"a years t-mobile service."? I don't see where you got this.
I also don't see where to buy one... I went to laptop.org, but can only find the 'donate money' area, not somewhere I can buy 2 to get one. (It occurs to me that this might make a good present for my niece.)
Well, it depends on what your skillset is, doesn't it? If they have other skills, they can use those for 6 months (or more) and the non-compete is no issue. Or they can get a job as a cart-pusher at the local supermarket and earn minimum wage while they get through the downtime. They can, of course, still LOOK for jobs in the mean time. They might even find a company willing to wait the 6 months to get their skills, and may even offer a 'starting bonus' to help cover the 6 months.
It's not so cut and dry as 'can you last 6 months with no income?'.
I feel the need to make a point on this. Most people will choose the official torrent even if it's riddled with ads, so long as they can fast-forward just like any non-DRM video... Even if they have to wait longer than the pirated versions.
Guaranteed quality... You mentioned that. While 'release groups' pretty much also guarantee the quality of their work, getting the video right from the source is even more sure.
Legality... Many people don't see any problem with downloading the video... After all, they paid their cable dues and it IS broadcast OTA for free. But I would venture that most of those people would still prefer a definitely-legal version.
Supporting the show... Most people that love a show are happy to help make sure it continues to exist. Getting the video from the producer is a good way to do that.
Hassle... While the show generally IS posted immediately on torrents and other places, there are sometimes delays. Getting it from the official site would probably be more stable.
This is all assuming that they can watch it on their PC, PS3, PSP, Nintendo DS, iPhone, iPod, n800 or whatever other crazy contraptions they've got lying around, instead of being anchored to one device. That means NO DRM.
Having the show appear on the site at the same time as it airs, or even in the middle, would just be a major bonus. There is -no- reason why they can't do this.
Next time you write your contract, you should renegotiate for proper royalties, instead of getting an hourly/yearly wage. Let us know how that works out for you.
So having someone invade your personal space and steal things that have sentimental value isn't psychologically devastating? Being robbed at gunpoint with your life on the line over some green paper isn't psychologically devastating? Think again.
I can agree that this is worse, but don't put down other peoples' experiences to make your point.
I hear of lot of this complaining, and yet nobody starts their own site instead. If you REALLY think this is the way to go, go start your own site and feel free to link it back here with 'stories' that link to your blog. Everyone else does.
I haven't a clue. I tried some of the mods made in the first couple months, and while they did make the game more fun initially, they didn't make it enough more fun to keep playing. Now, as with Morrowind, most of the mods are completely amateur and don't fit well with the rest of the game. The few that ARE great are too hard to find in the mess.
Distance. I don't see 6 ft from my TV, I set more like 10. Most people don't sit that close, either. To tell the difference between 1080 and 720, you have to be 9.8 ft or less from a 50" screen, and to see it well, you have to be less than 6.5 ft.
I'm not denying there's a difference. I'm denying that it matters to most people.
To make things even muddier, most HDTVs upscale the standard signal and it actually looks quite good. Both my parents have HDTVs now (bought them off me when I upgraded) but they don't have an HD signal. Despite having watched TV at my house, with HD cable (I almost never tuned to regular channels) my parents were initially impressed, but didn't care enough to even ask their providers (DirecTV) how much it would cost... Not even enough to look it up on the web.
In the end, it's just not a big enough jump for most people to care, like other television advances. (Radio to B&W, B&W to color, etc.) It'll eventually take over, but not because it's so much better... Just because it's getting to be as cheap to make HD TVs as regular ones... It'll soon make no sense to keep producing regular TVs.
If B&M are so in control of EA's sales, why do they constantly bitch about how little they make on new games? The truth is that Brick & Mortar is just the prefered route for many customers... If they couldn't drive to the store and get it, most of those customers would just order online somehow.
But even if GameSpot and Walmart suddenly stopped carrying ALL EA games, someone else would just pick them up and make a ton of money instead. Because even that little bit they complain about is still profit, and there's someone that will make sure they get that money. Best Buy and Circuit City would love it, for example. CC constantly runs amazing specials on new games (10-20% below retail AT LAUNCH) and Best Buy matches those specials. I can't believe they do that out of the goodness of their hearts, so I'm thinking they must be trying to attract game-buyers.
Nothing in this list is even remotely likely to happen to EA, or any other major game company. -yawn-
I'm the opposite on Oblivion... I remember how the main quest ends, but not the side quests... Probably because I finished them (both times I played through) long before I finished the main quest, and I -did- put it down after the main quest. But when I said neverending, I also meant the add-ons... I played them with my 'endgame' character.
I loved Oblivion. I'm hoping for another big expansion and another major sequel. (I think the sequel is a given, though.) I spent upwards of 160 hours playing it... Probably more than 200. That's amazing for me, since I usually play a game less than 20 hours, with many games being less than 10.
But back to the point: My Oblivion saves are nearly worthless to me, despite it being one of my favorite games. If I play again, I'll do so from the beginning. I'm actually planning on this... I've got Oblivion GOTY/CE/whatever for PS3 in my GameFly queue, and I plan to replay it again on the third system. (PC and 360, previously.)
Cable vs HD Cable - not much difference. Satellite vs HD Sat - not much difference. OTA vs HD OTA - big difference with a poor signal, little difference with a good signal.
The difference is not in the resolution, but rather in how the information is transmitted... Digital means you either get a perfect signal, or nothing at all. Analog means you can get a crappy signal and still watch you show... If you can stand the static. I don't know why, but the watchability threshold is much lower on digital.
Of course, the other problem is that the difference between DVD and HDDVD/Bluray is not clear enough.
When I first went to buy an HDTV, I was very excited. I got to the store, looked at everything... And then realized: I couldn't tell the difference between the HDTV and regular TV... Both were CRT at the time. I went away very disheartened.
It wasn't until a couple years later that I finally bought an LCD HDTV for gaming, instead of TV, and I was very happy. To this day, I still can't see much difference between HD and regular TV on my 50" LCD. And while I can tell the difference between Bluray and DVD, the difference isn't big enough for me to justify spending twice as much on the discs.
So, if I can hardly tell the difference and I'm fully invested in the system... What about normal people? All they have is the hype... There's no proof.
I must say one thing has impressed me, though: Over the Air HD broadcasts. The same channel that is a mess of colored fuzz with sound in regular broadcasts is a perfectly clear channel in HD. (I admit, that could be my crappy antenna, though.)
Games are about the journey, and the ending. Your save file increases in value until just before complete it... After that, the file is nearly worthless.
The exception to this is open-ended games, of course... There is no end to those. Even Oblivion never 'ends' because you can continue doing minor quests after you beat the game. The Sims is another obvious sandbox game that had savefiles that only increase in value... Until a new version of the game (not expansion) is released. At that point, the saves are just as worthless as the ones from games that end.
Any game that you quit before the end, for whatever reason, has no little or no value as well. The effort to get back into the game after a 2 month break is better spent re-playing the beginning and getting better at the game before you get to the stopping point.
And one last remark: Games are entertainment, not work. Playing them produces nothing of value and is only useful for relieving stress or boredom.
BTW, I'm an avid gamer with a couple decades experience.
I agree totally... Except that conditions are a bit different. The improvements in graphics aren't as mind-blowing as they were 3+ years ago. I'm a graphics whore. I admit it. I'm one of those fools that buys $500 video cards.
But since the 7800s, things haven't been so urgent. The new cards aren't -that- much better than the old ones because games aren't pushing the limits as much. It used to be there were several games a year that required rigs that were insane. Now there's maybe 1 or 2. Most of the really fun games, the ones that focused on gameplay instead of maxing out a high-end system, just don't need that kind of power.
I keep looking at new cards, but really the only thing that draws me in is the 'silent' ones... I'm about sick of the noise. The extra power will be nice, but not necessary at all.
I don't understand the assumption that they can't embed a high-end graphics card in a motherboard? It hasn't typically been done since the resulting board would be seem to be insanely expensive until you realize that most of the cost is the graphics... But that doesn't mean they can't or won't.
Also, when you say 'decent graphics performance'... I assume you're talking about games, since the Intel GMA 3xxx series does perfectly well with Compiz. It's every bit as fast as the ATI card in my work machine.
I probably would have reacted better if they'd said what they wanted right off, instead of asking for me by name. If they'd just said 'Sir, we're doing a survey. Can you answer some questions about your TV habits?' then I'd probably have answered... In fact, I -have- answered surveys over the phone before.
And yeah, he definitely didn't have the right attitude to be a telemarketer.
On the other hand, maybe OpenMoko will be the one to 'get it right'.
I used to always believe that Open Source was a neat thing, and a good idea... But not terribly effective at being cutting edge. That has changed lately, at least in my eyes, and I see OS taking over. Compiz on Kubuntu is very, very nice, if not yet perfect. I can do things on it that make my Mac co-workers a bit jealous (Yakuake, desktop cube, scribbling on the screen) and it's getting better all the time. ATI has been releasing their specs and I expect Linux to soon (read: a few years) have better video drivers and capabilities than Windows.
OpenMoko could do for cellphones/mobile-devices what Ubuntu is doing for the desktop. If they get it right.
Yes, or they could do it RIGHT NOW and save 17 years. (Actually, the sweet spot is 12 years away, since it would then take 2.5 years to run for a total of 14.5 years, and 14 would still take 1.25 years for a total of 15.25 years. So they'd save 13.5 years if they could run it in 1 year on today's computers.) While that's not -decades- it IS over a decade. Do you know how many people die of cancer in a decade?
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/37480.php Apparently there's about 550,000 people die of cancer each year in the USA alone! That's 5.5million Americans that could be saved if the cure for cancers comes 10 years earlier.
I think it's pretty hard to argue that they should just wait and do the calculation later, and 'approximate' calculations aren't very good for this kind of research.
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"a years t-mobile service."? I don't see where you got this.
I also don't see where to buy one... I went to laptop.org, but can only find the 'donate money' area, not somewhere I can buy 2 to get one. (It occurs to me that this might make a good present for my niece.)
Well, it depends on what your skillset is, doesn't it? If they have other skills, they can use those for 6 months (or more) and the non-compete is no issue. Or they can get a job as a cart-pusher at the local supermarket and earn minimum wage while they get through the downtime. They can, of course, still LOOK for jobs in the mean time. They might even find a company willing to wait the 6 months to get their skills, and may even offer a 'starting bonus' to help cover the 6 months.
It's not so cut and dry as 'can you last 6 months with no income?'.
"Most people will use the official torrent: "
I feel the need to make a point on this. Most people will choose the official torrent even if it's riddled with ads, so long as they can fast-forward just like any non-DRM video... Even if they have to wait longer than the pirated versions.
Guaranteed quality... You mentioned that. While 'release groups' pretty much also guarantee the quality of their work, getting the video right from the source is even more sure.
Legality... Many people don't see any problem with downloading the video... After all, they paid their cable dues and it IS broadcast OTA for free. But I would venture that most of those people would still prefer a definitely-legal version.
Supporting the show... Most people that love a show are happy to help make sure it continues to exist. Getting the video from the producer is a good way to do that.
Hassle... While the show generally IS posted immediately on torrents and other places, there are sometimes delays. Getting it from the official site would probably be more stable.
This is all assuming that they can watch it on their PC, PS3, PSP, Nintendo DS, iPhone, iPod, n800 or whatever other crazy contraptions they've got lying around, instead of being anchored to one device. That means NO DRM.
Having the show appear on the site at the same time as it airs, or even in the middle, would just be a major bonus. There is -no- reason why they can't do this.
Next time you write your contract, you should renegotiate for proper royalties, instead of getting an hourly/yearly wage. Let us know how that works out for you.
So having someone invade your personal space and steal things that have sentimental value isn't psychologically devastating? Being robbed at gunpoint with your life on the line over some green paper isn't psychologically devastating? Think again.
I can agree that this is worse, but don't put down other peoples' experiences to make your point.
I dunno about 'is' being murdered, but you're doing a pretty good job on the English language.
I hear of lot of this complaining, and yet nobody starts their own site instead. If you REALLY think this is the way to go, go start your own site and feel free to link it back here with 'stories' that link to your blog. Everyone else does.
I haven't a clue. I tried some of the mods made in the first couple months, and while they did make the game more fun initially, they didn't make it enough more fun to keep playing. Now, as with Morrowind, most of the mods are completely amateur and don't fit well with the rest of the game. The few that ARE great are too hard to find in the mess.
Distance. I don't see 6 ft from my TV, I set more like 10. Most people don't sit that close, either. To tell the difference between 1080 and 720, you have to be 9.8 ft or less from a 50" screen, and to see it well, you have to be less than 6.5 ft.
http://www.carltonbale.com/2006/11/1080p-does-matter/
I'm not denying there's a difference. I'm denying that it matters to most people.
To make things even muddier, most HDTVs upscale the standard signal and it actually looks quite good. Both my parents have HDTVs now (bought them off me when I upgraded) but they don't have an HD signal. Despite having watched TV at my house, with HD cable (I almost never tuned to regular channels) my parents were initially impressed, but didn't care enough to even ask their providers (DirecTV) how much it would cost... Not even enough to look it up on the web.
In the end, it's just not a big enough jump for most people to care, like other television advances. (Radio to B&W, B&W to color, etc.) It'll eventually take over, but not because it's so much better... Just because it's getting to be as cheap to make HD TVs as regular ones... It'll soon make no sense to keep producing regular TVs.
If B&M are so in control of EA's sales, why do they constantly bitch about how little they make on new games? The truth is that Brick & Mortar is just the prefered route for many customers... If they couldn't drive to the store and get it, most of those customers would just order online somehow.
But even if GameSpot and Walmart suddenly stopped carrying ALL EA games, someone else would just pick them up and make a ton of money instead. Because even that little bit they complain about is still profit, and there's someone that will make sure they get that money. Best Buy and Circuit City would love it, for example. CC constantly runs amazing specials on new games (10-20% below retail AT LAUNCH) and Best Buy matches those specials. I can't believe they do that out of the goodness of their hearts, so I'm thinking they must be trying to attract game-buyers.
Nothing in this list is even remotely likely to happen to EA, or any other major game company. -yawn-
I'm the opposite on Oblivion... I remember how the main quest ends, but not the side quests... Probably because I finished them (both times I played through) long before I finished the main quest, and I -did- put it down after the main quest. But when I said neverending, I also meant the add-ons... I played them with my 'endgame' character.
I loved Oblivion. I'm hoping for another big expansion and another major sequel. (I think the sequel is a given, though.) I spent upwards of 160 hours playing it... Probably more than 200. That's amazing for me, since I usually play a game less than 20 hours, with many games being less than 10.
But back to the point: My Oblivion saves are nearly worthless to me, despite it being one of my favorite games. If I play again, I'll do so from the beginning. I'm actually planning on this... I've got Oblivion GOTY/CE/whatever for PS3 in my GameFly queue, and I plan to replay it again on the third system. (PC and 360, previously.)
Cable vs HD Cable - not much difference.
Satellite vs HD Sat - not much difference.
OTA vs HD OTA - big difference with a poor signal, little difference with a good signal.
The difference is not in the resolution, but rather in how the information is transmitted... Digital means you either get a perfect signal, or nothing at all. Analog means you can get a crappy signal and still watch you show... If you can stand the static. I don't know why, but the watchability threshold is much lower on digital.
So does he backup his game save? Oh wait, he has no control over it.
The discussion was the value of your gamesave, not the value of your account on an MMO.
Yes, perisitant multiplayer worlds are different than offline games. That just isn't the discussion at hand.
Of course, the other problem is that the difference between DVD and HDDVD/Bluray is not clear enough.
When I first went to buy an HDTV, I was very excited. I got to the store, looked at everything... And then realized: I couldn't tell the difference between the HDTV and regular TV... Both were CRT at the time. I went away very disheartened.
It wasn't until a couple years later that I finally bought an LCD HDTV for gaming, instead of TV, and I was very happy. To this day, I still can't see much difference between HD and regular TV on my 50" LCD. And while I can tell the difference between Bluray and DVD, the difference isn't big enough for me to justify spending twice as much on the discs.
So, if I can hardly tell the difference and I'm fully invested in the system... What about normal people? All they have is the hype... There's no proof.
I must say one thing has impressed me, though: Over the Air HD broadcasts. The same channel that is a mess of colored fuzz with sound in regular broadcasts is a perfectly clear channel in HD. (I admit, that could be my crappy antenna, though.)
Games are about the journey, and the ending. Your save file increases in value until just before complete it... After that, the file is nearly worthless.
The exception to this is open-ended games, of course... There is no end to those. Even Oblivion never 'ends' because you can continue doing minor quests after you beat the game. The Sims is another obvious sandbox game that had savefiles that only increase in value... Until a new version of the game (not expansion) is released. At that point, the saves are just as worthless as the ones from games that end.
Any game that you quit before the end, for whatever reason, has no little or no value as well. The effort to get back into the game after a 2 month break is better spent re-playing the beginning and getting better at the game before you get to the stopping point.
And one last remark: Games are entertainment, not work. Playing them produces nothing of value and is only useful for relieving stress or boredom.
BTW, I'm an avid gamer with a couple decades experience.
There -is- a lot of crime. Maybe you didn't notice.
And updating their WoW client.
Most guns inside the US are used for crime. That doesn't mean they don't have legitimate uses.
The internet is tubes, not trucks!
I agree totally... Except that conditions are a bit different. The improvements in graphics aren't as mind-blowing as they were 3+ years ago. I'm a graphics whore. I admit it. I'm one of those fools that buys $500 video cards.
But since the 7800s, things haven't been so urgent. The new cards aren't -that- much better than the old ones because games aren't pushing the limits as much. It used to be there were several games a year that required rigs that were insane. Now there's maybe 1 or 2. Most of the really fun games, the ones that focused on gameplay instead of maxing out a high-end system, just don't need that kind of power.
I keep looking at new cards, but really the only thing that draws me in is the 'silent' ones... I'm about sick of the noise. The extra power will be nice, but not necessary at all.
It's simple: Adding onboard audio costs them almost nothing and gains them quite a few sales.
I don't understand the assumption that they can't embed a high-end graphics card in a motherboard? It hasn't typically been done since the resulting board would be seem to be insanely expensive until you realize that most of the cost is the graphics... But that doesn't mean they can't or won't.
... I assume you're talking about games, since the Intel GMA 3xxx series does perfectly well with Compiz. It's every bit as fast as the ATI card in my work machine.
Also, when you say 'decent graphics performance'
I probably would have reacted better if they'd said what they wanted right off, instead of asking for me by name. If they'd just said 'Sir, we're doing a survey. Can you answer some questions about your TV habits?' then I'd probably have answered... In fact, I -have- answered surveys over the phone before.
And yeah, he definitely didn't have the right attitude to be a telemarketer.
On the other hand, maybe OpenMoko will be the one to 'get it right'.
I used to always believe that Open Source was a neat thing, and a good idea... But not terribly effective at being cutting edge. That has changed lately, at least in my eyes, and I see OS taking over. Compiz on Kubuntu is very, very nice, if not yet perfect. I can do things on it that make my Mac co-workers a bit jealous (Yakuake, desktop cube, scribbling on the screen) and it's getting better all the time. ATI has been releasing their specs and I expect Linux to soon (read: a few years) have better video drivers and capabilities than Windows.
OpenMoko could do for cellphones/mobile-devices what Ubuntu is doing for the desktop. If they get it right.
No. It's the same reason I don't play the lottery: I'm not going to win, so the reward holds no sway in my decisions.
Yes, or they could do it RIGHT NOW and save 17 years. (Actually, the sweet spot is 12 years away, since it would then take 2.5 years to run for a total of 14.5 years, and 14 would still take 1.25 years for a total of 15.25 years. So they'd save 13.5 years if they could run it in 1 year on today's computers.) While that's not -decades- it IS over a decade. Do you know how many people die of cancer in a decade?
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/37480.php Apparently there's about 550,000 people die of cancer each year in the USA alone! That's 5.5million Americans that could be saved if the cure for cancers comes 10 years earlier.
I think it's pretty hard to argue that they should just wait and do the calculation later, and 'approximate' calculations aren't very good for this kind of research.