Blizzard charges US$60 for their new game, disallows LAN play, cuts off their player base [for cheating],... is a rehash of the existing franchise
You just described every major game in the market. Sorry if I'm struggling to muster the anger to raise my pitchfork for business that became standard 5-10 years ago.
and now wants everyone to get excited about map editing? Back in the days of Q2 and Unreal, I could see that... map editors where new and exciting tech back then
No they weren't. Wolfenstein and Warcraft 2 were two of my first map editing experiences, quite a while before Q2. There was map editing before those games too.
But if you're going to call SC2 map editing "just map editing" you may as well call WOW "just D&D" or call Halo Reach "just an fps". Such a broad generalization is pointless and ignores vast progress and improvements in the genre, or in this case, RTS map editing functionality.
It looks like the Air is meant to be a long battery life machine, not a racehorse. It's an "open" ipad with a built in keyboard. Seems like a reasonable niche to take a shot at, even if it's not something I'm interested in.
Microsft is shipping xbox systems that are locked down now. There is no reason to believe they won't try and push that up the stack if they feel users will accept it.
But people will keep defending Microsft until it's too late, and they keep on asking $500+ for developer licenses.
Wow, thats backwards from what I'm used to. Most of us want OS X and would prefer cheaper hardware. I'd buy an Apple barebones desktop (ie: no monitor) in a heartbeat if they would sell one. Basically a mac mini in a case big enough for a PCI-E card for under $1000.
If your business runs Windows-only software, of course, not much choice but to use bootcamp or vmware. I've always been in the opposite boat trying to get away from Windows to use Unix tools.
I honestly can't remember what OS it was, but I'm pretty sure it was Windows Vista or 7, that a fellow dev showed me excitedly how he could hit some shortcut key and start typing an application name to bring it up and execute it. A hell of a lot faster than trying to click-hover through the start menu.
I'm pretty sure thats what the OP is talking about doing with Spotlight, although I've never used that myself either.
Oh, and 'which'/'whereis', and 'find'/'locate' all exist for good reason.
best != most expensive. Taking into account that hardware is pretty similar (processor, memory, board, etc). The only thing I see you're paying premium for is an OS, which is based on Unix/Linux (that you can get for free) and a shinny case.
The OS is the only part of the computer you actually interface with, and has as much to do with perceived speed and reliability as the hardware. Why is it any stranger to pay for software than for hardware?
Your casual suggestion that Mac OS X and "Linux you can get for free" are the same is downright silly.
Let me put it clear... I don't see your point. A computer nowadays is not better to do anything except for the software in runs.
You don't see his point, but then you reiterate it - that a computer is only as good as the software it runs. Maybe that broken sentence was supposed to say something else?
Yep. Best example of this I can think of is how Microsoft "hid" the file menus in Windows Vista and the rest of their Vista-era apps. I can only assume this was an attempt to be "flashy" and make Windows "look pretty" the way they do on a Mac.
Apple achieves this "look" by having a single menu bar on your main screen. They do this for (debatable) usability reasons to begin with, not for looks. But it does mean the app can be as flashy (and usable) as it needs to be without having a visible file menu tacked to it.
The way Microsoft did this was to completely hide the file bar, have no GUI representation to unhide it, and make you magically know to press ALT on the keyboard to get to the menu. Core functionality is still buried in those menus, inaccessible by mouse or by anyone who doesn't know the press-alt secret. The change is all looks and totally unintuitive. When I "upgraded" to Vista this particular change was extremely frustrating. I only found out the bar was still hidden in there by accident.
I do actually like Dell's case design, I'm not sure if you were referring to their hardware or software though.
If you're seriously curious, I can tell you this much:
Every nerd I know with a Mac uses Linux for playing around, and a Mac as a stable, reliable computing platform for getting work done. Especially interfacing with Linux servers while still having cross-platform Windows apps like MS Office and Photoshop.
I've never heard "ooh, shiny!" play into it except with iphones and ipads - and even for those, it's more about a functional UI than about flashy graphics.
Most nerds have gone the same route with gaming too. Despite also being Microsoft, the 360 is a very popular locked-down alternative to Windows PC gaming. I'd argue the failures of Microsoft Windows is the driving force behind sales of both Apple computers and Xbox360 consoles.
Most people already have a Windows computer that can technically do everything either of those do, but people are still willing to pay hundreds of dollars to have a second machine that can do it less painfully.
Has anyone ever actually been insane over Second Life other than their marketing team, who seem uncannily able to trick the media into posting more articles about Second Life than any of the far-more-popular virtual worlds?
I've never met a single person who has actually played Second Life, despite all the media attention they've gotten.
Not in e-mail (who doesnt have first.last@gmail.com, or similar?) and not in a social network targeted specifically at networking with people you know by their real name.
Trying to make the leap to using real names on a video game site (*cough*battle.net/blizzard) though, is very weird and prohibitive.
Agreed. The use of real names AND, perhaps more importantly, the default privacy restrictions, made people feel comfortable enough to actually USE Facebook as a social network.
Which makes it all the more painful and ironic that now that Facebook is mainstream, they're defaulting private info to public (even AFTER it was entered as private), instilling the exact privacy fears in their users that prevented any competitor from getting this popular.
From my experiences, the movie-watching bandwidth will hurt your latency regardless of how much is being used unless you do QoS on the router.
It would still be nice if Netflix let you select a bandwidth level, with caps coming and many people watching on TVs that aren't as high quality as the video Netflix is pushing.
Except the achievement system literally has no point, no benefit, and is the most blatant "e-peen" exhibitionism around.
Do you feel the same way about Grammy awards, Emmys, Olympic medals, etc.? They have litereally "no benefit" except their peen exhibitionism, right? Who cares that they actually had to do something to earn it. Should we let people go around creating fraudulent awards and displaying them in public?
*Ethically* I think cheats that activate achievements are a bad thing. Having achievements accurately reflect what a person accomplished is a good thing.
Still, that's a different question than whether Blizzard's lawsuit is the right way to accomplish this. The ends don't justify the means.
There are similar lawsuits going on with console manufacturers blocking or disabling hacked consoles, and with jailbroken cellphones ("destroying the network"). I can think of some pretty nasty results if all these extreme EULA restrictions blocking access to something already paid for are ruled legal.
What "network activity" are you talking about, and why you think it's the network slowing it down versus normal game loading?
I also have a "very fast" computer, and Starcraft 2 runs like crap. The map load times are in the *minutes*, even after I've turned all the settings to low (including textures, which I assume are most of the load data).
Do you feel the same way about every kind of performance metric out there? Every award, medal, ribbon, etc. that has ever been earned, all BS meaningless bragging?
Refunding prepaid time isn't something I really expect, but keeping the account active until the prepaid time is up may even be a legal requirement. I won't pretend to be a lawyer though.
I don't think that's quite right either. I have several of these dongles and some of them say RSA right on them. I think the encryption comes in with how the sequence of passwords is non-reversable. IE: you can't (trivially) watch 5 or 10 or even 100 of the temporary passwords and be able to determine what the next one will be.
Yeah, 8 characters isn't awful, but just knowing that every password is *exactly* that long means you're guaranteed to get it in 36^8 no matter what. There's no crossing your fingers that they didn't use a 16 character password.
Agreed on the "PIN" passwords too. Another site I used has numeric-only 6 digit passwords. That one made me/facepalm
I used to use symbols in all of my passwords - or at least try to. A lot of sites block special characters (and spaces) in passwords.
I even had a site, I'm pretty sure it was a bank, that required the password be exactly 8 characters, and only alphanumeric. I suspect that brings the total number of passwords possible down to "laughably easy to brute force".
How is a settlement a win for anyone's rights? As far as the courts are concerned, the case never happened, and no precedent was set. No one was found guilty of anything.
Another school could do this tomorrow and know "worst case" they'll pay out some of the public's cash to lawyers, and no one will go to jail for egregious infringement of students' privacy.
(please correct me if I'm wrong here, this is my understanding of how "settlements" work in our court system)
I can't think of any compelling reason for Facebook, as the clear market leader, to provide this service. I'm glad they did though, and it makes me feel a lot more comfortable about posting pictures, etc. there for family members without having to keep a mirror somewhere else.
I saw they're also adding some type of sub-networks or groups, so you can make a post about video games and leave out your parents, or congratulate someone about a job offer without including their coworkers. I can think of a lot of tricks to making a good implementation of this, so can't wait to see how they did it.
Those are probably the two most important features that have made me frown on facebook, so seeing both in one day is a big surprise.
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Blizzard charges US$60 for their new game, disallows LAN play, cuts off their player base [for cheating], ... is a rehash of the existing franchise
You just described every major game in the market. Sorry if I'm struggling to muster the anger to raise my pitchfork for business that became standard 5-10 years ago.
and now wants everyone to get excited about map editing? Back in the days of Q2 and Unreal, I could see that... map editors where new and exciting tech back then
No they weren't. Wolfenstein and Warcraft 2 were two of my first map editing experiences, quite a while before Q2. There was map editing before those games too.
But if you're going to call SC2 map editing "just map editing" you may as well call WOW "just D&D" or call Halo Reach "just an fps". Such a broad generalization is pointless and ignores vast progress and improvements in the genre, or in this case, RTS map editing functionality.
It looks like the Air is meant to be a long battery life machine, not a racehorse. It's an "open" ipad with a built in keyboard. Seems like a reasonable niche to take a shot at, even if it's not something I'm interested in.
Microsft is shipping xbox systems that are locked down now. There is no reason to believe they won't try and push that up the stack if they feel users will accept it.
But people will keep defending Microsft until it's too late, and they keep on asking $500+ for developer licenses.
What were you saying about hyperbole again?
Microsoft has locked down systems in the field, ever heard of an XBOX? Where are all your posts about how they're going to kill Windows next?
And why should Apple release locked down functionality?
It's their store, of course it's "locked down".
Microsoft also has a store: http://store.microsoft.com/microsoft/office/category/213
It's locked down too, and doesn't have a single one of my homebrew apps for sale.
How is this any different?
Wow, thats backwards from what I'm used to. Most of us want OS X and would prefer cheaper hardware. I'd buy an Apple barebones desktop (ie: no monitor) in a heartbeat if they would sell one. Basically a mac mini in a case big enough for a PCI-E card for under $1000.
If your business runs Windows-only software, of course, not much choice but to use bootcamp or vmware. I've always been in the opposite boat trying to get away from Windows to use Unix tools.
I honestly can't remember what OS it was, but I'm pretty sure it was Windows Vista or 7, that a fellow dev showed me excitedly how he could hit some shortcut key and start typing an application name to bring it up and execute it. A hell of a lot faster than trying to click-hover through the start menu.
I'm pretty sure thats what the OP is talking about doing with Spotlight, although I've never used that myself either.
Oh, and 'which'/'whereis', and 'find'/'locate' all exist for good reason.
best != most expensive. Taking into account that hardware is pretty similar (processor, memory, board, etc). The only thing I see you're paying premium for is an OS, which is based on Unix/Linux (that you can get for free) and a shinny case.
The OS is the only part of the computer you actually interface with, and has as much to do with perceived speed and reliability as the hardware. Why is it any stranger to pay for software than for hardware?
Your casual suggestion that Mac OS X and "Linux you can get for free" are the same is downright silly.
Let me put it clear... I don't see your point. A computer nowadays is not better to do anything except for the software in runs.
You don't see his point, but then you reiterate it - that a computer is only as good as the software it runs. Maybe that broken sentence was supposed to say something else?
Yep. Best example of this I can think of is how Microsoft "hid" the file menus in Windows Vista and the rest of their Vista-era apps. I can only assume this was an attempt to be "flashy" and make Windows "look pretty" the way they do on a Mac.
Apple achieves this "look" by having a single menu bar on your main screen. They do this for (debatable) usability reasons to begin with, not for looks. But it does mean the app can be as flashy (and usable) as it needs to be without having a visible file menu tacked to it.
The way Microsoft did this was to completely hide the file bar, have no GUI representation to unhide it, and make you magically know to press ALT on the keyboard to get to the menu. Core functionality is still buried in those menus, inaccessible by mouse or by anyone who doesn't know the press-alt secret. The change is all looks and totally unintuitive. When I "upgraded" to Vista this particular change was extremely frustrating. I only found out the bar was still hidden in there by accident.
I do actually like Dell's case design, I'm not sure if you were referring to their hardware or software though.
If you're seriously curious, I can tell you this much:
Every nerd I know with a Mac uses Linux for playing around, and a Mac as a stable, reliable computing platform for getting work done. Especially interfacing with Linux servers while still having cross-platform Windows apps like MS Office and Photoshop.
I've never heard "ooh, shiny!" play into it except with iphones and ipads - and even for those, it's more about a functional UI than about flashy graphics.
Most nerds have gone the same route with gaming too. Despite also being Microsoft, the 360 is a very popular locked-down alternative to Windows PC gaming. I'd argue the failures of Microsoft Windows is the driving force behind sales of both Apple computers and Xbox360 consoles.
Most people already have a Windows computer that can technically do everything either of those do, but people are still willing to pay hundreds of dollars to have a second machine that can do it less painfully.
Has anyone ever actually been insane over Second Life other than their marketing team, who seem uncannily able to trick the media into posting more articles about Second Life than any of the far-more-popular virtual worlds?
I've never met a single person who has actually played Second Life, despite all the media attention they've gotten.
Not in e-mail (who doesnt have first.last@gmail.com, or similar?) and not in a social network targeted specifically at networking with people you know by their real name.
Trying to make the leap to using real names on a video game site (*cough*battle.net/blizzard) though, is very weird and prohibitive.
Agreed. The use of real names AND, perhaps more importantly, the default privacy restrictions, made people feel comfortable enough to actually USE Facebook as a social network.
Which makes it all the more painful and ironic that now that Facebook is mainstream, they're defaulting private info to public (even AFTER it was entered as private), instilling the exact privacy fears in their users that prevented any competitor from getting this popular.
From my experiences, the movie-watching bandwidth will hurt your latency regardless of how much is being used unless you do QoS on the router.
It would still be nice if Netflix let you select a bandwidth level, with caps coming and many people watching on TVs that aren't as high quality as the video Netflix is pushing.
Except the achievement system literally has no point, no benefit, and is the most blatant "e-peen" exhibitionism around.
Do you feel the same way about Grammy awards, Emmys, Olympic medals, etc.? They have litereally "no benefit" except their peen exhibitionism, right? Who cares that they actually had to do something to earn it. Should we let people go around creating fraudulent awards and displaying them in public?
*Ethically* I think cheats that activate achievements are a bad thing. Having achievements accurately reflect what a person accomplished is a good thing.
Still, that's a different question than whether Blizzard's lawsuit is the right way to accomplish this. The ends don't justify the means.
There are similar lawsuits going on with console manufacturers blocking or disabling hacked consoles, and with jailbroken cellphones ("destroying the network"). I can think of some pretty nasty results if all these extreme EULA restrictions blocking access to something already paid for are ruled legal.
What "network activity" are you talking about, and why you think it's the network slowing it down versus normal game loading?
I also have a "very fast" computer, and Starcraft 2 runs like crap. The map load times are in the *minutes*, even after I've turned all the settings to low (including textures, which I assume are most of the load data).
Do you feel the same way about every kind of performance metric out there? Every award, medal, ribbon, etc. that has ever been earned, all BS meaningless bragging?
Refunding prepaid time isn't something I really expect, but keeping the account active until the prepaid time is up may even be a legal requirement. I won't pretend to be a lawyer though.
Eh, looked it up, and it's hashing a 128-bit seed with the time for validation. You're probably right it isn't using the RSA algorithm though.
So is hashing encryption? I really have no clue - a brief search looks like it is technically considered (one way) encryption:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptographic_hash_function#Verifying_the_integrity_of_files_or_messages
That would also mean MD5 is encryption, as strange as that sounds.
I don't think that's quite right either. I have several of these dongles and some of them say RSA right on them. I think the encryption comes in with how the sequence of passwords is non-reversable. IE: you can't (trivially) watch 5 or 10 or even 100 of the temporary passwords and be able to determine what the next one will be.
Yeah, 8 characters isn't awful, but just knowing that every password is *exactly* that long means you're guaranteed to get it in 36^8 no matter what. There's no crossing your fingers that they didn't use a 16 character password.
Agreed on the "PIN" passwords too. Another site I used has numeric-only 6 digit passwords. That one made me /facepalm
I used to use symbols in all of my passwords - or at least try to. A lot of sites block special characters (and spaces) in passwords.
I even had a site, I'm pretty sure it was a bank, that required the password be exactly 8 characters, and only alphanumeric. I suspect that brings the total number of passwords possible down to "laughably easy to brute force".
Did you call getting rid of the floppy disk a crazy decision?
I got an HP with Windows Vista 2 years ago that still had a PS/2 keyboard and mouse rather than USB. THAT is what's crazy.
How is a settlement a win for anyone's rights? As far as the courts are concerned, the case never happened, and no precedent was set. No one was found guilty of anything.
Another school could do this tomorrow and know "worst case" they'll pay out some of the public's cash to lawyers, and no one will go to jail for egregious infringement of students' privacy.
(please correct me if I'm wrong here, this is my understanding of how "settlements" work in our court system)
This. It's so obvious when you follow the money and motives on each side.
I can't think of any compelling reason for Facebook, as the clear market leader, to provide this service. I'm glad they did though, and it makes me feel a lot more comfortable about posting pictures, etc. there for family members without having to keep a mirror somewhere else.
I saw they're also adding some type of sub-networks or groups, so you can make a post about video games and leave out your parents, or congratulate someone about a job offer without including their coworkers. I can think of a lot of tricks to making a good implementation of this, so can't wait to see how they did it.
Those are probably the two most important features that have made me frown on facebook, so seeing both in one day is a big surprise.