I suspect the gap b/t wasd and gamepad user amongst average players will be a lot smaller than people expect. Factors like familiarity with a particular level, and general experience playing a particular game have a big effect on player performance in FPS games.
I think that you'll have both PC and XBox players that get very good at the game and know the levels. And I think you'll find that the top ranks will be populated by the best PC players, followed by a mix of the best XBox players and the good PC players, and that trend will continue downward.
If anyone wants a little first hand proof I submit the following.. go get a MS sidewinder game pad, hook it up to your PC and jump in a game of regular quake, CS, TFC, COD.
Interesting story though, I used to play Unreal Tournament as part of a clan. One of the guys, who was easily in the top 3 of us skill-wise and had uncanny aim, used a joystick to play. Don't remember what kind it was, but it was basically similar to the Saitek Cyborg stick that I had. I actually watched him playing a couple times at lan parties. It was just weird to me, but it worked great for him. Fortunately though, I think that overall, PC players will dominate gamepad players.
Gmail isn't any better than any number of local mail clients. If your site really really needs javascript, it's probably better off not being a site at all. Make it an application and network it.
Being a website rather than a desktop application is half the benefit you get from Gmail. I can access it from anywhere I have an internet connection and a browser, and have all my mail in front of me. Not true with desktop apps.
Well, I think that crosses the line to dishonest behavior. I mean, If I'm not willing to look at the ad that's my prerogative. But lets not claimed to have seen the ad and give the advertiser a false metric just to give the site revenue it doesn't deserve.
No more dishonest than those stupid "punch the monkey and win a prize" type ads, certainly. Seriously, auto-clicking and not viewing the pageload is not anywhere near the level of dishonesty that we routinely see from the ad industry. The industry is built on being manipulative and misleading. So, the main problem I see with the system that the gp post talks about is that the ad industry would probably catch on and start revising ad fees to compensate for the level of this activity that they believe is going on, and then we're back where we started and we might as well just block them altogether.
However, you must concede that entrepreneurial instinct (which often involves "pushing" information or products at people when they don't really need or want them) has done a lot to forward technological advances.
While ads have helped the web become what it is today, I can't help but think that maybe if there weren't so many sites out there trying to get hits for ad purposes, the web might be a better place. Even if that means I have to pay for subscriptions to sites with content that I want, I think I might like that web better. We'd still have a lot of low-cost hosting solutions out there, and we'd still have people posting whatever they want. There just probably wouldn't be so much auto-generated garbage out there to sift through in order to see the interesting stuff. Then again, I've thought about this for all of about 3 minutes now, so I could be completely wrong.
Yes but why are we expecting the corporation to keep track of its own records? Isn't this like having the fox guarding the chicken coop and then requiring him to promptly report if he eats any chickens during his watch? Why would the the law seriously expect a company to follow through on this?
Because in most cases the guys making the laws are the same guys that have run big corporations, or intend to after they leave office.
Seems like Microsoft is trying to figure out how they can make consoles cost as much as PCs for gaming. Their answer seems to be that since the XBox is a closed platform, they can charge gamers for everything that PC gamers get for free, as well as jack up prices on peripherals that you could buy a lot cheaper for a PC. Give them another year or two and I think the price gap between the PC and the XBox will have closed quite a bit. I don't personally own an XBox, since I haven't found any compelling reason to buy one when I get a better gaming experience from the PC. I just hear the argument all the time that PCs are just way more expensive. I built a great gaming box for $1500. Yeah, that's a lot, but all I have to buy is the games now. I get online gaming, voice chat, IM, mods, skins, etc., etc. for free, and don't have to pay through the nose for peripherals or unlockable content. Still probably doesn't come out the same dollar-wise, but it's getting closer the more they nickel and dime everyone for everything they can.
It is absolutely and totally under the control of Google and Google's employees. You, as a user of youtube, can do nothing with it that they do not explicitly allow you to do. How hard is that to comprehend?
YouTube cannot determine what is and is not copyrighted, and not just copyrighted, but also posted without the permission of the copyright holder. Hell, even the companies sending takedown notices can't always seem to figure out whether something infringes on their copyright or not. So when you come up with some super-accurate method of doing all this, I suggest you patent it immediately and sell it to YouTube and others for a tidy profit. Right now YouTube provides a method for viewers to notify them of an infringing video. They have removed a ton of videos from the site for copyright violations. I don't see how they could seriously do any more really.
Blaming copyright because you bought a locked phone and a rip protected CD (which I assume to be the case, otherwise you'd just load the ringtone like a normal person) kind of misplaced blame a bit.
Actually, in the case of the rip-protected CD, copyright law is very much to blame. If it weren't for the DMCA, you'd have every right to rip that CD anyway and create your own ringtone. The DMCA makes the act of circumventing the protection a crime unto itself, even though there's no reason you shouldn't have access to the songs you purchased in order to make use of them in other ways, such as ringtones.
That is not entirely true. A patent approved by the patent office which cites prior art stands a much better chance of being (legally) valid in case the patent's validity is challenged in court.
Precisely! It's also quite a good idea to mix just enough truth into your lies to make them believable.
Sure, technically they do download part of the file, but if copyright law was that technical, wouldn't copying web pages into cache be illegal?
I think that in making a web page publicly accessible, the permission to cache the page for the purposes of viewing it is implied. The difference being that the RIAA (or other agents of the recording industry are not the ones making the music files available to the public).
1) There's no requirement to make the source freely available anywhere. You can release software under the GPL and charge whatever you like for a copy. The requirement is that whoever buys a copy from you with a GPL license receives the rights to redistribute it under a GPL license - which means they can then give it away for free (as long as the recipient is bound by the GPL too)
Ok, this isn't clear to me from reading the FAQ. The GPL states that they must provide equivalent access to the source that they provide for the binaries. The binaries were distributed with the machines, but the customer wasn't charged any specific fee for the distribution of those binaries, and therefore shouldn't be charged any fee for distribution of the source. Should that be interpreted some other way?
I can't stand reading this argument every time an article on the RIAA gets posted on Slashdot. I don't like them either, but this is adolescent logic (not to mention pretentious). And there goes my karma. Oh well.
There is a difference between doing what's "right" legally, and doing what's right morally. Legally, I'm obliged to pay whatever the industry is asking for a particular album if I want to listen to the music. Morally, I feel that the industry has corrupted copyright law with the power of their money, swinging the balance of power FAR in their favor at the expense of people like me. So, I support the artists I like by going to their concerts and buying their merchandise. It's the only way I know that let's me support artists without simultaneously giving money to the industry to allow them to buy the DMCA 2.0 from Congress.
You're taking things out of context and attributing knowledge to Libby that he has now, but didn't have at the time he was talking to the reporters, and that he didn't have when he was talking to the FBI.
Here's what I just emailed to their PR department:
Are your executives all on crack or what? You can't sue like a screaming toddler who didn't get the candy when a client chooses your competitor. That's utterly retarded.
Eloquent. I'm sure they'll see the error of their ways.
What they wont do is go in and have all this stuff made public or be sworn to an oath that has no other purpose then to position them into a perjury trap.
Perjury trap? It's only perjury if you knowingly tell lies under oath. What exactly do you consider a perjury trap to be? Are United States courtrooms perjury traps?
The dems are trying to pull a Lewis Libby in were they confuse them, and then hold a misstatement that was made that he later corrected on his own admission as perjury (lying to an investigator)and trick a conviction out of them when nothing illegal has been done.
Wtf? A misstatement? Like just one? Hah. No. Sorry. Try again. Try at least 3 lies and you might be closer. Seeing as how his testimony was disputed by pretty much everyone, and his defense couldn't find anything to support him and had to fall back on the "oh, he's just a really, really, really forgetful guy" defense, I think he must have known exactly what he was doing at the time, whether he forgot it later or not (which is also bs, of course).
It's not even clear that leaking the info was a crime. If they didn't know she was covert, then they didn't knowingly reveal a covert CIA agent's identity. The problem is whether you lie about what you revealed or not. If Armitage actually revealed the info, then he apparently didn't lie about it. Libby did. So Libby goes to jail. That's how it's supposed to work. Lesson here? Don't lie.
If you're not willing to be questioned under oath, then you're probably planning to lie outright, lie by omission, or at least be intentionally misleading. People are expected to testify this way every day, and it's how our system works. This administration seems to think they are above the law.
I think the rest of the world should set up their own UN, where countries have an equal say. If you think that countries should have unequal representation, it should be based on population count not wealth since you would not like rich people in your own country to have more votes than you, would you?
Because nothing they do will carry any weight. The only reason the security council's word is law is because it is made up of the superpowers that have the money and military strength to enforce that law. The rest of the world could form their own UN, but it would be even more of a joke than the current one. Without the money and power to back their resolutions, the resolutions themselves are meaningless in the real world.
You are absolutely correct - the theme of many music related posts is "I don't want to pay their prices, therefore it's ok for me to steal". The RIAA is not to be blamed for him choosing to steal, they didn't force or coerce him in any way. He made the personal decision to steal rather than to buy.
Do you recall that the record industry has been convicted 2 or 3 times now of price fixing? That simply shows that they've never stopped price-fixing. So they've obviously gotten comfortable with stealing from us as well. So no harm no foul if we steal back, right? They don't get punished for it, why should we?
Really? Cause 5 minutes on Google is what it took me to fix EVERY major issue with Ubuntu I've had thus far, and I have no Linux geek to turn to for help...
5 minutes for you. My mom wouldn't even begin to know what to search for. I'm talking about the friend that knows how to fix stuff. He could find the answer pretty quick and know what to look for in the hits so that he doesn't end up in some ad portal hell.
Cause a user never has had a corrupt office install and had to call on their sixpack of beer a fix friend to hack their registry and reinstall office.
The thing is, everyone knows someone who's pretty good with Windows and can help them with their problems. Five minutes with Google usually does the trick. How many people know a linux geek to help them with that? Probably not nearly as many. So, linux remains a daunting prospect for people who don't know who they can turn to for help.
I don't care for Obama's (liberal) politics - but the guy is the real thing. He speaks his mind. I respect that.
Didn't Obama go all "southern baptist preacher" during at least one of his speeches too? I seem to remember seeing a clip or two of that alongside Hillary's bizarre accent clips. They both play to the crowd. Republicans do it too. It's pretty ridiculous, painful even, to watch, but for some reason, some people actually buy into that stuff, like they believe that the candidates are really just like them.
Just because his paycheck is no longer coming from M$ he didn't become significantly more reliable. Who knows, he might get paid from elsewhere. Or just writes the crap out of spite. Once compromised, ever compromised.
How about we just read what he has to say and then decide for ourselves whether his claims hold any water? Would that work too?
I'm using Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul, Francesco's mod, Martigen's Monster Mod (those three are collectively known as FranOOOMMM! and can be downloaded together under that name along with a couple other mods that make them play nicer together), the Unofficial Oblivion Patch for a gajillion bug fixes, and BTMod for the interface improvements. I may also be running a couple other little ones, but those are the major ones. It's a whole different game when running these mods, and a MUCH better game at that. Some of them have options you can set to your liking or to tweak the difficulty. All those modders out there who have been helping to make Oblivion the game it should have been deserve a LOT of credit. They've done some amazing things without much help from Bethesda. I'm considering using Natural Environments as well, but had read a while back that it still had some conflicts with other mods, so I held off. I need to check in on it again.
Slashdot Mirror
I think that you'll have both PC and XBox players that get very good at the game and know the levels. And I think you'll find that the top ranks will be populated by the best PC players, followed by a mix of the best XBox players and the good PC players, and that trend will continue downward.
Interesting story though, I used to play Unreal Tournament as part of a clan. One of the guys, who was easily in the top 3 of us skill-wise and had uncanny aim, used a joystick to play. Don't remember what kind it was, but it was basically similar to the Saitek Cyborg stick that I had. I actually watched him playing a couple times at lan parties. It was just weird to me, but it worked great for him. Fortunately though, I think that overall, PC players will dominate gamepad players.
Being a website rather than a desktop application is half the benefit you get from Gmail. I can access it from anywhere I have an internet connection and a browser, and have all my mail in front of me. Not true with desktop apps.
No more dishonest than those stupid "punch the monkey and win a prize" type ads, certainly. Seriously, auto-clicking and not viewing the pageload is not anywhere near the level of dishonesty that we routinely see from the ad industry. The industry is built on being manipulative and misleading. So, the main problem I see with the system that the gp post talks about is that the ad industry would probably catch on and start revising ad fees to compensate for the level of this activity that they believe is going on, and then we're back where we started and we might as well just block them altogether.
While ads have helped the web become what it is today, I can't help but think that maybe if there weren't so many sites out there trying to get hits for ad purposes, the web might be a better place. Even if that means I have to pay for subscriptions to sites with content that I want, I think I might like that web better. We'd still have a lot of low-cost hosting solutions out there, and we'd still have people posting whatever they want. There just probably wouldn't be so much auto-generated garbage out there to sift through in order to see the interesting stuff. Then again, I've thought about this for all of about 3 minutes now, so I could be completely wrong.
Because in most cases the guys making the laws are the same guys that have run big corporations, or intend to after they leave office.
Seems like Microsoft is trying to figure out how they can make consoles cost as much as PCs for gaming. Their answer seems to be that since the XBox is a closed platform, they can charge gamers for everything that PC gamers get for free, as well as jack up prices on peripherals that you could buy a lot cheaper for a PC. Give them another year or two and I think the price gap between the PC and the XBox will have closed quite a bit. I don't personally own an XBox, since I haven't found any compelling reason to buy one when I get a better gaming experience from the PC. I just hear the argument all the time that PCs are just way more expensive. I built a great gaming box for $1500. Yeah, that's a lot, but all I have to buy is the games now. I get online gaming, voice chat, IM, mods, skins, etc., etc. for free, and don't have to pay through the nose for peripherals or unlockable content. Still probably doesn't come out the same dollar-wise, but it's getting closer the more they nickel and dime everyone for everything they can.
YouTube cannot determine what is and is not copyrighted, and not just copyrighted, but also posted without the permission of the copyright holder. Hell, even the companies sending takedown notices can't always seem to figure out whether something infringes on their copyright or not. So when you come up with some super-accurate method of doing all this, I suggest you patent it immediately and sell it to YouTube and others for a tidy profit. Right now YouTube provides a method for viewers to notify them of an infringing video. They have removed a ton of videos from the site for copyright violations. I don't see how they could seriously do any more really.
Actually, in the case of the rip-protected CD, copyright law is very much to blame. If it weren't for the DMCA, you'd have every right to rip that CD anyway and create your own ringtone. The DMCA makes the act of circumventing the protection a crime unto itself, even though there's no reason you shouldn't have access to the songs you purchased in order to make use of them in other ways, such as ringtones.
Precisely! It's also quite a good idea to mix just enough truth into your lies to make them believable.
I think that in making a web page publicly accessible, the permission to cache the page for the purposes of viewing it is implied. The difference being that the RIAA (or other agents of the recording industry are not the ones making the music files available to the public).
Ok, this isn't clear to me from reading the FAQ. The GPL states that they must provide equivalent access to the source that they provide for the binaries. The binaries were distributed with the machines, but the customer wasn't charged any specific fee for the distribution of those binaries, and therefore shouldn't be charged any fee for distribution of the source. Should that be interpreted some other way?
There is a difference between doing what's "right" legally, and doing what's right morally. Legally, I'm obliged to pay whatever the industry is asking for a particular album if I want to listen to the music. Morally, I feel that the industry has corrupted copyright law with the power of their money, swinging the balance of power FAR in their favor at the expense of people like me. So, I support the artists I like by going to their concerts and buying their merchandise. It's the only way I know that let's me support artists without simultaneously giving money to the industry to allow them to buy the DMCA 2.0 from Congress.
You're taking things out of context and attributing knowledge to Libby that he has now, but didn't have at the time he was talking to the reporters, and that he didn't have when he was talking to the FBI.
Eloquent. I'm sure they'll see the error of their ways.
Perjury trap? It's only perjury if you knowingly tell lies under oath. What exactly do you consider a perjury trap to be? Are United States courtrooms perjury traps?
Wtf? A misstatement? Like just one? Hah. No. Sorry. Try again. Try at least 3 lies and you might be closer. Seeing as how his testimony was disputed by pretty much everyone, and his defense couldn't find anything to support him and had to fall back on the "oh, he's just a really, really, really forgetful guy" defense, I think he must have known exactly what he was doing at the time, whether he forgot it later or not (which is also bs, of course).
It's not even clear that leaking the info was a crime. If they didn't know she was covert, then they didn't knowingly reveal a covert CIA agent's identity. The problem is whether you lie about what you revealed or not. If Armitage actually revealed the info, then he apparently didn't lie about it. Libby did. So Libby goes to jail. That's how it's supposed to work. Lesson here? Don't lie.
If you're not willing to be questioned under oath, then you're probably planning to lie outright, lie by omission, or at least be intentionally misleading. People are expected to testify this way every day, and it's how our system works. This administration seems to think they are above the law.
Because nothing they do will carry any weight. The only reason the security council's word is law is because it is made up of the superpowers that have the money and military strength to enforce that law. The rest of the world could form their own UN, but it would be even more of a joke than the current one. Without the money and power to back their resolutions, the resolutions themselves are meaningless in the real world.
Do you recall that the record industry has been convicted 2 or 3 times now of price fixing? That simply shows that they've never stopped price-fixing. So they've obviously gotten comfortable with stealing from us as well. So no harm no foul if we steal back, right? They don't get punished for it, why should we?
5 minutes for you. My mom wouldn't even begin to know what to search for. I'm talking about the friend that knows how to fix stuff. He could find the answer pretty quick and know what to look for in the hits so that he doesn't end up in some ad portal hell.
The thing is, everyone knows someone who's pretty good with Windows and can help them with their problems. Five minutes with Google usually does the trick. How many people know a linux geek to help them with that? Probably not nearly as many. So, linux remains a daunting prospect for people who don't know who they can turn to for help.
Seemed more like a parody of the media in general, and moveon.org especially. The end was hilarious. "That's the magic of online petitions."
Didn't Obama go all "southern baptist preacher" during at least one of his speeches too? I seem to remember seeing a clip or two of that alongside Hillary's bizarre accent clips. They both play to the crowd. Republicans do it too. It's pretty ridiculous, painful even, to watch, but for some reason, some people actually buy into that stuff, like they believe that the candidates are really just like them.
Clearchannel.
How about we just read what he has to say and then decide for ourselves whether his claims hold any water? Would that work too?
I'm using Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul, Francesco's mod, Martigen's Monster Mod (those three are collectively known as FranOOOMMM! and can be downloaded together under that name along with a couple other mods that make them play nicer together), the Unofficial Oblivion Patch for a gajillion bug fixes, and BTMod for the interface improvements. I may also be running a couple other little ones, but those are the major ones. It's a whole different game when running these mods, and a MUCH better game at that. Some of them have options you can set to your liking or to tweak the difficulty. All those modders out there who have been helping to make Oblivion the game it should have been deserve a LOT of credit. They've done some amazing things without much help from Bethesda. I'm considering using Natural Environments as well, but had read a while back that it still had some conflicts with other mods, so I held off. I need to check in on it again.