I watch the ripples change their size
But never leave the stream
Of warm impermanence
And so the days float through my eyes
But still the days seem the same
And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
They're quite aware of what they're goin' through

Saturday, January 2, 2010

Nine Ladies Dancing

I hurt. My shoulders are killing me and I'm in desperate need of an adjustment. So that makes today an aspirin day. This is the result of too many days sitting in a broken down couch typing. Add in that this afternoon I decided to reward myself by starting up one of the games Bette got me for Xmas, Force Unleashed.

Yeah, yeah, you all got done playing this like five years ago. So, now my whole upper body hurts. I kept trying to beat that damn first rogue jedi. Note to game developers, rotating camera angles are not your friend. Really, quit screwing around with them. If I lock the camera on an opponent, the camera should make a third point in a direct line between my opponent, me, and the camera, and it should always remain fixed looking at my opponent. No, I don't care about "cinematic" crap. I'm trying to win a game here. If I can't see WTF I'm doing, I can't do that.

It looks like this year we're going to have a discussion on e-books and pirating. Several people have posted their pontifications on it, and most of them miss the mark, IMHO. Again, they're making the same mistakes as the RIAA and MPAA did in thinking it was all about them. Clue to everybody, if music had been as effected by piracy as much as the RIAA would like you to believe, considering they under-estimated the amount of piracy by at least a hundred percent, they wouldn't be making any money at all. Piracy is a much bigger problem that what they ever expected, and it's mostly inconsequential. And unfortunately the book publishing industry is probably going to go down the same rabbit hole (although some seem to have a clue, paranoid authors and their agents will force some issues). Because, unless you think it's a bad idea that people share books, go to libraries, used bookstores, and all the other secondary markets, book piracy isn't as big a deal as people think it is. Is it an issue? Yes, it is a real issue that needs to be addressed. However, it isn't an apocalyptic issue people are making it out to be. The software industry has been dealing with this issue since the 80s, and they've been losing. They're still making money, and still producing new software. A much bigger issue in publishing, IMHO, that completely dwarves the piracy flap, is the distribution models and metrics (how collected, and definitely how used).

Enough playing hooky, time to get back to work. How's your new year going so far?

Oh, and I'm going to experiment taking the captcha off. We'll see how it goes. edit with the first Anon comment, it appears that the comment tracking function broke right after that. So, sorry folks. I don't want to leave the blog open to spamming overnight. We'll try again soon. If anyone wants to own up to the first Anon comment, I'll be glad to reconsider. I definitely don't want to remove the anonymous commenting, but I also don't want to become a link farm for spammers.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your blog keeps getting better and better! Your older articles are not as good as newer ones you have a lot more creativity and originality now keep it up!

Anonymous said...

Oh, please, do not confuse me with facts. I just got my debate speech written on international copyright infringement and economic sanctions and if you mess me up... [smirk]

I love debating high school kids. They keep me on my toes.

Anonymous Cassie

Steve Buchheit said...

Hey, Cassie. Well, I certainly do believe piracy is an attack against copyright. And for countries that flagrantly violate copyright law and permit rampant piracy should face economic sanctions (looks sternly at China and Russia). However, there is something to be said for the black market and how it keeps the legit market greased and flowing.

Also, I think people mistake what a lot of piracy is about. The vast majority of piracy isn't about gaining something for free, it's about collecting and "proving oneself." Many pirate simply collect without actually making use of what they collect. In real life these people would be hoarders, filling up their homes with newspapers and junk. Only these pirates are filling up their hard drives with bits. Then there are the ones who approach it as a challenge. You make it hard for them, it only entices them.

As to the first Anon posting, you do know that sounds an awful lot like spam? Since there's no link, I'm going to let it stand for a bit. If anybody out there wants to claim the comment, please do so. As you can see from Cassie, I'm not opposed to people posting using the anonymous function, but I would like to have the post be on topic, and maybe a name to go with it (so I know you're not just spamming me).