I'm sorry, but the people who actually yearn for this type of game are a much smaller number than the people who play games to enjoy them.
What exactly is enjoyable about a game you cannot lose?
It makes the leveling part of the game quick and enjoyable (for the masses) and made the end game where they would focus on challenge and teamwork (for the "hardcores"). They combined the best of all worlds and dropped most of the boring crap and that is why it is popular.
The masses and the hardcores are different groups. The leveling part of the game is tedious and pointless, and that's all the masses get to see. The hardcores, yes, they get an interesting game to play... but not all of us can (or will) play as part of organized raid guilds playing daily at the same time. Its not the best of all worlds. Its two different worlds sandwiched together, with the two population groups barely interacting with each other.
In EQ, are you going to take on that strange monster you never saw before that is a bunch of levels above you? Of course not, you are going to run for safety.
In early EQ, you knew better than to take monsters a 'bunch levels above you'. The game as much as told you when you looked at it not be an idiot. It was the monsters slightly above your level that posed a challenge -for your group-. As EQ aged, and mudflation took hold the whole 'monster evaluation system' broke... because you could take on critters 3-5 levels above your group... but not 20. Of course some monsters were undercons, and some where overcons, where they were tougher or weaker than they appeared... that wasn't a bug it was a feature. It added uncertainty when facing new mobs. And you quickly learned to deal with it. In some games it almost tells you what your exact odds of winning are before you take yoru first swing.
In WoW, you can take bigger risks because it isn't a big deal.
In WoW every battle outcome is only a question of how far forwards you will go. Do you want to fight small monsters where you'll go a little bit forwards every fight? Or fight bigger ones where you'll go further after most fights, but won't move at all occasionally. Oooo...lets take the 'bigger risk'...
You have to have something to lose before you can call it a risk. In WoW, outside of the raid game, very rarely are you in situations where you take actual risks.
I understand there is more of a rush when you have more on the line. And some people like that.
Indeed! Although with WoW, since you usually have nothing on the line, why is 'victory' any rush at all?
And there are niche games like Eve Online that supposedly cater to that sort of personality type. The problem with these games that are high risk...people take less risks and it becomes boring.
I disagree. I think in the case of Eve, the problem is that risk levels have become unmanageable. For many many a foray into 0.0 is a losing proposition. The odds of being blown to bits unless you belong to the right social network permanently exceeds the odds of making a profit.
This is a failure of Eve's mechanics. Eve could be improved.
I can't imagine how groups would form in EQ, unless you already knew everyone involved.
The risk of someone else screwing up and getting you all killed was far less than the risk of getting yourself killed if you tried to do anything interesting by yourself.
At least, I'd never join a PuG, because I'm never going to want to risk losing 2 hours of actual progress because of someone else's screwup.
I hear ya man, I mean, I know you only logged in to watch that little xp bar move forwards. The actual socializing, and working as a team, and so on are all secondary concerns.
In a WoW PuG I'm only risking the actual time I spend with the PuG (plus some gold), they can't actually undo the progress I've made before.
Not only that. If you spend any time with a group (pug or otherwise) that doesn't directly result in "progress" that time must have been "wasted".
My time has meaning.
Yes, I can see that. I certainly understand how you wouldn't want "playing the game" to get in the way of "progression".
We're talking about a genre that is already defined by taking the least amount of content and turning it into the maximum amount of time spent by the player by requiring lengthy "grinds".
Who defined it like that? Everquest wasn't meant to be a game you 'finished'. It was meant to be a game you explored. There was plenty to do at 20th level, and even more to do at 30th. The game at 50th wasn't going to disappear, so what's the rush?
At least when I grind in WoW I'm making forward progress. Two hours is a full night's session -- if I logged on one night, ground away for two hours, then the next night had to repeat the exact same process because I'd gotten unlucky and died, I'd cancel my subscription.
I would too, if I were you. But then I won't "grind" so after two days I don't look at my "progress bar" see that it hasn't moved, and cry about all the time I've wasted. Instead, I have 4 hours worth of enjoyment to look back on. Why cancel my subscription? I'm having a blast. Its the people fixating on the xp bar, grinding away in one spot, night after night, that get frustrated and burnt out.
It's already sketchy enough deliberately wasting my time so as to acrue more monthly fees, but to actually set me backwards as "punishment" for the game being cheap would be the final straw.
You are the one who decided that not seeing the progress bar move amounted to 'wasting your time'. The key to having fun in a mmorpg is ignore progression and just have fun. You are going to progress anyway - some days fantasticly - other days none... but there's no reason to fixate on it.
As for EQ being 'cheap' in terms of arbitrary and completely unjust deaths: That there would be a wandering cyclops that could squash you if you weren't paying attention and let it get too close WAS part of the vision, but getting squashed on a zone-line or re-spawn were unfortunate artifacts of the game engine and never really part of the 'vision'.
When vangaurd was announced the premise was that he'd recognized that that that the game mechanics and game vision have been at cross-purposes -- the most efficient way to "progress" was the least fun ("grinding") while the most fun path through the game (exploring new areas, challenging new creatures, taking risks, etc) resulted in the worst progression. So one of Vangaurds mottos was that the most efficient path also be the most fun. So even people fixated on progress would end up having fun in spite of themselves;)
It was (and still is) a good idea.
WoW's "solution" of just removing all the risks and obstacles to progression has led to a soulless experience.
As for WoW's endgame... that's a different story. And I'll concede that WoW endgame is pretty good... if you happen to be in the minority of players who play frequently and regularly enough to fit into an organized raiding guilds schedule. Unfortunately, most players never see that
How is private copying any more similar to plagiarism than, say, elephant hunting?
Why are you qualifying it as "private" copying? What exactly is "private" about running a torrent server and giving access to it to the general public.
There's absolutely nothing dishonest about ignoring copyright. No one was ever hassled for copying cassette tapes, why should the internet be different?
Its not the "internet" that makes it different. Its copying and distributing it to the general public that makes it different.
No, but to his credit, he deserves credit for being able to say no to the player base.
WoW is the natural evolution of Everquest. It does practically everything the players wanted from everquest.
The irony is that WoW by giving players everything they want, has no point. Its easy. Its dumb. It has no soul. Everquest, by refusing to give in to the players forced the players to adapt and cope. When you accomplished something in Everquest (pre Luclin), it felt like an accomplishment. Getting to the end of WoW outside of the 'hardcore raid game' can be done by a trained monkey.
That's not to say Everquest didn't have its short comings -- it had a boatload, literally;) But the reason Vanguard was so anticipated was that people thought Brad would be able to pull off a new game with the spirit of everquest -- a game that was genuinely hard, but still fun.
A game that felt like a *world*, rather than just a chatroom-zone that linked to to instanced missions (a theme which D&D online took to the extreme)
A game that didn't hold your hand to the point that you almost can't get lost, or fail, or lose anything ever, unless you actually try. EQ was famous for brutally punishing players for mistakes, and often even just arbitrarily (spawning a cyclops 2 feet from you that can kill you in 1 second), but as annoying as that was, it was actually preferable to the risk free 'you can run away from anything mechanics' that dominate later games.
A game where death was something that actually hurt, as opposed to the 15 second inconvenience it is in most games now. In early EQ dying sucked. If you survived a difficult fight, or an unwanted add, or whatever, it was truly elating. If someone saved your ass you were grateful, they'd just saved you 20 minutes of travel and 2 hours worth of monster killing not to mention a possibly difficult corpse recovery... in modern games, dying is irrelevant, so avoiding it is meaningless. Early EQ was sometimes harder than it really should have been, but it was more satisfying than any title today, at least to a LOT of fans.
but I agree that it would be nice to know up front how much you're actually "donating" to them.
That's the crux of it. $200-400 is not a trivial amount of money. And personally, even though I think folding@home is a good cause I think if I'm going to 'donate' that much money, I can think of other causes I think are more worthy... and I'll get a tax receipt too.
OTOH, if you don't notice an extra 158 kWh on your power bill, then perhaps you're not really going to care that much.
Only because its not itemized. I think if they got their electric bill broken down by appliance, and they could see "PS3" was dominating the bill they would care.
Take Joe Six-pack, even if he notices that his usage is up, what are the odds he's going to connect all the dots and figure out why? Far more likely he'll just rationalize it as a seasonal fluctuation, or an aggregate of several little things, or he'll think maybe someone left a window open making the air-conditioner work harder, or something like that. Is he really going to think about the PS3 'idling' in the corner? The electric bill is something most people just don't think about. If the power-company let
Another issue here is that this sort of software is often installed by 10-20 year olds living at home. They don't even see the electric bill, let alone pay it.
I have a feeling Stanford wouldn't suspend you for getting too many speeding tickets, so why are DMCA notices different?
A couple reasons: 1) Stanford isn't a party involved in giving you speeding tickets; they are caught in the middle in a DMCA dispute. And they bear some of the costs of dealing with them.
2) "Academic honesty" isn't an issue with speeding. There is a roundabout association between copyright infringement and DMCA violations and plagiarism and cheating. I agree the association is somewhat tenuous with DMCA, but it is there. Universities have long held students to standards of 'honesty'.
I've posted this before on slashdot but here's a quick breakdown:
The PS3 is reported to run 220W when running folding@home.
In, for example, New York, the average residential cost of power in 2006 was 16.86 cents: (http://www.ppinys.org/reports/jtf/electricprices. html)
So 220W or 0.22kW x.1686 $/kWh x 24h/day x 365days/year is: $324.93 per year.
New York is on the high side for the US, but not remotely the highest. And prices in Europe tend to be considerably higher. Additionally, the rate tends tend to be tiered by use. For example the first X kWH might be y cents while the next 500kWH might be y+5 cents... so depending on how much electricity you use in total, the incremental use of a PS3 24x7 might all be at the next rate tier.
To your comment that you only pay $300/year for electricity - that could mean a lot of things...maybe you are in a state like Idaho or Kentucky or perhaps you are in Western Canada or somewhere else where rates are very good. Check the link ppinys.org link I provided...
To your comment about your refrigerator etc: a modern energy star refrigerator ranges from 350-600kWh a year depending on its size, and settings, and assuming a normal operating environment. A PS3 running folding@home 24x7 uses just under 2000kWh per year.
A PS3 *running folding@home 24x7* uses 3-6 times as much electricity as your fridge.
Folding@home runs the PS3's cell architecture continuously at full throttle; even games aren't that demanding. The various distributed computing projects advertise that they use your 'idle cpu time'. To me that implies its somehow 'free' that your cpu was spinning its wheels anyway and this just puts that wasted idle time to good use. Like re-directing your daily newspaper subscription to charity while you are on vacation; a good deed at no real cost to you.
But its not like that. Its more like a system where whenever you aren't actually using your car, you leave it running with a brick on the gas peddle. Obviously THAT is going to drive your fuel consumption through the roof... and that's what folding@home does with electricity...except that most of us don't think about the cost of electricity the way we think about the cost of fuel.
Electricity is cheap, and usually our normal use of it is dominated by things like the refridgerator, and leaving the TV on over night doesn't really make a difference. But a PS3 running folding@home is a 220 watt bulb that never shuts, and never goes into sleep mode. Running it like that over the span of a year it can dwarf your PC, your stove, your air conditioner, even your fridge.
Despite the humour/sarcasm in your post... i think in some cases the developer/vender should clearly indicate that it will cost additional money in electricity to run. And it should be -clear- not hidden in some EULA.
Projects like "folding@home" for PS3 which can add $200-400 a year to your electric bill.
Consumers should be made aware of that, before donating their 'free computing time'. Its not free.
Now, let's be honest here... I have yet to see a single person on Slashdot ever suggest running a file-sharing service from their desktop at work. So exactly why is a university a different story?
Not that I think doing it at a university is necessarily a good idea, but it *IS* a different story from work.
1) You live there. Its your home. The expectation of privacy etc in your dorm vs your office/cubicle quite different. 2) You own the computer, not them. 3) You pay a fair bit of money for the services you receive. As opposed to it being provided for you to perform your job.
Its clearly very different and its not unreasonable to argue that the university plays the role of your ISP here.
ALL data on climate change is anecdotal. There is only one earth! There is no sample set to compare to.
Observations about this one earth is the only earth those observations need to be applied to.
If you study one mouse, and learn its behaviour patterns you might not learn much about mice, but you'll be able to make useful predictions about that one mouse... and that's all we need here.
The causal inseparability of the weather across the earth prevents you from testing lots of cases except over very long periods of time, which hasn't happened since forming the latest consensus model.
Ice core samples are used to measure the contents of the atmosphere and an antarctic ice core goes back 600,000 years. Greenhouse gas levels haven't been anywhere near where they are now for that entire span.
Sure you *could* argue that its just coincidence that the green house gases shot up as part of a naturally occuring cycle that just happens to coincide with massive human industrialization which just happens to be known to directly generate megatons of greenhouse gas emissions... but then you'd sound like an idiot.
All that aside.
It doesn't really mater if we caused it or not. It may well be that greenhouse gases were set to accumulate into a global cataclysm even if we weren't involved as a contributor or accelerant. But that's irrelevant... even if greenhouse gas accumulation is completely normal if it leads to an extinction-level event than we should be looking at stopping it by any means necessary.
We *know* humanity has survived the last half million years with greenhouse gases cycling through a particular range. It is now well outside that range. I think that's cause for concern whether its a natural cycle or not. We simply don't know that earth will continue to be habitable with the levels outside that range.
A significant and sudden shift in climate could be a 'fall of civilisation' or even 'extinction' scale event. Doing our best to keep the planet at temperature ranges, atmospheric composition ranges, etc, etc that are known to be habitable strikes me as good idea.
There are land lines available in most of the places most people go.
Which is great if you need to *make* a call and the person you are calling is sitting at home or work.
If I'm meeting my wife at the mall, and a traffic accident is going to make her an hour late. She can't leave her car to call me from a land line, and even if she could there'd be no landline number she could call to reach me. So I stand around for an hour wondering if she forgot where we're meeting, forgot we were meeting at all, or perhaps is stranded in a ditch...
When you need an affordable and reliable means of communication a land line is still the way to go.
I pay: 55/mo CAD (all taxes and fees in); I get unlimited incoming minutes, 1000 minutes outgoing, voicemail (business class), caller id, call waiting, Plus its got a crappy little camera built in (which has actually come in handy on several occasions). The battery lasts me 3-4 days at a time.
A landline is far far far more restrictive in terms of where I could use it, and when i had one it cost me 15/less... or 40/mo.
So how does that link in with the fact that I'm older and am happy with a landline for the DSL web server for my tech-employed wife and I -- and to download program schedules to the MythTV box I built?
The beauty of generalizations is that they don't have to apply to everybody to apply in general.
Lots of old people are conversant with technology, so what? More old people than young people aren't, enough to skew technology use metrics.
As for convenience, there is an old-fashioned concept called "planning" that also works well in sync with regular face-to-face communication with significant others.
Planning fails dismally in the real world often enough to make cell convenience truly convenient.
I think you are right that some people are part of a social network they can't turn off. But that isn't a necessary state. I'm sure lots of people at the grocery store are carrying cellphones discreetly that you didn't even notice.
The security of knowing your wife, babysitter, children, etc can get a hold of you if they need help can't be resolved with 'planning'. The ability to change plans on the fly when things don't work out is equally compelling.
Take the picnic you meticulously planned out; suppose the following day you arrive at the park and find that the area you planned on using was reserved for a wedding... no big deal there's another park half a mile up. Of course, you invited 5 or 6 families who'll be dropping in over the entire afternoon...it'll be pretty trivial to move the picnic with cellphones. A royal pain in the ass without them.
Sure you can try people at home, leave them voice messages and hope they get them, and so forth; but I lived through a time when most people I knew didn't have cellphones -- this never works well.
Its nothing to do with susceptability to advertising... the fact that its lower income, and under 30 makes perfect sense.
Everybody likes the convenience of a cellphone... the younger you are the more conversant with technology you are, so you are more likely to have one. If you only have one phone - older people will have landlines, younger people will have cellphones. Just as in 1990 younger people embraced computer word processors while many older people still used typewriters.
No surprise there.
As for landlines being skewed against low-income its simple. If you can only afford one phone (or only wish to afford one phone) the mobile is infinitely more flexible. If I had to choose between cutting my landline (ok ok voip line) or cellular bill, it would be a no brainer - the landline would go.
So no surprise there either.
In my case the only reason I have even a voip line in addition to a cell is I run a small business and wanted an 'office line'. The voip bundles free N.A. long distance, good intl rates, caller id, voicemail, and some pretty decent call management features all for a price less than what I used to pay for landline.
I don't see the keyboard/ mouse/ tablet/ etc going away. But why not supplant them with touch screens?
Certain activities in photoshop and illustrator would be SOO much more intuitive and easy with a touch screen. Tablets are great, but even they can't beat just drawing the curve you want right on the screen.
On the other hand, it's good to go all the way wiht the limitations of a machine/OS now and then!:)
Agreed.
But I'm not sure why my RSS reader needs to be skinnable, semitransparent, dockable to other windows, resident in my tray with an animated popup notification, with a media player widget built in, and hooking into task manager to change the process name to show the currently playing track, finally adding an extra button to every window next to minimize so that I can tweak its settings from anywhere.
For too many programmers out there test the limitations of an OS utterly needlessly.
This is actually not true. I played the PS3 on SD for a month or so; yes, it dies for HD, but yes, it's also far better than the last generation.
Agreed. It is not the same as going from a DVD to BluRay, where the differences *are* pretty minor, and you absolutely need an HDTV to see them and even then its hardly worth paying a premium for.
Its more like going from Babylon 5 SD to Battlestar Galactica HD. The PS3 does beat the pants off the graphics of a PS2, even when viewed in SD.
But in the case of the PS3 is costs a bundle more, doesn't really add that much to the game, and if you don't have an HDTV you are paying the full price of entry for a dramatically inferior experience. (Like paying IMAX premium prices to watch Spiderman 3 in a 60s theatre... sure its special effects can be seen in an old theatre... but you'd still feel ripped off.
it's more about vastly more parallel processing power. Physics, more stuff on the screen, deeper interaction, bigger worlds, etc.
In theory. In practice its a diminishing returns. The PS3 fails not because it isn't better... but because it isn't better enough for what it costs.
Its like comparing a new modest gamers PC built for $1600-2200, it will be able to play all the latest games very very well. Sure you could go all out and spend $3k or even $5k and get a 'better' system, but not better enough to justify the cost to most people.
The PS3 could have been a very impressive gaming system for considerably less money if they'd scaled back a bit. To continue the PC analogy, suppose that PS2 was a $1800 PC but 5 years old; if they'd simply updated the specs so that it was a new $1800 PC built with modern parts it would have been in the sweet spot. The cpu/gpu still would be a couple orders of magnitude stronger than the PS2 to support new features, better AI, etc, the graphics would still be relatively modern and stunning, it could still handle HD output, they could probably even squeeze a modest hard drive into it, while sacrificing the blu-ray. And they could probably get within spitting distance of the Wii on price, especially if they were willing to take a per unit loss (which they already do!).... vastly more parallel processing power...
That just it: "vastly" is too much. Its like the Apple towers. All most people want is a core 2 duo, that is already a huge upgrade from last generation systems. Yet apple's base model has a pair of xeons in it, which cost a bundle and drive the price into the statosphere. There's a lot of people out there who'd love to buy an Apple tower because the all-in-one form factors of the mini and imac are too limiting -- but 2 xeons? Its just too much.
And by the time the average person needs the power of dual xeons, we'll be in the 'next generation' and they'll be obsolete.
So you (and others) gravitate to the 1.a. definition, while the 1.b. definition still applies
Not especially.
b: an unlawful taking (as by embezzlement or burglary) of property
Copyright Infringement isn't the 'taking of property'. So 1.b. doesn't apply. Copyright infringement is (amongst other things) making a duplicate of (intellectual) property, WITHOUT taking it. That is precisely why its not theft.
When you copy copyrighted material without the copyholder's permission then you commit copyright infringement which is unlawful so by definitition it is theft.
Not even close. When I make a mix tape I am copying copyright material without the copyright holders permission which is copyright infringement, but it falls within the scope of fair use. Its not illegal, and its certainly not 'theft'. If start distributing that mix tape over the internet it no longer falls within the scope of fair use,and now illegal. But its still just copyright infringement, and its still NOT theft.
In this case, there is no requirement that the rightful owner is deprived use.
Its implicit. 1b stipulates that there be a "taking of property". Copyright infringement doesn't amount to "taking your property". Hell, copyright also includes unauthorized public broadcast/display/performance. So if you put a painting in a garage and I open the door and invite everyone to come see it I'm violating your copyright. Without touching it. Without taking it. Without even 'copying' it.
Fair use is not the wholesale copying of material.
Thank you captain obvious. I know what fair use is. Its a framework for deciding when copyright infringement is legal. (Is there a similar framework for legalized theft? No? Thats a good reason for not calling it theft then.)
As for comparing kidnapping and murder to theft. Well last time I checked, people are not property.
People once were property. The only thing keeping them from being property now are laws preventing it. By contrast the difference between copying and taking does not rest on legal statutes; they are intrinsically different activities.
Not to mention, when multiple charges can be brought against a suspect, they usually pick the strongest penalty...
So you are saying copyright infringement is a more serious crime than theft? Is that why its picked over theft when people are charged? I think not. Perhaps the reason people are charged with the lesser crime of copyright infringement instead of theft is because, well, charging them with theft wouldn't hold up in court, because it isn't theft.
but I would like the option to tell my friends "PhoenixOne is playing City of Heroes and is looking to group."
I think we're a hairs breadth away from that now, with current messengers. After all you can already set custom status messages in most messenger apps. All we need is to extend that functionality a bit, and make it a bit of a standard. with games that don't support it, you can set the message write in the messenger, and for games that do support it you'd be able to set the message from inside the game.
Its a good idea.
It doesn't need to be part of the OS, or even part of a larger "xbox live" like service. It could be (and should be) its own thing, so that it can be tied to whatever messenger, or matchmaking service(s) you want.
Microsoft will never do this of course. They want lock in, and subscription fees, and micro-payments. But this is how it should be done, nonetheless, for the consumer. So it works with all services, on all platforms. How is a Windows solution going to work with games that are cross platform to the Mac? (WoW) or what if I'm using Linux but dual boot to Windows for games... I should still be able to see your published status in Gaim, or whatever.
Remember, a more immersive game makes the interaction layer as thin as possible; it does not focus on it. Some would say this is the goal of the wiimote. It is not. The goal of the wiimote is to sell the Wii. If it were not, we'd be seeing more screenshots and videos of games in ads, not people swinging their arms around.
You just don't get it.
Xbox 360 is just as focussed on the interaction layer as the wii is. The Wii has focussed its move this generation on input while advancing the already fairly mature output only slightly. Xbox 360, in contrast, ignored input, and simply pushed output further, adding better effects, and pushing it into HD.
Xbox 360 with its graphics can almost make you think you are WATCHING a real game of tennis. Wii with its controller can almost make you think you are PLAYING a real game of tennis.
In the end Wii SUCCEEDS at making the interaction layer as thin as possible far better than the 360.
To swing the wii-mote adjusting force angle and direction by varying your swing is the thinner mapping.
Consider the xbox version: something along the lines of: Use the left analog stick to move, press A to swing underhand, B to swing over hand, A+B to do a POWERSHOT(tm). Use the shoulder buttons to add spin. And on serves try to time your swing to maximize the balls position on the "Serving POWERBAR(tm)" or some such construction. You yourself said immersion is achieved with thin interation layers -- this is NOT the thinner layer.
In a perfect world, or perhaps merely the next console generation we'll have Wii controls and PS3 graphics. But for this generation, its a choice between "playing" or "watching", and playing beats watching for most people, especially when its delivered for 30% less $$ too.
Its only even theoretically 'theft of revenue' if he would have bought it had he not copied it. When I was younger I had a copy of Photoshop. Was that 'theft of revenue'? Its not like I would have (or even could have) paid for it. My parents sure wouldn't have bought it for me; if they were willing to drop a few hundred bucks on something for me there are a ton of things I'd have preferred to get. I simply wouldn't have had it, and for the 3 times I used it in high school I wouldn't have missed it either.
As for the whole concept of twisting copyright infringement to mean "theft", that's a rather silly place to go:
forgery - identity theft murder - theft of life tresspassing - theft of the use of someone elses privately owned space harassment - theft of peace of mind rape - theft of sexual intimacy kidnapping - theft of a person arson - theft of the use of a building fishing without a license - theft of fish dui - theft of safety spitting on someone - theft of dignity (and cleanliness) poaching - animal theft censorship - theft of the right to free speech building a website that lets you buy something with one-click - idea theft
hmmm... so pretty much anything illegal sounds like theft if you try hard enough. After all, pretty much anything illegal boils down to harming others by depriving them of some object, right, or state of being or mind. And 'depriving someone of something' sounds a lot like 'theft'.
When you make a digital copy of something [...] the copyright owner who didn't receive any revenue from your unauthorized use is a victim.
Yes, a victim of "copyright infringement".
Nobody said copyright infringement isn't harmful, or that its (always) victimless. But sometimes the 'victim' isn't victimized and sometimes (often?) they even ultimately benefit from it. But regardless, victims of "copyright infringement" are, by definition, victims of "copyright infringement".
That's why we differentiate between crimes. Because despite the fact that many crimes are similiar to other crimes, they are in fact different in important ways. For example murder and manslaughter -- calling it all 'murder' would fail to recognize the complete lack of intent inherent in manslaughter.
Similarly 'Copyright infringment' and 'theft' are also different, in many important ways.
Calling it 'theft' erases the notion of fair use from the discussion. Another crucial difference is that making a copy doesn't actually take the original away. Stealing a book, and copying a book are different. Not to mention the fact that copyrights expire while real property ownerhip does not...
Sure there are commonalities between theft and infringement, but then there are the same commonalities with kidnapping.
Aside from the issue that your making a digital copy of it, instead of actually taking it... and the fact that 'it' happens to be a software program instead of, you know, a 'person' its the same as kidnapping.
So stop kidnapping software, you lousy kidnappers!
"Oh wait, here we go, IT'S NOT THEFT CAUSE I MADE A DIGITAL COPY OF IT!"
Well DUH! Its not theft.
They made a 'digital copy of it': that means:
its not assault its not loitering its not shoplifting its not election fraud its not running a red light its not coveting your neighbors ox... oh and its NOT THEFT.
It is however... "copyright infringement".
So how about we just call it THAT, mkay? Call it what it is.
Calling it theft is inaccurate and just confuses the issue.
I do agree however, that they *need* the Live interface to be part of Vista and not just something that you run from inside games.
It doesn't really need to be part of the game (although integration is nice). It certainly doesn't really need to be part of Vista. It can be its own thing.
Being able to see if my friends are playing a certain game while I'm downloading porn...um, checking my email would be nice.
Only if your friends are able to see your downloading porn. And even then only if they are able to see the porn. Are you sure you want this?
Being able to see that your friend is playing Shadowrun while you are playing WoW will be the killer app.
All they'd have to do is give MSN the option of showing the foreground application as your status message. From there it would be pretty trivial to formalize the system, and give it a proper API, and allow you to hook whatever API aware communication/IM/application whatever to it.
As for that being the killer app? I think not. I'm sure some segment of the population will get off on having whatever they are currently doing reflected in all their friends messenger clients, displayed on their myspace profile in realtime, and fed via a webcam right to youtube so you can actually watch your friend play Shadowrun, but most people just don't care. MSN already tells me if your there or not... that's all i need to know. I don't really care to get a little message everytime anyone I've ever gamed with logs in to a game somewhere, especially while I'm in the middle of something else.
The "killer app" will be "micro-transaction" content for games that don't already have your credit card. (e.g. RTS and FPS games) to nickle and dime you for a new map, gun, hat, or whatever. And I'm already disenfranchised the rip-off potential in that.
How can not being able to move X dollars be construed as an X dollar "loss"? If my online banking goes down and I'm unable to place a web order to transfer my Mom X, and move Y from chequing to savings, and purchase Z mutual fund for an entire day. Its absurd to suggest the bank lost X+Y+Z? Even *I* didn't lose X+Y+Z from the inconvenience, and its my money.
I can't say I've experienced any flakiness with GMail, Google Maps, and other major AJAX apps I've used
Well, right off the top, you can't reliably link to a "page state". Even google maps only goes partway in this regard. Next factor in the battle for my status bar, and right click menu, and the fact that the back/forward/reload buttons don't work properly.
I don't know that we need a replacement for HTML/JS/CSS so much as we need an upgrade.
The internet as a big collection of hypertexts functions really really well at being that on html/javascript. "Web2.0" by and large supplements "Web1.0" it doesn't replace it. html/javascript doesn't need to be retired.
But a lot of web2.0 stuff really should be done as web based apps on a new platform, not hacked together with AJAX. I'm not talking about posting to a blog, I'm talking about trading stocks and tracking them in real-time, creating spreadsheets, manipulating images (a la Gimp or Photoshop) or enterprise intranet apps; some stuff really belongs in "web applications" not on "web pages".
Adding java behaviours, python, better DOM, and CSS standardization will just make writing blog page editors easier and that's fine, and a good thing, and we should get that too... but a scripting language (or two) is not enough.
We need to be able to pick the right tools for the job... not everything should be a scripting language "mash-up". What if we want the syntactical convenience of lisp for a task, or multithreading/synchronization objects, or sophisticated interface defintions.... one tool be everything.
What makes, say gmail, suited to being a web app? Its clumsier than any real app I've ever used. Whats the advantage? That it can be accessed from anywhere that has a browser? That's about it. Its not really a 'website' in any normal sense of the word. You log in and from that point on your in an application.
Have you ever encountered application publishing using Citrix? You can actually use outlook (or thunderbird, or photoshop, or whatever) from any machine that has a browser. THAT, my friend, is what the the goal of web applications should be; at least in terms of how the interface looks and works.
Citrix is really server heavy (not to mention proprietary, and I would argue overpriced but that's a separate issue), it would be far better if the UI could be published to the browser as an 'applet' to take the load off the server. In an ideal scenario, I as a developer could write a desktop application against a framework choosing which functionality is client side and which is server, and then choose to publish it as a web-based application without writing a single line of extra code.
I'd connect to the application, the UI for the application would be downloaded and run (or possibly loaded from recent cache, or an explicit cache) and I'd be able to get to work. I could write the application in the language of my choice or mix them as needed/appropriate. I could design the application as server or client heavy as I like... from having all the processing done on the server using the client to just display UI screens - to having all of it on the client, using the server just as a data store and application host.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm sorry, but the people who actually yearn for this type of game are a much smaller number than the people who play games to enjoy them.
What exactly is enjoyable about a game you cannot lose?
It makes the leveling part of the game quick and enjoyable (for the masses) and made the end game where they would focus on challenge and teamwork (for the "hardcores"). They combined the best of all worlds and dropped most of the boring crap and that is why it is popular.
The masses and the hardcores are different groups. The leveling part of the game is tedious and pointless, and that's all the masses get to see. The hardcores, yes, they get an interesting game to play... but not all of us can (or will) play as part of organized raid guilds playing daily at the same time. Its not the best of all worlds. Its two different worlds sandwiched together, with the two population groups barely interacting with each other.
In EQ, are you going to take on that strange monster you never saw before that is a bunch of levels above you? Of course not, you are going to run for safety.
In early EQ, you knew better than to take monsters a 'bunch levels above you'. The game as much as told you when you looked at it not be an idiot. It was the monsters slightly above your level that posed a challenge -for your group-. As EQ aged, and mudflation took hold the whole 'monster evaluation system' broke... because you could take on critters 3-5 levels above your group... but not 20. Of course some monsters were undercons, and some where overcons, where they were tougher or weaker than they appeared... that wasn't a bug it was a feature. It added uncertainty when facing new mobs. And you quickly learned to deal with it. In some games it almost tells you what your exact odds of winning are before you take yoru first swing.
In WoW, you can take bigger risks because it isn't a big deal.
In WoW every battle outcome is only a question of how far forwards you will go. Do you want to fight small monsters where you'll go a little bit forwards every fight? Or fight bigger ones where you'll go further after most fights, but won't move at all occasionally. Oooo...lets take the 'bigger risk'...
You have to have something to lose before you can call it a risk. In WoW, outside of the raid game, very rarely are you in situations where you take actual risks.
I understand there is more of a rush when you have more on the line. And some people like that.
Indeed! Although with WoW, since you usually have nothing on the line, why is 'victory' any rush at all?
And there are niche games like Eve Online that supposedly cater to that sort of personality type. The problem with these games that are high risk...people take less risks and it becomes boring.
I disagree. I think in the case of Eve, the problem is that risk levels have become unmanageable. For many many a foray into 0.0 is a losing proposition. The odds of being blown to bits unless you belong to the right social network permanently exceeds the odds of making a profit.
This is a failure of Eve's mechanics. Eve could be improved.
I can't imagine how groups would form in EQ, unless you already knew everyone involved.
;)
The risk of someone else screwing up and getting you all killed was far less than the risk of getting yourself killed if you tried to do anything interesting by yourself.
At least, I'd never join a PuG, because I'm never going to want to risk losing 2 hours of actual progress because of someone else's screwup.
I hear ya man, I mean, I know you only logged in to watch that little xp bar move forwards. The actual socializing, and working as a team, and so on are all secondary concerns.
In a WoW PuG I'm only risking the actual time I spend with the PuG (plus some gold), they can't actually undo the progress I've made before.
Not only that. If you spend any time with a group (pug or otherwise) that doesn't directly result in "progress" that time must have been "wasted".
My time has meaning.
Yes, I can see that. I certainly understand how you wouldn't want "playing the game" to get in the way of "progression".
We're talking about a genre that is already defined by taking the least amount of content and turning it into the maximum amount of time spent by the player by requiring lengthy "grinds".
Who defined it like that? Everquest wasn't meant to be a game you 'finished'. It was meant to be a game you explored. There was plenty to do at 20th level, and even more to do at 30th. The game at 50th wasn't going to disappear, so what's the rush?
At least when I grind in WoW I'm making forward progress. Two hours is a full night's session -- if I logged on one night, ground away for two hours, then the next night had to repeat the exact same process because I'd gotten unlucky and died, I'd cancel my subscription.
I would too, if I were you. But then I won't "grind" so after two days I don't look at my "progress bar" see that it hasn't moved, and cry about all the time I've wasted. Instead, I have 4 hours worth of enjoyment to look back on. Why cancel my subscription? I'm having a blast. Its the people fixating on the xp bar, grinding away in one spot, night after night, that get frustrated and burnt out.
It's already sketchy enough deliberately wasting my time so as to acrue more monthly fees, but to actually set me backwards as "punishment" for the game being cheap would be the final straw.
You are the one who decided that not seeing the progress bar move amounted to 'wasting your time'. The key to having fun in a mmorpg is ignore progression and just have fun. You are going to progress anyway - some days fantasticly - other days none... but there's no reason to fixate on it.
As for EQ being 'cheap' in terms of arbitrary and completely unjust deaths: That there would be a wandering cyclops that could squash you if you weren't paying attention and let it get too close WAS part of the vision, but getting squashed on a zone-line or re-spawn were unfortunate artifacts of the game engine and never really part of the 'vision'.
When vangaurd was announced the premise was that he'd recognized that that that the game mechanics and game vision have been at cross-purposes -- the most efficient way to "progress" was the least fun ("grinding") while the most fun path through the game (exploring new areas, challenging new creatures, taking risks, etc) resulted in the worst progression. So one of Vangaurds mottos was that the most efficient path also be the most fun. So even people fixated on progress would end up having fun in spite of themselves
It was (and still is) a good idea.
WoW's "solution" of just removing all the risks and obstacles to progression has led to a soulless experience.
As for WoW's endgame... that's a different story. And I'll concede that WoW endgame is pretty good... if you happen to be in the minority of players who play frequently and regularly enough to fit into an organized raiding guilds schedule. Unfortunately, most players never see that
I disagree that a trained monkey can do end game raid content in WoW.
If you read what I wrote specifically excluded hardcore endgame raiding from what a trained monkey could do.
So we agree.
How is private copying any more similar to plagiarism than, say, elephant hunting?
Why are you qualifying it as "private" copying? What exactly is "private" about running a torrent server and giving access to it to the general public.
There's absolutely nothing dishonest about ignoring copyright. No one was ever hassled for copying cassette tapes, why should the internet be different?
Its not the "internet" that makes it different. Its copying and distributing it to the general public that makes it different.
Brad wasn't the genius behind EverQuest.
;) But the reason Vanguard was so anticipated was that people thought Brad would be able to pull off a new game with the spirit of everquest -- a game that was genuinely hard, but still fun.
No, but to his credit, he deserves credit for being able to say no to the player base.
WoW is the natural evolution of Everquest. It does practically everything the players wanted from everquest.
The irony is that WoW by giving players everything they want, has no point. Its easy. Its dumb. It has no soul. Everquest, by refusing to give in to the players forced the players to adapt and cope. When you accomplished something in Everquest (pre Luclin), it felt like an accomplishment. Getting to the end of WoW outside of the 'hardcore raid game' can be done by a trained monkey.
That's not to say Everquest didn't have its short comings -- it had a boatload, literally
A game that felt like a *world*, rather than just a chatroom-zone that linked to to instanced missions (a theme which D&D online took to the extreme)
A game that didn't hold your hand to the point that you almost can't get lost, or fail, or lose anything ever, unless you actually try. EQ was famous for brutally punishing players for mistakes, and often even just arbitrarily (spawning a cyclops 2 feet from you that can kill you in 1 second), but as annoying as that was, it was actually preferable to the risk free 'you can run away from anything mechanics' that dominate later games.
A game where death was something that actually hurt, as opposed to the 15 second inconvenience it is in most games now. In early EQ dying sucked. If you survived a difficult fight, or an unwanted add, or whatever, it was truly elating. If someone saved your ass you were grateful, they'd just saved you 20 minutes of travel and 2 hours worth of monster killing not to mention a possibly difficult corpse recovery... in modern games, dying is irrelevant, so avoiding it is meaningless. Early EQ was sometimes harder than it really should have been, but it was more satisfying than any title today, at least to a LOT of fans.
folding@home would appear to be a good cause
I think it is.
but I agree that it would be nice to know up front how much you're actually "donating" to them.
That's the crux of it. $200-400 is not a trivial amount of money. And personally, even though I think folding@home is a good cause I think if I'm going to 'donate' that much money, I can think of other causes I think are more worthy... and I'll get a tax receipt too.
OTOH, if you don't notice an extra 158 kWh on your power bill, then perhaps you're not really going to care that much.
Only because its not itemized. I think if they got their electric bill broken down by appliance, and they could see "PS3" was dominating the bill they would care.
Take Joe Six-pack, even if he notices that his usage is up, what are the odds he's going to connect all the dots and figure out why? Far more likely he'll just rationalize it as a seasonal fluctuation, or an aggregate of several little things, or he'll think maybe someone left a window open making the air-conditioner work harder, or something like that. Is he really going to think about the PS3 'idling' in the corner? The electric bill is something most people just don't think about. If the power-company let
Another issue here is that this sort of software is often installed by 10-20 year olds living at home. They don't even see the electric bill, let alone pay it.
I have a feeling Stanford wouldn't suspend you for getting too many speeding tickets, so why are DMCA notices different?
A couple reasons:
1) Stanford isn't a party involved in giving you speeding tickets; they are caught in the middle in a DMCA dispute. And they bear some of the costs of dealing with them.
2) "Academic honesty" isn't an issue with speeding. There is a roundabout association between copyright infringement and DMCA violations and plagiarism and cheating. I agree the association is somewhat tenuous with DMCA, but it is there. Universities have long held students to standards of 'honesty'.
I've posted this before on slashdot but here's a quick breakdown:
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.1686 $/kWh x 24h/day x 365days/year is: $324.93 per year.
The PS3 is reported to run 220W when running folding@home.
In, for example, New York, the average residential cost of power in 2006 was 16.86 cents: (http://www.ppinys.org/reports/jtf/electricprices
So 220W or 0.22kW x
New York is on the high side for the US, but not remotely the highest. And prices in Europe tend to be considerably higher.
Additionally, the rate tends tend to be tiered by use. For example the first X kWH might be y cents while the next 500kWH might be y+5 cents... so depending on how much electricity you use in total, the incremental use of a PS3 24x7 might all be at the next rate tier.
To your comment that you only pay $300/year for electricity - that could mean a lot of things...maybe you are in a state like Idaho or Kentucky or perhaps you are in Western Canada or somewhere else where rates are very good. Check the link ppinys.org link I provided...
To your comment about your refrigerator etc: a modern energy star refrigerator ranges from 350-600kWh a year depending on its size, and settings, and assuming a normal operating environment. A PS3 running folding@home 24x7 uses just under 2000kWh per year.
A PS3 *running folding@home 24x7* uses 3-6 times as much electricity as your fridge.
Folding@home runs the PS3's cell architecture continuously at full throttle; even games aren't that demanding. The various distributed computing projects advertise that they use your 'idle cpu time'. To me that implies its somehow 'free' that your cpu was spinning its wheels anyway and this just puts that wasted idle time to good use. Like re-directing your daily newspaper subscription to charity while you are on vacation; a good deed at no real cost to you.
But its not like that. Its more like a system where whenever you aren't actually using your car, you leave it running with a brick on the gas peddle. Obviously THAT is going to drive your fuel consumption through the roof... and that's what folding@home does with electricity...except that most of us don't think about the cost of electricity the way we think about the cost of fuel.
Electricity is cheap, and usually our normal use of it is dominated by things like the refridgerator, and leaving the TV on over night doesn't really make a difference. But a PS3 running folding@home is a 220 watt bulb that never shuts, and never goes into sleep mode. Running it like that over the span of a year it can dwarf your PC, your stove, your air conditioner, even your fridge.
Despite the humour/sarcasm in your post... i think in some cases the developer/vender should clearly indicate that it will cost additional money in electricity to run. And it should be -clear- not hidden in some EULA.
Projects like "folding@home" for PS3 which can add $200-400 a year to your electric bill.
Consumers should be made aware of that, before donating their 'free computing time'. Its not free.
Now, let's be honest here ... I have yet to see a single person on Slashdot ever suggest running a file-sharing service from their desktop at work. So exactly why is a university a different story?
Not that I think doing it at a university is necessarily a good idea, but it *IS* a different story from work.
1) You live there. Its your home. The expectation of privacy etc in your dorm vs your office/cubicle quite different.
2) You own the computer, not them.
3) You pay a fair bit of money for the services you receive. As opposed to it being provided for you to perform your job.
Its clearly very different and its not unreasonable to argue that the university plays the role of your ISP here.
ALL data on climate change is anecdotal. There is only one earth! There is no sample set to compare to.
Observations about this one earth is the only earth those observations need to be applied to.
If you study one mouse, and learn its behaviour patterns you might not learn much about mice, but you'll be able to make useful predictions about that one mouse... and that's all we need here.
The causal inseparability of the weather across the earth prevents you from testing lots of cases except over very long periods of time, which hasn't happened since forming the latest consensus model.
Ice core samples are used to measure the contents of the atmosphere and an antarctic ice core goes back 600,000 years. Greenhouse gas levels haven't been anywhere near where they are now for that entire span.
Sure you *could* argue that its just coincidence that the green house gases shot up as part of a naturally occuring cycle that just happens to coincide with massive human industrialization which just happens to be known to directly generate megatons of greenhouse gas emissions... but then you'd sound like an idiot.
All that aside.
It doesn't really mater if we caused it or not. It may well be that greenhouse gases were set to accumulate into a global cataclysm even if we weren't involved as a contributor or accelerant. But that's irrelevant... even if greenhouse gas accumulation is completely normal if it leads to an extinction-level event than we should be looking at stopping it by any means necessary.
We *know* humanity has survived the last half million years with greenhouse gases cycling through a particular range. It is now well outside that range. I think that's cause for concern whether its a natural cycle or not. We simply don't know that earth will continue to be habitable with the levels outside that range.
A significant and sudden shift in climate could be a 'fall of civilisation' or even 'extinction' scale event. Doing our best to keep the planet at temperature ranges, atmospheric composition ranges, etc, etc that are known to be habitable strikes me as good idea.
There are land lines available in most of the places most people go.
... or 40/mo.
Which is great if you need to *make* a call and the person you are calling is sitting at home or work.
If I'm meeting my wife at the mall, and a traffic accident is going to make her an hour late. She can't leave her car to call me from a land line, and even if she could there'd be no landline number she could call to reach me. So I stand around for an hour wondering if she forgot where we're meeting, forgot we were meeting at all, or perhaps is stranded in a ditch...
When you need an affordable and reliable means of communication a land line is still the way to go.
I pay: 55/mo CAD (all taxes and fees in); I get unlimited incoming minutes, 1000 minutes outgoing, voicemail (business class), caller id, call waiting, Plus its got a crappy little camera built in (which has actually come in handy on several occasions). The battery lasts me 3-4 days at a time.
A landline is far far far more restrictive in terms of where I could use it, and when i had one it cost me 15/less
So how does that link in with the fact that I'm older and am happy with a landline for the DSL web server for my tech-employed wife and I -- and to download program schedules to the MythTV box I built?
The beauty of generalizations is that they don't have to apply to everybody to apply in general.
Lots of old people are conversant with technology, so what? More old people than young people aren't, enough to skew technology use metrics.
As for convenience, there is an old-fashioned concept called "planning" that also works well in sync with regular face-to-face communication with significant others.
Planning fails dismally in the real world often enough to make cell convenience truly convenient.
I think you are right that some people are part of a social network they can't turn off. But that isn't a necessary state. I'm sure lots of people at the grocery store are carrying cellphones discreetly that you didn't even notice.
The security of knowing your wife, babysitter, children, etc can get a hold of you if they need help can't be resolved with 'planning'. The ability to change plans on the fly when things don't work out is equally compelling.
Take the picnic you meticulously planned out; suppose the following day you arrive at the park and find that the area you planned on using was reserved for a wedding... no big deal there's another park half a mile up. Of course, you invited 5 or 6 families who'll be dropping in over the entire afternoon...it'll be pretty trivial to move the picnic with cellphones. A royal pain in the ass without them.
Sure you can try people at home, leave them voice messages and hope they get them, and so forth; but I lived through a time when most people I knew didn't have cellphones -- this never works well.
Its nothing to do with susceptability to advertising... the fact that its lower income, and under 30 makes perfect sense.
Everybody likes the convenience of a cellphone... the younger you are the more conversant with technology you are, so you are more likely to have one. If you only have one phone - older people will have landlines, younger people will have cellphones. Just as in 1990 younger people embraced computer word processors while many older people still used typewriters.
No surprise there.
As for landlines being skewed against low-income its simple. If you can only afford one phone (or only wish to afford one phone) the mobile is infinitely more flexible. If I had to choose between cutting my landline (ok ok voip line) or cellular bill, it would be a no brainer - the landline would go.
So no surprise there either.
In my case the only reason I have even a voip line in addition to a cell is I run a small business and wanted an 'office line'. The voip bundles free N.A. long distance, good intl rates, caller id, voicemail, and some pretty decent call management features all for a price less than what I used to pay for landline.
I don't see the keyboard/ mouse/ tablet/ etc going away. But why not supplant them with touch screens?
Certain activities in photoshop and illustrator would be SOO much more intuitive and easy with a touch screen. Tablets are great, but even they can't beat just drawing the curve you want right on the screen.
The more UI options the better.
On the other hand, it's good to go all the way wiht the limitations of a machine/OS now and then! :)
Agreed.
But I'm not sure why my RSS reader needs to be skinnable, semitransparent, dockable to other windows, resident in my tray with an animated popup notification, with a media player widget built in, and hooking into task manager to change the process name to show the currently playing track, finally adding an extra button to every window next to minimize so that I can tweak its settings from anywhere.
For too many programmers out there test the limitations of an OS utterly needlessly.
This is actually not true. I played the PS3 on SD for a month or so; yes, it dies for HD, but yes, it's also far better than the last generation.
... vastly more parallel processing power...
Agreed. It is not the same as going from a DVD to BluRay, where the differences *are* pretty minor, and you absolutely need an HDTV to see them and even then its hardly worth paying a premium for.
Its more like going from Babylon 5 SD to Battlestar Galactica HD. The PS3 does beat the pants off the graphics of a PS2, even when viewed in SD.
But in the case of the PS3 is costs a bundle more, doesn't really add that much to the game, and if you don't have an HDTV you are paying the full price of entry for a dramatically inferior experience. (Like paying IMAX premium prices to watch Spiderman 3 in a 60s theatre... sure its special effects can be seen in an old theatre... but you'd still feel ripped off.
it's more about vastly more parallel processing power. Physics, more stuff on the screen, deeper interaction, bigger worlds, etc.
In theory. In practice its a diminishing returns. The PS3 fails not because it isn't better... but because it isn't better enough for what it costs.
Its like comparing a new modest gamers PC built for $1600-2200, it will be able to play all the latest games very very well. Sure you could go all out and spend $3k or even $5k and get a 'better' system, but not better enough to justify the cost to most people.
The PS3 could have been a very impressive gaming system for considerably less money if they'd scaled back a bit. To continue the PC analogy, suppose that PS2 was a $1800 PC but 5 years old; if they'd simply updated the specs so that it was a new $1800 PC built with modern parts it would have been in the sweet spot. The cpu/gpu still would be a couple orders of magnitude stronger than the PS2 to support new features, better AI, etc, the graphics would still be relatively modern and stunning, it could still handle HD output, they could probably even squeeze a modest hard drive into it, while sacrificing the blu-ray. And they could probably get within spitting distance of the Wii on price, especially if they were willing to take a per unit loss (which they already do!).
That just it: "vastly" is too much. Its like the Apple towers. All most people want is a core 2 duo, that is already a huge upgrade from last generation systems. Yet apple's base model has a pair of xeons in it, which cost a bundle and drive the price into the statosphere. There's a lot of people out there who'd love to buy an Apple tower because the all-in-one form factors of the mini and imac are too limiting -- but 2 xeons? Its just too much.
And by the time the average person needs the power of dual xeons, we'll be in the 'next generation' and they'll be obsolete.
So you (and others) gravitate to the 1.a. definition, while the 1.b. definition still applies
Not especially.
b: an unlawful taking (as by embezzlement or burglary) of property
Copyright Infringement isn't the 'taking of property'. So 1.b. doesn't apply. Copyright infringement is (amongst other things) making a duplicate of (intellectual) property, WITHOUT taking it. That is precisely why its not theft.
When you copy copyrighted material without the copyholder's permission then you commit copyright infringement which is unlawful so by definitition it is theft.
Not even close. When I make a mix tape I am copying copyright material without the copyright holders permission which is copyright infringement, but it falls within the scope of fair use. Its not illegal, and its certainly not 'theft'. If start distributing that mix tape over the internet it no longer falls within the scope of fair use,and now illegal. But its still just copyright infringement, and its still NOT theft.
In this case, there is no requirement that the rightful owner is deprived use.
Its implicit. 1b stipulates that there be a "taking of property". Copyright infringement doesn't amount to "taking your property". Hell, copyright also includes unauthorized public broadcast/display/performance. So if you put a painting in a garage and I open the door and invite everyone to come see it I'm violating your copyright. Without touching it. Without taking it. Without even 'copying' it.
Fair use is not the wholesale copying of material.
Thank you captain obvious. I know what fair use is. Its a framework for deciding when copyright infringement is legal. (Is there a similar framework for legalized theft? No? Thats a good reason for not calling it theft then.)
As for comparing kidnapping and murder to theft. Well last time I checked, people are not property.
People once were property. The only thing keeping them from being property now are laws preventing it. By contrast the difference between copying and taking does not rest on legal statutes; they are intrinsically different activities.
Not to mention, when multiple charges can be brought against a suspect, they usually pick the strongest penalty...
So you are saying copyright infringement is a more serious crime than theft? Is that why its picked over theft when people are charged? I think not. Perhaps the reason people are charged with the lesser crime of copyright infringement instead of theft is because, well, charging them with theft wouldn't hold up in court, because it isn't theft.
but I would like the option to tell my friends "PhoenixOne is playing City of Heroes and is looking to group."
I think we're a hairs breadth away from that now, with current messengers. After all you can already set custom status messages in most messenger apps. All we need is to extend that functionality a bit, and make it a bit of a standard. with games that don't support it, you can set the message write in the messenger, and for games that do support it you'd be able to set the message from inside the game.
Its a good idea.
It doesn't need to be part of the OS, or even part of a larger "xbox live" like service. It could be (and should be) its own thing, so that it can be tied to whatever messenger, or matchmaking service(s) you want.
Microsoft will never do this of course. They want lock in, and subscription fees, and micro-payments. But this is how it should be done, nonetheless, for the consumer. So it works with all services, on all platforms. How is a Windows solution going to work with games that are cross platform to the Mac? (WoW) or what if I'm using Linux but dual boot to Windows for games... I should still be able to see your published status in Gaim, or whatever.
Remember, a more immersive game makes the interaction layer as thin as possible; it does not focus on it. Some would say this is the goal of the wiimote. It is not. The goal of the wiimote is to sell the Wii. If it were not, we'd be seeing more screenshots and videos of games in ads, not people swinging their arms around.
You just don't get it.
Xbox 360 is just as focussed on the interaction layer as the wii is. The Wii has focussed its move this generation on input while advancing the already fairly mature output only slightly. Xbox 360, in contrast, ignored input, and simply pushed output further, adding better effects, and pushing it into HD.
Xbox 360 with its graphics can almost make you think you are WATCHING a real game of tennis.
Wii with its controller can almost make you think you are PLAYING a real game of tennis.
In the end Wii SUCCEEDS at making the interaction layer as thin as possible far better than the 360.
To swing the wii-mote adjusting force angle and direction by varying your swing is the thinner mapping.
Consider the xbox version: something along the lines of: Use the left analog stick to move, press A to swing underhand, B to swing over hand, A+B to do a POWERSHOT(tm). Use the shoulder buttons to add spin. And on serves try to time your swing to maximize the balls position on the "Serving POWERBAR(tm)" or some such construction. You yourself said immersion is achieved with thin interation layers -- this is NOT the thinner layer.
In a perfect world, or perhaps merely the next console generation we'll have Wii controls and PS3 graphics. But for this generation, its a choice between "playing" or "watching", and playing beats watching for most people, especially when its delivered for 30% less $$ too.
Theft of revenue...
Its only even theoretically 'theft of revenue' if he would have bought it had he not copied it. When I was younger I had a copy of Photoshop. Was that 'theft of revenue'? Its not like I would have (or even could have) paid for it. My parents sure wouldn't have bought it for me; if they were willing to drop a few hundred bucks on something for me there are a ton of things I'd have preferred to get. I simply wouldn't have had it, and for the 3 times I used it in high school I wouldn't have missed it either.
As for the whole concept of twisting copyright infringement to mean "theft", that's a rather silly place to go:
fraud - theft
burlgary - theft
mugging - theft
robbery - theft
insider trading - theft
grand theft auto - theft
shoplifting - theft
and we could go on...
forgery - identity theft
murder - theft of life
tresspassing - theft of the use of someone elses privately owned space
harassment - theft of peace of mind
rape - theft of sexual intimacy
kidnapping - theft of a person
arson - theft of the use of a building
fishing without a license - theft of fish
dui - theft of safety
spitting on someone - theft of dignity (and cleanliness)
poaching - animal theft
censorship - theft of the right to free speech
building a website that lets you buy something with one-click - idea theft
hmmm... so pretty much anything illegal sounds like theft if you try hard enough. After all, pretty much anything illegal boils down to harming others by depriving them of some object, right, or state of being or mind. And 'depriving someone of something' sounds a lot like 'theft'.
When you make a digital copy of something [...] the copyright owner who didn't receive any revenue from your unauthorized use is a victim.
Yes, a victim of "copyright infringement".
Nobody said copyright infringement isn't harmful, or that its (always) victimless. But sometimes the 'victim' isn't victimized and sometimes (often?) they even ultimately benefit from it. But regardless, victims of "copyright infringement" are, by definition, victims of "copyright infringement".
That's why we differentiate between crimes. Because despite the fact that many crimes are similiar to other crimes, they are in fact different in important ways. For example murder and manslaughter -- calling it all 'murder' would fail to recognize the complete lack of intent inherent in manslaughter.
Similarly 'Copyright infringment' and 'theft' are also different, in many important ways.
Calling it 'theft' erases the notion of fair use from the discussion. Another crucial difference is that making a copy doesn't actually take the original away. Stealing a book, and copying a book are different. Not to mention the fact that copyrights expire while real property ownerhip does not...
Sure there are commonalities between theft and infringement, but then there are the same commonalities with kidnapping.
Aside from the issue that your making a digital copy of it, instead of actually taking it... and the fact that 'it' happens to be a software program instead of, you know, a 'person' its the same as kidnapping.
So stop kidnapping software, you lousy kidnappers!
"Oh wait, here we go, IT'S NOT THEFT CAUSE I MADE A DIGITAL COPY OF IT!"
...
Well DUH! Its not theft.
They made a 'digital copy of it': that means:
its not assault
its not loitering
its not shoplifting
its not election fraud
its not running a red light
its not coveting your neighbors ox
oh and its NOT THEFT.
It is however... "copyright infringement".
So how about we just call it THAT, mkay? Call it what it is.
Calling it theft is inaccurate and just confuses the issue.
I do agree however, that they *need* the Live interface to be part of Vista and not just something that you run from inside games.
It doesn't really need to be part of the game (although integration is nice). It certainly doesn't really need to be part of Vista. It can be its own thing.
Being able to see if my friends are playing a certain game while I'm downloading porn...um, checking my email would be nice.
Only if your friends are able to see your downloading porn. And even then only if they are able to see the porn.
Are you sure you want this?
Being able to see that your friend is playing Shadowrun while you are playing WoW will be the killer app.
All they'd have to do is give MSN the option of showing the foreground application as your status message. From there it would be pretty trivial to formalize the system, and give it a proper API, and allow you to hook whatever API aware communication/IM/application whatever to it.
As for that being the killer app? I think not. I'm sure some segment of the population will get off on having whatever they are currently doing reflected in all their friends messenger clients, displayed on their myspace profile in realtime, and fed via a webcam right to youtube so you can actually watch your friend play Shadowrun, but most people just don't care. MSN already tells me if your there or not... that's all i need to know. I don't really care to get a little message everytime anyone I've ever gamed with logs in to a game somewhere, especially while I'm in the middle of something else.
The "killer app" will be "micro-transaction" content for games that don't already have your credit card. (e.g. RTS and FPS games) to nickle and dime you for a new map, gun, hat, or whatever. And I'm already disenfranchised the rip-off potential in that.
How can not being able to move X dollars be construed as an X dollar "loss"? If my online banking goes down and I'm unable to place a web order to transfer my Mom X, and move Y from chequing to savings, and purchase Z mutual fund for an entire day. Its absurd to suggest the bank lost X+Y+Z? Even *I* didn't lose X+Y+Z from the inconvenience, and its my money.
I can't say I've experienced any flakiness with GMail, Google Maps, and other major AJAX apps I've used
Well, right off the top, you can't reliably link to a "page state". Even google maps only goes partway in this regard. Next factor in the battle for my status bar, and right click menu, and the fact that the back/forward/reload buttons don't work properly.
I don't know that we need a replacement for HTML/JS/CSS so much as we need an upgrade.
The internet as a big collection of hypertexts functions really really well at being that on html/javascript. "Web2.0" by and large supplements "Web1.0" it doesn't replace it. html/javascript doesn't need to be retired.
But a lot of web2.0 stuff really should be done as web based apps on a new platform, not hacked together with AJAX. I'm not talking about posting to a blog, I'm talking about trading stocks and tracking them in real-time, creating spreadsheets, manipulating images (a la Gimp or Photoshop) or enterprise intranet apps; some stuff really belongs in "web applications" not on "web pages".
Adding java behaviours, python, better DOM, and CSS standardization will just make writing blog page editors easier and that's fine, and a good thing, and we should get that too... but a scripting language (or two) is not enough.
We need to be able to pick the right tools for the job... not everything should be a scripting language "mash-up". What if we want the syntactical convenience of lisp for a task, or multithreading/synchronization objects, or sophisticated interface defintions.... one tool be everything.
What makes, say gmail, suited to being a web app? Its clumsier than any real app I've ever used. Whats the advantage? That it can be accessed from anywhere that has a browser? That's about it. Its not really a 'website' in any normal sense of the word. You log in and from that point on your in an application.
Have you ever encountered application publishing using Citrix? You can actually use outlook (or thunderbird, or photoshop, or whatever) from any machine that has a browser. THAT, my friend, is what the the goal of web applications should be; at least in terms of how the interface looks and works.
Citrix is really server heavy (not to mention proprietary, and I would argue overpriced but that's a separate issue), it would be far better if the UI could be published to the browser as an 'applet' to take the load off the server. In an ideal scenario, I as a developer could write a desktop application against a framework choosing which functionality is client side and which is server, and then choose to publish it as a web-based application without writing a single line of extra code.
I'd connect to the application, the UI for the application would be downloaded and run (or possibly loaded from recent cache, or an explicit cache) and I'd be able to get to work. I could write the application in the language of my choice or mix them as needed/appropriate. I could design the application as server or client heavy as I like... from having all the processing done on the server using the client to just display UI screens - to having all of it on the client, using the server just as a data store and application host.