As funny as this sounds, I completely agree with this. When I chat with people from Singapore or some other areas online, I get into the habit of omitting certain "extraneous" words, like pronouns or articles. The habit doesn't seem to stick with me when I talk to other people, only with them.
Well, I'm sure the justification is something like, "well, MS is a company making money from it..." or something. I don't know, I didn't really ever get the argument for why downloading music isn't stealing.
That's not forgetful, that's lazy. I'm guessing you got modded up +5 because various people wanted to feel better about themselves and thought they were just like you, super smart, just bad "organizational skills." No, that's not the case. Everybody smart or stupid is just as likely to forget to do a homework assignment - that's what planners, agendas, calenders, and to-do lists are for. There's no reason for you to forget to do something if you sit down and think about what you have in your 4 or 5 classes (or make a list, jeez that's difficult). You got "middle-of-the-road" grades in mathematics because you were too lazy to sit down for a few minutes to memorize the necessary formulas, not because you're innately different from other people who had to work hard and memorize the formulas. This post was the saddest thing I've read today and it's even sadder that 5 people thought it was interesting or insightful. If your IQ really is 160, what a fucking waste of a brain.
I can't help but feel that if you only sold 9300 units at launch, that's a marketing problem, not a matter of what the game did or didn't deserve. Especially if it was a big publisher like EA, they know exactly what they're getting themselves into if they decide not to spend the money on marketing for a new title.
I have to side with Sycraft here. Blocking kdawson on your preferences is one thing, but it's really disgraceful for Slashdot as a whole when 4/5 times there's an article bashing Microsoft, kdawson posted it, and of those articles he posts THE VAST MAJORITY of them are false or completely misleading. When some of the stories are misleading or just flat-out untrue, the rest of the stories on Slashdot lose some credibility, too (similar to the rampant fanboy effect in our community comment system...).
Perhaps I'm biased, since I love my DS, but I really don't see how the iPhone is hurting the DS in any way. My girlfriend owns both a DS and an iPhone and beyond the initial "Oh look at this cool game!" reaction, I've never seen her play a single game on the iPhone. Are there really games on the iPhone that people would be willing to invest time on? Even with all the hype and articles about the issue, I really don't get the sense at all that the iPhone is in any way taking customers from Nintendo or Sony. Saying iPhone games are convenient is like saying regular cell phone brick games or tetris games are convenient - it doesn't change the fact that it'll drain your battery in an hour and fifteen minutes and isn't particularly engaging anyway.
There's no way an iPhone replicates "70-80%" of the functionality of a DS or PSP, they're two different things.
The way I see it, Nintendo isn't looking to gain back market share or anything - its sales definitely are not weak or faltering in any way, 115 million units compared to the PSP's 56 (or the iPhone's 21). Instead, they're probably just looking to expand their market more and more, and they may feel that downloading little or full-size games whenever the user wants may be the way to do it.
Well, Nintendo's 130 million+ sales beg to differ... all the consoles sold at a higher price initially, then dropped over time. The DS Lite sold for 180 dollars in Japan's debut, but was 130 when the DSi came out.
I signed up for an invite from Google over the summer. It took about a month to get an invite, but I think they tend to move faster and faster with invites to their various services, so if you sign up now you might get an email from them in a week or two.
That's interesting... maybe they're fiddling around, giving different people different algorithms and seeing which ones people find more or less useful. They do this with themes and layouts, so it would make sense for them to do the same with voice recognition algorithms, right?
It sounds like people who use Sprint get a warning message, and I didn't get a warning message with Verizon, but just in case - does anybody know of other carriers doing this?
As others have said, I don't know why you're convinced that Google won't let you change back to our old voicemail system, how would you even know if you didn't have it? I signed up for it, and I see an option to disable at any time. I'm happy about the new option, by existing descriptions of Google Voice I didn't know before that I had the option to keep my old number and ONLY forward my voicemail. Plenty of people will be convinced to switch by the newer service allowing us to keep the same number.
Also, your post is just so... inflammatory. Your word choice seems so angry and negative as if they were pushing a giant turd down our throats. It's really not that bad... if you don't want to use the new service just leave it alone, plenty of people like it!
I agree with the idea - if you don't like the price or DRM or whatever, that in no way justifies pirating it. Personally, I have downloaded many movies, games, and albums from torrents, but I can't imagine justifying those actions by saying "oh, it was too expensive" or "oh, the DRM sucked so I was getting back at the publisher." For that reason, I don't understand why people on Slashdot get all worked up over people getting in trouble for downloading music or Pirate Bay getting ruled against - sure, 1.8 million is an exorbitant amount, but the fact that she was charged is not surprising or undeserved.
Obviously, one download = one lost sale is absolutely stupid. But, on the other hand, "try before you buy" is pretty damn stupid as well. The internet is a great resource nowadays for reviews and ratings. When I buy games, I go on a few sites and see what other people thought of the game, I have absolutely no urge to TRY the game to determine if there's a good chance I'll like it or not. Reading 10 reviews and watching a video takes a hell of a lot less effort than pirating the whole damn thing (what, and then buying the game to put on your shelf? Or do you plan on uninstalling the pirate version and installing the legit one over it?).
I completely disagree with the idea of "forum noise" unless I'm misunderstanding you somehow. My searches very often land me on a useful forum page somewhere. For example, if I'm looking up an answer to a question related to a game or technical help with software, I will more often than not end up on a forum where people have discussed or are discussing the issue. Of course, if you are also adding -wikipedia to your searches, we are working in two completely different planes of existence. For twitter, though, I do agree with the sentiment that there should be an option to disable it.
I don't really understand why people complain about things like twitter or "everquest". Sure, things like myspace are trashy and annoying, but it's not like anybody is FORCING you to go to these websites. I do not remember ever unintentionally running into a single myspace or twitter page, and that is with copious amounts of Stumbl(eUpon)ing in firefox. Sure, you hear about twitter in the news once in a while or companies set up myspace pages to try to be hip, but does that really affect you? If other people like playing everquest or using myspace, let them use it. It's not hurting anybody.
I (or someone who twitters) could just as easily complain that WoW is sucking away tons and tons of time and energy from all sorts of people that could be spent bettering society. Why don't more people whine about WoW?
Absolutely agree with this, you summed up my feelings quite well. On top of that, this insane theory that every single statement supporting Microsoft is made by a "shill", it's just annoying.
While I do think this is a big part of the story - that people just think they themselves are weirder than other people, it would make sense that software developers are weirder than other professions. My impression of coders are that the people who get sucked into that field or that profession tend to dislike regular, non-internet social interaction than other people. Compound that with a profession that requires less social interaction than other professions and people will start acting how they want. I get the feeling that if you apply for a job in sales or human resources with most companies, they don't want to hear about the giant kit-kat bar you made last weekend. That said, the three examples the article gave aren't very weird at all. The first person just seems to have a sense of humor, the second guy liked to talk, and the third person... well she was just stupid. There are a lot of stupid people in the world, in any profession.
Yeah I guess sitting in a field doing math for fun wasn't really a common problem...
To what you said, I remember once I was doing a physics problem set with my computer in front of me and my TI-83 in my hands. My math teaching fellow looked at me, laughed, and said, "You have the most bad-ass calculator ever made right in front of you... and you're using your hand-held. But yeah, that's cool, use whatever you're used to".
If you want to find good flash games, install StumbleUpon for Firefox (a good time-waster by itself, really) then pick one of your topics as "Online Games". When Stumbling only through online games, I've found many very creative and interesting short to medium length games, and a couple that lasted me several days.
That's very interesting and all, but I think a good majority of people hold the mouse the conventional way - clicking with the first two fingers. Like someone else above me said, the world doesn't really revolve around you. It's not that they think YOU want "a touchpad on a bump", it's that they feel a lot of people could comfortably and easily transition to these new mice.
Slashdot Mirror
As funny as this sounds, I completely agree with this. When I chat with people from Singapore or some other areas online, I get into the habit of omitting certain "extraneous" words, like pronouns or articles. The habit doesn't seem to stick with me when I talk to other people, only with them.
Well, I'm sure the justification is something like, "well, MS is a company making money from it..." or something. I don't know, I didn't really ever get the argument for why downloading music isn't stealing.
Aw... who labeled this "troll"? It's a joke, come on!
That's not forgetful, that's lazy. I'm guessing you got modded up +5 because various people wanted to feel better about themselves and thought they were just like you, super smart, just bad "organizational skills." No, that's not the case. Everybody smart or stupid is just as likely to forget to do a homework assignment - that's what planners, agendas, calenders, and to-do lists are for. There's no reason for you to forget to do something if you sit down and think about what you have in your 4 or 5 classes (or make a list, jeez that's difficult). You got "middle-of-the-road" grades in mathematics because you were too lazy to sit down for a few minutes to memorize the necessary formulas, not because you're innately different from other people who had to work hard and memorize the formulas.
This post was the saddest thing I've read today and it's even sadder that 5 people thought it was interesting or insightful. If your IQ really is 160, what a fucking waste of a brain.
I can't help but feel that if you only sold 9300 units at launch, that's a marketing problem, not a matter of what the game did or didn't deserve. Especially if it was a big publisher like EA, they know exactly what they're getting themselves into if they decide not to spend the money on marketing for a new title.
I have to side with Sycraft here. Blocking kdawson on your preferences is one thing, but it's really disgraceful for Slashdot as a whole when 4/5 times there's an article bashing Microsoft, kdawson posted it, and of those articles he posts THE VAST MAJORITY of them are false or completely misleading. When some of the stories are misleading or just flat-out untrue, the rest of the stories on Slashdot lose some credibility, too (similar to the rampant fanboy effect in our community comment system...).
Perhaps I'm biased, since I love my DS, but I really don't see how the iPhone is hurting the DS in any way. My girlfriend owns both a DS and an iPhone and beyond the initial "Oh look at this cool game!" reaction, I've never seen her play a single game on the iPhone.
Are there really games on the iPhone that people would be willing to invest time on? Even with all the hype and articles about the issue, I really don't get the sense at all that the iPhone is in any way taking customers from Nintendo or Sony. Saying iPhone games are convenient is like saying regular cell phone brick games or tetris games are convenient - it doesn't change the fact that it'll drain your battery in an hour and fifteen minutes and isn't particularly engaging anyway.
There's no way an iPhone replicates "70-80%" of the functionality of a DS or PSP, they're two different things.
The way I see it, Nintendo isn't looking to gain back market share or anything - its sales definitely are not weak or faltering in any way, 115 million units compared to the PSP's 56 (or the iPhone's 21). Instead, they're probably just looking to expand their market more and more, and they may feel that downloading little or full-size games whenever the user wants may be the way to do it.
Well, Nintendo's 130 million+ sales beg to differ... all the consoles sold at a higher price initially, then dropped over time. The DS Lite sold for 180 dollars in Japan's debut, but was 130 when the DSi came out.
I signed up for an invite from Google over the summer. It took about a month to get an invite, but I think they tend to move faster and faster with invites to their various services, so if you sign up now you might get an email from them in a week or two.
That's interesting... maybe they're fiddling around, giving different people different algorithms and seeing which ones people find more or less useful. They do this with themes and layouts, so it would make sense for them to do the same with voice recognition algorithms, right?
Yeah that's a brilliant idea, use the feedback. In the meantime, you can add notes under it, I suppose.
It sounds like people who use Sprint get a warning message, and I didn't get a warning message with Verizon, but just in case - does anybody know of other carriers doing this?
As others have said, I don't know why you're convinced that Google won't let you change back to our old voicemail system, how would you even know if you didn't have it? I signed up for it, and I see an option to disable at any time.
I'm happy about the new option, by existing descriptions of Google Voice I didn't know before that I had the option to keep my old number and ONLY forward my voicemail. Plenty of people will be convinced to switch by the newer service allowing us to keep the same number.
Also, your post is just so... inflammatory. Your word choice seems so angry and negative as if they were pushing a giant turd down our throats. It's really not that bad... if you don't want to use the new service just leave it alone, plenty of people like it!
I agree with the idea - if you don't like the price or DRM or whatever, that in no way justifies pirating it.
Personally, I have downloaded many movies, games, and albums from torrents, but I can't imagine justifying those actions by saying "oh, it was too expensive" or "oh, the DRM sucked so I was getting back at the publisher." For that reason, I don't understand why people on Slashdot get all worked up over people getting in trouble for downloading music or Pirate Bay getting ruled against - sure, 1.8 million is an exorbitant amount, but the fact that she was charged is not surprising or undeserved.
Obviously, one download = one lost sale is absolutely stupid. But, on the other hand, "try before you buy" is pretty damn stupid as well. The internet is a great resource nowadays for reviews and ratings. When I buy games, I go on a few sites and see what other people thought of the game, I have absolutely no urge to TRY the game to determine if there's a good chance I'll like it or not. Reading 10 reviews and watching a video takes a hell of a lot less effort than pirating the whole damn thing (what, and then buying the game to put on your shelf? Or do you plan on uninstalling the pirate version and installing the legit one over it?).
This isn't actually a concern, pirated apps are downloaded elsewhere then added to iTunes (according to the dev's site, I don't own an iPhone).
I completely disagree with the idea of "forum noise" unless I'm misunderstanding you somehow. My searches very often land me on a useful forum page somewhere. For example, if I'm looking up an answer to a question related to a game or technical help with software, I will more often than not end up on a forum where people have discussed or are discussing the issue. Of course, if you are also adding -wikipedia to your searches, we are working in two completely different planes of existence.
For twitter, though, I do agree with the sentiment that there should be an option to disable it.
I don't really understand why people complain about things like twitter or "everquest". Sure, things like myspace are trashy and annoying, but it's not like anybody is FORCING you to go to these websites. I do not remember ever unintentionally running into a single myspace or twitter page, and that is with copious amounts of Stumbl(eUpon)ing in firefox. Sure, you hear about twitter in the news once in a while or companies set up myspace pages to try to be hip, but does that really affect you? If other people like playing everquest or using myspace, let them use it. It's not hurting anybody. I (or someone who twitters) could just as easily complain that WoW is sucking away tons and tons of time and energy from all sorts of people that could be spent bettering society. Why don't more people whine about WoW?
Absolutely agree with this, you summed up my feelings quite well. On top of that, this insane theory that every single statement supporting Microsoft is made by a "shill", it's just annoying.
While I do think this is a big part of the story - that people just think they themselves are weirder than other people, it would make sense that software developers are weirder than other professions. My impression of coders are that the people who get sucked into that field or that profession tend to dislike regular, non-internet social interaction than other people. Compound that with a profession that requires less social interaction than other professions and people will start acting how they want. I get the feeling that if you apply for a job in sales or human resources with most companies, they don't want to hear about the giant kit-kat bar you made last weekend.
That said, the three examples the article gave aren't very weird at all. The first person just seems to have a sense of humor, the second guy liked to talk, and the third person... well she was just stupid. There are a lot of stupid people in the world, in any profession.
(She was referring to the computer, not the calculator, reread my comment).
Yeah I guess sitting in a field doing math for fun wasn't really a common problem...
To what you said, I remember once I was doing a physics problem set with my computer in front of me and my TI-83 in my hands. My math teaching fellow looked at me, laughed, and said, "You have the most bad-ass calculator ever made right in front of you... and you're using your hand-held. But yeah, that's cool, use whatever you're used to".
If you want to find good flash games, install StumbleUpon for Firefox (a good time-waster by itself, really) then pick one of your topics as "Online Games". When Stumbling only through online games, I've found many very creative and interesting short to medium length games, and a couple that lasted me several days.
I didn't even know Slashdot had a second page for comments. My little scroll bar on the side is so small...
That's very interesting and all, but I think a good majority of people hold the mouse the conventional way - clicking with the first two fingers. Like someone else above me said, the world doesn't really revolve around you. It's not that they think YOU want "a touchpad on a bump", it's that they feel a lot of people could comfortably and easily transition to these new mice.
Did YOU RTFA? I don't see Linux mentioned anywhere in any of the articles.