You're talking piffle mate. I'm a video game addict. I'm 37, and have a wife and two kids aged 2 and 6. So I think I can speak with some degree of authority on this subject. Certainly more than most of the people on here (by your generalisation). I've had an account on here for 9 years now.
This is just yet another story of some new medium our children have access to that we didn't. I'm fairly certain if Ye Olde Slashdot had been around at the time of the printing press some "educational psychologist" would be decrying how Gutenberg was the devil (the printing press inventor, not the erstwhile "Police Academy" star) for the printing press and how books were going to ruin children.
Consulting your own parents would be rather pointless. Why? Well for starters they grew up pre-video games, so if anything will be less informed on the benefits and negatives than us. Secondly, my parents are gamers anyway!
You've cleverly constructed your argument to render anyone under the age of 50 who has an opinion as irrelevant. Well played. Too bad your posturing is facetious and flawed.
For what it's worth, my six year old, who has played games since around the age of 3? Everyone says he's smart, funny, nice to be around. This whole argument is flawed because it doesn't take into account HOW they play the games. The kid who is plonked in front of a Playstation and left on their own for hours on end is going to be impacted in a far different and probably negative fashion than someone like my kid, who plays with his Dad, takes regular breaks etc...
It's not just a black and white issue, which is sadly what people like this stupid woman in the article seem to think. Not to mention the fact that different things effect people in different ways. If I let my kid play GTA, with me involved and guiding him he'd grow up knowing the gang members are idiots, guns are bad, and probably abhor violence. You let your kid play GTA (assuming any woman would let you put your penis inside them for long enough, which with your attitude is debatable), and he'll probably grow up to be a serial killer.
So you're comparing vinyl to humans? I wasn't aware vinyl healed itself when scratched. And I'm fairly certain humans don't warp out of shape when left near a window with the sun coming in.
I agree. I'm sick of all this recent BS about how bad MP3 is. I downloaded severals albums in FLAC the other day to do an experiment. (I'm in Canada, and downloading is legal currently due to the levies we pay, so NYAH!) I did an experiment and encoded it into 245vbr MP3 and listened to both to compare. On most of it, I wound up losing track of which was FLAC and which was MP3. (This is on pretty decent headphones.) ONLY difference I noted was on one track there was 70's style guitar (Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, "Calypso Breakdown" if you're interested) and the MP3 DID lose the very VERY high end frequency on the guitar. Not enough to even really consider it was such a minimal difference. Certainly didn't detract from the song.
Plus one big advantage with MP3 over even CD... YOU CAN'T SCRATCH AN MP3. I mean I love vinyl, I always will, I have tons of it in storage, but I'm also a realist. One mishap and you're precious vinyl is fucked for ever. Whenever I hear Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust", even after 25+ years, I STILL expect it to skip during the final chorus because my version got scratched there shortly after purchase. And, of course, MP3 won't break, warp in the heat etc... Vinyl may sound good, but it's a retarded format due to it's volatility.
I've also got CD's that won't play properly due to a scratch being at just the wrong angle etc...
Though I do find it funny that in the late 80's there was all that crap about the ink they use on CD's eating through the CD and rendering unplayable within seven years. Even made the mainstream media. Turned out to be utter garbage, surprise surprise. I've got CD's that are 20 years old and still play just fine.
Only on Slashdot can a comment ending with "you stupid motherfuckers" be considered insightful.
I have to agree. I've been chuckling about it since I saw I'd gotten an "insightful".
Eight years I've had an account on here. Everyone else I know who signed up around then has long abandoned the site. Why do I stay? Because of things like a comment ending "you stupid motherfuckers" getting modded up:)
Did you even READ what I put? Your opening remark is hilarious and you clearly are in the "condemn the anti-vax crowd will knowing absolutely nothing and being proud of it" demographic.
I love the way my earlier post is modded as a troll. NOTE TO FUCKWIT MOD: Having a contrary opinion backed up by actual knowledge is NOT a troll.
What I would like to know is just how much research have people like you done into the issue? And I mean PROPER research, not just newspaper knowledge of fragments you've gleaned over the years. Because I know a hell of a lot people, including some within the vaccine industry, who, if they posted here, could destroy every single one of your arguments.
Most of the so called "fallcies" you claim are far from that. The people I know who are anti-vaccine generally tend to be more intelligent, better educated and questioning than the people who aren't. They're more educated, and actually take time to read books, official studies etc... They're NOT just going along because of some "new-age nonsense". And to be honest, your attitude is sickening. If you had a child who was suffering from autism, you'd do anything you could to try and help them.
How many medical experts have you spoken to about vaccines? How many books have you read? How many studies have you read? This is the problem. The people who bash the anti-vax crowd have done very little research of their own and base their entire arguments on what little they know, and the commonly accepted knowledge. It has nothing to do with paranoia. It has nothing to do with merely anecdotal evidence.
Anyone who is at least interested in educating themselves should look up Doctor Sherri Tenpenny. (May be Sherry, can't remember right now.) She set out in the direction you have stated, to show it's all conspiracy theories etc... She wound up swinging the other direction entirely. She backs up everything she says with information on what FDA and CDC documents and reports she got the information from. (Another good book on the subject is "Just A Little Prick" by Hilary Butler.)
I realise I am wasting my time here, but I am sick of uneducated people bashing those who are anti-vaccine when they're uninformed. If you've done all the research and still feel it's bogus, then fair play to you. But I guarantee you haven't. You have taken a basic scientific knowledge, and think you know more than those who have spent years researching the issue.
For the record, someone I know contacted the FDA and CDC and asked them directly if they can guarantee that thimerosal is removed entirely from the vaccines. The agencies that are supposed to be overseeing this process of removing thimerosal are not doing their own tests, rather relying on the manufacturers own data and samples. Not independent randomized sampling. Of course folk will also dismiss this, despite the fact that, say, this was Microsoft source code being checked for something, let's say NSA backdoors, and Microsoft were essentially doing it themselves, there'd be uproar.
Please, educate yourself. READ studies on vaccines etc... And I mean government studies, not the PR material that the companies put out. As I said, if you do as much research as we have and come to an opposite conclusion, then fair play to you. I'm just absolutely sick of ill-informed individuals such as yourself condemning the opposite side.
And I'll leave you with this. http://www.hapihealth.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=19&Itemi not that you'll probably read it. To sum up, a group tested four different vaccines that claim to be mercury free, and found mercury in all of them in varying quantities. So the claims of "mercury free" are as bogus as those "new-age" activities you condemn. The link also includes links to the FDA indicating how much mercury is supposed to be in those shots. (Be sure to click the image to see the actual lab results of the vaccine tests.)
While it may very well claim 1999, that was when it ceased being PRODUCED. They still used the old stock and THAT wasn't cleared until at least 2001. Also the flu shot contains mercury, and is administered to pregnant women now.
Thimerasol has NOT been ruled out in causing individual cases of autism. Just that it is not the SOLE cause of autism. It's still a documented fact that US infants exposure to thimerosal increased starting around 1990, and that correlates with a huge spike in autism rates.
It doesn't say thimerosal is safe, the study just shows it's not the ONLY cause of the tenfold increase in the rates of autism.
Oh there probably ISN'T an actual honest to god law against it. But as I said, I am endlessly jaded and cynical these days, and fully expect the mere THREAT of a threat (if you see what I mean) to get them to fold if push comes to shove, and we know Blizz love to shove. (Used to be my favourite dev house. Notice I say USED to be.) Corporations know they don't have to have a legal leg to stand on in many cases. If Vivendi came knocking on your door and said "You've illegally used blah and we're taking you to court", you (unless you're very rich) probably can't afford legal counsel. You may be 110% in the right, you may know this, but you don't have the finances to follow through and have this legally proven in a court of law, because Vivendi will drag things out as long as possible to force you into a corner until you're left with only one option. Capitulation.
As I said, I hope I'm wrong and the project flourishes. I just don't see it happening sadly.
They are making a game that, within the limitations of the platform, looks like Starcraft, acts like Starcraft... It clearly IS a copy of Starcraft. They are using Blizzard's intellectual property without permission.
(For the record, I wish them the best of luck. I have no time for software companies like Blizzard who wield their power like a scimitar. I hope the software come to fruition and doesn't get spanked. I am just utterly jaded and cynical about any homebrew that infringes, even if only slightly, on a large software companies IP. Especially one so lawyer happy as Blizzard.)
The Bnetd project was snuffed by Blizzard. Plus they've snuffed other projects over the years that you most certainly won't be able to find executables for anymore.
Plus, again, these are French people violating the copyright of a product OWNED BY A FRENCH COMPANY.
The project may very well survive, but I'd bet dollars to donuts it won't be using the Starcraft name. Or the look of the units. (Of course Blizzard stole a lot of their ideas for Starcraft anyway, but that's beside the point...)
Yes. After all America didn't go after DVD Jon... America wasn't behind The Pirate Bay being raided... That must have been my imagination.
When will people wake up and realise that what is ACTUALLY illegal is irrelevant, it's who has the most money that gets "justice." because they know they can bankrupt the individual, whether they're right or wrong. Not to mention the fact they're not in the US is also irrelevant as Vivendi, the owners of Blizzard and all their lovely trademarks, are a FRENCH COMPANY, and the people doing this are FRENCH.
Before some clown picks me up on including Grand Prix Legends, the game still has a very thriving scene, with updates that bring it up to modern standards very easily. And the easiest way to do that is to run an installer that downloads all the updates for you. Another example of needing black magic skills to get it to play nice in Linux.
Don't talk wet. I've been a Linux user since the late 90's. WINE is BETTER now, definitely, but it still has massive issues and flaws. If you're a hardcore gamer, there is just no point bothering with WINE when you can just slap a disk in the drive in XP and install something and have it work. Go look up, for example, how to install Half-Life 2 in WINE. It's multiple pages long. To install in Windows, you download Steam, or slap the disk in the drive. You can write the instructions on the back of a postage stamp. Unlike doing it in Linux which practically requires a seperate MAN page for each title you want to install.
Yes, Linux is great. I used to cover Linux for a living, I still use it from time to time. (I quit writing about it because I was tired of being associated with acolytes who have no grasp of the actual realities of computing. The gaming situation in Linux now is pretty much the same as it was when I was writing about it five years ago. Almost nothing has changed.
Until Linux is supported better and people can install rFactor, GTR2, Grand Prix Legends, Dawn of War... Pretty much any top line title, without needing a manual to do so... Until such time as Linux reaches that point and can run top titles NATIVELY, shagging around with WINE will always be an extremely poor alternative.
Re:FUCKING micro$oft games!!!...
on
Goodbye Cruel Word
·
· Score: 0, Troll
Thanks for that, saves me saying it. Installing a WHOLE NEW OS just to write (and I'm saying this as a professional writer myself) is absurd.
Because like many people, they probably want to reliably run their games and all their other windows software without jumping through hoops like a performing seal. (And do NOT say "WINE" or I will laugh because that software is largely a bad joke. While it runs stuff, in most cases it does it very poorly and has other technical glitches. Plus any kind of 3D apps cause huge issues if you have Beryl/Compiz running.)
You mean you fail to see the irony in someone bitching about language when they can't even spell big words correctly? Not like it takes more then ten seconds to punch the word into Google, and have Google suggest the correct spelling for you.
All I know is a friend installed SP1 last night... And spent the rest of their night reinstalling the OS on their now bricked system. (Couldn't get to a command prompt, safemode, anything. SP1 murdered the system.)
This is awesome! When people have asked why I hate Vista and refuse to use it, DRM was one feature I'd always mention. (Among many.) People have told me that I didn't understand it, that it was over my head, and that it would never work like that, and that I was wrong. (In other words the usual passive-aggressive bullshit shit people who genuinely know their stuff get from people who think they know computers but don't really know a damn thing.)
Well READ AND IT WEEP, VISTA FANBOYS! I wish this had shown up a few months ago so I could have shoved this in their stupid faces.
Given the cesspool it is, something being on Digg is hardly praise.
I've not read the article as the posts in here have told me all I need to know. Whining about not getting paid on time? HA! He should try being a freelance writer for magazines... Being paid late would be a luxury with some of them! (Including a very well respected Linux publication that still owes me money.)
Slashdot Mirror
You're talking piffle mate. I'm a video game addict. I'm 37, and have a wife and two kids aged 2 and 6. So I think I can speak with some degree of authority on this subject. Certainly more than most of the people on here (by your generalisation). I've had an account on here for 9 years now.
This is just yet another story of some new medium our children have access to that we didn't. I'm fairly certain if Ye Olde Slashdot had been around at the time of the printing press some "educational psychologist" would be decrying how Gutenberg was the devil (the printing press inventor, not the erstwhile "Police Academy" star) for the printing press and how books were going to ruin children.
Consulting your own parents would be rather pointless. Why? Well for starters they grew up pre-video games, so if anything will be less informed on the benefits and negatives than us. Secondly, my parents are gamers anyway!
You've cleverly constructed your argument to render anyone under the age of 50 who has an opinion as irrelevant. Well played. Too bad your posturing is facetious and flawed.
For what it's worth, my six year old, who has played games since around the age of 3? Everyone says he's smart, funny, nice to be around. This whole argument is flawed because it doesn't take into account HOW they play the games. The kid who is plonked in front of a Playstation and left on their own for hours on end is going to be impacted in a far different and probably negative fashion than someone like my kid, who plays with his Dad, takes regular breaks etc...
It's not just a black and white issue, which is sadly what people like this stupid woman in the article seem to think. Not to mention the fact that different things effect people in different ways. If I let my kid play GTA, with me involved and guiding him he'd grow up knowing the gang members are idiots, guns are bad, and probably abhor violence. You let your kid play GTA (assuming any woman would let you put your penis inside them for long enough, which with your attitude is debatable), and he'll probably grow up to be a serial killer.
our company is still very young
I'm sure that'll be a comfort to customers who lose their data:)
*rimshot*
So you're comparing vinyl to humans? I wasn't aware vinyl healed itself when scratched. And I'm fairly certain humans don't warp out of shape when left near a window with the sun coming in.
I agree. I'm sick of all this recent BS about how bad MP3 is. I downloaded severals albums in FLAC the other day to do an experiment. (I'm in Canada, and downloading is legal currently due to the levies we pay, so NYAH!) I did an experiment and encoded it into 245vbr MP3 and listened to both to compare. On most of it, I wound up losing track of which was FLAC and which was MP3. (This is on pretty decent headphones.) ONLY difference I noted was on one track there was 70's style guitar (Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, "Calypso Breakdown" if you're interested) and the MP3 DID lose the very VERY high end frequency on the guitar. Not enough to even really consider it was such a minimal difference. Certainly didn't detract from the song.
Plus one big advantage with MP3 over even CD... YOU CAN'T SCRATCH AN MP3. I mean I love vinyl, I always will, I have tons of it in storage, but I'm also a realist. One mishap and you're precious vinyl is fucked for ever. Whenever I hear Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust", even after 25+ years, I STILL expect it to skip during the final chorus because my version got scratched there shortly after purchase. And, of course, MP3 won't break, warp in the heat etc... Vinyl may sound good, but it's a retarded format due to it's volatility.
I've also got CD's that won't play properly due to a scratch being at just the wrong angle etc...
Though I do find it funny that in the late 80's there was all that crap about the ink they use on CD's eating through the CD and rendering unplayable within seven years. Even made the mainstream media. Turned out to be utter garbage, surprise surprise. I've got CD's that are 20 years old and still play just fine.
Only on Slashdot can a comment ending with "you stupid motherfuckers" be considered insightful.
I have to agree. I've been chuckling about it since I saw I'd gotten an "insightful".
Eight years I've had an account on here. Everyone else I know who signed up around then has long abandoned the site. Why do I stay? Because of things like a comment ending "you stupid motherfuckers" getting modded up:)
Beats the hell out of Digg.
So they save a million? Wow, know how else to save money? STOP WAGING WAR YOU STUPID MOTHERFUCKERS!
Did you even READ what I put? Your opening remark is hilarious and you clearly are in the "condemn the anti-vax crowd will knowing absolutely nothing and being proud of it" demographic.
I love the way my earlier post is modded as a troll. NOTE TO FUCKWIT MOD: Having a contrary opinion backed up by actual knowledge is NOT a troll.
What I would like to know is just how much research have people like you done into the issue? And I mean PROPER research, not just newspaper knowledge of fragments you've gleaned over the years. Because I know a hell of a lot people, including some within the vaccine industry, who, if they posted here, could destroy every single one of your arguments.
Most of the so called "fallcies" you claim are far from that. The people I know who are anti-vaccine generally tend to be more intelligent, better educated and questioning than the people who aren't. They're more educated, and actually take time to read books, official studies etc... They're NOT just going along because of some "new-age nonsense". And to be honest, your attitude is sickening. If you had a child who was suffering from autism, you'd do anything you could to try and help them.
How many medical experts have you spoken to about vaccines? How many books have you read? How many studies have you read? This is the problem. The people who bash the anti-vax crowd have done very little research of their own and base their entire arguments on what little they know, and the commonly accepted knowledge. It has nothing to do with paranoia. It has nothing to do with merely anecdotal evidence.
Anyone who is at least interested in educating themselves should look up Doctor Sherri Tenpenny. (May be Sherry, can't remember right now.) She set out in the direction you have stated, to show it's all conspiracy theories etc... She wound up swinging the other direction entirely. She backs up everything she says with information on what FDA and CDC documents and reports she got the information from. (Another good book on the subject is "Just A Little Prick" by Hilary Butler.)
I realise I am wasting my time here, but I am sick of uneducated people bashing those who are anti-vaccine when they're uninformed. If you've done all the research and still feel it's bogus, then fair play to you. But I guarantee you haven't. You have taken a basic scientific knowledge, and think you know more than those who have spent years researching the issue.
For the record, someone I know contacted the FDA and CDC and asked them directly if they can guarantee that thimerosal is removed entirely from the vaccines. The agencies that are supposed to be overseeing this process of removing thimerosal are not doing their own tests, rather relying on the manufacturers own data and samples. Not independent randomized sampling. Of course folk will also dismiss this, despite the fact that, say, this was Microsoft source code being checked for something, let's say NSA backdoors, and Microsoft were essentially doing it themselves, there'd be uproar.
Please, educate yourself. READ studies on vaccines etc... And I mean government studies, not the PR material that the companies put out. As I said, if you do as much research as we have and come to an opposite conclusion, then fair play to you. I'm just absolutely sick of ill-informed individuals such as yourself condemning the opposite side.
And I'll leave you with this. http://www.hapihealth.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=19&Itemi not that you'll probably read it. To sum up, a group tested four different vaccines that claim to be mercury free, and found mercury in all of them in varying quantities. So the claims of "mercury free" are as bogus as those "new-age" activities you condemn. The link also includes links to the FDA indicating how much mercury is supposed to be in those shots. (Be sure to click the image to see the actual lab results of the vaccine tests.)
While it may very well claim 1999, that was when it ceased being PRODUCED. They still used the old stock and THAT wasn't cleared until at least 2001. Also the flu shot contains mercury, and is administered to pregnant women now.
Thimerasol has NOT been ruled out in causing individual cases of autism. Just that it is not the SOLE cause of autism. It's still a documented fact that US infants exposure to thimerosal increased starting around 1990, and that correlates with a huge spike in autism rates.
It doesn't say thimerosal is safe, the study just shows it's not the ONLY cause of the tenfold increase in the rates of autism.
Oh there probably ISN'T an actual honest to god law against it. But as I said, I am endlessly jaded and cynical these days, and fully expect the mere THREAT of a threat (if you see what I mean) to get them to fold if push comes to shove, and we know Blizz love to shove. (Used to be my favourite dev house. Notice I say USED to be.) Corporations know they don't have to have a legal leg to stand on in many cases. If Vivendi came knocking on your door and said "You've illegally used blah and we're taking you to court", you (unless you're very rich) probably can't afford legal counsel. You may be 110% in the right, you may know this, but you don't have the finances to follow through and have this legally proven in a court of law, because Vivendi will drag things out as long as possible to force you into a corner until you're left with only one option. Capitulation.
As I said, I hope I'm wrong and the project flourishes. I just don't see it happening sadly.
They are making a game that, within the limitations of the platform, looks like Starcraft, acts like Starcraft... It clearly IS a copy of Starcraft. They are using Blizzard's intellectual property without permission.
(For the record, I wish them the best of luck. I have no time for software companies like Blizzard who wield their power like a scimitar. I hope the software come to fruition and doesn't get spanked. I am just utterly jaded and cynical about any homebrew that infringes, even if only slightly, on a large software companies IP. Especially one so lawyer happy as Blizzard.)
The Bnetd project was snuffed by Blizzard. Plus they've snuffed other projects over the years that you most certainly won't be able to find executables for anymore.
Plus, again, these are French people violating the copyright of a product OWNED BY A FRENCH COMPANY.
The project may very well survive, but I'd bet dollars to donuts it won't be using the Starcraft name. Or the look of the units. (Of course Blizzard stole a lot of their ideas for Starcraft anyway, but that's beside the point...)
Yes. After all America didn't go after DVD Jon... America wasn't behind The Pirate Bay being raided... That must have been my imagination.
When will people wake up and realise that what is ACTUALLY illegal is irrelevant, it's who has the most money that gets "justice." because they know they can bankrupt the individual, whether they're right or wrong. Not to mention the fact they're not in the US is also irrelevant as Vivendi, the owners of Blizzard and all their lovely trademarks, are a FRENCH COMPANY, and the people doing this are FRENCH.
That is one of the nastiest looking websites... Why do sites insist on having such annoying backgrounds?
And yes, I fully expect these guys will be crushed like bugs by March.
Before some clown picks me up on including Grand Prix Legends, the game still has a very thriving scene, with updates that bring it up to modern standards very easily. And the easiest way to do that is to run an installer that downloads all the updates for you. Another example of needing black magic skills to get it to play nice in Linux.
Don't talk wet. I've been a Linux user since the late 90's. WINE is BETTER now, definitely, but it still has massive issues and flaws. If you're a hardcore gamer, there is just no point bothering with WINE when you can just slap a disk in the drive in XP and install something and have it work. Go look up, for example, how to install Half-Life 2 in WINE. It's multiple pages long. To install in Windows, you download Steam, or slap the disk in the drive. You can write the instructions on the back of a postage stamp. Unlike doing it in Linux which practically requires a seperate MAN page for each title you want to install.
Yes, Linux is great. I used to cover Linux for a living, I still use it from time to time. (I quit writing about it because I was tired of being associated with acolytes who have no grasp of the actual realities of computing. The gaming situation in Linux now is pretty much the same as it was when I was writing about it five years ago. Almost nothing has changed.
Until Linux is supported better and people can install rFactor, GTR2, Grand Prix Legends, Dawn of War... Pretty much any top line title, without needing a manual to do so... Until such time as Linux reaches that point and can run top titles NATIVELY, shagging around with WINE will always be an extremely poor alternative.
Thanks for that, saves me saying it. Installing a WHOLE NEW OS just to write (and I'm saying this as a professional writer myself) is absurd.
Because like many people, they probably want to reliably run their games and all their other windows software without jumping through hoops like a performing seal. (And do NOT say "WINE" or I will laugh because that software is largely a bad joke. While it runs stuff, in most cases it does it very poorly and has other technical glitches. Plus any kind of 3D apps cause huge issues if you have Beryl/Compiz running.)
You mean you fail to see the irony in someone bitching about language when they can't even spell big words correctly? Not like it takes more then ten seconds to punch the word into Google, and have Google suggest the correct spelling for you.
That'd be funny if you had to physically do it.
All I know is a friend installed SP1 last night... And spent the rest of their night reinstalling the OS on their now bricked system. (Couldn't get to a command prompt, safemode, anything. SP1 murdered the system.)
This is awesome! When people have asked why I hate Vista and refuse to use it, DRM was one feature I'd always mention. (Among many.) People have told me that I didn't understand it, that it was over my head, and that it would never work like that, and that I was wrong. (In other words the usual passive-aggressive bullshit shit people who genuinely know their stuff get from people who think they know computers but don't really know a damn thing.)
Well READ AND IT WEEP, VISTA FANBOYS! I wish this had shown up a few months ago so I could have shoved this in their stupid faces.
Thank you, I feel better now.
Given the cesspool it is, something being on Digg is hardly praise.
I've not read the article as the posts in here have told me all I need to know. Whining about not getting paid on time? HA! He should try being a freelance writer for magazines... Being paid late would be a luxury with some of them! (Including a very well respected Linux publication that still owes me money.)
"fatal anal hemorrhage"
I ever start a death metal band, I am so stealing that for the name.
Be nice if he could spell syllable correctly too...