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there _are_ times when not to use your mobile...
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/4/23/

This is what Twitter is for.

Yeah, gotta watch out for those twitter shitters.

And this is why I normally ignore ACs. I guess there's something to be (re-)learned from this.

If someone dropped some giant tetris blocks off of the top of a skyscraper (laced with explosives which would automatically go off when a line was completed, of course) and crushed/asploded lots of people, should we stop playing tetris?

Um, I think this is the link you're looking for.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2002/20020722h.gif

http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2002/20021125h.gif

It's an adequate solution to GIFT. I don't read Slashdot for the racist ACs, and if it were up to me, I'd make it much harder to see those posts.

If you go on to read this guy's site, I guess you could say that the only thing standing between them and world domination in Monster. They've got engineering talent in design, and believe that their local production process means they've got an edge in the production, while all competitors besides Monster appear to contract manufacture to China. If Monster's tactics include advertising to consumers about shielding from Martians (comic missing, sorry) and random drive by suit threats to stave off the low price competition, then writing a public letter will piss them off, because it makes the random letter sent less likely to succeed. I'm not sure you can undo luxury good consumer idiocy, but with a name like Blue Jeans Cable, I suspect they're trading on public recognition of Monster's marketing engineering.

I actually used to work there (it's really not as fun as folks like to make it out. Looking at porn = work, porn overload sets in, not to mention exposure to stuff you NEVER want to see.) Interesting to have to ask people about their tolerance for porn in the interview process. And then kick a jackass out who couldn't comprehend teh difference between looking at porn for the job and having porn for his desktop background.

Posting anonomously for reasons that may not be immediately clear to you :)

I cant comment on the bias as I have not seen their methodology, but frankly this is part of the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory. Since Ive been online, using BBSs as a child in the 1980s, Ive noticed that anonymous people are nasty people. Even on sites that go out of their way to be productive and are heavily moderated like ask.metafilter.com you'll see that most answer to social problems are the most dramatic. Should someone get a divorce. Yes. Should someone quit their job? Yes.

  When people are anonymous and dont know the person they are responding to they often will just pick the most extreme solution and go with it. It really takes a decent person to sit back and think of the person they are talking to as a real person, like a friend of loved-one. This kind of thing almost never happens on the internet and I am not surprised to see it when it comes to suicide. Hopefully, the people who are looking up those websites also pick up the phone to a suicide hotline. Funny, how something like a real human voice and real interaction suddenly changes everything.

You mean this one? http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2002/20021125h.gif

Until Intel can show us Crysis

If Intel is right, there won't be much of an effect on existing games.

Intel is focusing on raytracers, something Crytek has specifically said that they will not do. Therefore, both Crysis and any sequels won't really see any improvement from Intel's approach.

If Intel is right, what we are talking about is the Crysis-killer -- a game that looks and plays much better than Crysis (and maybe with a plot that doesn't completely suck), and only on Intel hardware, not on nVidia.

Oh, and Beryl has been killed and merged. It's just Compiz now, and Compiz Fusion if you need more.

We've already got a name for that....

I immediately had thoughts of the "Land of upp".

Didn't they also think that the PS3 would be the best selling game console?

Didn't they also claim they couldn't be found on store shelves, and would pay $1200 for each on?

In fact, they did. http://www.penny-arcade.com/2007/2/12/

Let's just say, I don't trust their market predictions.

Didn't they also think that the PS3 would be the best selling game console?

Didn't they also claim they couldn't be found on store shelves, and would pay $1200 for each on?

In fact, they did. http://www.penny-arcade.com/2007/2/12/

Let's just say, I don't trust their market predictions.

If you can get past the attempts at sarcasm and poor analogies, the poster actually has valid points. Not everyone can write like Tycho and get their point across. Doesn't change the fact that the grandparent poster made a lot of hard statements for which there's a lot of grey area.

I may just not have got far enough through, but it's not like Dungeon Siege had a deep and involving storyline as a game. I got bored of the formulaic medieval RPG plot about 2 hours into the game.

Seriously, how *do* you make a good film of something like that?

Obligatory Penny Arcade link

The only possible response to that is this Penny Arcade.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/3/19/

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/02/20 :)

I think Freenet is penny-arcade's greater internet fuckwad theory as applied to pedophiles. The original link seems down but this site has a copy. In the original form it states: Normal Person + Anonymity + Audience = Total Fuckwad. There's not exactly many places pedos can flaunt their sexual preference publicly, so those that want to show off end up there. Most other people I'd think come to Freenet to stay private rather than the opposite. I gather that by "poking around" you mean informal surfing around for freesites and similar that wants to be found, not traffic analysis on the real volume of traffic.

It really boils down to one of two choices - can true anonymity be permitted or not, or does everything have to be pseudonymous? The latter means that it's all tracable, if you get a warrant from slashdot they'll have my IP and a warrant to my ISP will get my name and address (there's more complications than that, but I'll get to it) because it's all held in escrow. True anonymity means unlinkability - to prevent it means no Freenet, no open WiFi, no webcafe or WiFi without ID, no open relays or proxies or NAT or shell accounts or whatever, at least not unless you keep full logs. One thing is discussing what should be, but I think the burning question is "Given all the ways information can be encoded, relayed, split and merged, is it practically possible to prevent it?"

Anonymity is the absolute freedom of speech, which includes the infamous kiddie porn but also libel, slander, fraud, stock scams, spam, threats, medical records, fincnail records, criminal records, classified material and a host of other things that is and probably should be illegal. I doubt anyone that's really thought it through thinks it's ideal that ALL information flowed freely. The question is at what the ramficiations are for everyone else, if enforcing the law is worse than abolishing the law. For example it'd be trivial for me to post PGP messages here on slashdot, using an open medium to communicate anonymously. I don't think you could properly enforce it without banning "unapproved" encryption and turning it into a totalitarian state. And that price is too high.

Maybe I'm too pessimistic but I think the days when searches and warrants made the Internet a pseudonymous place is going to go away. Either we will have real anonymity through encryption and relays or we will have hard links to real identities. It's really better inbetween but I don't think we can ask the clock to be turned back any more than a failing corporation can...

Obligatory Penny Arcade reference:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/08/22

And Manticores?

Yeah, but the Rules of Engagement probably have a larger bearing on safety than the nature of the weapons...

... I present the Penny Arcade comic about that game.

Wait, I'm so confused. I thought cell phones and other wireless devices emitted invisible pilot killing waves, so deadly that we must turn off all devices upon takeoff and landing, and put them into "pilot safe" mode when in flight?

I saw a documentary on it here:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/10/30

Oh, I guess that frequency-hopping signals really aren't that bad.

He's just being an asshole. Internet anonymity encourages that sort of thing. I believe Penny Arcade decribed it as The Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory.

The ultimate reality show: watching yourself watch yourself.

Oblig PA - As Regards Spoilification

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2002/07/12

Oh no you didn't!! SNAP

Man, good one!! We on slashdot all aspire only to be so witty.

Cut Yourself

Oh, there's plenty of EA related penny arcade material:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/11/15

But still, I hope that EA doesn't take hold of them. EA's gaining way too much influence on gaming, and considering how they run things into the ground and churn out mediocre games on the backs of good games makes me worried that they'll grab as many companies as they can, and run them and their brands right into the ground.

Obligatory Penny Arcade. Different company, but I still feel it applies here.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/12/05

Heh, your argument reminds me of kung fu movies.

It's an unwritten rule of kung fu moviedom that good guys don't use guns. They can be beaten and bloody, up against a wall, with a discarded gun at their feet, and a broom handle well out of reach--and they'll go for the broom handle every time.

At the end of the day, I think it has more to do with good cinematography than "honor". Which brings me to my point:

The reality is that mouse-and-keyboard (gun) beats dual-analog (broom handle) in terms of lethal efficiency. However, many people prefer the protracted, often more strategic battles (cinematography) that dual-analog induces. Consider the popularity of GoldenEye. Or Halo 2.

I'm not strictly adverse to blinding-fast gameplay, but I enjoy other types of challenges as well. Your assertion that mouse-and-keyboard is the only viable control scheme for FPSes is narrow minded.

For relevance: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/02/19.

This reminds me of another player in the graphics world that put their foot in their mouth.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/1999/01/29

Yeah. Good luck with that Nvidia.

You can't uninstall evil

I think this comic applies here too...

Order of the Stick
Penny Arcade

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/03/04

Ever the gamers, PA's paying their respects as well: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/

A Mediation On Value

perhaps he was taken in by packaging that looked something like this