Re:Where are the internet games?
on
Where are Wii?
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· Score: 1
But you're trying to tell me we had 10 years of development that executives at Nintendo somehow missed.
No. I'm trying to tell you that Wii friend codes are a step sideways from what we have today. They are considerably MORE advanced and easy to use than what we had 10 years ago on a PC.
And they are entirely effective at what they do, and meet the criteria that you don't have to be exposed to assholes, idiots, pedophiles, spammers, and morons in order to play multiplayer.
This is something, that, for all its vaunted greatness, the other modern implementations of multiplayer systems have not done well at all. Being able to create a private treehouse in the sewer is not a solution to being in the sewer.
Personally I'd like to see the friend-code system remain intact, but have the PC paradigm added as an optional Wii download channel. The people that want it can have it, and it can be parentally controlled so that you can wallow on a battlenet clone and talk trash all you want, get matched, get ranked, play in tournaments, whatever.
But your 3 year old neice can play wii-tennis with her grandmother without having to dip her feet (or her grandmothers feet) in the shit that goes on in typical online chat systems.
It moves his motive from self-defense to murder. If you can't see that being a difference I can't help you.
But at least ask yourself this: if it makes no difference why did they change the order?
Re:Where are the internet games?
on
Where are Wii?
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· Score: 1
Did you actually play online games?
Did you? Its your memory that's defective here, not mine.
What do you call Battle.net?
I call it the first of its kind.
Every other game either either shipped with a similar service, or with a server filter.
No. Battle.net launched with Diablo. Pretty much every other game at the time launched with "search for a game on the lan" [IPX] and "exchange your ip address" [TCP/IP] methods. Other games companies eventually mimicked battle.net, and expanded on the idea.
an attempt on the part of Nintendo to placate the parents of the preschoolers who might be in their audience
Battle.net, for example, allowed private games for friends and also had options to squelch any or all online gamers in public games
Yep. Login to the public chat, create a private password room, and then tell your friends the room name and the password.
1) Oh wait, that's like exchanging friend codes.
2) And it doesn't even isolate you from the human filth in the public chat, since you have to go through the public chat to get to the private one. Seems counter productive.
Besides, I've never heard anyone ask for the friend code "feature".
Even the xbox has friend lists.
And fundamentally Its no different than trading ip addresses or trading room/password ids for private chat rooms.
I agree with you in-so-far as I think that it would be nice to -also- have the option to join a public chatroom battle.net-esque service. And let that be something that can either be installed or not at the owners discretion. But if they had that it would complement friendcodes, not replace them.
Re:Where are the internet games?
on
Where are Wii?
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· Score: 1
No its just bad and lazy. And why are you putting the xbox model as the pinnacle of online gaming?
I put them as a polar opposite, not the pinnacle.
Sony doesn't charge to play online and and online gaming has been around, in a big way, for over 10 years on the PC (usually free).
Yeah, and do you remember how it worked 10 years ago? You exchanged IP addresses. The "friend codes" exchange is remarkably similiar to the old ip address exchange. Its actually a LOT more polished.
I'm not saying its the best system, not by a long shot, but it works.
Friend codes might work well for 6 year old kids (and you), but most of us can handle being exposed to random online gamers.
I think it would be nice to have the option. But I can also understand why a lot of people wouldn't want that, and should be able to play with their friends without being exposed to random online gamers.
Re:Where are the internet games?
on
Where are Wii?
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· Score: 1
Online gaming on the Wii is atrocious.
Nintendo is still viewing online games as a way for you to play essentially one-on-one with your real life friends; they haven't embraced the whole 'online community' thing. That's good and bad. They don't have much in the way of matching services and chat areas. They don't have player profiles, they don't force microtransactions down your throat, they don't have 'gamer acheivements' so that the truly lame can can show the world just how lame they are, oh, and they don't charge you for basic multiplayer capabilities either.
Overall, I'd prefer my kids not be exposed to the human waste that lives in xbox live. Friend codes work well for me.
But I concede that there are some aspects of xbox live that it would be nice to have as an -optional- element of the Wii multiplayer experience.
Wouldn't surprise me if it shows up as another downloadable channel one day... but then it wouldn't surprise if it doesn't evolve again until the next generation of systems either.
Re:Couple Thoughts
on
Where are Wii?
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· Score: 4, Interesting
It's not like Wiis are that cheap to begin with, at least not the way most people set them up.
Wii - $250 Wii Play w/Wiimote - $50 Two more Wiimotes - $80 An extra Nunchuk - $20 Component Video Cable - $20
And you're at $420 without buying any meaningful games, at regular retail price.
Sort of.
I am nearly your exact config (just add 2 classic controllers). But it probably took me 6 months before I had 4 Wii Remotes. (Although I actually had my "1st" Wii Remote, component cable, and spare nunchuk a full 4 months before I actually managed to get the Wii.
[At launch even the accessories were impossible to get, so I grabbed what I could, when I could.]
But while that might be how MANY Wii's end up, you can put a $300 box under the tree, if that's your budget, and still have something entertaining. If your buying it for someone over 15 they can accessorize it themselves.
That budget factor important to a lot of people. You can always add the other stuff later. And you definitely don't -need- 4 wii remotes on day one.
I'd say most people spring for a 2nd wii remote via Wii Play pretty quick, but it can take a while before they add more / finish it up. My parents, for example, got a Wii in the summer; and have added a second wii remote (wii play) and nunchuk, but that's it. They haven't bothered with the component cable either (their 32" TV can take component, but its SD, and for them its just not a priority. I doubt they are even really aware that they could upgrade the cable.)
Beyond that, I just don't buy the argument that a 360 or a PS3 is a true competitor to the Wii. People who buy the Wii want it for the innovative game play, and nothing else satisfies that demand.
Yeah, a BIG part of the market for the Wii only is interested in the Wii. For people who ultimately want both a Wii and either an xbox or ps3 (or all three) are going to get one of the other two, but yeah, a big part of the market just has no interest in the other two consoles.
My parents again, haven't got the slightest interest in either the xbox or ps3, at any price.
He would have voted for the list if it were run by the FCC.
I'm skeptical of that. Paul isn't exactly in favor EITHER department from what I've read. And the only part of the FCC that he'd probably deem necessary is the part that regulates spectrum, because RF spectrum allocation and use is inherently an intersstate (even international) issue. (Which is why the FCC is in the ITU [international telecommunications union].)
But on the wired side, the FCC's role is probably obsolete. I can't think of anything they do in wired communications that is remotely necessary.
The FCC has a long history of banning certain types of communication: broadcasting on certain frequencies, or using too much power, etc. These don't violate the first amendment.
True. But those are a fundamentally different situation. RF bandwidth is an effectively scarce resource that doesn't respect any borders. Whoever builds the most, and most powerful transmitters wins. Neighboring states and countries would compete to drown eachother out. Emergency services would have to cope with high power transmitters blasting rock music into their bands etc. Clearly some sort of federal (and even international) oversight and cooperation is required.
email or phone calls simply do not have anything like these issues.
In summary, Ron Paul made his decision based on first amendment issues. It is not clear that the issues of privacy or property rights even made it onto his screen.
And from your own quote:
"The FTC has imposed a content-based limitation on what the consumer may ban from his home, thereby entangling the government in deciding what speech the consumer should hear."
I think he'd see the same sort of 'entanglement' in a bill that decided what email the consumer should receive. I think he'd vote against the federal government taking that sort of role, regardless of what department. While he may have specifically criticised the use of the FTC for the do-not-call-registry, I think that's simply because that's the department in question. I simply can't see him approving the FCC to entangle the government in what speech consumers hear either.
PS: sorry about the 'crack' comment.
Its slashdot. I expect it. An apology for it though is a welcome surprise. Thanks.
You are responsible for fulfilling that gpl obligation by taking responsibility for providing the source. Note that 'taking responsibility' doesn't mean you actually have to do it yourself. You could hire someone to handle that obligation, you could even make an arrangement with the party you got it from to handle that obligation.
But you can't just 'offload' it onto someone else.
I guess a good litmus test of whether you've met your obligation would be: "Does the person fulfilling YOUR gpl source obligation KNOW and AGREE that they are fulfilling YOUR gpl source obligation?"
You can't get by simply by using other unwitting parties to fulfill your obligations even if they are hosting the content anyway. That's not good enough.
The GP is wrong because he apparently assumes that if you take gpl code, put it in a box unmodified, that you can sell it without including the offer to provide source.
That is in clear direct violation of the GPL.
If you were to even just download a common oss app like Azureus and tossed it up on your own website for other people to download you are responsible for making the source code available.
As an aside, I'm suddenly curious how and if this impacts on p2p. Would someone downloading a torrent be technically responsible for providing the source, because they are also distributing it? I wonder...
Spam will not be solved by legal remedies. Spam will be solved by technical solutions. We already have abundant technical solutions. We just don't have the will to implement them, 'because we might lose some legitimate mail during the transition', and security is always at odds with convenience.
I mean, a simple domain reputation system coupled with strict enforcement of SPF, and blocking mail for which SPF hasn't been setup, or for which SPF has been setup too permissively would make a huge dent.
All ISPs should also: 1) Block all outbound port 25 smtp from their clients that doesn't go to their own mail server. Business customers (and perhaps even residential customers should be allowed to ask that this limit be removed from their account, if they wish to run their own mail server.)
2) Require smtp authentication on all smtp mail from their clients to the ISP server. Not negotiable. Not having this is almost as bad as open relays when considering how some botnets operate.
3) Set limits on hourly, daily, monthly email volume for all their clients. Again lets clients negotiate higher limits if they need them. For residential clients, instead of letting them up their limits, set it up so they can even self-authorize one-time amounts as needed. I normally send less than 100 email per day. And I'd be fine with a 100 email per day limit. If I need to send out a newsletter to 5000 people for a client, let me login to my ISP via a form and pre-auth sending 5k mails.
Do all that, and most spam would be a distant memory.
You say this like it's a bad thing. You actually want the government reading your mail?
I never said it was like a bad thing. If you read all my posts in this subthread you'll see that I am actually in full agreement with the government NOT regulating email communication.
I don't see any reason to assume Ron Paul likes spamming.
Me either. I'm not assuming he likes spam. I'm asserting he doesn't think its the federal governments problem to fix.
So then you also think that Ron Paul would allow slandering and false advertising?
No. Although again, in many cases I'm not sure he would consider it a federal matter.
Like many other people, you completely misunderstand libertarianism. Like I said in my message, just because someone believes in smaller government doesn't mean that they believe that everything should be legal. You have vastly over simplified things.
No. You seem to think I think and said things that I didn't. Based on what you think I said you'd be right. But I didn't say those things. I didn't say Ron Paul liked spam. I didn't say that Ron Paul thinks slander or spam should be legal. You've erected a nice straw man and beaten him down soundly. But that straw man isn't me.
And ironically, after you're whole message, you point out how if we eliminated the meager spam laws we have, that the market would find a solution anyway. Wow, you might have actually just convinced me that we should vote for Ron Paul, and that the spammers are right!
Maybe you should. I think he'd be an excellent president. I don't support all of his views, and I am for a national health care system, which he'd likely never support, etc. But overall the man has impressed me. If nothing else, he has real integrity.
That's like saying that "A vote for candidate X is a vote for terrorism" or "Osama Bin Laden would vote for so-and-so." Spammers like Ron Paul, so vote against him! [Your favorite team's rival] will vote for Ron Paul!
No. No its not. Petty idiocy like "A vote for So-and-so is a vote for terrorism." or "a vote for spammers" is one of my pet peeves. Its not black and white. Just because a politician won't vote against gay marriage doesn't mean he's pro-anal-sex. Just because he won't vote national health care doesn't mean he's pro-disease. And just be he won't vote to ban unsolicited email doesn't mean he's pro-spammer.
How are Ron Paul's philosophies any better for spammers? People seem to have this idea that a guy who likes a smaller government is okay with everything being legal.
Its not that he likes smaller government, its that he wouldn't see this as the governments role. Period.
The constitution would have to be read pretty loosely to interpret that it somehow granted the federal government the right to decide under what conditions a person or business contacted you with advertising, sales offers, or even just information.
Spam is not an invasion of privacy. Its your mailbox that you've set to receive mail from anybody. You are free not to have a mailbox. You are free to choose not to open unsolicited mail. You are free to set up a list of people you accept email from and everything else can be routed directly to the trash bin.
If Businesses and ISPs are upset with the resources unsolicited email uses, they are free to SELF-REGULATE the problem. The market can find solutions without government. Ron Paul, at its basic level, wouldn't see regulating spam as a reasonable interpretation of fitting within governments constitutionally mandated roles.
The man voted against the do-not-call-registry. He will not vote to stop spam.
Don't get me wrong, I think Ron Paul is -right- not to support the do-not-call-registry. There were better solutions that didn't require the government making it illegal. We could have implemented a 'telemarketing blacklist' that people could have subscribed to... if a telemarketer tried to call you, and you subscribed to the list, your phone wouldn't ring and the call blocked. And that's just a trivial 'for example'.
Similiarly he would be correct in not banning spam. Spam is a basic technical problem that could be easily solved in a number of ways -if we really wanted to-. The last thing we need is a legislative and regulatory solution to a technical problem.
Solving spam would not be that hard if the market were willing to suffer some transition pain. The reason we're stuck, is on some level, people idiotically want to be able to receive email from anyone under any circumstances, and simultaneously be shielded from receiving email they don't want.
1) Just enforcing SPF would make a huge dent in spam, and we don't have cajones to even do that, because "too many people would be affected". Suck it up. Lets enforce SPF, and don't allow any BS like an SPF record that authorizes any server anywhere.
2) Block users who are infected until they clean up. And block other ISPs that don't.
3) Let the market create domain reputation systems that people can subscribe too. In conjunction with hard SPF enforcement this is going to REALLY cut down on the amount of spam going around. Spammers won't be able to effectively impersonate legitimate domains, and they'll have little success registering their own domains.
4) Require authentication with ISP servers for all sending. ISPs should block port 25 smtp traffic by default on all client accounts including businesses. They should open up 25 on request. The people that need it will ask. The people that don't need it shouldn't have it.
Bottom line, if we as society are that upset about spam we should be telling our ISPs to take the necessary technical steps to stop it. We shouldn't whine at government to get involved and make sure we only get the ema
Ummm...not meaning to be impolite, but are you on crack? The whole problem with spam is that it intrudes on someone else's private property. Ron Paul is a very strong defender of private property. He would be their worst nightmare.
Ron Paul is all for privacy in the sense that he would never authorize government to monitor citizens at large. But in the same breath he would never authorize government to regulate the communications other businesses, eterprises, or citizens would send to you either. Including advertisments, sales offers, unsolicited email, or spam.
Think I'm wrong? Remember the "Do not call list"? Well, when the FTC imposed it the telemarketing industry responded arguing that the FTC had no such authority to impose such a system, and a judge *agreed* with the telemarketing industry. So what do you think happened next?
Well, a bill was introduced in Congress to specifically authorize the FTC to create the do-not-call-list. It passed Congress 412-8, and it passed the senate 95-0. The 'people' had spoken, and our right to have dinner without being tele-offered a long distance plan was established!
Would it surprise you to know that Ron Paul, your champion of privacy, was one of those 8 that voted AGAINST authorizing the FTC to create the do-not-call-list? Don't beleive me? Look it up.
I mean, if I were operating a botnet and sending out spam, and I wanted to protect my business interests I'd vote Ron Paul.
Not that Ron Paul is 'pro botnets' or anything absurd like that, but his policies and philosophy would be more hospitible to their business model than nanny-states and government-monitoring of all communications.
If I had a botnet, why wouldn't I use it to promote my candidate of choice during its free time?
That's the fault of the developer then, not the platform. Look at orange box. Plays wonderfully on both the 360, and the PC.
I disagree. The console as a platform for FPS -sucks-. I HATE dual analog controllers for FPS games. And adding auto-aim, auto-lockon, or auto-headhshot features to help compensate for the fact that the controllers are gimped just adds insult to injury.
That said the Wii -is- an excellent platform for FPS titles. The controls are a bit less precise than keyboard+mouse, and its more effort to hold your crosshairs steady on a point, but its 'realistic' effort that adds to the immersion.
You kill one person, you kill a thousand. It's still one bomb.
Pretty much. You don't get off easy simply because your bomb went off an hour early and only killed the janitor instead of a stadium full of people. The punishment for terrorism is harsh, but it isn't multiplied by how many people you killed, (plus how many people you injured pro rated by how much they got hurt on a meat chart... a finger is worth this much, two fingers is twice as much...??)
That's just stupid.
Explain that to the families.
Sure I'd be happy to tell them that the terrorist has been caught, and punished to the extent of the law, and is likely facing all of the best years of his life in prison, if not all of his life in prison... if not death.
"The Families" will just have to accept that. We're not going to torture him back, blow up his family, or whatever revenges they might like. (At least we shouldn't, and the law saws we shouldn't... Bush might go for it though.)
Your idea forces me to plan ahead and buy $95 + tax of stuff periodically during the course of the year.
Not really. It forces you to plan ahead so that you won't rely on payphones even 3 times a year.
I think you could probably just borrow someone elses phone for those 3 times, or use the phone belonging to a local business. Although you might expect to pay a few bucks for the priviledge, whether its buying merchandise (a coffe or a donut or whatever, or just paying straight up to use the phone.
it's paying as a punishment for illegally redistributing it, and as a deterrent to future piracy.
Gotcha, so why exactly do we multiply the punishment times the number of songs that were simultaneously shared from a single computer as part of a single instance of a single crime?
$9250 total already seems a bit excessive as punishment for a first conviction of illegally sharing some songs via p2p for no personal gain.
$9250 per song... that's just stupid.
I know a 12 year old who shares some 10,000 songs via p2p; should he or his parents really be fined $92 million?
And for each instance, there should be a greater than 1 to 1 fine so that it's actually a punishment and deterrent.
Right, but its only one instance of the crime. They only got convicted once. It doesn't matter that they were sharing multiple songs.
If a guy steals a handful of bulk M&M's do you count the M's? If a cop pulls you over for speeding do you get charged for each yard you were observed speeding or for each mile over the limit you are? I can see it now...
"Sir, I followed you for the last mile and you consistently went 67. This stretch is a 55. So I'm fining you, and we really need this to be an actual punishment and deterrent so I'll set the base fine at $9250 per instance of the crime."
"Now lets see, there are 63360 inches in a mile, and you were speeding in each one of them... so 63360 x 9250... you owe just over 586 million dollars. I hope you've learned your lesson, son. Your just lucky I pulled you over when I did, I have a suspicion you would have kept up your pace at least another 20 miles if I hadn't. And you know,... this town has always wanted its own jet fighter squadron."
Ogg Vorbis, however, is truly the best option, since 1) it has the best technical performance of any of them, and 2) it's completely free and open, not just in implementation and code but also is free of patents. I keep all my ripped music in O-V format, which works equally well on my home machine playing Amarok, and on my portable iRiver H330.
Except its -not- the best option, because despite being open source and totally free it -STILL- isn't supported on half my devices, despite the fact that I can compile it myself if I want to.
That still doesn't get it onto the ipods, my cell phone, my car stereo, or my 5 year olds Sansa shaker [Awesome little mp3 player for a young kid.] MP3 on the other hand, despite the patents, actually is available absolutely everywhere, making mp3 truly the best option.
At this stage we'd be better off if we just wait out the patents (2017 according to wp), at which point mp3 will be as free as ogg.
You mean you don't think that goes on already, all the time?
Of course it happens already, all the time.
But, we, as the 'slashdot crowd', don't usually clamour to enact laws to protect those FUD spreading sockpuppets from having the possibility of having their true identities revealed.
Only the hypocrites among us. The rest would realize that Wal-Mart's employees also enjoy the freedom to speak, even when we don't approve of the message.
Even when someone claims to be a WalMart employee when they aren't? In order to spread propaganda?
I have no problem with WalMart employees saying whatever they want in their blogs, whether its a lowly greeter or the CEO.
However I'm not sure I agree with the CEO impersonating the lowly greeters spread anti-union FUD. And I'm pretty sure that even if we let him do it, we shouldn't shield those sockpuppets anonymity by law to make sure he can't get unmasked.
If what the blogger says is true, does it matter if it's the old mayor? If it isn't true - why keep on reading it?
1) People generally have no way to tell if its true or not. Many things don't even have a really knowable truth value. (Is music piracy helping or harming artists overall?) Most interesting questions don't have simple one word answers.
2) True or not, if it makes for a good juicy story, people will believe it droves. If the 'corrupt womanizing simpson-ish' mayor is writing the piece but is claiming to be an anonymous hardworking millworker who goes to church every sunday with his family, the story will have credibility with a group of people who would have rejected it out of hand if they knew the mayour wrote it... even if they can't know exactly which 'millworker' its supposedly from.
ie The mayors 'version' of truth, might be a lot more saleable if its perceived (indeed, especially if its perceived) as not coming from the mayor. And of course, anything that is sympathetic to the mayor will be a lot more credible if its not perceived as being written by him.
But what if the blogger is in fact the guy being sued for malpractice or someone directly involved in the case? Should that still be protected? Should someone be allowed to create 'sock puppet sympathizers' to defend them? To editorialize on their behalf? To criticize their opponents with impunity?
Something seems wrong with that. When speaking anonymously its easy to say things because you have no personal accountability for what's said. That can be used for good and for evil. I'm not sure it should be automatically protected.
After all, we'd be outraged if Walmart managers started series of grassroots anti-union blogs in a number of places... "I'm just an anonymous low level walmart employee like you whose against the unionization because... reason reason reason reason... and I'm posting anonymously because I fear retaliation from the union rabble rousers who just want to consolidate power for themselves. I we unionize they'll win, and we'll all lose. And then over the following weeks posted all kinds of stuff criticising the union organizers in every way imaginable."
Each blog would repeat the others and manufacture 'truth by repetition'.
There'd be no way to prove it was management, because of course:
We must protect anonoymous online journalists!!111!
Slashdot Mirror
But you're trying to tell me we had 10 years of development that executives at Nintendo somehow missed.
No. I'm trying to tell you that Wii friend codes are a step sideways from what we have today. They are considerably MORE advanced and easy to use than what we had 10 years ago on a PC.
And they are entirely effective at what they do, and meet the criteria that you don't have to be exposed to assholes, idiots, pedophiles, spammers, and morons in order to play multiplayer.
This is something, that, for all its vaunted greatness, the other modern implementations of multiplayer systems have not done well at all. Being able to create a private treehouse in the sewer is not a solution to being in the sewer.
Personally I'd like to see the friend-code system remain intact, but have the PC paradigm added as an optional Wii download channel. The people that want it can have it, and it can be parentally controlled so that you can wallow on a battlenet clone and talk trash all you want, get matched, get ranked, play in tournaments, whatever.
But your 3 year old neice can play wii-tennis with her grandmother without having to dip her feet (or her grandmothers feet) in the shit that goes on in typical online chat systems.
Everybody wins.
It moves his motive from self-defense to murder. If you can't see that being a difference I can't help you.
But at least ask yourself this: if it makes no difference why did they change the order?
Did you actually play online games?
Did you? Its your memory that's defective here, not mine.
What do you call Battle.net?
I call it the first of its kind.
Every other game either either shipped with a similar service, or with a server filter.
No. Battle.net launched with Diablo. Pretty much every other game at the time launched with "search for a game on the lan" [IPX] and "exchange your ip address" [TCP/IP] methods. Other games companies eventually mimicked battle.net, and expanded on the idea.
an attempt on the part of Nintendo to placate the parents of the preschoolers who might be in their audience
Battle.net, for example, allowed private games for friends and also had options to squelch any or all online gamers in public games
Yep. Login to the public chat, create a private password room, and then tell your friends the room name and the password.
1) Oh wait, that's like exchanging friend codes.
2) And it doesn't even isolate you from the human filth in the public chat, since you have to go through the public chat to get to the private one. Seems counter productive.
Besides, I've never heard anyone ask for the friend code "feature".
Even the xbox has friend lists.
And fundamentally Its no different than trading ip addresses or trading room/password ids for private chat rooms.
I agree with you in-so-far as I think that it would be nice to -also- have the option to join a public chatroom battle.net-esque service. And let that be something that can either be installed or not at the owners discretion. But if they had that it would complement friendcodes, not replace them.
No its just bad and lazy. And why are you putting the xbox model as the pinnacle of online gaming?
I put them as a polar opposite, not the pinnacle.
Sony doesn't charge to play online and and online gaming has been around, in a big way, for over 10 years on the PC (usually free).
Yeah, and do you remember how it worked 10 years ago? You exchanged IP addresses. The "friend codes" exchange is remarkably similiar to the old ip address exchange. Its actually a LOT more polished.
I'm not saying its the best system, not by a long shot, but it works.
Friend codes might work well for 6 year old kids (and you), but most of us can handle being exposed to random online gamers.
I think it would be nice to have the option. But I can also understand why a lot of people wouldn't want that, and should be able to play with their friends without being exposed to random online gamers.
Online gaming on the Wii is atrocious.
Nintendo is still viewing online games as a way for you to play essentially one-on-one with your real life friends; they haven't embraced the whole 'online community' thing. That's good and bad. They don't have much in the way of matching services and chat areas. They don't have player profiles, they don't force microtransactions down your throat, they don't have 'gamer acheivements' so that the truly lame can can show the world just how lame they are, oh, and they don't charge you for basic multiplayer capabilities either.
Overall, I'd prefer my kids not be exposed to the human waste that lives in xbox live. Friend codes work well for me.
But I concede that there are some aspects of xbox live that it would be nice to have as an -optional- element of the Wii multiplayer experience.
Wouldn't surprise me if it shows up as another downloadable channel one day... but then it wouldn't surprise if it doesn't evolve again until the next generation of systems either.
It's not like Wiis are that cheap to begin with, at least not the way most people set them up.
Wii - $250
Wii Play w/Wiimote - $50
Two more Wiimotes - $80
An extra Nunchuk - $20
Component Video Cable - $20
And you're at $420 without buying any meaningful games, at regular retail price.
Sort of.
I am nearly your exact config (just add 2 classic controllers). But it probably took me 6 months before I had 4 Wii Remotes. (Although I actually had my "1st" Wii Remote, component cable, and spare nunchuk a full 4 months before I actually managed to get the Wii.
[At launch even the accessories were impossible to get, so I grabbed what I could, when I could.]
But while that might be how MANY Wii's end up, you can put a $300 box under the tree, if that's your budget, and still have something entertaining. If your buying it for someone over 15 they can accessorize it themselves.
That budget factor important to a lot of people. You can always add the other stuff later. And you definitely don't -need- 4 wii remotes on day one.
I'd say most people spring for a 2nd wii remote via Wii Play pretty quick, but it can take a while before they add more / finish it up. My parents, for example, got a Wii in the summer; and have added a second wii remote (wii play) and nunchuk, but that's it. They haven't bothered with the component cable either (their 32" TV can take component, but its SD, and for them its just not a priority. I doubt they are even really aware that they could upgrade the cable.)
Beyond that, I just don't buy the argument that a 360 or a PS3 is a true competitor to the Wii. People who buy the Wii want it for the innovative game play, and nothing else satisfies that demand.
Yeah, a BIG part of the market for the Wii only is interested in the Wii. For people who ultimately want both a Wii and either an xbox or ps3 (or all three) are going to get one of the other two, but yeah, a big part of the market just has no interest in the other two consoles.
My parents again, haven't got the slightest interest in either the xbox or ps3, at any price.
Meanwhile, I've never had any trouble with Seagate...and find Maxtor to be the bane of my existence.
He would have voted for the list if it were run by the FCC.
I'm skeptical of that. Paul isn't exactly in favor EITHER department from what I've read. And the only part of the FCC that he'd probably deem necessary is the part that regulates spectrum, because RF spectrum allocation and use is inherently an intersstate (even international) issue. (Which is why the FCC is in the ITU [international telecommunications union].)
But on the wired side, the FCC's role is probably obsolete. I can't think of anything they do in wired communications that is remotely necessary.
The FCC has a long history of banning certain types of communication: broadcasting on certain frequencies, or using too much power, etc. These don't violate the first amendment.
True. But those are a fundamentally different situation. RF bandwidth is an effectively scarce resource that doesn't respect any borders. Whoever builds the most, and most powerful transmitters wins. Neighboring states and countries would compete to drown eachother out. Emergency services would have to cope with high power transmitters blasting rock music into their bands etc. Clearly some sort of federal (and even international) oversight and cooperation is required.
email or phone calls simply do not have anything like these issues.
In summary, Ron Paul made his decision based on first amendment issues. It is not clear that the issues of privacy or property rights even made it onto his screen.
And from your own quote:
"The FTC has imposed a content-based limitation on what the consumer may ban from his home, thereby entangling the government in deciding what speech the consumer should hear."
I think he'd see the same sort of 'entanglement' in a bill that decided what email the consumer should receive. I think he'd vote against the federal government taking that sort of role, regardless of what department. While he may have specifically criticised the use of the FTC for the do-not-call-registry, I think that's simply because that's the department in question. I simply can't see him approving the FCC to entangle the government in what speech consumers hear either.
PS: sorry about the 'crack' comment.
Its slashdot. I expect it. An apology for it though is a welcome surprise. Thanks.
No. That has never been the case.
You are responsible for fulfilling that gpl obligation by taking responsibility for providing the source. Note that 'taking responsibility' doesn't mean you actually have to do it yourself. You could hire someone to handle that obligation, you could even make an arrangement with the party you got it from to handle that obligation.
But you can't just 'offload' it onto someone else.
I guess a good litmus test of whether you've met your obligation would be: "Does the person fulfilling YOUR gpl source obligation KNOW and AGREE that they are fulfilling YOUR gpl source obligation?"
You can't get by simply by using other unwitting parties to fulfill your obligations even if they are hosting the content anyway. That's not good enough.
The GP is wrong because he apparently assumes that if you take gpl code, put it in a box unmodified, that you can sell it without including the offer to provide source.
That is in clear direct violation of the GPL.
If you were to even just download a common oss app like Azureus and tossed it up on your own website for other people to download you are responsible for making the source code available.
As an aside, I'm suddenly curious how and if this impacts on p2p. Would someone downloading a torrent be technically responsible for providing the source, because they are also distributing it? I wonder...
Spam will not be solved by legal remedies. Spam will be solved by technical solutions. We already have abundant technical solutions. We just don't have the will to implement them, 'because we might lose some legitimate mail during the transition', and security is always at odds with convenience.
I mean, a simple domain reputation system coupled with strict enforcement of SPF, and blocking mail for which SPF hasn't been setup, or for which SPF has been setup too permissively would make a huge dent.
All ISPs should also:
1) Block all outbound port 25 smtp from their clients that doesn't go to their own mail server. Business customers (and perhaps even residential customers should be allowed to ask that this limit be removed from their account, if they wish to run their own mail server.)
2) Require smtp authentication on all smtp mail from their clients to the ISP server. Not negotiable. Not having this is almost as bad as open relays when considering how some botnets operate.
3) Set limits on hourly, daily, monthly email volume for all their clients. Again lets clients negotiate higher limits if they need them. For residential clients, instead of letting them up their limits, set it up so they can even self-authorize one-time amounts as needed. I normally send less than 100 email per day. And I'd be fine with a 100 email per day limit. If I need to send out a newsletter to 5000 people for a client, let me login to my ISP via a form and pre-auth sending 5k mails.
Do all that, and most spam would be a distant memory.
You say this like it's a bad thing. You actually want the government reading your mail?
I never said it was like a bad thing. If you read all my posts in this subthread you'll see that I am actually in full agreement with the government NOT regulating email communication.
I don't see any reason to assume Ron Paul likes spamming.
Me either. I'm not assuming he likes spam.
I'm asserting he doesn't think its the federal governments problem to fix.
So then you also think that Ron Paul would allow slandering and false advertising?
No. Although again, in many cases I'm not sure he would consider it a federal matter.
Like many other people, you completely misunderstand libertarianism. Like I said in my message, just because someone believes in smaller government doesn't mean that they believe that everything should be legal. You have vastly over simplified things.
No. You seem to think I think and said things that I didn't. Based on what you think I said you'd be right. But I didn't say those things. I didn't say Ron Paul liked spam. I didn't say that Ron Paul thinks slander or spam should be legal. You've erected a nice straw man and beaten him down soundly. But that straw man isn't me.
And ironically, after you're whole message, you point out how if we eliminated the meager spam laws we have, that the market would find a solution anyway. Wow, you might have actually just convinced me that we should vote for Ron Paul, and that the spammers are right!
Maybe you should. I think he'd be an excellent president. I don't support all of his views, and I am for a national health care system, which he'd likely never support, etc. But overall the man has impressed me. If nothing else, he has real integrity.
That's like saying that "A vote for candidate X is a vote for terrorism" or "Osama Bin Laden would vote for so-and-so." Spammers like Ron Paul, so vote against him! [Your favorite team's rival] will vote for Ron Paul!
No. No its not. Petty idiocy like "A vote for So-and-so is a vote for terrorism." or "a vote for spammers" is one of my pet peeves. Its not black and white. Just because a politician won't vote against gay marriage doesn't mean he's pro-anal-sex. Just because he won't vote national health care doesn't mean he's pro-disease. And just be he won't vote to ban unsolicited email doesn't mean he's pro-spammer.
How are Ron Paul's philosophies any better for spammers? People seem to have this idea that a guy who likes a smaller government is okay with everything being legal.
Its not that he likes smaller government, its that he wouldn't see this as the governments role. Period.
The constitution would have to be read pretty loosely to interpret that it somehow granted the federal government the right to decide under what conditions a person or business contacted you with advertising, sales offers, or even just information.
Spam is not an invasion of privacy. Its your mailbox that you've set to receive mail from anybody. You are free not to have a mailbox. You are free to choose not to open unsolicited mail. You are free to set up a list of people you accept email from and everything else can be routed directly to the trash bin.
If Businesses and ISPs are upset with the resources unsolicited email uses, they are free to SELF-REGULATE the problem. The market can find solutions without government. Ron Paul, at its basic level, wouldn't see regulating spam as a reasonable interpretation of fitting within governments constitutionally mandated roles.
The man voted against the do-not-call-registry. He will not vote to stop spam.
Don't get me wrong, I think Ron Paul is -right- not to support the do-not-call-registry. There were better solutions that didn't require the government making it illegal. We could have implemented a 'telemarketing blacklist' that people could have subscribed to... if a telemarketer tried to call you, and you subscribed to the list, your phone wouldn't ring and the call blocked. And that's just a trivial 'for example'.
Similiarly he would be correct in not banning spam. Spam is a basic technical problem that could be easily solved in a number of ways -if we really wanted to-. The last thing we need is a legislative and regulatory solution to a technical problem.
Solving spam would not be that hard if the market were willing to suffer some transition pain. The reason we're stuck, is on some level, people idiotically want to be able to receive email from anyone under any circumstances, and simultaneously be shielded from receiving email they don't want.
1) Just enforcing SPF would make a huge dent in spam, and we don't have cajones to even do that, because "too many people would be affected". Suck it up. Lets enforce SPF, and don't allow any BS like an SPF record that authorizes any server anywhere.
2) Block users who are infected until they clean up. And block other ISPs that don't.
3) Let the market create domain reputation systems that people can subscribe too. In conjunction with hard SPF enforcement this is going to REALLY cut down on the amount of spam going around. Spammers won't be able to effectively impersonate legitimate domains, and they'll have little success registering their own domains.
4) Require authentication with ISP servers for all sending. ISPs should block port 25 smtp traffic by default on all client accounts including businesses. They should open up 25 on request. The people that need it will ask. The people that don't need it shouldn't have it.
Bottom line, if we as society are that upset about spam we should be telling our ISPs to take the necessary technical steps to stop it. We shouldn't whine at government to get involved and make sure we only get the ema
Ummm...not meaning to be impolite, but are you on crack? The whole problem with spam is that it intrudes on someone else's private property. Ron Paul is a very strong defender of private property. He would be their worst nightmare.
Ron Paul is all for privacy in the sense that he would never authorize government to monitor citizens at large. But in the same breath he would never authorize government to regulate the communications other businesses, eterprises, or citizens would send to you either. Including advertisments, sales offers, unsolicited email, or spam.
Think I'm wrong? Remember the "Do not call list"? Well, when the FTC imposed it the telemarketing industry responded arguing that the FTC had no such authority to impose such a system, and a judge *agreed* with the telemarketing industry. So what do you think happened next?
Well, a bill was introduced in Congress to specifically authorize the FTC to create the do-not-call-list. It passed Congress 412-8, and it passed the senate 95-0. The 'people' had spoken, and our right to have dinner without being tele-offered a long distance plan was established!
Would it surprise you to know that Ron Paul, your champion of privacy, was one of those 8 that voted AGAINST authorizing the FTC to create the do-not-call-list? Don't beleive me? Look it up.
Here's some links to get you started - some background:
http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/09/25/congress.no.call/index.html
and
http://www.vote-smart.org/voting_category.php?can_id=BC031929
Section: "Technology and Communication", Date: 09/25/2003, Bill: "Do-Not-Call-Registry Bill"
Or you can take my word for it: He voted "No".
I'm quite confident he'd vote *against* any bill that proposed the government some how step in and regulate email of ANY kind, including spam.
I mean, if I were operating a botnet and sending out spam, and I wanted to protect my business interests I'd vote Ron Paul.
Not that Ron Paul is 'pro botnets' or anything absurd like that, but his policies and philosophy would be more hospitible to their business model than nanny-states and government-monitoring of all communications.
If I had a botnet, why wouldn't I use it to promote my candidate of choice during its free time?
That's the fault of the developer then, not the platform. Look at orange box. Plays wonderfully on both the 360, and the PC.
I disagree. The console as a platform for FPS -sucks-. I HATE dual analog controllers for FPS games. And adding auto-aim, auto-lockon, or auto-headhshot features to help compensate for the fact that the controllers are gimped just adds insult to injury.
That said the Wii -is- an excellent platform for FPS titles. The controls are a bit less precise than keyboard+mouse, and its more effort to hold your crosshairs steady on a point, but its 'realistic' effort that adds to the immersion.
You kill one person, you kill a thousand. It's still one bomb.
Pretty much. You don't get off easy simply because your bomb went off an hour early and only killed the janitor instead of a stadium full of people. The punishment for terrorism is harsh, but it isn't multiplied by how many people you killed, (plus how many people you injured pro rated by how much they got hurt on a meat chart... a finger is worth this much, two fingers is twice as much...??)
That's just stupid.
Explain that to the families.
Sure I'd be happy to tell them that the terrorist has been caught, and punished to the extent of the law, and is likely facing all of the best years of his life in prison, if not all of his life in prison... if not death.
"The Families" will just have to accept that. We're not going to torture him back, blow up his family, or whatever revenges they might like. (At least we shouldn't, and the law saws we shouldn't... Bush might go for it though.)
Your idea forces me to plan ahead and buy $95 + tax of stuff periodically during the course of the year.
Not really. It forces you to plan ahead so that you won't rely on payphones even 3 times a year.
I think you could probably just borrow someone elses phone for those 3 times, or use the phone belonging to a local business. Although you might expect to pay a few bucks for the priviledge, whether its buying merchandise (a coffe or a donut or whatever, or just paying straight up to use the phone.
it's paying as a punishment for illegally redistributing it, and as a deterrent to future piracy.
Gotcha, so why exactly do we multiply the punishment times the number of songs that were simultaneously shared from a single computer as part of a single instance of a single crime?
$9250 total already seems a bit excessive as punishment for a first conviction of illegally sharing some songs via p2p for no personal gain.
$9250 per song... that's just stupid.
I know a 12 year old who shares some 10,000 songs via p2p; should he or his parents really be fined $92 million?
And for each instance, there should be a greater than 1 to 1 fine so that it's actually a punishment and deterrent.
Right, but its only one instance of the crime. They only got convicted once. It doesn't matter that they were sharing multiple songs.
If a guy steals a handful of bulk M&M's do you count the M's? If a cop pulls you over for speeding do you get charged for each yard you were observed speeding or for each mile over the limit you are? I can see it now...
"Sir, I followed you for the last mile and you consistently went 67. This stretch is a 55. So I'm fining you, and we really need this to be an actual punishment and deterrent so I'll set the base fine at $9250 per instance of the crime."
"Now lets see, there are 63360 inches in a mile, and you were speeding in each one of them... so 63360 x 9250... you owe just over 586 million dollars. I hope you've learned your lesson, son. Your just lucky I pulled you over when I did, I have a suspicion you would have kept up your pace at least another 20 miles if I hadn't. And you know,... this town has always wanted its own jet fighter squadron."
Ogg Vorbis, however, is truly the best option, since 1) it has the best technical performance of any of them, and 2) it's completely free and open, not just in implementation and code but also is free of patents. I keep all my ripped music in O-V format, which works equally well on my home machine playing Amarok, and on my portable iRiver H330.
Except its -not- the best option, because despite being open source and totally free it -STILL- isn't supported on half my devices, despite the fact that I can compile it myself if I want to.
That still doesn't get it onto the ipods, my cell phone, my car stereo, or my 5 year olds Sansa shaker [Awesome little mp3 player for a young kid.] MP3 on the other hand, despite the patents, actually is available absolutely everywhere, making mp3 truly the best option.
At this stage we'd be better off if we just wait out the patents (2017 according to wp), at which point mp3 will be as free as ogg.
You mean you don't think that goes on already, all the time?
Of course it happens already, all the time.
But, we, as the 'slashdot crowd', don't usually clamour to enact laws to protect those FUD spreading sockpuppets from having the possibility of having their true identities revealed.
Only the hypocrites among us. The rest would realize that Wal-Mart's employees also enjoy the freedom to speak, even when we don't approve of the message.
Even when someone claims to be a WalMart employee when they aren't? In order to spread propaganda?
I have no problem with WalMart employees saying whatever they want in their blogs, whether its a lowly greeter or the CEO.
However I'm not sure I agree with the CEO impersonating the lowly greeters spread anti-union FUD. And I'm pretty sure that even if we let him do it, we shouldn't shield those sockpuppets anonymity by law to make sure he can't get unmasked.
If what the blogger says is true, does it matter if it's the old mayor? If it isn't true - why keep on reading it?
1) People generally have no way to tell if its true or not. Many things don't even have a really knowable truth value. (Is music piracy helping or harming artists overall?) Most interesting questions don't have simple one word answers.
2) True or not, if it makes for a good juicy story, people will believe it droves. If the 'corrupt womanizing simpson-ish' mayor is writing the piece but is claiming to be an anonymous hardworking millworker who goes to church every sunday with his family, the story will have credibility with a group of people who would have rejected it out of hand if they knew the mayour wrote it... even if they can't know exactly which 'millworker' its supposedly from.
ie The mayors 'version' of truth, might be a lot more saleable if its perceived (indeed, especially if its perceived) as not coming from the mayor. And of course, anything that is sympathetic to the mayor will be a lot more credible if its not perceived as being written by him.
But what if the blogger is in fact the guy being sued for malpractice or someone directly involved in the case? Should that still be protected? Should someone be allowed to create 'sock puppet sympathizers' to defend them? To editorialize on their behalf? To criticize their opponents with impunity?
Something seems wrong with that. When speaking anonymously its easy to say things because you have no personal accountability for what's said. That can be used for good and for evil. I'm not sure it should be automatically protected.
After all, we'd be outraged if Walmart managers started series of grassroots anti-union blogs in a number of places... "I'm just an anonymous low level walmart employee like you whose against the unionization because... reason reason reason reason... and I'm posting anonymously because I fear retaliation from the union rabble rousers who just want to consolidate power for themselves. I we unionize they'll win, and we'll all lose. And then over the following weeks posted all kinds of stuff criticising the union organizers in every way imaginable."
Each blog would repeat the others and manufacture 'truth by repetition'.
There'd be no way to prove it was management, because of course:
We must protect anonoymous online journalists!!111!