"You sound somewhat educated, maybe just not motivated."
When politicians push on with such blatantly unpopular schemes as ID cards, you know they ain't listening. I have better things to do than spend my life fighting fruitless battles.
If that's lack of motivation... well it probably is, but I'm fine with it. Other people dedicate their lives to these things and get nowhere, despite widespread support.
"1. Locks don't affect thieves ability to Break and Enter."
I'd disagree with you there, they make it more difficult, whereas a "pirate" can find music on their favourite P2P app regardless of whether the original had DRM or not.
My other point (it's counter-productive) stands, IMHO. I should have put that in the list rather than the text. It actually encourages people to pirate, or to stop buying music. Anecdotally, my stepmother is now suspicious of music. She's never going to be a pirate because she's not computer savvy, but when her Shakira CD refused to be ripped she got angry with it.
It doesn't keep honest people honest. It annoys the tech illiterate and drives tech literate types to "piracy".
The whole argument "It's broken and everyone is dumb" is just a crutch for the lazy to fall back on when things don't go their way.
It's the truth though. And maybe I am lazy, but I don't want to spend my life campaigning, I have better things to do (like living it).
Whining solves nothing.
Who said it solves anything? I just said I'll get on with my thing on the quiet, screw the rest of you.
Move somewhere else, found your own nation, or revolt. All are valid options for you, all have had historical success in allowing people to live lives more attune with what they want. Take a pick, just stop bitching.
Do you have secret knowledge of an undiscovered continent where these things are possible? Or a nation that isn't as set in its ways? Or any sort of revolt strategy that's going to do anything but get me put in jail and further waste my life?
"When you say people don't have a political clue, I would argue what you are saying is that people don't have a clue because they don't agree with you."
Nope, I say it because they continue to vote along party lines, regardless of actual political actions. In the UK that would be "I'm working class, we vote labour" or "daddy always voted conservative" or any one of a myriad of tribal identifications with a particular party that preclude people actually thinking about anything much.
Well guess what this is a democracy (representative in most) and if you don't make yourself heard then it is your FAULT, not the politicians, nor the "clueless" voters who do vote and make themselves heard.
Who said I don't vote? Of course I vote. I just don't kid myself that anything will change. Established politicians routinely ignore the populace when they do try to speak (wars spring to mind), ignore scientific evidence in reports they commission because it doesn't fit with the political message they're pushing or their preconceived notions. Add in a little propaganda and a population conditioned to associate drugs with crime and death, susceptible to politicians doing their moral grandstanding acts and you have a recipe for a society that's not going to fix itself any time soon and is actively hostile to outsider opinions.
I'm sorry if you don't like my attitude, but working within the system is, AFAICT, an utter waste of time.
Good luck with that. Meanwhile, those of us that have given up on the political process, given up any thoughts that "we, the people" will ever do anything about the daily abuse of our rights by politicians, given up any thoughts that most people even have a clue about any political issue beyond which candidate has the best hair, given up on the populace showing any sign of intelligence at all... we'll be having a quiet smoke somewhere out of the way, if you'd like to join us, because life's too short to wait for society to sort itself out.
"it's really really hard for anyone sensible to see where there's any kind of problem."
Burning to CD only gives you a CD. Re-ripping from that CD and encoding again will give you the associated quality loss from decoding and re-encoding with lossy algorithms. Trying to play your file on another system/player without the quality loss re-encode will result in FAIL.
There is a problem with the DRM. You might not get annoyed with it, doesn't mean others don't find it annoying. Personally I find it easier to buy CDs, avoiding the decode and burn. When it's simpler and more flexible to buy a CD, online music distribution has failed.
"If you are going to have a strong anti-DRM movement you also need a Strong anti-piracy movement to go with it."
"if you are going to get a broad cooperate acceptance of removing DRM you are going to create a culture where illegally downloading free music and not paying for them ever is no longer considered socially acceptable."
I think you're wrong. You can easily show people that:
1. DRM doesn't affect availability to pirates. 2. DRM costs money to implement
And therefore it's just not worth it. I can understand their concerns just fine, but their actions are expensive and counter-productive. They make the end product less valuable to users, who are then more likely to turn to piracy.
I don't "pirate" music, but I won't buy anything DRM'd either, because ripping my CDs and storing/playing them on various devices is my goddamned right.
You seem to think whether kids can afford the game matters.
Yet here on/. we often get reports about the ever aging gaming demographic.
I'm 30, I game, I can afford it. Now, does that mean I wouldn't like lower prices? Of course not, but I don't think that just because kids can't afford games that it means that they're necessarily overpriced, or pricing themselves out of a profit.
I can recommend Big Blue for this as well. IBM are pretty good at flexible working arangements, I know a couple fo software Engineers working for IBM on a part time basis.
Would someone explain to me why I''m not doing this? I'm not sure I understand working full time, now that I've thought about it.
I bought a Wii because of the innovative controls and Wii sports being fun to play with friends. I *know* I'm not the only one that has left the damn thing mostly idle since then because most of the games are very child oriented and have rather shallow gameplay.
Get the big, grown-up names on Wii, please.
I wonder what the rate of game-buying for Wii is once bought?
Yes, I do own a 360 and a PS3 as well. I use both more than the Wii, which suffers even more than the PS3 in a lack of engaging games. That doesn't seem to be changing either, more "Big Brain Academy" and similar nonsense. I do complex algebra all day for money, my brain's fine, besides which those things look like someone wrote them in Flash.
It's funny, but as far as I can tell either iPods become an addiction or they give out easily.
All my friends who have them seem to buy new ones quite frequently. I'm not sure it's anything to do with them breaking, more some sort of need to have more.
Whatever the trick is, there are a lot of companies would love to have customers like that.
I don't think apple equipment is crap. I just don't think it deserves the love and devotion it gets.
What I find sad is that such a small number of people *do* understand technology, but their signal is so low amongst the noise of what's popular and shiny that we could miss out on money going into real advances because someone's applied a coat of polish to last year's tech. Or more like 5 year old tech in the case of the first iPhone.
You mean not all check marks are as shiny as others?
No, I don't get it. The iPhone is not a quantum leap in smart phones. It's pretty, sure, apple design their stuff well, but it's not revolutionary. Neither is/was the iPod. More than that, apple take steps to lock people in to their software and hardware interfaces.
So yes, pretty, generally a good UI. However I'm damned if I'm running iTunes or letting Steve decide what I can do with my phone.
Life isn't just about checkmarks, but releasing a product with less checkmarks and then hyping it as the way forward gets to some folks.
And yet it looks like the US government is doing this anyway with soda, whereas we have none of these problems with state run healthcare in the UK or elsewhere in the western world.
"Beautiful Katamari" for the Xbox 360 was a must-buy game, I love the Katamari games. Unfortunately it was really, seriously short. Then I thought "Hmm, looks like there are spaces on all the islands for extra levels....
Lo and behold, there were about 6 more levels available as DLC on xbox live. I bought them, but I hated them and myself for doing it. it had obviously been the plan right from the start. Deliver half a game and then squeeze more money out of people for the rest. And I can't even re-sell the game with those levels because they're not part of the physical media, just some stuff tied to my user account.
It's not just the touch, amarok screwed up a friend's new-gen nano in the same way. No crypto signing on the index or some such thing. Apple seem to have gone out of their way to screw non iTunes users in the latest generation.
"I like my bosses, I like my company, and I want to help my company make money because I know that I benefit myself by doing so."
So do I. But I don't pretend that the company owes me any loyalty beyond how good I am at making them cash. My immediate management? Yeah, they're ok, some of 'em I'd almost be willing to call friends (tricky in a business situation, but you get my meaning, they're decent folk).
However, I'm a highly skilled SE, not a replaceable manual worker whose company could ditch him in a second if he looks at the boss wrong.
"You also have to take into consideration the American Dream..."
For one percent, sure. For most folks it's pretty much a lie to keep them from making trouble to the higher-ups. The American Dream is a great dream, but it also leads people to let rich folk get away with pretty much anything because they firmly believe it'll be them next, when in reality very few will ever escape the daily grind.
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"You sound somewhat educated, maybe just not motivated."
When politicians push on with such blatantly unpopular schemes as ID cards, you know they ain't listening. I have better things to do than spend my life fighting fruitless battles.
If that's lack of motivation... well it probably is, but I'm fine with it. Other people dedicate their lives to these things and get nowhere, despite widespread support.
"1. Locks don't affect thieves ability to Break and Enter."
I'd disagree with you there, they make it more difficult, whereas a "pirate" can find music on their favourite P2P app regardless of whether the original had DRM or not.
My other point (it's counter-productive) stands, IMHO. I should have put that in the list rather than the text. It actually encourages people to pirate, or to stop buying music. Anecdotally, my stepmother is now suspicious of music. She's never going to be a pirate because she's not computer savvy, but when her Shakira CD refused to be ripped she got angry with it.
It doesn't keep honest people honest. It annoys the tech illiterate and drives tech literate types to "piracy".
The whole argument "It's broken and everyone is dumb" is just a crutch for the lazy to fall back on when things don't go their way.
It's the truth though.
And maybe I am lazy, but I don't want to spend my life campaigning, I have better things to do (like living it).
Whining solves nothing.
Who said it solves anything? I just said I'll get on with my thing on the quiet, screw the rest of you.
Move somewhere else, found your own nation, or revolt. All are valid options for you, all have had historical success in allowing people to live lives more attune with what they want. Take a pick, just stop bitching.
Do you have secret knowledge of an undiscovered continent where these things are possible? Or a nation that isn't as set in its ways? Or any sort of revolt strategy that's going to do anything but get me put in jail and further waste my life?
Didn't think so.
"When you say people don't have a political clue, I would argue what you are saying is that people don't have a clue because they don't agree with you."
Nope, I say it because they continue to vote along party lines, regardless of actual political actions. In the UK that would be "I'm working class, we vote labour" or "daddy always voted conservative" or any one of a myriad of tribal identifications with a particular party that preclude people actually thinking about anything much.
Well guess what this is a democracy (representative in most) and if you don't make yourself heard then it is your FAULT, not the politicians, nor the "clueless" voters who do vote and make themselves heard.
Who said I don't vote? Of course I vote. I just don't kid myself that anything will change. Established politicians routinely ignore the populace when they do try to speak (wars spring to mind), ignore scientific evidence in reports they commission because it doesn't fit with the political message they're pushing or their preconceived notions. Add in a little propaganda and a population conditioned to associate drugs with crime and death, susceptible to politicians doing their moral grandstanding acts and you have a recipe for a society that's not going to fix itself any time soon and is actively hostile to outsider opinions.
I'm sorry if you don't like my attitude, but working within the system is, AFAICT, an utter waste of time.
"Work with the system and get it legalized."
Good luck with that. Meanwhile, those of us that have given up on the political process, given up any thoughts that "we, the people" will ever do anything about the daily abuse of our rights by politicians, given up any thoughts that most people even have a clue about any political issue beyond which candidate has the best hair, given up on the populace showing any sign of intelligence at all... we'll be having a quiet smoke somewhere out of the way, if you'd like to join us, because life's too short to wait for society to sort itself out.
"it's really really hard for anyone sensible to see where there's any kind of problem."
Burning to CD only gives you a CD.
Re-ripping from that CD and encoding again will give you the associated quality loss from decoding and re-encoding with lossy algorithms.
Trying to play your file on another system/player without the quality loss re-encode will result in FAIL.
There is a problem with the DRM. You might not get annoyed with it, doesn't mean others don't find it annoying. Personally I find it easier to buy CDs, avoiding the decode and burn. When it's simpler and more flexible to buy a CD, online music distribution has failed.
"If you are going to have a strong anti-DRM movement you also need a Strong anti-piracy movement to go with it."
"if you are going to get a broad cooperate acceptance of removing DRM you are going to create a culture where illegally downloading free music and not paying for them ever is no longer considered socially acceptable."
I think you're wrong. You can easily show people that:
1. DRM doesn't affect availability to pirates.
2. DRM costs money to implement
And therefore it's just not worth it. I can understand their concerns just fine, but their actions are expensive and counter-productive. They make the end product less valuable to users, who are then more likely to turn to piracy.
I don't "pirate" music, but I won't buy anything DRM'd either, because ripping my CDs and storing/playing them on various devices is my goddamned right.
People are dumb, enlightened self interest only works where people are actually enlightened, news at 11 etc.
Companies with a decent marketing department can get away with anything.
You seem to think whether kids can afford the game matters.
Yet here on /. we often get reports about the ever aging gaming demographic.
I'm 30, I game, I can afford it. Now, does that mean I wouldn't like lower prices? Of course not, but I don't think that just because kids can't afford games that it means that they're necessarily overpriced, or pricing themselves out of a profit.
I can recommend Big Blue for this as well. IBM are pretty good at flexible working arangements, I know a couple fo software Engineers working for IBM on a part time basis.
Would someone explain to me why I''m not doing this? I'm not sure I understand working full time, now that I've thought about it.
There are a whole bunch of solutions for this, I looked at them a while ago, they're really cool.
They either take as input a composite video signal or straight VGA. Should be no problem treating them as a generic display from Linux.
3D is a different proposition. I don't think that's what the original question is about though, even if it is phrased as "VR googles".
"Why is it unfortunate that it would be months between each worthwhile purchase?"
Because, sadly, we've all come to expect that the content of a game will only last you a week or so of casual gaming in the evenings.
Obviously stuff like Wii Sports keep on giving, but most games with a story and such? You play them in a couple of weeks and never touch 'em again.
Oh bullshit.
I bought a Wii because of the innovative controls and Wii sports being fun to play with friends. I *know* I'm not the only one that has left the damn thing mostly idle since then because most of the games are very child oriented and have rather shallow gameplay.
Get the big, grown-up names on Wii, please.
I wonder what the rate of game-buying for Wii is once bought?
Yes, I do own a 360 and a PS3 as well. I use both more than the Wii, which suffers even more than the PS3 in a lack of engaging games. That doesn't seem to be changing either, more "Big Brain Academy" and similar nonsense. I do complex algebra all day for money, my brain's fine, besides which those things look like someone wrote them in Flash.
Bah /ok, rant over now
I'd say Apple products are more like the mazda. Reliable and simple to use but nothing really special under the hood.
That's exactly how you show 'em you don't like what they are doing! Very smart!
Perhaps I ought to send a strongly worded letter too?
Yeah, I know, I'm usually pretty good at refusing to buy into things I disagree with, but I failed miserably this time.
It's funny, but as far as I can tell either iPods become an addiction or they give out easily.
All my friends who have them seem to buy new ones quite frequently. I'm not sure it's anything to do with them breaking, more some sort of need to have more.
Whatever the trick is, there are a lot of companies would love to have customers like that.
I don't think apple equipment is crap. I just don't think it deserves the love and devotion it gets.
What I find sad is that such a small number of people *do* understand technology, but their signal is so low amongst the noise of what's popular and shiny that we could miss out on money going into real advances because someone's applied a coat of polish to last year's tech. Or more like 5 year old tech in the case of the first iPhone.
I guess it's just how things work.
"we are the niche, not everyone else."
And we're the ones that understand stuff. That sort of thing makes me sad.
You mean not all check marks are as shiny as others?
No, I don't get it. The iPhone is not a quantum leap in smart phones. It's pretty, sure, apple design their stuff well, but it's not revolutionary. Neither is/was the iPod. More than that, apple take steps to lock people in to their software and hardware interfaces.
So yes, pretty, generally a good UI. However I'm damned if I'm running iTunes or letting Steve decide what I can do with my phone.
Life isn't just about checkmarks, but releasing a product with less checkmarks and then hyping it as the way forward gets to some folks.
Except the government is already trying to run your life MORE than every other western country that has a nationalised healthcare system!
And yet it looks like the US government is doing this anyway with soda, whereas we have none of these problems with state run healthcare in the UK or elsewhere in the western world.
Uh, I'm pretty sure there have been buildings over two stories for hundreds, if not thousands of years...
I got really pissed off with this recently.
"Beautiful Katamari" for the Xbox 360 was a must-buy game, I love the Katamari games. Unfortunately it was really, seriously short. Then I thought "Hmm, looks like there are spaces on all the islands for extra levels....
Lo and behold, there were about 6 more levels available as DLC on xbox live. I bought them, but I hated them and myself for doing it. it had obviously been the plan right from the start. Deliver half a game and then squeeze more money out of people for the rest. And I can't even re-sell the game with those levels because they're not part of the physical media, just some stuff tied to my user account.
It sucks.
It's not just the touch, amarok screwed up a friend's new-gen nano in the same way. No crypto signing on the index or some such thing. Apple seem to have gone out of their way to screw non iTunes users in the latest generation.
"I like my bosses, I like my company, and I want to help my company make money because I know that I benefit myself by doing so."
So do I. But I don't pretend that the company owes me any loyalty beyond how good I am at making them cash. My immediate management? Yeah, they're ok, some of 'em I'd almost be willing to call friends (tricky in a business situation, but you get my meaning, they're decent folk).
However, I'm a highly skilled SE, not a replaceable manual worker whose company could ditch him in a second if he looks at the boss wrong.
"You also have to take into consideration the American Dream..."
For one percent, sure. For most folks it's pretty much a lie to keep them from making trouble to the higher-ups. The American Dream is a great dream, but it also leads people to let rich folk get away with pretty much anything because they firmly believe it'll be them next, when in reality very few will ever escape the daily grind.