Huge underground peace vaults, filled with nukes and weapons-grade plutonium, like in Star Control! The Ur-Quan Hierarchy will never know what hit 'em!
Actually, UO's been fried for a lot longer than that, and for even darker reasons. EA canned the original UO dev team-- who left a legacy of poorly-optimized, and generally undocumented code. Everything that's come afterwards has been a mess of guesswork and half-assed patching.
UO:3D is UO-- given an extraordinarily ugly facelift. Like virtually every other aspect of UO, it's been pushed out the door far too early. The original version of UO could have stood another four to six months of beta testing, easily. UO: Renaissance shipped months early-- "Factions," one of the new features listed on the box only left testing a few months ago-- long after the UO:R boxes were shipped to stores. UO:3D just got booted out the door-- because it's the end of the bloody quarter.
Finally, exactly who is left to 'focus' on the fouled mess that UO has become? Certainly not the eighty or more employees that were canned at Origin alone. EA doesn't give a damn about 'focusing' anything on UO-- except the potential millions of subscriptions, overseas (No, I'm not exaggerating. Check out the subscription stats for titles like "Lineage," for example). Veteran rewards, factions, the ever-elusive Necromancy, and everything else that they've tossed out in one barely-usable form or another, has been a sop-- a half-assed attempt to keep players interested in the game, as opposed to slipping off to Everquest, or to whatever the newest threat to their slipping player-base is.
My question is, where's Crash Bandicoot, or Spyro? Not having an easily-identifiable, platform-jumping character (and associated game) at launch is a very bad move on Sony's part.
Then again, virtually everything regarding the PS2 has been a bad move. Most of the launch titles are anemic, the actual supply of PS2s is a joke, etc. ad nauseam. I'd say that they're trying to sell it as a talented DVD player, at this point, hoping that later titles boost interest in it as an actual console.
It's painfully obvious that the judge involved has absolutely no idea what he's talking about. Ordering an international entity to not display something that may be seen by French persons is asinine at best, and utterly deranged at worst.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that blocking IPs by region was in its infancy, at best. And now this lunatic is ordering Yahoo to essentially wave a magic IP wand, and make all the nasty Nazi paraphernalia go away.
The French used to scare me, thanks to their insistence on continued nuclear testing in the Pacific. Now they terrify me-- if this man is any indication of how far out of touch with reality their government is, we could be in for a whole heap of trouble.
I was going to use NS6 as an excuse to learn XML/XUL-- I used PR2 and 3, and I absolutely hated all the silly crap that they put in-- hardwired links on the lower pane, hardwired links... everybloodywhere.
I don't do a lot of E-commerce. If I do, I'll seek vendors out myself. I don't need my browser to be a frigging billboard. I never visit Netscape.com, because I don't need a blasted web portal. And I certainly don't need one built into my browser.
Screw 'em. If I'm going to use a newer non-MS browser, it's going to be Opera or Mozilla. I'm sick to death of Netscape.
Re:Besides cardboard characters, inconsistent too.
on
Dune: House Harkonnen
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· Score: 1
Unfortunately, that's a load. Anyone who was seriously going to sit down and write a Dune prequel/sideline/whatever should be required to find a copy of the Dune Encyclopedia.
The Baron was a sick, twisted individual who ended up having sex with his own mother-- then killing her. Shortly thereafter, he began to entertain and explore his latent homosexuality, and continue his slide into decadence.
After picking up on some of the non-events in the prequels, I'm going to have to give them a pass. I loved the hell out of Dune, and I don't want to see it debased with silly prequel tripe.
You're right-- it was a triumph of artistic plagiarism (2001, Close Encounters) and sheer stupidity (that gawdawful scene where they go from a howling desert-scape to a silent tent).
I'm not impressed, but I'll admit that it's a damn sight better than one of the other ideas that I've heard about: walk too close to a store, and it auto-dials you to relay a recorded spiel. I swear, if that ever happens to me, I'll happily walk into the store, and explain quite thoroughly why they've permanently lost my business. Gods help 'em if they suggest that I turn my phone off...
I think that's only when the "h" would be silent. "an hoax" parses as "an 'oax" to me. Besides that, the rep's sentence structures were absolutely horrible.
That customer rep's English skills scare me, profoundly. When a person whose job is to be as articulate as possible makes that many grammatical and spelling errors in an official missive, you know it's time to get off the planet.
If they try to do that, I can guarantee that the recording companies will consider it a threat. Paying them a subscription, or $0.25/meg, or whatnot is one thing-- allowing people to trade what the companies consider to be their property is quite another. I won't argue the legality of it, one way or the other, but I don't think that they'll allow Napster to have its cake and eat it too.
Personally, I prefer Gnutella, and I adore using Scour Exchange. Losing Napster won't be much of a problem for me-- until they try to shut the other file-sharing systems down, of course.
Yet another ergonomic device that's only designed with right-handed people in mind. I'm a lefty-- I use my left hand to move the mouse. This thing, while interesting, is about as useless to me as a standard right-handed Intellimouse. Is it so difficult to design something that doesn't demand the use of one hand or the other?
The only way that this could possibly work, is if Napster's current system was shut down completely. This new system isn't about file sharing-- it's about downloading material from a central source.
Assuming that the offer has been made in good faith (a big assumption, yes, but bear with me), there is no way that Bertelsmann and friends would want to poison the well by allowing inferior or broken copies of their music running around inside the new Napster. Likewise, they won't want non-involved companies' music in there, either-- it's far too risky legally, and they really don't want to help their competitors if they can't help it.
If this goes through, the original Napster system is going to vanish in a puff of smoke. Screw indie bands, screw amateur parody remixes, and doubly screw rare sound clips.
I assume the same is true of Worldcom as well, but I currently have their long distance phone service so they don't call me. Curiously Sprint don't call me either.
Oi! You lucky bastid! Up here, Sprint Canada is worse than a frigging Kirby Vacuum salesman. A friend's mother made the mistake of being polite to one, and suggested that she might consider switching-- big mistake. That phone rang several times an hour, for several weeks straight-- even after she told them to FOAD.
Reminds me of the time that a tele-toad called regarding the local paper. He asked if he could speak with me (using my full name); I told him that he had the wrong number. He paused for all of a half-second, then plunged into his spiel. I hung up on the waste of skin, but, in retrospect I should have a nice little feedback loop with the other phone, just for him. Of course, thanks to him, I'll never purchase or support the local rag again.
Above this sort of crap? Hardly. Our customs Gestapo has been known to prejudicially block shipments to certain persons or organizations (Little Sisters bookshop, in BC), destroy original manuscripts by Canadian authors, and generally decide that they don't like you just "because."
The company that a friend works for had to ship a computer down to the states (they program software for frame-grabber hardware), because of some absolutely unbelievable hardware issues. The 'puter gets down fine, and everything works out fine-- until it hits customs. Some Neanderthal opened the case up (probably looking for smutty comics, or Where's Waldo? books), spilled statically-charged styrofoam packing peanuts into the case, and then put the lid back on-- using only one screw. Eris only knows where the other three screws went
Of course, Sega could switch back to a CD-ROM format. I've heard reports that pirated DC software, burnt to good ol' CD-ROM, run perfectly well on mod-chipped DCs. If Sega was actually going to produce these things, they're likely to switch to CD-ROM-- or bundle them with an external GD-ROM drive.
If you want a nasty pad, take a look at the GameCube's. That thing is not designed for human hands.
A friend just got a DC (for Soul Calibur and Crazy Taxi), and I had a chance to diddle with the controls a bit. The DC's controller's main problem is that it's too damn short. My pinkies keep sliding off the end, and the triggers are placed just about an inch too far back to be comfortable. That, and they've got just a little too much play.
Oh, god, don't I know it. My ex-roommate was running a copy of BlackIce Defender, and every time that something came in, his idiot wife would call out the "attack" in an authoritative voice, and expect him to do (or know) something about it. Of course, it certainly didn't help that BlackIce defined everything as an attack.
What I'd like is a good, readable, firewall FAQ. I've got an old copy of AtGuard, but I'll be damned if I've been able to slog through its firewall documentation. The best thing I've ever got it to do is block everything but SETI@Home packets.
I know two people who subcontract work from the local @home affiliate (no names, obvious reasons). They are specifically instructed to not even breathe the word "firewall" in front of the customer. The only thing that they're supposed to do is go in, install Buford (@home's branded Aieee/Netscrape hackjob), and get out.
Between the proliferation of broadband access, and the way that @home's "service" is structured, I'm extremely surprised that we haven't seen any more seriously massive DDOS attacks-- I'd say that at least 98% of @home's subscriber boxes are sitting naked on the net, just waiting to be bent over.
Slashdot Mirror
Huge underground peace vaults, filled with nukes and weapons-grade plutonium, like in Star Control! The Ur-Quan Hierarchy will never know what hit 'em!
Gott in Himmel, does no-one else remember the horrors of blipverts?
UO:3D is UO-- given an extraordinarily ugly facelift. Like virtually every other aspect of UO, it's been pushed out the door far too early. The original version of UO could have stood another four to six months of beta testing, easily. UO: Renaissance shipped months early-- "Factions," one of the new features listed on the box only left testing a few months ago-- long after the UO:R boxes were shipped to stores. UO:3D just got booted out the door-- because it's the end of the bloody quarter.
Finally, exactly who is left to 'focus' on the fouled mess that UO has become? Certainly not the eighty or more employees that were canned at Origin alone. EA doesn't give a damn about 'focusing' anything on UO-- except the potential millions of subscriptions, overseas (No, I'm not exaggerating. Check out the subscription stats for titles like "Lineage," for example). Veteran rewards, factions, the ever-elusive Necromancy, and everything else that they've tossed out in one barely-usable form or another, has been a sop-- a half-assed attempt to keep players interested in the game, as opposed to slipping off to Everquest, or to whatever the newest threat to their slipping player-base is.
Then again, virtually everything regarding the PS2 has been a bad move. Most of the launch titles are anemic, the actual supply of PS2s is a joke, etc. ad nauseam. I'd say that they're trying to sell it as a talented DVD player, at this point, hoping that later titles boost interest in it as an actual console.
Regardless, I think they screwed up royally.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that blocking IPs by region was in its infancy, at best. And now this lunatic is ordering Yahoo to essentially wave a magic IP wand, and make all the nasty Nazi paraphernalia go away.
The French used to scare me, thanks to their insistence on continued nuclear testing in the Pacific. Now they terrify me-- if this man is any indication of how far out of touch with reality their government is, we could be in for a whole heap of trouble.
I don't do a lot of E-commerce. If I do, I'll seek vendors out myself. I don't need my browser to be a frigging billboard. I never visit Netscape.com, because I don't need a blasted web portal. And I certainly don't need one built into my browser.
Screw 'em. If I'm going to use a newer non-MS browser, it's going to be Opera or Mozilla. I'm sick to death of Netscape.
The Baron was a sick, twisted individual who ended up having sex with his own mother-- then killing her. Shortly thereafter, he began to entertain and explore his latent homosexuality, and continue his slide into decadence.
After picking up on some of the non-events in the prequels, I'm going to have to give them a pass. I loved the hell out of Dune, and I don't want to see it debased with silly prequel tripe.
Getting distracted by the cat, and watching my avatar pirouette into a vat of lava...
You're right-- it was a triumph of artistic plagiarism (2001, Close Encounters) and sheer stupidity (that gawdawful scene where they go from a howling desert-scape to a silent tent).
I'm not impressed, but I'll admit that it's a damn sight better than one of the other ideas that I've heard about: walk too close to a store, and it auto-dials you to relay a recorded spiel. I swear, if that ever happens to me, I'll happily walk into the store, and explain quite thoroughly why they've permanently lost my business. Gods help 'em if they suggest that I turn my phone off...
Oh, of course. Yoda obviously needed to do something when he wasn't filming Episode 2...
I think that's only when the "h" would be silent. "an hoax" parses as "an 'oax" to me. Besides that, the rep's sentence structures were absolutely horrible.
That customer rep's English skills scare me, profoundly. When a person whose job is to be as articulate as possible makes that many grammatical and spelling errors in an official missive, you know it's time to get off the planet.
Personally, I prefer Gnutella, and I adore using Scour Exchange. Losing Napster won't be much of a problem for me-- until they try to shut the other file-sharing systems down, of course.
Yet another ergonomic device that's only designed with right-handed people in mind. I'm a lefty-- I use my left hand to move the mouse. This thing, while interesting, is about as useless to me as a standard right-handed Intellimouse. Is it so difficult to design something that doesn't demand the use of one hand or the other?
Assuming that the offer has been made in good faith (a big assumption, yes, but bear with me), there is no way that Bertelsmann and friends would want to poison the well by allowing inferior or broken copies of their music running around inside the new Napster. Likewise, they won't want non-involved companies' music in there, either-- it's far too risky legally, and they really don't want to help their competitors if they can't help it.
If this goes through, the original Napster system is going to vanish in a puff of smoke. Screw indie bands, screw amateur parody remixes, and doubly screw rare sound clips.
According to The Rantings of Lum the Mad, EQ Vault restored an *old* backup of their newsfiles.
Oi! You lucky bastid! Up here, Sprint Canada is worse than a frigging Kirby Vacuum salesman. A friend's mother made the mistake of being polite to one, and suggested that she might consider switching-- big mistake. That phone rang several times an hour, for several weeks straight-- even after she told them to FOAD.
Reminds me of the time that a tele-toad called regarding the local paper. He asked if he could speak with me (using my full name); I told him that he had the wrong number. He paused for all of a half-second, then plunged into his spiel. I hung up on the waste of skin, but, in retrospect I should have a nice little feedback loop with the other phone, just for him. Of course, thanks to him, I'll never purchase or support the local rag again.
The company that a friend works for had to ship a computer down to the states (they program software for frame-grabber hardware), because of some absolutely unbelievable hardware issues. The 'puter gets down fine, and everything works out fine-- until it hits customs. Some Neanderthal opened the case up (probably looking for smutty comics, or Where's Waldo? books), spilled statically-charged styrofoam packing peanuts into the case, and then put the lid back on-- using only one screw. Eris only knows where the other three screws went
Jeezus. I was under the mistaken impression that the discs only held ~750-800 megs.
Of course, Sega could switch back to a CD-ROM format. I've heard reports that pirated DC software, burnt to good ol' CD-ROM, run perfectly well on mod-chipped DCs. If Sega was actually going to produce these things, they're likely to switch to CD-ROM-- or bundle them with an external GD-ROM drive.
A friend just got a DC (for Soul Calibur and Crazy Taxi), and I had a chance to diddle with the controls a bit. The DC's controller's main problem is that it's too damn short. My pinkies keep sliding off the end, and the triggers are placed just about an inch too far back to be comfortable. That, and they've got just a little too much play.
I'm voting Cthulhu for President-- and I'm Canadian!
What I'd like is a good, readable, firewall FAQ. I've got an old copy of AtGuard, but I'll be damned if I've been able to slog through its firewall documentation. The best thing I've ever got it to do is block everything but SETI@Home packets.
Between the proliferation of broadband access, and the way that @home's "service" is structured, I'm extremely surprised that we haven't seen any more seriously massive DDOS attacks-- I'd say that at least 98% of @home's subscriber boxes are sitting naked on the net, just waiting to be bent over.