That's a laugh. I don't know anyone of the 20 or 30 people...
You can't dismiss an arguement (with any credibility) just because the statistically insignificant group of people you know don't fit a hypothesis.
But as we're going with personal examples, I know three groups of people in real life who play WoW. Not a single one of them has played a different MMO because they just aren't interested in gaming. WoW is a social and relaxation thing for them which they are fitting into an already busy life of working and/or looking after kids. This doesn't prove they are the norm, but I hope it at least shows that there are WoW players out there who really don't fit the/. view of typical gamers.
On Slashdot, this principle is being rapidly rolled out to include Jack Thompson, all record executives, all patent attorneys, Microsoft employees (with the possible exception of Microsoft Research), Republicans, those who believe in God, and lastly but most importantly, people who think the three newer Star Wars movies weren't actually that bad.
Hardly a ringing endorsement of the practice? It sounds nothing remotely like he thinks people should be viewed negatively for even listening to certain unpopular groups.
As a fellow Brit, I wish it was our superior wit. In this case however, I think it is simply the fact you bothered to read and understand the post before responding to it.
I've been getting a depressing vibe from Slashdot lately, all the indignant yet unconsidered posts etc are making it clear that we're as a group no better than the ignorant people on the other side of the fence.
He's obviously a genius, in my opinion he's wasting his talents on matters that will be unimportant in 20 years time, yet he could be providing significant help to science.
Firstly, it is perfectly possible he is doing this in part because if he wins or even gets the RIAA to stop it is a great early achievement.
Secondly, although I have little interest in this case prosecutions brought about by the RIAA often include some very dubious behaviour. If he continues to fight cases against major business interests who have used out of court settlements like a protection racket, abuse the ignorance of Jurors and Judiciaries by providing 'evidence' so technically complex that they can't see it is flawed and apply for damages based on a formula that is barely understood let alone tested then it's no waste.
It's no fair to judge this action in isolation, if he just uses it to get famous then it'll be a shame. However, if he uses this case as the foundation for further actions to limit the impingement of rights by companies and potentially government then it is time well spent.
A Fallout 3 Game of the Year edition will be available in October. It will include the original game plus all five add-ons for £39.99 / 59.99 for Xbox 360 and PS3, and £29.99 / 49.99 for PC.
It seems there is some good news for people who don't want to buy quite sizeable game 'extensions' through Games for Windows or Xbox Live (myself included). I have bought and completed Fallout 3 for Xbox and would like to get the add-ons but I won't until they are available in a more consumer friendly form.
It will cost about £30 to buy all 4 add-ons, and these are software downloads with all the issues this entails (especially on a closed platform like Xbox). This means no lending to friends, hassle getting them back if my box dies, no second hand market and little chance of backwards compatibility on the next console version. Instead I can happily wait 5 months and get the game + all add-ons on disc for the same price as the add-ons alone or cheaper.
Did you not bother to read the next sentence? Or did you read it but not understand it?
If you are caught suggesting you do not have a problem with the person themselves, you will be labelled a "sympathiser", "evil", "scum of the earth", etc.
GP wasn't defending this mindset, he was clearly pointing out that people who treat unpopular groups with respect are ostracised by society themselves. In short, you are taking umbrage with the wrong person.
For example, who will defend the interests of the car industry in this gas mileage proposal from the US government now that the US government owns two of the three big companies?
Of the top 3 car companies in the US one is still doing well. Toyota, like most non-American car companies are already on the fuel efficiency bandwagon. I'm not a fan of this legislation, but not because I care about a couple of out-dated car manufacturers aren't around to whine about it.
Granted, there were lots of special effects in the film, but each had a purpose in the greater scheme of things, and at no point did I get the impression that someone was playing a videogame before my eyes, or showing me what their computer could do.
His point appears to be that good films use special effects to enhance good story etc not just provide eye-candy without relation to the rest of the film.
* *SPOILERS * * Am I the only person who can't see 'the purpose' of the scene with Kirk getting chased by progressively larger beasts on the ice world other than to show off (and try and gloss over the fact the entire story relies on him bumping into future Spock). You could at least argue that the sequence with Scotty teleporting into the Enterprises water cooling system was character building (I don't see how) or that the sky-diving onto the drilling platform emphasised Kirk's willingness to take risks (when it wasn't his idea) but the beast scene was there entirely as special effects porn.
Precisely. I was rarely spanked as a small child, and only when I was caught red-handed or otherwise in the middle of misbehaving. The spank was one swat on the ass, delivered immediately, not some kind of ritualized thing--and certainly not a beating. It was just a quick "stop that right the fuck now" kind of thing;
One thing I have never understood is what they planned to do if it didn't work. You've already hit them, so what do you do if they don't stop? Hit them harder? What do you do when they do something worse? Hit them repeatedly? If the answer isn't more violence, then why use violence in the first place?
No it doesn't. Practically no company tries to be everything to everyone and for good reason. When a company is looking to expand its customer base it will focus its effort on a couple customer demographics that it believes make sense (safe bet is people who haven't even heard of S-E, but are willing to boycott them over this isn't one of them).
but the reality is that it's an excellent movie that people are going to recommend to their friends.
It was much better than most Trek movies, and miles better than the last two but it's nowhere near 'excellent'. I enjoyed watching it and thought it had some great acting, top notch scenes and some fantastic imagery. However the storyline was terrible at times (esp Kirk happening upon future Spock by accident...), the whole time travel idea added complexity and little else and the 'character development' was a complete sham.
Replace "Internet access" with "postal system" in the posts above, if you still believe that there's a hard separation between the freedom of speech and the tools used to propagate your views.
Yes I do. Would you mind if I expressed myself with a high volume megaphone outside your house? How about transmitting my message in a populated area using a device emitting a dangerous part of the spectrum? Is stopping me building a nuclear reactor to power my intergalactic radio station infringing my freedom of speech?
I would have an issue with the banning of printing presses, that doesn't mean I have lost the objectivity required to understand wtf freedom of speech means.
And the 'right' to internet access fall under free speech (and is the only kind of free speech most people can afford).
No. Internet access is no more a 'right' than international phone call access is. The internet is a tool for sending and receiving information, free speech protects what you say, not access to tools with which to say it. The fact that you can open your mouth and form words without risk of your government persecuting you is free speech, the fact that no one hears you is not.
Good chance that the "next Google" starts up just like that.
If you mean the next big internet based company you might be right, if you mean the next dominant player in the search market then you're almost certainly wrong.
Doing anything which requires an exhaustive or near exhaustive database of internet content requires far more resources than it would have in the mid-90s. Doing something that requires you to actually rate / select from this database of billions of records also requires resources well beyond those that Google had when they formed. Unless someone manages to work out a way to provide good quality search results without indexing the majority of the internet and rating algorithms orders of magnitudes faster than those currently available no small player will get far in generic search.
Search is harder than most markets to break into, the resources required start extremely high even if you only have a few users.
Actually, I would recommend that every home owner buy a gun. If you shoot the guys breaking in, they won't do it again.
And if they manage to shoot themselves, a family member, neighbour or police officer, if the criminal uses the gun to kill someone, if the person gets killed because they engaged the criminal then you'd get a timely reminder of why years of crime statistics show that home-owner gun ownership actually increases the risk to the household.
The power of P2P is not in having "pirates" share music. It is allowing fans to freely share and promote artists. This is not something that can be done today without fear of retribution from an industry that doesn't care about facts or truths.
Fans are freely allowed to share the music of any artist who allows it and can do so without the fear of retribution. The point is that even though major label music sharing is illegal it still gets shared far more widely than any music released by someone with less restrictions.
The author's point is valid, TPB and other major torrent trackers do nothing to help publicise little known acts (something that people have argued against). In fact they arguably help the status quo because many people will get music off trackers 'for free', but might of been willing to try out new bands who offered music for free if they couldn't get mainstream material off trackers.
Having a company be in a position to dictate your access to data you *bought* fair and square is DRM no matter how you slice it.
No it is not, and saying it is just blurs the issue which is of no use to anyone. Secondly, what Amazon did was remove his ability to use their online store not use material he had already bought. The fact Amazon could do this is an issue (either of a harsh user agreement or abuse) but it is not a DRM issue.
Crimes without victims should be immediately removed from the books, to help improve the economy.
So does that now mean I can own any kind of weapon without bothering with a license? How about shooting at people but missing? Plotting for terrorist attacks that don't take place?
really should be based on the amount of damage that the speeder actually caused (i.e., none)
There is a good reason why fines aren't based entirely on actual damage, if they were then it would always be beneficial to break the rules as long as you get caught less than 100% of the time. If getting caught on a train without a ticket meant you had to buy a ticket at the normal price then it would never be worth buying a ticket.
Sometimes fines can be used to dissuade people from committing dangerous acts, sometimes they can't. A decent justice system will factor in the effectiveness of using a deterrent.
Finally, I don't see the reason for treating victimless crimes as a whole differently. Personally I would much rather see someone who doubled the speed limit past a school entrance at closing time and somehow didn't kill anyone get locked up than some stupid kid who thought it'd be funny to graffiti a wall.
And something is either new or it isn't. Selling used goods as new regardless of condition is dishonest. There is absolutely no difference between them doing this, and them buying games back from customers and re-selling them as new (both have been used after all).
What are you seriously suggesting, that Gamestop stop branding games as new or used, and instead analyse all disks for damage and all cases for wear and instead split there shop into "faultless" and "faulty"?
No, loads of other people also get inexplicably wound up with joke news being posted for one day out of every 365.24. Personally I can't say I'd miss April fools if it went, there is such a bad shit vs funny ratio in 'fools' but fortunately a sense of perspective stops me really giving a damn, YMMV.
I think Gene Roddenberry will haunt Abrams if he really screwed it up which I think he will since the latest movie is totally different from what we're used to seeing for the past 20 years.
What we are used to seeing for the last 20 years includes a hell of a lot of crap. Frankly the last thing I want is another film anything like the last two. JJ Abrams could well of created something terrible with Star Trek, but I don't think the trailer is proof of that.
Perhaps you should sample your own advice. If it was just about sex then no one who could afford a prostitute would ever be a rapist, and no sexual material relating to the subject of rape would exist (why would people watch 'rape porn' if all they wanted was sex?). I wouldn't care to say rape is mostly about power, but then I'm not an expert, I would be amazed if power wasn't a massive factor though.
No. YOU smack there bottom. Plenty of people are capable of and choose to raise children perfectly well without the use of physical force.
I see no end of bad parents (generally without college education, though this hardly seems relevant) who threaten children with violence, scream and swear at them or come close to physically assaulting them for things that could easily be handled without that behavior. I am not however about to assume that it is impossible to be a good parent who smacks, it would be nice if you could drop the stereotype and offer the same courtesy.
However, giving your kid a smack on the bottom while telling them "NO" firmly teaches them that "I hit someone = I get punished".
Or it teaches them "Someone does something I dislike = I hit them". I'm half playing Devil's advocate because although I don't believe in physical punishment, I don't feel the need to enforce that view on other parents. I know a number of very good parents with well behaved children and teenagers who don't physically discipline them.
Slashdot Mirror
You can't dismiss an arguement (with any credibility) just because the statistically insignificant group of people you know don't fit a hypothesis.
/. view of typical gamers.
But as we're going with personal examples, I know three groups of people in real life who play WoW. Not a single one of them has played a different MMO because they just aren't interested in gaming. WoW is a social and relaxation thing for them which they are fitting into an already busy life of working and/or looking after kids. This doesn't prove they are the norm, but I hope it at least shows that there are WoW players out there who really don't fit the
Hardly a ringing endorsement of the practice? It sounds nothing remotely like he thinks people should be viewed negatively for even listening to certain unpopular groups.
As a fellow Brit, I wish it was our superior wit. In this case however, I think it is simply the fact you bothered to read and understand the post before responding to it.
I've been getting a depressing vibe from Slashdot lately, all the indignant yet unconsidered posts etc are making it clear that we're as a group no better than the ignorant people on the other side of the fence.
Firstly, it is perfectly possible he is doing this in part because if he wins or even gets the RIAA to stop it is a great early achievement.
Secondly, although I have little interest in this case prosecutions brought about by the RIAA often include some very dubious behaviour. If he continues to fight cases against major business interests who have used out of court settlements like a protection racket, abuse the ignorance of Jurors and Judiciaries by providing 'evidence' so technically complex that they can't see it is flawed and apply for damages based on a formula that is barely understood let alone tested then it's no waste.
It's no fair to judge this action in isolation, if he just uses it to get famous then it'll be a shame. However, if he uses this case as the foundation for further actions to limit the impingement of rights by companies and potentially government then it is time well spent.
It seems there is some good news for people who don't want to buy quite sizeable game 'extensions' through Games for Windows or Xbox Live (myself included). I have bought and completed Fallout 3 for Xbox and would like to get the add-ons but I won't until they are available in a more consumer friendly form.
It will cost about £30 to buy all 4 add-ons, and these are software downloads with all the issues this entails (especially on a closed platform like Xbox). This means no lending to friends, hassle getting them back if my box dies, no second hand market and little chance of backwards compatibility on the next console version. Instead I can happily wait 5 months and get the game + all add-ons on disc for the same price as the add-ons alone or cheaper.
GP wasn't defending this mindset, he was clearly pointing out that people who treat unpopular groups with respect are ostracised by society themselves. In short, you are taking umbrage with the wrong person.
The mistake? Or the fact you're bringing it up on /.?
Of the top 3 car companies in the US one is still doing well. Toyota, like most non-American car companies are already on the fuel efficiency bandwagon. I'm not a fan of this legislation, but not because I care about a couple of out-dated car manufacturers aren't around to whine about it.
His point appears to be that good films use special effects to enhance good story etc not just provide eye-candy without relation to the rest of the film.
* *SPOILERS * * Am I the only person who can't see 'the purpose' of the scene with Kirk getting chased by progressively larger beasts on the ice world other than to show off (and try and gloss over the fact the entire story relies on him bumping into future Spock). You could at least argue that the sequence with Scotty teleporting into the Enterprises water cooling system was character building (I don't see how) or that the sky-diving onto the drilling platform emphasised Kirk's willingness to take risks (when it wasn't his idea) but the beast scene was there entirely as special effects porn.
One thing I have never understood is what they planned to do if it didn't work. You've already hit them, so what do you do if they don't stop? Hit them harder? What do you do when they do something worse? Hit them repeatedly? If the answer isn't more violence, then why use violence in the first place?
No it doesn't. Practically no company tries to be everything to everyone and for good reason. When a company is looking to expand its customer base it will focus its effort on a couple customer demographics that it believes make sense (safe bet is people who haven't even heard of S-E, but are willing to boycott them over this isn't one of them).
It was much better than most Trek movies, and miles better than the last two but it's nowhere near 'excellent'. I enjoyed watching it and thought it had some great acting, top notch scenes and some fantastic imagery. However the storyline was terrible at times (esp Kirk happening upon future Spock by accident...), the whole time travel idea added complexity and little else and the 'character development' was a complete sham.
Yes I do. Would you mind if I expressed myself with a high volume megaphone outside your house? How about transmitting my message in a populated area using a device emitting a dangerous part of the spectrum? Is stopping me building a nuclear reactor to power my intergalactic radio station infringing my freedom of speech?
I would have an issue with the banning of printing presses, that doesn't mean I have lost the objectivity required to understand wtf freedom of speech means.
No. Internet access is no more a 'right' than international phone call access is. The internet is a tool for sending and receiving information, free speech protects what you say, not access to tools with which to say it. The fact that you can open your mouth and form words without risk of your government persecuting you is free speech, the fact that no one hears you is not.
If you mean the next big internet based company you might be right, if you mean the next dominant player in the search market then you're almost certainly wrong.
Doing anything which requires an exhaustive or near exhaustive database of internet content requires far more resources than it would have in the mid-90s. Doing something that requires you to actually rate / select from this database of billions of records also requires resources well beyond those that Google had when they formed. Unless someone manages to work out a way to provide good quality search results without indexing the majority of the internet and rating algorithms orders of magnitudes faster than those currently available no small player will get far in generic search.
Search is harder than most markets to break into, the resources required start extremely high even if you only have a few users.
And if they manage to shoot themselves, a family member, neighbour or police officer, if the criminal uses the gun to kill someone, if the person gets killed because they engaged the criminal then you'd get a timely reminder of why years of crime statistics show that home-owner gun ownership actually increases the risk to the household.
Fans are freely allowed to share the music of any artist who allows it and can do so without the fear of retribution. The point is that even though major label music sharing is illegal it still gets shared far more widely than any music released by someone with less restrictions.
The author's point is valid, TPB and other major torrent trackers do nothing to help publicise little known acts (something that people have argued against). In fact they arguably help the status quo because many people will get music off trackers 'for free', but might of been willing to try out new bands who offered music for free if they couldn't get mainstream material off trackers.
No it is not, and saying it is just blurs the issue which is of no use to anyone. Secondly, what Amazon did was remove his ability to use their online store not use material he had already bought. The fact Amazon could do this is an issue (either of a harsh user agreement or abuse) but it is not a DRM issue.
So does that now mean I can own any kind of weapon without bothering with a license? How about shooting at people but missing? Plotting for terrorist attacks that don't take place?
There is a good reason why fines aren't based entirely on actual damage, if they were then it would always be beneficial to break the rules as long as you get caught less than 100% of the time. If getting caught on a train without a ticket meant you had to buy a ticket at the normal price then it would never be worth buying a ticket.
Sometimes fines can be used to dissuade people from committing dangerous acts, sometimes they can't. A decent justice system will factor in the effectiveness of using a deterrent.
Finally, I don't see the reason for treating victimless crimes as a whole differently. Personally I would much rather see someone who doubled the speed limit past a school entrance at closing time and somehow didn't kill anyone get locked up than some stupid kid who thought it'd be funny to graffiti a wall.
And something is either new or it isn't. Selling used goods as new regardless of condition is dishonest. There is absolutely no difference between them doing this, and them buying games back from customers and re-selling them as new (both have been used after all).
What are you seriously suggesting, that Gamestop stop branding games as new or used, and instead analyse all disks for damage and all cases for wear and instead split there shop into "faultless" and "faulty"?
No, loads of other people also get inexplicably wound up with joke news being posted for one day out of every 365.24. Personally I can't say I'd miss April fools if it went, there is such a bad shit vs funny ratio in 'fools' but fortunately a sense of perspective stops me really giving a damn, YMMV.
What we are used to seeing for the last 20 years includes a hell of a lot of crap. Frankly the last thing I want is another film anything like the last two. JJ Abrams could well of created something terrible with Star Trek, but I don't think the trailer is proof of that.
Perhaps you should sample your own advice. If it was just about sex then no one who could afford a prostitute would ever be a rapist, and no sexual material relating to the subject of rape would exist (why would people watch 'rape porn' if all they wanted was sex?). I wouldn't care to say rape is mostly about power, but then I'm not an expert, I would be amazed if power wasn't a massive factor though.
No. YOU smack there bottom. Plenty of people are capable of and choose to raise children perfectly well without the use of physical force.
I see no end of bad parents (generally without college education, though this hardly seems relevant) who threaten children with violence, scream and swear at them or come close to physically assaulting them for things that could easily be handled without that behavior. I am not however about to assume that it is impossible to be a good parent who smacks, it would be nice if you could drop the stereotype and offer the same courtesy.
Or it teaches them "Someone does something I dislike = I hit them". I'm half playing Devil's advocate because although I don't believe in physical punishment, I don't feel the need to enforce that view on other parents. I know a number of very good parents with well behaved children and teenagers who don't physically discipline them.