People who consistently demonstrate they're unable or unwilling to take care of their children should be deprived of the ability to have them. It might not change their behavior, but at least they'll self-select not to perpetuate their genes and child-rearing practices.
I really have no ideas on how to force parents to deal properly with their teenagers, though, if holding them liable financially isn't enough.
Gaming doesn't actually require a steady stream of new materials - you can go back to old games, if you're willing to trade slightly more boredom for saving money.
Or wait a few extra days and get your games from Gamefly instead of buying them.
You got me on that one. A monthly fee is another example of using something from a past business model without thinking through whether it makes sense in the new one.
Automatically billing me on my usage, as a percentage of a max monthly fee, makes more sense.
How much time and money (much of it coming out of our taxes) could be saved if the law could somehow be made clear enough that it would be obvious which of these sort of motions would succeed, and which wouldn't?
Or if things like company sales and profits were a truly matter of public record in the first place and so massaging would be obvious long before a case ever got to court?
The entities complaining that used game sales are costing them money need to do the same thing as all whiners - face the reality, and do something that actually has a shot of working.
Enough with this trying to cherry-pick the characteristics of physical and non-physical products that suit your current business model the best.
In the case of used game sales, they simply need to get in on the action. Forget resale of discs; that's a lost cause. In the near future, even where those items still exist, they'll be linked to an account anyway.
They need to get in on resale of digital purchases. Say I'm done with a game I bought on Steam. I put my "copy" of the game up for sale, for some percentage of the current "new" price. Some other user decides to buy it, and pays that price. I get a substantial chunk of it in credit - at least half. The rest gets split between the publisher and Steam. The publisher and the developer can then work out what they do with that bit.
Mind you, eventually I'd like to see an end to paying for individual games at all. Instead, I pay a monthly subscription, and play whatever games I want. In turn, the developers for those games get a percentage of my subscription fee, based on how much I (and other subscribers) play their game.
It's the future, simply because it's easier. Deploying a web app is quick, easy, and requires surprisingly little expertise, and most of the time, companies assume it's a short term solution, so the inevitable failure points can safely be ignored.
My work is essentially glorified web development (and in c#/asp.net, too... don't judge me). I have enough programming training to be aware of the advantages of developing "real" applications, but they take longer and require more expertise, and with the web option available and easier, it's the route more and more applications will be taking.
If you want to "fix" this problem, you're going to have to invent some kind of interpreter that can take web apps and make them into something else, without affecting how they work at all.
Sooner or later all motor vehicle travel is going to be subject to government tracking via technology. Automated traffic light and speeding cameras should be evidence enough of that.
Using that technology to tax road usage, especially if it's proportionate to the amount of wear a vehicle causes to the road (I'd be willing to bet that the higher gas tax a Semi driver pays does not account for the extra wear he causes compared to my Civic), is a positive use of that technology - it will encourage people to use more efficient cars, maybe even to carpool.
Using that technology to track locations and drivers is also a good thing, provided that information is properly protected by law. Rather than fighting a natural extension of technology, let's start working on figuring out what the proper legal protections are, and making sure those are included when this tech is deployed.
Would it be overly mean of me to say I've read slashdot comments a quarter the size of TFA that communicate both more information and a more coherent analysis of a similarly complex issue?
Actually, you're all doing it wrong. (Although I did too, my first time through.) The real money is from buying from shops with sales, and then selling to shops with a high markup.
And the merchants in Fairfax gardens always have a high markup....
It's not that the study was made up, it's just that the questions they asked were very carefully written to get the answer they want.
Choose One of the following:
1. I don't care about DRM
2. I'm a criminal who makes illegal copies of games. Also, I kill kittens.
Personally, I think the seeds of a great idea are in here. Specifically:
A bunch of artists get together and start their own download service. For a monthly fee, you can download whatever you want from them, and do whatever you want with the music. After the costs of the service are downloaded, the contributing artists divide up the rest in direct proportion to how often their tracks are downloaded.
Throw in a rating system so that good music gets recommended and downloaded more, and good artists would be rewarded, and record labels can go on driving themselves into backruptcy with an outdated business model.
So it looks like the basic take-away from this article is this:
US Cell Phone companies don't quote real-life costs because then they might have to stick to them.
Telecom Regulation in the US is a very bad joke.
I honestly don't see what the big deal is here. Those parents who are able to think for themselves will simply make sure their children are able to produce compatible documents, and those who are not will blindly follow the recommendations.
The only disturbing thing is much larger the latter group is, but that is not, much as I hate to say it, Microsoft's, or even the School Board's fault. Microsoft is doing what makes them money. The School Board is doing what keeps them from being sued. (Little Jimmy got an F because he couldn't load his document, and it's because nobody told us we needed the latest version.)
Until we start forcing corporations to act ethically, and requiring individuals to take responsibility for not using their brains, the big news will be when this sort of thing does not happen.
Right... I can see the news now: The first of Citigroup's thumbprint ATMs went live today, providing access to bank accounts for thousands of poor, illterate Indians.
In unrelated news, theft of knives and bolt cutters has risen one thousand per cent. Police say they are baffled by this bizarre crime wave.
More likely, EA will manage to kill Spore by either charging a monthly subscription fee for those who want to download content. That's if we're lucky.
If we're unlucky, they'll charge each time Spore wants to go out and find new content to fill a niche: every time a new lifeform is needed, up comes the credit card prompt.
Imagine how that would look to the suits: People pay to buy our game, generate content for it for free, and then we get to turn around and sell that content too! Every Spore customer would become another unpaid EA content developer.
Hey, I think I just figured out how to make Web 2.0 profitable, too... good thing it's already over.
For example, Beyond Good and Evil, or even Tomb Raider, as Lara Croft is nobody to trifle with, even if she is shaped like no human woman who ever lived.
Or Neverwinter Nights, for that matter...
More importantly, the only constructive part of his criticism is that his poorly-defined problem will probably go away on its own. It's all well and good to point out the problems with something, but it generally helps to offer a real solution, too. Otherwise, you're just generating noise, and Cthulu knows there's a surfeit of noise out there already.
As I'm sure you all know, even the submitter of the original question, this is all fairly typical behavior for Apple. It's the sort of behavior that's the reason why I've gone from having one Apple machine on my desktop as a college student, to having two rather old apples and two homebuilt PCs instead- while at the same time, I'd rather have a dual G5, if only I could afford one. (Which, technically, I suppose I could, if I'd been willing to stick with my 5400/120 for the last four years, and saved all the money I spent on computers in the meantime.)
I still love Apple machines, and I still lust after the newest ones, but I still feel that, eventually, Apple is going to murder itself with nonsense like this, and with the iPod batteries.
It's simple. It's the concept of the Big Lie, which I was reminded of lately by something I heard or read. I don't remember the exact quote or who came up with it, but it goes something like this:
If you tell a big enough lie, loudly enough, and long enough, people will start to accept it as true, no matter how unlikely it is.
This has been Microsoft's primary defense of itself in every unethical and illegal action it has ever committed, and it has been largely successful.
So, who'll be the first to write a browser plugin to make it use "site not found" behavior when the URL resolves to the sitefinder IP?
For that matter, who wants to write me a program that'll make all DNS queries on my computer that would resolve to the sitefinder IP come back as non-existent domain? I'd pay shareware money for something like that for Windows.
This has already been suggested, but I have to reiterate it. Put filters in front of the intake fans on your PCs, and clean them regularly. That takes care of the dust in the PCs problem, and probably makes the air in your lab a bit cleaner, too.
Works great in my personal experience.
Slashdot Mirror
People who consistently demonstrate they're unable or unwilling to take care of their children should be deprived of the ability to have them. It might not change their behavior, but at least they'll self-select not to perpetuate their genes and child-rearing practices.
I really have no ideas on how to force parents to deal properly with their teenagers, though, if holding them liable financially isn't enough.
You also misused "myself". Since you weren't the subject of that phrase, you don't use the reflexive form in the object.
Gaming doesn't actually require a steady stream of new materials - you can go back to old games, if you're willing to trade slightly more boredom for saving money.
Or wait a few extra days and get your games from Gamefly instead of buying them.
Nah, I'm sure there's been at least some decrease in impulse buying, even by people with no reason to worry beyond "the economy is bad."
You got me on that one. A monthly fee is another example of using something from a past business model without thinking through whether it makes sense in the new one.
Automatically billing me on my usage, as a percentage of a max monthly fee, makes more sense.
How much time and money (much of it coming out of our taxes) could be saved if the law could somehow be made clear enough that it would be obvious which of these sort of motions would succeed, and which wouldn't?
Or if things like company sales and profits were a truly matter of public record in the first place and so massaging would be obvious long before a case ever got to court?
The entities complaining that used game sales are costing them money need to do the same thing as all whiners - face the reality, and do something that actually has a shot of working.
Enough with this trying to cherry-pick the characteristics of physical and non-physical products that suit your current business model the best.
In the case of used game sales, they simply need to get in on the action. Forget resale of discs; that's a lost cause. In the near future, even where those items still exist, they'll be linked to an account anyway.
They need to get in on resale of digital purchases. Say I'm done with a game I bought on Steam. I put my "copy" of the game up for sale, for some percentage of the current "new" price. Some other user decides to buy it, and pays that price. I get a substantial chunk of it in credit - at least half. The rest gets split between the publisher and Steam. The publisher and the developer can then work out what they do with that bit.
Mind you, eventually I'd like to see an end to paying for individual games at all. Instead, I pay a monthly subscription, and play whatever games I want. In turn, the developers for those games get a percentage of my subscription fee, based on how much I (and other subscribers) play their game.
It's the future, simply because it's easier. Deploying a web app is quick, easy, and requires surprisingly little expertise, and most of the time, companies assume it's a short term solution, so the inevitable failure points can safely be ignored.
My work is essentially glorified web development (and in c#/asp.net, too... don't judge me). I have enough programming training to be aware of the advantages of developing "real" applications, but they take longer and require more expertise, and with the web option available and easier, it's the route more and more applications will be taking.
If you want to "fix" this problem, you're going to have to invent some kind of interpreter that can take web apps and make them into something else, without affecting how they work at all.
Sooner or later all motor vehicle travel is going to be subject to government tracking via technology. Automated traffic light and speeding cameras should be evidence enough of that.
Using that technology to tax road usage, especially if it's proportionate to the amount of wear a vehicle causes to the road (I'd be willing to bet that the higher gas tax a Semi driver pays does not account for the extra wear he causes compared to my Civic), is a positive use of that technology - it will encourage people to use more efficient cars, maybe even to carpool.
Using that technology to track locations and drivers is also a good thing, provided that information is properly protected by law. Rather than fighting a natural extension of technology, let's start working on figuring out what the proper legal protections are, and making sure those are included when this tech is deployed.
Would it be overly mean of me to say I've read slashdot comments a quarter the size of TFA that communicate both more information and a more coherent analysis of a similarly complex issue?
Because, ouch.
Actually, you're all doing it wrong. (Although I did too, my first time through.) The real money is from buying from shops with sales, and then selling to shops with a high markup.
And the merchants in Fairfax gardens always have a high markup....
It's not that the study was made up, it's just that the questions they asked were very carefully written to get the answer they want.
Choose One of the following:
1. I don't care about DRM
2. I'm a criminal who makes illegal copies of games. Also, I kill kittens.
Personally, I think the seeds of a great idea are in here. Specifically:
A bunch of artists get together and start their own download service. For a monthly fee, you can download whatever you want from them, and do whatever you want with the music. After the costs of the service are downloaded, the contributing artists divide up the rest in direct proportion to how often their tracks are downloaded.
Throw in a rating system so that good music gets recommended and downloaded more, and good artists would be rewarded, and record labels can go on driving themselves into backruptcy with an outdated business model.
So it looks like the basic take-away from this article is this:
US Cell Phone companies don't quote real-life costs because then they might have to stick to them.
Telecom Regulation in the US is a very bad joke.
Mind you, Two Worlds is a badly written, badly acted, badly balanced, boring wreck of a game in the first place.
I'm guessing it did so badly that this is a last-ditch effort by someone to actually make some money from it.
I for one welcome our new Personal Masseuse Robot Overlords.
I honestly don't see what the big deal is here. Those parents who are able to think for themselves will simply make sure their children are able to produce compatible documents, and those who are not will blindly follow the recommendations.
The only disturbing thing is much larger the latter group is, but that is not, much as I hate to say it, Microsoft's, or even the School Board's fault. Microsoft is doing what makes them money. The School Board is doing what keeps them from being sued. (Little Jimmy got an F because he couldn't load his document, and it's because nobody told us we needed the latest version.)
Until we start forcing corporations to act ethically, and requiring individuals to take responsibility for not using their brains, the big news will be when this sort of thing does not happen.
So, uh, did all this electricity and plasma and what-have-you cause us to travel in time to April 1st?
Right... I can see the news now: The first of Citigroup's thumbprint ATMs went live today, providing access to bank accounts for thousands of poor, illterate Indians.
In unrelated news, theft of knives and bolt cutters has risen one thousand per cent. Police say they are baffled by this bizarre crime wave.
More likely, EA will manage to kill Spore by either charging a monthly subscription fee for those who want to download content. That's if we're lucky.
If we're unlucky, they'll charge each time Spore wants to go out and find new content to fill a niche: every time a new lifeform is needed, up comes the credit card prompt.
Imagine how that would look to the suits: People pay to buy our game, generate content for it for free, and then we get to turn around and sell that content too! Every Spore customer would become another unpaid EA content developer.
Hey, I think I just figured out how to make Web 2.0 profitable, too... good thing it's already over.
For example, Beyond Good and Evil, or even Tomb Raider, as Lara Croft is nobody to trifle with, even if she is shaped like no human woman who ever lived.
Or Neverwinter Nights, for that matter... More importantly, the only constructive part of his criticism is that his poorly-defined problem will probably go away on its own. It's all well and good to point out the problems with something, but it generally helps to offer a real solution, too. Otherwise, you're just generating noise, and Cthulu knows there's a surfeit of noise out there already.
As I'm sure you all know, even the submitter of the original question, this is all fairly typical behavior for Apple. It's the sort of behavior that's the reason why I've gone from having one Apple machine on my desktop as a college student, to having two rather old apples and two homebuilt PCs instead- while at the same time, I'd rather have a dual G5, if only I could afford one. (Which, technically, I suppose I could, if I'd been willing to stick with my 5400/120 for the last four years, and saved all the money I spent on computers in the meantime.) I still love Apple machines, and I still lust after the newest ones, but I still feel that, eventually, Apple is going to murder itself with nonsense like this, and with the iPod batteries.
It's simple. It's the concept of the Big Lie, which I was reminded of lately by something I heard or read. I don't remember the exact quote or who came up with it, but it goes something like this:
If you tell a big enough lie, loudly enough, and long enough, people will start to accept it as true, no matter how unlikely it is.
This has been Microsoft's primary defense of itself in every unethical and illegal action it has ever committed, and it has been largely successful.
So, who'll be the first to write a browser plugin to make it use "site not found" behavior when the URL resolves to the sitefinder IP? For that matter, who wants to write me a program that'll make all DNS queries on my computer that would resolve to the sitefinder IP come back as non-existent domain? I'd pay shareware money for something like that for Windows.
This has already been suggested, but I have to reiterate it. Put filters in front of the intake fans on your PCs, and clean them regularly. That takes care of the dust in the PCs problem, and probably makes the air in your lab a bit cleaner, too. Works great in my personal experience.