I agree that those prices are horrible for very old games, especially considering that you can go out and get a PS2 game like Gran Turismo 3 for $5 used these days. At the most the retro titles should be 50 cents, and that's for Nintendo 64 titles. Classic Nintendo titles should be no more than 5 cents each.
Yes, I also just got a new phone which isn't "just a phone". It's the LG VX9800, and it plays MP3's, videos, and has a full keyboard for text messaging, e-mail and web browsing. The best thing is there's a way of putting your own MP3's on the phone as a ringtone, so I can have any ringtone I want without paying for it. I've got the new Red Hot Chili Peppers album as well as four episodes from the new Doctor Who series on it.
In addition to all the goodies, the sound quality on calls is good and it has a very nice speakerphone. The 1.3 MP camera's not too bad either (not GREAT, though, to be expected).
Considering what you're paying for is the experience of listening to a song or album, that is NOT taken away when you stop paying. You've still had that experience, even if you don't have the service anymore.
The whole idea behind a subscription service is that it lets you conveniently listen to almost any album or artist that you want at any time. It's not for people who already have a huge list of albums they want to buy and listen to over and over, it's for people who want to explore new things. Also, I sit at my computer at work all day, so it's perfect for dialing up a bunch of different music every day.
That's why I subscribe to Yahoo Music (Urge doesn't look that interesting, since while it may have a few more songs than Yahoo it is more expensive and charges extra for putting your songs on a portable player. I might add that it's amazing iTunes still doesn't offer a a subscription service.
I only pay $7 a month for the service, about half the price of a cd, and it lets me get to know a lot of music that I will probably someday purchase for listening to over and over (I already did that with the Police box set).
You're right as far as the costs go, however I still prefer CD's given their uncompressed audio quality and perfectly printed liner notes and jewel case backing. My optimal solution is a subscription to Yahoo Music where I can listen to anything I want and identify the stuff I REALLY want to buy and have forever as opposed to the stuff I'd just like to listen to at the moment. This lets me listen to all the new albums that come out as well. And for seven bucks a month, it's the same as foregoing half a CD each month to have unlimited listening access to hundreds of thousands of other CD's. Then when I really want to own something forever (through the Yahoo subscription I've identified the entire discographies of Simon & Garfunkel, Steely Dan and Dire Straits as well as the first six albums from Van Halen as being worth owning) I can just order the CD's and not worry about when they get to my house.
Users don't learn what sites to like from a book. As a user I find breadcrumbs pointless. Sorry to have disturbed your dreamworld; go back to your books.
I don't think you understood kchrist's point. The idea is not to design what you as a either a designer or a user would find most useful and efficient. The point is to design what your users (again, not yourself) will find most useful and efficient. In this case, you say your users don't use the breadcrumb trails, and that's fine.
But on the site I work on, our users DO use them, and find them very handy. I hear about it rather quickly if the breadcrumb links are dead or aren't up to date. So it's a good thing to have them there, as it makes the experience of browsing our site easier and more suitable to our users. That's why I object to your blanket condemnation of the use of breadcrumbs and assertion that they are an indicator of "poor design".
Breadcrumbs are an indication that a site is badly designed (or that the PHB/client has seen them somewhere and thinks all "professional" sites have to have them).
This sounds like the writing of someone who doesn't have a very large userbase for their site, or doesn't much care about providing the best browsing experience for those users. When you're designing a public website, you're aiming to minimize the amount of confusion that may occur on the part of your users. You want to make things easier for them.
Your users may not know to use Alt-left-arrow, and frankly may find breadcrumbs more appealing than navigating through whatever interface their browser uses. Breadcrumbs give you a way of providing navigation for your users independent of browser type.
Actually, I don't think you do have to be signed...I'm pretty sure that my band's record shows up on iTunes even though we're not signed. I know for a fact that it's available on Yahoo Music. I think the reason it shows up is because it was sold through CDBaby, so maybe that counts as a "label".
Yes, heaven forbid video games be targeted at the people who actually pay for the great majority of them. I admit I remember plunking down $50 for Super Mario 3 when I must've been around ten years old (where DID I get that much cash?), but let's face it...the majority of the cashflow comes from adults. Why not let your product reflect that fact?
Nah, you've just been conditioned to have that reaction by 99% of the sites on the web whose advertisements look like that. I did the exact same thing as you, kept scrolling down to the bottom of the page looking for a next button or something. And yeah, I thought at first maybe those links in the article might lead on, but no, they were just advertisements.
Re:Some shows/films don't stand i18n
on
Homer Becomes Omar
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· Score: 2, Informative
I believe that film was Just Visiting (http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0189192/). It naturally starred Jean Reno, since he's apparently the only Frenchman Americans can stand to watch onscreen. Actually, it looks like Jean Reno and some other cast members were even in the original French version in the same roles, and it was written and directed by the same guy.
If and when you become a writer, perhaps you will see fit to refrain from extorting the customer with the practice of hardback/paperback releases. If the publishing industry really cared a whit about their customers, they'd give us a choice instead of torturing us for months with a product we really want but know will definitely be produced in an edition convenient for price and size.
I took a similar approach in reading the new Wheel of Time book...I don't want to pay for the hardback of a book that, if the last book is any judge, isn't worth 1/10th the price they charge, and yet...I want to see what happens in the series, and I'd buy the paperback either way. I've been listening to the audiobook version of Knife of Dreams for the last few days at work, and I'm about halfway through and so far my concerns have been validated. Almost nothing significant has happened in the last few hundred pages. Robert Jordan pisses me off.
Technically, GTA San Andreas has yet to be censored at all. It's still for sale. The issue was that it was rated improperly by the (volunteer) ratings board, and it had to be re-rated before it could hit store shelves again. No censorship there.
Personally, I've never had a problem playing iTunes tracks on whatever devices I like...I simply burn the albums to cds, then rip those cds back to mp3's. It's a bit of a pain to have to do it in the first place, but it works every time. Anyways I don't buy from iTunes any more, Yahoo Music is all I need.
You don't mean that Weezer video, do you? Probably not. That was still an awesome video, though (Buddy Holly), with the band integrated with the cast of Happy Days.
Are you under the impression that most music is actually worth purchasing? I can tell you, I've been subscribing to the Yahoo music service for a couple of months now and I've been using it to listen to at least 30 cds a week, many of which I had never heard before.
Would I want to purchase most of them so I could keep them forever? Definitely not. While I enjoy pretty much everything I choose to listen to, with most of it I'm fine with just one listen every few years. But the beauty is I'm getting to hear stuff I never would have otherwise and keep up to date with new music as well as checking out all the back catalog stuff I've never gotten a chance to listen to.
It's all at my fingertips, too. It's quite nice to dream up an album to listen to and be bopping along to it a few seconds later.
Um...just out of curiosity, what are the stats on the number of buildings that have had Boeing 757 flown into them? I don't believe any building of that size has ever had to sustain an impact from a plane that big before.
I would argue that with a little time (say, the same amount of time it takes to learn and play three chords on the guitar proficiently), anyone can program too. It's good programmers and artists that are hard to find.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree that those prices are horrible for very old games, especially considering that you can go out and get a PS2 game like Gran Turismo 3 for $5 used these days. At the most the retro titles should be 50 cents, and that's for Nintendo 64 titles. Classic Nintendo titles should be no more than 5 cents each.
Yes, I also just got a new phone which isn't "just a phone". It's the LG VX9800, and it plays MP3's, videos, and has a full keyboard for text messaging, e-mail and web browsing. The best thing is there's a way of putting your own MP3's on the phone as a ringtone, so I can have any ringtone I want without paying for it. I've got the new Red Hot Chili Peppers album as well as four episodes from the new Doctor Who series on it.
In addition to all the goodies, the sound quality on calls is good and it has a very nice speakerphone. The 1.3 MP camera's not too bad either (not GREAT, though, to be expected).
Considering what you're paying for is the experience of listening to a song or album, that is NOT taken away when you stop paying. You've still had that experience, even if you don't have the service anymore.
The whole idea behind a subscription service is that it lets you conveniently listen to almost any album or artist that you want at any time. It's not for people who already have a huge list of albums they want to buy and listen to over and over, it's for people who want to explore new things. Also, I sit at my computer at work all day, so it's perfect for dialing up a bunch of different music every day.
That's why I subscribe to Yahoo Music (Urge doesn't look that interesting, since while it may have a few more songs than Yahoo it is more expensive and charges extra for putting your songs on a portable player. I might add that it's amazing iTunes still doesn't offer a a subscription service.
I only pay $7 a month for the service, about half the price of a cd, and it lets me get to know a lot of music that I will probably someday purchase for listening to over and over (I already did that with the Police box set).
You're right as far as the costs go, however I still prefer CD's given their uncompressed audio quality and perfectly printed liner notes and jewel case backing. My optimal solution is a subscription to Yahoo Music where I can listen to anything I want and identify the stuff I REALLY want to buy and have forever as opposed to the stuff I'd just like to listen to at the moment. This lets me listen to all the new albums that come out as well. And for seven bucks a month, it's the same as foregoing half a CD each month to have unlimited listening access to hundreds of thousands of other CD's. Then when I really want to own something forever (through the Yahoo subscription I've identified the entire discographies of Simon & Garfunkel, Steely Dan and Dire Straits as well as the first six albums from Van Halen as being worth owning) I can just order the CD's and not worry about when they get to my house.
I don't think you understood kchrist's point. The idea is not to design what you as a either a designer or a user would find most useful and efficient. The point is to design what your users (again, not yourself) will find most useful and efficient. In this case, you say your users don't use the breadcrumb trails, and that's fine.
But on the site I work on, our users DO use them, and find them very handy. I hear about it rather quickly if the breadcrumb links are dead or aren't up to date. So it's a good thing to have them there, as it makes the experience of browsing our site easier and more suitable to our users. That's why I object to your blanket condemnation of the use of breadcrumbs and assertion that they are an indicator of "poor design".
This sounds like the writing of someone who doesn't have a very large userbase for their site, or doesn't much care about providing the best browsing experience for those users. When you're designing a public website, you're aiming to minimize the amount of confusion that may occur on the part of your users. You want to make things easier for them.
Your users may not know to use Alt-left-arrow, and frankly may find breadcrumbs more appealing than navigating through whatever interface their browser uses. Breadcrumbs give you a way of providing navigation for your users independent of browser type.
Actually, I don't think you do have to be signed...I'm pretty sure that my band's record shows up on iTunes even though we're not signed. I know for a fact that it's available on Yahoo Music. I think the reason it shows up is because it was sold through CDBaby, so maybe that counts as a "label".
Yes, heaven forbid video games be targeted at the people who actually pay for the great majority of them. I admit I remember plunking down $50 for Super Mario 3 when I must've been around ten years old (where DID I get that much cash?), but let's face it...the majority of the cashflow comes from adults. Why not let your product reflect that fact?
Nah, you've just been conditioned to have that reaction by 99% of the sites on the web whose advertisements look like that. I did the exact same thing as you, kept scrolling down to the bottom of the page looking for a next button or something. And yeah, I thought at first maybe those links in the article might lead on, but no, they were just advertisements.
So...P2P is the T-1000? It was made by SkyNet!?!?
I believe that film was Just Visiting (http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0189192/). It naturally starred Jean Reno, since he's apparently the only Frenchman Americans can stand to watch onscreen. Actually, it looks like Jean Reno and some other cast members were even in the original French version in the same roles, and it was written and directed by the same guy.
If and when you become a writer, perhaps you will see fit to refrain from extorting the customer with the practice of hardback/paperback releases. If the publishing industry really cared a whit about their customers, they'd give us a choice instead of torturing us for months with a product we really want but know will definitely be produced in an edition convenient for price and size.
I took a similar approach in reading the new Wheel of Time book...I don't want to pay for the hardback of a book that, if the last book is any judge, isn't worth 1/10th the price they charge, and yet...I want to see what happens in the series, and I'd buy the paperback either way. I've been listening to the audiobook version of Knife of Dreams for the last few days at work, and I'm about halfway through and so far my concerns have been validated. Almost nothing significant has happened in the last few hundred pages. Robert Jordan pisses me off.
Nice, two Sandman sigs in the same thread!
Technically, GTA San Andreas has yet to be censored at all. It's still for sale. The issue was that it was rated improperly by the (volunteer) ratings board, and it had to be re-rated before it could hit store shelves again. No censorship there.
Personally, I've never had a problem playing iTunes tracks on whatever devices I like...I simply burn the albums to cds, then rip those cds back to mp3's. It's a bit of a pain to have to do it in the first place, but it works every time. Anyways I don't buy from iTunes any more, Yahoo Music is all I need.
I can think of a few reasons, one of which is an archaic concept you might have heard of. It's called human decency.
You don't mean that Weezer video, do you? Probably not. That was still an awesome video, though (Buddy Holly), with the band integrated with the cast of Happy Days.
Is that a haiku?
Are you under the impression that most music is actually worth purchasing? I can tell you, I've been subscribing to the Yahoo music service for a couple of months now and I've been using it to listen to at least 30 cds a week, many of which I had never heard before.
Would I want to purchase most of them so I could keep them forever? Definitely not. While I enjoy pretty much everything I choose to listen to, with most of it I'm fine with just one listen every few years. But the beauty is I'm getting to hear stuff I never would have otherwise and keep up to date with new music as well as checking out all the back catalog stuff I've never gotten a chance to listen to.
It's all at my fingertips, too. It's quite nice to dream up an album to listen to and be bopping along to it a few seconds later.
I thought it was Foxfire...but why do I get images of Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn when I say that?
Are you under the impression that making fun of people who die in car accidents is a really good idea, too? It isn't.
Um...just out of curiosity, what are the stats on the number of buildings that have had Boeing 757 flown into them? I don't believe any building of that size has ever had to sustain an impact from a plane that big before.
Do you really need someone to explain the difference between murder and accidental death to you?
I would argue that with a little time (say, the same amount of time it takes to learn and play three chords on the guitar proficiently), anyone can program too. It's good programmers and artists that are hard to find.