W...T....F.... USPS are you serious? So, if I call you and say "hey my mail keeps disappearing" are you going to tell me "what are YOU doing to stop it?"
Regarding this point, I think this is pretty much a USPS standard policy. I have had two separate instances where packages delivered through USPS have gone missing. USPS claims they were delivered, I never received them. On both instances, I had the same kind of response from them, and it didn't really surprise me. After all, they are leaving video game disks in mailboxes that are frequently not secured. It seems logical that there are people in the world that will steal those disks, and it also seems logical that USPS would not feel inclined to take responsibility for that. Its crappy customer service for sure, but I can understand the thinking.
GameFly disks come in a largish stiff cardboard packet that does not bend. Netflix disks come in similarly sized paper envelopes that do bend around the corners. Netflix mailings are relatively easy to stuff into a small mailbox because they literally have a footprint the size of a DVD (small). GameFly's mailings are not nearly as flexible, so again it does not surprise me that USPS is questioning why kind of research GameFly conducted to determine that this package was the most appropriate.
The number of Americans that are actually politically aware and care enough to vote could probably have a hard time populating a country the size of Montenegro. We only need the two to keep up occupied. Any more and we'd get confused.
To say that I voted for one party or the other is not necessarily to say that I am satisfied by that party. Many people cast their votes to make sure the party that is closest to protecting their interests wins. Some Greens tend to vote Democrat because Democrat is better than Republican (and the reverse is often true for Libertarians). Lots of people feel the need to make sure their voice is heard, so they select the better of the two major options rather than "wasting their vote" by supporting someone that might more closely represent their views.
Taking numbers from that article, only 63.0% of Americans voted in this election (shamefully, the best turnout since 1968). Continuing your logic, 37.0% of Americans were so dissatisfied by any available party that they did not even vote. 33.3% of eligible voters voted Democrat, 28.7% voted Republican. Think of it this way, only 1/3 of our country supported Obama enough to take the 20 minutes to go to their town hall and check the box next to his name. Of that 1/3 some of them likely did so only to make sure that John McCain didn't win. Not exactly inspiring support.
The less than 1.5% can safely be ignored, and the nonvoting voters too.
That is kind of a dangerous attitude to take. Keep in mind that they represent a population larger than voted for any single candidate.
PII is just Personally Identifiable Information (name, SSN, specific medical conditions, appointments, etc). The reason HIPAA protects it is so that nobody can gain access to that data and learn anything about the person. Its all part of the same thing.
Sorry, I didn't say that very clearly. My point was that they are probably very aware of how excited people are over Reach, even though it will be the 5th FPS in the series. I meant to imply that Bungie see's how successful they can be with cranking out sequels on a single (kick-ass) franchise.
Yes I do, I'll buy two copies even because i don't give a shit about DRM or not.
Why buy two copies of the same game? That seems pretty silly to m...
I buy the game cause its fun.
Oh I see. You enjoy spending money. In that case, you are really going to love the state of games in 2-3 years when you get to buy it for full retail (just the license of course, you won't actually own anything) and then get to pay a monthly "server access and maintenance fee" to continue to play your DRM crippled games.
On a more serious and less sarcastic note, requiring constant internet connection for LAN play is ridiculous, and will only punish honest players that don't circumvent DRM. Every LAN party I've ever been to has been in a basement/gym/whatever that is big enough to allow a bunch of people to set up their stations, and lacked the ability to provide an internet connection to each station.
If I pay full retail for a game, I expect to be able to use the product in the way that I see fit. I absolutely should not be required to maintain a connection to their servers to continually validate myself. Sure the cost and inconvenience to me is minimal, but it is a short step down a very slippery slope. And a step that consumers have the ability to stop developers from taking.
Craptivision's sequel-itis is making EA look like a sane company these days. The damage Craptivision did to Guitar Hero alone should have warned Bungie away, never mind the damage to Marvel's game lines, the absolutely crappy X-men "fighting games", the nonsense with Infinity Ward...
Respectfully, remember that we are talking about Bungie here. After seeing the success of Halo CE, Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo: ODST, and the excitement over Halo: Reach, I can certainly understand why they might want to find a publisher for their next big franchise that will has the marketing knowledge and culture to support a 10 year string of sequels. Maybe they are looking for a franchise like Guitar Hero, which would allow them to crap out a new full price game every 9-12 months with minimal development.
Plus, combat is stressful. IANAS (Soldier) but I can say that under extremely stressful conditions people that have not had extreme training to handle those situations tend to lose a great deal of their higher cognitive and memory functions. If you are scrambling to point one of those things at an armored vehicle that is trying to kill you, taking the time to read and understand instructions or to remember a 3 day training you received years ago will be difficult. Having simple little images that show you how to use the thing are majorly helpful. At the very least, they don't hurt anything.
I've had it happen twice so far. Both times MS shipped me a refurb replacement with a new 3 yr warranty.
MS struggled at first with customer support, but I think they have learned to make efforts to keep their customers happy (and buying new games). Sony hasn't figured that out yet.
Well hello there Mr. Obnoxious American. Now, as you may or (more likely) may not be aware, the English language was invented right here in little old Britain. We spell it tyre. You're entitled to mispell it as tire if you like, but every time you do we Brits have a quiet chuckle to ourselves, roll our eyes at our backwards cousins across the Pond and carry on in our usual dignified manner.
I like to think of myself as a typical obnoxious American, and I found your post quiet amusing. Really put some color into my day.
I love class-action lawsuits. I get lots of free money:
- $25 from the U.S. versus RCA, Sony, et cetera
- $75 from U.S. v. Paypal
- ~$4000 from U.S. v. Equinox (of course I actually gave them $10,000 so that was a bit of a loss)
And so on. I wonder what I'll get out of the PS3 class action deal?
If Sony plays it smart, all you will get is an offer to return your PS3 for a refund of your purchase price. So few people will actually follow through on the offer that it will be cheaper for Sony than settling and offering a cash payment for each PS3 owner.
The GP mentions that SystemLink is still available. Doesn't that mean that people can play multiplayer games via a tunneling solution? Have somebody throw together a frontend/matchmaking service for that and you've got exactly what you're asking for.
I don't know what the state of it is right now, but I remember using XBConnect to play the original Halo online. The downside of if was that it didn't have Matchmaking or in game voice communication like XBlive does. I remember having to use a computer to join a chat room to find someone to play with, and only being able to communicate through chat. I don't know anything about where this stands now, but it seems to me that it would be workable.
Of course, the OP's point (which after reflection I agree with) is that the End User shouldn't have to jump through hoops to get it to work. MS ought to make this known and available to players before they end their support.
Not trying to be a douche here, but the game is almost 6 years old and runs on an outdated service that was generally limited to an outdated console. The last original Xbox's were sold in 2006, and have not been supported by Microsoft for almost a year (seriously any original Xboxes that need service and are somehow still under warranty are simply replaced by an Xbox 360). People that buy multiplayer intensive video games have to enter into that knowing that the game will not be supported indefinitely. I can understand your criticism if it were directed at the mass of sports games that are re-released every year, but not this.
Plus, the game still runs fine in single player and over system link. The only thing that is being discontinued is XBLive support, which Microsoft never promised would be maintained in perpetuity. Its not like MS is sending people out to repossess the disks.
There is a difference between poor English and lazy English. I'm more inclined to be lenient of grammar and flow issues than I am of systemic failure to even begin to care about spelling, especially because I don't know what languages the OP speaks and what their English proficiency is.
The poster you are replying to has a point in that "The first requirement of submitted proposals to NASA is to do so in English". If the author does not care so much about their ideas to make sure they are spelling words centrifugal or circumference correctly, why should anyone entertain the proposal to study those things?
Creating large scale habitation is also always expensive in direct proportion to the inhospitability of the environment and its distance from vital resources.
Right. So if we never spend the time and money to learn how to make it work right here in LEO with a small population we will never learn how to make it work on a larger scale. New industrial technologies are expensive. For example: Can you imagine how costly the first functional farm tractors were to small time farmers that hoed their few acres with animal power? But do you see how the development and refinement of those technologies have led to wonderful advances in how farms are managed?
I bet if we just wait 2-3 weeks we will see a SyFy original movie exploring just how terribly wrong that solution could go. They will call it "Ice Magma", it will star Stephen Baldwin, and it will be terrible.
To be fair, iPods also came with a streamlined content delivery system that just didn't exist for the other players. iPods had/have additional functionality beyond that of other MP3 players. Its just unfortunate that this functionality also served to locked people in with expensive iTunes libraries.
And to be fair again, your car analogy works if you assume that Ferrari is able to dictate what brand of motor oil you can use, which highways you can use, and what you put in the trunk. My Honda (actually a T-Mobile G1) looks like a POS sitting next to an iPhone, but was a cheaper initial purchase, is cheaper month to month, gets me anywhere I need to go (literally, Google maps w/ navigation is awesome), and I can put whatever mods I want on it.
Its a choice that consumers make. If you want the fully managed experience then you go with the iPhone. There is nothing inherently wrong with that choice, just know that you pay for that experience through increased costs and limited ability to personalize. I'll admit, sometimes I am jealous of the ease of use of the iPhone. However if you want to keep control over what your phone does and you have the know how to make it happen, maybe something more open is better. Personally I like my old Honda.
People accept that, so why is a phone any different?
Phones are semi-critical part of peoples everyday lives. I'll agree that nobody would die without a cell phone, but voice and data communications have become almost necessary for many people to communicate with friends, family, and coworkers. I think people are more willing to accept restrictions on purely entertainment devices (especially since the usefulness of the device is contingent on its ability run new software in the future). We don't accept that on phones because we feel that we need to control how we use them and what we can use them for.
Plus, the American public has had a long history with monopolistic telecommunications companies telling consumers what services they need. Remember, ma bell used to own the entire infrastructure; you leased a telephone that they serviced inside your home. Granted, Apple doesn't own the pipes. But I think I can understand why I wouldn't want the phone manufacturer dictating what services I can use on my phone.
So, were they mislead, or is this more of a type of "buyers remorse"?
Maybe not mislead, possibly just insufficiently informed. IRB's usually require Researchers provide some reasonable accommodation for people that are unable to understand the consent process. They also require that the consent process be complete, and fully inform Participants about what they are agreeing to. In studies I've worked on that meant having at least translated consent forms and protocol documents, and in some cases meant having interpreters to facilitate communication.
I know absolutely nothing about Havasupai written language, or the availability of interpreters that are familiar with research methods. I suspect that both would have been incredibly difficult for the research team to accommodate, so I understand why they would have simplified the consent forms. That still doesn't make it ok.
If they wanted to have expansive use definitions for samples that they voluntarily surrendered, they should have had those terms in writing.
They don't need to make an explicit demand for that, that is something that is actually already assumed. One requirement for conducting research with all human subjects (and especially protected populations) is that they be made fully aware what their data is being used for prior to giving their consent (though some research models require deception and an eventual debriefing this was not the case here).
If you complete your stated analysis on a given set of samples and later desire to do further analysis, then Human Subjects ethical requirements actually put the onus on the Researchers to go back to the Participants and get their explicit permission to continue using their samples.
A major concept in Human Subjects testing is Informed Consent. Researchers are required to fully explain the nature of the study and receive full informed consent from Participants before they can collect any data. This kind of thing is something that HST Researchers (along with their professional organizations and regulatory bodies) take very very seriously.
I think probably. I remember when I set mine up that you needed to connect to the PSN to be able to access other internet-y functions. After I set up the account, I never had to actively login into the PSN again.
It wouldn't surprise me if the previous owners PSN account is still active somewhere and connecting to the PSN every time you connect. If that is the case, you might absolutely possibly be ninja'd at any moment.
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W...T....F.... USPS are you serious? So, if I call you and say "hey my mail keeps disappearing" are you going to tell me "what are YOU doing to stop it?"
Regarding this point, I think this is pretty much a USPS standard policy. I have had two separate instances where packages delivered through USPS have gone missing. USPS claims they were delivered, I never received them. On both instances, I had the same kind of response from them, and it didn't really surprise me. After all, they are leaving video game disks in mailboxes that are frequently not secured. It seems logical that there are people in the world that will steal those disks, and it also seems logical that USPS would not feel inclined to take responsibility for that. Its crappy customer service for sure, but I can understand the thinking.
GameFly disks come in a largish stiff cardboard packet that does not bend. Netflix disks come in similarly sized paper envelopes that do bend around the corners. Netflix mailings are relatively easy to stuff into a small mailbox because they literally have a footprint the size of a DVD (small). GameFly's mailings are not nearly as flexible, so again it does not surprise me that USPS is questioning why kind of research GameFly conducted to determine that this package was the most appropriate.
That is because loose women are evil and exposed boobs cause earthquakes.
The number of Americans that are actually politically aware and care enough to vote could probably have a hard time populating a country the size of Montenegro. We only need the two to keep up occupied. Any more and we'd get confused.
To say that I voted for one party or the other is not necessarily to say that I am satisfied by that party. Many people cast their votes to make sure the party that is closest to protecting their interests wins. Some Greens tend to vote Democrat because Democrat is better than Republican (and the reverse is often true for Libertarians). Lots of people feel the need to make sure their voice is heard, so they select the better of the two major options rather than "wasting their vote" by supporting someone that might more closely represent their views.
Taking numbers from that article, only 63.0% of Americans voted in this election (shamefully, the best turnout since 1968). Continuing your logic, 37.0% of Americans were so dissatisfied by any available party that they did not even vote. 33.3% of eligible voters voted Democrat, 28.7% voted Republican. Think of it this way, only 1/3 of our country supported Obama enough to take the 20 minutes to go to their town hall and check the box next to his name. Of that 1/3 some of them likely did so only to make sure that John McCain didn't win. Not exactly inspiring support.
The less than 1.5% can safely be ignored, and the nonvoting voters too.
That is kind of a dangerous attitude to take. Keep in mind that they represent a population larger than voted for any single candidate.
PII is just Personally Identifiable Information (name, SSN, specific medical conditions, appointments, etc). The reason HIPAA protects it is so that nobody can gain access to that data and learn anything about the person. Its all part of the same thing.
Sorry, I didn't say that very clearly. My point was that they are probably very aware of how excited people are over Reach, even though it will be the 5th FPS in the series. I meant to imply that Bungie see's how successful they can be with cranking out sequels on a single (kick-ass) franchise.
Yes I do, I'll buy two copies even because i don't give a shit about DRM or not.
Why buy two copies of the same game? That seems pretty silly to m...
I buy the game cause its fun.
Oh I see. You enjoy spending money. In that case, you are really going to love the state of games in 2-3 years when you get to buy it for full retail (just the license of course, you won't actually own anything) and then get to pay a monthly "server access and maintenance fee" to continue to play your DRM crippled games.
On a more serious and less sarcastic note, requiring constant internet connection for LAN play is ridiculous, and will only punish honest players that don't circumvent DRM. Every LAN party I've ever been to has been in a basement/gym/whatever that is big enough to allow a bunch of people to set up their stations, and lacked the ability to provide an internet connection to each station.
If I pay full retail for a game, I expect to be able to use the product in the way that I see fit. I absolutely should not be required to maintain a connection to their servers to continually validate myself. Sure the cost and inconvenience to me is minimal, but it is a short step down a very slippery slope. And a step that consumers have the ability to stop developers from taking.
Aerosmith beat you them to it.
Craptivision's sequel-itis is making EA look like a sane company these days. The damage Craptivision did to Guitar Hero alone should have warned Bungie away, never mind the damage to Marvel's game lines, the absolutely crappy X-men "fighting games", the nonsense with Infinity Ward...
Respectfully, remember that we are talking about Bungie here. After seeing the success of Halo CE, Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo: ODST, and the excitement over Halo: Reach, I can certainly understand why they might want to find a publisher for their next big franchise that will has the marketing knowledge and culture to support a 10 year string of sequels. Maybe they are looking for a franchise like Guitar Hero, which would allow them to crap out a new full price game every 9-12 months with minimal development.
Someone whose only training was using a mouse in a FPS, sorry, I don't think they'll be particularly good at it.
At least they'll be better than the ones using console controllers.
F that. Mouse Keyboard might be accurate, but in no way does it compare to the realities of combat like BxR'ing.
Plus, combat is stressful. IANAS (Soldier) but I can say that under extremely stressful conditions people that have not had extreme training to handle those situations tend to lose a great deal of their higher cognitive and memory functions. If you are scrambling to point one of those things at an armored vehicle that is trying to kill you, taking the time to read and understand instructions or to remember a 3 day training you received years ago will be difficult. Having simple little images that show you how to use the thing are majorly helpful. At the very least, they don't hurt anything.
I've had it happen twice so far. Both times MS shipped me a refurb replacement with a new 3 yr warranty.
MS struggled at first with customer support, but I think they have learned to make efforts to keep their customers happy (and buying new games). Sony hasn't figured that out yet.
Well hello there Mr. Obnoxious American. Now, as you may or (more likely) may not be aware, the English language was invented right here in little old Britain. We spell it tyre. You're entitled to mispell it as tire if you like, but every time you do we Brits have a quiet chuckle to ourselves, roll our eyes at our backwards cousins across the Pond and carry on in our usual dignified manner.
I like to think of myself as a typical obnoxious American, and I found your post quiet amusing. Really put some color into my day.
I love class-action lawsuits. I get lots of free money:
- $25 from the U.S. versus RCA, Sony, et cetera - $75 from U.S. v. Paypal - ~$4000 from U.S. v. Equinox (of course I actually gave them $10,000 so that was a bit of a loss)
And so on. I wonder what I'll get out of the PS3 class action deal?
If Sony plays it smart, all you will get is an offer to return your PS3 for a refund of your purchase price. So few people will actually follow through on the offer that it will be cheaper for Sony than settling and offering a cash payment for each PS3 owner.
http://api.ning.com/files/TAQisU8LBDTC4tC2heaDQOeZS-Rrz2YNGCp-ALFZ1sJzULMurkS8G5BTohOglWuUPCEePfSXGLMBkHkrH2gmH7CuAYuO65-A/arguingontheinternet.jpg
The GP mentions that SystemLink is still available. Doesn't that mean that people can play multiplayer games via a tunneling solution? Have somebody throw together a frontend/matchmaking service for that and you've got exactly what you're asking for.
I don't know what the state of it is right now, but I remember using XBConnect to play the original Halo online. The downside of if was that it didn't have Matchmaking or in game voice communication like XBlive does. I remember having to use a computer to join a chat room to find someone to play with, and only being able to communicate through chat. I don't know anything about where this stands now, but it seems to me that it would be workable.
Of course, the OP's point (which after reflection I agree with) is that the End User shouldn't have to jump through hoops to get it to work. MS ought to make this known and available to players before they end their support.
Not trying to be a douche here, but the game is almost 6 years old and runs on an outdated service that was generally limited to an outdated console. The last original Xbox's were sold in 2006, and have not been supported by Microsoft for almost a year (seriously any original Xboxes that need service and are somehow still under warranty are simply replaced by an Xbox 360). People that buy multiplayer intensive video games have to enter into that knowing that the game will not be supported indefinitely. I can understand your criticism if it were directed at the mass of sports games that are re-released every year, but not this.
Plus, the game still runs fine in single player and over system link. The only thing that is being discontinued is XBLive support, which Microsoft never promised would be maintained in perpetuity. Its not like MS is sending people out to repossess the disks.
There is a difference between poor English and lazy English. I'm more inclined to be lenient of grammar and flow issues than I am of systemic failure to even begin to care about spelling, especially because I don't know what languages the OP speaks and what their English proficiency is.
The poster you are replying to has a point in that "The first requirement of submitted proposals to NASA is to do so in English". If the author does not care so much about their ideas to make sure they are spelling words centrifugal or circumference correctly, why should anyone entertain the proposal to study those things?
Creating large scale habitation is also always expensive in direct proportion to the inhospitability of the environment and its distance from vital resources.
Right. So if we never spend the time and money to learn how to make it work right here in LEO with a small population we will never learn how to make it work on a larger scale. New industrial technologies are expensive. For example: Can you imagine how costly the first functional farm tractors were to small time farmers that hoed their few acres with animal power? But do you see how the development and refinement of those technologies have led to wonderful advances in how farms are managed?
You mean something like volcano ash, but higher?
Hmm... maybe we need a bigger volcano...
I bet if we just wait 2-3 weeks we will see a SyFy original movie exploring just how terribly wrong that solution could go. They will call it "Ice Magma", it will star Stephen Baldwin, and it will be terrible.
To be fair, iPods also came with a streamlined content delivery system that just didn't exist for the other players. iPods had/have additional functionality beyond that of other MP3 players. Its just unfortunate that this functionality also served to locked people in with expensive iTunes libraries.
And to be fair again, your car analogy works if you assume that Ferrari is able to dictate what brand of motor oil you can use, which highways you can use, and what you put in the trunk. My Honda (actually a T-Mobile G1) looks like a POS sitting next to an iPhone, but was a cheaper initial purchase, is cheaper month to month, gets me anywhere I need to go (literally, Google maps w/ navigation is awesome), and I can put whatever mods I want on it.
Its a choice that consumers make. If you want the fully managed experience then you go with the iPhone. There is nothing inherently wrong with that choice, just know that you pay for that experience through increased costs and limited ability to personalize. I'll admit, sometimes I am jealous of the ease of use of the iPhone. However if you want to keep control over what your phone does and you have the know how to make it happen, maybe something more open is better. Personally I like my old Honda.
People accept that, so why is a phone any different?
Phones are semi-critical part of peoples everyday lives. I'll agree that nobody would die without a cell phone, but voice and data communications have become almost necessary for many people to communicate with friends, family, and coworkers. I think people are more willing to accept restrictions on purely entertainment devices (especially since the usefulness of the device is contingent on its ability run new software in the future). We don't accept that on phones because we feel that we need to control how we use them and what we can use them for.
Plus, the American public has had a long history with monopolistic telecommunications companies telling consumers what services they need. Remember, ma bell used to own the entire infrastructure; you leased a telephone that they serviced inside your home. Granted, Apple doesn't own the pipes. But I think I can understand why I wouldn't want the phone manufacturer dictating what services I can use on my phone.
So, were they mislead, or is this more of a type of "buyers remorse"?
Maybe not mislead, possibly just insufficiently informed. IRB's usually require Researchers provide some reasonable accommodation for people that are unable to understand the consent process. They also require that the consent process be complete, and fully inform Participants about what they are agreeing to. In studies I've worked on that meant having at least translated consent forms and protocol documents, and in some cases meant having interpreters to facilitate communication.
I know absolutely nothing about Havasupai written language, or the availability of interpreters that are familiar with research methods. I suspect that both would have been incredibly difficult for the research team to accommodate, so I understand why they would have simplified the consent forms. That still doesn't make it ok.
If they wanted to have expansive use definitions for samples that they voluntarily surrendered, they should have had those terms in writing.
They don't need to make an explicit demand for that, that is something that is actually already assumed. One requirement for conducting research with all human subjects (and especially protected populations) is that they be made fully aware what their data is being used for prior to giving their consent (though some research models require deception and an eventual debriefing this was not the case here).
If you complete your stated analysis on a given set of samples and later desire to do further analysis, then Human Subjects ethical requirements actually put the onus on the Researchers to go back to the Participants and get their explicit permission to continue using their samples.
A major concept in Human Subjects testing is Informed Consent. Researchers are required to fully explain the nature of the study and receive full informed consent from Participants before they can collect any data. This kind of thing is something that HST Researchers (along with their professional organizations and regulatory bodies) take very very seriously.
I think probably. I remember when I set mine up that you needed to connect to the PSN to be able to access other internet-y functions. After I set up the account, I never had to actively login into the PSN again.
It wouldn't surprise me if the previous owners PSN account is still active somewhere and connecting to the PSN every time you connect. If that is the case, you might absolutely possibly be ninja'd at any moment.