Correction. With HP, you don't have to buy from resellers. I bought my laptop direct from them and talked the salesperson into giving me a discount and free shipping on a business class notebook since I'm a student. Since I was spending a bit more on warranty and buying a higher end notebook, the margins weren't as slim. Yes, anecdote isn't statistic, but still. HP does sell direct.
Well, that may be the case, but you can't even spell Marilyn Manson right, yet you were apparently wearing a shirt promoting him? Your inability to spell in this instance leads me to disbelieve your anecdote entirely. It's common knowledge that Manson was one of the attempted scapegoats after the Columbine shootings.
You failed to spell the name of a well-known artist right... And one that was identified with the Columbine shootings, if only tangentially. As it relates to your anecdote... Well (to me at least), it seems like you're trolling. I could be wrong, but either way, it shows the importance of reading over your post.
I saw that documentary (This Film is Not Yet Rated) and didn't find it to be very insightful at all. Essentially, it took movies that were considered NC-17 and compared them to R movies (for the most part), saying that "Oh, this director got away with this, so why couldn't we? It's because we were indie / poor / unfamiliar / not a guaranteed money making success." What good points were made were more or less swallowed up by the skew. A lot of the examples that were cited in favour of a more lax rating system could have actually gone the other way... ending up classified as NC-17. So yes, the film had a point, but it was pretty fallacious at best. My favourite irony was seeing an actual rating (in Canada) on the back of the retail box at the local rental shop. So much for the director's axiom that "this film will never be rated" or whatever it was he claimed. (And no, I don't know how that works with exporting content, so if I'm wrong, I apologize in advance. I just found that to be quite humorous.)
I think the prime reason we have this sort of system has a lot to do with a society where we don't want to take responsibility. I'll go out on a limb here and assume that the whole reason for the rating system is why we have the tag "thinkofthechildren." It makes things easier for parents, should they wish to actually take the responsibility to raise their kids right. If you *have* raised your children properly, then seeing nudity and relatively graphic sex probably won't totally scar them. A good deal of parenting has to do with not only controlling what age-appropriate (your mileage may vary) content your children are exposed to, but more with the ability of the child to think critically, and be responsible.
Responsibility breeds responsibility. Who would've thunk it?
No, you've got it all wrong. I know you were going for humour, but everyone gets hit with the FUDstick, for the most part. Tons of articles about Microsoft have defectivebydesign tagged to it. Every time there's a relatively small exploit in Mac OSX, we freak out. Nintendo, riding the high right now, can seemingly do no wrong, while Sony is effectively screwed. Yes, they brought this on themselves, but this is what happens when companies look too much at the return on investment and forget to make a worthwhile product. (I'm generalizing, but bear with me.)
Say what you will about companies making boneheaded decisions and glaringly obvious mistakes, but they are still run by people. People make stupid decisions, and they are also capable of making good ones. I'm no fan of corporate hegemony, so maybe they're getting a bit of a taste of their own medecine here -- they got greedy, overreached their bounds, and now this BluRay thing might bite them in the ass a bit. I won't speculate much -- most of the sides of that argument have been covered more eloquently than I can manage.
I'm not buying a Sony product any time soon due to displeasure with my experiences with their last few products, more or less after they became the media conglomerate, not the consumer electronics giant they used to be good for. The PS3 has some good things going for it - that distributed processing stuff is pretty sweet, and the Cell processor is by all accounts a nifty piece of hardware. Companies rise and fall. Once I, as a consumer who tries to make both ethical and sound decisions in my purchasing habits, see that Sony is turning around, then I'll give them another shot. Until then, I'm just a spectator.
Man, it seems like no matter where I turn, many countries are shooting themselves in the foot. At least, the politicians are. Australia looked like the place to be for copyright law, judging from the anecdotes I've read here on/. (Yes, I know, anecdote doesn't equal law, but all the same.) In all fairness though, the nations that spout "freedom!" so often seem to be not so free. It seems that for every good point a place has, a few go sour. I live in Canada, where I've been all my life (not that long, granted), but even we're kind of shooting ourselves in the foot in that regard. Apparently something akin to the DMCA is going in front of the legislators here some time soon. I'm not looking forward to that... It looks like I'm going to have to learn a new language, what with basic problems like this...
UK -- survelliance, censorship Australia -- censorship Canada -- amending copyright law, some dubious, boneheaded decisions United States -- DMCA, RIAA, etc.
Yeah, I left out a few, but that's because I'm ignorant. I don't know what exactly is going on in places like Ireland, Scotland, South Africa, or any of the other random spots around the globe were you can get by on English. (I say get by because I've been planning to learn another language at some point anyways.) I was seriously considering moving to Australia if things get too out of hand here in Canada. As I've heard said, you fight it by taking action. I hope it doesn't get to the point where I have to move to a different country, though...
My buddy bought a Western Digital MyBook Essential the other day. According to their website (www.westerndigital.com), it's basically the same sort of drive as the MyBook Pro, minus the Firewire 400 and 800 connections, and that fancy digital space output on the drive. He had a gift certificate for Best Buy or something and got that because the next one up which had Firewire and the same amount of storage was prohibitively expensive. I told him he would've wanted to get something with Firewire 800, but no worries. He's happy with it as is. It runs off A/C power, so you can't use the USB power feature of the Passport series, though.
Neat stuff. Maybe I should get a Passport for myself eventually.
I'm not directly disputing what you've said, but I'd argue that Waterloo is becoming more and more of the tech giant that you're making Ottawa out to be. The University of Waterloo is known internationally for its technology-related programs, and it is highly competitive. Waterloo is the place to be if you want a tech job -- I'm told it's the only place in Canada that Google has a co-op agreement with. It's not uncommon to hear of big name tech industry speakers heading over to Waterloo to make speeches -- I think Bill Gates was there a few years ago.
I'm a student at Carleton, and the food could be much, *much* worse. (Especially compared to the cafeteria at the University of Ottawa -- at least, that's what I'm told.) I'm sure the university makes a killing off the whole exclusivity agreement with Coca Cola (and I assume there's one with Aramark as well). You're right though... The food here is insanely expensive. I just hope at least *some* of those funds take the edge off my tuition fees or something. I don't like exclusivity agreements and backroom corporate deals any more than the next guy, but running a university isn't cheap. I wish they wouldn't run it like a business, but they almost have to. People want tuition to cost next to nothing, but they don't seem to realize that it is very expensive to be here... Universities in Quebec are suffering due to tuition freezes -- even McGill, the "Harvard of the North" has to pinch pennies.
I suppose that was somewhat off topic, but anyways. We aren't quite the "be all, end all" of tech up here, though we do have many strong, well-renowned programs in a wide range of areas. I'm in one of them. =P
Someone mentioned that they were using web browser stats to confirm this... That seems like a flawed methodology to begin with, but anyways...
I was wondering if it took into consideration the larger number of PCs on the market as a whole (i.e. I can get a PC for ~$400 CAN that's capable of browsing the web and such). When the cheapest Mac runs for a higher price and there are a plethora of cheap PCs with bundles to make them seem more attractive, it doesn't seem so strange to me that their numbers are considerably smaller or on the decline, particularly due to the fact that an internet capable PC needn't cost a lot of money -- dirt cheap old machines, whether used or refurbished, can be had with little effort. Just my two cents.
Couldn't he have just found something to burn the files to a CD with, in an audio track format? Then rerip? Or was that the problem he had with the encryption on the files?
Sounds to me like he needs software that's a bit more devious and lets you actually do what you want with the media. Then again, you're right. It wasn't exactly bright for him not to read the disclaimer or know that a proprietary WMA format -- the direct competitor to Apple. I don't think ignorance is much of a defence to that sort of thing. Thoughts, anyone?
"The nice thing about the MP3 model is it only rewards songs that are worth it. Anyone who has bought CDs knows each CD is engineered to have 2-3 good tracks and the rest as mediocre filler songs. The big songs are what they advertise and publicize via concerts, radio, movie soundtracks, etc. The filler take much less money to produce."
Yeah, but see, I won't buy *any* CD if it's crap -- RIAA or otherwise. My principle has always been to buy the CD for the whole album if it's good, never for a track or two.
I'm not exactly old now (almost a sophomore in university), but I can still remember being puzzled a good eight years or so ago when people I knew would buy a CD costing ~$25 CAN for only a track or two. It's as if they didn't know that the recording industry uses singles for that purpose, most of the time... Not like that's a perfect solution, since I think a lot of music out there is crap, and yet... The public seems to like it anyways.
Then again, it has its purpose I suppose... It gives Weird Al some good material, and it gives me another reason to be annoyed with the general populace. Huzzah!
Seriously, it seems like everything is being turned into version numbers. Does it ever occur to them that, you know, buzzwords actually *kill meaning?*
I take it you really meant the Duke Nukem Forever of the OS world, as in vapourware. (For those that aren't sure what vapourware is [or vaporware, if you're not partial to the Queen's English], check Wikipedia or Google or something.)
This might be somewhat offtopic, but it's related to credit card information. Take it as an anecdote, if you will.
Volunteering at a local non-profit community radio station, we have an annual funding drive. Listeners can submit their info online via secure form using a credit card, mail in a cheque, come by the station and drop off cash, or call in their credit card number over the phone. You have to understand that the last option *is* a very significant risk, since we don't have a touch-tone system to record the credit card number -- the operators (volunteers, no less) write down the credit card number (CCN) and name. I don't remember if the phone number and address are taken down or not. Either way, their CCN is taken, and this can be stolen / used in unethical means rather easily. The onus is on the operators to be honest and to guard those papers zealously -- they obviously contain very valuable information. I don't think we've yet to have any problems with CCN misuse, but it does seem like it's inevitable. I guess it all boils down to the morality of the volunteers. Most of us who are there for the phone shifts and other stuff are generally dedicated and ethical people, but all it takes is one person to mess it up.
General ethics triumphs once again? Just my two cents.
I guess this is the same dilemma that faces those weird (and awful) "choose your own adventure" books that seemed popular around the time of the Goosebumps phenomenon when I was a kid. They didn't tell much of a story at all, because it was so fragmented, and I was only interested in seeing the brutal death scenes half the time anyways. It was like reading a poorly written story grafted onto rails... Whenever I came to a fork in the adventure where I died, I'd just hold my finger in the previous "hub" section, and go back to it so I didn't have to start all over again.
The fact is that choice in this context is infinitely improbable. (No, I don't have hard science to back this up, I'm speaking purely from a philosophical perspective). As with life, one single choice can change *years* of experience. Something as simple as having never taken a certain class in my final year of high school would mean that I wouldn't be dating my best friend right now. That sort of thing has a huge effect on life, in general. I don't know if this is truly "chaos theory" or the "butterfly effect", posited off of the pop culture sense, but that seems to be what they've coined it.
The flip side of the issue is that story-telling is inherently linear. A good yarn has a certain amount of linearity, or else it turns into a mass of spaghetti, plot-threads hacked together as badly as a Mad-Lib or that weird art game "The Exquisite Corpse." (Check Wikipedia for both examples.)
I agree with what you said, and lament the nonsensical rants about "next-gen" gaming. Storytelling *is* truly next-gen, not all the graphical nonsense, by all accounts -- whenever the question of turning gaming into a legitimate form of art (or media) for those who do not understand how amazing a well-crafted in-game storyline can be. Perhaps this is why the lament of "games don't evoke emotion" comes up concerning why (apparently) only males play games, or some such line of reasoning like that. This is why, every now and again, I go back and dust off what is possibly the best game I have ever played -- Deus Ex. And why was it so amazing? Well, yes, I do love sci-fi, and it has that wonderful RPG twist, but there are also some issues that would be unforgiveable in other games, such as screwy AI. Where it wins, hands downs, is story. It tells a fantastic yarn, and there is some measure of choice woven into the overall linearity -- for example, if you manage to save Paul Denton in his apartment, or leave him to defend himself, either leaving out the window or hiding in the closet. The entire game was rife with choice -- even in how it was played. Sure, there probably wouldn't be vents everywhere to sneak around in -- but I was willing to suspend my disbelief simply because it gave me a choice in how I wished to play the game, which tied into the plot twists and small (yet important) forks in conversation and choices that the player could make. Whatever measure of control I had is still unclear to me... All I know is that I *felt* like I had a choice, and it was meaningful -- I saw the consequences of my actions, and it drew me in deeper.
I have yet to play Planescape: Torment (it's on my to-do list), and there are a number of other games on my list which I shall play through eventually. If you haven't played Deus Ex (the original, I never played the sequel, so I can't say), do so... It's an excellent game. You might be able to find a copy of System Shock 2 on eBay somewhere too -- another excellent game where the palpable feeling of tension and anxiety gave the game an atmosphere that turned it from a game into not only a great story, but an experience. Arguably, that is what all the greatest stories do.
This is true. I remember hearing anecdotal evidence from EBGames employees back home about why none of their computer game boxes contain cds any more. People regularly come in and run out with an empty box, to which the employees call after them "There's nothing in there!"
I don't know if they have the same policy regarding console games, but it's enough a problem to insulate themselves by having it in the back or under lock and key. I have a friend who ripped off a few $60 Canadian (plus tax) Xbox 360 games the other day by simply walking out of the store with them... My sense of ethics doesn't agree with that, but seriously -- if I was a retailer, I'd assume the worst too; hence, display boxes.
Piracy is somewhat less nefarious in my books, since the publisher is deprived of their money... Then again, I guess the copy on the shelf has already been paid for, so his theft may actually just hurt the retailer and not the publisher? Either way, I still don't condone it and I buy all my games. My time *is* worth money -- isn't yours? I like to show publishers and retailers that quality products *do* sell.
They say the case they sell is crushproof, waterproof, airtight and they make iPod enclosures.
www.otterbox.com
I might buy one eventually because I like listening to music when I swim, and I've heard good things about them. Does anyone know if the iPod stops working at something like 35000 feet or so, and would the container somehow negate this effect? I'm pretty clueless about this stuff, but I assume that case would help somewhat...
It was noted as "Thou shalt not not" -- note the double negative. I think what (s)he meant was that there *should* be a shotgun, and was making a specific complaint regarding WWII shooters.
Slashdot Mirror
Correction. With HP, you don't have to buy from resellers. I bought my laptop direct from them and talked the salesperson into giving me a discount and free shipping on a business class notebook since I'm a student. Since I was spending a bit more on warranty and buying a higher end notebook, the margins weren't as slim. Yes, anecdote isn't statistic, but still. HP does sell direct.
Well, that may be the case, but you can't even spell Marilyn Manson right, yet you were apparently wearing a shirt promoting him? Your inability to spell in this instance leads me to disbelieve your anecdote entirely. It's common knowledge that Manson was one of the attempted scapegoats after the Columbine shootings.
You failed to spell the name of a well-known artist right... And one that was identified with the Columbine shootings, if only tangentially. As it relates to your anecdote... Well (to me at least), it seems like you're trolling. I could be wrong, but either way, it shows the importance of reading over your post.
I saw that documentary (This Film is Not Yet Rated) and didn't find it to be very insightful at all. Essentially, it took movies that were considered NC-17 and compared them to R movies (for the most part), saying that "Oh, this director got away with this, so why couldn't we? It's because we were indie / poor / unfamiliar / not a guaranteed money making success." What good points were made were more or less swallowed up by the skew. A lot of the examples that were cited in favour of a more lax rating system could have actually gone the other way... ending up classified as NC-17. So yes, the film had a point, but it was pretty fallacious at best. My favourite irony was seeing an actual rating (in Canada) on the back of the retail box at the local rental shop. So much for the director's axiom that "this film will never be rated" or whatever it was he claimed. (And no, I don't know how that works with exporting content, so if I'm wrong, I apologize in advance. I just found that to be quite humorous.)
I think the prime reason we have this sort of system has a lot to do with a society where we don't want to take responsibility. I'll go out on a limb here and assume that the whole reason for the rating system is why we have the tag "thinkofthechildren." It makes things easier for parents, should they wish to actually take the responsibility to raise their kids right. If you *have* raised your children properly, then seeing nudity and relatively graphic sex probably won't totally scar them. A good deal of parenting has to do with not only controlling what age-appropriate (your mileage may vary) content your children are exposed to, but more with the ability of the child to think critically, and be responsible.
Responsibility breeds responsibility. Who would've thunk it?
No, you've got it all wrong. I know you were going for humour, but everyone gets hit with the FUDstick, for the most part. Tons of articles about Microsoft have defectivebydesign tagged to it. Every time there's a relatively small exploit in Mac OSX, we freak out. Nintendo, riding the high right now, can seemingly do no wrong, while Sony is effectively screwed. Yes, they brought this on themselves, but this is what happens when companies look too much at the return on investment and forget to make a worthwhile product. (I'm generalizing, but bear with me.)
Say what you will about companies making boneheaded decisions and glaringly obvious mistakes, but they are still run by people. People make stupid decisions, and they are also capable of making good ones. I'm no fan of corporate hegemony, so maybe they're getting a bit of a taste of their own medecine here -- they got greedy, overreached their bounds, and now this BluRay thing might bite them in the ass a bit. I won't speculate much -- most of the sides of that argument have been covered more eloquently than I can manage.
I'm not buying a Sony product any time soon due to displeasure with my experiences with their last few products, more or less after they became the media conglomerate, not the consumer electronics giant they used to be good for. The PS3 has some good things going for it - that distributed processing stuff is pretty sweet, and the Cell processor is by all accounts a nifty piece of hardware. Companies rise and fall. Once I, as a consumer who tries to make both ethical and sound decisions in my purchasing habits, see that Sony is turning around, then I'll give them another shot. Until then, I'm just a spectator.
Man, it seems like no matter where I turn, many countries are shooting themselves in the foot. At least, the politicians are. Australia looked like the place to be for copyright law, judging from the anecdotes I've read here on /. (Yes, I know, anecdote doesn't equal law, but all the same.) In all fairness though, the nations that spout "freedom!" so often seem to be not so free. It seems that for every good point a place has, a few go sour. I live in Canada, where I've been all my life (not that long, granted), but even we're kind of shooting ourselves in the foot in that regard. Apparently something akin to the DMCA is going in front of the legislators here some time soon. I'm not looking forward to that... It looks like I'm going to have to learn a new language, what with basic problems like this...
UK -- survelliance, censorship
Australia -- censorship
Canada -- amending copyright law, some dubious, boneheaded decisions
United States -- DMCA, RIAA, etc.
Yeah, I left out a few, but that's because I'm ignorant. I don't know what exactly is going on in places like Ireland, Scotland, South Africa, or any of the other random spots around the globe were you can get by on English. (I say get by because I've been planning to learn another language at some point anyways.) I was seriously considering moving to Australia if things get too out of hand here in Canada. As I've heard said, you fight it by taking action. I hope it doesn't get to the point where I have to move to a different country, though...
My buddy bought a Western Digital MyBook Essential the other day. According to their website (www.westerndigital.com), it's basically the same sort of drive as the MyBook Pro, minus the Firewire 400 and 800 connections, and that fancy digital space output on the drive. He had a gift certificate for Best Buy or something and got that because the next one up which had Firewire and the same amount of storage was prohibitively expensive. I told him he would've wanted to get something with Firewire 800, but no worries. He's happy with it as is. It runs off A/C power, so you can't use the USB power feature of the Passport series, though.
Neat stuff. Maybe I should get a Passport for myself eventually.
I'm not directly disputing what you've said, but I'd argue that Waterloo is becoming more and more of the tech giant that you're making Ottawa out to be. The University of Waterloo is known internationally for its technology-related programs, and it is highly competitive. Waterloo is the place to be if you want a tech job -- I'm told it's the only place in Canada that Google has a co-op agreement with. It's not uncommon to hear of big name tech industry speakers heading over to Waterloo to make speeches -- I think Bill Gates was there a few years ago.
I'm a student at Carleton, and the food could be much, *much* worse. (Especially compared to the cafeteria at the University of Ottawa -- at least, that's what I'm told.) I'm sure the university makes a killing off the whole exclusivity agreement with Coca Cola (and I assume there's one with Aramark as well). You're right though... The food here is insanely expensive. I just hope at least *some* of those funds take the edge off my tuition fees or something. I don't like exclusivity agreements and backroom corporate deals any more than the next guy, but running a university isn't cheap. I wish they wouldn't run it like a business, but they almost have to. People want tuition to cost next to nothing, but they don't seem to realize that it is very expensive to be here... Universities in Quebec are suffering due to tuition freezes -- even McGill, the "Harvard of the North" has to pinch pennies.
I suppose that was somewhat off topic, but anyways. We aren't quite the "be all, end all" of tech up here, though we do have many strong, well-renowned programs in a wide range of areas. I'm in one of them. =P
Don't forget the Skydome... er... I mean, Roger's Centre.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogers_Centre
Someone mentioned that they were using web browser stats to confirm this... That seems like a flawed methodology to begin with, but anyways...
I was wondering if it took into consideration the larger number of PCs on the market as a whole (i.e. I can get a PC for ~$400 CAN that's capable of browsing the web and such). When the cheapest Mac runs for a higher price and there are a plethora of cheap PCs with bundles to make them seem more attractive, it doesn't seem so strange to me that their numbers are considerably smaller or on the decline, particularly due to the fact that an internet capable PC needn't cost a lot of money -- dirt cheap old machines, whether used or refurbished, can be had with little effort. Just my two cents.
Don't forget...
"You see, Larry? *This* is what happens when you fuck a stranger in the ass!"
(For the uninitiated, go watch "The Big Lebowski."
Was I the only one whoe read it as "Bat Infestations Reach Nearly 1.2M?"
Man, are my eyes ever going fast. Stupid kerataconus.
Couldn't he have just found something to burn the files to a CD with, in an audio track format? Then rerip? Or was that the problem he had with the encryption on the files?
Sounds to me like he needs software that's a bit more devious and lets you actually do what you want with the media. Then again, you're right. It wasn't exactly bright for him not to read the disclaimer or know that a proprietary WMA format -- the direct competitor to Apple. I don't think ignorance is much of a defence to that sort of thing. Thoughts, anyone?
"Provide some actual evidence and people will listen to your fearmongering..."
If only that were true. Unfortunately, we still have things like FUD applied to everything from wars, propaganda, and heck... even Linux!
So no, I wouldn't say that evidence automatically trumps fearmongering. Sadly...
"The nice thing about the MP3 model is it only rewards songs that are worth it. Anyone who has bought CDs knows each CD is engineered to have 2-3 good tracks and the rest as mediocre filler songs. The big songs are what they advertise and publicize via concerts, radio, movie soundtracks, etc. The filler take much less money to produce."
Yeah, but see, I won't buy *any* CD if it's crap -- RIAA or otherwise. My principle has always been to buy the CD for the whole album if it's good, never for a track or two.
I'm not exactly old now (almost a sophomore in university), but I can still remember being puzzled a good eight years or so ago when people I knew would buy a CD costing ~$25 CAN for only a track or two. It's as if they didn't know that the recording industry uses singles for that purpose, most of the time... Not like that's a perfect solution, since I think a lot of music out there is crap, and yet... The public seems to like it anyways.
Then again, it has its purpose I suppose... It gives Weird Al some good material, and it gives me another reason to be annoyed with the general populace. Huzzah!
Actually, I was think of a cluster of Beowulf clusters, clustered yet again. It's turtles all the way down, except... Up in this case?
Seriously, it seems like everything is being turned into version numbers. Does it ever occur to them that, you know, buzzwords actually *kill meaning?*
I take it you really meant the Duke Nukem Forever of the OS world, as in vapourware. (For those that aren't sure what vapourware is [or vaporware, if you're not partial to the Queen's English], check Wikipedia or Google or something.)
This might be somewhat offtopic, but it's related to credit card information. Take it as an anecdote, if you will.
Volunteering at a local non-profit community radio station, we have an annual funding drive. Listeners can submit their info online via secure form using a credit card, mail in a cheque, come by the station and drop off cash, or call in their credit card number over the phone. You have to understand that the last option *is* a very significant risk, since we don't have a touch-tone system to record the credit card number -- the operators (volunteers, no less) write down the credit card number (CCN) and name. I don't remember if the phone number and address are taken down or not. Either way, their CCN is taken, and this can be stolen / used in unethical means rather easily. The onus is on the operators to be honest and to guard those papers zealously -- they obviously contain very valuable information. I don't think we've yet to have any problems with CCN misuse, but it does seem like it's inevitable. I guess it all boils down to the morality of the volunteers. Most of us who are there for the phone shifts and other stuff are generally dedicated and ethical people, but all it takes is one person to mess it up.
General ethics triumphs once again? Just my two cents.
I guess this is the same dilemma that faces those weird (and awful) "choose your own adventure" books that seemed popular around the time of the Goosebumps phenomenon when I was a kid. They didn't tell much of a story at all, because it was so fragmented, and I was only interested in seeing the brutal death scenes half the time anyways. It was like reading a poorly written story grafted onto rails... Whenever I came to a fork in the adventure where I died, I'd just hold my finger in the previous "hub" section, and go back to it so I didn't have to start all over again.
The fact is that choice in this context is infinitely improbable. (No, I don't have hard science to back this up, I'm speaking purely from a philosophical perspective). As with life, one single choice can change *years* of experience. Something as simple as having never taken a certain class in my final year of high school would mean that I wouldn't be dating my best friend right now. That sort of thing has a huge effect on life, in general. I don't know if this is truly "chaos theory" or the "butterfly effect", posited off of the pop culture sense, but that seems to be what they've coined it.
The flip side of the issue is that story-telling is inherently linear. A good yarn has a certain amount of linearity, or else it turns into a mass of spaghetti, plot-threads hacked together as badly as a Mad-Lib or that weird art game "The Exquisite Corpse." (Check Wikipedia for both examples.)
I agree with what you said, and lament the nonsensical rants about "next-gen" gaming. Storytelling *is* truly next-gen, not all the graphical nonsense, by all accounts -- whenever the question of turning gaming into a legitimate form of art (or media) for those who do not understand how amazing a well-crafted in-game storyline can be. Perhaps this is why the lament of "games don't evoke emotion" comes up concerning why (apparently) only males play games, or some such line of reasoning like that. This is why, every now and again, I go back and dust off what is possibly the best game I have ever played -- Deus Ex. And why was it so amazing? Well, yes, I do love sci-fi, and it has that wonderful RPG twist, but there are also some issues that would be unforgiveable in other games, such as screwy AI. Where it wins, hands downs, is story. It tells a fantastic yarn, and there is some measure of choice woven into the overall linearity -- for example, if you manage to save Paul Denton in his apartment, or leave him to defend himself, either leaving out the window or hiding in the closet. The entire game was rife with choice -- even in how it was played. Sure, there probably wouldn't be vents everywhere to sneak around in -- but I was willing to suspend my disbelief simply because it gave me a choice in how I wished to play the game, which tied into the plot twists and small (yet important) forks in conversation and choices that the player could make. Whatever measure of control I had is still unclear to me... All I know is that I *felt* like I had a choice, and it was meaningful -- I saw the consequences of my actions, and it drew me in deeper.
I have yet to play Planescape: Torment (it's on my to-do list), and there are a number of other games on my list which I shall play through eventually. If you haven't played Deus Ex (the original, I never played the sequel, so I can't say), do so... It's an excellent game. You might be able to find a copy of System Shock 2 on eBay somewhere too -- another excellent game where the palpable feeling of tension and anxiety gave the game an atmosphere that turned it from a game into not only a great story, but an experience. Arguably, that is what all the greatest stories do.
This is true. I remember hearing anecdotal evidence from EBGames employees back home about why none of their computer game boxes contain cds any more. People regularly come in and run out with an empty box, to which the employees call after them "There's nothing in there!"
I don't know if they have the same policy regarding console games, but it's enough a problem to insulate themselves by having it in the back or under lock and key. I have a friend who ripped off a few $60 Canadian (plus tax) Xbox 360 games the other day by simply walking out of the store with them... My sense of ethics doesn't agree with that, but seriously -- if I was a retailer, I'd assume the worst too; hence, display boxes.
Piracy is somewhat less nefarious in my books, since the publisher is deprived of their money... Then again, I guess the copy on the shelf has already been paid for, so his theft may actually just hurt the retailer and not the publisher? Either way, I still don't condone it and I buy all my games. My time *is* worth money -- isn't yours? I like to show publishers and retailers that quality products *do* sell.
I'm Jewish, you insensitive clod! (I'm a Christian, so from a purely theoretical standpoint, that's like Jew squared.)
Wait... None of that applies here, since cows are kosher... You're still an insensitive, baby-(cow)killing clod, though.
Beat Blizzard at their own *game*, eh?
Pretty punny, huh?
Now if the devs worked out of Russia, I could follow that up with an even funnier one.
(I'll stop with the bad jokes now.)
Also, see the Otterbox...
They say the case they sell is crushproof, waterproof, airtight and they make iPod enclosures.
www.otterbox.com
I might buy one eventually because I like listening to music when I swim, and I've heard good things about them. Does anyone know if the iPod stops working at something like 35000 feet or so, and would the container somehow negate this effect? I'm pretty clueless about this stuff, but I assume that case would help somewhat...
It was noted as "Thou shalt not not" -- note the double negative. I think what (s)he meant was that there *should* be a shotgun, and was making a specific complaint regarding WWII shooters.
Also, the formerly Canadian beer companies are now mostly owned by their (mostly) American counterparts...
So "Molson Canadian" is an oxymoron now, I guess. I hate the marketing too...