Wait wait wait... Are you saying that's not common knowledge here in the US? News to me... I'm going to have to ask around and find out how many people have never heard of it... But I thought everyone had. I've read the story and even seen versions of it in cartoons as a kid. Quite a few of those kind of fables/fairytales are well-known over here.
This is exactly right, and we've even got an example already: Debian. Some of the devs were picked as having contributed 'better' in some nebulous way, and paid money. The others, who probably felt they worked just as hard, got nothing. It's human nature to want to be 'equal' to others around us, even if only in our minds.
If Sun gets to collect money for OSS developers, they should have to distribute it equally. And at that point, everyone and his brother is suddenly and OSS developer and raking in the pennies. I suspect the number of developers would closely approach the number of people who breathe air, leaving Sun as the only winner as they skim profits off the top.
OSS developers really DO do it for the enjoyment, or the necessity. While my project wasn't open source (I'd correct that, if I hadn't lost the code), I wrote a converter for The Sims meshes to OBJ format, so people could edit The Sims characters and even add new meshes, like wings/etc. I did it for myself and a guy known as 'Eeep2'. (His idea, my work.) It ended up being good enough to distribute, so I gave it away for free. I ended up putting it, and other stuff, on Terrashare and making money on page hits, but that was WELL after the fact and very little improvement happened after that point.
So I fully understand coding because you want to, instead of because you are being paid to. I wish more people could understand that as well... Sun is on the top of that list, right now.
I think you need to go back and read the GPL again. The GPL does not exist to 'simulate the no copyright world' in any way shape or form. It exists to guarantee that free software (licensed under it) remains free and available. More specifically, it exists to guarantee that anyone who benefits from software X, AND improves software X, shares those improvements with everyone else, including the original author.
The Public Domain is the closest simulation of 'the no copyright world' that we have. BSD and MIT licenses are close, and GPL is way later in the line.
The blogger is entirely correct that the GPL's (and other non-Public Domain licenses') teeth are copyright law. It is not a contract, and it relies on no other laws.
As others have pointed out, the blogger runs afoul trying to make the 'anti-copyright crowd' and the 'GPL crowd' be the same crowd. People who use the GPL (without having picked it blindly) know exactly what rights of their own they want to protect and how copyright law helps that.
Would we be better off without copyrights? I doubt it. Plagiarism would run rampant for at least a while, and create utter chaos. Even once it settled down, it'd still be a horrible world for inventors. Reform is definitely necessary, but outright abolition is craziness. I've said before that 5 years is about right. If you can't make your money back in 5 years, the idea is so complex that nobody can COPY your idea in that time, either. That still gives you the lead on them.
In other words, instead of saying 'Hey, I'm not doing that!' and logging off, and waiting for the system to be corrected, she stood there and let him voodoo-control her character. While I don't doubt this was traumatic for her, the fact that she was unable to disconnect fantasy from reality is her real problem.
The system was soon changed to prevent this kind of thing from having the same impact again.
Second Life doesn't have NEAR the ability to the customize and the only way this could happen was through a hack, which would have much bigger consequences in terms of security for the system.
Don't let 1 person's inability to separate real life from fiction cloud your mind. (If that was the norm, it might be a different story.)
Why it's 'news'? Because the market has proven that if you get the big names and spend a ton of money, your product will sell very, very well. Regardless of how good the actual product is.
Oblivion, by the way, was excellent by a lot of peoples' standards. I've played WELL over 100 hours on that game, and I almost always get less than 40 hours out of a game, and usually more like 10 or 20 before I get bored and move on to the next game. This is without addons, official or otherwise. I've got another 20 or so hours with the official add-ons, and other than improving little things like automatic herb picking, I didn't see much use in the user mods. (Yes, I tried quite a few, including OOO, which was slightly useful, but not enough better than the original for me to really care, and certainly not enough to get me to play it over again.)
This is not a court case. It's not a first-hand account. It's not an outraged person.
It's a blog.
Not even a blog by someone it happened to. Just a blog trying to gain attention.
Rape in online games is almost impossible to pull off. You have to Get the person to stand still for it, not report you, and not log off. Even assuming that you are camping the Sword of Killing and you've been sitting there for 5 hours, it's hard to believe you'd let something happen that scars your very soul to get it.
That's what rape is. A scar that's so deep it marks your soul.
No, what they're really talking about is simply harassment. Calling it rape is an insult to anyone who has ever been raped. Someone saying naughty words to you in a video game, or even having their character make nasty gestures, is NOT on the same level as rape.
So you think those that 'pursue a PhD in anything' should be tax-free for life... Careful with your words. That means anyone that starts on the path, regardless of whether they complete it or not, will never pay taxes again.
But I'm going to assume you mean 'obtains a PhD' instead. That means those with the most knowledge, and therefore most ability to earn money (ie: the rich) aren't going to pay taxes. Who's that leave? The already-over-taxed poor people. So now, they have even less chance to get a college education because they are paying extra taxes that the rich people should be paying.
And that's not even considering my 'buy a PhD' company that I'd start the day the law was passed. (No comments about how the education system already works like this, please. It's too obvious.)
The only artists interested in overthrowing the RIAA are the ones that don't benefit from their tactics. If you expect mainstream artists to overthrow the RIAA, you're going to have to PROVE to them that the RIAA is bad for them. Nobody has managed yet. Common sense and numbers won't do jack. They need proof.
Having said that, Apple's recent anti-DRM speeches have definitely been a step in the right direction. As more people realize how much more they can do with their songs if they're DRM-free, more will be willing to pay the extra that Apple/EMI is charging. Once someone has tasted freedom, it's -very- hard to get them to give it up.
The RIAA will, of course, attempt to prove that Apple's efforts increase piracy and the non-DRM'd songs are more traded than the ones ripped from CD, etc. In the end, I think piracy will actually decrease and hurt the RIAA's campaign.
Maybe someday we'll even be able to watch high-def movies in our home without the armed security guard watching our every move.
Around 75-80mph, my car shimmies and shakes enough that I don't feel it's safe to drive over that speed. The extra 10% would be quite useful to me on interstate highways, where my car can barely do the limit safely. That really has nothing to do with the point of my statement, though. $200 to improve a car (a $10-100k item) 10% is a lot different from improving a graphics card (a $100-1000 item) 10%. The $200 by itself didn't mean anything. It's the percent increase in cost compared to the percent increase in performance that matters.
Your statement does apply to graphics cards as well as cars, though. The high-end graphics cards are more powerful than I can use in any of the games I play. The analogy is similar: Most cars don't need to go racecar speeds. Most graphics cards don't need to go next-gen speeds. The enthusiasts that buy the high-end equipment are the ones that need them to go those speeds, not the common consumer. Ask an racecar driver if he wants 10% more speed. For any price.
$200 by itself doesn't mean much. If I could make my car 10% faster for $200, I think that'd be great.
We're talking about 10% faster than a $600 card. (Newegg prices.) So that's 10% for 33% more money. Doesn't sound nearly so bad, now. Factor in that a lot of the price of a device is overhead that doesn't change between cards, and 10% faster is quite a bit more for that amount of money.
Also, don't forget that we're not talking about a card for casual gamers for $50. This is an entire series of cards meant only for those who absolutely have to have the fastest/best card on the market no matter the cost. And they buy 2 of them.
He never said MS didn't matter. He said Ballmer was crying 'I still matter!' Ego is a funny thing, and he's suggesting that Ballmer's ego took a blow and he's not willing to share attention with others. (Even if it's only a little attention.)
Thanks, but I meant find as in 'purchase', not 'research'. Preferably in un-drm'd ebook, but in paperback if I have to. (I'm cheap and paperbacks have the same words.)
I think the problem is not getting them in the room together, but rather the 'quiet' portion of his statement. Both are known for talking and strong opinions.
There's apparently a law that prevents a company from doing things that will lose money for the stockholders. I'm not saying that it's the motivation here, but it could be a consideration. There is very little doubt about the monetary effect of being blocked in several countries.
I'm going to assume you've never seen the non-red/blue glasses at work. While the very vocal people on here are complaining about how the polarized glasses gave them headaches, most people had no issue with them at all. I certainly never did, and I saw Captain EO, that stupid Kodak thing, and Honey I Shrunk the Audience dozens of times. (Gotta love living in Florida.)
Each eye sees a different image on the screen. If you close one eye, it's just like closing 1 eye in real life. You get that image only. The glasses themselves are like polarized sunshades. I doubt it's the actual polarization that bothers those that get headaches, but is instead the framerate of the picture since it's effectively cut in half. (15 fps per eye, instead of 30.) The strobe effect could be quite annoying.
If you take off the glasses, you end up with a watchable but odd-looking image where things that are supposed to be very close or very far are fuzzy. Since most action is in the middle anyhow, it's not that bad.
These new glasses won't work on exactly the same technique, so they'll look a little different, but the effect when you take off the glasses with probably be about the same. Same for the effect with 1 eye closed, also.
In the end, I think you'll find the glasses don't make it much different from a real scene.
If they start 'shooting in 3d only', you'll find that the effects in the scenes are boring to you and you'll wonder why people care, but other than that, I don't think it'll affect you adversely. (And they'll eventually get over the whole 3d thing and start actually producing good movies again eventually, too.)
Then in your place, I'd vote with my wallet. I'd not go to theatres that treat me like I don't matter to them. If you continue to give them your money, you (and everyone else that goes there) are telling them that what they are doing is okay. They -know- it's okay because they are making plenty of money at it.
So you don't have a home theatre yet. Don't use that as a reason to keep paying them money. Find something else to do for a while. Read a book, play a game, build model rockets... Anything. If enough customers quit paying them, they'll realize the error of their ways.
And if enough customers WON'T quit paying them, they'll continue to know that what they are doing is okay because you're willing to keep giving them the money.
I don't shop at businesses that piss me off. I haven't been to McDonalds in almost a decade, and it was almost a decade before that when I went the previous time. Why? They argued with me, wasted my lunch half-hour, and didn't apologize. It wasn't the first time they'd been rude, but it was the last. I'm probably a lot healthier for it, too, but that's a whole other issue.
If I think there's -any- chance a manager will care, I complain. Loudly, if necessary. A few rungs up the corporate ladder, if necessary. But most of the time it's obvious they won't and I don't waste my time. I just go somewhere else.
Seriously, you need to think about doing that. Maybe it'll take a while to find something else you enjoy, but at least you won't be giving your money and your approval to the asshats at the theatre.
Or maybe it IS worth it after all, and you'll keep going.
I think you are going to the wrong theatre. My AMC card has almost 900 points (2 points per movie ticket) and in my entire life, I've never experienced most of those problems.
* People chatting instead of watching the movie. The entire length. (happend to me more than once) Tell an employee. (Never happened to me, but then... The few times I was annoyed more than a few minutes, I told an employee and they 'fixed' the 'problem'.)
* Whining kids. Tell an employee.
* Doors not closing automatically when the movie starts, so either you try to ignore the outside glare (really great if the opening scene is quite dark) or you get up and close the door yourself. Which is usually reopened a few minutes later by late people who are looking for a seat. They do this either chatting, either blocking your field of view. Or even worse, they ask you to move from your seat which you have occupied for the last half hour because you were in time and wanted to have a decent position in the theater (relative to the screen) in a chair that is not falling apart. Most of the theatres I've been to have a multi-turn hallway to prevent this. It also baffles the noise.
* One of the sound boxes fails half way, and keeps churning throughout the remainder. Okay, I've had this one. A few times.
* They start playing the wrong movie. Never happened to me.
* Sound system is badly adjusted. Or it's so loud, your ears ring for hours afterwards. Ring for hours? And you stayed? I've had them be uncomfortable, but I've never had any effects after I left the theatre. And I mean even seconds later.
* The sound from the theater above,below,right, left is seeping through the walls. Tell an employee. I've never had to, since they always fix it during the previews.
* Misaligned picture. Tell an employee. Again, always fixed during previews.
* Subtitles (with DVD I can finally turn them off) If there's subtitles, you're in a CC showing (why'd you pick that?) or a foreign movie. If you really DO speak the foreign language, the subtitles aren't -that- hard to ignore. (Plus it's funny to see how badly translated it is.)
* Toilet fee. WHAT!?
* Overpriced food and you are not allowed to bring your own. Pick a different theatre. Mine is horribly overpriced, too, but you can bring in candy and drinks all you want. No 'food' such as hotdogs or anything messy, of course.
* Overpriced tickets. Spend a few euros more and you can buy the dvd after a few months. Yeah, it's a bit expensive. For a group of 3 people, it'd be cheaper to buy the dvd. Of course, then we wouldn't have a reason to get out of the house for a few hours, though.
* 20 minutes of commercials, and that amount just keeps rising. Pick a different theatre. Commercials here are BEFORE the previews, and there's been fewer lately, instead of more. There seems to be about the same number of previews as ever, though.
* etc. I'm a mind-reader... This means... 'I can't really think of anything else, but I know there was something. Gum on my shoe, maybe.' And the answer is: Complain or pick another theatre.
Okay, I didn't know SSBB did that. There's hope yet, then, even if Nintendo drives everyone else out of the market.;)
Personally, I think they should just come up with a GOOD wireless classic-like controller. They don't even have to go crazy with it, just move the +/-/1/2 buttons to the button portion and the a and b buttons could be the triggers. No analog stick still, but... Better than nothing. Some enterprising individual may even come up with a customer case for a WiiMote to do that.
"1) You can use Gamecube controllers with the Wii. If you don't have Gamecube controllers, you can buy the "Classic" controllers."
Not for a Wii game, you can't. Only the GC and VC ones.
"2) I've had a lot of fun holding the controller sideways for Super Paper Mario and Excite Truck. I've also had fun playing the original Mario brothers. To each their own I guess."
Excite Truck it works VERY well for. SPM... Not so much. The main difference being the d-pad, I think. That end of the controller isn't meant to wrap your hand around and so it bothers me. I've got a Classic Controller and it doesn't -quite- feel right, but then, no new controller ever has until I get used to it. It sure didn't take me long to get used to it enough to play F-Zero again.
As for 'filled with crazy controllers'... If the only controllers on the market are crazy, it's filled with them, no matter what the count is. If all the new consoles have gimmicky controllers and none use a classic-style one, or improved non-gimmicky one, that's 'filled.'
It does indeed sound like Nintendo might be the only winner this generation. That scares me.
What if they conclude that gamers only want gimmicky games? The next generation would be filled with crazy controllers and half-assed games to play them with.
The Wii is great, don't get me wrong. But if I had to pick only 1 console, I don't know if I'd pick the 360 or the Wii, at this point. They offer radically different styles of play. Now that the initial wow-factor has worn off, I play each of them about the same, and even pick up my PS2 once in a while.
If the Wii had a standard controller as an option, my thoughts might be different, though. I don't need the hyper-realistic graphics on my console. My PC handles that readily. But the Wiimote sucks at standard games. only 2 buttons, placed funny, and the controller is no fun to hold sideways. (I had my doubts before Super Paper Mario, and now I know it's not much fun to hold that way.)
Hah! I bet it's almost as dangerous as let me have the whiteboard marker.;)
Thanks for sharing that info. I've only seen it in the open source community and didn't realize it had been done commercially already. It's too bad you have to do it Anon.
Slashdot Mirror
Wait wait wait... Are you saying that's not common knowledge here in the US? News to me... I'm going to have to ask around and find out how many people have never heard of it... But I thought everyone had. I've read the story and even seen versions of it in cartoons as a kid. Quite a few of those kind of fables/fairytales are well-known over here.
This is exactly right, and we've even got an example already: Debian. Some of the devs were picked as having contributed 'better' in some nebulous way, and paid money. The others, who probably felt they worked just as hard, got nothing. It's human nature to want to be 'equal' to others around us, even if only in our minds.
If Sun gets to collect money for OSS developers, they should have to distribute it equally. And at that point, everyone and his brother is suddenly and OSS developer and raking in the pennies. I suspect the number of developers would closely approach the number of people who breathe air, leaving Sun as the only winner as they skim profits off the top.
OSS developers really DO do it for the enjoyment, or the necessity. While my project wasn't open source (I'd correct that, if I hadn't lost the code), I wrote a converter for The Sims meshes to OBJ format, so people could edit The Sims characters and even add new meshes, like wings/etc. I did it for myself and a guy known as 'Eeep2'. (His idea, my work.) It ended up being good enough to distribute, so I gave it away for free. I ended up putting it, and other stuff, on Terrashare and making money on page hits, but that was WELL after the fact and very little improvement happened after that point.
So I fully understand coding because you want to, instead of because you are being paid to. I wish more people could understand that as well... Sun is on the top of that list, right now.
I think you need to go back and read the GPL again. The GPL does not exist to 'simulate the no copyright world' in any way shape or form. It exists to guarantee that free software (licensed under it) remains free and available. More specifically, it exists to guarantee that anyone who benefits from software X, AND improves software X, shares those improvements with everyone else, including the original author.
The Public Domain is the closest simulation of 'the no copyright world' that we have. BSD and MIT licenses are close, and GPL is way later in the line.
The blogger is entirely correct that the GPL's (and other non-Public Domain licenses') teeth are copyright law. It is not a contract, and it relies on no other laws.
As others have pointed out, the blogger runs afoul trying to make the 'anti-copyright crowd' and the 'GPL crowd' be the same crowd. People who use the GPL (without having picked it blindly) know exactly what rights of their own they want to protect and how copyright law helps that.
Would we be better off without copyrights? I doubt it. Plagiarism would run rampant for at least a while, and create utter chaos. Even once it settled down, it'd still be a horrible world for inventors. Reform is definitely necessary, but outright abolition is craziness. I've said before that 5 years is about right. If you can't make your money back in 5 years, the idea is so complex that nobody can COPY your idea in that time, either. That still gives you the lead on them.
In other words, instead of saying 'Hey, I'm not doing that!' and logging off, and waiting for the system to be corrected, she stood there and let him voodoo-control her character. While I don't doubt this was traumatic for her, the fact that she was unable to disconnect fantasy from reality is her real problem.
The system was soon changed to prevent this kind of thing from having the same impact again.
Second Life doesn't have NEAR the ability to the customize and the only way this could happen was through a hack, which would have much bigger consequences in terms of security for the system.
Don't let 1 person's inability to separate real life from fiction cloud your mind. (If that was the norm, it might be a different story.)
Why it's on Slashdot? Paid advertising, maybe.
Why it's 'news'? Because the market has proven that if you get the big names and spend a ton of money, your product will sell very, very well. Regardless of how good the actual product is.
Oblivion, by the way, was excellent by a lot of peoples' standards. I've played WELL over 100 hours on that game, and I almost always get less than 40 hours out of a game, and usually more like 10 or 20 before I get bored and move on to the next game. This is without addons, official or otherwise. I've got another 20 or so hours with the official add-ons, and other than improving little things like automatic herb picking, I didn't see much use in the user mods. (Yes, I tried quite a few, including OOO, which was slightly useful, but not enough better than the original for me to really care, and certainly not enough to get me to play it over again.)
This is not a court case. It's not a first-hand account. It's not an outraged person.
It's a blog.
Not even a blog by someone it happened to. Just a blog trying to gain attention.
Rape in online games is almost impossible to pull off. You have to Get the person to stand still for it, not report you, and not log off. Even assuming that you are camping the Sword of Killing and you've been sitting there for 5 hours, it's hard to believe you'd let something happen that scars your very soul to get it.
That's what rape is. A scar that's so deep it marks your soul.
No, what they're really talking about is simply harassment. Calling it rape is an insult to anyone who has ever been raped. Someone saying naughty words to you in a video game, or even having their character make nasty gestures, is NOT on the same level as rape.
So you think those that 'pursue a PhD in anything' should be tax-free for life... Careful with your words. That means anyone that starts on the path, regardless of whether they complete it or not, will never pay taxes again.
But I'm going to assume you mean 'obtains a PhD' instead. That means those with the most knowledge, and therefore most ability to earn money (ie: the rich) aren't going to pay taxes. Who's that leave? The already-over-taxed poor people. So now, they have even less chance to get a college education because they are paying extra taxes that the rich people should be paying.
And that's not even considering my 'buy a PhD' company that I'd start the day the law was passed. (No comments about how the education system already works like this, please. It's too obvious.)
I assume you mean 'contact'.
The only artists interested in overthrowing the RIAA are the ones that don't benefit from their tactics. If you expect mainstream artists to overthrow the RIAA, you're going to have to PROVE to them that the RIAA is bad for them. Nobody has managed yet. Common sense and numbers won't do jack. They need proof.
Having said that, Apple's recent anti-DRM speeches have definitely been a step in the right direction. As more people realize how much more they can do with their songs if they're DRM-free, more will be willing to pay the extra that Apple/EMI is charging. Once someone has tasted freedom, it's -very- hard to get them to give it up.
The RIAA will, of course, attempt to prove that Apple's efforts increase piracy and the non-DRM'd songs are more traded than the ones ripped from CD, etc. In the end, I think piracy will actually decrease and hurt the RIAA's campaign.
Maybe someday we'll even be able to watch high-def movies in our home without the armed security guard watching our every move.
Er, yeah. Can't imagine what I was thinking on that one.
It's spelled "it's", moron. Really, if you're going to be anal, check your own post first.
Around 75-80mph, my car shimmies and shakes enough that I don't feel it's safe to drive over that speed. The extra 10% would be quite useful to me on interstate highways, where my car can barely do the limit safely. That really has nothing to do with the point of my statement, though. $200 to improve a car (a $10-100k item) 10% is a lot different from improving a graphics card (a $100-1000 item) 10%. The $200 by itself didn't mean anything. It's the percent increase in cost compared to the percent increase in performance that matters.
Your statement does apply to graphics cards as well as cars, though. The high-end graphics cards are more powerful than I can use in any of the games I play. The analogy is similar: Most cars don't need to go racecar speeds. Most graphics cards don't need to go next-gen speeds. The enthusiasts that buy the high-end equipment are the ones that need them to go those speeds, not the common consumer. Ask an racecar driver if he wants 10% more speed. For any price.
$200 by itself doesn't mean much. If I could make my car 10% faster for $200, I think that'd be great.
We're talking about 10% faster than a $600 card. (Newegg prices.) So that's 10% for 33% more money. Doesn't sound nearly so bad, now. Factor in that a lot of the price of a device is overhead that doesn't change between cards, and 10% faster is quite a bit more for that amount of money.
Also, don't forget that we're not talking about a card for casual gamers for $50. This is an entire series of cards meant only for those who absolutely have to have the fastest/best card on the market no matter the cost. And they buy 2 of them.
He never said MS didn't matter. He said Ballmer was crying 'I still matter!' Ego is a funny thing, and he's suggesting that Ballmer's ego took a blow and he's not willing to share attention with others. (Even if it's only a little attention.)
Thanks, but I meant find as in 'purchase', not 'research'. Preferably in un-drm'd ebook, but in paperback if I have to. (I'm cheap and paperbacks have the same words.)
I think the problem is not getting them in the room together, but rather the 'quiet' portion of his statement. Both are known for talking and strong opinions.
There's apparently a law that prevents a company from doing things that will lose money for the stockholders. I'm not saying that it's the motivation here, but it could be a consideration. There is very little doubt about the monetary effect of being blocked in several countries.
Well I'm preaching to the choir then. Heh.
I thought by the name that I'd read that series, but apparently not. I'll have to find it. Thanks for the pointer.
I'm going to assume you've never seen the non-red/blue glasses at work. While the very vocal people on here are complaining about how the polarized glasses gave them headaches, most people had no issue with them at all. I certainly never did, and I saw Captain EO, that stupid Kodak thing, and Honey I Shrunk the Audience dozens of times. (Gotta love living in Florida.)
Each eye sees a different image on the screen. If you close one eye, it's just like closing 1 eye in real life. You get that image only. The glasses themselves are like polarized sunshades. I doubt it's the actual polarization that bothers those that get headaches, but is instead the framerate of the picture since it's effectively cut in half. (15 fps per eye, instead of 30.) The strobe effect could be quite annoying.
If you take off the glasses, you end up with a watchable but odd-looking image where things that are supposed to be very close or very far are fuzzy. Since most action is in the middle anyhow, it's not that bad.
These new glasses won't work on exactly the same technique, so they'll look a little different, but the effect when you take off the glasses with probably be about the same. Same for the effect with 1 eye closed, also.
In the end, I think you'll find the glasses don't make it much different from a real scene.
If they start 'shooting in 3d only', you'll find that the effects in the scenes are boring to you and you'll wonder why people care, but other than that, I don't think it'll affect you adversely. (And they'll eventually get over the whole 3d thing and start actually producing good movies again eventually, too.)
Then in your place, I'd vote with my wallet. I'd not go to theatres that treat me like I don't matter to them. If you continue to give them your money, you (and everyone else that goes there) are telling them that what they are doing is okay. They -know- it's okay because they are making plenty of money at it.
So you don't have a home theatre yet. Don't use that as a reason to keep paying them money. Find something else to do for a while. Read a book, play a game, build model rockets... Anything. If enough customers quit paying them, they'll realize the error of their ways.
And if enough customers WON'T quit paying them, they'll continue to know that what they are doing is okay because you're willing to keep giving them the money.
I don't shop at businesses that piss me off. I haven't been to McDonalds in almost a decade, and it was almost a decade before that when I went the previous time. Why? They argued with me, wasted my lunch half-hour, and didn't apologize. It wasn't the first time they'd been rude, but it was the last. I'm probably a lot healthier for it, too, but that's a whole other issue.
If I think there's -any- chance a manager will care, I complain. Loudly, if necessary. A few rungs up the corporate ladder, if necessary. But most of the time it's obvious they won't and I don't waste my time. I just go somewhere else.
Seriously, you need to think about doing that. Maybe it'll take a while to find something else you enjoy, but at least you won't be giving your money and your approval to the asshats at the theatre.
Or maybe it IS worth it after all, and you'll keep going.
I think you are going to the wrong theatre. My AMC card has almost 900 points (2 points per movie ticket) and in my entire life, I've never experienced most of those problems.
* People chatting instead of watching the movie. The entire length. (happend to me more than once)
Tell an employee. (Never happened to me, but then... The few times I was annoyed more than a few minutes, I told an employee and they 'fixed' the 'problem'.)
* Whining kids.
Tell an employee.
* Doors not closing automatically when the movie starts, so either you try to ignore the outside glare (really great if the opening scene is quite dark) or you get up and close the door yourself. Which is usually reopened a few minutes later by late people who are looking for a seat. They do this either chatting, either blocking your field of view. Or even worse, they ask you to move from your seat which you have occupied for the last half hour because you were in time and wanted to have a decent position in the theater (relative to the screen) in a chair that is not falling apart.
Most of the theatres I've been to have a multi-turn hallway to prevent this. It also baffles the noise.
* One of the sound boxes fails half way, and keeps churning throughout the remainder.
Okay, I've had this one. A few times.
* They start playing the wrong movie.
Never happened to me.
* Sound system is badly adjusted. Or it's so loud, your ears ring for hours afterwards.
Ring for hours? And you stayed? I've had them be uncomfortable, but I've never had any effects after I left the theatre. And I mean even seconds later.
* The sound from the theater above,below,right, left is seeping through the walls.
Tell an employee. I've never had to, since they always fix it during the previews.
* Misaligned picture.
Tell an employee. Again, always fixed during previews.
* Subtitles (with DVD I can finally turn them off)
If there's subtitles, you're in a CC showing (why'd you pick that?) or a foreign movie. If you really DO speak the foreign language, the subtitles aren't -that- hard to ignore. (Plus it's funny to see how badly translated it is.)
* Toilet fee.
WHAT!?
* Overpriced food and you are not allowed to bring your own.
Pick a different theatre. Mine is horribly overpriced, too, but you can bring in candy and drinks all you want. No 'food' such as hotdogs or anything messy, of course.
* Overpriced tickets. Spend a few euros more and you can buy the dvd after a few months.
Yeah, it's a bit expensive. For a group of 3 people, it'd be cheaper to buy the dvd. Of course, then we wouldn't have a reason to get out of the house for a few hours, though.
* 20 minutes of commercials, and that amount just keeps rising.
Pick a different theatre. Commercials here are BEFORE the previews, and there's been fewer lately, instead of more. There seems to be about the same number of previews as ever, though.
* etc.
I'm a mind-reader... This means... 'I can't really think of anything else, but I know there was something. Gum on my shoe, maybe.' And the answer is: Complain or pick another theatre.
Okay, I didn't know SSBB did that. There's hope yet, then, even if Nintendo drives everyone else out of the market. ;)
Personally, I think they should just come up with a GOOD wireless classic-like controller. They don't even have to go crazy with it, just move the +/-/1/2 buttons to the button portion and the a and b buttons could be the triggers. No analog stick still, but... Better than nothing. Some enterprising individual may even come up with a customer case for a WiiMote to do that.
"1) You can use Gamecube controllers with the Wii. If you don't have Gamecube controllers, you can buy the "Classic" controllers."
Not for a Wii game, you can't. Only the GC and VC ones.
"2) I've had a lot of fun holding the controller sideways for Super Paper Mario and Excite Truck. I've also had fun playing the original Mario brothers. To each their own I guess."
Excite Truck it works VERY well for. SPM... Not so much. The main difference being the d-pad, I think. That end of the controller isn't meant to wrap your hand around and so it bothers me. I've got a Classic Controller and it doesn't -quite- feel right, but then, no new controller ever has until I get used to it. It sure didn't take me long to get used to it enough to play F-Zero again.
As for 'filled with crazy controllers'... If the only controllers on the market are crazy, it's filled with them, no matter what the count is. If all the new consoles have gimmicky controllers and none use a classic-style one, or improved non-gimmicky one, that's 'filled.'
It does indeed sound like Nintendo might be the only winner this generation. That scares me.
What if they conclude that gamers only want gimmicky games? The next generation would be filled with crazy controllers and half-assed games to play them with.
The Wii is great, don't get me wrong. But if I had to pick only 1 console, I don't know if I'd pick the 360 or the Wii, at this point. They offer radically different styles of play. Now that the initial wow-factor has worn off, I play each of them about the same, and even pick up my PS2 once in a while.
If the Wii had a standard controller as an option, my thoughts might be different, though. I don't need the hyper-realistic graphics on my console. My PC handles that readily. But the Wiimote sucks at standard games. only 2 buttons, placed funny, and the controller is no fun to hold sideways. (I had my doubts before Super Paper Mario, and now I know it's not much fun to hold that way.)
That's the hardest I've laughed today. And it's been a good day for laughter. Thank you.
"Just don't let them write any Actionscript."
;)
Hah! I bet it's almost as dangerous as let me have the whiteboard marker.
Thanks for sharing that info. I've only seen it in the open source community and didn't realize it had been done commercially already. It's too bad you have to do it Anon.