Please bear with me as I refer to the open source community by using generalizations, and also as I tack on my thoughts on MS. But hey, it's only what I think.
It's not payback for SCO, it's divide and conquer. In one move, MS has eliminated Novell as a competitor. Novell has confused and/or pissed off a lot of the open source community by entering into this agreement behind closed doors; That is, without the open approval of the majority of SuSE customers, users, and supporters involved with SuSE, and yet they are claiming otherwise.
Now everyone in the community is paranoid about code touched by Novell post-agreement. Now Novell is no longer of any use to the community as a whole (i.e. those not directly involved with SuSE but still involved with OSS) since they can no longer be trusted by a large portion, which will lead to arguments which will lead to either forks or simply no integration of Novell code and therefore a lot of work that was lost on something that doesn't benefit those who helped build up SuSE or the other OSS projects that share code with SuSE in the first place (by using GPL-compatible licenses and by not restricting them with patent law).
This move has also caused the community to slow down by everyone putting so much attention on Novell instead of building better code, and to fight amongst each other as we decide what to do with Novell code and the SuSE platform.
Now Novell is building its software to be compatible with Windows so that businesses can easily migrate from the Novell platform by slowly phasing out their linux boxes and replacing them with Windows ones.
This is a move that attempts to funnel Novell customers to MS (I'm just saying now there is a much bigger chance of it happening than before, and MS may have some other moves/FUD/threats/patents/whatever up its sleeve to make this much more likely). This is also a move that attempts to cause in-fighting and to put chinks in the armor of the OSS movement/community/whatever.
MS is trying to figure out how to battle OSS and they are getting more and more successful with every attempt -- even if they are just throwing shit up on the wall to see what sticks, they're tenacious and they're building a strategy around the results of their actions. Slowly and steadily they are figuring out how to "deal with" OSS.
MS is easily forgiven as long as money and other flash are thrown around, but OSS has its integrity and the fruit of our sweat and blood. Let's show them which is most important.
A lot of developers somehow feel compelled to make games 3D even if they don't work in 3D, for example Castlevania. A clip from this review of 3D Castlevania says a lot about the problem:
The real problem with Castlevania: Curse of Darkness is that Konami tried to do too much, too soon: they pushed for another 3D game before they figured out how to it right. Everything that made Castlevania a popular franchise--the platforming in the older games combined with the intricate detail and endless exploration of the castleroids--was completely lost when the transition was made to 3D. The cost of filling up that empty space may have been too high for the CoD budget, but that's no excuse. If a thing's worth doing, it's worth doing right. Either make 3D work or go back to what you know you can do.
I work for a very large multinational corporation (almost 10,000 employees) and they are still using NT4 + Win2k and some QNX, and haven't planned on rolling out Windows XP. There were issues with Licensing 6.0, not to mention the fact that if they bought a newer version of Windows chances are it wouldn't work on the older hardware, and if they bought newer hardware they would already come with the updated Windows licenses. So far there is no need for Windows XP, let alone Vista.
Why should they bother? Anyone who can update to IE7 will, as IE7 is (or will be soon in certain areas that don't have it already) pushed through Windows Automatic Updates. What is the point of Yahoo advertising IE7 to anyone?
That said, this is the future. Pure and simple. IMHO, Bluray and HDDVD disks will not gain traction in this generation, and will end up losing to download services like iTunes and 360 Videos
No. No way. You can't lend movies to friends this way, play it in your van on the way to grandma's, play it again at grandma's when the kids want to see it again, you can't have a copy of a movie on your shelf for later whenever you feel like watching it and wherever. This will fail. Maybe as a rental-only service it could pass, but I still like to bring rented movies over to parties or a friend's house or whatever. If this is the only way to watch a movie, then watch DRM go down the tubes fast, and even mega-corp-x doesn't want that to happen.
He went on to say that most CDs are simply used for ripping onto digital audio players.
Traditional CD players may be dead, but the CD continues to be useful as a distribution medium. Clearly online distribution does not eclipse the traditional CD, in quality, in fundamentals (no DRM so you can rip to any player in any format, copy on all of your players at once [car, portable, PC], you get a permanent high-quality copy, particularly in DualDisc options, printed jacket + lyrics), and in extras (promotional material such as special editions with included DVDs etc).
The fact that listeners continue to buy CDs only to rip songs from show that the CD medium is very much alive and that online distribution can not match the value of CD-ripped music.
The traditional CD PLAYER on the other hand, may be dead.
I keep getting into other genres of music. I thought I was done with music 5 years ago, but I just was done with listening to a certain genre or certain group of artists whose albums I would keep buying. I don't listen to the radio or watch TV, so the only times I really hear any new music is from other people. I had been hanging around the same group for a while, but got some new friends and I was exposed to different music. I also learned to play more instruments so I got interested in other types of music as well. Before I only played guitar and wasn't interested in music where guitar wasn't a prominent instrument, but now I am. For 3 years I didn't really buy any new music, but now I'm getting 3 new albums a week.
What's my point? Habits change for crazy reasons. There are no trends, people just WANT there to be trends so that they can predict revenue and get investments because of that.
I think it's useful as it shows whether or not IE7 can be restored to a default state after you hose your system with a bunch of crap. A typical IE7 situation may not be like this, but for admins and those repairing PCs, or even if -- heaven forbid -- IE7 has a flaw that is taken advantage of by spyware, if a user can restore it to full functionality.
Not only that, but given that your customers would also have to subscribe to MS's software services, what developer in their right mind would use such services as dependencies for their software? If MS moves the bulk of their software online, they will want developer tie-ins to such software. Or, will MS simply switch from selling IIS to providing hosting services with APIs and daemons that developers and end-users won't be able to run themselves, and that competitors won't provide? It seems far-fetched and not even beneficial for Microsoft.
A more far-fetched idea is that they might just do a total end-run around developers and provide complete solutions for businesses and even take on administration duties as well... but is that even realistic? Sounds like a nightmare for MS. Maybe developers on MS platforms will be reduced to middle-men in this situation?
This isn't anything new, we've been able to do overlays on DVDs already, whether it's MST3K-like shadows providing commentary, or something like a body count (just use a subtitle track) like what was mentioned in the article. We've also been able to have storyboards accompanying the main movie. Whether it's PIP embedded in the video and you have to flip over the disc (due to storage limitation on DVD), or a simultaneous stream of audio or a seperate sub-picture, we're able to do it on DVD already. This doesn't provide a "true interactive experience" as suggested. Unless "fully interactive" and "toggle something on/off" have suddenly become fully synonymous.
Yes, I want a PlayStation, but I still believe I'll be getting far more out of the Wii. I've got the 360, and I'm going to get the PS3. I don't want to miss out on any games that will remain exclusive to any console, that's the only reason. I'll still be playing the Wii for 90% of the games, and the other two for whatever Final Fantasy or Gran Turismo or GTA exclusive games they have, and that's it. If I was only planning on getting one console, it would most definitely be the Wii. I'd probably still want a PlayStation, but not as much as I want a Wii.
That's a little shortsighted. Surely the amount of promotion AOL could lend to this video would include more viewers than those who would learn about the video through word-of-mouth? AOL could promote this to a broader scope of users, and to arguably a different demographic. AOL is also losing out on being associated with Weird Al, which is better than being associated with... just a crappy portal? Oh well.
As a truly dedicated gamer (Own XBox 360, XBox, PS2, GameCube, Dreamcast, PSX/N64/Saturn, Genesis/SNES/NeoGeo, 3DO/Jaguar, Atari/NES/SMS/TG16, and 1000s of games) I am definitely choosing the Wii over other systems. I know I said I own an XBox 360, and will buy a PS3, but I definitely expect to be playing the Wii most, and have been looking forward to it most.
Who says people have to send you the ads? I'm sure MS could give discounts on its products to any store that bombards users with such ads if the store agrees to serve up these ads to all Zunes in the area. MS could even get other venues to have such Zune-ad-servers to distribute their ads along with MS's from a central MS server. Next thing you know, anywhere you go, on your Zune you get pop-ups saying "Hey! Check out this cool new zune tune!" or some garbage. Yay!!!
I guess this is why MS says that it will have more ad-based revenue in the future.
I've never written anything about ESR before because I didn't care. I use Linux because it's what works best for me (less hassle with software install, every software can work with every other software with no compatibility issue, liberty to do what I want with my software, less hassle w/spyware/virus/trojan, no nickle and diming to death to get tools into the OS), not because ESR makes points. Even though it may be handy sometimes, I don't think that using certain codecs, fonts, plugins, or proprietary software of any kind will in itself attract more end users, and I could care less about it myself. I don't think more end users that work in an environment where these things are essential will benefit Linux.
However I think ESR is trying to motivate something grander, a sea-change in such end users' way of thinking. Proprietary software can embrace, extend, and extinguish free (gratis) software quite easily, and the GPL is designed to stand its ground against this. Users can be forged in such a way as well.
If GNU/Linux provides an environment in which users can use both proprietary and OSS alongside one another, then such users may see the advantage of OSS in that it is simply more capable. The end user will see that there is no squabbling over who can use what format with what software, what year you may install certain software in, which application controls what file associations, annoying greyed out pro-only features, general proprietary software hassles that the average end users encounter daily that OSS does not deal with. These are some of the reasons I use OSS, and end users can be introduced to these same exact reasons as well in the right environment.
I'm not talking about setting someone up with LiteStep and OSS-only in Windows and still letting them run IE7 and Office or whatever. I'm talking about immersing the end user in a Gnome or KDE environment, tailoring it to them (Windows shortcuts enabled on default, prominent Documents, Control Center, and Firefox icons, etc). The end user needs to experience how simple and beneficial these environments can be.
When I was using Windows, I thought "Gee, these Linux geeks seem to think virtual desktops are important. I guess I'll try them out!" and downloaded various freeware tools to enable such things in Windows 2000. I got applications that wouldn't maximize properly, dialogs popping up on the wrong virutal desktop, disappearing icons, and other oddities, and I thought "This is crap!" because I didn't get to work in an environment that was designed to handle such things.
Another scenario: I never thought installing Windows software was so simple, next, I agree, next next un-check everything next. However adults that I set up computers for are dumbfounded and would pay me to do something so trivial, especially because they're scared of screwing up their system or installing spyware. If you show them Firefox or OpenOffice install under Windows, they wouldn't see any advantage, they still have various check-boxes and "next" and "I agree" steps to take.
However, installing these with Synaptic or something similar is light years easier and would make such end users less nervous about installing software since there are no such worry-inducing confirmations to make, or post-install cleanups (deleting/replacing various icons, disabling user nagging dialogs, etc).
It's an unfortunate fact that Internet Explorer will always incorrectly expand any dimensionally restricted block element so that oversize content is unable to overflow, as the specs require that content to do. I will be comparing IE/win's way with the correct behavior as seen in Firefox. The W3C says a rigidly sized block box should allow oversize content to protrude or overflow beyond the edges of the sized box. There is no real "fix" for IE/win's incorrect behavior, except to work around or avoid it. Several possible workarounds will be detailed as I discuss the issue.
First, thanks for trying to provide some information and reasoning. But I still have a few questions...
There is no way these can make the leap from infecting bacteria to infecting higher organisms, any more than a plant could suddenly start walking around.
Aren't there useful bacteria that we need? Also, will it be detrimental to any sort of "bacteria ecosystem" that we may need?
I could think of a few things that are possible, for example if it mutated enough to find our host bacteria a good target then that might cause problems, but again, very doubtful.
hideous noises that sound like gang-warfare in Harlem and Watts
If there are noises in Harlem and Watts that sound like gang warfare, isn't it a perfectly valid method of expression to record these things and then play them back? Obviously you're referring to gangsta rap, but such rap seeks to express perceptions and attitudes of those who exist in reality and actually do these things.
MCs are those who observe this reality and describe it for listeners in clever rhyme schemes and with wordplay derived from slang from the area the music is describing. People are represented in music.
If you don't like the sound gang warfare, that's probably because it's a terrible thing, but it's still reality, there's no denying it. It won't go away until it's not a reality anymore, and if you dislike that reality so much, then try and change it instead of saying "Well, people should stop it!!!"
I'm not sure if that was your attitude or not, but if so, it's pretty ignorant to call it "hideous noise" per se, rather than referring to it as a valid interpretation and expression of reality, and is a form of art.
Even then, you could own a copy and just not be bothered to rip it yourself (say you needed to pay for software), so you downloaded it instead. Or you forgot your CD at work and really wanted to hear a certain song. Etc.
Seriously though, I know lots of people who's business requires them to enter data into their company's systems using caps.
This sounds like a strange limit in the first place, why not allow the software to interpret all text as capitalized? Just take the user input string and convert to uppercase for all. Voila!
They don't have to make 2D platformers look out of date. There are plenty of sweet raster effects used in the PC demo scene that didn't make their way into many (if any) games. The developer also has the ability to make a 3D side scrolling game, using all kinds of pixel shader effects. Imagine highly detailed 1080p side-scrollers, this is entirely possible, and would look great. I'll bet if the next console installment of Castlevania were to be 2D, it would kickstart a new generation of successful platformers.
Slashdot Mirror
Please bear with me as I refer to the open source community by using generalizations, and also as I tack on my thoughts on MS. But hey, it's only what I think.
It's not payback for SCO, it's divide and conquer. In one move, MS has eliminated Novell as a competitor. Novell has confused and/or pissed off a lot of the open source community by entering into this agreement behind closed doors; That is, without the open approval of the majority of SuSE customers, users, and supporters involved with SuSE, and yet they are claiming otherwise.
Now everyone in the community is paranoid about code touched by Novell post-agreement. Now Novell is no longer of any use to the community as a whole (i.e. those not directly involved with SuSE but still involved with OSS) since they can no longer be trusted by a large portion, which will lead to arguments which will lead to either forks or simply no integration of Novell code and therefore a lot of work that was lost on something that doesn't benefit those who helped build up SuSE or the other OSS projects that share code with SuSE in the first place (by using GPL-compatible licenses and by not restricting them with patent law).
This move has also caused the community to slow down by everyone putting so much attention on Novell instead of building better code, and to fight amongst each other as we decide what to do with Novell code and the SuSE platform.
Now Novell is building its software to be compatible with Windows so that businesses can easily migrate from the Novell platform by slowly phasing out their linux boxes and replacing them with Windows ones.
This is a move that attempts to funnel Novell customers to MS (I'm just saying now there is a much bigger chance of it happening than before, and MS may have some other moves/FUD/threats/patents/whatever up its sleeve to make this much more likely). This is also a move that attempts to cause in-fighting and to put chinks in the armor of the OSS movement/community/whatever.
MS is trying to figure out how to battle OSS and they are getting more and more successful with every attempt -- even if they are just throwing shit up on the wall to see what sticks, they're tenacious and they're building a strategy around the results of their actions. Slowly and steadily they are figuring out how to "deal with" OSS.
MS is easily forgiven as long as money and other flash are thrown around, but OSS has its integrity and the fruit of our sweat and blood. Let's show them which is most important.
A lot of developers somehow feel compelled to make games 3D even if they don't work in 3D, for example Castlevania. A clip from this review of 3D Castlevania says a lot about the problem:
The real problem with Castlevania: Curse of Darkness is that Konami tried to do too much, too soon: they pushed for another 3D game before they figured out how to it right. Everything that made Castlevania a popular franchise--the platforming in the older games combined with the intricate detail and endless exploration of the castleroids--was completely lost when the transition was made to 3D. The cost of filling up that empty space may have been too high for the CoD budget, but that's no excuse. If a thing's worth doing, it's worth doing right. Either make 3D work or go back to what you know you can do.
I work for a very large multinational corporation (almost 10,000 employees) and they are still using NT4 + Win2k and some QNX, and haven't planned on rolling out Windows XP. There were issues with Licensing 6.0, not to mention the fact that if they bought a newer version of Windows chances are it wouldn't work on the older hardware, and if they bought newer hardware they would already come with the updated Windows licenses. So far there is no need for Windows XP, let alone Vista.
Why should they bother? Anyone who can update to IE7 will, as IE7 is (or will be soon in certain areas that don't have it already) pushed through Windows Automatic Updates. What is the point of Yahoo advertising IE7 to anyone?
That said, this is the future. Pure and simple. IMHO, Bluray and HDDVD disks will not gain traction in this generation, and will end up losing to download services like iTunes and 360 Videos
No. No way. You can't lend movies to friends this way, play it in your van on the way to grandma's, play it again at grandma's when the kids want to see it again, you can't have a copy of a movie on your shelf for later whenever you feel like watching it and wherever. This will fail. Maybe as a rental-only service it could pass, but I still like to bring rented movies over to parties or a friend's house or whatever. If this is the only way to watch a movie, then watch DRM go down the tubes fast, and even mega-corp-x doesn't want that to happen.
So now what's smarter, keeping it that way or changing it?
He went on to say that most CDs are simply used for ripping onto digital audio players.
Traditional CD players may be dead, but the CD continues to be useful as a distribution medium. Clearly online distribution does not eclipse the traditional CD, in quality, in fundamentals (no DRM so you can rip to any player in any format, copy on all of your players at once [car, portable, PC], you get a permanent high-quality copy, particularly in DualDisc options, printed jacket + lyrics), and in extras (promotional material such as special editions with included DVDs etc).
The fact that listeners continue to buy CDs only to rip songs from show that the CD medium is very much alive and that online distribution can not match the value of CD-ripped music.
The traditional CD PLAYER on the other hand, may be dead.
1) Make difficult game with unobvious solutions
2) Sell tutorials for game
3) More profit!!!
I keep getting into other genres of music. I thought I was done with music 5 years ago, but I just was done with listening to a certain genre or certain group of artists whose albums I would keep buying. I don't listen to the radio or watch TV, so the only times I really hear any new music is from other people. I had been hanging around the same group for a while, but got some new friends and I was exposed to different music. I also learned to play more instruments so I got interested in other types of music as well. Before I only played guitar and wasn't interested in music where guitar wasn't a prominent instrument, but now I am. For 3 years I didn't really buy any new music, but now I'm getting 3 new albums a week. What's my point? Habits change for crazy reasons. There are no trends, people just WANT there to be trends so that they can predict revenue and get investments because of that.
I think it's useful as it shows whether or not IE7 can be restored to a default state after you hose your system with a bunch of crap. A typical IE7 situation may not be like this, but for admins and those repairing PCs, or even if -- heaven forbid -- IE7 has a flaw that is taken advantage of by spyware, if a user can restore it to full functionality.
Not only that, but given that your customers would also have to subscribe to MS's software services, what developer in their right mind would use such services as dependencies for their software? If MS moves the bulk of their software online, they will want developer tie-ins to such software. Or, will MS simply switch from selling IIS to providing hosting services with APIs and daemons that developers and end-users won't be able to run themselves, and that competitors won't provide? It seems far-fetched and not even beneficial for Microsoft.
A more far-fetched idea is that they might just do a total end-run around developers and provide complete solutions for businesses and even take on administration duties as well... but is that even realistic? Sounds like a nightmare for MS. Maybe developers on MS platforms will be reduced to middle-men in this situation?
This isn't anything new, we've been able to do overlays on DVDs already, whether it's MST3K-like shadows providing commentary, or something like a body count (just use a subtitle track) like what was mentioned in the article. We've also been able to have storyboards accompanying the main movie. Whether it's PIP embedded in the video and you have to flip over the disc (due to storage limitation on DVD), or a simultaneous stream of audio or a seperate sub-picture, we're able to do it on DVD already. This doesn't provide a "true interactive experience" as suggested. Unless "fully interactive" and "toggle something on/off" have suddenly become fully synonymous.
Yes, I want a PlayStation, but I still believe I'll be getting far more out of the Wii. I've got the 360, and I'm going to get the PS3. I don't want to miss out on any games that will remain exclusive to any console, that's the only reason. I'll still be playing the Wii for 90% of the games, and the other two for whatever Final Fantasy or Gran Turismo or GTA exclusive games they have, and that's it. If I was only planning on getting one console, it would most definitely be the Wii. I'd probably still want a PlayStation, but not as much as I want a Wii.
That's a little shortsighted. Surely the amount of promotion AOL could lend to this video would include more viewers than those who would learn about the video through word-of-mouth? AOL could promote this to a broader scope of users, and to arguably a different demographic. AOL is also losing out on being associated with Weird Al, which is better than being associated with... just a crappy portal? Oh well.
As a truly dedicated gamer (Own XBox 360, XBox, PS2, GameCube, Dreamcast, PSX/N64/Saturn, Genesis/SNES/NeoGeo, 3DO/Jaguar, Atari/NES/SMS/TG16, and 1000s of games) I am definitely choosing the Wii over other systems. I know I said I own an XBox 360, and will buy a PS3, but I definitely expect to be playing the Wii most, and have been looking forward to it most.
Who says people have to send you the ads? I'm sure MS could give discounts on its products to any store that bombards users with such ads if the store agrees to serve up these ads to all Zunes in the area. MS could even get other venues to have such Zune-ad-servers to distribute their ads along with MS's from a central MS server. Next thing you know, anywhere you go, on your Zune you get pop-ups saying "Hey! Check out this cool new zune tune!" or some garbage. Yay!!!
I guess this is why MS says that it will have more ad-based revenue in the future.
I've never written anything about ESR before because I didn't care. I use Linux because it's what works best for me (less hassle with software install, every software can work with every other software with no compatibility issue, liberty to do what I want with my software, less hassle w/spyware/virus/trojan, no nickle and diming to death to get tools into the OS), not because ESR makes points. Even though it may be handy sometimes, I don't think that using certain codecs, fonts, plugins, or proprietary software of any kind will in itself attract more end users, and I could care less about it myself. I don't think more end users that work in an environment where these things are essential will benefit Linux.
However I think ESR is trying to motivate something grander, a sea-change in such end users' way of thinking. Proprietary software can embrace, extend, and extinguish free (gratis) software quite easily, and the GPL is designed to stand its ground against this. Users can be forged in such a way as well.
If GNU/Linux provides an environment in which users can use both proprietary and OSS alongside one another, then such users may see the advantage of OSS in that it is simply more capable. The end user will see that there is no squabbling over who can use what format with what software, what year you may install certain software in, which application controls what file associations, annoying greyed out pro-only features, general proprietary software hassles that the average end users encounter daily that OSS does not deal with. These are some of the reasons I use OSS, and end users can be introduced to these same exact reasons as well in the right environment.
I'm not talking about setting someone up with LiteStep and OSS-only in Windows and still letting them run IE7 and Office or whatever. I'm talking about immersing the end user in a Gnome or KDE environment, tailoring it to them (Windows shortcuts enabled on default, prominent Documents, Control Center, and Firefox icons, etc). The end user needs to experience how simple and beneficial these environments can be.
When I was using Windows, I thought "Gee, these Linux geeks seem to think virtual desktops are important. I guess I'll try them out!" and downloaded various freeware tools to enable such things in Windows 2000. I got applications that wouldn't maximize properly, dialogs popping up on the wrong virutal desktop, disappearing icons, and other oddities, and I thought "This is crap!" because I didn't get to work in an environment that was designed to handle such things.
Another scenario: I never thought installing Windows software was so simple, next, I agree, next next un-check everything next. However adults that I set up computers for are dumbfounded and would pay me to do something so trivial, especially because they're scared of screwing up their system or installing spyware. If you show them Firefox or OpenOffice install under Windows, they wouldn't see any advantage, they still have various check-boxes and "next" and "I agree" steps to take.
However, installing these with Synaptic or something similar is light years easier and would make such end users less nervous about installing software since there are no such worry-inducing confirmations to make, or post-install cleanups (deleting/replacing various icons, disabling user nagging dialogs, etc).
Great "fixes" from MS:
Internet Explorer and the Expanding Box Problem
It's an unfortunate fact that Internet Explorer will always incorrectly expand any dimensionally restricted block element so that oversize content is unable to overflow, as the specs require that content to do. I will be comparing IE/win's way with the correct behavior as seen in Firefox. The W3C says a rigidly sized block box should allow oversize content to protrude or overflow beyond the edges of the sized box. There is no real "fix" for IE/win's incorrect behavior, except to work around or avoid it. Several possible workarounds will be detailed as I discuss the issue.
First, thanks for trying to provide some information and reasoning. But I still have a few questions...
There is no way these can make the leap from infecting bacteria to infecting higher organisms, any more than a plant could suddenly start walking around.
Aren't there useful bacteria that we need? Also, will it be detrimental to any sort of "bacteria ecosystem" that we may need?
I could think of a few things that are possible, for example if it mutated enough to find our host bacteria a good target then that might cause problems, but again, very doubtful.
In the short term, in the long term, or at all?
hideous noises that sound like gang-warfare in Harlem and Watts
If there are noises in Harlem and Watts that sound like gang warfare, isn't it a perfectly valid method of expression to record these things and then play them back? Obviously you're referring to gangsta rap, but such rap seeks to express perceptions and attitudes of those who exist in reality and actually do these things.
MCs are those who observe this reality and describe it for listeners in clever rhyme schemes and with wordplay derived from slang from the area the music is describing. People are represented in music.
If you don't like the sound gang warfare, that's probably because it's a terrible thing, but it's still reality, there's no denying it. It won't go away until it's not a reality anymore, and if you dislike that reality so much, then try and change it instead of saying "Well, people should stop it!!!"
I'm not sure if that was your attitude or not, but if so, it's pretty ignorant to call it "hideous noise" per se, rather than referring to it as a valid interpretation and expression of reality, and is a form of art.
Even then, you could own a copy and just not be bothered to rip it yourself (say you needed to pay for software), so you downloaded it instead. Or you forgot your CD at work and really wanted to hear a certain song. Etc.
We want companies to think twice before they jump just because the government says so.
Sounds like something the software could handle. Just convert everything to uppercase on the software side.
This sounds like a strange limit in the first place, why not allow the software to interpret all text as capitalized? Just take the user input string and convert to uppercase for all. Voila!
They don't have to make 2D platformers look out of date. There are plenty of sweet raster effects used in the PC demo scene that didn't make their way into many (if any) games. The developer also has the ability to make a 3D side scrolling game, using all kinds of pixel shader effects. Imagine highly detailed 1080p side-scrollers, this is entirely possible, and would look great. I'll bet if the next console installment of Castlevania were to be 2D, it would kickstart a new generation of successful platformers.