You know what's great (for the record companies) about this... someone steals a CD out of your car, you were robbed.... but someone steals a watermarked audio file off of your hard drive and puts it on the P2P networks, and you are the theif, distributing their file... get ready for the lawsuits!
Ouch, didn't see that they won't be in MP3 format. Haha. I realize that this is an ironic comment considering my parent post, but no online music service will live unless they distribute MP3 files. Oh well, my bad...
Let me save you the time of reading all the hypocritical comments, just read this one.
"This is a great start, but I'm not paying [current price] for a song/album. Maybe I'd consider [current price / 2], but it would have to be available in [some other format] and at [current sampling rate * 2]. And even then, I wouldn't pay without getting [a CD / liner notes / etc]."
99 cents a song is a steal. Let's figure there are 3 good songs on a CD nowadays (generous assumption). That's 3 bucks for a CD's worth of good songs. As opposed to 15+ dollars in the store.
But I'm sure people can justify not using this service anyway. Hell, I will admit that if I want some song, I'll probably get it off of KaZaA (I don't really listen to much music nowadays). But I'm not gonna criticize the system, I think it is perfect, they are biting the bullet and offering us a great alternative to stealing music. If this fails, it's not the record company's fault.
How can you even bitch about product placement as a way for companies to make money? It's completely non-intrusive. Do you really get upset when you see someone on a sitcom drinking a Pepsi? I know you want 24 hours of great uninterrupted entertainment geared directly towards you, with no money being made by anyone and all, but give me a break...
One point he makes towards the bottom is the controversy behind actually de-referencing the namespace URIs. Right now as far as I can tell, namespaces do you no good by themselves. You still have to embed any outside XML into your application or write code to dereference the URI anyhow.
Once de-referencing URIs is built into parsers I think namespaces (and XML in general) will be much more useful.
Why would you assume it can be used ONLY for Steel Batallions? Of course it's going to support other games.
While this may be techically true, would you actually like to use this monster for anything other than what it is intended for?
Even using it as a second/third/fourth controller, it will be a totally different feel to play other games with this controller, if you are used to using the "normal" controller. Even leaving out the "feel" aspect (as in, this controller looks/feels like it is supposed to drive a huge mech warrior, not throw passes or ride a snowboard), this would be a big handicap in 1v1(v1,v1,etc) games over a friend's house, which I imagine is what these extra controllers are normally used for.
Not to mention the size factor... I bet the "oh cool, I get to use it as an extra controller" is outweighed by "Oh great, where am I going to keep this gigantic piece of crap"...
Is it just me, or does anyone else want to avoid paying $30+ for a controller you can only use for one game, on top of the $50+ price tag for the game itself?
I could see it if they had a "generic" keyboard controller you could use for any games with a keyboard... but having to purchase a new game (no doubt bundled with the new controller) over and over will become tedious, if it is the route consoles are taking.
I would like to see an alternative to these... button/direction combos, or on-screen keyboards, however tedious they may be, simply so there is a lower-cost option.
Then again these are the types of things you can always pick up at a super cheap price from used games stores like FunCoLand a year or so later, so maybe it's not all bad...
It disables further updates/patches for users who run XP with pirated activation numbers. I think this is horribly irresponsible
So let me get this straight, not only should a company be OK with people using pirated copies of their software, they should also offer software updates to those people? Maybe 24-hour tech support too just in case?
I don't run XP and don't plan to. However, they are offering an update to their paying customers, I have NO clue why you think they should cater to people stealing their software too.
Although I use credit cards, I think the system is poorly designed. Basically, you say to a guy, "here's a key to my safe, please only take what you need." IMO, it should be the reverse. We should *give* them the money, possibly by authorizing a transaction via your bank (a cell phone would be the best way, so you don't have to trust an in-store terminal)
I agree.
Now, if the government could only standardize some way to do this. Perhaps instead of electronically, maybe some physical medium could be used to represent the money we have. We could actually hand these physical objects to the cashier on exiting a store. It would of course have to be small enough to carry around with us also. I hope to see this in real life one day!
Books are simply different than music. Most Slashdot readers would love to have their music in MP3 (or OGG or whatever) format, but would NOT want to have all of their books in e-book format. Why? E-books are harder on the eyes to read, and this is a huge point. Your ears on the other hand can not tell the difference between the type of media music is recorded on (as long as the MP3 is a reasonable quality recording). So there is no value added by owning a CD over an MP3 copy, as there is with owning a paper book over an e-book.
So while I think his story is nice, it does not translate to a good reason to make music freely available online to increase sales.
Hello, are you even paying attention? We are in the worst tech slump in years. Now the dot-coms are dead, and because of 9/11, most companies are in a hiring freeze or are laying people off.
I was laid off on 9/20/01, busted my ass every day and it took me a good month to find a job. My 2 other friends that were laid off are still unemployed. Well, one is unemployed, one is slinging lumber at frickin' HOME DEPOT. These are skilled programmers that couldn't find a job to save their lives.
Maybe in the gov't sector jobs are booming, but everywhere else it sucks.
Can you say, bunch of intoxicated nerds with $1000-$4000+ pieces of hardware in a dimly lit room with various quick exits? I hope they have security on hand or something!
Unfortunately for us, this may turn out to be a good thing for the candidate.
Anyone in the public eye gets their name out to the public, and it sticks in some peoples' heads. Bad publicity or good, this happens. Unfortunately for us, this can translate into mindless votes on election day. Knowing a name often translates into thinking that person is the best candidate, and voting for them.
You can throw it on the ground... that thing doesn't look too sturdy. Not only will they probably not be able to get the files back, they probably won't be able to even TURN IT ON!!! Now how is that for security?
Bearshare still works. Limewire still works. I think KaZaA still works, if you already downloaded it. There are plenty of P2P clients out there to use that are just as easy as Napster.
And of course, there are plenty of music websites for anyones taste. Check out the websites, find a band, download it on any of the above P2P clients, repeat.
As I have posted before, it's not the fault of Napster disappearing that record sales are down, it's the shitty economy!!!
Hmmm... as much as I do think Napster boosted record sales, I would tend to think that the economy hitting a low lately has also affected record sales (as well as sales of, well, everything else), so many factors play into this, not just Napster. just a thought...
Saddly the people who donated money to him are probably the same people who cast their eyes away from homeless people
You don't have to be online to solicit money from strangers, not by a long shot.
I live in Denver, Colorado, near the 16th Street Mall (a large, outdoor street with no cars and lots of shops, biggest tourist attraction in Colorado). There are plenty of street performers that bring their guitars/saxophones/violins/etc outside and play music, and solicit a decent amount of money from it. They offer a service (music, entertainment) that is worth a quarter/buck/whatever.
Todd's webpage was very funny... worth a buck. I daresay they are thousands upon thousands of Blogs, web diaries, and the like, that are ignored every day. And with good reason, chances are only a very few are as entertaining as Todd's.
I hate homeless people begging me for change on the street, and hell yes I turn away from them. If someone is offering a service (music) or has an entertaining webpage, they are in a completely different league. Don't even partially blame the problems of the homeless on a lack of internet access....
Other people have said it already, Slashdot readers are not going to pay for Slashdot. They cry like babies whenever a subscription-based service is mentioned.
Hell, even NEW, GOOD services, that require some sort of payment, get dissed on Slashdot daily... the TV schedule download subscription of Tivo... eliminating a DSL/cable bill using NANs... etc
Whenever someone in the open-source world needs money, everyone here posts about how they hope people chip in, and the few that DO chip in sure as hell make sure they post! But the reality is, a small, small fraction of Slashdot readers will pay for anything. They already don't pay for their OS, games, music, movies, etc... why would they pay for Slashdot?
Besides the Simpsons episode regarding snakes, maybe a scarier prospect would be the King of the Hill episode, Return to La Grunta. Hank gets attacked by a horny dolphin! (Along with other people.)
Someone must alert Mr. White now!! Before it's too late!!!!
Check out the Whacking Day episode... Barry White saves the city's snakes by singing "I Can't Get Enough Of Your Love Baby" (not sure if that's the right title).
So, if the snakes can respond to Barry, I don't see why other animals wouldnt...:)
Damn you can get these things everwhere now! Even at Cost Co??? Next time I go pick up a 500-pack of Ramen noodles I will have to get one of these too!
I assume this only affects the MSN client from Microsoft... correct? Or does this also affect other clients that can use the MSN network, like Trillian? If it is just a link to some virus code on a website, it would affect Trillian (because it actually doesn't propagate through the instant messaging program)... but if it is something that gets triggered inside MSN Instant Messenger, then Trillian users are safe...
Normally these devices stay half dormant, listening to see if another Pocket P2P device is in range. When one or more Pocket P2P's get within range of each other, they automatically trade their data store with each other.
Why would I even want my pocket device to do this???
This is basically suggesting that as soon as it comes within range of another machine, it downloads its data (music/video/whatever). Do I even necessarily want this? Sure I can see spreading out the data to make finding any file eventually trivial, but unless portable batteries improve rapidly, I can't see letting my handheld run at all times just to mirror the newest radio crap.
A better idea suggested in the article is to set some parameters and get music you want... but...
We can already do this at home! I bet 80% of Slashdot readers have a machine at home running 24/7 that they can use to leech all the files they want. Why would they need/want to do this in a wireless context?
Not to mention dropped files because of wandering in/out of range of someone.... the spam concern mentioned above (although we don't see much of that in current P2P yet).
All the hassle of current systems, with brand new problems (battery, dropped transfers, spam, unwanted files). No thanks!
Slashdot Mirror
You know what's great (for the record companies) about this... someone steals a CD out of your car, you were robbed.... but someone steals a watermarked audio file off of your hard drive and puts it on the P2P networks, and you are the theif, distributing their file... get ready for the lawsuits!
Mark
Ouch, didn't see that they won't be in MP3 format. Haha. I realize that this is an ironic comment considering my parent post, but no online music service will live unless they distribute MP3 files. Oh well, my bad...
Mark
Let me save you the time of reading all the hypocritical comments, just read this one.
"This is a great start, but I'm not paying [current price] for a song/album. Maybe I'd consider [current price / 2], but it would have to be available in [some other format] and at [current sampling rate * 2]. And even then, I wouldn't pay without getting [a CD / liner notes / etc]."
99 cents a song is a steal. Let's figure there are 3 good songs on a CD nowadays (generous assumption). That's 3 bucks for a CD's worth of good songs. As opposed to 15+ dollars in the store.
But I'm sure people can justify not using this service anyway. Hell, I will admit that if I want some song, I'll probably get it off of KaZaA (I don't really listen to much music nowadays). But I'm not gonna criticize the system, I think it is perfect, they are biting the bullet and offering us a great alternative to stealing music. If this fails, it's not the record company's fault.
Mark
more product placement.
How can you even bitch about product placement as a way for companies to make money? It's completely non-intrusive. Do you really get upset when you see someone on a sitcom drinking a Pepsi? I know you want 24 hours of great uninterrupted entertainment geared directly towards you, with no money being made by anyone and all, but give me a break...
Mark
Whenever I go to Wendy's, the amount of fries I get in my "Biggie" fry borders on nanotechnology I would say.
Mark
One point he makes towards the bottom is the controversy behind actually de-referencing the namespace URIs. Right now as far as I can tell, namespaces do you no good by themselves. You still have to embed any outside XML into your application or write code to dereference the URI anyhow.
Once de-referencing URIs is built into parsers I think namespaces (and XML in general) will be much more useful.
Mark
Why would you assume it can be used ONLY for Steel Batallions? Of course it's going to support other games.
While this may be techically true, would you actually like to use this monster for anything other than what it is intended for?
Even using it as a second/third/fourth controller, it will be a totally different feel to play other games with this controller, if you are used to using the "normal" controller. Even leaving out the "feel" aspect (as in, this controller looks/feels like it is supposed to drive a huge mech warrior, not throw passes or ride a snowboard), this would be a big handicap in 1v1(v1,v1,etc) games over a friend's house, which I imagine is what these extra controllers are normally used for.
Not to mention the size factor... I bet the "oh cool, I get to use it as an extra controller" is outweighed by "Oh great, where am I going to keep this gigantic piece of crap"...
Mark
Is it just me, or does anyone else want to avoid paying $30+ for a controller you can only use for one game, on top of the $50+ price tag for the game itself?
I could see it if they had a "generic" keyboard controller you could use for any games with a keyboard... but having to purchase a new game (no doubt bundled with the new controller) over and over will become tedious, if it is the route consoles are taking.
I would like to see an alternative to these... button/direction combos, or on-screen keyboards, however tedious they may be, simply so there is a lower-cost option.
Then again these are the types of things you can always pick up at a super cheap price from used games stores like FunCoLand a year or so later, so maybe it's not all bad...
Mark
It disables further updates/patches for users who run XP with pirated activation numbers. I think this is horribly irresponsible
So let me get this straight, not only should a company be OK with people using pirated copies of their software, they should also offer software updates to those people? Maybe 24-hour tech support too just in case?
I don't run XP and don't plan to. However, they are offering an update to their paying customers, I have NO clue why you think they should cater to people stealing their software too.
Mark
Although I use credit cards, I think the system is poorly designed. Basically, you say to a guy, "here's a key to my safe, please only take what you need." IMO, it should be the reverse. We should *give* them the money, possibly by authorizing a transaction via your bank (a cell phone would be the best way, so you don't have to trust an in-store terminal)
I agree.
Now, if the government could only standardize some way to do this. Perhaps instead of electronically, maybe some physical medium could be used to represent the money we have. We could actually hand these physical objects to the cashier on exiting a store. It would of course have to be small enough to carry around with us also. I hope to see this in real life one day!
Books are simply different than music. Most Slashdot readers would love to have their music in MP3 (or OGG or whatever) format, but would NOT want to have all of their books in e-book format. Why? E-books are harder on the eyes to read, and this is a huge point. Your ears on the other hand can not tell the difference between the type of media music is recorded on (as long as the MP3 is a reasonable quality recording). So there is no value added by owning a CD over an MP3 copy, as there is with owning a paper book over an e-book.
So while I think his story is nice, it does not translate to a good reason to make music freely available online to increase sales.
Mark
Hello, are you even paying attention? We are in the worst tech slump in years. Now the dot-coms are dead, and because of 9/11, most companies are in a hiring freeze or are laying people off.
I was laid off on 9/20/01, busted my ass every day and it took me a good month to find a job. My 2 other friends that were laid off are still unemployed. Well, one is unemployed, one is slinging lumber at frickin' HOME DEPOT. These are skilled programmers that couldn't find a job to save their lives.
Maybe in the gov't sector jobs are booming, but everywhere else it sucks.
Mark
Can you say, bunch of intoxicated nerds with $1000-$4000+ pieces of hardware in a dimly lit room with various quick exits? I hope they have security on hand or something!
Mark
Unfortunately for us, this may turn out to be a good thing for the candidate.
Anyone in the public eye gets their name out to the public, and it sticks in some peoples' heads. Bad publicity or good, this happens. Unfortunately for us, this can translate into mindless votes on election day. Knowing a name often translates into thinking that person is the best candidate, and voting for them.
I hope I am wrong about this...
Mark
Yes!
You can throw it on the ground... that thing doesn't look too sturdy. Not only will they probably not be able to get the files back, they probably won't be able to even TURN IT ON!!! Now how is that for security?
Now that I can never find music anymore
Please!
Bearshare still works. Limewire still works. I think KaZaA still works, if you already downloaded it. There are plenty of P2P clients out there to use that are just as easy as Napster.
And of course, there are plenty of music websites for anyones taste. Check out the websites, find a band, download it on any of the above P2P clients, repeat.
As I have posted before, it's not the fault of Napster disappearing that record sales are down, it's the shitty economy!!!
Mark
Hmmm... as much as I do think Napster boosted record sales, I would tend to think that the economy hitting a low lately has also affected record sales (as well as sales of, well, everything else), so many factors play into this, not just Napster. just a thought...
Mark
Saddly the people who donated money to him are probably the same people who cast their eyes away from homeless people
You don't have to be online to solicit money from strangers, not by a long shot.
I live in Denver, Colorado, near the 16th Street Mall (a large, outdoor street with no cars and lots of shops, biggest tourist attraction in Colorado). There are plenty of street performers that bring their guitars/saxophones/violins/etc outside and play music, and solicit a decent amount of money from it. They offer a service (music, entertainment) that is worth a quarter/buck/whatever.
Todd's webpage was very funny... worth a buck. I daresay they are thousands upon thousands of Blogs, web diaries, and the like, that are ignored every day. And with good reason, chances are only a very few are as entertaining as Todd's.
I hate homeless people begging me for change on the street, and hell yes I turn away from them. If someone is offering a service (music) or has an entertaining webpage, they are in a completely different league. Don't even partially blame the problems of the homeless on a lack of internet access....
Mark
Ricochet Bounces Back
*Rimshot*
My name's Timothy, I'll be posting stories all week! Don't forget to tip your waitress.
Other people have said it already, Slashdot readers are not going to pay for Slashdot. They cry like babies whenever a subscription-based service is mentioned.
Hell, even NEW, GOOD services, that require some sort of payment, get dissed on Slashdot daily... the TV schedule download subscription of Tivo... eliminating a DSL/cable bill using NANs... etc
Whenever someone in the open-source world needs money, everyone here posts about how they hope people chip in, and the few that DO chip in sure as hell make sure they post! But the reality is, a small, small fraction of Slashdot readers will pay for anything. They already don't pay for their OS, games, music, movies, etc... why would they pay for Slashdot?
Besides the Simpsons episode regarding snakes, maybe a scarier prospect would be the King of the Hill episode, Return to La Grunta. Hank gets attacked by a horny dolphin! (Along with other people.)
Someone must alert Mr. White now!! Before it's too late!!!!
Mark
Check out the Whacking Day episode... Barry White saves the city's snakes by singing "I Can't Get Enough Of Your Love Baby" (not sure if that's the right title).
:)
So, if the snakes can respond to Barry, I don't see why other animals wouldnt...
Mark
The company's called Cos Co
Damn you can get these things everwhere now! Even at Cost Co??? Next time I go pick up a 500-pack of Ramen noodles I will have to get one of these too!
Mark
I assume this only affects the MSN client from Microsoft... correct? Or does this also affect other clients that can use the MSN network, like Trillian? If it is just a link to some virus code on a website, it would affect Trillian (because it actually doesn't propagate through the instant messaging program)... but if it is something that gets triggered inside MSN Instant Messenger, then Trillian users are safe...
Mark
Normally these devices stay half dormant, listening to see if another Pocket P2P device is in range. When one or more Pocket P2P's get within range of each other, they automatically trade their data store with each other.
Why would I even want my pocket device to do this???
This is basically suggesting that as soon as it comes within range of another machine, it downloads its data (music/video/whatever). Do I even necessarily want this? Sure I can see spreading out the data to make finding any file eventually trivial, but unless portable batteries improve rapidly, I can't see letting my handheld run at all times just to mirror the newest radio crap.
A better idea suggested in the article is to set some parameters and get music you want... but...
We can already do this at home! I bet 80% of Slashdot readers have a machine at home running 24/7 that they can use to leech all the files they want. Why would they need/want to do this in a wireless context?
Not to mention dropped files because of wandering in/out of range of someone.... the spam concern mentioned above (although we don't see much of that in current P2P yet).
All the hassle of current systems, with brand new problems (battery, dropped transfers, spam, unwanted files). No thanks!
Mark