>The reason I usually don't buy CDs is because 90% of the mainstream music sold out there is simply SHIT.
i never bought this argument. i'm pretty sure in the 90s, we blasted the 90s music as being crappy compared to the 80s. and in the 80s, we blasted the 80s music as being crappy compared to the 70s. and so on.
you may think music now is crappy compared to what you grew up with. what makes this generation so special that the entire consumer base thinks the music is crappy at the same time?
>'Taking a good concept/idea that no-one managed to implement in a useful way, and then doing it right'
you can make a darn good argument that *that* is precisely the definition of 'radical.' if it wasn't implemented in a useful way and didn't see the light of the day, we wouldn't be talking about it as being 'radical' because we wouldn't be talking about it at all to begin with.
>Not to mention that XBox live will probably ban you and send people to your house and shave your dog for trying to play a game on-line that hasn't been released yet.
i don't think you will be faulted for purchasing a game offered for sale. Meijier should be in trouble for releasing it.
iPod, by design, holds a lot of compressed music...
isn't it a bit of a waste to spend to much on a set of speakers almost in vain to reproduced already degraded music...? why not buy a simple stereo and play the original CD on it if you really needed good sound quality?
i guess there's the convenience factor... but for $300, i'd probably just buy a very large HD, rip music in lossless formats and use Airport Express to stream those to an existing nice set of speakers?
>There's not a lot wrong with Windows Script Hosting, as long as no other shite on your system lets somebody else run scripts without your permission.
and there's not a lot wrong with an unstable SUV that's easy to flip over and kill the passengers as long as those SUVs aren't driven in an "unsafe" manner...
did you ever think that requiring "no other shite (sic) on your system (that) lets somebody else run scripts without permission" is what's "wrong" in "not a lot wrong"? it's like "it's in perfect condition, except for a scratch." well, that scratch is what makes it not perfect... duh.
i think it's a rather meaningless nitpicking. we also should note that linux isn't an os.
do people understand, in context, that "MAC" in this case means "Mac"? i believe people do. end of story.
i don't capitalize my sentences properly on my online posts. i'm lazy. do people understand what i'm typing? i hope so. what difference does it make?
yeah, this will read as a troll-ish claim, but i'm a Mac fan. and every time i read the claim about "MAC", i think it's irrelevant and certainly redundant, esp. on/.
thanks for the attitude. so is your idea of a "gift" something for the given or giver?
it's your money, obviously, spend it as you wish. that wasn't my point. you said you tivo lost three sales. well, if you are giving a gift based on your preference and not of the to be given, then that's not really my idea of a gift. that's all i was saying.
i think the problem is, what you do with Tivo is not the concern of the tivo manufacturer. the fact they can delete things on their own is a bit over the top.
even if you rent an apartment, your landlord still cannot just come into your place even though they "own" it.
really? you think it's an issue with your parents..?
i'm not trying to flame you, but for your parents, ask them if they'd find somethine like a tivo useful, even with the new restrictions. you may find tivo's new policies unacceptable, but that view should not be "forced" onto your parents... no? if you wanted to get a tivo for your parents as a gift, it should be that, a gift. not a chance for you to show off your beliefs or preferences - you should get them what they will find useful. they may not know much about tivo, but i imagine they are smart enough to make their own decisions given the information. and i'm guessing that they will not find these new restrictions too big of a deal and would want the convenience of tivo..?
i'm a mac fan and hate windows and microsoft's corporate attitude. but that didn't stop me from helping my sister pick out a new IBM laptop because she said she felt more comfortable with windows. i have my beliefs, so do others. if others want my help, i try to be as objective as possible and respect their choice.
> Oh, come on. Do you really think that GWB made an edict that foreign IP addresses shouldn't be allowed to visit the site?
and so what..? just because he didn't make an edict himself, that excuses him from any potential backlash? if other people did make an edict, guess who hired them?
it's his campaign website. he may not be responsible for what happened to it, but he sure shouldn't complain if he is held responsible for it. he did start the war in iraq, but he didn't actually go over there and fight the war or make any of the tactical decisions - so should he not be held responsible for the consequences of the war just because he himself didn't have "direct involvement"?
ideally, yes... but given (admittedly biased personal view) how the administration has been in dealing with the rest of the world (i.e. basically ignoring them), i am not as hopeful. it's the general attitude (as reflected in something like this) that scares me, not the intent...
>Also, the battery life is quoted as being 4 to 6 hours. Not exactly what I'd call fantastic
for the feature set, 4-6 hours is what you can expect given the current battery technology. there is no battery right now that can give significantly more than this to drive the specs PSP have. (otherwise, everyone else would be using it and our expectations would be different.) if it gave better than 4-6 hours, then some of the features would be removed and then people would be complaining about that.
or do you think sony implemented a battery draining system on purpose to reduce the battery life? there's not magic battery out there. if you want to call something not "fantastic," how about the law of nature and the state of technology/engineering/manufacturing?
iPod doesn't convert anything. you can't just play the formats that are unsupported. (i see your point, though.)
seriously, do you really believe the "myth" that lossy format makes that much of a difference in the real market after the success of iPod? the reason iPod is revolutionary and people are buying them in bunches is because it can carry a lot of songso. quality of music just isn't such a big deal as much as the fact hundreds of CDs worth of music can be accessed - while on the road, during the commute, while jogging, etc. (and would you really notice the quality difference from mini earbuds and with traffic noise in the background?)
if the quality of mp3/aac made that big of a difference, then how do you explain the success of iTMS? millions of songs downloaded a week - in (horror) 128 kbps aac!
money talks. and the success of iPod/iTMS says the majority of the dollars are being spent by those who don't care one bit about the "loss of quality" in their music because as far as they can tell, their songs sound just like it came from CDs.
i'd say it's pretty darn hard to have a "healthy" profit when your device has a smaller profit margin (components are just about the same for all HD mp3 players... but iPods are priced higher) and the bulk of the consumers is dying to get your competitors product that's already dominating the market.
IMHO, there are roughly two kinds of people buying off-iPod HD mp3 players: 1) "geeks" who value raw specs above all else and getting "money's worth" in that regard and 2) "parents" who's been asked to get an "iPod" but thought it wasn't so important to actually get an "iPod"
>In America, Chevy sold 34,064 Corvettes last year. Honda sold less than 50 Acura NSX's.
except both GB DS and Xbox are both targeting mainstream consumers. they aren't niche market items, like sport car, especially the very powerful and the very expensive ones like Vets and NSX. while they may be profittable, chevy and honda do not intend those sports cars to be their flagship cars not is their business built on that. otoh, GB and Xbox are the main items for nintendo and microsoft, respectively. their business depends a lot more heavily on the success of those machines. (you must, of coruse, separate therest of microsoft from this and consider only the home entertainment division... afterall, microsoft isn't in this to just throw miney away. they'd much prefer if Xbox was more successful in Japan.)
the day Camrys and Accords are being outsold by Focus or Gamecube being outsolde by Xbox in the U.S. by three orders of magnitude, i'd say "it goes both ways."
i am not sure which is more impressive, the fact XBOX is getting absolutely hammered in Japan or the fact there's a way to track the fact less than 200 units were sold...
nintendo is still a very, very strong brand in japan, more so than in the states. a lot of people (like myself) grew up in japan with famicom being the first video game system they played...
>Seriously, do you want a system from someone who thinks you're too stupid to handle the controls?
"...it would be troubling if the face was littered with buttons and users did not know which one to press."
Yeah, that's trouble alright.....
you do realize this is a translation, right? if you could read japanese, you'd realize that the statement isn't as condecending as you make it out to be. it was a literal translation and it is fairly accurate, but if you could read the original japanese, you'd never think he was making fun of the users.
>Sometimes it's because I don't want to futz with a stupid physical CD, my computer is under my desk and it's hard to get to the cdrom.
not meant to be a flamebait, but some time, the sense of entitlement amazes me. "it's inconvenient for me to reach a bit to my CD drive, so i'm gonna find a way around it, as i cannot be inconvenienced whatsoever since i've paid for the software." you may not have done anything "wrong" because you paid for your cracked game. but there are plenty of others who haven't paid and did something "wrong." yet you are indirectly defending those people, so to speak, because you believe you are entitled to whatever means to reduce inconveniences you experience - be damned, those inconveniences aren't software company's problem to begin with. amazing.
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i never bought this argument. i'm pretty sure in the 90s, we blasted the 90s music as being crappy compared to the 80s. and in the 80s, we blasted the 80s music as being crappy compared to the 70s. and so on.
you may think music now is crappy compared to what you grew up with. what makes this generation so special that the entire consumer base thinks the music is crappy at the same time?
no harm != legitimate in many people's opinions.
you can make a darn good argument that *that* is precisely the definition of 'radical.' if it wasn't implemented in a useful way and didn't see the light of the day, we wouldn't be talking about it as being 'radical' because we wouldn't be talking about it at all to begin with.
i don't think you will be faulted for purchasing a game offered for sale. Meijier should be in trouble for releasing it.
isn't it a bit of a waste to spend to much on a set of speakers almost in vain to reproduced already degraded music...? why not buy a simple stereo and play the original CD on it if you really needed good sound quality?
i guess there's the convenience factor... but for $300, i'd probably just buy a very large HD, rip music in lossless formats and use Airport Express to stream those to an existing nice set of speakers?
ain't gonna get much of that where he's going...
and there's not a lot wrong with an unstable SUV that's easy to flip over and kill the passengers as long as those SUVs aren't driven in an "unsafe" manner...
did you ever think that requiring "no other shite (sic) on your system (that) lets somebody else run scripts without permission" is what's "wrong" in "not a lot wrong"? it's like "it's in perfect condition, except for a scratch." well, that scratch is what makes it not perfect... duh.
do people understand, in context, that "MAC" in this case means "Mac"? i believe people do. end of story.
i don't capitalize my sentences properly on my online posts. i'm lazy. do people understand what i'm typing? i hope so. what difference does it make?
yeah, this will read as a troll-ish claim, but i'm a Mac fan. and every time i read the claim about "MAC", i think it's irrelevant and certainly redundant, esp. on /.
even then, they must provide a reason. like inspections, etc. they can't just come in for the sake of coming in.
it's your money, obviously, spend it as you wish. that wasn't my point. you said you tivo lost three sales. well, if you are giving a gift based on your preference and not of the to be given, then that's not really my idea of a gift. that's all i was saying.
even if you rent an apartment, your landlord still cannot just come into your place even though they "own" it.
i'm not trying to flame you, but for your parents, ask them if they'd find somethine like a tivo useful, even with the new restrictions. you may find tivo's new policies unacceptable, but that view should not be "forced" onto your parents... no? if you wanted to get a tivo for your parents as a gift, it should be that, a gift. not a chance for you to show off your beliefs or preferences - you should get them what they will find useful. they may not know much about tivo, but i imagine they are smart enough to make their own decisions given the information. and i'm guessing that they will not find these new restrictions too big of a deal and would want the convenience of tivo..?
i'm a mac fan and hate windows and microsoft's corporate attitude. but that didn't stop me from helping my sister pick out a new IBM laptop because she said she felt more comfortable with windows. i have my beliefs, so do others. if others want my help, i try to be as objective as possible and respect their choice.
and so what..? just because he didn't make an edict himself, that excuses him from any potential backlash? if other people did make an edict, guess who hired them?
it's his campaign website. he may not be responsible for what happened to it, but he sure shouldn't complain if he is held responsible for it. he did start the war in iraq, but he didn't actually go over there and fight the war or make any of the tactical decisions - so should he not be held responsible for the consequences of the war just because he himself didn't have "direct involvement"?
ideally, yes... but given (admittedly biased personal view) how the administration has been in dealing with the rest of the world (i.e. basically ignoring them), i am not as hopeful. it's the general attitude (as reflected in something like this) that scares me, not the intent...
very disturbing, if true.
"He said the administration see no reason to distribute policies to people who will not be affecting them."
and
whoever thought of this didn't think people would find out?
for the feature set, 4-6 hours is what you can expect given the current battery technology. there is no battery right now that can give significantly more than this to drive the specs PSP have. (otherwise, everyone else would be using it and our expectations would be different.) if it gave better than 4-6 hours, then some of the features would be removed and then people would be complaining about that.
or do you think sony implemented a battery draining system on purpose to reduce the battery life? there's not magic battery out there. if you want to call something not "fantastic," how about the law of nature and the state of technology/engineering/manufacturing?
seriously, do you really believe the "myth" that lossy format makes that much of a difference in the real market after the success of iPod? the reason iPod is revolutionary and people are buying them in bunches is because it can carry a lot of songso. quality of music just isn't such a big deal as much as the fact hundreds of CDs worth of music can be accessed - while on the road, during the commute, while jogging, etc. (and would you really notice the quality difference from mini earbuds and with traffic noise in the background?)
if the quality of mp3/aac made that big of a difference, then how do you explain the success of iTMS? millions of songs downloaded a week - in (horror) 128 kbps aac!
money talks. and the success of iPod/iTMS says the majority of the dollars are being spent by those who don't care one bit about the "loss of quality" in their music because as far as they can tell, their songs sound just like it came from CDs.
IMHO, there are roughly two kinds of people buying off-iPod HD mp3 players: 1) "geeks" who value raw specs above all else and getting "money's worth" in that regard and 2) "parents" who's been asked to get an "iPod" but thought it wasn't so important to actually get an "iPod"
...so does iPod-cable equipped BMWs count?
...so does that mean it automatically gets an "uptime" of 150 hours? that is stability, baby!
except both GB DS and Xbox are both targeting mainstream consumers. they aren't niche market items, like sport car, especially the very powerful and the very expensive ones like Vets and NSX. while they may be profittable, chevy and honda do not intend those sports cars to be their flagship cars not is their business built on that. otoh, GB and Xbox are the main items for nintendo and microsoft, respectively. their business depends a lot more heavily on the success of those machines. (you must, of coruse, separate therest of microsoft from this and consider only the home entertainment division... afterall, microsoft isn't in this to just throw miney away. they'd much prefer if Xbox was more successful in Japan.)
the day Camrys and Accords are being outsold by Focus or Gamecube being outsolde by Xbox in the U.S. by three orders of magnitude, i'd say "it goes both ways."
nintendo is still a very, very strong brand in japan, more so than in the states. a lot of people (like myself) grew up in japan with famicom being the first video game system they played...
"...it would be troubling if the face was littered with buttons and users did not know which one to press."
Yeah, that's trouble alright.....
you do realize this is a translation, right? if you could read japanese, you'd realize that the statement isn't as condecending as you make it out to be. it was a literal translation and it is fairly accurate, but if you could read the original japanese, you'd never think he was making fun of the users.
not meant to be a flamebait, but some time, the sense of entitlement amazes me. "it's inconvenient for me to reach a bit to my CD drive, so i'm gonna find a way around it, as i cannot be inconvenienced whatsoever since i've paid for the software." you may not have done anything "wrong" because you paid for your cracked game. but there are plenty of others who haven't paid and did something "wrong." yet you are indirectly defending those people, so to speak, because you believe you are entitled to whatever means to reduce inconveniences you experience - be damned, those inconveniences aren't software company's problem to begin with. amazing.