While I agree the over-regulated market got us into this mess (and it is, and always has been, a bad idea in these situations), somehow saying that the free market will get us out of it is missing a crucial point in the equation: Barrier of entry. For instance, barrier of entry for the sort of infrastructure needed to start up a non-Bell DSL service is, I imagine, astonishingly high. (We definitely need to prevent the entrenched monopolies from using the regulatory powers to prevent creation of new competition, that's for sure.) A reason we don't pay $1000/month for phone service is a result of government regulation and subsidies... which I suspect is the very reason that broadband in certain European countries is dirt cheap. I'd like to believe that freeing the market would help shake things out, but I just can't see it happening with the maturity (dug in like a tick) of the entrenched players. Startups would have to come to the existing groups for infrastructure, and since the regulatory law expired about leasing lines at a reasonable rate... the existing groups will stifle competition by creating a wall around their business model using prices instead of concrete to prevent startups from taking a slice of their pie.
Now that we have an entrenched monopoly (It really is more of a monopoly on infrastructure at this point I suppose), it behooves us to use the regulatory methods originally used to create that monopoly (and lower cost structure) to bring more players to the table. It's not ideal, to be sure, but since we started this way, we haven't much choice. Once we have a healthy group of competitors (i.e. ones that are not dependent upon the entrenched's infrastructure), unhitch the regulations (and subsidies) and let them duke it out (to which we might see a consolidation back into a monopoly, just as we are seeing with the phone companies... now that the barrier of merger has expired) Short term, that might be detrimental to the customers, but in the long run it would create a system by which people could shop around for a good deal, as well as driving the cost back down to attract new business... price wars.:)
I really don't know how to fix it... Maybe it's just too big of a mess.:) Short of seizing the infrastructure by the government (something I don't advocate _at all_), some of the things this process has wrought will never be fixed.
Beats me. I'm not defending the US as the good guy, but I am questioning the motives of the rest of the world. Simply because they don't like who runs it is not a good enough argument. "We'll take our websites and go home" is just juvenile posturing and sounds silly to me.
The rest of their argument is specious. The US administration doing "things that the rest of the world does not like" is a case of "we don't have our fingers in the pie, so we're blaming you for things."
How about the French wanting to censor any site that has nazi information on it? How about the Chinese censoring anything that has to do with "democracy" or referring to Taiwan as its own country?
There's enough blame to go around, and with the other folks running it, we can see with their track record more censorship than what the US has done combined.
It's very true... people want to pick apart (some people, I mean) the guy/gal/company/team/country on top. It's some sort of mechanism to either defend that they haven't backed the wrong horse (i.e. bought a Creative player heheh.) or that they somehow identify with the "underdog."
It's alright if someone is skeptical of something, because that's healthy. It's just when people get vitriolic that it "becomes sour-grapes x 10." I think a healthy skepticism is a good way to protect onesself from the hype, but just going into the minutiae of details of how it is such a "bad idea" makes a person seem bitter.
I certainly am not all that interested in the video capabilities of the iPod, but that doesn't mean I won't buy another one. I'm thinking of getting a new one in a few months anyway... my 2nd Gen iPod doesn't have a dock connector, and it seems all the new gadgets for the iPods are becoming dock-centric. I guess when I get another one will depend on what gadget is a must-have (heheh), or when it comes time to replace the battery on my iPod again. I think it'll stand a 3rd battery... That unit's been like a tank for many years, despite not feeling like one.
If a new iPod keeps the competitors on their toes, that's great. If it makes the CEO of Creative whine and cry about their own marketshare... it's good for a laugh too.
Precisely. Of course the parent did post "people think the United States is evil"... which can be taken the wrong way.
China != Chinese of course. Their government is wildly out of touch with their population, way more than most...
I believe that China having any say in this matter would be detrimental to the freedom of the internet we enjoy. If not censoring, simply making it harder to get to the information you want because China doesn't think you need to see it... (even if you're not Chinese.)
Both of those links have to do with the same incident.
And by the same token, what makes you think the rest of the world *(CHINA)* won't do MORE of the same thing? Europe and their "progressive" nature wouldn't do that either? C'mon... I was born at night, just not last night.
After so many years of the existence of the Internet (heck, let's just go from 1992, when the web was invented... or something like that), you find two links to the same thing.
Imagine the links you'd see if China was doing the administration.
Because it's not broken, and the current system is not causing anyone ANY problems. There is no political pressure to do anything to DNS here in the US. The government isn't censoring websites, taking sites off the DNS servers, or anything like it. So what is the big deal that it's in the US?
The EU/China wants to mess it all up... "or we'll take our websites and go home."
I don't CARE if someone hates the US... I hate China.... There is nothing "US-centric" about DNS other than possibly geographic location. Taking DNS admin from the US is not a "victory for the good guy" by any stretch of the word.
I think you answered your own question. It's the same hardware... so why make 3 different price points? The Micro and the SP are the same unit (roughly speaking, since the Micro can't play GB games), and are targeted at different customers. It's not like you need to buy both to take advantage of the whole "gameboy" experience. People will pick the one that suits them best, and go from there. If people hated choice, we'd all be driving the same car, wearing the same clothes, and eating the same food. Nintendo's simply making choices for one of it's biggest selling devices.
The DS is another product entirely. The fact that it plays GBA games is a nice feature, but if you're not interested in DS games, the $30 difference might not matter.
I bought a DS. I like the backlit screen (LIGHT YEARS ahead of my original wormlight enabled GBA), and I like the DS library that is coming (Age of Empires II, Lunar, Castlevania, and so on....) And while waiting for them, I can still play Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts or Activision Anthology.:)
You are completely correct... however we get the shaft no matter what we do...
When we don't buy because they are too expensive, and sales inevitably slump, we get blamed for pirating. If we buy their CD's yet don't buy all the crap they shovel out, we get blamed for not buying enough. And of course, they say piracy is at the root. (Their numbers at the RIAA website are very different from their "poor-me" press releases most of the time.) We use iTunes and buy online... they want to raise prices. It is as if the RIAA is never happy.
It's a lose-lose situation. The RIAA will find a way to demonize their base.
That doesn't mean I defend infringement. It just means that not buying to the RIAA _is_ "piracy."
If even the MPAA can realize that crappy movies == fewer ticket sales.... why can't the RIAA stop blaming "pirates" every time their sales dip? They would rather invent a buzzword du-jour to exclaim how they are being robbed of their very shirts by that "evil" internet.
Thanks for missing the entire point. And making an ass of yourself assuming I hate Microsoft. I was pointing out that on slashdot, there are a myriad of links to actual facts that, unlike yourself, will not get in the way of any bias you may have. If you had bothered to read the entire point about hating anything... not just microsoft... you'd get the meaning of what I was saying. PEOPLE don't care. Has nothing to do with Microsoft, the Vatican, or the New World Order. People just don't give a shit... kinda like you and reading posts.
I think it's stupid to hate corporations for raping the planet.... utterly stupid, because unless you or anyone else who spews venom at said companies give up your polluting car, house, and lifestyle.. you're really just mouthing. You said it yourself, global warming, poverty and whatnot.... so those are more important to you than Microsoft's crimes. Fine. That doesn't make it "utterly stupid" to hate Microsoft for what it is doing to an entire industry. See what I mean? Probably not.
I now return you to your blinders-on existence....
You hit the nail on the head. "People don't care." That's right. And you know what? People don't care about racism, poverty, orany of the other ills of their planet. They just don't care, period. Why is that?
The reason they don't care is not because computers are a "tool" to them, but because no matter what Microsoft, Apple, or Company X does, if it doesn't affect them directly, they don't notice. You'll be hard-pressed to find anyone who gives two monkeys about anyone but themselves (except when it comes to avoiding personal responsibility for their actions), and that is becoming worse and worse. Individually, you will find people who care, but as a whole, people just don't care.
For example, Nike makes a pretty profit using what amounts to slave labor to make its shoes. Yet, besides a few people saying "this is wrong don't buy Nike products!", people happily buy Nike products and never think about how their $150 shoe made Nike $149 profit. (it's just a number. I don't know their profit margin.)
People will clamor for change when it affects them directly, but like everything else, it is always too little, too late. And the solution provided to "fix" the problem is usually worse than the problem itself, thus making life even MORE miserable for people who, if they just cared in the first place, would not have been in the mess to begin with. Lazy? Yes. Ignorant? Yes, even with the internet people are amazingly unaware of life around them in their own neighborhood, much less the planet as a whole.
I could go on for days, but the reason people don't care has nothing to do with "not sharing irrational immature hatred for X corporation", but the fact that it DOES NOT AFFECT them directly. Nothing more. If it did, and Microsoft made paper clips, people would clamor for someone to "fix" the problem.
There is enough evidence posted on Slashdot to make hatred of Microsoft more than just juvenile hatred because "M$ is teh suxxor!" I leave it to the reader to find all of the examples (some valid, some not.)
If you can't get someone to care about Nike or global warming, how can you convince them that Microsoft is bad for their future? Microsoft is just a symptom of the larger problem of complete apathy. You don't have to look very far to see it. You just have to give more of a shit than you, and most other people, do.
After all, Nike's just "another company", right?
Feel free to crusade for equality, fair wages, and saving the planet. That sort of tactic in discussions is what we like to call "ad hominem circumstantial." "Why hate Microsoft when there's all these (insert cause here) problems that are so much worse?"
Wow... Steve Ballmer himself must have mod points in this thread. I thought your post was funny.
OK, let's try the non-assrape versions to see if it'll fly...
Starter Edition: The Bill Gates signature edition Home Basic Edition: The "Steve Ballmer's Sweaty Pit" Edition Home Premium Edition: The "Because Dell sold it to you" Edition Professional Edition: The "Corporate Spyware" Edition v1.0 Small Business Edition: The "My other computer is your Windows Machine" Edition Enterprise Edition: The "Hey, I don't think you need THAT many computers on at one time" Edition
And the Ultimate Edition: The "What do you mean my personal info was attached to my Kazaa downloads?" Edition
I actually agree with him... but then again, I have used a Creative Nomad, Nomad Zen, and a Rio player I can't recall. And I still rank the iPod the "best" to my ears.
Curious, but would you have said the same thing if he had replaced "iPod" with "Nomad Zen" or "iRiver"? Probably not.
But then again, don't let opinions make you upset, Mr. (Ms?) AC. After all, on matters of taste their is no argument.
The Nomad, though it had numerous firmware issues transferring songs, actually produced decent sound. When it wasn't sucking batteries like a $10 hooker. The Zen seemed a little less "vibrant" by comparison (to the Nomad and the iPod).
As for the iPod audio... I use it on my crappy bookshelf system (2nd Gen iPod)... and it sounds fine. But I tend to listen to music while in my living room on my computer...
Truth is, I've been sorely disappointed in Creative's products, even back to the PCI card that "wouldn't play nice" with AMD motherboards.. (having it on a non-IRQ sharing port only, and the like..)
But it seems they like to flood the market with 40.8 million "features" and tout that as a "better" choice. Creative needs to fix their QA.... We see their QA debacle in the virus-infected players going to Japan. But it doesn't take a huge mallet to the head to tell me Creative makes crappy products.
Though, in the case of the previous poster I replied to, maybe it does.
I never stated anything about the "Free market" other than this was a rare case that the actual "free" market chose the better product.
I have used Creative's products. They are shit. I own a Nomad Jukebox. It took 4 (FOUR!!!) Firmware revisions to actually transfer more than ONE SONG AT A TIME to the hard drive from either my PC or my Mac. I have watched my friend show off his Zen to me (that looked like my iPod... oh so very close to it) and have it LOCK UP 3 times. The third time it was locked up so solid he just put it back in the bag.
So fuck off, ace. You need to quit trolling for Creative and actually USE their stuff before spouting like a little fan-geek.
My iPod works. So what if you don't like that? Grow up and stop trying to be such a big shot. I used an iPod long before there was such a thing as the iTunes music store. And I used it on my PC and Mac. Get your own books and study a little bit about not believing every marketing packet you read.
The short bus will be here to pick you up soon. Don't forget your Scooby Doo lunchbox.
I never said I was surprised. I said I was disgusted.
I KNOW they are both greedy corporations. I mentioned that in the first sentence. And they are RUN by people. They are not entities of themselves. They are run by GREEDY IMMORAL and bastard humans.
What I am tired of is the corporations abusing the system to gain market share. Creative is doing it in this instance, and Apple has done it in the past (Windows "look and feel" suit). I am tired of them ALL.
Surprised? Never have been. Nauseated is a better word.
Since we have no power to change the laws anymore, the only recourse is to boycott. Stop buying all of it. Since that won't happen... I guess we'll be in threads like this complaining about abusive corporations until we all die.
Yes, I have an iPod. I didn't buy it because it was an Apple product... I bought it because it didn't lock my bloody PC up like my original Nomad did. (which also locked iTunes solid on the mac back then too.) I cannot stand Creative's products... plain and simple. They're junk. And this patent fight is their attempt to take a shitty product and stifle the competition, that in this case, is actually better than their own...
If I were more libertarian... I'd say "the market has spoken. Creative, go home." But, I am not quite there yet on the political spectrum. I am still more of a moderate.... I guess that's fence-sitting, but I can't help it.;) heh.
So in summary... Me? Not surprised. vomiting figuratively at the thought of this entire patent fight.:)
Which is why the entire system is broken. But that's not the greater issue here. Sure Apple's a big company and evil and all that... I agree. They are a grubbing entity that loves to suck money from people's pockets. I do NOT defend their actions anymore than I am defending Creative using the patent system to attempt to eliminate competition that has beaten them soundly in the market.
This is yet another example of what I consider a grave "abuse" of the system for their own personal gain. Creative's players suck. They haven't been able to beat Apple with a better product, so they're going to patent them to death to win. Add an FM tuner? Yeah! Ship a bunch with viruses. Have a player that you have to drop to "wake up" the reader arm on the hard drive? Possibly.;)
Sounds like sour grapes to me. Make a better player, Creative. Stop this "if I can't win in the market, I'm going to litigate them out." I hate this when Apple does it. I hate this when Microsoft does it. I hate this when ANYONE does this. Just because this happens to be one giant company against another doesn't make it right. No matter what your feelings toward Apple, etc. are, you have to admit, this is just a court-induced market grab.
And I'm sorry, but it's just fucking lame. Creative lost the day the iPod became a best seller. And it peeves them to no end. Life's hard.... buy a helmet. Stop making shit players, and maybe you can beat Apple. I'm not shedding tears for Apple either, but this disgusts me to no end.
Keep the lawyers in the storm cellar where they belong... or run them the hell over. Either way, it'd make our lives a whole lot better.
Exactly my point. The claim is fallacious and even if it could be proven, trying to apply a reasonable man test to the argument leaves the RIAA in dire need of support.
Still, This thread brings up a great point... it's never about artists anymore... it's about those who own the copyright (frequently not the artists, unfortunately)... and whether or not the Constitution really is supposed to allow 47.7 generations of Elvis' descendants to get rich off his work. No. It doesn't (of course... what the hell does "limited" mean if not a finite, short, period of time, right?)
The RIAA is using the specter of piracy to shut down what it feels is the distribution model that will make them obsolete. It scares them to death not being able to constrict supply to drive up prices (and sometimes demand.. not always of course, because you can't constrict supply on shit no one will buy and have it get gobbled up by the general public...)
The RIAA has a PERFECT opportunity to get royalties to the artists for albums LONG out of print or unavailable on CD (or cassette for that matter) but they continue to SIT on their copyrights and decry loss of money FOR SOMETHING THEY MIGHT NOT EVEN SELL ANYMORE. It's silly, really. Honestly, how can they claim a loss for something that's out of print? If it's out of print, it's NOT FOR SALE, so how can revenue be lost?
Give me an iTunes-like (read: non-subscription) store that contains out of print and rare songs... If there's not a huge market for the songs (enough for a pressing to CD anyway)... $0.99 a track is perfectly reasonable for rare B-sides, or whatnot.
I'd get behind that... But no, let's waste our money suing P2P people... It's mind-numbingly stupid to think that the RIAA could possibly get a clue, but I hold out a little hope.
By the same token you can attack the claim the "loss" calculated by the RIAA is based on a fallacy. They proceed from the false assumption that if the person had no access to the music illegally, they would buy the CD. I submit that this is also simply unprovable and therefore should not be used in the calculation of "loss" the labels feel they have as a result of P2P. However, such a logical leap is never questioned when the labels trumpet it in articles and whatnot. No one says "how do you know person X would buy it?" If they wouldn't buy it anyway, it's not a loss and it cannot be calculated as such.
Basically, I'm saying the specious claims are not limited to the P2P defenders in this conflict.
Also, by your line of thinking, you can also make the connection that piracy isn't affecting sales at all for music in general, because those who engage in P2P infringement are among the targeted group who purchase the CDs anyway, and that is the RIAA's most lucrative demographic. So by that assumption, perhaps the quality of releases does have more of an adverse effect on sales, rather than the specter of "piracy" that simply is trumpeted so sell the general public a bill of goods ("it's better if we control your computer, because those evil bastard pirates are going to hack you!") But that's another line of discussion.... I digress.;) Or perhaps $3/gallon gas is cutting into some people's entertainment budgets.... The RIAA is amazingly able to put blinders on.... no matter how many facts get in their way.
Besides, I left my tinfoil hat in my car... I can't go into that line of conspiracy thinking without it.:-)
I'd like to add that for the games I like to play (RPGs), I found three for the PSP (Untold Legends, which is a really unimpressive Diablo clone) Untold Legends 2 (w00t! More diablo clone-ness), and Another one whose name escapes me. I applaud the graphics, but I despise the load times.
For the DS, I've got Lunar (Sept. 20), Advance Wars (technically strategy I guess), and among other things (coming next February) Age of Empires. Playing my 2nd favorite RTS on a portable is going to be grand.:) (Shame no one makes a Total Annihilation game for portables. I'd love one of those...)
Playing Untold Legends on a friend's PSP, well, I didn't play it so much as watch it load... and load... and load... Fun.:)
But seriously, I can see that Sony is trying really hard not to compete in the GBA space with Nintendo, because everyone that has done that has come up short... but to claim the DS is a gimmick, or the touch screen is a gimmick is just a bit silly to me.
I claim a $125 memory stick so I can load a 300mb DiVX movie on it is a gimmick...;)
I'd rather be playing Lunar.:-) And while I'm waiting for PSP titles, I can, well, watch movies on it. But on the DS, I can play my GBA games and not feel like I've wasted my money (the backlight on the DS is much better than the GBA SP, and the colors are brighter... So games look very good. I have my old GBA for the 3 or 4 GB Color games I still play... Tetris DX, Space Invaders, and Heroes of Might and Magic.)
UMDs are "yet another format" to buy something in. Other than portability, which portable DVD players already offer, there is nothing compelling someone to go out and buy all their movies on UMD (after getting them on DVD) just to watch them on a train. At least not in the short term. Perhaps Sony can hold the public over a barrel and only release some movies on UMD... you never know... since they are a movie studio too.
UMD has little to do in comparison to how DVD sales went during the infancy of DVD. The DVD format was, at the start, being forked into DiVX and DVD... consumers took their time adopting it (after the Beta/VHS fun of the previous generation) until they could reasonably see that one was going to take off. At least that's what I did. Most people just bought a DiVX player (because it played DVDs too) and didn't buy DiVX movies because the format sucked balls. But looking back, I was in no hurry to buy movies for a format that was going to go the way of the Betamax. (in case people were dumb enough to swallow the "rent model" DiVX was peddling.)
UMD is just a small, proprietary format by Sony (like the Memory Stick *phooey!*), and is in a market that already has a portable solution for movies that doesn't require buying them on YET ANOTHER format that is incompatible with everything else. Portable DVDs have been affordable for quite a while... Portable DVD players can be had for $99 now... or less, I believe.)
IOW, there is no "niche" that UMD can settle in, and I think we'll see that in the long term sales numbers... (the PSP's only been out 6 months... not enough time for a "trend";) Sony's notorious for ignoring established formats in favor of their "own solutions" and the way they handle them sometimes (cost, licensing, better standard solutions and so forth) it's amazing they make any sales at all (Minidisc crippling anyone?:) heheh)
Even Sony admitted their portable music player needed to use a standard format, after first attempting to sell it and get everyone to adopt their own, proprietary format.
I despise Sony's efforts in this regard... we don't NEED yet another format.... They can keep their "Memory Stick MagicGate, Duo, Three-o, cheerio", whatever...
Slashdot Mirror
And while that "negotiation" is going on... the consortium shuts the site down "until a decision is made."
Yeah, that's a better system. Think it won't happen?
Just admit things are going fine now and no amount of tinkering is going to make it work "better".
While I agree the over-regulated market got us into this mess (and it is, and always has been, a bad idea in these situations), somehow saying that the free market will get us out of it is missing a crucial point in the equation: Barrier of entry. For instance, barrier of entry for the sort of infrastructure needed to start up a non-Bell DSL service is, I imagine, astonishingly high. (We definitely need to prevent the entrenched monopolies from using the regulatory powers to prevent creation of new competition, that's for sure.) A reason we don't pay $1000/month for phone service is a result of government regulation and subsidies... which I suspect is the very reason that broadband in certain European countries is dirt cheap. I'd like to believe that freeing the market would help shake things out, but I just can't see it happening with the maturity (dug in like a tick) of the entrenched players. Startups would have to come to the existing groups for infrastructure, and since the regulatory law expired about leasing lines at a reasonable rate... the existing groups will stifle competition by creating a wall around their business model using prices instead of concrete to prevent startups from taking a slice of their pie.
:)
:) Short of seizing the infrastructure by the government (something I don't advocate _at all_), some of the things this process has wrought will never be fixed.
Now that we have an entrenched monopoly (It really is more of a monopoly on infrastructure at this point I suppose), it behooves us to use the regulatory methods originally used to create that monopoly (and lower cost structure) to bring more players to the table. It's not ideal, to be sure, but since we started this way, we haven't much choice. Once we have a healthy group of competitors (i.e. ones that are not dependent upon the entrenched's infrastructure), unhitch the regulations (and subsidies) and let them duke it out (to which we might see a consolidation back into a monopoly, just as we are seeing with the phone companies... now that the barrier of merger has expired) Short term, that might be detrimental to the customers, but in the long run it would create a system by which people could shop around for a good deal, as well as driving the cost back down to attract new business... price wars.
I really don't know how to fix it... Maybe it's just too big of a mess.
Beats me. I'm not defending the US as the good guy, but I am questioning the motives of the rest of the world. Simply because they don't like who runs it is not a good enough argument. "We'll take our websites and go home" is just juvenile posturing and sounds silly to me.
The rest of their argument is specious. The US administration doing "things that the rest of the world does not like" is a case of "we don't have our fingers in the pie, so we're blaming you for things."
How about the French wanting to censor any site that has nazi information on it? How about the Chinese censoring anything that has to do with "democracy" or referring to Taiwan as its own country?
There's enough blame to go around, and with the other folks running it, we can see with their track record more censorship than what the US has done combined.
It's very true... people want to pick apart (some people, I mean) the guy/gal/company/team/country on top. It's some sort of mechanism to either defend that they haven't backed the wrong horse (i.e. bought a Creative player heheh.) or that they somehow identify with the "underdog."
It's alright if someone is skeptical of something, because that's healthy. It's just when people get vitriolic that it "becomes sour-grapes x 10." I think a healthy skepticism is a good way to protect onesself from the hype, but just going into the minutiae of details of how it is such a "bad idea" makes a person seem bitter.
I certainly am not all that interested in the video capabilities of the iPod, but that doesn't mean I won't buy another one. I'm thinking of getting a new one in a few months anyway... my 2nd Gen iPod doesn't have a dock connector, and it seems all the new gadgets for the iPods are becoming dock-centric. I guess when I get another one will depend on what gadget is a must-have (heheh), or when it comes time to replace the battery on my iPod again. I think it'll stand a 3rd battery... That unit's been like a tank for many years, despite not feeling like one.
If a new iPod keeps the competitors on their toes, that's great. If it makes the CEO of Creative whine and cry about their own marketshare... it's good for a laugh too.
Precisely. Of course the parent did post "people think the United States is evil"... which can be taken the wrong way.
China != Chinese of course. Their government is wildly out of touch with their population, way more than most...
I believe that China having any say in this matter would be detrimental to the freedom of the internet we enjoy. If not censoring, simply making it harder to get to the information you want because China doesn't think you need to see it... (even if you're not Chinese.)
Both of those links have to do with the same incident.
And by the same token, what makes you think the rest of the world *(CHINA)* won't do MORE of the same thing? Europe and their "progressive" nature wouldn't do that either? C'mon... I was born at night, just not last night.
After so many years of the existence of the Internet (heck, let's just go from 1992, when the web was invented... or something like that), you find two links to the same thing.
Imagine the links you'd see if China was doing the administration.
Because it's not broken, and the current system is not causing anyone ANY problems. There is no political pressure to do anything to DNS here in the US. The government isn't censoring websites, taking sites off the DNS servers, or anything like it. So what is the big deal that it's in the US?
The EU/China wants to mess it all up... "or we'll take our websites and go home."
I don't CARE if someone hates the US... I hate China.... There is nothing "US-centric" about DNS other than possibly geographic location. Taking DNS admin from the US is not a "victory for the good guy" by any stretch of the word.
It's sour grapes... nothing more.
I think you answered your own question. It's the same hardware... so why make 3 different price points? The Micro and the SP are the same unit (roughly speaking, since the Micro can't play GB games), and are targeted at different customers. It's not like you need to buy both to take advantage of the whole "gameboy" experience. People will pick the one that suits them best, and go from there. If people hated choice, we'd all be driving the same car, wearing the same clothes, and eating the same food. Nintendo's simply making choices for one of it's biggest selling devices.
:)
The DS is another product entirely. The fact that it plays GBA games is a nice feature, but if you're not interested in DS games, the $30 difference might not matter.
I bought a DS. I like the backlit screen (LIGHT YEARS ahead of my original wormlight enabled GBA), and I like the DS library that is coming (Age of Empires II, Lunar, Castlevania, and so on....) And while waiting for them, I can still play Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts or Activision Anthology.
You are completely correct... however we get the shaft no matter what we do...
When we don't buy because they are too expensive, and sales inevitably slump, we get blamed for pirating. If we buy their CD's yet don't buy all the crap they shovel out, we get blamed for not buying enough. And of course, they say piracy is at the root. (Their numbers at the RIAA website are very different from their "poor-me" press releases most of the time.) We use iTunes and buy online... they want to raise prices. It is as if the RIAA is never happy.
It's a lose-lose situation. The RIAA will find a way to demonize their base.
That doesn't mean I defend infringement. It just means that not buying to the RIAA _is_ "piracy."
If even the MPAA can realize that crappy movies == fewer ticket sales.... why can't the RIAA stop blaming "pirates" every time their sales dip? They would rather invent a buzzword du-jour to exclaim how they are being robbed of their very shirts by that "evil" internet.
Bah. It's enough to turn your stomach sometimes.
Windows core dumps? :)
:)
Page fault, or GPF, maybe...
but Core dump? Hardly a windows term.
It's funny. Laugh.
......Or not be such a technophobe and spend the $30 and put a new battery in yourself (like my "like new" 2nd Gen iPod has in it...)
:)
Or, if you fear using your hands that much, just use it as a FW disk.... throwing it away WOULD be dumber than a box of hammers..
Thanks for missing the entire point. And making an ass of yourself assuming I hate Microsoft. I was pointing out that on slashdot, there are a myriad of links to actual facts that, unlike yourself, will not get in the way of any bias you may have. If you had bothered to read the entire point about hating anything... not just microsoft... you'd get the meaning of what I was saying. PEOPLE don't care. Has nothing to do with Microsoft, the Vatican, or the New World Order. People just don't give a shit... kinda like you and reading posts.
I think it's stupid to hate corporations for raping the planet.... utterly stupid, because unless you or anyone else who spews venom at said companies give up your polluting car, house, and lifestyle.. you're really just mouthing. You said it yourself, global warming, poverty and whatnot.... so those are more important to you than Microsoft's crimes. Fine. That doesn't make it "utterly stupid" to hate Microsoft for what it is doing to an entire industry. See what I mean? Probably not.
I now return you to your blinders-on existence....
You hit the nail on the head. "People don't care." That's right. And you know what? People don't care about racism, poverty, orany of the other ills of their planet. They just don't care, period. Why is that?
The reason they don't care is not because computers are a "tool" to them, but because no matter what Microsoft, Apple, or Company X does, if it doesn't affect them directly, they don't notice. You'll be hard-pressed to find anyone who gives two monkeys about anyone but themselves (except when it comes to avoiding personal responsibility for their actions), and that is becoming worse and worse. Individually, you will find people who care, but as a whole, people just don't care.
For example, Nike makes a pretty profit using what amounts to slave labor to make its shoes. Yet, besides a few people saying "this is wrong don't buy Nike products!", people happily buy Nike products and never think about how their $150 shoe made Nike $149 profit. (it's just a number. I don't know their profit margin.)
People will clamor for change when it affects them directly, but like everything else, it is always too little, too late. And the solution provided to "fix" the problem is usually worse than the problem itself, thus making life even MORE miserable for people who, if they just cared in the first place, would not have been in the mess to begin with. Lazy? Yes. Ignorant? Yes, even with the internet people are amazingly unaware of life around them in their own neighborhood, much less the planet as a whole.
I could go on for days, but the reason people don't care has nothing to do with "not sharing irrational immature hatred for X corporation", but the fact that it DOES NOT AFFECT them directly. Nothing more. If it did, and Microsoft made paper clips, people would clamor for someone to "fix" the problem.
There is enough evidence posted on Slashdot to make hatred of Microsoft more than just juvenile hatred because "M$ is teh suxxor!" I leave it to the reader to find all of the examples (some valid, some not.)
If you can't get someone to care about Nike or global warming, how can you convince them that Microsoft is bad for their future? Microsoft is just a symptom of the larger problem of complete apathy. You don't have to look very far to see it. You just have to give more of a shit than you, and most other people, do.
After all, Nike's just "another company", right?
Feel free to crusade for equality, fair wages, and saving the planet. That sort of tactic in discussions is what we like to call "ad hominem circumstantial." "Why hate Microsoft when there's all these (insert cause here) problems that are so much worse?"
Wow... Steve Ballmer himself must have mod points in this thread. I thought your post was funny.
OK, let's try the non-assrape versions to see if it'll fly...
Starter Edition: The Bill Gates signature edition
Home Basic Edition: The "Steve Ballmer's Sweaty Pit" Edition
Home Premium Edition: The "Because Dell sold it to you" Edition
Professional Edition: The "Corporate Spyware" Edition v1.0
Small Business Edition: The "My other computer is your Windows Machine" Edition
Enterprise Edition: The "Hey, I don't think you need THAT many computers on at one time" Edition
And the Ultimate Edition: The "What do you mean my personal info was attached to my Kazaa downloads?" Edition
It's funny, laugh.
So basically "without all the eye candy" means "XP". :)
:-)
It's a joke.... laugh.
I actually agree with him... but then again, I have used a Creative Nomad, Nomad Zen, and a Rio player I can't recall. And I still rank the iPod the "best" to my ears.
Curious, but would you have said the same thing if he had replaced "iPod" with "Nomad Zen" or "iRiver"? Probably not.
But then again, don't let opinions make you upset, Mr. (Ms?) AC. After all, on matters of taste their is no argument.
The Nomad, though it had numerous firmware issues transferring songs, actually produced decent sound. When it wasn't sucking batteries like a $10 hooker. The Zen seemed a little less "vibrant" by comparison (to the Nomad and the iPod).
As for the iPod audio... I use it on my crappy bookshelf system (2nd Gen iPod)... and it sounds fine. But I tend to listen to music while in my living room on my computer...
Oh it's not a big deal. I got karma to spare. :)
:)
Truth is, I've been sorely disappointed in Creative's products, even back to the PCI card that "wouldn't play nice" with AMD motherboards.. (having it on a non-IRQ sharing port only, and the like..)
But it seems they like to flood the market with 40.8 million "features" and tout that as a "better" choice. Creative needs to fix their QA.... We see their QA debacle in the virus-infected players going to Japan. But it doesn't take a huge mallet to the head to tell me Creative makes crappy products.
Though, in the case of the previous poster I replied to, maybe it does.
thanks for the support, though.
Yeah whatever, fanboy.
I never stated anything about the "Free market" other than this was a rare case that the actual "free" market chose the better product.
I have used Creative's products. They are shit. I own a Nomad Jukebox. It took 4 (FOUR!!!) Firmware revisions to actually transfer more than ONE SONG AT A TIME to the hard drive from either my PC or my Mac. I have watched my friend show off his Zen to me (that looked like my iPod... oh so very close to it) and have it LOCK UP 3 times. The third time it was locked up so solid he just put it back in the bag.
So fuck off, ace. You need to quit trolling for Creative and actually USE their stuff before spouting like a little fan-geek.
My iPod works. So what if you don't like that? Grow up and stop trying to be such a big shot. I used an iPod long before there was such a thing as the iTunes music store. And I used it on my PC and Mac. Get your own books and study a little bit about not believing every marketing packet you read.
The short bus will be here to pick you up soon. Don't forget your Scooby Doo lunchbox.
I never said I was surprised. I said I was disgusted.
;) heh.
:)
I KNOW they are both greedy corporations. I mentioned that in the first sentence. And they are RUN by people. They are not entities of themselves. They are run by GREEDY IMMORAL and bastard humans.
What I am tired of is the corporations abusing the system to gain market share. Creative is doing it in this instance, and Apple has done it in the past (Windows "look and feel" suit). I am tired of them ALL.
Surprised? Never have been. Nauseated is a better word.
Since we have no power to change the laws anymore, the only recourse is to boycott. Stop buying all of it. Since that won't happen... I guess we'll be in threads like this complaining about abusive corporations until we all die.
Yes, I have an iPod. I didn't buy it because it was an Apple product... I bought it because it didn't lock my bloody PC up like my original Nomad did. (which also locked iTunes solid on the mac back then too.) I cannot stand Creative's products... plain and simple. They're junk. And this patent fight is their attempt to take a shitty product and stifle the competition, that in this case, is actually better than their own...
If I were more libertarian... I'd say "the market has spoken. Creative, go home." But, I am not quite there yet on the political spectrum. I am still more of a moderate.... I guess that's fence-sitting, but I can't help it.
So in summary... Me? Not surprised. vomiting figuratively at the thought of this entire patent fight.
Yeah, thanks for that. I forgot which player's locked up. ;)
:)
Glad I put "possibly." heheheh.
I know my friend's Zen locked up quite a bit, but dropping it wasn't a solution that I can remember.
Which is why the entire system is broken. But that's not the greater issue here. Sure Apple's a big company and evil and all that... I agree. They are a grubbing entity that loves to suck money from people's pockets. I do NOT defend their actions anymore than I am defending Creative using the patent system to attempt to eliminate competition that has beaten them soundly in the market.
;)
This is yet another example of what I consider a grave "abuse" of the system for their own personal gain. Creative's players suck. They haven't been able to beat Apple with a better product, so they're going to patent them to death to win. Add an FM tuner? Yeah! Ship a bunch with viruses. Have a player that you have to drop to "wake up" the reader arm on the hard drive? Possibly.
Sounds like sour grapes to me. Make a better player, Creative. Stop this "if I can't win in the market, I'm going to litigate them out." I hate this when Apple does it. I hate this when Microsoft does it. I hate this when ANYONE does this. Just because this happens to be one giant company against another doesn't make it right. No matter what your feelings toward Apple, etc. are, you have to admit, this is just a court-induced market grab.
And I'm sorry, but it's just fucking lame. Creative lost the day the iPod became a best seller. And it peeves them to no end. Life's hard.... buy a helmet. Stop making shit players, and maybe you can beat Apple. I'm not shedding tears for Apple either, but this disgusts me to no end.
Keep the lawyers in the storm cellar where they belong... or run them the hell over. Either way, it'd make our lives a whole lot better.
Exactly my point. The claim is fallacious and even if it could be proven, trying to apply a reasonable man test to the argument leaves the RIAA in dire need of support.
Still, This thread brings up a great point... it's never about artists anymore... it's about those who own the copyright (frequently not the artists, unfortunately)... and whether or not the Constitution really is supposed to allow 47.7 generations of Elvis' descendants to get rich off his work. No. It doesn't (of course... what the hell does "limited" mean if not a finite, short, period of time, right?)
The RIAA is using the specter of piracy to shut down what it feels is the distribution model that will make them obsolete. It scares them to death not being able to constrict supply to drive up prices (and sometimes demand.. not always of course, because you can't constrict supply on shit no one will buy and have it get gobbled up by the general public...)
The RIAA has a PERFECT opportunity to get royalties to the artists for albums LONG out of print or unavailable on CD (or cassette for that matter) but they continue to SIT on their copyrights and decry loss of money FOR SOMETHING THEY MIGHT NOT EVEN SELL ANYMORE. It's silly, really. Honestly, how can they claim a loss for something that's out of print? If it's out of print, it's NOT FOR SALE, so how can revenue be lost?
Give me an iTunes-like (read: non-subscription) store that contains out of print and rare songs... If there's not a huge market for the songs (enough for a pressing to CD anyway)... $0.99 a track is perfectly reasonable for rare B-sides, or whatnot.
I'd get behind that... But no, let's waste our money suing P2P people... It's mind-numbingly stupid to think that the RIAA could possibly get a clue, but I hold out a little hope.
Otherwise, they can keep their overpriced crap.
By the same token you can attack the claim the "loss" calculated by the RIAA is based on a fallacy. They proceed from the false assumption that if the person had no access to the music illegally, they would buy the CD. I submit that this is also simply unprovable and therefore should not be used in the calculation of "loss" the labels feel they have as a result of P2P. However, such a logical leap is never questioned when the labels trumpet it in articles and whatnot. No one says "how do you know person X would buy it?" If they wouldn't buy it anyway, it's not a loss and it cannot be calculated as such.
;) Or perhaps $3/gallon gas is cutting into some people's entertainment budgets.... The RIAA is amazingly able to put blinders on.... no matter how many facts get in their way.
:-)
Basically, I'm saying the specious claims are not limited to the P2P defenders in this conflict.
Also, by your line of thinking, you can also make the connection that piracy isn't affecting sales at all for music in general, because those who engage in P2P infringement are among the targeted group who purchase the CDs anyway, and that is the RIAA's most lucrative demographic. So by that assumption, perhaps the quality of releases does have more of an adverse effect on sales, rather than the specter of "piracy" that simply is trumpeted so sell the general public a bill of goods ("it's better if we control your computer, because those evil bastard pirates are going to hack you!") But that's another line of discussion.... I digress.
Besides, I left my tinfoil hat in my car... I can't go into that line of conspiracy thinking without it.
I'd like to add that for the games I like to play (RPGs), I found three for the PSP (Untold Legends, which is a really unimpressive Diablo clone) Untold Legends 2 (w00t! More diablo clone-ness), and Another one whose name escapes me. I applaud the graphics, but I despise the load times.
:) (Shame no one makes a Total Annihilation game for portables. I'd love one of those...)
:)
;)
:-) And while I'm waiting for PSP titles, I can, well, watch movies on it. But on the DS, I can play my GBA games and not feel like I've wasted my money (the backlight on the DS is much better than the GBA SP, and the colors are brighter... So games look very good. I have my old GBA for the 3 or 4 GB Color games I still play... Tetris DX, Space Invaders, and Heroes of Might and Magic.)
For the DS, I've got Lunar (Sept. 20), Advance Wars (technically strategy I guess), and among other things (coming next February) Age of Empires. Playing my 2nd favorite RTS on a portable is going to be grand.
Playing Untold Legends on a friend's PSP, well, I didn't play it so much as watch it load... and load... and load... Fun.
But seriously, I can see that Sony is trying really hard not to compete in the GBA space with Nintendo, because everyone that has done that has come up short... but to claim the DS is a gimmick, or the touch screen is a gimmick is just a bit silly to me.
I claim a $125 memory stick so I can load a 300mb DiVX movie on it is a gimmick...
I'd rather be playing Lunar.
But, not to sound like a fanboy: YMMV.
UMDs are "yet another format" to buy something in. Other than portability, which portable DVD players already offer, there is nothing compelling someone to go out and buy all their movies on UMD (after getting them on DVD) just to watch them on a train. At least not in the short term. Perhaps Sony can hold the public over a barrel and only release some movies on UMD... you never know... since they are a movie studio too.
;) Sony's notorious for ignoring established formats in favor of their "own solutions" and the way they handle them sometimes (cost, licensing, better standard solutions and so forth) it's amazing they make any sales at all (Minidisc crippling anyone? :) heheh)
UMD has little to do in comparison to how DVD sales went during the infancy of DVD. The DVD format was, at the start, being forked into DiVX and DVD... consumers took their time adopting it (after the Beta/VHS fun of the previous generation) until they could reasonably see that one was going to take off. At least that's what I did. Most people just bought a DiVX player (because it played DVDs too) and didn't buy DiVX movies because the format sucked balls. But looking back, I was in no hurry to buy movies for a format that was going to go the way of the Betamax. (in case people were dumb enough to swallow the "rent model" DiVX was peddling.)
UMD is just a small, proprietary format by Sony (like the Memory Stick *phooey!*), and is in a market that already has a portable solution for movies that doesn't require buying them on YET ANOTHER format that is incompatible with everything else. Portable DVDs have been affordable for quite a while... Portable DVD players can be had for $99 now... or less, I believe.)
IOW, there is no "niche" that UMD can settle in, and I think we'll see that in the long term sales numbers... (the PSP's only been out 6 months... not enough time for a "trend"
Even Sony admitted their portable music player needed to use a standard format, after first attempting to sell it and get everyone to adopt their own, proprietary format.
I despise Sony's efforts in this regard... we don't NEED yet another format.... They can keep their "Memory Stick MagicGate, Duo, Three-o, cheerio", whatever...