Blizzard (over)charges US$60 for their new game, disallows LAN play, cuts off their player base (Seriously? Get caught cheating in SC2 and you're not allowed to play anymore? In single player?), can't deliver new product (what part of this, exactly, isn't just a rehash of the existing franchise, with newer graphics?), 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... but the current RTS market? Even for a huge franchise (but now shrinking, due to Blizzard's slipshod handling of this latest entry), a map editor is less of a "wow factor" than an obvious and expected component in an RTS. No map editor? Multiplayer lasts for a few months, then stops. Without new maps, your game lasts only as long as you are actively (and expensively) promoting it. Duh.
in lieu of announcements about Heart of the Swarm, the devs are using Blizzcon to showcase the map-editing tools
Right... Call me when they have something worth looking at, because as far as I can tell, StarCraft2 isn't.
Oracle can license or buy the Apple Swing implementation outright and sign a strict NDA as part of the deal, with only 2-3 Oracle developers actually privy to that source code. It doesn't even need to be open sources, as Oracle could release a closed-source JDK for OS X. What exactly is the problem here?
Ok, so instead of having someone pay you for the privilege of having your product on their platform, now you should pay them for the privilege of having your product on their platform?
Sorry, that's not how licensing is supposed to work. I say let Apple sleep in the bed it's making, and see if anyone who actually matters even notices.
Aha! Now this move makes a whole lot more sense. No need for java if your platform isn't a computer...
Wait. What about all those art people, who use Macs for making pictures, music, and movies? They won't be allowed to manipulate their software anymore? I mean, if it's an appliance, rather than a computer...
Yes, I see your point, I just don't think that's anything like the whole story. Hollywood runs on Macs - how many non-Apple computers have you seen in recent movies? How many that looked like they were manufactured within the last decade (or even two)? Hollywood is pretty sure that Macs are the only thing qualified to be a "computer", these days - that's not a captive audience, nor is it an insignificant portion of the userbase.
Ignoring the free advertising would be ridiculous, too... and even if every macbook in the movies is given to the set by Apple (instead of being purchased like everything else), that's some really inexpensive marketing costs.
So why would the eclipse maintainers switch to a version of Java that stops people running on the Mac?
Uhm... so that the other 80%+ of their userbase doesn't stop using their product because it's out of date? Just a guess, but I doubt anyone is going to freeze their codebase just because Apple is throwing a hissy fit.
Seems far more likely that any java developers will simply ignore Apple's platform, and develop for more developer-friendly ones (where their app's viability will be determined more by "does it do what the tin says" than "will Apple let it into their walled garden". I honestly don't know that this will be a bad thing; I would assume that Apple thought this through carefully before doing the press release.
My gut feeling, of course, is that Java on the iOS platform will die a horrible death, outraging developers and users simultaneously.
"Which language should I learn?" will probably not be answered with "Java" as frequently in the past.
Quite possibly true. It's a shame about all those recent CS grads who only learned Java, but no one said you can win on the easy ticket, just that it was easy.
Interestingly enough, Java wants to update on this Windows machine as we speak... wonder if this is the "Apple can go suck eggs" update, or if that will be the next one...?
To play advocate of the devil here, since I care less about either Apple nor Java, isn't the side effect that Apple's competition in the phones world got a boot from the platform that is owned by the owners of iPhone? I do not know what the implications are on the longer term but on the short term it causes their competition to spend time setting up new development environments, and diminished looking over the shoulders into the Apple technical world as developers are not going to keep up with that if they can't work from that platform anyway.
Maybe it would help if you rewrote that in English.
You're probably 100% correct, that does read as if it was written by someone for whom English is not a first language (or even a second language; it looks very much like a babelfish translation).
I think what the GP is saying is that this could be an anti-competitive move by Apple, in an attempt to both get a 'competing platform' (Java) off of the iPhone, and keep rival developers from easily working out Apple's technical details.
I'm not entirely sure that I'm accurate in thinking that, but I'm not sure how much of that is due to my personal feeling that Apple is shooting themselves in the foot by removing cross-platform compatibility. I could very easily see this as an attempt to remove a competitor, but I keep thinking there must be a deeper motive... I'm absolutely certain that anything we can crowd-source here must have been the subject of a heated debate in a boardroom somewhere in the bowels of Apple HQ, so there must have been a darn good reason to push this through.
Then again, maybe Mr. Jobs is psychotic, and has just arbitrarily decided there are too many developers for Apple's platform; this would translate directly to "we have too many users". Not necessarily a completely crazy viewpoint, as we have all seen companies that folded because they couldn't keep up with demand, and Apple has enjoyed explosive growth for the past few years.
What keeps nagging at the back of my mind is that no other third-party platform has Sun developing a Java Virtual Machine for it; every other JVM implementation has been licensed and developed by a third party. This could just as easily turn out to be an attempt by Apple to strong-arm Oracle into doing the grunt work for them.
Regardless of the reasons behind the decision, telling a large number of developers that you don't want them on your platform is probably the fastest method of removing large portions of your userbase, as when you remove support for a language, you remove access to all of the applications written in it. This may even cause some legal troubles, as many developers who have paid licensing fees to write apps for iOS just had their products "deprecated", too.
Sharpie markers can be used to "enable piracy". Should we ban Sharpies? Sony has been freaking out over ridiculous stuff for years, and it's high time they get punched in the mouth for it (figuratively speaking, of course).
As for "OtherOS" enabling piracy, it wasn't until after it was removed that the various hacker groups really started trying to crack the PS3.
I blame Sony for everything they have done, whether it was "in reaction to those hackers", or just their own dim-witted execs trying to come up with ways to steal more money from their customers.
When are consumers going to learn? Sony has a long track record of screwing their customers... When Amazon ganked books from the Kindle, there was a public outcry. When Blizzard starts banning people from single-player mode for using cheats in single-player mode, there is an outcry. When Sony fucks their customer base over and over again, some stupid Sony apologist comes out and says "What did you expect?" I agree; What did we expect? Sony has proven over and over again that they cannot be trusted, that they cannot be ethical, and that they do not deserve our money.
And yet morons like you continue to hand it to them. I hope you like how far they're bending you over, and I hope you like the treatment you receive for trying to use one of their products (regardless of whether it's the "intended use"). (Side note: The warranty disclaims that there even is an "intended use".)
For myself, I just refuse to knowingly give them any money. I don't buy DVD movies anymore, in case Sony has their fingers in the producing company. I don't buy CD audio anymore, because I don't want to wonder if I'm going to be infected by the "DRM" on the disk. I don't buy Sony electronics products, because I can't trust them to perform as advertised - and even if they do what they're supposed to today, Sony has proven that their products may not operate that way tomorrow.
I would cheerfully watch Sony go down in flames. I hope their executives starve.
Disclaimer: I am not advocating violence against anyone, merely enraged that Sony still exists, after all the legal shenanigans they have pulled. I might actually be persuaded to knowingly piss on a Sony executive, were he or she actually and visibly on fire.
Ford wouldn't have sued you for modifying the rims. He would have sued you for purchasing third party rims whose sole reason for existence is modifying one of his cars.
Logic and reality failure.
Car manufacturers don't sue you for purchasing aftermarket modifications, nor do they sue the parts suppliers for those modifications. They may not honor your warranty if you modify your car with aftermarket parts, and your insurance company won't insure aftermarket modifications, but they don't sue you for doing silly things to your car.
Now, if you were leasing the car, I could see an issue... but this is a purchased product. Similarly, when you run down to the store and purchase a game console, it belongs to you.
They also own YOU, and don't have any qualms about taking you to court to prove it.
You're obviously ok with that, and that's your choice to make. The rest of us think it's stupid to respond to someone spitting in your face by saying "Thank you, please keep making the gear that my livelihood depends on."
Sounds like a plan, except I don't watch "broadcast programming" to start with. Perhaps those of you who decide to *completely* stop supporting Sony should write letters to the TV stations and TV shows that you care for/about, and let them know of your decision - which includes boycotting TV because they use Sony products to produce it.
Send letters to advertisers whose commercials you see on those shows, as well, telling them the same thing.
Hit the middlemen (the TV producers) in the pocketbook for their equipment manufacturers' misdeeds...
Ok, yeah, I'm going over the top with this. However, at what point do we stop letting the major corporations step all over us, and start stepping back? What is the best method for getting this ridiculous kind of behavior stopped?
Not actually expecting an answer, just trying to jump-start some of those brains.
You'd have a point if Blizzard wasn't making truck loads of money.
... right this second? Sure.
In another couple months, when they've disconnected and shut down all their users for cheating in single-player mode? Hmm... Might not be such a good idea for them to have all this negative publicity at the same time as they're losing players in droves over the Cataclysm gameplay changes.
To get back on topic, I don't own a PS3, but if I did, I would have sued Sony for false advertisement and fraud when they removed the ability to run OtherOS on it (it was an advertised feature, thank you very much); stopping me from purchasing whatever this hardware addon is just more of the same, expected behavior from Sony, which is why I haven't knowingly purchased a Sony product in years (ever since they showed how ethical their company wasn't by installing rootkits on PCs by using virus-like methods on audio CDs).
Sony simply hasn't given me any reason to trust them at all, while showing me constantly that I shouldn't trust them. Easy decision, there; They don't get my money.
I purchased all the original Warcraft series - still have most of the disks.
I purchased the original Diablo several times. Still have two sets of disks.
I have multiple copies of Starcraft/Broodwar.
I have been an avid WoW player.
I will not be purchasing any more Blizzard games.
I will be telling all my friends to avoid Blizzard games.
This is the final straw, Blizzard.
If the draconian crap that goes on in the software industry nowadays was going on "back in the day", some truly awesome "hacks" would never have been created. Hellfire, the Diablo "expansion", for instance, was actually produced by Sierra, not Blizzard. Counterstrike was originally a (rather extensive) modification of Halflife. Punishing creative people who fill the niche market left by holes in the product is stupid, self-destructive, and hurts the entire industry.
This is just another example of how copyrights and software patents are broken, stifling creativity and competition. EULA's are obviously just a way to take your money without delivering anything in return.
Shame on you, Blizzard, for helping to kill your primary source of income. I hope you're happy.
Postscript: I hope the pirates win. I didn't feel that way previously, but I'm tired of seeing increasing prices for decreasing quality, along with the ridiculous legal battles tying up our court system for the benefit of no one.
Today, Blizzard joined the likes of the RIAA and MPAA in my mind. I hope they starve.
Well, unlike C/C++, reading python code doesn't make me go cross-eyed inside 3 minutes. I'm not sure it's going to accelerate things development-wise, but it might just make the compiled code run faster.
As a side note, python's "indentation thing" is something that is already part of my "coding style", so I'm adapting relatively quickly to that - I've read commentary from others that suggests that the indentation is a big hurdle to learning python, and if that's the toughest bit, then I've got this one in the bag.
Thanks again for the tip, I think it's going to be extremely helpful.
Now, if I can just find a decent IDE... MSFT has apparently crippled my agility with their VB.
1) Editing: Have you read any recent books? Between word usage, entire sentences cut off, and flat basic gammar errors many newer novels don't appear to have anything beyond the basic spell check run, if that. Add that to the mistakes added on purpose to "detect illicit copies" and it's painful to read some books. Not just small publishers either - larger houses such as Tor have this problem.
Gods, yes. I don't recall which book it was, but one of the stories I read recently had the phrase "its soft pedals giving off a gentle fragrance", or some such, and it knocked my suspension of disbelief completely out of the story. It was like hitting an unexpected speed-bump while doing 45mph.
No offense intended - I was actually amused by this particular homophonetic faux pas, and nearly modded it funny, but decided the correction would be of greater common good.
I must admit, zombies reeking havoc was an amusing mental image.
The problem here is that hotels, especially those with wifi have no method of determining which room is actually talking on a wifi router at any given time, without issuing individual passwords for each user, perhaps each device. Big chains may have that, but most small ones hang a router on each floor and call it good.
Actually, some hotels do issue passwords, in the form of having to enter your username (room number) and password (last name of guest in that room) before allowing access.
I love how people pull out the stuff they want to respond to, while ignoring the sentences on either side.
For instance, you pulled out the line
Dunno how much you know about generators, but this one is small enough for a single person to lift, unaided.
and responded to it with
If cars could be powered with such small internal combustion engines, we would be powering cars with small internal combustion engines. Instead, we power riding lawnmowers with such small internal combustion engines.
while completely ignoring my next sentence, where I said
If it doesn't make enough power to move a car, get one that is.
Yeah, ok, that was a grammar fail. The sentence changed structure in mid-thought, and I didn't fix it. I am completely aware that it should have read "If it doesn't make anough power to move a car, get one that does," or perhaps "If it isn't big enough to move a car, get one that is." Shouldn't have kept anyone with a reasonable amount of intelligence from parsing it, though.
Allow me to reiterate: I may not know much about electricity, and I may not know much in the field of watts and horsepower and amps and all that; I haven't needed to, so I didn't pick it up...
But I can figure out that if your hammer isn't big enough, you get a bigger one.
You remain a douche bag.
And you're still a punk. More because you refuse to argue the correct points, but also because we're not even on separate pages and you won't recognize it. More than one person can be right, you know. I get the feeling that if we were standing on a hill, looking down at some horses, you'd argue with me something like this:
Me: There are four horses down there. You: They're brown, you idiot. Brown mammals. Me: Yes, and there are four of them. You: But they're brown, don't you get it? What's wrong with you, are you blind?
..this includes that voodoo "electrical energy" you keep referring to.
Even the experts have a difficult time agreeing on what "electricity" is. That word is used to refer to a variety of phenomena, with the only thing most of them have in common being that, in general, they're all describing stuff that will shock you if you touch it.
Did you drop out of school?
As a matter of fact, yes. I dropped out of school. Not the brightest thing I've ever done, I'll admit. I already stated I'm not an electrical engineer. I guess I should have gone further, and stated that I'm not a mechanical engineer, either, nor am I any kind of rocket surgeon.
I still believe that enough energy to power a house (not just lights, but window-unit air conditioners, a refrigerator, washer and dryer, the whole shebang) should be enough energy to power a car. And if it's not, get a bigger generator. Dunno how much you know about generators, but this one is small enough for a single person to lift, unaided. If it doesn't make enough power to move a car, get one that is. I'm not a car manufacturer, either.
I do, however, know that "diesel" trains are actually electric, and the diesel portion is a generator. Trains weigh thousands of tons, (just the locomotive itself is over a hundred tons, nevermind the hundreds of cars they pull) and they seem to move just fine. My concept is sound, even if my math is off, or I'm uninformed in other ways.
Ya know, I came here with this post to see if I could get some help with a programming project. Not even asking for a *lot* of help - I've got the basics down, I'd just like to cut the time down to a finished product.
I've been accused of money-grubbing, despite the fact that I've said the project will be open source once I ensure my name is attached to it. Yeah, sure, I want my 15 minutes of fame, who doesn't? As for money, I'm broke. I'm unemployed. I'm about to go down to the fast food places to get a job so that I can make sure my family has food on the table and a roof over their heads. In short, I don't have any. On the other hand, I'm not trying to get yours.
I've been accused of trying to get people to do the grunt work on my project for free. I thought open-source was all about free, both beer and speech? Besides, that's what the topic is, unless I misread the "summary" at the top of the page.
I've been told I know nothing about what I'm talking about. I never claimed to - I came right out and said I'm no math wiz, nor am I a programming genius. I took algebra 2 twice, and never passed geometry. I dropped out of high school and got my GED when I was 16.
I've been accused of trying to circumvent RSA with nothing but "VB and naivete". I'm not doing anything of the sort; encryption and I aren't really friends, I can never seem to remember the passwords, so I don't encrypt much. Due to that lack of interest and not using it myself, I don't see any point in trying to circumvent it, either. I'll leave that to the people who have an interest and/or aptitude for such things.
I'm not a well-rounded coder. I'm not a computer science graduate. I dropped out of college because I "knew more than the professor" who was teaching the course, and it didn't occur to me until much later that the internet is a poor substitute for structured learning. Shame on me. Yeah, I could probably fix that lack, but I'm a bit too old to be gallivanting around with all those kids who are interested in either drinkig or getting laid, and I can't help with either of those things. Besides, that takes money.
However: I'm using VB because it's what I'm most familiar with, not because I think it's the language of choice. With.NET I can port it to C# and then from there it can turn into actual C/C++ - except I have a mental block for C syntax, for some reason. I screw up 'hello world' in C.
I can do all kinds of things in BASIC, QBASIC, Visual BASIC... I started on a TI 99/4a nearly 25 years ago, and TI-BASIC was what I burned into my brain. After that, I discovered IBM-compatible PCs and bulletin boards, and my life's path was pretty much set from there.
I may suck at efficient, high-level programming, but everything I know I taught myself. I taught myself computer repair (with some help from a friend who had some spare hardware). I taught myself networking, and I taught myself server and workstation operating systems well enough to get a Microsoft certification I taught myself well enough to have had a good job with a good company, as a network administrator for several hundred municipalities throughout 3 states. I kept that job for 4 years, and when I put in my 30-days' notice, it took them 90 days to find someone to replace me.
I taught myself practically everything I know about computers. Books have been good friends to me for my entire life. I'm not the best at anything, and there are huge holes in my knowledge where I didn't see anything that interested me, but I've been an avid hobbyist and enthusiast of computers since I was a kid... and I'm starting to get old now. Starting to *feel* old, too.
With the results I've gotten so far, with my "VB and naivete", I'd dearly love to see what someone who actually knows what they are doing could do with my concepts and algorithms. If my theories are correct, I can do something several times better than anybody else has so far. No, I'm not going to tell you what that something is yet, because
Ok, you made me actually go out to the garage and look. It's a 6250 watt Coleman Powermate. It ran a house, I'm pretty sure it could run [an electric] car. Now shove off.
So you are apparently arguing that a generator that can produce at most 2 horsepower could run a car for many hours on only a few gallon of gasoline? Your typical modern 4 cylinder internal combustion engine produces 90000 watts of power.
Your typical modern 4 cylinder internal combustion engine produces no electrical energy.
Besides, the "power" I was referring to was "electricity", you pedantic punk.
What part of "electricity", "electric motor", and "I'm referring to electrical power" do you not understand? If you actually do understand, can you please tell me where the horses factor in?
Slashdot Mirror
Blizzard (over)charges US$60 for their new game, disallows LAN play, cuts off their player base (Seriously? Get caught cheating in SC2 and you're not allowed to play anymore? In single player?), can't deliver new product (what part of this, exactly, isn't just a rehash of the existing franchise, with newer graphics?), 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... but the current RTS market? Even for a huge franchise (but now shrinking, due to Blizzard's slipshod handling of this latest entry), a map editor is less of a "wow factor" than an obvious and expected component in an RTS. No map editor? Multiplayer lasts for a few months, then stops. Without new maps, your game lasts only as long as you are actively (and expensively) promoting it. Duh.
in lieu of announcements about Heart of the Swarm, the devs are using Blizzcon to showcase the map-editing tools
Right... Call me when they have something worth looking at, because as far as I can tell, StarCraft2 isn't.
Oracle can license or buy the Apple Swing implementation outright and sign a strict NDA as part of the deal, with only 2-3 Oracle developers actually privy to that source code. It doesn't even need to be open sources, as Oracle could release a closed-source JDK for OS X. What exactly is the problem here?
Ok, so instead of having someone pay you for the privilege of having your product on their platform, now you should pay them for the privilege of having your product on their platform?
Sorry, that's not how licensing is supposed to work. I say let Apple sleep in the bed it's making, and see if anyone who actually matters even notices.
Aha! Now this move makes a whole lot more sense. No need for java if your platform isn't a computer...
Wait. What about all those art people, who use Macs for making pictures, music, and movies? They won't be allowed to manipulate their software anymore? I mean, if it's an appliance, rather than a computer...
Yes, I see your point, I just don't think that's anything like the whole story. Hollywood runs on Macs - how many non-Apple computers have you seen in recent movies? How many that looked like they were manufactured within the last decade (or even two)? Hollywood is pretty sure that Macs are the only thing qualified to be a "computer", these days - that's not a captive audience, nor is it an insignificant portion of the userbase.
Ignoring the free advertising would be ridiculous, too... and even if every macbook in the movies is given to the set by Apple (instead of being purchased like everything else), that's some really inexpensive marketing costs.
So why would the eclipse maintainers switch to a version of Java that stops people running on the Mac?
Uhm... so that the other 80%+ of their userbase doesn't stop using their product because it's out of date?
Just a guess, but I doubt anyone is going to freeze their codebase just because Apple is throwing a hissy fit.
Seems far more likely that any java developers will simply ignore Apple's platform, and develop for more developer-friendly ones (where their app's viability will be determined more by "does it do what the tin says" than "will Apple let it into their walled garden". I honestly don't know that this will be a bad thing; I would assume that Apple thought this through carefully before doing the press release.
My gut feeling, of course, is that Java on the iOS platform will die a horrible death, outraging developers and users simultaneously.
"Which language should I learn?" will probably not be answered with "Java" as frequently in the past.
Quite possibly true. It's a shame about all those recent CS grads who only learned Java, but no one said you can win on the easy ticket, just that it was easy.
Interestingly enough, Java wants to update on this Windows machine as we speak... wonder if this is the "Apple can go suck eggs" update, or if that will be the next one...?
To play advocate of the devil here, since I care less about either Apple nor Java, isn't the side effect that Apple's competition in the phones world got a boot from the platform that is owned by the owners of iPhone?
I do not know what the implications are on the longer term but on the short term it causes their competition to spend time setting up new development environments, and diminished looking over the shoulders into the Apple technical world as developers are not going to keep up with that if they can't work from that platform anyway.
Maybe it would help if you rewrote that in English.
You're probably 100% correct, that does read as if it was written by someone for whom English is not a first language (or even a second language; it looks very much like a babelfish translation).
I think what the GP is saying is that this could be an anti-competitive move by Apple, in an attempt to both get a 'competing platform' (Java) off of the iPhone, and keep rival developers from easily working out Apple's technical details.
I'm not entirely sure that I'm accurate in thinking that, but I'm not sure how much of that is due to my personal feeling that Apple is shooting themselves in the foot by removing cross-platform compatibility. I could very easily see this as an attempt to remove a competitor, but I keep thinking there must be a deeper motive... I'm absolutely certain that anything we can crowd-source here must have been the subject of a heated debate in a boardroom somewhere in the bowels of Apple HQ, so there must have been a darn good reason to push this through.
Then again, maybe Mr. Jobs is psychotic, and has just arbitrarily decided there are too many developers for Apple's platform; this would translate directly to "we have too many users". Not necessarily a completely crazy viewpoint, as we have all seen companies that folded because they couldn't keep up with demand, and Apple has enjoyed explosive growth for the past few years.
What keeps nagging at the back of my mind is that no other third-party platform has Sun developing a Java Virtual Machine for it; every other JVM implementation has been licensed and developed by a third party. This could just as easily turn out to be an attempt by Apple to strong-arm Oracle into doing the grunt work for them.
Regardless of the reasons behind the decision, telling a large number of developers that you don't want them on your platform is probably the fastest method of removing large portions of your userbase, as when you remove support for a language, you remove access to all of the applications written in it. This may even cause some legal troubles, as many developers who have paid licensing fees to write apps for iOS just had their products "deprecated", too.
Sharpie markers can be used to "enable piracy".
Should we ban Sharpies? Sony has been freaking out over ridiculous stuff for years, and it's high time they get punched in the mouth for it (figuratively speaking, of course).
As for "OtherOS" enabling piracy, it wasn't until after it was removed that the various hacker groups really started trying to crack the PS3.
I blame Sony for everything they have done, whether it was "in reaction to those hackers", or just their own dim-witted execs trying to come up with ways to steal more money from their customers.
When are consumers going to learn? Sony has a long track record of screwing their customers... When Amazon ganked books from the Kindle, there was a public outcry. When Blizzard starts banning people from single-player mode for using cheats in single-player mode, there is an outcry. When Sony fucks their customer base over and over again, some stupid Sony apologist comes out and says "What did you expect?" I agree; What did we expect? Sony has proven over and over again that they cannot be trusted, that they cannot be ethical, and that they do not deserve our money.
And yet morons like you continue to hand it to them. I hope you like how far they're bending you over, and I hope you like the treatment you receive for trying to use one of their products (regardless of whether it's the "intended use").
(Side note: The warranty disclaims that there even is an "intended use".)
For myself, I just refuse to knowingly give them any money. I don't buy DVD movies anymore, in case Sony has their fingers in the producing company. I don't buy CD audio anymore, because I don't want to wonder if I'm going to be infected by the "DRM" on the disk. I don't buy Sony electronics products, because I can't trust them to perform as advertised - and even if they do what they're supposed to today, Sony has proven that their products may not operate that way tomorrow.
I would cheerfully watch Sony go down in flames. I hope their executives starve.
Disclaimer: I am not advocating violence against anyone, merely enraged that Sony still exists, after all the legal shenanigans they have pulled. I might actually be persuaded to knowingly piss on a Sony executive, were he or she actually and visibly on fire.
Ford wouldn't have sued you for modifying the rims. He would have sued you for purchasing third party rims whose sole reason for existence is modifying one of his cars.
Logic and reality failure.
Car manufacturers don't sue you for purchasing aftermarket modifications, nor do they sue the parts suppliers for those modifications. They may not honor your warranty if you modify your car with aftermarket parts, and your insurance company won't insure aftermarket modifications, but they don't sue you for doing silly things to your car.
Now, if you were leasing the car, I could see an issue... but this is a purchased product.
Similarly, when you run down to the store and purchase a game console, it belongs to you.
They also own YOU, and don't have any qualms about taking you to court to prove it.
You're obviously ok with that, and that's your choice to make. The rest of us think it's stupid to respond to someone spitting in your face by saying "Thank you, please keep making the gear that my livelihood depends on."
Sounds like a plan, except I don't watch "broadcast programming" to start with. Perhaps those of you who decide to *completely* stop supporting Sony should write letters to the TV stations and TV shows that you care for/about, and let them know of your decision - which includes boycotting TV because they use Sony products to produce it.
Send letters to advertisers whose commercials you see on those shows, as well, telling them the same thing.
Hit the middlemen (the TV producers) in the pocketbook for their equipment manufacturers' misdeeds...
Ok, yeah, I'm going over the top with this. However, at what point do we stop letting the major corporations step all over us, and start stepping back? What is the best method for getting this ridiculous kind of behavior stopped?
Not actually expecting an answer, just trying to jump-start some of those brains.
You'd have a point if Blizzard wasn't making truck loads of money.
... right this second? Sure.
In another couple months, when they've disconnected and shut down all their users for cheating in single-player mode? Hmm... Might not be such a good idea for them to have all this negative publicity at the same time as they're losing players in droves over the Cataclysm gameplay changes.
To get back on topic, I don't own a PS3, but if I did, I would have sued Sony for false advertisement and fraud when they removed the ability to run OtherOS on it (it was an advertised feature, thank you very much); stopping me from purchasing whatever this hardware addon is just more of the same, expected behavior from Sony, which is why I haven't knowingly purchased a Sony product in years (ever since they showed how ethical their company wasn't by installing rootkits on PCs by using virus-like methods on audio CDs).
Sony simply hasn't given me any reason to trust them at all, while showing me constantly that I shouldn't trust them.
Easy decision, there; They don't get my money.
I purchased all the original Warcraft series - still have most of the disks.
I purchased the original Diablo several times. Still have two sets of disks.
I have multiple copies of Starcraft/Broodwar.
I have been an avid WoW player.
I will not be purchasing any more Blizzard games.
I will be telling all my friends to avoid Blizzard games.
This is the final straw, Blizzard.
If the draconian crap that goes on in the software industry nowadays was going on "back in the day", some truly awesome "hacks" would never have been created. Hellfire, the Diablo "expansion", for instance, was actually produced by Sierra, not Blizzard. Counterstrike was originally a (rather extensive) modification of Halflife. Punishing creative people who fill the niche market left by holes in the product is stupid, self-destructive, and hurts the entire industry.
This is just another example of how copyrights and software patents are broken, stifling creativity and competition. EULA's are obviously just a way to take your money without delivering anything in return.
Shame on you, Blizzard, for helping to kill your primary source of income. I hope you're happy.
Postscript:
I hope the pirates win. I didn't feel that way previously, but I'm tired of seeing increasing prices for decreasing quality, along with the ridiculous legal battles tying up our court system for the benefit of no one.
Today, Blizzard joined the likes of the RIAA and MPAA in my mind. I hope they starve.
Well, unlike C/C++, reading python code doesn't make me go cross-eyed inside 3 minutes. I'm not sure it's going to accelerate things development-wise, but it might just make the compiled code run faster.
As a side note, python's "indentation thing" is something that is already part of my "coding style", so I'm adapting relatively quickly to that - I've read commentary from others that suggests that the indentation is a big hurdle to learning python, and if that's the toughest bit, then I've got this one in the bag.
Thanks again for the tip, I think it's going to be extremely helpful.
Now, if I can just find a decent IDE... MSFT has apparently crippled my agility with their VB.
1) Editing: Have you read any recent books? Between word usage, entire sentences cut off, and flat basic gammar errors many newer novels don't appear to have anything beyond the basic spell check run, if that. Add that to the mistakes added on purpose to "detect illicit copies" and it's painful to read some books. Not just small publishers either - larger houses such as Tor have this problem.
Gods, yes. I don't recall which book it was, but one of the stories I read recently had the phrase "its soft pedals giving off a gentle fragrance", or some such, and it knocked my suspension of disbelief completely out of the story. It was like hitting an unexpected speed-bump while doing 45mph.
Oh, and fixed that for you. Giggle.
To write a book you need a pen and paper (or a pc and printer).
Actually, this article is about how the printer bit is apparently unnecessary, too...
"Five times during the cold war, dead people almost turned into zombies and wreaked havoc. But fortunately, they stayed dead."
FTFY.
For your future grammatical adventures, allow me to point out the difference between
No offense intended - I was actually amused by this particular homophonetic faux pas, and nearly modded it funny, but decided the correction would be of greater common good.
I must admit, zombies reeking havoc was an amusing mental image.
Thank you for an informative post.
The problem here is that hotels, especially those with wifi have no method of determining which room is actually talking on a wifi router at any given time, without issuing individual passwords for each user, perhaps each device. Big chains may have that, but most small ones hang a router on each floor and call it good.
Actually, some hotels do issue passwords, in the form of having to enter your username (room number) and password (last name of guest in that room) before allowing access.
I love how people pull out the stuff they want to respond to, while ignoring the sentences on either side.
For instance, you pulled out the line
Dunno how much you know about generators, but this one is small enough for a single person to lift, unaided.
and responded to it with
If cars could be powered with such small internal combustion engines, we would be powering cars with small internal combustion engines. Instead, we power riding lawnmowers with such small internal combustion engines.
while completely ignoring my next sentence, where I said
If it doesn't make enough power to move a car, get one that is.
Yeah, ok, that was a grammar fail. The sentence changed structure in mid-thought, and I didn't fix it. I am completely aware that it should have read "If it doesn't make anough power to move a car, get one that does," or perhaps "If it isn't big enough to move a car, get one that is." Shouldn't have kept anyone with a reasonable amount of intelligence from parsing it, though.
Allow me to reiterate: I may not know much about electricity, and I may not know much in the field of watts and horsepower and amps and all that; I haven't needed to, so I didn't pick it up...
But I can figure out that if your hammer isn't big enough, you get a bigger one .
You remain a douche bag.
And you're still a punk. More because you refuse to argue the correct points, but also because we're not even on separate pages and you won't recognize it. More than one person can be right, you know. I get the feeling that if we were standing on a hill, looking down at some horses, you'd argue with me something like this:
Me: There are four horses down there.
You: They're brown, you idiot. Brown mammals.
Me: Yes, and there are four of them.
You: But they're brown, don't you get it? What's wrong with you, are you blind?
It doesn't ENCODE, that's for sure.
Yeah, realized that a few seconds after hitting "submit". Insert sheepish grin here.
..this includes that voodoo "electrical energy" you keep referring to.
Even the experts have a difficult time agreeing on what "electricity" is. That word is used to refer to a variety of phenomena, with the only thing most of them have in common being that, in general, they're all describing stuff that will shock you if you touch it.
Did you drop out of school?
As a matter of fact, yes. I dropped out of school. Not the brightest thing I've ever done, I'll admit.
I already stated I'm not an electrical engineer. I guess I should have gone further, and stated that I'm not a mechanical engineer, either, nor am I any kind of rocket surgeon.
I still believe that enough energy to power a house (not just lights, but window-unit air conditioners, a refrigerator, washer and dryer, the whole shebang) should be enough energy to power a car. And if it's not, get a bigger generator. Dunno how much you know about generators, but this one is small enough for a single person to lift, unaided. If it doesn't make enough power to move a car, get one that is.
I'm not a car manufacturer, either.
I do, however, know that "diesel" trains are actually electric, and the diesel portion is a generator. Trains weigh thousands of tons, (just the locomotive itself is over a hundred tons, nevermind the hundreds of cars they pull) and they seem to move just fine. My concept is sound, even if my math is off, or I'm uninformed in other ways.
Oh, and you're still a pedantic punk.
Ya know, I came here with this post to see if I could get some help with a programming project. Not even asking for a *lot* of help - I've got the basics down, I'd just like to cut the time down to a finished product.
I've been accused of money-grubbing, despite the fact that I've said the project will be open source once I ensure my name is attached to it. Yeah, sure, I want my 15 minutes of fame, who doesn't?
As for money, I'm broke. I'm unemployed. I'm about to go down to the fast food places to get a job so that I can make sure my family has food on the table and a roof over their heads. In short, I don't have any. On the other hand, I'm not trying to get yours.
I've been accused of trying to get people to do the grunt work on my project for free. I thought open-source was all about free, both beer and speech? Besides, that's what the topic is, unless I misread the "summary" at the top of the page.
I've been told I know nothing about what I'm talking about. I never claimed to - I came right out and said I'm no math wiz, nor am I a programming genius. I took algebra 2 twice, and never passed geometry. I dropped out of high school and got my GED when I was 16.
I've been accused of trying to circumvent RSA with nothing but "VB and naivete". I'm not doing anything of the sort; encryption and I aren't really friends, I can never seem to remember the passwords, so I don't encrypt much. Due to that lack of interest and not using it myself, I don't see any point in trying to circumvent it, either. I'll leave that to the people who have an interest and/or aptitude for such things.
I'm not a well-rounded coder.
I'm not a computer science graduate.
I dropped out of college because I "knew more than the professor" who was teaching the course, and it didn't occur to me until much later that the internet is a poor substitute for structured learning. Shame on me. Yeah, I could probably fix that lack, but I'm a bit too old to be gallivanting around with all those kids who are interested in either drinkig or getting laid, and I can't help with either of those things. Besides, that takes money.
However: .NET I can port it to C# and then from there it can turn into actual C/C++ - except I have a mental block for C syntax, for some reason. I screw up 'hello world' in C.
I'm using VB because it's what I'm most familiar with, not because I think it's the language of choice.
With
I can do all kinds of things in BASIC, QBASIC, Visual BASIC... I started on a TI 99/4a nearly 25 years ago, and TI-BASIC was what I burned into my brain. After that, I discovered IBM-compatible PCs and bulletin boards, and my life's path was pretty much set from there.
I may suck at efficient, high-level programming, but everything I know I taught myself.
I taught myself computer repair (with some help from a friend who had some spare hardware).
I taught myself networking, and I taught myself server and workstation operating systems well enough to get a Microsoft certification
I taught myself well enough to have had a good job with a good company, as a network administrator for several hundred municipalities throughout 3 states. I kept that job for 4 years, and when I put in my 30-days' notice, it took them 90 days to find someone to replace me.
I taught myself practically everything I know about computers. Books have been good friends to me for my entire life. I'm not the best at anything, and there are huge holes in my knowledge where I didn't see anything that interested me, but I've been an avid hobbyist and enthusiast of computers since I was a kid... and I'm starting to get old now. Starting to *feel* old, too.
With the results I've gotten so far, with my "VB and naivete", I'd dearly love to see what someone who actually knows what they are doing could do with my concepts and algorithms. If my theories are correct, I can do something several times better than anybody else has so far. No, I'm not going to tell you what that something is yet, because
It sounds suspiciously like you're trying to break RSA using nothing but VB and naivete.
Nah, nothing quite so sinister. Sorry to disappoint.
Ok, you made me actually go out to the garage and look. It's a 6250 watt Coleman Powermate. It ran a house, I'm pretty sure it could run [an electric] car. Now shove off.
So you are apparently arguing that a generator that can produce at most 2 horsepower could run a car for many hours on only a few gallon of gasoline?
Your typical modern 4 cylinder internal combustion engine produces 90000 watts of power.
Your typical modern 4 cylinder internal combustion engine produces no electrical energy.
Besides, the "power" I was referring to was "electricity", you pedantic punk.
What part of "electricity", "electric motor", and "I'm referring to electrical power" do you not understand?
If you actually do understand, can you please tell me where the horses factor in?