Why should we be trying to catch them? If someone wants to beat off in their basement, let them look at whatever they want. It's their own problem and their own issue to deal with.
Now, when the lyrics.com popups on my sister's IE windows have explicit 12 year olds, then we'll have a problem.
They want to prosecute child porn offenders? Fine. Put it in the text of the law. Retain the data, but make it unusable in court except for child porn cases.
Then tell all the privacy watchdogs to go back and chew their bones.
Think back to when MS Word files couldn't be read on Apple machines. For every other user of Windows out there, the utility of using Windows goes up, just because more people use it (so there's more content to view).
The MySpace people don't need to make content. We (the users) make it for them. And with each person you know who joins, it gets to be more fun, and you get more utility out of it. I just found a girl from my high school that I haven't talked to in three years. She's good people. It is, first and foremost, a networking site, but I can count on one hand the number of people I know over 30 who have memberships.
Not to worry, though. Eventually all you old fogies will die out and MySpace (or whatever its eventual successor will be) will take over the world.
Why do all the ideas - 'fun' bits, as TFA calls them - have to come from overworked, stressed developers? A company dedicated to listening to its constituency of customers is far better equipped to put out a good game, because the people who will be purchasing the software can contribute the ideas they want to see implemented.
Back in February I stumbled on Galactic Civilizations 2, then in beta. I pre-ordered after reading the website, and how they'd been in a beta for a year just implementing features people suggested on the forums. Even 2 months after release, the game is receiving more attention patch-wise from the developers than any other software I've ever bought, save for Windows itself. And these aren't just bug fixes we're getting for our $40 - we're getting UI tweaks, new features, and improvements on already stellar AI.
And the best part is that the game was mostly self-financed, through pre-orders and online distribution. Sales have been stellar, the game was sold out for its first production run - mostly from word of mouth - and no major publisher was ever involved.
GalCiv2 should be a wake-up call to developers - to make a good game, ask the gamers what they want.
Interactive games on the site teach children about exploring space, building and launching rockets, keeping airplanes on schedule and how a comet travels through the solar system.
That's exactly who I want teaching my kids how to stay on schedule. The federal agency that can't get a space shuttle in the air more than once every couple of years.
While we're at it, let's have the DoD and the Pentagon start an educational website to teach our kids how to shop around and get the best deal on toys.
Nobody's saying every resident of San Francisco needs to cancel their broadband and use Googlink. It's just convenient. I can't wait for the day if/when a similar project comes to fruition in NYC, and I can just open my laptop wherever I want and be online. It's a freedom students enjoy on college campuses that we start to take for granted... until we get home for the summer. And it's a bummer.
People can keep their Comcast or Verizon or whoever does their high-speed at home... but now your local municipality provides access to the sum total of the world's information wherever you want it. About damn time.
Except that when you browse an iPod as a portable disk, all the music loaded onto it via iTunes is stored in a hidden folder called iPod_Control, randomly separated into 50-some-odd sequentially numbered subfolders, with the artist name removed from the mp3's filename. And that's just for mp3s; AACs are a whole different barrel of wax.
Still, I find myself using my good old 3rd generation 10GB iPod as my backup device of choice, even though in its ripe old age it makes all sorts of funny whirring noises and takes longer to transfer a file via firewire than it would via... I don't know, a Palm to Palm infrared link.
Next time on Slashdot:
"Bagle.GE authors sued by Sony for rootkit copyright infringement!"
Honestly though, maybe we should all just start carrying around rootkits on our USB keys. Plug it into your aunt's computer, and she'll never forget your birthday again (even if she wanted to).
Government decides to shut down terrorist forum. Can't match IPs to people, ISPs refuse. Government outsources the job to RIAA. RIAA becomes latest terrorist hunting tool. Another triumph of free enterprise.
Hey, it could happen.
The article kind of takes on two different meanings as you go down the two branches. Are you trying to make money, or are you trying to create a game that does what it says it does?
Case in point, SWG. The box said I'd get to live inside Star Wars. I wound up hacking at small frogs with a survival knife. Earth and Beyond felt more like Star Wars to me than that, in all honesty. Yet in comes the revenue, thank you Luca$' $tamp Of Approval$.
Meanwhile any half-healthy MUX/MUSH can engross a player for months, provided they have a firm grasp of the English language and are willing to do without the splashy graphics (and the monthly fees); and of course provided the admins are willing to donate their time.
I like the part where he says keep the pop under 250. I don't like the part where he says it's not a game. Yeah, it is a game, and the people who forget that are the ones you wind up not missing when you go back to the real world.
Slashdot Mirror
Right on.
Why should we be trying to catch them? If someone wants to beat off in their basement, let them look at whatever they want. It's their own problem and their own issue to deal with.
Now, when the lyrics.com popups on my sister's IE windows have explicit 12 year olds, then we'll have a problem.
They want to prosecute child porn offenders? Fine. Put it in the text of the law. Retain the data, but make it unusable in court except for child porn cases.
Then tell all the privacy watchdogs to go back and chew their bones.
This is a painfully simple network externality.
Think back to when MS Word files couldn't be read on Apple machines. For every other user of Windows out there, the utility of using Windows goes up, just because more people use it (so there's more content to view).
The MySpace people don't need to make content. We (the users) make it for them. And with each person you know who joins, it gets to be more fun, and you get more utility out of it. I just found a girl from my high school that I haven't talked to in three years. She's good people. It is, first and foremost, a networking site, but I can count on one hand the number of people I know over 30 who have memberships.
Not to worry, though. Eventually all you old fogies will die out and MySpace (or whatever its eventual successor will be) will take over the world.
Why do all the ideas - 'fun' bits, as TFA calls them - have to come from overworked, stressed developers? A company dedicated to listening to its constituency of customers is far better equipped to put out a good game, because the people who will be purchasing the software can contribute the ideas they want to see implemented.
Back in February I stumbled on Galactic Civilizations 2, then in beta. I pre-ordered after reading the website, and how they'd been in a beta for a year just implementing features people suggested on the forums. Even 2 months after release, the game is receiving more attention patch-wise from the developers than any other software I've ever bought, save for Windows itself. And these aren't just bug fixes we're getting for our $40 - we're getting UI tweaks, new features, and improvements on already stellar AI.
And the best part is that the game was mostly self-financed, through pre-orders and online distribution. Sales have been stellar, the game was sold out for its first production run - mostly from word of mouth - and no major publisher was ever involved.
GalCiv2 should be a wake-up call to developers - to make a good game, ask the gamers what they want.
Interactive games on the site teach children about exploring space, building and launching rockets, keeping airplanes on schedule and how a comet travels through the solar system.
That's exactly who I want teaching my kids how to stay on schedule. The federal agency that can't get a space shuttle in the air more than once every couple of years.
While we're at it, let's have the DoD and the Pentagon start an educational website to teach our kids how to shop around and get the best deal on toys.
And yet somehow it gets sent out in my daily digest. Self-selecting community my ass.
Nobody's saying every resident of San Francisco needs to cancel their broadband and use Googlink. It's just convenient. I can't wait for the day if/when a similar project comes to fruition in NYC, and I can just open my laptop wherever I want and be online. It's a freedom students enjoy on college campuses that we start to take for granted... until we get home for the summer. And it's a bummer.
People can keep their Comcast or Verizon or whoever does their high-speed at home... but now your local municipality provides access to the sum total of the world's information wherever you want it. About damn time.
Except that when you browse an iPod as a portable disk, all the music loaded onto it via iTunes is stored in a hidden folder called iPod_Control, randomly separated into 50-some-odd sequentially numbered subfolders, with the artist name removed from the mp3's filename. And that's just for mp3s; AACs are a whole different barrel of wax.
Still, I find myself using my good old 3rd generation 10GB iPod as my backup device of choice, even though in its ripe old age it makes all sorts of funny whirring noises and takes longer to transfer a file via firewire than it would via... I don't know, a Palm to Palm infrared link.
But hey, it's plug and play! Wooo.
Don't forget the serial killers.
Next time on Slashdot: "Bagle.GE authors sued by Sony for rootkit copyright infringement!" Honestly though, maybe we should all just start carrying around rootkits on our USB keys. Plug it into your aunt's computer, and she'll never forget your birthday again (even if she wanted to).
Government decides to shut down terrorist forum. Can't match IPs to people, ISPs refuse. Government outsources the job to RIAA. RIAA becomes latest terrorist hunting tool. Another triumph of free enterprise.
Hey, it could happen.
The article kind of takes on two different meanings as you go down the two branches. Are you trying to make money, or are you trying to create a game that does what it says it does?
Case in point, SWG. The box said I'd get to live inside Star Wars. I wound up hacking at small frogs with a survival knife. Earth and Beyond felt more like Star Wars to me than that, in all honesty. Yet in comes the revenue, thank you Luca$' $tamp Of Approval$.
Meanwhile any half-healthy MUX/MUSH can engross a player for months, provided they have a firm grasp of the English language and are willing to do without the splashy graphics (and the monthly fees); and of course provided the admins are willing to donate their time.
I like the part where he says keep the pop under 250. I don't like the part where he says it's not a game. Yeah, it is a game, and the people who forget that are the ones you wind up not missing when you go back to the real world.