Yup. I never pirated a game until DRM - hell, even then I just boycotted it without pirating. I didn't pirate until Batman: Arkham Asylum - why? Because after talking to an employee on the official forums about DRM and telling him that I would NOT buy a game that used online activations or activation limits, he lied and said that all it had on it was disc check to try to get me to buy it. Thankfully I googled it a few weeks later when the game was out before purchasing it and after I discovered his lie, I said "Fuck this - if their entire goal is just to screw paying customers, then I'm done just boycotting, I'm going to go ahead and pirate it as well just to give those bastards the finger".
I have shelf fulls of games I legally bought and have bought a couple dozen games on GOG. I'm more than happy to pay for games and reward the developers - but I'm not going to pay to get screwed over.
Depends. I know my University (went to undergrad there, currently doing grad school there) has multiple degrees (at all levels) for the classics. I know one such major requires two years worth of classes in Greek and Latin, as well as several classes on ancient civlizations and classic literature from those times as well.
Hardly. What happened was two things. One, society advanced and the necessary education for the better jobs increased beyond what's required in K-12 schools. Two was that employers realized that, even if a college degree was not necessary, by requiring one they could not only weed out inferior workers but help ensure that they get the best they possibly can.
The only downside to this was when colleges started lowering their admissions requirements in order to get more students to make more money. That how we ended up with reputable universities offering joke majors like "sports statistics" and "gender studies". It's also why we have dumbed down classes because universities don't want to fail 50% of the students.
Ah to be rich like you. It's almost always those who never have to worry about working who want to complain about people going to college to get the education necessary for a job.
True, but in the US it's also the Democrats who pushed for our current "learning facts isn't important, all that matters is how school makes you FEEL" bullshit, that's made our education system an utter joke. I'm definitely NOT saying "this party is better than the other" - they both suck balls. I'm merely pointing out that our public education sucking is mostly due to the Democrats...the Republicans who didn't want educated children just pulled them out and did home schooling (like the Duggar's).
I could have done the math quite easily when I was applying for college a decade ago. Now, not so much - not that I don't use math in my job / grad school, merely that I don't use those particular areas of math.
it's neither an expensive place (free, in fact, just a regular public school)
Sorry, it just always drives me nuts when people fail to realize that schools paid for with tax dollars are not "free". In fact, you'll most likely end up paying much, much more than the cost of education over the course of your life. The best it can be considered is an education that is covered by a mandatory loan that you do not apply for....but it's also a loan that you MUST pay back, even if you decide not to pursue higher levels of school.
I'm not arguing against tax money being used for education, merely that I hate that people think it's "free" merely because they're never handed a bill.
I can probably got a decade without upgrade my hard drives, because I have two 640 GB internal drives and keep my other files (music, movies, documents) on external drives that are linked in through the libraries feature in Win 7. It's totally seamless so it's as if they're on the local drive, yet it makes reformatting a cinch. I have an epic ton of games currently installed plus plenty of other crap downloaded and I still have hundreds of gigs free. Until each game starts using 50 GB for installation, I don't have to worry about upgrading before they stop putting SATA II capable ports on motherboards.
and that's a bad thing? Empathy (in almost every use of the term) is just a euphemism for "I don't have the spine to make tough choices that some people won't like". Do I feel bad that in order to keep company X running and keep most of it's employees paid means that 5% of the workers need to be laid off? Yes, but that doesn't mean I'm going to make a bad choice because I "empathize" with those 5% and thus damn everyone because I lack the balls to say "Sorry it sucks, but this is how it has to be".
Part of becoming cultured and civilized is learning to find other solutions to inter-personal problems that do not involve the quick and dirty inclination to just simply remove the problem.
Every second they spend "playing" a socially destructive role is a second wasted where their mind is not focused on making positive contributions to their environment.
Funny, I think most people would prefer kids learn to eliminate problems instead of creating complex and ineffective means of trying to lessen the harmful effects of the problem.
I know you're just a troll, but they never said it ran out - they were showing what you'd have to do IF it ran out since you can't just walk to the corner and get a gallon of electricity to carry back with you.
A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse doe to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship. ~ Alexander Tyler, 1787
I'm pretty sure that all Android tablets support a BT keyboard. Now you just need to get an Android tablet with a kickstand built in (doesn't the new LG one have a kickstand? It sure looks like it) and you're in business. Hell, if you don't mind coughing up $150, you could even buy that cool BT laser keyboard (as seen on ThinkGeek and The Cape).
Yup. I learned that pretty quick that if you search for something in the YouTube app that they restrict from phones you can just launch the browser and watch it anyways....seems kind of stupid on their part. There's plenty of other sites (like until recently, Google Docs) that won't let you use it on a cell phone even if your browser / phone is fully capable of running the site.
I specifically mentioned a horror game, which is going to be more focused on visuals than other elements (not saying other elements don't look good). I'm the first person to say that gameplay is more important than graphics - which is why I still routinely games that are 20 years old. However, all else held equal, better graphics DO make a game better.
No, bad films use it as a gimmick. Good implementations of it (such as Tron: Legacy) use it to provide depth perception. How is making something MORE realistic a gimmick? That's like saying that improving the graphics in a horror game from NES to PS3 levels is a "gimmick".
There are two reasons IMO for why you find 3D less immersive. The first is the current need for 3D glasses, which you're not used to and thus reminds you that you're watching something fake that's not really in 3D. The other is that most (though it's getting better) 3D has been the lame "Oooh, it's coming out of the screen to get you!" type as opposed to the newer ones that simply use 3D to add depth perception and a realistic sense of scale. There was an interview with the head of the 3DS dev team where he talked about this very thing - that the 3DS isn't about making games pop out of the screen, but about allowing a realistic sense of distance and size.
If companies don't have to pay taxes in the US, then it's a HUGE incentive for them to move as much as possible to the US. Even if they don't move ALL production to the US, merely moving corporate headquarters to the US creates more jobs (which also results in more income taxes). Also, if there are no corporate taxes, then they have no NEED to waste money on lobbying (or the billions of dollars they waste every year on complying with tax codes). But hey, why think about that when we can demonize the people providing us with jobs and writing our paychecks....
I guess in your ideal world we'd still be living in the 1700's because companies are bad.
People with your mindset lead the Sunkist Tuna closing up several factories in third world countries. Sunkist paid something like three times more than the average wage in the country, but it didn't meet the level YOU thought it should be, so they were forced to pack up and leave or pay an obscene amount for labor. Tell me - were those hundreds of workers better off making three times the average wage or unemployed due to someone with no knowledge of economics trying to play god and decide who gets to make what?
As for this idiocy...
Finally keep in mind this would not increase the prices because they are already fixed based on what you can pay, not on how much it costs to produce something, which is proven by the fact that prices do not decrease when jobs are outsourced.
Wrong, Prices would go up. Yes, they may not go DOWN when labor costs decrease, but they also don't increase as a result of inflation either. Think about plenty of things we buy on a daily basis that have been outsourced over the last 10 years - prices never changed on many things despite an inflation rate of 3 - 4 % per year. If input costs go up, prices WILL go up. Please, learn what you're talking about before you run your mouth and look like an idiot.
Sadly the overwhelming of people here have no understanding of Economics and thus don't realize that if you want to create jobs and improve the economy (as well as reverse outsourcing) you want corporate taxes as low as possible. However, the general ignorance of anything economic / finance related on slashdot combined the the trendiness of hating businesses that create jobs and write paychecks will lead to hundreds of "business are evil" comments by people who think that they should be given a paycheck just because they were born.
Really people, given how intelligent you believe yourselves to be, would it kill you to read some Economics textbooks or god forbid, take some classes in Economics? Think about how incredibly annoying it would be to hear someone with no knowledge of particle physics try to talk about the best way to do research in particle physics - that's how annoying it is to hear people with no knowledge of Economics try to talk about Economic policy.
Slashdot Mirror
Yup. I never pirated a game until DRM - hell, even then I just boycotted it without pirating. I didn't pirate until Batman: Arkham Asylum - why? Because after talking to an employee on the official forums about DRM and telling him that I would NOT buy a game that used online activations or activation limits, he lied and said that all it had on it was disc check to try to get me to buy it. Thankfully I googled it a few weeks later when the game was out before purchasing it and after I discovered his lie, I said "Fuck this - if their entire goal is just to screw paying customers, then I'm done just boycotting, I'm going to go ahead and pirate it as well just to give those bastards the finger".
I have shelf fulls of games I legally bought and have bought a couple dozen games on GOG. I'm more than happy to pay for games and reward the developers - but I'm not going to pay to get screwed over.
Depends. I know my University (went to undergrad there, currently doing grad school there) has multiple degrees (at all levels) for the classics. I know one such major requires two years worth of classes in Greek and Latin, as well as several classes on ancient civlizations and classic literature from those times as well.
Hardly. What happened was two things. One, society advanced and the necessary education for the better jobs increased beyond what's required in K-12 schools. Two was that employers realized that, even if a college degree was not necessary, by requiring one they could not only weed out inferior workers but help ensure that they get the best they possibly can.
The only downside to this was when colleges started lowering their admissions requirements in order to get more students to make more money. That how we ended up with reputable universities offering joke majors like "sports statistics" and "gender studies". It's also why we have dumbed down classes because universities don't want to fail 50% of the students.
Ah to be rich like you. It's almost always those who never have to worry about working who want to complain about people going to college to get the education necessary for a job.
True, but in the US it's also the Democrats who pushed for our current "learning facts isn't important, all that matters is how school makes you FEEL" bullshit, that's made our education system an utter joke. I'm definitely NOT saying "this party is better than the other" - they both suck balls. I'm merely pointing out that our public education sucking is mostly due to the Democrats...the Republicans who didn't want educated children just pulled them out and did home schooling (like the Duggar's).
Better yet, find any one of the millions of college co-ed's getting their MRS degree who can answer more than their name on that test.
I could have done the math quite easily when I was applying for college a decade ago. Now, not so much - not that I don't use math in my job / grad school, merely that I don't use those particular areas of math.
it's neither an expensive place (free, in fact, just a regular public school)
Sorry, it just always drives me nuts when people fail to realize that schools paid for with tax dollars are not "free". In fact, you'll most likely end up paying much, much more than the cost of education over the course of your life. The best it can be considered is an education that is covered by a mandatory loan that you do not apply for....but it's also a loan that you MUST pay back, even if you decide not to pursue higher levels of school.
I'm not arguing against tax money being used for education, merely that I hate that people think it's "free" merely because they're never handed a bill.
I can probably got a decade without upgrade my hard drives, because I have two 640 GB internal drives and keep my other files (music, movies, documents) on external drives that are linked in through the libraries feature in Win 7. It's totally seamless so it's as if they're on the local drive, yet it makes reformatting a cinch. I have an epic ton of games currently installed plus plenty of other crap downloaded and I still have hundreds of gigs free. Until each game starts using 50 GB for installation, I don't have to worry about upgrading before they stop putting SATA II capable ports on motherboards.
How many violent adults grew up long before video games and tv were invented? Oh I forgot, we've only had violence in the last 80 years.....
and that's a bad thing? Empathy (in almost every use of the term) is just a euphemism for "I don't have the spine to make tough choices that some people won't like". Do I feel bad that in order to keep company X running and keep most of it's employees paid means that 5% of the workers need to be laid off? Yes, but that doesn't mean I'm going to make a bad choice because I "empathize" with those 5% and thus damn everyone because I lack the balls to say "Sorry it sucks, but this is how it has to be".
Part of becoming cultured and civilized is learning to find other solutions to inter-personal problems that do not involve the quick and dirty inclination to just simply remove the problem.
Every second they spend "playing" a socially destructive role is a second wasted where their mind is not focused on making positive contributions to their environment.
Funny, I think most people would prefer kids learn to eliminate problems instead of creating complex and ineffective means of trying to lessen the harmful effects of the problem.
Tell me who's more foolish, the skeptic or the sycophant?
The AC.
I know you're just a troll, but they never said it ran out - they were showing what you'd have to do IF it ran out since you can't just walk to the corner and get a gallon of electricity to carry back with you.
A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse doe to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship. ~ Alexander Tyler, 1787
Regarding #1, I believe Android tablets can now do this as well with the exception that it's routed through a running pc / laptop.
I'm pretty sure that all Android tablets support a BT keyboard. Now you just need to get an Android tablet with a kickstand built in (doesn't the new LG one have a kickstand? It sure looks like it) and you're in business. Hell, if you don't mind coughing up $150, you could even buy that cool BT laser keyboard (as seen on ThinkGeek and The Cape).
Yup. I learned that pretty quick that if you search for something in the YouTube app that they restrict from phones you can just launch the browser and watch it anyways....seems kind of stupid on their part. There's plenty of other sites (like until recently, Google Docs) that won't let you use it on a cell phone even if your browser / phone is fully capable of running the site.
*WOOSH*
I specifically mentioned a horror game, which is going to be more focused on visuals than other elements (not saying other elements don't look good). I'm the first person to say that gameplay is more important than graphics - which is why I still routinely games that are 20 years old. However, all else held equal, better graphics DO make a game better.
No, bad films use it as a gimmick. Good implementations of it (such as Tron: Legacy) use it to provide depth perception. How is making something MORE realistic a gimmick? That's like saying that improving the graphics in a horror game from NES to PS3 levels is a "gimmick".
There are two reasons IMO for why you find 3D less immersive. The first is the current need for 3D glasses, which you're not used to and thus reminds you that you're watching something fake that's not really in 3D. The other is that most (though it's getting better) 3D has been the lame "Oooh, it's coming out of the screen to get you!" type as opposed to the newer ones that simply use 3D to add depth perception and a realistic sense of scale. There was an interview with the head of the 3DS dev team where he talked about this very thing - that the 3DS isn't about making games pop out of the screen, but about allowing a realistic sense of distance and size.
If companies don't have to pay taxes in the US, then it's a HUGE incentive for them to move as much as possible to the US. Even if they don't move ALL production to the US, merely moving corporate headquarters to the US creates more jobs (which also results in more income taxes). Also, if there are no corporate taxes, then they have no NEED to waste money on lobbying (or the billions of dollars they waste every year on complying with tax codes). But hey, why think about that when we can demonize the people providing us with jobs and writing our paychecks....
I guess in your ideal world we'd still be living in the 1700's because companies are bad.
People with your mindset lead the Sunkist Tuna closing up several factories in third world countries. Sunkist paid something like three times more than the average wage in the country, but it didn't meet the level YOU thought it should be, so they were forced to pack up and leave or pay an obscene amount for labor. Tell me - were those hundreds of workers better off making three times the average wage or unemployed due to someone with no knowledge of economics trying to play god and decide who gets to make what?
As for this idiocy...
Finally keep in mind this would not increase the prices because they are already fixed based on what you can pay, not on how much it costs to produce something, which is proven by the fact that prices do not decrease when jobs are outsourced.
Wrong, Prices would go up. Yes, they may not go DOWN when labor costs decrease, but they also don't increase as a result of inflation either. Think about plenty of things we buy on a daily basis that have been outsourced over the last 10 years - prices never changed on many things despite an inflation rate of 3 - 4 % per year. If input costs go up, prices WILL go up. Please, learn what you're talking about before you run your mouth and look like an idiot.
Sadly the overwhelming of people here have no understanding of Economics and thus don't realize that if you want to create jobs and improve the economy (as well as reverse outsourcing) you want corporate taxes as low as possible. However, the general ignorance of anything economic / finance related on slashdot combined the the trendiness of hating businesses that create jobs and write paychecks will lead to hundreds of "business are evil" comments by people who think that they should be given a paycheck just because they were born.
Really people, given how intelligent you believe yourselves to be, would it kill you to read some Economics textbooks or god forbid, take some classes in Economics? Think about how incredibly annoying it would be to hear someone with no knowledge of particle physics try to talk about the best way to do research in particle physics - that's how annoying it is to hear people with no knowledge of Economics try to talk about Economic policy.
What's the battery life on your ebook reader? My books have infinite battery life (even better than a T-800 Terminator!)