Corporations want to sell things. Forbes, like almost every major media outlet, is controlled by corporate interests.
As reported here Jim Michaels, a long time editor and at the time a vice president for Forbes, is quoted in late 2001 as having said,
"We've just come off the worst investment bubble in history that cost investors something like $3 trillion. The whole thing was a Ponzi scheme, yet during much of it, business journalists were cheerleaders for it. We in the media let our public down and helped the tremendous swindle of the public."
Very good point, although one thing I did agree with in the article was the talk about reload times and the number of shots it takes to kill someone. I always wished games would be more real in that sense.
Although this is admittedly not my idea and offtopic, I must.. A good way to dispose of postal spam, is to open it all, and put the ads from each into the business reply envelopes from others, then mail em off, and let those companies know about all the great deals they can get from the other companies, since they were so kind as to let you know!:D
To stay slightly ontopic, if spammers are actually forced to use addresses we can reply to.. the same concept could be used, forwarding spam to spammers:D
I saw an invention that allowed a car to move sideways into a parking spot on British TV, over twenty years ago. This obviously could be used to get out as well..
It worked by lefting the normal wheels a little of the road, and used small wheels aligned at right angles to the main wheels. Rotary power was derived from the normal driving wheels.
They even had a camera under the car so you could see the mechanism in action.
I have often wondered why it was never developed commercially.
I'd imagine it was not worth the money.. not for consumers or manufacturers.
I forgot to mention that I do understand to some extent why people like google, and when I use it myself I simply use this proxy, so that at least I can keep some of my privacy.
Given Google Inc's collecting of obscene amounts of information about each user, and their refusal to give any reason why or tell anyone what they are doing with it, their hiring of government spooks, etc..
Sounds like he wants to be a venture capitalist. Coming from a gaming background, he would be most qualified to fund similar startups. It will be interesting to keep an eye on him and see what happens.
Ususally founders get out when the growth curve of the company stops being exponential.
Yep, sounds like he's made enough money that he feels comfortable he can live off it, and the work involved in Blizzard just isn't worth his time anymore. Would definetely be interesting to see if he does end up funding "similar startups." Nice point.
Yeah, but the thing about unwrapping the encryption is it only has to be done once. Then it can be shared digitally, after being re-recorded. So the obvious answer is only studios can have "record" buttons. That'll foil the holdouts until their equipment degrades to the point they can't buy parts.
You're almost right, but remember what I said here..
Once you're not able to play unprotected media on your machine, which won't boot if you install an OS without these restrictive features because of something coded in your hardware, then this is really possible. Trusted computing is just what DRM needs.
You can record all you want, but to play media you'll need it to be legitmately registered and thus subject to copyright verification, or whatever else is deemed necessary.
All Congress has to do is pass a law requiring "compliance" chips in all new computers. For a while you can probably get around this by importing stuff from other countries, but eventually they may simply ban possession of such equipment.
Like I posted in this thread, DRM for AUDIO seemed to me to be impossible. There will always exist devices for recording and playing back analog audio. You can't stop someone from copying sound. Then I realized I'm a moron (you already knew that, I got modded +4 Insightful) and that DIGITAL Rights Management != copy protection. It's just that: controlling what you can do with DIGITAL audio. Which is quite possible and seemingly inevitable given the amount of control those who would like it implemented have. Once you're not able to play unprotected media on your machine, which won't boot if you install an OS without these restrictive features because of something coded in your hardware, then this is really possible. Trusted computing is just what DRM needs. So I thought.. well at least they can never achieve true copy protection with audio, thanks to the nature of sound. Here I don't think I'm wrong, but the future still seems bleak. They CAN "watermark," or "fingerprint," tracks, and make analog equipment ridiculously obsolete - ie quit making it, so people have to make their own or pay ludicrous amounts for old equipment - so for most people it isnt worth the effort, and unfortunately that's what I think will eventually happen.
In the float-up-the-DRM-balloon phase, most average people aren't likely to react. And that's fine. Right now, all it does is enable the use/play of protected content. And, as noted many times in this discussion thread and in the article itself, it's an add-on to the OS. Don't want it? Don't use it. However, we've seen many instances of MS rolling an add-on into a service pack and then requiring that the service pack be installed for any future updates. It's then possible to enable the DRM package to restrict the legitimate use of non-protected content and/or software because the end-user won't have any other choice. MS will be holding all the cards.
I think you're right on up until about here, but sadly I'm a bit more cynical about what the future holds. Too few people are in control of way too much on our planet (and that's another thread:p). I read a very interesting article by John Walker, author of Speak Freely recently, and you might want to give it a read. I can say the man tends to repeat himself.. but the ideas he presents and the overall picture he puts together is quite frightening, showing how the traditional giant producer/many consumers model for information and everything else can, will, and already is being imposed on the internet. A big part of this is DRM, and even moreso trusted computing.
Tell that to Ford - a motor company that's named after a shallow river crossing. Or one of their major rivals, General Motors, which has a purely descriptive name. Come to think of it, most brand names are in common usage. Try calling a movie studio Universal.
This is not another adult magazine naming itself Playboy.. I think there is a big difference.
Well, dictionary.com says it's a man devoted to the pursuoit of pleasure. The magazine "Playboy", has managed to redefine it so that it's more specifically about sex. The comapny is pretty much responsible for "the creation of the association."
It is ENTIRELY plausible that someone could search for 'playboy' and be looking for sex related sites, based on this definition alone. Well at least I think sex is pleasurable..
Why? Playboy has spent a lot of money from the beginning, in becoming a major porn mag. It has made the name its own. If people are searching for Playboy, they most likely mean Playboy magazine, and they are most likely not searching for a hedonist. They are after porn, and since Playboy has spent their money and efforts in making their name succesful, why should some other company be able to take advatntage of this brand recongition to peddle a competitor? Why can't they produce the same level of brand awareness?
This seems to be the real issue, and the most ludicrous to me. *begin FLAME* OMG... Foster... COMPETITION? Why.. that would be in the real spirit of democracy and free trade?! They must be terrorists!$@$ Save rich white guys like Hugh Hefner! *end FLAME*..pause.. now come on. If I search for 'Penthouse,' and I'm presented with the penthouse links I want from the search engine, why do I care if a Playboy ad, and maybe a Hustler one, etc, load alongside it? I don't, and this seems perfectly legitimate.
I had a copy of "Pirates! Gold" and whenever you happened to encounter another pirate ship you had to look up the name of the pirate which corresponded with whatever flag it showed you in the manual. I loved the game, so I dug up the CD a year or two ago and started playing, only to realize I'd lost the manual...
If you haven't played Pirates! Gold maybe you've seen Pirates! 2, which I have unfortunately not played..(I'm poor and don't get out much). Regardless, it's a GREAT game which has given me countless hours of entertainment, and the packaging and manual were great to boot (woohoo I'm double-on-topic.. pause..). The linked site has the entire thing in PDF, which makes me regret having now lost my Pirates! CD.. as if the irony in the last paragraph wasn't enough.:P
My copy of Zelda 2 for NES was may as well have been real gold to me when I got it.. I think it was a nice homage too, but IMHO games have gone the way of boxes... I don't mean to troll, or to stray offtopic, what I'm saying is that this seems to be part of a larger trend or change of style in gaming. simply that, "the times they are a changin..." for better or for worse.. now that's another thread.
In an online world, you have the TOS of the company that makes the game, and they are the ones that define your rights, and you have to agree, or they revoke your account, as happened in this case.
This is all that really matters. It would seem that "community standards", in this case, will be derived from what people are willing to pay for. Governments, however, will obviously try to hold online gaming companies responsible for allowing their participants to do or say anything which is already illegal, and then things get interesting with international law.
It would seem that unless a collective of people started an online world like the SIMS, that it will be the game company that decides what is acceptable speech and what is not.
More specifically, in an online gaming or any other online environment (ie WWW), if there IS no content provider to hold responsible, government bodies may attempt to step in... (ie China) but how well is this working currently? Exactly.
The continued rise of file sharing spells the end of the 5 big dumb music publishers. Music is being libreated from it's comercial clutches and all sorts of wonderful acts will flourish and profit without those goons in the way. People basking in a variety of music and cultural service the comercial world never delivered will not put RIAA chains back on. They will understand they were right and when the money goes from the RIAA, so too goes their propaganda and fewer and fewer people will be mislead. Good riddance."
A quite common reason given by file-sharers for downloading music and never paying for it, is that record companies charge too much for the product.
Personally, I think this is true, but I also think that these ~5 corporations should not control what is promoted and distributed to millions and even billions of people. If an album is released on any major label or affiliate, I try not to spend money on it, even if I like the artist. I still download at least a few tracks from any album before I make a purchase, even when I'm actually planning on buying products from people I have some amount of respect for. This is sometimes less necessary when I see an act live and can make some sort of judgement there, however, I've seen live acts whose albums I've downloaded and immediately deleted, thankful I didn't purchase them. Bottomline, If I don't think the album is worth what's being charged, I won't buy it, and I have yet to see a Compact Disc I would pay $15 for. For some I think $5 is too much.
Before I ramble on anymore.. twitter you are absolutely right, and I don't think that the record companies are going to let this happen if they can help it, at any cost. I'm curious to see how they attempt to implement points of control in digital distribution as they have already with distribution of CDs, Records, Tapes, etc.
If there were no record companies, only artists, then the artists could concievably charge however much, or little, they felt was necessary. People wouldn't be contributing to their indoctrination by corporate giants, or at least not to such a degree. After all, you can take their distribution (maybe), but promotion... Well graffiti isn't as kindly taken to as file sharing, and without money, it's getting harder and harder to be heard on a large scale, while acting legally and/or morally anyways.
Slashdot Mirror
..must annoy
From the article, " Alarm clocks were a close second..."
You need it, but damn do you want to break it sometimes.
Thank you
You're welcome, smartass.
As reported here Jim Michaels, a long time editor and at the time a vice president for Forbes, is quoted in late 2001 as having said,
Pessimistic.. but unfortunately a rather correct assesment..
It was obviously part of the joke, dumbass
(I'm not posting as AC so people won't think it's the same guy.. mod me down as needed)..
..."a leading provider of UNIX-based solutions"
BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH. Funny one PR... funny..
I think you're absolutely correct, but then again, if Microsoft is doing this, there must be some reason; they've gotta be up to something...
...when I can buy it on ThinkGeek.
Very good point, although one thing I did agree with in the article was the talk about reload times and the number of shots it takes to kill someone. I always wished games would be more real in that sense.
Although this is admittedly not my idea and offtopic, I must.. A good way to dispose of postal spam, is to open it all, and put the ads from each into the business reply envelopes from others, then mail em off, and let those companies know about all the great deals they can get from the other companies, since they were so kind as to let you know! :D
:D
To stay slightly ontopic, if spammers are actually forced to use addresses we can reply to.. the same concept could be used, forwarding spam to spammers
Point well taken, still you've only attacked the arguer, not the arguements made on the site (some of which are VERY valid).
I'd imagine it was not worth the money.. not for consumers or manufacturers.
This would make my job as a valet a bit easier :D
I forgot to mention that I do understand to some extent why people like google, and when I use it myself I simply use this proxy, so that at least I can keep some of my privacy.
Given Google Inc's collecting of obscene amounts of information about each user, and their refusal to give any reason why or tell anyone what they are doing with it, their hiring of government spooks, etc..
Sounds like he wants to be a venture capitalist. Coming from a gaming background, he would be most qualified to fund similar startups. It will be interesting to keep an eye on him and see what happens.
Ususally founders get out when the growth curve of the company stops being exponential. Yep, sounds like he's made enough money that he feels comfortable he can live off it, and the work involved in Blizzard just isn't worth his time anymore. Would definetely be interesting to see if he does end up funding "similar startups." Nice point.
You're almost right, but remember what I said here..
You can record all you want, but to play media you'll need it to be legitmately registered and thus subject to copyright verification, or whatever else is deemed necessary.
All Congress has to do is pass a law requiring "compliance" chips in all new computers. For a while you can probably get around this by importing stuff from other countries, but eventually they may simply ban possession of such equipment.
bingo.
Like I posted in this thread, DRM for AUDIO seemed to me to be impossible. There will always exist devices for recording and playing back analog audio. You can't stop someone from copying sound. Then I realized I'm a moron (you already knew that, I got modded +4 Insightful) and that DIGITAL Rights Management != copy protection. It's just that: controlling what you can do with DIGITAL audio. Which is quite possible and seemingly inevitable given the amount of control those who would like it implemented have. Once you're not able to play unprotected media on your machine, which won't boot if you install an OS without these restrictive features because of something coded in your hardware, then this is really possible. Trusted computing is just what DRM needs. So I thought.. well at least they can never achieve true copy protection with audio, thanks to the nature of sound. Here I don't think I'm wrong, but the future still seems bleak. They CAN "watermark," or "fingerprint," tracks, and make analog equipment ridiculously obsolete - ie quit making it, so people have to make their own or pay ludicrous amounts for old equipment - so for most people it isnt worth the effort, and unfortunately that's what I think will eventually happen.
In the float-up-the-DRM-balloon phase, most average people aren't likely to react. And that's fine. Right now, all it does is enable the use/play of protected content. And, as noted many times in this discussion thread and in the article itself, it's an add-on to the OS. Don't want it? Don't use it. However, we've seen many instances of MS rolling an add-on into a service pack and then requiring that the service pack be installed for any future updates. It's then possible to enable the DRM package to restrict the legitimate use of non-protected content and/or software because the end-user won't have any other choice. MS will be holding all the cards. I think you're right on up until about here, but sadly I'm a bit more cynical about what the future holds. Too few people are in control of way too much on our planet (and that's another thread :p). I read a very interesting article by John Walker, author of Speak Freely recently, and you might want to give it a read. I can say the man tends to repeat himself.. but the ideas he presents and the overall picture he puts together is quite frightening, showing how the traditional giant producer/many consumers model for information and everything else can, will, and already is being imposed on the internet. A big part of this is DRM, and even moreso trusted computing.
Tell that to Ford - a motor company that's named after a shallow river crossing. Or one of their major rivals, General Motors, which has a purely descriptive name. Come to think of it, most brand names are in common usage. Try calling a movie studio Universal.
..pause.. now come on. If I search for 'Penthouse,' and I'm presented with the penthouse links I want from the search engine, why do I care if a Playboy ad, and maybe a Hustler one, etc, load alongside it? I don't, and this seems perfectly legitimate.
This is not another adult magazine naming itself Playboy.. I think there is a big difference.
Well, dictionary.com says it's a man devoted to the pursuoit of pleasure. The magazine "Playboy", has managed to redefine it so that it's more specifically about sex. The comapny is pretty much responsible for "the creation of the association."
It is ENTIRELY plausible that someone could search for 'playboy' and be looking for sex related sites, based on this definition alone. Well at least I think sex is pleasurable..
Why? Playboy has spent a lot of money from the beginning, in becoming a major porn mag. It has made the name its own. If people are searching for Playboy, they most likely mean Playboy magazine, and they are most likely not searching for a hedonist. They are after porn, and since Playboy has spent their money and efforts in making their name succesful, why should some other company be able to take advatntage of this brand recongition to peddle a competitor? Why can't they produce the same level of brand awareness?
This seems to be the real issue, and the most ludicrous to me. *begin FLAME* OMG... Foster... COMPETITION? Why.. that would be in the real spirit of democracy and free trade?! They must be terrorists!$@$ Save rich white guys like Hugh Hefner! *end FLAME*
I had a copy of "Pirates! Gold" and whenever you happened to encounter another pirate ship you had to look up the name of the pirate which corresponded with whatever flag it showed you in the manual. I loved the game, so I dug up the CD a year or two ago and started playing, only to realize I'd lost the manual...
:P
If you haven't played Pirates! Gold maybe you've seen Pirates! 2, which I have unfortunately not played..(I'm poor and don't get out much). Regardless, it's a GREAT game which has given me countless hours of entertainment, and the packaging and manual were great to boot (woohoo I'm double-on-topic.. pause..). The linked site has the entire thing in PDF, which makes me regret having now lost my Pirates! CD.. as if the irony in the last paragraph wasn't enough.
My copy of Zelda 2 for NES was may as well have been real gold to me when I got it.. I think it was a nice homage too, but IMHO games have gone the way of boxes... I don't mean to troll, or to stray offtopic, what I'm saying is that this seems to be part of a larger trend or change of style in gaming. simply that, "the times they are a changin..." for better or for worse.. now that's another thread.
In an online world, you have the TOS of the company that makes the game, and they are the ones that define your rights, and you have to agree, or they revoke your account, as happened in this case.
This is all that really matters. It would seem that "community standards", in this case, will be derived from what people are willing to pay for. Governments, however, will obviously try to hold online gaming companies responsible for allowing their participants to do or say anything which is already illegal, and then things get interesting with international law.
It would seem that unless a collective of people started an online world like the SIMS, that it will be the game company that decides what is acceptable speech and what is not.
More specifically, in an online gaming or any other online environment (ie WWW), if there IS no content provider to hold responsible, government bodies may attempt to step in... (ie China) but how well is this working currently? Exactly.
Very interesting topic imho.
The continued rise of file sharing spells the end of the 5 big dumb music publishers. Music is being libreated from it's comercial clutches and all sorts of wonderful acts will flourish and profit without those goons in the way. People basking in a variety of music and cultural service the comercial world never delivered will not put RIAA chains back on. They will understand they were right and when the money goes from the RIAA, so too goes their propaganda and fewer and fewer people will be mislead. Good riddance." A quite common reason given by file-sharers for downloading music and never paying for it, is that record companies charge too much for the product.
Personally, I think this is true, but I also think that these ~5 corporations should not control what is promoted and distributed to millions and even billions of people. If an album is released on any major label or affiliate, I try not to spend money on it, even if I like the artist. I still download at least a few tracks from any album before I make a purchase, even when I'm actually planning on buying products from people I have some amount of respect for. This is sometimes less necessary when I see an act live and can make some sort of judgement there, however, I've seen live acts whose albums I've downloaded and immediately deleted, thankful I didn't purchase them. Bottomline, If I don't think the album is worth what's being charged, I won't buy it, and I have yet to see a Compact Disc I would pay $15 for. For some I think $5 is too much.
Before I ramble on anymore.. twitter you are absolutely right, and I don't think that the record companies are going to let this happen if they can help it, at any cost. I'm curious to see how they attempt to implement points of control in digital distribution as they have already with distribution of CDs, Records, Tapes, etc. If there were no record companies, only artists, then the artists could concievably charge however much, or little, they felt was necessary. People wouldn't be contributing to their indoctrination by corporate giants, or at least not to such a degree. After all, you can take their distribution (maybe), but promotion... Well graffiti isn't as kindly taken to as file sharing, and without money, it's getting harder and harder to be heard on a large scale, while acting legally and/or morally anyways.