Do bear in mind, however, that Vaios are made by the company responsible for XCP, crippling of Linux on the PS3, legal intimidation tactics against hobbyist hackers, and more locked-down proprietary formats than you can shake a stick at.
However, ramping up DRM will cost them real money to pay programmers and EEs to implement the hardware to do it. If they keep escalating their DRM efforts and people keep boycotting them, they're flushing money away on DRM with no new income to replenish it.
Sony's coffers are big but not infinite.
Then they should go after the people running the pirated software for the civil tort of running pirated software.
You don't arrest people for buying guns when they go around shooting people. You arrest them for shooting people. If I buy a gun and never once discharge it (jailbreaking for curiosity), I have done nothing wrong. If I buy a gun and discharge it into a paper target at a marksmanship competition (jailbreaking to run FOSS or f@h or the like), I have done nothing wrong. If I buy a gun and discharge it into someone's head (piracy, albeit a horribly disproportionate analogy) I have done something wrong and deserve to be prosecuted not for my ownership of the gun, not for my pulling of the trigger, but for my harm of another.
Mentalities like yours are the same ones that give people like MADD their political power. "A statistically insignificant number of individuals do X with Y ill effect, so let's make everyone's lives harder for the sake of stopping that statistical minority!"
I, too, am interested in the answer to this. The "basically-the-same-but-not-quite" styles on their keyboards are what's been putting me off ordering one. I like my Lenovo SK-8825 for no-frills functionality but a Model M would be a nice thing to have, especially since my office is in the basement and I'm not likely to wake anyone up.
Which is still different from the Mustang case. You can develop, produce, and install an accessory for the car and have it perform how you intended (assuming you're good enough to make it do that) with or without Ford's permission. You can distribute an Xbox game with or without Microsoft's permission, but actually using it for anything more than a coaster (I know, I know, digital distribution) is an entirely different story.
The difference is that of the two devices you own, the car and the Xbox, one can be modified (aftermarket parts put on) with the expectation of reaping the full benefits of that modification, and the other can be modified (homebrew software written and installed) with no expectation whatsoever of any functionality at all from that modification unless the hardware manufacturer says so.
I agree. This kind of feature is sorely needed in both TVs and playback software alike. I've tried VLC's normalizer function but can't seem to achieve predictable results (the instructions are written in a somewhat confusing fashion as well) and it's really annoying with some shows and movies that have audio tracks like rollercoasters. I recall Miller's Crossing having a massive police-mafia shootout scene immediately following a quiet conversation between two characters. Like the movie, hate having to scramble for the volume controls. Horror movies in particular are next to impossible to watch at night because of the annoying-as-hell violin screeches when some creature jumps out to chew the hero's eyes out. Okay, I get it, I'm supposed to be startled, but I don't need to go deaf and if I'm watching late at night, the housemates don't need to be woken up just because the face-hugger is feeling horny again.
So yes, dynamic range compressors on playback equipment PLEASE.
It's also the truth. Just because it happens to be a convenient truth doesn't make it any less true. It is not the responsibility of the customer to keep the business afloat: it is, rather, the responsibility of the business to figure out how to keep the customer happy and thus stay afloat. If they can't do it, then tough. That's the reality of the free market that big-L Libertarians and Republicans and various other politically-involved types keep singing about. Another business will step in to replace the one that was too (old|top-heavy|unadaptable|inefficient|etc.) to survive. And the world keeps turning.
Seriously? How does that work? I've heard lots of stories of TSA thugs stealing things from luggage and requiring "TSA Secure" (insecure) locks, but this is the first I've heard about packing firearms being a means of keeping them out.
Good call on the Legacy. I've had one for going on 2 years and history shows that if you treat a Subaru right, it'll go well beyond that 10/150k mark. Plus AWD kicks ass in the winter, and the mileage, while not stellar, is more than a lot of sedans get.
I wonder about this as well, since I recall reading those discussions here on/. with great enthusiasm. Did someone grease the right palms in Congress to make the "problem" go away or is it just an example of overhead-laden government taking way too long to get anything done?
That's true. A bolt of lightning WAS able to send the DeLorean 30 years into the future. But then they'd be able to tell you the outcomes of all the sports games before you even watch - you'd never enjoy sports again. And then they'd build a multi-trillion dollar empire on their sports knowledge and turn the world to shit.
Oh, wait, you were talking about them dying? Monster!
Okay, so how about encryption? I imagine that no amount of so-called "resiliency" will survive a good symmetric-key cipher. All a ripping group would have to do is run their encode through GPG and set it to use AES-256, then publish the passphrase in the torrent detail page. Sure it wouldn't stop industry insiders from downloading and decrypting the file, but it would stop dead any attempts to analyze file hashes at the ISP level and automate takedowns. Or am I missing something?
As I understand it, the codec type isn't hardcoded in the HTML, but it's still up to the browser to implement decoding and playback. This is where the Firefox/h.264 problem comes in - Mozilla has said that they won't implement h.264 decoding in FF because of patent issues. HTML5's video tag acts pretty much like an img tag - it points to the source file for the video but doesn't say a whole lot about what kind of video it is.
More information here: http://www.w3schools.com/html5/tag_video.asp
I absolutely agree with you, but I do worry about one thing: If the judgment against Sony is limited to forcing them to offer a paltry discount on games, it wouldn't serve as much deterrent. I'm terribly unfamiliar with the ins and outs of class-action suits so forgive my naivete, but are companies normally forced to pay monetary penalties to the state in addition to offering discounts and other benefits to the plaintiffs, or is it limited to just the "$5 off!" coupons?
I don't care about getting the money, I just would like to be damn sure that Sony loses the money, and that it's enough money that it hurts...a lot.
And if you keep that up, what users will you have left to block? Ad-blocking is becoming more and more prevalent and thanks to the Streisand effect, once non-blockers find out about the banning of blockers, they're more likely to start blocking either out of enlightened self-interest or a desire for revenge against you. So you block them too, and then you've blocked everyone, and you have nobody left to view your ads as the users have all left for sites that treat them with more value and respect and you're left high and dry, wanting for ad revenue that never comes because no impressions are being made. Websites need their users more than users need the websites.
The difference was that in Aliens, the point of the Ripley/Newt relationship was Ripley finding a daughter in Newt after her biological daughter had lived a full life and died while Ripley was away in suspended animation. It was about her dealing with the loss and getting her life back, so there was significant character development in it. It was about second chances. There were second-chance themes in other places as well, if you look for them - Androids get to repair their reputation in Ripley's eyes with Bishop's heroics, the LV-426 mission is Gorman's 2nd drop and Ripley's 2nd run-in with the titular aliens in which she faces and conquers her fears, probably some others I'm not thinking of too.
In Res, on the other hand, it was just "let's play with themes of motherhood, because...well, just because. And I'm Joss fucking Whedon and I say so." The alien-womb/birthing scene was at least made appropriately creepy by Jean-Pierre Jeunet's direction, but the premise was absurd, to say the least. Half the scare factor of the aliens was their bizarre and invasive reproductive process and the horror of having some murderous creature rip its way out of you. The only reason the "gift of a human reproductive system" concept was even remotely scary was that the xenomorphs had already been established as strange, alien, and terrifying creatures and the humanizing of them felt invasive in its own way. Note that I'm referring to the concept that something like the aliens could adopt human characteristics (and the graphic display of exactly how), not that lame human-alien hybrid creature. Jeunet made an admirable effort to turn the half-assed script of Res into a decent product, but it's telling that he swore off Hollywood after that. Whedon's thousand-times-rehashed ideas can only be salvaged so far.
Incidentally, I remember reading that Whedon had the gall to blame Jeunet for the final product being subpar.
No, you're not. I don't know when this geek law went into effect that says we must all love Firefly, but I've been breaking it all along and frankly, I'm not sorry. I watched it beginning to end, and the movie as well, and I don't think there was a single idea in it that hadn't been done better somewhere else. Ship of outlaws on the run from an overwhelmingly powerful government? Farscape. Space western? Cowboy Bebop. Telepaths/psychics trying to elude capture and subsequent scientific experimentation? Babylon 5. Badguy who will do anything to get what he wants, ethics be damned? Farscape again. Strong, capable, confident female characters? Farscape trifecta, and present in a lot of other series as well - take your pick from BSG's female cast, and there's Ivanova in B5, Caroline in ReGenesis, Scully in the X Files, the list goes on and on. Whedon hardly has a monopoly on sci-fi female empowerment, and what he does offer isn't even that good.
And yet even now, 8 years after its demise, I still hear people clamoring to have Firefly brought back. Makes no sense to me either.
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Do bear in mind, however, that Vaios are made by the company responsible for XCP, crippling of Linux on the PS3, legal intimidation tactics against hobbyist hackers, and more locked-down proprietary formats than you can shake a stick at.
However, ramping up DRM will cost them real money to pay programmers and EEs to implement the hardware to do it. If they keep escalating their DRM efforts and people keep boycotting them, they're flushing money away on DRM with no new income to replenish it. Sony's coffers are big but not infinite.
What about Spaceballs 3 - The Search for Spaceballs 2?
That only holds true as long as we're interested in "consuming" the "content" in the first place.
Then they should go after the people running the pirated software for the civil tort of running pirated software.
You don't arrest people for buying guns when they go around shooting people. You arrest them for shooting people. If I buy a gun and never once discharge it (jailbreaking for curiosity), I have done nothing wrong. If I buy a gun and discharge it into a paper target at a marksmanship competition (jailbreaking to run FOSS or f@h or the like), I have done nothing wrong. If I buy a gun and discharge it into someone's head (piracy, albeit a horribly disproportionate analogy) I have done something wrong and deserve to be prosecuted not for my ownership of the gun, not for my pulling of the trigger, but for my harm of another.
Mentalities like yours are the same ones that give people like MADD their political power. "A statistically insignificant number of individuals do X with Y ill effect, so let's make everyone's lives harder for the sake of stopping that statistical minority!"
In a word, no.
I, too, am interested in the answer to this. The "basically-the-same-but-not-quite" styles on their keyboards are what's been putting me off ordering one. I like my Lenovo SK-8825 for no-frills functionality but a Model M would be a nice thing to have, especially since my office is in the basement and I'm not likely to wake anyone up.
You don't have to be personally affected by something to object to it on principle.
Which is still different from the Mustang case. You can develop, produce, and install an accessory for the car and have it perform how you intended (assuming you're good enough to make it do that) with or without Ford's permission. You can distribute an Xbox game with or without Microsoft's permission, but actually using it for anything more than a coaster (I know, I know, digital distribution) is an entirely different story.
The difference is that of the two devices you own, the car and the Xbox, one can be modified (aftermarket parts put on) with the expectation of reaping the full benefits of that modification, and the other can be modified (homebrew software written and installed) with no expectation whatsoever of any functionality at all from that modification unless the hardware manufacturer says so.
This should not be.
I agree. This kind of feature is sorely needed in both TVs and playback software alike. I've tried VLC's normalizer function but can't seem to achieve predictable results (the instructions are written in a somewhat confusing fashion as well) and it's really annoying with some shows and movies that have audio tracks like rollercoasters. I recall Miller's Crossing having a massive police-mafia shootout scene immediately following a quiet conversation between two characters. Like the movie, hate having to scramble for the volume controls. Horror movies in particular are next to impossible to watch at night because of the annoying-as-hell violin screeches when some creature jumps out to chew the hero's eyes out. Okay, I get it, I'm supposed to be startled, but I don't need to go deaf and if I'm watching late at night, the housemates don't need to be woken up just because the face-hugger is feeling horny again.
So yes, dynamic range compressors on playback equipment PLEASE.
it's going to suffer torrential backlash
That's likely only to happen bit by bit though...
It's also the truth. Just because it happens to be a convenient truth doesn't make it any less true. It is not the responsibility of the customer to keep the business afloat: it is, rather, the responsibility of the business to figure out how to keep the customer happy and thus stay afloat. If they can't do it, then tough. That's the reality of the free market that big-L Libertarians and Republicans and various other politically-involved types keep singing about. Another business will step in to replace the one that was too (old|top-heavy|unadaptable|inefficient|etc.) to survive. And the world keeps turning.
Seriously? How does that work? I've heard lots of stories of TSA thugs stealing things from luggage and requiring "TSA Secure" (insecure) locks, but this is the first I've heard about packing firearms being a means of keeping them out.
Mod parent up - it's not an anon troll, it's the kind of post that's written anonymously for good reason.
Good call on the Legacy. I've had one for going on 2 years and history shows that if you treat a Subaru right, it'll go well beyond that 10/150k mark. Plus AWD kicks ass in the winter, and the mileage, while not stellar, is more than a lot of sedans get.
Can we faux with you?
I wonder about this as well, since I recall reading those discussions here on /. with great enthusiasm. Did someone grease the right palms in Congress to make the "problem" go away or is it just an example of overhead-laden government taking way too long to get anything done?
That's true. A bolt of lightning WAS able to send the DeLorean 30 years into the future. But then they'd be able to tell you the outcomes of all the sports games before you even watch - you'd never enjoy sports again. And then they'd build a multi-trillion dollar empire on their sports knowledge and turn the world to shit.
Oh, wait, you were talking about them dying? Monster!
Okay, so how about encryption? I imagine that no amount of so-called "resiliency" will survive a good symmetric-key cipher. All a ripping group would have to do is run their encode through GPG and set it to use AES-256, then publish the passphrase in the torrent detail page. Sure it wouldn't stop industry insiders from downloading and decrypting the file, but it would stop dead any attempts to analyze file hashes at the ISP level and automate takedowns. Or am I missing something?
As I understand it, the codec type isn't hardcoded in the HTML, but it's still up to the browser to implement decoding and playback. This is where the Firefox/h.264 problem comes in - Mozilla has said that they won't implement h.264 decoding in FF because of patent issues. HTML5's video tag acts pretty much like an img tag - it points to the source file for the video but doesn't say a whole lot about what kind of video it is. More information here: http://www.w3schools.com/html5/tag_video.asp
Bah, Shin Megami Tensei is so much better.
I absolutely agree with you, but I do worry about one thing: If the judgment against Sony is limited to forcing them to offer a paltry discount on games, it wouldn't serve as much deterrent. I'm terribly unfamiliar with the ins and outs of class-action suits so forgive my naivete, but are companies normally forced to pay monetary penalties to the state in addition to offering discounts and other benefits to the plaintiffs, or is it limited to just the "$5 off!" coupons?
I don't care about getting the money, I just would like to be damn sure that Sony loses the money, and that it's enough money that it hurts...a lot.
And if you keep that up, what users will you have left to block? Ad-blocking is becoming more and more prevalent and thanks to the Streisand effect, once non-blockers find out about the banning of blockers, they're more likely to start blocking either out of enlightened self-interest or a desire for revenge against you. So you block them too, and then you've blocked everyone, and you have nobody left to view your ads as the users have all left for sites that treat them with more value and respect and you're left high and dry, wanting for ad revenue that never comes because no impressions are being made. Websites need their users more than users need the websites.
And the end result was terrible. What's your point?
The difference was that in Aliens, the point of the Ripley/Newt relationship was Ripley finding a daughter in Newt after her biological daughter had lived a full life and died while Ripley was away in suspended animation. It was about her dealing with the loss and getting her life back, so there was significant character development in it. It was about second chances. There were second-chance themes in other places as well, if you look for them - Androids get to repair their reputation in Ripley's eyes with Bishop's heroics, the LV-426 mission is Gorman's 2nd drop and Ripley's 2nd run-in with the titular aliens in which she faces and conquers her fears, probably some others I'm not thinking of too.
In Res, on the other hand, it was just "let's play with themes of motherhood, because...well, just because. And I'm Joss fucking Whedon and I say so." The alien-womb/birthing scene was at least made appropriately creepy by Jean-Pierre Jeunet's direction, but the premise was absurd, to say the least. Half the scare factor of the aliens was their bizarre and invasive reproductive process and the horror of having some murderous creature rip its way out of you. The only reason the "gift of a human reproductive system" concept was even remotely scary was that the xenomorphs had already been established as strange, alien, and terrifying creatures and the humanizing of them felt invasive in its own way. Note that I'm referring to the concept that something like the aliens could adopt human characteristics (and the graphic display of exactly how), not that lame human-alien hybrid creature. Jeunet made an admirable effort to turn the half-assed script of Res into a decent product, but it's telling that he swore off Hollywood after that. Whedon's thousand-times-rehashed ideas can only be salvaged so far.
Incidentally, I remember reading that Whedon had the gall to blame Jeunet for the final product being subpar.
No, you're not. I don't know when this geek law went into effect that says we must all love Firefly, but I've been breaking it all along and frankly, I'm not sorry. I watched it beginning to end, and the movie as well, and I don't think there was a single idea in it that hadn't been done better somewhere else. Ship of outlaws on the run from an overwhelmingly powerful government? Farscape. Space western? Cowboy Bebop. Telepaths/psychics trying to elude capture and subsequent scientific experimentation? Babylon 5. Badguy who will do anything to get what he wants, ethics be damned? Farscape again. Strong, capable, confident female characters? Farscape trifecta, and present in a lot of other series as well - take your pick from BSG's female cast, and there's Ivanova in B5, Caroline in ReGenesis, Scully in the X Files, the list goes on and on. Whedon hardly has a monopoly on sci-fi female empowerment, and what he does offer isn't even that good.
And yet even now, 8 years after its demise, I still hear people clamoring to have Firefly brought back. Makes no sense to me either.