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The only problem with that is that the 360 is also a money sink. I mean, they have to allocate $1 billion just to repair defective units that can't handle small power fluctuations. WTF? Microsoft isn't making money on the 360, they're still taking a bath, even if they are selling more than the PS3. Besides, as evil as Sony is, I'd rather buy a PS3 than a 360. Only frat boys, "hardcore" gamers and 12 year old squeakers buy 360's (or the original XBox's).

We hates the squeakers, Precious, we hates them!

place at the same time...
http://ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20070604

I think this sums it up... http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20070 509 [ctrl-alt-delete comics]

Oh, I've played with them as well. It's especially hard when you've got a headset on and they turn out to be a Squeaker or some other annoying internet sub-breed.

It's definitely nice to be able to group your friends together, find people you don't mind playing with, and keep the annoying types to a minimum...The problem is, you have to go out into the world of jerks to find the people you want to hang out with.

The most obvious microsoft cultists I know of is the boys at CAD and if microsoft isnt funding that show i cant imagine who is, every week its a new microsoft toy/game or an upgrade to the xbox inspired robot even the 3 finger salute as its namesake. Now dont get me wrong the comic is pretty damn funny, but did i miss something, are we supposed to think its not pure microsoft advertising, its about ALL video brands?

Picked on by his peers?-Check
Sexually molested when he was a child?-Check
Incoherent ramblimbling directed at social groups-Check
Irrational persecution of minority groups -Check
...Holy shit! Jack Thompson is going to be the next school shooter! Somebody call the police ... nevermind, he already did.

http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20051 104

Spoken like someone who's never read a book in his life. Well done, you're this guy.

This is a good move on Microsoft's part only if they enjoy annoying their customers.

I think this is a great description of the situation..

The thing is, I imagine that only the Windows "power users" really care and/or know the reasons behind wanting to stick with XP (at least until a service pack or two is released for Vista). Most average users just see Vista as the new Windows. Pretty much everything they do--Office, web browsing, email, Solitaire--still works and it's shiny and bouncy and see-through...wow! Most probably won't even notice a slowdown because they get Vista with new hardware and it offsets the new performance requirements.

Microsoft is probably just trying to give people they see as just not liking change a push to move to the new OS. I'm not too concerned because I've got a couple XP Pro licenses hanging around, a few OEMs and one from MSDNAA, so I'll "upgrade" when I'm good and ready.

Here.

That is all.

Informed

• BBC news
• Slashdot
• Distrowatch
• Linux.com
• Newsforge
• El Tiempo

Entertained

• SA
• Digg
• Degenerate Cesspool
• CTRL+ALT+DEL
• questionablecontent.net
• halturnershow.com

Contrary to current trends, the only site out of all of those in which I participate regularly is Slashdot. I don't even have accounts on any of the other forums. Some I only really visit because it's an old habit, notably the two webcomics and eltiempo.com. And yes, Digg is firmly in the 'entertainment' column, for its AWESOME PICTURES! and INCREDIBLY ADDICTIVE NEW FLASH GAMES OH EM GEE!

I think this says it all: http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20070 331/

Then again, the Wii pisses me off.

We have the same problem at my college. I work in the IT dept and I almost feel bad for the people who bring their laptops in about it, but then I remember they bought Vista and suddenly feel like they got what they deserved. Oh, Vista.

heh, it is kinda getting old: http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20070 326

Exactly

When you want all the kills: http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20070 212 He won with the most kills... but he lost his life... Everything for the win!

are we talking about not wanting girls on xbox live?

No, we're talking about getting rid of squeakers.

http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20060 821

this: http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20050 808

Similar thoughts echoed in this comic

Reminds me of this.

And this

=)

Safety first!

You remind me of the guy in this comic..

http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20061 020

Probably only tried it for a few minutes, cried and left.

If you don't like what's there to offer in Second Life, BUILD IT YOURSELF. That's the genius of it.

It's OK, I hear they are making some improvements. I can't wait for the pineapples.

http://ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20061011

Yeah! I won't be happy until WoW females have their own anti-gravity bikinis, as expressed here

Yeah, pong can cause these things.

Now that you mention it, I think maybe Tim Buckley had it right...

http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20050 808

If you missed the memo, here it is.

Fully agree on the market-share point. So do these guys : http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20060 513

Hmm reminds me of this

I never understood the appeal of a computer that costs more and can't be customized. I guess if you can't figure out how to work a computer, one that's really simplified and doesn't require that you know anything about computers (even how to turn them on it seems, when comes to the laptops) could be useful.

Hmm reminds me of this

I never understood the appeal of a computer that costs more and can't be customized. I guess if you can't figure out how to work a computer, one that's really simplified and doesn't require that you know anything about computers (even how to turn them on it seems, when comes to the laptops) could be useful.

I totally agree with you... I think "CounterStrike: Nonexistant" was way better than any subsequent version... including the initial version!

I know I will just get modded down as flamebait... but this accurately describes my feelings for CounterStrike.

Wow, I was reading your first list as a list of games and wondering what I was missing out on! (At 6 AM after being up all night, my head makes spawn == spore...)

More seriously, if you want fast action (which may help you develop some close-range tactics for the rest of the game), find one of the various IceWorld maps and play there. A round is really not going to last very long, so unless the teams are insanely unbalanced, you should get at least a couple of kills.

Counter-Strike was always hit or miss for me. A miss would be 20 rounds of not getting a single kill. A hit -- this did happen -- 20 rounds on a huge map (Blackhawk Down), winning, often the last man standing on my team. A bit of schadenfreude there, too -- Blackhawk Down is either the most fun or the least fun you'll ever have in Counter-Strike, all depending on how soon you die, because once you die, you just know you'll have to watch 5-10 mins of 2 guys wandering through this big-ass city trying to find each other, all the more maddening because you KNOW where they both are, you're watching them walk right past each other and not notice, and wishing someone would just commit suicide so you could respawn in a new round.

And, it being Counter-Strike, I have also had such things as 10-20 round winning streaks with TK-ing bastards, with my name as "Penis". Kill half my team, then the other half, then kill off the entire other team single-handedly. I don't think I've ever heard so much whining over voice chat, ever.

Quake 3 and DMC, though -- these were fun even when you're losing. And I was the best at Quake 3 at a couple of small LAN parties. But without many people, we'd often have to invent things like: Who can kill the most bots the fastest? Spam Majors on I Can Win, then try to gauntlet them the fastest...

But really, I think the lesson here is that anything can be a sandbox game, even more than GTA, and that I suck at Counter-Strike almost as much as I suck at StarCraft, but I somehow still manage to be Rob the Counterstrike Guy (sorry, can't link to it directly -- scroll down)

I'm waiting for Guitar Hero 3. Here's the only information I could find on it. :)

why did people make viruses for Mac prior to OS X, when there was even *less* marketshare?

Getting in a boxing match with Jack Thompson and the referee forgetting to list all the rules makes me violent. See this URL for the result:

http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20060 621

I'd much rather play this JT themed game:
http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20051 012

Hmm, Ctrl-Alt-Del knew about this over a year and a half ago!

Here: http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20040 221

Not only are those contradictory statements (the webbrowser component being used by Explorer)

How do you know what vector each of the hundreds of thousands of bits of spyware make use of?

You made my point, which is that the web browsing component in Windows is ubiquitous and deeply embedded, so there are many avenues for malicious code to reach said component and do what it was designed to do.

How are they parts of the OS? Each is a seperate application.

Ok, I get it about wireless Internet. Not everywhere has an Ethernet jack in the same place as the power, and ethernet is harder to run, since you have to run it to some relatively centrallized switch. And we can use batteries, so we can literally be completely unwired. And it's nice to be able to automatically connect to the Internet. I really wish we had wireless power -- even decent solar power, a thin panel on the back of the LCD to charge a laptop...

I get it about wireless game controllers. If you're a typical console setup, you have the console hooked up to the TV/Entertainment center, facing a couch. You could buy an extension cord, but no matter how you do it, the cable is going to be in your lap. Wireless just makes sense, and you have to replace the batteries in remote controls also. There's even a Ctrl Alt Del comic about the habits we, as gamers, have built up around the cords, so that when you replace an xbox with a 360, you'll find yourself flicking the thing around like a spaz to get the cord out of the way... but no cord in sight.

Internet can reasonably be encrypted, since you're usually connecting a laptop to it, so you can at least type a password. Game consoles simply aren't worth cracking that way -- too difficult to snoop reliably, and if you piss them off by screwing up their game, they'll just get a wired controller. You can't screw up their game precisely without being in the room, and they'd kind of notice...

I get it about cordless phones. Phones are insecure anyway, and phone connections are as scarce as Internet. I get it about cell phones. Your phone, anywhere, with its contact list (killer feature) built in.

I don't get it about wireless keyboard and mouse. I've used them, but I just don't get it. People say "You can have it in your lap", and I pick up my wired, USB keyboard and place it in my lap. I've gotten used to the mouse cord as a sort of anchoring tension -- this may or may not be total BS, though. They say "I can type from across the room!" I whip out my Powerbook and ssh (or VNC) in over the wifi in less time than it takes you to try to tell me "That's not as convenient!" They say "It's a less cluttered desk" and I show them where their keyboard drawer is. They say "I don't have to worry about where to plug in" and I wonder how anyone could have trouble plugging in USB -- certainly at least as standard as BlueTooth, if not moreso.

Then I flip my keyboard and mouse over, and show them the bottom.

"See anything?"
"No."

Exactly. No contacts for a charger, no holes to plug something in to, no battery meter, no battery compartment to pop out. And if I need to be across the room, I'll plug in my laptop across the room.

There are a few applications -- Quake4 over VLC would suck, but why would I need to be across the room? And it's still vulnerable to this problem. Gamers who get wireless stuff are retarded.

People actually pay extra for this inconvenience?

But even if the thing was free, I work hard to make sure my keystrokes are encrypted when I want them to be. OS X is set to not allow any app to intercept Terminal keystrokes, which are then sent over a Blowfish ssh tunnel authenticated with 4096-bit RSA keys both ways, my email usually goes over a VPN (to cover the wirelessness), my passwords are unguessable, my PGP is unbreakable. And for what? So some script kiddie next door can just grab my keystrokes right out of the air? No thanks!

Obligatory link

But gamers need the equivalent of "Summer Blockbuster Season" for the younguns who get time off, for... good... behavior.

http://ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20030128 Wintereenmas!!!!!

Agreed entirely. You know what's really racist? Looking at that poster and thinking, "There's a black person and a white person". When my attention was drawn to it (on http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/ this morning), but before I read the context of it being brought up, I just saw two people.

What do you think about this latest in a long line of PSP ads of questionable taste?

They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Now my question is, these people see that ad as offensive, they are seeing a difference in skin color, and they are making a fuss as if it counts for more than just skin color. That in itself sounds like racism to me...

Tim makes some good points as well that I agree with.

I think the backlash from racism in America is doing more harm than good. I don't believe equality means compensate those who never felt oppression until our guilt is satiated.

You might go "What! But we did them so much harm, we can't just ignore what we did! What's wrong with repaying them?" Well we can't, because those who've been under said oppression are gone. We missed our chance.

Those are just my 2 cents, largely from a revelation when I was looking up scholarships online and saw so many minority scholarships that I could not quality for ON THE BASIS OF MY GENDER OR ETHNICITY OR RELIGION. That sounded alot like racism to me. Granted, maybe some of those went to kids who deserved them. But maybe some went to kids who wasted them partying while I'll be stuck next year with a BS in CS (which devalues in my eyes more and more as I get closer to it) and lots of thousands of dollars in debt.

No one is offended that the billboard suggests a precursor to violence. No one is offended that it's two women involved in violence. If it had been two white women, one in a white suit, one in a black suit, nobody would say a thing. Furthermore, nobody has said word one about the version of the ad where the black woman is dominating the white woman. And I'm willing to bet that if that image had been on the billboard instead, nobody would have said a thing. At least not publicly. So ask yourself, honestly, why it's offensive to you. Because the billboard doesn't depict slavery. Not in the slightest. If the black woman was picking cotton, and the white woman was standing over her with a whip, then hell yes it would be offensive. But it's just two people squaring off, and one of them has the upper hand. So why does it matter to you which one that is? Because if we really want to reach the level of equality in our society that we all say we do, we need to stop dwelling on the past. Slavery is abolished. Has been for a good long time. Not a single one of us Americans owned slaves, or was a slave. It was a horrible period in time, but it's over. Being oversensitive about things like this billboard is what's keeping this racial tension alive. If you ask yourself honestly, you may find that you don't actually think the billboard is offensive, but that you've just been taught it's offensive. Stop making race a big deal, and race stops being a big deal.