Which were apparently so subtle I hadn't heard about the site until yesterday, when I saw a link to it on YTMND.COM, and I'm online nearly 24/7. Sometimes you can be too subtle.
This sort of experiment was probably done slightly better by the xbox team with ilovebees.com just prior to the Halo 2 release.
Sony does not care what other companies build, and will not have to if they flood the market with blu-ray players. If they can get a million or more players on the market within a year or less, movie/tv releases will definitely be on blu-ray because there will be a huge market.
Sony is banking on providing a huge install base to the media companies to get them to jump on their format. And if blu-ray players outnumber HD-DVD players, there'll be no contest and for the good of their shareholders everyone will be making blu-ray players.
This is Sony's swift move to bring an end to this media war, and if they get the numbers out they'll probably succeed.
XBOX Live is shaping up to be just as money-grubbing. In fact, Microsoft is aiming it at that.
The Sony vs. MS debate isn't going to flip sides so fast. Based on what I saw here I (and many others) are no more likely to buy a PS3, but also no more likely to buy an XBOX360. You see, you need GAMES to get people to buy into your console and while the PS3 lineup thus far isn't terribly impressive, the XBOX360's lineup is not much better at all. I however expect the PS3 lineup to improve much faster than the xbox360 lineup, at least in terms of what I'm interested in. Especially with the system going effectively stillborn in Japan.
Unless you like FPS games on your console, sports, and lots of racing games. Then you're in luck. Sadly, Sony's probably going to try to push an xbox-style bent on the US released games.
It'll probably be nintendo that is the victor in this round. Cheaper by $200-$400 dollars with more interesting input, a huge backlog, and the DS craze.
"With a perfect digital copy there's no need for us to re-consume the original"
Re-consume? Perfect digital copies "prevent" consumption in the first place (IE you don't pay them for their work.)
They probably wouldn't give a shit about people ripping CDs to their computer if it weren't for the tendency for people to distribute it in viotlation of copyright and for the downloaders to avoid ever paying for stuff, whom then bitch when their own actions give companies iike the RIAA and MPAA an excuse to ask for bullshit laws.
Ever think that, y'know, neither side is clean in this debate? The RIAA's response is definitely distasteful, but the attitudes of those online aren't any better.
At a max storage capacity of 2GB (as you said) it won't replace the iPod. It'll give the shuffle and nano a run for their money but as was noted elsewhere, providers will likely cripple it.
Battery life is always a best-estimate. I imagine with 3 functions sharing the same battery it'll die quicker with moderate phone usage than my 2.3 year old iPod does when playing songs for 5 or so hours.
More widgets crammed into a phone again. I'd get if I could afford it, but Nokia is speaking WAY too soon about replacing digital cameras and iPods.
People download MP3's because their versatile, not free.
You make the same mistake as all the other slashbots, by framing the actions of others in what you think to be true.
People, as a rule, will take anything not nailed down. This is why people download stuff. Not because it's "more versatile," which doesn't even register for most people, but because they can get it for $0. Zero Dollars. Free.
Anyone who wants something easy will just buy an iPod and get songs off iTunes.
Except that what you hear in games and anime, quite honestly, sounds nothing like a normal conversation. At all. The closest you can get with passive viewing material is live action tv shows, as those don't always feature trained voice actors speaking clearly and directly.
Do not try to learn anything from games or anime. You -will- pick up bad habits if you try and learn that way that will be both hard to drop and impede your progress.
The best way to learn is to take formal classes, preferrably as intense as possible. It helps if you can memorize the two basic character sets first, as any good class will start with rote memorization of those and drop romaji as quickly as possible. Beware the teacher that doesn't push or task you, as you can spend years in classes and learn nothing. Also, SPEAK. Speaking helps master the language faster than anything else and if you don't, oddly enough, even if you go to Japan no one will push you to speak. I learned first hand that they don't expect you to speak, and as such there's no push (or need) to do so unless you force yourself.
As for your interest I share many myself, however:
Anime - good for practicing listening, although technical/fantasy jargon will interfere. Live action shows are better, since they speak more naturally in those and are more difficult to understand, speech wise. Beware slang. Also, most shows drop keigo (polite speech,) which is ESSENTIAL to learn.
Games - good for reading, but suffers from the same problems as above.
Novels are better since you're forced to memorize kanji to move faster. Focus on things with furigana so you can get a handle on the readings of kanji and words, as they'll show them once for a kanji/word every few pages, which lets you pick it up faster. Also, consider browsing Amazon Japan for books on verbs and particles, since those will be the first problematic things you encounter, among amassing a vocabulary and kanji literacy.
And to promote a site that is -not- mine but is nonetheless excellent, http://www.nihongoresources.com/ -- be gentle on the site, but it's a great help.
The restrictions necessary to prevent installation/execution of spyware are available in both Windows and Linux, but apparently neither are used (or will be) due to whining users.
I invite you to solve the "Ignorant User" problem: the user does not know what is going on, doesn't care, and will complain if you attempt to prevent it and will complain until you fix the resultant problems you were unable to prevent.
Effects can be isolated from the system with the proper settings, but we still have infested user profiles. And given local profile access, it's only one step from profile infecting to rootkit-enabled spyware that uses local exploits to jump up to system infecting.
What about organ damage caused by viral infections? Bacterial infections could be combatted, but certainly the new organ would be reinfected and suffer the damage over again?
Check the numbers. How much of WoW's cash flow is from copy sales and how much is from monthly fees?
I omitted a response to this, and that was if copyright was gone there would be 3rd Party companies running free/pay servers and ride on Blizzard's work.
I actually don't think everyone is a record company exec. They just have to think they can get away with it. As we can see, people think they can. Without copyright they definitely could.
Besides, we want to keep a commercial copyright for five years. Extend it to 14 years and we have a deal (just to keep the fixes here simple.)
Copyrights are not essential. But they help a hell of a lot to encourage production.
Extend it to cover audio/visual works, and allow the rules to apply to individuals.
Note that this would still not permit piratebay style distribution, but it would effectively cement fair-use rights and allow the restoration and recovery of at-risk works.
Without copyright, people could start knocking off dupes of film reels without issue. They could then show the movies without ever paying the studios.
Again, without the protections people would quickly take advantage of your work and show you nothing for it. Guaranteed.
Sure, people will pay for games. But they'll also warez the hell out of them. If you eliminate copyright, stores would stock and sell only the copies from the cheapest duplicator they could buy from, as there'd be zero reason to buy legit copies. Developers would be forced to compete with copies of their own game being sold retail, while recieving no money for it at all. Would there be any enduring gameplay and innovation, when there would be no means of getting a return on that investment?
The only way to do that is to have people put up money ahead of time, and I can't count how many times I've seen slashbots bitch about not wanting to pay for something that might suck.
Oh, and to claim that every industry that relies on income from the sales of copyrighted works would survive because FOOD RECIPIES don't suffer is ridiculous. People will always create without protection, the question is this:
How much would they create without protection, and how much MORE would they create with protection. I think protection has given us a lot more than most anti-copyright slashbots expect, and they'd be saddened at the "up-in-smoke" results were copyright abolished as every company that depended on it went out of business.
What with the 3 Sakura Taisen PS2 games I have and a pile of other JP games, I'd end up retiring both of my PS2s (Japanese and US models) and using a single machine.
What I -still- want to know is how I can rescue my saves from my PS2 memory cards!
All Sony has to do is turn out a powerful console equivalent to the xbox360 and sell it at the same price the xbox360 was at during release (make no mistake, this was on average $800+ after the console plus all the force-bundled crap) and they're set. Sony has 2 generations of backwards compatibility to ride on, games coming out still for the PS2 (see Final Fantasy XII, the be-all and end-all of console moving franchises,) and the fact that Playstation is still a very powerful brand.
The XBOX360's lead time has proven to be little advantage, as Microsoft seems to have lost in Japan entirely as a result of not having crap for games available, and is having supply issues abroad. 6 months will not make the xbox360 any better unless better games come out for it, and they don't have any console-moving titles coming out save Halo 3, and that won't help them in Japan.
If you can't play the game, instead of buying your way through it, don't bother playing.
Spending $60 on game gold. That's 2x what I paid for the game itself. I could buy 3-4 DVDs for that much, or another 4 months playtime on WoW. What a ridiculous waste of money.
Slashdot Mirror
Which were apparently so subtle I hadn't heard about the site until yesterday, when I saw a link to it on YTMND.COM, and I'm online nearly 24/7. Sometimes you can be too subtle.
This sort of experiment was probably done slightly better by the xbox team with ilovebees.com just prior to the Halo 2 release.
Except that's playing with words.
They can't nail you for copying a CD, or dumping a recording from one medium to another.
They can, however, nail you for unauthorized distribution which is what a majority of P2P transfers are.
Paranoia is self-perpetuating.
Any rational explanation is simply "ignoring the facts" and any evidence that counters is faked.
I bet the Fark article on this is full of references to thermite, missiles, and crazy conspiracy theories all over again.
Your prediction is off.
Sony does not care what other companies build, and will not have to if they flood the market with blu-ray players. If they can get a million or more players on the market within a year or less, movie/tv releases will definitely be on blu-ray because there will be a huge market.
Sony is banking on providing a huge install base to the media companies to get them to jump on their format. And if blu-ray players outnumber HD-DVD players, there'll be no contest and for the good of their shareholders everyone will be making blu-ray players.
This is Sony's swift move to bring an end to this media war, and if they get the numbers out they'll probably succeed.
Rumble has been stripped from the Dual Shock 3, as it interfered with the tracking abilities of the gyroscope and accellerometers.
Considering what some people were willing to pay for their XBOX360s on release, I doubt $600 will be much of an inhibitor.
I won't because of the price though, but then, I won't anyway until at least the 3rd hardware revision.
XBOX Live is shaping up to be just as money-grubbing. In fact, Microsoft is aiming it at that.
The Sony vs. MS debate isn't going to flip sides so fast. Based on what I saw here I (and many others) are no more likely to buy a PS3, but also no more likely to buy an XBOX360. You see, you need GAMES to get people to buy into your console and while the PS3 lineup thus far isn't terribly impressive, the XBOX360's lineup is not much better at all. I however expect the PS3 lineup to improve much faster than the xbox360 lineup, at least in terms of what I'm interested in. Especially with the system going effectively stillborn in Japan.
Unless you like FPS games on your console, sports, and lots of racing games. Then you're in luck. Sadly, Sony's probably going to try to push an xbox-style bent on the US released games.
It'll probably be nintendo that is the victor in this round. Cheaper by $200-$400 dollars with more interesting input, a huge backlog, and the DS craze.
"With a perfect digital copy there's no need for us to re-consume the original"
Re-consume? Perfect digital copies "prevent" consumption in the first place (IE you don't pay them for their work.)
They probably wouldn't give a shit about people ripping CDs to their computer if it weren't for the tendency for people to distribute it in viotlation of copyright and for the downloaders to avoid ever paying for stuff, whom then bitch when their own actions give companies iike the RIAA and MPAA an excuse to ask for bullshit laws.
Ever think that, y'know, neither side is clean in this debate? The RIAA's response is definitely distasteful, but the attitudes of those online aren't any better.
About what I was expecting.
At a max storage capacity of 2GB (as you said) it won't replace the iPod. It'll give the shuffle and nano a run for their money but as was noted elsewhere, providers will likely cripple it.
Battery life is always a best-estimate. I imagine with 3 functions sharing the same battery it'll die quicker with moderate phone usage than my 2.3 year old iPod does when playing songs for 5 or so hours.
More widgets crammed into a phone again. I'd get if I could afford it, but Nokia is speaking WAY too soon about replacing digital cameras and iPods.
So this thing will have 2-60GB of storage in it?
And high resolution, non-shitty CCD+Lenses in the camera?
And last as long or longer than both devices, on the same battery?
Somehow I doubt it, and this is Nokia sticking their collective foot in their mouth again, just like they did with the ngage.
Worse yet, it's not even YOU. It's your descendants and some unrelated society that are bitching.
Yes, because you know it's true.
People download MP3's because their versatile, not free.
You make the same mistake as all the other slashbots, by framing the actions of others in what you think to be true.
People, as a rule, will take anything not nailed down. This is why people download stuff. Not because it's "more versatile," which doesn't even register for most people, but because they can get it for $0. Zero Dollars. Free.
Anyone who wants something easy will just buy an iPod and get songs off iTunes.
Except that what you hear in games and anime, quite honestly, sounds nothing like a normal conversation. At all. The closest you can get with passive viewing material is live action tv shows, as those don't always feature trained voice actors speaking clearly and directly.
Do not try to learn anything from games or anime. You -will- pick up bad habits if you try and learn that way that will be both hard to drop and impede your progress.
The best way to learn is to take formal classes, preferrably as intense as possible. It helps if you can memorize the two basic character sets first, as any good class will start with rote memorization of those and drop romaji as quickly as possible. Beware the teacher that doesn't push or task you, as you can spend years in classes and learn nothing. Also, SPEAK. Speaking helps master the language faster than anything else and if you don't, oddly enough, even if you go to Japan no one will push you to speak. I learned first hand that they don't expect you to speak, and as such there's no push (or need) to do so unless you force yourself.
As for your interest I share many myself, however:
Anime - good for practicing listening, although technical/fantasy jargon will interfere. Live action shows are better, since they speak more naturally in those and are more difficult to understand, speech wise. Beware slang. Also, most shows drop keigo (polite speech,) which is ESSENTIAL to learn.
Games - good for reading, but suffers from the same problems as above.
Novels are better since you're forced to memorize kanji to move faster. Focus on things with furigana so you can get a handle on the readings of kanji and words, as they'll show them once for a kanji/word every few pages, which lets you pick it up faster. Also, consider browsing Amazon Japan for books on verbs and particles, since those will be the first problematic things you encounter, among amassing a vocabulary and kanji literacy.
And to promote a site that is -not- mine but is nonetheless excellent, http://www.nihongoresources.com/ -- be gentle on the site, but it's a great help.
So XBOX Live points have a better exchange rate than the dollar.
Nice.
The restrictions necessary to prevent installation/execution of spyware are available in both Windows and Linux, but apparently neither are used (or will be) due to whining users.
I invite you to solve the "Ignorant User" problem: the user does not know what is going on, doesn't care, and will complain if you attempt to prevent it and will complain until you fix the resultant problems you were unable to prevent.
Effects can be isolated from the system with the proper settings, but we still have infested user profiles. And given local profile access, it's only one step from profile infecting to rootkit-enabled spyware that uses local exploits to jump up to system infecting.
What about organ damage caused by viral infections? Bacterial infections could be combatted, but certainly the new organ would be reinfected and suffer the damage over again?
Check the numbers. How much of WoW's cash flow is from copy sales and how much is from monthly fees?
I omitted a response to this, and that was if copyright was gone there would be 3rd Party companies running free/pay servers and ride on Blizzard's work.
I actually don't think everyone is a record company exec.
They just have to think they can get away with it. As we can see, people think they can. Without copyright they definitely could.
Besides, we want to keep a commercial copyright for five years.
Extend it to 14 years and we have a deal (just to keep the fixes here simple.)
Copyrights are not essential. But they help a hell of a lot to encourage production.
Extend it to cover audio/visual works, and allow the rules to apply to individuals.
Note that this would still not permit piratebay style distribution, but it would effectively cement fair-use rights and allow the restoration and recovery of at-risk works.
Without copyright, people could start knocking off dupes of film reels without issue. They could then show the movies without ever paying the studios.
Again, without the protections people would quickly take advantage of your work and show you nothing for it. Guaranteed.
Sure, people will pay for games. But they'll also warez the hell out of them. If you eliminate copyright, stores would stock and sell only the copies from the cheapest duplicator they could buy from, as there'd be zero reason to buy legit copies. Developers would be forced to compete with copies of their own game being sold retail, while recieving no money for it at all. Would there be any enduring gameplay and innovation, when there would be no means of getting a return on that investment?
The only way to do that is to have people put up money ahead of time, and I can't count how many times I've seen slashbots bitch about not wanting to pay for something that might suck.
Oh, and to claim that every industry that relies on income from the sales of copyrighted works would survive because FOOD RECIPIES don't suffer is ridiculous. People will always create without protection, the question is this:
How much would they create without protection, and how much MORE would they create with protection. I think protection has given us a lot more than most anti-copyright slashbots expect, and they'd be saddened at the "up-in-smoke" results were copyright abolished as every company that depended on it went out of business.
Potentially.
What with the 3 Sakura Taisen PS2 games I have and a pile of other JP games, I'd end up retiring both of my PS2s (Japanese and US models) and using a single machine.
What I -still- want to know is how I can rescue my saves from my PS2 memory cards!
It is simply inevitable.
All Sony has to do is turn out a powerful console equivalent to the xbox360 and sell it at the same price the xbox360 was at during release (make no mistake, this was on average $800+ after the console plus all the force-bundled crap) and they're set. Sony has 2 generations of backwards compatibility to ride on, games coming out still for the PS2 (see Final Fantasy XII, the be-all and end-all of console moving franchises,) and the fact that Playstation is still a very powerful brand.
The XBOX360's lead time has proven to be little advantage, as Microsoft seems to have lost in Japan entirely as a result of not having crap for games available, and is having supply issues abroad. 6 months will not make the xbox360 any better unless better games come out for it, and they don't have any console-moving titles coming out save Halo 3, and that won't help them in Japan.
If you can't play the game, instead of buying your way through it, don't bother playing.
Spending $60 on game gold. That's 2x what I paid for the game itself. I could buy 3-4 DVDs for that much, or another 4 months playtime on WoW. What a ridiculous waste of money.
Shipped means nothing if there's no reason to buy it. Or reasons against buying it.