PS3 UT3 allows you to plug in a standard USB keyboard and mouse, if that's what floats your boat. I don't know if that's the case for the 360 release as well, but I can't think why not.
Another department of the very same corporation selling me a MiniDisc recorder, SonicStage Walkman software, bundling WMP with their Vaio laptop and beating Universal in a lawsuit to argue that time-shifting is legal, well that looks like some sort of fucking endorsement to me.
By the time you're down in page 7 with that search you seem to have moved past absolutely everything which I'd expect to have a pagerank higher than the femto- range, it seems. The article implies this is stuff dominating the front page, though.
Sadly for the RIAA, they're caught in something of a bind on that one.
a) The reason it's so easy to catch people distributing music on Bittorrent is that nearly every downloader is also available as an uploader. The few that aren't usually get throttled, anyway.
b) To really prove a machine is hosting a copyright file, you need to download it, frankly.
But that means
c) the RIAA ends up being a distributer. And if it's their material, and they're offering it up on the internet, I fail to see what laws someone has broken if they take the offer.
Why would the console owner be reduced to bots? Both consoles receiving UT3 have extensive online multiplayer options. Even their predecessors did, though it was less popular (and in the case of the PS2, a blimmin' nightmare to get running) back then.
That wouldn't be a problem if they let PC owners decide if they wanted to leave their machines at console-equivalent patch levels, instead of the latest and greatest. I for one would, because I value being able to play with my friends more than some minor bugfixes.
Does anyone actually hit this, though? I've got somewhere north of a thousand CDs, a fair few of which claim to have some sort of copy protection on them, but not one has failed to play in either my standalone NAD player, my car or the CD drive of my PC.
Actually, I'd disagree. All of the consoles are Game Consoles first and foremost, really. Sure, the 360 can do lots of media things, but that's because it has the memory and CPU oomph to handle them. That power is there because they're genuinely useful for making videogames.
The same goes for Sony's machine. I know a lot of people have questioned the additional cost of the BluRay drive, myself included, but as with the format in general that's just because it was rushed to market a bit too soon as a panicked rush to catch the competition. As the thing settles down, that extra space is actually turning out to be rather useful.
What's causing the whole Wii boom for me is, as you said in your last sentence, is the comparatively low price and the fun controller. But I believe the vast expense in the other machines is there for game reasons, not just because they want a media box. And it's not like there isn't a web browser in the Wii, either.
I suppose that's the problem with analogies, though. Unlike those games, every PS3 owner can be assumed to posess a SIXAXIS, because it came with the machine. You're not really expected to try Guitar Hero on a pad either, it's just possible (barely) due to the way the guitar's buttons are rewired to a standard pad.
Hell, I remember having a great laugh trying to play Crazy Taxi on the Dreamcast's fishing rod controller, and I'm fairly sure the designers didn't expect it to be used that way.
I suppose though, that this is probably because I'm left-handed, and I've faced enough console FPS games that won't remap the controls to suit me that I don't care as much now it's someone else having to put up with the mappings being somewhere they don't want them. I got used to it, so I'm sure everyone else can.
If Lair's could have been implemented on an analogue stick (I wouldn't know really; I only played it for about 2 minutes on a demopod, as it's not my sort of thing), then it's perfectly reasonable to offer it.
But at the same time, to pick another example have you ever played DDR or Guitar Hero on a regular pad? It's absolutely hideous, and breaks the point of it all. Wii games that work well implement the motion sensing to do things that are either plain impossible on a pad, or would feel unnatural and stupid. To draw another analogy, try playing a serious driving game on an arcade stick; it just doesn't work because you don't have the degree of control you need.
Really? Everyone I know who bought the Wii release of RE4 did so specifically for the new controls, because they had already played the Gamecube or PS2 versions.
All true. But at least in the case of "Pirates_3_DVDRip" I could probably make a reasonable guess.
But if I've got a file called "Heroes.rar" on my drive, should I be sued by Bowie, Philip Glass, NBC or NCSoft? Or maybe it's just my essay on Joseph Campbell. I remember one site getting into trouble for distributing Open Office, because the second word there matched a search for pirate copies of Microsoft's suite.
Ah, thanks for that. Like I said, I was just trying to come up with a reason. I don't know the ins and outs of Steam that well, because I gave up trying to use my PC as a games machine ages ago in favour of consoles. Ever since Starforce screwed up my DVD writing software, basically.
Linux usually won't let a program root it as easily as Windows will, due to all the sensible security design that gets in the way.
So there may be a certain liability just from having a Steam client that doesn't allow you as much security through obscurity.
Yeah, I know, bad idea and all that. But I'm just positing a possibly worry.
On the other hand, if this is just to get dedicated Linux servers for the new Team Fortress, they may not care too much about an uncrackable Steam client.
That makes good sense. My first thought was that getting Steam to a reasonably difficult to fool status would be a nightmare on such an open platform, but if you're only running servers who cares?
Yeah, sorry about that. When I said I've got 'it' on both DC and GC I was talking about Ikaruga then, not Rez still. I've only got that one on the DC, as my friend has the PS2 release and I don't like it as much there. Or don't like the way the PS2 looks on my HDTV as much as the DC does when you run it over VGA, anyway.
I know you're just being funny, but the 360 version won't come with anything - as a Live Arcade title it won't even come with a DVD...
I've already got the game twice - Dreamcast and Gamecube. I'm not entirely sure I can justify getting a third one. Then some of my mates will buy it, post high scores, and I'll succumb in about 30 seconds, knowing me.
On the other hand, the PS3 gives a better picture than many standalone Blu-Ray players and has the capability to be upgraded to version 1.1 of the format when that finalises at the end of October, unlike just about every standalone currently out there. Have you not noticed the number of 1.0 players being rushed out in October to save a few bucks?
The thing is, Adblock works because most advertisers host their own adverts. So it's not even that you're taking less than normal, but that you're downloading c's useful content without your browser automatically following the link to download the stuff from a's server as well.
You're a loyal customer who has bought Half-Life 2 (and probably CS:Source etc.) though. Not one who has bought TF2 yet.
All told, what people are really getting here is an advance beta version of TF2 to play, when they pay for the full version of the game before its finished. Which is fair enough, I think.
Since being a witness or victim of crime is a way to get yourself on the database, as well as being a suspect who is subsequently eliminated from enquiries, you're absolutely correct on that aspect.
What the Judge is saying is that being on the database increases your chances of having something pinned on you. So either the cops need to remove all those innocent people from the database, or put everyone else on too, to make it fair. Police organisations have already told him they don't want to do the former.
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PS3 UT3 allows you to plug in a standard USB keyboard and mouse, if that's what floats your boat. I don't know if that's the case for the 360 release as well, but I can't think why not.
Failing to prosecute is possibly negligence.
Another department of the very same corporation selling me a MiniDisc recorder, SonicStage Walkman software, bundling WMP with their Vaio laptop and beating Universal in a lawsuit to argue that time-shifting is legal, well that looks like some sort of fucking endorsement to me.
By the time you're down in page 7 with that search you seem to have moved past absolutely everything which I'd expect to have a pagerank higher than the femto- range, it seems. The article implies this is stuff dominating the front page, though.
Sadly for the RIAA, they're caught in something of a bind on that one.
a) The reason it's so easy to catch people distributing music on Bittorrent is that nearly every downloader is also available as an uploader. The few that aren't usually get throttled, anyway.
b) To really prove a machine is hosting a copyright file, you need to download it, frankly.
But that means
c) the RIAA ends up being a distributer. And if it's their material, and they're offering it up on the internet, I fail to see what laws someone has broken if they take the offer.
Why would the console owner be reduced to bots? Both consoles receiving UT3 have extensive online multiplayer options. Even their predecessors did, though it was less popular (and in the case of the PS2, a blimmin' nightmare to get running) back then.
That wouldn't be a problem if they let PC owners decide if they wanted to leave their machines at console-equivalent patch levels, instead of the latest and greatest. I for one would, because I value being able to play with my friends more than some minor bugfixes.
Does anyone actually hit this, though? I've got somewhere north of a thousand CDs, a fair few of which claim to have some sort of copy protection on them, but not one has failed to play in either my standalone NAD player, my car or the CD drive of my PC.
Actually, I'd disagree. All of the consoles are Game Consoles first and foremost, really. Sure, the 360 can do lots of media things, but that's because it has the memory and CPU oomph to handle them. That power is there because they're genuinely useful for making videogames.
The same goes for Sony's machine. I know a lot of people have questioned the additional cost of the BluRay drive, myself included, but as with the format in general that's just because it was rushed to market a bit too soon as a panicked rush to catch the competition. As the thing settles down, that extra space is actually turning out to be rather useful.
What's causing the whole Wii boom for me is, as you said in your last sentence, is the comparatively low price and the fun controller. But I believe the vast expense in the other machines is there for game reasons, not just because they want a media box. And it's not like there isn't a web browser in the Wii, either.
I suppose that's the problem with analogies, though. Unlike those games, every PS3 owner can be assumed to posess a SIXAXIS, because it came with the machine. You're not really expected to try Guitar Hero on a pad either, it's just possible (barely) due to the way the guitar's buttons are rewired to a standard pad.
Hell, I remember having a great laugh trying to play Crazy Taxi on the Dreamcast's fishing rod controller, and I'm fairly sure the designers didn't expect it to be used that way.
I suppose though, that this is probably because I'm left-handed, and I've faced enough console FPS games that won't remap the controls to suit me that I don't care as much now it's someone else having to put up with the mappings being somewhere they don't want them. I got used to it, so I'm sure everyone else can.
If Lair's could have been implemented on an analogue stick (I wouldn't know really; I only played it for about 2 minutes on a demopod, as it's not my sort of thing), then it's perfectly reasonable to offer it.
But at the same time, to pick another example have you ever played DDR or Guitar Hero on a regular pad? It's absolutely hideous, and breaks the point of it all. Wii games that work well implement the motion sensing to do things that are either plain impossible on a pad, or would feel unnatural and stupid. To draw another analogy, try playing a serious driving game on an arcade stick; it just doesn't work because you don't have the degree of control you need.
Really? Everyone I know who bought the Wii release of RE4 did so specifically for the new controls, because they had already played the Gamecube or PS2 versions.
Because nobody is going to buy one until a price cut and the release of MGS4, Home and/or Little Big Planet next year anyway?
Even worse, I read it as "Marketplace" at first, and wondered (a) what was new about the XBox Live online shop, and (b) why Koster was involved.
All true. But at least in the case of "Pirates_3_DVDRip" I could probably make a reasonable guess.
But if I've got a file called "Heroes.rar" on my drive, should I be sued by Bowie, Philip Glass, NBC or NCSoft? Or maybe it's just my essay on Joseph Campbell. I remember one site getting into trouble for distributing Open Office, because the second word there matched a search for pirate copies of Microsoft's suite.
Ah, thanks for that. Like I said, I was just trying to come up with a reason. I don't know the ins and outs of Steam that well, because I gave up trying to use my PC as a games machine ages ago in favour of consoles. Ever since Starforce screwed up my DVD writing software, basically.
Linux usually won't let a program root it as easily as Windows will, due to all the sensible security design that gets in the way.
So there may be a certain liability just from having a Steam client that doesn't allow you as much security through obscurity.
Yeah, I know, bad idea and all that. But I'm just positing a possibly worry.
On the other hand, if this is just to get dedicated Linux servers for the new Team Fortress, they may not care too much about an uncrackable Steam client.
That makes good sense. My first thought was that getting Steam to a reasonably difficult to fool status would be a nightmare on such an open platform, but if you're only running servers who cares?
Yeah, sorry about that. When I said I've got 'it' on both DC and GC I was talking about Ikaruga then, not Rez still. I've only got that one on the DC, as my friend has the PS2 release and I don't like it as much there. Or don't like the way the PS2 looks on my HDTV as much as the DC does when you run it over VGA, anyway.
I know you're just being funny, but the 360 version won't come with anything - as a Live Arcade title it won't even come with a DVD...
I've already got the game twice - Dreamcast and Gamecube. I'm not entirely sure I can justify getting a third one. Then some of my mates will buy it, post high scores, and I'll succumb in about 30 seconds, knowing me.
On the other hand, the PS3 gives a better picture than many standalone Blu-Ray players and has the capability to be upgraded to version 1.1 of the format when that finalises at the end of October, unlike just about every standalone currently out there. Have you not noticed the number of 1.0 players being rushed out in October to save a few bucks?
Bah. It's nowhere near as good as my new BluLaserDisc.
The thing is, Adblock works because most advertisers host their own adverts. So it's not even that you're taking less than normal, but that you're downloading c's useful content without your browser automatically following the link to download the stuff from a's server as well.
You're a loyal customer who has bought Half-Life 2 (and probably CS:Source etc.) though. Not one who has bought TF2 yet.
All told, what people are really getting here is an advance beta version of TF2 to play, when they pay for the full version of the game before its finished. Which is fair enough, I think.
No, that's a mere 24,000 innocent children. Plenty of people over 18 are on the database for reasons other than being convicted of a crime, too.
Since being a witness or victim of crime is a way to get yourself on the database, as well as being a suspect who is subsequently eliminated from enquiries, you're absolutely correct on that aspect.
What the Judge is saying is that being on the database increases your chances of having something pinned on you. So either the cops need to remove all those innocent people from the database, or put everyone else on too, to make it fair. Police organisations have already told him they don't want to do the former.