That's a pretty poor analogy. First of all, no matter how bad your experience with Vista is, it couldn't result in permanent injuries or death. Second of all, far more people have had positive experiences with Vista than with shooting oneself in the foot with a shotgun, I'd wager.
And I wasn't talking about the Slashdot crowd (although I think the Slashdot crowd is too hard on Vista, but that's a whoooole different ball of wax), I actually did mean average users.
Don't get me wrong, please. I'm happy with Vista, but I'm quite aware that others are not. I don't discount their opinions, stories, claims, etc. I was merely wondering how much of Vista's hate is by reputation alone, not first-hand experience. It has to be some, but how much is the question that's interesting to me (and also probably impossible to determine).
I'm not trying to extoll the virtues of Vista (that'd be pretty wasted on/., anyway, given the fairly strong Microsoft hate) or anything like that, it was more or less idle curiosity. I'm sorry to hear your experience has been poor, I really am, and I hope you either resolve the issues, or have a copy of XP sitting around.
I really don't think Microsoft is trying to drive sales of XP, though. They didn't have to do anything to accomplish that, they could've just sat around and XP would've been bundled with all the new computers. Easy money for them, why waste time and money developing Vista to accomplish the same amount (or less) of sales, if that were their goal?
what, you think I was going to use IE7? You must be joking. I don't really know why you wouldn't, to be honest (unless you like FF's addons, or you have concerns about security). I love IE7, and actually have it installed on my XP systems, too. Easily the best part of Vista, IMHO.
The thing I'm starting to wonder at this point is... how much of the Vista hate is just hype-driven? Clearly, not all, probably not even most. However, it seems to me that it's likely that there are people who dislike Vista who've never even touched it, nor are informed about it. They dislike it because others, whose opinions they're willing to trust, do. The question is, how significant is that group? I wish there was a way to find out, it'd be interesting either way.
Actually, the most retarded comment posted here was your original one, which said that enabling someone to commit a crime is a crime. You made a blanket statement right there, which is why everyone is (rightly) tearing into you. You can perfectly accidentally enable someone to commit a crime, so if that were a crime, there'd be a lot of criminals around.
Now it's true that distributing copyrighted material without the permission of the copyright holder is a crime (note the key distinction between what I said and what you said, you left out that important bit). I also happen to lean towards the sentiment that making those files available, even if no one actually downloads them, would also be illegal... but you still did make one hell of a stupid statement in saying that it's a crime to enable crime. Not to mention the trollish responses you've made since then, which really aren't helping your case here.
But it's a phone for phone geeks, not Joe Sixpack and Jane Boxwine. WTF are all those tiny hieroglyphic icons all over the screen? At $500, the iPhone is also not a phone for Joe Sixpack and Jane Boxwine.
I'm not sure what his point is, but if you're going to go with something proprietary, far better to go with Microsoft's standard in most cases. They have, in general, more leverage.
I didn't say it was wrong to criticize the president. This man was taking it to a level that was ridiculous. That's all I had a problem with. I don't care whose actions get criticized, as long as it's kept a) reasonable, and b) somewhat respectful (come on, showing respect even to your opponents isn't THAT much to ask). This CNN program was neither.
I'm sorry, but having people of one opinion slant or another has NOTHING to do with journalistic ethics. That'd be if they were lying about cold, hard facts (which you don't seem to be accusing them of). Putting one spin or another on things is perfectly legitimate.
Hell, the last time I saw CNN (I don't watch the news often at all, as I tend to get irritated about injustices I can't affect in any way), all they had for the 20-30 mins I was stuck watching it was some guy tearing into Bush like it was no one's business to do. The way this guy was talking about him, you would've thought Bush was more incompetent than Forrest Gump, more evil than Hitler, and more corrupt than any politician in history, all at the same time. You also would've thought that every single thing that was going wrong in the news that day was personally Bush's fault (no one else in our government can be responsible for anything, apparently). If people like that is what the liberal side of the media typically fields, then we certainly need a counterpoint to it, and I'm all in favor of a competing news conglomerate being ultra-conservative.
I call bs. Wizards are incredibly weak in the lower levels. More AC doesn't mean jack if that's all you can usefully do (and due to the low str you likely have, and your low base attack bonus, you can't go in and melee). Cantrips are fairly useless, so when you get only a couple spells per day... there's absolutely nothing you can do if you do things like hp and ac buffs. Maybe if you buff your fighters up...
You can get away with some ridiculous stuff if things go juuuust right (in one campaign my roommate ran in college, this wizard we had killed an entire army with silent image and his familiar, mostly because my roommate, God bless him, was way too lenient with his interpretation of what was or was not a believable image), but in all but those specific situations, you're useless. Color spray? Great, you took one monster out of the picture (if that), now what about the rest? Better let the fighters take care of them. Oh, and you'd better hope you don't get more encounters for the day, cause you just used all you got. Oh, you didn't have the right spell prepared? Too bad, you're useless for the rest of the day. Sorry.
Playing a wizard in D&D is something like getting your teeth drilled without Novocain, imho.
I played a wizard, because I didn't want limits on what spells were in my spellbook (the wizard has some, but they're fairly inconsequential if I remember correctly). I was frustrated that you either gimped yourself in terms of what spells you knew (sorceror), or you gimped yourself in terms of casting what you did know (wizard). Really pissed me off to no end, trust me.
magic... has always overshadowed your mundane fighter types. Did you play the same D&D I did? Magic users are incredibly gimped compared to fighters. Maybe it gets better at higher levels (I never had the patience to play past level 10ish), but you find yourself either a) having the completely wrong spells for your situation prepared, or b) out of spells, constantly. I swore that if I ever ran a campaign, spell preparation would be GONE as a house rule, and I'd use the spell point system from Unearthed Arcana.
Then again, this was my experience, and may not be indicative of the game as a whole, which is why I ask.
Not really. The difference between D&D, and Magic, is that people (as far as I know) don't play D&D in any sort of tournaments. If there were WotC-run D&D tournaments, they'd be within their rights to specify which version of the rules were used. You have to have a level playing field.
D&D, on the other hand, is played by small groups of people, rather than in tournaments. There's nothing they could do to stop house rules if they tried. Similarly, there's nothing they could do to stop house rules in Magic if they tried, as long as you're not talking about a sanctioned tournament.
If a character is doing infinite damage every turn... the GM is not doing his/her job, period. Heh heh heh... if I were a DM, I'd allow that. Unless my other players complained about it, of course. I'd think it was hilarious. Really, it's about what you want out of the game. But you are right in saying that if you have a problem with the rule balance, then change the rules to fix it. The DM's discretion, not Wizards', is final.
I saw something saying that anything coming out between now and 4th ed (besides things which were already in the pipeline, I imagine) will be written in such a way that you could use them with either version. Either that means that they're not planning on having anything in the way of game mechanics in those books, or that 4th ed isn't going to change much.
That's a matter of opinion on the rules more than anything else. I hate 2nd ed rules, so just for making D&D a game I'd be willing to play, WotC rules the world in my book. (Note that I'm not trying to turn this into a "which edition is better?" debate, just saying that they did do a major update with 3rd ed, which is either good or bad depending on who you ask)
I grew up with Ghostbusters and Star Wars but I never once thought that when I grew up I'd be creeping around old libraries with a Nuclear Device as a backback or tickling an Ewok under its chin while flying my spaceship around like it was a jet fighter. Hey, it's not our fault you lack imagination.;)
Yes, let's fire people because they don't cover up their mistakes. Then we'll have no one working in any position of importance but liars. Brilliant!
IF (and that's a big if) we accept your logic that the lack of a cover-up means the IT head/network admin (your post isn't terribly clear on this point) didn't realize there was anything wrong with the way things were being done, then yes, I suppose that person should be fired. However, I call that logic "bullshit". Maybe I'm too damn optimistic, but I'd prefer to believe that it's because someone has the courage to take the heat for their mistakes, rather than try and lie to save face... not someone who's just too incompetent to know what the hell is going on.
Cell is a nice processor and the PS3 can function as a server, but that doesn't mean that the XBox 360 can't. You're absolutely right, but I think you missed the GP's point. The GGP got modded -1 troll for saying that the Cell processor is cool. Anyone who moderates like that has to have some other reason for doing so, maybe a personal grudge against the poster (Slashdot is serious business, after all), or maybe they're a hardcore Xbox fanboy. I really don't know what that moderator's reason was, but it can't have been actually based on the post. That's what the GP was bitching about, not saying that the 360 isn't capable of being a server.
Oh well, I guess stuff like that is why we have meta-moderation (if it actually works, which I wouldn't know).
Well, it could be legit. I mean, as the other AC said, those are all valid points for Sony's and against Microsoft's online plan. I actually didn't know some of that, if true (does Microsoft really have no dedicated servers? That seems like quite the cheesy deal to me, when you're paying for the online service), so it's interesting to read.
On the other hand, you could be right, too. I imagine that the low player counts of GoW and Halo 2/3 are deliberate, and not a technical limitation, and I certainly think that invoking Home makes you a raving fanboy, at least. Home doesn't really have anything to do with gaming, imo.
Either way, he does have some valid points (paying to play my shooters online = icky), and some stupid ones. Hard to say whether he's a fanboy, a shill, or just misguided. Also... clip your balls? o.O
If Vista didn't suck then I wouldn't still be reading horror stories about DRM, HD-crippling, driver issues, kernel vulnerabilities etc. etc. etc. long after it has been released.
Also, not even the most die-hard MS apologists I see advocate UPGRADING to Vista. They're simply saying that it's not bad. It's definitely not worth an upgrade, but if you're going to get a new machine, why avoid it? This is, of course, a different thing for businesses, since they can't just upgrade one machine at a time. Businesses probably won't be upgrading for a small eternity.
Vista really doesn't suck as much as people say it does, and in those areas where it does fall short, it's not really Microsoft's fault (DRM, hooo!).
Wow, your argument holds SO MUCH water for John Q. Consumer, who bought a computer with Vista on it. He doesn't read Slashdot, he may not even understand DRM at all. All he knows is that the stuff he wants (possibly, maybe he doesn't care about this either) to play won't play like it's supposed to. That's his fault somehow? Thanks for enlightening me to that fact.
I'm glad we have people like you looking out for other people, dude.
Slashdot Mirror
Or is this an indicator that Alienware has been completely absorbed by Dell, and has nothing left of what once made it good?
I'm gonna go with the latter here, although the former may be true as well.
And I wasn't talking about the Slashdot crowd (although I think the Slashdot crowd is too hard on Vista, but that's a whoooole different ball of wax), I actually did mean average users.
I'm not trying to extoll the virtues of Vista (that'd be pretty wasted on /., anyway, given the fairly strong Microsoft hate) or anything like that, it was more or less idle curiosity. I'm sorry to hear your experience has been poor, I really am, and I hope you either resolve the issues, or have a copy of XP sitting around.
I really don't think Microsoft is trying to drive sales of XP, though. They didn't have to do anything to accomplish that, they could've just sat around and XP would've been bundled with all the new computers. Easy money for them, why waste time and money developing Vista to accomplish the same amount (or less) of sales, if that were their goal?
what, you think I was going to use IE7? You must be joking. I don't really know why you wouldn't, to be honest (unless you like FF's addons, or you have concerns about security). I love IE7, and actually have it installed on my XP systems, too. Easily the best part of Vista, IMHO.- a happy Vista user, for the record
Now it's true that distributing copyrighted material without the permission of the copyright holder is a crime (note the key distinction between what I said and what you said, you left out that important bit). I also happen to lean towards the sentiment that making those files available, even if no one actually downloads them, would also be illegal... but you still did make one hell of a stupid statement in saying that it's a crime to enable crime. Not to mention the trollish responses you've made since then, which really aren't helping your case here.
I'm not sure what his point is, but if you're going to go with something proprietary, far better to go with Microsoft's standard in most cases. They have, in general, more leverage.
I didn't say it was wrong to criticize the president. This man was taking it to a level that was ridiculous. That's all I had a problem with. I don't care whose actions get criticized, as long as it's kept a) reasonable, and b) somewhat respectful (come on, showing respect even to your opponents isn't THAT much to ask). This CNN program was neither.
Hell, the last time I saw CNN (I don't watch the news often at all, as I tend to get irritated about injustices I can't affect in any way), all they had for the 20-30 mins I was stuck watching it was some guy tearing into Bush like it was no one's business to do. The way this guy was talking about him, you would've thought Bush was more incompetent than Forrest Gump, more evil than Hitler, and more corrupt than any politician in history, all at the same time. You also would've thought that every single thing that was going wrong in the news that day was personally Bush's fault (no one else in our government can be responsible for anything, apparently). If people like that is what the liberal side of the media typically fields, then we certainly need a counterpoint to it, and I'm all in favor of a competing news conglomerate being ultra-conservative.
You left out "Get off my lawn."
You can get away with some ridiculous stuff if things go juuuust right (in one campaign my roommate ran in college, this wizard we had killed an entire army with silent image and his familiar, mostly because my roommate, God bless him, was way too lenient with his interpretation of what was or was not a believable image), but in all but those specific situations, you're useless. Color spray? Great, you took one monster out of the picture (if that), now what about the rest? Better let the fighters take care of them. Oh, and you'd better hope you don't get more encounters for the day, cause you just used all you got. Oh, you didn't have the right spell prepared? Too bad, you're useless for the rest of the day. Sorry.
Playing a wizard in D&D is something like getting your teeth drilled without Novocain, imho.
I played a wizard, because I didn't want limits on what spells were in my spellbook (the wizard has some, but they're fairly inconsequential if I remember correctly). I was frustrated that you either gimped yourself in terms of what spells you knew (sorceror), or you gimped yourself in terms of casting what you did know (wizard). Really pissed me off to no end, trust me.
Then again, this was my experience, and may not be indicative of the game as a whole, which is why I ask.
D&D, on the other hand, is played by small groups of people, rather than in tournaments. There's nothing they could do to stop house rules if they tried. Similarly, there's nothing they could do to stop house rules in Magic if they tried, as long as you're not talking about a sanctioned tournament.
I saw something saying that anything coming out between now and 4th ed (besides things which were already in the pipeline, I imagine) will be written in such a way that you could use them with either version. Either that means that they're not planning on having anything in the way of game mechanics in those books, or that 4th ed isn't going to change much.
That's a matter of opinion on the rules more than anything else. I hate 2nd ed rules, so just for making D&D a game I'd be willing to play, WotC rules the world in my book. (Note that I'm not trying to turn this into a "which edition is better?" debate, just saying that they did do a major update with 3rd ed, which is either good or bad depending on who you ask)
IF (and that's a big if) we accept your logic that the lack of a cover-up means the IT head/network admin (your post isn't terribly clear on this point) didn't realize there was anything wrong with the way things were being done, then yes, I suppose that person should be fired. However, I call that logic "bullshit". Maybe I'm too damn optimistic, but I'd prefer to believe that it's because someone has the courage to take the heat for their mistakes, rather than try and lie to save face... not someone who's just too incompetent to know what the hell is going on.
Just sayin'.
Oh well, I guess stuff like that is why we have meta-moderation (if it actually works, which I wouldn't know).
On the other hand, you could be right, too. I imagine that the low player counts of GoW and Halo 2/3 are deliberate, and not a technical limitation, and I certainly think that invoking Home makes you a raving fanboy, at least. Home doesn't really have anything to do with gaming, imo.
Either way, he does have some valid points (paying to play my shooters online = icky), and some stupid ones. Hard to say whether he's a fanboy, a shill, or just misguided. Also... clip your balls? o.O
Also, not even the most die-hard MS apologists I see advocate UPGRADING to Vista. They're simply saying that it's not bad. It's definitely not worth an upgrade, but if you're going to get a new machine, why avoid it? This is, of course, a different thing for businesses, since they can't just upgrade one machine at a time. Businesses probably won't be upgrading for a small eternity.
Vista really doesn't suck as much as people say it does, and in those areas where it does fall short, it's not really Microsoft's fault (DRM, hooo!).
Because it's simpler for them to sell the same version everywhere, since they have to do it that way in the US.
I'm glad we have people like you looking out for other people, dude.