Yeah, PC gaming isn't dying, it's just narrowing. You can still find really quality games... maybe just not tons of them. Modern consoles are still mostly about fluff, IMO, and catering to the masses. Sure there are good games for them, but there is so much junk it just hurts my eyes.
Part of the learning process is filtering out extra information to become really good at task X. Unfortunately, sometimes that means not seeing another car when you are learning to drive.
I blame the darn internet for keeping people informed. That's why people are trying to comment. What happened to the good ole days of watching public news that required an hour of viewing to garner 30 seconds of biased info?! Now people have information from multiple sources in written format from their office and home. OMG! Scary! Well, that and the ease of sending an email.
Something about the '72 percent of Americans worry their online activities are being tracked by companies.' thing just pisses me right off. It's like saying it doesn't matter if people aren't aware they are being screwed over, so let's take a survey to see if we really need to address it or not. Maybe we can learn how to keep secrets better and fuck over the public a little more. These surveys are great!
Really though, I don't give a shit who is worried about it or not. If the bastards are doing it, then address that. We don't need everything tracked in the name of security. If you are infringing on 99.9% of innocent people to catch the.1%, then it's obviously wrong.
The reason the UK govt has problems is that the system admins aren't happy with their fringe duties dealing with the public and are burnt out. Just take a look:
Grittier and darker is better for Diablo, but hopefully they can have that and colorful dungeons/monsters. I don't want it to look cartoony, but color isn't necessarily cartoony. And why not have some places that are gloomier?
Show a bunch of people a video with no sound of someone dropped from a skyscraper onto a giant razorblade. A week later ask them if the person screamed. 1/3 of the people say he did. BUT there was no sound, a ha!!! Tricked you, didn't I?!
-Your body is pretty good at repairing itself. Your immune system will successfully eliminate vast majority of illnesses you encounter in your life. (most problems will go away on their own no matter if you do anything or not)
-Medical people like to encourage positive verbal responses from patients... and patients feel obliged to say they feel better after treatment even if they don't.
I say these preferences being discussed are HUGELY complex. You can't make a blanket statement that all races favor their own race, period. Although I have definitely met people who absolutely fit into the "my team vs your team" mentality... and a lot of them tend to be on the racist side as well. Coincidence? I also know of people who are the opposite of that in a way... they are more open minded in general and aren't very "us vs. them" in the way they approach life.
I like email way more than phonecalls. I save lots of time, although occasionally email does distract me. Which is why i turned off that evil outlook mail icon at the bottom right of my screen. it was hugely distracting for me. Now I just check email when I want to (mostly).
I agree. Yet sadly car manufacturers often sell cars on their safety rating. Highways were deaths occur suddenly get a new flashing sign to watch out for a curve or a reduced speed limit. Luckily half the software in the world doesn't have to be bureaucratic, lazy, or evil. It's up to the people that make it. If I give one message continually to users, it is to avoid Internet Explorer. Sorry, it's just evil.
Hell, I forgot the most important thing. When users are told something in very plain simple terms by the software itself, they are frequently lied to. Think Vista popups-"OMG, you don't want to really run Firefox do you?!!!"; spam email messages- "Hey friend. Click on this link to see this cool news article about Angelina J. in a bikini; or generic evil popups on the web- "Click here to win a 1000 dollars!".
No, I don't think making popups more easily understandable is the smartest way to handle it. The users need a helping hand from a physical person next to them that they can trust. You can't trust businesses or hacker/crackers on the internet.
Hopefully not going to offend anybody, but coming from a semi-neutral position on this I'm buying Jah-Wren's argument more. On the whole, more users quickly find the quickest way to click past things instead of trying to use them.
But I will say this in bit01's defense - I've seen more users lately that have taken a step or two past that and do a few things right. But I've only seen it if I personally have explained a very very brief/simple "if you see this popup, never ever ever click OK unless you are 100% sure it is what you want".
Overall, I think the Firefox 3 method is good and bad. Good if I didn't have any self-signed sites, bad if I do. Coming from neutral, I'd tend to say they did it right though.
So what happens when you are the network admin at work and from your office you VNC to your home PC, then from the home PC you VPN back to your office onto a server, where you connect to a public proxy server, where you remote back into your home PC where you connect to another proxy and then connect to Team Fortress 2 and join an instant spawn server (no pros to spot you acting weird), where you give the secret hand signal to your "buddy" to post anonymously on Slashdot? Can you evil people track that??!:P
Nobody in NASA should need AV software if they don't touch the internet... except for the fact that viruses hang out on USB sticks now. I've seen at least one myself, and I think it depended on a Windows autorun file similar to what runs CDs for the masses.
Can someone with more experience explain how to avoid USB stick viruses? Are you safe if you have a USB stick that doesn't have any proprietary software, or will the good ole Windows auto-open or autorun screw you regardless?
NASA needs to purposely contaminate Titan with some microbes that could survive now... then in 5 years send up a "resarch mission" looking for life. That would surely help funding when they find something alive up there... and who knows where they came from. Much research to be done!
Without researching and relearning everything about cognitive dissonance, I'd like to comment. So this is like brainwashing yourself, if I'm reading you correctly.
I can't buy into this too heavily, despite having seen people who are trying to brainwash themselves with the goofy self-made propaganda that sales jobs (especially the pyramid variety) seem to push. I don't think it's a longterm thing, and I don't think pretending to be happy all the time when you are not really makes you happier. Sure, it probably has a chance to make you feel a little better, but I don't think it is as black and white as you make it out to be.
On the other hand, you make a good point and probably has some effect on people who are putting on the mask of stern-security person. I just don't know that it is the biggest part of the equation.
My dad is a cop. Or I should say, now that he's retired, was a cop. I think he really hated his job toward the later years, but he's never been happier since he retired at a young age a decade or more ago.
How did being a copy affect him? Not sure if it was partly his personality already, probably was, but I can tell you how he has been since I've known him and compare and contrast to my personality... being mostly a Network Admin/IT Mgr (with security on the mind but not in a huge way) the last several years. My dad is always suspicious and untrusting of others. Almost always pessimistic, self-centered, sometimes mean and ill-tempered, sometimes very social (like groups), very opinionated, and quick to judge others.
Me - very different background but my personality, I think, is probably:
Less selfish, sometimes overly trusting, fairly pessimistic, sometimes mean/spiteful/ill-tempered, sometimes very social (usually on one to one basis), not as opinionated on everything under the sun, and quick to judge others. I tend to be an overachiever (on a small/personal scale) in some areas, but I've gotten more mature/mellow with age. I consider myself to be pretty happy... especially since I have a wonderful wife and now a wonderful son. My job kicks ass as well lately, but it is a job.
Sounds like he wasn't some random guy, he was probably the head of his own business that was making tons of money doing something that is illegal. And probably mostly wrong, regardless of legality.
Tfa said he made $490,000 profit. Then if you look up Power Player, you get a very informative wiki entry that I assume is true.
The Power Player Super Joy III consoles (also known as Power Games and XA-76-1E) are a line of unauthorized handheld Nintendo Entertainment System/Famicom clones manufactured by NRTRADE that are sold in North America, Brazil, Europe, Asia, and Australia. The system resembles a Nintendo 64 controller and attaches to a TV set. NTSC, PAL and SÃCAM versions are available. They all use a custom "NES-on-a-chip" (NOAC) that is an implementation of the NES's hardware (Custom 6502, PPU, PAPU, etc).
Background
The consoles come with 76 built-in games, although marketing frequently claims to have 1,000+ ways of playing them. Most of the included games were originally released for the NES or Famicom, but some have been created by the manufacturer to expand their list of included games. Most of the games have had their title screen graphics removed to save space on the ROM chip, not to mention a company logo removal trick for reduced liability.
After this product gained some popularity, the Power Player 3.5, an improved model with more games, was released.[citation needed] A wireless version of Power Games was also released.[citation needed]
[edit] Legal issues
When Nintendo discovered this product, they began taking strong legal action against importers and sellers of the consoles, and have obtained a temporary injunction against the import and sale of video game systems containing counterfeit versions of Nintendo games.
As of Spring 2005, NrTrade quit selling these products, however they still retain stock by other companies. These are still in production in China by Eittek but not massively distributed. On December 16, 2005, the FBI executed search warrants at two kiosks at the Mall of America and also searched storage facilities rented by Yonathan Cohen, 27, an owner of Perfect Deal LLC of Miami, Florida.[1] The consoles, purchased wholesale at $7 to $9 each, sold for $30 to $70 each.[2] After confiscating 1,800 units of Power Player, each containing 76 copyrighted video-game titles belonging primarily to Nintendo or its licensees, Cohen was charged in Minneapolis, Minnesota in January 2005 with federal criminal infringement of copyright for selling Power Player video games at kiosks at the Mall of America and other malls across the nation.[1]
Read 90% of the article. Paper can last 1000 to 2000 years. Probably longer in space. So the answer is they should have just made copies on paper right?
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, PC gaming isn't dying, it's just narrowing. You can still find really quality games... maybe just not tons of them. Modern consoles are still mostly about fluff, IMO, and catering to the masses. Sure there are good games for them, but there is so much junk it just hurts my eyes.
Part of the learning process is filtering out extra information to become really good at task X. Unfortunately, sometimes that means not seeing another car when you are learning to drive.
If all the techies leave, they'll slowly convince the regular joe to leave. I mean, how many people stayed with AOL dialup?
I blame the darn internet for keeping people informed. That's why people are trying to comment. What happened to the good ole days of watching public news that required an hour of viewing to garner 30 seconds of biased info?! Now people have information from multiple sources in written format from their office and home. OMG! Scary! Well, that and the ease of sending an email.
Something about the '72 percent of Americans worry their online activities are being tracked by companies.' thing just pisses me right off. It's like saying it doesn't matter if people aren't aware they are being screwed over, so let's take a survey to see if we really need to address it or not. Maybe we can learn how to keep secrets better and fuck over the public a little more. These surveys are great!
Really though, I don't give a shit who is worried about it or not. If the bastards are doing it, then address that. We don't need everything tracked in the name of security. If you are infringing on 99.9% of innocent people to catch the .1%, then it's obviously wrong.
The reason the UK govt has problems is that the system admins aren't happy with their fringe duties dealing with the public and are burnt out. Just take a look:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwNwTjDLMP4
Grittier and darker is better for Diablo, but hopefully they can have that and colorful dungeons/monsters. I don't want it to look cartoony, but color isn't necessarily cartoony. And why not have some places that are gloomier?
My take on it is this:
Show a bunch of people a video with no sound of someone dropped from a skyscraper onto a giant razorblade. A week later ask them if the person screamed. 1/3 of the people say he did. BUT there was no sound, a ha!!! Tricked you, didn't I?!
Kinda dumb... maybe I'm just being harsh.
I'll reduce this even more:
-Your body is pretty good at repairing itself. Your immune system will successfully eliminate vast majority of illnesses you encounter in your life. (most problems will go away on their own no matter if you do anything or not)
-Medical people like to encourage positive verbal responses from patients... and patients feel obliged to say they feel better after treatment even if they don't.
I say these preferences being discussed are HUGELY complex. You can't make a blanket statement that all races favor their own race, period. Although I have definitely met people who absolutely fit into the "my team vs your team" mentality... and a lot of them tend to be on the racist side as well. Coincidence? I also know of people who are the opposite of that in a way... they are more open minded in general and aren't very "us vs. them" in the way they approach life.
Thanks, I was hoping this would do the trick.
I like email way more than phonecalls. I save lots of time, although occasionally email does distract me. Which is why i turned off that evil outlook mail icon at the bottom right of my screen. it was hugely distracting for me. Now I just check email when I want to (mostly).
Flushless urinal installs? I never had to hire anybody to install trees at my place.
I agree. Yet sadly car manufacturers often sell cars on their safety rating. Highways were deaths occur suddenly get a new flashing sign to watch out for a curve or a reduced speed limit. Luckily half the software in the world doesn't have to be bureaucratic, lazy, or evil. It's up to the people that make it. If I give one message continually to users, it is to avoid Internet Explorer. Sorry, it's just evil.
Hell, I forgot the most important thing. When users are told something in very plain simple terms by the software itself, they are frequently lied to. Think Vista popups-"OMG, you don't want to really run Firefox do you?!!!"; spam email messages- "Hey friend. Click on this link to see this cool news article about Angelina J. in a bikini; or generic evil popups on the web- "Click here to win a 1000 dollars!".
No, I don't think making popups more easily understandable is the smartest way to handle it. The users need a helping hand from a physical person next to them that they can trust. You can't trust businesses or hacker/crackers on the internet.
Hopefully not going to offend anybody, but coming from a semi-neutral position on this I'm buying Jah-Wren's argument more. On the whole, more users quickly find the quickest way to click past things instead of trying to use them.
But I will say this in bit01's defense - I've seen more users lately that have taken a step or two past that and do a few things right. But I've only seen it if I personally have explained a very very brief/simple "if you see this popup, never ever ever click OK unless you are 100% sure it is what you want".
Overall, I think the Firefox 3 method is good and bad. Good if I didn't have any self-signed sites, bad if I do. Coming from neutral, I'd tend to say they did it right though.
So what happens when you are the network admin at work and from your office you VNC to your home PC, then from the home PC you VPN back to your office onto a server, where you connect to a public proxy server, where you remote back into your home PC where you connect to another proxy and then connect to Team Fortress 2 and join an instant spawn server (no pros to spot you acting weird), where you give the secret hand signal to your "buddy" to post anonymously on Slashdot? Can you evil people track that??! :P
Nobody in NASA should need AV software if they don't touch the internet... except for the fact that viruses hang out on USB sticks now. I've seen at least one myself, and I think it depended on a Windows autorun file similar to what runs CDs for the masses.
Can someone with more experience explain how to avoid USB stick viruses? Are you safe if you have a USB stick that doesn't have any proprietary software, or will the good ole Windows auto-open or autorun screw you regardless?
If I had known it existed I probably would have been all over that thing.
They'll definitely use it to screw other companies. Man don't you just feel the love in the business world every time you hear MS?
NASA needs to purposely contaminate Titan with some microbes that could survive now... then in 5 years send up a "resarch mission" looking for life. That would surely help funding when they find something alive up there... and who knows where they came from. Much research to be done!
Without researching and relearning everything about cognitive dissonance, I'd like to comment. So this is like brainwashing yourself, if I'm reading you correctly.
I can't buy into this too heavily, despite having seen people who are trying to brainwash themselves with the goofy self-made propaganda that sales jobs (especially the pyramid variety) seem to push. I don't think it's a longterm thing, and I don't think pretending to be happy all the time when you are not really makes you happier. Sure, it probably has a chance to make you feel a little better, but I don't think it is as black and white as you make it out to be.
On the other hand, you make a good point and probably has some effect on people who are putting on the mask of stern-security person. I just don't know that it is the biggest part of the equation.
My dad is a cop. Or I should say, now that he's retired, was a cop. I think he really hated his job toward the later years, but he's never been happier since he retired at a young age a decade or more ago.
How did being a copy affect him? Not sure if it was partly his personality already, probably was, but I can tell you how he has been since I've known him and compare and contrast to my personality... being mostly a Network Admin/IT Mgr (with security on the mind but not in a huge way) the last several years. My dad is always suspicious and untrusting of others. Almost always pessimistic, self-centered, sometimes mean and ill-tempered, sometimes very social (like groups), very opinionated, and quick to judge others.
Me - very different background but my personality, I think, is probably:
Less selfish, sometimes overly trusting, fairly pessimistic, sometimes mean/spiteful/ill-tempered, sometimes very social (usually on one to one basis), not as opinionated on everything under the sun, and quick to judge others. I tend to be an overachiever (on a small/personal scale) in some areas, but I've gotten more mature/mellow with age. I consider myself to be pretty happy... especially since I have a wonderful wife and now a wonderful son. My job kicks ass as well lately, but it is a job.
So anyway, take that as you will.
Sounds like he wasn't some random guy, he was probably the head of his own business that was making tons of money doing something that is illegal. And probably mostly wrong, regardless of legality.
Tfa said he made $490,000 profit. Then if you look up Power Player, you get a very informative wiki entry that I assume is true.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Player_Super_Joy_III
The Power Player Super Joy III consoles (also known as Power Games and XA-76-1E) are a line of unauthorized handheld Nintendo Entertainment System/Famicom clones manufactured by NRTRADE that are sold in North America, Brazil, Europe, Asia, and Australia. The system resembles a Nintendo 64 controller and attaches to a TV set. NTSC, PAL and SÃCAM versions are available. They all use a custom "NES-on-a-chip" (NOAC) that is an implementation of the NES's hardware (Custom 6502, PPU, PAPU, etc).
Background
The consoles come with 76 built-in games, although marketing frequently claims to have 1,000+ ways of playing them. Most of the included games were originally released for the NES or Famicom, but some have been created by the manufacturer to expand their list of included games. Most of the games have had their title screen graphics removed to save space on the ROM chip, not to mention a company logo removal trick for reduced liability.
After this product gained some popularity, the Power Player 3.5, an improved model with more games, was released.[citation needed] A wireless version of Power Games was also released.[citation needed]
[edit] Legal issues
When Nintendo discovered this product, they began taking strong legal action against importers and sellers of the consoles, and have obtained a temporary injunction against the import and sale of video game systems containing counterfeit versions of Nintendo games.
As of Spring 2005, NrTrade quit selling these products, however they still retain stock by other companies. These are still in production in China by Eittek but not massively distributed. On December 16, 2005, the FBI executed search warrants at two kiosks at the Mall of America and also searched storage facilities rented by Yonathan Cohen, 27, an owner of Perfect Deal LLC of Miami, Florida.[1] The consoles, purchased wholesale at $7 to $9 each, sold for $30 to $70 each.[2] After confiscating 1,800 units of Power Player, each containing 76 copyrighted video-game titles belonging primarily to Nintendo or its licensees, Cohen was charged in Minneapolis, Minnesota in January 2005 with federal criminal infringement of copyright for selling Power Player video games at kiosks at the Mall of America and other malls across the nation.[1]
Read 90% of the article. Paper can last 1000 to 2000 years. Probably longer in space. So the answer is they should have just made copies on paper right?