My main beef with Home is the fact that the average real-life looking avatar seems to be a hip 20 something with a slim athletic build and angsty haircuts (what Sony probably believes is their main demographic). I'm not some fat dork but I'm close to 35 so I really having problems connecting with the avatar.
You're missing the point. Lots of people don't want something that really shows what they look like. Were this not the case, plastic surgery wouldn't be so popular. Its not just about fat people. Lots of people don't like the way they look.
Did you know that aprox 60% of women wear jeans and trousers that are too small for them? Stupid, but there we are. We are conditioned to not be satisfied with how we look, because that doesn't suit manufacturers. A customer base that isn't happy with how they look is a profitable one. Its no surprise to see this extending into the virtual world.
I don't see a problem anyway. I mean, who would host a project on the Microsoft site that *wasn't* for Windows? Seriously?
I wouldn't. On the other hand I might use their site if I did a small windows only project. Its all about reaching your target audience.
There's this whole other culture of people who want to get paid by everyone who uses their software. Amazing, but true. They even like to charge for source code (gasp!).
I say so what? I have my software under the GPL and don't charge for it. I have been given expenses to attend conferences, and expenses to go teach students using it at universities, but the software is, and remains, available for no cashy money.
If someone else wrote something similar and charged for it, well I wouldn't get all upset, or self righteous, because you see, I believe in the freedom to decide what you do with your own stuff. If you don't do that, you can't expect the same in return.
A lot of people seem to have missed the point. I said buy 2/3 to 1/2 of the house, so the govt, and therefore you, would own that much of the property, and therefore get 2/3 to 1/2 of the profit on sale of the house.
I would be against just giving people the cash for nothing, what I mean is reduce their debt by sharing ownership. If house prices increased sufficiently a lot of money could be made.
As it is though, lots of banks will get fat off taxpayers money and you will see no return, ever.
Isn't the whole reason you got the greenback dollar because Lincoln didn't want to get the US govt into hock with the banks?
I was under the impression that there was always a significant distrust of banks in the US, until recently that is. I am astonished that a country which refuses to pay for a national 'free at point of provision' health service, supported by taxes, yet they happily hand over the entire country's income tax to the banking system, and now 700 billion because they stayed greedy for a bit too long.
That also puzzles me. Why not, just to throw a wild idea out, take a portion of the bad dept on for the people who are getting kicked out. I mean like buy 1/2 or 2/3 of the dept from the citizens affected, so they aren't evicted.
If your sole discriminating factor is price, then thats fine, but calling anything cheap a "good wine" and anything more expensive a "bad wine" is about on par with calling any internet connection you pay $20 for good, while anything more is bad.
How's Dial-Up doing for you?
I didn't mean all cheap wine is good, that's obviously untrue, but a vast amount of cheap wines *are* very good. Generally cheap+vintage at least means you have a reasonable expectation that the wine will be acceptable.
Expensive wine on the other hand? Well given that most people, myself included, couldn't tell the difference between a ten pound bottle of decent vintage and a 50 pound bottle of equal age most of the time, I'm not that interested in taking the chance.
Spending 5 to ten pounds on a bottle which disappointments is a lot less of a wrench then if you spend, say, thirty and realise the bottle is not to your liking.
Have you tasted it in a blind taste test? Or are you, like most if not all "wine snobs," simply fooling yourself into thinking expensive==good?
I've preferred vintage wine myself for years. Vintage of course means 'from a specified year and vinyard', not old as such. Non vintage means cheap shit for the most part, usually mixes of wine from different vinyards or even years. Its worth avoiding it for that fact alone.
I can tell the difference between a good wine and a bad one. Good wines are wines I can buy a case of without paying too much, bad wines are when a single bottle costs more then twenty pounds. Most of the time more than ten pounds is too much. I mean, we are talking about fermented fruit juice here, I fail to see why they get such high price tags.
My absolute favorite is Bulgarian Merlot from the Haskavo region. Love that stuff, I've been buying it since the early nineties. Its also quite cheap.
I bought RealJukebox and really liked it. The license said I had access to upgrades for the lifetime of the product. This purchase included the full version of RealPlayer too, with no adverts.
Then they changed the license terms within months (at the time they introduced OnePlayer) and said I had to repurchase at full price if I wanted to upgrade to OnePlayer. Oh, and they discontinued RealJukebox, and I wasn't allowed to update my copy of standalone realplayer either without paying the full licence fee again.
I wouldn't have minded a small upgrade fee I guess, although I would have grumbled, but I paid a fair bit for my original licence, and I was pissed off that it got junked so fast.
The chances of my paying for or using a RealNetworks product again are pretty much nonexistant.
when it comes to warming up the planet by adding CO2 to the atmosphere, Science has done a great job against nature. When science fights nature, science generally wins
I disagree. The endgame of unchecked global climate change will be a planet which cannot support our species. So we go extinct, and the planet recovers without us.
As a general rule, when science fights nature, nature wins.
We are, after all talking about dealing with forces that have shaped the planet upon which we evolved. Star trek fiction aside, I don't think we have enough energy available to seriously hinder a tsunami.
Early warning systems so people can get the hell out of the way would be better then a 'stand back, I'm going to try science' approach.
I have a cassette of spectrum games, and the accompanying book in a plastic case, from a magazine in 1984. PC Format I believe, the box isn't to hand right now.
The magazine is still around, I keep wondering if I should post it to them.
"I don't like to download illegally, I really would prefer to pay"
Then why not buy the box and download and play the pirated version of the game? That puts the money in the correct pockets, but you still get the version of the game you want.
I've downloaded cracks for games that require the dvd in the drive, but I have always purchased the game concerned. Its more for my own convenience than anything else.
Even then I wouldn't touch a game that used an invasive system like SecureROM or Starforce, or those that limit the number of installs, simply because I don't want to have anything to do with a company that does that. If I buy the game, then that indicates I agree that their behaviour is acceptable, which I don't. If I don't buy it and don't pirate it, they and their crippled game are something I don't even have to consider.
Of course this means I'm less likely to consider future titles from the company concerned as well.
There are now two games I *really* wanted that I can't get because I don't want their DRM infesting my machine. Nor do I want to use pirated games (being a programmer myself I don't like to download illegally, I really would prefer to pay), so I don't get to play at all.
I've been a computer gamer since 1983, and this not being able to buy things because of stuff put there to stop piracy is a new experience for me.
I hope its short lived, or the number of new games I buy is going to plummet.
When I used to be a nurse (not many years ago), I built up six weeks worth of unpaid overtime, or 'time in lieu' as they called it, during a period of low staffing.
I was supposed to be either paid it or given an equal amount of time off, but what actually happened was they said it was too much, wiped it out and gave me a long weekend off. They hadn't seemed to mind the potential cost whilst working me half to death and taking advantage of the legal requirement to not leave patients without care to force me to work 20 hour shifts.
I left shortly after and gave up nursing, just one of many people leaving in droves due to this sort of thing and other pay related nonsense in the UK. Now I'm a programmer If any employer tries that crap on me again I'd quit and go elsewhere.
Re:Crysis, the affirmative answer to the old quest
on
Review: Crysis Warhead
·
· Score: 1
Could God create a game with such steep requirements that he, himself, could not run it?
I have a GTX 280, the Graphics card all modern gods prefer, and I bought Crysis last week. It looks fabulous, but plays like crap, Seriously.
The fact that your health and armour regenerates ruins the game. Stealthing with the knowledge that you have such a small amount of health that an unfriendly sneeze would kill you I could accept, but the very fact that all you have to do is back off a bit and wait for you health to reappear with no effort on your part is the single stupidest thing I've seen in an FPS.
As in "say no to ID". Makes a lot more sense doesn't it?
They lost my interest when they started spamming me with leaflets after I registered interest. I'm not so inclined to support an organisation that spends so much of its money on maildrops that just end up in the bin with all the other crap.
I don't code *without* having a browser window open. Sometimes for looking things up that are concerned with work, but more often because I like to take a quick random browse now and then while I ponder something (why are there no easy programming problems when you get decent pay?).
My boss knows, and doesn't care. All that matters is the code required is delivered in a reasonable time.
Sure, not browsing the web for 'personal use' would speed things up, but then I'd be less happy, which would impact work quality.
By my calculation I've been paid £5.30 to read slashdot today.
So instead of making baby cows suffer from lack of milk, PETA wants to make baby humans to suffer because the mother is eigther poor or greedy to sell her milk for dairy products.
I never got why PETA consider animals as higher beings than humans.
Lets save the cows! screw the humans!/sarcasm
It would almost certainly end up meaning cheap imported human milk from south America got used, were it implemented.
This all sounds like more of an attempt to grab headlines then produce any real change.
Slashdot Mirror
Yay! People rediscover the advantages of thin clients! How long until they rediscover the downsides...
That would be when the vendors have made their cut and hand over to the consultants for their turn at the trough.
Well obviously every European is a terrorist. Excuse me, I have go go get myself a firing squad appointment.
Did you know that aprox 60% of women wear jeans and trousers that are too small for them?
Did you know 86% of all quoted statistical figures are made up?
ah, but 26% of internet users don't believe this :)
My main beef with Home is the fact that the average real-life looking avatar seems to be a hip 20 something with a slim athletic build and angsty haircuts (what Sony probably believes is their main demographic).
I'm not some fat dork but I'm close to 35 so I really having problems connecting with the avatar.
You're missing the point. Lots of people don't want something that really shows what they look like. Were this not the case, plastic surgery wouldn't be so popular. Its not just about fat people. Lots of people don't like the way they look.
Did you know that aprox 60% of women wear jeans and trousers that are too small for them? Stupid, but there we are.
We are conditioned to not be satisfied with how we look, because that doesn't suit manufacturers. A customer base that isn't happy with how they look is a profitable one. Its no surprise to see this extending into the virtual world.
Summer Glau, is that you?
If all robots looked like her, I'd be the first in the queue for robotic domination...
I don't see a problem anyway. I mean, who would host a project on the Microsoft site that *wasn't* for Windows? Seriously?
I wouldn't. On the other hand I might use their site if I did a small windows only project. Its all about reaching your target audience.
There's this whole other culture of people who want to get paid by everyone who uses their software. Amazing, but true. They even like to charge for source code (gasp!).
I say so what? I have my software under the GPL and don't charge for it. I have been given expenses to attend conferences, and expenses to go teach students using it at universities, but the software is, and remains, available for no cashy money.
If someone else wrote something similar and charged for it, well I wouldn't get all upset, or self righteous, because you see, I believe in the freedom to decide what you do with your own stuff. If you don't do that, you can't expect the same in return.
I wonder if that will make people rant at me?
A lot of people seem to have missed the point. I said buy 2/3 to 1/2 of the house, so the govt, and therefore you, would own that much of the property, and therefore get 2/3 to 1/2 of the profit on sale of the house.
I would be against just giving people the cash for nothing, what I mean is reduce their debt by sharing ownership. If house prices increased sufficiently a lot of money could be made.
As it is though, lots of banks will get fat off taxpayers money and you will see no return, ever.
Isn't the whole reason you got the greenback dollar because Lincoln didn't want to get the US govt into hock with the banks?
I was under the impression that there was always a significant distrust of banks in the US, until recently that is. I am astonished that a country which refuses to pay for a national 'free at point of provision' health service, supported by taxes, yet they happily hand over the entire country's income tax to the banking system, and now 700 billion because they stayed greedy for a bit too long.
That also puzzles me. Why not, just to throw a wild idea out, take a portion of the bad dept on for the people who are getting kicked out. I mean like buy 1/2 or 2/3 of the dept from the citizens affected, so they aren't evicted.
Surely that would work just as well.
If your sole discriminating factor is price, then thats fine, but calling anything cheap a "good wine" and anything more expensive a "bad wine" is about on par with calling any internet connection you pay $20 for good, while anything more is bad.
How's Dial-Up doing for you?
I didn't mean all cheap wine is good, that's obviously untrue, but a vast amount of cheap wines *are* very good. Generally cheap+vintage at least means you have a reasonable expectation that the wine will be acceptable.
Expensive wine on the other hand? Well given that most people, myself included, couldn't tell the difference between a ten pound bottle of decent vintage and a 50 pound bottle of equal age most of the time, I'm not that interested in taking the chance.
Spending 5 to ten pounds on a bottle which disappointments is a lot less of a wrench then if you spend, say, thirty and realise the bottle is not to your liking.
Have you tasted it in a blind taste test? Or are you, like most if not all "wine snobs," simply fooling yourself into thinking expensive==good?
I've preferred vintage wine myself for years. Vintage of course means 'from a specified year and vinyard', not old as such. Non vintage means cheap shit for the most part, usually mixes of wine from different vinyards or even years. Its worth avoiding it for that fact alone.
I can tell the difference between a good wine and a bad one. Good wines are wines I can buy a case of without paying too much, bad wines are when a single bottle costs more then twenty pounds. Most of the time more than ten pounds is too much. I mean, we are talking about fermented fruit juice here, I fail to see why they get such high price tags.
My absolute favorite is Bulgarian Merlot from the Haskavo region. Love that stuff, I've been buying it since the early nineties. Its also quite cheap.
I bought RealJukebox and really liked it. The license said I had access to upgrades for the lifetime of the product. This purchase included the full version of RealPlayer too, with no adverts.
Then they changed the license terms within months (at the time they introduced OnePlayer) and said I had to repurchase at full price if I wanted to upgrade to OnePlayer. Oh, and they discontinued RealJukebox, and I wasn't allowed to update my copy of standalone realplayer either without paying the full licence fee again.
I wouldn't have minded a small upgrade fee I guess, although I would have grumbled, but I paid a fair bit for my original licence, and I was pissed off that it got junked so fast.
The chances of my paying for or using a RealNetworks product again are pretty much nonexistant.
For any result greater than 3 the answer is 'A suffusion of yellow'
when it comes to warming up the planet by adding CO2 to the atmosphere, Science has done a great job against nature. When science fights nature, science generally wins
I disagree. The endgame of unchecked global climate change will be a planet which cannot support our species. So we go extinct, and the planet recovers without us.
Thus nature wins.
As a general rule, when science fights nature, nature wins.
We are, after all talking about dealing with forces that have shaped the planet upon which we evolved. Star trek fiction aside, I don't think we have enough energy available to seriously hinder a tsunami.
Early warning systems so people can get the hell out of the way would be better then a 'stand back, I'm going to try science' approach.
I have a cassette of spectrum games, and the accompanying book in a plastic case, from a magazine in 1984. PC Format I believe, the box isn't to hand right now.
The magazine is still around, I keep wondering if I should post it to them.
"I don't like to download illegally, I really would prefer to pay"
Then why not buy the box and download and play the pirated version of the game? That puts the money in the correct pockets, but you still get the version of the game you want.
I've downloaded cracks for games that require the dvd in the drive, but I have always purchased the game concerned. Its more for my own convenience than anything else.
Even then I wouldn't touch a game that used an invasive system like SecureROM or Starforce, or those that limit the number of installs, simply because I don't want to have anything to do with a company that does that. If I buy the game, then that indicates I agree that their behaviour is acceptable, which I don't. If I don't buy it and don't pirate it, they and their crippled game are something I don't even have to consider.
Of course this means I'm less likely to consider future titles from the company concerned as well.
There are now two games I *really* wanted that I can't get because I don't want their DRM infesting my machine. Nor do I want to use pirated games (being a programmer myself I don't like to download illegally, I really would prefer to pay), so I don't get to play at all.
I've been a computer gamer since 1983, and this not being able to buy things because of stuff put there to stop piracy is a new experience for me.
I hope its short lived, or the number of new games I buy is going to plummet.
Some of the Finnish ISPs use the database to filter out questionable content such as child pornography.*
To be fair, I think that's a bit beyond questionable... don't you?
(*emphasis added)
It has been my experience that such things become a problem when they aren't questioned.
The Riddle of Epicurus
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If God is willing to prevent evil, but is not able to
Then He is not omnipotent.
If He is able, but not willing
Then He is malevolent.
If He is both able and willing
Then whence cometh evil?
If He is neither able nor willing
Then why call Him God?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Back on topic, the Discovery institute is dedicated solely to enriching its members, any other claim is nonsense.
And who reaps the profit from these ideas? Would it be Google by any chance?
I'd prefer to go without any 'prize' and do all the work/reap all the benefits myself.
When I used to be a nurse (not many years ago), I built up six weeks worth of unpaid overtime, or 'time in lieu' as they called it, during a period of low staffing.
I was supposed to be either paid it or given an equal amount of time off, but what actually happened was they said it was too much, wiped it out and gave me a long weekend off. They hadn't seemed to mind the potential cost whilst working me half to death and taking advantage of the legal requirement to not leave patients without care to force me to work 20 hour shifts.
I left shortly after and gave up nursing, just one of many people leaving in droves due to this sort of thing and other pay related nonsense in the UK.
Now I'm a programmer If any employer tries that crap on me again I'd quit and go elsewhere.
Could God create a game with such steep requirements that he, himself, could not run it?
I have a GTX 280, the Graphics card all modern gods prefer, and I bought Crysis last week.
It looks fabulous, but plays like crap, Seriously.
The fact that your health and armour regenerates ruins the game.
Stealthing with the knowledge that you have such a small amount of health that an unfriendly sneeze would kill you I could accept, but the very fact that all you have to do is back off a bit and wait for you health to reappear with no effort on your part is the single stupidest thing I've seen in an FPS.
I've given up on it.
As in "say no to ID". Makes a lot more sense doesn't it?
They lost my interest when they started spamming me with leaflets after I registered interest. I'm not so inclined to support an organisation that spends so much of its money on maildrops that just end up in the bin with all the other crap.
I don't code *without* having a browser window open. Sometimes for looking things up that are concerned with work, but more often because I like to take a quick random browse now and then while I ponder something (why are there no easy programming problems when you get decent pay?).
My boss knows, and doesn't care. All that matters is the code required is delivered in a reasonable time.
Sure, not browsing the web for 'personal use' would speed things up, but then I'd be less happy, which would impact work quality.
By my calculation I've been paid £5.30 to read slashdot today.
[turns round to tell boss]
Yup, no problem.
So instead of making baby cows suffer from lack of milk, PETA wants to make baby humans to suffer because the mother is eigther poor or greedy to sell her milk for dairy products.
I never got why PETA consider animals as higher beings than humans.
Lets save the cows! screw the humans! /sarcasm
It would almost certainly end up meaning cheap imported human milk from south America got used, were it implemented.
This all sounds like more of an attempt to grab headlines then produce any real change.