Sorry, but I don't see any contradictions to my previous arguments:
1. When I am truly listening to music, then I do so sat in a nice comfy chair listening to a nice hifi system.
2. If I go to the gym, then I find a workout is much easier with a few MP3s playing on headphones in the background - but I am not "listening" to the music, I am just using familiar beats and rhythms to distract my mind from the fairly mundane task of cycling on a gym bike or running/walking on a treadmill.
3. I travel quite a lot and prefer to do so carrying a portable hard drive rather than a stack of DVDs and/or CDs. This is for convenience purposes when I'm stuck in a hotel room somewhere and need something to do. It is not my optimal solution but a good compromise.
So what's the problem? My core argument is still the same - that you cannot appreciate music fully unless you give it your full attention and that I consider "fair use" to be the ability to format change stuff I legally own to use as I see fit.
Please do not include *ALL* of us true music officianados in your statements.
Personally, I find the concept of paying for downloadable music abhorrent, I have no interest whatsoever in purchasing an iPod and I own a cheap, Hong Kong-manufactured MP3 player as a device to use down the gym to play background MP3s from the CDs that I legally own.
I am not a "single track" music listener - I prefer entire albums, I use MP3s I download on Usenet as a "try before I buy" model and if an album does not "cut the mustard" with me, I delete the MP3s and don't buy it; otherwise, I do buy the CD.
Whilst I agree that the population who want legal downloads is probably growing, the fact is that those same people are still a *MINORITY* of the music listening audience - most people still buy CDs and find the format to be acceptable. I would even go further as to say that no-one who deliberately buys a lossy music format to play on a tiny, cheap player can consider themselves to be a true music lover - iPods are more about making a fashion statement and hoarding as much music as possible to impress one's peers. It's a fact, deal with it.
A true music lover only buys the music he/she likes and listens to it on a reasonable player where he/she can just sit down, relax and just concentrate on the music - not have it blaring in the background through tinny headphones whilst doing the laundry.
If I find a CD that I truly like, then I can usually buy it a more than reasonable price from eBay, an online retailer or a secondhand music store - even directly from the artist. And because I focus on music quality, not quantity, I appreciate it more and am happy to buy CDs as a result.
iTunes exists purely to rip off the consumer with DRM-ed products of lower quality - and as soon as all the fashion victims realise that, then the sooner iTunes can just go away and we can all go back to buying proper CDs that we ourselves can rip to whatever format we want to, if that's what we want to do.
To those people who think this is a good idea, let me tell you a few things about the British police as someone who lives in Britain.
Our police only care about meeting targets on senior management graphs, they do not give a damn about solving crimes.
This is why a motorist can be caught on camera and fined for going 6mph over the speed limit, yet someone in London who has their car set on fire by vandals has to wait *FOUR DAYS* for any sort of police response.
I'm not saying this is just a police problem, it has much to do with Blair's government forcing paperwork on the police meaning that their in police stations filling out forms rather than patrolling the streets.
But this voice camera idea is there to counteract the fact that we do NOT have enough police patrolling the streets and are therefore not controlling crime.
I'm primarily a FOSS user, probably like yourself, but the last thing I want to see is all my media locked down with DRM to the point where I can't play any movies or music on my Linux systems.
If people want to run Windows, then that's their choice. Those of us that use FOSS should be making Windows users aware of Firefox, OpenOffice, etc. and if they start running FOSS applications in Windows then that too is a very good thing.
Likewise, those of us who fully understand the potential evils of DRM should be educating those that don't about what will happen to *ALL* of our freedoms if the movie/record companies get their way. As far as I am concerned, if Joe Public pushes back on DRM, then Microsoft will have no reason to build it into Windows and we all get that one step closer to having open file formats that anyone can make use of, no matter what OS they run.
So please divert your energies to positive education against DRM rather than just being a zealot.
I do not see that there's any problem with the way things are currently.
The UNIX philosophy is that you have a large number of applications, each of which does a small, simple task, that you can combine in countless numbers of ways to achieve the end result you want. The advantage with this method is you get unlimited opportunity for automation, the disadvantage is that you have to spend time learning what tools there are, what each one does, and how you can combine them together.
The Windows philosophy is that you have a smaller number of applications but that each application is generally GUI based and has a large number of options to enable customisation within that tool. The opportunity to automate a lot of repetitive stuff is minimal but, for the layman, you get a more intuitive interface.
Both these philosophies lie at either end of a spectrum of software design, yet it seems as though some people want tools that are even more intuitive to use now - i.e. they do not want to spend the time actually bothering to learn anything and want it all delivered on a plate to them.
Sorry, but computers are complicated things and there is only so much software designers can do, in either philosophy, to accommodate people who are either stupid or lazy.
Yet again, I draw the analogy to learning to drive a car - people are prepared to invest time and money in learning to use what is also a complicated machine in the correct way. They don't ask for "the gear stick to be made two inches shorter" or "the numbers on the speedometer to be blue instead of white". There comes a point when "enough is enough" in designing anything...
By all means, go and ask a software developer to put the features you want to see in a software application but please don't expect everyone else to want that same feature...
As someone who games mainly on the PC, I beg to differ with you about your comments about the number of games in the Gamecube library.
Sure, there are less titles but the general quality of what's available on the Gamecube does invariably *seem* to be of a higher standard than on the other consoles.
I've got about 40 titles on the Gamecube, admitedly I've bought a lot of those secondhand but I'd say that pretty much all of the titles are good quality games - and there's quite a few more still I'd like to have in my collection.
I'm a PC gamer at heart and I cannot think of one game on the PS2 or XBox that I cannot get on the PC that would ever cause me to even consider buying one of those consoles - or even a PS3 or XBox 360.
Additionally, I don't like the way either Sony or Microsoft do business and would consider myself a hypocrite if I bought any more of their products - yes, I've bought MS branded mice and joysticks in the past, I've paid MS for occasional OEM pre-installed products and there's probably a few CDs in my music collection that are ultimately distributed by Sony. But that's as far as I ever intend going with either company.
On the other hand, my Gameboy Advance, together with a handful of game carts like Scrabble, Ultimate Card Games and Tetris is fantastic for plane journeys and my Gamecube gives me access to some great non-PC titles like Metroid Prime, Legend Of Zelda and a few wonderful party games like Super Monkey Ball which are a refreshing break from LAN gaming with a few drunk friends.
I probably won't buy a Wii immediately - especially as I'm currently revelling in a whole host of cheap used games for my Gamecube. But if Nintendo continue the tradition of releasing a few choice Wii-exclusive titles, I will definitely be buying one when they've come down in price.
I don't for one minute doubt that Nintendo have exactly the same aims as Microsoft and Sony in making as much money from games as possible - but the fact is, I "like" dealing with Nintendo because they just want to make money from good games without trying to constantly screw over the customer in the process. As long as they continue in that fashion, I will buy their products.
Personally, whilst circumventing copy protection may be deemed as illegal in certain countries, the fact of the matter is that *NOBODY* has ever been incriminated for format shifting a CD or a DVD that they have legally purchased. That particular aspect of the law has yet to be tested.
Yep, I've no doubt that with these new laws, someone pirating music or movies will get done for both copyright infringement and breaking copy protection. Likewise, I'm sure there are laws that cover the way retailers can distribute media - this is no different to a movie rental company renting out retail DVDs that have "Not for rental" stamped on the back cover.
All this is about is a demonstration by the MPAA to "scare" people into not format shifting the stuff they've bought - after all, the MPAA/RIAA/BPI etc would much rather you rebought all your movies and music everytime a new format is released, or, even better, have you the consumer treat them (the movie and record companies) like a utility company in as much as you rent what you want for a period that lasts as long as you pay rental.
I rip my DVDs to DivX and my CDs to MP3 for portability purposes and this case is not going to change that behaviour one iota. In just the same way that nobody has ever been incriminated for lending a friend a CD or a DVD, I defy any court in any country to prove that any of the format shifting I do has caused any big fat corporation to lose any money - which ultimately is what all these laws are about.
This iPod retailer will be subject to certain rules and regulations meaning that they cannot legally offer format shifted media, even if they hand out the original DVD and that is what the MPAA will get them on.
But they don't stand a hope in hell of making anything like this stick on a private citizen who has done this with media they've legally purchased.
Old farts like me also enjoy their strategy gaming.
So, pray tell me, what's been going on that's so super duper in the strategy games field for the past few years that I've missed out on? Because I can't remember that much...
When was the last Command and Conquer game? That would be "Generals", right? About three years ago?
Okay, so we've got "Supreme Commander" due at some point - but that would be about seven years since Total Annihilation was released?
Apart from that, we've had Civilisation sequels (not played anything beyond Civ 3 so I can't comment on the later ones), Heroes Of Might And Magic which peaked at HOMM 3 but then whoever bought the rights from 3D0 decided pretty graphics meant more than gameplay and made a bad job of HOMM 4 and an attrocious one of HOMM 5.
Master Of Orion III? Let's not even go there...
Starfleet Command was a promising idea that never got off the ground properly...
Rise Of Nations? Looked nice but after a couple of hours of gaming you soon realised that just following the same strategy allowed quick victories.
The ONLY saving grace for strategy recently has been Galactic Civilisations II which is a truly wonderful game.
Okay, so maybe I'm more of a fan of sci-fi and fantasy strategy gaming more than I am the "historical" type games but please do not tell me that strategy games benefit much from pretty graphics. If done correctly, like in GalCiv 2, they really add to the game but most companies have abandoned in-depth strategy games for eye candy because it's easier to hire a graphics artist than someone who can program a challenging AI.
Sorry, but face facts. Old farts like you and I are not the prime target of games companies - they'll target the teenage/early 20s audience because they know they can get away with recycling old racing games with just newer graphics.
And as for console piracy, it's getting less and less. Nintendo introduced the proprietary disk format on the Gamecube and PS3/XBox 360 use the new DRM disc formats to counter piracy - even on PS1 and PS2, you needed a mod chip to get anywhere with copying games on those consoles - far more complicated than downloading a crack for a PC game from the internet.
You want to play a (PC) game in 2008, you need vista.
If the past 5 years is anything to go by (since 2001 when XP was released), I don't think you'll be that worried about PC gaming in 2006 anyhow.
There's a definite decrease in the number of good PC games titles being released now - you can probably attribute that reason to the fact that free mods and maps on the Internet have extended the lives of many existing PC games long after any games company would want, as well as the uptake of MMORPGs like World Of Warcraft.
Games companies now want to release on consoles only (where piracy is much lower and the lifespan of games can be controlled much better) and the power of video cards on PCs has far exceeded where games are at - yes, if you want 2048 x 1536 games resolutions then SLI is for you but no other reason.
There may be other reasons why Vista might, in future, be seen as a success, but games won't be one of them, despite DirectX 10.
The average consumer has never used a P2P network, never ripped or copied CDs or DVDs, never format-shifted, never even heard of alternate OS, etc.
I think you're confusing "has never used" with "has no knowledge of the inner workings of".
My experiences in fixing PCs of a large number of friends and relatives (= average consumers) is that they are fully aware of how and where to download MP3s and DivX movies from - especially if there's teenage kids using those PCs. Just about every PC I fix is "chock full" of the stuff, invariably I'm fixing each PC because a virus downloaded through a P2P client has trashed it.
On several occasions, I've installed Linux as a dual boot OS on those PCs also, usually for the parents so they can have an environment to write emails, do their eBaying and surf the Internet without it being trashed by their kids and viruses.
My point is that average consumers, whether illegally or not, have grown accustomed to being able to download a lot of this stuff freely - and if it gets to the point where they can no longer do that, then they will notice.
In the early 90s i spent (way too much of) my energy in the marijuana movement.
In the 70s, I smoked a lot of dope. Because it was fun.
Please just accept that, like me, you did it because it was a great way of getting wasted with a few friends for a few hours - just stop with the "political justifications", okay?
Most of we Linux users were saying the same thing when XP was coming out in 2001 - that people would stay on Windows 2000 or switch to Linux.
Since then, the visibilty and user base of Linux has increased dramatically, I'm sure there are a lot more people dual-booting it with Windows in 2006 than there were in 2001 and certainly in the enterprise, the take up of Linux as a server platform has been phenomenal - but as a Linux user and fan, I can't say it's displaced too many Windows desktops so far.
I certainly don't want to dampen your enthusiasm but Linux, as it stands today, presents a whole heap of new problems to commercial software companies. For example, how do they make money from a commercial application on a free OS? Where do they draw the line between their own copyright and the GPL? How do they write their applications so that they can install successfully on the myriad of different Linux distros there are out there? These are all questions that need to be considered.
From my own perspective, I'll use a "build my own" Gentoo Linux distribution for my home and work PCs, but if a friend or colleague wants Linux, then I'll point them towards an "out of box" distro like Fedora or Ubuntu. The point I'm trying to make is that with Linux, there is no "one size fits all" as there has been with Windows.
I'm not criticising your comments but if people do migrate from Windows to Linux, then they should do so having made an informed decision and having been given all the facts before doing so.
Microsoft has lied to users and let them down with poor security and unfulfilled promises - we must make sure that Linux does not do the same to those people who do choose the alternative path.
Presumably that same Thai minister, as a supporter of closed source software and the right to make money from it, will be bringing in new legislation to ensure that Thai citizens are not using pirated versions of commercial software or operating systems?
Perhaps also he should think of abandoning TCP/IP also for all Thai computer infrastructure - of course, Thailand would no longer be able to connect to the Internet but at least it wouldn't be using "buggy, open source software" based around TCP/IP.
The article notes that many of the DRM technologies were forced upon Vista by the entertainment industry
Microsoft has *chosen* to jump into bed with the media companies in order to gain substantial revenue from licensing the DRM technologies, there is nothing *forced* here whatsoever - end of story.
If Microsoft really wanted to finally play the good guy and be on the side of consumer freedoms, there is a whole free software movement out there that would be more than willing to work with Microsoft in deploying open standards and formats correctly within Windows - even if MS kept Windows and Office totally closed source, both Microsoft and the free software movement would have much to benefit from such an "alliance".
The fact is that with open standards and file formats, a huge number of software creators throughout the globe can create imaginative new applications for dealing with data transmission and communications - when everything is closed and locked down, only those that know the standards can innovate with new ideas... and it's quite clear that Microsoft is running out of ideas these days.
If Vista fails then it will be because the users see no reason to upgrade to it - due to lack of new features and content, excessively tight consumer rights restriction, too high a price tag or a combination of them all.
When I see Microsoft do a lot more to embrace open standards, maybe then I'll have some sympathy for them. But if they've become a "pawn" of the media companies then they made that bed so they can damn well lie in it!!!
I hate to use bodily fluids to extinguish your catherine wheel but there is a helluva lot of product placement within movies these days anyway - so just by watching DVDs, you're not escaping the corporate brainwashing.
Though I do agree that TV is mostly drek - although I consider myself fortunate in living in the UK and having the advert-free BBC TV and radio.
You mean Linux is secure by obscurity? We all know how secure that is.
No, I don't. You're taking that interpretation on my comments.
Don't be an idiot. Surely common sense tells you that the less commonalities there are in a population of computers, the less chances they have of spreading a virus. Yes, call it obscurity if you like, but get used to it?
Heard of SELinux policies? ACLs in Linux? The days of rwx are long gone.
Rubbish. It entirely depends on what you're expecting a Linux machine to do. Since we're talking about viruses, we're probably talking about desktop machines and for general desktop usage, rwx and a few sticky bit settings together with intelligent user and group administration will do most things. Again, get used to it, it's a fact.
Um, say what? I don't *care* if the OS gets damaged, so long as my files are clean. If you're going to tell me that/usr/ is intact, but my files are all gone, my reaction won't be pretty.
How about you take the time to *read* my comment properly. If you run as an administrator on any OS, any virus or trojan you pick up while using that OS can potentially damage any file on the system; if you are a normal user, the virus or trojan will only affect your files. From a sysadmin perspective, it's far better for the second case to happen - because a good sysadmin has backups of your files to hopefully give you back most of what you lost. If you *seriously* believe that it's better to have a trashed computer rather than a few user files to recover, then I suggest you go and by yourself "The ABC Guide To System Administration For Absolute Dummies".
What rubbish. What makes you think SSH & friends are immune from buffer overruns? You claim to "work" in OS security.
Did I *SAY* SSH was immune? Or do you have some kind of malfunctioning telepathic ability that incorrecty read my mind? Any daemon can be potentially buffer overflowed; however, those that use clear text communications and weak authentication are also at risk from dictionary attacks, network sniffing, etc.
Are you the nightly security guard for an OS company?
Oh, whatever... all I'll say is that I earn enough to live a happy enough life such that I don't have a need to go around nitpicking everyone else's use of language on Slashdot.
That's the problem with people like you - very good at finding grammatical errors but have absolutely no knowledge of any substance. Or are so up Bill Gates ass as to find it completely impossible to partake in a rational argument - and they say *LINUX ZEALOTS* are bad...
Intelligent people use the best tool to get a job done.
Rather than wasting time and energy preaching, intelligent people devote their time to learning and trying out new tools to increase what they have in their toolkit.
Juat accept that Windows is better for some things and Linux is better for others - then use the strengths of both to your advantage.
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1. When I am truly listening to music, then I do so sat in a nice comfy chair listening to a nice hifi system.
2. If I go to the gym, then I find a workout is much easier with a few MP3s playing on headphones in the background - but I am not "listening" to the music, I am just using familiar beats and rhythms to distract my mind from the fairly mundane task of cycling on a gym bike or running/walking on a treadmill.
3. I travel quite a lot and prefer to do so carrying a portable hard drive rather than a stack of DVDs and/or CDs. This is for convenience purposes when I'm stuck in a hotel room somewhere and need something to do. It is not my optimal solution but a good compromise.
So what's the problem? My core argument is still the same - that you cannot appreciate music fully unless you give it your full attention and that I consider "fair use" to be the ability to format change stuff I legally own to use as I see fit.
Please try harder in future.
You blindly hand over good money for a lower quality, DRM-ed product - and then wonder why the music companies are trying to screw you even more???
I'd say that makes you *idiots* without proof...
Personally, I find the concept of paying for downloadable music abhorrent, I have no interest whatsoever in purchasing an iPod and I own a cheap, Hong Kong-manufactured MP3 player as a device to use down the gym to play background MP3s from the CDs that I legally own.
I am not a "single track" music listener - I prefer entire albums, I use MP3s I download on Usenet as a "try before I buy" model and if an album does not "cut the mustard" with me, I delete the MP3s and don't buy it; otherwise, I do buy the CD.
Whilst I agree that the population who want legal downloads is probably growing, the fact is that those same people are still a *MINORITY* of the music listening audience - most people still buy CDs and find the format to be acceptable. I would even go further as to say that no-one who deliberately buys a lossy music format to play on a tiny, cheap player can consider themselves to be a true music lover - iPods are more about making a fashion statement and hoarding as much music as possible to impress one's peers. It's a fact, deal with it.
A true music lover only buys the music he/she likes and listens to it on a reasonable player where he/she can just sit down, relax and just concentrate on the music - not have it blaring in the background through tinny headphones whilst doing the laundry.
If I find a CD that I truly like, then I can usually buy it a more than reasonable price from eBay, an online retailer or a secondhand music store - even directly from the artist. And because I focus on music quality, not quantity, I appreciate it more and am happy to buy CDs as a result.
iTunes exists purely to rip off the consumer with DRM-ed products of lower quality - and as soon as all the fashion victims realise that, then the sooner iTunes can just go away and we can all go back to buying proper CDs that we ourselves can rip to whatever format we want to, if that's what we want to do.
Our police only care about meeting targets on senior management graphs, they do not give a damn about solving crimes.
This is why a motorist can be caught on camera and fined for going 6mph over the speed limit, yet someone in London who has their car set on fire by vandals has to wait *FOUR DAYS* for any sort of police response.
I'm not saying this is just a police problem, it has much to do with Blair's government forcing paperwork on the police meaning that their in police stations filling out forms rather than patrolling the streets.
But this voice camera idea is there to counteract the fact that we do NOT have enough police patrolling the streets and are therefore not controlling crime.
I'm primarily a FOSS user, probably like yourself, but the last thing I want to see is all my media locked down with DRM to the point where I can't play any movies or music on my Linux systems.
If people want to run Windows, then that's their choice. Those of us that use FOSS should be making Windows users aware of Firefox, OpenOffice, etc. and if they start running FOSS applications in Windows then that too is a very good thing.
Likewise, those of us who fully understand the potential evils of DRM should be educating those that don't about what will happen to *ALL* of our freedoms if the movie/record companies get their way. As far as I am concerned, if Joe Public pushes back on DRM, then Microsoft will have no reason to build it into Windows and we all get that one step closer to having open file formats that anyone can make use of, no matter what OS they run.
So please divert your energies to positive education against DRM rather than just being a zealot.
The UNIX philosophy is that you have a large number of applications, each of which does a small, simple task, that you can combine in countless numbers of ways to achieve the end result you want. The advantage with this method is you get unlimited opportunity for automation, the disadvantage is that you have to spend time learning what tools there are, what each one does, and how you can combine them together.
The Windows philosophy is that you have a smaller number of applications but that each application is generally GUI based and has a large number of options to enable customisation within that tool. The opportunity to automate a lot of repetitive stuff is minimal but, for the layman, you get a more intuitive interface.
Both these philosophies lie at either end of a spectrum of software design, yet it seems as though some people want tools that are even more intuitive to use now - i.e. they do not want to spend the time actually bothering to learn anything and want it all delivered on a plate to them.
Sorry, but computers are complicated things and there is only so much software designers can do, in either philosophy, to accommodate people who are either stupid or lazy.
Yet again, I draw the analogy to learning to drive a car - people are prepared to invest time and money in learning to use what is also a complicated machine in the correct way. They don't ask for "the gear stick to be made two inches shorter" or "the numbers on the speedometer to be blue instead of white". There comes a point when "enough is enough" in designing anything...
By all means, go and ask a software developer to put the features you want to see in a software application but please don't expect everyone else to want that same feature...
Sure, there are less titles but the general quality of what's available on the Gamecube does invariably *seem* to be of a higher standard than on the other consoles.
I've got about 40 titles on the Gamecube, admitedly I've bought a lot of those secondhand but I'd say that pretty much all of the titles are good quality games - and there's quite a few more still I'd like to have in my collection.
Additionally, I don't like the way either Sony or Microsoft do business and would consider myself a hypocrite if I bought any more of their products - yes, I've bought MS branded mice and joysticks in the past, I've paid MS for occasional OEM pre-installed products and there's probably a few CDs in my music collection that are ultimately distributed by Sony. But that's as far as I ever intend going with either company.
On the other hand, my Gameboy Advance, together with a handful of game carts like Scrabble, Ultimate Card Games and Tetris is fantastic for plane journeys and my Gamecube gives me access to some great non-PC titles like Metroid Prime, Legend Of Zelda and a few wonderful party games like Super Monkey Ball which are a refreshing break from LAN gaming with a few drunk friends.
I probably won't buy a Wii immediately - especially as I'm currently revelling in a whole host of cheap used games for my Gamecube. But if Nintendo continue the tradition of releasing a few choice Wii-exclusive titles, I will definitely be buying one when they've come down in price.
I don't for one minute doubt that Nintendo have exactly the same aims as Microsoft and Sony in making as much money from games as possible - but the fact is, I "like" dealing with Nintendo because they just want to make money from good games without trying to constantly screw over the customer in the process. As long as they continue in that fashion, I will buy their products.
Yep, I've no doubt that with these new laws, someone pirating music or movies will get done for both copyright infringement and breaking copy protection. Likewise, I'm sure there are laws that cover the way retailers can distribute media - this is no different to a movie rental company renting out retail DVDs that have "Not for rental" stamped on the back cover.
All this is about is a demonstration by the MPAA to "scare" people into not format shifting the stuff they've bought - after all, the MPAA/RIAA/BPI etc would much rather you rebought all your movies and music everytime a new format is released, or, even better, have you the consumer treat them (the movie and record companies) like a utility company in as much as you rent what you want for a period that lasts as long as you pay rental.
I rip my DVDs to DivX and my CDs to MP3 for portability purposes and this case is not going to change that behaviour one iota. In just the same way that nobody has ever been incriminated for lending a friend a CD or a DVD, I defy any court in any country to prove that any of the format shifting I do has caused any big fat corporation to lose any money - which ultimately is what all these laws are about.
This iPod retailer will be subject to certain rules and regulations meaning that they cannot legally offer format shifted media, even if they hand out the original DVD and that is what the MPAA will get them on.
But they don't stand a hope in hell of making anything like this stick on a private citizen who has done this with media they've legally purchased.
There really is *NOTHING* to see here...
So, pray tell me, what's been going on that's so super duper in the strategy games field for the past few years that I've missed out on? Because I can't remember that much...
When was the last Command and Conquer game? That would be "Generals", right? About three years ago?
Okay, so we've got "Supreme Commander" due at some point - but that would be about seven years since Total Annihilation was released?
Apart from that, we've had Civilisation sequels (not played anything beyond Civ 3 so I can't comment on the later ones), Heroes Of Might And Magic which peaked at HOMM 3 but then whoever bought the rights from 3D0 decided pretty graphics meant more than gameplay and made a bad job of HOMM 4 and an attrocious one of HOMM 5.
Master Of Orion III? Let's not even go there...
Starfleet Command was a promising idea that never got off the ground properly...
Rise Of Nations? Looked nice but after a couple of hours of gaming you soon realised that just following the same strategy allowed quick victories.
The ONLY saving grace for strategy recently has been Galactic Civilisations II which is a truly wonderful game.
Okay, so maybe I'm more of a fan of sci-fi and fantasy strategy gaming more than I am the "historical" type games but please do not tell me that strategy games benefit much from pretty graphics. If done correctly, like in GalCiv 2, they really add to the game but most companies have abandoned in-depth strategy games for eye candy because it's easier to hire a graphics artist than someone who can program a challenging AI.
Sorry, but face facts. Old farts like you and I are not the prime target of games companies - they'll target the teenage/early 20s audience because they know they can get away with recycling old racing games with just newer graphics.
And as for console piracy, it's getting less and less. Nintendo introduced the proprietary disk format on the Gamecube and PS3/XBox 360 use the new DRM disc formats to counter piracy - even on PS1 and PS2, you needed a mod chip to get anywhere with copying games on those consoles - far more complicated than downloading a crack for a PC game from the internet.
If the past 5 years is anything to go by (since 2001 when XP was released), I don't think you'll be that worried about PC gaming in 2006 anyhow.
There's a definite decrease in the number of good PC games titles being released now - you can probably attribute that reason to the fact that free mods and maps on the Internet have extended the lives of many existing PC games long after any games company would want, as well as the uptake of MMORPGs like World Of Warcraft.
Games companies now want to release on consoles only (where piracy is much lower and the lifespan of games can be controlled much better) and the power of video cards on PCs has far exceeded where games are at - yes, if you want 2048 x 1536 games resolutions then SLI is for you but no other reason.
There may be other reasons why Vista might, in future, be seen as a success, but games won't be one of them, despite DirectX 10.
I think you're confusing "has never used" with "has no knowledge of the inner workings of".
My experiences in fixing PCs of a large number of friends and relatives (= average consumers) is that they are fully aware of how and where to download MP3s and DivX movies from - especially if there's teenage kids using those PCs. Just about every PC I fix is "chock full" of the stuff, invariably I'm fixing each PC because a virus downloaded through a P2P client has trashed it.
On several occasions, I've installed Linux as a dual boot OS on those PCs also, usually for the parents so they can have an environment to write emails, do their eBaying and surf the Internet without it being trashed by their kids and viruses.
My point is that average consumers, whether illegally or not, have grown accustomed to being able to download a lot of this stuff freely - and if it gets to the point where they can no longer do that, then they will notice.
In the 70s, I smoked a lot of dope. Because it was fun.
Please just accept that, like me, you did it because it was a great way of getting wasted with a few friends for a few hours - just stop with the "political justifications", okay?
I am constantly thinking about masturbation, porn and naked females (mainly my own loving wife of a decade-and-a-half).
However, I think you missed the humour in my comment.
Since then, the visibilty and user base of Linux has increased dramatically, I'm sure there are a lot more people dual-booting it with Windows in 2006 than there were in 2001 and certainly in the enterprise, the take up of Linux as a server platform has been phenomenal - but as a Linux user and fan, I can't say it's displaced too many Windows desktops so far.
I certainly don't want to dampen your enthusiasm but Linux, as it stands today, presents a whole heap of new problems to commercial software companies. For example, how do they make money from a commercial application on a free OS? Where do they draw the line between their own copyright and the GPL? How do they write their applications so that they can install successfully on the myriad of different Linux distros there are out there? These are all questions that need to be considered.
From my own perspective, I'll use a "build my own" Gentoo Linux distribution for my home and work PCs, but if a friend or colleague wants Linux, then I'll point them towards an "out of box" distro like Fedora or Ubuntu. The point I'm trying to make is that with Linux, there is no "one size fits all" as there has been with Windows.
I'm not criticising your comments but if people do migrate from Windows to Linux, then they should do so having made an informed decision and having been given all the facts before doing so.
Microsoft has lied to users and let them down with poor security and unfulfilled promises - we must make sure that Linux does not do the same to those people who do choose the alternative path.
Perhaps also he should think of abandoning TCP/IP also for all Thai computer infrastructure - of course, Thailand would no longer be able to connect to the Internet but at least it wouldn't be using "buggy, open source software" based around TCP/IP.
NetBEUI anyone?
Microsoft has *chosen* to jump into bed with the media companies in order to gain substantial revenue from licensing the DRM technologies, there is nothing *forced* here whatsoever - end of story.
If Microsoft really wanted to finally play the good guy and be on the side of consumer freedoms, there is a whole free software movement out there that would be more than willing to work with Microsoft in deploying open standards and formats correctly within Windows - even if MS kept Windows and Office totally closed source, both Microsoft and the free software movement would have much to benefit from such an "alliance".
The fact is that with open standards and file formats, a huge number of software creators throughout the globe can create imaginative new applications for dealing with data transmission and communications - when everything is closed and locked down, only those that know the standards can innovate with new ideas... and it's quite clear that Microsoft is running out of ideas these days.
If Vista fails then it will be because the users see no reason to upgrade to it - due to lack of new features and content, excessively tight consumer rights restriction, too high a price tag or a combination of them all.
When I see Microsoft do a lot more to embrace open standards, maybe then I'll have some sympathy for them. But if they've become a "pawn" of the media companies then they made that bed so they can damn well lie in it!!!
640K won't be enough.
...except of course that porn doesn't get "headaches" and is still there waiting for you even though "you haven't mown the lawn like you promised"!
Though I do agree that TV is mostly drek - although I consider myself fortunate in living in the UK and having the advert-free BBC TV and radio.
Ah! So I can tell the missus it was *YOU* who put those images on my PC then!
I hope any intelligent aliens out there that see "The Colonel" in all his corporate glory, just drive on by...
Well, there's my great old uncle AmigaDOS for starters...
No, I don't. You're taking that interpretation on my comments.
Don't be an idiot. Surely common sense tells you that the less commonalities there are in a population of computers, the less chances they have of spreading a virus. Yes, call it obscurity if you like, but get used to it?
Heard of SELinux policies? ACLs in Linux? The days of rwx are long gone.
Rubbish. It entirely depends on what you're expecting a Linux machine to do. Since we're talking about viruses, we're probably talking about desktop machines and for general desktop usage, rwx and a few sticky bit settings together with intelligent user and group administration will do most things. Again, get used to it, it's a fact.
Um, say what? I don't *care* if the OS gets damaged, so long as my files are clean. If you're going to tell me that /usr/ is intact, but my files are all gone, my reaction won't be pretty.
How about you take the time to *read* my comment properly. If you run as an administrator on any OS, any virus or trojan you pick up while using that OS can potentially damage any file on the system; if you are a normal user, the virus or trojan will only affect your files. From a sysadmin perspective, it's far better for the second case to happen - because a good sysadmin has backups of your files to hopefully give you back most of what you lost. If you *seriously* believe that it's better to have a trashed computer rather than a few user files to recover, then I suggest you go and by yourself "The ABC Guide To System Administration For Absolute Dummies".
What rubbish. What makes you think SSH & friends are immune from buffer overruns? You claim to "work" in OS security.
Did I *SAY* SSH was immune? Or do you have some kind of malfunctioning telepathic ability that incorrecty read my mind? Any daemon can be potentially buffer overflowed; however, those that use clear text communications and weak authentication are also at risk from dictionary attacks, network sniffing, etc.
Are you the nightly security guard for an OS company?
Oh, whatever... all I'll say is that I earn enough to live a happy enough life such that I don't have a need to go around nitpicking everyone else's use of language on Slashdot.
That's the problem with people like you - very good at finding grammatical errors but have absolutely no knowledge of any substance. Or are so up Bill Gates ass as to find it completely impossible to partake in a rational argument - and they say *LINUX ZEALOTS* are bad...
Rather than wasting time and energy preaching, intelligent people devote their time to learning and trying out new tools to increase what they have in their toolkit.
Juat accept that Windows is better for some things and Linux is better for others - then use the strengths of both to your advantage.
There is no war.