You'll not be *giving* anything. The card links to government databases. The only thing that will happen is that your card announces your ID on the net. Dedicated pharmacy readers will be able to link it to your SIN data, the bank will link it to your bankaccount data, and the insurance company will be able to find the files on your insurances. Similarly, MS will be able to link it to it's profiles database. There is nothing 'given' to MS. Even your residence is NOT stored ON the card, only your date of birth, name, age and some extra stuff is stored ON the card, the rest is only accessible by linking ID's to (propriatary) databases.
Well, it seems the Dutch don't have those "stupid Belgians" jokes for nothing...
Really, I used to think it was just stupid stereotyping, but it looks like it's all true:-(
Everyone his opinion, but this is flamebait. You come and live here, before you pretend to think you know it all. I've worked for 3 years in TheNetherlands, and I'm Belgian. I think I can make the comparission much better than you. But maybe you can explain to me why the North of Belgium is practically invaded by Dutch (and rich) immigrants. I'm sure *you* can tell me..
In short the reported asked Gates (among other things) why Microsft would be backing an e-ID card initiative, and why it is the Belgian card that won his attention. Gates replied that Microsft wanted to back the card because it is a way to make Microsoft products on the internet safer and more secure. He said that it would help protect minors from abuse in certain chatboxes and forums, to protect their private data on personal blogs, and to regulate and make traceable the actions of each registered individual. When asked if cardless users would be excluded, his answers remained somewhat vague, saying the MSN services would still be available but probably without certain features. He said Belgium is a leader on the market of smartcards, but admitted that the card would not prevent hackers from trying to engage in malicious - illegal, in his words - practices, cracking security and stealing personal data. The Bel. secratary of state who introduced the eID to MS said the card does not bring ultimate safety, but protects minors to a large extend from 'all the bad things on the internet', and that it also gives parrents a chance to monitor the actions on the net of their kids. He said that PC systems in Belgium would come with integrated card-readers.
One question that springs to mind, is if open source will have the opportunity to work with the same system. I can imagine the windows platform getting significantly more secure for minors, and thus interesting for parrents who usually buy the first PC. If Linux systems are left in the dark and can not tap into the world of protect customers, this can mean a serious set-back for any aspirations the platform may have, you know, conquering the desktop and all that jazz..
True. But here`s the catch. If you should try to apply for a job and anyone, inluding your apsirant future employer, can read YOUR medical dossiers, this can have serious consequences. On the other hand, I wouldn`t like the idea that somebody in Ohio can request my medical details when I live in the state of Texas.
Then again, I live in Europe, where the notion of privacy so far has manahed to survive (untill futher notice).
That`s what I do. I`m forced to go that road, and I`m not liking it. There is *SO MUCH CRAP* out there, that it`s difficult to find what you want, and even IF you got the right paper, the real cool stuff is embedded in tons of crap. It simply takes too much time to find the stuff that you want to know about. This is where books should normally bundle everything and build a coherent reasoning.
I have a strong academic background, I`ve even published papers myself. I`m a bit fed up with the way academia milk their publications in order to score budgets, but so be it. Most of the publications suffer from this.
.. is that many AI people can write great books on generally well known and accepted AI topics. Pathfinding, fuzzy logic, FSM`s, scripting languages.. They can even illustrate them with fine, simple and easy to understand examples.
However, I have still to find the first good book on AI that deals with complex tasks for agent behavior. Many books cover the first few notions that are just abstractions of how we would probably be doing things, but none of them go deeper where the complexity becomes hairy, the lines become fuzzy and the amount of bookkeeping necessary to solve the problem grows exponentionally. I`m talking about dialogue models, strong and week constraint planning engines, emotion simulation, symbolic reasoning, etc.. Each of them separately in it`s simplest form has been described 100s of times, but never has one book touched on the complexity when everything should come together. Not even the commercially available API`s like Ai Implant or Spirops come close.
Well. Maybe that`s not such a bad thing. I can always start writing myself..
XML is a data directory search path capacity. It allows you to write queries to "find" your data in an organised way, where the app determines the organisation. Try that in c++ across object hierarchies for example, and you`ll find yourself backpointing or giving up encapsulations in any stupid little object in order to be able to access stuff.
We`ve done 2 console games with the full data backend in XML. This has 2 big benefits: We can write the data for any platform, and we can make importers and exporters in any 3rd party or self written application that we use to build or tweak the games.
We`ve often heard our artists and programmers say (not least of all myself): "thank god this is readable, finding that data bug would have meant many debug and compile sessions otherwise to find it."
I know it`s `in` to diss on XML, but it is actually usefull, so take the pointless 'XML is dumb and structureless' rants somewhere else please.
I believe you have a point, but here`s the other side of the story:
To state things the way the media state them is indeed quite pulling the umbrella because they themselves did not cover this news when it was presented to the world for the first time in 2001, 4 years ago. Media themselves did not do the effort to go far on this topic, or to understand the scope of the research. (I actually wanted to post this story 3 days ago, when I discovered the topic had allready been covered in 2001, 2003 and may 2004, so here you`re right about that brick wall.)
But! As for the topic itself, Global Dimming, I have no problem accepting the theory of more reflection of sunlight by denser clouds (particles) in the atmosphere. And I also have no problem accepting that this evolution is even worse to nature than global warming would be. If both effects go hand in hand, and the atmosphere is covering up, it could get dark and cold quite fast here. China hasn`t even begun fully transforming into a capitalistic low-cost no-eco-concerned mass producing country. Half of the world lives there. And Kyoto is constantly being bashed by them smart yankees driving their roaring SUVs. I`m really concerned, and if you think that`s because the media paint it wrong, I leave that judgement up to you.
When I look at factories with their chimney`s, I can`t wonder but think where all that black stuff goes.. isn`t it time we invent something better to get rid of waste, even if it`s just carbon oxides.
You list a lot of technical and economic advantage, but the reasons why people are upset about STEAM are neither of those. It's a move that removes freedom and traditional personal computing rights from the player. It discriminates people who do not have internet connections. I'll admitt that this is mostly a theoretical argument, but when STEAM servers go down, that essentially means that you pay for something that isn't there, and there's no way to get your money back.
It's a trojan horse that is a valid response to the defunkt middle-man buisiness model that also plagues the games industry since the advent of the internet. But there's also a downside: it removes a legal player that protects and fights for it's customer volumes; the same retailers and publishers that are being cut out. So unless the gaming community can find an answer that can confront the game studio with it's needs and problems in adequate terms, this IS a problem.
Right now it's just too easy for Valve to silence (or "wait-out") the little guy in the street, much easier than it is to silence big retail houses or publishers when problems arise.
It's because the US has a sufficiently large mass of people who have enough disposable income / per-capita income to constitute a purely domestic market capable of sustaining a single-country, multibillion dollar enterprise. US firms can target a solely-doemstic market for goods and services and still address a market that is larger than Europe, and which has a single common language, currency, system of mesurements and standards, transportation infrastructure, body of regulations, etc.
We, literally, don't need the rest of the world. Most of it could blow up tomorrow and we wouldn't miss a thing. (Sorry, it's the truth.)
All I see and hear is boring uniformity, braindead conformism, senseless mass psychotery, and culture devoid marketting lingo. The economics of law, money and ownership. I should not be surprised because they are the exponents of that old 'American Dream' illusion that you all were indoctrinated with from preschool onwards..
What the US exports into the world, besides all that material crap (and crap it is), is bad habbits and wrong ideology. And your last statement illustrates nicely.
I wasn't advocating VMWare nor Ghost, I'm simply saying the OS could be a lot better, securer, virus robust if a combination of a Virtual PC + image swapping would be in the OS of every novice user. It's something you can't break, because it's a sandbox model. If you keep your hands in your sandbox, you're essentially safe. Basicly it does not matter if the user understands his system or not. It is no longer a requirement to have a safe starting OS, as long as the sandbox mechanism is not tampered with. A sandbox is essentially the best 'prevention' tool you can have.
Which brings me down to the bottom line: if your users are knowledgeable enough, they don't need a sandbox, otherwise they do, and yes, even mac users. It's only time that will tell us just how fast we'll see mac virus epidemics. Not that they get anything the size of win epidemics of course, that's purely a number thing. The principle is the same..
Well, the centerpoint of your defence is the notion that Apple software is easier to use than Windows for those who are not geeks.
I *haven't* been using any integrated windows antivirus scanners since I moved from DOS to windows. I won't say that I haven't had any infections, but the number of them is *extremely low* (like 3 in those 10 years or so), and the impact has always been minimal. And I also know how to overcome those things easily. (And yes I do scan occasionally with some tools, just to be sure)
The thing is, I know how to use my system. I understand the complexity and I can have full control over it, and what involves risks and how to minimize those. Most people who start with windows are completely blown away with all the options and features, and the worthless timeconsuming bloat, and they pinully try to keep up and learn from their mistakes, which is probably the same as learning dutch: everything is an exception.
Keeping your PC healthy is a matter of knowing how to use it. Apple soft is somewhat more straightforward and easier to use, which makes it a bit more useable for starting people. And of course it also helps that Virus and Security attacks don't target that platform as frequent.
There is a solution to all this. It is called virtual PC. Just install VMWare and run your apps in there. If you have a virus, you simply replace the boot image with a new copy of your OS, and you make backup copis of your images when you install stuff. It's what Virus makers and Anti-Virus makers use to test out their little angels, and it's completely risk-free. The process of swapping images can be fully automated on any PC, and non-tech savvy starters should be put in their sandbox (they won't even know) instead of being left out in the open from the start.
IMHO it is the best way to attack the whole Virus issue, it's based on technological advancement and not on any stupid laws or regulations. And imho there is no reason why it is not integrated in any OS today. People have gazillions of diskspace for their movies and pictures, a few boot images of half a gig are not going to be noticed. And the techsavvy user can of course simply work in his flat version if the performance is realy an issue, but has to understand the risks and learn the tricks of the trade.
It's not a matter of language, it's very simple. Every nation has it's own recherche and police force, and on top of that is Interpol. All of them have serious ego problems. And there is your answer.
I live in Belgium and I am as equally appaled by the fact that this data was not already shared between nations. On the other hand, I think this data retention proposal is even more scary. I hate the idea that the people in Italy can track down my adress and phone number and harass me at night.
Pro-actively harvesting these large amounts of data provides not one but 2 opportunities. It can serve law enforcement in EU memberstates, but it can also fall into the wrong hands and wreak havoc on people's personal privacy. And nobody asked *ME* personally about giving up MY privacy. If people want to sacrifice *their* privacy because it makes them feel safer, sure, but just like you're on my private property: "get the hell off!"
Same thing for the US's requirement to get all personal data from people flying into the US. I'm simply not flying into the US anymore.
We're shouldn't be talking about how much money has been poured into this thing this year, we should be talking about how much has been poured into it since at least the 80s, and probably before that.
The rest of the world is thinking "the more the better". Seriously, if the US has one more expense channel to have to pour money into, it means the rest of the world can watch the US deficit grow ever larger. Ultimately, superpowers bring themselves down. It's history lesson number 1.
The industry has discovered that people like to play games to the extend of them getting cracked or hacked with all kinds of no-cd patches and keygens etc... When in 10 years time, all games require an on-line presence for gaming, and people are used to it, the cracking will be a whole lot less, and people will still be playing games. SO it's only logical that the industry resorts to these kind of measures. They may seem impracticle to the one buying the game, but you can also buy something else or make your own, then.
Valve is not the first one who does this, there's also been Sierra and other publishers who had cummunity tools that can download updates for your game. Valve just took it one step further, coupling content to subscription. Which is a business model that delivers better than your average PC top title would yield.
Well, to some extend, and reading your comments, I'm amongst the lucky ones because I still CAN quit my game industry slavery, because I'm single and don't have heaps of loans on my shoulders yet.
On the other hand, working on games has also been pretty devastating on my social life and relationships.. so in some way you can say it's allmost balanced, except that the silly guy doing the job is eventually completely going banana's from the life behind the screens.
Which is where this all comes down to. I'm glad this 'revolt' is surfacing right now, because it was about time that some of this got some air. We may like our job a lot, but there are limits to the amount of sacrifices one is prepared to make to do it. Of course we get constantly reminded about the kids of today that will replace us any time, that anyone wants our job, that we're cool because we play games everyday. But the reality is that 95% of the people want out. The other 5% is simply in bed with management.
I'm disgusted by the fact that that the USA tolerated Marcos, Duvalier, Sukarno, Noriega, Palahvi, Pinochet, Peron, and many, many other dictators just because they were anti-communist. If we had pursued a consistent moral agenda throughout the cold war, I believe that the Soviets would have collapsed much sooner than they did.
Excuse me? "TOLERATED" you say? What happened to 'BROUGHT INTO POWER'?
Re:XBox less than 200 units? Is that really accura
on
DS Preorders Outsell PS2
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
So do people in most other countries, which Americans would realize if they actually traveled abroad. Even in Paris, people couldn't have been nicer as I tried to communicate in my heavily yankee-accented broken French:)
I knew it! I knew that they still existed. Americans saying positive things about French people! You, sir, make my evening!
is 'nice'. It's just that. As soon as the majority of browsers are either feature and/or banner loaded, part of portals and distribution networks gallore, there is a market for google to push their own stuff, in their version of 'nice'. But just because they are good at nice NOW doesn't mean they are good at nice FOR EBVER.. just like that eternal guaranteed free email account that became a payed-for service 2 years ago. I don't thrust ANY company with their version of 'nice', because ultimately there is only one thing they exist for, which is making me pay them for whatever reason.
So for the sake of safety, I'm online under multiple aliasses which are unconnected to eachother. I'm sure they can be connected, but at least I don't depend on a single network to get to my online stuff. (mail / browser / chatclient / messenger / storage /..)
I never said it's NOT a democracy, but the oldest democracy lived at the time it was invented, which is ancient Greece. The oldest RUNNING democracy are most likely certain area's of the former Common Wealth.
Slashdot Mirror
You'll not be *giving* anything. The card links to government databases. The only thing that will happen is that your card announces your ID on the net. Dedicated pharmacy readers will be able to link it to your SIN data, the bank will link it to your bankaccount data, and the insurance company will be able to find the files on your insurances. Similarly, MS will be able to link it to it's profiles database. There is nothing 'given' to MS. Even your residence is NOT stored ON the card, only your date of birth, name, age and some extra stuff is stored ON the card, the rest is only accessible by linking ID's to (propriatary) databases.
Well, it seems the Dutch don't have those "stupid Belgians" jokes for nothing...
Really, I used to think it was just stupid stereotyping, but it looks like it's all true
Everyone his opinion, but this is flamebait. You come and live here, before you pretend to think you know it all. I've worked for 3 years in TheNetherlands, and I'm Belgian. I think I can make the comparission much better than you. But maybe you can explain to me why the North of Belgium is practically invaded by Dutch (and rich) immigrants. I'm sure *you* can tell me..
In short the reported asked Gates (among other things) why Microsft would be backing an e-ID card initiative, and why it is the Belgian card that won his attention. Gates replied that Microsft wanted to back the card because it is a way to make Microsoft products on the internet safer and more secure. He said that it would help protect minors from abuse in certain chatboxes and forums, to protect their private data on personal blogs, and to regulate and make traceable the actions of each registered individual. When asked if cardless users would be excluded, his answers remained somewhat vague, saying the MSN services would still be available but probably without certain features. He said Belgium is a leader on the market of smartcards, but admitted that the card would not prevent hackers from trying to engage in malicious - illegal, in his words - practices, cracking security and stealing personal data. The Bel. secratary of state who introduced the eID to MS said the card does not bring ultimate safety, but protects minors to a large extend from 'all the bad things on the internet', and that it also gives parrents a chance to monitor the actions on the net of their kids. He said that PC systems in Belgium would come with integrated card-readers.
One question that springs to mind, is if open source will have the opportunity to work with the same system. I can imagine the windows platform getting significantly more secure for minors, and thus interesting for parrents who usually buy the first PC. If Linux systems are left in the dark and can not tap into the world of protect customers, this can mean a serious set-back for any aspirations the platform may have, you know, conquering the desktop and all that jazz..
True. But here`s the catch. If you should try to apply for a job and anyone, inluding your apsirant future employer, can read YOUR medical dossiers, this can have serious consequences. On the other hand, I wouldn`t like the idea that somebody in Ohio can request my medical details when I live in the state of Texas.
Then again, I live in Europe, where the notion of privacy so far has manahed to survive (untill futher notice).
That`s what I do. I`m forced to go that road, and I`m not liking it. There is *SO MUCH CRAP* out there, that it`s difficult to find what you want, and even IF you got the right paper, the real cool stuff is embedded in tons of crap. It simply takes too much time to find the stuff that you want to know about. This is where books should normally bundle everything and build a coherent reasoning.
I have a strong academic background, I`ve even published papers myself. I`m a bit fed up with the way academia milk their publications in order to score budgets, but so be it. Most of the publications suffer from this.
However, I have still to find the first good book on AI that deals with complex tasks for agent behavior. Many books cover the first few notions that are just abstractions of how we would probably be doing things, but none of them go deeper where the complexity becomes hairy, the lines become fuzzy and the amount of bookkeeping necessary to solve the problem grows exponentionally. I`m talking about dialogue models, strong and week constraint planning engines, emotion simulation, symbolic reasoning, etc.. Each of them separately in it`s simplest form has been described 100s of times, but never has one book touched on the complexity when everything should come together. Not even the commercially available API`s like Ai Implant or Spirops come close.
Well. Maybe that`s not such a bad thing. I can always start writing myself..
XML is a data directory search path capacity. It allows you to write queries to "find" your data in an organised way, where the app determines the organisation. Try that in c++ across object hierarchies for example, and you`ll find yourself backpointing or giving up encapsulations in any stupid little object in order to be able to access stuff.
We`ve done 2 console games with the full data backend in XML. This has 2 big benefits: We can write the data for any platform, and we can make importers and exporters in any 3rd party or self written application that we use to build or tweak the games.
We`ve often heard our artists and programmers say (not least of all myself): "thank god this is readable, finding that data bug would have meant many debug and compile sessions otherwise to find it."
I know it`s `in` to diss on XML, but it is actually usefull, so take the pointless 'XML is dumb and structureless' rants somewhere else please.
I believe you have a point, but here`s the other side of the story:
To state things the way the media state them is indeed quite pulling the umbrella because they themselves did not cover this news when it was presented to the world for the first time in 2001, 4 years ago. Media themselves did not do the effort to go far on this topic, or to understand the scope of the research. (I actually wanted to post this story 3 days ago, when I discovered the topic had allready been covered in 2001, 2003 and may 2004, so here you`re right about that brick wall.)
But! As for the topic itself, Global Dimming, I have no problem accepting the theory of more reflection of sunlight by denser clouds (particles) in the atmosphere. And I also have no problem accepting that this evolution is even worse to nature than global warming would be. If both effects go hand in hand, and the atmosphere is covering up, it could get dark and cold quite fast here. China hasn`t even begun fully transforming into a capitalistic low-cost no-eco-concerned mass producing country. Half of the world lives there. And Kyoto is constantly being bashed by them smart yankees driving their roaring SUVs. I`m really concerned, and if you think that`s because the media paint it wrong, I leave that judgement up to you.
When I look at factories with their chimney`s, I can`t wonder but think where all that black stuff goes.. isn`t it time we invent something better to get rid of waste, even if it`s just carbon oxides.
You list a lot of technical and economic advantage, but the reasons why people are upset about STEAM are neither of those. It's a move that removes freedom and traditional personal computing rights from the player. It discriminates people who do not have internet connections. I'll admitt that this is mostly a theoretical argument, but when STEAM servers go down, that essentially means that you pay for something that isn't there, and there's no way to get your money back.
It's a trojan horse that is a valid response to the defunkt middle-man buisiness model that also plagues the games industry since the advent of the internet. But there's also a downside: it removes a legal player that protects and fights for it's customer volumes; the same retailers and publishers that are being cut out. So unless the gaming community can find an answer that can confront the game studio with it's needs and problems in adequate terms, this IS a problem.
Right now it's just too easy for Valve to silence (or "wait-out") the little guy in the street, much easier than it is to silence big retail houses or publishers when problems arise.
It's because the US has a sufficiently large mass of people who have enough disposable income / per-capita income to constitute a purely domestic market capable of sustaining a single-country, multibillion dollar enterprise. US firms can target a solely-doemstic market for goods and services and still address a market that is larger than Europe, and which has a single common language, currency, system of mesurements and standards, transportation infrastructure, body of regulations, etc.
We, literally, don't need the rest of the world. Most of it could blow up tomorrow and we wouldn't miss a thing. (Sorry, it's the truth.)
All I see and hear is boring uniformity, braindead conformism, senseless mass psychotery, and culture devoid marketting lingo. The economics of law, money and ownership. I should not be surprised because they are the exponents of that old 'American Dream' illusion that you all were indoctrinated with from preschool onwards..
What the US exports into the world, besides all that material crap (and crap it is), is bad habbits and wrong ideology. And your last statement illustrates nicely.
Merry Christmass.
you forgot one:
The self-centric zoo.
I wasn't advocating VMWare nor Ghost, I'm simply saying the OS could be a lot better, securer, virus robust if a combination of a Virtual PC + image swapping would be in the OS of every novice user. It's something you can't break, because it's a sandbox model. If you keep your hands in your sandbox, you're essentially safe. Basicly it does not matter if the user understands his system or not. It is no longer a requirement to have a safe starting OS, as long as the sandbox mechanism is not tampered with. A sandbox is essentially the best 'prevention' tool you can have.
Which brings me down to the bottom line: if your users are knowledgeable enough, they don't need a sandbox, otherwise they do, and yes, even mac users. It's only time that will tell us just how fast we'll see mac virus epidemics. Not that they get anything the size of win epidemics of course, that's purely a number thing. The principle is the same..
Well, the centerpoint of your defence is the notion that Apple software is easier to use than Windows for those who are not geeks.
I *haven't* been using any integrated windows antivirus scanners since I moved from DOS to windows. I won't say that I haven't had any infections, but the number of them is *extremely low* (like 3 in those 10 years or so), and the impact has always been minimal. And I also know how to overcome those things easily. (And yes I do scan occasionally with some tools, just to be sure)
The thing is, I know how to use my system. I understand the complexity and I can have full control over it, and what involves risks and how to minimize those. Most people who start with windows are completely blown away with all the options and features, and the worthless timeconsuming bloat, and they pinully try to keep up and learn from their mistakes, which is probably the same as learning dutch: everything is an exception.
Keeping your PC healthy is a matter of knowing how to use it. Apple soft is somewhat more straightforward and easier to use, which makes it a bit more useable for starting people. And of course it also helps that Virus and Security attacks don't target that platform as frequent.
There is a solution to all this. It is called virtual PC. Just install VMWare and run your apps in there. If you have a virus, you simply replace the boot image with a new copy of your OS, and you make backup copis of your images when you install stuff. It's what Virus makers and Anti-Virus makers use to test out their little angels, and it's completely risk-free. The process of swapping images can be fully automated on any PC, and non-tech savvy starters should be put in their sandbox (they won't even know) instead of being left out in the open from the start.
IMHO it is the best way to attack the whole Virus issue, it's based on technological advancement and not on any stupid laws or regulations. And imho there is no reason why it is not integrated in any OS today. People have gazillions of diskspace for their movies and pictures, a few boot images of half a gig are not going to be noticed. And the techsavvy user can of course simply work in his flat version if the performance is realy an issue, but has to understand the risks and learn the tricks of the trade.
It's not a matter of language, it's very simple. Every nation has it's own recherche and police force, and on top of that is Interpol. All of them have serious ego problems. And there is your answer.
I live in Belgium and I am as equally appaled by the fact that this data was not already shared between nations. On the other hand, I think this data retention proposal is even more scary. I hate the idea that the people in Italy can track down my adress and phone number and harass me at night.
Pro-actively harvesting these large amounts of data provides not one but 2 opportunities. It can serve law enforcement in EU memberstates, but it can also fall into the wrong hands and wreak havoc on people's personal privacy. And nobody asked *ME* personally about giving up MY privacy. If people want to sacrifice *their* privacy because it makes them feel safer, sure, but just like you're on my private property: "get the hell off!"
Same thing for the US's requirement to get all personal data from people flying into the US. I'm simply not flying into the US anymore.
We're shouldn't be talking about how much money has been poured into this thing this year, we should be talking about how much has been poured into it since at least the 80s, and probably before that.
The rest of the world is thinking "the more the better". Seriously, if the US has one more expense channel to have to pour money into, it means the rest of the world can watch the US deficit grow ever larger. Ultimately, superpowers bring themselves down. It's history lesson number 1.
The industry has discovered that people like to play games to the extend of them getting cracked or hacked with all kinds of no-cd patches and keygens etc... When in 10 years time, all games require an on-line presence for gaming, and people are used to it, the cracking will be a whole lot less, and people will still be playing games. SO it's only logical that the industry resorts to these kind of measures. They may seem impracticle to the one buying the game, but you can also buy something else or make your own, then.
Valve is not the first one who does this, there's also been Sierra and other publishers who had cummunity tools that can download updates for your game. Valve just took it one step further, coupling content to subscription. Which is a business model that delivers better than your average PC top title would yield.
Let's call it Distributed Reduction-Degradion Of Service: DR-DOS
A hunch tells me it won't run on Windows.
Well, to some extend, and reading your comments, I'm amongst the lucky ones because I still CAN quit my game industry slavery, because I'm single and don't have heaps of loans on my shoulders yet.
On the other hand, working on games has also been pretty devastating on my social life and relationships.. so in some way you can say it's allmost balanced, except that the silly guy doing the job is eventually completely going banana's from the life behind the screens.
Which is where this all comes down to. I'm glad this 'revolt' is surfacing right now, because it was about time that some of this got some air. We may like our job a lot, but there are limits to the amount of sacrifices one is prepared to make to do it. Of course we get constantly reminded about the kids of today that will replace us any time, that anyone wants our job, that we're cool because we play games everyday. But the reality is that 95% of the people want out. The other 5% is simply in bed with management.
I'm disgusted by the fact that that the USA tolerated Marcos, Duvalier, Sukarno, Noriega, Palahvi, Pinochet, Peron, and many, many other dictators just because they were anti-communist. If we had pursued a consistent moral agenda throughout the cold war, I believe that the Soviets would have collapsed much sooner than they did.
Excuse me? "TOLERATED" you say? What happened to 'BROUGHT INTO POWER'?
So do people in most other countries, which Americans would realize if they actually traveled abroad. Even in Paris, people couldn't have been nicer as I tried to communicate in my heavily yankee-accented broken French
I knew it! I knew that they still existed. Americans saying positive things about French people! You, sir, make my evening!
(no, I'm not French myself)
See here
Reading it, you can clearly see that their 'human error' is no other than an automated filename scan.
is 'nice'. It's just that. As soon as the majority of browsers are either feature and/or banner loaded, part of portals and distribution networks gallore, there is a market for google to push their own stuff, in their version of 'nice'. But just because they are good at nice NOW doesn't mean they are good at nice FOR EBVER.. just like that eternal guaranteed free email account that became a payed-for service 2 years ago. I don't thrust ANY company with their version of 'nice', because ultimately there is only one thing they exist for, which is making me pay them for whatever reason.
So for the sake of safety, I'm online under multiple aliasses which are unconnected to eachother. I'm sure they can be connected, but at least I don't depend on a single network to get to my online stuff. (mail / browser / chatclient / messenger / storage /
I never said it's NOT a democracy, but the oldest democracy lived at the time it was invented, which is ancient Greece. The oldest RUNNING democracy are most likely certain area's of the former Common Wealth.