Quite a few of us outsiders gaze at the USA, being surprised that they still stand, not having fallen apart as the Soviet Union did some years ago. But then, again and again, we see messages such as this one, which are quite clear signs that in the near future, the USA will share the fate of Portugal, Spain, Italy, France, Greece, Great Britain, Egypt and quite a few others: they used to be World Powers. Then they fell, and these days the are simply nice tourist spots...
>Apparently you're uniformed, anti-US, or outright stupid. As you're a European I'll vote "anti-US".
Nope. While I find the US political activity (= warfare) idiotic, I consider the EU politicians to be just as moronic, so I'm not anti-US per se. After all, I did live there for a couple of years, and the people themselves are usually rather friendly.
Seeing that I have excellent genes (50% of my extended family are doctors, the others scientists, with merely one manager) and a high-level job, I dare to believe that my intelligence is at least average - certainly not "outright stupid";)
Uninformed, however, is always a possibility. I see your only argument here is against me saying that anti-missile tests usually failed. You claim that this is not the case with SM-3s, which have a hit-probability of around 80%. Now this 80% is the best test record from the marine - which is known for faking quite a few tests, and simplifying a lot of other tests. I'd think that a no-warnings test would have a hit percentage of around 50% - pretty darn good for taking down a missile, but certainly not enough (even 80% would be too low). Missiles are rather cheap, compared to aircraft carriers...
If I misunderstood you, I do apologize. Your message seems a little, hm, off-the-cuff, and I am more used to argue with people giving me useful data.
> The SS-N-22 is a hush-hush subject because it basically reduces our carriers to floating targets. Not the case.
Sorry - but carriers already *are* floating targets. I remember quite clearly the fleet showing up at Lybia quite a few years ago. The carriers had aircraft which were used exclusively to protect - the carriers. And bombing was done by aircraft which flew straight from the the US via the UK. I'm also thinking of that nasty little book in the 80s (I do apologize for not remembering the title right now) which took a long, hard look at the US and USSR weapon efficiency; the last combined NATO maneuver in the north sea showed all (all!) carriers being (simulated to be) sunk on the very first day. An aircraft carrier these days is a major waste of space, and primarily used for top-class idio^H^H^H^Hpeople to brag^H^H^H^Hprotect our freedom.
> Exocet was a threat when they made the movie Top Gun, but not today.
Really. I'm sure all ships will be able to easily shoot these things down. After all, the anti-missile tests went smashingly well, right? Right?
> In any of these cases, the targeted ship can detect the radar...
Ah, I see. Of course, you certainly need super-special radar to detect a target, right? Normal shipping radar is certainly not sufficient, right? And we cannot possibly hook up a new system to an existing radar - would be too cheap to build...
> A few people mentioned the ethical issue of arming merchant ships
Yes, that's a dumb idea. And seeing that our rules are idiots and morons, this has happened in practically every war since Egypt was founded...
>will change from "ask first, ask again, check three times and only fire when fired upon" to "ask once and if you think he's hostile, shoot." It can even go further to "Check to see if your'e sure he's a friend, and if you can't tell, shoot."
Which already is more or less how civilians are treated by the US Army in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Aaaaah... have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Arts, Section 'Logos': The three shapes were meant to stand for the "basic alphabet of graphic design." Nix EOA, and nix ECA. Looks like we both learned something new today;)
(PS: Yeah, I loved the C64, too, but preferred the 48K ZX Spectrum, which actually had more available RAM)
You're looking at a game from EA. You actually spent time in doing so? Better yet, did Beta-testing for them? EA used to be a brilliant company, many years ago, when it called itself EOA. Times change, companies go to waste, and earn my filter badge. Even EA turned into a piece of garbage, not worthy of my attention (and, worse, money).
Brilliant idea. A lot of people simply buy some magazines because they offer a nice fat demo on the included CD (or, these days, DVD). You don't want to offer any more demos, probably because you're worried that people will realize that your program is not actually what the PR claims it is.
So, instead of having a magazine increase its sales (and put your name everywhere) by a big "SuperDuperGame Demo inside!", you will... um... well... simply advertise your gane, hoping people won't be surprised when you don't offer a demo? Hoping that you won't piss off the still relatively important magazines?
So yet another game is announced. ....so what? It's not out yet, no half-way serious reviews are available, nothing extra special (lkie particular AI) about this game... why should we be interested? Sounds like an advert. Was slashdot paid to post this?
Outrade is everywhere in the USA? No. It's complaining which is everywhere. Very different: you complain, then lean back, open another beer and watch some TV.
Have a look what happens when the french public gets outraged. Politicians are actually *forced* to do something *useful*...
> We don't have any legitimate targets in Iraq. Afghanistan is arguably a different situation (though whether it will do us any good is another question)
Really? What's your reason for attacking Afghanistan? That a few of the nutcases capturing four planes in the US quite a few years ago came from there? You do realize that most of them came from Saudi Arabia? How come you didn't attack them, too? Or did you just want to bring democratic freedom and peace for all?
And I assume that your attack on Afghanistan has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that they didn't want your gouverment to build an oil-pipeline there. Right? Right?
Sorry, chaps. I'll stop posting about warfarce, er, warfare. The cheap excuses help up and actually believed by some people just drive me nuts (or, as you might say: more nuts;)
The longer you stay there, the worse it will get. The local population hates your guts with a deep, directly involved passion "My uncle was killed by these bastards! He didn't do anything, was a good man!". They will never, ever stop fighting the strangers who showed up uninvited and started killing people left and right. Even if you leave today, the hatred will remain for another two generations. Which is a way of breeding terrorists. Congratulations.
Well, at east your industry is making a nice fat profit on this, and can give their managers nice multi-million dollar bonuses for this year as well.
You do realize that the US-involvement in the first world war was triggered by the industry, right? All that "Freedom for Democracy" were just cheap excuses. Same with WW2. And every other war you've been involved in since.
Trust? Warfare is primarily a way for the weapon industry to make money, it is very very seldomly that it serves a different purpose...
* "The problem with that platform is, there's no standards and piracy is rampant, so why would we want to make a video game for that platform unless you had some sort of draconian DRM thing to keep it from being stolen?"
In other words, DRM is what we need, and we need more of it! The current DRM cannot be a possible reason for low sales!
* "If you look at how many guys have high-end graphics cards--well, yeah, all of you do--but the more casual players, the more general audience might not. The percentage is probably pretty low."
Thus, you're forced to allow us options to set graphics options - ranging from very simple all the way up to dual-cards. Which is difficult because... ?
* "If everybody would stop pirating, if everybody would stop doing DRM, it would be a much happier world, wouldn't it? We'd have a lot more PC games sold and a lot more happier customers."
Piracy will never, ever stop. And as we've seen very clearly in the past ten years, DRM is quite worthless, succeeding merely in stopping people from buying the originals, as the pirate copies are so much better.
* "I think you're going to continue to see what we've seen in the past five years, which is just console games ported to the PC..."
Which usually don't sell all that well, as PCs are simply more capable than consoles. High-end PCs, that is - the others can have plenty of graphics options.
* "PC gaming isn't dead, it's just in a partially vegetative state."
Which is why the indies are doing so well - have a look at "Plants vs. Zombies", for example...
* "At some point, there's going to have to be a fundamental paradigm shift in how we interface with the PC. The screen's just not going to do it anymore."
I... see. So, let's not use the monitor. Sounds brilliant
I'm sorry, chaps, but that discussion seemed pretty useless, particularly as the DRM attitude of some of the are idiotic (especially Joe Kreiner, Engine Licensing VP - but what do you expect from a manager anyway?)
I quote: "One potential usage for the tech is to create avatars that are not just cartoonesque versions of the computer user but an exact copy. Gamers would then be able to upload their digital double into their favourite games."
Sooooo.... instead of your gaming appearance in the form of a muscular avatar with a shock full of hair, you'll show people that you're in reality a balding fatso?
Perhaps he's merely new to the US workforce? I haven't seen this kind of problem here in Germany (and believe me, bureaucrazy is held high here...)
If you're good at your job, you can simply leave companies with such moronic ideas - you won't like working for them anyway, as there will be plenty more moronic ideas like this. It won't bother you, as you'll find a new job pretty quickly anyway (if, as I said, you're good at it).
> Start by offering 700MB XVID downloads for about USD$5 from fast servers with fantastic bandwidth.
Good idea
> In the movie file, show one add for an upcoming movie, then show the credit card details and user account information for about 5 seconds. "this copy of $movie is licenced to $name $address $credit_card_number" . The customer will protect your movies with the same level of care as their card information, and will share it at their own risk or have to go to the hassle of editing the information out before putting it on p2p.
Poor idea. This would make very sure that even more people learn how to rip and edit their movies.
Canadians, tell the EU to screw itself over this point.
Keep in mind that the individual states use the EU to force through lousy ideas and laws (usually bought by the industry), which they cannot do locally. Do it through the EU, though, and they can sob on TV that they hate the idea, but their hands are tied...
A new entry in Slashdot (a mere six hours later) shows that "The Cybersecurity Act of 2009 passed a Senate panel giving the president unprecedented power to issue a nation-wide blackout or restriction on websites without congressional approval."
To fight the eeeeeeeevil terrarists, obviously. Why else?
Mhm... which "free nation" are you talking about? The one where the president can have absolutely anybody (incl. his own citizens) arrested, kept for an indefinitive time period without trial, and have them (quite officially) tortured?
My chinese ex-girlfriend (now wife;) simply insists that I speak german to her. Every time I accidentially switch back into English, she'll remind me again. Works great - in addition to 8 months of very intensive german course training, of course...
Slashdot Mirror
As they say: "Going to hell in a handbasket".
Quite a few of us outsiders gaze at the USA, being surprised that they still stand, not having fallen apart as the Soviet Union did some years ago.
But then, again and again, we see messages such as this one, which are quite clear signs that in the near future, the USA will share the fate of Portugal, Spain, Italy, France, Greece, Great Britain, Egypt and quite a few others: they used to be World Powers. Then they fell, and these days the are simply nice tourist spots...
>Apparently you're uniformed, anti-US, or outright stupid. As you're a European I'll vote "anti-US".
Nope. While I find the US political activity (= warfare) idiotic, I consider the EU politicians to be just as moronic, so I'm not anti-US per se. After all, I did live there for a couple of years, and the people themselves are usually rather friendly.
Seeing that I have excellent genes (50% of my extended family are doctors, the others scientists, with merely one manager) and a high-level job, I dare to believe that my intelligence is at least average - certainly not "outright stupid" ;)
Uninformed, however, is always a possibility.
I see your only argument here is against me saying that anti-missile tests usually failed. You claim that this is not the case with SM-3s, which have a hit-probability of around 80%. Now this 80% is the best test record from the marine - which is known for faking quite a few tests, and simplifying a lot of other tests.
I'd think that a no-warnings test would have a hit percentage of around 50% - pretty darn good for taking down a missile, but certainly not enough (even 80% would be too low). Missiles are rather cheap, compared to aircraft carriers...
If I misunderstood you, I do apologize. Your message seems a little, hm, off-the-cuff, and I am more used to argue with people giving me useful data.
I'm afraid that I cannot quite agree with you:
> The SS-N-22 is a hush-hush subject because it basically reduces our carriers to floating targets. Not the case.
Sorry - but carriers already *are* floating targets. I remember quite clearly the fleet showing up at Lybia quite a few years ago. The carriers had aircraft which were used exclusively to protect - the carriers. And bombing was done by aircraft which flew straight from the the US via the UK.
I'm also thinking of that nasty little book in the 80s (I do apologize for not remembering the title right now) which took a long, hard look at the US and USSR weapon efficiency; the last combined NATO maneuver in the north sea showed all (all!) carriers being (simulated to be) sunk on the very first day.
An aircraft carrier these days is a major waste of space, and primarily used for top-class idio^H^H^H^Hpeople to brag^H^H^H^Hprotect our freedom.
> Exocet was a threat when they made the movie Top Gun, but not today.
Really. I'm sure all ships will be able to easily shoot these things down. After all, the anti-missile tests went smashingly well, right? Right?
> In any of these cases, the targeted ship can detect the radar...
Ah, I see. Of course, you certainly need super-special radar to detect a target, right? Normal shipping radar is certainly not sufficient, right? And we cannot possibly hook up a new system to an existing radar - would be too cheap to build...
> A few people mentioned the ethical issue of arming merchant ships
Yes, that's a dumb idea. And seeing that our rules are idiots and morons, this has happened in practically every war since Egypt was founded...
>will change from "ask first, ask again, check three times and only fire when fired upon" to "ask once and if you think he's hostile, shoot." It can even go further to "Check to see if your'e sure he's a friend, and if you can't tell, shoot."
Which already is more or less how civilians are treated by the US Army in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Aaaaah... have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Arts, Section 'Logos': The three shapes were meant to stand for the "basic alphabet of graphic design." Nix EOA, and nix ECA. ;)
Looks like we both learned something new today
(PS: Yeah, I loved the C64, too, but preferred the 48K ZX Spectrum, which actually had more available RAM)
And?
You're looking at a game from EA. You actually spent time in doing so? Better yet, did Beta-testing for them?
EA used to be a brilliant company, many years ago, when it called itself EOA. Times change, companies go to waste, and earn my filter badge. Even EA turned into a piece of garbage, not worthy of my attention (and, worse, money).
The only reason I ever visit The Escapist is Zero Punctuation. Got a direct link to it, and ignore everything else...
Brilliant idea. A lot of people simply buy some magazines because they offer a nice fat demo on the included CD (or, these days, DVD).
You don't want to offer any more demos, probably because you're worried that people will realize that your program is not actually what the PR claims it is.
So, instead of having a magazine increase its sales (and put your name everywhere) by a big "SuperDuperGame Demo inside!", you will... um... well... simply advertise your gane, hoping people won't be surprised when you don't offer a demo? Hoping that you won't piss off the still relatively important magazines?
Good luck.
And you think this will stop them?
This whole moronic idea is only possible if you simply don't have any reality contact anyway...
"Base, trashy and possibly bollocks."
The perfect reason to place it on Slashdot, too?
Stuff that matters.
And this completely uninteresting piece of data ("Crazy girl complains about nonsense") is neither. Who cares about such crap?
So yet another game is announced. . ...so what? It's not out yet, no half-way serious reviews are available, nothing extra special (lkie particular AI) about this game... why should we be interested?
Sounds like an advert. Was slashdot paid to post this?
Outrade is everywhere in the USA?
No. It's complaining which is everywhere. Very different: you complain, then lean back, open another beer and watch some TV.
Have a look what happens when the french public gets outraged. Politicians are actually *forced* to do something *useful*...
In a politician?
I thought the first of April was over?
Yup - bought that game twice: once for the PC, second one for the laptop.
Several reasons:
* No DRM.
* I like the game, quite a bit.
* I support the programmers directly, instead of some huge company with moronic managers.
* It's cheap.
I've recommended that game to other people, several of which have bought it.
> We don't have any legitimate targets in Iraq. Afghanistan is arguably a different situation (though whether it will do us any good is another question)
Really? What's your reason for attacking Afghanistan? That a few of the nutcases capturing four planes in the US quite a few years ago came from there? You do realize that most of them came from Saudi Arabia? How come you didn't attack them, too? Or did you just want to bring democratic freedom and peace for all?
And I assume that your attack on Afghanistan has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that they didn't want your gouverment to build an oil-pipeline there. Right? Right?
Sorry, chaps. I'll stop posting about warfarce, er, warfare. The cheap excuses help up and actually believed by some people just drive me nuts (or, as you might say: more nuts ;)
Stopping wide-spread violence in that area?
The longer you stay there, the worse it will get. The local population hates your guts with a deep, directly involved passion "My uncle was killed by these bastards! He didn't do anything, was a good man!". They will never, ever stop fighting the strangers who showed up uninvited and started killing people left and right.
Even if you leave today, the hatred will remain for another two generations. Which is a way of breeding terrorists. Congratulations.
Well, at east your industry is making a nice fat profit on this, and can give their managers nice multi-million dollar bonuses for this year as well.
> All trust is gone.
You trusted your state? Your army? Ever?
You do realize that the US-involvement in the first world war was triggered by the industry, right? All that "Freedom for Democracy" were just cheap excuses.
Same with WW2. And every other war you've been involved in since.
Trust? Warfare is primarily a way for the weapon industry to make money, it is very very seldomly that it serves a different purpose...
Holy cow, some of this is simply pure garbage:
* "The problem with that platform is, there's no standards and piracy is rampant, so why would we want to make a video game for that platform unless you had some sort of draconian DRM thing to keep it from being stolen?"
In other words, DRM is what we need, and we need more of it! The current DRM cannot be a possible reason for low sales!
* "If you look at how many guys have high-end graphics cards--well, yeah, all of you do--but the more casual players, the more general audience might not. The percentage is probably pretty low."
Thus, you're forced to allow us options to set graphics options - ranging from very simple all the way up to dual-cards. Which is difficult because... ?
* "If everybody would stop pirating, if everybody would stop doing DRM, it would be a much happier world, wouldn't it? We'd have a lot more PC games sold and a lot more happier customers."
Piracy will never, ever stop. And as we've seen very clearly in the past ten years, DRM is quite worthless, succeeding merely in stopping people from buying the originals, as the pirate copies are so much better.
* "I think you're going to continue to see what we've seen in the past five years, which is just console games ported to the PC..."
Which usually don't sell all that well, as PCs are simply more capable than consoles. High-end PCs, that is - the others can have plenty of graphics options.
* "PC gaming isn't dead, it's just in a partially vegetative state."
Which is why the indies are doing so well - have a look at "Plants vs. Zombies", for example...
* "At some point, there's going to have to be a fundamental paradigm shift in how we interface with the PC. The screen's just not going to do it anymore."
I... see. So, let's not use the monitor. Sounds brilliant
I'm sorry, chaps, but that discussion seemed pretty useless, particularly as the DRM attitude of some of the are idiotic (especially Joe Kreiner, Engine Licensing VP - but what do you expect from a manager anyway?)
Ciao,
Klaus
I quote: "One potential usage for the tech is to create avatars that are not just cartoonesque versions of the computer user but an exact copy. Gamers would then be able to upload their digital double into their favourite games."
Sooooo.... instead of your gaming appearance in the form of a muscular avatar with a shock full of hair, you'll show people that you're in reality a balding fatso?
Perhaps he's merely new to the US workforce?
I haven't seen this kind of problem here in Germany (and believe me, bureaucrazy is held high here...)
If you're good at your job, you can simply leave companies with such moronic ideas - you won't like working for them anyway, as there will be plenty more moronic ideas like this. It won't bother you, as you'll find a new job pretty quickly anyway (if, as I said, you're good at it).
> Start by offering 700MB XVID downloads for about USD$5 from fast servers with fantastic bandwidth.
Good idea
> In the movie file, show one add for an upcoming movie, then show the credit card details and user account information for about 5 seconds. "this copy of $movie is licenced to $name $address $credit_card_number" . The customer will protect your movies with the same level of care as their card information, and will share it at their own risk or have to go to the hassle of editing the information out before putting it on p2p.
Poor idea. This would make very sure that even more people learn how to rip and edit their movies.
Canadians, tell the EU to screw itself over this point.
Keep in mind that the individual states use the EU to force through lousy ideas and laws (usually bought by the industry), which they cannot do locally.
Do it through the EU, though, and they can sob on TV that they hate the idea, but their hands are tied...
...or what else are they babbling this time?
A new entry in Slashdot (a mere six hours later) shows that "The Cybersecurity Act of 2009 passed a Senate panel giving the president unprecedented power to issue a nation-wide blackout or restriction on websites without congressional approval."
To fight the eeeeeeeevil terrarists, obviously. Why else?
Mhm... which "free nation" are you talking about?
The one where the president can have absolutely anybody (incl. his own citizens) arrested, kept for an indefinitive time period without trial, and have them (quite officially) tortured?
Wow, sounds familiar.
My chinese ex-girlfriend (now wife ;) simply insists that I speak german to her. Every time I accidentially switch back into English, she'll remind me again. Works great - in addition to 8 months of very intensive german course training, of course...