Ads do more than the immediate effect of someone buying the specific product or clicking on the specific link. It let's you know that what alternative you currently own is *obselete* or at least, there's better things out there.
Even if you don't go right now and buy that particular product, in a couple of years, chances are you'll feel whatever you have is getting old and want to upgrade.
They measure a loss in CD sales...the issue is that CDs are starting to become obselete. It's like...them saying the music industry is *dead* and citing audio tape sales as their statistical evidence.
The difference is, they have yet to find a new business model that really works for them. Or maybe they've found an alternative - just not one that works for them in a way they're *happy* with.
If we're talking about corruption and such in US and UK, it's completely different. US pretends to be fair and as in Florida, we can see some fraud in the background. But they still fear the opinions of people.
Putin makes it almost abundantly clear that if you mess with him, you could die. He may officially deny everything, but he makes sure everyone knows his ties to the Mafia and all that - he doesn't hide his involvement in the KGB. He rules by fear - and all Russians *know* it and some even support it, due to the fact they still believe he is keeping Russia from collapsing.
Indeed. Every game Blizzard has made has been a huge success.
WoW - Biggest MMORPG in the world...has changed the gaming industry so much, other publishers are accusing Blizzard of destroying the market. Starcraft - Still has the biggest professional gaming industry (South Korea) which has more money in it than all other professional gaming industries put together.
Diablo series - While not nearly as successful as the other two, proved itself as a popular RPG almost all gamers have had a go at. Warcraft series - Still proves itself as one of the most popular RTSs. Warcraft III especially was played in many professional levels and the modification game, DotA is probably the most popular game to play at LAN parties and cafes.
So yeah, unlike EA, they make few games, but each game is a hit. They put out quality games with few bugs and support them well. They look at the needs of the gamers and do well in producing something they would like.
I only hope Starcraft II will be as good as the first one, and I think that will be largely based on whether they plan to aim towards the South Korean needs of the game (Who want something perfectly balanced, simple, hard to play well, but can be put into a professional league and is competitive that can last in proleagues for years), or towards the more mainstream market (Who want an RTS with fancy graphics, to play the campaign once, play a couple of multiplayer games which involve just massing units for one big attack, then forget it a couple of months later).
But yeah, hopefully Activision won't come and say "Let's start pumping out 3 new games a year!" or something stupid like that.
To some extent I can agree with you...Violent fantasies could just serve to cause more harm to a person's psyche...
But at the same time, people who tend to be very open to anger seem to handle it better than people who bottle it up and finally release it in an explosion of uncontrolled rage.
Or hell, sexual fantasies - most people who engage in any sort of sexual fantasy or enjoy their fantasies through porn, such as S&M, rape, etc etc, don't necessarily go around *doing* it.
By the time they're finished with the story, your school will have been likened to North Korea, your principal to Hitler and the poor kids victimized to the equivalent of the Jews under the Third Reich. =P
I'm a year 12 doing VCE too, and I can just imagine how much all that would do to your ENTER marks...I go to a private school, and I've been killing myself working on the year 12 video (we decided to make it awesome...rotoscoped lightsabers, and heaps of special effects and such) - the entire time, I was under the legal gun from the deputy headmaster who told me I had to make sure NOTHING was potentially offensive. Why? Because some dickhead got a bad ENTER score a couple of years ago because he didn't study, and decided to sue the school, using 'humiliation in the video' as part of his case.
Now obviously that was his fault...and IANAL but can't you try to threaten to sue those bastards? I understand it's not a private school (like me), but It's not like you had to sign an agreement at the start of school saying "I will not comment on anything that happens at school" - hell, if there's no legal route, you could always go to the papers and get a bunch of negative publicity for the school...
Cause arguably, the ENTER score can determine your life...and for them to fuck you over like that...well, that's really really tight.
Buying the 'top of the line' graphics card or CPU is rarely needed to play any games - unless you happen to play them all at once on a multi-screen desktop...
It's more bragging rights - for a short period of time. "My gaming rig has dual 8800Ultra's SLi". Say, they payed $2000 for these cards...if they had bought an $800 card, it'd probably still be able to play all new games at full settings - and by the time it started to get obselete, replacing it with another $800 card would bring it up to par again and probably even remain faster than the dual 8800Ultra system.
So it's all about bragging rights...but to be fair, this mindset is in all consumer areas. It's why there's such a difference in the price of cars - exclusiveness. In all areas, you'll probably see that the top product is double the price of the second top product.
At my school 'jock' has always been the term given to guys who are obsessed with sports - live and die by them, with little much else in their lives. I don't think 'bullying nerds' was part of the criteria...o.O
I don't like social networking,but for other reasons.
I can see how you would want to keep in touch with someone you haven't talked to for years...what are highschool reunions for? You may not be great friends, but you still have a connection to them all.
Then again, I may just be feeling nostalgic as hell, because today was my last day of school...ever...='(
I was thinking the opposite. If you just look at the competition between ATI vs nVidia and AMD vs Intel...I may be wrong, but I don't think it's been this heated for ages.
In the past for instance, games dictated new graphics cards. Doom 3 came out - and out came a huge bunch of graphics cards that could *just* run it. But now, it seems that the quality of graphics cards has extended far beyond the capabilities of the games, and now games are struggling to make use of all this power.
Granted, Vista chews up shit like a bitch...But even pre-Vista, I think the competition has been really hot.
My Firefox installation has been broken and I simply don't have time yet to be bothered fixing it, so for the moment, I've been stuck on IE7.
God, half the sites I go to barely work! Everything gets disabled by default and I know one nuisance was I can't actually download anything off animemusicvideos.org. They have one of those automatic download scripts, but don't have the usual "click here if it doesn't open in 10 seconds". Whenever it tries to pop up, IE comes up with a message saying "This was blocked" - I enable it, but when I refresh, it just does it again...and again...gah!
Also, most modern Japanese typing programs automatically convert kana (Hirigana and Katakana) into Kanji (The Chinese calligraphy-based alphabet). If you use Japanese in Windows, you'll see how it works.
How many women have you met that will say they enjoy science or maths?
I may be sounding a bit sexist here, but in my experience, there's a lot more guys who really get fascinated in Physics class than girls, who see it as pure hell.
I think female's mindsets just don't like technical things as much as they do subjects like English or History. (I *am* heavily generalizing)
Having had gone to a co-ed school and an all-boys school...with siblings at a different co-ed school, as well as other friends at all-boys/all-girls schools, what I have noticed is a very different social behaviour from males and females.
In the girls school, there's a huge emphasis on social rules. There's ways of doing things. Protocols on how to meet friends, meet other people, etc. Everything is segregated into groups - you have groups of friends and you will always be seen as one of the group. You can't talk to other groups without your group feeling betrayed, and other groups questioning your motives. And say, one of the people in your group hates another person, you can definitely not talk to them. And of course, everything is so judgmental. People are judged based on their interests, fashion, relationship status, etc etc.
At a guys school, there's less social rules. Oh sure, there are still bastards that go around bullying people cause they have nothing better to do, but it seems more based upon whether the person is emotionally weak or not, as opposed to interests, hobbies, relationship status, etc etc. There's less emphasis on 'groups' and none of those rules apply.
At a co-ed school, as soon as girls are introduced into the picture, it turns into something more akin to the girls school, with guys being influenced by the girls.
Now I think this of course, shows that to a girl, getting into IT or anything technical is directly related to the geek image. For them, IT is anti-social, fitting in with the negative image they're used to from school, and the fact they'll probably get judged for it.
I may sound stupid here, but I think even if Google was passing info to the NSA or Homeland Security, I'd still use it. Fact is, it's still the best search engine out there. I may be against it in theory, but from a personal perspective...it still gives me what I want.
Me refusing to use it really doesn't give me, or the cause anything. And hey, it's not like the government will be interested looking at all my "nekked chicks" searches much.
Once again, you may call me stupid, but that's just the way most people, including myself, think.
Slashdot Mirror
Ads do more than the immediate effect of someone buying the specific product or clicking on the specific link. It let's you know that what alternative you currently own is *obselete* or at least, there's better things out there.
Even if you don't go right now and buy that particular product, in a couple of years, chances are you'll feel whatever you have is getting old and want to upgrade.
~Jarik
They measure a loss in CD sales...the issue is that CDs are starting to become obselete. It's like...them saying the music industry is *dead* and citing audio tape sales as their statistical evidence.
The difference is, they have yet to find a new business model that really works for them. Or maybe they've found an alternative - just not one that works for them in a way they're *happy* with.
~Jarik
I really am not thinking today. I looked at the title and thought of Boeing's going around using lasers to fry Target Stores http://www.target.com/.
Wasn't this the same problem everywhere else? For a long time Firefox barely had any market share with IE on top...
If we're talking about corruption and such in US and UK, it's completely different. US pretends to be fair and as in Florida, we can see some fraud in the background. But they still fear the opinions of people.
Putin makes it almost abundantly clear that if you mess with him, you could die. He may officially deny everything, but he makes sure everyone knows his ties to the Mafia and all that - he doesn't hide his involvement in the KGB. He rules by fear - and all Russians *know* it and some even support it, due to the fact they still believe he is keeping Russia from collapsing.
Quite a difference.
~Jarik
Indeed. Every game Blizzard has made has been a huge success.
WoW - Biggest MMORPG in the world...has changed the gaming industry so much, other publishers are accusing Blizzard of destroying the market.
Starcraft - Still has the biggest professional gaming industry (South Korea) which has more money in it than all other professional gaming industries put together.
Diablo series - While not nearly as successful as the other two, proved itself as a popular RPG almost all gamers have had a go at.
Warcraft series - Still proves itself as one of the most popular RTSs. Warcraft III especially was played in many professional levels and the modification game, DotA is probably the most popular game to play at LAN parties and cafes.
So yeah, unlike EA, they make few games, but each game is a hit. They put out quality games with few bugs and support them well. They look at the needs of the gamers and do well in producing something they would like.
I only hope Starcraft II will be as good as the first one, and I think that will be largely based on whether they plan to aim towards the South Korean needs of the game (Who want something perfectly balanced, simple, hard to play well, but can be put into a professional league and is competitive that can last in proleagues for years), or towards the more mainstream market (Who want an RTS with fancy graphics, to play the campaign once, play a couple of multiplayer games which involve just massing units for one big attack, then forget it a couple of months later).
But yeah, hopefully Activision won't come and say "Let's start pumping out 3 new games a year!" or something stupid like that.
~Jarik
To some extent I can agree with you...Violent fantasies could just serve to cause more harm to a person's psyche...
But at the same time, people who tend to be very open to anger seem to handle it better than people who bottle it up and finally release it in an explosion of uncontrolled rage.
Or hell, sexual fantasies - most people who engage in any sort of sexual fantasy or enjoy their fantasies through porn, such as S&M, rape, etc etc, don't necessarily go around *doing* it.
~Jarik
Go to the Herald Sun (tabloid)...
By the time they're finished with the story, your school will have been likened to North Korea, your principal to Hitler and the poor kids victimized to the equivalent of the Jews under the Third Reich. =P
~Jarik
Just like to say - that really sucks...
I'm a year 12 doing VCE too, and I can just imagine how much all that would do to your ENTER marks...I go to a private school, and I've been killing myself working on the year 12 video (we decided to make it awesome...rotoscoped lightsabers, and heaps of special effects and such) - the entire time, I was under the legal gun from the deputy headmaster who told me I had to make sure NOTHING was potentially offensive. Why? Because some dickhead got a bad ENTER score a couple of years ago because he didn't study, and decided to sue the school, using 'humiliation in the video' as part of his case.
Now obviously that was his fault...and IANAL but can't you try to threaten to sue those bastards? I understand it's not a private school (like me), but It's not like you had to sign an agreement at the start of school saying "I will not comment on anything that happens at school" - hell, if there's no legal route, you could always go to the papers and get a bunch of negative publicity for the school...
Cause arguably, the ENTER score can determine your life...and for them to fuck you over like that...well, that's really really tight.
~Jarik
Buying the 'top of the line' graphics card or CPU is rarely needed to play any games - unless you happen to play them all at once on a multi-screen desktop...
It's more bragging rights - for a short period of time. "My gaming rig has dual 8800Ultra's SLi". Say, they payed $2000 for these cards...if they had bought an $800 card, it'd probably still be able to play all new games at full settings - and by the time it started to get obselete, replacing it with another $800 card would bring it up to par again and probably even remain faster than the dual 8800Ultra system.
So it's all about bragging rights...but to be fair, this mindset is in all consumer areas. It's why there's such a difference in the price of cars - exclusiveness. In all areas, you'll probably see that the top product is double the price of the second top product.
~Jarik
At my school 'jock' has always been the term given to guys who are obsessed with sports - live and die by them, with little much else in their lives. I don't think 'bullying nerds' was part of the criteria...o.O
Though, maybe my school is just weird...
~Jarik
I don't like social networking ,but for other reasons.
I can see how you would want to keep in touch with someone you haven't talked to for years...what are highschool reunions for? You may not be great friends, but you still have a connection to them all.
Then again, I may just be feeling nostalgic as hell, because today was my last day of school...ever...='(
~Jarik
...crotch... Yeouch....!I was thinking the opposite. If you just look at the competition between ATI vs nVidia and AMD vs Intel...I may be wrong, but I don't think it's been this heated for ages.
In the past for instance, games dictated new graphics cards. Doom 3 came out - and out came a huge bunch of graphics cards that could *just* run it. But now, it seems that the quality of graphics cards has extended far beyond the capabilities of the games, and now games are struggling to make use of all this power.
Granted, Vista chews up shit like a bitch...But even pre-Vista, I think the competition has been really hot.
~Jarik
...we slashdot parody sites now...?
Mao would be rolling in his grave! =O
My Firefox installation has been broken and I simply don't have time yet to be bothered fixing it, so for the moment, I've been stuck on IE7.
God, half the sites I go to barely work! Everything gets disabled by default and I know one nuisance was I can't actually download anything off animemusicvideos.org. They have one of those automatic download scripts, but don't have the usual "click here if it doesn't open in 10 seconds". Whenever it tries to pop up, IE comes up with a message saying "This was blocked" - I enable it, but when I refresh, it just does it again...and again...gah!
~Jarik
Why that'd be whoever heads the Preventers of course!
Eh, ignore me...Gundam Wing just kicks ass. =P
~Jarik
I have a small room you insensitive clod!
Also, most modern Japanese typing programs automatically convert kana (Hirigana and Katakana) into Kanji (The Chinese calligraphy-based alphabet). If you use Japanese in Windows, you'll see how it works.
~Jarik
#168859 +(4518)- [X]
The most secure computer in the world is one not connected to the internet.
Thats why I recommend Telstra ADSL.
That works too. =)
~Jarik
Phoenix Wright: OBJECTION!
Here's another point.
How many women have you met that will say they enjoy science or maths?
I may be sounding a bit sexist here, but in my experience, there's a lot more guys who really get fascinated in Physics class than girls, who see it as pure hell.
I think female's mindsets just don't like technical things as much as they do subjects like English or History. (I *am* heavily generalizing)
~Jarik
Having had gone to a co-ed school and an all-boys school...with siblings at a different co-ed school, as well as other friends at all-boys/all-girls schools, what I have noticed is a very different social behaviour from males and females.
In the girls school, there's a huge emphasis on social rules. There's ways of doing things. Protocols on how to meet friends, meet other people, etc. Everything is segregated into groups - you have groups of friends and you will always be seen as one of the group. You can't talk to other groups without your group feeling betrayed, and other groups questioning your motives. And say, one of the people in your group hates another person, you can definitely not talk to them. And of course, everything is so judgmental. People are judged based on their interests, fashion, relationship status, etc etc.
At a guys school, there's less social rules. Oh sure, there are still bastards that go around bullying people cause they have nothing better to do, but it seems more based upon whether the person is emotionally weak or not, as opposed to interests, hobbies, relationship status, etc etc. There's less emphasis on 'groups' and none of those rules apply.
At a co-ed school, as soon as girls are introduced into the picture, it turns into something more akin to the girls school, with guys being influenced by the girls.
Now I think this of course, shows that to a girl, getting into IT or anything technical is directly related to the geek image. For them, IT is anti-social, fitting in with the negative image they're used to from school, and the fact they'll probably get judged for it.
~Jarik
I may sound stupid here, but I think even if Google was passing info to the NSA or Homeland Security, I'd still use it. Fact is, it's still the best search engine out there. I may be against it in theory, but from a personal perspective...it still gives me what I want.
Me refusing to use it really doesn't give me, or the cause anything. And hey, it's not like the government will be interested looking at all my "nekked chicks" searches much.
Once again, you may call me stupid, but that's just the way most people, including myself, think.
~Jarik