And really, to that point, how many movies are released a year where you're even likely to care about whether it's in HD or not?
Blockbuster effects/action-heavy movie, absolutely. Anything else? Not so much. My wife can spam-watch "27 Dresses" every time it's on cable in low-def just fine, thank you very much.
My assumption has been that there's been a push to 3D in movies because it's an experience that's harder, effectively, to bootleg/pirate.
We're at a point where anyone with a little bit of knowledge who really wants to can download any new movie the weekend it's released and often even before. How do you fight that if you're a smart movie studio? You need to offer something as part of the theatre viewing experience that isn't easily replicated at home -- so you push big effects movies that more people will want to see on a giant screen, and you push things like 3D. Most people don't yet have 3D TVs, so (assuming you buy into the value of 3D), by offering a movie in 3D you're offering something that for most people can't be pirated.
Out of curiousity, what kind of work do you do wherein it's considered acceptable to massively bloat your budget to include a feature that, at that time, is and is expected to remain completely useless?
And, really, what other browser would you have made sure the app in question also worked in? Netscape? Which version? At that point in time you would have doubled to tripled the budget of most of these kinds of projects just to get it to run in the massively non-consistent last three years versions of Netscape alone.
There is not now nor ever has been a completely standards-compliant browser, and cross browser development, while it has gotten cheaper and easier, was neither in 2002 for any non-trivial web app.
Eh. I'd call a non-corrupt cop who works in a legitimately high violent crime area a hero. Your random suburban cop, or cop that abuses their authority? Not so much.
Like any job that provides power, you're going to get both good people who legitimately want to use that power to make the lives of those around them better and douchebags who just wanted the power. I don't think being able to regard the former as a hero necessitates that I should have to do the same for the latter.
Basically, there was a couple year gap between Netscape imploding and Firefox rising from the ashes.
The last few versions of Netscape were beyond nightmarish -- you'd have a page that rendered correctly in Netscape 4.3 (I'm pulling version numbers out of the air and they're probably not right, but in concept what I'm saying is correct), wouldn't render at all in Netscape 4.4, rendered great again in Netscape 4.5, and then was completely broken again in Netscape 5.
Compared to that, at the time, IE6 was an oasis of cool, clear water of stability and standards in the desert. That claim seems insane to us 8 or so years later, but there it was.
After seeing the browser wars, it was WELL ESTABLISHED by 2002, that cross-browser compatibility was an important feature.
It was, and then the browser wars were over and there was only one browser.
Find me a project manager who wanted to spend time and money on cross-browser compatability in 2002, and I'll find you a project manager who probably lost his job over increasing the budget of the project by around 50% for no good reason.
lolwat? Netscape was free as in beer long before IE 6 was released, and Netscape had started the free-as-in-speech Mozilla project years before IE6 was released (though it didn't have a browser until Netscape 6, released the year before IE6).
Sure, there was a Netscape in those days. Just like there was a Matrix Revolutions and a Highlander 2 and a Star Wars Episode 1.
You know, things that were so bad, we pretend they don't exist because they soured your memory of enjoying the previous versions. Except latter-day Netscape wasn't as good as any of those movies.
Developing for Netscape in those days was like fucking a pickle slicer, except painful. Anyone who was in the trenches of web development in that era can tell you, assuming they didn't get PTSD or block out the bad touch entirely.
For what it's worth, IE8 in compatability mode has worked perfectly with the not-small amount of legacy IE6 apps I've encountered since across three or four unrelated clients.
I'm not sure what features you're using that it doesn't support the same way, but for a lot of companies it really will be a quick fix.
I can't conclude for sure that I'm not really just a brain in a jar hooked up to machines that make me perceive what I think to be the world, either, but in much the same vein it's good enough to make sense to act as though it were true.
It's possible that most gamers (here defined as people who actually buy the games) are secretly zealous about software freedom rather than the ideal that players who cheat to gain an edge on them should be punished, but since market data consistently indicates the latter and not the former, a rational person will make decisions as though that were true.
If the opposite were true, we'd have more commercial games for Linux and less Punkbusters and Wardens. That's not the case.
Based on the way most console games and some PC games made in the last 5 years have gone, an awful lot of people care about and want achievements.
At this point in the evolution of games, not having achievements in a game would probably be received about as well as not having Internet play in a multiplayer game.
You may not care about them, but it's what the market appears to want.
Lurk any set of Starcraft 2 forums for a week (Blizzard's or otherwise) and I don't think you could dispute that's the prevailing opinion. Or really, the community for just about any game ever made in which cheating is possible.
I'll readily concede that my claim is not scientifically backed by rigorous double-blind research, but it's nonetheless true.
Re:Glad I play games just to have fun
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Diablo 3 Hands-On
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· Score: 1
Apathy will solve nothing, however.
It's true; my point is more, as long as the vast majority of people don't care, you boycotting doesn't mean much -- more, to fight the problem you need to work for a sea change in the majority opinion.
Blizzard treats players with contempt by removing true LAN play and bans people for using trainers on single player--and no, fanboys, trainers can do more than the game's own cheat system, and the whole achievement argument is bunk when you realize that Blizz's DRM is the reason online achievements is even tied to single player play in the fashion in it.
The argument's not bunk, because it's pretty clear that a lot more of the people who bought Starcraft 2 care about people cheating to get achievements than care about not being able to run extra cheats in single player.
It's not an argument that persuades you, and personally I couldn't care less if someone's cheating the achievements, but it's what their customers want.
In other words, you think Blizzard is a shitty company for giving their customers what they actually want, instead of what you think they should want.
Re:Glad I play games just to have fun
on
Diablo 3 Hands-On
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· Score: 1
You don't care that game publishers are gradually trying to take our rights away (first-sale doctorine for example)?
Whether or not he does, 99% of people who buy the games don't.
As long as that's true, and I'm not saying it always will be but I'm not seeing how it would change at this point, the publishers would be stupid to care.
Very unlikely actually. You forget that Java on the desktop doesn't make much money - it's far more lucrative to make it free, get people addicted and use Java elsewhere that makes more money - enterprise and mobile devices.
I didn't forget that; let me explain the nuance of where we differ.
I think what you're saying is true.
I think Sun saw it that way.
I don't think Oracle sees it that way. I think they're more likely to take the (bad, imho) strategy of deciding that Java needs to make them money directly even on the desktop/enterprise (herein defined as businesses that are using Java for business apps but maybe not using "enterprise Java"), one way or another. Maybe that's trying to get rid of free decent Java IDEs and muscle the makers of the rest into paying them a fee. Maybe that's bolting features or APIs onto Java that are extremely labryinthine or poorly documented so that you need to pay Oracle for consultants to do some or all of your implementation, and suing the hell out of alternate implementations of Java.
Basically, I think Oracle is about as likely to keep things going the smart way they previously were as the RIAA is to decide that file-sharing ultimately helps them out. There's just nothing in their culture or history that indicates they're remotely capable of letting a goose continue to lay golden eggs when it can be cooked and eaten today.
Yes, you can create a free/open-source implementation of Java, as long as you are licensing from Sun/Oracle under the terms of the Java license.
But really, how long can it be before Oracle's suing open source implementations of Java, too?
I know, GPL, law isn't on their side, etc. But who really thinks that will stop them from trying to manage a win simply based on having more lawyers and money?
Because thinking about politics as More Government vs. Less Government is bat-sh*t crazy?
I don't know if I'd call it batshit crazy, exactly, but it's without question intellectually dishonest.
Almost no one in America believes government should be smaller, period, full-stop. For everyone else, it's "government should stay out of these things, but it needs to interfere with these things."
For example, the subset of Americans who both feel that government should regulate banks less and feel that government should make no laws restricting abortions is vanishingly small.
How about we get our government out of the business of monitoring borders, airport security, drug law enforcement, meat safety inspections, or having a big-ass military? Almost no one is for all of those things.
It does come with the unlimited right to say "Luke, I am your father", which would normally get you kicked in the balls if said more than twice a year.
Eventually, your friends would alter that deal. Pray they don't alter it any further.
If a corporation gets to have all the powers and rights of an individual? Hell yes he does.
If that would make you extremely afraid to be part of a group you don't understand the full workings of very well, then that's a probably a good thing.
Or we could fix it the other way and a corporation/union doesn't get extra rights without consequences. That's more reasonable, but my crazy version is still saner than the status quo.
It's a random "corporation that stands for one thing coming up with a shell group that sounds like it stands for something completely different" fictional example.
It certainly exempts some of the group for individual responsibility for the group's actions.
Great, so a couple guys from Enron went to jail. When it's the whole company we can talk. If that seems unreasonable, then maybe a corporation or union having the full power of an individual is at least that unreasonable.
Slashdot Mirror
And really, to that point, how many movies are released a year where you're even likely to care about whether it's in HD or not?
Blockbuster effects/action-heavy movie, absolutely. Anything else? Not so much. My wife can spam-watch "27 Dresses" every time it's on cable in low-def just fine, thank you very much.
My assumption has been that there's been a push to 3D in movies because it's an experience that's harder, effectively, to bootleg/pirate.
We're at a point where anyone with a little bit of knowledge who really wants to can download any new movie the weekend it's released and often even before. How do you fight that if you're a smart movie studio? You need to offer something as part of the theatre viewing experience that isn't easily replicated at home -- so you push big effects movies that more people will want to see on a giant screen, and you push things like 3D. Most people don't yet have 3D TVs, so (assuming you buy into the value of 3D), by offering a movie in 3D you're offering something that for most people can't be pirated.
Out of curiousity, what kind of work do you do wherein it's considered acceptable to massively bloat your budget to include a feature that, at that time, is and is expected to remain completely useless?
And, really, what other browser would you have made sure the app in question also worked in? Netscape? Which version? At that point in time you would have doubled to tripled the budget of most of these kinds of projects just to get it to run in the massively non-consistent last three years versions of Netscape alone.
There is not now nor ever has been a completely standards-compliant browser, and cross browser development, while it has gotten cheaper and easier, was neither in 2002 for any non-trivial web app.
Eh. I'd call a non-corrupt cop who works in a legitimately high violent crime area a hero. Your random suburban cop, or cop that abuses their authority? Not so much.
Like any job that provides power, you're going to get both good people who legitimately want to use that power to make the lives of those around them better and douchebags who just wanted the power. I don't think being able to regard the former as a hero necessitates that I should have to do the same for the latter.
Basically, there was a couple year gap between Netscape imploding and Firefox rising from the ashes.
The last few versions of Netscape were beyond nightmarish -- you'd have a page that rendered correctly in Netscape 4.3 (I'm pulling version numbers out of the air and they're probably not right, but in concept what I'm saying is correct), wouldn't render at all in Netscape 4.4, rendered great again in Netscape 4.5, and then was completely broken again in Netscape 5.
Compared to that, at the time, IE6 was an oasis of cool, clear water of stability and standards in the desert. That claim seems insane to us 8 or so years later, but there it was.
After seeing the browser wars, it was WELL ESTABLISHED by 2002, that cross-browser compatibility was an important feature.
It was, and then the browser wars were over and there was only one browser.
Find me a project manager who wanted to spend time and money on cross-browser compatability in 2002, and I'll find you a project manager who probably lost his job over increasing the budget of the project by around 50% for no good reason.
lolwat? Netscape was free as in beer long before IE 6 was released, and Netscape had started the free-as-in-speech Mozilla project years before IE6 was released (though it didn't have a browser until Netscape 6, released the year before IE6).
Sure, there was a Netscape in those days. Just like there was a Matrix Revolutions and a Highlander 2 and a Star Wars Episode 1.
You know, things that were so bad, we pretend they don't exist because they soured your memory of enjoying the previous versions. Except latter-day Netscape wasn't as good as any of those movies.
Developing for Netscape in those days was like fucking a pickle slicer, except painful. Anyone who was in the trenches of web development in that era can tell you, assuming they didn't get PTSD or block out the bad touch entirely.
Of course, that article is also 6 years old and said that Linux was about to overwhelm Windows on the desktop.
I wouldn't really point to it as a source of prescience.
Let that be a lesson to all those idiots who wrote IE only web applications
Really. And which other free-as-in-beer browser should they have been writing for in, say, 2002?
You kids who can't remember the dark days of there being only one web browser need to get off my lawn.
For what it's worth, IE8 in compatability mode has worked perfectly with the not-small amount of legacy IE6 apps I've encountered since across three or four unrelated clients.
I'm not sure what features you're using that it doesn't support the same way, but for a lot of companies it really will be a quick fix.
Have we forgotten that for several years, IE6 was basically the only free-as-in-beer browser that existed, or are we ignoring that sad truth?
You don't have to be crazy to build for what works on a specific browser when it's the only browser there is.
I can't conclude for sure that I'm not really just a brain in a jar hooked up to machines that make me perceive what I think to be the world, either, but in much the same vein it's good enough to make sense to act as though it were true.
It's possible that most gamers (here defined as people who actually buy the games) are secretly zealous about software freedom rather than the ideal that players who cheat to gain an edge on them should be punished, but since market data consistently indicates the latter and not the former, a rational person will make decisions as though that were true.
If the opposite were true, we'd have more commercial games for Linux and less Punkbusters and Wardens. That's not the case.
Based on the way most console games and some PC games made in the last 5 years have gone, an awful lot of people care about and want achievements.
At this point in the evolution of games, not having achievements in a game would probably be received about as well as not having Internet play in a multiplayer game.
You may not care about them, but it's what the market appears to want.
Lurk any set of Starcraft 2 forums for a week (Blizzard's or otherwise) and I don't think you could dispute that's the prevailing opinion. Or really, the community for just about any game ever made in which cheating is possible.
I'll readily concede that my claim is not scientifically backed by rigorous double-blind research, but it's nonetheless true.
Apathy will solve nothing, however.
It's true; my point is more, as long as the vast majority of people don't care, you boycotting doesn't mean much -- more, to fight the problem you need to work for a sea change in the majority opinion.
Blizzard treats players with contempt by removing true LAN play and bans people for using trainers on single player--and no, fanboys, trainers can do more than the game's own cheat system, and the whole achievement argument is bunk when you realize that Blizz's DRM is the reason online achievements is even tied to single player play in the fashion in it.
The argument's not bunk, because it's pretty clear that a lot more of the people who bought Starcraft 2 care about people cheating to get achievements than care about not being able to run extra cheats in single player.
It's not an argument that persuades you, and personally I couldn't care less if someone's cheating the achievements, but it's what their customers want.
In other words, you think Blizzard is a shitty company for giving their customers what they actually want, instead of what you think they should want.
You don't care that game publishers are gradually trying to take our rights away (first-sale doctorine for example)?
Whether or not he does, 99% of people who buy the games don't.
As long as that's true, and I'm not saying it always will be but I'm not seeing how it would change at this point, the publishers would be stupid to care.
Well, they're suing Google right now...
Very unlikely actually. You forget that Java on the desktop doesn't make much money - it's far more lucrative to make it free, get people addicted and use Java elsewhere that makes more money - enterprise and mobile devices.
I didn't forget that; let me explain the nuance of where we differ.
I think what you're saying is true.
I think Sun saw it that way.
I don't think Oracle sees it that way. I think they're more likely to take the (bad, imho) strategy of deciding that Java needs to make them money directly even on the desktop/enterprise (herein defined as businesses that are using Java for business apps but maybe not using "enterprise Java"), one way or another. Maybe that's trying to get rid of free decent Java IDEs and muscle the makers of the rest into paying them a fee. Maybe that's bolting features or APIs onto Java that are extremely labryinthine or poorly documented so that you need to pay Oracle for consultants to do some or all of your implementation, and suing the hell out of alternate implementations of Java.
Basically, I think Oracle is about as likely to keep things going the smart way they previously were as the RIAA is to decide that file-sharing ultimately helps them out. There's just nothing in their culture or history that indicates they're remotely capable of letting a goose continue to lay golden eggs when it can be cooked and eaten today.
Yes, you can create a free/open-source implementation of Java, as long as you are licensing from Sun/Oracle under the terms of the Java license.
But really, how long can it be before Oracle's suing open source implementations of Java, too?
I know, GPL, law isn't on their side, etc. But who really thinks that will stop them from trying to manage a win simply based on having more lawyers and money?
Because thinking about politics as More Government vs. Less Government is bat-sh*t crazy?
I don't know if I'd call it batshit crazy, exactly, but it's without question intellectually dishonest.
Almost no one in America believes government should be smaller, period, full-stop. For everyone else, it's "government should stay out of these things, but it needs to interfere with these things."
For example, the subset of Americans who both feel that government should regulate banks less and feel that government should make no laws restricting abortions is vanishingly small.
How about we get our government out of the business of monitoring borders, airport security, drug law enforcement, meat safety inspections, or having a big-ass military? Almost no one is for all of those things.
It does come with the unlimited right to say "Luke, I am your father", which would normally get you kicked in the balls if said more than twice a year.
Eventually, your friends would alter that deal. Pray they don't alter it any further.
If a corporation gets to have all the powers and rights of an individual? Hell yes he does.
If that would make you extremely afraid to be part of a group you don't understand the full workings of very well, then that's a probably a good thing.
Or we could fix it the other way and a corporation/union doesn't get extra rights without consequences. That's more reasonable, but my crazy version is still saner than the status quo.
It's a random "corporation that stands for one thing coming up with a shell group that sounds like it stands for something completely different" fictional example.
It certainly exempts some of the group for individual responsibility for the group's actions.
Great, so a couple guys from Enron went to jail. When it's the whole company we can talk. If that seems unreasonable, then maybe a corporation or union having the full power of an individual is at least that unreasonable.