But what about other skills? How about actually *playing* a musical instrument rather than learning music theory which the article suggests doesn't take talent?
I love music. Last year I bought a guitar to play some of the stuff I love. I tried and tried and tried. I tried different guitars, I tried different styles, from classical to metal. I just can't do it. A full year later and I still can't reliably change 2-3 chords. Some chords are still impossible for me. That's something other players can do in a week. I just don't have it. I still try daily, but I get nothing out of it.
So maybe I would be able to learn lots about music theory, I can't play it on the guitar though.
It seems to me that talent's existence is denied mostly by experts (such as the article author, he's a chess master) so people will get the impression that they reached their level with hard work alone.
To conclude, although I do believe that "talent" is a factor overly exaggerated and sensationalized by the media, it does exist and let no expert make you think otherwise.
I've noticed that at least 90% of criticism against/. is bullshit. It gets moderated up all the time though, probably because otherwise the poster would complain he got modded down because he spoke against/..
Did you ever try buying anything in Germany on a Sunday (other than food in a restaurant)? Did you notice that the store was empty and the doors were locked? Maybe you thought you could get up early on Monday morning, buy some new clothing, and still make it to that critical meeting with the board of directors by 9:00. I guess you were utterly disappointed when you found out the stores wouldn't be open before 9:00. I don't know about you, but I don't find the thought of wearing the same clothes for nearly 72 hours straight to be very appealing.
What a load of crap. If you lose your luggage, and it's a Sunday, and you can't find any shops open, and you have a meeting on Monday first thing in the morning, if, if, if... I guess wearing the same clothes for 72 hours is not that bad!
I once wore a pair of shorts for 10 days straight. Wasn't bad at all!
Stick it behind a firewall. Put good antivirus software on there (which can be free like Avast or AVG Free). Scan for other spyware periodically. Use Firefox to surf sites whenever possible, and don't surf obviously sketchy sites. And don't run executables that you don't know about.
What an irresponsible and ignorant thing to say. Patches are not only sexurity fixes, an OS still has BUGS you know. Do you also leave your games unpatched?
Also, the fact that your machine hasn't been compromised doesn't mean it isn't possible. My father has been smoking and driving without a seatbelt on for 40 years and he's still alive!
Reading most of the replies here it seems obvious that we'll get the standard "make good games and people will by them." This is bullshit. Everyone who says this is an idiot.
Reading the numbers on piracy it seems the US are last on the list, with a very low piracy quota.
I live in Greece, I'm 22 and I've been playing games since I was 6. Over the years I've had plenty of gamer friends, with 100's of games between us. The number of non-pirated games among them was no more than 2-3. NOBODY buys games if they can get them pirated. Quality of game is irrelevant, people get ALL their PC games (and console games since they moved off cartridges) pirated. ALL of them. I feel weird every time I buy a game because people call me an idiot for paying.
And there are countries (Asia) that are worse. Imagine that.
So yes, software companies lose huge amounts of money from piracy. This has nothing to do with games' quality, nothing at all. Wake up already.
However, the cost to manufacture a CD is less than a dollar, yet their product goes for around twenty.
Idiot. The cost of manufacturing a CD has nothing to do with the value of an album as a product. Sign a major artist and sell his CD's for a dollar, let's see how far you make it.
No. They don't need to. they might want to, but they don't need to. Technology has made huge advances over the past few decades. You can record what used to be considered professional at home for next to nothing these days. Production costs are essentially zero.
You're ignorant. Production costs are nowhere near zero. Good music producers get paid really big money to do a production. You know why? Because they know what the music needs to make it big.
Secondly, when a record comes out it needs money for marketing (ads etc.) and money for making videos. I don't know if you noticed, but the average hit video today costs in the millions of USD.
That's what it takes to make a hit album these days. Now, don't start telling me that you don't care about the videos and you don't care about shitty production with 99% dynamic range compression that tries to hammer the song in your brain but that's the way our youth likes it and that's how it gets it. And it costs.
Is this News for nerds? I submitted a story the other day about Bill Gates' left toe being slightly bigger than his right and it got rejected. And *this* thing comes through? Come on!
Every time the topic of digital music comes up on/. there's a bunch of hypocritical audiophile geeks who go on and on and on about how mp3 is "low quality" and we should all use flac or 320 VBR.
What the hell? How many of you guys have sat through a blind test to see if there's any difference whatsoever? Why should people fill their hard drives and their portable drives with useless junk that is flac or mp3 320 kbps? Enough already.
I wouldn't consider ripping and re-encoding a DVD an easy way.
After all, most people watch DVD's once or twice at most.
Re:Typicall awful font rendering on Linux
on
aMSN 0.95 Released
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· Score: 1
I agree with your comments on font rendering on Linux. I use ubuntu and its fonts are ok for english, but to read/write in my language (Greek) I had to install msttcorefonts (yes, ms fonts) because otherwise it would look like shit, especially on the web it would be blurry and bold.
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The article says 10 years of practice to become an expert, not to be able to play a couple of songs.
Out of curiosity, what exactly do you mean by "anywhere decent"?
The article makes a good case about chess.
But what about other skills? How about actually *playing* a musical instrument rather than learning music theory which the article suggests doesn't take talent?
I love music. Last year I bought a guitar to play some of the stuff I love. I tried and tried and tried. I tried different guitars, I tried different styles, from classical to metal. I just can't do it. A full year later and I still can't reliably change 2-3 chords. Some chords are still impossible for me. That's something other players can do in a week. I just don't have it. I still try daily, but I get nothing out of it.
So maybe I would be able to learn lots about music theory, I can't play it on the guitar though.
It seems to me that talent's existence is denied mostly by experts (such as the article author, he's a chess master) so people will get the impression that they reached their level with hard work alone.
To conclude, although I do believe that "talent" is a factor overly exaggerated and sensationalized by the media, it does exist and let no expert make you think otherwise.
I've noticed that at least 90% of criticism against /. is bullshit. It gets moderated up all the time though, probably because otherwise the poster would complain he got modded down because he spoke against /..
What a load of crap. If you lose your luggage, and it's a Sunday, and you can't find any shops open, and you have a meeting on Monday first thing in the morning, if, if, if... I guess wearing the same clothes for 72 hours is not that bad!
I once wore a pair of shorts for 10 days straight. Wasn't bad at all!
What an irresponsible and ignorant thing to say. Patches are not only sexurity fixes, an OS still has BUGS you know. Do you also leave your games unpatched?
Also, the fact that your machine hasn't been compromised doesn't mean it isn't possible. My father has been smoking and driving without a seatbelt on for 40 years and he's still alive!
Reading most of the replies here it seems obvious that we'll get the standard "make good games and people will by them." This is bullshit. Everyone who says this is an idiot.
Reading the numbers on piracy it seems the US are last on the list, with a very low piracy quota.
I live in Greece, I'm 22 and I've been playing games since I was 6. Over the years I've had plenty of gamer friends, with 100's of games between us. The number of non-pirated games among them was no more than 2-3. NOBODY buys games if they can get them pirated. Quality of game is irrelevant, people get ALL their PC games (and console games since they moved off cartridges) pirated. ALL of them. I feel weird every time I buy a game because people call me an idiot for paying.
And there are countries (Asia) that are worse. Imagine that.
So yes, software companies lose huge amounts of money from piracy. This has nothing to do with games' quality, nothing at all. Wake up already.
Idiot. The cost of manufacturing a CD has nothing to do with the value of an album as a product. Sign a major artist and sell his CD's for a dollar, let's see how far you make it.
You're ignorant. Production costs are nowhere near zero. Good music producers get paid really big money to do a production. You know why? Because they know what the music needs to make it big.
Secondly, when a record comes out it needs money for marketing (ads etc.) and money for making videos. I don't know if you noticed, but the average hit video today costs in the millions of USD.
That's what it takes to make a hit album these days. Now, don't start telling me that you don't care about the videos and you don't care about shitty production with 99% dynamic range compression that tries to hammer the song in your brain but that's the way our youth likes it and that's how it gets it. And it costs.
Is this News for nerds? I submitted a story the other day about Bill Gates' left toe being slightly bigger than his right and it got rejected. And *this* thing comes through? Come on!
Any luck for people outside the UK? BBC or not?
Frankly, I think that if you don't want the Aero crap then there's little reason to switch to Vista. Stay with XP.
Every time the topic of digital music comes up on /. there's a bunch of hypocritical audiophile geeks who go on and on and on about how mp3 is "low quality" and we should all use flac or 320 VBR.
What the hell? How many of you guys have sat through a blind test to see if there's any difference whatsoever? Why should people fill their hard drives and their portable drives with useless junk that is flac or mp3 320 kbps? Enough already.
people would rather watch a crappy copy of a movie on their iPod than a high res. copy at home.
Are you high?
The Bible is wrong! There you go! I didn't wait until March 18th, 2006 to learn that!
Amen. $15 million is not a small budget by any means though.
Listening to a mainstream (shit) single of a mainstream (shit) band hardly makes you an "audiophile".
High memory footprint? Winamp 5.08c is using 4 MB of RAM playing a song and having a playlist with around 30 songs loaded.
I challenge you to not only think about restaurants but also about all kinds of business.
telnet://towel.blinkenlights.nl This is the coolest thing I've ever seen! Nerds really are great man!
This is bullshit, most people judge by the prices.
Unbelievable... Apple sure seems like a MS wannabe.
WTF? Every time the word "ad" is spelled on /. we have to have someone tell us about adblock? Grow up already, we know about that.
I wouldn't consider ripping and re-encoding a DVD an easy way. After all, most people watch DVD's once or twice at most.
I agree with your comments on font rendering on Linux. I use ubuntu and its fonts are ok for english, but to read/write in my language (Greek) I had to install msttcorefonts (yes, ms fonts) because otherwise it would look like shit, especially on the web it would be blurry and bold.
Could this suggest that there is actually a difference in the genders?
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You said the cursed words, now you're politically incorrect for LIFE!