If only there was some way we could use the internet to collectively create and vote. I think we all, including politicians, know the political process rarely works the way it should. Ultimately it's because of what you described, people are self-serving. Politicians look out for themselves first, their friends second, the people that support them (financially) third and the people they serve last.
I can think of a perfect example of government not working that's going on right now. In New Brunswick, the next province over from mine, The government is trying to sell its electric utility. Despite the fact that everyone and their dog knows having a company outside of the province own the utility isn't going to be beneficial to them. Nearly the whole population is against it and are constantly pointing to Nova Scotia, the province I'm in. Where our utility was sold a number of years ago to a company in California. We have crap service and pay excessive rates. We lose power just about every time there's a storm and some times it takes days to get it back. My favorite yearly excuse is, "There's salt fog depositing salt on the lines that's cording them and causing the lines to break.". We live in a province surrounded by frik'n ocean and we never had a problem with "salt fog" before 1992!!! Why would a government sell something that is obviously making the province money!? I'm pretty sure the answer is the politicians are getting their pockets greased.
When it comes down to it, this isn't high school anymore and many of the topics you learn in college are NOT FUN TO LEARN. They are boring as hell, but incredibly useful. That coupled with the fact that most of the time you are half asleep and would die for something else to do and allowing a distraction like a laptop or even a cell phone becomes a really horrible idea.
Wow, did you pick the wrong area of education. Sure sometimes you have to do stuff you don't like, but there is almost always a way to make things more interesting.
As an example in my first year of CS I didn't really find linear algebra, discrete mathematics, algorithms or calculus as intense as playing WoW, but I was able to make it interesting by learning how to apply what I was learning to a homemade graphics engine... Okay, discrete mathematics wasn't fun, but it is useful.
Maybe I'm an oddity, but my interest extend outside CS so when I was given chances to take courses like Accounting, Management, Chemistry, Philosophy, Political Science, etc... I was ecstatic.
High school is boring, you're forced to take the same generic classes as everyone else that may or may not apply to your interest or hopeful profession. University is where you get to make your own choices, you choose what to be educated in and you choose the electives that can be outside your choosen field that interest you.
I think we ultimately agree these decisions must be made on a case by case basis instead of being sledgehammered by bans.
Yes, I can agree with that. I do ultimately feel that the powers that be should not interfere with the masses by imposing legislation on them to "make them behave". We are after all adults and we suffer are own consequences for not acting as such.
I don't really care what others are doing, but when what they're doing impacts my ability to preform I start to care. So it's fine and dandy to say, the only people they're hurting is themselves, but the fact of the matter is they distract and overall indirectly damage others.
For this same reason I don't think kids should be FORCED by law to attend high school. If they don't want to be there then all they're doing is impeding the ones that are there to learn. There are enough Tim Hortons, McDonalds, Subways and other low skill jobs for people who didn't want an education to work at while leaving others to learn in peace.
There's nothing wrong with voting against a piece of legislation if you can point out, "Yeah sure this bill says everyone should give flowers to baby orphan whales, but I'm voting against the part that says we kill the parents."
Unfortunately, the issue is normally, at least in Canada, one government party will come up with a bill that is really beneficial to the public then hid something mildly devious in it. If the other parties in the government vote against it the first will come back with, "you see how evil the other parties are!!!". Sometimes forcing other parties to vote against a piece of legislation is a tactic to take to the polls for an election.
That being said if you can justify to the public why you voted against something all you have to do is say if they amend XYZ then I'll vote for it. Of course this brings up another issue where the parties not in power don't what the party in power to do something good, because then they get credit for it and it counts against the opposition parties during the next election...
Why does politics have to be so complicated? Why can't all politicians just do what they're elected to do and serve the people?
I didn't say Laptops should be ban. Some people use them in class to take notes and/or record video and audio for later reference. The people that sit around playing games or watching YouTube, then later need to seek out help because they weren't paying attention can be a problem and an annoyance.
Both people are voluntary actors, both have the same decision to make, and if one person's efficacy is diminished more than the other, that does not transfer responsibility/liability to the the first voluntary actor.
I didn't volunteer to look at someones laptop screen. When there is flickering light and movement I find it hard to focus on what I should be.
I, like a lot of others, paid good money to attend classes and learn, and we had a right to learn undistracted. Unfortunately, this falls into a gray area of rights because the people being the distraction also had a right to be in class too.
I knew several people who had the same issue as me. People tried complaining about the distractions to the professors, but all the prof. could do was ask them to leave or stop what they were doing, which worked for all of 10 minutes. Just before exams in the first year we had a procedure put in place where people with laptops could not sit in the first four rows, which understandably upset the people legitimately using them for note taking, but being such a large distraction there wasn't much else we could do.
I also found that after the first year the problem dropped off significantly. I believe most of the people not paying attention didn't make it to second year or, in at least one case, wised up.
I could see Computers have having three distinct benefits over TV.
1) Moving the mouse and typing is more active then moving your thumb to change channels
2) Playing video games is more physically involved then watching TV. I care about how my character does so my body reacts in a similar manner as though I were getting exercise; heart racing, mild sweating, muscles tightening, etc... Albeit this isn't on the same level as if I were outside playing ball, but I still get a bit more of a workout then if I was watching something mildly or not particularly interesting on TV.
3) When I am eating or drinking while playing video games; I see computer interaction more engaging and thus kind of like putting down your fork between bites during a meal. You eat slower and digest what's eaten better. When watching TV it's easy to have one hand on the remote while the other is in a bag of chips or popcorn.
Of course this is my own opinion and based on my own experiences. I've only heard that putting your fork down between bites is good for loosing weight, I don't have a reference.
and does not take into account the different degrees with which different people are able to multitask and/or focus.
I think I heard that same argument in a discussion about people being able to drive and text at the same time. Sure they may get away with it indefinitely, but they're still likely to be in or cause a crash.
Same thing here. you might get away with playing Facebook games indefinitely, but you're more likely to or cause someone else to miss an import point
Back in my university days, not so long ago, this was a huge issue for me; I never brought my laptop to class. I found it very distracting when I was sitting behind someone playing WoW and had a very hard time focusing on what was going on. So I started getting to classes earlier so I could sit in the front row. It made seeing the overhead screens harder, but I was able to pay better attention. I feel vindicated because the people who thought they could multitask were always coming to me for notes and/or help, which I decided when and to whom I gave it to.
Score: Computer Science Degree for me, MacDonald's for multitaskers
That's almost a full US Gallon. You could drive 100km on a jug of milk.... Well if you could run a car on milk. That would give new meaning to milking it for all it's worth.
I very much prefer a quick splash screen of "powered by PhysX" and some mindless physics interactions than an in-game billboard (possibly even updated over the Internet, shudder).
Isn't flashing "Powered by PhysX" at the beginning of the game more annoying then driving past a billboard or seeing a commercial on a TV as you run past it? I know I get annoyed when I sit down to play a game and have to sit through five minutes of logos "From studio x, Powered by Chip-set-something, in association with company z". I'm not saying advertising the other way is necessary, useful or not annoying to a lesser extent.
If a dictionaries isn't an authoritative sources for the definitions of words, what is? I'm pretty sure when I was growing up if there was a word I couldn't spell right or didn't understand I was told to look it up in the dictionary. How did you find a words meaning?
I agree. I would honestly be very annoyed if I had to wait 5-10 seconds for my remote to sync-up with my TV every time I put it down while I watched a show.
The plus to this situation could be that TVs could come with a USB port/holder for the remote. When not in use the remote could be dropped into the pocket for charging. My wife might not lose the remote so often if it had to be put back in the holder to charge it.
As the following post to yours points out. PS3 controllers are Bluetooth enabled.
That being said, I know if my PS3 is not actually off when I press the PS button on the controller to turn it on. It goes into standby. Of course my TV goes into a standby mode too, so in theory I could have a similar setup for a TV remote.
Besides that, If I get DC from WoW for a few moments, I just log back in and I'm pretty much where I left off, unless I was ganked by a mob in the meantime, with Ubisoft, you'd have to start all over or from the last save point.
Having UPS won't matter when your local ISP goes down. It happens all the time where I'm from after just about every snow storm. I'd be really board sitting in front of my laptop waiting for Eastlink to fix their lines so I could play some game I paid $60 for. There are a multitude of reasons you could loose your internet connections, power loss being only one.
LOL, I have a lot of problems. One of which is where I live. I know out west beer is a lot cheaper then it is here in the Maritime. Here's the catalog http://www.mynslc.com/Products/01BEER, sure there are plenty of cheaper beers, but I could also piss in a bottle and save some money to. As you said my standards high.
Then you should go to a friend's house or a game store that has the game playing on one of the consoles (unfortunately, this leaves PCs out of the mix) and "sample" the gameplay there.
I don't generally go over to friends places to sit around and play video games. Besides my friends have a similar opinions to myself and don't generally buy games without trying them first. Does it matter if I'm the one downloading the game or playing it at a friends who's downloaded it?
well, there are a lot of people who just wouldn't buy the game at that point because they already have the full game, not just a sample.
And there's a lot of people who wouldn't have bought the game in the first place. If I can't make an informed decision about how I'm going to spend money on something I don't have to have (entertainment), then I'm not going to spend it. A lot of game companies are very protective about who gets to review their games. They only want hype and to stir people into a frenzy to buy them. The result is "tricking" people into spending money by making them think the need the latest and greatest. Cut scenes, which is what the company's do let the public see, are nice and shiny, but hardly make a good game. A game worth buying is a game I'm going to play over and over, not just once or half way through.
Agreed. I'm also pretty sure their outrageous figures, 85% of their clients pirate their games, is a number made up to give to their share holders as an excuse for making crappy games and thus loosing money. If they can't justify to their share holders why their loosing money and what they're going to do about it (DRM in this case), their share holders are going to take their investments else where. Slapping a new DRM on a product isn't for the benefit of the people who buy the game it's a reaction to keep corporate investments.
That's not the same thing. In your example if you wouldn't want to pay for the game, you'd make your own.
If I sample a beer someone else has made or at a beer show and I like i I buy the kit, if I don't like it I don't buy it. How is that different from sampling a game?
Their system works by having the game send messages to a server to authenticate it. I bet there are an unlimited number of programmers out there capable of writing a version of the server that would intercept the messages the game was sending and fire back an appropriate response.
I'm sure you'll see once the first game that has this type of DRM on it comes out one of three things will happen. 1) People will put up so much of a stink because they keep getting disconnected or can't play the games they've bought, Ubisoft will be forced to do away with the DRM. 2) Someone will break Ubisoft's DRM. 3) People will stop buying Ubisoft games altogether and Ubisoft will blame piracy for the decline in sales.
€3.70 is about $8.00 Canadian. I have in the past paid $6.00 at a bar for a beer. If you buy a case of beer at the liquor store it'll run you about $2.00 a bottle. I make my own beer for lest then $0.80 a bottle. Of course when you're talking about prices you have to factor in standard of living to. $6.00 might be a lot to me, but for someone born with the silver spoon it might be like throwing a penny in a bucket of piss.
I can't afford to by beer at my local liquor store. I make my own it cost me less then $0.80 a bottle, it's stronger and has much more flavor then what I can buy in the store. Liquor store beer works out to be nearly $2.00 a bottle where I am.
I take the same stance with games; if a store wants $60 for a game that I think I want, but I'm not sure I'll pirate it and see if it's worth all the hype. If it's ok I'll wait for the price to drop. If it's really good I'll sacrifice something else to buy it.
I've been a sucker too many times buying games for the $60 standard price because I've read reviews of the game being so great or seen a commercial where basically only the best parts of the game are shown. Then I'm extremely disappointed when I start playing or try to play the game, yes I've been screwed over by DRMs in the past. The industry is getting what they deserve as far as I'm concerned. I find it hilarious that by trying to fix the problem with DRMs all they're doing is alienating they're existing paying customers and turning them to piracy in order to play a game they legitimately bought. I'm sure once a lot people finds out how easy it is to pirate a game, and how much cheaper it is, few end up going back to buying games before at least trying a pirate version first.
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It's an unsolvable problem
*sigh* you are, unfortunately, right.
If only there was some way we could use the internet to collectively create and vote. I think we all, including politicians, know the political process rarely works the way it should. Ultimately it's because of what you described, people are self-serving. Politicians look out for themselves first, their friends second, the people that support them (financially) third and the people they serve last.
I can think of a perfect example of government not working that's going on right now. In New Brunswick, the next province over from mine, The government is trying to sell its electric utility. Despite the fact that everyone and their dog knows having a company outside of the province own the utility isn't going to be beneficial to them. Nearly the whole population is against it and are constantly pointing to Nova Scotia, the province I'm in. Where our utility was sold a number of years ago to a company in California. We have crap service and pay excessive rates. We lose power just about every time there's a storm and some times it takes days to get it back. My favorite yearly excuse is, "There's salt fog depositing salt on the lines that's cording them and causing the lines to break.". We live in a province surrounded by frik'n ocean and we never had a problem with "salt fog" before 1992!!! Why would a government sell something that is obviously making the province money!? I'm pretty sure the answer is the politicians are getting their pockets greased.
Sorry for the rant
When it comes down to it, this isn't high school anymore and many of the topics you learn in college are NOT FUN TO LEARN. They are boring as hell, but incredibly useful. That coupled with the fact that most of the time you are half asleep and would die for something else to do and allowing a distraction like a laptop or even a cell phone becomes a really horrible idea.
Wow, did you pick the wrong area of education. Sure sometimes you have to do stuff you don't like, but there is almost always a way to make things more interesting.
As an example in my first year of CS I didn't really find linear algebra, discrete mathematics, algorithms or calculus as intense as playing WoW, but I was able to make it interesting by learning how to apply what I was learning to a homemade graphics engine... Okay, discrete mathematics wasn't fun, but it is useful.
Maybe I'm an oddity, but my interest extend outside CS so when I was given chances to take courses like Accounting, Management, Chemistry, Philosophy, Political Science, etc... I was ecstatic.
High school is boring, you're forced to take the same generic classes as everyone else that may or may not apply to your interest or hopeful profession. University is where you get to make your own choices, you choose what to be educated in and you choose the electives that can be outside your choosen field that interest you.
I think we ultimately agree these decisions must be made on a case by case basis instead of being sledgehammered by bans.
Yes, I can agree with that. I do ultimately feel that the powers that be should not interfere with the masses by imposing legislation on them to "make them behave". We are after all adults and we suffer are own consequences for not acting as such.
I don't really care what others are doing, but when what they're doing impacts my ability to preform I start to care. So it's fine and dandy to say, the only people they're hurting is themselves, but the fact of the matter is they distract and overall indirectly damage others.
For this same reason I don't think kids should be FORCED by law to attend high school. If they don't want to be there then all they're doing is impeding the ones that are there to learn. There are enough Tim Hortons, McDonalds, Subways and other low skill jobs for people who didn't want an education to work at while leaving others to learn in peace.
There's nothing wrong with voting against a piece of legislation if you can point out, "Yeah sure this bill says everyone should give flowers to baby orphan whales, but I'm voting against the part that says we kill the parents."
Unfortunately, the issue is normally, at least in Canada, one government party will come up with a bill that is really beneficial to the public then hid something mildly devious in it. If the other parties in the government vote against it the first will come back with, "you see how evil the other parties are!!!". Sometimes forcing other parties to vote against a piece of legislation is a tactic to take to the polls for an election.
That being said if you can justify to the public why you voted against something all you have to do is say if they amend XYZ then I'll vote for it. Of course this brings up another issue where the parties not in power don't what the party in power to do something good, because then they get credit for it and it counts against the opposition parties during the next election...
Why does politics have to be so complicated? Why can't all politicians just do what they're elected to do and serve the people?
Sorry I struck a nerve.
I didn't say Laptops should be ban. Some people use them in class to take notes and/or record video and audio for later reference. The people that sit around playing games or watching YouTube, then later need to seek out help because they weren't paying attention can be a problem and an annoyance.
Both people are voluntary actors, both have the same decision to make, and if one person's efficacy is diminished more than the other, that does not transfer responsibility/liability to the the first voluntary actor.
I didn't volunteer to look at someones laptop screen. When there is flickering light and movement I find it hard to focus on what I should be.
I, like a lot of others, paid good money to attend classes and learn, and we had a right to learn undistracted. Unfortunately, this falls into a gray area of rights because the people being the distraction also had a right to be in class too.
I knew several people who had the same issue as me. People tried complaining about the distractions to the professors, but all the prof. could do was ask them to leave or stop what they were doing, which worked for all of 10 minutes. Just before exams in the first year we had a procedure put in place where people with laptops could not sit in the first four rows, which understandably upset the people legitimately using them for note taking, but being such a large distraction there wasn't much else we could do.
I also found that after the first year the problem dropped off significantly. I believe most of the people not paying attention didn't make it to second year or, in at least one case, wised up.
I could see Computers have having three distinct benefits over TV.
1) Moving the mouse and typing is more active then moving your thumb to change channels
2) Playing video games is more physically involved then watching TV. I care about how my character does so my body reacts in a similar manner as though I were getting exercise; heart racing, mild sweating, muscles tightening, etc... Albeit this isn't on the same level as if I were outside playing ball, but I still get a bit more of a workout then if I was watching something mildly or not particularly interesting on TV.
3) When I am eating or drinking while playing video games; I see computer interaction more engaging and thus kind of like putting down your fork between bites during a meal. You eat slower and digest what's eaten better. When watching TV it's easy to have one hand on the remote while the other is in a bag of chips or popcorn.
Of course this is my own opinion and based on my own experiences. I've only heard that putting your fork down between bites is good for loosing weight, I don't have a reference.
and does not take into account the different degrees with which different people are able to multitask and/or focus.
I think I heard that same argument in a discussion about people being able to drive and text at the same time. Sure they may get away with it indefinitely, but they're still likely to be in or cause a crash.
Same thing here. you might get away with playing Facebook games indefinitely, but you're more likely to or cause someone else to miss an import point
Back in my university days, not so long ago, this was a huge issue for me; I never brought my laptop to class. I found it very distracting when I was sitting behind someone playing WoW and had a very hard time focusing on what was going on. So I started getting to classes earlier so I could sit in the front row. It made seeing the overhead screens harder, but I was able to pay better attention. I feel vindicated because the people who thought they could multitask were always coming to me for notes and/or help, which I decided when and to whom I gave it to.
Score: Computer Science Degree for me, MacDonald's for multitaskers
That's almost a full US Gallon. You could drive 100km on a jug of milk.... Well if you could run a car on milk. That would give new meaning to milking it for all it's worth.
I very much prefer a quick splash screen of "powered by PhysX" and some mindless physics interactions than an in-game billboard (possibly even updated over the Internet, shudder).
Isn't flashing "Powered by PhysX" at the beginning of the game more annoying then driving past a billboard or seeing a commercial on a TV as you run past it? I know I get annoyed when I sit down to play a game and have to sit through five minutes of logos "From studio x, Powered by Chip-set-something, in association with company z". I'm not saying advertising the other way is necessary, useful or not annoying to a lesser extent.
If a dictionaries isn't an authoritative sources for the definitions of words, what is? I'm pretty sure when I was growing up if there was a word I couldn't spell right or didn't understand I was told to look it up in the dictionary. How did you find a words meaning?
I agree. I would honestly be very annoyed if I had to wait 5-10 seconds for my remote to sync-up with my TV every time I put it down while I watched a show.
The plus to this situation could be that TVs could come with a USB port/holder for the remote. When not in use the remote could be dropped into the pocket for charging. My wife might not lose the remote so often if it had to be put back in the holder to charge it.
As the following post to yours points out. PS3 controllers are Bluetooth enabled.
That being said, I know if my PS3 is not actually off when I press the PS button on the controller to turn it on. It goes into standby. Of course my TV goes into a standby mode too, so in theory I could have a similar setup for a TV remote.
Besides that, If I get DC from WoW for a few moments, I just log back in and I'm pretty much where I left off, unless I was ganked by a mob in the meantime, with Ubisoft, you'd have to start all over or from the last save point.
touché
Having UPS won't matter when your local ISP goes down. It happens all the time where I'm from after just about every snow storm. I'd be really board sitting in front of my laptop waiting for Eastlink to fix their lines so I could play some game I paid $60 for. There are a multitude of reasons you could loose your internet connections, power loss being only one.
You're right, and they'll most likely get it at the convince of the people who buy their games.
LOL, I have a lot of problems. One of which is where I live. I know out west beer is a lot cheaper then it is here in the Maritime. Here's the catalog http://www.mynslc.com/Products/01BEER, sure there are plenty of cheaper beers, but I could also piss in a bottle and save some money to. As you said my standards high.
Then you should go to a friend's house or a game store that has the game playing on one of the consoles (unfortunately, this leaves PCs out of the mix) and "sample" the gameplay there.
I don't generally go over to friends places to sit around and play video games. Besides my friends have a similar opinions to myself and don't generally buy games without trying them first. Does it matter if I'm the one downloading the game or playing it at a friends who's downloaded it?
well, there are a lot of people who just wouldn't buy the game at that point because they already have the full game, not just a sample.
And there's a lot of people who wouldn't have bought the game in the first place. If I can't make an informed decision about how I'm going to spend money on something I don't have to have (entertainment), then I'm not going to spend it. A lot of game companies are very protective about who gets to review their games. They only want hype and to stir people into a frenzy to buy them. The result is "tricking" people into spending money by making them think the need the latest and greatest. Cut scenes, which is what the company's do let the public see, are nice and shiny, but hardly make a good game. A game worth buying is a game I'm going to play over and over, not just once or half way through.
Yes and all it's going to cost you is YOUR SOUL!!!!! *insert evil laugh here*
I'm pretty sure the devil couldn't have made that pitch any better himself
Agreed. I'm also pretty sure their outrageous figures, 85% of their clients pirate their games, is a number made up to give to their share holders as an excuse for making crappy games and thus loosing money. If they can't justify to their share holders why their loosing money and what they're going to do about it (DRM in this case), their share holders are going to take their investments else where. Slapping a new DRM on a product isn't for the benefit of the people who buy the game it's a reaction to keep corporate investments.
That's not the same thing. In your example if you wouldn't want to pay for the game, you'd make your own.
If I sample a beer someone else has made or at a beer show and I like i I buy the kit, if I don't like it I don't buy it. How is that different from sampling a game?
From my experience if one person can do it, so can an unspecified amount of others. All it takes is time.
Their system works by having the game send messages to a server to authenticate it. I bet there are an unlimited number of programmers out there capable of writing a version of the server that would intercept the messages the game was sending and fire back an appropriate response.
I'm sure you'll see once the first game that has this type of DRM on it comes out one of three things will happen. 1) People will put up so much of a stink because they keep getting disconnected or can't play the games they've bought, Ubisoft will be forced to do away with the DRM. 2) Someone will break Ubisoft's DRM. 3) People will stop buying Ubisoft games altogether and Ubisoft will blame piracy for the decline in sales.
€3.70 is about $8.00 Canadian. I have in the past paid $6.00 at a bar for a beer. If you buy a case of beer at the liquor store it'll run you about $2.00 a bottle. I make my own beer for lest then $0.80 a bottle. Of course when you're talking about prices you have to factor in standard of living to. $6.00 might be a lot to me, but for someone born with the silver spoon it might be like throwing a penny in a bucket of piss.
I can't afford to by beer at my local liquor store. I make my own it cost me less then $0.80 a bottle, it's stronger and has much more flavor then what I can buy in the store. Liquor store beer works out to be nearly $2.00 a bottle where I am.
I take the same stance with games; if a store wants $60 for a game that I think I want, but I'm not sure I'll pirate it and see if it's worth all the hype. If it's ok I'll wait for the price to drop. If it's really good I'll sacrifice something else to buy it.
I've been a sucker too many times buying games for the $60 standard price because I've read reviews of the game being so great or seen a commercial where basically only the best parts of the game are shown. Then I'm extremely disappointed when I start playing or try to play the game, yes I've been screwed over by DRMs in the past. The industry is getting what they deserve as far as I'm concerned. I find it hilarious that by trying to fix the problem with DRMs all they're doing is alienating they're existing paying customers and turning them to piracy in order to play a game they legitimately bought. I'm sure once a lot people finds out how easy it is to pirate a game, and how much cheaper it is, few end up going back to buying games before at least trying a pirate version first.