Do you play GT3 at all? I use the analogue buttons to control the speed very very precisely. I think the trick is to rest your thumb on the controller and use the point of contact as a fulcrum. Anyway - it definitely is possible (try holding the revs to a certain point... it's easy)
Did you even read the comment I was replying to? He DID NOT REALISE THAT 1000kg = 1 METRIC TON! (or maybe he didn't realise that 4*240 ~ 1000). In any case, apparently slashdot posters ARE that dumb, and frankly I don't think that you're pushing the collective IQ up by much.;-)
No. You have certain rights that companies can't overturn with licences or whatever... any licence that tries to do this is invalid. This is the reason that in the UK crisp packets etc. have messages like "if you find anything with this product, please contact customer support Your statutatory rights are not affected" IIRC there was a case where customers were being told that if they called customer services, then they couldn't afterwards sue. The message is obligatory specifically to point out that this is untrue. The same principle must apply to licences that require you to do something illegal. the GPL does not fall in to this category as far as I can see (though IANAL).
No, you've seen at least one chinese person drive badly and THAT'S your empirical evidence. Even if you've seen 100 chinese people drive "like shit", that's insignificant compared to the number of chinese people worldwide. I'm going to be charitable and assume that it's an ignorance of statistics that is behind your racist opinions - nevertheless, they are nonsense.
Would you care to explain why the new X licence is better then the GPL licence (which is what you imply)? I don't feel I know enough about the subject to comment either way, but when making a contentious (on/. at least) statement like that it'd be helpful if you could explain your reasoning! (And I'm curious anyway;-) )
I think the other comment was probably right - ACC was going for humour (and failing in my opinion at least).
On the subject of paedophilia, I've done some digging. The reason I remember about it was that Prince Charles was going to go to Sri Lanka to knight ACC, but that was cancelled because of the allegations. According to this article he was cleared eventually, so I guess he has more than earned the benefit of the doubt.;-)
He certainly didn't "invent" communications satellites though (at least not in the sense that I use invent, as he didn't give any details of their construction, just the principles involved). I found a copy of his original paper here and it's pretty interesting to read. I especially like the "atomic power" option. Not sure how acceptable that would be today!
I don't think he's talking about the views from Spirit or Opportunity. I'd guess that he's referring to the martian meteorites, or something like that.
I remember ages ago reading an EXTREMELY unflattering interview with ACC where the reviewer came away hinting (broadly) that he was a self-obsessed has-been. Looking at the onion article and seeing some of the stuff he does (name-dropping Kubrick, deciding the most important recent invention was something he predicted (satellite), slipping his "technology" and "magic" quote in) and I've ended up suspecting that that the original interviewer was correct. I've lost a lot of the vast respect I used to have for ACC (and that's not even mentioning the - unproven - allegations about the young boys surrounding him)
But the point is (which YOU completely missed) that he didn't know in advance that his son was susceptible. And furthermore there's a RISK with all games, but some are worse than others.
What a fucking ridiculous thing to say. I pay no attention to warning labels about epilepsy because I don't have it. That doesn't mean I'm a moron who's going to microwave their cat or something just because it doesn't say I shouldn't on the door. The warnings are *specific* to people with certain problems, which his son apparently did not suffer from (though I do wonder if there was a family history that made him look for warnings... most people wouldn't after all).
But for 99.9999% of people playing games is safe, whereas throwing a hair drier into water is not. Ever. Some games might also be safe to play, which is why the warnings are relevant.
Oh come on! The BBC has more journalists than any other news organisation, ONE of whom was at fault here. His editors should have stepped in, and there were certainly managerial failings but even from the articles you quote:
"Hutton's assault upon the whole culture of the BBC and journalism is out of all proportion to their offences," former Daily Telegraph editor Max Hastings said in a commentary. "It ignores the huge, ugly reality, that Tony Blair took Britain to war in Iraq on a fraudulent basis."
The BBC as a whole has very high journalistic standards (in my opinion at least).
Not in a war and not in people, but several EU countries have certainly tested nuclear weapons (france for a start was doing underground nuclear testing fairly recently)
That is ridiculous! Why does being paid suddenly mean you can't collaborate!!!! *I'm* a paid programmer, and I collaborate with other paid programmers all over the world, in many, many different institutes (I work at cern)... in fact, the web was developed (at CERN) as a method of helping (paid) physicists (and programmers) collaborate.
Ignoring your ignorance about metric/imperial measurements (hint: imperial should at least suggest empire, as in british empire to you... though I have no idea if that is really where the name comes from, it's an easy way of remembering which is which), but IMHO calling PAL f*cked is a bit ridiculous. It has higher resolution for a start, and I personally find the colour reproduction looks better.
Okay, I'll bow to your superior knowledge here, because I certainly am not a rocket scientist (I'm a high energy physicist). Do you know this is true though, or are you guessing? I imagine that there is a limited choice of available rockets, and if the mass of mars express without beadle, and with beadle, both fall into the same payload range, that the same rocket would be used (I didn't explain that very well, but I hope you get what I mean?)
On your other point, yeah I realise that the launch costs are huge and I never meant to suggest that the figure I quote was the TOTAL cost of the mission. Nevertheless, the original poster seemed to be confusing the cost of the whole Mars Express, with the cost of Beadle2, which is just plain wrong. The figure he (and yahoo) quoted, was almost certainly wrong. And bear in mind that Beadle2 was an addition to an already existing mission... so in a sense the total cost of it WAS 35 million GBP. After all, Mars Express would have been launched with or without Beadle2.
I did read it thanks. I accept that what he wrote isn't very clear), I think it's fairly obvious what he meant (unless you get your jollies from being unnecessarily pedantic). The author doesn't appear to be completely insane so he cannot ACTUALLY be claiming that books physically kill. What he means is that books incite violence, or that they cause violence. Which is exactly what some people say about games. Which was the point of my post.
Come on - he's making the point that the same people who claim that games make people killers (i.e. idiots) should also seek to ban books. Even these idiots aren't claiming that games *physically* kill anyone, rather that they incite violence. Which as he says, is clearly the case with some books.
With your last point, I think you're making an extremely nit-picking point... there is VERY little difference between asserting "that the games cause violence" and "that they encourage violent tendencies". I also think you're wrong - for example when ID were sued, I'm damn well sure that the parents were claiming that ID were *responsible* (otherwise how could they sue), which would imply that Doom etc. were causing the actual violence.
I am arrogant? How exactly? By paraphrasing what ESA officials gleefully were saying after NASA failures. I am still rooting for Beagle 2.
Can you give a link to a SINGLE ESA official being "gleeful" at NASA failures? If you can, then I'm extremely sorry at such unprofessional behaviour. As Americans we are used to being called every name in the book, it is part of the burden of being the parents of the world. Like children, no one blames others for criticizing the parents (USA) only when the parent fouls up do we get outbursts from everyone. This however is, without a doubt, arrogant. I guess you mean that because america is bigger and more powerful than everyone else, then it is "the parent of the world"?
Er, I think yahoo are confused: Beagle2 is a small part of the Mars Express mission, which (in total) cost around 300 million euros and the beagle itself cost around 35m ($62m).
(and as far as I know the british electrical system is extremely good - less cabling needed, and safer than most alternatives;-)
Er no. Not really. If the game is going to be technically difficult to convert (like for example, if they have to think carefully about what can be removed or compressed to make it fit) then Rockstar might want to look very carefully about whether it's worth their while.
IIRC the exclusivity deals had time limits... so that is unlikely to be the only reason, and suggesting that the GC's smaller disc might be a factor is certainly not "mindless rationalization" as you (rudely) put it.
As someone else has pointed out, all players do this to some extent (it's when the DVD changes layers), but with better quality ones it's barely noticable. The POS I have now pauses for almost a second... the one my ex-flatmate had was virtually impossible to spot.
The author of this piece is basically saying: "more people are playing games, & games are more and more important to sport promoters, but the number of people playing games in real life is descreasing.... therefore OBVIOUSLY games are to blame"
That's stupid. Maybe, just maybe, more people are not playing sport because they're too fat to move? (And lots of people watch TV! It must be TV's fault! Right? Right?)
What is completely nuts though is to blame *sports* video games... there is a fundamental difference between playing football on a screen and playing it in real life. They require totally unrelated skills, and a football game on a console has more in common with Mario Kart than it does with "real" football.
Slashdot Mirror
Do you play GT3 at all? I use the analogue buttons to control the speed very very precisely. I think the trick is to rest your thumb on the controller and use the point of contact as a fulcrum. Anyway - it definitely is possible (try holding the revs to a certain point ... it's easy)
Did you even read the comment I was replying to? He DID NOT REALISE THAT 1000kg = 1 METRIC TON! (or maybe he didn't realise that 4*240 ~ 1000). In any case, apparently slashdot posters ARE that dumb, and frankly I don't think that you're pushing the collective IQ up by much. ;-)
A metric ton - which is what he explicitly said - is 1000kg. So 240kg is near as dammit 1/4 of a ton.
No. You have certain rights that companies can't overturn with licences or whatever ... any licence that tries to do this is invalid. This is the reason that in the UK crisp packets etc. have messages like "if you find anything with this product, please contact customer support Your statutatory rights are not affected" IIRC there was a case where customers were being told that if they called customer services, then they couldn't afterwards sue. The message is obligatory specifically to point out that this is untrue. The same principle must apply to licences that require you to do something illegal. the GPL does not fall in to this category as far as I can see (though IANAL).
No, you've seen at least one chinese person drive badly and THAT'S your empirical evidence. Even if you've seen 100 chinese people drive "like shit", that's insignificant compared to the number of chinese people worldwide. I'm going to be charitable and assume that it's an ignorance of statistics that is behind your racist opinions - nevertheless, they are nonsense.
Would you care to explain why the new X licence is better then the GPL licence (which is what you imply)? I don't feel I know enough about the subject to comment either way, but when making a contentious (on /. at least) statement like that it'd be helpful if you could explain your reasoning! (And I'm curious anyway ;-) )
On the subject of paedophilia, I've done some digging. The reason I remember about it was that Prince Charles was going to go to Sri Lanka to knight ACC, but that was cancelled because of the allegations. According to this article he was cleared eventually, so I guess he has more than earned the benefit of the doubt.
He certainly didn't "invent" communications satellites though (at least not in the sense that I use invent, as he didn't give any details of their construction, just the principles involved). I found a copy of his original paper here and it's pretty interesting to read. I especially like the "atomic power" option. Not sure how acceptable that would be today!
I remember ages ago reading an EXTREMELY unflattering interview with ACC where the reviewer came away hinting (broadly) that he was a self-obsessed has-been. Looking at the onion article and seeing some of the stuff he does (name-dropping Kubrick, deciding the most important recent invention was something he predicted (satellite), slipping his "technology" and "magic" quote in) and I've ended up suspecting that that the original interviewer was correct. I've lost a lot of the vast respect I used to have for ACC (and that's not even mentioning the - unproven - allegations about the young boys surrounding him)
It was a double negative - he was saying that it IS distributed in formats other than RPMS ;-)
But the point is (which YOU completely missed) that he didn't know in advance that his son was susceptible. And furthermore there's a RISK with all games, but some are worse than others.
What a fucking ridiculous thing to say. I pay no attention to warning labels about epilepsy because I don't have it. That doesn't mean I'm a moron who's going to microwave their cat or something just because it doesn't say I shouldn't on the door. The warnings are *specific* to people with certain problems, which his son apparently did not suffer from (though I do wonder if there was a family history that made him look for warnings ... most people wouldn't after all).
But for 99.9999% of people playing games is safe, whereas throwing a hair drier into water is not. Ever. Some games might also be safe to play, which is why the warnings are relevant.
Oh come on! The BBC has more journalists than any other news organisation, ONE of whom was at fault here. His editors should have stepped in, and there were certainly managerial failings but even from the articles you quote:
"Hutton's assault upon the whole culture of the BBC and journalism is out of all proportion to their offences," former Daily Telegraph editor Max Hastings said in a commentary. "It ignores the huge, ugly reality, that Tony Blair took Britain to war in Iraq on a fraudulent basis."
The BBC as a whole has very high journalistic standards (in my opinion at least).
Not in a war and not in people, but several EU countries have certainly tested nuclear weapons (france for a start was doing underground nuclear testing fairly recently)
That is ridiculous! Why does being paid suddenly mean you can't collaborate!!!! *I'm* a paid programmer, and I collaborate with other paid programmers all over the world, in many, many different institutes (I work at cern) ... in fact, the web was developed (at CERN) as a method of helping (paid) physicists (and programmers) collaborate.
Ignoring your ignorance about metric/imperial measurements (hint: imperial should at least suggest empire, as in british empire to you ... though I have no idea if that is really where the name comes from, it's an easy way of remembering which is which), but IMHO calling PAL f*cked is a bit ridiculous. It has higher resolution for a start, and I personally find the colour reproduction looks better.
Okay, I'll bow to your superior knowledge here, because I certainly am not a rocket scientist (I'm a high energy physicist). Do you know this is true though, or are you guessing? I imagine that there is a limited choice of available rockets, and if the mass of mars express without beadle, and with beadle, both fall into the same payload range, that the same rocket would be used (I didn't explain that very well, but I hope you get what I mean?)
Okay, I would never try and defend a Triumph!
... so in a sense the total cost of it WAS 35 million GBP. After all, Mars Express would have been launched with or without Beadle2.
On your other point, yeah I realise that the launch costs are huge and I never meant to suggest that the figure I quote was the TOTAL cost of the mission. Nevertheless, the original poster seemed to be confusing the cost of the whole Mars Express, with the cost of Beadle2, which is just plain wrong. The figure he (and yahoo) quoted, was almost certainly wrong. And bear in mind that Beadle2 was an addition to an already existing mission
I did read it thanks. I accept that what he wrote isn't very clear), I think it's fairly obvious what he meant (unless you get your jollies from being unnecessarily pedantic). The author doesn't appear to be completely insane so he cannot ACTUALLY be claiming that books physically kill. What he means is that books incite violence, or that they cause violence. Which is exactly what some people say about games. Which was the point of my post.
With your last point, I think you're making an extremely nit-picking point
Can you give a link to a SINGLE ESA official being "gleeful" at NASA failures? If you can, then I'm extremely sorry at such unprofessional behaviour.
As Americans we are used to being called every name in the book, it is part of the burden of being the parents of the world. Like children, no one blames others for criticizing the parents (USA) only when the parent fouls up do we get outbursts from everyone.
This however is, without a doubt, arrogant. I guess you mean that because america is bigger and more powerful than everyone else, then it is "the parent of the world"?
(and as far as I know the british electrical system is extremely good - less cabling needed, and safer than most alternatives ;-)
IIRC the exclusivity deals had time limits ... so that is unlikely to be the only reason, and suggesting that the GC's smaller disc might be a factor is certainly not "mindless rationalization" as you (rudely) put it.
As someone else has pointed out, all players do this to some extent (it's when the DVD changes layers), but with better quality ones it's barely noticable. The POS I have now pauses for almost a second ... the one my ex-flatmate had was virtually impossible to spot.
That's stupid. Maybe, just maybe, more people are not playing sport because they're too fat to move? (And lots of people watch TV! It must be TV's fault! Right? Right?)
What is completely nuts though is to blame *sports* video games
"It's a nice day" it said, showing its teeth.