I just couldn't bring myself to mod this as funny in all honesty. It's quite depressing when I've seen IM-isms seeping into normal writing and speech. It's quite depressing when I've heard people creating pronounciations for IM acronyms (instead of just saying the damn phrase) and kids in school getting lower grades for writing the IM acronyms in their papers.
Parent Post == Startling Public Service Announcement
I'm aware of that. What I'm saying is that I wouldn't be at all surprised if any IP organization ever tried to actually claim ownership of original public domain works (ie. claim that public domain now belongs to UPSTO, WIPO, RIAA, whatever univerally) to auction them off to individuals. I really wouldn't be shocked in the least.
You know he's mostly right, except I think M. Jackson's going to buy half of the entire public domain for $73 billion in 10 years. Another 25 after that, he'll get sued by the financial firm he never paid back for the loan and only half of the public domain will be lost;)
I'm well aware of that fact. People can brag about inpenetrable Linux servers, and those can be hacked just like anything else. The meat of my post was the point that worms could serve the double danger of harming your computer as well as your car. When considering the market majority of computer users run as administrator (ie. root) and allow all changes, I think this should stay a model car until security practices can actually be 'practiced'.
Otherwise, any Joe Sixpack with an email with a subject like "Re: Hello!^" can destroy their own Mazda
I guess that this system is going to have to rock solid. Otherwise, I'd hate to see the day that all these cars are shut down (or worse) by starting their car with a USB key infected with a Mazda.b worm from their PC.
"And I thought I was just loading some new tunes!"
Unfortunately, as the article points out, I don't EA is going to be toppled as soon as someone else can offer something new. Like the article mentioned, gaming has become mainstream and that's where a lot of EA's success comes from. They're like the MTV of video games, in a way. Yeah, you can say that R* has that title too, but not in the same sense of financial and pop-culture omnipotence for games (with the exception of things like GTA).
With Joe and Jane Sixpack on the couch with controllers becoming the norm, I don't think it's enough to be innovative, an upstart has to convince the pop-culture before they try it that 'this is the new era'. As far as the article is concerned EA has already mastered the art of marketing recycled garbage as 'the next generation of games' in a way.
Here's the one ray of hope I do have for video games:
We're already nearing that same point of stagnation (creatively, not financially) that movies are starting to suffer for now. If the creative trend of video games has advanced to this far at such a rapid pace compared to movies, maybe we can get over the hump sooner as well.
...That this story is hosted on the same site that advertises The Escapist, which usually espouses the value of a good game with real story and gameplay as opposed to higher polygon count and one teraflop being worse than two;)
Even if people don't care about the 'quality' of the game, like everyone else has said, the selection is what matters and the selection is what turned me off to the Xbox in the first round.
And that's the problem with mainstream game development right now. I frequently hear of independant studios being required to sign away all rights to itellectual content as the accepted norm just to get work. If $studio['foo'] won't sell out then $studio['bar'] certainly will because mainstream game publishers want to minimize production/development costs in any way they can to maximize profit. "If you don't want to work for us, we can just make a sequel to another game until you change your mind" is the basic corporate attitude towards hiring video game developers right now, and in a lot of games, it's starting to show. </gripe></bitch></moan>
I believe the parent post is speaking along the lines of a gerneralization. Graphics and film companies do work on Apples, but when people are speaking of a lack of Apple on corporate desktops, they are usually (not always though, I'm not trying to speak in maxims) refering to business and non-creative/design kind of typical 9-5 desk job environments.
So by 'corporate', I think the parent post was refering to the average mental image of corporate (ie. non-creative job) ^_^
On another note, I'm an interactive media designer/web developer and my wife is a graphic designer, and we've both seen a different trend from what we were told in college. All our teachers told us that the design work was done on Apple computers as an industry standard, and they left the programming side of things to PCs. However, aside from video related tasks, we've seen the vast majority of less than large firms actually using PC's for graphic design because of either the expense of Apple computers or the familiarity of the Windows operating environment. I think the latter is utterly rediculous because if you can't learn an OS that practically advertises itself as idiot proof (I'm exagerating here, don't flame me please), then what chance do you have of adapting to changes in design trends?
As far as I know, in the States, we don't get naked DSL anywhere either. There's cable and I think a rare few places even have access to fiber lines, but our copper lines are so outdated that most of the nation's DSL services, by definition, aren't fast enough to be considered 'broadband' (at least 3MBs, last time I checked but I could be wrong so please don't flame me).
So even though everyone I know with DSL (including myself) has to pay for a phone service to get a constant connection, some of us get a big package deal and the rest just get barebones phone service only for the purpose of internet, and then use VoIP for actual calls. Then the cable internet eliminates that need for a phone as far as I know anyway. But in the US, you're going to need that phone line because VoIP is getting slapped around for the emergency calls so I couldn't care less who's going to dominate the market until the standards are fixed;)
True, and sometimes it doesn't go away, but simply changes. Last week, Google was going to take over all of VoIP as we know it and everyone else would pale by compare. Sometimes, I think it's just titles like this that annoy me more than anything else when someone is proclaiming a product killer when in this case, American VoIP is already in partial danger (last time I checked) due to having issues with 911 calls. I read that the shutoff was extended, but in either case, if someone could let me know whether or not that was reversed, I'd be most appreciative.
Until then, I'm not going to worry about somebody trying to dominate all VoIP when it can't even serve as an (American, at least) alternative to landline or cellular telephone.
And, yes I am aware that the world is more than just the United States, but I don't doubt that other countries could (keyword: could) find similar problems with the technology.
Nobody else will want to try it and Microsoft will go broke!</obligatoryjest>
This shit is just getting out of hand. Companies should not expect force customer loyalty through legal blocks against the competition anymore. I think we need to get the somebody like IBM (or someone who gives a crap) to fund a load of money into the BBB to hand out some serious smite when you start seeing at least two of these articles a day. Sometimes, we may end up throwing a fit over someone filing a patent just because it's a patent, but too many companies are going the route of SCO and I thinking I should stock up on my molotovs. </gripe></bitch></moan></smolderingwithgenericrage >
Actually, the problem with patent law as it is practiced in the United States isn't a matter of stifling further art. That is easier to remedy than most companies are willing to realize (and I actually have done my fair share of IP Law degree study). Lately, companies are filing for patents to collect settlements from similar instances being currently distributed, however if someone can verify significant improvement or differentiation from the original patent, the so-called 'infringing party' can turn the case around and create their own patent as a substantial modification on an existing patent. The only problem with the execution of these tactics is that in a field that US law is largely stupid on, you have to know how to fast talk and woo those you wish to grant your patent.
However, the specifications of the patent can be easily cirumvented by altering a small number of details.
Many people on Slashdot keep forgetting (or never learned) that Nintendo patenting a sanity system in a video game doesn't mean that any sanity system is covered under this. For the patent to be granted, it has to contain enough specifications to make it unique. You cannot patent an idea. The Nintendo patent on the sanity system is simply one implementation of it. If someone wanted to to yank the old delerium system from the White Wolf tabletop systems (with their permission, of course), then they wouldn't have to worry about the patent in the least, as long as it wasn't a direct copy of Nintendo's specs on a video game sanity system.
As long as there has been 'reasonable modification' to the currently patented system registered, another company could create a game with their new 'insanity engine' and even patent that as having significant improvment on an existing patent.
Nintendo isn't trying to monopolize the horror/action horror video game industry people. They just want to protect their own specific method of inciting character insanity in the video game engine. </finallytakingabreath>
Now if Opera really wants some market share, they just need to find more things to celebrate for another 364 days with the same benefits...;) </toungeincheek>
Because Apple has done a great deal to take the text files out of everyday configuration. I find that OSX sometimes even cripples advanced featrues of otherwise great *nix applications through idiot-proof GUIs with much to be desired in the advanced settings. I know that much more can be done in the console, and that's one of the reasons I don't use OSX very often. To accomplish many of the tasks that I would like to on a *nix system, I would need to use OSX's terminal, and for that much effort just to get around the GUI's lack of (possibly destructive) advanced settings tabs or screens, I may as well just use Linux.
OSX is easy because they try to make it idiot proof and simplistic enough for a child to never need advanced options, but I find myself always in the OSX terminal.
This is just my opinion, so please don't flame me about your experiences or superior platforms.
Hell, I'm just waiting for anybody to resurrect the PDA. I could use a good one, but I'd rather not pay a number of dollars equal to the number of years the features have been available;)</gripe></bitch></moan>
As is, the only thing that's actually looking good to me is Blackberry.
Motorola does have some decent phones and most of the trouble I've had is with Nokia, but I had to point out one thing:
No offense (seriously, no offense meant at all) but it's a bad example to say that the phone that gives good performance cost as much as some PDA's and iPods ($300 at first) and also had problems early on getting carriers to insure because they were too fragile (Cingular in PA, USA wouldn't give insurance on them because they broke too easily after they were first released).:p
I'm not too aware of any plans in the states that offer unlimited data for a reasonable price (if at all, actually). If you know of one, please let me know.
Otherwise, the point I was making in the quoted text is that the audience that they may be looking for probably wants an instant solution rather than go through the trouble of settting up something exponentially more elaborate. Besides, they would have to pay for a constant connection at home plus unlimted data, which would probably cost more than a 60GB iPod for all we know!;)
True, I have a 60GB iPod and there's no way I'd switch to 100 songs from several thousand, however...
If Apple's getting anything out of this, they're hoping more people may buy this instead of a Shuffle.::looks down at cracked screen:: "cuz like, I need a new phone anyway"
Besides, I have to wonder how many of the games in these bundles will even be out by the time the buyer go to pick them up. I can see it now:
They'll bring the moving truck to get their 360 and all it's titles, and they'll leave with one big box, two or three games and several hundred dollars returned for games that had their release dates pushed back until february!;) </sardonicglee>
A very good point, but we tend to make predictions (and sometimes for good reason) based upon past experience. So far, Walmart hasn't been the most benevolent dictator. People are only trying to prepare for what they can reasonable assume may result.
Once again, you are completely correct that tools aren't good or evil; that is left to the implementer. I think a lot of readers are just taking this as an opportunity to take shots on Walmart, not the technology itself. Or at least that's how I'm seeing it. Besides, why would they be crying out against RFID if we've heard the doomsayers calling out the death of bar code for years now?;)
It's really quite odd when I look at it. You would figure that with Google, being practically the last entry into the IM race, would be the most open and decentralized. Part of me wonders if they're scared of people misusing the service the way some sites abused Google Maps (not all, but some did, indeed violate the conditions), and that they're crippling the potentential to prevent another similar event.
Slashdot Mirror
I just couldn't bring myself to mod this as funny in all honesty. It's quite depressing when I've seen IM-isms seeping into normal writing and speech. It's quite depressing when I've heard people creating pronounciations for IM acronyms (instead of just saying the damn phrase) and kids in school getting lower grades for writing the IM acronyms in their papers.
Parent Post == Startling Public Service Announcement
I'm aware of that. What I'm saying is that I wouldn't be at all surprised if any IP organization ever tried to actually claim ownership of original public domain works (ie. claim that public domain now belongs to UPSTO, WIPO, RIAA, whatever univerally) to auction them off to individuals. I really wouldn't be shocked in the least.
Warning: I'm actually serious about this.
I'll be terrified to see the day that the USPTO actually starts selling the rights to public domain works of unknown origin.
I can honestly see it happening.
You know he's mostly right, except I think M. Jackson's going to buy half of the entire public domain for $73 billion in 10 years. Another 25 after that, he'll get sued by the financial firm he never paid back for the loan and only half of the public domain will be lost ;)
I'm well aware of that fact. People can brag about inpenetrable Linux servers, and those can be hacked just like anything else. The meat of my post was the point that worms could serve the double danger of harming your computer as well as your car. When considering the market majority of computer users run as administrator (ie. root) and allow all changes, I think this should stay a model car until security practices can actually be 'practiced'.
Otherwise, any Joe Sixpack with an email with a subject like "Re: Hello!^" can destroy their own Mazda
I guess that this system is going to have to rock solid. Otherwise, I'd hate to see the day that all these cars are shut down (or worse) by starting their car with a USB key infected with a Mazda.b worm from their PC.
"And I thought I was just loading some new tunes!"
Unfortunately, as the article points out, I don't EA is going to be toppled as soon as someone else can offer something new. Like the article mentioned, gaming has become mainstream and that's where a lot of EA's success comes from. They're like the MTV of video games, in a way. Yeah, you can say that R* has that title too, but not in the same sense of financial and pop-culture omnipotence for games (with the exception of things like GTA).
With Joe and Jane Sixpack on the couch with controllers becoming the norm, I don't think it's enough to be innovative, an upstart has to convince the pop-culture before they try it that 'this is the new era'. As far as the article is concerned EA has already mastered the art of marketing recycled garbage as 'the next generation of games' in a way.
Here's the one ray of hope I do have for video games:
We're already nearing that same point of stagnation (creatively, not financially) that movies are starting to suffer for now. If the creative trend of video games has advanced to this far at such a rapid pace compared to movies, maybe we can get over the hump sooner as well.
...That this story is hosted on the same site that advertises The Escapist, which usually espouses the value of a good game with real story and gameplay as opposed to higher polygon count and one teraflop being worse than two ;)
Even if people don't care about the 'quality' of the game, like everyone else has said, the selection is what matters and the selection is what turned me off to the Xbox in the first round.
And that's the problem with mainstream game development right now. I frequently hear of independant studios being required to sign away all rights to itellectual content as the accepted norm just to get work. If $studio['foo'] won't sell out then $studio['bar'] certainly will because mainstream game publishers want to minimize production/development costs in any way they can to maximize profit. "If you don't want to work for us, we can just make a sequel to another game until you change your mind" is the basic corporate attitude towards hiring video game developers right now, and in a lot of games, it's starting to show.
</gripe></bitch></moan>
That's just my opinion.
As I said before: 'usually'. I know this isn't always the rule, and I don't claim that it is ;)
I believe the parent post is speaking along the lines of a gerneralization. Graphics and film companies do work on Apples, but when people are speaking of a lack of Apple on corporate desktops, they are usually (not always though, I'm not trying to speak in maxims) refering to business and non-creative/design kind of typical 9-5 desk job environments.
So by 'corporate', I think the parent post was refering to the average mental image of corporate (ie. non-creative job) ^_^
On another note, I'm an interactive media designer/web developer and my wife is a graphic designer, and we've both seen a different trend from what we were told in college. All our teachers told us that the design work was done on Apple computers as an industry standard, and they left the programming side of things to PCs. However, aside from video related tasks, we've seen the vast majority of less than large firms actually using PC's for graphic design because of either the expense of Apple computers or the familiarity of the Windows operating environment. I think the latter is utterly rediculous because if you can't learn an OS that practically advertises itself as idiot proof (I'm exagerating here, don't flame me please), then what chance do you have of adapting to changes in design trends?
But that's just my two cents.
As far as I know, in the States, we don't get naked DSL anywhere either. There's cable and I think a rare few places even have access to fiber lines, but our copper lines are so outdated that most of the nation's DSL services, by definition, aren't fast enough to be considered 'broadband' (at least 3MBs, last time I checked but I could be wrong so please don't flame me).
;)
So even though everyone I know with DSL (including myself) has to pay for a phone service to get a constant connection, some of us get a big package deal and the rest just get barebones phone service only for the purpose of internet, and then use VoIP for actual calls. Then the cable internet eliminates that need for a phone as far as I know anyway. But in the US, you're going to need that phone line because VoIP is getting slapped around for the emergency calls so I couldn't care less who's going to dominate the market until the standards are fixed
True, and sometimes it doesn't go away, but simply changes. Last week, Google was going to take over all of VoIP as we know it and everyone else would pale by compare. Sometimes, I think it's just titles like this that annoy me more than anything else when someone is proclaiming a product killer when in this case, American VoIP is already in partial danger (last time I checked) due to having issues with 911 calls. I read that the shutoff was extended, but in either case, if someone could let me know whether or not that was reversed, I'd be most appreciative.
Until then, I'm not going to worry about somebody trying to dominate all VoIP when it can't even serve as an (American, at least) alternative to landline or cellular telephone.
And, yes I am aware that the world is more than just the United States, but I don't doubt that other countries could (keyword: could) find similar problems with the technology.
I hope they patent the built-in virus!
e >
Nobody else will want to try it and Microsoft will go broke!</obligatoryjest>
This shit is just getting out of hand. Companies should not expect force customer loyalty through legal blocks against the competition anymore. I think we need to get the somebody like IBM (or someone who gives a crap) to fund a load of money into the BBB to hand out some serious smite when you start seeing at least two of these articles a day. Sometimes, we may end up throwing a fit over someone filing a patent just because it's a patent, but too many companies are going the route of SCO and I thinking I should stock up on my molotovs.
</gripe></bitch></moan></smolderingwithgenericrag
Actually, the problem with patent law as it is practiced in the United States isn't a matter of stifling further art. That is easier to remedy than most companies are willing to realize (and I actually have done my fair share of IP Law degree study). Lately, companies are filing for patents to collect settlements from similar instances being currently distributed, however if someone can verify significant improvement or differentiation from the original patent, the so-called 'infringing party' can turn the case around and create their own patent as a substantial modification on an existing patent. The only problem with the execution of these tactics is that in a field that US law is largely stupid on, you have to know how to fast talk and woo those you wish to grant your patent.
However, the specifications of the patent can be easily cirumvented by altering a small number of details.
Many people on Slashdot keep forgetting (or never learned) that Nintendo patenting a sanity system in a video game doesn't mean that any sanity system is covered under this. For the patent to be granted, it has to contain enough specifications to make it unique. You cannot patent an idea. The Nintendo patent on the sanity system is simply one implementation of it. If someone wanted to to yank the old delerium system from the White Wolf tabletop systems (with their permission, of course), then they wouldn't have to worry about the patent in the least, as long as it wasn't a direct copy of Nintendo's specs on a video game sanity system.
As long as there has been 'reasonable modification' to the currently patented system registered, another company could create a game with their new 'insanity engine' and even patent that as having significant improvment on an existing patent.
Nintendo isn't trying to monopolize the horror/action horror video game industry people. They just want to protect their own specific method of inciting character insanity in the video game engine.
</finallytakingabreath>
Now if Opera really wants some market share, they just need to find more things to celebrate for another 364 days with the same benefits... ;) </toungeincheek>
Because Apple has done a great deal to take the text files out of everyday configuration. I find that OSX sometimes even cripples advanced featrues of otherwise great *nix applications through idiot-proof GUIs with much to be desired in the advanced settings. I know that much more can be done in the console, and that's one of the reasons I don't use OSX very often. To accomplish many of the tasks that I would like to on a *nix system, I would need to use OSX's terminal, and for that much effort just to get around the GUI's lack of (possibly destructive) advanced settings tabs or screens, I may as well just use Linux.
OSX is easy because they try to make it idiot proof and simplistic enough for a child to never need advanced options, but I find myself always in the OSX terminal.
This is just my opinion, so please don't flame me about your experiences or superior platforms.
Hell, I'm just waiting for anybody to resurrect the PDA. I could use a good one, but I'd rather not pay a number of dollars equal to the number of years the features have been available ;)</gripe></bitch></moan>
As is, the only thing that's actually looking good to me is Blackberry.
Motorola does have some decent phones and most of the trouble I've had is with Nokia, but I had to point out one thing:
:p
No offense (seriously, no offense meant at all) but it's a bad example to say that the phone that gives good performance cost as much as some PDA's and iPods ($300 at first) and also had problems early on getting carriers to insure because they were too fragile (Cingular in PA, USA wouldn't give insurance on them because they broke too easily after they were first released).
I'm not too aware of any plans in the states that offer unlimited data for a reasonable price (if at all, actually). If you know of one, please let me know.
;)
Otherwise, the point I was making in the quoted text is that the audience that they may be looking for probably wants an instant solution rather than go through the trouble of settting up something exponentially more elaborate. Besides, they would have to pay for a constant connection at home plus unlimted data, which would probably cost more than a 60GB iPod for all we know!
True, I have a 60GB iPod and there's no way I'd switch to 100 songs from several thousand, however...
::looks down at cracked screen::
If Apple's getting anything out of this, they're hoping more people may buy this instead of a Shuffle.
"cuz like, I need a new phone anyway"
Besides, I have to wonder how many of the games in these bundles will even be out by the time the buyer go to pick them up. I can see it now:
;)
They'll bring the moving truck to get their 360 and all it's titles, and they'll leave with one big box, two or three games and several hundred dollars returned for games that had their release dates pushed back until february!
</sardonicglee>
A very good point, but we tend to make predictions (and sometimes for good reason) based upon past experience. So far, Walmart hasn't been the most benevolent dictator. People are only trying to prepare for what they can reasonable assume may result.
;)
Once again, you are completely correct that tools aren't good or evil; that is left to the implementer. I think a lot of readers are just taking this as an opportunity to take shots on Walmart, not the technology itself. Or at least that's how I'm seeing it. Besides, why would they be crying out against RFID if we've heard the doomsayers calling out the death of bar code for years now?
It's really quite odd when I look at it. You would figure that with Google, being practically the last entry into the IM race, would be the most open and decentralized. Part of me wonders if they're scared of people misusing the service the way some sites abused Google Maps (not all, but some did, indeed violate the conditions), and that they're crippling the potentential to prevent another similar event.