I can't get the games that I want on the Mac platform.
Gee, there are a lot of games available for the Mac. I mean, I'll have to wait a little bit, but I could even order DoomIII.
I don't suppose you could be a little more specific ? What games can't you get ? Or do you just not like waiting for the major ones to be ported ?
Myself, the only reason I'm keeping my old Windows2000 PC around ( not connected to a network ) is to play some old games. But I don't find myself buying new games for it... I play games on my PS2, most of the time, and that's the platform most new games I get are for, except for the copy of UT2004 I have for my Mac...
It's also a lot to do with your major, I realize, I usually took classes in the arts and social sciences mostly.
That might explain it. Now that you mention it, I did always think the 'fuzzy' classes in college were easy, sometimes easier than the high school liberal arts classes, just because there was more reading, but fewer written assignments. But I didn't think anything of it- those classes ( aside from foreign languages ) were always the ones I didn't have to study for in High School, either...
Honestly, other than the fact that everyone at my college was sharp as a tack ( you have to be in the top 5% of everyone to possibly get in, so everyone is a capable student ), I found what made my math classes hard was the fact that they were taught by overworked and under-trained graduate students. I ended up taking Differential Equations at a community college ( because you could transfer in a limited number of units ), and I don't think it was easier so much as the professor actually knew how to explain concepts to people who didn't easily grasp them...
Physics and some of my other techie classes were just plain hard, though. I actually had to study.
Apple's products aren't bad... but lets face it, they target home and educational use. Not a business person who wants to occasionally work from home. Microsoft does have powerful software, despite being buggy and insecure.
I work for an engineering firm ( a small business ) where all of the computers are OS X machines. Aside from the occasional website with client-side scripts that restrict your use of their site unless they can run ActiveX or whatever, there isn't a thing we need a Windows PC for. We have one that sits in a corner, unused, just in case. But it's just that- unused.
Apple targets people looking to buy easy-to-use computers. People who think there's something they're going to miss out on by using a Mac don't realize they're thinking about viruses and stuff they don't actually *want* on their business machines.
Have to disagree with that, college was a breeze compared to HS.
Excuse me? Where did you go to college, and what did you study ? Or maybe it's your High School was well above above average? For me, high school required almost no effort whatsoever compared to college, especially where math and physics classes are concerned. Of course, I went to a major university where those classes are used to weed out less-than-excellent potential engineering students. My high school was a merely "above average" public school in a university town.
When I got to college, I found I had to actually take a seminar on how to really study, since I'd never actually had to do it before.
Jobs are easier than grad school, but they're not as enjoyable simply because they're too time-consuming and boring I've found.
Jobs just suck. The only thing worse than a job is not having money. Even a mellow job doing stuff you enjoy cuts into your free time, which by definition sucks. That's the hard, cold reality.
What I wish I'd known ? "Take that money from your summer job in 1984 and invest it in MSFT. Repeat for AOL in 1988. Get a job with Google in 1998. Retire early." That's what I wish I'd known.
And the general public gets nothing...errr...wait, better quality sound and image. hmmmm.
If you can get it.
The FCC's chosen DTV allocation methods and lack of receiver standards pretty well assure that DTV coverage isn't going to be as good as predicted in a large number of markets.
This is because they're not engineers at the FCC- they're lawyers working at the behest of media companies and politicians. As such, they're far less concerned with the realities of signal strength and community service and much more concerned with media corporation profitability ( i.e. ownership rules and DRM media flags ) and political ploys such as bowing to religious extremists through _unspecified_ content censorship.
To quote TFA:This system isn't just going to rock...
it's going to play German heavy metal.
Or, rather, from the sound of it, programming it is going to be like listening to German heavy metal. As in, really, really hard...
Uh, yea, it's important to keep in mind that this is all pretty well theory, I could find some other interesting patents that describe in detail that flying car we're all supposed to have, along with thousands of other undeliverable advances. On the other hand, there will be a PS3, and Sony, Toshiba and IBM are spending billions to make sure it's a super-fast successful system, so... we'll see.
was the ps2 the supercomputer it was said to be...?
Actually, uh, it's how old and does what for what price and has been how successful ? I'm not sure I'd scoff at the PS2, no matter how much marketing drones over-hype products.
Really, the first part of the article is about development from the multi-platform game perspective, with the wrinkle that it's being done for a sequel ( thus existing codebase ).
The second part of the article talks about using focus groups to test and refine game design... in this case, the focus group ( and some of the lessons learned ) are specific to the age range, but really, it's just standard focus testing stuff.
As to some of the other comments, like reviews and game ranking, well... when you've developed a product that you know doesn't target the strongest demographic of your market, you *know* it's not going to be the top seller. Same deal with character tie-in games: the SpongeBob SquarePants games may be great, but nobody working on them need be under the illusion that they're working on a game that will end up top-selling; it's just not going to happen.
As far as the reviews go, when there is a kid-centric game review publication, there will be 'fair' ratings for kid-centric games. Until then, reviews will be targeted to the reviewing publication's target audience... and will be skewed if that audience is not the same as the one you've developed a game for.
As much as it might suck, I spend more time using windows than Mac OS or Linuz just because most of the apps that I want/need to run are available with windows.
I shouldn't take you seriously, because you're probably just a troll and I'm looking at your post from yesterday, but on the off chance that you'll answer and are sincere...
What does this software do, the software that you want/need to run and is not available on OS X ?
I ask because I develop OS X apps and am actually very interested in filling any gaps in the OS X software lineup. And I've been having a hard time finding a niche that isn't filled, to be honest. So seriously, what programs don't have OS X alternatives? What are the key features ? Thanks!
I mean, if I wanted to piss off PC mini-ITX fanboys, submitting this story is how I would do it- ask as innocently as possible if there is some way I can make a sub-$500 PC as small as the Mac mini.
Which of course excludes all of the cheap-as-sin tower-case Dells ( after rebate ) that people want to talk about when asked the same question with fewer restrictions.
I know there's supposedly a shortage of the PStwo, but every time I check online, they always say "ships in 1-2 days". So, is the 'shortage' just at the retail brick-and-mortar store level, are Amazon's estimated ship dates total fiction, or what ?
I've seen reports that the PStwo shortages were either almost only at EB Games, or were otherwise just shortages at individual brick-and-mortar stores, not widespread shortages. A lot of folks seem to think it's just a phony shortage to create hype around the PStwo.
But these are artists who, seeking a wider audience, epxressly sign up with people who can get them there. They couldn't possibly see the exposure, or work with the resources they use without agreeing to pay some, or even most, of their receipts to those other parties. But so what? I'd also rather make $0.02 300,000 times than $10.00 300 times, especially knowing that I've now got a much, much larger audience for my next effort. And, if I feel like keeping it up long enough, I can leverage that audience more directly once my contracts allow for it. It's a workable model... or was. Morally, though (your word), what difference does the percentage make?
Look, I'm not trying to convince you that it's 'cool' to pirate music... although it might make a difference if the percentage is zero. Because, really, I don't give a rat's ass about record companies, because they don't give a rat's ass about the artist or the consumer. But that's neither here nor there- except to call BS on your percentage argument as an aside. Artists don't see jack from retail sales- changing that and having a big PR campaign about it would do more to stem piracy than all the lawsuits in the world, but the RIAA isn't going that way. Again, hat's an aside, not my point.
All I'm saying is that preventing the copying of something once it's in digital form is not a logically practical goal. Digital files are going to be copied, and increasing police action isn't going to solve the problem, nor is it really reasonable to expect ISPs ( even if owned by the record label ) to police every file that crosses it's network.
But what if someone puts up a web site saying "I make a habit of copying lots of expensive textbooks, and if you meet me in the park a noon, I'll be giving away copies of them... just bring your own paper." I mean, philosophically it's the same thing, and when the owner of some IP sees someone doing just that - but with their digital content - they can and should be just as outraged as the book's author should be. And should have the same recourse.
To my point, the owner of the digital content in your example above does have the exact same recourse, and should not need anything more. It's just much less odd than the "bring paper to the park and I'll copy my textbook for you" example, since it still takes time and resources to copy a textbook. The resources needed to copy a file are virtualy nil, and that's the entire problem here.
Sadly, it's not the artist's fault, it's the record companies who moved to unprotected CD formats for distribution, not thinking everyone would have good compression formats and not knowing what modems are. But that's where we are. Enforcing copyright on music files is a nightmare, and it doesn't look like suing a whole bunch of file sharing users is solving the problem. So, other than complaining about it, how about a solution?
The only solutions I have are (1) DRM your files and only distribute them in that form ( not going to happen, what, you're not selling CDs? ) or (2) don't depend on album sales for your revenue. I'd like to have a better solution, but if I did, I'd own the biggest record label ever right now...
Who don't like it when you use your expensive broadband for anything more than web surfing and checking email? All ISPs, many of which are Cable Companies.
In the case of cable companies, at least, I'm not sure you're entirely correct. Cable companies want to sell the idea of video-over-IP. Go look at http://www.comcast.net/News/GENERAL/ even without a valid login, the right-hand sidebar has a grip of video news sources.
They want to be able to sell their service as a high-speed premium service, since they're more expensive than most DSL.
And officially (say, in law enforcement) taking that position that the situation is unenforceable sends completely the wrong message. About taxes. About speeding. About vandalism. About all sorts of quality of life and someone's-got-to-pay-for-it issues. Remember when Rudy Giuliani started enforcing "unenforcable" laws about commercial properties with broken windows, jaywalking, and pissing on park benches? It mattered, and this mattes
You've missed my point entirely. Or, at least if you think laws regarding taxes, vandalism and public defecation are examples of unenforcable laws, you've missed my point- those are totally enforceable laws. All Giuliani did was increase police patrols in problem areas- something the cops would have done themselves years earlier IF they'd been made to give a rat's ass. Don't hold cleaning up NYC streets by pushing profiling and increasing police numbers as having anything at all to do with enforcing copyright- the two law enforcement problems couldn't be more different.
My point is that, if you're going to sell people books, you aren't going to be able to make sure one of those books isn't copied. Especially not if people have photocopiers at home. Enforcing behavior in public places is one thing, but what are you proposing we do, have police in every home? Or every piece of electronic equipment?
Well, if you're pushing DRM, then yea, you're asking for 'police' in every bit of electronic equipment. In which case, I'll be asking for you to pay for that electronic equipment, because I'm not buying it, at least not unless you're letting me make backup copies of the content I purchase for when my three-year-old breaks the disk trying to pry it out of the damn case...
Why are people ripping off the creative output of that minority? Because they value the content. They want it.
*AND*, it's easy to get. If it wasn't easy to get, they'd either not get it ( because it's to 'expensive' somehow ), or they'd go out and buy it ( because they want it ). That's my point. If you're looking to prevent trading of electronic files, you need to somehow make it difficult to do.
Which means DRM. But your DRM needs to be consumer-friendly enough that, if you *really* want to, you can make that backup copy or take a copy to another device/platform/whatever. A phsyical book is a pretty good example, really, and Apple's FairPlay ( and attendant "burn to disc 3 times" policy ) is also a good example- they're just hard enough to copy that pirating from those sources isn't huge, but easy enough to copy a few times that users feel like they get some rights to fair use when they buy the conent. CDs and ( weakly encrypted ) DVDs are bad examples- their high prices and easy-to-copy properties make them things that people _will_ copy and share and pirate. Over-the-air broadcasts are also easy to copy... at least until broadcast flag DRM is implemented, then we'll see if people just don't watch shows they can't record, or if they do watch them, then buy the DVD... we'll see. In any event, it's my humble opinion that these folks seeking copyright on easy-to-copy media are the ones actually creating the problems.
The folks copying digital files are just doing what comes easy- you want them to not share that latest hit song? Why shouldn't they? Are the artists getting all the proceeds from the album sales? If they were, you'd have a moral argument I could stomach, but even then, why would the file-sharing public be inclined not to pirate that song ? Because they'll be sued if they share 1000 songs? how about if I only share 900?? No, I think there's something wrong with the concept that I shouldn't copy digital files on a network around that network if they're MY files. If they're not my files, I shouldn't be able to copy them, does that make sense?
But there is a substantial mature, adult gaming population out there. But chances are they are pretty busy with their lives, careers, kids, and don't spend nearly as much money on games, and don't always have time to read gaming magazines.
You're right, I am pretty busy with my life, and my game collection isn't all that large ( I buy or am given maybe 5 PS2 games a year, I'm up to maybe 20 titles total now ). But I did have a subscription to a gaming magazine, mainly to keep up on new releases and get ratings and reviews.
Did. I didn't renew... and why? Because I couldn't handle the marketed-to-a-thirteen-year-old slant any more. I think the anime 'girls of gaming swimsuit issue' was what finally pushed me over the edge.
When I find a magazine which gives lots of info on games, and stays focused on games, I'll consider buying it.
It seems to me that there's plenty to cover in the industry, what people's favorite games are, game genre suggestsions ( if you like x you might like y ), reviews of games, and how to beat them ( i.e. I don't mind tips/cheat/walkthrough sections, even for older games )... well, given the number of titles out for the PS2 console alone, you could fill endless monthlies without resorting to anime babe art, goofy future predictions, and supposedly funny 'entertainment piece' columns by made-up personalities.
But you're right, guys like me, who spend some of their time playing SpongeBob SquarePants video games with our kids, we aren't the big spenders in the video game market. We aren't the big spenders in the magazine market, either... these magazines sell mostly at stores, not through subscriptions, which means they're being bought by kids. Adults get subscriptions, or would, if we could find a decent magazine to buy.
If you want to create your own P2P Manifesto, you can.
Feel free to edit the original P2P manifesto
and send it at this email.
All the different P2P Manifesto release wil be posted here.
While such language is common on Creative Commons-licensed stuff, in this case it's almost like the author is saying "Here is my first cut of a document I'd like to see produced, everyone else please edit it, fill in the ( huge ) gaps, give it some actual content and substance. Thanks."
It's the literary equivalent of setting up an open source software project with a not-really-functional 'prototype' codebase and hoping someone makes it actually work.
I know the topic of P2P ( and more generally, 'file sharing' ) has been studied by tons of smart folks at universities and corporations alike, what about some links to some of those? Oddly enough, the 'study' just has links to ( mostly ) opinion pieces and blogs ( including, of all things, a slashdot article ).
To speak to the parent posts' points of
the author doesn't distinguish between "P2P" and "people trading copyrighted data against the owner's wishes". This manifesto seems to perpetuate the myth that "P2P" is a synonym for "piracy".
well, that's an interesting topic all by itself.
Frankly, copyright-protected files are the most common files found on P2P networks. Rather than hiding from reality, we should seek to understand what reality means. In this case, I think reality means that copyright is a generally unenforcable law - like many other laws on the books, it's an example of bad law which in the long run wastes taxpayer money for the ( dubious ) benefit of a small segment of the population.
Copyright infringment is an old, old problem, vastly pre-dating the internet. Even without filesharing, there'd be lots of "piracy", as it's now labeled. As long as there is copyright protection for easily copied items, there will be piracy. It's a law which is extremely difficult to enforce- at best.
Examples of prohibited services and servers include, but are not limited to, e-mail, Web hosting, file sharing, and proxy services and servers;
I've always wondered what sort of usage would tip them off... as a single datapoint, apparently running a gnutella client ( sharing frequently uploaded files 24/7 ) doesn't bring down the Comcast bandwidth police, at least not for myself and probably hundreds of thousands of others.
I'd like to see a story from someone who did get smacked down by this policy, and find out what they were doing... I'm going to guess that until someone complains, they aren't looking at the traffic on your segment.
They're targeting the PC user full-bore: you just swap out your hulking Dell ATX case, and replace it with your new, tiny Mac.
You're not kidding!
Not that they were exactly 'hiding it' with the "Switch" campaign, now they have a hardware story that really targets casual Windows computer users, and they're selling it hard.
Damn. I thought someone might call me on this by getting their RAM from Apple. Drat.
Of course, if you're going to insist on buying your RAM from Apple, and you want to buy a 1GB for $425 ( nearly the price of the base machine! ), yea, you can get the price up to over a thousand bucks. Just.
Having said that, I'm sure you can get your RAM a little cheaper, can't you??
Next time, I'll have to say something like "without getting custom-order add-ons" or some similar disclaimer...
My *actual* point, which is that this is all consumer-grade stuff, which is a sea change for Apple, still holds, I think.
Um, you want to plug a Mac into a 320x200 NTSC display?
No, I do not want to do such a thing. It'd just been mentioned as a feature on some of the rumor sites, and I was just pointing out ( in response to the editor's comments ) that the ports on the back of the mini don't include RGB connectors.
Of course, as several folks have er, kindly pointed out, Apple is selling a converter so you *could* connect it to an NTSC display if you wanted... and of course, DVI is DVI which some HD TV displays do support. To which I say, it's an *accessory* people, not part of the mini itself! Jeez! Like a VGA to video cable is something *new* for cryin' out loud!
seriously, if you're going to pretend to compare systems, at least make them similar.
The Dell you mention might be a better comparison, and... it's the same price, but with a Celeron ( for cryin' out loud... ) and *still* doesn't have dedicated VRAM... the Mac mini beats that one in just about every category.
You list 10 points, give only 4 of which you can clearly give to the PC, and not clearly or easily on all points, and yet you conclude that the Mac isn't relatively a good deal with little discussion as to why. It's a much closer race than you make it out to be. I'm looking at the other responses to your 'analysis', and I think I'll stop here, just saying I'm one more vote for "that analysis is not so good, that post is not so insightful".
Sure, you and I can build cheaper AMD systems. That's not the point. The point is this is a machine any iPod user might buy on a whim. We'll see how these sell...
how easy/difficult would it be to cluster these things a la Virginia Tech's supercomputer
A question so funny, I feel compelled to reply to it... not sure what that says about *me*, but anyway...
The Virginia Tech cluster is cabled together with some very, very high-end high-speed networking stuff, and the Mac mini ( note capitalization, like 'iPod mini' ) has standard 100-baseT ethernet, so one technically correct answer to your question, based on networking tech, would be 'can't be done'.
On the other hand, XGrid would run on this like any other OS X machine, so with a little ( fairly simple ) programming, you'd be clustering away in style. If you have some computation that's Altivec optimized, you'll probably even outperform a comparably priced cluster of Linux machines... though really, you *should* be able to put together a comprable no-graphics-card AMD boxen for ( a little, not counting labor ) cheaper, if a cluster of "whatever" cheap machines is really your goal.
A bunch of Mac minis could sure fit in a small space, though! I couldn't build a cheap PC that small. A cluster of Mac minis might not beat a G5 XServe cluster for price/performance, but it'd be cheap to set up!
Short ( ha ha ) answer: nobody is going to go about setting up a network of these for "real" high-performance computing... but a small college or even high school lab could be built pretty cheaply and XGrid applied to get it all hummin' on some distributed computing project and actually do some pretty impressive number-crunching... cheaply!
well, at least not all of those expected by everyone. Some folks ( who clearly didn't know ) were predicting something you could plug into a TV. This isn't that, it's a standard computer with typical modern computer ports and DVI/VGA video, just 'mini'. Really, really, mini... it makes that George Foreman Grill computer look freekin' huge.
How? By a $499 Mac mini? By a $99 iPod Shuffle? A $79 iLife?
The truly remarkable thing is that even *I* could afford this stuff. There were absolutely no high-end Apple hardware announcements of any kind today. I can't spend over $700 on anything Steve introduced today. What's up with that?!?
Slashdot Mirror
Gee, there are a lot of games available for the Mac. I mean, I'll have to wait a little bit, but I could even order DoomIII.
I don't suppose you could be a little more specific ? What games can't you get ? Or do you just not like waiting for the major ones to be ported ?
Myself, the only reason I'm keeping my old Windows2000 PC around ( not connected to a network ) is to play some old games. But I don't find myself buying new games for it... I play games on my PS2, most of the time, and that's the platform most new games I get are for, except for the copy of UT2004 I have for my Mac...
That might explain it. Now that you mention it, I did always think the 'fuzzy' classes in college were easy, sometimes easier than the high school liberal arts classes, just because there was more reading, but fewer written assignments. But I didn't think anything of it- those classes ( aside from foreign languages ) were always the ones I didn't have to study for in High School, either...
Honestly, other than the fact that everyone at my college was sharp as a tack ( you have to be in the top 5% of everyone to possibly get in, so everyone is a capable student ), I found what made my math classes hard was the fact that they were taught by overworked and under-trained graduate students. I ended up taking Differential Equations at a community college ( because you could transfer in a limited number of units ), and I don't think it was easier so much as the professor actually knew how to explain concepts to people who didn't easily grasp them...
Physics and some of my other techie classes were just plain hard, though. I actually had to study.
I work for an engineering firm ( a small business ) where all of the computers are OS X machines. Aside from the occasional website with client-side scripts that restrict your use of their site unless they can run ActiveX or whatever, there isn't a thing we need a Windows PC for. We have one that sits in a corner, unused, just in case. But it's just that- unused.
Apple targets people looking to buy easy-to-use computers. People who think there's something they're going to miss out on by using a Mac don't realize they're thinking about viruses and stuff they don't actually *want* on their business machines.
Excuse me? Where did you go to college, and what did you study ? Or maybe it's your High School was well above above average? For me, high school required almost no effort whatsoever compared to college, especially where math and physics classes are concerned. Of course, I went to a major university where those classes are used to weed out less-than-excellent potential engineering students. My high school was a merely "above average" public school in a university town.
When I got to college, I found I had to actually take a seminar on how to really study, since I'd never actually had to do it before.
Jobs are easier than grad school, but they're not as enjoyable simply because they're too time-consuming and boring I've found.
Jobs just suck. The only thing worse than a job is not having money. Even a mellow job doing stuff you enjoy cuts into your free time, which by definition sucks. That's the hard, cold reality.
What I wish I'd known ? "Take that money from your summer job in 1984 and invest it in MSFT. Repeat for AOL in 1988. Get a job with Google in 1998. Retire early." That's what I wish I'd known.
If you can get it.
The FCC's chosen DTV allocation methods and lack of receiver standards pretty well assure that DTV coverage isn't going to be as good as predicted in a large number of markets.
This is because they're not engineers at the FCC- they're lawyers working at the behest of media companies and politicians. As such, they're far less concerned with the realities of signal strength and community service and much more concerned with media corporation profitability ( i.e. ownership rules and DRM media flags ) and political ploys such as bowing to religious extremists through _unspecified_ content censorship.
Or, rather, from the sound of it, programming it is going to be like listening to German heavy metal. As in, really, really hard...
Uh, yea, it's important to keep in mind that this is all pretty well theory, I could find some other interesting patents that describe in detail that flying car we're all supposed to have, along with thousands of other undeliverable advances. On the other hand, there will be a PS3, and Sony, Toshiba and IBM are spending billions to make sure it's a super-fast successful system, so... we'll see.
was the ps2 the supercomputer it was said to be...?
Actually, uh, it's how old and does what for what price and has been how successful ? I'm not sure I'd scoff at the PS2, no matter how much marketing drones over-hype products.
The second part of the article talks about using focus groups to test and refine game design... in this case, the focus group ( and some of the lessons learned ) are specific to the age range, but really, it's just standard focus testing stuff.
As to some of the other comments, like reviews and game ranking, well... when you've developed a product that you know doesn't target the strongest demographic of your market, you *know* it's not going to be the top seller. Same deal with character tie-in games: the SpongeBob SquarePants games may be great, but nobody working on them need be under the illusion that they're working on a game that will end up top-selling; it's just not going to happen.
As far as the reviews go, when there is a kid-centric game review publication, there will be 'fair' ratings for kid-centric games. Until then, reviews will be targeted to the reviewing publication's target audience... and will be skewed if that audience is not the same as the one you've developed a game for.
I shouldn't take you seriously, because you're probably just a troll and I'm looking at your post from yesterday, but on the off chance that you'll answer and are sincere...
What does this software do, the software that you want/need to run and is not available on OS X ?
I ask because I develop OS X apps and am actually very interested in filling any gaps in the OS X software lineup. And I've been having a hard time finding a niche that isn't filled, to be honest. So seriously, what programs don't have OS X alternatives? What are the key features ? Thanks!
I mean, if I wanted to piss off PC mini-ITX fanboys, submitting this story is how I would do it- ask as innocently as possible if there is some way I can make a sub-$500 PC as small as the Mac mini.
Which of course excludes all of the cheap-as-sin tower-case Dells ( after rebate ) that people want to talk about when asked the same question with fewer restrictions.
Oh, and don't forget the cost of software, right?
I've seen reports that the PStwo shortages were either almost only at EB Games, or were otherwise just shortages at individual brick-and-mortar stores, not widespread shortages. A lot of folks seem to think it's just a phony shortage to create hype around the PStwo.
Look, I'm not trying to convince you that it's 'cool' to pirate music... although it might make a difference if the percentage is zero. Because, really, I don't give a rat's ass about record companies, because they don't give a rat's ass about the artist or the consumer. But that's neither here nor there- except to call BS on your percentage argument as an aside. Artists don't see jack from retail sales- changing that and having a big PR campaign about it would do more to stem piracy than all the lawsuits in the world, but the RIAA isn't going that way. Again, hat's an aside, not my point.
All I'm saying is that preventing the copying of something once it's in digital form is not a logically practical goal. Digital files are going to be copied, and increasing police action isn't going to solve the problem, nor is it really reasonable to expect ISPs ( even if owned by the record label ) to police every file that crosses it's network.
But what if someone puts up a web site saying "I make a habit of copying lots of expensive textbooks, and if you meet me in the park a noon, I'll be giving away copies of them... just bring your own paper." I mean, philosophically it's the same thing, and when the owner of some IP sees someone doing just that - but with their digital content - they can and should be just as outraged as the book's author should be. And should have the same recourse.
To my point, the owner of the digital content in your example above does have the exact same recourse, and should not need anything more. It's just much less odd than the "bring paper to the park and I'll copy my textbook for you" example, since it still takes time and resources to copy a textbook. The resources needed to copy a file are virtualy nil, and that's the entire problem here.
Sadly, it's not the artist's fault, it's the record companies who moved to unprotected CD formats for distribution, not thinking everyone would have good compression formats and not knowing what modems are. But that's where we are. Enforcing copyright on music files is a nightmare, and it doesn't look like suing a whole bunch of file sharing users is solving the problem. So, other than complaining about it, how about a solution?
The only solutions I have are (1) DRM your files and only distribute them in that form ( not going to happen, what, you're not selling CDs? ) or (2) don't depend on album sales for your revenue. I'd like to have a better solution, but if I did, I'd own the biggest record label ever right now...
In the case of cable companies, at least, I'm not sure you're entirely correct. Cable companies want to sell the idea of video-over-IP. Go look at http://www.comcast.net/News/GENERAL/ even without a valid login, the right-hand sidebar has a grip of video news sources.
They want to be able to sell their service as a high-speed premium service, since they're more expensive than most DSL.
You've missed my point entirely. Or, at least if you think laws regarding taxes, vandalism and public defecation are examples of unenforcable laws, you've missed my point- those are totally enforceable laws. All Giuliani did was increase police patrols in problem areas- something the cops would have done themselves years earlier IF they'd been made to give a rat's ass. Don't hold cleaning up NYC streets by pushing profiling and increasing police numbers as having anything at all to do with enforcing copyright- the two law enforcement problems couldn't be more different.
My point is that, if you're going to sell people books, you aren't going to be able to make sure one of those books isn't copied. Especially not if people have photocopiers at home. Enforcing behavior in public places is one thing, but what are you proposing we do, have police in every home? Or every piece of electronic equipment?
Well, if you're pushing DRM, then yea, you're asking for 'police' in every bit of electronic equipment. In which case, I'll be asking for you to pay for that electronic equipment, because I'm not buying it, at least not unless you're letting me make backup copies of the content I purchase for when my three-year-old breaks the disk trying to pry it out of the damn case...
Why are people ripping off the creative output of that minority? Because they value the content. They want it.
*AND*, it's easy to get. If it wasn't easy to get, they'd either not get it ( because it's to 'expensive' somehow ), or they'd go out and buy it ( because they want it ). That's my point. If you're looking to prevent trading of electronic files, you need to somehow make it difficult to do.
Which means DRM. But your DRM needs to be consumer-friendly enough that, if you *really* want to, you can make that backup copy or take a copy to another device/platform/whatever. A phsyical book is a pretty good example, really, and Apple's FairPlay ( and attendant "burn to disc 3 times" policy ) is also a good example- they're just hard enough to copy that pirating from those sources isn't huge, but easy enough to copy a few times that users feel like they get some rights to fair use when they buy the conent. CDs and ( weakly encrypted ) DVDs are bad examples- their high prices and easy-to-copy properties make them things that people _will_ copy and share and pirate. Over-the-air broadcasts are also easy to copy... at least until broadcast flag DRM is implemented, then we'll see if people just don't watch shows they can't record, or if they do watch them, then buy the DVD... we'll see. In any event, it's my humble opinion that these folks seeking copyright on easy-to-copy media are the ones actually creating the problems.
The folks copying digital files are just doing what comes easy- you want them to not share that latest hit song? Why shouldn't they? Are the artists getting all the proceeds from the album sales? If they were, you'd have a moral argument I could stomach, but even then, why would the file-sharing public be inclined not to pirate that song ? Because they'll be sued if they share 1000 songs? how about if I only share 900?? No, I think there's something wrong with the concept that I shouldn't copy digital files on a network around that network if they're MY files. If they're not my files, I shouldn't be able to copy them, does that make sense?
You're right, I am pretty busy with my life, and my game collection isn't all that large ( I buy or am given maybe 5 PS2 games a year, I'm up to maybe 20 titles total now ). But I did have a subscription to a gaming magazine, mainly to keep up on new releases and get ratings and reviews.
Did. I didn't renew... and why? Because I couldn't handle the marketed-to-a-thirteen-year-old slant any more. I think the anime 'girls of gaming swimsuit issue' was what finally pushed me over the edge.
When I find a magazine which gives lots of info on games, and stays focused on games, I'll consider buying it.
It seems to me that there's plenty to cover in the industry, what people's favorite games are, game genre suggestsions ( if you like x you might like y ), reviews of games, and how to beat them ( i.e. I don't mind tips/cheat/walkthrough sections, even for older games )... well, given the number of titles out for the PS2 console alone, you could fill endless monthlies without resorting to anime babe art, goofy future predictions, and supposedly funny 'entertainment piece' columns by made-up personalities.
But you're right, guys like me, who spend some of their time playing SpongeBob SquarePants video games with our kids, we aren't the big spenders in the video game market. We aren't the big spenders in the magazine market, either... these magazines sell mostly at stores, not through subscriptions, which means they're being bought by kids. Adults get subscriptions, or would, if we could find a decent magazine to buy.
While such language is common on Creative Commons-licensed stuff, in this case it's almost like the author is saying "Here is my first cut of a document I'd like to see produced, everyone else please edit it, fill in the ( huge ) gaps, give it some actual content and substance. Thanks."
It's the literary equivalent of setting up an open source software project with a not-really-functional 'prototype' codebase and hoping someone makes it actually work.
I know the topic of P2P ( and more generally, 'file sharing' ) has been studied by tons of smart folks at universities and corporations alike, what about some links to some of those? Oddly enough, the 'study' just has links to ( mostly ) opinion pieces and blogs ( including, of all things, a slashdot article ).
To speak to the parent posts' points of
well, that's an interesting topic all by itself.Frankly, copyright-protected files are the most common files found on P2P networks. Rather than hiding from reality, we should seek to understand what reality means. In this case, I think reality means that copyright is a generally unenforcable law - like many other laws on the books, it's an example of bad law which in the long run wastes taxpayer money for the ( dubious ) benefit of a small segment of the population.
Copyright infringment is an old, old problem, vastly pre-dating the internet. Even without filesharing, there'd be lots of "piracy", as it's now labeled. As long as there is copyright protection for easily copied items, there will be piracy. It's a law which is extremely difficult to enforce- at best.
I've always wondered what sort of usage would tip them off... as a single datapoint, apparently running a gnutella client ( sharing frequently uploaded files 24/7 ) doesn't bring down the Comcast bandwidth police, at least not for myself and probably hundreds of thousands of others.
I'd like to see a story from someone who did get smacked down by this policy, and find out what they were doing... I'm going to guess that until someone complains, they aren't looking at the traffic on your segment.
You're not kidding!
Not that they were exactly 'hiding it' with the "Switch" campaign, now they have a hardware story that really targets casual Windows computer users, and they're selling it hard.
This image from the Mac mini - design page says it all !
Damn. I thought someone might call me on this by getting their RAM from Apple. Drat.
Of course, if you're going to insist on buying your RAM from Apple, and you want to buy a 1GB for $425 ( nearly the price of the base machine! ), yea, you can get the price up to over a thousand bucks. Just.
Having said that, I'm sure you can get your RAM a little cheaper, can't you??
Next time, I'll have to say something like "without getting custom-order add-ons" or some similar disclaimer...
My *actual* point, which is that this is all consumer-grade stuff, which is a sea change for Apple, still holds, I think.
No, I do not want to do such a thing. It'd just been mentioned as a feature on some of the rumor sites, and I was just pointing out ( in response to the editor's comments ) that the ports on the back of the mini don't include RGB connectors.
Of course, as several folks have er, kindly pointed out, Apple is selling a converter so you *could* connect it to an NTSC display if you wanted... and of course, DVI is DVI which some HD TV displays do support. To which I say, it's an *accessory* people, not part of the mini itself! Jeez! Like a VGA to video cable is something *new* for cryin' out loud!
The Dell you mention might be a better comparison, and... it's the same price, but with a Celeron ( for cryin' out loud... ) and *still* doesn't have dedicated VRAM... the Mac mini beats that one in just about every category.
You list 10 points, give only 4 of which you can clearly give to the PC, and not clearly or easily on all points, and yet you conclude that the Mac isn't relatively a good deal with little discussion as to why. It's a much closer race than you make it out to be. I'm looking at the other responses to your 'analysis', and I think I'll stop here, just saying I'm one more vote for "that analysis is not so good, that post is not so insightful".
Sure, you and I can build cheaper AMD systems. That's not the point. The point is this is a machine any iPod user might buy on a whim. We'll see how these sell...
A question so funny, I feel compelled to reply to it... not sure what that says about *me*, but anyway...
The Virginia Tech cluster is cabled together with some very, very high-end high-speed networking stuff, and the Mac mini ( note capitalization, like 'iPod mini' ) has standard 100-baseT ethernet, so one technically correct answer to your question, based on networking tech, would be 'can't be done'.
On the other hand, XGrid would run on this like any other OS X machine, so with a little ( fairly simple ) programming, you'd be clustering away in style. If you have some computation that's Altivec optimized, you'll probably even outperform a comparably priced cluster of Linux machines... though really, you *should* be able to put together a comprable no-graphics-card AMD boxen for ( a little, not counting labor ) cheaper, if a cluster of "whatever" cheap machines is really your goal.
A bunch of Mac minis could sure fit in a small space, though! I couldn't build a cheap PC that small. A cluster of Mac minis might not beat a G5 XServe cluster for price/performance, but it'd be cheap to set up!
Short ( ha ha ) answer: nobody is going to go about setting up a network of these for "real" high-performance computing... but a small college or even high school lab could be built pretty cheaply and XGrid applied to get it all hummin' on some distributed computing project and actually do some pretty impressive number-crunching... cheaply!
The box is - get this - smaller than the standard iPod box.
That's what they'll complain about. No mouse sold with the computer. Cheap-ass Apple, expecting me to already have a USB mouse... oh, wait...
well, at least not all of those expected by everyone. Some folks ( who clearly didn't know ) were predicting something you could plug into a TV. This isn't that, it's a standard computer with typical modern computer ports and DVI/VGA video, just 'mini'. Really, really, mini... it makes that George Foreman Grill computer look freekin' huge.
How? By a $499 Mac mini? By a $99 iPod Shuffle? A $79 iLife?
The truly remarkable thing is that even *I* could afford this stuff. There were absolutely no high-end Apple hardware announcements of any kind today. I can't spend over $700 on anything Steve introduced today. What's up with that?!?
Typical FCC lawyerspeak bullshit. Not unlike the FCC's fiction of how many households can get over-the-air DTV.
And what about Bush fixing the digital divide?
Yup. He'll take care of that, just like he's taken care of the environment, education, security and the economy...