So your "separate bill" would require insurance companies to cover everyone, regardless of pre-existing conditions. Great! Now I won't even bother getting insurance and paying those pesky premiums until I have a condition that is really unaffordable without it.
Yes I realize this. I was more trying to say that I am horribly biased on this one part of the issue. The only real way for that part to get through is for it to be viable either through insurance (how the bill is now) or through a single payer system (how I would prefer it). Anything else results in what you have already said.
Re:A false choice, of course...
on
Health Care Reform
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
There is at least one part of this bill that, being a diabetic and a contractor, am hoping gets through. That is that the pre-existing condition exclusions that insurance companies do. Because of how much of a difference it would mean for me personally it is almost impossible for me to not want it to pass. I guess, if possible, it would be nice to just have that part as a separate bill or something similar.
Otherwise, having used the healthcare in England, I had really hoped that a single payer system could have been gotten through. I know that is almost impossible here in the US, but I can dream.
The pc port was actually pretty good, few bugs that bothered me, but one gigantic, huge, blaring flaw...
It was really really really really super easy. It was the exact same gameplay as the PS2 version (which I also owned) but mouse+keyboard is so far superior to the console, that every single gun might as well have been "the golden gun" from goldeneye. I am serious, those super hard missions where you had to take out 900 guys and you had to try 1000 times on PS2 and still you just barely pass it after breaking a controller or two.. cakewalk when you can actually aim.
The hellicopter mission, where you are taking passes on the mob base, with a tinfoil hellicopter... That mission was the bane of the ps2, finishing with more than 5% of the chopper health was a feat of god... On PC, 99% health was like oops, LOL I should not have made pizza rolls while playing that mission.
It really opened my eyes to the common notion at the time that the gap was narrowing between console fps/3ps and PC, it was just not the case. Still isn't, because a controller will never (barring comprehensive design changes, and I am not sure motion control will ever quite cut it)have enough precision and reaction.
It was really weird having a pretty nice port that was totally useless, and it really turned me off of the PS2 version, made it seem like "Nintendo hard" Hard because of gimped controlls not because of good design/creativity.
And what is sad is that GTA 2 / 1 were actually really good pc games. I actually really miss the multiplayer racing thing they had in GTA 2 before all the crazy console versions.
First Arkham Asylum. I had assumed that since it was a console game I should try using a game pad, and this usually solves the issues with console ports, but in this case it was far worse. In Asylum the usb pad I had (logitech w/two analog sticks) had the problem where pushing forward moved you back, back moved you forward. The only fix for this was messing with some cryptic config files. There was no way to set these parts of the controls within the game... Small problem but it made things very unpleasant.
In Bioshock there specific keys that you couldn't map. In one case it was one I usually use for reload. It decided that was a permanent ui popup key.:(
These are the small things that can easily ruin really good games.
There are plenty of other awful examples. The Prince of Persia reboots have been mentioned (justly so) and I think the more recent installments in the Tomb Raider franchise also deserve a mention. Last Remnant is another good example; Square-Enix titles have never been particularly kindly treated on the PC anyway. Fire one of these up on even a top end PC with an Xbox controller plugged in and it's still very much apparent that you're playing the "second best" version of the game.
True that last remnant may have had a few quirks but if you compare it to the really buggy console versions you should be glad of how little broke in the pc version.
The recent AvP game looks and feels far better on the PC than on the consoles; the Predator is an over-complicated nightmare to control on any platform, but the PC version does work out somewhat less toxic.
True, but this game in general is awful. Just play AvP2 if you want an actual good game that works perfect on the pc. The alien controls in particular were awful in the one just released.
Actually Planetside did this. You leveled up by getting points you could allocate towards equipment types. So if you wanted to change your loadout so that you could drive a med vehicle that day rather than a tank, go ahead. I think there was a lag of 8 hours or something like that before you could do it again. It meant being able to use one character to do anything you wanted. There also was no loot to speak of. What this leads to is a game much more focused on the multiplayer aspect of an mmo. PVP was everything. I still haven't seen anything like it, though that may be changing soon.
Re:My Markting Shill-O-Meter Just Exploded!!
on
Blizzcon 2009 Wrap-Up
·
· Score: 0, Offtopic
Why is this modded Flamebait?
Hah hah, marking the question about flamebait as flamebait. Maybe I should ask why this is marked funny?
Its about having control. If Blizzard used Steam and they needed a change to be made for their use they'd have to get the okay from Valve to make the change, then Valve would have to do it for them.
True enough, but the pc gaming world needs something like steam to be used by everyone. It would only help get more people to play pc games along with getting more developers to make them.
Re:My Markting Shill-O-Meter Just Exploded!!
on
Blizzcon 2009 Wrap-Up
·
· Score: 0, Offtopic
Why is this modded Flamebait?
Yeah, I was trying to be funny. It seems flitty below me got modded up whereas mine got modded down? That doesn't exactly seem quite fair....
Rewards skill, tactics, strategy and cooperation rather than having no life and money to spend on sweatshop gold. Old and new players can compete against each other fairly due to the shallow power curve.
If you are into FPS games that is. There is also Global Agenda which looks to have a lot of what planetside has but be a bit more up to date in graphics / technology.
I wonder if they should change it's name then, instead of Bnet maybe they can call it "Condensation". (And before anyone claims otherwise, remember Steam was orginially exactly what the summary described Bnet as becoming.)
Well, while I don't see myself getting any of the games discussed (at least not till they've been out for a good bit) it'll be interesting to see if Blizzard has the chops to go toe to toe with Valve with a Steam-a-like.
It's just too bad that Blizzard's misteps with DMCA trials have left a bad enough taste in my mouth that I'm not interested in cheering them on this time.
I had the same reaction. If I'm going to get an im client I'll use one that works on all my games (steam) not just 2-5 games (Blizzard). I guess competition is good, but the pc game market does not need this kind of competition right now. I would really like to just buy sc2 from steam rather than do the whole bnet. Ah well...
Re:My Markting Shill-O-Meter Just Exploded!!
on
Blizzcon 2009 Wrap-Up
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Wow. Just... wow.
Actually, it is Wow, SC2, and Diablo 3. If it was just Wow then there wouldn't be as much in this article;-).
allowing somebody in World of Warcraft to talk with somebody playing Wings of Liberty.
Just what every SC player has been waiting for.
I like that they are doing this but I sometimes wish that more people would reuse existing im software so that you can do this more often. I really am talking about steam in this case. You can already chat while in game to anyone on your steam friends list. Having a separate im client for just blizzard games seems silly to me. I'd much rather just load it up in steam and use that. Apparently rebuilding the wheel every time it is needed looks like a good thing to some developers.
If done right, almost any FPS should be portable from console to PC, and be FAR better on PC. (Mouse + keyboard is a superior control mechanism for FPS games.)
Most RPGs aren't too bad either, especially if you plug in a joypad to the PC.
Of course, frequently ports are NOT done right - the PC port of Final Fantasy VII is a notorious example of a port being done so lazily as to break compatibility very rapidly within about a generation of hardware releases. Nowadays it's often easier to get the PSX version running in an emulator than to get the PC port working.
Even after you just use these game types you still end up with far too many good games that you can't change the controls. The most recent example of this is the pc version of Arkham Asylum (batman game). A standard usb analog stick logitech pad messes up and has the up be down, down be up. And there is no way to fix it. Every pc game should either have customizable controls or tested well enough so they know that all devices are going to work with it. Sigh...
Whereas on the other hand I find steam to be very helpful. I have used it to re-download games several times because of box switching / etc. It also is usually cheaper, has less hassle with discs, and easier to update too. I admit there isn't any kind of resale market because of this, but on the other hand there are lots of discount deals that steam does which end up being cheaper than most used copies would be. If I have to have drm on a pc game, which nowadays is usually a yes, I'd much prefer the flexibility of steam over the install x times or keep disc in tray nonsense that you do with physical copies. It also makes it very easy to find and get neat indie games that might not get published otherwise. The same is happening on xbox live/psn store so it looks like this will only increase.
I know it isn't electronic, but if you like M.U.L.E. then you should check out planet steam:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/23094
which is a board game very similar to MULE gameplay.
This is actually how I found my fiance. There are actually quite a bit of nerdy/geeky girls that hang out at board game clubs. If not euro style then there are plenty that meet for more american style board games. Meetup.com is also great in this arena.
You get one of the numerous readers because of the screen and the battery life, not because of the multiple things it can do. I like having something I can leave on and not have to plug in for 2 weeks, it is very handy as far as reading goes. Something that I would need to plug in anytime I wanted to read in order to make sure it didn't die is not something I'm going to use for regular reading purposes.
1. WordStar/WordPerfect/Word
2. Visicalc/SuperCalc/123/Multiplan-Excel
3. AutoCad
4. dBase/Oracle7/MySQL
5. Duke Nukem/Wolfenstein 3D/Quake
6. Zelda.....WoW....etc with a branch to Second Life
7. Mozilla/Apache/Tomcat/II6 ad naseum
8. C/Java/php (note the absence of VB)
9. Napster/xTorrent/Amazon/iTunes/eBay/and other Business Distribution online apps
10. McAfee/Norton/AVG/etc.
Ten is too short a number for categories, but these IMHO all started billion dollar industry segments
I like this list but I still think that some mention of a good quality text editor should be in there. I was thinking VI/EMACS/Visual Studio/etc. Essentially the tools that helped create all these great apps.
I had something similar happen with one of my bank accounts. I had set up a new loan for a car with the same company that I had my other loan through. The only change was that I had set up this second account to auto-bill a different bank account. I then discover that they had decided to auto-bill the first account at the same time as the first. This led to a significant negative balance (because it normally had just enough at the beginning of each month to pay said bill). It took several hours and calls to both the bank and the loan company before things were fixed. It is very difficult to get money back when the people involved say that nothing is wrong.
Atlanta is actually one of the better places to live either in downtown or close enough. There is fairly decent public transport for anywhere within the city. There are certainly areas that are a bit less safe, but I wouldn't say it is a majority there. Having moved recently out of state I really do miss the good public transport from Atlanta. I can easily see the public transport not being decent there for someone living out in the suburbs but that is partly due to the individual counties not wanting to be on board. I definitely think a larger portion of the population would use the train if it went farther into Cobb or Gwinnette.
I agree. If they are going to show iPhone usage (.5% or so) then why don't they show blackberry, simian, and other phone os's? There are certainly enough to match what iPhone started at in this chart.
Flash sucks bad enough on actual computers. I really can't see what it offers that a powerful computer hooked up to your TV can't.
This may seem reasonable, but then you talk to most people and hooking a computer to a tv is some mystical act. People just don't treat the tv as a display device in most cases. This is why consoles still do so well. Once there are enough homes with tvs that can get direct links to pcs this may change, but that won't be for a couple of years at least.
Slashdot Mirror
So your "separate bill" would require insurance companies to cover everyone, regardless of pre-existing conditions. Great! Now I won't even bother getting insurance and paying those pesky premiums until I have a condition that is really unaffordable without it.
Yes I realize this. I was more trying to say that I am horribly biased on this one part of the issue. The only real way for that part to get through is for it to be viable either through insurance (how the bill is now) or through a single payer system (how I would prefer it). Anything else results in what you have already said.
There is at least one part of this bill that, being a diabetic and a contractor, am hoping gets through. That is that the pre-existing condition exclusions that insurance companies do. Because of how much of a difference it would mean for me personally it is almost impossible for me to not want it to pass. I guess, if possible, it would be nice to just have that part as a separate bill or something similar. Otherwise, having used the healthcare in England, I had really hoped that a single payer system could have been gotten through. I know that is almost impossible here in the US, but I can dream.
The pc port was actually pretty good, few bugs that bothered me, but one gigantic, huge, blaring flaw... It was really really really really super easy. It was the exact same gameplay as the PS2 version (which I also owned) but mouse+keyboard is so far superior to the console, that every single gun might as well have been "the golden gun" from goldeneye. I am serious, those super hard missions where you had to take out 900 guys and you had to try 1000 times on PS2 and still you just barely pass it after breaking a controller or two.. cakewalk when you can actually aim. The hellicopter mission, where you are taking passes on the mob base, with a tinfoil hellicopter... That mission was the bane of the ps2, finishing with more than 5% of the chopper health was a feat of god... On PC, 99% health was like oops, LOL I should not have made pizza rolls while playing that mission. It really opened my eyes to the common notion at the time that the gap was narrowing between console fps/3ps and PC, it was just not the case. Still isn't, because a controller will never (barring comprehensive design changes, and I am not sure motion control will ever quite cut it)have enough precision and reaction. It was really weird having a pretty nice port that was totally useless, and it really turned me off of the PS2 version, made it seem like "Nintendo hard" Hard because of gimped controlls not because of good design/creativity.
And what is sad is that GTA 2 / 1 were actually really good pc games. I actually really miss the multiplayer racing thing they had in GTA 2 before all the crazy console versions.
First Arkham Asylum. I had assumed that since it was a console game I should try using a game pad, and this usually solves the issues with console ports, but in this case it was far worse. In Asylum the usb pad I had (logitech w/two analog sticks) had the problem where pushing forward moved you back, back moved you forward. The only fix for this was messing with some cryptic config files. There was no way to set these parts of the controls within the game... Small problem but it made things very unpleasant.
:(
In Bioshock there specific keys that you couldn't map. In one case it was one I usually use for reload. It decided that was a permanent ui popup key.
These are the small things that can easily ruin really good games.
There are plenty of other awful examples. The Prince of Persia reboots have been mentioned (justly so) and I think the more recent installments in the Tomb Raider franchise also deserve a mention. Last Remnant is another good example; Square-Enix titles have never been particularly kindly treated on the PC anyway. Fire one of these up on even a top end PC with an Xbox controller plugged in and it's still very much apparent that you're playing the "second best" version of the game.
True that last remnant may have had a few quirks but if you compare it to the really buggy console versions you should be glad of how little broke in the pc version.
The recent AvP game looks and feels far better on the PC than on the consoles; the Predator is an over-complicated nightmare to control on any platform, but the PC version does work out somewhat less toxic.
True, but this game in general is awful. Just play AvP2 if you want an actual good game that works perfect on the pc. The alien controls in particular were awful in the one just released.
Actually Planetside did this. You leveled up by getting points you could allocate towards equipment types. So if you wanted to change your loadout so that you could drive a med vehicle that day rather than a tank, go ahead. I think there was a lag of 8 hours or something like that before you could do it again. It meant being able to use one character to do anything you wanted. There also was no loot to speak of. What this leads to is a game much more focused on the multiplayer aspect of an mmo. PVP was everything. I still haven't seen anything like it, though that may be changing soon.
Why is this modded Flamebait?
Hah hah, marking the question about flamebait as flamebait. Maybe I should ask why this is marked funny?
Its about having control. If Blizzard used Steam and they needed a change to be made for their use they'd have to get the okay from Valve to make the change, then Valve would have to do it for them.
True enough, but the pc gaming world needs something like steam to be used by everyone. It would only help get more people to play pc games along with getting more developers to make them.
Why is this modded Flamebait?
Yeah, I was trying to be funny. It seems flitty below me got modded up whereas mine got modded down? That doesn't exactly seem quite fair....
Check out PlanetSide.
Rewards skill, tactics, strategy and cooperation rather than having no life and money to spend on sweatshop gold. Old and new players can compete against each other fairly due to the shallow power curve.
If you are into FPS games that is. There is also Global Agenda which looks to have a lot of what planetside has but be a bit more up to date in graphics / technology.
I wonder if they should change it's name then, instead of Bnet maybe they can call it "Condensation". (And before anyone claims otherwise, remember Steam was orginially exactly what the summary described Bnet as becoming.)
Well, while I don't see myself getting any of the games discussed (at least not till they've been out for a good bit) it'll be interesting to see if Blizzard has the chops to go toe to toe with Valve with a Steam-a-like.
It's just too bad that Blizzard's misteps with DMCA trials have left a bad enough taste in my mouth that I'm not interested in cheering them on this time.
I had the same reaction. If I'm going to get an im client I'll use one that works on all my games (steam) not just 2-5 games (Blizzard). I guess competition is good, but the pc game market does not need this kind of competition right now. I would really like to just buy sc2 from steam rather than do the whole bnet. Ah well...
Wow. Just... wow.
Actually, it is Wow, SC2, and Diablo 3. If it was just Wow then there wouldn't be as much in this article ;-).
Just what every SC player has been waiting for.
I like that they are doing this but I sometimes wish that more people would reuse existing im software so that you can do this more often. I really am talking about steam in this case. You can already chat while in game to anyone on your steam friends list. Having a separate im client for just blizzard games seems silly to me. I'd much rather just load it up in steam and use that. Apparently rebuilding the wheel every time it is needed looks like a good thing to some developers.
If done right, almost any FPS should be portable from console to PC, and be FAR better on PC. (Mouse + keyboard is a superior control mechanism for FPS games.)
Most RPGs aren't too bad either, especially if you plug in a joypad to the PC.
Of course, frequently ports are NOT done right - the PC port of Final Fantasy VII is a notorious example of a port being done so lazily as to break compatibility very rapidly within about a generation of hardware releases. Nowadays it's often easier to get the PSX version running in an emulator than to get the PC port working.
Even after you just use these game types you still end up with far too many good games that you can't change the controls. The most recent example of this is the pc version of Arkham Asylum (batman game). A standard usb analog stick logitech pad messes up and has the up be down, down be up. And there is no way to fix it. Every pc game should either have customizable controls or tested well enough so they know that all devices are going to work with it. Sigh...
Whereas on the other hand I find steam to be very helpful. I have used it to re-download games several times because of box switching / etc. It also is usually cheaper, has less hassle with discs, and easier to update too. I admit there isn't any kind of resale market because of this, but on the other hand there are lots of discount deals that steam does which end up being cheaper than most used copies would be. If I have to have drm on a pc game, which nowadays is usually a yes, I'd much prefer the flexibility of steam over the install x times or keep disc in tray nonsense that you do with physical copies. It also makes it very easy to find and get neat indie games that might not get published otherwise. The same is happening on xbox live/psn store so it looks like this will only increase.
I know it isn't electronic, but if you like M.U.L.E. then you should check out planet steam: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/23094 which is a board game very similar to MULE gameplay.
I'm curious if the old mobile apps (iPhone, BBerry, etc) are going to continue to work. If so then there is at least one way to get around this cap.
This is actually how I found my fiance. There are actually quite a bit of nerdy/geeky girls that hang out at board game clubs. If not euro style then there are plenty that meet for more american style board games. Meetup.com is also great in this arena.
You get one of the numerous readers because of the screen and the battery life, not because of the multiple things it can do. I like having something I can leave on and not have to plug in for 2 weeks, it is very handy as far as reading goes. Something that I would need to plug in anytime I wanted to read in order to make sure it didn't die is not something I'm going to use for regular reading purposes.
1. WordStar/WordPerfect/Word 2. Visicalc/SuperCalc/123/Multiplan-Excel 3. AutoCad 4. dBase/Oracle7/MySQL 5. Duke Nukem/Wolfenstein 3D/Quake 6. Zelda.....WoW....etc with a branch to Second Life 7. Mozilla/Apache/Tomcat/II6 ad naseum 8. C/Java/php (note the absence of VB) 9. Napster/xTorrent/Amazon/iTunes/eBay/and other Business Distribution online apps 10. McAfee/Norton/AVG/etc.
Ten is too short a number for categories, but these IMHO all started billion dollar industry segments
I like this list but I still think that some mention of a good quality text editor should be in there. I was thinking VI/EMACS/Visual Studio/etc. Essentially the tools that helped create all these great apps.
I had something similar happen with one of my bank accounts. I had set up a new loan for a car with the same company that I had my other loan through. The only change was that I had set up this second account to auto-bill a different bank account. I then discover that they had decided to auto-bill the first account at the same time as the first. This led to a significant negative balance (because it normally had just enough at the beginning of each month to pay said bill). It took several hours and calls to both the bank and the loan company before things were fixed. It is very difficult to get money back when the people involved say that nothing is wrong.
Atlanta is actually one of the better places to live either in downtown or close enough. There is fairly decent public transport for anywhere within the city. There are certainly areas that are a bit less safe, but I wouldn't say it is a majority there. Having moved recently out of state I really do miss the good public transport from Atlanta. I can easily see the public transport not being decent there for someone living out in the suburbs but that is partly due to the individual counties not wanting to be on board. I definitely think a larger portion of the population would use the train if it went farther into Cobb or Gwinnette.
I agree. If they are going to show iPhone usage (.5% or so) then why don't they show blackberry, simian, and other phone os's? There are certainly enough to match what iPhone started at in this chart.
Flash sucks bad enough on actual computers. I really can't see what it offers that a powerful computer hooked up to your TV can't.
This may seem reasonable, but then you talk to most people and hooking a computer to a tv is some mystical act. People just don't treat the tv as a display device in most cases. This is why consoles still do so well. Once there are enough homes with tvs that can get direct links to pcs this may change, but that won't be for a couple of years at least.
by providing some sort of prevention, could this research help with autoimmune diseases like type 1 diabeties?
The article did just that with the mice. They implanted insulin producing islet cells for the test.