You are correct, however, most of the fuckheads who play the game are racist. They will deny this vehemently of course saying they don't use the "N word" etc, but apparently they fail to understand that not using the N-word doesn't stop you from being a racist.
I can't tell you how many times I hear about this chinese farming crap in guild chat, or how often I hear phrases like, "jew down", etc.
I played EQ for 4 years and there were racists in that too but nothing compared to what I've experiencd in WoW. It's truely shocking how common it is.
I see people going on and on about Chinese farmers. I see this in game too. It's really sad. Yes, there are chinese farmers. It does not mean that every chinese person playing the game is a farmer. Recently I left my guild because of this kind of racism. Of course, it always starts with chinese farmers and then it leads to more controversial types of racism about jews and blacks.
Honestly, I'm very close to quitting the game over this kind of crap. Every guild I join is litered with racists and the leaders don't do anything about it (some even join in).
I reported a guy for racism in barrens chat and I got flamed to high heaven for it. Pathetic.
It's been a very long time since I was 12 years old. In any event, if you don't believe me you can research the subject yourself.
Finally, just because I know that snipers move after shooting doesn't make me a "know it all". My comment is mainly regarding the skill (or lack thereof of the player).
That's sad. A REAL sniper will ALWAYS move after a snipe. Only in video games do idiots sit around in the same spot tagging people...only because their own ass isn't truely on the line. I recommend getting some skill.
DAoC is not an FFA environment where you can attack anyone at any time. The only game that offered anything similar to this idea is Shadowbane. In any event, anywhere but noobie areas you can attack anyone you want at any time in WoW.
You're assuming that there will be no new money sinks and that the existing money sinks won't cost more than they do now. This is a bad assumption.
You also assume that everyone has access to the stuff dropping in MC. They don't. For a lot of people, top end is dreadmist, devout, etc. I'm level 60 and have been for a while but my guild (which I just quit) wasn't close to walking into MC any time soon.
In short, your viewpoint is skewed from a priviledged view.
"There's no economy in WoW to speak of anyway, so flooding the servers with gold won't do shit all to break it. So some people get easy mounts and don't need to worry about the cost of repairing their gear. Big. Fucking. Deal."
There is an economy...it's just bad (read: inflated). This will take it from bad to abysmal. In fact, if you're not a duper you're pretty much fucked at this point because you'll never be able to compete moneywise with everyone else...which means you'll never be able to afford gear (gl getting all the drops you'll need). Other games have delt with this by increasing money sinks to sieve money from the economy. This is fine if your a duper with tons of cash to spare but the average player just takes it up the ass even more. So it is a Big. Fucking. Deal. you fucking moron.
Also, your no rollback required concept looks nice on paper but the fact is to do it right would take a lot of time. Finding duped items may not be too difficult (presuming blizz ain't a bunch of fucking noobs in database design) but duped gold is MUCH harder. The easiest solution is to perform a rollback.
In short, your post is about as insightful as my right ass cheek while sleeping.
1) You have to pay for the music before you can store it and listen to it, thus your statement "iTunes has never charged me to listen to my music" is false. No biggie since I didn't complain in the frist place about being charged for music.
2) Your statement, "I've never been "locked into" any sort of DRM" is flat out false. All music purchased from iTunes is DRM protected. The fact that you don't know this only proves that you're either ignorant or stupid or both.
3) "It's also consistently worked better than any other player I've ever used" lol...it must be the only player you've ever used then. Seriously though, I'm not knocking it as a player but who fucking cares? What does that have to do with controlling your own music format and DRM? Nothing YOU FUCKING IDIOT.
You have no reading comprehension whatsoever. I would save some of that money you pour into Apple's bank account for some english classes.
Excellent question! Unfortunately there are no good ones except for perhaps allofmp3.com. I don't want to get into a debate on the ethics or legality of allofmp3.com but they have the right idea at least as far as flexibility in format and DRM (there ain't any). It's sad that a site of dubious legality is the only one that's on the right track.
Dude, iTunes is a piece of shit. Even in the U.S. they overcharge for their songs. I suppose if you want to get locked into the AAC format, and their DRM scheme, then iTunes is fine. Personally I like a little freedom.
Be glad you don't have iTunes. It's overhyped crapola. It's only popular because of iPod sales.
1) Most people at home do not need XP Pro. Again, thanks for inflating costs.
2) Only an idiot pays $200 for XP Pro. I can get it for under a $100 and that's for a perfectly legal copy. Again, thanks for inflating the costs.
Sorry but you're inability to properly configure a machine in a price-conscious fashion does not magically make the mac mini comparable to a PC in cost or performance.
Actually, he's kinda got you there Spanky. There's TONS of reverse sexism (not just on FOX News) and it's considered totally OK (check almost any sitcom). Since most men these days are gonadless wimps too affraid to say anything to a woman I see this going on indefinitely (or even getting worse).
In short, men are a bunch of pussies these days and society expects it or even demands it in some cases. Women expect to be obeyed now. This is why I will never again maarry another American woman.
1) I'm a gamer and Linux is not ready for primetime as far as I'm concerned for this reason alone.
2) I have tried all the most n00b friendly versions of Linux that exist (including Mandrake, SuSE, and RedHat) and only the SuSE installer was able to get my sound card working. Of course I might expect this if I were using an off-brand soundcard but I had a Soundblaster Live. CreativeLabs sold like 8 billion of these things. The fact that these OS' couldn't handle that told me to not bother with the rest of it because they couldn't handle the simplest need.
Linux is still written by geeks, and for geeks. Maybe one day they will start thinking of average users but they are years from getting there. Believe me, I wish they were there now but I refuse to go through the bullshit of a multi-hour configuration just to get my machine running close to the way I want it.
No, YOU are missing the point. The implication of the poster two levels up was that there's gonna be this inexpensive Apple running Intel hardware. The person you replied to pointed out the fallacy of the statement.
In short, there will be no inexpensive Apple hardware running Intel or any other processor. Feel free to throw the mac mini at me but I can buy a PC with significantly more power than that thing for the same price.
That said, with all the DRM shit they are adding I will certainly be tempted to switch to Apple's overpriced solution. It's sad that I will have to make a choice between the devil and his wannabe little cousin but Linux just isn't ready for primetime.
That's funny...my LG cell phone is two years old and the OLED's work fine. Different colors fail at different rates. Blue supposedly goes first. In any event, the keyboard could turn itself off when your screensaver is activated to extend the life of the OLEDs. You could probably get 5 years out of the keyboard that way and 5 years is good enough for most people.
This is why I have a subscription to Real Rhapsody. I use it as a preview service since they have a huge catalog I can sample almost anything. I even hear about a band I'll go check them out on rhapsody. If I like them, I will most likely buy their CD rather than download their songs because I like OGG and only allofmp3 generates OGG.
My previous method of previewing music was to download it illegally with kazaa and then if I liked it I would go buy the CD. Rhapsody is very more convenient for this task and is, of course, fully legal.
The whole point of DTV is HDTV. Regardless, all the stations that are currently broadcasting in digital are doing so in hi-def. So you are correct but your point is moot.
Yes but our understanding of physics is changing over time. Things that we thought were once true (read: proven scientifically) are not quite correct. One could argue that our knowledge of the subject is so primitive that it is impossible to prove anything scientifically in physics unless one puts a million constraints around it.
Finally, there are things in psycology that can be "reliably and repeatably tested". In fact, this type of research is used in things like interrogation and management of PoWs. I went through PoW training. It's heavily psycologically influenced and they know EXACTLY how people react under different conditions. Sure, some break sooner than others, etc. but the results are known in advance. This type of research has been done so long that it's extremely reliable.
Again, I do not deny that there are things in psycology that are pure theory. And there are certainly plenty of people who practice psycology who shouldn't, but to say that it's entirely guesswork and non-scientific is short-shrifting the whole profession especially when you consider how often we fuck up and think we know our "hard sciences" when we really don't.
And no, I'm not a psycologist nor do I have a degree in it.:)
Finally, I will make no attempt to defend Economics. Someone else can carry that flag if they care.
Sorry but I don't see where this sympathy for the hacker boy comes from. Most people out there have been infected by either a virus or a trojan and are pissed off about it and want revenge. I can assure you that nobody is losing sleep over this kid getting hit with a harsh sentence.
Also, "collective" cash is meaningless. Focused cash has power. Politicians live off focused cash. They will always work hardest to make their rich contributors happy. For the middle class they will feed soundbites that most people are stupid enough to fall for. No politician is gonna lose an election over a hacker kid getting a harsh sentence.
Slashdot Mirror
You are correct, however, most of the fuckheads who play the game are racist. They will deny this vehemently of course saying they don't use the "N word" etc, but apparently they fail to understand that not using the N-word doesn't stop you from being a racist.
I can't tell you how many times I hear about this chinese farming crap in guild chat, or how often I hear phrases like, "jew down", etc.
I played EQ for 4 years and there were racists in that too but nothing compared to what I've experiencd in WoW. It's truely shocking how common it is.
I see people going on and on about Chinese farmers. I see this in game too. It's really sad. Yes, there are chinese farmers. It does not mean that every chinese person playing the game is a farmer. Recently I left my guild because of this kind of racism. Of course, it always starts with chinese farmers and then it leads to more controversial types of racism about jews and blacks.
Honestly, I'm very close to quitting the game over this kind of crap. Every guild I join is litered with racists and the leaders don't do anything about it (some even join in).
I reported a guy for racism in barrens chat and I got flamed to high heaven for it. Pathetic.
Well said. :)
Clearly, you do not live in the northern part of the country.
Yes, running around carjacking cars, shooting people, and beating up whores is American as apple pie but SEX?!?! OMFG...what are you people thinking?!
It's been a very long time since I was 12 years old. In any event, if you don't believe me you can research the subject yourself.
Finally, just because I know that snipers move after shooting doesn't make me a "know it all". My comment is mainly regarding the skill (or lack thereof of the player).
That's sad. A REAL sniper will ALWAYS move after a snipe. Only in video games do idiots sit around in the same spot tagging people...only because their own ass isn't truely on the line. I recommend getting some skill.
DAoC is not an FFA environment where you can attack anyone at any time. The only game that offered anything similar to this idea is Shadowbane. In any event, anywhere but noobie areas you can attack anyone you want at any time in WoW.
You're assuming that there will be no new money sinks and that the existing money sinks won't cost more than they do now. This is a bad assumption.
You also assume that everyone has access to the stuff dropping in MC. They don't. For a lot of people, top end is dreadmist, devout, etc. I'm level 60 and have been for a while but my guild (which I just quit) wasn't close to walking into MC any time soon.
In short, your viewpoint is skewed from a priviledged view.
"There's no economy in WoW to speak of anyway, so flooding the servers with gold won't do shit all to break it. So some people get easy mounts and don't need to worry about the cost of repairing their gear. Big. Fucking. Deal."
There is an economy...it's just bad (read: inflated). This will take it from bad to abysmal. In fact, if you're not a duper you're pretty much fucked at this point because you'll never be able to compete moneywise with everyone else...which means you'll never be able to afford gear (gl getting all the drops you'll need). Other games have delt with this by increasing money sinks to sieve money from the economy. This is fine if your a duper with tons of cash to spare but the average player just takes it up the ass even more. So it is a Big. Fucking. Deal. you fucking moron.
Also, your no rollback required concept looks nice on paper but the fact is to do it right would take a lot of time. Finding duped items may not be too difficult (presuming blizz ain't a bunch of fucking noobs in database design) but duped gold is MUCH harder. The easiest solution is to perform a rollback.
In short, your post is about as insightful as my right ass cheek while sleeping.
You are a moron.
1) You have to pay for the music before you can store it and listen to it, thus your statement "iTunes has never charged me to listen to my music" is false. No biggie since I didn't complain in the frist place about being charged for music.
2) Your statement, "I've never been "locked into" any sort of DRM" is flat out false. All music purchased from iTunes is DRM protected. The fact that you don't know this only proves that you're either ignorant or stupid or both.
3) "It's also consistently worked better than any other player I've ever used" lol...it must be the only player you've ever used then. Seriously though, I'm not knocking it as a player but who fucking cares? What does that have to do with controlling your own music format and DRM? Nothing YOU FUCKING IDIOT.
You have no reading comprehension whatsoever. I would save some of that money you pour into Apple's bank account for some english classes.
Have a nice day.
Excellent question! Unfortunately there are no good ones except for perhaps allofmp3.com. I don't want to get into a debate on the ethics or legality of allofmp3.com but they have the right idea at least as far as flexibility in format and DRM (there ain't any). It's sad that a site of dubious legality is the only one that's on the right track.
Dude, iTunes is a piece of shit. Even in the U.S. they overcharge for their songs. I suppose if you want to get locked into the AAC format, and their DRM scheme, then iTunes is fine. Personally I like a little freedom.
Be glad you don't have iTunes. It's overhyped crapola. It's only popular because of iPod sales.
1) Most people at home do not need XP Pro. Again, thanks for inflating costs.
2) Only an idiot pays $200 for XP Pro. I can get it for under a $100 and that's for a perfectly legal copy. Again, thanks for inflating the costs.
Sorry but you're inability to properly configure a machine in a price-conscious fashion does not magically make the mac mini comparable to a PC in cost or performance.
Actually, he's kinda got you there Spanky. There's TONS of reverse sexism (not just on FOX News) and it's considered totally OK (check almost any sitcom). Since most men these days are gonadless wimps too affraid to say anything to a woman I see this going on indefinitely (or even getting worse).
In short, men are a bunch of pussies these days and society expects it or even demands it in some cases. Women expect to be obeyed now. This is why I will never again maarry another American woman.
First, if had RTFA it said Gates has no intention of hiring a 10 yr old.
And please don't tell me you're saying this 10 year old girl is a terrorist threat.
uh...who the hell pays $200 for Windows? Nice way to inflate the costs.
Gimme $500 to build the box alone and I will build you something that blows away a Mac mini. It's just not that hard to do.
Here's the two things that kill Linux for me:
1) I'm a gamer and Linux is not ready for primetime as far as I'm concerned for this reason alone.
2) I have tried all the most n00b friendly versions of Linux that exist (including Mandrake, SuSE, and RedHat) and only the SuSE installer was able to get my sound card working. Of course I might expect this if I were using an off-brand soundcard but I had a Soundblaster Live. CreativeLabs sold like 8 billion of these things. The fact that these OS' couldn't handle that told me to not bother with the rest of it because they couldn't handle the simplest need.
Linux is still written by geeks, and for geeks. Maybe one day they will start thinking of average users but they are years from getting there. Believe me, I wish they were there now but I refuse to go through the bullshit of a multi-hour configuration just to get my machine running close to the way I want it.
No, YOU are missing the point. The implication of the poster two levels up was that there's gonna be this inexpensive Apple running Intel hardware. The person you replied to pointed out the fallacy of the statement.
In short, there will be no inexpensive Apple hardware running Intel or any other processor. Feel free to throw the mac mini at me but I can buy a PC with significantly more power than that thing for the same price.
That said, with all the DRM shit they are adding I will certainly be tempted to switch to Apple's overpriced solution. It's sad that I will have to make a choice between the devil and his wannabe little cousin but Linux just isn't ready for primetime.
So the non-profit TV station is the only one that is high def? *chuckle*
Don't worry, in a couple of years the other stations will save up enough pennies to buy hi-def cameras.
That's funny...my LG cell phone is two years old and the OLED's work fine. Different colors fail at different rates. Blue supposedly goes first. In any event, the keyboard could turn itself off when your screensaver is activated to extend the life of the OLEDs. You could probably get 5 years out of the keyboard that way and 5 years is good enough for most people.
This is why I have a subscription to Real Rhapsody. I use it as a preview service since they have a huge catalog I can sample almost anything. I even hear about a band I'll go check them out on rhapsody. If I like them, I will most likely buy their CD rather than download their songs because I like OGG and only allofmp3 generates OGG.
My previous method of previewing music was to download it illegally with kazaa and then if I liked it I would go buy the CD. Rhapsody is very more convenient for this task and is, of course, fully legal.
The whole point of DTV is HDTV. Regardless, all the stations that are currently broadcasting in digital are doing so in hi-def. So you are correct but your point is moot.
Yes but our understanding of physics is changing over time. Things that we thought were once true (read: proven scientifically) are not quite correct. One could argue that our knowledge of the subject is so primitive that it is impossible to prove anything scientifically in physics unless one puts a million constraints around it.
:)
Finally, there are things in psycology that can be "reliably and repeatably tested". In fact, this type of research is used in things like interrogation and management of PoWs. I went through PoW training. It's heavily psycologically influenced and they know EXACTLY how people react under different conditions. Sure, some break sooner than others, etc. but the results are known in advance. This type of research has been done so long that it's extremely reliable.
Again, I do not deny that there are things in psycology that are pure theory. And there are certainly plenty of people who practice psycology who shouldn't, but to say that it's entirely guesswork and non-scientific is short-shrifting the whole profession especially when you consider how often we fuck up and think we know our "hard sciences" when we really don't.
And no, I'm not a psycologist nor do I have a degree in it.
Finally, I will make no attempt to defend Economics. Someone else can carry that flag if they care.
Sorry but I don't see where this sympathy for the hacker boy comes from. Most people out there have been infected by either a virus or a trojan and are pissed off about it and want revenge. I can assure you that nobody is losing sleep over this kid getting hit with a harsh sentence.
Also, "collective" cash is meaningless. Focused cash has power. Politicians live off focused cash. They will always work hardest to make their rich contributors happy. For the middle class they will feed soundbites that most people are stupid enough to fall for. No politician is gonna lose an election over a hacker kid getting a harsh sentence.