I believe that filters imposed by the government is abridging freedom of speech and the press and so do most other people. Unfortunately it seems like the government is as censor happy as China is.
Let's not get out of control, here. The FCC prohibits a bunch of stuff from being broadcast freely over the airwaves, things like Janet's boobs. The reason for this is that televisions have no barrier to entry so users who find content objectionable have no course of action. (As opposed to cable, where they can choose to cancel it.) The FCC does NOT prevent things like that from being broadcast over cable or the internet. This is not China'esque censorship nor is it an infringment of free-speech. (If things were really in the ballpark of that, we would not be having this conversation for a variety of reasons.)
There is a big difference between shutting you up and not allowing you to broadcast your penis on the public airwaves.
Re:let me be the first to say
on
Loebner Talks AI
·
· Score: 0, Offtopic
FUCK THIS GUY
Well.. yes.. okay, I guess you could do that as another test for Turing... um.. yeah...
I'm not a Mac user, so I honestly don't know. But, except for the manigication bit, that sounds just like the "Quick Launch" bar on Windows. Can someone point out the difference?
It's a bit like mixing the system tray with the Quick Launch. You click an icon and the icon will reappear (again) to the very right-hand side of the dock. Imagine clicking on QuickLaunch, and the app you started lighting up an icon in the system tray. The difference to a human isn't that huge. The difference to a patent? Well, Quick Launch is a seperate thing and it just runs a shortcut. System Tray doesn't always show icons in it, and the list of open tasks in the Start-bar is a different animal, so it's probably different enough for Windows to not be prior art. (Erm.. well it probably wouldn't have been anyway, but you get the idea.)
*Allows the use of ISOs without needing the UMD (cures loading time issues with games)
Warez games.
If you rip the ISOs you can store a ton of games on an 8-gig card. No need to carry more than just your PSP and you get much better battery-life as well.
If there is any consensus, it mostly has to do with most posters coming down on the side of common sense.
I'd like to have had your experience on Slashdot, cos that ain't been mine. What I run into is everybody thinking they're right and fighting those battles even after being proven wrong. (or simply disappearing as if they didn't get the notification that there was a response.) If common sense actually factored into it, I probably wouldn't roll my eyes so much around here.
You've committed the common fallacy of supposing that there is some kind of "average" slashdot user, who represents every user, and believes every opinion that has ever been expressed on this message board. Obviously that can't be the case. Anybody like that would have to contradict every one of their own opinions....... And stop assuming everybody here is a cookie-cutter version of everyone else.
I mainly agree with the spirit of your post, but I had to say something about this little blurb: There are topics on Slashdot where a majority of the people who post agree. This is also reflected in the moderator pool. It is rather common for these opinions to be enforced via mod-points. For example: If you were to travel back to the year 1999 and post on Slashdot that 'Microsoft kills babies', that post would rocket up to +5. If you were to then post that 'Linux could use a little improvement in this particular area...', that post would disappear into a sea of other -1 posts. The specific attitudes change over the years, but the underlying principle always remains. That's why sometimes you really have to walk on eggshells with certain opinions to avoid your posts disappearing into oblivion. People who happen to be on the majority's side of opinion could make a great speech and get cheered for it. Now, here's the funny bit. Everybody's post comes with its own little score. There are a fair number of active posters who posture themselves to raise that score, appealing to the majority view. These are the guys that come in and say things like "I just want a phone that's just a phone!!!". All these people get talkative on certain topics, whether it be praise or waving of pitchforks. And Slashdot, which is ad-supported btw, caters to these people with stories that are going to interest them.
Slashdot most definitely has a voice, some call it the GroupThink. Some people have taken offense to this, but really, the "but there's one guy that doesn't agree!" argument just doesn't apply. It's not an absolute term, it's just about majority. Generalizations always suck, right? Well, okay, but through the natural path of posting on Slashdot, you have to pick up these generalizations if you want to post your opinion without too much trouble. (I personally blame the moderation system for giving power to those with extreme opinions. I think it illustrates why vigilantism is illegal.)
In any event, Slashdot does have opinions. If you'd like to test that theory, wander into an iPhone thread and say it's the best phone ever.;)
how dare companies try to make money! its not the mortgage sellers that were greedy, nosiree, those bastards who made games are the worst excesses of modern evil surely!!!!111 -- Try some DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac that make you think: http://www.positech.co.uk/
I find it mildly amusing that you're fighting the 'greed' term with your sig advertising your DRM-free games appearing right below it. As if it'd be a selling point otherwise.;)
Problem with this is rooted in a basic economic error. The value of an item also, in part, is due to its resale value. The more publishers degrade the resale value the less the item is worth upfront. This is why attempts to outlaw used game sales, or demonize outlets that resale games don't have a leg to stand on. This method of devaluing only the resale value to the secondary market will still have an impact on the upfront price. Games will be worth less to buyers because of a move like this. Therefore, games will sell less than ever. Which will create a vicious cycle because publishers will likely conclude that they need to take even stricter measures against piracy, when the truth is they simply devalued their own product and would see more sales without the restrictions.
I've said before that EA's making a bad move in forcing their potential customers to look more carefully at what you are and aren't allowed to do with your purchase. Games are impulse purchases. Take away the impulse, and just like you're saying, they'll eat away at their own market. You'd think Nintendo's "it prints money!!11!" successes with the DS and the Wii would have hit that point home already.
If you think they're going to get rid of DRM in favour of this, I've got a bridge to sell you. Betting odds say we'll have both DRM and this.
Though I agree, I have to say I'm quite impressed with the backlash over Spore. Over 2,500 people went to the Amazon review of the game and give it a 1-star rating complaining about their restrictions. True, EA's concessions were small, but man, I've never seen a mobilization like that with video games. I'm curious to see what'll happen if their potential customers continue to fight back like that. If the party gets big enough, who knows, maybe eventually DRM won't be part of gaming anymore.
Well, I can dream. At least those Amazon reviews got the word out to a few people.
It would be more like Ford selling you a car that comes with free wheels as a bonus but prevented you from selling the car with those wheels.
Considering that the games work without the incentives, this car analogy (argh!) breaks down. Maybe if you had said the car came with a stereo that only responds to the original purchaser's fingerprint or something.
They just want more money. Its pure greed.
Well duh. They make money on the original sale, not on the used sale. (Well... actually I think that's questionable if you consider all the game sequels out there, but generally speaking this is probably an okay point to make.) So they want to increase excitement about the game's initial release where they make the most money. Big shock, there. Only people with Flintheart Glomgold's passion for money would want to do that. Right.
1. Good boys and girls get a bonus for being good. 2. Bad boys and girls figure out how to also benefit from these bonuses. 3. Devs panic and institute some ridiculous mechanism that typically only hinders the good boys and girls.
Example: 1. Everyone that purchases a new copy of a game at release will get a bonus 5 maps. 2. These maps are quickly torrented and now everyone has them. 3. Devs ban these 5 bonus maps from play with a game update. Only players that download and install a EULA-breaking crack will still be able to play these maps.
That's all fine and dandy for PC games, but what about consoles? Wouldn't it take quite a bit of effort, at least in a mass-market sense, to go through all that for an XBOX 360 game? I mean, the example they gave was for Rock Band 2.
If Star Trek Voyager has taught us anything, when you need to go deep into the ocean, just send the bad boy Tom Paris with trusty sidkick Ensin Kim in the Delta Flier. Thats more than enough to get hte job done. The only downside is that Lt Paris may make everyone listen to some drawn out letter hes writing to his father.... and quite frankly, its too dramatic for my tastes. -- WWPD - What Would Picard Do?
Man... you really buried the needle on my virgin meter with that one.
To be honest, and no offense taken if you call me naieve or even ignorant here, but this is the first time I've heard of either standard requiring a net connection. What I have heard about is 'live content' and firmware updates. With all the ruckus kicked up about either of these formats, complaints that a player or disc could be remotely killed never crossed my path.
I just want to know if it actually exists or if it's something that sounds really really plausible because the players have upgradable firmware and possibly a net connection.
It's about tracking the consumer. Even if the "live content" was all of one kilobyte Paramount would host it on their own server. Having each disk "dial home" is in valuable for marketing and racketeering^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hcopyright enforcement.
Does Blu-Ray have a remote kill-switch?
I just ask because some of the paranoid theories I hear on Slashdot are funny. I personally liked the +5 one where RFID in kid's clothing was going to lead to predators watching childrens' movements from his computer in his basement.
Point taken, but I think the risk-benefit tradeoff weighs more favourably for murderers.
I think that in the real world, assuming that this law would actually be globally AND rigorously enforced, you'd still find people doing it. Maybe I'm being unfair to a lot of people, but just tonight I watched two teenagers steal two cases of beer from a grocery store. That's a pretty stupid thing to risk a criminal record for, especially considering it'd all be gone in the next day or two. Some people do things on impulse. Some people just think they can get away with it. Some wouldn't even know it was illegal. Then there's some guy that comes along who cooks up a neat scam and just needs to get a message out to a bunch of people.
Slashdot Mirror
I believe that filters imposed by the government is abridging freedom of speech and the press and so do most other people. Unfortunately it seems like the government is as censor happy as China is.
Let's not get out of control, here. The FCC prohibits a bunch of stuff from being broadcast freely over the airwaves, things like Janet's boobs. The reason for this is that televisions have no barrier to entry so users who find content objectionable have no course of action. (As opposed to cable, where they can choose to cancel it.) The FCC does NOT prevent things like that from being broadcast over cable or the internet. This is not China'esque censorship nor is it an infringment of free-speech. (If things were really in the ballpark of that, we would not be having this conversation for a variety of reasons.)
There is a big difference between shutting you up and not allowing you to broadcast your penis on the public airwaves.
FUCK THIS GUY
Well.. yes.. okay, I guess you could do that as another test for Turing... um.. yeah...
"Weird. I coulda sworn I grew some vegetables this year. But no one paid me, therefore by your logic I had no incentive to do so."
You paid yourself to satisfy your rumbly tumbly, poo-boy.
Am I the only one who sees this as nothing more than an attempt to sell 3x as many retail boxes?
The attempt would only work if the game is good.
"Some way to force all but the most ardent resistor to buy all three."
You misspelled 'tempt'.
"I'm going to take it and derive enjoyment from it, but it's not good so I won't pay for it."
If one cannot return a shitty movie, he or she's going to find another means to review its value.
they did trademark "Start"
Trademark != Patent.
I'm not a Mac user, so I honestly don't know. But, except for the manigication bit, that sounds just like the "Quick Launch" bar on Windows. Can someone point out the difference?
It's a bit like mixing the system tray with the Quick Launch. You click an icon and the icon will reappear (again) to the very right-hand side of the dock. Imagine clicking on QuickLaunch, and the app you started lighting up an icon in the system tray. The difference to a human isn't that huge. The difference to a patent? Well, Quick Launch is a seperate thing and it just runs a shortcut. System Tray doesn't always show icons in it, and the list of open tasks in the Start-bar is a different animal, so it's probably different enough for Windows to not be prior art. (Erm.. well it probably wouldn't have been anyway, but you get the idea.)
That's an awfully trivial difference.
Not in patent-land.
*Allows the use of ISOs without needing the UMD (cures loading time issues with games)
Warez games.
If you rip the ISOs you can store a ton of games on an 8-gig card. No need to carry more than just your PSP and you get much better battery-life as well.
I got it now.
No you don't.
"try TO minimize weight", godsdamnit
Let's not be illiterate.
If you can't read it, that makes you the illiterate person. ;)
"The text of the bill notes that the average child watches four hours of television a day"
Uhhh, doesn't this seem a little much??
No. Saturday and Sunday get more viewing time, thus raising the average.
If there is any consensus, it mostly has to do with most posters coming down on the side of common sense.
I'd like to have had your experience on Slashdot, cos that ain't been mine. What I run into is everybody thinking they're right and fighting those battles even after being proven wrong. (or simply disappearing as if they didn't get the notification that there was a response.) If common sense actually factored into it, I probably wouldn't roll my eyes so much around here.
You've committed the common fallacy of supposing that there is some kind of "average" slashdot user, who represents every user, and believes every opinion that has ever been expressed on this message board. Obviously that can't be the case. Anybody like that would have to contradict every one of their own opinions. ... ... And stop assuming everybody here is a cookie-cutter version of everyone else.
I mainly agree with the spirit of your post, but I had to say something about this little blurb: There are topics on Slashdot where a majority of the people who post agree. This is also reflected in the moderator pool. It is rather common for these opinions to be enforced via mod-points. For example: If you were to travel back to the year 1999 and post on Slashdot that 'Microsoft kills babies', that post would rocket up to +5. If you were to then post that 'Linux could use a little improvement in this particular area...', that post would disappear into a sea of other -1 posts. The specific attitudes change over the years, but the underlying principle always remains. That's why sometimes you really have to walk on eggshells with certain opinions to avoid your posts disappearing into oblivion. People who happen to be on the majority's side of opinion could make a great speech and get cheered for it. Now, here's the funny bit. Everybody's post comes with its own little score. There are a fair number of active posters who posture themselves to raise that score, appealing to the majority view. These are the guys that come in and say things like "I just want a phone that's just a phone!!!". All these people get talkative on certain topics, whether it be praise or waving of pitchforks. And Slashdot, which is ad-supported btw, caters to these people with stories that are going to interest them.
Slashdot most definitely has a voice, some call it the GroupThink. Some people have taken offense to this, but really, the "but there's one guy that doesn't agree!" argument just doesn't apply. It's not an absolute term, it's just about majority. Generalizations always suck, right? Well, okay, but through the natural path of posting on Slashdot, you have to pick up these generalizations if you want to post your opinion without too much trouble. (I personally blame the moderation system for giving power to those with extreme opinions. I think it illustrates why vigilantism is illegal.)
In any event, Slashdot does have opinions. If you'd like to test that theory, wander into an iPhone thread and say it's the best phone ever. ;)
how dare companies try to make money!
its not the mortgage sellers that were greedy, nosiree, those bastards who made games are the worst excesses of modern evil surely!!!!111
--
Try some DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac that make you think: http://www.positech.co.uk/
I find it mildly amusing that you're fighting the 'greed' term with your sig advertising your DRM-free games appearing right below it. As if it'd be a selling point otherwise. ;)
Problem with this is rooted in a basic economic error. The value of an item also, in part, is due to its resale value. The more publishers degrade the resale value the less the item is worth upfront. This is why attempts to outlaw used game sales, or demonize outlets that resale games don't have a leg to stand on. This method of devaluing only the resale value to the secondary market will still have an impact on the upfront price. Games will be worth less to buyers because of a move like this. Therefore, games will sell less than ever. Which will create a vicious cycle because publishers will likely conclude that they need to take even stricter measures against piracy, when the truth is they simply devalued their own product and would see more sales without the restrictions.
I've said before that EA's making a bad move in forcing their potential customers to look more carefully at what you are and aren't allowed to do with your purchase. Games are impulse purchases. Take away the impulse, and just like you're saying, they'll eat away at their own market. You'd think Nintendo's "it prints money!!11!" successes with the DS and the Wii would have hit that point home already.
If you think they're going to get rid of DRM in favour of this, I've got a bridge to sell you. Betting odds say we'll have both DRM and this.
Though I agree, I have to say I'm quite impressed with the backlash over Spore. Over 2,500 people went to the Amazon review of the game and give it a 1-star rating complaining about their restrictions. True, EA's concessions were small, but man, I've never seen a mobilization like that with video games. I'm curious to see what'll happen if their potential customers continue to fight back like that. If the party gets big enough, who knows, maybe eventually DRM won't be part of gaming anymore.
Well, I can dream. At least those Amazon reviews got the word out to a few people.
It would be more like Ford selling you a car that comes with free wheels as a bonus but prevented you from selling the car with those wheels.
Considering that the games work without the incentives, this car analogy (argh!) breaks down. Maybe if you had said the car came with a stereo that only responds to the original purchaser's fingerprint or something.
They just want more money. Its pure greed.
Well duh. They make money on the original sale, not on the used sale. (Well... actually I think that's questionable if you consider all the game sequels out there, but generally speaking this is probably an okay point to make.) So they want to increase excitement about the game's initial release where they make the most money. Big shock, there. Only people with Flintheart Glomgold's passion for money would want to do that. Right.
These incentives don't work.
1. Good boys and girls get a bonus for being good.
2. Bad boys and girls figure out how to also benefit from these bonuses.
3. Devs panic and institute some ridiculous mechanism that typically only hinders the good boys and girls.
Example:
1. Everyone that purchases a new copy of a game at release will get a bonus 5 maps.
2. These maps are quickly torrented and now everyone has them.
3. Devs ban these 5 bonus maps from play with a game update. Only players that download and install a EULA-breaking crack will still be able to play these maps.
That's all fine and dandy for PC games, but what about consoles? Wouldn't it take quite a bit of effort, at least in a mass-market sense, to go through all that for an XBOX 360 game? I mean, the example they gave was for Rock Band 2.
If Star Trek Voyager has taught us anything, when you need to go deep into the ocean, just send the bad boy Tom Paris with trusty sidkick Ensin Kim in the Delta Flier. Thats more than enough to get hte job done. The only downside is that Lt Paris may make everyone listen to some drawn out letter hes writing to his father.... and quite frankly, its too dramatic for my tastes.
--
WWPD - What Would Picard Do?
Man... you really buried the needle on my virgin meter with that one.
CmdrTaco paid me 5 cents to suck his 2 inch penis!
Wow.. the economy's going to put yo mama outta bidness.
It's not the lack of knowledge about Blu-Ray that makes you ignorant. It's the fact that you can't spell 'ignorance'.
You should look up the definition of ignorance. Then you should look up the definition of typo.
And I think this was more of a " updataeable content" bit anyway.
*sigh* Well maybe by the time you've mastered usage of those words your sphincter muscles will relax enough to pull your head out.
why do you think it requires a net connection?
To be honest, and no offense taken if you call me naieve or even ignorant here, but this is the first time I've heard of either standard requiring a net connection. What I have heard about is 'live content' and firmware updates. With all the ruckus kicked up about either of these formats, complaints that a player or disc could be remotely killed never crossed my path.
I just want to know if it actually exists or if it's something that sounds really really plausible because the players have upgradable firmware and possibly a net connection.
It's about tracking the consumer. Even if the "live content" was all of one kilobyte Paramount would host it on their own server. Having each disk "dial home" is in valuable for marketing and racketeering^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hcopyright enforcement.
Does Blu-Ray have a remote kill-switch?
I just ask because some of the paranoid theories I hear on Slashdot are funny. I personally liked the +5 one where RFID in kid's clothing was going to lead to predators watching childrens' movements from his computer in his basement.
Point taken, but I think the risk-benefit tradeoff weighs more favourably for murderers.
I think that in the real world, assuming that this law would actually be globally AND rigorously enforced, you'd still find people doing it. Maybe I'm being unfair to a lot of people, but just tonight I watched two teenagers steal two cases of beer from a grocery store. That's a pretty stupid thing to risk a criminal record for, especially considering it'd all be gone in the next day or two. Some people do things on impulse. Some people just think they can get away with it. Some wouldn't even know it was illegal. Then there's some guy that comes along who cooks up a neat scam and just needs to get a message out to a bunch of people.
Hope your weekend is going well.