Messages

The American mind is so corrupted.

I'm not 100% sure exactly what you meant by that ... but I'm sick and tired of the rest of the world lumping all Americans under the same umbrella.  Just because our President is destroying our country and our mass media exploits that fact doesn't make us all war-mongering capitilist pigs, I assure you.

And to show that Darth is consistant with this view, he's even gone on the record defending the French against people who criticised them for not getting involved in the War on Terror. And it's something that I appreciate.

I guess that's what all of us 'non-Americans' are objecting to. The ridiculous and extremely arrogant notion that the world is divided into Americans and non-Americans. It wouldn't be the same if you lumped the rest of the world together into one, as it would for us to lump Americans together, because you're simply just one country. As a non-American, I'm lumped together with South America, Canada, Russia, Europe, China, Japan, India, Africa, etc.

I think you're missing Darth's point... He's not lumping all non Americans together and distinguishing one group as Americans from another that's non Americans. He's trying to say that no matter what criticisms have been targeted at one country's government or history, you can't lump the whole nation at current like that. And the example I posted above where Darth defended the French is proof.

Please don't confuse the issue. You're making Darth out to be arrogant when he's actually trying to promote good cultural attitudes that're NOT based upon stereotypes.

Anyway...

I don't think all Americans are corrupt. Perhaps the system or the government, but I don't think the people are. I think essentially they want to do good.

The problem I think is they were misguided by a lot of false information. Stuff that tried to verify things like "Iraq has WMDs" or "Iraqis will great us a liberators" or "Mission Accomplished" or "We're winning the war".

US Citizens are starting to realise things aren't working in Iraq and in the War on Terror. There's a growing disillusionment in the government's ability to fight such a War. Consider the resignation of Rumsfeld... whoa hold on...

AAAAAAHHHHH

Sorry, I just get so giddy when I mention the resignation of you-know-who...

Anyway, consider that and the recent midterm elections. Clearly America is looking for a better way to try and do right.

Let's hope they do. I'll say this: I'm feeling a little more confident about this year.

As for the inane idea, Nacho, that his talent and legacy is in any way diminished by his drug problem and death, tell that to Lenny Bruce, John Belushi, Richard Pryor (survived to die of other causes) or Chris Farley.

Dig your point on this. You'd be hard-pressed to find very many top comedians who didn't do drugs.

In defense of Hedberg, I find it very rare to see comedians these days whose material is as delightfully innocent as Hedberg's. Most comedians I see deal with the same hack topics that are supposed to be "taboo" but have been talked about on and on and on that they've become shitty and stupid. Typical sex, smutty and hey i can say the word fuck a lot hack comedy. Where as Hedberg at least can think about things in an abstract way, and that I can appreciate.

No more than ten minutes ago, Arab reports state that Saddam Hussein has been executed.  Certianly there is something to be discussed here, how will this effect the stability in the middle-east?

I'm just hoping it doesn't further destablise an already destablised country.

Also 38th president Gerald Ford died and no one seemed to make note of it.

Whoa, are you kidding? What about the televised funeral? And the interview by Bob Woodward? That was frontpage news for many publications!

And it's quite an interesting parallel the Ford interview got released just days before the Saddam hanging because, in the interview, Ford shitcanned Bush for his Iraq invasion policy and said they should have imposed further sanctions instead.

Which is also what I fucking said back in March 2003. You know, around the time when many people here said I was stark raving bonkers for thinking the invasion of Iraq was a stupid idea.

But hey hindsight is 20 fucking 20 vision, right?

Yeah, Mitch Hedburg's great. Dead, but great. If you like his stuff, you might like Demetri Martin. (Fuck, I sound like Amazon.com)

David Cross is still my fave.

Also, been getting into Eugene Mirman lately.

Just to take the thread off-topic a bit, what's Dreamgirls like? Worth seeing?

You fuckers behave or I'll get Clarence to show you what would happen if AGS never existed.


"Clarence! Clarence! Help me, Clarence! Bring it back! Bring it back, I don't care what happens to me! Bring AGS back to us! Help me Clarence, please! Please! I wanna make adventure games again. I wanna make adventure games again."



"Please, God, let me make adventures again..."



"Wait, CJ's code! It's in my pocket! Oh, gee gosh golly my goodness..."



"MEEEERRRRRRY CHRISTMAAAAS, CRITIC'S LOUNGE!! MEEEERRRRRRY CHRISTMAAAAS, UPCOMING BIRTHDAYS SECTION!!"







P.S. My teacher says everytime a bell rings, CJ adds another line of code.

Something particularly eerie is Brown did a song called "Christmas in Heaven" for his album Funky Christmas.

People getting caught doesn't surprise me. I'm more surprised that people post about the message. Like they load up the error message and go, "Okay, time to work on my g... Oh, holy shit! A fake error message! I have got to tell the people on the forums about this, they're not going to believe it! I wonder if they've seen anything like this before?!" You know, like we've all been living in concrete boxes for the last ten years and think electricity is magic, etc.

It's a little bit like the people who were fooled by that "AGS is going commercial" April Fools post TWO YEARS after the joke started and felt they had to post "Wha-a-a-at? Is AGS really going commercial??"

Mind you, I'm not annoyed by it. Post whatever you want. But it makes me think: are people that oblivious to something everyone already knows about? It's like someone finding one of those FREE iPOD websites and joyously posting here about it when everyone in the world knows it's a scam except the person posting.

- A fine bottle of scotch.
- Lots of aftershave. Good stuff too. Some Calvin Klein and Dolce & Gabbana stuff. Me gonna smell nice next year!
- A Homer Simpson coffee mug.
- A three DVD gift pack of British gangster movies: Lock Stock & 2 Smoking Barrels, Snatch, and Layer Cake.
- A scented candle that smells fucking beautiful
- A blood pressure tester from the guy who sells Physio equipment next door to my work - possibly the strangest Christmas pressie I've ever gotten. Period.

We don't get 'rid' of shit. And also 'animal side'? You can't cauterize that sort of thing out.

someone begs to differ...

Regarding Drawn to be Alive, I like the look of it. I like FPS that can add a new twist, which I why I want to bring up Portal.

The trailer for Portal knocked me on my arse as far as a new twist of FPS. I like that whole reality bending element of games.

If you haven't seen it yet: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=if3Qv2tHyfA

Here's the game it was based on: Narbacular Drop!

I haven't played it yet, but is this anything like that Disney cartoon Tailspin where all the animals from the Jungle Book start flying planes?

P.S. If I ever get around to playing it, I'm going to pick the walrus character and name him "Kookoo Kachoo"

As a serious post, there was a report just released in the last few days by Forrester Research that had some interesting details about the correlations between iPod owners and music purchased from iTunes.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Forrester's recent analysis of more than 2,700 US iTunes debit and credit card transactions reveals that 3% of online households made an iTunes purchase in the past year. Apple's iTunes proves that $0.99 micropayments for digital music can lead to substantial revenue; buyers spent an average of $35 at iTunes over the past year. With half of all transactions costing $3 or less, though, transaction fees threaten to make iTunes unprofitable. Since the introduction of the iTunes Music Store, Apple has been steadily selling just 20 iTunes tracks for each iPod sold, suggesting that even at $0.99, most consumers still aren't sold on the value of digital music.

The report's author, Josh Bernoff, expands a little in a blog.

Since iPods went on sale, people are consistently buying about 20 iTunes per iPod. There's been a small uptick to 23 lately, but that's it. What's the explanation? It's either:

1. People are buying at a low but steady rate, but replace their iPod every few years -- which would imply that iPod user market is growing more slowly than it appears, or

2. People buy about 20 songs and then get tired and don't buy any more.

Now, to further extend this discussion, here's a good op-ed piece from Joe Lewis of webpronews.com.

There's no denying that people love their iPods. Filling the portable devices with content, however, seems to find users looking more toward unprotected formats and pirated tracks, rather than dealing with the hassle of paying for content with little to no device portability.

Bernoff puts it this way, "There's a problem here. CD sales have fallen 20 percent over five years. The message here is not that CD sales are coming back, the ability to obtain pirated music is now so widespread the DRM looks to consumers more like a problem than a benefit."

How long has the handwriting been on the wall when it comes to DRM and iTunes?

f digital music aficionados are becoming disillusioned with iTunes, then other services need to step up to the plate and offer a viable alternative.

Nick Carr shares a similar viewpoint, putting the ball in the recording industry's court:

"The upshot of the study is clear. Online sales of digital music continue to be relatively modest, and if music companies want to increase them they'll probably need to look beyond Apple's iTunes store, which may well be tapped out as a source of growth. I'd be surprised if we don't see record companies make a concerted effort to open more online retailing channels in 2007, probably selling songs in unprotected MP3 format."

People want easy access to their music, and once purchased, they want the ability to do anything they want with it. This is the nature of the portable media beast. If the choice is between DRM and piracy, you can bank on the fact that piracy is going to win that battle every day of the week (and twice on Sunday). And if other music services can offer a lower cost, DRM-free alternative, iTunes is in for some serious trouble.

Obviously, people are fine paying for music. Otherwise, no one would have bought the 1.5 billion songs from iTunes. The problem is people are starting to realise how fiddly the Fairplay DRM. And consider that there's a number of ways to by-pass the DRM, which makes having Fairplay more of a hurdle for piracy rather than something that stops it.

I understand the moral implications of piracy but consider when people are faced with  this decision: why pay for something cumbersome compared when you can something easy-to-use for free (though illegally)? It's obvious why people prefer to download music rather than pay for it.

But I do believe people would be okay paying for their music and staying within the confines of the law. Consider the positive initial reaction to iTunes. However, I think more people would pay for music if they dropped a lot of the DRM protection.

I know that the only thing stopping me from buying music from iTunes is the cumbersome DRM. I prefer to have control over the things I own. I don't have a problem buying my music -- I believe when you pay for something, you're putting commitment into something, and the more commitment you invest, the more you value it. And I do value my music.

However, I also like to have control over what I commit to. I don't like committing to things I have limited control over.

[Fat Tony:]

I don't want to pay a high price for something therefore I steal it.

I steal it and don't get in trouble therefor it is not illegal.

What else costs too much? Is it ok to steal that? Can I walk into a shop and steal something because I feel it's too expensive? The people who make clothes in china aren't paid nearly enough for what they do, can I steal shirts off the racks because of this?

You want music but it's too expensive or you have a moral reason for not downloading the music. Outcome: You don't get to listen to or you take a moral stand against owning the CD. That's the way things work for 99.9% of every other good. Want to hear the music and support the artist? Go to a show and buy a cd directly off of them. If that performer doesn't tour around you or it'd be really expensive to see every show, too bad. That's the way it works. You either buy the cd or you don't.

Fat Tony begs to differ...



Fat Tony: Is it it wrong to steal a loaf of bread to feed your starving family?
Bart: No..
Fat Tony: Well suppose you got a large starving family. Is it wrong to steal a truckload of bread to feed them?
Bart: Nuh-uh
Fat Tony: And what if your family don't like bread. They like.. cigarettes.
Bart: I guess that's okay.
Fat Tony: Now, what if instead of giving them away.. you sold them at a price that was practically giving them away. Would that be a crime, Bart?
Bart: Hell no!

See, it's not wrong to steal a box of cookies to feed your starving family but if your family doesn't like cookies and prefers MP3s, that's okay too. Not only that, you can even sell them at a price that was practically giving them away, and it's still not a crime! So technically, free file sharing is less than not being a crime -- in other words, it's actually benefits society!

If Bart Simpson can see the light, why can't you, Eric?

I have been looking at this RockBox fella, and I dont think I'm techno minded enough to understand why its better. It seems to be a tree system like the itunes one. What I guess i want to know is what can it do that my built in firmware can't? I'd consider installing new firmware if i knew it was better.

Other than the skinabilty of rockbox, i can see no major improvements.

Check the features in the Wikipedia article. There's plenty of things there that iPods can't do. And that's only just some of the advantages. Sound quality is fully customisable, especially with an equaliser that's way better than iPods. Download a RockBox manual and check it out what it can do.

A word of caution though... installing RockBox requires following some very specific technical instructions. If you do it wrong, you can fuck up your iPod. Just a warning.

I thought The Fool's Errand was pretty unique. In a way, it was the genesis for a lot of narrative based puzzle games like The 7th Guest. The difference is that The Fool's Errand had a bit more substance to it while The 7th Guest was mostly atmospheric with very limited substance.

If the problem does persist then yes, I will take it directly to CJ.

Edit: I should also mention this isn't the first time he's been a pain in the arse to me through PMs. This is my fifth PM from him where he's been a disphit. Seriously, it's clogging up my inbox and I can't get any more of those great herbal viagra offers.

How can I PM skyfire when he's stopped me from sending PMs to him? All PM communication between us is one-way, from him to me. So, I'm sending him a message this way. I know I'm doing it publicly, but how else can I tell him to piss off and leave me alone?

I mean, if someone wants to send a PM to tell me I'm a dickhead no worries. Just don't expect me to be friendly when you're hassling me while hiding behind a name block. I should have every right to tell someone to leave me alone and stop sending me retarded PMs.

[The study is unlikely to be the last word on the issue.]

Btw Skyfire, you may want to take a look at these:
http://news.com.com/2100-1027_3-5181562.html

quote from cnet
The study is unlikely to be the last word on the issue. Previous studies have been released showing that file sharing had both positive and negative effects on music sales.


There's your answer Mr McPee.

Wow, what an answer. Let me just smell it for a second. Sniff, sniff, yep, smells like bullcrap. Why don't you actually post something more recent, like a 2006 University of Chicago study that shows "people who regularly download music online are more likely to buy music" despite "peer-to-peer usage reduces the probability of buying music by 30 percent"? Because a study like that shows some balance as well as being current. Posting ONE link to a 2003 CNet article proves two things in this discussion: jack and shit.