I can see maybe $5 for a fully working, fully translated copy of Star Ocean. I really doubt Nintendo plans on any such thing, especially considering the game never was imported in the first place.
Or Terranigma! At least that game's in English so they wouldn't have to translate it.
If you make your copy protection incredibly difficult to crack, then people will crack it just for the challenge. No matter what you do, if your game is popular, someone will crack it and put it on the pirate bay. So copy protection, in the end, is really only an annoyance for the paying customers. If it's too much of an annoyance, then they stop being paying customers. I'd be happy if game companies just did away with copy protection, but they're not going to listen to me.
That's an interesting way of looking at things. However, you're ignoring the fact that the teachers are the ones being paid, by the students' parents (through taxes and/or tuition). The teachers are the ones literally working for hire. The assignments and the grades are not bartered for eachother, they are what the teacher produces in exchange for wages. The students are technically the employer here, since they (or at least their parents) are the ones paying the salaries, and I don't think copyright law has provisions for an employer to give an employee rights over something the employer does.
The point is, if the law is wrong, CHANGE THE LAW. It's just crazy to justify people breaking laws because it fits their circumstances.
If someone is starving, then they do not have time to wait for the law to change. If they can find a way to get food without hurting anyone else, then that is what they should do. Would you rather have people starve in the streets or working under the table? I kinda think it's obvious.
ou're incredibly naive if you think an unmodified Linux kernel is capable of running an embedded device like that.... In other words, it *is* like it's something they wrote. They stood on the shoulders of others, but they still had to do their own work to get it to work with their hardware and do what they want it to do.
Ok, so they modified it. They're still uses other people's work. Let's say I take Windows XP and modify it. A lot. I make it into a live CD that can run on PPCs. Now, can I just sell copies of my spiffy WinXPlive without giving a damn what Microsoft says? I did all sorts of work on it. But so did Microsoft, so that would be copyright infringment. The GPL is no different, it just lays out the terms of licensing so you don't have to go track down the authors and pay them a shitload of money before using it. But the authors are still there, and it's still copyrighted.
> If you couldn't, and the only way to get more was illegal, would you do it?
Well, probably not.
You wouldn't? What would you do? Just stop eating, let them foreclose your house and take your kids to an orphanage? If you can't live on what you have, and there's a way to make more, you'd do it because you'd have to.
But I don't understand what's illegal about clicking ads. You can only click an ad if you want to buy something? You can only click certain links once?
One of the people in the article is on disability, and it's illegal to make money (well, beyond a patheticly small amount) when you're collecting disability. If she was babysitting for her neighbors for more than her $85 a month limit it would be just as illegal as click fraud. That's a problem with disability. It doesn't always give you enough to live on, and it doesn't (legally) allow you to supplement that and work towards being self-supportive.
Could you live on $600 a month? If you couldn't, and the only way to get more was illegal, would you do it?
I've worked under the table for most of my adult life.
So I'll take that as a yes.
I was offered welfare and healthcare via the state but turned it down. Just because I don't pay income taxes doesn't mean I'm willing to make other people pay more taxes so I can defraud the government. After all, that's part of why I don't want to pay taxes - they're artificially high due to all the fraud and waste of our all too big government.
I'm glad you've been lucky. What if you lost your job and couldn't find another one? What if you had health issues and needed health coverage? What if you were disabled at 22 and couldn't work?
Also, in a few decades when I go to retire, my social security money that I didn't pay to the government, which is stuffed into stocks and bonds instead, will be there. Will your social security?
I don't know. However, I don't mind paying it anyways, because I know people it has helped. My birth mother is alive today because social security paid for her medial care after her insurance ran out. My mother-in-law was able to raise my husband and my brother-in-law after her husband ran out on her and she injured her back, soley because of social security. I know other people who it's helped as well. It's not a perfect system, but it's better than nothing, so I don't mind paying for it, even if I never personally receive it.
You missed the point of this, entirely. I'm saying that IF YOU ARE GOING TO SUPPLEMENT DISABILITY by making up to $85/month, why would you work at a $2 per day job in order to make your $60? Why not work at a $2/hour job, like dog sitting, or a $10/hour job, like babysitting kids for the nieghbors? That way, you could work for one week, make the maximum $85 allowed, and then spend the rest of the month reading or hanging out with your mom. WHY DO THE EXTRA WORK IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
Uh, I thought we established that she's most likely making more money, but she's only saying she makes about $60 because they'll take away her $600 if she tells the truth.
Um... whether she should defraud the government, because it's rules are unfair, is a completely separate issue. I was talking about the question of whether she is actually doing it. I happen to believe that she should not, even if it's unfair. I mean, it's unfair that the government takes 40% of my paycheck every year, but I don't under-report my earnings because I think it's unfair--I vote for people and propositions that seem likely to lower my taxes in a responsible way. BUT... I will admit that there is reasonable room for disagreement--I won't call you a moron or a fool for believeing that she is doing what she needs to do to survive.
I don't know her personally, but I do know other people on disability, and it's all but impossible to get by on it. When you can't find an apartment for much less than $500, how do you pay for that, food and necessities on only $600? My mother-in-law gets $1000 a month for her and her 12 year old son, and she was doing ok (with my husband buying his brother's clothes since she couldn't afford them), until her water heater went and some other minor emergencies, and now she's stuck working some crap-ass job under the table to try to pay down the credit card she put it on. She's not frivilous with her money, it's just when you barely make enough to cover normal expenses, you can't afford the abnormal expenses. My friend on disability tried to get a job legitly once. Turns out, they would deduct her medical costs from her paycheck (which would make it zero, since she couldn't get a job that pays more than her medical costs), and then reduce her monthly stipend. So she would get less money while spending more money on gas and clothes. She barely has the gas money to get to her doctors' appointments now. She literally cannot afford to get a job legally.
The disability system needs to be reworked so that it's actually liveable. The politicians don't seem to give a fuck about it. I vote Democrat because they're more likely to at least pretend to care about the poor, but until they actually fix it, I can't blame people for doing what they need to do.
As to the question of whether she's making a thousand a month or not, did you even read the first half of the article talking about the Hungarian guy, "Kiss"? He's claiming to make thousands. Do you really think that this American woman is working night and day, and just (for instance) giving the rest away to the poor? Is she just not collecting any invoices past the first $60?
If she was making thousands a month, she would give up the Social Security because the risk would not be worth it. So, while she's not likely to be making $60 a month, she's not likely to be getting rich off it. Also the article didn't say she worked night and day doing click fraud, it said she worked night and day for the Owl-Post, a group she says is like family. Click fraud might only be small part of what they do.
There are ways, even on disability, to supplement your income. She could be watching children for familiy and neighbors, she could be doing low-end web design, dog-sitting, flower arrangements--there are literally a million little, tiny ways to supplement your income when you have shitloads of free time because you're stuck at home on disability.
Making any amount of money, even by babysitting, is supposed to be reported and wil endanger your disability check.
She IS making more than $60/month from click fraud, but she's not going to tell a reporter about it because she will lose her disability check, and might even be subject to criminal prosecution for defrauding the state. So it's not suprising that she's lying about it.
No, it's not.
Chances are, she's not making more than a few thousand a month, at the absolute most. Maybe it's only a few hundred. But she's still cheating, and she's cheating on her income taxes, too.
She's living with her mom, I doubt she's making a thousand a month or more(unless her mom and/or her have high medical bills). Anyways, I think it's understandable. Could you live on $600 a month? If you couldn't, and the only way to get more was illegal, would you do it?
WTF??!! Why is she working like a dog, night and day, for $60 a month? She could make more money selling Herbalife shit. Clearly, this Ballard woman is lying, too--and the reporter doesn't bother to question it. It's almost a given that both of these people are seriously under-reporting their income, cheating on taxes, etc. And you can bet that both of them are pushing WAAAY more click-fraud than they claim.
If you were making only $600 a month (who could survive on that) wouldn't you try to make more money? I mean, you'd have to. The disability system is fucked up because if it doesn't give you enough to live on there's no legal way to make up the difference.
I think they're taking off the NES controller. I don't know if arcades before '85 had them, because I was born in '81 and didn't go to arcades when I was 3, but that's my theory.
I always wondered about that theory that Sony sells so many consoles because they break. I, at least, wouldn't buy 2 or three or more consoles because they kept breaking, I would sell my games and buy something more durable. Also, if everyone's consoles broke, I'm sure that eventually people would just stop buying them, so dupes can't be that significant of the sales.
Think of this possible scenario. Link is riding a buggy or some sort down a road and there is an approaching enemy. Link is on the right hand side of the road, and his enemy is on the left (the enemy's right). Link is left handed and can reach the enemy with his sword. Guess what happens when Link puts the sword in his right hand?
Link stabs himself in the eye! AAAAAAGH!!!! No!!!! His hand is cursed.
Seriously, I get what you're saying. I kinda wish they just made Twillight Princess a Gamecube game and then worked from the ground up making a game that worked well with the wiimote so they wouldn't have to shove out weird hacks like this. But, having a Zelda game at launch is just an opportunity they can't pass up.
I'm not even looking at the PS3 until FFXIII comes out. RPGs are Playstations' strong point (at least for me) so until they get some Final Fantasies and some lesser-known good ones, I don't care.
XBox 360 I think has some decent games. DOA4 and Enchanted Arms look cool. But, two good games does not warrant a $400 purchase, so, waiting for price drop and better games.
The Wii... well, I have high hopes for it, but I'm getting Zelda on 'Cube and waiting to see how well this wiimote thing works out.
I never buy consoles at launch date. If you wait a little, you pay less and get a game you really want, as opposed to something that kinda looks fun amoung the few that are available. Also, you avoid getting a console that takes a nosedive like the Dreamcast did.
You know, I never realized you could control Mario 64 with the stylus instead of the d-pad until now. I knew you creep with the stylus, but the awkwardness of taking my hands off the controls, finding the stylus and then having to drop the stylus to jump or whatever (because I never thought to grab it with my left hand) was too much, so I stopped using it (the stylus, not the game). Now that I know you can play the whole game with the stylus, well, that's facinating. I might have to replay through it.:)
Seeing that Nintendo both designed the first paddle controller and featured a left-handed Link, one wonders whether the lead design team was made up of mostly lefties at the time... not that it really made much of a difference in the long run.
Miyamoto's left-handed. I assume he's the reason for lefty Link and lefty controllers.
Slashdot Mirror
If you make your copy protection incredibly difficult to crack, then people will crack it just for the challenge. No matter what you do, if your game is popular, someone will crack it and put it on the pirate bay. So copy protection, in the end, is really only an annoyance for the paying customers. If it's too much of an annoyance, then they stop being paying customers. I'd be happy if game companies just did away with copy protection, but they're not going to listen to me.
That's an interesting way of looking at things. However, you're ignoring the fact that the teachers are the ones being paid, by the students' parents (through taxes and/or tuition). The teachers are the ones literally working for hire. The assignments and the grades are not bartered for eachother, they are what the teacher produces in exchange for wages. The students are technically the employer here, since they (or at least their parents) are the ones paying the salaries, and I don't think copyright law has provisions for an employer to give an employee rights over something the employer does.
One of the people in the article is on disability, and it's illegal to make money (well, beyond a patheticly small amount) when you're collecting disability. If she was babysitting for her neighbors for more than her $85 a month limit it would be just as illegal as click fraud. That's a problem with disability. It doesn't always give you enough to live on, and it doesn't (legally) allow you to supplement that and work towards being self-supportive.
Some of us are actually happy in our dark rooms. It's the rest of the world that makes me depressed.
I kept reading "foo" as "food". That, well, also leads to the conclusion that the definition is broken.
I'm glad you've been lucky. What if you lost your job and couldn't find another one? What if you had health issues and needed health coverage? What if you were disabled at 22 and couldn't work?
I don't know. However, I don't mind paying it anyways, because I know people it has helped. My birth mother is alive today because social security paid for her medial care after her insurance ran out. My mother-in-law was able to raise my husband and my brother-in-law after her husband ran out on her and she injured her back, soley because of social security. I know other people who it's helped as well. It's not a perfect system, but it's better than nothing, so I don't mind paying for it, even if I never personally receive it.
I don't know her personally, but I do know other people on disability, and it's all but impossible to get by on it. When you can't find an apartment for much less than $500, how do you pay for that, food and necessities on only $600? My mother-in-law gets $1000 a month for her and her 12 year old son, and she was doing ok (with my husband buying his brother's clothes since she couldn't afford them), until her water heater went and some other minor emergencies, and now she's stuck working some crap-ass job under the table to try to pay down the credit card she put it on. She's not frivilous with her money, it's just when you barely make enough to cover normal expenses, you can't afford the abnormal expenses. My friend on disability tried to get a job legitly once. Turns out, they would deduct her medical costs from her paycheck (which would make it zero, since she couldn't get a job that pays more than her medical costs), and then reduce her monthly stipend. So she would get less money while spending more money on gas and clothes. She barely has the gas money to get to her doctors' appointments now. She literally cannot afford to get a job legally.
The disability system needs to be reworked so that it's actually liveable. The politicians don't seem to give a fuck about it. I vote Democrat because they're more likely to at least pretend to care about the poor, but until they actually fix it, I can't blame people for doing what they need to do.
If she was making thousands a month, she would give up the Social Security because the risk would not be worth it. So, while she's not likely to be making $60 a month, she's not likely to be getting rich off it. Also the article didn't say she worked night and day doing click fraud, it said she worked night and day for the Owl-Post, a group she says is like family. Click fraud might only be small part of what they do.
No, it's not.
She's living with her mom, I doubt she's making a thousand a month or more(unless her mom and/or her have high medical bills). Anyways, I think it's understandable. Could you live on $600 a month? If you couldn't, and the only way to get more was illegal, would you do it?
I've seen Linux and Mac computers freeze. Not often, but enough to not say completely dismiss the notion of them freezing as crazy.
I think they're taking off the NES controller. I don't know if arcades before '85 had them, because I was born in '81 and didn't go to arcades when I was 3, but that's my theory.
I always wondered about that theory that Sony sells so many consoles because they break. I, at least, wouldn't buy 2 or three or more consoles because they kept breaking, I would sell my games and buy something more durable. Also, if everyone's consoles broke, I'm sure that eventually people would just stop buying them, so dupes can't be that significant of the sales.
Seriously, I get what you're saying. I kinda wish they just made Twillight Princess a Gamecube game and then worked from the ground up making a game that worked well with the wiimote so they wouldn't have to shove out weird hacks like this. But, having a Zelda game at launch is just an opportunity they can't pass up.
I'm not even looking at the PS3 until FFXIII comes out. RPGs are Playstations' strong point (at least for me) so until they get some Final Fantasies and some lesser-known good ones, I don't care.
XBox 360 I think has some decent games. DOA4 and Enchanted Arms look cool. But, two good games does not warrant a $400 purchase, so, waiting for price drop and better games.
The Wii... well, I have high hopes for it, but I'm getting Zelda on 'Cube and waiting to see how well this wiimote thing works out.
I never buy consoles at launch date. If you wait a little, you pay less and get a game you really want, as opposed to something that kinda looks fun amoung the few that are available. Also, you avoid getting a console that takes a nosedive like the Dreamcast did.
You know, I never realized you could control Mario 64 with the stylus instead of the d-pad until now. I knew you creep with the stylus, but the awkwardness of taking my hands off the controls, finding the stylus and then having to drop the stylus to jump or whatever (because I never thought to grab it with my left hand) was too much, so I stopped using it (the stylus, not the game). Now that I know you can play the whole game with the stylus, well, that's facinating. I might have to replay through it. :)
What DS games are left-handed? I've always used my right hand for the stylus and I've never played a game where that was a problem.