I realize a longer concert directly costs the producer, while you playing Zelda 20 years after buying it doesn't cost Nintendo anything directly, but my willingness to pay should be based on how I value the product, not the cost to make it.
When you mentioned your willingness to pay, this occurred to me:
based on how I value the product
That's a locked-down or "exclusive" market.
the cost to make it
That's a competitive market.
I'll take the latter any day. If other people like them that's of course their decision, but personally I have avoided the iPhone and several other Apple products because I really don't like it when vendors try to tell me how I may use a tangible, physical piece of property for which I have paid. No matter how trivial the "jailbreaking" can be, it's just not a business practice that I wish to reward or support.
If copyright was fixed so media enters public domain in a reasonable time, restrictive DRM would make perfect sense, as it makes ownership during copyright more exclusive.
If copyright were truly reformed it would again become respectable. People who respected it because they could see for themselves that it is right and good and strikes a worthy balance would not need DRM to prevent them from breaking it. That's one factor that is often ignored in these discussions, either because of cynicism concerning whether reasonable laws are likely to be respected or because it's difficult to put a dollar sign on such a thing.
To date, I have never been able to get out of a speeding ticket by telling the magistrate that the speed limit should be 65 instead of 55 on that highway.
A highway I use sometimes had the speed limit raised from 55 to 65 recently. I should emphasize that there has been no new construction on that road. Now, before the limit was raised, if I were ticketed for doing 65 while it was 55 I would have been told that this was for my safety. Now, if the state had any sense of honor (haha) they would refund the fines paid by anyone who was ticketed for going 10 mph or less over the speed limit because they are effectively admitting that they had it wrong.
The copyright laws have become increasingly punitive. Because of that, if we ever see any reform for copyright it makes me wonder if those who were prosecuted under what are later acknowledged to be bad laws should be compensated in some way. I admit that whether they realistically will be is a separate question from whether they should be.
Those that hack or pirate always have it better. No DRM, no restrictions on what software you can install, no need for physical media and the list goes on. Being a nice customer simply doesn't pay anymore these days.
That should be obvious, yes. Still I see people who defend DRM and I don't understand it. If it were just the occasional one or two I would suspect that perhaps they are astroturfing. It's more than a few so while I have to admit it has some non-zero probability, I really don't think astroturfing is a satisfying explanation. I think plenty of people really feel this way. I apologize in advance for caps, but to them, YOU ARE DEFENDING SOMETHING THAT IS NOT AND COULD NEVER BE IN YOUR INTERESTS, WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT FOR ANY REASON?! If nothing else, understanding this behavior would be an interesting psychological study.
Really, he's the only guy with an account on Twitter, Facebook, LiveJournal, Blogger and YouTube?
I was wondering that too, surely there are a number of people all members of those groups. I'd expect people that are members of two or more to be members of most.
Well yeah they have to feed their self-importance, narcissism, delusions of grandeur, attention whoring, or exhibitionistic tendencies SOMEHOW.
Wait, that's not this "Cyxymu" guy? No wonder they are trying to shut him down then. He stands out too much!
To be simple, greed knows no limits except those limits imposed by morality and by law. And in the case of modern business, there is no such thing as "morality" and so law is the only limit recognized by business. To be clear, unless laws are present to prevent it, 12 year olds will make your clothes and shoes in factories as can be demonstrated even today. Without laws, there would be billboards covering ever scene and location imaginable. I have no doubt that business would have no problem playing ads in your dreams if it were technically possible, and of course, legal.
There is nothing more important to modern business than money. Nothing. Not quality. Not human life. Not nature or the environment. All of that has been lost. It would be nice if that sort of morality could return, but I just can't imagine how. The story of how it was all lost would be an interesting story to hear. I just know we had some morality at some point and it was lost... I feel the loss.
Mods,
This isn't off-topic, so I say to you: have the courage to post a reply and explain why you believe parent is wrong. The inability to do that is what causes the need to censor. The inability could be because you know he's right and want to shoot the messenger. It may also be that you disagree and yet you sense the weakness of your position. Both are cowardly. This post about greed and business can't be off-topic for this discussion. That's obvious unless you think this sort of bait-and-switch advertising is an act of altruism that we are discussing. If you believe that, I really want to see you try to make the case for it. Good luck with that.
I hope no one thinks I'm bothered by a misuse of the Slashdot system. Yeah, that's annoying but trivial. Rather, I prefer not to see even anonymous people like this moderator make such an unflattering statement about themselves. There's a million ways the individual can do that; the moderation system is just easier than most.
Yeah, but I believe you have a limited time to request a chargeback don't you?
Two questions:
Does the delayed bait-and-switch nature of this incident mitigate any time limits for a chargeback? I'd imagine this is a question for a lawyer.
Do a multitude of good-faith chargebacks need to be successful in order to cause the expenditure of a lot of time, effort, and expense that would lead to a lot of pressure applied in the direction of avoiding a reoccurrence?
Yes, because putting ads in a game is exactly the same as compromising a system at the root level and leaving it exposed to god knows what.
I acknowledge that what you said there is accurate though I question its purpose. I just think the AC's point that "you as a potential customer should know that a Sony product has shown itself to be untrustworthy in these two different ways" is significantly more important than your point that "these two different ways were more different than the GP may have indicated."
Those different ways actually have quite a bit in common. Remember that the rootkit was a DRM device. So, these are two different expressions of the same mentality because each gives some benefit to a company at the expense of the already-paying customer. In light of that, are not the precise methods academic? Either tells me all that I need to know for my monetary decision-making.
I think you might just have a case here for the ultimate retroactive boycott: the credit card issuer chargeback.
They sold you a game. Then they added a double-dip, "secondary monetization" to what you already paid for. I'd call up MasterCard and see if they've got your back on this.
Honestly, the studio or publisher that did this needs to get hit hard. Ads are for freeloaders, not for paying customers.
From what I understand, chargebacks are a pain in the ass for retailers. They're also one of the few scenarios where the deck is stacked in the favor of you the customer. That's because the merchant really wants to be able to take $MAJOR_CARD but you as the customer can choose among several major credit cards. A small percentage of affected people doing this really would get some attention, methinks.
The point is that a change to the game's content could make them have to go through the ESRB review/rating process all over again, causing delays and maybe additional expenses for them. It'd be a way of making it a bit more of a hassle for them to assume that the game you bought with no such advertisements has now become a billboard.
I think ESRB makes an exception for "online play" (I'd speculate this is because of the difficulty/undesirability of censoring the other players) but it seems there were changes to offline play as well.
"Ok, just file a complaint. I'm sure that semi-literate guy did something wrong enough to slap them down."
I love how the Americans think that suing everybody is the best solution for every problem.
That illness has a self-perpetuating nature, as does all aspects or expressions of "us against them." To sum it up, when you find yourself born and raised in an environment in which most recipients of most legitimate complaints are insensate and unreceptive, the "force of the law" nature of legal remedies become the only undeniable way to call attention to even the slightest injustice. All it really should take is for a person to stand up, with understanding, and call out those things which need to be addressed, to shine a light upon them and remove the shadows of excuses and other utilitarian purposes under which they are sheltered. By comparison, what we have now is not an underlying acknowledgement of human dignity or a celebration of harmony, but the primitive desire to avoid punishment.
It's such a precious thing, such an exquisite privilege, to put the lie to this pattern by nothing other than your living example of a higher order.
College doesn't test, train, or reward INTELLIGENCE. It tests, trains, and rewards LEARNING and ABILITY -- which are three very, very different things.
I always saw it as testing and rewarding obedience, and the submission to allowing strangers to set your goals and priorities and otherwise to direct your efforts, to take on their tasks as if they were your own with a diligence that lasts well into what would otherwise be your personal time. To me this is the trait college tests which employers would find desirable in terms of obedient workers who don't raise a fuss and are relatively easy to manage. Innate ability determines whether you must focus on the task itself or the willingness to complete it, and learning just means you can more readily incorporate this unwritten lesson. Otherwise, very little that I've seen of formal education (in any form) had to do with testing your personal limits or expanding your mind or pushing your boundaries. The emphasis on rote as opposed to arrival by experience is evidence enough of this fact.
Securitization did not cause the financial crisis, the sudden deflation of a huge asset price bubble caused the financial crisis. Securitization concentrated some of the consequences of that event.
(For instance, the bonds that Fannie and Freddie wrote 20 years ago are just fine, as they are secured by mortgages against houses that have, by now, very low loan to value ratios (like 30%)
If I understand it correctly, speculation had a lot to do with the price bubble. That is, many people who were purchasing these homes had no intention of living there but were hoping to quickly sell them at a profit. Real estate is supposed to be an appreciating asset but perhaps not when too many people are banking on this at the same time. Then instead of an investment it's more like a sophisticated form of gambling.
This was greatly exacerbated by government manipulation, in the form of pressuring banks to lend money to people who otherwise would not be credit-worthy (the euphamism is "sub-prime"). More people owning homes is a desirable thing. The correct way to arrange it is not to lower standards but rather, to find out why so many people do not meet those standards and to address that. Perhaps this could be done by education or credit counseling. Certainly a more economically-savvy general public that can be given a little rope without hanging themselves is a desirable thing.
To put that another way, if you need one loan for the standard 80% of the cost of the home, and then a second loan to pay what was traditionally a 20% down payment, it's because you are buying more house than you can afford. Practices like that contribute to ending up "upside-down" on a home; that is, owing more money than what the property is worth. Any "solution" which doesn't recognize such realities is begging for trouble. As much as I'm not fond of banks, I do disagree with blaming this entirely on the banks ("predatory lending" is the fashionable term), for the simple reason that if an agreement is not in my interests I simply won't sign the contract. If I don't understand the agreement or the full implications of it, and sign that dotted line anyway, that would be my fault.
It looks really fake is all I can think. I know it's real but the speed of takeoff and whatnot makes it look fake.
I can see a lot of military and spying technology resulting from this. Dependent on how quiet it is and how much it can lift and how long it can fly anyhow. Other than that, they could at least corner the market on hobbyists and children's toys.
Personally I suspect (but couldn't hope to prove, of course) that most of these UFOs are actually advanced, classified military vehicles. Isn't it true that the projects that eh, "don't officially exist" are usually a decade or two (or more) ahead of private industry? That would hold for a variety of reasons, not the least being that the government can get the funding and talent it needs and doesn't have to make a profit in a marketplace. If so, it would make sense that people have been reporting "flying saucer" type UFOs for years and finally we see companies starting to independently produce them.
Remember that the stealth bomber was classified for some 30+ years. Someone who saw it, a large black "flying wing" (I think it's called a delta wing?) object in the sky, would have concluded that it's not likely to be a normal airplane and certainly isn't a helicopter, making it an "unidentified flying object." To me that seems quite plausible.
It may be easy for a nerd to install e.g. SwitchProxy, and knock together some scripts to automate the maintenance of a list of working anonymizing proxy servers (and by the way, any old proxy is not good enough), but it's not that easy for Joe Public. Unless they're going to pay for a vpn service, the vast majority of Dutch people will be accurately blocked by their IP address. And since accessing TPB is not a fundamental human right, the tiny amount of collateral damage will be seen as insignificant.
True, but this is a crowd that's rather well-known for their ability to circumvent restrictions.
Haha, that was good. It's funny because what he said was mostly true but it was obvious that he did not arrive at it on his own. It's more like he was reading from a brochure or a seminar and was otherwise telling his audience (some bank's HR department) whatever bullshit he thought they wanted to hear.
I also see that when I have to stop for a traffic light, the guy beside me will slow down at the same time that I slow down even though there may be cars in front of me that require me to slow down earlier than he does.... Or if you take an exit ramp off the highway and you are slowing down in a turning lane, watch the guy who is still on the highway; often he will slow down on the highway lane just because you are slowing down in the separate turning lane, needlessly holding up anyone behind him.... I think drivers don't understand that groups of cars exhibit wave-like behaviors, so a minor needless slowdown can contribute to jams miles behind you. That is, it does not occur to them to even think at all of how their decisions are affecting other people, which sums up nearly all traffic problems.
I do this, and I definitely understand how my decisions affect people. The thing is, I've seen way too many drivers who think it's their turn to break the rules swerve across double-white lines. Even if someone does this and the accident is ruled their fault and paid for by their insurance (hahaha, none of the three people who have hit me have had insurance), I will still have to take time off work to get my car repaired, and the repaired car will be of lesser quality.
I honestly am sorry that you have to put up with people like me, but I am going to continue slowing down when the person in the lane next to me slows down for a stoplight, because I have already been hit three times and am not interested in dealing with that again.
If it makes you feel any better, I always drive in the furthest right line that I can, I request that friends who are driving in the left lane move to the right, I always use my signal, and I intentionally avoid poorly designed intersections (so if you find yourself in one, be glad that there's one less car making things that much more hectic).
It's alright in the sense that just because someone wants to do this, does not mean that I must play along. That "pacer" thing requires two to tango. If you tried that with me, you would quickly give up and go try it with somebody else because I will actively make that difficult to do. More than difficult enough that you would gravitate towards the first other car you see. I don't do that out of spite but rather because I don't wish to be in that situation and refuse to allow someone to decide that for me.
Having said that, I appreciate your honesty. I think you're in a small minority because you do this with understanding; my experience would suggest otherwise for most of them. For most, it seems to be the "default" state that you get when you don't actively make any decisions at all, like a path of least resistence. That you try to stay on the right side greatly mitigates this too; the pacers are such a big problem because they like to tie up the passing lane and form rolling roadblocks. It sounds like you are not doing this.
I suppose there is only one thing you said that doesn't make sense to me. I don't understand how you feel safer by matching pace and thus guaranteeing that there is always another car right beside you. I feel the safest when I have lots of space in front, behind, and beside me. I will avoid being stuck in a pack of cars to achieve this; sometimes that means speeding up and sometimes that means slowing down. To me, safety and maneuverability go hand-in-hand. An obstacle does not guarantee an accident unless you have no room with which to avoid that obstacle. A person who is needlessly close to you when they have what is otherwise a large wide-open road guarantees less room to maneuver. That's why I don't understand how this benefits you but would appreciate if you can explain it to me.
your statement still means that great programmers give everyone else a hard time
Alright, I'll rephrase: great programmers think they're slightly above average, and they don't understand why other people can't solve problems that easily.
They won't say "use this algorithm because I'm the greatest". They'll say "use this because it's 20% faster and only uses half the memory". And if they're wrong, they're smart enough to realize it.
I don't think this is specific to programming at all.
If you are really good at something, it's because you did not give up easily and were willing to test your own boundaries and limits, to see what you are capable of and to reject self-imposed limitations. In its purest form, you do this not to impress anyone, but because you value excellence and because you want to explore your own capabilities. When you can do this for one thing, you are presented with the question of why the majority of people don't do this in the areas where they are talented, why they are content with mediocrity and why they seldom deviate from the path of least resistance.
If you really look into the issue, my personal belief is that you will be forced to conclude that other people certainly could do this. That they could means this is not about inherent superiority, clearly showing the error of arrogance. Those other people just don't care to; they are choosing not to though this may not be a deliberate, conscious choice. Instead of a joy of discovery and a worthy challenge, or even a sense of adventure and exploration, they just see extra effort and they decide it isn't worthwhile.
I think that what makes the difference is that those who value excellence really love what they are doing. The others just do what they do for a paycheck, or for status, or so others think they're a great guy or a hard worker. I believe that not only does the former approach produce better tangible results, it also contributes to a joyful outlook and removes much of the toil from things that do involve a great deal of effort. Effort doesn't feel so much like work when you are grateful that you get to do something like this.
Why is modding the truth considered "a troll". They are both acting like girls.
I often see some very low-quality moderation but I don't think this is an example of it. I'll explain why the GP was trollish.
Perhaps because to say that is to dismiss the basis of the conflict, not by showing it to be invalid or by proposing a means of reconciliation but by trivializing it.
I'm a man so I have to use guesswork to answer another aspect of this question. I would guess that the above would look quite trollish to any woman who can conduct herself in a mature and intelligent fashion, due to the implication that the only reason why two men would have a conflict is because they resemble females. Although, I balance that with the knowledge that the intelligent women I have known all had one thing in common: they had more contempt for the petty/catty behavior exhibited by less-intelligent women than any man I have ever met, sometimes going so far as to say that they give all women a bad name by living up to stereotypes.
The problem here is that there is what I actually said, and then there is what you are responding to.
It's all well and good to try to set standards for yourself and then try to live up to them. It's another thing to sit up on your high horse and talk like everyone else in the world are stupid little sheep, and to assume that you're somehow above it all, and you don't fall prey to any of their petty weaknesses.
Nowhere will you see me making the claim that I have no weaknesses. In fact I went out of my way to explain that I do have them. Did it occur to you that I explained that because your knee-jerk response was predictable? The difference, what makes me not one of the "sheeple", is that I see them as something that actively needs my care and attention. So I refer not to whether a person has weaknesses and shortcomings and flaws, but whether the person can live without inflicting those things on other people who already have their own problems. I made efforts to make this distinction clear and I cannot help that you chose to disregard that because mocking me was more important to you. It's alright, I don't think you're some kind of bad guy for that, but at the same time I call things what they are.
I'm not really trying to claim that you're inhuman. I'm just mocking the degree to which you seem to have decided that you're better than everyone else. Sure, there's a degree to which everyone sees the rest of humanity as mindless sheep, and that's a natural sort of delusion that we have because we're all human. But take it too far, and you're just paranoid.
If I really thought I were better than everyone else, then I would assume that no one else can do what I have done because they don't have what it takes like I do.
I do not do this. Instead, I assume that if I can do something, another individual can do the same. Thus, the faults I find are with their decision-making and not their abilities, nor any concept of their "worth," whatever that means. You can look just as hard as you want but you will not find a belief in inherent superiority in that.
If I wanted to assert superiority, I would be glad that so many people are so mindless. It would mean I have very little competition for my assertion. Because I don't want to do this, because I make no such assertions, I mourn the fact that so many of my fellow men have such a low conception of themselves. I wish to address this not by coercion, but by speaking what I know to be true with the understanding that no one has to listen to it if they don't want to.
I would love nothing more than to live in a society that could be described as "far more enlightened." We aren't going to get that society by disregarding the fact that it is possible. We aren't going to get it either by pretending like there is nothing wrong with human beings who are gifted with reason and foresight and an ability to explore their consciousness and then cannot be bothered to do so.
I think you see that I speak with a certain authority about these issues. I don't pander to the insecurity of others by saying "maybe" or "just in my opinion" about things that I have seen with my own eyes and know to be true. I think you have the wrong idea about why I express it this way. If you encountered a person who knew nothing at all about mathematics, and were explaining to them that 2+2=4, would you feel a need to insert "as long as it doesn't offend you" or "this is just my opinion" into your explanation? I doubt it, and there's nothing arrogant about that. Now if you went around saying "I know a bit about mathematics and you don't because I am better than you," now THAT would be arrogant. That's a line you have not seen me cross except perhaps in your own misconception of where I was coming from.
You think that your ability to fuck people over solely for your sick amusement is far more important than a person's right to save the life of their loved one.
Incorrect logic. Had he known that you were trying to save the life of your loved one, and he'd acted the same, that would be correct.
He was just being thoughtless, not malicious/evil.
I'll just say this one thing: if you are going to go out of your way to be a dick, you better be god damned certain that you have all of the facts, fully understand all potential implications of your actions, and are prepared for the possibility that you are making a bad assumption about the situation. If you don't know why somebody is trying so hard to pass you because you don't personally know both them and their situation, then you fail this criteria.
In parts of Germany, they have automated no-tailgating systems, composed of a grid on the pavement and a camera mounted over it. If two cars are in the grid at the same time, the driver in back gets a ticket. This would go a long way to solving many traffic jams.
If there is an afterlife with a Heaven, I certainly hope that whoever came up with that system has a special place reserved for him in it. Really that's one of the best traffic ideas I've heard of in a long time.
You can't ticket people for not allowing someone to pass, due to the blind-spot riders you mentioned. It's definitely not my fault for putting cruise on, while someone comes up behind me, pulls out, and then rides beside me.
No but you can ticket the jackass in the passing lane who remains beside you. Hopefully such tickets would have a four-digit fine.
When I get stuck behind such a jackass and tap my horn, he can no longer claim ignorance of the situation he is causing. If at that point he continues to monopolize the road, he is now doing so deliberately.
Perhaps there can occasionally be short lanes, about the length of an onramp, at the side of the road at regular intervals. Then you could have a temporary "third lane" that would give you enough time to pass these jackasses. If it were no longer so effective I don't believe they would continue to do this. As a taxpayer I'm willing to pay a few extra bucks to pay for this.
Ok, well I suppose you might be some kind of freak who has no actual human qualities. Good for you.
So denying my humanity is really the only way you can handle what I just told you? It seems there is no room in your mind for me to just be a human being with a radically different perspective from your own. Let me guess, you see nothing wrong with that?
For mere mortals (not you, who I'm sure is a veritable god on earth) there is absolutely no way around it. All the mindfulness in the world will ultimately not allow you to cease following your instincts and conditioned responses. You may as well be trying to prevent your reflex from kicking your leg when the doctor taps your knee.
It's not about having no instincts or conditioning. It's about seeing them for what they are and understanding that they are influencing you. If you know that this influence comes from that instinct, you gain the power to say no to it. If you don't know that, then you think it's your own idea and your own decision rather than an instinct.
What's worse, it's stupid to be so mindful of little everyday crap all the time. There's a reason why your brain allows you to run on autopilot when doing certain things. When I'm walking down the street, should I be thinking, "Left, right, left, right, left, right. Don't walk too close to that guy, Wait, now you're too far. Make sure you're swinging your arms while you walk, or else it looks weird. Left, right, left, right." It would be stupid, and what's worse, it would prevent my mind from thinking about more important things, such as where I'm going. I mean, not you, obviously. You're a god among men, don't suffer from such frailties, and have unlimited cognitive abilities.
Well, I will give you credit for one thing: you aren't attempting to conceal your resentment of me. That's a bit more honest than veiling it, though not really more constructive. So I said a thing you believe is unrealistic or otherwise that you disagree with. That's really all it takes to earn your contempt?
You're making the classic mistake of taking something to an illogical extreme and then declaring that there's something wrong with the idea. There isn't. There's just something wrong with how you are handling the idea. I'll try and explain that using your analogy to walking. Also, you might see your own reflection in this post and its parent.
I do let my brain be on "autopilot" when doing a thing like walking. Not because I can't choose otherwise, but because it serves no purpose to choose otherwise. However, if I were clumsy or uncoordinated and otherwise were not very good at walking, I would then use mindfulness to locate the problem and address it. That beats the hell out of falling on your face when you didn't have to.
Mindfulness is like a tool. I don't go chopping down every tree and signpost just because I have an axe. I only use the axe when I have the need for such a tool. The need to use mindfulness when driving comes from the stakes involved. If I am driving and I make a mistake, it could kill or seriously injure myself or several other people. I don't ever want to be responsible for that. This makes driving an appropriate use of the tool of mindfulness.
Now honestly, I'd agree with you if you were simply saying that people should be more mindful on the road. It's a dangerous place, and we take it too lightly. But trying to make it about people being "sheep" is just a little silly. If you were human, you'd understand that every single person who drives for any length of time will eventually space out for a little while. Every one. Every single person will occasional fall into some unconscious pattern of following someone else on the road without noticing. All people have unconscious/subconscious forces that help in driving th
Slashdot Mirror
When you mentioned your willingness to pay, this occurred to me:
That's a locked-down or "exclusive" market.
That's a competitive market.
I'll take the latter any day. If other people like them that's of course their decision, but personally I have avoided the iPhone and several other Apple products because I really don't like it when vendors try to tell me how I may use a tangible, physical piece of property for which I have paid. No matter how trivial the "jailbreaking" can be, it's just not a business practice that I wish to reward or support.
If copyright were truly reformed it would again become respectable. People who respected it because they could see for themselves that it is right and good and strikes a worthy balance would not need DRM to prevent them from breaking it. That's one factor that is often ignored in these discussions, either because of cynicism concerning whether reasonable laws are likely to be respected or because it's difficult to put a dollar sign on such a thing.
A highway I use sometimes had the speed limit raised from 55 to 65 recently. I should emphasize that there has been no new construction on that road. Now, before the limit was raised, if I were ticketed for doing 65 while it was 55 I would have been told that this was for my safety. Now, if the state had any sense of honor (haha) they would refund the fines paid by anyone who was ticketed for going 10 mph or less over the speed limit because they are effectively admitting that they had it wrong.
The copyright laws have become increasingly punitive. Because of that, if we ever see any reform for copyright it makes me wonder if those who were prosecuted under what are later acknowledged to be bad laws should be compensated in some way. I admit that whether they realistically will be is a separate question from whether they should be.
Those that hack or pirate always have it better. No DRM, no restrictions on what software you can install, no need for physical media and the list goes on. Being a nice customer simply doesn't pay anymore these days.
That should be obvious, yes. Still I see people who defend DRM and I don't understand it. If it were just the occasional one or two I would suspect that perhaps they are astroturfing. It's more than a few so while I have to admit it has some non-zero probability, I really don't think astroturfing is a satisfying explanation. I think plenty of people really feel this way. I apologize in advance for caps, but to them, YOU ARE DEFENDING SOMETHING THAT IS NOT AND COULD NEVER BE IN YOUR INTERESTS, WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT FOR ANY REASON?! If nothing else, understanding this behavior would be an interesting psychological study.
I was wondering that too, surely there are a number of people all members of those groups. I'd expect people that are members of two or more to be members of most.
Well yeah they have to feed their self-importance, narcissism, delusions of grandeur, attention whoring, or exhibitionistic tendencies SOMEHOW.
Wait, that's not this "Cyxymu" guy? No wonder they are trying to shut him down then. He stands out too much!
So we know how we could (possibly) get rid of itches, but is there any research showing what purpose itching has?
Making you scratch?
To be simple, greed knows no limits except those limits imposed by morality and by law. And in the case of modern business, there is no such thing as "morality" and so law is the only limit recognized by business. To be clear, unless laws are present to prevent it, 12 year olds will make your clothes and shoes in factories as can be demonstrated even today. Without laws, there would be billboards covering ever scene and location imaginable. I have no doubt that business would have no problem playing ads in your dreams if it were technically possible, and of course, legal.
There is nothing more important to modern business than money. Nothing. Not quality. Not human life. Not nature or the environment. All of that has been lost. It would be nice if that sort of morality could return, but I just can't imagine how. The story of how it was all lost would be an interesting story to hear. I just know we had some morality at some point and it was lost... I feel the loss.
Mods,
This isn't off-topic, so I say to you: have the courage to post a reply and explain why you believe parent is wrong. The inability to do that is what causes the need to censor. The inability could be because you know he's right and want to shoot the messenger. It may also be that you disagree and yet you sense the weakness of your position. Both are cowardly. This post about greed and business can't be off-topic for this discussion. That's obvious unless you think this sort of bait-and-switch advertising is an act of altruism that we are discussing. If you believe that, I really want to see you try to make the case for it. Good luck with that.
I hope no one thinks I'm bothered by a misuse of the Slashdot system. Yeah, that's annoying but trivial. Rather, I prefer not to see even anonymous people like this moderator make such an unflattering statement about themselves. There's a million ways the individual can do that; the moderation system is just easier than most.
Yeah, but I believe you have a limited time to request a chargeback don't you?
Two questions:
Does the delayed bait-and-switch nature of this incident mitigate any time limits for a chargeback? I'd imagine this is a question for a lawyer.
Do a multitude of good-faith chargebacks need to be successful in order to cause the expenditure of a lot of time, effort, and expense that would lead to a lot of pressure applied in the direction of avoiding a reoccurrence?
Yes, because putting ads in a game is exactly the same as compromising a system at the root level and leaving it exposed to god knows what.
I acknowledge that what you said there is accurate though I question its purpose. I just think the AC's point that "you as a potential customer should know that a Sony product has shown itself to be untrustworthy in these two different ways" is significantly more important than your point that "these two different ways were more different than the GP may have indicated."
Those different ways actually have quite a bit in common. Remember that the rootkit was a DRM device. So, these are two different expressions of the same mentality because each gives some benefit to a company at the expense of the already-paying customer. In light of that, are not the precise methods academic? Either tells me all that I need to know for my monetary decision-making.
I think you might just have a case here for the ultimate retroactive boycott: the credit card issuer chargeback.
They sold you a game. Then they added a double-dip, "secondary monetization" to what you already paid for. I'd call up MasterCard and see if they've got your back on this.
Honestly, the studio or publisher that did this needs to get hit hard. Ads are for freeloaders, not for paying customers.
From what I understand, chargebacks are a pain in the ass for retailers. They're also one of the few scenarios where the deck is stacked in the favor of you the customer. That's because the merchant really wants to be able to take $MAJOR_CARD but you as the customer can choose among several major credit cards. A small percentage of affected people doing this really would get some attention, methinks.
so long as it is not offensive, what's the issue?
The point is that a change to the game's content could make them have to go through the ESRB review/rating process all over again, causing delays and maybe additional expenses for them. It'd be a way of making it a bit more of a hassle for them to assume that the game you bought with no such advertisements has now become a billboard.
I think ESRB makes an exception for "online play" (I'd speculate this is because of the difficulty/undesirability of censoring the other players) but it seems there were changes to offline play as well.
Can this description include anyone who says "new-key-ler" to describe atomic phenomena?
You went to the wrong college then. Or maybe just had a liberal arts degree.
Try an actual science education.
I refer not to subject matter but rather to the methods by which they teach and the spirit in which that is done.
Albert Einstein captured the essence of which I speak in a single sentence: "It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education."
"Ok, just file a complaint. I'm sure that semi-literate guy did something wrong enough to slap them down."
I love how the Americans think that suing everybody is the best solution for every problem.
That illness has a self-perpetuating nature, as does all aspects or expressions of "us against them." To sum it up, when you find yourself born and raised in an environment in which most recipients of most legitimate complaints are insensate and unreceptive, the "force of the law" nature of legal remedies become the only undeniable way to call attention to even the slightest injustice. All it really should take is for a person to stand up, with understanding, and call out those things which need to be addressed, to shine a light upon them and remove the shadows of excuses and other utilitarian purposes under which they are sheltered. By comparison, what we have now is not an underlying acknowledgement of human dignity or a celebration of harmony, but the primitive desire to avoid punishment.
It's such a precious thing, such an exquisite privilege, to put the lie to this pattern by nothing other than your living example of a higher order.
I always saw it as testing and rewarding obedience, and the submission to allowing strangers to set your goals and priorities and otherwise to direct your efforts, to take on their tasks as if they were your own with a diligence that lasts well into what would otherwise be your personal time. To me this is the trait college tests which employers would find desirable in terms of obedient workers who don't raise a fuss and are relatively easy to manage. Innate ability determines whether you must focus on the task itself or the willingness to complete it, and learning just means you can more readily incorporate this unwritten lesson. Otherwise, very little that I've seen of formal education (in any form) had to do with testing your personal limits or expanding your mind or pushing your boundaries. The emphasis on rote as opposed to arrival by experience is evidence enough of this fact.
Securitization did not cause the financial crisis, the sudden deflation of a huge asset price bubble caused the financial crisis. Securitization concentrated some of the consequences of that event.
(For instance, the bonds that Fannie and Freddie wrote 20 years ago are just fine, as they are secured by mortgages against houses that have, by now, very low loan to value ratios (like 30%)
If I understand it correctly, speculation had a lot to do with the price bubble. That is, many people who were purchasing these homes had no intention of living there but were hoping to quickly sell them at a profit. Real estate is supposed to be an appreciating asset but perhaps not when too many people are banking on this at the same time. Then instead of an investment it's more like a sophisticated form of gambling.
This was greatly exacerbated by government manipulation, in the form of pressuring banks to lend money to people who otherwise would not be credit-worthy (the euphamism is "sub-prime"). More people owning homes is a desirable thing. The correct way to arrange it is not to lower standards but rather, to find out why so many people do not meet those standards and to address that. Perhaps this could be done by education or credit counseling. Certainly a more economically-savvy general public that can be given a little rope without hanging themselves is a desirable thing.
To put that another way, if you need one loan for the standard 80% of the cost of the home, and then a second loan to pay what was traditionally a 20% down payment, it's because you are buying more house than you can afford. Practices like that contribute to ending up "upside-down" on a home; that is, owing more money than what the property is worth. Any "solution" which doesn't recognize such realities is begging for trouble. As much as I'm not fond of banks, I do disagree with blaming this entirely on the banks ("predatory lending" is the fashionable term), for the simple reason that if an agreement is not in my interests I simply won't sign the contract. If I don't understand the agreement or the full implications of it, and sign that dotted line anyway, that would be my fault.
It looks really fake is all I can think. I know it's real but the speed of takeoff and whatnot makes it look fake.
I can see a lot of military and spying technology resulting from this. Dependent on how quiet it is and how much it can lift and how long it can fly anyhow. Other than that, they could at least corner the market on hobbyists and children's toys.
Personally I suspect (but couldn't hope to prove, of course) that most of these UFOs are actually advanced, classified military vehicles. Isn't it true that the projects that eh, "don't officially exist" are usually a decade or two (or more) ahead of private industry? That would hold for a variety of reasons, not the least being that the government can get the funding and talent it needs and doesn't have to make a profit in a marketplace. If so, it would make sense that people have been reporting "flying saucer" type UFOs for years and finally we see companies starting to independently produce them.
Remember that the stealth bomber was classified for some 30+ years. Someone who saw it, a large black "flying wing" (I think it's called a delta wing?) object in the sky, would have concluded that it's not likely to be a normal airplane and certainly isn't a helicopter, making it an "unidentified flying object." To me that seems quite plausible.
It may be easy for a nerd to install e.g. SwitchProxy, and knock together some scripts to automate the maintenance of a list of working anonymizing proxy servers (and by the way, any old proxy is not good enough), but it's not that easy for Joe Public. Unless they're going to pay for a vpn service, the vast majority of Dutch people will be accurately blocked by their IP address. And since accessing TPB is not a fundamental human right, the tiny amount of collateral damage will be seen as insignificant.
True, but this is a crowd that's rather well-known for their ability to circumvent restrictions.
Are you, by any chance, this guy?
Haha, that was good. It's funny because what he said was mostly true but it was obvious that he did not arrive at it on his own. It's more like he was reading from a brochure or a seminar and was otherwise telling his audience (some bank's HR department) whatever bullshit he thought they wanted to hear.
:-).
No, I'm not that guy, but it gave me a laugh
I also see that when I have to stop for a traffic light, the guy beside me will slow down at the same time that I slow down even though there may be cars in front of me that require me to slow down earlier than he does. ... Or if you take an exit ramp off the highway and you are slowing down in a turning lane, watch the guy who is still on the highway; often he will slow down on the highway lane just because you are slowing down in the separate turning lane, needlessly holding up anyone behind him. ... I think drivers don't understand that groups of cars exhibit wave-like behaviors, so a minor needless slowdown can contribute to jams miles behind you. That is, it does not occur to them to even think at all of how their decisions are affecting other people, which sums up nearly all traffic problems.
I do this, and I definitely understand how my decisions affect people. The thing is, I've seen way too many drivers who think it's their turn to break the rules swerve across double-white lines. Even if someone does this and the accident is ruled their fault and paid for by their insurance (hahaha, none of the three people who have hit me have had insurance), I will still have to take time off work to get my car repaired, and the repaired car will be of lesser quality.
I honestly am sorry that you have to put up with people like me, but I am going to continue slowing down when the person in the lane next to me slows down for a stoplight, because I have already been hit three times and am not interested in dealing with that again.
If it makes you feel any better, I always drive in the furthest right line that I can, I request that friends who are driving in the left lane move to the right, I always use my signal, and I intentionally avoid poorly designed intersections (so if you find yourself in one, be glad that there's one less car making things that much more hectic).
It's alright in the sense that just because someone wants to do this, does not mean that I must play along. That "pacer" thing requires two to tango. If you tried that with me, you would quickly give up and go try it with somebody else because I will actively make that difficult to do. More than difficult enough that you would gravitate towards the first other car you see. I don't do that out of spite but rather because I don't wish to be in that situation and refuse to allow someone to decide that for me.
Having said that, I appreciate your honesty. I think you're in a small minority because you do this with understanding; my experience would suggest otherwise for most of them. For most, it seems to be the "default" state that you get when you don't actively make any decisions at all, like a path of least resistence. That you try to stay on the right side greatly mitigates this too; the pacers are such a big problem because they like to tie up the passing lane and form rolling roadblocks. It sounds like you are not doing this.
I suppose there is only one thing you said that doesn't make sense to me. I don't understand how you feel safer by matching pace and thus guaranteeing that there is always another car right beside you. I feel the safest when I have lots of space in front, behind, and beside me. I will avoid being stuck in a pack of cars to achieve this; sometimes that means speeding up and sometimes that means slowing down. To me, safety and maneuverability go hand-in-hand. An obstacle does not guarantee an accident unless you have no room with which to avoid that obstacle. A person who is needlessly close to you when they have what is otherwise a large wide-open road guarantees less room to maneuver. That's why I don't understand how this benefits you but would appreciate if you can explain it to me.
your statement still means that great programmers give everyone else a hard time
Alright, I'll rephrase: great programmers think they're slightly above average, and they don't understand why other people can't solve problems that easily.
They won't say "use this algorithm because I'm the greatest". They'll say "use this because it's 20% faster and only uses half the memory". And if they're wrong, they're smart enough to realize it.
I don't think this is specific to programming at all.
If you are really good at something, it's because you did not give up easily and were willing to test your own boundaries and limits, to see what you are capable of and to reject self-imposed limitations. In its purest form, you do this not to impress anyone, but because you value excellence and because you want to explore your own capabilities. When you can do this for one thing, you are presented with the question of why the majority of people don't do this in the areas where they are talented, why they are content with mediocrity and why they seldom deviate from the path of least resistance.
If you really look into the issue, my personal belief is that you will be forced to conclude that other people certainly could do this. That they could means this is not about inherent superiority, clearly showing the error of arrogance. Those other people just don't care to; they are choosing not to though this may not be a deliberate, conscious choice. Instead of a joy of discovery and a worthy challenge, or even a sense of adventure and exploration, they just see extra effort and they decide it isn't worthwhile.
I think that what makes the difference is that those who value excellence really love what they are doing. The others just do what they do for a paycheck, or for status, or so others think they're a great guy or a hard worker. I believe that not only does the former approach produce better tangible results, it also contributes to a joyful outlook and removes much of the toil from things that do involve a great deal of effort. Effort doesn't feel so much like work when you are grateful that you get to do something like this.
Why is modding the truth considered "a troll". They are both acting like girls.
I often see some very low-quality moderation but I don't think this is an example of it. I'll explain why the GP was trollish.
Perhaps because to say that is to dismiss the basis of the conflict, not by showing it to be invalid or by proposing a means of reconciliation but by trivializing it.
I'm a man so I have to use guesswork to answer another aspect of this question. I would guess that the above would look quite trollish to any woman who can conduct herself in a mature and intelligent fashion, due to the implication that the only reason why two men would have a conflict is because they resemble females. Although, I balance that with the knowledge that the intelligent women I have known all had one thing in common: they had more contempt for the petty/catty behavior exhibited by less-intelligent women than any man I have ever met, sometimes going so far as to say that they give all women a bad name by living up to stereotypes.
Nowhere will you see me making the claim that I have no weaknesses. In fact I went out of my way to explain that I do have them. Did it occur to you that I explained that because your knee-jerk response was predictable? The difference, what makes me not one of the "sheeple", is that I see them as something that actively needs my care and attention. So I refer not to whether a person has weaknesses and shortcomings and flaws, but whether the person can live without inflicting those things on other people who already have their own problems. I made efforts to make this distinction clear and I cannot help that you chose to disregard that because mocking me was more important to you. It's alright, I don't think you're some kind of bad guy for that, but at the same time I call things what they are.
If I really thought I were better than everyone else, then I would assume that no one else can do what I have done because they don't have what it takes like I do.
I do not do this. Instead, I assume that if I can do something, another individual can do the same. Thus, the faults I find are with their decision-making and not their abilities, nor any concept of their "worth," whatever that means. You can look just as hard as you want but you will not find a belief in inherent superiority in that.
If I wanted to assert superiority, I would be glad that so many people are so mindless. It would mean I have very little competition for my assertion. Because I don't want to do this, because I make no such assertions, I mourn the fact that so many of my fellow men have such a low conception of themselves. I wish to address this not by coercion, but by speaking what I know to be true with the understanding that no one has to listen to it if they don't want to.
I would love nothing more than to live in a society that could be described as "far more enlightened." We aren't going to get that society by disregarding the fact that it is possible. We aren't going to get it either by pretending like there is nothing wrong with human beings who are gifted with reason and foresight and an ability to explore their consciousness and then cannot be bothered to do so.
I think you see that I speak with a certain authority about these issues. I don't pander to the insecurity of others by saying "maybe" or "just in my opinion" about things that I have seen with my own eyes and know to be true. I think you have the wrong idea about why I express it this way. If you encountered a person who knew nothing at all about mathematics, and were explaining to them that 2+2=4, would you feel a need to insert "as long as it doesn't offend you" or "this is just my opinion" into your explanation? I doubt it, and there's nothing arrogant about that. Now if you went around saying "I know a bit about mathematics and you don't because I am better than you," now THAT would be arrogant. That's a line you have not seen me cross except perhaps in your own misconception of where I was coming from.
You think that your ability to fuck people over solely for your sick amusement is far more important than a person's right to save the life of their loved one.
Incorrect logic. Had he known that you were trying to save the life of your loved one, and he'd acted the same, that would be correct. He was just being thoughtless, not malicious/evil.
I'll just say this one thing: if you are going to go out of your way to be a dick, you better be god damned certain that you have all of the facts, fully understand all potential implications of your actions, and are prepared for the possibility that you are making a bad assumption about the situation. If you don't know why somebody is trying so hard to pass you because you don't personally know both them and their situation, then you fail this criteria.
If there is an afterlife with a Heaven, I certainly hope that whoever came up with that system has a special place reserved for him in it. Really that's one of the best traffic ideas I've heard of in a long time.
No but you can ticket the jackass in the passing lane who remains beside you. Hopefully such tickets would have a four-digit fine.
When I get stuck behind such a jackass and tap my horn, he can no longer claim ignorance of the situation he is causing. If at that point he continues to monopolize the road, he is now doing so deliberately.
Perhaps there can occasionally be short lanes, about the length of an onramp, at the side of the road at regular intervals. Then you could have a temporary "third lane" that would give you enough time to pass these jackasses. If it were no longer so effective I don't believe they would continue to do this. As a taxpayer I'm willing to pay a few extra bucks to pay for this.
So denying my humanity is really the only way you can handle what I just told you? It seems there is no room in your mind for me to just be a human being with a radically different perspective from your own. Let me guess, you see nothing wrong with that?
It's not about having no instincts or conditioning. It's about seeing them for what they are and understanding that they are influencing you. If you know that this influence comes from that instinct, you gain the power to say no to it. If you don't know that, then you think it's your own idea and your own decision rather than an instinct.
Well, I will give you credit for one thing: you aren't attempting to conceal your resentment of me. That's a bit more honest than veiling it, though not really more constructive. So I said a thing you believe is unrealistic or otherwise that you disagree with. That's really all it takes to earn your contempt?
You're making the classic mistake of taking something to an illogical extreme and then declaring that there's something wrong with the idea. There isn't. There's just something wrong with how you are handling the idea. I'll try and explain that using your analogy to walking. Also, you might see your own reflection in this post and its parent.
I do let my brain be on "autopilot" when doing a thing like walking. Not because I can't choose otherwise, but because it serves no purpose to choose otherwise. However, if I were clumsy or uncoordinated and otherwise were not very good at walking, I would then use mindfulness to locate the problem and address it. That beats the hell out of falling on your face when you didn't have to.
Mindfulness is like a tool. I don't go chopping down every tree and signpost just because I have an axe. I only use the axe when I have the need for such a tool. The need to use mindfulness when driving comes from the stakes involved. If I am driving and I make a mistake, it could kill or seriously injure myself or several other people. I don't ever want to be responsible for that. This makes driving an appropriate use of the tool of mindfulness.