I'm not defending amazon, but a lot of places do the US restriction thing because if you live outside of the US, copying/sharing files aren't necessarily prosecuted in your country [see TPB, as of so far], so they want you to not distribute the material to pirates. arrrr.
I ran into a local clear channel DJ. he was angry that he had to get up early on wednesday morning so he could record his sunday afternoon show. the songs were all automated, minus 2-3 for his own selection in a 6 hour time slot.
I asked him 'but what about called-in requests? if someone calls you on sunday, wouldn't they want to hear the request that day?' he responded with 'well, people are happy enough hearing themselves on the radio, so we just put them on at other times and they never complain.'
isn't that awesome? made me not want to work in the radio business [I was working at a college station at the time, about to graduate].
the only sad part is that it doesn't apply to EVERYTHING. weight restriction items [say, a drumkit for example?] do not qualify for the 2nd day free shipping IIRC. my one co-worker has it and I was thinking about getting him to get it for me with free shipping, then we found that out. it's nice for other items though I guess.
because you don't pay for OTA signals. you pay for your cell service. they change the service, you change phones.
for people who don't pay for cable/satellite/etc., they don't pay to watch TV [besides electricity and their waistlines, I guess]. I don't disagree with you, people should buy the boxes or get cheap basic cable for like $10 a month instead of crying about their coupons [in which I would rather that they be a rebate you get WHEN YOU BUY THE DAMN THING], but if it takes this extreme measure, so be it.
you do realize that a lot of people leaving comcast/at&t are doing so for moral reasons rather than because they're pirates, right?
did it ever occur to you that people like their internet to not be snooped on and throttled regardless if they're using bit torrent or netflix or whatever? what's next once they realize that BT isn't the only bandwidth hog? they then castrate that portion of bandwidth too, and you think the only people that are going to be mad are X crowd? the outrage is from people not wanting this sort of regulation and gestapo action, not just from pirates.
the only cool thing I saw was that as a guitar player, you can play a lead line [read: not just your chords] and it will find a chord prog for you.
maybe you write abstract avant-jazz and need to throw in some weird 9ths or 13ths in your music. I agree, there's SOME good things. but the commercial was especially hammy, and you will lol at the various chord structures it may throw out. hopefully, someone can do something even more useful with it. it doesn't seem to like odd time signatures.
because people are still paying full-price [as in well over $100] to "upgrade" to the new OS. if they were just incremental improvements, charge an incremental price.
for those who say "I don't buy a new OS," think about the computers you buy that come pre-loaded with the OS [ignore this if you are a pirate, arrrrrr]. you don't pay it upfront, but the company building the machine charges you for it.
I agree, no huge (r)evolutionary changes are needed, but that means we shouldn't pay the (r)evolutionary price for it either. I get my OS' at a discount because of my workplace, and I can justify paying for one, but only if it's going to leave me off better than the last one did [hence why I ran 2K all the way until Vista, when new software refused to run on 2K].
on a serious note, vista's not really that bad. in fact, I'd compare it to how I felt about XP when I had 2K. I absolutely loved 2K [moreso than 98/95, by leaps and bounds for the fact that I could leave it running for weeks/months without a reboot and not have memleaks abound] and thought XP was a bloated pile of crap.
however, after SP2, XP was actually a pretty decent system and definitely better than 2K in a lot of ways [not all, though]. when vista came out, it was crap. and much like others have said, windows 7 as lean as it is, will feel bloated once we get our hands on it until they patch it up and then we'll feel that windows 8 will be more bloated than 7, etc.
my favorite feature in vista [which has been in other OS's forever, but not windows] is that when the video/sound driver crashes in a game, I'm not forced to reboot. I get a stutter, get kicked back to the desktop and vista restarts the driver, and lets me alt+tab back into the game. this is rare, but I know it pissed me off when I had this happen in XP or 2K with no choice but to reboot and lose my progress [or drop the online game I was in]. there are some good things about the OS [plenty of bad, of course], but they're not advertised up-front.
I plan on dual-booting linux [most likely ubuntu] and win 7 when they come out. I want linux to do better to encourage MS to do better. ditto for mac. if I wasn't still such a gamer [and to a lesser extent, composer], I'd be running ubuntu or something exclusively [although music plugins don't necessarily translate well to linux either, even with WINE or other wrappers to help things along]. ubuntu studio's cool, but it doesn't work as nice as ableton and audiomulch do with the thousands of freeware VST's I use that don't work in linux/mac.
but comcast and other cable subscribers are currently giving "free cable" for a year or something if people sign up for phone or internet service. I just got a thing in the mail saying you can buy their lowest tier broadband for like $25. for those people who don't want to buy that converter box, that's an option. basic cable itself is something like $8 a month and still gives you more than OTA.
when I moved to my apartment, I got the $45 HSI [fios is still not here yet, grr], and they gave me that same full year of basic cable. outside of that it's like $11 a month or something, but I only really watch a few shows and sports and that's about it. I use the 'net more.
I know the argument comes up that cable is compressed, etc etc. but I agree with the others; you got a chance to get a box/antenna for practically cheap or zero, and you didn't go for it even though it's been announced for well around a year or so. now you're angry that you're not prepared? how's that "shame on you" thing go from president bush again?;)
for the person who was saying that the converter box doesn't help with the weak signal, if that program is THAT IMPORTANT to you, then just get cable. I'm all for free use and all, but I'm not for people complaining about stuff and not willing to do anything about it.
1. Perform a triple overwrite security erase on the entire disk.
2. Use a bulk degausser (AKA a powerful electro magnet).
3. Crush the drive under a roller or tank tracks, whichever is more convenient.
4. Melt the scrap into slag.
5. Bury that Slag in a toxic waste dump to deter any attempts at data recovery.
6. ?????
7. PROFIT!!!
they were a grind? let's not forget about MMORPG's of today.
at least those grinds [usually] had an end goal. how is any game not a grind? you do stuff repeatedly to either level up or get past a stage so you can continue to do it repeatedly. not to say you don't have a good point, because I agree with you in some aspects, but the idea of calling things a grind is kind of redundant, imo. to get good at something, you probably do have to do it over and over. if the conditions kept changing, it may be interesting, but people lose interest after they realize that they're not good enough to beat it, ever [unless decent goals are given along the way, like a paycheck] =)
I agree that it's free advertising for the artists and this is stupid, but warner has a problem with youtube making money off of ads/banners and probably aren't giving them "big enough" of a cut of what they think is rightfully theirs. ironically, they probably are paying for bandwidth.
good, another reason to not buy from warner or its subsidiaries.
the original article she ripped off of is on negativland. the information/numbers were compiled by steve albini [shellac, nirvana, the jesus lizard, and many more great artists he's produced/engineered].
quality post. I read TFA as well and microsoft themselves do not say that. who's reviewing these false stories?
in other news today:
-Rockstar Games claims they have DRM to stop people from buying their games.
-President Bush says "Who threw dat shoe, lulz!" to the media.
-The year of the Linux Desktop is finally here!* [*says some dude who doesn't matter*].
if people actually read articles instead of being able to criss-cross facts with whatever they want to make headlines, we might actually have something meaningful to discuss.
there's already tons of in-game advertising with most current game titles. it may seem simple to some, but rock band uses fender guitars [and their subsidiaries, like jackson and gretsch] and I think ludwig drums] for the most part. guitar hero uses gibson based materials.
sports games use things like 'the gatorade replay', or the 'ford player of the game' or whatever. soundtracks are littered with artists that various labels have pushed and you usually get some sort of MTV music video-esque blurb at the bottom saying the artist, the album, and song.
it's been around for a long time. they're just talking about it more now and seeing if they can do what they did in movies and translate it to games, according to TFA.
you'd be surprised, but a lot of workplaces and colleges offer the OS for 'free' or very close to 'free.' why pay the $150 upcharge if you have these options?
some places don't advertise this heavily, but both the college I attended and the current college I work for allow you to get XP for free or at most, something like $25-30. much cheaper to do it yourself even if you are buying windows. check with your place of employment/school and see if they can hook you up.
actually, you can play a versus mode as well, where you control the zombies versus the survivors. you can be on opposite sides.
quality post though, I agree; they should have access to it if the server admin wants cheats on via the console. I'd love to randomly delete objects on the map or change character sizes just for the hell of it on a server.
allow me to elaborate; a common stereotype of the typical slashdot user is that they post without reading TFA. when AC posted asking what he meant by article, it was poking fun at the typical/. user. any questions?
I disagree. I think he isn't the one uttering the remarks. he's telling people to open his eyes.
it's hard not to have something like this personally affect you. when you fight the so-called 'good fight' and notice that no one ever calls the RIAA on their shit, you start getting frustrated and have to take it out somewhere. he's not reading this verbatim to the judge. but he is making his point loud and clear: RIAA, stop these frivolous lawsuits, especially against defenseless people on which you basically have ZERO proof besides a "suspicion" that they are denying you paychecks that you're not entitled to but feel you are.
keep it up ray. I'll cheer you on until one of us is six feet under. let's hope it's the RIAA bullies first.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not defending amazon, but a lot of places do the US restriction thing because if you live outside of the US, copying/sharing files aren't necessarily prosecuted in your country [see TPB, as of so far], so they want you to not distribute the material to pirates. arrrr.
I ran into a local clear channel DJ. he was angry that he had to get up early on wednesday morning so he could record his sunday afternoon show. the songs were all automated, minus 2-3 for his own selection in a 6 hour time slot.
I asked him 'but what about called-in requests? if someone calls you on sunday, wouldn't they want to hear the request that day?' he responded with 'well, people are happy enough hearing themselves on the radio, so we just put them on at other times and they never complain.'
isn't that awesome? made me not want to work in the radio business [I was working at a college station at the time, about to graduate].
the only sad part is that it doesn't apply to EVERYTHING. weight restriction items [say, a drumkit for example?] do not qualify for the 2nd day free shipping IIRC. my one co-worker has it and I was thinking about getting him to get it for me with free shipping, then we found that out. it's nice for other items though I guess.
because you don't pay for OTA signals. you pay for your cell service. they change the service, you change phones.
for people who don't pay for cable/satellite/etc., they don't pay to watch TV [besides electricity and their waistlines, I guess]. I don't disagree with you, people should buy the boxes or get cheap basic cable for like $10 a month instead of crying about their coupons [in which I would rather that they be a rebate you get WHEN YOU BUY THE DAMN THING], but if it takes this extreme measure, so be it.
you do realize that a lot of people leaving comcast/at&t are doing so for moral reasons rather than because they're pirates, right?
did it ever occur to you that people like their internet to not be snooped on and throttled regardless if they're using bit torrent or netflix or whatever? what's next once they realize that BT isn't the only bandwidth hog? they then castrate that portion of bandwidth too, and you think the only people that are going to be mad are X crowd? the outrage is from people not wanting this sort of regulation and gestapo action, not just from pirates.
what were we talking about again?
the only cool thing I saw was that as a guitar player, you can play a lead line [read: not just your chords] and it will find a chord prog for you.
maybe you write abstract avant-jazz and need to throw in some weird 9ths or 13ths in your music. I agree, there's SOME good things. but the commercial was especially hammy, and you will lol at the various chord structures it may throw out. hopefully, someone can do something even more useful with it. it doesn't seem to like odd time signatures.
because people are still paying full-price [as in well over $100] to "upgrade" to the new OS. if they were just incremental improvements, charge an incremental price.
for those who say "I don't buy a new OS," think about the computers you buy that come pre-loaded with the OS [ignore this if you are a pirate, arrrrrr]. you don't pay it upfront, but the company building the machine charges you for it.
I agree, no huge (r)evolutionary changes are needed, but that means we shouldn't pay the (r)evolutionary price for it either. I get my OS' at a discount because of my workplace, and I can justify paying for one, but only if it's going to leave me off better than the last one did [hence why I ran 2K all the way until Vista, when new software refused to run on 2K].
does it run linux?
on a serious note, vista's not really that bad. in fact, I'd compare it to how I felt about XP when I had 2K. I absolutely loved 2K [moreso than 98/95, by leaps and bounds for the fact that I could leave it running for weeks/months without a reboot and not have memleaks abound] and thought XP was a bloated pile of crap.
however, after SP2, XP was actually a pretty decent system and definitely better than 2K in a lot of ways [not all, though]. when vista came out, it was crap. and much like others have said, windows 7 as lean as it is, will feel bloated once we get our hands on it until they patch it up and then we'll feel that windows 8 will be more bloated than 7, etc.
my favorite feature in vista [which has been in other OS's forever, but not windows] is that when the video/sound driver crashes in a game, I'm not forced to reboot. I get a stutter, get kicked back to the desktop and vista restarts the driver, and lets me alt+tab back into the game. this is rare, but I know it pissed me off when I had this happen in XP or 2K with no choice but to reboot and lose my progress [or drop the online game I was in]. there are some good things about the OS [plenty of bad, of course], but they're not advertised up-front.
I plan on dual-booting linux [most likely ubuntu] and win 7 when they come out. I want linux to do better to encourage MS to do better. ditto for mac. if I wasn't still such a gamer [and to a lesser extent, composer], I'd be running ubuntu or something exclusively [although music plugins don't necessarily translate well to linux either, even with WINE or other wrappers to help things along]. ubuntu studio's cool, but it doesn't work as nice as ableton and audiomulch do with the thousands of freeware VST's I use that don't work in linux/mac.
mr. f, we meet again!
"for british eyes only"
but comcast and other cable subscribers are currently giving "free cable" for a year or something if people sign up for phone or internet service. I just got a thing in the mail saying you can buy their lowest tier broadband for like $25. for those people who don't want to buy that converter box, that's an option. basic cable itself is something like $8 a month and still gives you more than OTA.
;)
when I moved to my apartment, I got the $45 HSI [fios is still not here yet, grr], and they gave me that same full year of basic cable. outside of that it's like $11 a month or something, but I only really watch a few shows and sports and that's about it. I use the 'net more.
I know the argument comes up that cable is compressed, etc etc. but I agree with the others; you got a chance to get a box/antenna for practically cheap or zero, and you didn't go for it even though it's been announced for well around a year or so. now you're angry that you're not prepared? how's that "shame on you" thing go from president bush again?
for the person who was saying that the converter box doesn't help with the weak signal, if that program is THAT IMPORTANT to you, then just get cable. I'm all for free use and all, but I'm not for people complaining about stuff and not willing to do anything about it.
you forgot 2 steps.
1. Perform a triple overwrite security erase on the entire disk.
2. Use a bulk degausser (AKA a powerful electro magnet).
3. Crush the drive under a roller or tank tracks, whichever is more convenient.
4. Melt the scrap into slag.
5. Bury that Slag in a toxic waste dump to deter any attempts at data recovery.
6. ?????
7. PROFIT!!!
eh, what's up, doc(k)?
also, 2009: the year of the linux desktop!
they were a grind? let's not forget about MMORPG's of today.
at least those grinds [usually] had an end goal. how is any game not a grind? you do stuff repeatedly to either level up or get past a stage so you can continue to do it repeatedly. not to say you don't have a good point, because I agree with you in some aspects, but the idea of calling things a grind is kind of redundant, imo. to get good at something, you probably do have to do it over and over. if the conditions kept changing, it may be interesting, but people lose interest after they realize that they're not good enough to beat it, ever [unless decent goals are given along the way, like a paycheck] =)
I agree that it's free advertising for the artists and this is stupid, but warner has a problem with youtube making money off of ads/banners and probably aren't giving them "big enough" of a cut of what they think is rightfully theirs. ironically, they probably are paying for bandwidth.
good, another reason to not buy from warner or its subsidiaries.
the original article she ripped off of is on negativland. the information/numbers were compiled by steve albini [shellac, nirvana, the jesus lizard, and many more great artists he's produced/engineered].
she gave albini no credit. not a surprise.
by the way, I have been a firefox user for years, so as of right now, I guess I'm unaff
quality post. I read TFA as well and microsoft themselves do not say that. who's reviewing these false stories?
in other news today:
-Rockstar Games claims they have DRM to stop people from buying their games.
-President Bush says "Who threw dat shoe, lulz!" to the media.
-The year of the Linux Desktop is finally here!* [*says some dude who doesn't matter*].
if people actually read articles instead of being able to criss-cross facts with whatever they want to make headlines, we might actually have something meaningful to discuss.
there's already tons of in-game advertising with most current game titles. it may seem simple to some, but rock band uses fender guitars [and their subsidiaries, like jackson and gretsch] and I think ludwig drums] for the most part. guitar hero uses gibson based materials.
sports games use things like 'the gatorade replay', or the 'ford player of the game' or whatever. soundtracks are littered with artists that various labels have pushed and you usually get some sort of MTV music video-esque blurb at the bottom saying the artist, the album, and song.
it's been around for a long time. they're just talking about it more now and seeing if they can do what they did in movies and translate it to games, according to TFA.
you'd be surprised, but a lot of workplaces and colleges offer the OS for 'free' or very close to 'free.' why pay the $150 upcharge if you have these options?
some places don't advertise this heavily, but both the college I attended and the current college I work for allow you to get XP for free or at most, something like $25-30. much cheaper to do it yourself even if you are buying windows. check with your place of employment/school and see if they can hook you up.
actually, you can play a versus mode as well, where you control the zombies versus the survivors. you can be on opposite sides.
quality post though, I agree; they should have access to it if the server admin wants cheats on via the console. I'd love to randomly delete objects on the map or change character sizes just for the hell of it on a server.
some people clearly can't get humor.
/. user. any questions?
allow me to elaborate; a common stereotype of the typical slashdot user is that they post without reading TFA. when AC posted asking what he meant by article, it was poking fun at the typical
have you ever been at a university and tried to mouse gesture with those hideous trackballs and separated mouse buttons that they have at kiosks?
bring back ctrl+tab, for those of us who still are involved in places that use these things.
I disagree. I think he isn't the one uttering the remarks. he's telling people to open his eyes.
it's hard not to have something like this personally affect you. when you fight the so-called 'good fight' and notice that no one ever calls the RIAA on their shit, you start getting frustrated and have to take it out somewhere. he's not reading this verbatim to the judge. but he is making his point loud and clear: RIAA, stop these frivolous lawsuits, especially against defenseless people on which you basically have ZERO proof besides a "suspicion" that they are denying you paychecks that you're not entitled to but feel you are.
keep it up ray. I'll cheer you on until one of us is six feet under. let's hope it's the RIAA bullies first.