I look at the web page and I see talk about funding, platforms and DRM.
But I haven't a clue about the game itself other than that it appears to patterned on the old-school low-res Lucas Arts graphic adventures.
What I need to know as an investor is whether you have a story, characters, setting and design as original and compelling as Grim Fandango. What I want in a developer is someone who can say no to the crowd and it make it stick.
Duke Nukem Forever is the perfect example of the game as fan service.
The people who have suffered most is those who used these services for legitimate content, and there were quite considerable numbers of people who did so...
You trusted your files to a 300 lb tub of lard who changed his name to Kim Dotcom?
You never asked how a dirt-cheap legitimate hosting service finances a life style that would have left Fat Elvis flat busted?
The geek can't put together a more or less coherent argument without drawing on the pop cultural cliches of the mega media product. But somehow expects the mega media giants themselves to disappear.
Since when has the FBI's charter allowed them to operate on foreign soil?
Since the run-up to the attack on Pearl Harbor:
The FBI was in charge of domestic intelligence, but there was no CIA at that time to handle overseas intelligence. Roosevelt decided to assign intelligence responsibilities for different parts of the globe to various agencies. The Bureau landed the area closest to home --- the Western Hemisphere.
Strategically, it made sense --- South and Central America were fast becoming staging grounds for the Nazis to send spies into the U.S. and hubs for relaying information back to Germany. In June 1940, the FBI responded to the president's charge by setting up a Special Intelligence Service that deployed scores of undercover agents to ferret out Axis spy networks.
The FBI quickly realized that it needed to establish official liaison with the many countries it was working with across the world to coordinate international leads arising from the Bureau's work and to exchange information with the police and intelligence services of those countries. In 1941, the U.S. Ambassador to Colombia requested the assignment of a special agent to the U.S. Embassy in Bogota. This proved to be the forerunner of the FBI's legal attache, or legat, program.
In 1947, the FBIâ(TM)s Special Intelligence Service was disbanded, and the newly formed CIA was tasked to take over foreign intelligence operations and to coordinate intelligence activities worldwide. But the Bureau's network of Legats overseas had proven its worth.
That growth has continued. Today, the Bureau has more than 250 special agents and support professionals in more than 60 overseas offices, pursuing terrorist, intelligence, and criminal threats with international dimensions in every part of the world. The FBI also takes part in all manner of global and regional crime-fighting initiatives, including Interpol and Europol; the Budapest Project; and Resolution 6, which co-locates FBI agents in DEA offices worldwide to combat drugs.
if they really wanted to help employees be more effective at their jobs, they should take away those damn color PCs and tablets and put back the VT terminals.
The geek thinks geek --- and tries once again to put the genii back into the bottle.
Those who understand the clerical worker and the executive prosper --- Microsoft on the desktop and Apple in mobile devices.
So off the insurance goes and people start walking and we are happy little bunnies. No, we are not because what happens if everybody starts walking 1 KM per day? Answer probably pedestrian accidents go up, and thus the rate of death that the actuaries came up with is wrong, and they end up paying higher than they calculated. Thus the insurance runs out of money.
The life insurance company does not run out of money.
Its projections are made for death from all causes in a population of 300 million and tested again and again against reality.
You could argue with greater plausibility, I think, that fitness and experience keeps your body more alert and more responsive. You make fewer mistakes and recover from them more quickly and with less damage.
There is a 2 KM "measured walk" in the state park across the road from here. 14 KM of riverside trail. 14 KM for cyclists. School corridor and mall-walk programs for seniors.
If you want to build public awareness and support for projects like these, getting the backing of the big life insurance companies is a good place to begin.
Until you are the one dialing 911 --- and fielding calls the next day --- the next week --- from every friend, neighbor and relation who picked up on the response.
The fact that people on Slashdot still rant about PS3 Linux as if any significant share of the PS3 user base even bothered with it is illustration enough how out-of-touch many of the posters are.
I can't recall a single post here that linked to a plausible estimate of Linux installs on the PS3.
The video game console is all about home entertainment. Microwave popcorn. Passive 3D glasses, big screen projection and "How To Train Your Dragon" on Blu-Ray disk.
Yep, the only console that I know of that removes features in firmware updates.
Let's be honest about this.
The departure of the Other OS meant as little to the core market for the PS3 as SACD audio. If you have a current generation HDTV what interests you more is Netflix at 1080p, 3D video suport and so on.
If there's one thing Linux suffers from in the eyes of the newcomer, it's too much choice, leading to confusion, subsequent frustration (with support) and returning to their hated-but-known Windows.
The problem for Linux isn't that newcomers are returning to Windows. Most don't hate the OS and have shown no intention or desire to abandon it. The rest see the choice as between the Mac and Windows.
And I am absolutely certain that MORE people would be creating derivations of classic, public domain works if Disney hadn't started raping the public domain and then trying to sue everyone who used the same public domain works that they'd ripped off.
No matter how thin you slice it....
Search IMDb for any familiar fairy tale, legend, story or character in the public domain and you most likely discover hundreds of motion picture and video productions from the silent era onward.
The quintessential Rags to Royalty story, the best known versions in the western world are based on the one written by Charles Perrault in the 17th century. If, on hearing the name Cinderella, you think of fairy godmothers, glass slippers, and a pumpkin turned into a coach, you're thinking of Perrault. In 1950, Disney adapted Perrault's story into a movie, cementing it in people's minds as the story of Cinderella.
Seven years later Rodgers And Hammerstein adapted [Perrault's tale] into a musical for a television broadcast, starring Broadway royalty Howard Lindsay and Dorothy Stickney, Edie Adams, Kaye Ballard and Alice Ghostley (as the King and Queen, Fairy Godmother, and stepsisters, respectively) and Jon Cypher (of Hill Street Blues fame) as the Prince. One particular young lady took a week off from her starring role in the most popular play on Broadway at the time to play Cinderella - Julie Andrews in her on-camera debut.
Except it's not theft, it's copyright infringement. The only thing 'stolen' is an idea, i.e., 'intellectual property'.
It isn't the idea that is stolen.
You can't copyright an idea. You can only copyright a unique creative work of art. The film. The short story, the musical composition and so on.
What is being stolen is the exclusive right --- the property right ----of distribution. You haven't the right to harvest my land or give away my crops.
You haven't the right to collect a bounty for your theft from Kim Dotcom.
You know, an intangible. You can't see it, touch it, taste it, or piss on it
Of course you can see it.
You can even piss on it. Paper. Film. CD or Vinyl. Flash or Winchester Drive.
Letters and numbers. Bits and bytes.
The patterns that define a copyrighted work ultimately must take a physical form --- and they cannot be produced without labor.
The cool thing about an intangible is, you don't need to produce anything to have it. The 'labor' and 'goods' come from the derivatives, like holy books, lunch boxes, posters, etc.
The Catholic Church defined the intellectual, social and moral order of the Western world for around 2,000 years. The labor and organization that implies are beyond calculation.
You are not obligated to pay anything to the developer.
The Humble Bundle can be a fine showcase for the Indie developer, but it is not a gold mine.
There are usually four or five games to a bundle, each from a different developer. Earlier bundles may be added to the pot if you pay as little as a penny more than the average sale.
The average contribution about $5 ----
for games which originally sold for $20 each in the Windows market.
Lets just back this up with numbers, so you actually have some, well, backing:P
The first problem here is that the Humble Bundle charts payments by platform not sales by platform.
The last HB had the average Linux gamer paying $10 for games for the average Windows gamer thought were worth only $5. But that was not enough generate more than 1/4 of the returb on the promotion.
The second problem is that most games in an HB bundle arrive after a very long run in the Windows market.
They are rarely, let us say, "factory-fresh."
The final problem is that the Humble Bundle has become rather thin and predictable. There will be a logical puzzle game like "Cogs," a rather pretty side-scrolling physics-based platformer, a tower shooter and now and again a gem like "Trauma" or "Machinarium."
And this is where it gets stupid and proves the judge was most likely paid off.
But they forum-shopped till they found a bribable, brain-dead judge too stupid to understand the principles involved so they could get rubber stamps to have their little Kristallnacht reenactment instead.
Ten points for the latest proof of Godwin's Law.
Ten bonus points for geek fanservice --- the judge had to have been bribed.
This is not out of the realm of possibility, since a legitimate use for MU was to send files to someone that wouldn't fit into email for collaborative purposes.
Mega has been charged with actively soliciting and paying for the upload of high-value copyrighted files while faking compliance with take-down orders by knowingly leaving other links in place --- as documented in internal e-mails.
Many things are possible in this world. But some things are more likely than others.
because if enough legitimate users rise up, doesn't it throw the entire position of megaupload only "existing for piracy" into question?
Your dear little innocent boy bought dirt cheap hosting from a 300 lb fraudster who changed his name to Kim Dotcom and lived like Fat Elvis on an income his legitimate services couldn't possibly provide.
Beethoven died dirt poor because the Napoleonic Wars destroyed the patronage system --- and deafness his (very substantial) income from live performance.
But on the other hand, the world is far more richer because no one could monopolize the wonderful music of Beethoven
Beethoven is a transitional figure --- a professional musician and composer in the modern sense more than ready and willing to break from bonds of the patronage system. It is quite easy to see him lobbying for strong copyright and performance rights.
Very easy if you see him --- correctly --- as a major talent with much more yet to give but visibly aging and physically disabled.
Unable to earn an income from the sale of tee shirts and coffee mugs sold off the arena stage.
For the premiere of his First Symphony, Beethoven hired the Burgtheater on 2 April 1800, and staged an extensive program of music, including works by Haydn and Mozart, as well as his Septet, the First Symphony, and one of his piano concertos
The {Secomd Symphony premiered as a ]subscription concert in April 1803 at the Theater an der Wien, where Beethoven had been appointed composer in residence.... Reviews were mixed, but the concert was a financial success; Beethoven was able to charge three times the cost of a typical concert ticket.
Beethoven's business dealings with publishers also began to improve in 1802 when his brother Carl began to assume a larger role in the management of his affairs. In addition to negotiating higher prices for recently composed works, Carl also began selling some of Beethoven's earlier unpublished works, and encouraged Beethoven to also make arrangements and transcriptions of his more popular works for other instrument combinations. Beethoven acceded to these requests, as he could not prevent publishers from hiring others to do similar arrangements of his works.
Beethoven's hearing loss did not prevent his composing music, but it made playing at concerts --- a lucrative source of income ---- increasingly difficult. After a failed attempt in 1811 to perform his own Piano Concerto No. 5 (the "Emperor"), which was premiered by his student Carl Czerny, he never performed in public again.
In the end one have to decide what is more important, principles or instant gratification.
The article says only that the tablet will be "available to the public." It doesn't say "we have a retail distributor." There is nothing here about actual production runs, marketing support or shelf space.
Crap tech quarantees instant frustration in exchange for your 300 Euro.
Slashdot Mirror
Because there could *never* be a breakthrough discovery/invention found within the next 10 years.
Tomorrow's "breakthrough" doesn't mean you have a commercially viable product within the next ten years --- or even the next twenty,
I look at the web page and I see talk about funding, platforms and DRM.
But I haven't a clue about the game itself other than that it appears to patterned on the old-school low-res Lucas Arts graphic adventures.
What I need to know as an investor is whether you have a story, characters, setting and design as original and compelling as Grim Fandango. What I want in a developer is someone who can say no to the crowd and it make it stick.
Duke Nukem Forever is the perfect example of the game as fan service.
The people who have suffered most is those who used these services for legitimate content, and there were quite considerable numbers of people who did so...
You trusted your files to a 300 lb tub of lard who changed his name to Kim Dotcom?
You never asked how a dirt-cheap legitimate hosting service finances a life style that would have left Fat Elvis flat busted?
No, Mr. Media Giant, I expect you to die.
You do know how the story ends, Boris?
The geek can't put together a more or less coherent argument without drawing on the pop cultural cliches of the mega media product. But somehow expects the mega media giants themselves to disappear.
Library gets a copy of a physical book (originally paid for by whoever bought it first) and loans it out as many times as it wants, forever.
The physical book is not forever.
Not with the kind of punishment it takes in a public library.
That implies purchase of custom bindings or multiple copies of books in heavy circulation.
Since when has the FBI's charter allowed them to operate on foreign soil?
Since the run-up to the attack on Pearl Harbor:
The FBI was in charge of domestic intelligence, but there was no CIA at that time to handle overseas intelligence. Roosevelt decided to assign intelligence responsibilities for different parts of the globe to various agencies. The Bureau landed the area closest to home --- the Western Hemisphere.
Strategically, it made sense --- South and Central America were fast becoming staging grounds for the Nazis to send spies into the U.S. and hubs for relaying information back to Germany. In June 1940, the FBI responded to the president's charge by setting up a Special Intelligence Service that deployed scores of undercover agents to ferret out Axis spy networks.
The FBI quickly realized that it needed to establish official liaison with the many countries it was working with across the world to coordinate international leads arising from the Bureau's work and to exchange information with the police and intelligence services of those countries. In 1941, the U.S. Ambassador to Colombia requested the assignment of a special agent to the U.S. Embassy in Bogota. This proved to be the forerunner of the FBI's legal attache, or legat, program.
In 1947, the FBIâ(TM)s Special Intelligence Service was disbanded, and the newly formed CIA was tasked to take over foreign intelligence operations and to coordinate intelligence activities worldwide. But the Bureau's network of Legats overseas had proven its worth.
In the 1990s, FBI Director Louis Freeh --- recognizing that global crime and terror were on the rise --- made it a priority to open a series of new legal attachés. At the start of his tenure in 1993, the Bureau had 21 offices in U.S. Embassies worldwide; within eight years that number had doubled. Offices were opened, for example, in such strategic locations as Pakistan, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Turkey, South Korea, and Saudi Arabia.
That growth has continued. Today, the Bureau has more than 250 special agents and support professionals in more than 60 overseas offices, pursuing terrorist, intelligence, and criminal threats with international dimensions in every part of the world. The FBI also takes part in all manner of global and regional crime-fighting initiatives, including Interpol and Europol; the Budapest Project; and Resolution 6, which co-locates FBI agents in DEA offices worldwide to combat drugs.
History of Legal Attaches
if they really wanted to help employees be more effective at their jobs, they should take away those damn color PCs and tablets and put back the VT terminals.
The geek thinks geek --- and tries once again to put the genii back into the bottle.
Those who understand the clerical worker and the executive prosper --- Microsoft on the desktop and Apple in mobile devices.
Except that with an open source project, you can always fork --
In theory, yes.
In practice, the open source project can be so big or so arcane that you are going to need serious muscle and manpower behind you to make it happen.
What the hell is a PC?
it is a micro computer running MSDOS or Windows with a keyboard designed for 9 to 5 clerical work and a large, legible, display.
It's a usage that took hold among the masses about 30 years back now.
So off the insurance goes and people start walking and we are happy little bunnies. No, we are not because what happens if everybody starts walking 1 KM per day? Answer probably pedestrian accidents go up, and thus the rate of death that the actuaries came up with is wrong, and they end up paying higher than they calculated. Thus the insurance runs out of money.
The life insurance company does not run out of money.
Its projections are made for death from all causes in a population of 300 million and tested again and again against reality.
There are about 4,000 pedestrian deaths in the US each year, down 22% since 1998. How many pedestrians are killed and injured each year?
You could argue with greater plausibility, I think, that fitness and experience keeps your body more alert and more responsive. You make fewer mistakes and recover from them more quickly and with less damage.
There is a 2 KM "measured walk" in the state park across the road from here. 14 KM of riverside trail. 14 KM for cyclists. School corridor and mall-walk programs for seniors.
Manhattan has the High Line.
If you want to build public awareness and support for projects like these, getting the backing of the big life insurance companies is a good place to begin.
I'd rather call that "File publishing". You upload a file to a server which is then published to the world.
In plain English:
Unlicensed, unlimited, wholesale re-distributon for profit ---and for the prime uploader to Mega, a juicy cash bounty.
It looks like piracy to me.
Scanners are fun.
Until you are the one dialing 911 --- and fielding calls the next day --- the next week --- from every friend, neighbor and relation who picked up on the response.
The fact that people on Slashdot still rant about PS3 Linux as if any significant share of the PS3 user base even bothered with it is illustration enough how out-of-touch many of the posters are.
I can't recall a single post here that linked to a plausible estimate of Linux installs on the PS3.
The video game console is all about home entertainment. Microwave popcorn. Passive 3D glasses, big screen projection and "How To Train Your Dragon" on Blu-Ray disk.
Yep, the only console that I know of that removes features in firmware updates.
Let's be honest about this.
The departure of the Other OS meant as little to the core market for the PS3 as SACD audio. If you have a current generation HDTV what interests you more is Netflix at 1080p, 3D video suport and so on.
If there's one thing Linux suffers from in the eyes of the newcomer, it's too much choice, leading to confusion, subsequent frustration (with support) and returning to their hated-but-known Windows.
The problem for Linux isn't that newcomers are returning to Windows. Most don't hate the OS and have shown no intention or desire to abandon it. The rest see the choice as between the Mac and Windows.
And I am absolutely certain that MORE people would be creating derivations of classic, public domain works if Disney hadn't started raping the public domain and then trying to sue everyone who used the same public domain works that they'd ripped off.
No matter how thin you slice it....
Search IMDb for any familiar fairy tale, legend, story or character in the public domain and you most likely discover hundreds of motion picture and video productions from the silent era onward.
The quintessential Rags to Royalty story, the best known versions in the western world are based on the one written by Charles Perrault in the 17th century. If, on hearing the name Cinderella, you think of fairy godmothers, glass slippers, and a pumpkin turned into a coach, you're thinking of Perrault. In 1950, Disney adapted Perrault's story into a movie, cementing it in people's minds as the story of Cinderella.
Seven years later Rodgers And Hammerstein adapted [Perrault's tale] into a musical for a television broadcast, starring Broadway royalty Howard Lindsay and Dorothy Stickney, Edie Adams, Kaye Ballard and Alice Ghostley (as the King and Queen, Fairy Godmother, and stepsisters, respectively) and Jon Cypher (of Hill Street Blues fame) as the Prince. One particular young lady took a week off from her starring role in the most popular play on Broadway at the time to play Cinderella - Julie Andrews in her on-camera debut.
Cinderella
The Jim Henson version aired in 1969.
Except it's not theft, it's copyright infringement. The only thing 'stolen' is an idea, i.e., 'intellectual property'.
It isn't the idea that is stolen.
You can't copyright an idea. You can only copyright a unique creative work of art. The film. The short story, the musical composition and so on.
What is being stolen is the exclusive right --- the property right ----of distribution. You haven't the right to harvest my land or give away my crops.
You haven't the right to collect a bounty for your theft from Kim Dotcom.
You know, an intangible. You can't see it, touch it, taste it, or piss on it
Of course you can see it.
You can even piss on it. Paper. Film. CD or Vinyl. Flash or Winchester Drive.
Letters and numbers. Bits and bytes.
The patterns that define a copyrighted work ultimately must take a physical form --- and they cannot be produced without labor.
The cool thing about an intangible is, you don't need to produce anything to have it. The 'labor' and 'goods' come from the derivatives, like holy books, lunch boxes, posters, etc.
The Catholic Church defined the intellectual, social and moral order of the Western world for around 2,000 years. The labor and organization that implies are beyond calculation.
"Lunch boxes and posters?"
Trivial.
This is simply wrong, try the humble bundle http://www.humblebundle.com/, no DRM and plenty of profit.
The Humble Bundle is a charitable promotion.
You are not obligated to pay anything to the developer.
The Humble Bundle can be a fine showcase for the Indie developer, but it is not a gold mine.
There are usually four or five games to a bundle, each from a different developer. Earlier bundles may be added to the pot if you pay as little as a penny more than the average sale.
The average contribution about $5 ----
for games which originally sold for $20 each in the Windows market.
Real lawyers can clarify, but AFAIK, two separate courts in separate decisions can decide that A is true, and that A is not true.
Context matters.
A can be true in one set of circumstances and A can be false in another.
I agree with you on this, but it is not yet illegal to "Profit from Piracy".
That will come as a surprise to quite a number of guests currently registered at Club Fed.
Two Top Adminstratorsof NINJAVIDEO website plead guilty to criminal copyright indringement
NINJAVIDEO founder pleads guilty in Virginia to criminal copyright conspiracy
Lets just back this up with numbers, so you actually have some, well, backing :P
The first problem here is that the Humble Bundle charts payments by platform not sales by platform.
The last HB had the average Linux gamer paying $10 for games for the average Windows gamer thought were worth only $5. But that was not enough generate more than 1/4 of the returb on the promotion.
The second problem is that most games in an HB bundle arrive after a very long run in the Windows market.
They are rarely, let us say, "factory-fresh."
The final problem is that the Humble Bundle has become rather thin and predictable. There will be a logical puzzle game like "Cogs," a rather pretty side-scrolling physics-based platformer, a tower shooter and now and again a gem like "Trauma" or "Machinarium."
And this is where it gets stupid and proves the judge was most likely paid off.
But they forum-shopped till they found a bribable, brain-dead judge too stupid to understand the principles involved so they could get rubber stamps to have their little Kristallnacht reenactment instead.
Ten points for the latest proof of Godwin's Law.
Ten bonus points for geek fanservice --- the judge had to have been bribed.
This is not out of the realm of possibility, since a legitimate use for MU was to send files to someone that wouldn't fit into email for collaborative purposes.
Mega has been charged with actively soliciting and paying for the upload of high-value copyrighted files while faking compliance with take-down orders by knowingly leaving other links in place --- as documented in internal e-mails.
Many things are possible in this world. But some things are more likely than others.
because if enough legitimate users rise up, doesn't it throw the entire position of megaupload only "existing for piracy" into question?
Your dear little innocent boy bought dirt cheap hosting from a 300 lb fraudster who changed his name to Kim Dotcom and lived like Fat Elvis on an income his legitimate services couldn't possibly provide.
That is why Beethoven died dirt poor
Beethoven died dirt poor because the Napoleonic Wars destroyed the patronage system --- and deafness his (very substantial) income from live performance.
But on the other hand, the world is far more richer because no one could monopolize the wonderful music of Beethoven
Beethoven is a transitional figure --- a professional musician and composer in the modern sense more than ready and willing to break from bonds of the patronage system. It is quite easy to see him lobbying for strong copyright and performance rights.
Very easy if you see him --- correctly --- as a major talent with much more yet to give but visibly aging and physically disabled.
Unable to earn an income from the sale of tee shirts and coffee mugs sold off the arena stage.
For the premiere of his First Symphony, Beethoven hired the Burgtheater on 2 April 1800, and staged an extensive program of music, including works by Haydn and Mozart, as well as his Septet, the First Symphony, and one of his piano concertos
The {Secomd Symphony premiered as a ]subscription concert in April 1803 at the Theater an der Wien, where Beethoven had been appointed composer in residence.... Reviews were mixed, but the concert was a financial success; Beethoven was able to charge three times the cost of a typical concert ticket.
Beethoven's business dealings with publishers also began to improve in 1802 when his brother Carl began to assume a larger role in the management of his affairs. In addition to negotiating higher prices for recently composed works, Carl also began selling some of Beethoven's earlier unpublished works, and encouraged Beethoven to also make arrangements and transcriptions of his more popular works for other instrument combinations. Beethoven acceded to these requests, as he could not prevent publishers from hiring others to do similar arrangements of his works.
Beethoven's hearing loss did not prevent his composing music, but it made playing at concerts --- a lucrative source of income ---- increasingly difficult. After a failed attempt in 1811 to perform his own Piano Concerto No. 5 (the "Emperor"), which was premiered by his student Carl Czerny, he never performed in public again.
Ludwig van Beethoven
In the end one have to decide what is more important, principles or instant gratification.
The article says only that the tablet will be "available to the public." It doesn't say "we have a retail distributor." There is nothing here about actual production runs, marketing support or shelf space.
Crap tech quarantees instant frustration in exchange for your 300 Euro.
Principles be damned.