You're pretty right... I guess we actually give subvention to those "huuuuuge" companies from Hollywood here in Canada. You know? That kind of public funds helping private companies getting more money...? Tax refunds and stuff like that. They actually are giving my money to these guys.
Tax refunds are not taking away money from corporations, not giving them money. Most of our tax revenue comes from those corporations anyway, you know. And the rich. More to the point, those "huuuuuuge" companies provide jobs and livelihood to a lot of people.
I don't feel that they should get as much tax breaks as they do, but lets be accurate and realistic here. The government isn't taking your money and giving it to them. They're taking less money from them than you think they should (and I think they should, in some cases). Moreover, often times its money that they earned, by funding, developing, and putting out a product.
When a band comes here, like lets say U2 or Metallica, they often get those subvention... I pay 10$ to see the movie at a cinema places, THEY should give me the DVD freely since I paid my right to see it. If I go see Metallica show somewhere, THEY should give me their latest CD.
So wait, you say entertainment should be free, but then say that you should get entertainment after paying for it, then say that you actually do pay for it? Make up your mind.
You don't tell me why they SHOULD give you their CD for attending the concert. You are paying for the concert, not the CD. And Metallica has a right to do whatever they want with their property and their events. If you don't like that you don't get a CD, then don't pay for it.
Anyways, 30$ for the DVD, 20$ for the CD is simply extorsion. If it was 5$ I don't say, but they are simply abusing. And the price of the media isn't that expensive. Why did titanic made nearly 1 billion $ in raw income?
Oh boy, you obviously haven't taken any sort of class in economics. First of all, $20 for a CD is extortion to you. There are people out there who feel that $20 is a perfectly acceptable price point, and a fair trade for that CD. They're called customers. Its basic supply and demand. More to the point, while CD's are cheap in terms of reproduction and raw materials, you have to pay to develop the content which actually goes on that CD. Studios, artists, producers, advertisement, instruments, etc are not cheap.
Special effects for Titanic, as well as sets and actors are not cheap either. Raw income is just that... raw income. It doesn't take into account how much it cost to make in the first place. And it made $1 billion because that many people thought spending money to see the movie and buying the dvds was a fair trade for the entertainment. There is no extortion going on here.
And WE don't have pretty much choice if WE like the full album. THEY whine because they make LESS money because THEY abuse our wallets.
YOU have a choice whether or not to buy the album. If enough people thought the price point was unfair, they wouldn't buy, and the price would go down. Enough people think the price point is fair to keep it there.
THEY are not forcing you to buy anything. You are making a choice to buy it, and you are the one abusing your own wallet.
You have obvious problems taking responsibility for your spending habits, and are obviously just making the same flimsy and tired arguments to support your copyright infringment as everyone else. If you're going to try to justify your actions, then you might want to do so with an ounce of acknowledgement to personal responsibility and basic economics.
Your precious China's economy is rapidly becomming a capatilist economy (one could even argue that its already there). Moreover, in case you hadn't been keeping up, China does charge for their entertainment, they are funding space exploration, and there are poor and homeless in China. What was your point again? I'm not seeing the wall here.
Come on man, think! Use that brain you were born with.
There are a lot of human beings in the world, and we can work on more thing than once. What makes you think that noone is working on stavation, aids, poverty, political reporession, or terrorism? Plenty of charity work being done there. In fact, there is such a thing as spending too much effort on something. Ever hear the phrase "too many cooks spoil the pot?"
It might help if you actually provide reasoning behind your post. Like why entertainment should be free, and if it is free how you are going to fund creation of new entertainment. Independant bands haven't had much trouble so far, but making an independant game or movie is pretty hard to do if you can't be expected to get money back through sales. Most of the indie games and movies aren't anywhere near the quality of those made by game and movie studios.
So, what do you propose? Have the people fund it through tax revenue? But why should my dollars go towards music, movies, and games I don't want to buy?
Care to share your brilliance with us, instead of labelling people who disagree "brainwashed capitalist?" Ad hominem attacks, and proclaiming that you are obviously right without giving any sort of reasoning, are the hallmarks of a weak mind.
Even technical books have benefit in dead-tree form. I greatly prefer my reference manuals to sit on my desk when I'm programming, as opposed to having to switch between my IDE and browser/documents.
However, it does seem, as other posters have pointed out, that the ultimate goal of the UN is not just control of the DNS root servers, but total internet governance. Having read articles concerning this, there have been stated goals of things like taxation, spam control, porn control, etc. You can't do those things with just the root servers.
Unfortunately, I'd imagine that the business and government types would be pretty good at getting their own people into powerful places, usurping geek power. Geeks in general aren't well known for their abilities to deal with (manipulate) people, nor to achieve positions of power. How many leaders of tech companies are truly tech geeks?
Not useless, just trying to fill a role that it wasn't designed to. Its supposed to be an international forum, not a world government. Thats the way it was designed.
And the ESRB rating systems prevents me from playing video games? I can produce any kind of video game I want, and play any kind of video game I want. The most that the letter accomplishes is that I will have trouble selling my game to minors. And as I've stated before, its a commonly held belief throughout the world, in terms of law, that minors can be barred from certain material and behavior, based on lack of understanding or responsibility.
The ESRB ratings has, in no way, shape, or form, impeeded my ability to buy games as an adult, nor has it in any way, shape, or form, prevented me from putting whatever I want into my games.
Possession of child porn is largely a crime.
What Rockstar did is not.
It's not "grey," Rockstar discarded something stupid, it was found and Hillary rode it like a horse.
So its ok if its just normal pornography hidden in an E game?
Look, what I'm trying to point out is that they're trying to set a precedence. Its not much of a stretch to imagine a company could lock up some content, release a game under a T label, then later release patches or codes to unlock that content. I'm not saying thats what Rockstar is trying to do, but the fact of the matter is that some content was pushed out that was easily unlockable, that the ESRB didn't rate, and thats what the fuss was about.
Not once did I say that. But then your argument is built on a farce so I guess I could ignore that. They -only- got fussy cause it was SEX. There's never been THIS much of a shitfest over GTA before.
My argument is built on a farce? As a matter of fact, I remember the GTA being released, and I do remember a shitfest being had over it by Hillary and co. Ultimately, it came to nothing, until this happened. I've seen nothing to indicate that it was due to sex, but everything to indicate it was 1) another attempt for Hillary, Thompson, and co. to take another shot at it and 2) that people were concerned that unrated game content was shipped on the disk and unlockable with a cheat code or an easy patch.
Granted I think that getting that upset over 2 is a bit silly, but I feel that its good that Rockstar was called on it. I do believe it was a mistake on Rockstar's part instead of malicious action, and that the press was overblown, but I can't say Rockstar's reaction to it helped much.
Look, I can tell from the tone of your emails that you think I am a censorship nut, or that I support an anti-GTA crusade. I don't. What I don't support is people sticking their fingers in their ears, ignoring the real issues, then deciding people were really getting upset over it for entirely different reasons. You think people shouldn't have gotten upset over Hot Coffee? I agree. I do think, however, that it needed to be re-evaluated, and I do think that a precedence needed to be set for content shipped, but not accessable without a cheat. I guess we differ in that regard.
From the citizens point of view, that doesn't really matter. If you do not get access to the content, whether it was blocked by the goverment or by companies, that doesn't make a difference.
The general public can get access to this rated material. Just not children in some states, and in other states not from some stores.
Comparing a cartoonish hidden sexscene (*) to not only rape, but even the rape of children doesn't sound insightfull (as/. rates it) to me.
* And knowing that the cartoonish hidden sexscene was part of an ultra-violent gangstergame where your main objective is to kill either for money or for the "fun" of it makes it sound even more lame to me.
Way to strawman my argument. My point was that developed countries will often inact laws that will prohibit certain materials and behavior from children, on the basis that they are not mentally developed enough to understand or comprehend said behavior or materials, or exercise them responsibly.
Many countries have legal drinking ages, driving ages, and ages on voting. Many other countries ban certain materials from being sold to minors. I'm just pointing out that most don't consider this censorship per se, and often consider it a good thing, in order to diffuse the argument that "if children aren't allowed to play the games then they're being censored." This is not the case.
Any adult can play a game that he or she wants to in the United States.
Its nice to see so many anti-Americans voice their opinion here, and really show how little they know about why the UN wants control, and which countries in the UN were pushing for UN control, in addition to American concerns about said control.
The ESRB is a board set up by the game industry itself. It is self-policing. The government has no involvement in it, besides a couple of states (not national government), passing some laws that merely enforce the ratings at the retail level (where in most states it is voluntary).
And banning children from certain innapropriate content, while consenting adults can freely play that content (and companies can freely publish that content) hardly constitutes censorship. That would be like saying that laws stating a 14 year old cant have sex with a 30 year old violate the 14 year old's rights (whereas most developed countries have statutory rape laws, and consider them a good thing).
It was, however, shipped on the game disk. To use a ridiculous example to put it in perspective, what if kiddie porn was put into a game, locked out, and then shipped around with a E rating? What if this could be unlocked very easily with a game cheat device (I recall the PS2 versions could unlock it with a game cheat device, correct me if I am wrong)? Its not a simple black and white line of "its in the game" or "its not in the game." It was shipped with the game, and very easily unlocked, sort of a gray area.
As far as the fuss over sex... please. There has been a lot of fuss over GTA since it was launched. The sex was just more ammo to continue firing the volleys. You make it sound like everyone was ok with the game until sex was put in, which is blatently untrue. And even then, more people were upset with the fact that it seemed that Rockstar hid this content, and misled the ESRB. Not entirely accurate, but that was the perception.
To say that modders added the content (instead of unlocking it) and everyone got upset about it only because it was sex is a strawman, and blatantly incorrect.
I finit prett accurate, given some of the stuff said in all the articles concerning this. I see a lot of railing about how the Americans don't understand the UN and that we're selfish and whatnot. I've seen very few people that truly understand why the UN wants control, and which countries within the UN are pushing for this control. The anti-US sentiment has blocked any sort of critical thinking skills in this argument.
First of all, vetoing.xxx isn't any sort of censorship. Those same sites can get normal domains like every other website. They are in no way banned from displaying their material.
I'm curious though, have you actually read what the UN wants to do with the internet? From TFA:
During a series of meetings organized by the United Nations, ministers from dozens of other countries have raised objections and demanded more influence. Suggestions that have been made include new mandates for "consumer protection," the power to levy taxes on domain names to pay for "universal access," and folding ICANN into the International Telecommunications Union, a U.N. agency. As far back as 1999, U.N. agencies have mulled imposing taxes on Internet e-mail.
Gee great, taxing emails and domain names, and "consumer protection." Consumer protection certainly sounds a lot like censorship to me, when the ones making the big fuss about this originally were countries like China, and basically expressed discomfort over stuff like the xxx domains (on the grounds that it was pornography, with hints that they didn't like the idea of pornography being more visable on the internet).
,br>
Oh, and there was some talk of dealing with spam in some of the earlier articles on this subject. Sounds good and all, because noone likes spam. But it certainly skirts on the fringes of censorship there, especially when its up in the air about who would decide what constitutes spam.
Now, granted the US could have a say in how its operated in a democratic process. Maybe. I don't really trust the UN, however, given its track record, their stated goals, and the countries who are really pressing for this, in addition to the demonstrated lack of understanding of how the internet works. I'd be all for global possession, so long as it remains as hands-off as its been, is free from undue control and censorship, and properly managed.
Erm, how has the US in any way, shape, or form, prevented you from seeing boobs on the internet. There are a lot of porn companies in the US, a lot of porn shops, and a lot of US owned internet based porn businesses.
Oh, and how was that censored? It got its rating upped to AO, which caused stores to voluntarily drop it until the content was removed, and Rockstar to voluntarily remove the content that upped its rating. It is in no way, shape, or form government sponsored censorship. Period.
To be fair, the N-Gage failed more because of a crappy game lineup, horrible marketing, and high price tag, rather than 3d games on a cell phone being a bad idea. I mean, they actually went out of their way to insult their target audience.
Performance and reliability? I assure you that C# has both. Got any links that indicate that C# is either slow or unreliable? And products being available in Java from vendors doesn't really mean much if you don't intend to use them in the first place, or they are trivial to interface with your code. As far as Java being the de-facto standard, while it is in higher use than C#, C# is being used by large businesses, and there is a large market for C# programmers.
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You're pretty right... I guess we actually give subvention to those "huuuuuge" companies from Hollywood here in Canada. You know? That kind of public funds helping private companies getting more money ...? Tax refunds and stuff like that. They actually are giving my money to these guys.
... I pay 10$ to see the movie at a cinema places, THEY should give me the DVD freely since I paid my right to see it. If I go see Metallica show somewhere, THEY should give me their latest CD.
Tax refunds are not taking away money from corporations, not giving them money. Most of our tax revenue comes from those corporations anyway, you know. And the rich. More to the point, those "huuuuuuge" companies provide jobs and livelihood to a lot of people.
I don't feel that they should get as much tax breaks as they do, but lets be accurate and realistic here. The government isn't taking your money and giving it to them. They're taking less money from them than you think they should (and I think they should, in some cases). Moreover, often times its money that they earned, by funding, developing, and putting out a product.
When a band comes here, like lets say U2 or Metallica, they often get those subvention
So wait, you say entertainment should be free, but then say that you should get entertainment after paying for it, then say that you actually do pay for it? Make up your mind.
You don't tell me why they SHOULD give you their CD for attending the concert. You are paying for the concert, not the CD. And Metallica has a right to do whatever they want with their property and their events. If you don't like that you don't get a CD, then don't pay for it.
Anyways, 30$ for the DVD, 20$ for the CD is simply extorsion. If it was 5$ I don't say, but they are simply abusing. And the price of the media isn't that expensive. Why did titanic made nearly 1 billion $ in raw income?
Oh boy, you obviously haven't taken any sort of class in economics. First of all, $20 for a CD is extortion to you. There are people out there who feel that $20 is a perfectly acceptable price point, and a fair trade for that CD. They're called customers. Its basic supply and demand. More to the point, while CD's are cheap in terms of reproduction and raw materials, you have to pay to develop the content which actually goes on that CD. Studios, artists, producers, advertisement, instruments, etc are not cheap.
Special effects for Titanic, as well as sets and actors are not cheap either. Raw income is just that... raw income. It doesn't take into account how much it cost to make in the first place. And it made $1 billion because that many people thought spending money to see the movie and buying the dvds was a fair trade for the entertainment. There is no extortion going on here.
And WE don't have pretty much choice if WE like the full album. THEY whine because they make LESS money because THEY abuse our wallets.
YOU have a choice whether or not to buy the album. If enough people thought the price point was unfair, they wouldn't buy, and the price would go down. Enough people think the price point is fair to keep it there.
THEY are not forcing you to buy anything. You are making a choice to buy it, and you are the one abusing your own wallet.
You have obvious problems taking responsibility for your spending habits, and are obviously just making the same flimsy and tired arguments to support your copyright infringment as everyone else. If you're going to try to justify your actions, then you might want to do so with an ounce of acknowledgement to personal responsibility and basic economics.
Your precious China's economy is rapidly becomming a capatilist economy (one could even argue that its already there). Moreover, in case you hadn't been keeping up, China does charge for their entertainment, they are funding space exploration, and there are poor and homeless in China. What was your point again? I'm not seeing the wall here.
Come on man, think! Use that brain you were born with.
Music, information, entertainment should be free!
All I'm hearing is that you don't want to pay for stuff, and decided to come up with a flimsy argument to justify it.
There are a lot of human beings in the world, and we can work on more thing than once. What makes you think that noone is working on stavation, aids, poverty, political reporession, or terrorism? Plenty of charity work being done there. In fact, there is such a thing as spending too much effort on something. Ever hear the phrase "too many cooks spoil the pot?"
Granted, I agree that it seems a bit frivilous.
It might help if you actually provide reasoning behind your post. Like why entertainment should be free, and if it is free how you are going to fund creation of new entertainment. Independant bands haven't had much trouble so far, but making an independant game or movie is pretty hard to do if you can't be expected to get money back through sales. Most of the indie games and movies aren't anywhere near the quality of those made by game and movie studios.
So, what do you propose? Have the people fund it through tax revenue? But why should my dollars go towards music, movies, and games I don't want to buy?
Care to share your brilliance with us, instead of labelling people who disagree "brainwashed capitalist?" Ad hominem attacks, and proclaiming that you are obviously right without giving any sort of reasoning, are the hallmarks of a weak mind.
Even technical books have benefit in dead-tree form. I greatly prefer my reference manuals to sit on my desk when I'm programming, as opposed to having to switch between my IDE and browser/documents.
However, it does seem, as other posters have pointed out, that the ultimate goal of the UN is not just control of the DNS root servers, but total internet governance. Having read articles concerning this, there have been stated goals of things like taxation, spam control, porn control, etc. You can't do those things with just the root servers.
Unfortunately, I'd imagine that the business and government types would be pretty good at getting their own people into powerful places, usurping geek power. Geeks in general aren't well known for their abilities to deal with (manipulate) people, nor to achieve positions of power. How many leaders of tech companies are truly tech geeks?
Not useless, just trying to fill a role that it wasn't designed to. Its supposed to be an international forum, not a world government. Thats the way it was designed.
And the ESRB rating systems prevents me from playing video games? I can produce any kind of video game I want, and play any kind of video game I want. The most that the letter accomplishes is that I will have trouble selling my game to minors. And as I've stated before, its a commonly held belief throughout the world, in terms of law, that minors can be barred from certain material and behavior, based on lack of understanding or responsibility.
The ESRB ratings has, in no way, shape, or form, impeeded my ability to buy games as an adult, nor has it in any way, shape, or form, prevented me from putting whatever I want into my games.
Possession of child porn is largely a crime. What Rockstar did is not. It's not "grey," Rockstar discarded something stupid, it was found and Hillary rode it like a horse.
So its ok if its just normal pornography hidden in an E game?
Look, what I'm trying to point out is that they're trying to set a precedence. Its not much of a stretch to imagine a company could lock up some content, release a game under a T label, then later release patches or codes to unlock that content. I'm not saying thats what Rockstar is trying to do, but the fact of the matter is that some content was pushed out that was easily unlockable, that the ESRB didn't rate, and thats what the fuss was about.
Not once did I say that. But then your argument is built on a farce so I guess I could ignore that. They -only- got fussy cause it was SEX. There's never been THIS much of a shitfest over GTA before.
My argument is built on a farce? As a matter of fact, I remember the GTA being released, and I do remember a shitfest being had over it by Hillary and co. Ultimately, it came to nothing, until this happened. I've seen nothing to indicate that it was due to sex, but everything to indicate it was 1) another attempt for Hillary, Thompson, and co. to take another shot at it and 2) that people were concerned that unrated game content was shipped on the disk and unlockable with a cheat code or an easy patch.
Granted I think that getting that upset over 2 is a bit silly, but I feel that its good that Rockstar was called on it. I do believe it was a mistake on Rockstar's part instead of malicious action, and that the press was overblown, but I can't say Rockstar's reaction to it helped much.
Look, I can tell from the tone of your emails that you think I am a censorship nut, or that I support an anti-GTA crusade. I don't. What I don't support is people sticking their fingers in their ears, ignoring the real issues, then deciding people were really getting upset over it for entirely different reasons. You think people shouldn't have gotten upset over Hot Coffee? I agree. I do think, however, that it needed to be re-evaluated, and I do think that a precedence needed to be set for content shipped, but not accessable without a cheat. I guess we differ in that regard.
From the citizens point of view, that doesn't really matter. If you do not get access to the content, whether it was blocked by the goverment or by companies, that doesn't make a difference.
/. rates it) to me.
The general public can get access to this rated material. Just not children in some states, and in other states not from some stores.
Comparing a cartoonish hidden sexscene (*) to not only rape, but even the rape of children doesn't sound insightfull (as
* And knowing that the cartoonish hidden sexscene was part of an ultra-violent gangstergame where your main objective is to kill either for money or for the "fun" of it makes it sound even more lame to me.
Way to strawman my argument. My point was that developed countries will often inact laws that will prohibit certain materials and behavior from children, on the basis that they are not mentally developed enough to understand or comprehend said behavior or materials, or exercise them responsibly.
Many countries have legal drinking ages, driving ages, and ages on voting. Many other countries ban certain materials from being sold to minors. I'm just pointing out that most don't consider this censorship per se, and often consider it a good thing, in order to diffuse the argument that "if children aren't allowed to play the games then they're being censored." This is not the case.
Any adult can play a game that he or she wants to in the United States.
Its nice to see so many anti-Americans voice their opinion here, and really show how little they know about why the UN wants control, and which countries in the UN were pushing for UN control, in addition to American concerns about said control.
Which was my point. We don't have that kind of censorship in the US. The person I was responding to claimed that we did, referrencing GTA.
The ESRB is a board set up by the game industry itself. It is self-policing. The government has no involvement in it, besides a couple of states (not national government), passing some laws that merely enforce the ratings at the retail level (where in most states it is voluntary).
And banning children from certain innapropriate content, while consenting adults can freely play that content (and companies can freely publish that content) hardly constitutes censorship. That would be like saying that laws stating a 14 year old cant have sex with a 30 year old violate the 14 year old's rights (whereas most developed countries have statutory rape laws, and consider them a good thing).
It was, however, shipped on the game disk. To use a ridiculous example to put it in perspective, what if kiddie porn was put into a game, locked out, and then shipped around with a E rating? What if this could be unlocked very easily with a game cheat device (I recall the PS2 versions could unlock it with a game cheat device, correct me if I am wrong)? Its not a simple black and white line of "its in the game" or "its not in the game." It was shipped with the game, and very easily unlocked, sort of a gray area.
As far as the fuss over sex... please. There has been a lot of fuss over GTA since it was launched. The sex was just more ammo to continue firing the volleys. You make it sound like everyone was ok with the game until sex was put in, which is blatently untrue. And even then, more people were upset with the fact that it seemed that Rockstar hid this content, and misled the ESRB. Not entirely accurate, but that was the perception.
To say that modders added the content (instead of unlocking it) and everyone got upset about it only because it was sex is a strawman, and blatantly incorrect.
I finit prett accurate, given some of the stuff said in all the articles concerning this. I see a lot of railing about how the Americans don't understand the UN and that we're selfish and whatnot. I've seen very few people that truly understand why the UN wants control, and which countries within the UN are pushing for this control. The anti-US sentiment has blocked any sort of critical thinking skills in this argument.
First of all, vetoing .xxx isn't any sort of censorship. Those same sites can get normal domains like every other website. They are in no way banned from displaying their material.
I'm curious though, have you actually read what the UN wants to do with the internet? From TFA:
During a series of meetings organized by the United Nations, ministers from dozens of other countries have raised objections and demanded more influence. Suggestions that have been made include new mandates for "consumer protection," the power to levy taxes on domain names to pay for "universal access," and folding ICANN into the International Telecommunications Union, a U.N. agency. As far back as 1999, U.N. agencies have mulled imposing taxes on Internet e-mail.
Gee great, taxing emails and domain names, and "consumer protection." Consumer protection certainly sounds a lot like censorship to me, when the ones making the big fuss about this originally were countries like China, and basically expressed discomfort over stuff like the xxx domains (on the grounds that it was pornography, with hints that they didn't like the idea of pornography being more visable on the internet).
,br> Oh, and there was some talk of dealing with spam in some of the earlier articles on this subject. Sounds good and all, because noone likes spam. But it certainly skirts on the fringes of censorship there, especially when its up in the air about who would decide what constitutes spam.
Now, granted the US could have a say in how its operated in a democratic process. Maybe. I don't really trust the UN, however, given its track record, their stated goals, and the countries who are really pressing for this, in addition to the demonstrated lack of understanding of how the internet works. I'd be all for global possession, so long as it remains as hands-off as its been, is free from undue control and censorship, and properly managed.
Erm, how has the US in any way, shape, or form, prevented you from seeing boobs on the internet. There are a lot of porn companies in the US, a lot of porn shops, and a lot of US owned internet based porn businesses.
Oh, and how was that censored? It got its rating upped to AO, which caused stores to voluntarily drop it until the content was removed, and Rockstar to voluntarily remove the content that upped its rating. It is in no way, shape, or form government sponsored censorship. Period.
Its typically been left-wingers in support of censorship of games, not right-wingers. For example, Hillary Clinton.
Sorry someone beat you to it.
To be fair, the N-Gage failed more because of a crappy game lineup, horrible marketing, and high price tag, rather than 3d games on a cell phone being a bad idea. I mean, they actually went out of their way to insult their target audience.
Not to mention using old versions of the JVM. There have been good speed improvements in the JVM since 2000.
Performance and reliability? I assure you that C# has both. Got any links that indicate that C# is either slow or unreliable? And products being available in Java from vendors doesn't really mean much if you don't intend to use them in the first place, or they are trivial to interface with your code. As far as Java being the de-facto standard, while it is in higher use than C#, C# is being used by large businesses, and there is a large market for C# programmers.