no one is going to listen more than say 20 times a song
Perhaps my listening habits are abnormal, but I can think of many, many songs that I've listened to more than 200 times. $0.05 * 200 = $10 per song. Hell, there are times I'll put a good song (usually something ambient-ish) and put the thing of repeat and listen to it in the background more than 4 times in a sitting. I'd be totally broke by pay-per-play. The pay-per-play model may work for movies, but for a 3 minute song I think it's borked.
Ironically, even Montana isn't full of backwards hicks (at least the portions I have lived in). Sure, we've got ranchers...but most ranchers are more "high tech" then your average city-ite.
Except that would destroy the entire "democratic republic" system. If everybody is their own representative, it makes the system a purely democratic system. One of the problems with the purely democratic system is that everybody votes on every issue. Label me lazy if you wish, but I honestly have better things to do with my time than vote on things I don't know/care about (roughly 90% of all issues that come up...a number pulled directly from my ass). Paying a representative to represent me and my ideals allows me to do other things with my time (like furthering society and whatnot), while he does his job to represent me in legislation. I do agree we need better representation from our leaders, and increasing their number seems a great way to do it, but getting rid of them is a really bad idea.
Um...you haven't played GTA:SA yet hm? If you had you'd realize that there ARE people who attack you out of the blue and you CAN get knocked upside the head with a baseball bat. Suprisingly it's not a rehash of VC, but it's VC with everything feature added in that people complained about VC lacking. The AI is far more complicated and the world has even more to do. While it's no online game (it's a PS2 for goodness sakes), there is a two player option in the game (haven't played far enough in the single player to find out if more than two can play). Let's just say it's a blast to run around blowing stuff up with your best friend...running from the cops, doing drivebys...now that I look at it I think somethings severely wrong with my roomate and I:). I'm wondering if on the PC version (assuming one is released...they's be nuts not to) if they are going to support some sort of LAN/online play because of this fact. There is actually a compelling story (at least more so than VC). Basically it's VC with 200 layers of polish and 100 layers more of depth, I'd hardly call it a re-hash.
While I don't advocate shooting anybody, Bush was elected in a '00 year. We have this thing called the '0-curse with our presidents in the US. So far nearly every president elected in a year ending in 0 has died while still in office. I say nearly because it is thought that Reagan has broken the curse (there was an assassination attempt on him, but it was not successful).
I think it depends on how much time you spend watching movies. There's something nice about the cinema and seeing a good movie with the MASSIVE screen, but when you want to watch the whole Aliens quadrilogy you're going to have a problem when they don't have it in theaters. And theaters don't facilitate repeated viewings without a major price. Some people don't watch enough movies to warrent spending $2k on a screen, but for those who do, the price is worth it. Sadly I'd like to be a member of the latter, but am forced to the in the first group because of work:P
Depends on what you mean by main protagonist. Ghost in the Shell (the first one) followed Major Motoko Kusanagi around (although Batou was a major part of the story). Stand Alone Complex (the series, being released on dvd over the next couple of months) followed the whole Section 9 team around, with Major and Batou playing very major parts. GITS2 has Batou for it's main character. Hopefully I'll get to see it, but living in the sticks of MT, I doubt I will unless I "acquire" it via the web.
My roommate had his maroon 83' buick skylark broken into. He a really crappy $20 cd player in it and his roadside emergency kit. They went through his whole car, found nothing of value real value, so they stole the roadside emergency kit (perhaps because it was at least functionally useful).
One thing that I'd like to append to the parent's post.
I believe one of the reasons that linux will have troubles taking the market is choice. For most problems, there are usually at least 3 choices for linux applications to use. Most people don't want to deal with thinking about what application they should use and how to use it. They want a homogeneous market. Now, I believe that choice is the thing that makes linux strong. I'm not locked into a certain configuration or a certain solution, but most people aren't like me. They want to be spoon-fed, and rightfully so because they have other things they should be worrying about than which application they should use to burn a cd.
I think the thing he is forgetting is that, for us as humans, all things we see or hear must be made into an analogue signal, be it an image or a soundwave. The message has to leave his encryption sometime, and, abeit lower quality, it can be intercepted.
a) You don't HAVE to pay money for the beta, it's just that fileplanet members get priority. It's still open to the public. This is because it's a stress-test beta, they want hundreds of thousands of people to make sure the servers can handle the load.
b) Honestly I love WoW, and I'm more of a single player person myself. I don't really care that the world has thousands of MMORPGs because if I don't want to play them, I don't have to. Nobody is holding a gun to my head. So go ahead and don't play WoW, it's your right, but just know that you are missing out on a fun game.
He generated the code himself and has every right to distribute it under whatever terms he wants. Your right to distribute your code under the GPL is just as strong as his right to distribute his application for money. If you don't like it, write your own XM time-shifting application and release it under the GPL. Free software hinges on freedom, on choice. You may not like the choice of others, but the only valid way you have to contest this choice is to make your own competing program and release it under your choice.
You are definatelly more optimistic than I. I personally never see an equilibrium reached. They have deep pockets and feed a lot of politicians from it. The RIAA still know how to make a star, how to make money, even if that means screwing the star over. I see this trend of the pro-technological rights community having to fight tooth and nail to keep what rights we have. The problem is that Joe Sixpack doesn't really know or care what is going on. He'll download his songs until he can't anymore because the server shut down. Personally I hope the RIAA does die, or at least reach the equilibrium you described, but I don't believe it will happen anytime soon.
Especially since World of Warcraft patches currently are sent via a modified version of bittorrent. I've recieved over 3GB in data myself from Blizzard using a p2p application. I honestly wonder how much good data is shared by things like bittorrent. Linux ISOs, patches, homemade movies, etc. Just a thought.
Actually, it is a huge problem to get broadband in rural Montana because of the sheer distance between places. Most of our "cities" (with a school of class A or higher) are towns compared to other states, and those are usually at least 120 miles apart (and that's following the interstate, there's a whole lot of places that you have to travel on nasty highways for 3 hours to get to). In between you have places such as Two Dot: nearly village sized that has a bar and a grocery store. The post office is inside the bar. That's it. And when you're 100 miles from anyplace reasonably large, in the middle of nowhere, stringing wire that will ensure a broadband connection is a very VERY costly endevore. The only thing right now that gets broadband to some rural areas is satellite.
Perhaps you should open your eyes and realize that just because a game uses familiar characters doesn't make the game a rehash. Sure, there are a lot of cookie-cutter sequels out there, BUT THAT HOLDS TRUE FOR ANY SYSTEM. Take a look at what Nintendo did with the Metroid series and Metroid Prime. Still Samus, but it's in 3d with a totally different system of gameplay, and yet it still retains that "feel" of the Metroid series. Perhaps a better example is Wario. Wario has been in countless games in the past, and Warioware is one of the most original games out there. Just because the character is familiar doesn't mean the game is a direct sequel. Perhaps if you'd actually PLAY (heaven forbid!!) some of these "old rehashes", you'd actually understand this concept.
Actually, the first disk of Castle of the Winds was a shareware game (and boy did I love it ^_^). The second disk (which was INCREDIBLY difficult to find) was purchasable. I'd kill to be able to re-obtain that second disk. Perhaps I actually still have the original disk floating around my house somewhere. I'll have to look for it.
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no one is going to listen more than say 20 times a song
Perhaps my listening habits are abnormal, but I can think of many, many songs that I've listened to more than 200 times. $0.05 * 200 = $10 per song. Hell, there are times I'll put a good song (usually something ambient-ish) and put the thing of repeat and listen to it in the background more than 4 times in a sitting. I'd be totally broke by pay-per-play. The pay-per-play model may work for movies, but for a 3 minute song I think it's borked.
Ironically, even Montana isn't full of backwards hicks (at least the portions I have lived in). Sure, we've got ranchers...but most ranchers are more "high tech" then your average city-ite.
Except that would destroy the entire "democratic republic" system. If everybody is their own representative, it makes the system a purely democratic system. One of the problems with the purely democratic system is that everybody votes on every issue. Label me lazy if you wish, but I honestly have better things to do with my time than vote on things I don't know/care about (roughly 90% of all issues that come up...a number pulled directly from my ass). Paying a representative to represent me and my ideals allows me to do other things with my time (like furthering society and whatnot), while he does his job to represent me in legislation. I do agree we need better representation from our leaders, and increasing their number seems a great way to do it, but getting rid of them is a really bad idea.
Hate to dissapoint you, but there is no yellow panda.
Um...you haven't played GTA:SA yet hm? If you had you'd realize that there ARE people who attack you out of the blue and you CAN get knocked upside the head with a baseball bat. Suprisingly it's not a rehash of VC, but it's VC with everything feature added in that people complained about VC lacking. The AI is far more complicated and the world has even more to do. While it's no online game (it's a PS2 for goodness sakes), there is a two player option in the game (haven't played far enough in the single player to find out if more than two can play). Let's just say it's a blast to run around blowing stuff up with your best friend...running from the cops, doing drivebys...now that I look at it I think somethings severely wrong with my roomate and I :). I'm wondering if on the PC version (assuming one is released...they's be nuts not to) if they are going to support some sort of LAN/online play because of this fact. There is actually a compelling story (at least more so than VC). Basically it's VC with 200 layers of polish and 100 layers more of depth, I'd hardly call it a re-hash.
While I don't advocate shooting anybody, Bush was elected in a '00 year. We have this thing called the '0-curse with our presidents in the US. So far nearly every president elected in a year ending in 0 has died while still in office. I say nearly because it is thought that Reagan has broken the curse (there was an assassination attempt on him, but it was not successful).
I think it depends on how much time you spend watching movies. There's something nice about the cinema and seeing a good movie with the MASSIVE screen, but when you want to watch the whole Aliens quadrilogy you're going to have a problem when they don't have it in theaters. And theaters don't facilitate repeated viewings without a major price. Some people don't watch enough movies to warrent spending $2k on a screen, but for those who do, the price is worth it. Sadly I'd like to be a member of the latter, but am forced to the in the first group because of work :P
Depends on what you mean by main protagonist. Ghost in the Shell (the first one) followed Major Motoko Kusanagi around (although Batou was a major part of the story). Stand Alone Complex (the series, being released on dvd over the next couple of months) followed the whole Section 9 team around, with Major and Batou playing very major parts. GITS2 has Batou for it's main character. Hopefully I'll get to see it, but living in the sticks of MT, I doubt I will unless I "acquire" it via the web.
My roommate had his maroon 83' buick skylark broken into. He a really crappy $20 cd player in it and his roadside emergency kit. They went through his whole car, found nothing of value real value, so they stole the roadside emergency kit (perhaps because it was at least functionally useful).
One thing that I'd like to append to the parent's post.
I believe one of the reasons that linux will have troubles taking the market is choice. For most problems, there are usually at least 3 choices for linux applications to use. Most people don't want to deal with thinking about what application they should use and how to use it. They want a homogeneous market. Now, I believe that choice is the thing that makes linux strong. I'm not locked into a certain configuration or a certain solution, but most people aren't like me. They want to be spoon-fed, and rightfully so because they have other things they should be worrying about than which application they should use to burn a cd.
I think the thing he is forgetting is that, for us as humans, all things we see or hear must be made into an analogue signal, be it an image or a soundwave. The message has to leave his encryption sometime, and, abeit lower quality, it can be intercepted.
a) You don't HAVE to pay money for the beta, it's just that fileplanet members get priority. It's still open to the public. This is because it's a stress-test beta, they want hundreds of thousands of people to make sure the servers can handle the load.
b) Honestly I love WoW, and I'm more of a single player person myself. I don't really care that the world has thousands of MMORPGs because if I don't want to play them, I don't have to. Nobody is holding a gun to my head. So go ahead and don't play WoW, it's your right, but just know that you are missing out on a fun game.
That's how the closed beta is being distributed.
He generated the code himself and has every right to distribute it under whatever terms he wants. Your right to distribute your code under the GPL is just as strong as his right to distribute his application for money. If you don't like it, write your own XM time-shifting application and release it under the GPL. Free software hinges on freedom, on choice. You may not like the choice of others, but the only valid way you have to contest this choice is to make your own competing program and release it under your choice.
You are definatelly more optimistic than I. I personally never see an equilibrium reached. They have deep pockets and feed a lot of politicians from it. The RIAA still know how to make a star, how to make money, even if that means screwing the star over. I see this trend of the pro-technological rights community having to fight tooth and nail to keep what rights we have. The problem is that Joe Sixpack doesn't really know or care what is going on. He'll download his songs until he can't anymore because the server shut down. Personally I hope the RIAA does die, or at least reach the equilibrium you described, but I don't believe it will happen anytime soon.
Especially since World of Warcraft patches currently are sent via a modified version of bittorrent. I've recieved over 3GB in data myself from Blizzard using a p2p application. I honestly wonder how much good data is shared by things like bittorrent. Linux ISOs, patches, homemade movies, etc. Just a thought.
I call Eru!
I don't think they have to cut costs...they need to cut profits. The amount of money they make off of a CD is pretty scary.
I prefer this version of that: Hard work MAY pay off eventually, but laziness DOES pay off right now!
Make sure you write it about the FBI though.
I'm not even going to warrant that with a response...er...k. Honestly, the parent is just asking to get flamed.
You said it all my friend (I originate from Laurel =) ).
Actually, it is a huge problem to get broadband in rural Montana because of the sheer distance between places. Most of our "cities" (with a school of class A or higher) are towns compared to other states, and those are usually at least 120 miles apart (and that's following the interstate, there's a whole lot of places that you have to travel on nasty highways for 3 hours to get to). In between you have places such as Two Dot: nearly village sized that has a bar and a grocery store. The post office is inside the bar. That's it. And when you're 100 miles from anyplace reasonably large, in the middle of nowhere, stringing wire that will ensure a broadband connection is a very VERY costly endevore. The only thing right now that gets broadband to some rural areas is satellite.
Perhaps you should open your eyes and realize that just because a game uses familiar characters doesn't make the game a rehash. Sure, there are a lot of cookie-cutter sequels out there, BUT THAT HOLDS TRUE FOR ANY SYSTEM. Take a look at what Nintendo did with the Metroid series and Metroid Prime. Still Samus, but it's in 3d with a totally different system of gameplay, and yet it still retains that "feel" of the Metroid series. Perhaps a better example is Wario. Wario has been in countless games in the past, and Warioware is one of the most original games out there. Just because the character is familiar doesn't mean the game is a direct sequel. Perhaps if you'd actually PLAY (heaven forbid!!) some of these "old rehashes", you'd actually understand this concept.
Actually, the first disk of Castle of the Winds was a shareware game (and boy did I love it ^_^). The second disk (which was INCREDIBLY difficult to find) was purchasable. I'd kill to be able to re-obtain that second disk. Perhaps I actually still have the original disk floating around my house somewhere. I'll have to look for it.