This article is amazing. It really moved me. The concepts and level that the people involved in this are thinking on really makes a person stop to consider how thoughtless we are today to our culture and the impact that we have on not only ourselves and the rest of the world in the here and now, but how such an idea can be a profound testiment to the achievements of the human race for generations long after we're gone.
I see so many jokes, rants, and condemnations from people responding to this here on Slashdot, and it becomes immediately clear that these people have not read the article, and if they have, are completely shallow and selfish people.
There is so much meaning and thought that has gone into this that it's unspeakable to even consider anything but full support for this project. I want my place in time to have a reflection to civilizations thousands of years from now. The human race in the past no doubt realized the significance of speaking to future generations... why are we so thoughtless?
No one said that a Slashdot redesign would have to look like The Onion or anything like that. That doesn't make the *idea* bad, though.
Personally, I would like the ability to collapse sub-children in the comments. Sometimes you get so nested deeply in reading comment threads that the direct replies to what you originally started reading don't come until 20 minutes later. I'd rather read the direct replies, then go back and read replies to children, etc.
IIRC, it is only illegal in the US to distribute tools that allow the circumvention of copyright, but not to possess them (in other words, you're free to back up your DVD's as long as you create the tools to do so yourself; someone please correct me if I'm wrong).
This legislation could have some seriously negative effects on Finnish consumers that want to do things such as rip their CD's into MP3's for their digital music players, or want to rip and watch their movies on some of those new Video iPod's that are being rumored.
Innovation is being killed by the day in today's "civilized" world. I would love to think that there's something that we can do about it by being a democracy, but even that doesn't seem to be working well these days. It's been my opinion that a democracy only works if the people are informed, but from the sounds of the article there was already a lot of public outcry against this law in Finaland, but the cries have fallen on deaf ears.
They say that the current subscription services are being charged in the %6-8/month range, which is what was being offered to Microsoft. If this is true, how is it that Yahoo! can afford such a low subscription rate?
And thus the prophesy was fulfilled: "And there will be much gnashing of eTeeth as the nerds of the Slashdot ripethed the recording industry 'a new one'"
I understand that to a point, but at what point do the problems with the ease of scratching the screen become unacceptable? Clearly it has with the Nano for many owners.
Reasonable expectations for durability are not out of line. A person shouldn't have to worry that the purchase of extra peripherals is essential to the usability of the primary product.
It's not just the shiny area, too. Reports are that the screen is just as bad. So much so, in fact, that it can become unusable after a few weeks of use. If it was just the body, it would be one thing, but that is not the case here.
Such gadgets are that are clearly intended for everyday use should be designed with at least reasonable quality expectations in mind. For a product that is undeniably going to be rolling around in people's pockets, you would expect that a company would make sure that their product would not be easily abused.
From what I have read, the Nano is quite sturdy as far as the amount of physical abuse it can take, but the scratching is still a problem. It is not unreasonable for people to expect such products to be at least reasonably scratch-resistant. PDA's, cell phones, and other similar devices don't really tend to have the scratching problems that Nano adopters have expressed frustration over. The fact that there *are* so many people that have voiced on the issue (even though Apple doesn't really admit it) should give an indication to non-owners that maybe there really is a problem. There does appear to be a lot of non-owners that have come down on those that have complained about the issue, but from my analysis over the past few days, other Nano owners tend to sympathize with those people even if they haven't been bothered by it.
I definitely expect Apple to address the scratching issue internally, even if they don't publically recall the Nanos that have been easily scratched (though it does sound like most retailers are giving refunds without much hassle).
Nobody here in this discussion has seemed to have found the link (nor have I), and the article doesn't have any links to the bill which is supposedly-infringing. How the hell am I supposed to tell my representatives to vote "no" on a bill if I don't even know what effing bill we're talking about?
I can't believe the article is missing such critical information. This entire story is very frustrating because *anybody* who took action to blindly listen to the requests of the article to write letters of protest without any means of verification are no better than the *AA making attempts to quietly attach the supposed ammendments to the supposed bill.
It has a simple user interface and is notable for its use of customer profiling, taking advantage of the data MSN gathers from its more than 9 million subscribers.
Using personal information in software to target ads to a consumer (not even based on the public content they're looking at).... yep, sounds like spyware to me. If I'm not mistaken, Congress was looking to outlaw spyware. Not that it would affect Microsoft at all, since they own the government. =/
How do you balance great game play with actually creating a product and shipping it within a reasonable time frame? More to the point, how do you create an entertaining game without falling into the 'duke nukem forever' release schedule?
*roll*
"Well first, we look at all the functions in the game, and then make buttons for the most importantly used ones. These will go on the main screen. Next, we create little graphics for all those little functions that we hope will make a user be able to relate to the meaning behind the button...."
Ok, seriously... what kind of question is that? Entire books have been written on such questions. There are people out there who's entire living depends on them being able to provide usability feedback to companies on software
A good point in the article is made in saying that the state's sovereignty trumps intellectual property. It is critical that government agencies remain as open as possible to the needs of the people, and locking them into the use of Microsoft-only formats is not putting you on the fast track to success.
I have to wonder if such action will eventually become the norm - not just in the US, but everywhere. Being tied down to a US corporation that could potentially leave you high and dry doesn't really sound to me like a position that governments would want to put themselves in. And that doesn't even consider the security implications of the closed nature of commercial operating systems.
Now, that isn't to say that a commercial product can't be used. There is no reason that Office couldn't support open standards, but if other states start following suit, I guarantee Microsoft will change their mind on that stance.
If hurricaines were to have corporate sponsored names, the names could be assigned to storms based on how much devistation they are expected to cause, and people would be able to relate to it! Forget these "categories".
Just think about it, hurricaine "Bob's Used Exercise Equipment" wouldn't be that big of a deal, but people would be fleeing their asses out of town once hurricaine "RIAA" or hurricaine "Microsoft" was being warned for!
Any publisher, developer, designer, or user of P2P SW (or anyone else associated with it) must now invest in producing evidence that they do not promote illegal abuse. How to produce evidence of something not happening is extremely expensive and ultimately impossible.
In theory, no. I mean, as difficult as it may be to believe these days, they're supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. Which, again in theory, means that the RIAA would have to come up with proof that they were actively encouraging the infringement. The burden of proof is not on the defendant.
Wow, can you imagine the possibilities of some sports games for this thing? In the left hand you use the analog stick to guide a player, and in the right hand you use the 3D-space-sensitive controller to do things like navigate a hockey puck, kick a soccer ball, swing a tennis racket, or whatever.
That idea, to me, gives this system so many possibilities. I trust the big N to get it right.
The point that you are missing is that ( and this is a rule of marketing) is that the market leader never mentions the any competitors, but the rest of the companies ALWAYS mention the number one company so that potential consumers will equate their product with the market leader. Think about how often Pepsi mentions Coke in their ads but Coke NEVER mentions Pepsi. This is literally taken my from Marketing 101 class that I took oh so many years ago.
I've seen a number of posts similar to this in this discussion already, but Creative didn't patent menu heirarchy. They patented the automatic creation and filing of the heirarchy based on reading the meta-data of the music.
Ok, it's probably pointless and redundant to point out the fact that this pr0n company is suing the very site that has probably given them more business than anybody else on earth, but whatever.
These lawsuits seem to be coming up far too often, but the solution is so simple. All google (and any other search engine, for that matter), needs to do is simply require that robots.txt gives that bot or bots in general the persmission to index the site. If it's not there, the site isn't indexed, period. No more lawsuits - you gave them permission. And if not, well, you reap the results of that decision, too. Don't know about robots.txt? Sorry, but you're out of luck. You probably weren't ranked very high in the search engine to begin with anyway.
This problem *doesn't have to be there*. The solution is simple, and search engines are costing themselves loads of money by not simply requiring that robots.txt give bots permission to index the site.
I'm still waiting for one of these programs to allow me to configure what extensions should be indexed as text files. So far, I'm not aware of a program that allows you to specify certain extensions as being text-based file types for indexing purposes.
I swear by Firefox for developmental purposes. With extensions like the Web Developer extension, AddNEditCookies, and Aardvark, Firefox is the ultimate development browser.
However, I don't see Firefox catching on with the average (or even somewhat computer savvy) computer user, and here's why:
* Memory usage. I've seen Firefox take upwards of 200MB of memory with just a few tabs open, and none of the new releases seem to help matters any. Many people will not tolerate this, and I have a hard time tolerating it myself.
* Extension requirements for usability. Certain things such as extended tab preferences should be available in the base install of Firefox, but they're not. Since your average computer user isn't going to be installing a bunch of extensions (and in the corporate world, this may even not be allowed altogether), the base install of Firefox remains somewhat crippled.
* Speed. Firefox could really use a rendering kick-start. I've made some mods that have helped, but it just isn't that fast, plain and simple.
IE7 is going to introduce a lot of the features that consumers and developers have been demanding. While I don't think IE7 will be a great browser for developmental purposes, it will probably be more than adequate for average consumers. Should IE7 prove to be a fairly capable browser, the Mozilla team is really going to have to start addressing some of these issues real quick-like.
I have no mod points, and I couldn't have used them here if I did, since I replied.
I'm not condemning you specifically for being critical of Nintendo. I'm condemning the mindset of being critical of Nintendo in general when they're the only company making gaming consoles right now that is profitable. Nintendo funds it by their profits. Microsoft and Sony fund it by the other sectors of their business.
Doesn't the fact that Nintendo is the only one of the big 3 that is making a profit strike you as at all odd???? They must be doing *something* right, yes?
I agree with the parent on the premise that there's probably another reason than simply quantity of patents coming in that examiners are leaving. However, it's not because of management or similar (government jobs tend to be pretty lax, actually).
I believe it's purely because of salary. Entry examiners coming in making about $35k or so, and topping out at about $50k after a few years (depending on the type of patents that you're examining - it varies based on the complexity of the topic or technology).
However, in the private sector, patent lawyers typically make twice as much as these patent examiners, and often have less work required of them, since it's often better *not* to research of a patent has been issued for a given thing, because knowingly infringing a patent automatically triples (yes, triples) the restitution that must be paid to the patent owner.
Less money and more work, or more money and less work? You tell me which you'd prefer.
Ok, I'll stop for a moment and bite your flamebait:
but make it very clear, right now, that the Revolution will also ship with a dualshock-alike
You really need to get over yourself. The dual shock is hardly anything close to the "perfect" controller for 3D gaming, and there's a massive audience out there that would rather slaughter Nintendo than accept another controller that's still geared towards 2D platformers.
Anyway, moving on. The public in general doesn't seem to really grasp the fact that Nintendo HAS ZERO INTEREST in trying to win over the folks like our Anonymous Coward above. You could bash this into people's heads all day long, but people still seem to think that Nintendo is in the market to compete with Sony and Microsoft. THEY'RE NOT!
Nintendo is looking to serve a niche market of gamers that want something different than what Microsoft and Sony are offering. By doing so, they are guaranteeing themselves a unique and guaranteed fan base. Nintendo isn't looking to win back 90% market share. Why is this so hard for people to understand?
Despite the tone of this article, Nintendo still remains profitable, and is the ONLY company of the big 3 in gaming that is! Sony and Microsoft make money elsewhere to fund their losing habits. Nintendo doesn't! Why should Nintendo want to change their business strategy when it is the only one on the market that is actually working??? SOMEBODY PLEASE TELL ME!
Slashdot Mirror
This article is amazing. It really moved me. The concepts and level that the people involved in this are thinking on really makes a person stop to consider how thoughtless we are today to our culture and the impact that we have on not only ourselves and the rest of the world in the here and now, but how such an idea can be a profound testiment to the achievements of the human race for generations long after we're gone.
I see so many jokes, rants, and condemnations from people responding to this here on Slashdot, and it becomes immediately clear that these people have not read the article, and if they have, are completely shallow and selfish people.
There is so much meaning and thought that has gone into this that it's unspeakable to even consider anything but full support for this project. I want my place in time to have a reflection to civilizations thousands of years from now. The human race in the past no doubt realized the significance of speaking to future generations... why are we so thoughtless?
No one said that a Slashdot redesign would have to look like The Onion or anything like that. That doesn't make the *idea* bad, though.
Personally, I would like the ability to collapse sub-children in the comments. Sometimes you get so nested deeply in reading comment threads that the direct replies to what you originally started reading don't come until 20 minutes later. I'd rather read the direct replies, then go back and read replies to children, etc.
IIRC, it is only illegal in the US to distribute tools that allow the circumvention of copyright, but not to possess them (in other words, you're free to back up your DVD's as long as you create the tools to do so yourself; someone please correct me if I'm wrong).
This legislation could have some seriously negative effects on Finnish consumers that want to do things such as rip their CD's into MP3's for their digital music players, or want to rip and watch their movies on some of those new Video iPod's that are being rumored.
Innovation is being killed by the day in today's "civilized" world. I would love to think that there's something that we can do about it by being a democracy, but even that doesn't seem to be working well these days. It's been my opinion that a democracy only works if the people are informed, but from the sounds of the article there was already a lot of public outcry against this law in Finaland, but the cries have fallen on deaf ears.
They say that the current subscription services are being charged in the %6-8/month range, which is what was being offered to Microsoft. If this is true, how is it that Yahoo! can afford such a low subscription rate?
And thus the prophesy was fulfilled:
"And there will be much gnashing of eTeeth as the nerds of the Slashdot ripethed the recording industry 'a new one'"
So let it be.
I understand that to a point, but at what point do the problems with the ease of scratching the screen become unacceptable? Clearly it has with the Nano for many owners.
Reasonable expectations for durability are not out of line. A person shouldn't have to worry that the purchase of extra peripherals is essential to the usability of the primary product.
It's not just the shiny area, too. Reports are that the screen is just as bad. So much so, in fact, that it can become unusable after a few weeks of use. If it was just the body, it would be one thing, but that is not the case here.
Such gadgets are that are clearly intended for everyday use should be designed with at least reasonable quality expectations in mind. For a product that is undeniably going to be rolling around in people's pockets, you would expect that a company would make sure that their product would not be easily abused.
From what I have read, the Nano is quite sturdy as far as the amount of physical abuse it can take, but the scratching is still a problem. It is not unreasonable for people to expect such products to be at least reasonably scratch-resistant. PDA's, cell phones, and other similar devices don't really tend to have the scratching problems that Nano adopters have expressed frustration over. The fact that there *are* so many people that have voiced on the issue (even though Apple doesn't really admit it) should give an indication to non-owners that maybe there really is a problem. There does appear to be a lot of non-owners that have come down on those that have complained about the issue, but from my analysis over the past few days, other Nano owners tend to sympathize with those people even if they haven't been bothered by it.
I definitely expect Apple to address the scratching issue internally, even if they don't publically recall the Nanos that have been easily scratched (though it does sound like most retailers are giving refunds without much hassle).
Nobody here in this discussion has seemed to have found the link (nor have I), and the article doesn't have any links to the bill which is supposedly-infringing. How the hell am I supposed to tell my representatives to vote "no" on a bill if I don't even know what effing bill we're talking about?
I can't believe the article is missing such critical information. This entire story is very frustrating because *anybody* who took action to blindly listen to the requests of the article to write letters of protest without any means of verification are no better than the *AA making attempts to quietly attach the supposed ammendments to the supposed bill.
That said, I'm still looking...
Using personal information in software to target ads to a consumer (not even based on the public content they're looking at).... yep, sounds like spyware to me. If I'm not mistaken, Congress was looking to outlaw spyware. Not that it would affect Microsoft at all, since they own the government. =/
How do you balance great game play with actually creating a product and shipping it within a reasonable time frame? More to the point, how do you create an entertaining game without falling into the 'duke nukem forever' release schedule?
*roll*
"Well first, we look at all the functions in the game, and then make buttons for the most importantly used ones. These will go on the main screen. Next, we create little graphics for all those little functions that we hope will make a user be able to relate to the meaning behind the button...."
Ok, seriously... what kind of question is that? Entire books have been written on such questions. There are people out there who's entire living depends on them being able to provide usability feedback to companies on software
A good point in the article is made in saying that the state's sovereignty trumps intellectual property. It is critical that government agencies remain as open as possible to the needs of the people, and locking them into the use of Microsoft-only formats is not putting you on the fast track to success.
I have to wonder if such action will eventually become the norm - not just in the US, but everywhere. Being tied down to a US corporation that could potentially leave you high and dry doesn't really sound to me like a position that governments would want to put themselves in. And that doesn't even consider the security implications of the closed nature of commercial operating systems.
Now, that isn't to say that a commercial product can't be used. There is no reason that Office couldn't support open standards, but if other states start following suit, I guarantee Microsoft will change their mind on that stance.
I think the Chewbacca Defense might be a good choice in this scenario.
If hurricaines were to have corporate sponsored names, the names could be assigned to storms based on how much devistation they are expected to cause, and people would be able to relate to it! Forget these "categories".
Just think about it, hurricaine "Bob's Used Exercise Equipment" wouldn't be that big of a deal, but people would be fleeing their asses out of town once hurricaine "RIAA" or hurricaine "Microsoft" was being warned for!
In theory, no. I mean, as difficult as it may be to believe these days, they're supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. Which, again in theory, means that the RIAA would have to come up with proof that they were actively encouraging the infringement. The burden of proof is not on the defendant.
Wow, can you imagine the possibilities of some sports games for this thing? In the left hand you use the analog stick to guide a player, and in the right hand you use the 3D-space-sensitive controller to do things like navigate a hockey puck, kick a soccer ball, swing a tennis racket, or whatever.
That idea, to me, gives this system so many possibilities. I trust the big N to get it right.
mmhmm...... But they don't take American Express.
So they have patented "navigating a succession of menus". No prior art there. I think the Zen patent should be for including a virus on an MP3 player.
Read the Patent
I've seen a number of posts similar to this in this discussion already, but Creative didn't patent menu heirarchy. They patented the automatic creation and filing of the heirarchy based on reading the meta-data of the music.
Ok, it's probably pointless and redundant to point out the fact that this pr0n company is suing the very site that has probably given them more business than anybody else on earth, but whatever.
These lawsuits seem to be coming up far too often, but the solution is so simple. All google (and any other search engine, for that matter), needs to do is simply require that robots.txt gives that bot or bots in general the persmission to index the site. If it's not there, the site isn't indexed, period. No more lawsuits - you gave them permission. And if not, well, you reap the results of that decision, too. Don't know about robots.txt? Sorry, but you're out of luck. You probably weren't ranked very high in the search engine to begin with anyway.
This problem *doesn't have to be there*. The solution is simple, and search engines are costing themselves loads of money by not simply requiring that robots.txt give bots permission to index the site.
I'm still waiting for one of these programs to allow me to configure what extensions should be indexed as text files. So far, I'm not aware of a program that allows you to specify certain extensions as being text-based file types for indexing purposes.
I swear by Firefox for developmental purposes. With extensions like the Web Developer extension, AddNEditCookies, and Aardvark, Firefox is the ultimate development browser.
However, I don't see Firefox catching on with the average (or even somewhat computer savvy) computer user, and here's why:
* Memory usage. I've seen Firefox take upwards of 200MB of memory with just a few tabs open, and none of the new releases seem to help matters any. Many people will not tolerate this, and I have a hard time tolerating it myself.
* Extension requirements for usability. Certain things such as extended tab preferences should be available in the base install of Firefox, but they're not. Since your average computer user isn't going to be installing a bunch of extensions (and in the corporate world, this may even not be allowed altogether), the base install of Firefox remains somewhat crippled.
* Speed. Firefox could really use a rendering kick-start. I've made some mods that have helped, but it just isn't that fast, plain and simple.
IE7 is going to introduce a lot of the features that consumers and developers have been demanding. While I don't think IE7 will be a great browser for developmental purposes, it will probably be more than adequate for average consumers. Should IE7 prove to be a fairly capable browser, the Mozilla team is really going to have to start addressing some of these issues real quick-like.
Now, whether Microsoft (or anyone) should be allowed to patent such thing... I don't know.
No, no they shouldn't!
*So now you know...* =X
I have no mod points, and I couldn't have used them here if I did, since I replied.
I'm not condemning you specifically for being critical of Nintendo. I'm condemning the mindset of being critical of Nintendo in general when they're the only company making gaming consoles right now that is profitable. Nintendo funds it by their profits. Microsoft and Sony fund it by the other sectors of their business.
Doesn't the fact that Nintendo is the only one of the big 3 that is making a profit strike you as at all odd???? They must be doing *something* right, yes?
I agree with the parent on the premise that there's probably another reason than simply quantity of patents coming in that examiners are leaving. However, it's not because of management or similar (government jobs tend to be pretty lax, actually).
I believe it's purely because of salary. Entry examiners coming in making about $35k or so, and topping out at about $50k after a few years (depending on the type of patents that you're examining - it varies based on the complexity of the topic or technology).
However, in the private sector, patent lawyers typically make twice as much as these patent examiners, and often have less work required of them, since it's often better *not* to research of a patent has been issued for a given thing, because knowingly infringing a patent automatically triples (yes, triples) the restitution that must be paid to the patent owner.
Less money and more work, or more money and less work? You tell me which you'd prefer.
Ok, I'll stop for a moment and bite your flamebait: but make it very clear, right now, that the Revolution will also ship with a dualshock-alike
You really need to get over yourself. The dual shock is hardly anything close to the "perfect" controller for 3D gaming, and there's a massive audience out there that would rather slaughter Nintendo than accept another controller that's still geared towards 2D platformers.
Anyway, moving on. The public in general doesn't seem to really grasp the fact that Nintendo HAS ZERO INTEREST in trying to win over the folks like our Anonymous Coward above. You could bash this into people's heads all day long, but people still seem to think that Nintendo is in the market to compete with Sony and Microsoft. THEY'RE NOT!
Nintendo is looking to serve a niche market of gamers that want something different than what Microsoft and Sony are offering. By doing so, they are guaranteeing themselves a unique and guaranteed fan base. Nintendo isn't looking to win back 90% market share. Why is this so hard for people to understand?
Despite the tone of this article, Nintendo still remains profitable, and is the ONLY company of the big 3 in gaming that is! Sony and Microsoft make money elsewhere to fund their losing habits. Nintendo doesn't! Why should Nintendo want to change their business strategy when it is the only one on the market that is actually working??? SOMEBODY PLEASE TELL ME!