Steam is the only form of DRM that I don't mind, because it never got in my way. I have every game I own installed on every computer I have, I can play them whenever I want, I am happy.
I'm telling you, there's a real progressive wind blowing through South America. Brazil, Chile, Argentina
What's funny is that Chile is led by a right-wing president (after years of left-wing rule, granted), Brazil has a moderate left-wing president and Argentina has a radical left-wing president, so it's not like they share much among themselves.
Chile is the best country by far, but Brazil is moving faster and faster. Argentina is the worse of the bunch: high inflation, low growth, a corrupt government.
Brazil is razing millions of acres of rainforest to get a few seasons of sugarcane after that, the nutrients are used up, the top soil is washed away and they are left with a dead spot of sandy clay.
Brazil is a huge country. Here are some maps for you:
FIFA has more members than the United Nations, and all of them take part in the classifying rounds. Heck, FIFA has more members than the Universal Postal Union, so there are more countries interested in playing international football than receiving international mail.
If the World Cup can't use the word "World", there is no such thing as a world.
That only South American and European teams have won the World Cup is a completely different issue.
Is it just me, or has Apple become more and more oppressive to users and developers over the last couple of years? Barely a day seems to go by when they haven't fucked someone over.
Do you remember the days when you could only use Apple HDs on Apple computers?
Activision released a bunch of old Sierra games through GOG.com, cheaply and DRM-free: so far, they have three King's Quests, three Space Quests, Phantasmagoria and two Gabriel Knight games, with probably more to come.
But these wiseguys don't realise that I'd much rather deal with files that I can recognise by their filename, copy and move them with the well known 'cp' and 'mv' commands rather than having their craptastic software try to manage it all.
Wow, kill me. Is he the guy that thinks that you can only discuss programming in English because other human languages would lack terms for stuff such as "linked lists" and so on? The guy that thinks that Stackoverflow, essentially a simplified web forum that could be designed by a semi-literate PHP monkey in 48 hours of work, is a major feat of software engineering?
There was a time when you had to do more than become a famous blogger's pet to become a well-known name in the industry.
I asked him to explain why stable versions (some of these stable releases were several years old, too) of the software he was recommending contained over 100 bug fixes. He couldn't provide a suitable answer, and thus management gave him the boot. And so we're not using Drupal.
If the elevated number of bug fixes is a concern to you, I can provide you with my own customized version of Drupal without any bugfixes in it for a reasonable fee. That is the beauty of open source.
People claim Apache is slow, but why not using a reverse proxy like Varnish to "speed it up" and still keep the features. I really see no reason why I should use G-WAN or lighttpd.
Not everybody is serving easily-cacheable stuff. Reverse proxies are great for semi-static websites like news sites, but they are useless for social-networking, webmail and other interactive sites that need to render customized content for each particular user.
... or not. I mean, restricting some content on the web isn't nearly as bad as invading other countries, killing its civilians by the hundreds of thousands and setting up puppet governments, and yet nobody here is calling for boycotts against American companies that support all of this (which is all of them, or at least those that pay taxes).
Sure, they will put all this effort in making their agriculture more efficient, only to have their crops overtaxed in the US and Europe because of pressure from their richest farmers.
Agreed in part. I think a lot could be achieved by merely reusing the old tired models in different genres. I think a WWII RPG would be awesome (where you control a spy double/agent trying to infiltrate the SS, for example), same with a medieval FPS (I want to help the Black Prince torch down France).
The confusion has to do with the fact that "America" means different things in different languages, then people go online and try to correct English speakers.
I am Brazilian, here's how it works here:
American (americano) means someone born in the US. America is a continent. It goes all the way from Argentina/Chile to Canada. It is often subdivided geographically in three parts: South, Central and North America, or culturally in two parts: Latin and Anglo-Saxon America. As far as I know, Americans think of "South America" and "North America" as two unrelated continents, and not as divisions of a larger continent. Also, Mexico is a part of North America, whereas I don't think Americans think of Mexico as part of North America. I have no idea what they call Central America. United States (Estados Unidos) is the country between Mexico and Canada.
(in Portugal, though, "americano" means "of the American continent". The term for someone who was born in the US is "estadunidense", or "Unitedstatian")
There are exceptions though in Brazilian usage:
You may use "americano" sometimes in a pan-american context. Say, "American peoples" means the peoples of the American continent. This depends on context.
America may mean "The United States" in a mocking way. For example, the media would often talk about "George Bush's America" (a América de George Bush).
You can bet I have seen my countrymen trying to correct Americans online. I think the confusion comes from the fact that America is a proper noun, and people wrongly assume this means it's untranslatable, like people's names. This is obviously not the case. Also, in common usage people speak very sloppily about places that are not their own, which can often offend people's nationalist sensibilities in an international context like the Internet. Hence the confusion.
Not only that, but there are some really weird censorship issues you wouldn't expect. For example, there are no undead in Chinese WoW because the Chinese government won't allow any human bones to be shown in the game. So anywhere you see a skeleton, it had to be removed by Blizzard.
Well, if I made a MMORPG where everybody is naked and targeted it to the 13+ audience, I bet I would have to make some changes before it was published in the US. It is ultimately my problem if I designed thousands of NPCs while ignoring the culture of my target market.
Some things are cultural. Don't expect them to make a lot of sense. If Blizzard had planned for the Chinese market from the start, instead of undead you would have a different race and they wouldn't have to change a thing.
Am I the only person in America who sees a horribly bleak future for our children because of inequitable free trade and trickle-down economics? The latter only encourages our top economic tier to seek the margins the former provides, eliminating patriotism (and ethics, morality, honor, and even the public displays of religion - but that is another rant entirely) from the equation.
Wow, an American complaining about inequitable free trade? WTF.
Well, I bought the international Kindle, and I got it this morning. And nothing of what was mentioned in TFA is new to me: Amazon's website makes it very clear that I wouldn't get the internets on my Kindle and that newspaper and magazine subscriptions are delivered without pictures. The only piece of information that isn't blatantly obvious, but which can be determined with some fiddling, is that book prices differ: I am in Latin America and it looks like almost every book is exactly US$ 2 more expansive than in the American store.
I am slightly more concerned about the limited availability of current books. Browsing the store, I have access to a ton of public domain books, Penguin Classics (that is, even more public domain books) and a very limited selection of not very interesting recent books (I will never understand how Americans can be against health care and be so damn proud of it, but it's their problem not mine). Forget about most works by living authors, in particular serious writers. You can buy "Twilight" though.
But, I was aware of everything before I bought the Kindle. Nobody was cheated out of features. I am taking a gamble that availability of books will improve with time, but taking this risk was my own choice.
The thing about the Kindle is that shipping and handling can be really expensive internationally. If those US$ 2 are saving me about US$ 15 of S&H charges per book, I am happy. It would be nice if I could buy the books for the same prices as the American store, but proportionally, from a price perspective, buying books via the Kindle makes more sense here than in the US.
I don't know why the US would charge $131 for a US visa, but i was in Chile just a couple of months ago in June, and it cost me $131 (US) to enter the country of Chile.
It's called reciprocity, they charge US citizens because the US charges Chilean citizens.
I've been to Chile recently and I didn't even need a passport, much less visas or fees. Due to the same reciprocity principle.
Slashdot Mirror
So, where are the Google fanboys that like to complain that Apple phones are SOOO CRIPPLED because Steve Jobs is TEH SATAN!?
Kind of sad that I would trust something called "The Pirate Bay" more than my government.
Steam is the only form of DRM that I don't mind, because it never got in my way. I have every game I own installed on every computer I have, I can play them whenever I want, I am happy.
Hmmm, am I the only one who is disappointed that there is no Mac version?
I'm telling you, there's a real progressive wind blowing through South America. Brazil, Chile, Argentina
What's funny is that Chile is led by a right-wing president (after years of left-wing rule, granted), Brazil has a moderate left-wing president and Argentina has a radical left-wing president, so it's not like they share much among themselves.
Chile is the best country by far, but Brazil is moving faster and faster. Argentina is the worse of the bunch: high inflation, low growth, a corrupt government.
Brazil is razing millions of acres of rainforest to get a few seasons of sugarcane after that, the nutrients are used up, the top soil is washed away and they are left with a dead spot of sandy clay.
Brazil is a huge country. Here are some maps for you:
http://www.rain-tree.com/graphics/map2.jpg shows where the Amazon forest is.
http://oronero.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/mapa-das-usinas-de-etanol-no-brasil.jpg Ethanol is produced in the black areas.
FIFA has more members than the United Nations, and all of them take part in the classifying rounds. Heck, FIFA has more members than the Universal Postal Union, so there are more countries interested in playing international football than receiving international mail.
If the World Cup can't use the word "World", there is no such thing as a world.
That only South American and European teams have won the World Cup is a completely different issue.
Apple, this way of creating hype is getting way old.
You are absolutely right. This isn't 1999 anymore people. If your website goes down due to predictable demand, you are incompetent, not popular.
The Death and Repudiation License, for instance, requires the user to be dead.
License requirements for EA games these days certainly make this license seem benevolent in comparison.
The writings of George Washington contain frequent references to "God"
The Quran has frequent references to God. It's not a Christian book though. Your point?
Is it just me, or has Apple become more and more oppressive to users and developers over the last couple of years? Barely a day seems to go by when they haven't fucked someone over.
Do you remember the days when you could only use Apple HDs on Apple computers?
...they should lose it. Are they still actively marketing this game? Do they still sell it?
They are still marketing and selling the game, actually:
King's Quest Collection on Steam
King's Quest 4+5+6 on GOG.com
Activision released a bunch of old Sierra games through GOG.com, cheaply and DRM-free: so far, they have three King's Quests, three Space Quests, Phantasmagoria and two Gabriel Knight games, with probably more to come.
But these wiseguys don't realise that I'd much rather deal with files that I can recognise by their filename, copy and move them with the well known 'cp' and 'mv' commands rather than having their craptastic software try to manage it all.
Meanwhile, the other 99% of humankind is happy.
Wow, kill me. Is he the guy that thinks that you can only discuss programming in English because other human languages would lack terms for stuff such as "linked lists" and so on? The guy that thinks that Stackoverflow, essentially a simplified web forum that could be designed by a semi-literate PHP monkey in 48 hours of work, is a major feat of software engineering?
There was a time when you had to do more than become a famous blogger's pet to become a well-known name in the industry.
I asked him to explain why stable versions (some of these stable releases were several years old, too) of the software he was recommending contained over 100 bug fixes. He couldn't provide a suitable answer, and thus management gave him the boot. And so we're not using Drupal.
If the elevated number of bug fixes is a concern to you, I can provide you with my own customized version of Drupal without any bugfixes in it for a reasonable fee. That is the beauty of open source.
People claim Apache is slow, but why not using a reverse proxy like Varnish to "speed it up" and still keep the features. I really see no reason why I should use G-WAN or lighttpd.
Not everybody is serving easily-cacheable stuff. Reverse proxies are great for semi-static websites like news sites, but they are useless for social-networking, webmail and other interactive sites that need to render customized content for each particular user.
Anyway, nginx is my current favorite web server.
... or not. I mean, restricting some content on the web isn't nearly as bad as invading other countries, killing its civilians by the hundreds of thousands and setting up puppet governments, and yet nobody here is calling for boycotts against American companies that support all of this (which is all of them, or at least those that pay taxes).
Sure, they will put all this effort in making their agriculture more efficient, only to have their crops overtaxed in the US and Europe because of pressure from their richest farmers.
Agreed in part. I think a lot could be achieved by merely reusing the old tired models in different genres. I think a WWII RPG would be awesome (where you control a spy double/agent trying to infiltrate the SS, for example), same with a medieval FPS (I want to help the Black Prince torch down France).
The confusion has to do with the fact that "America" means different things in different languages, then people go online and try to correct English speakers. I am Brazilian, here's how it works here:
American (americano) means someone born in the US.
America is a continent. It goes all the way from Argentina/Chile to Canada. It is often subdivided geographically in three parts: South, Central and North America, or culturally in two parts: Latin and Anglo-Saxon America. As far as I know, Americans think of "South America" and "North America" as two unrelated continents, and not as divisions of a larger continent. Also, Mexico is a part of North America, whereas I don't think Americans think of Mexico as part of North America. I have no idea what they call Central America.
United States (Estados Unidos) is the country between Mexico and Canada.
(in Portugal, though, "americano" means "of the American continent". The term for someone who was born in the US is "estadunidense", or "Unitedstatian")
There are exceptions though in Brazilian usage:
You may use "americano" sometimes in a pan-american context. Say, "American peoples" means the peoples of the American continent. This depends on context.
America may mean "The United States" in a mocking way. For example, the media would often talk about "George Bush's America" (a América de George Bush).
You can bet I have seen my countrymen trying to correct Americans online. I think the confusion comes from the fact that America is a proper noun, and people wrongly assume this means it's untranslatable, like people's names. This is obviously not the case. Also, in common usage people speak very sloppily about places that are not their own, which can often offend people's nationalist sensibilities in an international context like the Internet. Hence the confusion.
Actually that labelling on the fruit must be a US thing. They don't do it here in Denmark.
And most of the world I guess. In most countries, people don't need a sticker to tell them that an apple is an apple and a watermelon is a watermelon.
Not only that, but there are some really weird censorship issues you wouldn't expect. For example, there are no undead in Chinese WoW because the Chinese government won't allow any human bones to be shown in the game. So anywhere you see a skeleton, it had to be removed by Blizzard.
Well, if I made a MMORPG where everybody is naked and targeted it to the 13+ audience, I bet I would have to make some changes before it was published in the US. It is ultimately my problem if I designed thousands of NPCs while ignoring the culture of my target market.
Some things are cultural. Don't expect them to make a lot of sense. If Blizzard had planned for the Chinese market from the start, instead of undead you would have a different race and they wouldn't have to change a thing.
Am I the only person in America who sees a horribly bleak future for our children because of inequitable free trade and trickle-down economics? The latter only encourages our top economic tier to seek the margins the former provides, eliminating patriotism (and ethics, morality, honor, and even the public displays of religion - but that is another rant entirely) from the equation.
Wow, an American complaining about inequitable free trade? WTF.
Well, I bought the international Kindle, and I got it this morning. And nothing of what was mentioned in TFA is new to me: Amazon's website makes it very clear that I wouldn't get the internets on my Kindle and that newspaper and magazine subscriptions are delivered without pictures. The only piece of information that isn't blatantly obvious, but which can be determined with some fiddling, is that book prices differ: I am in Latin America and it looks like almost every book is exactly US$ 2 more expansive than in the American store.
I am slightly more concerned about the limited availability of current books. Browsing the store, I have access to a ton of public domain books, Penguin Classics (that is, even more public domain books) and a very limited selection of not very interesting recent books (I will never understand how Americans can be against health care and be so damn proud of it, but it's their problem not mine). Forget about most works by living authors, in particular serious writers. You can buy "Twilight" though.
But, I was aware of everything before I bought the Kindle. Nobody was cheated out of features. I am taking a gamble that availability of books will improve with time, but taking this risk was my own choice.
The thing about the Kindle is that shipping and handling can be really expensive internationally. If those US$ 2 are saving me about US$ 15 of S&H charges per book, I am happy. It would be nice if I could buy the books for the same prices as the American store, but proportionally, from a price perspective, buying books via the Kindle makes more sense here than in the US.
It's called reciprocity, they charge US citizens because the US charges Chilean citizens.
I've been to Chile recently and I didn't even need a passport, much less visas or fees. Due to the same reciprocity principle.
Get a non-xenophobic country,