So then I guess everybody should just skip slow-start then? If Google and Microsoft can and are having tremendous results, why shouldn't everybody? Heck, why is slow-start even still around then? Should be tossed to the wayside like a Colecovision if its optional and gets in the way of your performance...
AMEN! People who don't try demos or test a game first deserve to have their money taken.... unless its a Blizzard product, which then they'll never let you test it or get reviews until you've already pre-ordered it and find out that its worse than stuff written a decade ago (I'm looking at you SC2 and B.Net 0.2).
If you understood anything about programming and Operating Systems, you would realize how idiotic that statement just was.
I mean, if it were that easy then why are there still Buffer Overflow Attacks, an attack originally discovered in 1988? Seriously, over 20 years to "patch some flaws"? Or maybe, just maybe, its much more technical with HOW THE HARDWARE WORKS, and more-so that, unless you want a crippled machine running much much slower as it checks and double checks and triple checks even the simplest things like adding variables together, it is IMPOSSIBLE for the Operating System itself to protect the user like you are saying.
Bad code is bad code. You cannot protect your entire system from bad code.... except for never putting that bad code on there in the first place. Which to me, in this example, is to never let Fallout New Vegas or any other Bethesda product touch your machine.
There already exists prior art to this in a certain form. Hulu.com did this with many promotions for awhile, where you could opt to watch or do an alternative before the show instead of having to be interrupted by commercials.
I for one understand the need for advertising to exist and very much like this "opt out of commercials" idea, but they shouldn't be able to receive a patent because its been done before.
Actually, if you have ever worked in a "print" field, you would know how invaluable being able to work in CMYK is. You need to know exactly how your image will look as it prints, and need to adjust the colors in those layers accordingly. Going RGB and then going through CMYK is bad mojo. You never get exactly what you want.
And this is all before LICENSING. I've had to work on specific IPs that have nazi's for approvals. For example, we made products on the Dragon Ball Z Franchise. Do you know the values of Goku's Gi? Or the fact that Goku's hair is a specific shade of black? And if its just slightly off those values, you get in trouble? When you need a color to be exactly right, you need it in CMYK.
If we aren't to use GoDaddy.com, who do you suggest that we use? I was about to launch a new site and had hopes that GoDaddy.com would have sufficed. Where else can you find online hosting for really cheap ($20 or less/month)? Inquiring minds like mine want to know! =)
From being in the same position and trying to "get off the ride", I can tell you that it's a coin flip for success while constantly arguing them is more like rolling a 20.
95% of the time when someone is being a bully, they are doing it because it is giving them attention. They b!tch, people respond. And that's the problem - when *you* start to ignore them, that doesn't mean the rest of the message board will. All it takes is one response for the bully to see that his words have taken affect.
The best solution I have found is, after you realize that they ARE being a bully and not just being overly harsh on their critique, is to ban their IP. Yes, it sounds big brother-ish, but it works. Sure, the bully can find ways around this, and then you ban him again. Lather, rinse, repeat until he gets tired and moves on to b!tch on something else.
In the meantime, you've saved time (how much easier is it to ban an IP than to put a rational paragraph together for someone who won't listen?) and kept a flame war off of your boards (he's spending his energy to get back to the boards, not to fight your words). It's not a utopian answer, but it's the best that I've found.
Depends on how long the suit's been going, actually. They could have filed the lawsuit back when there was more merit (like at the launch of the Wii when the classic controllers were introduced yet the Gamecube was still Nintendo's main console). I'm not sure when this suit started, but they can take an extremely long time to process, even if it's long after the suit really has realistic merit.
I'm more interested into what they actually patented. Is it really the entire analog? So all of the big 3 (Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft) have to worry about this (since every controller this side of the Wiimote has one)?
I hope that they win an appeal... that way when the lawsuit finishes the video game industry will have moved on from such "primitive analog sticks".
Oh, I respect copyrights. They have a purpose and place in protecting IP's. But in many a case its so that others cannot continue to create in that IP (like if people started making knockoff Batman comics or wrote and sold "new" Harry Potter books).
But what is happening here is a technological revolution. Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V has NEVER been illegal. These industries need to adapt to the changing environment, and instead are willing to piss away $$$ to try to continue the status quo.
What is happening in the music industry right now with the RIAA is just now really beginning with TV networks. As the internet grows faster and more powerful, the issue will continue to grow. Technology will evolve with the internet - Quality of streams will get better, bandwidth will start to be a non-issue, and we may reach a day where we never see a loading screen again to watch shows. As TV networks "see more profits go down the drain", it'll just get nastier.
This is just the first fight in a long battle, and I believe the results of the RIAA/MediaSentry cases will have a huge effect on the outcome of TV vs. the Internet as well.
I'm going to have to second "Invitation to the Game". As a young reader, I absolutely LOVED this book. I even read it a second time immediately after I finished because of the "new perspective" of the ending.
The only books I do that with now are instruction manuels...
You Don't Know Jack
This game is the BEST multiplayer experience you will find on a PC without playing a console game through a ROM. You won't find any other multiplayer experience that both of you can play on the same screen.
In fact, almost ANY trivia game will fit this bill, but You Don't Know Jack is just the most fun of them all. Brings a whole new meaning to "screwing your wife".;)
Ummm, have you been to 4chan? This sounds EXACTLY like/b/. Not to confuse it with those against the CoS, but this IS regular/b/ action. Or must I remind you for the weeboo incident or other mass gatherings.
My fear here is that soon anything done harmful on the internet will automatically be attributed to Anonymous if a guilty party isn't found. Unless one of the GIF's were flashing "We are from Anonymous", I wouldn't see any link between them.
Looks like we are at the beginning of the first internet "Red Scare". Down with Anonymo... I mean Communism!
While the DoD does not condone criminal acts, it DOES allow criminal acts in times of war. Last I checked, murdering people was against the law. But when you are at war, are you not killing people? Kidnapping is against the law, but you are allowed to take Prisoners of War (P.O.W's). Stealing is against the law, but if you are out on the battlefield and out/low of ammo, are you going to be fined or sent to jail for taking an enemy's ammo?
Let's say that we get into a war with a foreign country. Why couldn't the DoD say "Go Ahead it is a way to help fight the enemy like the other actions above.
I know that Gen. Lord probably won't be able to respond to something like this, but I would like the DoD and the Military to have this in their heads. During WWI and WWII the entire population of the US helped in the war effort in some way. Why can't this just be another option to help?
The ONLY reason US did ANYTHING was because Cuba was going to institute a communist system. This happened during the cold war era (late 1940's - 1991), where America's foreign policy was THE CONTAINMENT OF COMMUNISM FROM SOVIET RUSSIA. Any spread of communism around the world was seen as the expansion (or aid) of Soviet Russia.
Part of the containment strategy is stopping the spread of communism anywhere else that it surfaced. That is why the US fought in Korea (1950-1953), Guatamala (1954), Lebanon (1958), and Vietnam (1965-1974). Cuba just fell in the line of fire.
"They nationalized property without compensating international business" is just the reason they lay out to explain why they embargoed Cuba. The actual motive was something else.
To all those out there that complain how us Americans are so "stupid" and re-elected Bush for the 2nd term, here's a few realities in American Politics for ya:
1) The US was still under the presumption that Iraq still had evidence of WMD and a home base for AQ. We thought he WAS still doing to right thing at the time... and information condradicting Bush's claims did NOT come out until AFTER his re-election.
2) Kerry sucked. I voted for him, but he got manhandled not only during debates but the Republican Propaganda Machine. That's why Bush won so OVERWHELMINGLY - People thought Kerry was worse.
Now, combine those 2 points - Kerry looked terrible and Bush looked like our protector. Now that a majority of America KNOWS that there were no WMD and AQ, along with the other atrocities that the Bush Administration passed, and that's why we hate him now.
"But you guys don't do anything about it" - To let the outside world know, the common citizen in a democracy has only 1 power - his vote. Once an official is elected into office, he couldn't give a rat's @$$ about the common person because he got what he needed from the common man - his vote. There's NOTHING WE CAN DO ONCE THE OFFICIAL IS IN OFFICE.
"But Clinton got impeached. Why can't you impeach Bush?" - The only reason Clinton got impeached was because of the Republican controlled congress that sat below Clinton for his presidency. The Democratic congress just took over (notice how nearly everything is vetoed), but the dems have to focus their time on passing other bills and laws for their appearence in the next election and do not have the time to impeach Bush/Cheney (both need to go).
That being said, I'd impeach the bastard. I don't believe in this so called "He's only got 1 more year" excuse. Can we tolerate another year?
If only the common man could vote on impeaching Bush... then we'd have the power to do something about it.
Slashdot Mirror
I'll create a GUI interface using Visual Basic, to see if I can give you some mod points.
So then I guess everybody should just skip slow-start then? If Google and Microsoft can and are having tremendous results, why shouldn't everybody? Heck, why is slow-start even still around then? Should be tossed to the wayside like a Colecovision if its optional and gets in the way of your performance...
AMEN! People who don't try demos or test a game first deserve to have their money taken.... unless its a Blizzard product, which then they'll never let you test it or get reviews until you've already pre-ordered it and find out that its worse than stuff written a decade ago (I'm looking at you SC2 and B.Net 0.2).
If you understood anything about programming and Operating Systems, you would realize how idiotic that statement just was. I mean, if it were that easy then why are there still Buffer Overflow Attacks, an attack originally discovered in 1988? Seriously, over 20 years to "patch some flaws"? Or maybe, just maybe, its much more technical with HOW THE HARDWARE WORKS, and more-so that, unless you want a crippled machine running much much slower as it checks and double checks and triple checks even the simplest things like adding variables together, it is IMPOSSIBLE for the Operating System itself to protect the user like you are saying. Bad code is bad code. You cannot protect your entire system from bad code.... except for never putting that bad code on there in the first place. Which to me, in this example, is to never let Fallout New Vegas or any other Bethesda product touch your machine.
There already exists prior art to this in a certain form. Hulu.com did this with many promotions for awhile, where you could opt to watch or do an alternative before the show instead of having to be interrupted by commercials. I for one understand the need for advertising to exist and very much like this "opt out of commercials" idea, but they shouldn't be able to receive a patent because its been done before.
Actually, if you have ever worked in a "print" field, you would know how invaluable being able to work in CMYK is. You need to know exactly how your image will look as it prints, and need to adjust the colors in those layers accordingly. Going RGB and then going through CMYK is bad mojo. You never get exactly what you want. And this is all before LICENSING. I've had to work on specific IPs that have nazi's for approvals. For example, we made products on the Dragon Ball Z Franchise. Do you know the values of Goku's Gi? Or the fact that Goku's hair is a specific shade of black? And if its just slightly off those values, you get in trouble? When you need a color to be exactly right, you need it in CMYK.
Even NPR trolls on /.
If we aren't to use GoDaddy.com, who do you suggest that we use? I was about to launch a new site and had hopes that GoDaddy.com would have sufficed. Where else can you find online hosting for really cheap ($20 or less/month)? Inquiring minds like mine want to know! =)
From being in the same position and trying to "get off the ride", I can tell you that it's a coin flip for success while constantly arguing them is more like rolling a 20.
95% of the time when someone is being a bully, they are doing it because it is giving them attention. They b!tch, people respond. And that's the problem - when *you* start to ignore them, that doesn't mean the rest of the message board will. All it takes is one response for the bully to see that his words have taken affect.
The best solution I have found is, after you realize that they ARE being a bully and not just being overly harsh on their critique, is to ban their IP. Yes, it sounds big brother-ish, but it works. Sure, the bully can find ways around this, and then you ban him again. Lather, rinse, repeat until he gets tired and moves on to b!tch on something else.
In the meantime, you've saved time (how much easier is it to ban an IP than to put a rational paragraph together for someone who won't listen?) and kept a flame war off of your boards (he's spending his energy to get back to the boards, not to fight your words). It's not a utopian answer, but it's the best that I've found.
Chippy
Depends on how long the suit's been going, actually. They could have filed the lawsuit back when there was more merit (like at the launch of the Wii when the classic controllers were introduced yet the Gamecube was still Nintendo's main console). I'm not sure when this suit started, but they can take an extremely long time to process, even if it's long after the suit really has realistic merit.
I'm more interested into what they actually patented. Is it really the entire analog? So all of the big 3 (Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft) have to worry about this (since every controller this side of the Wiimote has one)?
I hope that they win an appeal... that way when the lawsuit finishes the video game industry will have moved on from such "primitive analog sticks".
Chippy
Oh, I respect copyrights. They have a purpose and place in protecting IP's. But in many a case its so that others cannot continue to create in that IP (like if people started making knockoff Batman comics or wrote and sold "new" Harry Potter books).
But what is happening here is a technological revolution. Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V has NEVER been illegal. These industries need to adapt to the changing environment, and instead are willing to piss away $$$ to try to continue the status quo.
What is happening in the music industry right now with the RIAA is just now really beginning with TV networks. As the internet grows faster and more powerful, the issue will continue to grow. Technology will evolve with the internet - Quality of streams will get better, bandwidth will start to be a non-issue, and we may reach a day where we never see a loading screen again to watch shows. As TV networks "see more profits go down the drain", it'll just get nastier.
This is just the first fight in a long battle, and I believe the results of the RIAA/MediaSentry cases will have a huge effect on the outcome of TV vs. the Internet as well.
I'm going to have to second "Invitation to the Game". As a young reader, I absolutely LOVED this book. I even read it a second time immediately after I finished because of the "new perspective" of the ending. The only books I do that with now are instruction manuels...
You Don't Know Jack ;)
This game is the BEST multiplayer experience you will find on a PC without playing a console game through a ROM. You won't find any other multiplayer experience that both of you can play on the same screen.
In fact, almost ANY trivia game will fit this bill, but You Don't Know Jack is just the most fun of them all. Brings a whole new meaning to "screwing your wife".
Chippy
Ummm, have you been to 4chan? This sounds EXACTLY like /b/. Not to confuse it with those against the CoS, but this IS regular /b/ action. Or must I remind you for the weeboo incident or other mass gatherings.
My fear here is that soon anything done harmful on the internet will automatically be attributed to Anonymous if a guilty party isn't found. Unless one of the GIF's were flashing "We are from Anonymous", I wouldn't see any link between them.
Looks like we are at the beginning of the first internet "Red Scare". Down with Anonymo... I mean Communism!
Chippy
While the DoD does not condone criminal acts, it DOES allow criminal acts in times of war. Last I checked, murdering people was against the law. But when you are at war, are you not killing people? Kidnapping is against the law, but you are allowed to take Prisoners of War (P.O.W's). Stealing is against the law, but if you are out on the battlefield and out/low of ammo, are you going to be fined or sent to jail for taking an enemy's ammo?
Let's say that we get into a war with a foreign country. Why couldn't the DoD say "Go Ahead it is a way to help fight the enemy like the other actions above .
I know that Gen. Lord probably won't be able to respond to something like this, but I would like the DoD and the Military to have this in their heads. During WWI and WWII the entire population of the US helped in the war effort in some way. Why can't this just be another option to help?
--David
You need to widen your view.
The ONLY reason US did ANYTHING was because Cuba was going to institute a communist system. This happened during the cold war era (late 1940's - 1991), where America's foreign policy was THE CONTAINMENT OF COMMUNISM FROM SOVIET RUSSIA. Any spread of communism around the world was seen as the expansion (or aid) of Soviet Russia.
Part of the containment strategy is stopping the spread of communism anywhere else that it surfaced. That is why the US fought in Korea (1950-1953), Guatamala (1954), Lebanon (1958), and Vietnam (1965-1974). Cuba just fell in the line of fire.
"They nationalized property without compensating international business" is just the reason they lay out to explain why they embargoed Cuba. The actual motive was something else.
-Chippy
To all those out there that complain how us Americans are so "stupid" and re-elected Bush for the 2nd term, here's a few realities in American Politics for ya:
1) The US was still under the presumption that Iraq still had evidence of WMD and a home base for AQ. We thought he WAS still doing to right thing at the time... and information condradicting Bush's claims did NOT come out until AFTER his re-election.
2) Kerry sucked. I voted for him, but he got manhandled not only during debates but the Republican Propaganda Machine. That's why Bush won so OVERWHELMINGLY - People thought Kerry was worse.
Now, combine those 2 points - Kerry looked terrible and Bush looked like our protector. Now that a majority of America KNOWS that there were no WMD and AQ, along with the other atrocities that the Bush Administration passed, and that's why we hate him now.
"But you guys don't do anything about it" - To let the outside world know, the common citizen in a democracy has only 1 power - his vote. Once an official is elected into office, he couldn't give a rat's @$$ about the common person because he got what he needed from the common man - his vote. There's NOTHING WE CAN DO ONCE THE OFFICIAL IS IN OFFICE.
"But Clinton got impeached. Why can't you impeach Bush?" - The only reason Clinton got impeached was because of the Republican controlled congress that sat below Clinton for his presidency. The Democratic congress just took over (notice how nearly everything is vetoed), but the dems have to focus their time on passing other bills and laws for their appearence in the next election and do not have the time to impeach Bush/Cheney (both need to go).
That being said, I'd impeach the bastard. I don't believe in this so called "He's only got 1 more year" excuse. Can we tolerate another year?
If only the common man could vote on impeaching Bush... then we'd have the power to do something about it.
Chippy