Prove to me that movies and music are the most downloaded (by bytes) on these networks (its harder than you'd think)
I'm Canadian, so most of that material is in fact legal -- personal, private copies are legal here.
The origins and purposes of Copyright are what I said should be in the course. People should be aware when voting why they vote, and when respecting Copyright, why they ought to. Copyright has a purpose -- to encourage the creation of works so as to establish a greater body of Public Domain works, not to enrich authors -- that's a means to an end, not the end itself.
Grammar isn't taught much in school anymore I understand, but perhaps you could use some?
Here's a clue: "they" refers to people who claim "they can't see a difference" or "they can't hear a difference" in my post and "they are convinced that the Wii has stronger gameplay than its competitors despite it not actually having any good games" from the grandparent comment. It refers specifically to people who in fact do make claims they can't substantiate like those given.
Please, feel free to show me substantive arguments proving the Wii has better game play than a PS3 or that HDTVs don't look better than regular TVs (with an appropriate HD signal) or that a good sound system doesn't sound better than a sucky one. Feel free, then you won't be one of the they. Jeez.
You compare the Wii Remote to the Power Glove, but complain about getting modded Troll? Here's a thought: Maybe it's not some kind of weirdo conspiracy against the truth. Maybe you simply are a Troll.
The Wiimote *is* a lot like the Power Glove, it even has the little bar you have to put on your TV. Move hand around, hit buttons with other hand... yeah, very similar indeed. Sure, the games are different, but guess why? Because of horsepower, not the gimmick itself. The Power Glove games sucked because the Super Nintendo really couldn't handle much more than throwing a few sprites around, definitely not full 3D acceleration, and they couldn't guarantee everyone had one either.
Sure, the Wiimote is also different, but there's nothing trollish about the comment at all. I modded Power Gloves to use them with my PC via parallel port for science fair projects. Have fun with your future endeavours.
You must have a complex or something, lol. My mother comes over for dinner or to visit her grand daughter. My mother doesn't even watch television, so playing video games is just way out in left field for her.
I'm glad you like the Wii -- I like in-depth RPGs, third person fighters and FPS games (to put that out there for comparison). As a result, I think the Wii will lose its advantage with time. The PS3 has a lot of headroom for developers to grow into. The Wii will probably almost hit its peak by Christmas of this year (at a year old) in terms of games. Now after that, it will probably drop in price like a rock compared to the 360 and PS3, so that may offer another advantage, but I doubt two years down the road that new games on the Wii will even be compared to new games on the PS3 / 360. It would be like comparing the DS to the Wii. They're completely different gaming platforms.
Both my (the grandparent) and his comments got marked as trolls. Neither made any trollish comments. His comment about fighting an uphill battle is therefore true -- a lot of people don't want to hear about how much fun 360's and PS3s are, they want to believe they're right and 'lalalala' to everyone else.
Yay for them, blah. I had a power glove, now its a Wiimote with fewer buttons. Processing power has caught up to motion controls and now a 'fun' game can actually be made that can use the information from a motion-based controller. Believe it or not, graphics and horsepower *are* needed to make games. You can make pong without much horsepower, but Super Mario took a phenomenal amount more. Is tracking the motion of every piston in the engine of a car necessary for a video game to be fun? Of course not. Is a lack of raw horsepower going to hold back development of certain games that would otherwise be a lot of fun to play? Definitely.
Yes, those of us who actually like our high definition TVs get bullied by people who refuse to buy glasses but claim they "can't see the difference". When I bought my Yamaha receiver and speaker system I got a similar response from the "you can't hear a difference crowd" (I've yet to have anyone say that in person after listening, mind you). They decry whatever they want, and in my opinion, they can lose out. I just wish they wouldn't make claims they can't substantiate.
I get a lot of happy hours from God of War, thank-you very much. By myself and with friends. Does my mom like it? No. Do I care? No. I own my house, my TV and my games. If my mom wants to come over, its not to play video games.
As much as some people disliked it, I quite liked how the plot development worked in FFX2. I liked the new class system and the development of skills as well as the nearly free-roaming storyline at points. Unless you play the game trying to figure out the 'best' way to get through everything, its quite replayable even.
My first Final Fantasy I owned was FFX. The story was good but confusing at first, but the game play and character control was quite fun and the variety of encounters cool. The story developed nicely while the fighting eventually got tedious. Some of the side stories and extras make Final Fantasy the most fun -- trying to figure out what the developers hid in there for you without using a cheat book;-)
Excuse me, but the game play of Resistance isn't strong? Or did you mean Motorstorm (which actually requires effort)? Or perhaps FlOw? Oh I know, must be Super Rub a Dub. Virtua Tennis? Tekken 5 Dark Resurrection? No? Or maybe you haven't actually played any PS3 games for any length of time. I'd go on about 360 games, but I don't own one of those.
I do however know that my PS3 hooked up to an HD CRT with a Dolby Digital 5 point sound system makes people grin ear to ear when they come over (don't try to take the controller away).
For the record, my 5 year old daughter loves playing FlOw, Super Rub A Dub, Virtua Tennis and NBA '07 on the PS3. My wife has put in almost 65 hours on Oblivion and is not a gamer. Friends come over weekly to put their time in on Resistance: Fall of Man online.
So the Wii is fun to some people -- that's great. I'll stick with my games that are fun and look and sound incredible. I don't like straining my eyes to see enemies on-screen, and DD 5.1 / dts sound is the _____. Have fun playing with your Wii though. "To each their own," as my grandmother always says.
Wow, that's great. You made me smile. After an earlier post reminding me of an earlier job (consultants, firings, etc.), this just made my day. My daughter won't thank you when she's older, I'm telling you that much.
What I love about Windows users in general is this belief that they have a right to run software that claims to run on Windows. That is to say, they see a weather applet someone else has so they download and install it. They get a Blackberry because its cool and then run as administrator because the software won't work otherwise, etc., etc.
If you tell them "no, you can't do that" they'll say "well everyone else does" and get upset that you're telling them what not to do with their computer. Ironically, they also get upset when the computer dies. I usually make people sign off on "if you come to me when it breaks, I'm billing you hourly". Yes, I'm a sysadmin, there's a reason we're cranky people.
If you recall the recent interview with 'The Saint' about his time at Microsoft, he pointed out that the whole idea behind Direct-X was to get Windows out of the way of games because it was bloated and ugly. Now Direct-X is also bloated and ugly and Windows is getting even worse and back in the way again. Game creators are the ones who will be most unhappy, not consumers.
You've confused me about how you're linking two points you've tried to make. Age players in a private area of a virtual world who are all adults are just that -- age players. Whether they use makeup or tape themselves down in real life or dress up virtually, its still age-play. Personally, I think its weird and deviant, but that's not relevant to the law, now is it?
You then mention something about using 'real' kiddie porn images. This I object to of course, but if you still mean in terms of virtual hand-made avatars and not those made from images of real kids, then I think we're still in age-play land here.
Granted, different countries have different laws. Japan's view of these things is quite a bit more liberal than the United States. In Canada, artistic renditions of graphic (and normally illegal) sexuality are legal so long as no actual children were involved (except in the artist's mind) and the artist/never shares the works with others/. That last bit of course comes into play on Second Life, should the renditions seem realistic enough to be "artistically" created child porn.
Those private companies could just purchase a Google search appliance to get that Google feature set without even putting it on the Internet. Of course, the digitizing is still a problem. That said, if you're willing to open the data, Google would probably come scan all your documents and index them for free for you.
In my observations, I've found the problem is even deeper than basic language skills. The problem appears to in fact be a lack of thinking skills. I took a logical thinking course in college and it was excellent -- we had to disassemble sentences, trace the logic (with cute little lines & symbols) and work out what the facts were and whether the resulting statements were valid (which is not the same as 'true') or not. Most of the class stared blankly for several weeks as the professor slowly explained the difference between truth and validity of statements, the difference between claims and facts, the difference between stated and unstated assumptions, etc.
Since taking that class I've recognized that a vast majority of people I hear speak on 'issues' of any kind all share one basic problem -- an inability to recognize how they've come to a conclusion from a set of experiences or facts. They'll dump the facts they recall as being associated with their conclusion on you and leave you at the "make your own conclusion" stage, not realizing that everyone has different backgrounds, understandings, world views and thinking processes to draw on. Unless you actually make an effort to explain how you got from A to B, people won't follow your train of thought and are often left confused. To further exacerbate the issue, some of your close friends who understand you will still understand without the explanations, deepening the belief that communicating the connections is unnecessary.
Lobby your representatives that you want laws passed to protect *all* aspects of Copyright law, including Fair Use. You want any software or device that claims to protect or enforce Copyright to enforce it accurately and permit fair use of the material in question. Any software or hardware that does not would be illegal.
My DVD player *should* allow me to easily record an accurate digital copy of some of the original material for use in a commentary on the video in question. I should not have to bypass hardware or software to do so. I have a legal right to use the material in ways the device prohibits, and this must end, DMCA or no DMCA.
In fact, most of us wouldn't care much about the DMCA if it enforced provisions like the above and didn't prohibit the publication of research on bypassing security.
In fact, those paintings you see in museums have well-expired Copyrights. You can forge those paintings all you like yourself and people will still pay millions of dollars for the originals because they're innately valuable, not because Copyright forces them to.
In fact, even if it is illegal, it shouldn't be grounds for termination. Only if it prevents you from doing your job properly should it be an issue at all. If you lost your license due to a DUI and you're a driver for a living, you'll get fired. If you got a DUI and you work as a check-out clerk at W*lmart, what's it to them?
I'm sick and tired of hearing this story repeat itself over and over. It goes something like this:
I can't afford a PS3, therefore nobody can afford the PS3 and since I see them on the shelves, nobody must be buying them.
I really don't care how well the Wii is selling, that has no bearing whatsoever on the sales numbers for the PS3 itself. The PS3 has sold well, not astoundingly, but well enough to have a large installed base. Also, where's this $100 coming from they could save with blu-ray laser components getting cheaper? According to one breakdown, the entire Blu-Ray drive assembly is estimated at $125. Factoring in Sony eventually making a profit on PS3 sales after the initial loss-leader tactics, only removing the drive and having no replacement would save $100. What is most likely to save Sony money is manufacturing getting cheaper, and all components slowly dropping in price a little each.
Aside from people with massive hearing damage, most people can in fact hear the difference between 96, 128, 160, 240, etc. bitrates of MP3s for example. Most people just get accustomed to low bitrates because its what they listen to. People who listen to the radio a lot and low-bitrate MP3s are startled to hear my 224 bitrate encoded tracks on my stereo system. "It sounds so clear!" they say, well yeah, duh, cause I didn't rip all the audio quality out of it.
To be fair, a lot of people are using really crappy (you crappy brands know who you are) speakers and whatnot that degrade the audio quality so much they wouldn't be able to tell the difference, but that has nothing to do with how well their ears can discern the difference.
Slashdot Mirror
Grammar isn't taught much in school anymore I understand, but perhaps you could use some?
Here's a clue: "they" refers to people who claim "they can't see a difference" or "they can't hear a difference" in my post and "they are convinced that the Wii has stronger gameplay than its competitors despite it not actually having any good games" from the grandparent comment. It refers specifically to people who in fact do make claims they can't substantiate like those given.
Please, feel free to show me substantive arguments proving the Wii has better game play than a PS3 or that HDTVs don't look better than regular TVs (with an appropriate HD signal) or that a good sound system doesn't sound better than a sucky one. Feel free, then you won't be one of the they. Jeez.
The Wiimote *is* a lot like the Power Glove, it even has the little bar you have to put on your TV. Move hand around, hit buttons with other hand
Sure, the Wiimote is also different, but there's nothing trollish about the comment at all. I modded Power Gloves to use them with my PC via parallel port for science fair projects. Have fun with your future endeavours.
You must have a complex or something, lol. My mother comes over for dinner or to visit her grand daughter. My mother doesn't even watch television, so playing video games is just way out in left field for her.
I'm glad you like the Wii -- I like in-depth RPGs, third person fighters and FPS games (to put that out there for comparison). As a result, I think the Wii will lose its advantage with time. The PS3 has a lot of headroom for developers to grow into. The Wii will probably almost hit its peak by Christmas of this year (at a year old) in terms of games.
Now after that, it will probably drop in price like a rock compared to the 360 and PS3, so that may offer another advantage, but I doubt two years down the road that new games on the Wii will even be compared to new games on the PS3 / 360. It would be like comparing the DS to the Wii. They're completely different gaming platforms.
Both my (the grandparent) and his comments got marked as trolls. Neither made any trollish comments. His comment about fighting an uphill battle is therefore true -- a lot of people don't want to hear about how much fun 360's and PS3s are, they want to believe they're right and 'lalalala' to everyone else.
Yay for them, blah. I had a power glove, now its a Wiimote with fewer buttons. Processing power has caught up to motion controls and now a 'fun' game can actually be made that can use the information from a motion-based controller. Believe it or not, graphics and horsepower *are* needed to make games. You can make pong without much horsepower, but Super Mario took a phenomenal amount more. Is tracking the motion of every piston in the engine of a car necessary for a video game to be fun? Of course not. Is a lack of raw horsepower going to hold back development of certain games that would otherwise be a lot of fun to play? Definitely.
Yes, those of us who actually like our high definition TVs get bullied by people who refuse to buy glasses but claim they "can't see the difference". When I bought my Yamaha receiver and speaker system I got a similar response from the "you can't hear a difference crowd" (I've yet to have anyone say that in person after listening, mind you). They decry whatever they want, and in my opinion, they can lose out. I just wish they wouldn't make claims they can't substantiate.
I get a lot of happy hours from God of War, thank-you very much. By myself and with friends. Does my mom like it? No. Do I care? No. I own my house, my TV and my games. If my mom wants to come over, its not to play video games.
As much as some people disliked it, I quite liked how the plot development worked in FFX2. I liked the new class system and the development of skills as well as the nearly free-roaming storyline at points. Unless you play the game trying to figure out the 'best' way to get through everything, its quite replayable even.
My first Final Fantasy I owned was FFX. The story was good but confusing at first, but the game play and character control was quite fun and the variety of encounters cool. The story developed nicely while the fighting eventually got tedious. Some of the side stories and extras make Final Fantasy the most fun -- trying to figure out what the developers hid in there for you without using a cheat book ;-)
I keep snickering "Wii would like to watch" when I see those ads (since the guys sit back and watch all the time). Yeah, that's wrong too ;-)
Excuse me, but the game play of Resistance isn't strong? Or did you mean Motorstorm (which actually requires effort)? Or perhaps FlOw? Oh I know, must be Super Rub a Dub. Virtua Tennis? Tekken 5 Dark Resurrection? No? Or maybe you haven't actually played any PS3 games for any length of time. I'd go on about 360 games, but I don't own one of those.
I do however know that my PS3 hooked up to an HD CRT with a Dolby Digital 5 point sound system makes people grin ear to ear when they come over (don't try to take the controller away).
For the record, my 5 year old daughter loves playing FlOw, Super Rub A Dub, Virtua Tennis and NBA '07 on the PS3. My wife has put in almost 65 hours on Oblivion and is not a gamer. Friends come over weekly to put their time in on Resistance: Fall of Man online.
So the Wii is fun to some people -- that's great. I'll stick with my games that are fun and look and sound incredible. I don't like straining my eyes to see enemies on-screen, and DD 5.1 / dts sound is the _____. Have fun playing with your Wii though. "To each their own," as my grandmother always says.
grinning like an idiot here
Wow, that's great. You made me smile. After an earlier post reminding me of an earlier job (consultants, firings, etc.), this just made my day. My daughter won't thank you when she's older, I'm telling you that much.
What I love about Windows users in general is this belief that they have a right to run software that claims to run on Windows. That is to say, they see a weather applet someone else has so they download and install it. They get a Blackberry because its cool and then run as administrator because the software won't work otherwise, etc., etc.
If you tell them "no, you can't do that" they'll say "well everyone else does" and get upset that you're telling them what not to do with their computer. Ironically, they also get upset when the computer dies. I usually make people sign off on "if you come to me when it breaks, I'm billing you hourly". Yes, I'm a sysadmin, there's a reason we're cranky people.
If you recall the recent interview with 'The Saint' about his time at Microsoft, he pointed out that the whole idea behind Direct-X was to get Windows out of the way of games because it was bloated and ugly. Now Direct-X is also bloated and ugly and Windows is getting even worse and back in the way again. Game creators are the ones who will be most unhappy, not consumers.
You've confused me about how you're linking two points you've tried to make. Age players in a private area of a virtual world who are all adults are just that -- age players. Whether they use makeup or tape themselves down in real life or dress up virtually, its still age-play. Personally, I think its weird and deviant, but that's not relevant to the law, now is it?
/never shares the works with others/. That last bit of course comes into play on Second Life, should the renditions seem realistic enough to be "artistically" created child porn.
You then mention something about using 'real' kiddie porn images. This I object to of course, but if you still mean in terms of virtual hand-made avatars and not those made from images of real kids, then I think we're still in age-play land here.
Granted, different countries have different laws. Japan's view of these things is quite a bit more liberal than the United States. In Canada, artistic renditions of graphic (and normally illegal) sexuality are legal so long as no actual children were involved (except in the artist's mind) and the artist
Those private companies could just purchase a Google search appliance to get that Google feature set without even putting it on the Internet. Of course, the digitizing is still a problem. That said, if you're willing to open the data, Google would probably come scan all your documents and index them for free for you.
In my observations, I've found the problem is even deeper than basic language skills. The problem appears to in fact be a lack of thinking skills. I took a logical thinking course in college and it was excellent -- we had to disassemble sentences, trace the logic (with cute little lines & symbols) and work out what the facts were and whether the resulting statements were valid (which is not the same as 'true') or not. Most of the class stared blankly for several weeks as the professor slowly explained the difference between truth and validity of statements, the difference between claims and facts, the difference between stated and unstated assumptions, etc.
Since taking that class I've recognized that a vast majority of people I hear speak on 'issues' of any kind all share one basic problem -- an inability to recognize how they've come to a conclusion from a set of experiences or facts. They'll dump the facts they recall as being associated with their conclusion on you and leave you at the "make your own conclusion" stage, not realizing that everyone has different backgrounds, understandings, world views and thinking processes to draw on. Unless you actually make an effort to explain how you got from A to B, people won't follow your train of thought and are often left confused. To further exacerbate the issue, some of your close friends who understand you will still understand without the explanations, deepening the belief that communicating the connections is unnecessary.
Lobby your representatives that you want laws passed to protect *all* aspects of Copyright law, including Fair Use. You want any software or device that claims to protect or enforce Copyright to enforce it accurately and permit fair use of the material in question. Any software or hardware that does not would be illegal.
My DVD player *should* allow me to easily record an accurate digital copy of some of the original material for use in a commentary on the video in question. I should not have to bypass hardware or software to do so. I have a legal right to use the material in ways the device prohibits, and this must end, DMCA or no DMCA.
In fact, most of us wouldn't care much about the DMCA if it enforced provisions like the above and didn't prohibit the publication of research on bypassing security.
In fact, those paintings you see in museums have well-expired Copyrights. You can forge those paintings all you like yourself and people will still pay millions of dollars for the originals because they're innately valuable, not because Copyright forces them to.
In fact, even if it is illegal, it shouldn't be grounds for termination. Only if it prevents you from doing your job properly should it be an issue at all. If you lost your license due to a DUI and you're a driver for a living, you'll get fired. If you got a DUI and you work as a check-out clerk at W*lmart, what's it to them?
I really don't care how well the Wii is selling, that has no bearing whatsoever on the sales numbers for the PS3 itself. The PS3 has sold well, not astoundingly, but well enough to have a large installed base. Also, where's this $100 coming from they could save with blu-ray laser components getting cheaper? According to one breakdown, the entire Blu-Ray drive assembly is estimated at $125. Factoring in Sony eventually making a profit on PS3 sales after the initial loss-leader tactics, only removing the drive and having no replacement would save $100. What is most likely to save Sony money is manufacturing getting cheaper, and all components slowly dropping in price a little each.
If he lives in Canada or several other countries, that behaviour isn't illegal at all.
If he's in the United States, then sure, it is, but quit assuming everyone has the same local laws and customs that you do.
Aside from people with massive hearing damage, most people can in fact hear the difference between 96, 128, 160, 240, etc. bitrates of MP3s for example. Most people just get accustomed to low bitrates because its what they listen to. People who listen to the radio a lot and low-bitrate MP3s are startled to hear my 224 bitrate encoded tracks on my stereo system. "It sounds so clear!" they say, well yeah, duh, cause I didn't rip all the audio quality out of it.
To be fair, a lot of people are using really crappy (you crappy brands know who you are) speakers and whatnot that degrade the audio quality so much they wouldn't be able to tell the difference, but that has nothing to do with how well their ears can discern the difference.
It would be even more obvious to visit The Royal Canadian Mint's website and check its information on commemorative and other coins.