I use AOL broadband and love it. Sure, I could have bought Earthlink and connected to the Internet... But with with AOL I can connect to both the Internet AND the World Wide Web!
I've owned Macs since junior high, and I can't remember a point where they weren't "the alternative." I mean, wasn't that what those 1984 and Lemmings commercials were about? Wasn't the computer always aimed at, or at least embraced by the various creative fields? I can't tell you how many offices I've worked in where the art department used Macs, and everyone else used Windows. So, yeah, they're "the alternative", which usually implies a smaller but cultlike following as opposed to "the popular." Mac users are kind of like the Goths and Punks in the corner of the lunchroom sneering at the Preps and Jocks.
The Mac has its lot in life. And it's not a bad one. It's possible Apple could've done something different and sold more computers, and from a business standpoint they could be considered a failure because they aren't worth ten times as many billions-- but they are still worth billions, and that's saying somthing. Apple also has something that Microsoft never had and never will, millions of loyal users, many of whom border on the fanatical.
Me, I'm happy with where they are and where they're going. I mean, look at DVD Studio Pro 3 and Final Cut 4, Shake... The soon-to-come Motion... But then, I'm an animator, so my needs aren't everyone's.
... Well, they are, but any thief intent to steal a laptop-- and who is prepared and has the equiptment ready to do the job-- will probably get away with it. This implies some forethought, though. Ask anyone who's owned a bicycle in NYC... There is no lock that can't be broken.
What locks ARE good for, is deterring the casual thief. Someone who spots a notebook untattended in a library, a cafe, an office, sees that no one around... And grabs it. They're not likely to pick a lock or cut a cable. Since this is far, far more likely-- unless someone is really casing you for the info. on the computer-- it does make sense to use a lock.
alas, that still seems like a bit too much hardware to play the big three Mac games:
-Breakout -Super Breakout -Photoshop
The Mac doesn't have anywhere near as many games as the PC, and they're usually released later... But the Mac DOES HAVE GAMES. A lot of them, and a lot of great ones. On my G5's hard drive right now:
Battlefield 1942 Call of Duty Medal of Honor Halo Black Hawk Down America's Army Command and Conquer Generals Tron 2.0 Tropico Warcraft 3 Unreal Tournament 2004 Neverwinter Nights Iceland Dale Dungeon Siege Max Payne The Sims Age of Mythology
And I'll be picking up Republic ASAP.
For a casual gamer-- and I stress the word casual, it's a great system.
Befor ya'll go crazy, now, remember; I'm a Mac user too:)
I'm tempted to believe you're trolling, but I'll reply anyway...
I bought the store about 12 years ago. It was one of those boutique record stores that sell obscure, independent releases that no-one listens to, not even the people that buy them.
I don't know where you live, but the independent record store is the only one thriving in major cities (Amoeba in L.A., for example.) Stores that cater to collectors, that have knowledgable staff that caters to people with taste beyond the mainstream will always have a place. If the previous owners failed, they weren't good businessmen, plain and simple. It wasn't because the music was, as you perceive it, weird.
I decided that to grow the business I'd need to aim for a different demographic, the family market. My store specialised in family music - stuff that the whole family could listen to. I don't sell sick stuff like Marilyn Manson or cop-killer rap, and I'm proud to have one of the most extensive Christian rock sections that I know of.
Every day, fewer and fewer customers enter my store to buy fewer and fewer CDs. Why is no one buying CDs? Are people not interested in music? Do people prefer to watch TV, see films, read books? I don't know. But there is one, inescapable truth - Internet piracy is mostly to blame.
Two thoughts. The first is, they aren't very Christian, are they?
The second is, perhaps it's your business model that's to blame, not the internet. You just might be selling something that no one wants. Christian Rock, for example, tends to be really bad music, a pale imitation of what was popular two years ago. Most teenagers are too hip to buy that crap.
A week ago, an unpleasant experience with pirates gave me an idea. In my store, I overheard a teenage patron talking to his friend.
"Dude, I'm going to put this CD on the Internet right away."
"Yeah, dude, that's really lete [sic], you'll get lots of respect."
I was fuming. So they were out to destroy the record industry from right under my nose? Fat chance. When they came to the counter to make their purchase, I grabbed the little shit by his shirt. "So...you're going to copy this to your friends over The Internet, punk?" I asked him in my best Clint Eastwood/Dirty Harry voice.
"Uh y-yeh." He mumbled, shocked.
"That's it. What's your name? You're blacklisted. Now take yourself and your little bitch friend out of my store - and don't come back." I barked. Cravenly, they complied and scampered off.
Alright, forget this, you're not even a good liar. The dialogue is straight from a Chick tract. Except Jack Chick wouldn't have a Christian record store owner use the word "shit."
Though I have to admit, the "lete (sic)" was kind of funny.
What does FOX have to lose by having the game rebroadcast over the Internet?
Nothing, I guess, at least not in the present day. But I would think they don't want to establish a precedent for a half dozen years down the road when internet broadcast quality is comparable to TV. When people get something for free, they expect it for free forever.
Seriously. Don't buy them this piece of crap. Pick up a used iMac, one of the CRT ones. The design is colorful and kid friendly enough, yet they don't look like silly toys. Most of all, they're so cheap now that when he or she inevitably destroys it you won't be out a serious amount of cash.
Or, pick up one of those clamshell iBooks. Again, kid-friendly design, extremely sturdy and available for $250-$300.
Is scratching even that big a problem now, on DVDs? Assuming you put them back in their cases when you're done, the things never seem to scratch. At least i've never had that problem.
My DVDs have held up pretty well, but they're relatively new. CDs, though-- that's another matter. I'm meticulous with my disks, but I've had countless numbers of them (audio, software, console games and burned) fail over the past 15 years, often without a detectable scratch or deterioration to be seen. And that doesn't make me confident in the naked DVD, either.
Just as an aside, I recently dug out my music collection from college (late 80's.) About 100 CDs, another hundred cassettes and maybe 75 vinyl singles and LPs. They were all well taken care of in the day and stored in their cases in a protective box in a cool, dry closet. All of the records and tapes played just fine-- but nearly HALF the CDs went bad (I even tried them on a couple of players.)
"When the book was written, the domain "katie.com" was not registered."
If that's truly the case... Then the fact that they didn't think to pay the $30 to register it shows an amazing lack of foresight and business sense.
Good sales pitch, but the question wasn't, "should I buy a new Mac?" (I mean, do you really think that didn't occur to him?) The question was if the distro would work on his aging machine. Which is an entirely valid query, considering Macs are built to last long past their usefulness... And that one of Linux' selling points, if I'm not mistaken, is that it is a speedy and capable OS to an outdated system.
A bit offtopic, but... Yes, technology is much cheaper now than in the dawn of computers... But think of all the monthly charges we've taken on as just a part of life. I can remember when all I paid were phone and electric bills... Now many of us pay $35 and up for a cell phone (on top of the land line), $30 and up for broadband, easily $50 and up for digital cable... And more.
Why, are you having a hard time finding TV shows on torrent or P2P networks? Doesn't seem like you need this technology to do that, there are already a dozen ways you can grab a show off cable and put it out there.
I'm sure, like iTunes, there will be some relatively simple workarounds and hacks... But hopefully this won't be over-exploited. I hate DRM as much as the next guy, but I do want this decision to set a precendent against the other draconian laws being proposed.
Piracy killed commercial software on the Amiga, and I think the same would happen on Linux if things like Office, Photoshop and a lot of games were ever ported to it.
"Pirating" has never killed a system. People have been "pirating" apps for every computer from the TRS-80 to Windows XP. If anything, access to "free" (albeit less-than-legally acquired) programs and games is a pretty strong selling point... If one has all the Windows apps they need, if a friend says he can get them any Windows program, if they know where to get them on my own, then they're less likely to switch to a Mac with my next system. Not saying it's right, but it's rampant, even-or especially- on the most widely used OS'es. I've seen churches using copies of Photoshop and Office that were obviously pirated without a second thought.
In any event, Linux users may not want to pay for commercial software, and may even vocally bellyache about it... But it's not users who really matter. Businesses will pay, because they have reasons for switching to Linux beyond getting stuff for free.
So how do they "factor in" who's not answering truthfully? There probably aren't human beings sorting through the milions of registrations weeding out which ones "look wrong", and 75% misinformation completely screws their demographics, especially if a good many of them are reasonably plausible.
They have every right to ask us to register, but I just don't see the point. It certainly can't be to get major advertisers, they're too smart to fall for obviously bogus statistics.
You're a guy in a top secret scientific reasearch facility that's been doing transportation experiments and due to a horrible accident, the facility is being invaded by big, bad, ugly monsters... As the game progresses, you end up being sent to an unhuman world... Clearly this was copied directly from HL2... Oh wait! That is the story line from the origional DOOM! Who would have thought! Id said they were going to make a game based on the origional storyline and they did just that! HL2's story was just like DOOM, only you were a scientist instead of a marine.... and instead of Demons from Hell, it was aliens.
I don't see how either of those razor-thin "plots" could be called either an original idea, or a rip-off of the other.
Not that it matters. Playing games for the plot is like reading Hustler for the articles.
There's a few things I miss about my late, great Wallstreet Powerbook-- among them the superior keyboard-- but most of all, I miss the fact that you could swap out a drive for a second battery. With two fully charged batteries in there I could easier go for eight hours or more.
It wouldn't make sense for the 12" models, but how about a second battery in the 15" or 17" Powerbooks? Yeah, you'd add a little weight, which for some reason is a huge taboo right now-- but the extra life would be well worth it.
You're absolutely right, Apple is not screwing artists. To all you downhillbattle trolls, see if you can grasp this concept: iTunes makes their deal with the entity that holds the rights to the song. If the artist signed their life and rights away to the label, then they have no choice as to how the music is distributed and what cut they take. It's a terrible shame that the music labels do proudly and routinely screw over their artists, but it's not Apple's responsibility to take a stand and start the revolution, no more than it's Tower Records' or Amazon.com's.
Now, there are artists on iTunes who aren't on a major label and take a bigger cut for themselves. If you support them-- or similar DIY business models-- then maybe, just maybe more and more will realize that they don't have to be a part of the RIAA machine.
The Space Race will be won by Russia and China...
on
Soyuz To The Moon?
·
· Score: 1, Insightful
... Or even India. Because, to be blunt, those countries can handle the loss of life much better than the Americans. Every setback we have shuts down the our missions for years... Can you really see Russia or China doing the same if a manned spacecraft came to some sort of tragedy?
Hell, the Russians had the stomach to abandon a dog in space. No way Americans would've stood for that.
The Drudge Report has links to the NYT and Washington Post that bypass registration screens (IIRC the links are to the "print this page" versions of the story.) Why can't Slashdot do the same?
Is there a person on earth who doesn't have a registration to the New York Times and the Washington Post?
Actually, I'm porbably responsible for ten to twenty registrations because of all the times I lost my password or changed computers since 1996. I'm sure I'm not the only one, either. I wouldn't be surprised if, at some point in the near future, The New York Times has more "registered users" than the population of the Earth.
You, my friend, have just admitted to a violation of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. The Gameboy was never intended to be used without a cartridge firmly inserted in place.
Some black helicopters will be by to pick you up shortly.
I'm sure when the police find a bunch of people tresspassing on someone elses property, teens drinking, people smoking pot and watching DVDs, they'll be real upset at the copyright violations.
Yeah, but those are all misdemeanors, meaning a fine or night in jail at the worst (which is pretty bad, of course.) I wouldn't put it past some cops to nail you for DMCA violation if they really wanted to be assholes. Or if they've busted the same group of people throwing these parties over and over and really wanted to shut them down.
Very astute social commentary there. Nothing better than a misanthropic defense of why it's okay to use derogatory comments because the target doesn't "made a choice." You should add that it's okay to call a Jew a "kike" because after all, religion's a lifestyle choice, right? Why shouldn't we be able to use the word because they have a problem with it?
By the way, a lot of people- both straight and gay- have shed blood because they've been perceived to be a "fag.:" I suppose a few "Poseurs" have had some hassles too, but to make that comparison is simply moronic.
Slashdot Mirror
I use AOL broadband and love it. Sure, I could have bought Earthlink and connected to the Internet... But with with AOL I can connect to both the Internet AND the World Wide Web!
But the gist of it is pretty much right.
I've owned Macs since junior high, and I can't remember a point where they weren't "the alternative." I mean, wasn't that what those 1984 and Lemmings commercials were about? Wasn't the computer always aimed at, or at least embraced by the various creative fields? I can't tell you how many offices I've worked in where the art department used Macs, and everyone else used Windows. So, yeah, they're "the alternative", which usually implies a smaller but cultlike following as opposed to "the popular." Mac users are kind of like the Goths and Punks in the corner of the lunchroom sneering at the Preps and Jocks.
The Mac has its lot in life. And it's not a bad one. It's possible Apple could've done something different and sold more computers, and from a business standpoint they could be considered a failure because they aren't worth ten times as many billions-- but they are still worth billions, and that's saying somthing. Apple also has something that Microsoft never had and never will, millions of loyal users, many of whom border on the fanatical.
Me, I'm happy with where they are and where they're going. I mean, look at DVD Studio Pro 3 and Final Cut 4, Shake... The soon-to-come Motion... But then, I'm an animator, so my needs aren't everyone's.
... Well, they are, but any thief intent to steal a laptop-- and who is prepared and has the equiptment ready to do the job-- will probably get away with it. This implies some forethought, though. Ask anyone who's owned a bicycle in NYC... There is no lock that can't be broken.
What locks ARE good for, is deterring the casual thief. Someone who spots a notebook untattended in a library, a cafe, an office, sees that no one around... And grabs it. They're not likely to pick a lock or cut a cable. Since this is far, far more likely-- unless someone is really casing you for the info. on the computer-- it does make sense to use a lock.
alas, that still seems like a bit too much hardware to play the big three Mac games:
:)
-Breakout
-Super Breakout
-Photoshop
The Mac doesn't have anywhere near as many games as the PC, and they're usually released later... But the Mac DOES HAVE GAMES. A lot of them, and a lot of great ones. On my G5's hard drive right now:
Battlefield 1942
Call of Duty
Medal of Honor
Halo
Black Hawk Down
America's Army
Command and Conquer Generals
Tron 2.0
Tropico
Warcraft 3
Unreal Tournament 2004
Neverwinter Nights
Iceland Dale
Dungeon Siege
Max Payne
The Sims
Age of Mythology
And I'll be picking up Republic ASAP.
For a casual gamer-- and I stress the word casual, it's a great system.
Befor ya'll go crazy, now, remember; I'm a Mac user too
Then why feed the troll flames?
Is Weird Al really the best example you could come up with?
Just askin'.
I'm tempted to believe you're trolling, but I'll reply anyway...
I bought the store about 12 years ago. It was one of those boutique record stores that sell obscure, independent releases that no-one listens to, not even the people that buy them.
I don't know where you live, but the independent record store is the only one thriving in major cities (Amoeba in L.A., for example.) Stores that cater to collectors, that have knowledgable staff that caters to people with taste beyond the mainstream will always have a place. If the previous owners failed, they weren't good businessmen, plain and simple. It wasn't because the music was, as you perceive it, weird.
I decided that to grow the business I'd need to aim for a different demographic, the family market. My store specialised in family music - stuff that the whole family could listen to. I don't sell sick stuff like Marilyn Manson or cop-killer rap, and I'm proud to have one of the most extensive Christian rock sections that I know of.
Every day, fewer and fewer customers enter my store to buy fewer and fewer CDs. Why is no one buying CDs? Are people not interested in music? Do people prefer to watch TV, see films, read books? I don't know. But there is one, inescapable truth - Internet piracy is mostly to blame.
Two thoughts. The first is, they aren't very Christian, are they?
The second is, perhaps it's your business model that's to blame, not the internet. You just might be selling something that no one wants. Christian Rock, for example, tends to be really bad music, a pale imitation of what was popular two years ago. Most teenagers are too hip to buy that crap.
A week ago, an unpleasant experience with pirates gave me an idea. In my store, I overheard a teenage patron talking to his friend.
"Dude, I'm going to put this CD on the Internet right away."
"Yeah, dude, that's really lete [sic], you'll get lots of respect."
I was fuming. So they were out to destroy the record industry from right under my nose? Fat chance. When they came to the counter to make their purchase, I grabbed the little shit by his shirt. "So...you're going to copy this to your friends over The Internet, punk?" I asked him in my best Clint Eastwood/Dirty Harry voice.
"Uh y-yeh." He mumbled, shocked.
"That's it. What's your name? You're blacklisted. Now take yourself and your little bitch friend out of my store - and don't come back." I barked. Cravenly, they complied and scampered off.
Alright, forget this, you're not even a good liar. The dialogue is straight from a Chick tract. Except Jack Chick wouldn't have a Christian record store owner use the word "shit."
Though I have to admit, the "lete (sic)" was kind of funny.
What does FOX have to lose by having the game rebroadcast over the Internet?
Nothing, I guess, at least not in the present day. But I would think they don't want to establish a precedent for a half dozen years down the road when internet broadcast quality is comparable to TV. When people get something for free, they expect it for free forever.
Seriously. Don't buy them this piece of crap. Pick up a used iMac, one of the CRT ones. The design is colorful and kid friendly enough, yet they don't look like silly toys. Most of all, they're so cheap now that when he or she inevitably destroys it you won't be out a serious amount of cash. Or, pick up one of those clamshell iBooks. Again, kid-friendly design, extremely sturdy and available for $250-$300.
Is scratching even that big a problem now, on DVDs? Assuming you put them back in their cases when you're done, the things never seem to scratch. At least i've never had that problem.
My DVDs have held up pretty well, but they're relatively new. CDs, though-- that's another matter. I'm meticulous with my disks, but I've had countless numbers of them (audio, software, console games and burned) fail over the past 15 years, often without a detectable scratch or deterioration to be seen. And that doesn't make me confident in the naked DVD, either.
Just as an aside, I recently dug out my music collection from college (late 80's.) About 100 CDs, another hundred cassettes and maybe 75 vinyl singles and LPs. They were all well taken care of in the day and stored in their cases in a protective box in a cool, dry closet. All of the records and tapes played just fine-- but nearly HALF the CDs went bad (I even tried them on a couple of players.)
"When the book was written, the domain "katie.com" was not registered." If that's truly the case... Then the fact that they didn't think to pay the $30 to register it shows an amazing lack of foresight and business sense.
Good sales pitch, but the question wasn't, "should I buy a new Mac?" (I mean, do you really think that didn't occur to him?) The question was if the distro would work on his aging machine. Which is an entirely valid query, considering Macs are built to last long past their usefulness... And that one of Linux' selling points, if I'm not mistaken, is that it is a speedy and capable OS to an outdated system.
A bit offtopic, but... Yes, technology is much cheaper now than in the dawn of computers... But think of all the monthly charges we've taken on as just a part of life. I can remember when all I paid were phone and electric bills... Now many of us pay $35 and up for a cell phone (on top of the land line), $30 and up for broadband, easily $50 and up for digital cable... And more.
Why, are you having a hard time finding TV shows on torrent or P2P networks? Doesn't seem like you need this technology to do that, there are already a dozen ways you can grab a show off cable and put it out there.
I'm sure, like iTunes, there will be some relatively simple workarounds and hacks... But hopefully this won't be over-exploited. I hate DRM as much as the next guy, but I do want this decision to set a precendent against the other draconian laws being proposed.
Piracy killed commercial software on the Amiga, and I think the same would happen on Linux if things like Office, Photoshop and a lot of games were ever ported to it.
"Pirating" has never killed a system. People have been "pirating" apps for every computer from the TRS-80 to Windows XP. If anything, access to "free" (albeit less-than-legally acquired) programs and games is a pretty strong selling point... If one has all the Windows apps they need, if a friend says he can get them any Windows program, if they know where to get them on my own, then they're less likely to switch to a Mac with my next system. Not saying it's right, but it's rampant, even-or especially- on the most widely used OS'es. I've seen churches using copies of Photoshop and Office that were obviously pirated without a second thought.
In any event, Linux users may not want to pay for commercial software, and may even vocally bellyache about it... But it's not users who really matter. Businesses will pay, because they have reasons for switching to Linux beyond getting stuff for free.
So how do they "factor in" who's not answering truthfully? There probably aren't human beings sorting through the milions of registrations weeding out which ones "look wrong", and 75% misinformation completely screws their demographics, especially if a good many of them are reasonably plausible.
They have every right to ask us to register, but I just don't see the point. It certainly can't be to get major advertisers, they're too smart to fall for obviously bogus statistics.
You're a guy in a top secret scientific reasearch facility that's been doing transportation experiments and due to a horrible accident, the facility is being invaded by big, bad, ugly monsters... As the game progresses, you end up being sent to an unhuman world... Clearly this was copied directly from HL2... Oh wait! That is the story line from the origional DOOM! Who would have thought! Id said they were going to make a game based on the origional storyline and they did just that! HL2's story was just like DOOM, only you were a scientist instead of a marine.... and instead of Demons from Hell, it was aliens.
I don't see how either of those razor-thin "plots" could be called either an original idea, or a rip-off of the other.
Not that it matters. Playing games for the plot is like reading Hustler for the articles.
There's a few things I miss about my late, great Wallstreet Powerbook-- among them the superior keyboard-- but most of all, I miss the fact that you could swap out a drive for a second battery. With two fully charged batteries in there I could easier go for eight hours or more. It wouldn't make sense for the 12" models, but how about a second battery in the 15" or 17" Powerbooks? Yeah, you'd add a little weight, which for some reason is a huge taboo right now-- but the extra life would be well worth it.
So how is Apple screwing artists?
You're absolutely right, Apple is not screwing artists. To all you downhillbattle trolls, see if you can grasp this concept: iTunes makes their deal with the entity that holds the rights to the song. If the artist signed their life and rights away to the label, then they have no choice as to how the music is distributed and what cut they take. It's a terrible shame that the music labels do proudly and routinely screw over their artists, but it's not Apple's responsibility to take a stand and start the revolution, no more than it's Tower Records' or Amazon.com's.
Now, there are artists on iTunes who aren't on a major label and take a bigger cut for themselves. If you support them-- or similar DIY business models-- then maybe, just maybe more and more will realize that they don't have to be a part of the RIAA machine.
... Or even India. Because, to be blunt, those countries can handle the loss of life much better than the Americans. Every setback we have shuts down the our missions for years... Can you really see Russia or China doing the same if a manned spacecraft came to some sort of tragedy?
Hell, the Russians had the stomach to abandon a dog in space. No way Americans would've stood for that.
The Drudge Report has links to the NYT and Washington Post that bypass registration screens (IIRC the links are to the "print this page" versions of the story.) Why can't Slashdot do the same?
Is there a person on earth who doesn't have a registration to the New York Times and the Washington Post? Actually, I'm porbably responsible for ten to twenty registrations because of all the times I lost my password or changed computers since 1996. I'm sure I'm not the only one, either. I wouldn't be surprised if, at some point in the near future, The New York Times has more "registered users" than the population of the Earth.
You, my friend, have just admitted to a violation of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. The Gameboy was never intended to be used without a cartridge firmly inserted in place. Some black helicopters will be by to pick you up shortly.
I'm sure when the police find a bunch of people tresspassing on someone elses property, teens drinking, people smoking pot and watching DVDs, they'll be real upset at the copyright violations.
Yeah, but those are all misdemeanors, meaning a fine or night in jail at the worst (which is pretty bad, of course.) I wouldn't put it past some cops to nail you for DMCA violation if they really wanted to be assholes. Or if they've busted the same group of people throwing these parties over and over and really wanted to shut them down.
In SciFi is there any other kind? I'm still waiting for Manhattan to be turned into a maximum security prison. They're about 7 years behind schedule.
And we're only fifteen years away from using replicants to harvest the moons of Saturn.
Wait-- The Rutger Hauer replicant was four years old... Shit, that means we only have eleven years!
Very astute social commentary there. Nothing better than a misanthropic defense of why it's okay to use derogatory comments because the target doesn't "made a choice." You should add that it's okay to call a Jew a "kike" because after all, religion's a lifestyle choice, right? Why shouldn't we be able to use the word because they have a problem with it? By the way, a lot of people- both straight and gay- have shed blood because they've been perceived to be a "fag.:" I suppose a few "Poseurs" have had some hassles too, but to make that comparison is simply moronic.