unless i've missed something nobody forces you to buy that CD at all. Also, its not food, water or shelter, so you dont have a human rights case to make to possess that CD.
So they bundle in songs that *you* dont like with ones that *you* do. Personally, I buy albums by bands I like. I tend to like pretty much each song equally, as I always have done. I dont understand what sudden evil thing happened where the musicians started deliberately recording bad songs every 3rd track just to annoy you.
And if the band bundles together a certain group of songs for $20, thats their decision. wait for the greatest hits album if your so outraged. I like Star trek DS9, but I don't like the Kira Nerys character. Why the fuck should I pay $20 for one or two good characters, and a load of filler? Also, I didnt like the merry and pippin characters in LOTR. WTF must I pay for a few good wizards and a load of filler? Come to think of it, I got ripped off with this keyboard, I never wanted the damn scroll lock key. I blame the evil MPAA.
Cool, I agree with you 100%. Its not like this guy was some grandmother who didnt realise downlaoding that mp3 was illegal. This guy knew exactly what he was doing.
hardly a fair comparison. If the librarian allowed you to use the photocopier totally free, and provided 5,000 of them, and then plastered big signs up in front of the library saying "copy books free here, even unreleased ones!" and had installed special 'mega-copiers' that did all the scanning for you and then mailed the copied book direct to your house... then you may have a point.
A photocopier in a library is a long way away from a bittorrent tracker that (according to wikipedia) was the first site to host a copy of revenge of the sith before it was even in theaters. Thats not an innocent kid just resharing something he found elsewhere on p2p2. Thats someone deliberately targeting new movies and aiming to be the first to distribute them.
I'm not saying that jail time is the right punishment, but lets get some perspective here. Its not a kid downlaoding a single mp3.
wow what cutting debate. how dare he suggest that people be paid for their work. the fool! I guess because other people have said the same thing before, you feel the point cannot be valid. As usual, anone attacking people who believe in the concept of IP owners being paid gets modded up like some insightfull genius. how tragic.
hmmm, i didnt think it was neccesaru to spell out the obvious but apparently it is.
drugs companies will not invest ten million dollars in a new drug if that drug is trivially copied the next day by a rival who spends zero on development. To do so, would be to effectivly just cripple you own competitiveness, and drive yourself out of business by increased relative costs. This is not rocket science.
the concept of IP is absolutely necesary because it is the ONLY viable way of ensuring that research and development costs of a product can be recouped by those who front up the cash. 99% of people with even a basic grasp of economics understand this. I look forward to you explaining to me how drugs companies will invest money in a product in a situation where IP rights did not exist. I won't hold my breath though, seeing as though it appears that all the major drugs companies investing money in research are firm defenders of their IP. SOme might suggest that the need for IP is flipping obvious, others could point to the fact that those doing the investment defend their IP (and conclude quite logically that they would not invest without a gurantee that their ip is defended). I'm sure you find this post 'worthless' and 'flamebait' because it doesnt justify you illegally copying music. I guess it doesnt matter if we dont get new pharmaceutical research, as long as your ipod hard disk is full huh?
Forget big retail games, many of their demos are poor, some install starforce, many are just HUGE, and often they have all that unskippable advert logo bollox. If you want downloadable game demos, you want indie games. If you can live without cutting edge 3D effects, you will be pleasantly suprised. I make a living (just) from selling downlaodable games, so it is absolutely ESSENTIAL for me to put together a good, fun demo that gets people into the game as quickly as possible, with no fuss, no delays. To achieve this I make sure that: 1)the demo is small as it can be 2)the demo is the exact same code version as the full game. If the demo works fine, the full game does too 3)the demo starts up asap, with no logo nonsense. 4)you can *trivially* get my demo, from a direct.exe link on my site. Imagine... no email signup, no pop-up ads, no fileplanet subscriptions, no persuading you to 'subscribe' to geta afster server. Just a direct, reliable, fast demo download, that is getright friendly.
Its been obvious to me and my fellow devs that making a good demo available is *crucial* to any game that isn't hyped to oblivion. Where I used to work, they relied on hype to sell the games, so made sure they didnt get a demo done in time for release (if at all). Personally, I think gamers deserve to try before they buy.
Sorry for the long adver-rant, but this is an issue i feel really strongly about. Demos are essential for PC games, and so many companies screw it up.
I see. so you werent planning on any drugs being discovered in future, any big budget movies being made, or any major pieces of commercial software ever being made ever again? nice policy, pity it spells the total death of the worlds economy, and probably kicks 90% of slashdot readers out of work. Class dismissed.
Go on, mod me down because you want to find a way to justify taking other peoples hard work. Its the slashdot way.
so with the florida elections stuff, the diebold voting amchines, and big soft money donations, it seems your ballot system isnt working. The last time the jury decided your government, they picked the guy with least votes. Funny, but I don't see you using your ammo any time soon to change your governmnet. It *does* get used on a daily basis to murder people on your streets though, the US isnt far behind columbia for gun deaths / 1000 people.
*sigh* countermeasures are already in place, its called banning the sale of rocket launchers to the under fives, a policy you bizzarely oppose. I can't think of a legitimate need for anyone outside the armed forces to own a rocket launcher, maybe you could enlighten me? Funnily enough, I don't feel that I'm being *punished* because I can't go out and buy a patriot missile system. In fact, I'm damn glad its hard to buy one.
In your system, where people are only punished *after* they use their weapons, its VERY easy for terrorists to blow the hell out of a train, a plane etc. I could go to walmart and buy myself a suitcase full of semtex, and then blow the local high school to smithereens, including myself. How are you going to punish me now?
And i guess all those high school kids that are now a smear on the pavement should just be happy that the suicide bomber had that freedom right? or do you want to blame the parents there as well?
If you really like a society with no laws, and freely available heavy weapons, go live in baghdad, it would be paradise by your standards.
Im glad your arguing that schoolkids should have access to submachineguns, it puts your whacked out views on copyright in perspective.
"They're harmless for everyone other than the user, and the user should have every right to dispose of himself by whatever means he sees fit (as long as it doesn't hurt others)."
So in one post you think everyone should be able to own a rocket launcher, submachinegun, grenades, even an F22 fighter. In another post you think its fine for everyone at any age to be high as a kite whenever they feel like it.
Is this some kind of joke? I dont understand how your posts have not been modded troll. If I went into a rough bar on a friday night, and sold everyone LSD and submachineguns, I reckon (and this might be a wild guess) that the evening would not end well. Newsflash -> drunk drivers kill thousands each year Newsflash -> thousands are injured every DAY in drunken fights.
You desire to throw heavy weaponary into the mix. Insanity. I'd like to see you have a nice romantic meal in a restaurant when someone walks in on LSD with a flamethrower, it would really add to the atmosphere. I've debated your insane views on your percieved *right* to take other peoples intellectual property without payment before, now it seems that was just one string to your bow of completely whacked out viewpoints. Who on earth is modding this nonsense up?
"Yep. A person hasn't done anything wrong until he actually uses the weapons in an unjust way."
Iran hasnt done anything wrong with its nukes until washington is turned to ashes, but I'm guessing you would want to take preventative measures in that case.
Agreed 100%. The same *3D is teh bett3r" bullshit is often applied to video games. Even a game like worms, which by its very nature was 2D (or lemmings) is 'reminagined' in 3D, and none the better for it. The idea of navigating a 3D inernet just sounds like hell to me right now. I'm all for a greater variety of 3D online communities and worlds like second life, I hope such things thrive and expand, but to think I'd need to fire up some 3D avatar to go check my share prices is just bullshit. Just because computers have the capability to do X, does not mean that X is desireable.
I'm English. The story is being blown out of all proportion. It sounds like maybe a dozen pubs in 3 or 4 towns in the whole country MAY be introducing it. London isn't even mentioned. The chances of your average British pub introducing this for a lunchtme drink are absolutely ZERO. Theres a pub in the UK practically every 10 paces. Any law that would make it harder for a British person to have a pint in his pub would go down about as well as a law to ban firearms in the US. It's a total non story.
Your comparison with taxes is an interesting one. If you are my neighbour and your not paying taxes, then by definiton, I am the one paying for your roads, your police, your clean air, and your military protection. In the UK, Id be paying for your educationa nd health care too. Given the size of the market for these products (population of country) and the fixed costs, you not paying means I pay more. Many people would thus regard you (the tax dodger) as a leech (or worse). Often, the people dodging the tax like to spread stories about how the govt is evil, and its all wasted and the decent people dont see any of the money etc, as fud to defend not paying their taxes. Very similar to how people moan about the 0.1% of musicians who drive ferraris, or namecheck artists they dont like, or havent written good songs for ages. Normally the people who *do* pay the taxes, are happy with the deal they get. If they werent they would vote in a different party with different tax policies. This is like buying different products.
Quite how you think this makes illegal filesharing seem anything but socially unacceptable leeching is not clear.
your logic is flawed. I wont even address the silliness reagrding comparing music to water. You need water. You wont die of thirst because you dont have the latest coldplay album.
Someone has made a product and decided, given what they know of the market (which will be more than you know, they have access to all the sales data), to set their price at $20. You may think "oh Ill only pay $5 for it". And thats up to you. in which case...
no sale.
This isnt a problem. The store knows some people would have paid $5, and they lose that money. they also know some would have paid $30. those people got a good deal. Often, a system of tiered products is arranged to capture as much of the market as possible. This is done at the discretion of the store. These tiered systems can ONLY work, if its impossible to cross tiers. A discount for the elderly is not easily faked. A midday matinee discount cannot be faked. Student discounts require ID etc etc. Games get discounted after a certain period. Again, impossible to cross tiers.
The problem with your system, where you allow the customer to choose which price tier to place themselves is this:
Everyone chooses the cheapest tier.
This is just human nature, and elementary game theory. It makes lost of sense to choose to get it for $5. why pay more? Presumably *someone else* will pay $20.
If thats the option, and everyone behaves rationally, everyone pays the rock bottom price. granted we all like to feel warm and fuzzy knowing *someone else* is paying higher prices, which makes it possible for me to get it cheap, but the problem is, that *someone else* is now also paying rock bottom and thinking you are paying full whack. The next thing you know, that company goes out of business, because they earned a pittance, despite maing a hugely successfull product.
there is a good reason that a venture capitalist will laugh at you if you want to make a film like "the lord of the rings" but make it donationware. That isnt a viable business model, and we all know it.
If your approach to the market cannot scale up to encompass all of the market, then by definition, you are leeching of other people paying for your entertainment. Its fine if you pay $5 and everyone else ays $20. Its when we all pay $5 that the system collapses. You might think music is too expensive entirely. Fine. I think sushi and ferraris are overpriced, but the market works fine, because it supports those sushi lovers and ferrari drivers who think differently. If you let me pay $100 for a ferrari, they wont pay mroe either, they arent stupid, and suddenly, we just killed off the market for both those products. At a much lower leevl, the same is happening to software, movies, tv shows and games. Im not suprised the MPAA RIAAA etc are trying to reverse the thinking thats causing this. If everyone thought like you, there wouldnt be much to look forward to in the software / games / movie business.
hang on, my dad has a Razor phone, thats exactly the kind of thing I didnt want. thats bloatware extreme. I dont want web acecss, or even the option for it, or the buttons for it, or anything. Not a camera, not a microphone, nada. zip. I just want a phone. to make and recieve calls. I dont even text.
Thats the root of the problem. I'd wager 90% of the functioanlity for browsers is only used by 5% of end users. Granted a lot of stuff is demanded by web develoeprs who want fancy this, animated that, and sliding and fading the other, but to be honest, most of us dont need any of that junk. As end users, how much of browser bloat do we really need? I think there was a slashdot story asking for feature requests for firefox recently. my main request is this please:
less of everything
Its already at the case where im starting to notice how long it takes firefox to start. Sometimes more features does not mean better. Its like anything, cars, mobile phones, TVs, they all have major feature bloat. I found it actually impossible to buy a new mobile *without* internet access. Its insane. i remember when you didnt have an animated 'startup' screen for your phone, because the damned things just switched on.
Bless you my son, we need more people like you. Im tired of graphics demos dressed up as games too. Im al;so tired of people who wont even review a game unless its '3D' or supports bump-mapping / HDR lighting / this months buzzfeature.
agreed 100%. I'd much prfer to see MORE labeling regulations, and have them enforced big time, not just with minor fines for trangressions, but with nationwide product recalls, seriously huge fines, and where possible, direct personal prosecutions of those who knowingly allow mislabelling. Food isnt like buying new trainers, I put *this* product INSIDE my body.
There is literally no limit to what sludge food manufacturers will shoehorn into your daily diet if they are given free reign. We have a great local, independent, old fashioned butchers in my road. They do superb pork pies, several times I've bought them for people I know, who have marvelled at them, and asked whats in them. "pork" is the answer, as opposed to the jelly, water, crushed ear lobes, eyeballs and other yucky slimy crud that most supermarkets cram into their 'pork' pies. The parent poster may trust big business to put what it likes in food. Most of us do not, and with good reason.
Yes Starforce is EVIL, yes unskippable cutscenes are EVIL, yes doctored screenshots are EVIL, yes Ads in agmes are totally EVIL, but this the bullshit you get from what I laughable call the 'triple A' industry.
Most indie games have none of that crap. I am very loud and blatant about not pulling any stunts like those for my games. Plus theres no console approval board between me and my customers, and no console licence fee either. Dont lump in the good old indie dev with the scum who pull stunts like this.
I disagree. High res textures can be nice (providing the card gives a good FPS and the load times dont go crazy), but I wish games would have LESS audio than they do now. Heres a typical game of battlefield 2 in audio-only-o-vision
"Get Ammo here!" "enemy infantry spotted" "ok" "thanks" "we are losing this battle! start fighting or ill find someone who can!" "enemy boat spotted" "i need a medic here" "thanks" "ok" "thanks" "get ammo here" "im bingo on ammo"
elapsed time... maybe 10 seconds. If I wanted to endure constant, repetitive brain-melting nagging in both ears at once, I'd move in with my mother. I do NOT need it in video games. I ESPECIALLY do not need to 'hear' my characters voice. That actually BREAKS immersion, because I'd bet good money that:
1) my character will be male 100% of the time. (ok im male too, but not all gamers are) 2) my character will be young, probably early 20s at most 3) my character will have a US accent 4) my character will speak slowly so that everyone can follow what he says 5) my character will have a tendency to 'quip' be 'irreverent', sarcastic, and generally behave like any action-movie cliche going.
Adding audio to cutscenes or gameplay does NTO automatically enhance it. In the same way that adding video does not automatially enhance a story. If it did, books would have been relegated to museums long ago. This is just a sad excuse to fill the disc, and claim that games that ship on a 'mere' DVD arent as good. More != Better.
Im sure you are right. after all, anyone who expresses legitimate concerns about the safetyrecord of nuclear power stations must be some kind of communist.
Im not saying other fuel sources dont have their problems, but this arrogant dismissal of anyone pro-nuclear as either stupid, or a communist is one of the main reasons people are so opposed to nuclear power. I'm also not aware of any large body of people who oppose wind power on a noise or bird-death basis. Every environmentalist I know is 100% in favour. The bird-death argument is one often whipped up by tabloid newspapers who love to invent a "Greens vs Greens" story on a slow news day.
agreed. People dont really care that the RIAA had shaky evidence, they just care that its a crime that they support, and hope the guy gets away with it. If this guy had mugged some old lady in the street, and was getting away with it because they spelt his name wrong, the same people would be (rightfully) up in arms about the failure of the legal system. Obviously Im not equating the 2 crimes, but you have to be consistant. The wrong name just sounds like an admin blunder, its not in the RIAAs interests to take the wrong guy to court, their whole tactics depend on the threat that "only if you download copyrighted files will you get sued". This isnt deliberate confusion on their part, just a typo. I am suprised that something as stupidly fakeable as a screenshot can be used in evidence. If I was the 'victim' in this case, I'd photoshop a screenshot of the judge looking at dodgy porn to show how easily such things are faked. Case closed.
Agreed 100%. I think that using technology to translate could be pyschologically, pretty bad. We all know that iraqis and americans are from different countries, but we also know quite a few iraqis can get by in english, as its such a common language. You already have a situation where an arabic guy is talking to some (probably) white guy, whose in uniform and holding a gun. Then you have the situation that he obviously doesnt speak any of your language, now we have a situation where he finds your language so weird and difficult to learn that he resorts to using technology instead. Iraqis arent stupid, they know that its possible to learn a foreign language, and lets remember that its the americans that have come to iraq, not the other way around. I reckon this is just going to cause resentment. It also changes the soldiers view of the iraqi. "these people speak so weirdly I need a laptop to communicate" etc (subconciously obviously). To be honest, if your serious about 'winning hearts and minds' and determined enough to sacrifice X thousand soldiers in a protracted ground war on foreign soil, at least some small percentage of the budget needs to go towards language and culture lessons for that country. I can see how some logistics staff in washington might think this is the solution, if there is such a thing as a'military psychologist' I'd like to hear their views.
Slashdot Mirror
unless i've missed something nobody forces you to buy that CD at all.
Also, its not food, water or shelter, so you dont have a human rights case to make to possess that CD.
So they bundle in songs that *you* dont like with ones that *you* do. Personally, I buy albums by bands I like. I tend to like pretty much each song equally, as I always have done. I dont understand what sudden evil thing happened where the musicians started deliberately recording bad songs every 3rd track just to annoy you.
And if the band bundles together a certain group of songs for $20, thats their decision. wait for the greatest hits album if your so outraged. I like Star trek DS9, but I don't like the Kira Nerys character. Why the fuck should I pay $20 for one or two good characters, and a load of filler? Also, I didnt like the merry and pippin characters in LOTR. WTF must I pay for a few good wizards and a load of filler?
Come to think of it, I got ripped off with this keyboard, I never wanted the damn scroll lock key. I blame the evil MPAA.
Cool, I agree with you 100%. Its not like this guy was some grandmother who didnt realise downlaoding that mp3 was illegal. This guy knew exactly what he was doing.
hardly a fair comparison. If the librarian allowed you to use the photocopier totally free, and provided 5,000 of them, and then plastered big signs up in front of the library saying "copy books free here, even unreleased ones!" and had installed special 'mega-copiers' that did all the scanning for you and then mailed the copied book direct to your house... then you may have a point.
A photocopier in a library is a long way away from a bittorrent tracker that (according to wikipedia) was the first site to host a copy of revenge of the sith before it was even in theaters. Thats not an innocent kid just resharing something he found elsewhere on p2p2. Thats someone deliberately targeting new movies and aiming to be the first to distribute them.
I'm not saying that jail time is the right punishment, but lets get some perspective here. Its not a kid downlaoding a single mp3.
wow what cutting debate. how dare he suggest that people be paid for their work. the fool! I guess because other people have said the same thing before, you feel the point cannot be valid.
As usual, anone attacking people who believe in the concept of IP owners being paid gets modded up like some insightfull genius. how tragic.
hmmm, i didnt think it was neccesaru to spell out the obvious but apparently it is.
drugs companies will not invest ten million dollars in a new drug if that drug is trivially copied the next day by a rival who spends zero on development. To do so, would be to effectivly just cripple you own competitiveness, and drive yourself out of business by increased relative costs. This is not rocket science.
the concept of IP is absolutely necesary because it is the ONLY viable way of ensuring that research and development costs of a product can be recouped by those who front up the cash.
99% of people with even a basic grasp of economics understand this. I look forward to you explaining to me how drugs companies will invest money in a product in a situation where IP rights did not exist. I won't hold my breath though, seeing as though it appears that all the major drugs companies investing money in research are firm defenders of their IP. SOme might suggest that the need for IP is flipping obvious, others could point to the fact that those doing the investment defend their IP (and conclude quite logically that they would not invest without a gurantee that their ip is defended).
I'm sure you find this post 'worthless' and 'flamebait' because it doesnt justify you illegally copying music. I guess it doesnt matter if we dont get new pharmaceutical research, as long as your ipod hard disk is full huh?
Forget big retail games, many of their demos are poor, some install starforce, many are just HUGE, and often they have all that unskippable advert logo bollox. .exe link on my site. Imagine... no email signup, no pop-up ads, no fileplanet subscriptions, no persuading you to 'subscribe' to geta afster server. Just a direct, reliable, fast demo download, that is getright friendly.
If you want downloadable game demos, you want indie games. If you can live without cutting edge 3D effects, you will be pleasantly suprised.
I make a living (just) from selling downlaodable games, so it is absolutely ESSENTIAL for me to put together a good, fun demo that gets people into the game as quickly as possible, with no fuss, no delays.
To achieve this I make sure that:
1)the demo is small as it can be
2)the demo is the exact same code version as the full game. If the demo works fine, the full game does too
3)the demo starts up asap, with no logo nonsense.
4)you can *trivially* get my demo, from a direct
Its been obvious to me and my fellow devs that making a good demo available is *crucial* to any game that isn't hyped to oblivion. Where I used to work, they relied on hype to sell the games, so made sure they didnt get a demo done in time for release (if at all). Personally, I think gamers deserve to try before they buy.
Sorry for the long adver-rant, but this is an issue i feel really strongly about. Demos are essential for PC games, and so many companies screw it up.
I see. so you werent planning on any drugs being discovered in future, any big budget movies being made, or any major pieces of commercial software ever being made ever again?
nice policy, pity it spells the total death of the worlds economy, and probably kicks 90% of slashdot readers out of work.
Class dismissed.
Go on, mod me down because you want to find a way to justify taking other peoples hard work. Its the slashdot way.
so with the florida elections stuff, the diebold voting amchines, and big soft money donations, it seems your ballot system isnt working. The last time the jury decided your government, they picked the guy with least votes. Funny, but I don't see you using your ammo any time soon to change your governmnet. It *does* get used on a daily basis to murder people on your streets though, the US isnt far behind columbia for gun deaths / 1000 people.
*sigh*
countermeasures are already in place, its called banning the sale of rocket launchers to the under fives, a policy you bizzarely oppose. I can't think of a legitimate need for anyone outside the armed forces to own a rocket launcher, maybe you could enlighten me?
Funnily enough, I don't feel that I'm being *punished* because I can't go out and buy a patriot missile system. In fact, I'm damn glad its hard to buy one.
In your system, where people are only punished *after* they use their weapons, its VERY easy for terrorists to blow the hell out of a train, a plane etc. I could go to walmart and buy myself a suitcase full of semtex, and then blow the local high school to smithereens, including myself. How are you going to punish me now?
And i guess all those high school kids that are now a smear on the pavement should just be happy that the suicide bomber had that freedom right? or do you want to blame the parents there as well?
If you really like a society with no laws, and freely available heavy weapons, go live in baghdad, it would be paradise by your standards.
Im glad your arguing that schoolkids should have access to submachineguns, it puts your whacked out views on copyright in perspective.
"They're harmless for everyone other than the user, and the user should have every right to dispose of himself by whatever means he sees fit (as long as it doesn't hurt others)."
So in one post you think everyone should be able to own a rocket launcher, submachinegun, grenades, even an F22 fighter. In another post you think its fine for everyone at any age to be high as a kite whenever they feel like it.
Is this some kind of joke? I dont understand how your posts have not been modded troll.
If I went into a rough bar on a friday night, and sold everyone LSD and submachineguns, I reckon (and this might be a wild guess) that the evening would not end well.
Newsflash -> drunk drivers kill thousands each year
Newsflash -> thousands are injured every DAY in drunken fights.
You desire to throw heavy weaponary into the mix. Insanity. I'd like to see you have a nice romantic meal in a restaurant when someone walks in on LSD with a flamethrower, it would really add to the atmosphere.
I've debated your insane views on your percieved *right* to take other peoples intellectual property without payment before, now it seems that was just one string to your bow of completely whacked out viewpoints. Who on earth is modding this nonsense up?
"Yep. A person hasn't done anything wrong until he actually uses the weapons in an unjust way."
Iran hasnt done anything wrong with its nukes until washington is turned to ashes, but I'm guessing you would want to take preventative measures in that case.
Agreed 100%. The same *3D is teh bett3r" bullshit is often applied to video games. Even a game like worms, which by its very nature was 2D (or lemmings) is 'reminagined' in 3D, and none the better for it. The idea of navigating a 3D inernet just sounds like hell to me right now. I'm all for a greater variety of 3D online communities and worlds like second life, I hope such things thrive and expand, but to think I'd need to fire up some 3D avatar to go check my share prices is just bullshit.
Just because computers have the capability to do X, does not mean that X is desireable.
I'm English. The story is being blown out of all proportion. It sounds like maybe a dozen pubs in 3 or 4 towns in the whole country MAY be introducing it. London isn't even mentioned.
The chances of your average British pub introducing this for a lunchtme drink are absolutely ZERO. Theres a pub in the UK practically every 10 paces. Any law that would make it harder for a British person to have a pint in his pub would go down about as well as a law to ban firearms in the US.
It's a total non story.
Your comparison with taxes is an interesting one. If you are my neighbour and your not paying taxes, then by definiton, I am the one paying for your roads, your police, your clean air, and your military protection. In the UK, Id be paying for your educationa nd health care too. Given the size of the market for these products (population of country) and the fixed costs, you not paying means I pay more.
Many people would thus regard you (the tax dodger) as a leech (or worse). Often, the people dodging the tax like to spread stories about how the govt is evil, and its all wasted and the decent people dont see any of the money etc, as fud to defend not paying their taxes. Very similar to how people moan about the 0.1% of musicians who drive ferraris, or namecheck artists they dont like, or havent written good songs for ages. Normally the people who *do* pay the taxes, are happy with the deal they get. If they werent they would vote in a different party with different tax policies. This is like buying different products.
Quite how you think this makes illegal filesharing seem anything but socially unacceptable leeching is not clear.
your logic is flawed. I wont even address the silliness reagrding comparing music to water. You need water. You wont die of thirst because you dont have the latest coldplay album.
Someone has made a product and decided, given what they know of the market (which will be more than you know, they have access to all the sales data), to set their price at $20.
You may think "oh Ill only pay $5 for it". And thats up to you. in which case...
no sale.
This isnt a problem. The store knows some people would have paid $5, and they lose that money. they also know some would have paid $30. those people got a good deal. Often, a system of tiered products is arranged to capture as much of the market as possible. This is done at the discretion of the store. These tiered systems can ONLY work, if its impossible to cross tiers. A discount for the elderly is not easily faked. A midday matinee discount cannot be faked. Student discounts require ID etc etc. Games get discounted after a certain period. Again, impossible to cross tiers.
The problem with your system, where you allow the customer to choose which price tier to place themselves is this:
Everyone chooses the cheapest tier.
This is just human nature, and elementary game theory. It makes lost of sense to choose to get it for $5. why pay more? Presumably *someone else* will pay $20.
If thats the option, and everyone behaves rationally, everyone pays the rock bottom price. granted we all like to feel warm and fuzzy knowing *someone else* is paying higher prices, which makes it possible for me to get it cheap, but the problem is, that *someone else* is now also paying rock bottom and thinking you are paying full whack.
The next thing you know, that company goes out of business, because they earned a pittance, despite maing a hugely successfull product.
there is a good reason that a venture capitalist will laugh at you if you want to make a film like "the lord of the rings" but make it donationware. That isnt a viable business model, and we all know it.
If your approach to the market cannot scale up to encompass all of the market, then by definition, you are leeching of other people paying for your entertainment. Its fine if you pay $5 and everyone else ays $20. Its when we all pay $5 that the system collapses. You might think music is too expensive entirely. Fine. I think sushi and ferraris are overpriced, but the market works fine, because it supports those sushi lovers and ferrari drivers who think differently. If you let me pay $100 for a ferrari, they wont pay mroe either, they arent stupid, and suddenly, we just killed off the market for both those products. At a much lower leevl, the same is happening to software, movies, tv shows and games.
Im not suprised the MPAA RIAAA etc are trying to reverse the thinking thats causing this. If everyone thought like you, there wouldnt be much to look forward to in the software / games / movie business.
ah balls. you know what I mean :D. I got carried away with ym own rant :D
hang on, my dad has a Razor phone, thats exactly the kind of thing I didnt want. thats bloatware extreme. I dont want web acecss, or even the option for it, or the buttons for it, or anything. Not a camera, not a microphone, nada. zip.
I just want a phone. to make and recieve calls. I dont even text.
I know I know, Im old.
Thats the root of the problem. I'd wager 90% of the functioanlity for browsers is only used by 5% of end users. Granted a lot of stuff is demanded by web develoeprs who want fancy this, animated that, and sliding and fading the other, but to be honest, most of us dont need any of that junk.
:D
As end users, how much of browser bloat do we really need?
I think there was a slashdot story asking for feature requests for firefox recently. my main request is this please:
less of everything
Its already at the case where im starting to notice how long it takes firefox to start. Sometimes more features does not mean better. Its like anything, cars, mobile phones, TVs, they all have major feature bloat.
I found it actually impossible to buy a new mobile *without* internet access. Its insane. i remember when you didnt have an animated 'startup' screen for your phone, because the damned things just switched on.
Feature bloat -> just say no
Bless you my son, we need more people like you.
Im tired of graphics demos dressed up as games too. Im al;so tired of people who wont even review a game unless its '3D' or supports bump-mapping / HDR lighting / this months buzzfeature.
agreed 100%. I'd much prfer to see MORE labeling regulations, and have them enforced big time, not just with minor fines for trangressions, but with nationwide product recalls, seriously huge fines, and where possible, direct personal prosecutions of those who knowingly allow mislabelling. Food isnt like buying new trainers, I put *this* product INSIDE my body.
There is literally no limit to what sludge food manufacturers will shoehorn into your daily diet if they are given free reign. We have a great local, independent, old fashioned butchers in my road. They do superb pork pies, several times I've bought them for people I know, who have marvelled at them, and asked whats in them. "pork" is the answer, as opposed to the jelly, water, crushed ear lobes, eyeballs and other yucky slimy crud that most supermarkets cram into their 'pork' pies. The parent poster may trust big business to put what it likes in food. Most of us do not, and with good reason.
Yes Starforce is EVIL, yes unskippable cutscenes are EVIL, yes doctored screenshots are EVIL, yes Ads in agmes are totally EVIL, but this the bullshit you get from what I laughable call the 'triple A' industry.
Most indie games have none of that crap. I am very loud and blatant about not pulling any stunts like those for my games. Plus theres no console approval board between me and my customers, and no console licence fee either.
Dont lump in the good old indie dev with the scum who pull stunts like this.
I disagree. High res textures can be nice (providing the card gives a good FPS and the load times dont go crazy), but I wish games would have LESS audio than they do now.
Heres a typical game of battlefield 2 in audio-only-o-vision
"Get Ammo here!"
"enemy infantry spotted"
"ok"
"thanks"
"we are losing this battle! start fighting or ill find someone who can!"
"enemy boat spotted"
"i need a medic here"
"thanks"
"ok"
"thanks"
"get ammo here"
"im bingo on ammo"
elapsed time... maybe 10 seconds. If I wanted to endure constant, repetitive brain-melting nagging in both ears at once, I'd move in with my mother. I do NOT need it in video games. I ESPECIALLY do not need to 'hear' my characters voice. That actually BREAKS immersion, because I'd bet good money that:
1) my character will be male 100% of the time. (ok im male too, but not all gamers are)
2) my character will be young, probably early 20s at most
3) my character will have a US accent
4) my character will speak slowly so that everyone can follow what he says
5) my character will have a tendency to 'quip' be 'irreverent', sarcastic, and generally behave like any action-movie cliche going.
Adding audio to cutscenes or gameplay does NTO automatically enhance it. In the same way that adding video does not automatially enhance a story. If it did, books would have been relegated to museums long ago.
This is just a sad excuse to fill the disc, and claim that games that ship on a 'mere' DVD arent as good. More != Better.
Im sure you are right. after all, anyone who expresses legitimate concerns about the safety record of nuclear power stations must be some kind of communist.
Im not saying other fuel sources dont have their problems, but this arrogant dismissal of anyone pro-nuclear as either stupid, or a communist is one of the main reasons people are so opposed to nuclear power.
I'm also not aware of any large body of people who oppose wind power on a noise or bird-death basis. Every environmentalist I know is 100% in favour. The bird-death argument is one often whipped up by tabloid newspapers who love to invent a "Greens vs Greens" story on a slow news day.
agreed. People dont really care that the RIAA had shaky evidence, they just care that its a crime that they support, and hope the guy gets away with it. If this guy had mugged some old lady in the street, and was getting away with it because they spelt his name wrong, the same people would be (rightfully) up in arms about the failure of the legal system.
Obviously Im not equating the 2 crimes, but you have to be consistant. The wrong name just sounds like an admin blunder, its not in the RIAAs interests to take the wrong guy to court, their whole tactics depend on the threat that "only if you download copyrighted files will you get sued". This isnt deliberate confusion on their part, just a typo.
I am suprised that something as stupidly fakeable as a screenshot can be used in evidence. If I was the 'victim' in this case, I'd photoshop a screenshot of the judge looking at dodgy porn to show how easily such things are faked. Case closed.
Agreed 100%. I think that using technology to translate could be pyschologically, pretty bad. We all know that iraqis and americans are from different countries, but we also know quite a few iraqis can get by in english, as its such a common language. You already have a situation where an arabic guy is talking to some (probably) white guy, whose in uniform and holding a gun. Then you have the situation that he obviously doesnt speak any of your language, now we have a situation where he finds your language so weird and difficult to learn that he resorts to using technology instead. Iraqis arent stupid, they know that its possible to learn a foreign language, and lets remember that its the americans that have come to iraq, not the other way around. I reckon this is just going to cause resentment. It also changes the soldiers view of the iraqi. "these people speak so weirdly I need a laptop to communicate" etc (subconciously obviously).
To be honest, if your serious about 'winning hearts and minds' and determined enough to sacrifice X thousand soldiers in a protracted ground war on foreign soil, at least some small percentage of the budget needs to go towards language and culture lessons for that country.
I can see how some logistics staff in washington might think this is the solution, if there is such a thing as a'military psychologist' I'd like to hear their views.