Flies do bump into things like windows a lot, you'll notice flies often fly and bounce off of glass quite frequently. They may not bump into other objects but certain classes of objects the do most certainly bounce off of.
" Since they were really the first big target of PC gamers and their "always on" DRM solution, I'd say it does work."
And what about STEAM, the biggest most successful DRM system of all time? i.e. you don't even own your own games FFS sakes. Gamers have have given the keys to game ownership to game companies because they are too stupid for any kind of market to function sensibly.
", being able to buy things to avoid having to grind for them isn't bad, assuming:"
How is this getting modded up? In the 'bad old days' hard games had cheat codes for people who hit a challenging spot or who don't really like videogames but just the movie bits.
Why you would want to pay for things you can cheat / edit an ini to get is just disturbing. The idea that slashdot users would mod this up is a special kind of stupidity. Are there no gamers left who gamed during the 90's?
"Yet despite widespread anger at Wall Street bailouts, there has been no great upsurge of left-wing American populism in response. It is conceivable that the Occupy Wall Street movement will gain traction, but the most dynamic recent populist movement to date has been the right-wing Tea Party, whose main target is the regulatory state that seeks to protect ordinary people from financial speculators. Something similar is true in Europe as well, where the left is anemic and right-wing populist parties are on the move."
How is uninformed shit like this getting modded insightful?
Americans like you are among the most uninformed electorates on the planet today. The average american, and average slashdot poster is CLUELESS about politics.
The reality is america is totally hard right, obama would have been not long ago a moderate republican (which is hard right in the rest of the world). So you have a bunch of clueless americans who are voting between basically what amounts to the same flavor of hard right ideology with little difference. Many americans then make a big stink about their uninformed political views and opinions.
Reality is the average american is too ignorant/stupid to have any kind of informed political view of america given the huge amount of propaganda that pervades their media and education system.
That any intelligent person could even think that the Illinois politicians are hard left is just proof of how much propaganda system down in the states confuses people like the AC and the mods who modded the above post insightful.
The reason anonymous speech is by default invisible is because it is easily abused. Having an account means you usually are at least investing some of yourself in owning your own writings, now most slashdotters should already know if they have something they don't want on the internet that could get them in trouble with government or big corporations not to post on the internet at all.
Given that our posts leave patterns in how we use language which can be identified by mathematical techniques any kind of natural posting on the net will get you identified sooner or later with someone with enough resources like governments and corporations.
No one should ever assume anonymity online. I've been thinking about creating tools that express opinions and thoughts in 'bog standard' linguistic ways to make identification harder but even then it probably wouldn't be impossible to identify someone. The best option in my opinion would be just flooding the net with all sorts of data and contrary opinions using software from the accounts you want to flood if you dedicated and serious about it.
"Naming the company, and mentioning 30+ million dollars of returned equipment, would likely make the poster's identity very much not anonymous!"
Or most likely it's propaganda to feed disinformation into the discussion to take it off course, giving the "fox news illusion" of "fair and balanced". Given the rise of cheap paid commenting I wouldn't be surprised.
I have serious doubts given the unequal power of corporations over most working men and women that anything most companies say regarding workers are true, especially given the giant bank bailouts.
Uhm I'm sorry but the way multi-tasking works on a PC makes your idea of latency irrelevant 99% of most cases. PC's have hardware horsepower to spare in abundance and have had so since the beginning of the last console generation. Even the IDEA that there would be some kind of problem is nonsense, especially given that console games run at lower framerates and at lower input frequencies (10-30hz). Latency would be the last thing anyone would be worried about.
... since americans are among the most uninformed electorates on the planet today. The average american, and average slashdot poster is CLUELESS about politics.
The reality is america is totally hard right, obama would have been not long ago a moderate republican (which is hard right the rest of the world). So you have a bunch of clueless americans who are voting between basically what amounts to the same flavor of hard right ideology with little difference. Many americans then make a big stink about their uninformed political views and opinions.
Reality is the average american is too ignorant/stupid to have any kind of informed political view of america given the huge amount of propaganda that pervades their media and education system.
A moderate person like yourself who "just wants to fix the laws" has history against you. Every time laws like Copyright came up to be 'fixed' it was extended. To be defeated every single time in a row and routed so thoroughly means moderates have no historical evidence that they can contain the beast.
"So, private citizens exercise their right to free speech and say something that differs from the "scientific consensus" preferred by the current administration and the press."
Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'--Isaac Asimov
Thanks for letting your ignorance shine through you hack.
The Senate (that house of sober second thought) can not kill a bill. It can send it back to the commons but it can not kill it. If the commons wants it, it will eventually receive Royal Assent and become law. The Senate, at best, can only delay.
"If that was true, the free speech bill(C-304) [brianstorseth.ca] wouldn't be stalled in the senate."
You've missed the point COMPLETELY who has control of the senate asshole? Oh yeah conservatives. CONSERVATIVES Stalling bills means nothing when they'll just keep waiting out public scrutiny on many issues. You know nothing of how the government works obviously.
"Ah, another "government is this monolithic entity that is sooooooo scary" post. Massive upmods incoming."
If you knew anything about the history of the current conservative party (reform party take over) you would not be saying such things. Most people commenting in this thread know nothing about canadian politics and how the canadian parliamentary system works. Right now Conservatives have a majority, what that means is they essentially get to shove any legislation they want through with impunity.
Whether they 'slightly soften' totally bankrupt laws is a non issue since the opposition has no power at all given the majority.
You are also just so historically and scientifically illiterate. I'm sure you are religious and just masking it so I'll quote some ridiculous verses.
Matthew 8:30-34
30 Some distance from them a large herd of pigs was feeding. 31 The demons begged Jesus, “If you drive us out, send us into the herd of pigs.”
32 He said to them, “Go!” So they came out and went into the pigs, and the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and died in the water. 33 Those tending the pigs ran off, went into the town and reported all this, including what had happened to the demon-possessed men. 34 Then the whole town went out to meet Jesus. And when they saw him, they pleaded with him to leave their region.
--
Now plenty of people all throughout the centuries believed in 'invisible spirits' causing all sorts of nonsense to which they sought 'cures' from charlatans. So yes religion has had hugely negative effects.
I also know people who have taken their lives because of religion. So please when someone takes their own life because of their worldview given them by religion then one cannot escape the conclusion that it creates these kind of people through having been mislead by their parents and communities.
I would suggest you find stuff by Christopher hitches on youtube and look at the debates and remarks he brings up, you are obviously in need of being pointed out the horrors and absurdities of religion.
"Where your logic fails is blaming Religion for Human actions."
The bible endorsed slavery, and it was used for centuries to justify it. So yes we can certainly blame religion for getting humans to think, do and hate certain people and groups. If you knew anything about the history of religion at all you wouldn't say something so ridiculous.
... that you need to make the OS relevant. After ditching PC for the console space they've done a lot to make the PC less relevant. Most average users don't need to upgrade. They don't seem to get that you have to provide value and something the customer wants, not just jam your product down consumers throats.
I remember when I was on a steady upgrade train relentlessly as PC gaming and Videocards advanced but we've slowed down the last 6 years big time. You can play most games decently with a core 2 duo and a mid range card. CPU power has slowed to a crawl given that only a tiny % of apps can really take advantage of multicore.
MS doesn't really grasp that it needs to solve some key problem for the customer or provide something that consumers can get excited about.
... is increasingly used as a catch all term for people who don't fit into the social order and won't be good little obedient workers who obey the corporate line, the lack of autonomy and the shitty pay/jobs.
"The idea that our government could plan anything this complex and succeed is preposterous."
Just like the Koch brothers and big corporations never convinced america to vote against it's own interests? Corporations have been COMPLETELY successful at turning capitalism into a damn near religion in many western countries. If you're a right winger or a libertarian you're not going to solve poverty.
Prof. Francis Fukuyama (pol sci) in Foreign policy magazine says you're voting against your own interest if you vote for the corporate parties (repub and dem).
When even neocon cheerleaders like fukuyama are wishing there was a real left wing movement in america, you know corporations have succeeded in brainwashing many of the worlds electorates.
Americans (and people generally) aren't a politically literate bunch, they know a few bits and pieces of information about politics related to issues they personally care about and that's about it.
Why isn't the game I've bought mine? This is the whole fucking problem with people like you on slashdot. You can't understand the law was passed by criminal assholes IN THEIR FAVOR and having taken advantage of public ignorance and illiteracy. You would never accept not being able to repair your car or having your cars functionality taken hostage over the internet (needing permission to use a product YOU HAVE PAID FOR) or having your game broken/compromised like modern software is. (i.e. shutting down centralized servers for say halo 2 PC because asshole corp stopped making dedicated servers people could own and use to play their games whenever they like).
Companies use laws to remake society so there is no 'free market' anymore they can use government lackeys to take away your rights, period just because they have all the money and even without government (if your a small government moron), you then have the problem of a government not strong enough to enforce the laws. (aka the law has no teeth because the government has no resources to stop criminal corporate behavior).
There is this ridiculous double standard where you side with assholes and criminals just because you grew up with laws that were always there instead of asking whether they were made patently unfair to begin with because no one would understand the kinds of problems it would cause for many other people.
Look software licensing is fine when you apply it to things like say CAD software (for when the company is still in business) but it breaks down for videogames which are products people own and use. The idea that copyright *as it exists for games* makes any kind of sense is bullshit.
Slashdot Mirror
Flies do bump into things like windows a lot, you'll notice flies often fly and bounce off of glass quite frequently. They may not bump into other objects but certain classes of objects the do most certainly bounce off of.
" Since they were really the first big target of PC gamers and their "always on" DRM solution, I'd say it does work."
And what about STEAM, the biggest most successful DRM system of all time? i.e. you don't even own your own games FFS sakes. Gamers have have given the keys to game ownership to game companies because they are too stupid for any kind of market to function sensibly.
... are too stupid. Let's face it, the reason DLC, microtransactions, etc have arisen is because a sizable chunk of humanity is braindead.
", being able to buy things to avoid having to grind for them isn't bad, assuming:"
How is this getting modded up? In the 'bad old days' hard games had cheat codes for people who hit a challenging spot or who don't really like videogames but just the movie bits.
Why you would want to pay for things you can cheat / edit an ini to get is just disturbing. The idea that slashdot users would mod this up is a special kind of stupidity. Are there no gamers left who gamed during the 90's?
"Your post sounds more ignorant than the post you are responding to."
Nonsense, how bout you go read something by someone at least educated enough to speak on the matter:
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/136782/francis-fukuyama/the-future-of-history
"Yet despite widespread anger at Wall Street bailouts, there has been no great upsurge of left-wing American populism in response. It is conceivable that the Occupy Wall Street movement will gain traction, but the most dynamic recent populist movement to date has been the right-wing Tea Party, whose main target is the regulatory state that seeks to protect ordinary people from financial speculators. Something similar is true in Europe as well, where the left is anemic and right-wing populist parties are on the move."
How is uninformed shit like this getting modded insightful?
Americans like you are among the most uninformed electorates on the planet today. The average american, and average slashdot poster is CLUELESS about politics.
The reality is america is totally hard right, obama would have been not long ago a moderate republican (which is hard right in the rest of the world). So you have a bunch of clueless americans who are voting between basically what amounts to the same flavor of hard right ideology with little difference. Many americans then make a big stink about their uninformed political views and opinions.
Reality is the average american is too ignorant/stupid to have any kind of informed political view of america given the huge amount of propaganda that pervades their media and education system.
That any intelligent person could even think that the Illinois politicians are hard left is just proof of how much propaganda system down in the states confuses people like the AC and the mods who modded the above post insightful.
The reason anonymous speech is by default invisible is because it is easily abused. Having an account means you usually are at least investing some of yourself in owning your own writings, now most slashdotters should already know if they have something they don't want on the internet that could get them in trouble with government or big corporations not to post on the internet at all.
Given that our posts leave patterns in how we use language which can be identified by mathematical techniques any kind of natural posting on the net will get you identified sooner or later with someone with enough resources like governments and corporations.
No one should ever assume anonymity online. I've been thinking about creating tools that express opinions and thoughts in 'bog standard' linguistic ways to make identification harder but even then it probably wouldn't be impossible to identify someone. The best option in my opinion would be just flooding the net with all sorts of data and contrary opinions using software from the accounts you want to flood if you dedicated and serious about it.
"Naming the company, and mentioning 30+ million dollars of returned equipment, would likely make the poster's identity very much not anonymous!"
Or most likely it's propaganda to feed disinformation into the discussion to take it off course, giving the "fox news illusion" of "fair and balanced". Given the rise of cheap paid commenting I wouldn't be surprised.
I have serious doubts given the unequal power of corporations over most working men and women that anything most companies say regarding workers are true, especially given the giant bank bailouts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJqM2tFOxLQ
http://dailybail.com/
Uhm I'm sorry but the way multi-tasking works on a PC makes your idea of latency irrelevant 99% of most cases. PC's have hardware horsepower to spare in abundance and have had so since the beginning of the last console generation. Even the IDEA that there would be some kind of problem is nonsense, especially given that console games run at lower framerates and at lower input frequencies (10-30hz). Latency would be the last thing anyone would be worried about.
... since americans are among the most uninformed electorates on the planet today. The average american, and average slashdot poster is CLUELESS about politics.
The reality is america is totally hard right, obama would have been not long ago a moderate republican (which is hard right the rest of the world). So you have a bunch of clueless americans who are voting between basically what amounts to the same flavor of hard right ideology with little difference. Many americans then make a big stink about their uninformed political views and opinions.
Reality is the average american is too ignorant/stupid to have any kind of informed political view of america given the huge amount of propaganda that pervades their media and education system.
"Actually, patent trolls are fundamentally an artifact of flaws in the law."
Actually you're wrong.
See here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act
A moderate person like yourself who "just wants to fix the laws" has history against you. Every time laws like Copyright came up to be 'fixed' it was extended. To be defeated every single time in a row and routed so thoroughly means moderates have no historical evidence that they can contain the beast.
"So, private citizens exercise their right to free speech and say something that differs from the "scientific consensus" preferred by the current administration and the press."
Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'--Isaac Asimov
Thanks for letting your ignorance shine through you hack.
The Senate (that house of sober second thought) can not kill a bill. It can send it back to the commons but it can not kill it. If the commons wants it, it will eventually receive Royal Assent and become law. The Senate, at best, can only delay.
Oh stop, you are such a partisan hack you wouldn't know wtf you're talking about.
http://www.cbc.ca/canadavotes2004/leadersparties/leaders/pdf/firewall.pdf
"If that was true, the free speech bill(C-304) [brianstorseth.ca] wouldn't be stalled in the senate."
You've missed the point COMPLETELY who has control of the senate asshole? Oh yeah conservatives. CONSERVATIVES Stalling bills means nothing when they'll just keep waiting out public scrutiny on many issues. You know nothing of how the government works obviously.
http://www.cannabisculture.com/content/2011/12/06/Draconian-Crime-Bill-Passed-Conservative-Majority-House-Commons
"Ah, another "government is this monolithic entity that is sooooooo scary" post. Massive upmods incoming."
If you knew anything about the history of the current conservative party (reform party take over) you would not be saying such things. Most people commenting in this thread know nothing about canadian politics and how the canadian parliamentary system works. Right now Conservatives have a majority, what that means is they essentially get to shove any legislation they want through with impunity.
Whether they 'slightly soften' totally bankrupt laws is a non issue since the opposition has no power at all given the majority.
More hitchens:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9V85OykSDT8
"Come on now, you have to have better logic than that."
Except you obviously don't know much about what has been discovered about human reasoning.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYmi0DLzBdQ
You are also just so historically and scientifically illiterate. I'm sure you are religious and just masking it so I'll quote some ridiculous verses.
Matthew 8:30-34
30 Some distance from them a large herd of pigs was feeding. 31 The demons begged Jesus, “If you drive us out, send us into the herd of pigs.”
32 He said to them, “Go!” So they came out and went into the pigs, and the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and died in the water. 33 Those tending the pigs ran off, went into the town and reported all this, including what had happened to the demon-possessed men. 34 Then the whole town went out to meet Jesus. And when they saw him, they pleaded with him to leave their region.
--
Now plenty of people all throughout the centuries believed in 'invisible spirits' causing all sorts of nonsense to which they sought 'cures' from charlatans. So yes religion has had hugely negative effects.
I also know people who have taken their lives because of religion. So please when someone takes their own life because of their worldview given them by religion then one cannot escape the conclusion that it creates these kind of people through having been mislead by their parents and communities.
I would suggest you find stuff by Christopher hitches on youtube and look at the debates and remarks he brings up, you are obviously in need of being pointed out the horrors and absurdities of religion.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=9V85OykSDT8#t=584s
"Where your logic fails is blaming Religion for Human actions."
The bible endorsed slavery, and it was used for centuries to justify it. So yes we can certainly blame religion for getting humans to think, do and hate certain people and groups. If you knew anything about the history of religion at all you wouldn't say something so ridiculous.
... that you need to make the OS relevant. After ditching PC for the console space they've done a lot to make the PC less relevant. Most average users don't need to upgrade. They don't seem to get that you have to provide value and something the customer wants, not just jam your product down consumers throats.
I remember when I was on a steady upgrade train relentlessly as PC gaming and Videocards advanced but we've slowed down the last 6 years big time. You can play most games decently with a core 2 duo and a mid range card. CPU power has slowed to a crawl given that only a tiny % of apps can really take advantage of multicore.
MS doesn't really grasp that it needs to solve some key problem for the customer or provide something that consumers can get excited about.
... is increasingly used as a catch all term for people who don't fit into the social order and won't be good little obedient workers who obey the corporate line, the lack of autonomy and the shitty pay/jobs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acLW1vFO-2Q
"The guy who wrote The End of History is a neocon cheerleader in your book? Jesus, you need to get out more."
Nope, you're wrong. Fukuyama is also associated with the rise of the neoconservative movement,[1] from which he has since distanced himself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Fukuyama
The reality is he was most certainly a cheerleader for many years, to say he wasn't is to not be literate.
"The idea that our government could plan anything this complex and succeed is preposterous."
Just like the Koch brothers and big corporations never convinced america to vote against it's own interests? Corporations have been COMPLETELY successful at turning capitalism into a damn near religion in many western countries. If you're a right winger or a libertarian you're not going to solve poverty.
Prof. Francis Fukuyama (pol sci) in Foreign policy magazine says you're voting against your own interest if you vote for the corporate parties (repub and dem).
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/136782/francis-fukuyama/the-future-of-history
When even neocon cheerleaders like fukuyama are wishing there was a real left wing movement in america, you know corporations have succeeded in brainwashing many of the worlds electorates.
http://www.fpif.org/articles/the_next_marx
Americans (and people generally) aren't a politically literate bunch, they know a few bits and pieces of information about politics related to issues they personally care about and that's about it.
"Because they're not yours?"
Why isn't the game I've bought mine? This is the whole fucking problem with people like you on slashdot. You can't understand the law was passed by criminal assholes IN THEIR FAVOR and having taken advantage of public ignorance and illiteracy. You would never accept not being able to repair your car or having your cars functionality taken hostage over the internet (needing permission to use a product YOU HAVE PAID FOR) or having your game broken/compromised like modern software is. (i.e. shutting down centralized servers for say halo 2 PC because asshole corp stopped making dedicated servers people could own and use to play their games whenever they like).
Companies use laws to remake society so there is no 'free market' anymore they can use government lackeys to take away your rights, period just because they have all the money and even without government (if your a small government moron), you then have the problem of a government not strong enough to enforce the laws. (aka the law has no teeth because the government has no resources to stop criminal corporate behavior).
There is this ridiculous double standard where you side with assholes and criminals just because you grew up with laws that were always there instead of asking whether they were made patently unfair to begin with because no one would understand the kinds of problems it would cause for many other people.
Look software licensing is fine when you apply it to things like say CAD software (for when the company is still in business) but it breaks down for videogames which are products people own and use. The idea that copyright *as it exists for games* makes any kind of sense is bullshit.