What you're saying is that it's moral for you to do the same exact action that is immoral for your enemy to do, simply because your enemy has more power than you do.
I don't buy that. Either privacy invasions are moral or they are not moral.
How are you going to act once you have more power? Will you stop invading people's privacy, or will you continue to do so, because you've found some other rationalization for it?
Worse than that, I'd contend that the intention is not to embarrass Sony, but rather to attack Sony's customers. I hate to use the T word, but this clearly is dictionary-definition terrorism: attacking a soft target in order to bully them into falling in line with your demands. Sony's customers are seen as the enemy, as much as Sony itself is, because they provide positive reinforcement to Sony (in the form of revenue), while breaking any attempts to boycott Sony. By adding a negative consequence to being Sony's customer (privacy invasions), they hope to influence the customers' actions.
Obviously, they're not setting off bombs in crowded cities or crashing planes into skyscrapers. They're just a bunch of stupid kids inconveniencing people. That doesn't change what word the dictionary uses to define such actions, however...
Admittedly, I've spent so many years trolling Slashdot, it's difficult for me to switch out of "troll" mode and make a legitimate point without resorting to any trolling, but this time, I'm honestly just sayin'. And, that, kids is the danger of a lifetime of trolling: eventually you can't even tell when you're trolling or not.
That's not really true. If you're referring to Bradley Manning, I support what he did, but you have to look at things from the military's POV, as well. He pretty clearly broke the law, and they're not going to let that go. I probably would have done the same thing he did, but I'm impulsive and don't have a whole lot of respect for the chain of command or authority figures; for me, that's alright (though it causes some amount of trouble in my life), but, for a soldier, it's going to get you into a whole shitload of trouble. That's why I'm not a soldier. Even if what he did was morally right and he's absolved of all wrong-doing, he'll still probably face some harsh penalties for insubordination. They're not just punishing him for being a whistle-blower, though I imagine he'll be treated much worse because of it.
You might also be referring to Julian Assange. I think he's a paranoid egomaniac with delusions of grandeur, but that doesn't mean he isn't doing the right thing (arguably for the wrong reasons). Whether the U.S. government set him up or not doesn't really matter, because we can't ever say one way or the other. We just don't have enough information to judge. It wouldn't surprise me if we did set him up, but arguing back and forth about it won't accomplish anything. It sounds like you believe we did, which is fine. I respect that. However, in the absence of evidence, I'm going to reserve judgment on that. Some of the more reactionary members of Congress have made statements that I believe are ignorant, violent, and stupid, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the CIA is out to get him. Sometimes good people do bad things, and sometimes bad people do good things. People rarely are wholly good or wholly bad.
Finally, I'm sure you're referring to Wikileaks, which has caused quite a lot of controversy. Personally, I think Wikileaks is a good thing, and I support it, but, again, one must consider the opposing POV. Not everyone believes that Wikileaks is a good thing. When they make arguments against it, it doesn't necessarily mean that they're vilifying or slandering it. Some people are engaging in propaganda and calling for witch hunts (I've heard many apologists and outright supporters of Sen. McCarthy in recent years), but it's usually restricted to reactionary "commentators", rather than the government, which is usually too inefficient and divisive to have a single, unified vision that it can carry out. Having the U.S. government put pressure on Amazon (or other corporations) to stop supporting Wikileaks is a dirty move, but it's nothing less than I'd expect from our government, given my cynicism. When masked commandos storm a data center in Europe, destroying all the servers, I'll be more surprised (and maybe even moved from my apathy). Until then, it seems like Wikileaks and whistle-blowers are actually relatively low on their list of priorities, because all they're doing is sending "suggestions" to corporations that support Wikileaks. They could be doing much, much worse, if they really wanted to. In the grand scheme of things, this is a minor outrage, and doesn't even really bother me all that much, compared to major outrages like instigating wars under false pretenses. Does that mean that they get away with doing something wrong, because they're doing something even more wrong, at the same time? Maybe so... but that's apathy for you.
I've yet to see strong evidence that the U.S. government is going after whistler-blowers, in general. What I've seen is more like a few dumbasses making idle threats against the life of Julian Assange, making life somewhat difficult for Wikileaks, and the military making an example of Bradley Manning, which could just be because they're assholes who can't stand insubordination. When another Bradley Manning shows up, and he gets the same treatment, it'll be a pattern. Until then... not a pattern.
Let me get this straight. You're an unhappy customer, so you support other customers' personal information being sold on the black market? And this is supposed to teach Sony what lesson, exactly? And, after being burned numerous times by a large, multinational corporation, you continue to use their products again and again, and support vigilante justice / privacy invasions of third parties, rather than simply boycotting the corporation?
Isn't this the exact argument that Slashdot usually uses when people talk about piracy? It's impossible to steal content, because the content producer still has their own content, and, by God, they should be happy that you're pirating their content, because now it's the dominant software or a popular song.
NetHack isn't that bad, once you get used to it. Sure, you might think that q is an entirely random key to choose for drinking a potion (and you'd be right), but there's an mnemonic associate with it -- quaffing a potion. Once you start thinking in terms of the mnemonic, it's a lot easier, rather than struggling to remember which key is for drinking. The same is true of z, used for activating a wand. Again, this must seem entirely random, and you'd be right. However, the associated mnemonic is zapping a wand. Other commands are less defensible, such as Z, used to cast a spell. Once you've become familiar with zapping wands, however, it makes a little more sense.
Play enough times and it'll become second nature to you.
I don't understand why you're so worried about the rating, anyway, unless you're targeting children as a demographic. If you're targeting children, then perhaps your product is under a great deal of pressure to be "safe", but that's a choice you made, isn't it? Nobody is forcing you to go after that demographic.
Personally, I generally favor violent games (though I also like some harmless simulations, like SimCity), and I find it a little frustrating that the game companies keep making kid-safe games that excise all violence (like some crappy Disney or Nintendo game). Blah. Too bad. Maybe some day we'll see a game developer with balls, but I kind of doubt it.
This is a brilliant parody of a gamer with an entitlement complex. Bravo! I especially loved the subtle troll where you said million, instead of billion. If I may, I would suggest throwing in some kind of demand for a boycott. Everyone on Slashdot loves a boycott. In fact, I think we're boycotting the entirety of Europe this month.
Yeah, we all understand that version numbers are arbitrary. However, there are certain problems with the current system:
1) It's not internally consistent. This bothers some people. It doesn't bother others. I would guess that some people were using version numbers to decide when to update, for example, and this kind of versioning system doesn't really lend itself to such things, since every minor update to the browser is now a major release. Personally, I think it's a bit silly, but it doesn't offend me like it seems to do others. 2) Some people perceive this as a win for marketers and a loss for engineers. This seems to be more of a IT thing. Average consumers won't care. People in IT, who always thought that Mozilla/Firefox was "their" browser will feel somewhat betrayed, however. It's basically perceived as a shift in demographics, from geeks to grandmothers. It's human nature to fight against that. 3) Loss of identity. When Firefox apes Chrome, it becomes a half-assed, "me too" product, rather than forging its own trail. Most critics are afraid that Firefox will continue down this path, eventually becoming irrelevant. Why does the world need both Chrome and a Chrome wannabe? This, I think, is the strongest criticism of Firefox 4, the new versioning scheme, and the list of planned features. 4) It reeks of an inferiority complex. "Hey, guys, our version number is less than half of theirs! We better inflate it, so that we can catch up!" This just looks pathetic to many people. It should be ridiculed by the community, in my opinion. It's a bad idea, makes the product look bad, and gives people the wrong idea about Firefox. It says to people that Mozilla is running scared and fears becoming irrelevant.
Pros: 1) It may spur faster development of the browser. However, a faster release cycle could just be made part of the mission, without all this marketing nonsense being added. Why not release 3.7, 3.8, and 3.9 this year, with the same features? It would accomplish the same thing, without causing people to doubt Firefox's continued relevance.
Is it so bad to inflate the version number? No. It's not the end of the world as we know it. However, there's no good reason to do so (other than a return that infinitely stupid "you need a version 4 browser to view this page"). Windows NT was born at version 3.1, and Slackware jumped from version 4 to 7. Both were widely ridiculed by geeks. Rightfully so, in my opinion. It's sheer marketing nonsense, and deserves to be branded as such. Having three major versions released in one year is stupid. It sounds desperate, like a marketing stunt. And I don't know about anyone else, but when products start resorting to these kinds of theatrics, I start to write them off as relevant.
Yeah, that's a distinct possibility, when you're dealing with modern media conglomerates, like the major labels or movie studios. While that does end up clouding the issue of whom to ask, it doesn't remove responsibility to do so. If the author doesn't have distribution rights, then I'm sure he/she/they can forward your request to the appropriate party.
I've found people using my photography without permission, and all it would have required is a simple e-mail. I've never done anything about it (life is too short to get that worked up over IP, when it's non-commercial), but it did annoy me somewhat what they didn't think to even ask permission.
Very, very few people understand what "fair use" really is.
I'd estimate that for every hundred ignorant, entitled teenagers screaming about their fair use rights being violated, there's one person who actually does have his fair use rights violated. In my mind, that's an extremely generous and optimistic statement, because just about every single one of the screaming idiots I've seen so far thought that because they attributed the music in their video, it was now fair use. Sorry, but that's just not the way it works.
What really gets me is that all you have to do is ask permission. Write to your favorite band, ask them for permission to use a song that you love, and, chances are, they'll give you permission. Instead, people just take without asking, then get all offended and start screaming about their "rights". I really hate this entitlement complex that's spread through American society, where anyone can simply take whatever they want, without asking permission. Personally, I blame advertising, because, for fifty years now, we've been blasted with the message that we can't possibly live without having the latest pop culture crap that's been mass produced by media conglomerates. Now that people are finally starting to believe this, it's biting the media conglomerates on the ass, because they've got legions of pop culture-addicted morons pirating everything in sight. I think the two deserve each other: the pirates has a hole in their lives that never be fulfilled by anything but gigabytes of soulless pop culture, and the media conglomerates are going berserk hopelessly trying to capitalize on the pirates. It's like something out of Dante's Inferno.
I agree with you, but we're in the minority. For elitist purists like us, a separate subgenre, called "hard science fiction", exists. The problem with that is that it attracts autistic people like mad, and you end up with incredibly dry books (and movies) that read like calculus textbooks, with all the characterization of a telephone book, although the plot is brilliant (Lovecraft, in particular, was guilty of this in many of his short stories, and I say this as a big fan of his). Sure, there are exceptions, of course (Asimov and Clarke come to mind), but I eventually gave up on both popular "scifi" (huge explosions, big laser guns, and penis-shaped aliens chasing around half-naked women on a spaceship... none of which are sexual metaphors, of course) and the harder edged stuff, in favor of exploitation/grindhouse. While exploitation and grindhouse still have the penis-shaped monsters chasing half-naked women around spaceships, it's done in a way that recognizes the ridiculousness and celebrates it, so that one can appreciate it either as a straight-up exploitation film or a parody of such. Now I don't get so annoyed when watching movies, thinking, "This is total crap. Where's the science? It's fantasy, with laser swords!"
I've heard anecdotal evidence to the contrary, from unrepentant pirates, saying that the only games they legitimately bought were DRM-free (usually quoting some trendy "indie" game of the month), but when those very same developers report that piracy is through the roof for their games (which are usually at bargain bin prices), it's hard to believe that any appreciable number of pirates really are buying the DRM-free games. Sure, some of them do. It's just that you constantly hear the same refrain from certain people: "Oh, I'd buy it if it weren't for the DRM", "I'd buy it if it were cheaper", "I'd buy it if it were ported to Linux" -- and I don't doubt that many of the people who say these things are being truthful -- but for the vast majority, it's just an easy rationalization for their entitlement complex.
That said, I'm glad that no-CD cracks are available. I fucking hate DRM. Too bad it's so difficult to keep casual pirates from pirating everything in sight.
This happened when inexpensive PCs began to catch up to RISC-based UNIX workstations in features and performance. At first, RISC fans pretended it wasn't happening, and after denial was impossible, they redefined the terms of the battle (abandoning integer performance as a metric and insisting that floating point performance was paramount), such that RISC-based systems were able to dominate once again. This lasted for a while, until Intel was able to finally compete on floating point performance, at which time the RISC fans had become so marginalized that they simply resorted to denial once again. Speaking as a fan of RISC-based UNIX workstations, I found the whole thing to be rather amusing (and a bit pathetic, honestly). Few people were actually willing to admit that Intel was manufacturing some pretty decent chips, and I think most people were more likely to stick their heads in the sand, rather than look at the situation pragmatically. Same thing with a lot of Linux fans, who insist that the desktop is now a meaningless battle, simply because they can't win it. Perhaps this explains why Firefox, Slashdot, and other Linux/open source groups are so obsessed with mobile/embedded computing, something that has always bored me to tears: it's the new battlefield, the place where Linux can actually win.
Fuck winning. I don't care about winning some ideological war. As a pragmatist, I'll use whatever is the best choice, despite the sentimentality calling me to load up my DEC Alpha or SUN SPARCstation again.
You claimed that Phoenix was about killing IE, while the actual people who started the project stated they did because Mozilla was bloated and slow.
You simply can't admit that your statement was false, which is understandable -- I frequently refuse to admit when I'm wrong, too. However, that doesn't mean that I'm going to let you off the hook when you have a misconception about the past and the reasons why people did things they did. You can't just rewrite history in your mind, because it's inconvenient to your worldview ("mozilla was fast! it was awesome! everyone loved it!").
I thought Mozilla was bloated and slow, and I was happy to see that other people agreed with me. That's why I started using Phoenix, and why the project was begun. It wasn't to challenge IE. It was done to slim down the browser.
Slashdot Mirror
What you're saying is that it's moral for you to do the same exact action that is immoral for your enemy to do, simply because your enemy has more power than you do.
I don't buy that. Either privacy invasions are moral or they are not moral.
How are you going to act once you have more power? Will you stop invading people's privacy, or will you continue to do so, because you've found some other rationalization for it?
If every asshole gets shot, it's inevitable that you or I will be shot, as well.
In my case, I'm somewhat surprised I haven't been beated up in years. Decades, even. I probably deserve it.
Worse than that, I'd contend that the intention is not to embarrass Sony, but rather to attack Sony's customers. I hate to use the T word, but this clearly is dictionary-definition terrorism: attacking a soft target in order to bully them into falling in line with your demands. Sony's customers are seen as the enemy, as much as Sony itself is, because they provide positive reinforcement to Sony (in the form of revenue), while breaking any attempts to boycott Sony. By adding a negative consequence to being Sony's customer (privacy invasions), they hope to influence the customers' actions.
Obviously, they're not setting off bombs in crowded cities or crashing planes into skyscrapers. They're just a bunch of stupid kids inconveniencing people. That doesn't change what word the dictionary uses to define such actions, however...
Admittedly, I've spent so many years trolling Slashdot, it's difficult for me to switch out of "troll" mode and make a legitimate point without resorting to any trolling, but this time, I'm honestly just sayin'. And, that, kids is the danger of a lifetime of trolling: eventually you can't even tell when you're trolling or not.
Windows 2000 didn't unite shit. It was just NT4 with USB support, basically. The MS DOS codebase was simply deleted, not united.
Konqueror. Out of curiousity, what do you have against Opera? I'm not a huge fan of Opera, but it seems pretty decent.
That's not really true. If you're referring to Bradley Manning, I support what he did, but you have to look at things from the military's POV, as well. He pretty clearly broke the law, and they're not going to let that go. I probably would have done the same thing he did, but I'm impulsive and don't have a whole lot of respect for the chain of command or authority figures; for me, that's alright (though it causes some amount of trouble in my life), but, for a soldier, it's going to get you into a whole shitload of trouble. That's why I'm not a soldier. Even if what he did was morally right and he's absolved of all wrong-doing, he'll still probably face some harsh penalties for insubordination. They're not just punishing him for being a whistle-blower, though I imagine he'll be treated much worse because of it.
You might also be referring to Julian Assange. I think he's a paranoid egomaniac with delusions of grandeur, but that doesn't mean he isn't doing the right thing (arguably for the wrong reasons). Whether the U.S. government set him up or not doesn't really matter, because we can't ever say one way or the other. We just don't have enough information to judge. It wouldn't surprise me if we did set him up, but arguing back and forth about it won't accomplish anything. It sounds like you believe we did, which is fine. I respect that. However, in the absence of evidence, I'm going to reserve judgment on that. Some of the more reactionary members of Congress have made statements that I believe are ignorant, violent, and stupid, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the CIA is out to get him. Sometimes good people do bad things, and sometimes bad people do good things. People rarely are wholly good or wholly bad.
Finally, I'm sure you're referring to Wikileaks, which has caused quite a lot of controversy. Personally, I think Wikileaks is a good thing, and I support it, but, again, one must consider the opposing POV. Not everyone believes that Wikileaks is a good thing. When they make arguments against it, it doesn't necessarily mean that they're vilifying or slandering it. Some people are engaging in propaganda and calling for witch hunts (I've heard many apologists and outright supporters of Sen. McCarthy in recent years), but it's usually restricted to reactionary "commentators", rather than the government, which is usually too inefficient and divisive to have a single, unified vision that it can carry out. Having the U.S. government put pressure on Amazon (or other corporations) to stop supporting Wikileaks is a dirty move, but it's nothing less than I'd expect from our government, given my cynicism. When masked commandos storm a data center in Europe, destroying all the servers, I'll be more surprised (and maybe even moved from my apathy). Until then, it seems like Wikileaks and whistle-blowers are actually relatively low on their list of priorities, because all they're doing is sending "suggestions" to corporations that support Wikileaks. They could be doing much, much worse, if they really wanted to. In the grand scheme of things, this is a minor outrage, and doesn't even really bother me all that much, compared to major outrages like instigating wars under false pretenses. Does that mean that they get away with doing something wrong, because they're doing something even more wrong, at the same time? Maybe so... but that's apathy for you.
I've yet to see strong evidence that the U.S. government is going after whistler-blowers, in general. What I've seen is more like a few dumbasses making idle threats against the life of Julian Assange, making life somewhat difficult for Wikileaks, and the military making an example of Bradley Manning, which could just be because they're assholes who can't stand insubordination. When another Bradley Manning shows up, and he gets the same treatment, it'll be a pattern. Until then... not a pattern.
Maybe because you did it wrong.
Try "site:msnbc.msn.com", instead.
Oh, shut up.
Like anyone cares about your band.
Let me get this straight. You're an unhappy customer, so you support other customers' personal information being sold on the black market? And this is supposed to teach Sony what lesson, exactly? And, after being burned numerous times by a large, multinational corporation, you continue to use their products again and again, and support vigilante justice / privacy invasions of third parties, rather than simply boycotting the corporation?
Yep. Sounds like Slashdot alright.
XKCD isn't funny, either.
References to pop culture don't make you funny. Being funny makes you funny.
Isn't this the exact argument that Slashdot usually uses when people talk about piracy? It's impossible to steal content, because the content producer still has their own content, and, by God, they should be happy that you're pirating their content, because now it's the dominant software or a popular song.
NetHack isn't that bad, once you get used to it. Sure, you might think that q is an entirely random key to choose for drinking a potion (and you'd be right), but there's an mnemonic associate with it -- quaffing a potion. Once you start thinking in terms of the mnemonic, it's a lot easier, rather than struggling to remember which key is for drinking. The same is true of z, used for activating a wand. Again, this must seem entirely random, and you'd be right. However, the associated mnemonic is zapping a wand. Other commands are less defensible, such as Z, used to cast a spell. Once you've become familiar with zapping wands, however, it makes a little more sense.
Play enough times and it'll become second nature to you.
I don't understand why you're so worried about the rating, anyway, unless you're targeting children as a demographic. If you're targeting children, then perhaps your product is under a great deal of pressure to be "safe", but that's a choice you made, isn't it? Nobody is forcing you to go after that demographic.
Personally, I generally favor violent games (though I also like some harmless simulations, like SimCity), and I find it a little frustrating that the game companies keep making kid-safe games that excise all violence (like some crappy Disney or Nintendo game). Blah. Too bad. Maybe some day we'll see a game developer with balls, but I kind of doubt it.
I would use GoatseOffice.
This is a brilliant parody of a gamer with an entitlement complex. Bravo! I especially loved the subtle troll where you said million, instead of billion. If I may, I would suggest throwing in some kind of demand for a boycott. Everyone on Slashdot loves a boycott. In fact, I think we're boycotting the entirety of Europe this month.
Yeah, we all understand that version numbers are arbitrary. However, there are certain problems with the current system:
1) It's not internally consistent. This bothers some people. It doesn't bother others. I would guess that some people were using version numbers to decide when to update, for example, and this kind of versioning system doesn't really lend itself to such things, since every minor update to the browser is now a major release. Personally, I think it's a bit silly, but it doesn't offend me like it seems to do others.
2) Some people perceive this as a win for marketers and a loss for engineers. This seems to be more of a IT thing. Average consumers won't care. People in IT, who always thought that Mozilla/Firefox was "their" browser will feel somewhat betrayed, however. It's basically perceived as a shift in demographics, from geeks to grandmothers. It's human nature to fight against that.
3) Loss of identity. When Firefox apes Chrome, it becomes a half-assed, "me too" product, rather than forging its own trail. Most critics are afraid that Firefox will continue down this path, eventually becoming irrelevant. Why does the world need both Chrome and a Chrome wannabe? This, I think, is the strongest criticism of Firefox 4, the new versioning scheme, and the list of planned features.
4) It reeks of an inferiority complex. "Hey, guys, our version number is less than half of theirs! We better inflate it, so that we can catch up!" This just looks pathetic to many people. It should be ridiculed by the community, in my opinion. It's a bad idea, makes the product look bad, and gives people the wrong idea about Firefox. It says to people that Mozilla is running scared and fears becoming irrelevant.
Pros:
1) It may spur faster development of the browser. However, a faster release cycle could just be made part of the mission, without all this marketing nonsense being added. Why not release 3.7, 3.8, and 3.9 this year, with the same features? It would accomplish the same thing, without causing people to doubt Firefox's continued relevance.
Is it so bad to inflate the version number? No. It's not the end of the world as we know it. However, there's no good reason to do so (other than a return that infinitely stupid "you need a version 4 browser to view this page"). Windows NT was born at version 3.1, and Slackware jumped from version 4 to 7. Both were widely ridiculed by geeks. Rightfully so, in my opinion. It's sheer marketing nonsense, and deserves to be branded as such. Having three major versions released in one year is stupid. It sounds desperate, like a marketing stunt. And I don't know about anyone else, but when products start resorting to these kinds of theatrics, I start to write them off as relevant.
Yeah, that's a distinct possibility, when you're dealing with modern media conglomerates, like the major labels or movie studios. While that does end up clouding the issue of whom to ask, it doesn't remove responsibility to do so. If the author doesn't have distribution rights, then I'm sure he/she/they can forward your request to the appropriate party.
I've found people using my photography without permission, and all it would have required is a simple e-mail. I've never done anything about it (life is too short to get that worked up over IP, when it's non-commercial), but it did annoy me somewhat what they didn't think to even ask permission.
Very, very few people understand what "fair use" really is.
I'd estimate that for every hundred ignorant, entitled teenagers screaming about their fair use rights being violated, there's one person who actually does have his fair use rights violated. In my mind, that's an extremely generous and optimistic statement, because just about every single one of the screaming idiots I've seen so far thought that because they attributed the music in their video, it was now fair use. Sorry, but that's just not the way it works.
What really gets me is that all you have to do is ask permission. Write to your favorite band, ask them for permission to use a song that you love, and, chances are, they'll give you permission. Instead, people just take without asking, then get all offended and start screaming about their "rights". I really hate this entitlement complex that's spread through American society, where anyone can simply take whatever they want, without asking permission. Personally, I blame advertising, because, for fifty years now, we've been blasted with the message that we can't possibly live without having the latest pop culture crap that's been mass produced by media conglomerates. Now that people are finally starting to believe this, it's biting the media conglomerates on the ass, because they've got legions of pop culture-addicted morons pirating everything in sight. I think the two deserve each other: the pirates has a hole in their lives that never be fulfilled by anything but gigabytes of soulless pop culture, and the media conglomerates are going berserk hopelessly trying to capitalize on the pirates. It's like something out of Dante's Inferno.
OK. That was pretty funny. I'll grant you that.
What are you calling bullshit on? Where is your evidence that it is indeed bullshit? Do you have anything of value to actually say?
I agree with you, but we're in the minority. For elitist purists like us, a separate subgenre, called "hard science fiction", exists. The problem with that is that it attracts autistic people like mad, and you end up with incredibly dry books (and movies) that read like calculus textbooks, with all the characterization of a telephone book, although the plot is brilliant (Lovecraft, in particular, was guilty of this in many of his short stories, and I say this as a big fan of his). Sure, there are exceptions, of course (Asimov and Clarke come to mind), but I eventually gave up on both popular "scifi" (huge explosions, big laser guns, and penis-shaped aliens chasing around half-naked women on a spaceship... none of which are sexual metaphors, of course) and the harder edged stuff, in favor of exploitation/grindhouse. While exploitation and grindhouse still have the penis-shaped monsters chasing half-naked women around spaceships, it's done in a way that recognizes the ridiculousness and celebrates it, so that one can appreciate it either as a straight-up exploitation film or a parody of such. Now I don't get so annoyed when watching movies, thinking, "This is total crap. Where's the science? It's fantasy, with laser swords!"
I've heard anecdotal evidence to the contrary, from unrepentant pirates, saying that the only games they legitimately bought were DRM-free (usually quoting some trendy "indie" game of the month), but when those very same developers report that piracy is through the roof for their games (which are usually at bargain bin prices), it's hard to believe that any appreciable number of pirates really are buying the DRM-free games. Sure, some of them do. It's just that you constantly hear the same refrain from certain people: "Oh, I'd buy it if it weren't for the DRM", "I'd buy it if it were cheaper", "I'd buy it if it were ported to Linux" -- and I don't doubt that many of the people who say these things are being truthful -- but for the vast majority, it's just an easy rationalization for their entitlement complex.
That said, I'm glad that no-CD cracks are available. I fucking hate DRM. Too bad it's so difficult to keep casual pirates from pirating everything in sight.
Maybe that's because high school isn't for another few years?
This happened when inexpensive PCs began to catch up to RISC-based UNIX workstations in features and performance. At first, RISC fans pretended it wasn't happening, and after denial was impossible, they redefined the terms of the battle (abandoning integer performance as a metric and insisting that floating point performance was paramount), such that RISC-based systems were able to dominate once again. This lasted for a while, until Intel was able to finally compete on floating point performance, at which time the RISC fans had become so marginalized that they simply resorted to denial once again. Speaking as a fan of RISC-based UNIX workstations, I found the whole thing to be rather amusing (and a bit pathetic, honestly). Few people were actually willing to admit that Intel was manufacturing some pretty decent chips, and I think most people were more likely to stick their heads in the sand, rather than look at the situation pragmatically. Same thing with a lot of Linux fans, who insist that the desktop is now a meaningless battle, simply because they can't win it. Perhaps this explains why Firefox, Slashdot, and other Linux/open source groups are so obsessed with mobile/embedded computing, something that has always bored me to tears: it's the new battlefield, the place where Linux can actually win.
Fuck winning. I don't care about winning some ideological war. As a pragmatist, I'll use whatever is the best choice, despite the sentimentality calling me to load up my DEC Alpha or SUN SPARCstation again.
You claimed that Phoenix was about killing IE, while the actual people who started the project stated they did because Mozilla was bloated and slow.
You simply can't admit that your statement was false, which is understandable -- I frequently refuse to admit when I'm wrong, too. However, that doesn't mean that I'm going to let you off the hook when you have a misconception about the past and the reasons why people did things they did. You can't just rewrite history in your mind, because it's inconvenient to your worldview ("mozilla was fast! it was awesome! everyone loved it!").
I thought Mozilla was bloated and slow, and I was happy to see that other people agreed with me. That's why I started using Phoenix, and why the project was begun. It wasn't to challenge IE. It was done to slim down the browser.