"What confuses me is when they decided tricking the students was a good idea."
I don't agree with their approach, but I think it's painfully obvious why they thought it was a good idea. I'd bet a dollar that says they thought the students wouldn't take it seriously.
"World of Warcraft is one of the most profitable games ever created. If they had taken your advice, would it have been?"
That's an extreme 10,000:1 example. To put this in perspective, it's sort of like saying: "Microsoft has NEVER made a good product.""What about that optical mouse you're using?"
I've never seen a Japanese, or a human being bend his/her eyes in a triangle shape when smiling. Could it possibly something else?
Yes, it's the eyebrows. People often raise their eyebrows when they smile (or laugh...) and ^_^ is about as close as you can get. For example, here's Mr. Spock: ^_-
I don't think I can definitively answer your question, but I can tell you I was hooked on Final Fantasy 3 because of the story. (Before I go any farther, I just want to say that the story in FF3 was far better than either of the movies. I don't want to confuse you on this point.;) ) I can give you an example. One of the characters was a heroic king that had recently lost his family to an invasion. He joined your party after he had saved them from certain doom. A little while later, a journey through his castle caused some memory montage scenes to appear, showing us a little glimpse of the joy he had at spending time with his family. It became clear that their loss was deeply affecting him. Eventually your party finds the ghost train that takes the spirits of the recently deceased from this world to the next. While fighting to save the world, he's presented with the possibility of staying on the train to be with his family. I don't think my description is doing it much justice, but it was quite engaging. As you played, more and more of this story involving several different characters unfolded. It was amazing. I remember sacrificing sleep just so I could see what happens next.
I didn't have the same attachment to the games released after that, so I really cannot tell you about the modern appeal of it. For me, it was simply that a good story is a good story. Unfortunately, I have every single beat of the battle music burned forever into my brain.;)
"That's because most people aren't actually trying to keep their fingerprints from being left behind."
Right. So are shoplifters the sort to think things through ever so diligently? Um, no. The possibility's quite strong that a few would get these home, try to play them, and find they don't work. That's a non-zero sum of people throwing their arms in the air and giving up on stealing them. (unless they want to invest some $$$ into thwarting this scheme. Riiiight.) If the point was this wouldn't likely have a large effect, I could go along with that, but that's not what the original post was saying.
"I have to agree with the general opinion here; this isn't going to help protect against piracy..."
It's not designed to help with piracy.
"As for the professional pirates, yes, they'll pay to get the equipment or figure out how to make it themselves. Again, zero gain."
You cannot arrive at the number zero while using a generalization. All it has to do is make shoplifting a little more annoying and it'll have a measurable effect. The real question, and frankly, niether of us knows the answer to this, is whether or not the difference will be worth the cost.
"It won't help, people will just find a way to do the activation themselves at home. Just like they have with all the electronic security measures."
A thwartable scheme doesn't mean that it's 100% useless. Consider how easy it is to prevent fingerprints from being left behind, yet they're captured all the time.
"Out of roughly 100 stores that polled 98 have had thier console replaced at least once in the first year."
Source?
"So 20-30 percent numbers I could see at the retail level. "
2-3 million people have blinking XBOXs? That means that somewhere around 2.5 million people have 1 year old machines that absolutely refuse to work, and the noise level about it is roughly the same as the PS2's defect rate within the first year of launch. Meanwhile, Microsoft has the most defective game console in history, but they're shrugging it off besides the huge PR time-bomb and the fact that this means their warranty process would certainly prevent them from ever seeing a profit on it. Yep, it all fits together seamlessly.
"Welcome to human psychology, it's always the other guy whose an irrational zealot and never you."
Well... I suppose you've got a point, depending on which way public opinion swings. Still, though, accusations of irrational zealotry can be combated with evidence or rationale that doesn't rely on characterizations of people/companies that only Warner Brothers would be suited to animate.
"I don't doubt it at all. I've seen so many reports and first-hand accounts of Ring of Death 360s that I'm surprised any of them work."
You've seen 5 million reports? You've talked to the other 50% that have operational units? You think ANY company would have a defect rate that high and NOT stop production until it's fixed?
"And still people defend Microsoft. I don't get it."
And people still attack Microsoft sans-common sense. I don't get it.
"The UI for Opera sucks. Sure it has some nice features and little bits and bobs but Firefox is much better. Personally I think this is why the Opera following is so low, the UI isn't intuitive at all."
I can't say I agree with that at all. A vanilla install is rather similar to FF's. At worst it takes you a moment to read the icons and work out what they do. To somebody who has used Opera for a few days, the FF UI is a pain in the ass to customize. The Opera team has spent a good deal more effort in a good user experience than FF people has. It doesn't take long in using it to spot that.
Slashdot Mirror
"Well we all saw in Iraq what happened to people who ignored America's version of 'International' Law."
Yeah, that's why the 'Axis of Evil' was wiped off the map.
Godwin, much?
Minority Report anyone?"
Strange. It sounds scary when you say Minority Report, but cool when you say Harry Potter. Never thought I'd say that.
"What confuses me is when they decided tricking the students was a good idea."
I don't agree with their approach, but I think it's painfully obvious why they thought it was a good idea. I'd bet a dollar that says they thought the students wouldn't take it seriously.
"World of Warcraft is one of the most profitable games ever created. If they had taken your advice, would it have been?"
That's an extreme 10,000:1 example. To put this in perspective, it's sort of like saying: "Microsoft has NEVER made a good product." "What about that optical mouse you're using?"
Yes, it's the eyebrows. People often raise their eyebrows when they smile (or laugh...) and ^_^ is about as close as you can get. For example, here's Mr. Spock: ^_-
"So what culture am I a part of if I want to strangle someone every time they use any kind of emoticon at all?"
Lighten up.
"With all these stars turning up that are considerably older then, what is it, 6000 years, they'll probably start foaming at the mouth."
Ah yes, we can't stand the noise they generate, so we generate noises that sound like what we think they might sound like.
"A Hacker Girl who KNOWS Star Trek?!?!"
The down-side is that a girl like that only puts out every seven years. For some it's also a plus side.
"Star Trek nerds, lol. Your hobby is the cause of your virginity."
Yeah, I can easily imagine somebody anonymously flaming Star Trek nerds on a Friday night beatin the hotties off with a stick.
"Sorted: all in order.
Sordid: dirty, immoral."
Right, he sorted by professional, then personal past. Personally I would have sorted by good and evil, but everybody reads data differently.
"What is the special appeal of Final Fantasy?"
;) ) I can give you an example. One of the characters was a heroic king that had recently lost his family to an invasion. He joined your party after he had saved them from certain doom. A little while later, a journey through his castle caused some memory montage scenes to appear, showing us a little glimpse of the joy he had at spending time with his family. It became clear that their loss was deeply affecting him. Eventually your party finds the ghost train that takes the spirits of the recently deceased from this world to the next. While fighting to save the world, he's presented with the possibility of staying on the train to be with his family. I don't think my description is doing it much justice, but it was quite engaging. As you played, more and more of this story involving several different characters unfolded. It was amazing. I remember sacrificing sleep just so I could see what happens next.
;)
I don't think I can definitively answer your question, but I can tell you I was hooked on Final Fantasy 3 because of the story. (Before I go any farther, I just want to say that the story in FF3 was far better than either of the movies. I don't want to confuse you on this point.
I didn't have the same attachment to the games released after that, so I really cannot tell you about the modern appeal of it. For me, it was simply that a good story is a good story. Unfortunately, I have every single beat of the battle music burned forever into my brain.
"That's because most people aren't actually trying to keep their fingerprints from being left behind."
Right. So are shoplifters the sort to think things through ever so diligently? Um, no. The possibility's quite strong that a few would get these home, try to play them, and find they don't work. That's a non-zero sum of people throwing their arms in the air and giving up on stealing them. (unless they want to invest some $$$ into thwarting this scheme. Riiiight.) If the point was this wouldn't likely have a large effect, I could go along with that, but that's not what the original post was saying.
"I have to agree with the general opinion here; this isn't going to help protect against piracy..."
It's not designed to help with piracy.
"As for the professional pirates, yes, they'll pay to get the equipment or figure out how to make it themselves. Again, zero gain."
You cannot arrive at the number zero while using a generalization. All it has to do is make shoplifting a little more annoying and it'll have a measurable effect. The real question, and frankly, niether of us knows the answer to this, is whether or not the difference will be worth the cost.
"Enough with the trilogies already. why can't we have a single good movie and just let that be?"
I would have argued with you except for Pirates 2. Glad I paid full price for half a movie there.
"It won't help, people will just find a way to do the activation themselves at home. Just like they have with all the electronic security measures."
A thwartable scheme doesn't mean that it's 100% useless. Consider how easy it is to prevent fingerprints from being left behind, yet they're captured all the time.
"Could this help to bring the prices down on DVD games and movies?"
No, but it could raise the profit margin.
"The one thing it has going with it is no attachment to previous films."
Attachment to previous films wasn't the downfall of the prequels. We didn't get a rehashing here, we got a lifeless entity.
"I thought the Clone wars animated series was really good."
True, but look at the 3 recent movies Lucas had a lot more involvement with.
"Out of roughly 100 stores that polled 98 have had thier console replaced at least once in the first year."
Source?
"So 20-30 percent numbers I could see at the retail level. "
2-3 million people have blinking XBOXs? That means that somewhere around 2.5 million people have 1 year old machines that absolutely refuse to work, and the noise level about it is roughly the same as the PS2's defect rate within the first year of launch. Meanwhile, Microsoft has the most defective game console in history, but they're shrugging it off besides the huge PR time-bomb and the fact that this means their warranty process would certainly prevent them from ever seeing a profit on it. Yep, it all fits together seamlessly.
"Welcome to human psychology, it's always the other guy whose an irrational zealot and never you."
Well... I suppose you've got a point, depending on which way public opinion swings. Still, though, accusations of irrational zealotry can be combated with evidence or rationale that doesn't rely on characterizations of people/companies that only Warner Brothers would be suited to animate.
"I don't doubt it at all. I've seen so many reports and first-hand accounts of Ring of Death 360s that I'm surprised any of them work."
You've seen 5 million reports? You've talked to the other 50% that have operational units? You think ANY company would have a defect rate that high and NOT stop production until it's fixed?
"And still people defend Microsoft. I don't get it."
And people still attack Microsoft sans-common sense. I don't get it.
"The failure rate on Xbox 360s somewhere in the 30-40 percent range..."
I seriously doubt that number.
"Why not let natural selection take its course instead?"
What makes you think natural selection would spare you?
"The UI for Opera sucks. Sure it has some nice features and little bits and bobs but Firefox is much better. Personally I think this is why the Opera following is so low, the UI isn't intuitive at all."
I can't say I agree with that at all. A vanilla install is rather similar to FF's. At worst it takes you a moment to read the icons and work out what they do. To somebody who has used Opera for a few days, the FF UI is a pain in the ass to customize. The Opera team has spent a good deal more effort in a good user experience than FF people has. It doesn't take long in using it to spot that.
"How about full PNG support? Would an alpha channel really be too much to ask?"
Whoah, never met a time traveller before.
"No offense to opera, but its not as strong or as popular as firefox."
So? Opera has some nicities FF doesn't. If MS copied/stoled/shennanigan'd them, then they'd have an edge over FF instead of just playing catch-up.