The most they're capable of in the real world are harassing phone calls and falsely ordered pizza. I have a feeling neither of those are going to bother the MPAA that much.
Can you imagine the amounts of food that could be ordered for each and every of MAFIAA lawyers?
I think they are exactly the sort of people who believe only they should be allowed to throw shit around.One incident wouldn't do more than annoy them, but if they get home and find more of the same, they might well turn out to be exactly the sort of deeply paranoid (in the colloquial sense) people who would be horrified to know that the unwashed masses know where they live and have a personal grudge.
Which reminds me, of course, of Fight Club. (Of which we do not speak, of course.)
Petty grievances should make their rich lives hell: piss in their soup, dog shit in their food, V1agra ads in their e-mail, viruses on their computers, constant tracking followed up by reporting any petty traffic violation to the police... so many things could be done, and most of them legal, as Scientologists know full well.
The Anonymous could do that, if they had an attention span better than that of a senile goldfish.
What, half a dozen virgins click some links to sites no one actually bothers with?! Wow, scary!
Clicking is for sissies. What you do is wget a page on the site, redirecting it to/dev/null. You put that in an infinite loop and go to sleep. Do it all through tor, so your IP changes often.
Of course, there are Firefox extensions that can automatically refresh pages, so you can fire up Torpark, install such an extension, open several dozen tabs with the annoying website and have it refresh every 15 seconds.
Browsers with a process-per-tab often still crash as a whole. Process-per-tab is a good thing but it doesn't work very well yet to prevent browser crashes.
I still use Firefox as my primary browser, but I find that Chrome handles Flash-based websites a bit better. However, dozens of open tabs slow down Chrome to a grind, the same as Firefox. And still nothing really helps save for a browser restart.
Process separation/isolation is a nice thing, but it’s not the end-all and be-all of stability.
Apple didn't have to cut Flash - it could have let Flash cut itself simply by sucking. But instead they won't let it run, even if it was optimized.
Maybe. But that’s not how Apple rolls.;)
Steve Jobs is a dictator, which is not all bad in his line of work. If it doesn’t work, it had better not be there in the first place.
Evolution is, from his point of view, for sissies.
And it makes sense. It really does.
Because if a Joe Sixpack buys an iPad and starts using sucky Flash apps which run slowly, drain his battery and all in all provide poor user experience, he’ll blame the iPad, not the crappy app. Or the appy crap, whatever.
Jobs gets to avoid this kind of backsplash by simply removing the possibility for it to happen. In this way you get to know in advance Flash Will Not Work Ever and you make up your mind up front. And then, if you decide it’s worth it, you remain amazed at iPad’s performance.
You can pretend that it's blocked for your own good, but Apple is committed to blocking any third-party dev environments and apps made with them, even if they'd improve your user experience. They're going for developer lock-in and that small tightly-controlled pool of developers and tools isn't for the good of the user...
First of all, I don’t even own an iPad nor would I buy one just yet. But Apple doesn’t seem to be blocking third-party development environments as such: if you can make an HTML app, there are many environments from which you may choose. But you don’t get to work with Flash.
And I agree. Flash is a mammoth that needs to go extinct.
Now, I do understand the anguish of people who want to enjoy the experience of Flash-based websites.
I also understand the people who consider Flash to be the bloated elephant moving through molasses.
Most of all, I understand Steve Jobs for being a bloody perfectionist and refusing to allow something like Flash on his platform. And I have nothing but respect and admiration for that decision.
I am not an Apple fanboy, though. This is the same kind of respect and admiration Google got from me for ditching IE6 completely. This kind of respect I give anyone who decides to cut something bad even if it’s going to hurt their sales some. If you have to choose between losing sales because your product doesn’t support some wide-spread technology or because your acceptance of that technology means poorer battery life and/or user experience, I’d sooner buy your product if you chose the former.
If Flash were not a problem, Apple would be foolish to ditch it because then cheaper Windows, Linux or Android-based tablets would destroy the iPad; the history of PC vs. Mac would repeat itself. However, iPad flourishes, and Apple is not the only one ditching Flash support. IIRC, Nokia has announced the same.
Imagine, if you will, a great-granddaughter with a diamond ring or necklace who, upon someone’s expressed admiration, says “oh, yes, it’s a memento from my great-grandfather.”
Then imagine the expression of the inquirer upon explanation that the diamonds themselves are bits of the great-grandfather. Priceless.
I think his point is rather that in some places, being "merely attractive" or "merely talented" aren't enough to ensure career prospects. It's not about obsession with superlatives, but more of a signal-to-noise problem.
In Sweden you don't stand out for being six feet tall and blonde. In Russia, your 1700 chess rating means you sometimes win casual games.
Signal-to-noise ratio in LA must be pretty fucked up. Until Mad Men, Christina Hendricks was pretty much unknown and invisible. I mean, WTF?
Maybe if they had reduced the price of the game to 1/2 what they were charging then the piracy rate might have gone down to 60%. That would earn them twice as much as well.
There is an optimum price that delivers maximum profits in the face of piracy. I doubt anyone in the gaming industry has tried to find it.
Maybe.
When I learned of this deal, I told a few friends. One is practically broke until the 17th; he would have bought the game if the discount lasted until he got paid. He will now probably pirate it, unless I decide to be a saint and buy it for him.
Coming from a pirate-heavy market (and one where pirates don’t actually make money; casual piracy is the norm), I can tell you that 90% is a rather low piracy score.;)
If only 10% of people who pirated the game would have bought it instead, this small consumer-friendly company would have almost DOUBLED what they made from the game.... and piracy is not their "only choice". Since when are people entitled to have whatever they want no matter their ability to pay - especially things that are merely entertainment?
They are not, but if they’re not going to get in trouble for it...
I am not much of a gamer, but I’ve heard good things about Machinarium. I have just purchased the game; $5 is really quite affordable. I might have done so sooner had I known it was not a Windows-only game.
I used to pirate games as a kid. We all did, here in Croatia, and most still do, since prices are usually much higher than in the US, while our income is much lower. Nowadays I am a very casual gamer, but I do purchase games from time to time. Mostly older ones, or something on discount. That’s how I grabbed Tales of Monkey Island: $20 for all five episodes, along with a small bunch of Mac software in Macheist’s last heist.
That kind of pricing makes the offer too tempting: I cannot not pay. I’d feel as low as stealing a chewing gum.
I’d feel less guilty if I pirated a bloody expensive game, especially if it had low replay value. Yeah, nice, but it’s play and forget; that kind of piracy harms no-one the same way a pirated film I only ever saw a half of and then erased harms no-one.
Pirating a cheap and good game, however, just feels low. And cheap. In a bad way.
Now excuse me, I have to see what I’ve downloaded.
I really wonder why some people seem to hate the notion of companies paying developers to work on Linux.
Yes, Linux is an excellent example of how successful open source development can be. Especially in the sense GNU HURD isn’t.
The fact that most development comes from various companies should be counted as a success of Linux.
I mean, think about it. Unlike other operating systems, developed either by monopolists or by relatively small communities, Linux is now a result of joint effort of both numerous independent programmers and several large companies. All scratching their own itches, all working on making Linux better, all sharing their improvements with everybody else.
This is also the greatest success of GNU: without the GPL, there would have been no strong incentive for everyone to share their improvements (even though it would be a good long-term strategy; the modern corporate world is more interested in quarterly statements, it seems).
Now, I wouldn’t allow that in all cases where the woman was mislead into thinking the man was something he wasn’t, that she was raped. That gets completely ridiculous very quickly, I agree. However, when the guy obviously knew that his real identity would never get him laid (by that particular girl) and intentionally deceives her to get in her pants, yeah. I’d call that rape.
And again, I wouldn’t. There is no hint of violence. There is the slippery slope. And it softens up real rape – “oh, yeah, you were raped, right; some guy lied about who he was”. It works the same as fake rape charges.
I find that despicable. I am fairly certain real rape victims do so as well.
Yeah, he lied. Everybody lies. We are all rapists then.
If you hopped into bed with someone in the dark and she asked “_____ is that you?” and you lied – “yes” – and proceeded to fuck, her never the wiser until the morning when she freaked out when she found out you weren’t her boyfriend,... yes, that would be rape.
Claiming to be someone you aren’t in order to get into someone’s pants is rape. They didn’t consent to have sex with YOU, they consented to have sex with the fictional person you created.
The first example is true. That would be rape. In a way. Though I am uneasy defining a non-violent act as rape for the reasons stated above.
The generalization, however, is patently false. Strictly speaking, we all agree to have sex with the fictional persons our partners create. And whom we create in our minds.
And kindly do take note of the slippery slope. Where do we draw the line?
In my country, in more nationalist areas, being of “wrong” ethnicity can still get you into trouble at both work and personal life. Much more rarely than ten years ago, and even more so than fifteen years ago, when it could literally get you killed, but it still does happen. So I can understand people hiding their true ethnicity.
But let’s move from ethnicity. I shall repeat, since you ignored everything I’d written: is it rape if you say you earn more money than you do? Is it rape if she finds out you lied about your cock size? (Insert joke here.) Is it rape if you used some pickup line that isn’t true? Is it rape if you lied you were an agent or director?
And does it work the other way round? Is it rape if we start screwing before we get undressed, then it turns out she stuffed her bra?
You cannot cry rape for every personal disappointment.
I mean, you can, but I do not want to be a member of a society where that is acceptable.
The little boy who cried wolf does not only harm himself; he harms anyone who could ever cry wolf again.
The little boy was a child. What excuse do these supposedly adult wolf-callers have?
They are bloody idiots?
Or should we say, they are thinking of children? And in a perverted way at that, too.
Re:Don't f* with the IT guy like at restaurant you
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Child Porn As a Weapon
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Nowadays, that kind of letter could land me in prison, given a hysterical enough judge.
You've waited this long, you can wait a little more. Even given a smart enough little genius, by most standards 14 is still way too young.
I don’t know how exactly you got to 14, but incidentally, that’s the age of consent where I live.
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Child Porn As a Weapon
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OK, I see you are not the Anonymous Coward with the family brain cell today.
We were both about 16 at the time. She sent me her old nude photo, taken when she was about four.
I’d thought that much was clear and one of the earlier posters seemed rather tongue-in-cheek about it all, but please try using your brain before lashing out.
See, people? Like that xkcd about IQ dropping as distance to cat decreases: whenever you mention children, it seems knee-jerk reactions also abound.
Which is obviously a sexual assault. He’d forced her to have sex with him just by claiming he was Jewish.
Fuck that. I’m going to tell all the girls I meet I’m Jewish. Then they’ll be compelled by Elohim themselves to have sex with me. I’m going to rape girls by the power of YHWH.
Do you see how moronic that sounds?
Besides, this is a very, very slippery slope.
Not earning as much as you’d said when you met her? Rape!
You said you were blond, but you actually dye your hair? Rape!
You had sex with more women than you’d told her? Rape!
You embellished any truth whatsoever? RAPE!!!ONE
He could have claimed he were Steven fucking Spielberg and that he would make her famous. It would still not be rape.
Re:Don't f* with the IT guy like at restaurant you
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Child Porn As a Weapon
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I think the bigger question is, why did you have a four year old pen pal, and why were you joking about nude photos with a 4 year old? I'm not saying it's pornography, but i don't know any 4 year old that even understands the concept of joking about nudity let alone has a pen pal overseas...
Overseas? No no, we were on the same continent. It’s only overseas to you.
Haha, that's even better, just tell the cops that you saw him opening an encrypted file and it came up with kiddie porn. You wouldn't even need to take the risk of downloading the porn yourself, just encrypt any old files and put them on his hard drive. He'll be unable to come up with the key and its off to jail for 2+ years. The risk, and squick factor, of your crime drops off considerably and the result is nearly (if not totally) the same.
This is so delightfully evil. Brits should try it with their officials’ computers. Use strong algorithms and encrypt a Rick Roll or something like that.
Slashdot Mirror
The most they're capable of in the real world are harassing phone calls and falsely ordered pizza. I have a feeling neither of those are going to bother the MPAA that much.
Can you imagine the amounts of food that could be ordered for each and every of MAFIAA lawyers?
I think they are exactly the sort of people who believe only they should be allowed to throw shit around.One incident wouldn't do more than annoy them, but if they get home and find more of the same, they might well turn out to be exactly the sort of deeply paranoid (in the colloquial sense) people who would be horrified to know that the unwashed masses know where they live and have a personal grudge.
Which reminds me, of course, of Fight Club. (Of which we do not speak, of course.)
Petty grievances should make their rich lives hell: piss in their soup, dog shit in their food, V1agra ads in their e-mail, viruses on their computers, constant tracking followed up by reporting any petty traffic violation to the police... so many things could be done, and most of them legal, as Scientologists know full well.
The Anonymous could do that, if they had an attention span better than that of a senile goldfish.
What, half a dozen virgins click some links to sites no one actually bothers with?! Wow, scary!
Clicking is for sissies. What you do is wget a page on the site, redirecting it to /dev/null. You put that in an infinite loop and go to sleep. Do it all through tor, so your IP changes often.
Of course, there are Firefox extensions that can automatically refresh pages, so you can fire up Torpark, install such an extension, open several dozen tabs with the annoying website and have it refresh every 15 seconds.
Browsers with a process-per-tab often still crash as a whole. Process-per-tab is a good thing but it doesn't work very well yet to prevent browser crashes.
I still use Firefox as my primary browser, but I find that Chrome handles Flash-based websites a bit better. However, dozens of open tabs slow down Chrome to a grind, the same as Firefox. And still nothing really helps save for a browser restart.
Process separation/isolation is a nice thing, but it’s not the end-all and be-all of stability.
Quantum law: Time is an illusion, so they didn't come first after all!
Have you tried that one with your SO, proving it was not you who came first?
Where?
There there. </sheldon>
Apple didn't have to cut Flash - it could have let Flash cut itself simply by sucking. But instead they won't let it run, even if it was optimized.
Maybe. But that’s not how Apple rolls. ;)
Steve Jobs is a dictator, which is not all bad in his line of work. If it doesn’t work, it had better not be there in the first place.
Evolution is, from his point of view, for sissies.
And it makes sense. It really does.
Because if a Joe Sixpack buys an iPad and starts using sucky Flash apps which run slowly, drain his battery and all in all provide poor user experience, he’ll blame the iPad, not the crappy app. Or the appy crap, whatever.
Jobs gets to avoid this kind of backsplash by simply removing the possibility for it to happen. In this way you get to know in advance Flash Will Not Work Ever and you make up your mind up front. And then, if you decide it’s worth it, you remain amazed at iPad’s performance.
You can pretend that it's blocked for your own good, but Apple is committed to blocking any third-party dev environments and apps made with them, even if they'd improve your user experience. They're going for developer lock-in and that small tightly-controlled pool of developers and tools isn't for the good of the user...
First of all, I don’t even own an iPad nor would I buy one just yet. But Apple doesn’t seem to be blocking third-party development environments as such: if you can make an HTML app, there are many environments from which you may choose. But you don’t get to work with Flash.
And I agree. Flash is a mammoth that needs to go extinct.
AFAICT, people love to hate Steve Jobs.
Now, I do understand the anguish of people who want to enjoy the experience of Flash-based websites.
I also understand the people who consider Flash to be the bloated elephant moving through molasses.
Most of all, I understand Steve Jobs for being a bloody perfectionist and refusing to allow something like Flash on his platform. And I have nothing but respect and admiration for that decision.
I am not an Apple fanboy, though. This is the same kind of respect and admiration Google got from me for ditching IE6 completely. This kind of respect I give anyone who decides to cut something bad even if it’s going to hurt their sales some. If you have to choose between losing sales because your product doesn’t support some wide-spread technology or because your acceptance of that technology means poorer battery life and/or user experience, I’d sooner buy your product if you chose the former.
If Flash were not a problem, Apple would be foolish to ditch it because then cheaper Windows, Linux or Android-based tablets would destroy the iPad; the history of PC vs. Mac would repeat itself. However, iPad flourishes, and Apple is not the only one ditching Flash support. IIRC, Nokia has announced the same.
There are other religions, you know.
Blasphemy!
Madness!
Imagine, if you will, a great-granddaughter with a diamond ring or necklace who, upon someone’s expressed admiration, says “oh, yes, it’s a memento from my great-grandfather.”
Then imagine the expression of the inquirer upon explanation that the diamonds themselves are bits of the great-grandfather. Priceless.
It’s one of the ways I wouldn’t mind being disposed of when the time comes.
Sure, it’s not that I have a real interest in it either way, but it’d be cool.
I think his point is rather that in some places, being "merely attractive" or "merely talented" aren't enough to ensure career prospects. It's not about obsession with superlatives, but more of a signal-to-noise problem.
In Sweden you don't stand out for being six feet tall and blonde. In Russia, your 1700 chess rating means you sometimes win casual games.
Signal-to-noise ratio in LA must be pretty fucked up. Until Mad Men, Christina Hendricks was pretty much unknown and invisible. I mean, WTF?
Popularity doesn't pay the bills when 90% of your players aren't paying for the game.
Actually, it does. Because for every nine pirates, someone buys the game. Which is usually much better than no-one buying it at all.
Maybe if they had reduced the price of the game to 1/2 what they were charging then the piracy rate might have gone down to 60%. That would earn them twice as much as well.
There is an optimum price that delivers maximum profits in the face of piracy. I doubt anyone in the gaming industry has tried to find it.
Maybe.
When I learned of this deal, I told a few friends. One is practically broke until the 17th; he would have bought the game if the discount lasted until he got paid. He will now probably pirate it, unless I decide to be a saint and buy it for him.
90% of the copies were pirated. NINETY PERCENT.
Coming from a pirate-heavy market (and one where pirates don’t actually make money; casual piracy is the norm), I can tell you that 90% is a rather low piracy score. ;)
If only 10% of people who pirated the game would have bought it instead, this small consumer-friendly company would have almost DOUBLED what they made from the game. ... and piracy is not their "only choice". Since when are people entitled to have whatever they want no matter their ability to pay - especially things that are merely entertainment?
They are not, but if they’re not going to get in trouble for it...
I am not much of a gamer, but I’ve heard good things about Machinarium. I have just purchased the game; $5 is really quite affordable. I might have done so sooner had I known it was not a Windows-only game.
I used to pirate games as a kid. We all did, here in Croatia, and most still do, since prices are usually much higher than in the US, while our income is much lower. Nowadays I am a very casual gamer, but I do purchase games from time to time. Mostly older ones, or something on discount. That’s how I grabbed Tales of Monkey Island: $20 for all five episodes, along with a small bunch of Mac software in Macheist’s last heist.
That kind of pricing makes the offer too tempting: I cannot not pay. I’d feel as low as stealing a chewing gum.
I’d feel less guilty if I pirated a bloody expensive game, especially if it had low replay value. Yeah, nice, but it’s play and forget; that kind of piracy harms no-one the same way a pirated film I only ever saw a half of and then erased harms no-one.
Pirating a cheap and good game, however, just feels low. And cheap. In a bad way.
Now excuse me, I have to see what I’ve downloaded.
I really wonder why some people seem to hate the notion of companies paying developers to work on Linux.
Yes, Linux is an excellent example of how successful open source development can be. Especially in the sense GNU HURD isn’t.
The fact that most development comes from various companies should be counted as a success of Linux.
I mean, think about it. Unlike other operating systems, developed either by monopolists or by relatively small communities, Linux is now a result of joint effort of both numerous independent programmers and several large companies. All scratching their own itches, all working on making Linux better, all sharing their improvements with everybody else.
This is also the greatest success of GNU: without the GPL, there would have been no strong incentive for everyone to share their improvements (even though it would be a good long-term strategy; the modern corporate world is more interested in quarterly statements, it seems).
Now, I wouldn’t allow that in all cases where the woman was mislead into thinking the man was something he wasn’t, that she was raped. That gets completely ridiculous very quickly, I agree. However, when the guy obviously knew that his real identity would never get him laid (by that particular girl) and intentionally deceives her to get in her pants, yeah. I’d call that rape.
And again, I wouldn’t. There is no hint of violence. There is the slippery slope. And it softens up real rape – “oh, yeah, you were raped, right; some guy lied about who he was”. It works the same as fake rape charges.
I find that despicable. I am fairly certain real rape victims do so as well.
Yeah, he lied. Everybody lies. We are all rapists then.
If you hopped into bed with someone in the dark and she asked “_____ is that you?” and you lied – “yes” – and proceeded to fuck, her never the wiser until the morning when she freaked out when she found out you weren’t her boyfriend, ... yes, that would be rape.
Claiming to be someone you aren’t in order to get into someone’s pants is rape. They didn’t consent to have sex with YOU, they consented to have sex with the fictional person you created.
The first example is true. That would be rape. In a way. Though I am uneasy defining a non-violent act as rape for the reasons stated above.
The generalization, however, is patently false. Strictly speaking, we all agree to have sex with the fictional persons our partners create. And whom we create in our minds.
And kindly do take note of the slippery slope. Where do we draw the line?
In my country, in more nationalist areas, being of “wrong” ethnicity can still get you into trouble at both work and personal life. Much more rarely than ten years ago, and even more so than fifteen years ago, when it could literally get you killed, but it still does happen. So I can understand people hiding their true ethnicity.
But let’s move from ethnicity. I shall repeat, since you ignored everything I’d written: is it rape if you say you earn more money than you do? Is it rape if she finds out you lied about your cock size? (Insert joke here.) Is it rape if you used some pickup line that isn’t true? Is it rape if you lied you were an agent or director?
And does it work the other way round? Is it rape if we start screwing before we get undressed, then it turns out she stuffed her bra?
You cannot cry rape for every personal disappointment.
I mean, you can, but I do not want to be a member of a society where that is acceptable.
The little boy was a child. What excuse do these supposedly adult wolf-callers have?
They are bloody idiots?
Or should we say, they are thinking of children? And in a perverted way at that, too.
Nowadays, that kind of letter could land me in prison, given a hysterical enough judge.
You've waited this long, you can wait a little more. Even given a smart enough little genius, by most standards 14 is still way too young.
I don’t know how exactly you got to 14, but incidentally, that’s the age of consent where I live.
OK, I see you are not the Anonymous Coward with the family brain cell today.
We were both about 16 at the time. She sent me her old nude photo, taken when she was about four.
I’d thought that much was clear and one of the earlier posters seemed rather tongue-in-cheek about it all, but please try using your brain before lashing out.
See, people? Like that xkcd about IQ dropping as distance to cat decreases: whenever you mention children, it seems knee-jerk reactions also abound.
Which is obviously a sexual assault. He’d forced her to have sex with him just by claiming he was Jewish.
Fuck that. I’m going to tell all the girls I meet I’m Jewish. Then they’ll be compelled by Elohim themselves to have sex with me. I’m going to rape girls by the power of YHWH.
Do you see how moronic that sounds?
Besides, this is a very, very slippery slope.
Not earning as much as you’d said when you met her? Rape!
You said you were blond, but you actually dye your hair? Rape!
You had sex with more women than you’d told her? Rape!
You embellished any truth whatsoever? RAPE!!!ONE
He could have claimed he were Steven fucking Spielberg and that he would make her famous. It would still not be rape.
I think the bigger question is, why did you have a four year old pen pal, and why were you joking about nude photos with a 4 year old? I'm not saying it's pornography, but i don't know any 4 year old that even understands the concept of joking about nudity let alone has a pen pal overseas...
Overseas? No no, we were on the same continent. It’s only overseas to you.
I have to admit that I thought that your claim was one of the worst bullshit urban legends I had ever heard.
Yes, it does sound like it couldn’t possibly happen. Ever.
Think again.
Haha, that's even better, just tell the cops that you saw him opening an encrypted file and it came up with kiddie porn. You wouldn't even need to take the risk of downloading the porn yourself, just encrypt any old files and put them on his hard drive. He'll be unable to come up with the key and its off to jail for 2+ years. The risk, and squick factor, of your crime drops off considerably and the result is nearly (if not totally) the same.
This is so delightfully evil. Brits should try it with their officials’ computers. Use strong algorithms and encrypt a Rick Roll or something like that.
That may be the only way to repeal that law.