...why isn't this story about how great it is that Google promises to keep your data for no longer than 30 days?
30 days is not very long at all, in terms of data retention. Could we get such a guarantee from any other corporation? From our credit card companies, banks or libraries?
Last time I posted this, I got modded up insightful & informative, so some folks think it's a valuable contribution... even if someone else thinks it's trolling.
Granted, I was more verbose last time. Maybe the modders aren't into the whole brevity thing?
The only thing monopolistic about the digital music business is how the record labels, through their monopoly on specific artists' music, can use that leverage to enfore draconian licensing and protection technologies on the industry.
...that getting more Western firms involved in China, no matter what limited capacity they must start off with, will only lead to increased liberty in China?
Is there any reason to suspect cordoning China off will be a better path to reformation?
Arbitrary hardline positions are fun and all, but I'd like to see some evidence that cultural embargos of a nation are more likely to bring them around to your point of view than simply increasing economic contacts. Compare the results of economic isolation on Cuba and North Korea, contrast it with the economic integration invovled with Japan and Germany. (Obligatory reference to Friedman's The Lexus and the Olive Tree).
If encouraging suicide and murder were moral equivalents, then telling people that heaven, nirvana or reincarnation awaits would be as bad as stabbing them.
1) iTunes doesn't play half my collection, because there's no ogg support. Winamp plays ogg, but it's got nothing for library management. Somehow, Songbird managed to pull off ogg support before they were even released, and its shooting for the basic skeleton of features iTunes provides as well. 2) Songbird helps you buy music from a variety of stores, rather than just one. I think eMusic is better than the iTunes Store, but even if it isn't, I don't want my car telling me where to buy gas; I don't want my music player telling me where to buy music. 3) If you're going on the web to look at media, going on the web with a media player makes some sense. Reading music blogs with Songbird feels a lot more sensible, you can stream recommended mp3s through a different pane, without leaving the page. It feels a lot more natural. Granted, this is one miniscule fraction of the things we do online, it probably wouldn't make a lot of sense to use Songbird to check your Gmail account... except whatever advantages are achieved from not having to open a separate program if you're listening to music and just want to jump online to check something really fast. 4) It's still just a proof of concept. It's not finished, and there are no extensions for it yet. So the fact it doesn't stack up to iTunes yet is a non-starter. You want less bugs? Wait until it's even in beta. You want ratings? Maybe they'll be incorporated, maybe they'll be an extension. You want a smarter shuffle, one that shuffles by artist rather than by track, or one that "sticks" to a genre or tempo? Extensions. You want it to automatically download the mp3s off your favorite music blogs every day? Extensions. You want anything new in iTunes? Go whine about it to your preacher, because I've sent in my complaints to Apple, and Apple's not listening.
Almost all the commenters suggest that this is a battle between altruism and Google's bottom line, blithely ignoring the possibility that Google is engaging in the most pro-liberty option it has available.
Google's restricted participation in China isn't necessarily at odds with Google supporting increasing personal liberties in China.
There's some danger that a lack of involvement by Western companies would pose an obstacle to increasing personal liberty in China. A boycott might only lead China to become more isolationist, or to rely on less scrupulous companies. A boycott could lead China away from increased personal freedom.
The more casual exposure to Western products and services the Chinese have, the more resonance Western ideas will have with the Chinese. Participation, even with restrictions, will position Western companies to encourage liberty in China in ways they simply cannot now.
In ten years, when Google provides the main launching site for 90% of Chinese surfers, maybe that's when they should threaten to pull the plug. But for now, the Chinese people need them there, in whatever limited capacity they can be.
Interesting, and with a respectability lacking in gold farming.
The only differnce is that here, in Second Life, gold farming is permitted.
It might be time we started to consider whether or not the problems from gold farming (economic, social, and otherwise) come not from the farming, but from the awkward, unenforceable prohibitions on it.
The mistakes happened long before the NGE. They were numerous. In fact, every design decision I can recall was tardy and poorly executed. That's why I left with most of the other players long ago.
Sounds like the NGE was a desparate gasp from a company that realized it was trying to support an unsustainable (read: crappy) product. Sounds like the NGE itself is evidence something has been systemically wrong for a long time.
Since the game has been so bad for so long, I'm not sure I can trust any reactions from those still playing. For all I know, maybe the NGE was a step in the right direction.
Unfortunately, we'll never know, because it's too little too late for all of us who care about either a rewarding game experience or a minimally competent dev team.
The reward from farming is largely the result of the artificial search costs created by deeming it illegitimate. If you made gold farming open and accessible, the profit on the activity would drop, fewer would engage in it, and the obnoxiousness factor would become negligible.
No one would send spamming tells, because everyone would know where to go to turn gold into cash and vice versa. Also, to limit some rich kid's ability to make the game inherently unfair, just have periodic rampant inflation in the economy, effectively redistributing the wealth away from those who have amassed inappropriate fortunes. This might have drawbacks, but surely other discrete macroeconomic measures can be employed to encourage general fairness.
It's tempting to think that a game that encourages gold/cash trading would never be worth playing. But consider Second Life, which runs a PayPal integrated stock system for trading in game currency for real money. The profit margins are so tiny as to make gold farming basically impossible.
Slashdot Mirror
By their very nature geeks (true geeks) will shovel every bell and whistle into a device they can get away with because that is what they do.
That's only the yang of geek.
There are plenty of geeks out there refining their yin.
...why isn't this story about how great it is that Google promises to keep your data for no longer than 30 days?
30 days is not very long at all, in terms of data retention. Could we get such a guarantee from any other corporation? From our credit card companies, banks or libraries?
Well, maybe our libraries...
Last time I posted this, I got modded up insightful & informative, so some folks think it's a valuable contribution... even if someone else thinks it's trolling.
Granted, I was more verbose last time. Maybe the modders aren't into the whole brevity thing?
I guess it goes to show you, it's hard to read the tone of a contribution online.
The only thing monopolistic about the digital music business is how the record labels, through their monopoly on specific artists' music, can use that leverage to enfore draconian licensing and protection technologies on the industry.
Fortunately, the Russians are hard at work on this problem.
Yes, it's legal, even for you and me.
...that getting more Western firms involved in China, no matter what limited capacity they must start off with, will only lead to increased liberty in China?
Is there any reason to suspect cordoning China off will be a better path to reformation?
Arbitrary hardline positions are fun and all, but I'd like to see some evidence that cultural embargos of a nation are more likely to bring them around to your point of view than simply increasing economic contacts. Compare the results of economic isolation on Cuba and North Korea, contrast it with the economic integration invovled with Japan and Germany. (Obligatory reference to Friedman's The Lexus and the Olive Tree).
Maybe Tiananmen Square leaves something to be desired, but there are still some valuable searches out there.
PS - hey, looks like they patched some of the misspelling workarounds.
...those bastards!
If encouraging suicide and murder were moral equivalents, then telling people that heaven, nirvana or reincarnation awaits would be as bad as stabbing them.
Wait, I think I see your point...
These human hating robots can have fun on their robot reservations. We're not going to honor those bogus treaties anyway.
1) iTunes doesn't play half my collection, because there's no ogg support. Winamp plays ogg, but it's got nothing for library management. Somehow, Songbird managed to pull off ogg support before they were even released, and its shooting for the basic skeleton of features iTunes provides as well.
2) Songbird helps you buy music from a variety of stores, rather than just one. I think eMusic is better than the iTunes Store, but even if it isn't, I don't want my car telling me where to buy gas; I don't want my music player telling me where to buy music.
3) If you're going on the web to look at media, going on the web with a media player makes some sense. Reading music blogs with Songbird feels a lot more sensible, you can stream recommended mp3s through a different pane, without leaving the page. It feels a lot more natural. Granted, this is one miniscule fraction of the things we do online, it probably wouldn't make a lot of sense to use Songbird to check your Gmail account... except whatever advantages are achieved from not having to open a separate program if you're listening to music and just want to jump online to check something really fast.
4) It's still just a proof of concept. It's not finished, and there are no extensions for it yet. So the fact it doesn't stack up to iTunes yet is a non-starter. You want less bugs? Wait until it's even in beta. You want ratings? Maybe they'll be incorporated, maybe they'll be an extension. You want a smarter shuffle, one that shuffles by artist rather than by track, or one that "sticks" to a genre or tempo? Extensions. You want it to automatically download the mp3s off your favorite music blogs every day? Extensions. You want anything new in iTunes? Go whine about it to your preacher, because I've sent in my complaints to Apple, and Apple's not listening.
iTunes? Is anyone still using that old thing? I now exclusively use Songbird, even though it's still alpha.
Tsk, and I thought this was Slashdot... bleeding edge, people!
Almost all the commenters suggest that this is a battle between altruism and Google's bottom line, blithely ignoring the possibility that Google is engaging in the most pro-liberty option it has available.
Google's restricted participation in China isn't necessarily at odds with Google supporting increasing personal liberties in China.
There's some danger that a lack of involvement by Western companies would pose an obstacle to increasing personal liberty in China. A boycott might only lead China to become more isolationist, or to rely on less scrupulous companies. A boycott could lead China away from increased personal freedom.
The more casual exposure to Western products and services the Chinese have, the more resonance Western ideas will have with the Chinese. Participation, even with restrictions, will position Western companies to encourage liberty in China in ways they simply cannot now.
In ten years, when Google provides the main launching site for 90% of Chinese surfers, maybe that's when they should threaten to pull the plug. But for now, the Chinese people need them there, in whatever limited capacity they can be.
Anyone find it ironic that the poster who claims there's no such thing as bad publicity was an Anonymous Coward?
Redd Kross.
It's about time we switched to the Red Crystal in games anyway.
Interesting, and with a respectability lacking in gold farming.
The only differnce is that here, in Second Life, gold farming is permitted.
It might be time we started to consider whether or not the problems from gold farming (economic, social, and otherwise) come not from the farming, but from the awkward, unenforceable prohibitions on it.
The mistakes happened long before the NGE. They were numerous. In fact, every design decision I can recall was tardy and poorly executed. That's why I left with most of the other players long ago.
Sounds like the NGE was a desparate gasp from a company that realized it was trying to support an unsustainable (read: crappy) product. Sounds like the NGE itself is evidence something has been systemically wrong for a long time.
Since the game has been so bad for so long, I'm not sure I can trust any reactions from those still playing. For all I know, maybe the NGE was a step in the right direction.
Unfortunately, we'll never know, because it's too little too late for all of us who care about either a rewarding game experience or a minimally competent dev team.
You seem to be blending several definitions of sharing.
Sharing tangible goods and sharing information are distinctly different activities, you can't reliably draw an analogy from one to the other.
If I'm equivocating, maybe it's because I learned it from watching you.
'sharing over P2P' doesn't make sense. When it is over, you have a copy, and I have a copy.
Yeah, when we share a sandwich, there's only ever one sandwich.
But when someone shares their thoughts with me, I get to keep those ideas, I'm not obliged to forget them after I've heard them.
So is music more like a collection of ideas, or like a sandwich?
Perhaps your definition of sharing is arbitrarily narrow.
Illuminating response.
Aren't static keys always inferior to dynamic keys?* (Isn't that why we're supposed to regularly change our passwords?)
Isn't biometric data static?
So why is anyone interested in biometric security?
Isn't it (perhaps counterintuitively) an inherently insecure means of indentification, by its very nature?
I must be missing something.
*(Maybe this is because anything can be duplicated and forged, given enough time. Changing your key a lot makes forging impractical?)
Sorry, maybe SL isn't on PayPal anymore... but it's some other service, the same sort of thing.
...it's the prohibition.
The reward from farming is largely the result of the artificial search costs created by deeming it illegitimate. If you made gold farming open and accessible, the profit on the activity would drop, fewer would engage in it, and the obnoxiousness factor would become negligible.
No one would send spamming tells, because everyone would know where to go to turn gold into cash and vice versa. Also, to limit some rich kid's ability to make the game inherently unfair, just have periodic rampant inflation in the economy, effectively redistributing the wealth away from those who have amassed inappropriate fortunes. This might have drawbacks, but surely other discrete macroeconomic measures can be employed to encourage general fairness.
It's tempting to think that a game that encourages gold/cash trading would never be worth playing. But consider Second Life, which runs a PayPal integrated stock system for trading in game currency for real money. The profit margins are so tiny as to make gold farming basically impossible.
Just in MMORPGs? I think we need to begin taking more actions to rate people we interact with in everyday life.
...you drive car.
Can't believe I posted the same thing within minutes of the other...
I wasn't trying to spam, I was just distracted, or maybe I'm just trapped in a "mental time warp."
On the other hand, maybe I'm just trapped in a "mental time warp."