Yeah, I know what you mean. But part of the "experience", I suppose, is the support and ease of digital distribution. Plus, gog.com stocks the best, most highly rated games, all in one place. That's pretty handy.
You could always go to an "abandonware" site, but gog.com is so cheap, it's almost free, anyways.
But even if they're only getting that warm, fuzzy feeling (which is essentially a confidence game by Sony DADC, if we're going to call a spade a spade), they're getting something by using DRM. Intangible yet existent. Would they stay in the PC market without that feeling that they're somehow proactively addressing piracy? Probably, but I'm not 100% sure. Some of them would definitely move on to consoles or pay-as-you-go MMORPG-style games (blech). I really hate the idea of leasing my game.
What do they lose by using DRM? I still haven't really seen any downside to it, from their perspective. Until you can convince them that there even is a downside, there's no hope of it ever disappearing. If you can demonstrate that 3 out of 100 gamers will avoid any DRM-encumbered title, that's something... but they'll probably just pull out a study that says the same amount of casual pirates will be frustrated by the DRM and buy a legal copy. I'm not talking about pirates who go to TBP and use bittorent -- I'm talking about the casual piracy of one non-technical user sharing his disc with another non-technical user.
Ugh, yeah. Good point. The latest forms of DRM (digital distribution, in particular) are really, really nasty like that. I hate the idea of being stuck with something that I can never resell (or let a friend borrow).
That's one reason why I like gog.com. No DRM, latest patches already applied, and no physical media. Too bad that they don't have a wider selection. You can sometimes get a dozen games on gog.com for the same price as one recent hit, depending on the promotions going on at the time.
Same problem with reselling, really, but it's mitigated by the low prices and lack of DRM.
I dislike it, but that's mostly because I'm a consumer. As a consumer, many things strike me as annoyances (or downright stupid) that are actually good business sense (or so I'm told). From the point of view of the corporate suits that actually run the gaming companies, I'm sure DRM looks very good: it protects their assets for a time (all they really need is for the DRM to last long enough for the first wave of purchases, which make the game a hit or not), it combats casual piracy, and it gives them a warm fuzzy feeling, kind of like taking an umbrella out into a tornado. Now, you may be saying, "But taking an umbrella out into a tornado is fucking stupid. It accomplishes nothing!", and you'd be right. But if the psychological effect is reassuring, you'll face a real uphill battle convincing the person to give up their security blanket. Or security umbrella, as the case may be.
From your and my point of view, DRM is stupid and annoying. It does nothing for us but annoy the hell out of us. It's rather quickly subverted, as well. But consider that the gaming companies aren't looking for a 100% reliable solution; they're just trying to recover as much of their profits as possible. I can't really begrudge them that, though I can (and do) resent it.
Is DRM doing what *they* want it to? They wouldn't keep using it, if it weren't, even if it merely gives them that warm fuzzy feeling. Does it seem stupid, useless, and a waste of money to you? Surely. But you need to look at it from their point of view, as well. I'm not saying that DRM is necessary or that it truly does increase revenues for them, but if it means that they'll pull out of the PC market without DRM, I'm at least willing to entertain the possibility of buying DRM-encumbered games. But as soon as it's on my hard drive, I download the no-cd, of course.
Only my Linux/KDE system, it's currently using 1700MB RAM, with 888MB resident. The system has been up for 37 days, but the browser probably hasn't been open for that long. This is with FF beta 6 (I'm going to compile beta 9 tonight). So, it's better. Still not what I'd like to see, but it's quite usable for a modern system (64 bit processor and OS, with 4GB or more RAM). If you're using an older system (single core, 32 bit CPU, 512MB to 2GB RAM), it's probably a nightmare come true. However, for those systems, there's always Chrome or Opera, which are much more streamlined.
To tell the truth, I'm not really all that concerned with bloat, as long as it's designed well. For example, Chrome's ability to separate each tab into its own process. That's a hell of a lot of bloat, but it's the sort of feature that we need to make browsers stable. If there were a Chrome Lite, designed for netbooks, it might not have that feature, since netbooks are so anemic, but it's definitely a must-have feature for modern, full-featured browsers. The fact that Mozilla dragged their feet for years on that feature really annoys me. Instead, we got, what, the awesomebar? Yeah...
It's not too bad, really, though I think you might be able to do better with some careful shopping on ebay and using public wifi. The big difference is that you'd be getting support from these guys, rather than depending on a computer geek friend. That's important to a lot of people.
You are perfectly demonstrating the referenced entitlement complex that we're complaining about. You do not automatically have a right to own every creative work ever made. If you want it, either ask the owner for a license or jump through the hoops the author requests. What you're advocating is Stalinism -- taking by force what others produce. People like you give socialism a bad name.
Exactly. Good luck selling that on Slashdot, though, where people have a tremendous entitlement complex when it comes to intellectual property.
Is it really that hard to ask permission to use something? Why does everyone today resort to copyright violation first, then scream foul when they're caught?
When I was a kid, my friends and I pirated lots of Commodore 64 and Amiga games. We were unrepentant, hardened criminals, as much as twelve year olds can be. The difference between us (back then) and kids today is that we recognized that we had an entitlement complex and accepted it. Well, that and the scale of our piracy.
Unfortunately, with the marketing campaigns today, it's near impossible for people to believe that they can exist happily without having the latest music, video games, and movies. I blame the corporations for this current epidemic of piracy. But I think that the pirates themselves really need to come to grips with their entitlement complex. It kind of annoys me, really.
Anyways, it's not like you're paranoid, unless it's actively affecting your life negatively. If you're happy with your life and not having any problems, then you're doing fine. No need to worry about about being too private or paranoid or anything.
I generally use a different username on every site, but there's occasionally a bit of overlap (eg, using the same name in an online game and its forums). Sometimes I reuse a favorite username, too. I don't really care if a site (or its users) know my gender, age, or city. After that, I start getting a bit miffed, such as race (wtf? why do you need to know if I'm white, black, or asian?), employment, salary, zip code, etc. If a site asks me any of those questions, I usually just cancel the signup process and find something less invasive.
Depending on my mood, I may even add IM or e-mail, like I have on slashdot. I don't care if Slashdotters contact me, as long as they don't call me on the phone. I'd like to think that they'd have something interesting to say, if they did contact me, unlike most people. Plus, you never know when you'll pique someone's interest and develop a genuine friendship. It's very rare, but it does happen.
I guess it can be boiled down to: if you're a human, I don't mind if you know my private details, but I do not want to be cataloged or made into a statistic, unless I'm getting a cut of the money you make from using my details.
Despite the fact that I agree with your assessment of the situation, I've contributed a bit to Wikipedia here and there, to clear up some obvious issues in the articles that bothered me. For that, I've been accused of many things, including being someone's publicist, because I removed a clear personal attack on a living person from their biography. It's pretty clear to me that the vast majority of people editing Wikipedia are not interested in following the guidelines, and they're merely interested in filling it with fancruft (how many articles on anime and Buffy the Vampire Slayer do we really need?! Hint: zero.), using biographical articles to slander celebrities they dislike, and starting articles on corporations just so that they have a place to put stuff that should realistically be on the BBB, not a encyclopedia. I really don't give a shit if some corporation sued a bunch of pirates, but God help you if you try to remove that from an article. You'll be accused of being a member of RIAA/MPAA/BSA.
Wikipedia is essentially a scam by Jimbo Wales, and it's nearly worthless outside of certain areas that don't attract teenagers and Aspies, but... I suppose it's better than nothing.
Lots of people want to claim that piracy is killing the PC, but I'm not so sure that I buy that. It's certainly getting to the point where most kids today pirate, rather than buy, their games, but kids aren't the entire audience for games. Until DRM gets even more invasive and powerful on consoles, it's obvious that consoles aren't going to be the answer to that little problem, anyways.
Sony's answer has to be the PS4. Nothing else will really do more than put a bandage on a wound that requires a tourniquet. Sony has some smart people working there, and I'm sure they know this. So, I'd look for an announcement and advertising blitz very soon.
The best way to fight piracy on consoles is a relatively short life for each iteration. Who cares about piracy on the PS1 or PS2? The vast majority of pirates want to play current games on current consoles, though the nostalgia-based "retro-gaming" will always have some draw, of course. I don't care how many of your friends are currently playing Super Mario Bros 3 on some emulator. It's not representative.
Why do you want the ability to run Linux on your PS3? I don't get it. Why not just buy a secondhand PC off ebay and run Linux on that? Or use some other PC that you've already got? Why on the PS3? Just because you can? Or, should I say, could?
Well, if you wanted to, you could set up a social networking site for paranoid conspiracy theorists, which encrypts all information entered. Then, even the site itself would be incapable of spying or harvesting your information. Of course, that would necessitate some onerous passphrase being passed around to every single person on your white list. But for the privacy conscious out there, I'm sure they'd put up with it. If you trust the site itself, then I suppose you could get rid of the passphrase. Of course, there are probably better ways of doing this sort of thing, but I'm not terribly interested in cryptography (too much math for my lazy brain). Hmm. There's also browser add-ons and/or extensions that you could make use of, which could be an interesting way to involve an already existent PGP public and private key.
Too bad there's no real market for an idea like this, because I bet privacy advocates would pay a subscription fee.
Have you guys ever tried to edit an article that's watched by an obsessive-compulsive volunteer? They will automatically revert any edits you make, no matter how much consensus has been reached, no matter how many references you add, and no matter how many good faith attempts you make to amicably resolve the situation. Some people truly do believe that they own articles that they've started (or, in some cases, contributed to or have an obsession with).
This is most often seen in Asperger-friendly articles, like science fiction TV shows, fantasy novels, role-playing games, and cult movies. Go ahead. Just try to edit that Buffy the Vampire Slayer related page. I dare you. You'll be sorry...
I know this is going to be a hugely unpopular opinion on Slashdot, but has anyone actually made a decent argument to answer why, instead of how? I've never heard one. People usually just stare at me, when I ask, then say something akin to, "Because it's there." or "You weren't alive when we landed on the moon. You just don't understand." Occasionally I hear something like, "It's an investment in science (or the tech industry)," which is much better than "you just don't get it", but still hardly a winning argument, in my opinion. I'm not against space travel, but I'd like to see some compelling arguments, rather than nerd rage.
And, yes, maybe I would have said the same thing about the European obsession with exploring the New World. So what? What good idea has ever suffered from a little debate?
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, I know what you mean. But part of the "experience", I suppose, is the support and ease of digital distribution. Plus, gog.com stocks the best, most highly rated games, all in one place. That's pretty handy.
You could always go to an "abandonware" site, but gog.com is so cheap, it's almost free, anyways.
A Tseng Labs ET4000 would be much faster.
But even if they're only getting that warm, fuzzy feeling (which is essentially a confidence game by Sony DADC, if we're going to call a spade a spade), they're getting something by using DRM. Intangible yet existent. Would they stay in the PC market without that feeling that they're somehow proactively addressing piracy? Probably, but I'm not 100% sure. Some of them would definitely move on to consoles or pay-as-you-go MMORPG-style games (blech). I really hate the idea of leasing my game.
What do they lose by using DRM? I still haven't really seen any downside to it, from their perspective. Until you can convince them that there even is a downside, there's no hope of it ever disappearing. If you can demonstrate that 3 out of 100 gamers will avoid any DRM-encumbered title, that's something... but they'll probably just pull out a study that says the same amount of casual pirates will be frustrated by the DRM and buy a legal copy. I'm not talking about pirates who go to TBP and use bittorent -- I'm talking about the casual piracy of one non-technical user sharing his disc with another non-technical user.
Ugh, yeah. Good point. The latest forms of DRM (digital distribution, in particular) are really, really nasty like that. I hate the idea of being stuck with something that I can never resell (or let a friend borrow).
That's one reason why I like gog.com. No DRM, latest patches already applied, and no physical media. Too bad that they don't have a wider selection. You can sometimes get a dozen games on gog.com for the same price as one recent hit, depending on the promotions going on at the time.
Same problem with reselling, really, but it's mitigated by the low prices and lack of DRM.
Why, exactly, is it such a bad idea?
I dislike it, but that's mostly because I'm a consumer. As a consumer, many things strike me as annoyances (or downright stupid) that are actually good business sense (or so I'm told). From the point of view of the corporate suits that actually run the gaming companies, I'm sure DRM looks very good: it protects their assets for a time (all they really need is for the DRM to last long enough for the first wave of purchases, which make the game a hit or not), it combats casual piracy, and it gives them a warm fuzzy feeling, kind of like taking an umbrella out into a tornado. Now, you may be saying, "But taking an umbrella out into a tornado is fucking stupid. It accomplishes nothing!", and you'd be right. But if the psychological effect is reassuring, you'll face a real uphill battle convincing the person to give up their security blanket. Or security umbrella, as the case may be.
From your and my point of view, DRM is stupid and annoying. It does nothing for us but annoy the hell out of us. It's rather quickly subverted, as well. But consider that the gaming companies aren't looking for a 100% reliable solution; they're just trying to recover as much of their profits as possible. I can't really begrudge them that, though I can (and do) resent it.
Is DRM doing what *they* want it to? They wouldn't keep using it, if it weren't, even if it merely gives them that warm fuzzy feeling. Does it seem stupid, useless, and a waste of money to you? Surely. But you need to look at it from their point of view, as well. I'm not saying that DRM is necessary or that it truly does increase revenues for them, but if it means that they'll pull out of the PC market without DRM, I'm at least willing to entertain the possibility of buying DRM-encumbered games. But as soon as it's on my hard drive, I download the no-cd, of course.
Only my Linux/KDE system, it's currently using 1700MB RAM, with 888MB resident. The system has been up for 37 days, but the browser probably hasn't been open for that long. This is with FF beta 6 (I'm going to compile beta 9 tonight). So, it's better. Still not what I'd like to see, but it's quite usable for a modern system (64 bit processor and OS, with 4GB or more RAM). If you're using an older system (single core, 32 bit CPU, 512MB to 2GB RAM), it's probably a nightmare come true. However, for those systems, there's always Chrome or Opera, which are much more streamlined.
To tell the truth, I'm not really all that concerned with bloat, as long as it's designed well. For example, Chrome's ability to separate each tab into its own process. That's a hell of a lot of bloat, but it's the sort of feature that we need to make browsers stable. If there were a Chrome Lite, designed for netbooks, it might not have that feature, since netbooks are so anemic, but it's definitely a must-have feature for modern, full-featured browsers. The fact that Mozilla dragged their feet for years on that feature really annoys me. Instead, we got, what, the awesomebar? Yeah...
Bloat isn't always bad.
It's not too bad, really, though I think you might be able to do better with some careful shopping on ebay and using public wifi. The big difference is that you'd be getting support from these guys, rather than depending on a computer geek friend. That's important to a lot of people.
Did you even read anything that people said?
You are perfectly demonstrating the referenced entitlement complex that we're complaining about. You do not automatically have a right to own every creative work ever made. If you want it, either ask the owner for a license or jump through the hoops the author requests. What you're advocating is Stalinism -- taking by force what others produce. People like you give socialism a bad name.
Exactly. Good luck selling that on Slashdot, though, where people have a tremendous entitlement complex when it comes to intellectual property.
Is it really that hard to ask permission to use something? Why does everyone today resort to copyright violation first, then scream foul when they're caught?
When I was a kid, my friends and I pirated lots of Commodore 64 and Amiga games. We were unrepentant, hardened criminals, as much as twelve year olds can be. The difference between us (back then) and kids today is that we recognized that we had an entitlement complex and accepted it. Well, that and the scale of our piracy.
Unfortunately, with the marketing campaigns today, it's near impossible for people to believe that they can exist happily without having the latest music, video games, and movies. I blame the corporations for this current epidemic of piracy. But I think that the pirates themselves really need to come to grips with their entitlement complex. It kind of annoys me, really.
Both?
Anyways, it's not like you're paranoid, unless it's actively affecting your life negatively. If you're happy with your life and not having any problems, then you're doing fine. No need to worry about about being too private or paranoid or anything.
I generally use a different username on every site, but there's occasionally a bit of overlap (eg, using the same name in an online game and its forums). Sometimes I reuse a favorite username, too. I don't really care if a site (or its users) know my gender, age, or city. After that, I start getting a bit miffed, such as race (wtf? why do you need to know if I'm white, black, or asian?), employment, salary, zip code, etc. If a site asks me any of those questions, I usually just cancel the signup process and find something less invasive.
Depending on my mood, I may even add IM or e-mail, like I have on slashdot. I don't care if Slashdotters contact me, as long as they don't call me on the phone. I'd like to think that they'd have something interesting to say, if they did contact me, unlike most people. Plus, you never know when you'll pique someone's interest and develop a genuine friendship. It's very rare, but it does happen.
I guess it can be boiled down to: if you're a human, I don't mind if you know my private details, but I do not want to be cataloged or made into a statistic, unless I'm getting a cut of the money you make from using my details.
Ouch. Harsh.
Despite the fact that I agree with your assessment of the situation, I've contributed a bit to Wikipedia here and there, to clear up some obvious issues in the articles that bothered me. For that, I've been accused of many things, including being someone's publicist, because I removed a clear personal attack on a living person from their biography. It's pretty clear to me that the vast majority of people editing Wikipedia are not interested in following the guidelines, and they're merely interested in filling it with fancruft (how many articles on anime and Buffy the Vampire Slayer do we really need?! Hint: zero.), using biographical articles to slander celebrities they dislike, and starting articles on corporations just so that they have a place to put stuff that should realistically be on the BBB, not a encyclopedia. I really don't give a shit if some corporation sued a bunch of pirates, but God help you if you try to remove that from an article. You'll be accused of being a member of RIAA/MPAA/BSA.
Wikipedia is essentially a scam by Jimbo Wales, and it's nearly worthless outside of certain areas that don't attract teenagers and Aspies, but... I suppose it's better than nothing.
It's just a PowerPC processor. You can find those on ebay.
Any benchmarks?
What?! Piracy killed the Amiga!
Lots of people want to claim that piracy is killing the PC, but I'm not so sure that I buy that. It's certainly getting to the point where most kids today pirate, rather than buy, their games, but kids aren't the entire audience for games. Until DRM gets even more invasive and powerful on consoles, it's obvious that consoles aren't going to be the answer to that little problem, anyways.
Sony's answer has to be the PS4. Nothing else will really do more than put a bandage on a wound that requires a tourniquet. Sony has some smart people working there, and I'm sure they know this. So, I'd look for an announcement and advertising blitz very soon.
The best way to fight piracy on consoles is a relatively short life for each iteration. Who cares about piracy on the PS1 or PS2? The vast majority of pirates want to play current games on current consoles, though the nostalgia-based "retro-gaming" will always have some draw, of course. I don't care how many of your friends are currently playing Super Mario Bros 3 on some emulator. It's not representative.
Why do you want the ability to run Linux on your PS3? I don't get it. Why not just buy a secondhand PC off ebay and run Linux on that? Or use some other PC that you've already got? Why on the PS3? Just because you can? Or, should I say, could?
I don't quite understand the draw.
You mean that my children might still live, even if I don't watch the special newscast tonight?
Well, if you wanted to, you could set up a social networking site for paranoid conspiracy theorists, which encrypts all information entered. Then, even the site itself would be incapable of spying or harvesting your information. Of course, that would necessitate some onerous passphrase being passed around to every single person on your white list. But for the privacy conscious out there, I'm sure they'd put up with it. If you trust the site itself, then I suppose you could get rid of the passphrase. Of course, there are probably better ways of doing this sort of thing, but I'm not terribly interested in cryptography (too much math for my lazy brain). Hmm. There's also browser add-ons and/or extensions that you could make use of, which could be an interesting way to involve an already existent PGP public and private key.
Too bad there's no real market for an idea like this, because I bet privacy advocates would pay a subscription fee.
I think that is the mark at which one either turns away in disgust or eagerly adds the book to one's Amazon wishlist.
Sudo is total crap. Entering in your own password to run commands as an administrator? Yeah, that's a great idea.
The only thing that anyone ever does is "sudo sh". Anything else is pointless.
I don't remember any liberals cheering when Reagan was shot.
Why are you bringing politics into this?
Cool? It's stupid. It's someone who had too much time on his hands and a healthy dose of autism.
Now, if he had written a fully functional Creative Labs X-Fi driver for Linux, that'd be cool.
Oh so very true.
Have you guys ever tried to edit an article that's watched by an obsessive-compulsive volunteer? They will automatically revert any edits you make, no matter how much consensus has been reached, no matter how many references you add, and no matter how many good faith attempts you make to amicably resolve the situation. Some people truly do believe that they own articles that they've started (or, in some cases, contributed to or have an obsession with).
This is most often seen in Asperger-friendly articles, like science fiction TV shows, fantasy novels, role-playing games, and cult movies. Go ahead. Just try to edit that Buffy the Vampire Slayer related page. I dare you. You'll be sorry...
Uh... so, you want BSD + Quartz, but without Quartz.
If only such a thing were possible...
Thanks for the add, you slant-eyed Chink.
I know this is going to be a hugely unpopular opinion on Slashdot, but has anyone actually made a decent argument to answer why, instead of how? I've never heard one. People usually just stare at me, when I ask, then say something akin to, "Because it's there." or "You weren't alive when we landed on the moon. You just don't understand." Occasionally I hear something like, "It's an investment in science (or the tech industry)," which is much better than "you just don't get it", but still hardly a winning argument, in my opinion. I'm not against space travel, but I'd like to see some compelling arguments, rather than nerd rage.
And, yes, maybe I would have said the same thing about the European obsession with exploring the New World. So what? What good idea has ever suffered from a little debate?