so great is my disgust with Bungie.
Dan Aris
It's not that Microsoft is a "factory coding house" that I object to; it's their monopolistic, anticompetitive, and illegal (and shady-side) business practices that I dislike. Thus, it's not the quality of their software that I'm protesting (a lot is bad, some is good, but it's not the point); it's their attitude toward the world--that is, that it should all be theirs.
Dan Aris
I will not use Microsoft products (unless I can legitimately get them for free, like I can through an MSDNAA program my grad school has). This limits my options in what I can use, as you can probably imagine--no MS Office, no Virtual PC, no buying Windows at all. Ever. And no games from Microsoft. The only reason I'm even considering pirating Halo is because of how good it was supposed to have been. Also note that I'm still not sure I'm going to bother.
I will admit that, to me, it doesn't seem like too much of a loss, for 2 major reasons: 1) I don't consider any Microsoft products worth using in the first place, and 2) when I do use them, I honestly feel strangely unclean. (I know it sounds weird, but it's true, and I know I'm weird ;-) )
Your example is deeply flawed, in that you are, in fact, treating cows badly (well, if by "treated badly" you mean the slaughtering process...). In my case, I'm still not giving them money, and thus not supporting them, which is all my stand is about in the first place.
Dan Aris
Well, you're awfully well informed, to be able to tell us what every single person in the world who ever pirated is thinking. I've got some news for you: there's more to life than greed.
I have been seriously thinking about getting Halo, because from all I've heard it's still a good to great game. However, I cannot justify giving money to Microsoft, for reasons that anyone on Slashdot should know perfectly well. Thus, when college is out this summer, I'll probably copy my younger brother's copy, and get whatever cracks are necessary to play it.
Please note: I am doing this because, and solely because, I cannot justify giving any money to Microsoft, and some money would go to them if I bought Halo. My general policy is if a game is worth playing, it's worth paying for, and I do not currently own any games I have not paid for (unregistered shareware aside), except for games that can no longer be bought (ie, "abandonware"--I'd pay for it if I could find someone willing to take my money, but they won't). I am willing to bet you that there are plenty of other people in my position out there--people who honestly would have bought Halo if it had been from anyone but Microsoft, but who, like me, can't morally justify giving them money, or who just want to stick it to them (which I consider to be a less mature version of the same feeling).
I think that your view is somewhat over-cynical, and extremely absolutist. There will always be exceptions. Not everyone is like you. Some of us really do have moral standards above the common cockroach.
Dan Aris
Man, that's pretty ugly! At my college in upstate NY, textbooks in the library are treated just like any other book: you can keep it out for the whole semester. There are even some there, usually, because most people buy the books (since the average student here is probably richer than the average most places--certainly richer than me!--we were something like #5 on a list of most expensive colleges). Of course, if you don't bring it back then, the late fee is the cost of the book, but that's to be expected. After all, that usually means the student brought it home, so it's perfectly reasonable to ask them to pay for it.
Dan Aris
Final Fantasy IX follows your suggested pattern more; the difficulty ramps up over the course of the game; the final dungeon is particularly nasty, and the end boss is just horrible. Nice closing FMV as a reward, though :-)
That's one reason I like IX so much ;-) I like VI very much, too, and though there aren't FMVs, of course (at least, in the original version, though there are opening & closing ones in the PS1 remake), I've always thought that its difficulty is perfectly balanced. If you just go through the game, doing basically what's expected of you (not all is necessary to complete, but most of the unnecessary bits add to the story), it's always moderately difficult to defeat bosses, and normal enemies take a reasonable amount of time to fight. I haven't played through V or IV the whole way, but I thought that V was mostly similar to VI in difficulty and IV was really hard. I find all the subsequent ones except IX much, much easier. (Though I haven't finished VIII, either...need to do that sometime soon!)
I think that IX was, in many ways, deliberately trying to emulate the successes of the earlier FFs before taking off in a new direction. It's also (quite OT, but who cares on /.?) the last so far to use the Final Fantasy theme in its ending (or anywhere in the game). It's definitely one of my 2 favourite FFs, and a lot of that (to come back on topic) is because of the excellent balance.
Dan Aris
I generally subscribe to this school o f thought. I mostly play RPGs (on consoles, mostly Final Fantasies), and I consider the best reward to be a cool FMV sequence. It gives you no advantage, but it's also not a worthless item, like "proof of Nemesis" in FFX (which I've never gotten). I *hate* doing a hard sidequest and getting nothing but a worthless item for it, whether it's a certificate-type item ("you finished X sidequest") or just a moderate-to-boring regular game item.
FMVs are a lot of fun (I love watching them, anyway, and I'm shamelessly extrapolating to the rest of humanity), and it feels like you've gotten something at least somewhat worth it, but it doesn't give you any advantage over those who didn't complete the sidequest. That's not to say there can't be sidequests that get you useful stuff that makes other parts of the game easier; I think there's definitely a place for those, too.
However, I do think that the main game bosses/puzzles/whatever should get more difficult, significantly so. (speaking in Final Fantasy terms here because it's what I know; substitute whatever is appropriate for your favourite genre) Though it's reasonable to have a few sidequest bosses more difficult than the final boss, the final boss should definitely be tougher than all the previous regular-game bosses, and most of the sidequest bosses, unless there is a specific, given reason for him/her/it/them not to be.
Well, there's my game-related rant for the week. Someday, I'll make my own games, and probably not follow any of my own advice! ;-)
Dan Aris
The only thing all churches have in common is the belief that they hold exclusive right to the One Truth.
Actually, Episcopalians, at least most of the ones I know, believe basically that there is no One Truth: that God will accept you and forgive you whoever you are, so long as you're not actually evil. Our way is a good way, but there may be other ways, too.
Dan Aris
Oh, yeah, if it were to put an alias on the desktop, it should definitely also remove it from the dock. My issue was that the person I was replying to didn't seem to see the Dock as a place where aliases are stored, but where documents are stored.
Personally, though, I like the Dock's behaviour the way it is now.
Dan Aris