Nonsense. Everybody did this. I personally have a high-end older Sony model that is totally region free. The clerk did a few behind-the-counter moves on the remote when i bought it and *presto* no region control. Funny, with Sony owning film studios and all. For all I know right now, it may be the last legacy of a Sony where the HW guys could use their common sense.
This pisses me off to no end! OK, for a rental movie I could sit through a trailer or two. But when I pay full price for a movie, I do not consent to sitting through 10 minutes of commercials before I can see the damned thing.
I shudder in horror thinking about what kind of tricks the movie industry is contemplating for BlueRay/HD-DVD...
My comments about the honorable Mr. Rove were made based on my knowledge of the matter again based on reading mainstream media and reading books. It's kind of difficult to know Karl personally, as I live across the ocean from him (although I'm told his ancestors come from over here).
So, my knowledge of this matter is discovered the same way I know about the holocaust. BTW, I was kind of surprised about your comment that Karl Rove didn't mastermind George W's election and re-election campaigns, as I have never heard about anybody denying this before.
What's really funny is that you jumped on my Holocaust reference, but passed on the WMDs. Now, according to George W. himself as well as the rest of his goons, the WMDs were there. It was certain as anything. But, to date we have still to see proof of this. It's interesting that you require different levels of proof depending on who makes the claims.
I would not in any way deny the Holocaust, but I would have problems proving it personally. Now, there are so many believable sources testifying about the Holocaust happening, that proving it personally is not necessary, thankfully.
However, especially in current US politics, there are as many people claiming Karl Rove did indeed use "tricks" (of course he uses tricks, he's in politics, everybody uses tricks) as there are people denying it. It all depends on which side you trust.
Good question! There are many European countries with reasonable laws (no DMCA equivalent). These are civilized countries that respect the right to privacy and and have reasonable fair use laws. Remember, they tried to get DVD-Jon, but couldn't get anything to stick...:-)
I can't personally prove that the Holocaust happened either. So proving things is generally quite hard. I don't think you can prove that there were WMDs in Iraq either...
Legitimate security needs my ass. The possible ways this can be misused is astronomical. Really draconican things like taking down whistleblowers, looking over every employee's shoulder etc. Actually, I think that DRM is more dangerous in the corporate world than in the personal sphere. Think about Enron with access to DRM...
Amen. When I started using PCs back in '88, there was a nice hobby scene for computing, and even the big companies seemed to concentrate on making product. Then the big corp's took over completely (In my mind this accelerated when MS trashed Borland on the programming language side). Now, even your own hardware is not yours to control anymore. The big corps want to control EVERYTHING.
I think people are looking too much at the hardware, and too little at the software side. There are significant differences between the kinds of games coming out on the three different platforms.
- Sony is the winner right now, with both somewhat innovative games (Buzz, Singstar, EyeToy) and the regular fare.
- Nintendo is betting it's future on being innovative (Nintendogs, WarioWare etc.)
- MS is betting solidly on more-of-the-same (more driving games, more shooting games, more sports games)
Remember that when you look at the total sales of games, the hard-core gamers are in the minority. At least where I live, the Buzz quiz-game was the biggest selling game this Christmas. Why? It appeals to people who plays games occationly. It's also a social game.
I'm pretty sure that the Nintendo/Sony way is going to pay off, and I wonder how long it will take before MSFT wakes up.
I don't know how much I believe this report, but there are several reasons to believe that Sony is in serious trouble.
- Launch date: Late 2006 in Japan? Seems likely. Although I would expect Sony to have better control of manufacturing than Microsoft has, there is no chance for Sony to do a proper world-wide launch of the PS3 before Christmas. So, Microsoft gets TWO holiday seasons without Sony, while there will be a battle between Sony and Nintendo for Christmas sales in Japan this year.
- Production cost. How ever way you turn it, Sony is not going to be able to sell this console in the $300-400 range and earn money on it at first. Pricing it above this will scare away most of the customers. The competition will be selling in the $300-400 range and earning money. Even though Sony may earn some money back off games and Blue-Ray movies, selling at a loss is not a winning business strategy. Since the other parts of Sony are doing rather bad at the moment, a failure in SCE will endanger the future of the whole company. The stakes are enormous this time, folks...
Well, the stealth screen around Rove is not perfect yet, is it. OK, it was unfair singeling out Rove, this tactic is a faviorite of the whole far-right wing crowd.
It wasn't long ago that America was known as the Land of the Free. I'm scared sh*tless of how short a time it takes to decend into facism. The crazy thing is that a lot of people are actually defending stuff like this.
Bad analogy. Both screwdriver heads and measurement units are primarily based on history and tradition. Screwdriver heads have moved from flat->philips/pozidrive->torx, with every generation being better in all respects than the previous generation. Flat heads are virtually unusable with powered tools, for example. Philips/Pozidrive where parallel attempts to improve on flat, and instigiating the VHS/Beta war of screwdriver heads. Torx is finally making headway and allows you to put tremendous torque on the screw without ruining the bit or the screw (as long as the bit and screw are made of a strong steel).
Likewise, I find it interesting that someone would even consider using imperial measurements. Metric measurements are so much better (in any kind of engineering applications), it just blows the mind. The only reason imperial is still with us is resistance to learn a new method of measurement (remember that prior to metric, every country had it's own imperial system of measurement. There were English miles, French miles, German miles etc.)
A computer language parallel would be Fortran and Cobol. Two languages that are technically obsolecent, but stay around because of tradition and old code bases. No sane person would choose any of them today for a new project if they did not have old code lying around.
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Nonsense. Everybody did this. I personally have a high-end older Sony model that is totally region free. The clerk did a few behind-the-counter moves on the remote when i bought it and *presto* no region control. Funny, with Sony owning film studios and all. For all I know right now, it may be the last legacy of a Sony where the HW guys could use their common sense.
I shudder in horror thinking about what kind of tricks the movie industry is contemplating for BlueRay/HD-DVD...
So, my knowledge of this matter is discovered the same way I know about the holocaust. BTW, I was kind of surprised about your comment that Karl Rove didn't mastermind George W's election and re-election campaigns, as I have never heard about anybody denying this before.
Now, about those WMDs... ;-)
You are still staying way clear of the WMDs... :-)
I would not in any way deny the Holocaust, but I would have problems proving it personally. Now, there are so many believable sources testifying about the Holocaust happening, that proving it personally is not necessary, thankfully.
However, especially in current US politics, there are as many people claiming Karl Rove did indeed use "tricks" (of course he uses tricks, he's in politics, everybody uses tricks) as there are people denying it. It all depends on which side you trust.
Good question! There are many European countries with reasonable laws (no DMCA equivalent). These are civilized countries that respect the right to privacy and and have reasonable fair use laws. Remember, they tried to get DVD-Jon, but couldn't get anything to stick... :-)
I can't personally prove that the Holocaust happened either. So proving things is generally quite hard. I don't think you can prove that there were WMDs in Iraq either...
Legitimate security needs my ass. The possible ways this can be misused is astronomical. Really draconican things like taking down whistleblowers, looking over every employee's shoulder etc. Actually, I think that DRM is more dangerous in the corporate world than in the personal sphere. Think about Enron with access to DRM...
Amen. When I started using PCs back in '88, there was a nice hobby scene for computing, and even the big companies seemed to concentrate on making product. Then the big corp's took over completely (In my mind this accelerated when MS trashed Borland on the programming language side). Now, even your own hardware is not yours to control anymore. The big corps want to control EVERYTHING.
- Sony is the winner right now, with both somewhat innovative games (Buzz, Singstar, EyeToy) and the regular fare.
- Nintendo is betting it's future on being innovative (Nintendogs, WarioWare etc.)
- MS is betting solidly on more-of-the-same (more driving games, more shooting games, more sports games)
Remember that when you look at the total sales of games, the hard-core gamers are in the minority. At least where I live, the Buzz quiz-game was the biggest selling game this Christmas. Why? It appeals to people who plays games occationly. It's also a social game.
I'm pretty sure that the Nintendo/Sony way is going to pay off, and I wonder how long it will take before MSFT wakes up.
I don't know how much I believe this report, but there are several reasons to believe that Sony is in serious trouble. - Launch date: Late 2006 in Japan? Seems likely. Although I would expect Sony to have better control of manufacturing than Microsoft has, there is no chance for Sony to do a proper world-wide launch of the PS3 before Christmas. So, Microsoft gets TWO holiday seasons without Sony, while there will be a battle between Sony and Nintendo for Christmas sales in Japan this year. - Production cost. How ever way you turn it, Sony is not going to be able to sell this console in the $300-400 range and earn money on it at first. Pricing it above this will scare away most of the customers. The competition will be selling in the $300-400 range and earning money. Even though Sony may earn some money back off games and Blue-Ray movies, selling at a loss is not a winning business strategy. Since the other parts of Sony are doing rather bad at the moment, a failure in SCE will endanger the future of the whole company. The stakes are enormous this time, folks...
Well, the stealth screen around Rove is not perfect yet, is it. OK, it was unfair singeling out Rove, this tactic is a faviorite of the whole far-right wing crowd.
It wasn't long ago that America was known as the Land of the Free. I'm scared sh*tless of how short a time it takes to decend into facism. The crazy thing is that a lot of people are actually defending stuff like this.
This is becoming quite common, it's a favourite trick of Karl Rove
Bad analogy. Both screwdriver heads and measurement units are primarily based on history and tradition. Screwdriver heads have moved from flat->philips/pozidrive->torx, with every generation being better in all respects than the previous generation. Flat heads are virtually unusable with powered tools, for example. Philips/Pozidrive where parallel attempts to improve on flat, and instigiating the VHS/Beta war of screwdriver heads. Torx is finally making headway and allows you to put tremendous torque on the screw without ruining the bit or the screw (as long as the bit and screw are made of a strong steel). Likewise, I find it interesting that someone would even consider using imperial measurements. Metric measurements are so much better (in any kind of engineering applications), it just blows the mind. The only reason imperial is still with us is resistance to learn a new method of measurement (remember that prior to metric, every country had it's own imperial system of measurement. There were English miles, French miles, German miles etc.) A computer language parallel would be Fortran and Cobol. Two languages that are technically obsolecent, but stay around because of tradition and old code bases. No sane person would choose any of them today for a new project if they did not have old code lying around.