Long story short, P2P or not, people are pirating these days, but the P2P folks have a larger appetite for music, and that includes purchasing it in larger quantities. Nothing really earth-shattering for most of us, though hopefully it'll be a wakeup call to the RIAA and their kind.
Well, we can hope, at least.
This resonates with something I've come to realise over the past week or so with regards to my own purchasing habits. And it's not just down to "I buy what I download", although you can easily oversimplify it out to that.
If I'm listening to a lot of music, I want to buy music. If I watch a lot of Anime, I want to buy Anime. If I'm watching a lot of genre TV, I want to buy genre DVDs. This includes if listened via radio or Spotify, or watch stuff on TV or on DVDs I already own. Consuming a certain type of media makes me want to consume more, and when I'm browsing the shops just after payday, that type of media is foremost in my mind.
I don't always buy exactly what I've already watched, although I sometimes do, but it puts me in the mindset to buy something.
So whether it's via torrents or via radio/TV/Spotify/VOD/rental, if I've just really enjoyed something then see something similar on the shelves of a shop, or in an Amazon search, then I'm more likely to buy it than when that kind of thing isn't on my mind.
I buy more media when I'm consuming media. This goes for things I see or listen to legitimately, too. But it's easy to understand why some people who pirate music will also buy a lot. They either want what they've listened to or just want to buy some music.
And most of us have absolutely no problem with the "For Dummies" theme that's skinned over so many products today.
The problem isn't even if it's the default look and feel.
The problem is generated when frustrated (and experienced) users cannot change it to suit their liking.
My sentiments exactly.
Going back to the Ribbon, it was a complete break from how things used to work. I will grant that it's probably a better method for people first learning how to use the software. It does make a certian amount of sense from that perspective.
My issue with it was it became the One True Interface. If you wanted the new improvements or needed reliable file file format compatibility (as the compatibility pack wasn't perfect) - or just bought a new PC from a shop - you were lumbered with the Ribbon. There was no (Microsoft produced) method of reverting back to classic menus and icons. A nice third-party solution did exist, that I used for a short while.
From a personal point fo view, I did adjust to the Ribbon. It took a while, but I am now pretty good at using it. I can work my way around it as natively as I could the old menus.
But here's the thing, I still prefer the classic interface. This isn't a technical limitation I have. It's not a lack of desire to learn something new. From an preference and aesthetic viewpoint, I just don't like it. I can (and do) use the RIbbon. I'd just rather not. Even now.
And that's where mandated UI changes really piss me off. It's not a "new default". It's a whole new interface, whether you like it or not. If your preference is for heirarchical menus, or power user options, or vertical layout (or whatever non-standard layout you favour) you are out of luck. Your opinion does not count. "We created this shiney new perfect UI, this is all you get with the newer releases." Which really sucks when using older versions is not an option for whatever reasons.
Obviously providing the means to download relatively small files is cheaper than manufacturing and shipping books, so good thing something might be done about it.
The fallacy here is that the physical cost of a book (printing, storing, shipping) is the largest contributor to its price. It's not*.
The problem with ths fallacy, though, is that it is reinformed by the retail side of it. Hardback are pricey, paperbacks are cheaper. Hardback prices still stay at the same price even after teh paperback comes out, therefore hardbacks cost more. Therefore printing is a key factor in cost.
The conclusion may be false, but it is logical given the perception of the facts at hand.
There is also the matter of value.
Personally, I don't mind paying close to paperback prices for an ebook. Hardback prices, on the other hand, make me want something persistent. Maybe if the file was DRM-free. Maybe.
But hardback pricing for less functionality than a paperback? It's just not worth it.
This isn't entirely true, certainly not anymore. And I say this as a subtitle fan. I've seen enough clips, and entire episodes (granted, of stuff I saw subbed first...) and the dubbing these days is actually pretty damned good. The quality is improving over time. And that can only be a good thing. Should I ever want to intruduce a non-subtitle watcher to a new show, I can do it without my ears bleeding.;-)
I think it mainly comes down to personal preference.
My interest in anime (and other Japanese shows) has contributed to (and is increased by) my interest in Japanese language and culture. So my preference remains to the original langue version. Obivously manga and novels I have to read in English, owing to my lack of real Japanese skill. But subtitles means I can enjoy the original performance, in its original langue, with original inflections, yet still understand what is going on.
And that is the same regardless of the quality of the dubbing. A good dub does, however, mean I can rewatch something (or go sub-free when my eyes are tired) and actually enjoy the overall show.
Maybe if dubs had been this good back in the 1990s my preferences would be different. It's certainly possible, and would explain why more people seem to like the dubs these days. And I don't have a problem with that, as long as the discs continue to have the subs on.
I don't see it as exactly moving the "pirate" stuff.
I see it as Google had probably already planned on tuning the auto-complete to remove a lot of pirate search terms because, quite frankly, its not helpful for anybody that those be there.
There is probably a lot of other things that will be down-favored in this same move, but Google gets to turn to the RIAA and say "See what we did for you!" by focusing its forward face on the coincidental removal of things the RIAA wants removed.
As long as they're not removing actual search results, I don't see too much of a probem with this. As someone who works in IT Support it's really bloody annoying when Googling a software name without autocomplete "suggesting" warez, serials, cracks,. keygens, etc.
utocpletely can be really useful to see if other people have encountered the same issue. But when the top tier of auto-suggetions are to do with acquiring pirate copies of software I already have ut need to fix... not useful. And it's worse if the terms I want to use include serial, CD, license, etc. As these always get the auto-complete suggestions of crack, keygen, etc.
It sounds like the submissions didn't agree with the minister's pre-determined outcome.. just keep trying until you get what you want to hear.
Doesn't surprise me in the slightest. It's the way a lot of people are, it's certainly a behaviour I see a lot in my cutsomer-facing role. People told "no" try rephrasing the quaestion or restating their side of the reasoning several times then then ask my boss, get their boss to ask me and ultimately get their boss to ask my boss. (And they then look genuinely surprised when my boss tells them exactly what I already told them...)
In very very few cases does the answer change. But people seem to be conditioned that when they ask a question there is only one "true" answer that will eventually come out.
And I'm certain that managers and politicians believe the same thing. They know what they want to hear, so that they can present it on to others. And they'll keep going until they have the stats they want.
Unfortunately, you're dead right. One of the DRM advocates on the BBC Blogs comment thread comes over very much as being afraid that caving to the "FOSS preachers" will result in the withdrawal of content from the content providers.
Or, to put it another way, is willing to put up with a reduction in freedom as long as all his (her?) favourite programs are available for viewing.
And then in the same paragraph, will accuse FOSS advocates of being "selfish".
What they want is to pick up the phone, make a call, and have someone tell them what to do.
Which is fine and understandable. Annoying at times, but fine and understandable. What isn't fine, however, is how often they then call asking for support after dismissing the error message.
It's when people say "The program crashed and there was an error message, so I dismissed it and restarted. What went wrong?" And they have no idea what was in the error message, and don't seem to get that they sorta help me troubleshoot what the problem might have been.
On the flip-side, I've known some users who will actually pass on the error message. Whether by email, screenshot, post-in-note or even just leaving it on the screen and asking if I could have a look.
They may not be interested in how it works or what actually went wrong, but at least they realise that those annoying little messages might actually help a techie get them up and working faster.
Most of the crap wouldn't be so bad, only most ad-supported pages block on the main content until the adverts are loaded. And, personally, if it takes longer to load the ads than the content then I quickly read the content, ignore the ads more than ever, and mentally blacklist the site for a while.
This can be annoying in and of itself but it becomes worse if you're on a bad connection or if, perish the thought, the ad-server slows down.
I've had these before. In one case, the link was s slow somewhere on the chain that it took a couple of minutes to get as far as the logon page for one site so I could access the ad-free version.
And then we have the sites which put an advert in before the content, or who split the articles into multiple (ad-supported) pages.
If the companies really want to protect their revenue stream then they need to make sure that aforementioned stream (the adverts) doesn't get seen as "crap" by readers. Relevance and not slowing the site to a crawl would help. Yes, some of us out here will dislike advertising on principle, but it will help in the public view if the adverts don't make it hard to get to the content that people go there for in the first place. Making reading the articles feel like effort really isn't a good buiness plan, surely?
This is my main issue with the Ribbon. Not the existance of the Ribbon itself, but that it is the only interface available in Office 2007. And even worse, the only plugins to restore the old-style menus and toolbars are third-party.
I can see that they wanted to make an interface that's meant to be more intuitive to new users. I can even see how it may well accomplish that - I've heard anecdotal evidence on both sides.
What really bugs me is that for those of us who have years or experience using the more traditional-looking interface and can skim the menus quickly, or for those people who learn one way of doing things and get completely flummoxed by a change in interface, Microsoft have decreed no official way of working the way you're used to. Not even an official Microsoft plugin.
The problem in that case, though, is that the UK release - being a part of the European release - cannot (or at least often is not) be released until all the other European languages are done. Even though the game's already been translated to (or released in) English.
When it's a game you've been waiting for since before even the American (or Japanese) release, it just feels like a massive insult. But then they wonder why people import or flat out download the games. Once it's in English, English-speaking gamers are ready to play it.
If there was a confirmed date it would proably be better. But when the game's been out Stateside for months before there's even a confirmed UK/European release date, no wonder people lose patience.
The worst thing about this lack is that it would help in the case of corporate environments, which Microsoft seem so keen on. Yet they still don't include it. (OK, from the sounds of it Vista's UAC acts similarly - only without the Grace Period which allows a string of admin tasks to be done without having to authorise every single action.)
Currently the annoying thing about tech-support is when a user needs something doing which is, in and of itself, only about a 2-minute task. But it then requires either logging off and back in as an admin, or promoting their accounts and re-logging in for when admin-level user-side things need doing.
So a showstopping issue with a quick-fix often ends up taking far too long because Windows (XP) doesn't play well with certain software - even using RunAs.
It's not possible to make a single game be go and dice. You can't add both randomness and it's lack to a game, to appeal every target.
I guess one of the problems with many videogames is that the same game (or game genre) can by played by people with totally differing skill levels.
Not even necessarily playing at the same time. But just playing in general.
The problem this raises is that for the highly practiced and skilled FPS gamer, they want it to be Go or chess. They have the decent screen, the precision controllers, and the decent hand-eye coordination. When the cross-hairs match up, it hits. Because they are (genuinely) that good, and when it doesn't hit it must be highly frustrating.
End result: Too much randomness and it's not fun.
Then there are the people like me. Mainly avoid FPS games. Sometimes play them for a quick fun round or blasting. In this case, it needs to be closer to poker or dice. I know I've don'e well in (casual) games of UT in the past, purely because of luck and chance - as my skills are.... somewhat lacking. But without that randomness, I'd probably never last more than a munute - at best.
End result: Not enough randomness and it's not fun.
So, for the developers they are between and rock and a hard place. They have to try and appeal to every target. If it's hardcore-only then it'll have great cult appeal, but might not sell as well. If it's casual-gamer-only, they get lots of instant sales but it might not have as undiring a long-term appeal as the more advanced gamers won't contunue to buy/mod/play it too much beyond the next big release.
Exactly. DVDs still tend to look pretty good on widescreen TFTs, up to a certain point. Especially as many DVD players, games consoles and Blu Ray players will upscale them pretty well.
Yes, I've seen some HD content on my XBox 360 played out through a 22" TFT screen and it does look really good. And I've seen Blu Ray content played out on basically a cinema-sized screen in a lecture theatre (fully licensed movie club). And it looks really good.
But on a modest sized HD TV set, and with a decent upscaling player, DVD content still looks pretty impressive.
Once I do start getting more into HD content, it will primarily be for new material. Not for re-buying things I already have a copy of. Especially when a Blu Ray player will still play DVDs, and play them really well.
And for now, my Xbox 360 (and second-hand digital 5.1 decoder) is breathing a whole new lease of life into my current DVD collection.
Having done several years of helpdesk myself (before moving on to greener pastures as a graphic designer), that is most certainly true.. However, the IT Crowd certainly made it funny:P
The IT Crowd also made it difficult. It's now so cliche that people think I'm fobbing them off or belittling them when I ask them to do it. It's not until it either works, or it fails giving me a useful on-startup error message, that people see that I tend to ask them to do it for a reason.:P
This is precisely why I do often suggest the good old power-cycle.
I know they don't solve everything, but there's a surprising amount of things they do solve. Plus even when I think the problem is likely to occur again, I find a reboot helps me narrow down whether it's something intermittent or if it just comes back up in the "wrong" state straight away.
I also, personally, find that whether (and how) a reboot affects a problem helps me narrow down whether it's likely to be a software, hardware or networking problem. I do apologise to users for having to give the "cliche" response, but I try to explain that far from trying to fob them off I'm actually trying to narrow down what the problem is.
Oddly, that's exactly why I think this is something best implemented in the console. Many times (past and present), I've found that the pause function has been essential when a mealtime or sudden bout of winter tiredness hits nowhere near a save-point. Just going to prove that current games (and consoles) are not geared around stopping at an arbitrary time. Not unless you want to lose any progress you've made.
I've seen devices on sale here in the UK that basically sit between the console and the power socket, and shut off after a set time. Forget whether the person is near a save-point, it would have no concept of if a save was in-progress at the time. Say hello to potential memory-card corruption.
Actually, I think the best thing would be if all consoles could support a (reliable) hibernate/sleep/standby/whatever mode like that.
I've seen many an point in this discussion about monitoring or trusting your own kids, rather than having to use the console itself to enforce it. Well if more ocnsoles would support some sort of state-saving to allow a nowhere-near-a-savepoint quicksave mode, it would peobably help a fair bit. Especially in those games that tend to put unskippable story-modes after a really difficult Boss fight but before the next save-point. And usually right around mealtime/bedtime/visit from relative. Allow gamers (of any age) to save and switch off at any time regardless of where they are and you're more likely to get cooperation when asking someone stop gaming for the day.
What I'd like to see is a combination of the two. Yes, having all preferences in one place would be nice. Yes, having them all in your home directory is useful. But it's not and either-or scenario. Something like/home/fred/.dotfiles/ (or.prefs,.settings, etc) would keep the home directory tidier whilst still keeping programs' user settings in the home directory structure.
Anti-Mac zealots will point-and-laugh, though they usually fair just as poorly.
Mac-Zealots will beat their chests and defend their platform to the point of pig-headed-ness.
Linux-Zealots will talk down to everyone else, stating that using a non-open OS is a war crime or some nonsense.
Why can't people be more moderate?
I agree. I see the early months of Leopard as no different to Vista or Gutsy (or the latest release of any Linux distro). The early adopters will run into the snags that don't show up as easily until the public ghet their hands on things. And things will improve over time.
Heck, I still don't get why early adopters of the latest gen games consoles were so surprised about initial faults. Expecting the initial releases to be totally fault-free is, unfortunately, unrealistic. Yet many people went to buy on release day and seem shocked that things had issues.
All three of the major OS platforms have their own variations of the problem, but all three suffer - and no amount of love for whichever your favourties are will change the fact that chances are your chosen favourite will hit some glitch or other in the early stages.
Windows suffers from the sheer size of its userbase. The minor glitches get as much exposure as the major ones, simply due to size of exposure.
Macs can suffer from the size of its userbase, in that it's smaller. So third-party software and drivers may not get updated as speedily as their Windows counterparts.
Linux distros, especially the repository-based ones, can suffer from having to weigh up wheter you want stability (use the repos, and only the official ones), or going bleeding edge (roll your own installations). And if you do want to keep repository-based, yet you need an app that's upgraded (or only added) in the next version up then it might mean upgrading early even knowing the inevitable Early Adopter problems.
Different problems, but none of them are perfect. This is not a sign of Apple being on a downhill trend. I recall a similar bunch of threads here (and elsewhere) back when Tiger came out. And Vista. And Ubuntu. And probably other Linux distros, also.
Honestly, you can't expect any new commercial OS version to be flawless.
Nearly all linux distributions I worked with in the last few years (!!) display storage capacities with the correct binary unit (KiB, MiB etc.).
The useful thing that I do find about that notation is that I see it and automatically know which measurement they're using. I do wonder, though, how people "hear" it when they read it.
I know I still sort of see it as "Megabyte (using binary calculation)". As I know what the older term meant, and still does to me. Yet I certainly find it a useful visual distinction, even if I'd still say the old (technically wrong) term.
Of course, OSes could just report both figures... ie. Drive C has 200GB (185GiB)
Better still, if OSs and package labelling and drives and media used both then it would be a lot easier. Additionally, if the two terms were used side-by-side then, eventually, it would become understodd (and accepted) that the two have different meanings.
Now if only the pronunciations weren't so laughable...
It would certianly help adoption if the terms used didn't sound/feel like a joke when spoken out loud.
But the base 2 units have been used for decades. Calling that use anarchy is similar to saying that we shouldn't use "bug" to describe a software malfunction simply because it has another meaning. Context will always tell you the answer. In the computer context, kilo is 1024.
I'm in complete agreement. I guess the main problem is that it's a simple conflict with non-simple repercussions.
As you say, it's all to do with context. "Kilobyte", and the like, refers to 1024 bytes. The use of the term to mean something else would be a wrong use of the word kilobyte.
Having just said that, this doesn't change the fact that it is not the correct use of the prefix kilo-. But the complete word kilobyte still has the 1024 meaning, whether it's technically correct or not.
A couple of other points I've seen in this discussion do raise some interesting points, though. As regardless of the techncal correctness of the terms used, the hard drive manufacturers are getting off extremely lightly. Changes: Changing the terms used inside software/computers/manuals/documentation/etc would take a lot of doing. And could take years to be fully realised. Changing the terms used on the packaging of drives would be a lot quicker. Honesty: It's quite interesting that, apparently, hard drive sizes used to use the "accepted" definitions of kilobyte, megabyte, etc. If this is the case (I accept that "read it on slashdot" is not always a ringing endorsement of accuracy), then the manufacturers were incredibly sneaky. They're technically in the right, as they're using the terms in the officially correct way. Yet they're able to sell drives that are smaller than the accepted meaning of the sizes would suggest. Very clever, as they can point at the SI-endorsed terms and claim complete compliance.
c) Not increase their productivity one bit even when they finally have it all working.
I'm not totally convinced by that. I'm using Vista at work, and find it very annoying in many ways. However, when we "finally have it all working" it will probably be a lot more productive than XP.
The problem at the moment, I think, is that there are lots of little (or not-so-little) genuine improvements. But they're all overshadowed by incompatible software and having to effectively relearn what almost looks like the same UI.
Windows finally handles removable drives and network drives sanely, by recognising Network mappings not trying to map a USB stick onto the same letter.
The offline synchronisation seems somewhat more robust and non-intrusive.
As someone else pointed out elsewhere, ALT-TAB has "the desktop" as an option.
All these little things could so easily add up to an increase in productivity. But right now they add less productivity than the incompatibilities take away. People have learned to work around the shortcomings. Making them work around "Our software package isn't yet 100% compatible" isn't as valid an option.
Given a couple of years, I think Vista could be highly usable, even in a business environment. But right now, there's just too much against it.
I think the problem is that prospective users hear about all the new problems that come with Vista, but they don't hear about how it solves any of their existing problems. Marketing is supposed to prevent that, but Microsoft hasn't been to good at that the past few years.
Marketing: "The 'Wow' starts now!": me: Actually, the 'wow' stopped a week ago when I started using it as my primary work PC. (And I still have my XP laptop, and an XP VM).
The other drawback is that those of us that have started to use Vista may not see any real compelling advantage to it. In our office we (the IT team) are mainly switching to it so that we're used to the OS. Being part of a university, we get the "pleasure" of dealing with student's own computer problems on occasion. And as Vista is coming more and more as standard, we need to know the system well enough.
But given the real choice, I'd drop Vista for XP tomorrow.
Yes, there are some great improvements over XP in here. And some of Windows' longstanding bad behaviours (or things where the current usage outgrew the original design) have finally been fixed. But for every thing fixed[1], I see at least one issue that would stop it from being suitable for the rest of our staff. From third-party software that's lagging in compatibility, to expected (or required) behaviours that have been changed[2] between XP and Vista. It takes things we've been using and adds things that, although useful, we know how to work around lacking.
I also think that, despite my somewhat anti-MS bias, I will warm to Vista like I warmed to XP over time. And I think businesses and organisations will do likewise. In fact, I'm fully willing to give Vista a chance, I just know it might take a year or so to prove itself.
And I think that might be a bit of a common type of attitude. Accepting that Vista can (and probably will) become a suiltable OS in the long-term. But, in the short-term, it's best to stick with XP.
[1] Removeable hard drives (USB sticks, etc) now get assigned letters around mapped network drives. Rather than trying to use a letter that's in use because it doesn't check for it. Major improvement.
[2] Inability to exclude subfolders from offline synchronisation. Apparently this is "by design", but it means you can no longer exlucde (long term or ad hoc) subfolders is for any reason you don't want to sync the whole lot to your local machine.
Some people may be waiting for compatibility fixes or Service Pack 1 before they upgrade to Vista.
Also, some people may be waiting for the Compatibility Fixes from companies other than Microsoft. MS might bring out Vista SP1 in 2007, but if your organisation depends on a software package whose developers have slated a Vista-compatible release for 2008 then no amount of pleading from Microsoft is going to make an upgrade happen this side of the new year.
The ability for specific software to run tends to be more important than running the "latest and greatest". And if one (or more) essential programs still can't run on Vista, then there is no reason to upgrade from XP any time soon.
Besides, in the case of SP1, it would need thourhough testing in any (sane) working environment. As would Vista itself. So if SP1 is set to address "High Impact Issues", then it's going to be pretty much an essential deployment. And if SP1 is due out by the end of 2007, surely it makes sense to only do one set of testing this year.
Slashdot Mirror
Long story short, P2P or not, people are pirating these days, but the P2P folks have a larger appetite for music, and that includes purchasing it in larger quantities. Nothing really earth-shattering for most of us, though hopefully it'll be a wakeup call to the RIAA and their kind.
Well, we can hope, at least.
This resonates with something I've come to realise over the past week or so with regards to my own purchasing habits. And it's not just down to "I buy what I download", although you can easily oversimplify it out to that.
If I'm listening to a lot of music, I want to buy music. If I watch a lot of Anime, I want to buy Anime. If I'm watching a lot of genre TV, I want to buy genre DVDs. This includes if listened via radio or Spotify, or watch stuff on TV or on DVDs I already own. Consuming a certain type of media makes me want to consume more, and when I'm browsing the shops just after payday, that type of media is foremost in my mind.
I don't always buy exactly what I've already watched, although I sometimes do, but it puts me in the mindset to buy something.
So whether it's via torrents or via radio/TV/Spotify/VOD/rental, if I've just really enjoyed something then see something similar on the shelves of a shop, or in an Amazon search, then I'm more likely to buy it than when that kind of thing isn't on my mind.
I buy more media when I'm consuming media. This goes for things I see or listen to legitimately, too. But it's easy to understand why some people who pirate music will also buy a lot. They either want what they've listened to or just want to buy some music.
And most of us have absolutely no problem with the "For Dummies" theme that's skinned over so many products today.
The problem isn't even if it's the default look and feel.
The problem is generated when frustrated (and experienced) users cannot change it to suit their liking.
My sentiments exactly.
Going back to the Ribbon, it was a complete break from how things used to work. I will grant that it's probably a better method for people first learning how to use the software. It does make a certian amount of sense from that perspective.
My issue with it was it became the One True Interface. If you wanted the new improvements or needed reliable file file format compatibility (as the compatibility pack wasn't perfect) - or just bought a new PC from a shop - you were lumbered with the Ribbon. There was no (Microsoft produced) method of reverting back to classic menus and icons. A nice third-party solution did exist, that I used for a short while.
From a personal point fo view, I did adjust to the Ribbon. It took a while, but I am now pretty good at using it. I can work my way around it as natively as I could the old menus.
But here's the thing, I still prefer the classic interface. This isn't a technical limitation I have. It's not a lack of desire to learn something new. From an preference and aesthetic viewpoint, I just don't like it. I can (and do) use the RIbbon. I'd just rather not. Even now.
And that's where mandated UI changes really piss me off. It's not a "new default". It's a whole new interface, whether you like it or not. If your preference is for heirarchical menus, or power user options, or vertical layout (or whatever non-standard layout you favour) you are out of luck. Your opinion does not count. "We created this shiney new perfect UI, this is all you get with the newer releases." Which really sucks when using older versions is not an option for whatever reasons.
One size does not fit all. Options are nice.
The fallacy here is that the physical cost of a book (printing, storing, shipping) is the largest contributor to its price. It's not*.
The problem with ths fallacy, though, is that it is reinformed by the retail side of it. Hardback are pricey, paperbacks are cheaper. Hardback prices still stay at the same price even after teh paperback comes out, therefore hardbacks cost more. Therefore printing is a key factor in cost.
The conclusion may be false, but it is logical given the perception of the facts at hand.
There is also the matter of value.
Personally, I don't mind paying close to paperback prices for an ebook. Hardback prices, on the other hand, make me want something persistent. Maybe if the file was DRM-free. Maybe.
But hardback pricing for less functionality than a paperback? It's just not worth it.
This isn't entirely true, certainly not anymore. And I say this as a subtitle fan. I've seen enough clips, and entire episodes (granted, of stuff I saw subbed first...) and the dubbing these days is actually pretty damned good. The quality is improving over time. And that can only be a good thing. Should I ever want to intruduce a non-subtitle watcher to a new show, I can do it without my ears bleeding. ;-)
I think it mainly comes down to personal preference.
My interest in anime (and other Japanese shows) has contributed to (and is increased by) my interest in Japanese language and culture. So my preference remains to the original langue version. Obivously manga and novels I have to read in English, owing to my lack of real Japanese skill. But subtitles means I can enjoy the original performance, in its original langue, with original inflections, yet still understand what is going on.
And that is the same regardless of the quality of the dubbing. A good dub does, however, mean I can rewatch something (or go sub-free when my eyes are tired) and actually enjoy the overall show.
Maybe if dubs had been this good back in the 1990s my preferences would be different. It's certainly possible, and would explain why more people seem to like the dubs these days. And I don't have a problem with that, as long as the discs continue to have the subs on.
I don't see it as exactly moving the "pirate" stuff.
I see it as Google had probably already planned on tuning the auto-complete to remove a lot of pirate search terms because, quite frankly, its not helpful for anybody that those be there.
There is probably a lot of other things that will be down-favored in this same move, but Google gets to turn to the RIAA and say "See what we did for you!" by focusing its forward face on the coincidental removal of things the RIAA wants removed.
As long as they're not removing actual search results, I don't see too much of a probem with this. As someone who works in IT Support it's really bloody annoying when Googling a software name without autocomplete "suggesting" warez, serials, cracks,. keygens, etc.
utocpletely can be really useful to see if other people have encountered the same issue. But when the top tier of auto-suggetions are to do with acquiring pirate copies of software I already have ut need to fix... not useful. And it's worse if the terms I want to use include serial, CD, license, etc. As these always get the auto-complete suggestions of crack, keygen, etc.
Doesn't surprise me in the slightest. It's the way a lot of people are, it's certainly a behaviour I see a lot in my cutsomer-facing role. People told "no" try rephrasing the quaestion or restating their side of the reasoning several times then then ask my boss, get their boss to ask me and ultimately get their boss to ask my boss. (And they then look genuinely surprised when my boss tells them exactly what I already told them...)
In very very few cases does the answer change. But people seem to be conditioned that when they ask a question there is only one "true" answer that will eventually come out.
And I'm certain that managers and politicians believe the same thing. They know what they want to hear, so that they can present it on to others. And they'll keep going until they have the stats they want.
Unfortunately, you're dead right. One of the DRM advocates on the BBC Blogs comment thread comes over very much as being afraid that caving to the "FOSS preachers" will result in the withdrawal of content from the content providers.
Or, to put it another way, is willing to put up with a reduction in freedom as long as all his (her?) favourite programs are available for viewing.
And then in the same paragraph, will accuse FOSS advocates of being "selfish".
What they want is to pick up the phone, make a call, and have someone tell them what to do.
Which is fine and understandable. Annoying at times, but fine and understandable. What isn't fine, however, is how often they then call asking for support after dismissing the error message.
It's when people say "The program crashed and there was an error message, so I dismissed it and restarted. What went wrong?" And they have no idea what was in the error message, and don't seem to get that they sorta help me troubleshoot what the problem might have been.
On the flip-side, I've known some users who will actually pass on the error message. Whether by email, screenshot, post-in-note or even just leaving it on the screen and asking if I could have a look.
They may not be interested in how it works or what actually went wrong, but at least they realise that those annoying little messages might actually help a techie get them up and working faster.
Most of the crap wouldn't be so bad, only most ad-supported pages block on the main content until the adverts are loaded. And, personally, if it takes longer to load the ads than the content then I quickly read the content, ignore the ads more than ever, and mentally blacklist the site for a while.
This can be annoying in and of itself but it becomes worse if you're on a bad connection or if, perish the thought, the ad-server slows down.
I've had these before. In one case, the link was s slow somewhere on the chain that it took a couple of minutes to get as far as the logon page for one site so I could access the ad-free version.
And then we have the sites which put an advert in before the content, or who split the articles into multiple (ad-supported) pages.
If the companies really want to protect their revenue stream then they need to make sure that aforementioned stream (the adverts) doesn't get seen as "crap" by readers. Relevance and not slowing the site to a crawl would help. Yes, some of us out here will dislike advertising on principle, but it will help in the public view if the adverts don't make it hard to get to the content that people go there for in the first place. Making reading the articles feel like effort really isn't a good buiness plan, surely?
This is my main issue with the Ribbon. Not the existance of the Ribbon itself, but that it is the only interface available in Office 2007. And even worse, the only plugins to restore the old-style menus and toolbars are third-party.
I can see that they wanted to make an interface that's meant to be more intuitive to new users. I can even see how it may well accomplish that - I've heard anecdotal evidence on both sides.
What really bugs me is that for those of us who have years or experience using the more traditional-looking interface and can skim the menus quickly, or for those people who learn one way of doing things and get completely flummoxed by a change in interface, Microsoft have decreed no official way of working the way you're used to. Not even an official Microsoft plugin.
The problem in that case, though, is that the UK release - being a part of the European release - cannot (or at least often is not) be released until all the other European languages are done. Even though the game's already been translated to (or released in) English.
When it's a game you've been waiting for since before even the American (or Japanese) release, it just feels like a massive insult. But then they wonder why people import or flat out download the games. Once it's in English, English-speaking gamers are ready to play it.
If there was a confirmed date it would proably be better. But when the game's been out Stateside for months before there's even a confirmed UK/European release date, no wonder people lose patience.
The worst thing about this lack is that it would help in the case of corporate environments, which Microsoft seem so keen on. Yet they still don't include it.
(OK, from the sounds of it Vista's UAC acts similarly - only without the Grace Period which allows a string of admin tasks to be done without having to authorise every single action.)
Currently the annoying thing about tech-support is when a user needs something doing which is, in and of itself, only about a 2-minute task. But it then requires either logging off and back in as an admin, or promoting their accounts and re-logging in for when admin-level user-side things need doing.
So a showstopping issue with a quick-fix often ends up taking far too long because Windows (XP) doesn't play well with certain software - even using RunAs.
It's not possible to make a single game be go and dice. You can't add both randomness and it's lack to a game, to appeal every target.
I guess one of the problems with many videogames is that the same game (or game genre) can by played by people with totally differing skill levels.
Not even necessarily playing at the same time. But just playing in general.
The problem this raises is that for the highly practiced and skilled FPS gamer, they want it to be Go or chess. They have the decent screen, the precision controllers, and the decent hand-eye coordination. When the cross-hairs match up, it hits. Because they are (genuinely) that good, and when it doesn't hit it must be highly frustrating.
End result: Too much randomness and it's not fun.
Then there are the people like me. Mainly avoid FPS games. Sometimes play them for a quick fun round or blasting. In this case, it needs to be closer to poker or dice. I know I've don'e well in (casual) games of UT in the past, purely because of luck and chance - as my skills are.... somewhat lacking. But without that randomness, I'd probably never last more than a munute - at best.
End result: Not enough randomness and it's not fun.
So, for the developers they are between and rock and a hard place. They have to try and appeal to every target. If it's hardcore-only then it'll have great cult appeal, but might not sell as well. If it's casual-gamer-only, they get lots of instant sales but it might not have as undiring a long-term appeal as the more advanced gamers won't contunue to buy/mod/play it too much beyond the next big release.
Exactly. DVDs still tend to look pretty good on widescreen TFTs, up to a certain point. Especially as many DVD players, games consoles and Blu Ray players will upscale them pretty well.
Yes, I've seen some HD content on my XBox 360 played out through a 22" TFT screen and it does look really good. And I've seen Blu Ray content played out on basically a cinema-sized screen in a lecture theatre (fully licensed movie club). And it looks really good.
But on a modest sized HD TV set, and with a decent upscaling player, DVD content still looks pretty impressive. Once I do start getting more into HD content, it will primarily be for new material. Not for re-buying things I already have a copy of. Especially when a Blu Ray player will still play DVDs, and play them really well.
And for now, my Xbox 360 (and second-hand digital 5.1 decoder) is breathing a whole new lease of life into my current DVD collection.
The IT Crowd also made it difficult. It's now so cliche that people think I'm fobbing them off or belittling them when I ask them to do it. It's not until it either works, or it fails giving me a useful on-startup error message, that people see that I tend to ask them to do it for a reason. :P
This is precisely why I do often suggest the good old power-cycle.
I know they don't solve everything, but there's a surprising amount of things they do solve. Plus even when I think the problem is likely to occur again, I find a reboot helps me narrow down whether it's something intermittent or if it just comes back up in the "wrong" state straight away.
I also, personally, find that whether (and how) a reboot affects a problem helps me narrow down whether it's likely to be a software, hardware or networking problem. I do apologise to users for having to give the "cliche" response, but I try to explain that far from trying to fob them off I'm actually trying to narrow down what the problem is.
Oddly, that's exactly why I think this is something best implemented in the console. Many times (past and present), I've found that the pause function has been essential when a mealtime or sudden bout of winter tiredness hits nowhere near a save-point. Just going to prove that current games (and consoles) are not geared around stopping at an arbitrary time. Not unless you want to lose any progress you've made.
I've seen devices on sale here in the UK that basically sit between the console and the power socket, and shut off after a set time. Forget whether the person is near a save-point, it would have no concept of if a save was in-progress at the time. Say hello to potential memory-card corruption.
Actually, I think the best thing would be if all consoles could support a (reliable) hibernate/sleep/standby/whatever mode like that.
I've seen many an point in this discussion about monitoring or trusting your own kids, rather than having to use the console itself to enforce it. Well if more ocnsoles would support some sort of state-saving to allow a nowhere-near-a-savepoint quicksave mode, it would peobably help a fair bit. Especially in those games that tend to put unskippable story-modes after a really difficult Boss fight but before the next save-point. And usually right around mealtime/bedtime/visit from relative. Allow gamers (of any age) to save and switch off at any time regardless of where they are and you're more likely to get cooperation when asking someone stop gaming for the day.
What I'd like to see is a combination of the two. Yes, having all preferences in one place would be nice. Yes, having them all in your home directory is useful. But it's not and either-or scenario. Something like /home/fred/.dotfiles/ (or .prefs, .settings, etc) would keep the home directory tidier whilst still keeping programs' user settings in the home directory structure.
- Anti-Mac zealots will point-and-laugh, though they usually fair just as poorly.
- Mac-Zealots will beat their chests and defend their platform to the point of pig-headed-ness.
- Linux-Zealots will talk down to everyone else, stating that using a non-open OS is a war crime or some nonsense.
Why can't people be more moderate?I agree. I see the early months of Leopard as no different to Vista or Gutsy (or the latest release of any Linux distro). The early adopters will run into the snags that don't show up as easily until the public ghet their hands on things. And things will improve over time.
Heck, I still don't get why early adopters of the latest gen games consoles were so surprised about initial faults. Expecting the initial releases to be totally fault-free is, unfortunately, unrealistic. Yet many people went to buy on release day and seem shocked that things had issues.
All three of the major OS platforms have their own variations of the problem, but all three suffer - and no amount of love for whichever your favourties are will change the fact that chances are your chosen favourite will hit some glitch or other in the early stages.
Windows suffers from the sheer size of its userbase. The minor glitches get as much exposure as the major ones, simply due to size of exposure.
Macs can suffer from the size of its userbase, in that it's smaller. So third-party software and drivers may not get updated as speedily as their Windows counterparts.
Linux distros, especially the repository-based ones, can suffer from having to weigh up wheter you want stability (use the repos, and only the official ones), or going bleeding edge (roll your own installations). And if you do want to keep repository-based, yet you need an app that's upgraded (or only added) in the next version up then it might mean upgrading early even knowing the inevitable Early Adopter problems.
Different problems, but none of them are perfect. This is not a sign of Apple being on a downhill trend. I recall a similar bunch of threads here (and elsewhere) back when Tiger came out. And Vista. And Ubuntu. And probably other Linux distros, also.
Honestly, you can't expect any new commercial OS version to be flawless.Exactly. Or non-commercial ones, either.
The useful thing that I do find about that notation is that I see it and automatically know which measurement they're using. I do wonder, though, how people "hear" it when they read it.
I know I still sort of see it as "Megabyte (using binary calculation)". As I know what the older term meant, and still does to me. Yet I certainly find it a useful visual distinction, even if I'd still say the old (technically wrong) term.
Better still, if OSs and package labelling and drives and media used both then it would be a lot easier. Additionally, if the two terms were used side-by-side then, eventually, it would become understodd (and accepted) that the two have different meanings.
Now if only the pronunciations weren't so laughable...
It would certianly help adoption if the terms used didn't sound/feel like a joke when spoken out loud.
I'm in complete agreement. I guess the main problem is that it's a simple conflict with non-simple repercussions.
As you say, it's all to do with context. "Kilobyte", and the like, refers to 1024 bytes. The use of the term to mean something else would be a wrong use of the word kilobyte.
Having just said that, this doesn't change the fact that it is not the correct use of the prefix kilo-. But the complete word kilobyte still has the 1024 meaning, whether it's technically correct or not.
A couple of other points I've seen in this discussion do raise some interesting points, though. As regardless of the techncal correctness of the terms used, the hard drive manufacturers are getting off extremely lightly.
Changes: Changing the terms used inside software/computers/manuals/documentation/etc would take a lot of doing. And could take years to be fully realised. Changing the terms used on the packaging of drives would be a lot quicker.
Honesty: It's quite interesting that, apparently, hard drive sizes used to use the "accepted" definitions of kilobyte, megabyte, etc. If this is the case (I accept that "read it on slashdot" is not always a ringing endorsement of accuracy), then the manufacturers were incredibly sneaky. They're technically in the right, as they're using the terms in the officially correct way. Yet they're able to sell drives that are smaller than the accepted meaning of the sizes would suggest. Very clever, as they can point at the SI-endorsed terms and claim complete compliance.
I'm not totally convinced by that. I'm using Vista at work, and find it very annoying in many ways. However, when we "finally have it all working" it will probably be a lot more productive than XP.
The problem at the moment, I think, is that there are lots of little (or not-so-little) genuine improvements. But they're all overshadowed by incompatible software and having to effectively relearn what almost looks like the same UI.
Windows finally handles removable drives and network drives sanely, by recognising Network mappings not trying to map a USB stick onto the same letter.
The offline synchronisation seems somewhat more robust and non-intrusive.
As someone else pointed out elsewhere, ALT-TAB has "the desktop" as an option.
All these little things could so easily add up to an increase in productivity. But right now they add less productivity than the incompatibilities take away. People have learned to work around the shortcomings. Making them work around "Our software package isn't yet 100% compatible" isn't as valid an option.
Given a couple of years, I think Vista could be highly usable, even in a business environment. But right now, there's just too much against it.
Marketing: "The 'Wow' starts now!":
me: Actually, the 'wow' stopped a week ago when I started using it as my primary work PC. (And I still have my XP laptop, and an XP VM).
The other drawback is that those of us that have started to use Vista may not see any real compelling advantage to it. In our office we (the IT team) are mainly switching to it so that we're used to the OS. Being part of a university, we get the "pleasure" of dealing with student's own computer problems on occasion. And as Vista is coming more and more as standard, we need to know the system well enough.
But given the real choice, I'd drop Vista for XP tomorrow.
Yes, there are some great improvements over XP in here. And some of Windows' longstanding bad behaviours (or things where the current usage outgrew the original design) have finally been fixed. But for every thing fixed[1], I see at least one issue that would stop it from being suitable for the rest of our staff. From third-party software that's lagging in compatibility, to expected (or required) behaviours that have been changed[2] between XP and Vista. It takes things we've been using and adds things that, although useful, we know how to work around lacking.
I also think that, despite my somewhat anti-MS bias, I will warm to Vista like I warmed to XP over time. And I think businesses and organisations will do likewise. In fact, I'm fully willing to give Vista a chance, I just know it might take a year or so to prove itself.
And I think that might be a bit of a common type of attitude. Accepting that Vista can (and probably will) become a suiltable OS in the long-term. But, in the short-term, it's best to stick with XP.
[1] Removeable hard drives (USB sticks, etc) now get assigned letters around mapped network drives. Rather than trying to use a letter that's in use because it doesn't check for it. Major improvement.
[2] Inability to exclude subfolders from offline synchronisation. Apparently this is "by design", but it means you can no longer exlucde (long term or ad hoc) subfolders is for any reason you don't want to sync the whole lot to your local machine.
Also, some people may be waiting for the Compatibility Fixes from companies other than Microsoft. MS might bring out Vista SP1 in 2007, but if your organisation depends on a software package whose developers have slated a Vista-compatible release for 2008 then no amount of pleading from Microsoft is going to make an upgrade happen this side of the new year.
The ability for specific software to run tends to be more important than running the "latest and greatest". And if one (or more) essential programs still can't run on Vista, then there is no reason to upgrade from XP any time soon.
Besides, in the case of SP1, it would need thourhough testing in any (sane) working environment. As would Vista itself. So if SP1 is set to address "High Impact Issues", then it's going to be pretty much an essential deployment. And if SP1 is due out by the end of 2007, surely it makes sense to only do one set of testing this year.