If Valve goes into receivership, then one of the things that would happen would be their assets would come under the control of a trust established to do it's best to get the most value out of the assets. While the cheapest option in the short term might be turn it all off, it would not be the likely option taken as that would immediately destroy the intrinsic value of the Steam network Valve has built. In addition, unless something drastically changed between now and this mythical doomsday (and part of the reason why some of us aren't as worried as you is that we don't accept the premise that this day will ever come, just like some of us aren't stocking up for 2012), the ability to sell this network to another company would have enough weight with the trustee that any attempt to turn off the network would be met with some fairly stiff resistance.
The other option, Valve being sold without going bankrupt, still has the issue that a number of people have in fact purchased games on Steam. Whomever purchased the company might think they could swing simply turning off the servers (if they were idiots, given Steam is currently one of the largest assets Valve has) but an attempt to do so would likely be met with a class action lawsuit meant to determine once and for all if the games were just 'rented' or actually purchased.
On that particular topic, your opinion is just as valid as the opinion of those of us who choose to take them at their word. You have no evidence other than your gut feeling that they would renege, we have no evidence other than our gut feeling that the'll honor the promise.
But, on the other hand, there are a number of people who act as if we are required to take their opinion as if it were the Gospel Truth. Please don't make the mistake that just because it seems so clear to you, it seems anything less than insulting pessimisim to us.
But this is pure marketing BS. They are making DRM obsolete by... using DRM! Plus, this is exactly the same scheme of DRM that is already in use: Encrypt a program and then only decrypt it when provided a valid key. Then provide the key, thus completely negating the point of encrypting the program. After all, Steam has to unpack the executable to run it, and at that point all a black hatter has to do is come up with a way to snatch the decrypted version during that.
This is SecureROM 2.0. The only difference is instead of a 'unique, unduplicateable, ID per CD' it's now a 'unique, unduplicateable, ID per account'.
On the other hand, since I am a Steam fanboi, I hope this particular marking BS manages to convince more publishers to go this route rather than the SecureROM/CD route. Being able to redownload a game whenever I want to install it, wherever I want to install it, is far better than "opps, your machine crashed twice so now your CD is worthless because you only had two installs allowed".
At which point the compromises that they will have to have made, combined with the "established tradtion" of the party will ensure that they are just another flavor of the same thing we have today. Politicians are politicians. You don't get elected by the majority of a nation as big as the US without being mostly middle of the middle, except in years when it's fashionable to be left or right of the middle of the middle.
The fantasy that all we really need is "everyone to go out and vote libertarian" ignores the fact that there is a reason they don't right now. And that reason is, regardless of how strongly the 'true believers' have convinced themselves that this is the path, most of us don't agree.
You want a nation to vote libertarian? Screw the fucking elections and actually work from the ground and convince us that libertarism isn't just another pipe dream.
The fact that, right after having the OP post what they did in all caps, you still managed to miss the point and at least one mod failed to do so as well makes me feel sad for humanity. Because I know the people who come to Slashdot aren't the mental midgets that are incapable of any critical thought whatsoever, this can only show to demonstrate how even intelligent people can act stupid and completely ignore any inconvenient evidence in front of them when they've decided to back a specific line of thought.
Because I know you posted in sincerity, I'm not going to insult you. But you might want to re-read his post, specifically regarding where the donation link is allowed.
Wouldn't the fact that you spent $1000 on electic bills to melt the silicon to build the solar cells that'll save you $100 in electic bills make this worse than a zero sum game?
Bitch, don't excuse. The whole point of this exercise was to allow the customer use the site without putting their info in danger and in a manner that doesn't require having a degree in "teh internets" to get through.
It should never be the customer's responsibilty to bring a maginfying glass to the certificate and manually verify that these were just subdomain mismatches and not some clever capitalone.com vs capitlone.com spelling that means to look correct to someone just scanning the screen. That is a security risk, whether or not it is currently exposing your info, it's training you to expect that sort of problem and to ignore it the same way people ignore the dialog boxes XP and VISTA pop up on errors.
Yes, I have. I've also put some bucks down on WiiWare. There is an issue with shovelware when it comes to the 'real' games. And there are a few WiiWare games that I wouldn't consider worth buying at the price point they are currently at, but over all, I don't find it hard to find something worth buying/playing when I visit the Shopping Channel with cash to spend.
They've seen how easy it is to make money on CSI knock offs. Now we know why Grissom left the CSI series, it's only a matter of time before we're watching Law and Order:The Mushroom Kingdom.
The DSi blocked all 'big name' DS flash cards when it was released. However, I believe there are already new cards out there that can be used exclusively with the DSi
On the other hand Big N has understood something that Apple doesn't seem to get yet.
Quanity does not beat quailty.
How many complaints have we heard lately over the level of dreck in the iPhone App store? About how hard it is to find the diamond in the rough, or how long it takes to get an app approved unless you are a big name and able to talk Apple into fast tracking the approvals?
How many complaints have you heard about the same for the WiiWare store? I'm going to bet you that it's far fewer.
Why not the cammera's. Just because you 'feel' for a character doesn't mean you want to 'feel' them. It'd be enough to enjoy the rush of standing '2 feet' from the action while they took the hits.
Yeah but that's alright, the first movies that implement it will do it the same cheap way they did the 3d in Superman Returns. The jacket will only work for three one minute scenes in the entire movie.
They got it working and then realized they really shouldn't have.
That, or like most of us they realized that smells are formed by discrete chemicals which would need to be kept in supply and would require the theater to be "hosed down" often to ensure that "slightly sulfer" smell from the Dante's Peak remake isn't still lingering around when the romantic comedy I Want to Cook Your Eggs plays.
I know we're all supposed to hate Microsoft, but come on.
Here's a story: On the day Microsoft releases IE 8 -- the most popular web browser in the world -- Slashdot doesn't mention it, but posts a trivial article about Google Chrome benchmarks.
How can a browser be the most popular one, if it hasn't been released yet?
How does one determine popularity? Just because Microsoft installs IE by default on all Windows computers, doesn't mean people like it. Just because people who haven't been informed of options and/or have simply choosen the path of interia and used what there rather than find something better, doesn't mean they like it.
When the article summary itself says "On the day that Microsoft launches Internet Explorer 8, Google has unveiled a new site that showcases the Javascript performance of its Chrome browser." how can you validate the claim that no one has mentioned it?
Amusingly,these are all questions I don't care about the answers for, your whine was pittable but not convincing.
And I suppose the critical question would be, how much impact would they have today using today's tech?
With the follow-up question being how much impact in another decade?
Granted, my vision is less "A car that drives everywhere, itself" and more "A car that drives the long tedious parts that people tend to screw up because they aren't designed for long tedium, itself."
But the nice thing is, the more of that car on the road, the more "long tedious" parts become available for it to handle.
The point being however, a 'driverless' car can co-exist with a 'driven' car on the road. The premise that all they need to be segregated or everyone has to convert is faulty, and thus the argument following it moot.
A car built a decade ago was able handle a 1000 mile trip on european roads, with a max speed of over 100 mph and on average only needed human help once every five miles. With stretches where it went 100 miles without intervention.
Really, if you have a reasonable doubt that the crime was commited (i.e. you think the defense hasn't brought up good questions you would ask and thus the issues have not been resolved) why are you voting guilty?
No, you aren't allowed to conduct your own investigations, but that doesn't mean the verdict is down to who looked the best arguing the case. Watch 12 Angry Men some day (and ignore the fact that he broke the rules to convince them to change their minds).
Slashdot Mirror
If Valve goes into receivership, then one of the things that would happen would be their assets would come under the control of a trust established to do it's best to get the most value out of the assets. While the cheapest option in the short term might be turn it all off, it would not be the likely option taken as that would immediately destroy the intrinsic value of the Steam network Valve has built. In addition, unless something drastically changed between now and this mythical doomsday (and part of the reason why some of us aren't as worried as you is that we don't accept the premise that this day will ever come, just like some of us aren't stocking up for 2012), the ability to sell this network to another company would have enough weight with the trustee that any attempt to turn off the network would be met with some fairly stiff resistance.
The other option, Valve being sold without going bankrupt, still has the issue that a number of people have in fact purchased games on Steam. Whomever purchased the company might think they could swing simply turning off the servers (if they were idiots, given Steam is currently one of the largest assets Valve has) but an attempt to do so would likely be met with a class action lawsuit meant to determine once and for all if the games were just 'rented' or actually purchased.
Yes, yes, I'm sure you missed the "Web 2.0" reference there.
On that particular topic, your opinion is just as valid as the opinion of those of us who choose to take them at their word. You have no evidence other than your gut feeling that they would renege, we have no evidence other than our gut feeling that the'll honor the promise.
But, on the other hand, there are a number of people who act as if we are required to take their opinion as if it were the Gospel Truth. Please don't make the mistake that just because it seems so clear to you, it seems anything less than insulting pessimisim to us.
But this is pure marketing BS. They are making DRM obsolete by... using DRM! Plus, this is exactly the same scheme of DRM that is already in use: Encrypt a program and then only decrypt it when provided a valid key. Then provide the key, thus completely negating the point of encrypting the program. After all, Steam has to unpack the executable to run it, and at that point all a black hatter has to do is come up with a way to snatch the decrypted version during that.
This is SecureROM 2.0. The only difference is instead of a 'unique, unduplicateable, ID per CD' it's now a 'unique, unduplicateable, ID per account'.
On the other hand, since I am a Steam fanboi, I hope this particular marking BS manages to convince more publishers to go this route rather than the SecureROM/CD route. Being able to redownload a game whenever I want to install it, wherever I want to install it, is far better than "opps, your machine crashed twice so now your CD is worthless because you only had two installs allowed".
At which point the compromises that they will have to have made, combined with the "established tradtion" of the party will ensure that they are just another flavor of the same thing we have today. Politicians are politicians. You don't get elected by the majority of a nation as big as the US without being mostly middle of the middle, except in years when it's fashionable to be left or right of the middle of the middle.
The fantasy that all we really need is "everyone to go out and vote libertarian" ignores the fact that there is a reason they don't right now. And that reason is, regardless of how strongly the 'true believers' have convinced themselves that this is the path, most of us don't agree.
You want a nation to vote libertarian? Screw the fucking elections and actually work from the ground and convince us that libertarism isn't just another pipe dream.
Ah, so that's what all those Pro-Bush were talking about when they said sending our troops to Iraq and Afganastan was for the better of our nation.
Seemed fairly obvious to me:Jesus.
Died, resurrected, then ascended once the job was done.
The fact that, right after having the OP post what they did in all caps, you still managed to miss the point and at least one mod failed to do so as well makes me feel sad for humanity. Because I know the people who come to Slashdot aren't the mental midgets that are incapable of any critical thought whatsoever, this can only show to demonstrate how even intelligent people can act stupid and completely ignore any inconvenient evidence in front of them when they've decided to back a specific line of thought.
Because I know you posted in sincerity, I'm not going to insult you. But you might want to re-read his post, specifically regarding where the donation link is allowed.
Wouldn't the fact that you spent $1000 on electic bills to melt the silicon to build the solar cells that'll save you $100 in electic bills make this worse than a zero sum game?
Li'l Brudder approves.
If the thrust of your segment is "Look! They lied! This site is broken and will never be fixed! I can't USE IT!"
Do you think the first thing you are going to do is go ask your techie how to use the site more smoothly?
Bitch, don't excuse. The whole point of this exercise was to allow the customer use the site without putting their info in danger and in a manner that doesn't require having a degree in "teh internets" to get through.
It should never be the customer's responsibilty to bring a maginfying glass to the certificate and manually verify that these were just subdomain mismatches and not some clever capitalone.com vs capitlone.com spelling that means to look correct to someone just scanning the screen. That is a security risk, whether or not it is currently exposing your info, it's training you to expect that sort of problem and to ignore it the same way people ignore the dialog boxes XP and VISTA pop up on errors.
Yes, I have. I've also put some bucks down on WiiWare. There is an issue with shovelware when it comes to the 'real' games. And there are a few WiiWare games that I wouldn't consider worth buying at the price point they are currently at, but over all, I don't find it hard to find something worth buying/playing when I visit the Shopping Channel with cash to spend.
They've seen how easy it is to make money on CSI knock offs. Now we know why Grissom left the CSI series, it's only a matter of time before we're watching Law and Order:The Mushroom Kingdom.
The DSi blocked all 'big name' DS flash cards when it was released. However, I believe there are already new cards out there that can be used exclusively with the DSi
On the other hand Big N has understood something that Apple doesn't seem to get yet.
Quanity does not beat quailty.
How many complaints have we heard lately over the level of dreck in the iPhone App store? About how hard it is to find the diamond in the rough, or how long it takes to get an app approved unless you are a big name and able to talk Apple into fast tracking the approvals?
How many complaints have you heard about the same for the WiiWare store? I'm going to bet you that it's far fewer.
Wii? DSi? Sounds like a combination of the DS and Wii names to represent this has pulled feature ideas from the Wii generation.
What did you want them to call it? The DS Lite Plus?
Why not the cammera's. Just because you 'feel' for a character doesn't mean you want to 'feel' them. It'd be enough to enjoy the rush of standing '2 feet' from the action while they took the hits.
Yeah but that's alright, the first movies that implement it will do it the same cheap way they did the 3d in Superman Returns. The jacket will only work for three one minute scenes in the entire movie.
They got it working and then realized they really shouldn't have.
That, or like most of us they realized that smells are formed by discrete chemicals which would need to be kept in supply and would require the theater to be "hosed down" often to ensure that "slightly sulfer" smell from the Dante's Peak remake isn't still lingering around when the romantic comedy I Want to Cook Your Eggs plays.
How can a browser be the most popular one, if it hasn't been released yet?
How does one determine popularity? Just because Microsoft installs IE by default on all Windows computers, doesn't mean people like it. Just because people who haven't been informed of options and/or have simply choosen the path of interia and used what there rather than find something better, doesn't mean they like it.
When the article summary itself says "On the day that Microsoft launches Internet Explorer 8, Google has unveiled a new site that showcases the Javascript performance of its Chrome browser." how can you validate the claim that no one has mentioned it?
Amusingly,these are all questions I don't care about the answers for, your whine was pittable but not convincing.
I'm sure they did.
And I suppose the critical question would be, how much impact would they have today using today's tech?
With the follow-up question being how much impact in another decade?
Granted, my vision is less "A car that drives everywhere, itself" and more "A car that drives the long tedious parts that people tend to screw up because they aren't designed for long tedium, itself."
But the nice thing is, the more of that car on the road, the more "long tedious" parts become available for it to handle.
The point being however, a 'driverless' car can co-exist with a 'driven' car on the road. The premise that all they need to be segregated or everyone has to convert is faulty, and thus the argument following it moot.
A car built a decade ago was able handle a 1000 mile trip on european roads, with a max speed of over 100 mph and on average only needed human help once every five miles. With stretches where it went 100 miles without intervention.
A decade ago.
Really, if you have a reasonable doubt that the crime was commited (i.e. you think the defense hasn't brought up good questions you would ask and thus the issues have not been resolved) why are you voting guilty?
No, you aren't allowed to conduct your own investigations, but that doesn't mean the verdict is down to who looked the best arguing the case. Watch 12 Angry Men some day (and ignore the fact that he broke the rules to convince them to change their minds).
Nice try Harlan, we aren't going to buy your books just to refute your point.