One of the things that make 2-D platformers stand out today is that you don't feel limited. When you played Super Mario World you don't think about the limitations of the SNES, there are no load times, rarely any lag, etc. Most 2-D platformers were abstract, you didn't think "Oh, Mario's mustache isn't moving realistically", you concentrated on the game. When you got to the SNES/Genesis era, it seemed like any limitation was banished forever for 2-D games, you got bright multi-colored visuals, music that was quite catchy, you had no load times (unlike CD based consoles), and with expansion chips such as the Super-FX the games really got more impressive as the system went on. When games started moving into 3-D and realistic 3-D, things started to get more realistic. They moved out of the abstract. You noticed that Mario was really blocky, round visuals were rendered as squarish, etc. They felt limited. While in a 2-D game you had total freedom within the course till the end, early 3-D games had to constrain you. Even though you could see hills as far as the eye could see, whenever you ran after them you were hit by an invisible wall. The hardware also felt limited, with the rise of CD/DVD based games you introduced loading times, this took you away from being totally immersed for 5 seconds and somewhat ruined the effect you were in another world.
Today things are starting to get better, 3-D seems less limiting then before, yet with the rise of HD TVs, faster CPUs, etc. I doubt that we can really get seemingly unlimited 3-D games until close to the next revolution, be it true 3-D, VR, or something different. The rise of flash memory, faster drives and HDs in game consoles have cut down on load times too. But still 3-D doesn't seem as limitless as 2-D platforming was.
Sure, but those goods get replaced eventually by services. Before the invention of the computer and electronic calculator, there were people who spent hours painstakingly doing math for tables. When the electronic calculator and computer were released to the masses, their job was almost obsolete. However, other fields opened up with the demise of the human calculator, programmers, etc. The demise of a service replaced with a good almost always gets replaced with more jobs in services than before.
Because services are hard to monopolize. You usually get a better deal with a supermarket than a local store, you get more variety, cheaper prices, sometimes fresher food, etc. With plumbing, etc. its a lot harder. Most local plumbers have all the equipment they need, there aren't many revolutions that will change the game in the next few years so those tools will keep working. Then there is the fact that the large company can't thrive in the smaller towns especially with the rising cost of gas.
About the only thing that I can see really being monopolized is possibly computer repair. Because the big box stores buy in bulk, they always have parts on hand that would possibly need to be bought by a smaller business. Also, tools that work in 2009 will be largely obsolete by 2015.
Ok, lets say I'm a plumber, you have a clogged toilet. You aren't going to call some guy from China who will fly out and meet you there. Same thing with electricians, roofers, carpenters, etc. Heck, even the more "manual" parts of computer sciences (computer repair, sysadmin, help desk) won't be outsourced because someone has to plug in the cable, change the RAM, swap out HDs, etc.
I've never really understood why countries take so many steps to censor things. What exactly was the problem? Kid liked games, parents took away the games, kid committed suicide. So obviously the answer is to ban all game sites? This is about the worst logic I have ever heard, heck, even Jack Thompson makes more sense than this...
Its not necessarily that they can convict purely on that, its the fact they can profile you. For example, they can have suspicions that IP XXXXX is associated with Last.fm username XXXXXX, they figure out that the last FM user was playing songs tagged with the leaked song titles, they then watch the IP address with the help of various ISPs. If they ever see any P2P activity they can then move in and see if they are any RIAA titles, if they are, they can sue for outrageous amounts.
If thats legal or not, who knows, the RIAA isn't exactly known for having legal convictions based on solid evidence.
Most Last.fm users are both music lovers and computer literate. Most care about this sort of thing, and even if most didn't, many would hear about this and become more skeptical.
That is assuming that the RIAA is interested in using legal tactics. From their prior history, and various convictions that were based on nothing more then a shred of (easily faked or spoofed) evidence, I'd say it doesn't matter to the RIAA.
That works for every other business except monopolies. The RIAA thinks like this, low sales + increased internet usage by the masses + the fact the internet can be used to download music illegally = increased piracy! They have been a virtual monopoly for so long that they don't understand market forces that every other business does. For every CD you don't buy, the RIAA believes that it is one more CD downloaded off of TPB.
No, its perfectly legal to listen to Last.Fm, they are simply a radio service. Thats the reason why you can't listen to certain artists too many times, etc. The problem is if you use the Scrobbling (sp?) feature and that data gets sent to the RIAA. For example, it might say that you have a large music collection that includes various RIAA affiliated artists. They then figure out what IP you have been using, and could put it under increased scrutiny.
Flash has been on Linux for ages now. In most distros its just an apt-get away from being installed. Silverlight has Moonlight which is sorta comparable, but in all my browsing I really haven't come to an occasion that Silverlight was ever necessary.
Clean room reverse engineering is where you reverse engineer things using no code from the project you are attempting to emulate. This is used to make sure your project is 100% legal.
Without MS tolerating piracy, you can expect Windows to diminish to strongholds only in A) The USA B) Western Europe and C) India (because most tech support comes from India it would make sense they would use it there because of the familiarity). Linux is currently a viable choice for most people. When the already-learned Windows is available for $0 and the new and unfamiliar Linux is available for $0, and when the applications for Windows including games, Office, etc. are available for $0 why switch? On the other hand whenever Linux costs $0, Windows costs half your yearly pay, Office costs your yearly pay, and any other applications cost at least a week's paycheck, the rest of the world would switch to Linux. Whenever half the world's population is using Linux, there are more Linux applications being written, with more Linux applications, the incentive to stick to MS software lessens for the MS strongholds, when that happens MS loses even more marketshare. In the end MS goes bankrupt, the world switches to Linux and Apple still has a small niche market for top-of-the-line computers.
...But they haven't. Its like saying that a meteor from the sky could come down at any moment, crash through your roof right on your head killing you at the moment. You can find past meteors that could have done it, but its unlikely and hasn't happened. Same thing with a Linux vulnerability. Sure they *do* happen, the point is, its very unlikely a site would capitalize on them infecting a box with malware. No system is 100% secure, however Linux is about the most secure by default you can get from non-human attackers. Once you have a competent hacker attempting to breach the system though, you are dead meat unless you have carefully controlled policies. But most people, even the government's most common threat isn't Joe Hacker but rather Drive-By-Download.b.exe.
How many people have gotten a virus from surfing a site using Linux? Very, very, very, few, to non existent. Sure, Linux is vulnerable but it isn't targeted, the diversity in distros, kernel versions, browsers, etc. help keep the target moving. About the only way to get a virus, in the wild is to download and explicitly install a virus or a trojan.
Why doesn't the government switch to Linux already? Sure, you can get a Linux virus, but to get one it takes work. On the other hand merely browsing a site in IE can give you viruses in Windows.
But easily the opposite could be true too. Small MMOs eventually run out of content. Most people, soon after beginning an MMO have a certain goal, either to get to a certain level, reach a certain world, etc. Once they get there, or realize that the goal is impossible, its mostly about talking to people and socializing.
When you get to the point where the MMO is simply about socializing, its really not/that/ worrying. Sure, its not good that he isn't eating much, etc. And yes, he could be addicted, but once a few online friends get bored he will simply stop coming on. So the MMO addiction has been reduced to simply being on Facebook a lot. The difference is, unlike Facebook, most MMOs don't have clients for the mobile phone so you have to be playing in order to talk.
Hacking an account, while not only simply childish, can easily have the opposite effect, making them determined to rebuild and staying on extra to get back to status quo. It might even go to such extremes as buying accounts just to have extra gold.
Devotion in the extreme to anything has led to more deaths throughout history than anything else.
Its not just religion, its any devotion in the extreme. Just think about patriotism. Addiction is simply an extreme devotion to something, it can be harmful too.
If you believe that this is harming him then you can simply force him to stop playing. Take out the RAM of his computer, loosen the SATA cable of his HD so it doesn't detect it, if you have a in-house router simply have the router get off the internet late at night.
Considering this is a college setting though, how much is this harming him? If hes keeping up with his studies and such, well I suppose MMO addiction is a bit less harmful then drug or alcohol addiction, so it could be worse. If he isn't keeping up with his studies, well in a semester he will be gone.
Or, you can always wait it out, chances are the MMO will grow old, a few close online "friends" of his will get a life and stop coming on, it will charge players more money, etc. Then he will naturally just get bored and quit.
There are a few things that make you different then the average user of Vista.
A) You built your own machine later into Vista's lifetime. One of the reasons why Vista is considered so slow is that OEMs were installing Vista onto hardware that should have XP and would have ran XP decently. For example, I worked on a Toshiba with Vista Home Basic installed, the thing had an early Pentium Dual-Core CPU and 512 MB of RAM. The thing just barely crawled along. On the other hand chances are because you build your PCs you know how to install and get cheap RAM. That alone makes you different because you can quite easily get an extra gig of RAM for less than $20 and install it yourself. On the other hand the average Best Buy customer is going to spend ~$75 buying that gig of RAM because of the overpriced memory they sell plus the installation of the RAM by them.
B) Judging from your post you didn't really use XP that much, or when you did things just didn't "click" for you. On the other hand there are some people who had been using XP for everything for the last ~5 years. Then it takes a lot of re-learning to learn, and relearning it a lot more difficult than simply learning.
C) You are computer literate. You know something other than Windows, you actually understand basic computer concepts. You know how to Google and fix problems. This alone puts you above over half of the people who use computers.
The problem with Office 2007 wasn't the fact that the ribbon was so bad, it was the fact there was no other way to use it BUT with the ribbon. At least have a "compatibility mode" option that basically switches it back to 2003 UI-wise. After spending a year with Office 2007 I found it at least halfway decent, however during that year before I mastered it, it took me ages to find things and to actually do things that I easily could in OOo or 2003. I'm sure the ribbon is easier for new users, but for everyone who has been using Office since '97 or before, changing things without an option to revert them isn't a smart move in any software, let alone a mission-critical app like Office is for many businesses when a free version that does 98% of what you need with almost no learning curve.
iPhone
G1
Blackberry Bold
Palm Pre (based solely on reviews as it isn't out yet)
And even those phones still have a multitude of issues. There are no phones that don't suck. The iPhone has a horrid application approval process and many obvious flaws such as the lack of MMS/Copy and paste, lack of background applications, etc. But many will be fixed in iPhone OS 3.0. On the hardware side it has a crappy camera. Android still isn't 100% mature, the G1 has a broken bluetooth stack, non-standard headphone jack, and a lot of other flaws. The BlackBerry Bold still doesn't have a decent media player and due to a lack of a touchscreen browsing still isn't as good as on the iPhone. The Palm Pre will certainly have some flaws, but considering its not out yet, there aren't any real reviews.
(1) You can move the G1 to AT&T (or any other GSM carrier). Of course AT&T costs a metric ass-ton more than TMO, so I don't know why would want to do it, but that's a different matter? http://www.unlock-tmobileg1.com/EN/procedures/activate.php
Yes, but buying an unlocked phone costs more (like the G1 dev phone) and unlocking isn't officially supported. Just like I can unofficially jailbreak and unlock an iPhone to make it work on T-Mobile too.
(2) WinMo sucks out of the box, but there is a massive community of people cooking up new ROMS and writing awesome applications. If you are a super-busy-important guy (why would you be posting on/.?) then it's not for you, but for anyone with free time that likes to play with gadgets and customize software, WinMo is an acceptable choice.
Sure, but either way the core still sucks. You can make it be decent, but it still requires other software draining the battery.
Also, what's all the fuss about capacitive touch screens? My >2-year old (yes, it predates the 1G iPhone) HTC Titan has a resistive touch screen that works fine without the stylus for any application designed for touch-use, including most of the WinMo interface since I upgraded to 6.5 (community built, naturally). The (past) lack of good touch applications on the WinMo side of things was a software problem carried over from the days of the stylus, not because of hardware that couldn't support it.
A) No multitouch, you wouldn't think it would be that big of a deal, but it multitouch makes touchscreens much more useful for day to day activities B) Resistive touchscreens are flexible, and therefore are more prone to breaking with misuse.
Slashdot Mirror
One of the things that make 2-D platformers stand out today is that you don't feel limited. When you played Super Mario World you don't think about the limitations of the SNES, there are no load times, rarely any lag, etc. Most 2-D platformers were abstract, you didn't think "Oh, Mario's mustache isn't moving realistically", you concentrated on the game. When you got to the SNES/Genesis era, it seemed like any limitation was banished forever for 2-D games, you got bright multi-colored visuals, music that was quite catchy, you had no load times (unlike CD based consoles), and with expansion chips such as the Super-FX the games really got more impressive as the system went on. When games started moving into 3-D and realistic 3-D, things started to get more realistic. They moved out of the abstract. You noticed that Mario was really blocky, round visuals were rendered as squarish, etc. They felt limited. While in a 2-D game you had total freedom within the course till the end, early 3-D games had to constrain you. Even though you could see hills as far as the eye could see, whenever you ran after them you were hit by an invisible wall. The hardware also felt limited, with the rise of CD/DVD based games you introduced loading times, this took you away from being totally immersed for 5 seconds and somewhat ruined the effect you were in another world.
Today things are starting to get better, 3-D seems less limiting then before, yet with the rise of HD TVs, faster CPUs, etc. I doubt that we can really get seemingly unlimited 3-D games until close to the next revolution, be it true 3-D, VR, or something different. The rise of flash memory, faster drives and HDs in game consoles have cut down on load times too. But still 3-D doesn't seem as limitless as 2-D platforming was.
Sure, but those goods get replaced eventually by services. Before the invention of the computer and electronic calculator, there were people who spent hours painstakingly doing math for tables. When the electronic calculator and computer were released to the masses, their job was almost obsolete. However, other fields opened up with the demise of the human calculator, programmers, etc. The demise of a service replaced with a good almost always gets replaced with more jobs in services than before.
Because services are hard to monopolize. You usually get a better deal with a supermarket than a local store, you get more variety, cheaper prices, sometimes fresher food, etc. With plumbing, etc. its a lot harder. Most local plumbers have all the equipment they need, there aren't many revolutions that will change the game in the next few years so those tools will keep working. Then there is the fact that the large company can't thrive in the smaller towns especially with the rising cost of gas.
About the only thing that I can see really being monopolized is possibly computer repair. Because the big box stores buy in bulk, they always have parts on hand that would possibly need to be bought by a smaller business. Also, tools that work in 2009 will be largely obsolete by 2015.
Ok, lets say I'm a plumber, you have a clogged toilet. You aren't going to call some guy from China who will fly out and meet you there. Same thing with electricians, roofers, carpenters, etc. Heck, even the more "manual" parts of computer sciences (computer repair, sysadmin, help desk) won't be outsourced because someone has to plug in the cable, change the RAM, swap out HDs, etc.
I've never really understood why countries take so many steps to censor things. What exactly was the problem? Kid liked games, parents took away the games, kid committed suicide. So obviously the answer is to ban all game sites? This is about the worst logic I have ever heard, heck, even Jack Thompson makes more sense than this...
Its not necessarily that they can convict purely on that, its the fact they can profile you. For example, they can have suspicions that IP XXXXX is associated with Last.fm username XXXXXX, they figure out that the last FM user was playing songs tagged with the leaked song titles, they then watch the IP address with the help of various ISPs. If they ever see any P2P activity they can then move in and see if they are any RIAA titles, if they are, they can sue for outrageous amounts.
If thats legal or not, who knows, the RIAA isn't exactly known for having legal convictions based on solid evidence.
Most Last.fm users are both music lovers and computer literate. Most care about this sort of thing, and even if most didn't, many would hear about this and become more skeptical.
That is assuming that the RIAA is interested in using legal tactics. From their prior history, and various convictions that were based on nothing more then a shred of (easily faked or spoofed) evidence, I'd say it doesn't matter to the RIAA.
That works for every other business except monopolies. The RIAA thinks like this, low sales + increased internet usage by the masses + the fact the internet can be used to download music illegally = increased piracy! They have been a virtual monopoly for so long that they don't understand market forces that every other business does. For every CD you don't buy, the RIAA believes that it is one more CD downloaded off of TPB.
No, its perfectly legal to listen to Last.Fm, they are simply a radio service. Thats the reason why you can't listen to certain artists too many times, etc. The problem is if you use the Scrobbling (sp?) feature and that data gets sent to the RIAA. For example, it might say that you have a large music collection that includes various RIAA affiliated artists. They then figure out what IP you have been using, and could put it under increased scrutiny.
Flash has been on Linux for ages now. In most distros its just an apt-get away from being installed. Silverlight has Moonlight which is sorta comparable, but in all my browsing I really haven't come to an occasion that Silverlight was ever necessary.
Clean room reverse engineering is where you reverse engineer things using no code from the project you are attempting to emulate. This is used to make sure your project is 100% legal.
Without MS tolerating piracy, you can expect Windows to diminish to strongholds only in A) The USA B) Western Europe and C) India (because most tech support comes from India it would make sense they would use it there because of the familiarity). Linux is currently a viable choice for most people. When the already-learned Windows is available for $0 and the new and unfamiliar Linux is available for $0, and when the applications for Windows including games, Office, etc. are available for $0 why switch? On the other hand whenever Linux costs $0, Windows costs half your yearly pay, Office costs your yearly pay, and any other applications cost at least a week's paycheck, the rest of the world would switch to Linux. Whenever half the world's population is using Linux, there are more Linux applications being written, with more Linux applications, the incentive to stick to MS software lessens for the MS strongholds, when that happens MS loses even more marketshare. In the end MS goes bankrupt, the world switches to Linux and Apple still has a small niche market for top-of-the-line computers.
...But they haven't. Its like saying that a meteor from the sky could come down at any moment, crash through your roof right on your head killing you at the moment. You can find past meteors that could have done it, but its unlikely and hasn't happened. Same thing with a Linux vulnerability. Sure they *do* happen, the point is, its very unlikely a site would capitalize on them infecting a box with malware. No system is 100% secure, however Linux is about the most secure by default you can get from non-human attackers. Once you have a competent hacker attempting to breach the system though, you are dead meat unless you have carefully controlled policies. But most people, even the government's most common threat isn't Joe Hacker but rather Drive-By-Download.b.exe.
Who said they had to choose one? Just create your own. As long as you aren't distributing or selling it, you are free to keep the source to yourself.
How many people have gotten a virus from surfing a site using Linux? Very, very, very, few, to non existent. Sure, Linux is vulnerable but it isn't targeted, the diversity in distros, kernel versions, browsers, etc. help keep the target moving. About the only way to get a virus, in the wild is to download and explicitly install a virus or a trojan.
Why doesn't the government switch to Linux already? Sure, you can get a Linux virus, but to get one it takes work. On the other hand merely browsing a site in IE can give you viruses in Windows.
But easily the opposite could be true too. Small MMOs eventually run out of content. Most people, soon after beginning an MMO have a certain goal, either to get to a certain level, reach a certain world, etc. Once they get there, or realize that the goal is impossible, its mostly about talking to people and socializing.
/that/ worrying. Sure, its not good that he isn't eating much, etc. And yes, he could be addicted, but once a few online friends get bored he will simply stop coming on. So the MMO addiction has been reduced to simply being on Facebook a lot. The difference is, unlike Facebook, most MMOs don't have clients for the mobile phone so you have to be playing in order to talk.
When you get to the point where the MMO is simply about socializing, its really not
Hacking an account, while not only simply childish, can easily have the opposite effect, making them determined to rebuild and staying on extra to get back to status quo. It might even go to such extremes as buying accounts just to have extra gold.
Devotion in the extreme to anything has led to more deaths throughout history than anything else.
Its not just religion, its any devotion in the extreme. Just think about patriotism. Addiction is simply an extreme devotion to something, it can be harmful too.
Or you can sign up for Comcast and get that all with no effort!
If you believe that this is harming him then you can simply force him to stop playing. Take out the RAM of his computer, loosen the SATA cable of his HD so it doesn't detect it, if you have a in-house router simply have the router get off the internet late at night.
Considering this is a college setting though, how much is this harming him? If hes keeping up with his studies and such, well I suppose MMO addiction is a bit less harmful then drug or alcohol addiction, so it could be worse. If he isn't keeping up with his studies, well in a semester he will be gone.
Or, you can always wait it out, chances are the MMO will grow old, a few close online "friends" of his will get a life and stop coming on, it will charge players more money, etc. Then he will naturally just get bored and quit.
There are a few things that make you different then the average user of Vista.
A) You built your own machine later into Vista's lifetime. One of the reasons why Vista is considered so slow is that OEMs were installing Vista onto hardware that should have XP and would have ran XP decently. For example, I worked on a Toshiba with Vista Home Basic installed, the thing had an early Pentium Dual-Core CPU and 512 MB of RAM. The thing just barely crawled along. On the other hand chances are because you build your PCs you know how to install and get cheap RAM. That alone makes you different because you can quite easily get an extra gig of RAM for less than $20 and install it yourself. On the other hand the average Best Buy customer is going to spend ~$75 buying that gig of RAM because of the overpriced memory they sell plus the installation of the RAM by them.
B) Judging from your post you didn't really use XP that much, or when you did things just didn't "click" for you. On the other hand there are some people who had been using XP for everything for the last ~5 years. Then it takes a lot of re-learning to learn, and relearning it a lot more difficult than simply learning.
C) You are computer literate. You know something other than Windows, you actually understand basic computer concepts. You know how to Google and fix problems. This alone puts you above over half of the people who use computers.
The problem with Office 2007 wasn't the fact that the ribbon was so bad, it was the fact there was no other way to use it BUT with the ribbon. At least have a "compatibility mode" option that basically switches it back to 2003 UI-wise. After spending a year with Office 2007 I found it at least halfway decent, however during that year before I mastered it, it took me ages to find things and to actually do things that I easily could in OOo or 2003. I'm sure the ribbon is easier for new users, but for everyone who has been using Office since '97 or before, changing things without an option to revert them isn't a smart move in any software, let alone a mission-critical app like Office is for many businesses when a free version that does 98% of what you need with almost no learning curve.
Ok, lets see phones that don't suck.
iPhone
G1
Blackberry Bold
Palm Pre (based solely on reviews as it isn't out yet)
And even those phones still have a multitude of issues. There are no phones that don't suck. The iPhone has a horrid application approval process and many obvious flaws such as the lack of MMS/Copy and paste, lack of background applications, etc. But many will be fixed in iPhone OS 3.0. On the hardware side it has a crappy camera. Android still isn't 100% mature, the G1 has a broken bluetooth stack, non-standard headphone jack, and a lot of other flaws. The BlackBerry Bold still doesn't have a decent media player and due to a lack of a touchscreen browsing still isn't as good as on the iPhone. The Palm Pre will certainly have some flaws, but considering its not out yet, there aren't any real reviews.
(1) You can move the G1 to AT&T (or any other GSM carrier). Of course AT&T costs a metric ass-ton more than TMO, so I don't know why would want to do it, but that's a different matter? http://www.unlock-tmobileg1.com/EN/procedures/activate.php
Yes, but buying an unlocked phone costs more (like the G1 dev phone) and unlocking isn't officially supported. Just like I can unofficially jailbreak and unlock an iPhone to make it work on T-Mobile too.
(2) WinMo sucks out of the box, but there is a massive community of people cooking up new ROMS and writing awesome applications. If you are a super-busy-important guy (why would you be posting on /.?) then it's not for you, but for anyone with free time that likes to play with gadgets and customize software, WinMo is an acceptable choice.
Sure, but either way the core still sucks. You can make it be decent, but it still requires other software draining the battery.
Also, what's all the fuss about capacitive touch screens? My >2-year old (yes, it predates the 1G iPhone) HTC Titan has a resistive touch screen that works fine without the stylus for any application designed for touch-use, including most of the WinMo interface since I upgraded to 6.5 (community built, naturally). The (past) lack of good touch applications on the WinMo side of things was a software problem carried over from the days of the stylus, not because of hardware that couldn't support it.
A) No multitouch, you wouldn't think it would be that big of a deal, but it multitouch makes touchscreens much more useful for day to day activities B) Resistive touchscreens are flexible, and therefore are more prone to breaking with misuse.