"Am I the only one......who doesn't give a shit about the iphone or any other products from apple?"
You picked a funny thread to ask that. Sorta like going into a packed theater to see Episode III and shouting "Am I the only one that doesn't give a shit about Star Wars?"
A friend of mine works for a company selling the iPhone 2. According to him if you lose your iPhone 2 you will 1. Have to pay full price to get a new one (not too surprising imo) and 2. Re-sign up for a 2 year contract... Also according to him the employees have been instructed specifically to not mention this fact to customers. Pretty screwy to me. Then again I am ignorant of how most cell phones work so I don't know if this is standard or not. I'm assuming based on his reaction its not.
Well, it sucks, but it's also the way it's worked with every single cell phone I've had for the last 11 years. Contract + Phone == subsidy to lower the cost. Unless you have your phone insured, you're going to have to pay the full price of the phone or subsidize it with a new contract.
I'm not complaining about you in particular, but I am finding these sorts of 'red flags' to be a little annoying. Okay, the iPhone is overhyped. The substance isn't being overpowered by the flash. I think this is understood, afterall, that's why lots of people are coming forward and saying "Hmm.. this sounds better than it really is." And ya know what? They're right. But what's getting annoying (again, I'm not picking on you in particular because I'm not sensing malice in your tone.) is all these alarms are going off about things that really need to be filed under D for Duh. Here are some examples:
- The phone's only $199, but you're stuck with a 2 year contract, so it really costs over $1500! - Data service isn't available everywhere! - Some people will have to plunk down a deposit!... etc.
Seriously, it's not like the vast majority of people getting an iPhone have never had a cell phone before. Let's at least keep the drawbacks that affect any other cellphone on the market to a minimum.
Man, Slashdot is full of cynics. There are some bad apples in the gaming press, but overall I find that reviews are pretty honest, and give me a good idea of what to expect in a game. Not to mention almost all major sites now have a "user rating" right next to the review score, where users can comment. BS reviews are knocked right out there, not to mention when you aggregate through a site like metacritic you wipe out biases.
Cynic? I wouldn't say that. I would say, though, that I cannot think of a game critic that matched my tastes enough to take his word for it.
Crappy games are selling because of a combination of good marketing and an ignorant game-buying public, not because reviews overwhelmingly lie.
That's not quite what I meant to say. By 'working' I meant: Good reviews were being written AND significant numbers of people are reading and accepting the reviews. I could have clarified that a bit more, my apologies. For whatever reason I'm not in touch with, reviews aren't getting the job done. Maybe it's lack of trust. Maybe nobody cares. Couldn't say. Whatever the reason, though, tastes are subjective, and once you've made that commitment, you're out the money.
Seriously, this is a fact of life, why are people up in arms about this?
Because it's a fact of life that shouldn't exist. That's why lemon laws exist. That's why an undisclosed problem can lead to a lawsuit. It's fraud.
I don't see people complaining about not being able to view a movie for free to decide if they're going to go to the cinema to see it.
I wasn't suggesting that. Don't confuse my point with being pro-piracy. My point is that the consumers aren't on a level playing ground with the companies making the content, so there's bound to be some not-so-fair-play. As for your comment there, I'm sure you haven't heard that phrase, but I bet you've heard a variant of it: "There's two hours I wish I could get back." That person's out his DVD or ticket purchase money.
How is gaming any different?
Are you serious? Okay:
a.) The cost is higher.
b.) These days, you can't even get 'finished' games, patches are required to make them work. So even research or a demo won't reveal that.
c.) Finicky copy restriction. "You can only install this game 3 times..."
d.) Unforseen hardware related problems. (although, I'll concede, some places will return a game for that.)
The general point? A movie you either go to or plop into a player and play it. A game, that's far more involved.
I have no sympathy for anyone who bought that game - this isn't even a case of the publisher buying out reviewers.
That's a bit cold. It's one thing for a hardcore gamer to take it up the butt on that game. It's another when a lil ol lady decides to buy her grandson a present and knows he likes Superman. Why that game was never classified as 'fraud', I'll never understand. In any event, I understand your lack sympathy, that's fine, but I can easily see it biting you on the butt. You're human. There's no reason to expect you to be an expert on every single product on the market. There's also no realistic reason you can be expected to spend all the time required to research every little thing you plunk cash down on. There are protections in place to prevent you from getting fleeced and they are there for a good reason. Yes, you're protecting stupid people. However, you are a stupid person from time to time.
"Seriously, why are people pretending that a game is a black box that cannot be peered into until you bring it home?"
Because reviews are paid for and demos don't necessarily reflect the final product?
I dunno, I don't play many games let alone pirate them. I do, however, watch a lot of movies. Frankly, I can understand why some would prefer not to pay for them. Trailers are useless. Reviews... *sigh* let's be frank, if reviews were really working on a wide-scale, there are a lot of 'blockbusters' that would never have enjoyed that level of success.
Though I agree there's a differentiation with games, I cannot agree that it's as black and white as you are making it out to be. The fact is they're asking you to plunk down $50 or $60 for something that you really don't know will be worth your time. If it isn't, tough shit, they've got your money and you can't return it. Seriously, it's an "Open your mouth and close your eyes!" business model. Some people's behaviour really isn't all that surprising. T'is a pity they don't just allow returns. Ask anybody who's purchased Superman 64.
You can actually download System 7.5.3 from Apple for free. Sure you don't get the source code to edit it, but at least you can still run it. I think this is a good solution. Once your software is no longer commercially viable, let people use it for free.
Is there anything us Intel based peeps can do with this OS? (I don't suppose VMWare supports PPC emulation...?)
"Whatever happened to "Information wants to be free?" Or does that only apply to bootleg copies of Iron Man?"
I'd like to sell you my can-opener, but I've rigged it so that you're only allowed to use it 10 times. If it breaks, you're not allowed to open it up and fix it, you must buy a new one. I haven't felt compelled to print all of my sensitive information and jam it into the can-opener before selling it to you for reasons that are too blindingly obvious for you to be confused about.
Remember that a copy of your fingerprint must be stored somewhere in the laptop to compare against, and that a fingerprint can never scan twice.
Is that true? I was under the impression that fingerprint readers break down the relative uniqueness of your fingerprint into a key as opposed to doing an image-comparison. Can anybody clarify that?
"or whas it an abstinance preaching?did the kids take it seriously?"
I went to school before the abstinance nonsense. They taught us about pregnancy, stds, the need to use a condom... actually they even handed out condoms. (Unfortunately that fueled an epic water-balloon fight...) Heh. I don't know what the failure was, though I suspect it was the parents.
"the medical system is quite capable of handling it, and a new child in the household doesn take up resources more than a new little brother, and families routinely cope with those."
Well... the problem is that it ties down the mother during what's supposed to be her 'college years', effectively creating a huge speedbump in her life. That also doesn't cover the STD aspect of it.
In any event, I'd say this conversation's academic. I'm not arguing that those people are right. I'm just saying I'm not surprised sex is much higher on the 'things to worry about' list. Even the older generation, they grew up on Warner Brothers Cartoons and the Three Stooges. But the male ones in particular remember what they did when they saw certain things... Just sayin.
"im gonna be worried about s/he murdering somone else. also, theres this thing called sex edu., you should try it."
We've obviously had different teenage experiences, then. When I was in high school, I knew 7 girls that had gotten pregnant, 2 people that had gotten STDs, and 1 person violently murdered. (Incidently, Mortal Kombat II was incredibly popular during this period.) This was despite having sex ed classes that everybody had to attend.
I don't think acting like sex doesn't exist is the proper way to handle the subject with kids. I don't think Janet Jackson's boob, for example, was a big deal. However, I know a lot of people had the same experience as a teenager as I have. I can totally understand why sex is a hotter topic than violence. It has nothing to do with the masses being stupid, it's just: "based on my own experiences, which is more likely?"
As for your being worried about your kid murdering somebody else... try being a good dad.;)
I've never seen so much consensus in Slashdot comments! And you're all right - the fact that gratuitous violence is more acceptable than sex is sick, sick, sick. 'Sick' is a bit extreme. I can tell you this: If I ever have a kid, I'm going to be a lot more worried about him/her causing/getting pregnant than I am about him/her getting murdered.
"I never said everybody should go metric...all I did was provide the metric value to make things simpler for those that use it, and in doing so suggest that the value should have been given in the original summary."
Heh. Right. "For anybody living in the 21st Century..."...
"It's nothing to do with being unable to make the conversion..."
Uh huh. "My entire point was that presenting the information in only Fahrenheit was unhelpful to the vast majority of the World which deals in Celsius..." Yep, it's as if no number was posted at all.
"You're reading some kind of attack on your precious Farenheit in something that was nothing more than a prompt for submitters/editors to additionally consider that 90%+ of the World that uses metric."
I like how you accuse me of not reading what you said then ya go and say this. Cute!
Spare me the righteousness. We're on the same side, I just don't care for you being a snob about it. "I used my 'for this century' comment to explain the convenience of having a measurement made available..." Right. If you really believe what you're saying, you should take a good hard look at how your original post might be interpreted.
"I can't be held responsible for a few other people who have taken what I said (or what they thought I said) and machinated it into some kind of attack on the American Way of Life."
Hey, I don't care if you attack the American Way of Life. It's the "everybody should go metric because we're too dumbfuck stupid to do a simple conversion" approach that could use a re-think. Cos nothing makes things change faster than acting completely helpless. "Us Celsius people can't work with a fahrenheit number! Waa!" Real cool.
Where does common sense come into it? Or deduction for that matter? I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be insensitive. Those of us that go outside from time to time have observed that when trees enter a season where the temperature drops to close to freezing (of water, I mean...), the leaves fall off. We've also observed that when the leaves on trees seem to thrive the most, the temperature hasn't risen to fairy-close-to-the-boiling-point-of-water.
Simple deduction. Simple common sense. No need to raise a fuss.
Arrogance is being in the tiny minority and expecting everyone to work around you. That's an interesting statement considering Nature's target audience. Thank you. Now if we can just get the whole world to speak proper English, you can finally retire from shameless karma whoring, right?;)
Yes, they underestimated demand and probably have a little egg on their faces. But Firefox WORKS! And it's FREE! So what's your problem? They signed away their rights to the 'you get what you paid for' excuse when they ran an ad in the New York Times.
I knew I would regret installing this upgrade, but I can't help myself and not install an upgrade. I have an obsessive-compulsive upgrade installing disorder. What a minute, are you that guy that keeps buying those Star Wars dvds?
Slashdot Mirror
"Am I the only one... ...who doesn't give a shit about the iphone or any other products from apple?"
You picked a funny thread to ask that. Sorta like going into a packed theater to see Episode III and shouting "Am I the only one that doesn't give a shit about Star Wars?"
A friend of mine works for a company selling the iPhone 2. According to him if you lose your iPhone 2 you will 1. Have to pay full price to get a new one (not too surprising imo) and 2. Re-sign up for a 2 year contract... Also according to him the employees have been instructed specifically to not mention this fact to customers. Pretty screwy to me. Then again I am ignorant of how most cell phones work so I don't know if this is standard or not. I'm assuming based on his reaction its not.
Well, it sucks, but it's also the way it's worked with every single cell phone I've had for the last 11 years. Contract + Phone == subsidy to lower the cost. Unless you have your phone insured, you're going to have to pay the full price of the phone or subsidize it with a new contract.
I'm not complaining about you in particular, but I am finding these sorts of 'red flags' to be a little annoying. Okay, the iPhone is overhyped. The substance isn't being overpowered by the flash. I think this is understood, afterall, that's why lots of people are coming forward and saying "Hmm.. this sounds better than it really is." And ya know what? They're right. But what's getting annoying (again, I'm not picking on you in particular because I'm not sensing malice in your tone.) is all these alarms are going off about things that really need to be filed under D for Duh. Here are some examples:
- The phone's only $199, but you're stuck with a 2 year contract, so it really costs over $1500! ... etc.
- Data service isn't available everywhere!
- Some people will have to plunk down a deposit!
Seriously, it's not like the vast majority of people getting an iPhone have never had a cell phone before. Let's at least keep the drawbacks that affect any other cellphone on the market to a minimum.
Man, Slashdot is full of cynics. There are some bad apples in the gaming press, but overall I find that reviews are pretty honest, and give me a good idea of what to expect in a game. Not to mention almost all major sites now have a "user rating" right next to the review score, where users can comment. BS reviews are knocked right out there, not to mention when you aggregate through a site like metacritic you wipe out biases.
Cynic? I wouldn't say that. I would say, though, that I cannot think of a game critic that matched my tastes enough to take his word for it.
Crappy games are selling because of a combination of good marketing and an ignorant game-buying public, not because reviews overwhelmingly lie.
That's not quite what I meant to say. By 'working' I meant: Good reviews were being written AND significant numbers of people are reading and accepting the reviews. I could have clarified that a bit more, my apologies. For whatever reason I'm not in touch with, reviews aren't getting the job done. Maybe it's lack of trust. Maybe nobody cares. Couldn't say. Whatever the reason, though, tastes are subjective, and once you've made that commitment, you're out the money.
Seriously, this is a fact of life, why are people up in arms about this?
Because it's a fact of life that shouldn't exist. That's why lemon laws exist. That's why an undisclosed problem can lead to a lawsuit. It's fraud.
I don't see people complaining about not being able to view a movie for free to decide if they're going to go to the cinema to see it.
I wasn't suggesting that. Don't confuse my point with being pro-piracy. My point is that the consumers aren't on a level playing ground with the companies making the content, so there's bound to be some not-so-fair-play. As for your comment there, I'm sure you haven't heard that phrase, but I bet you've heard a variant of it: "There's two hours I wish I could get back." That person's out his DVD or ticket purchase money.
How is gaming any different?
Are you serious? Okay:
a.) The cost is higher.
b.) These days, you can't even get 'finished' games, patches are required to make them work. So even research or a demo won't reveal that.
c.) Finicky copy restriction. "You can only install this game 3 times..."
d.) Unforseen hardware related problems. (although, I'll concede, some places will return a game for that.)
The general point? A movie you either go to or plop into a player and play it. A game, that's far more involved.
I have no sympathy for anyone who bought that game - this isn't even a case of the publisher buying out reviewers.
That's a bit cold. It's one thing for a hardcore gamer to take it up the butt on that game. It's another when a lil ol lady decides to buy her grandson a present and knows he likes Superman. Why that game was never classified as 'fraud', I'll never understand. In any event, I understand your lack sympathy, that's fine, but I can easily see it biting you on the butt. You're human. There's no reason to expect you to be an expert on every single product on the market. There's also no realistic reason you can be expected to spend all the time required to research every little thing you plunk cash down on. There are protections in place to prevent you from getting fleeced and they are there for a good reason. Yes, you're protecting stupid people. However, you are a stupid person from time to time.
"Seriously, why are people pretending that a game is a black box that cannot be peered into until you bring it home?"
Because reviews are paid for and demos don't necessarily reflect the final product?
I dunno, I don't play many games let alone pirate them. I do, however, watch a lot of movies. Frankly, I can understand why some would prefer not to pay for them. Trailers are useless. Reviews ... *sigh* let's be frank, if reviews were really working on a wide-scale, there are a lot of 'blockbusters' that would never have enjoyed that level of success.
Though I agree there's a differentiation with games, I cannot agree that it's as black and white as you are making it out to be. The fact is they're asking you to plunk down $50 or $60 for something that you really don't know will be worth your time. If it isn't, tough shit, they've got your money and you can't return it. Seriously, it's an "Open your mouth and close your eyes!" business model. Some people's behaviour really isn't all that surprising. T'is a pity they don't just allow returns. Ask anybody who's purchased Superman 64.
You can actually download System 7.5.3 from Apple for free. Sure you don't get the source code to edit it, but at least you can still run it. I think this is a good solution. Once your software is no longer commercially viable, let people use it for free.
Is there anything us Intel based peeps can do with this OS? (I don't suppose VMWare supports PPC emulation...?)
If games really sucked so much, you wouldn't even be interested in pirating them!
You don't know the game sucks until you've played it. That's also why movies like Indiana Jones 4 make hundreds of millions of dollars.
"Whatever happened to "Information wants to be free?" Or does that only apply to bootleg copies of Iron Man?"
I'd like to sell you my can-opener, but I've rigged it so that you're only allowed to use it 10 times. If it breaks, you're not allowed to open it up and fix it, you must buy a new one. I haven't felt compelled to print all of my sensitive information and jam it into the can-opener before selling it to you for reasons that are too blindingly obvious for you to be confused about.
Remember that a copy of your fingerprint must be stored somewhere in the laptop to compare against, and that a fingerprint can never scan twice.
Is that true? I was under the impression that fingerprint readers break down the relative uniqueness of your fingerprint into a key as opposed to doing an image-comparison. Can anybody clarify that?
"If it's "dark" that means it's undetectable by normal means like giant lenses for instance. How could you just see dark energy? "
I would imagine it's like 'seeing' wind because trees sway.
they only produce power when the curtains are closed.
Right... Right, like you're sitting there posting your comments on Slashdot wiht all the curtains drawn.
It's theft! Stop doing it! Stop Justifying it!
You are no better than a petty thief. Stop stealing other people's IP.
Wow. I had no idea Hillary Rosen's parrot learned to type!
"or whas it an abstinance preaching?did the kids take it seriously?"
I went to school before the abstinance nonsense. They taught us about pregnancy, stds, the need to use a condom... actually they even handed out condoms. (Unfortunately that fueled an epic water-balloon fight...) Heh. I don't know what the failure was, though I suspect it was the parents.
"the medical system is quite capable of handling it, and a new child in the household doesn take up resources more than a new little brother, and families routinely cope with those."
Well... the problem is that it ties down the mother during what's supposed to be her 'college years', effectively creating a huge speedbump in her life. That also doesn't cover the STD aspect of it.
In any event, I'd say this conversation's academic. I'm not arguing that those people are right. I'm just saying I'm not surprised sex is much higher on the 'things to worry about' list. Even the older generation, they grew up on Warner Brothers Cartoons and the Three Stooges. But the male ones in particular remember what they did when they saw certain things... Just sayin.
"im gonna be worried about s/he murdering somone else. also, theres this thing called sex edu., you should try it."
We've obviously had different teenage experiences, then. When I was in high school, I knew 7 girls that had gotten pregnant, 2 people that had gotten STDs, and 1 person violently murdered. (Incidently, Mortal Kombat II was incredibly popular during this period.) This was despite having sex ed classes that everybody had to attend.
I don't think acting like sex doesn't exist is the proper way to handle the subject with kids. I don't think Janet Jackson's boob, for example, was a big deal. However, I know a lot of people had the same experience as a teenager as I have. I can totally understand why sex is a hotter topic than violence. It has nothing to do with the masses being stupid, it's just: "based on my own experiences, which is more likely?"
As for your being worried about your kid murdering somebody else... try being a good dad. ;)
My bad, I thought Google owned gmail.de. I guess that's why the trademark thing came up. :P
"People will have to copy and paste... Oh no, those poor users!"
It means an email address change for them when the domain is shut down. Yes, those poor users.
Man, even people reading the f'n article aren't engaging their brains today.
"Oh, look at poor Google. It's like a wayward schoolchild who lost his iPod."
"Poor Google's users" is what you'd be thinking if you had actually put some thought into it.
Heh. Anything to save face, I suppose. You wouldn't want to come off as a shameless karma whore or anything. ;)
"I never said everybody should go metric...all I did was provide the metric value to make things simpler for those that use it, and in doing so suggest that the value should have been given in the original summary."
Heh. Right. "For anybody living in the 21st Century..."...
"It's nothing to do with being unable to make the conversion..."
Uh huh. "My entire point was that presenting the information in only Fahrenheit was unhelpful to the vast majority of the World which deals in Celsius..." Yep, it's as if no number was posted at all.
"You're reading some kind of attack on your precious Farenheit in something that was nothing more than a prompt for submitters/editors to additionally consider that 90%+ of the World that uses metric."
I like how you accuse me of not reading what you said then ya go and say this. Cute!
Spare me the righteousness. We're on the same side, I just don't care for you being a snob about it. "I used my 'for this century' comment to explain the convenience of having a measurement made available..." Right. If you really believe what you're saying, you should take a good hard look at how your original post might be interpreted.
"I can't be held responsible for a few other people who have taken what I said (or what they thought I said) and machinated it into some kind of attack on the American Way of Life."
Hey, I don't care if you attack the American Way of Life. It's the "everybody should go metric because we're too dumbfuck stupid to do a simple conversion" approach that could use a re-think. Cos nothing makes things change faster than acting completely helpless. "Us Celsius people can't work with a fahrenheit number! Waa!" Real cool.
Simple deduction. Simple common sense. No need to raise a fuss.
Arrogance is being in the tiny minority and expecting everyone to work around you. That's an interesting statement considering Nature's target audience. Thank you. Now if we can just get the whole world to speak proper English, you can finally retire from shameless karma whoring, right?"That's 21C for anyone living in the 21st century."
Ah, so in this century common sense and deduction are out, but arrogance is in?
That one had me laugh out loud at work today.