You're missing the major difference. These are old games, that simply do not have any sales any more. At the same time, THQ is trying to sell sequels to these games (such as darksiders 2).
To THQ, this is a zero risk strategy. The assets on sale are of minimal to nonexistent value. At the same time, they're selling sequels right now for decent prices, sequels that in spite of proper major marketing push didn't sell all that well.
When small indies peddle their stuff for "whatever you want to pay for it", it's usually a game that simply can't get any marketing or picked by a major publisher. This is a major publisher using the system that indies started to peddle its old stuff to squeeze the extra dime out of old, nearly worthless investment while getting free advertisement for sequels that are currently selling at decent prices. And this rubs in in a very wrong way in spite of the fact that I would really love to see darksiders 3, as I loved 1 and 2, and neither sold very well making third installment of that franchise a big question mark. It's principles against seeing yet another small dev friendly started franchise become just another form of marketing for major publishers against game series I liked a lot getting another shot.
Because to many small guys, HIB was pretty much the only way to make waves. And with major publisher pushing into it, their chances of making waves with it again go down significantly. It's on the way to become yet another case of "you can't fight a marketing budget of big publisher when you're just a small company". And that sucks.
Indeed. This is in no way a competitive entry. If it isn't accepted at tests, it's useless.
There is much better math software with proper pixel perfect mouse controls for laptops over smudgy semi-accurate touch to use at lessons. The only reason for calculator is tests.
THQ is in serious financial trouble. This is a bundle of their old games that have essentially zero sales at this point, with an added bonus of "if you do pay a decent sum, you may get a not-so-old game too".
This is pretty much free money and free publicity grab for them.
Same reason I would use it for FPS. Full free flow pixel accurate control scheme is far more natural for a human being then zero-line centric "apply force to change" one such as a joystick.
Essentially starlancer was a flight sim with airplane-style control scheme. Freelancer was FPS control model on flight sim. Difference is that former accepts that you cannot control the craft in the similar way to controlling the body. Instead you can only control the forces applied to the direction changes of the aircraft (the joystick model). Latter is about you controlling the actual end result of the movement and is far more natural for human to accept. It's also obviously far less realistic, but I don't think we want to talk about realism in a space flight game that flies like an atmospheric aircraft regardless.
It's already been stated that the new project is more of a starlancer and less of a freelancer.
The two are unfortunately very much mutually exclusive due to freelancer's (one of the) biggest asset being the mouse-controlled flight and heavy optimizations for it which made the game incredibly accessible and fun to play for anyone with first person shooter experience. Starlancer and this new project are apparently doing joystick-controlled flight as the priority and will optimize for that. And that completely rules out mouse-based "FPS-y" control scheme.
560ti, and the only crash I ever had on 7 was trying out rift. It actually crashed so badly, OS would not restart even in safe mode and needed a re-installation.
The point is that in most cases, support is paid out of pre-allocated IT budget. The worker who makes the call because he's annoyed with the problem never sees or hears about this. For him/her it's free. Just like the toilets at his workplace. They don't care that employer has to pay for these. Ask them to pay you for visiting a toilet to cover these fees, and you'll get rage.
Then frankly, you're SOL. Most people who use products for work expect them to work, and expect them to come with support, including telephone one if number is available. It's always free for them because it's a part of IT budget.
If they have to pay for it themselves, they're going to be obviously pissed. It's a product support for which they will have to explain to their bosses. Something they don't have to do for a product paid from IT budget.
You can try attaching "this is a free product, support costs money" message in big bold letters next to the phone number in the software and everywhere else, and simply tell the user to go look at it in the software itself. It likely won't save you, but it might at least temper down the rage into annoyance so that they don't spend the effort writing up a bad review. It may be enough to matter. My guess is though, it won't be. And I really can't think of any reasonable solution. The problem in question appears to be a natural side effect of your business model, exacerbated by the ease of writing a bad review during "rage" period of having a problem with no solution and someone asking the money for that solution that you would have to beg your boss for.
What we actually know: Intel's current socket is pinless. CPU has small "pins" that are protrusions and do not "socket" into the socket on the motherboard but just get positioned over it. CPU is fixed into socket in a proper position by socket's outer rims, and then locked in with a clasp mounted on the motherboard.
Rumor: Intel is doing away with current socket.
His claim: Intel will solder all CPUs to motherboards.
What will likely actually happen: current socket doesn't have enough space for sufficient number of connections for more complex chips, new socket with similar interface but more connectors then the current one will be implemented. This socket will have a new name. They will stop making chips and motherboards for old socket, hence "will do away with the current socket".
But hey, shock headlines brings advertisement impressions!
The reason why you haven't "seen a homemade PC in years" is because most people who build them are knowledgeable enough, and thanks to internet have enough advice on maintenance and fixing to never have to bring their PC to you.
Corrosion rarely hits the CPU, but can be a real problem in humid climates for motherboard electronics.
For the sake of comparison, a lot of dying cell phones from the old times were dying from motherboard corrosion. Modern ones tend to die faster for a couple of other reasons, before corrosion sets in, but if you have on of those old, gold nokias that seemed to truck on forever - when one of them would finally keel over, it was almost always due to motherboard corrosion.
Another thing that used to fail a lot on cheap PC motherboards is capacitors, they tended to leak after a couple of years. Nowadays many decent motherboards advertise having a longer warranty for capacitors or stamp something like "japanese capacitors" to show that they're using quality components there.
Anarchy more viable then any other functional political structure because it's the BASE power structure. It's the common base political structure in the nature for non-sentient animals, and it's also a base political structure for humanity. When other structure collapses, anarchy typically remains as the underlying power, but its tendencies are harnessed and controlled by higher power (and political) systems such as dictatorial, republican, theistic and so on.
Anarchy as a political structure features power interactions on individual level only. Most political systems build on top of natural anarchy, slowly instituting power to control base, anarchist tendencies, ceasing to be anarchist (by definition) in progress. When these power structures cease to exist, natural anarchy is what remains. Not what "comes to existence", as it always exists on base level, but what gains control when other power structures fails.
This is why anarchy is the typical outcome of power vacuum created by societal collapse, such as that in war-torn countries for example.
In a fairly stable market like specialty retail? Sure.
In a volatile market with constantly changing legislation and a chance that a major player who can undercut you on price at loss until you go out of business will enter your particular area? Not so much.
They are arguing for it because they are both completely failing to compete on performance per core with intel, while they beat intel's GPU offerings with their own.
You essentially have someone who owns a fleet of mopeds arguing that fleet of mopeds is a better way of transporting goods from harbor to the stores. In some cases, they may be right. In many others, they will be wrong. Arguing this as a universal truth is disinformation, and actually believing in these arguments is ignorance of the subject at hand.
While it is true that vote will eventually have to go through EP, EP has no power to set the issue itself (which is what it is trying to do here). It can only vote on the issue presented before it.
This issue was not presented before it, therefore vote is purely advisory and has no binding effect on member states.
Again: cultural clash. Most of your stuff would cause wide condemnation even in extreme right wing in most of EU. Your culture allows for such rules. Ours thinks them downirght barbaric.
On the other hand, US views any limits on public free speech to be barbaric. In many EU countries, limits are considered a norm for things like nazi propaganda for example.
Different cultures. Different values. Attempting to sell your values as somehow "universal" shows a deep lack of understanding of differences between cultures.
Unfortunately you make one massive presumption that is simply impossible to be true, which in turn collapses your house of cards.
You presume that all information about any given person is supplied only by that person.
In modern world, it's often the exact opposite. Aside of a few attention whores, most of the "moderately embarrassing info" is posted by people who know the person in question but are not the person in question.
Slashdot Mirror
You're missing the major difference. These are old games, that simply do not have any sales any more. At the same time, THQ is trying to sell sequels to these games (such as darksiders 2).
To THQ, this is a zero risk strategy. The assets on sale are of minimal to nonexistent value. At the same time, they're selling sequels right now for decent prices, sequels that in spite of proper major marketing push didn't sell all that well.
When small indies peddle their stuff for "whatever you want to pay for it", it's usually a game that simply can't get any marketing or picked by a major publisher. This is a major publisher using the system that indies started to peddle its old stuff to squeeze the extra dime out of old, nearly worthless investment while getting free advertisement for sequels that are currently selling at decent prices.
And this rubs in in a very wrong way in spite of the fact that I would really love to see darksiders 3, as I loved 1 and 2, and neither sold very well making third installment of that franchise a big question mark. It's principles against seeing yet another small dev friendly started franchise become just another form of marketing for major publishers against game series I liked a lot getting another shot.
Because to many small guys, HIB was pretty much the only way to make waves. And with major publisher pushing into it, their chances of making waves with it again go down significantly. It's on the way to become yet another case of "you can't fight a marketing budget of big publisher when you're just a small company". And that sucks.
No, not above the law. Just buying the law to do their bidding. It's far worse then just being above the law.
Indeed. This is in no way a competitive entry. If it isn't accepted at tests, it's useless.
There is much better math software with proper pixel perfect mouse controls for laptops over smudgy semi-accurate touch to use at lessons. The only reason for calculator is tests.
THQ is in serious financial trouble. This is a bundle of their old games that have essentially zero sales at this point, with an added bonus of "if you do pay a decent sum, you may get a not-so-old game too".
This is pretty much free money and free publicity grab for them.
Same reason I would use it for FPS. Full free flow pixel accurate control scheme is far more natural for a human being then zero-line centric "apply force to change" one such as a joystick.
Essentially starlancer was a flight sim with airplane-style control scheme. Freelancer was FPS control model on flight sim. Difference is that former accepts that you cannot control the craft in the similar way to controlling the body. Instead you can only control the forces applied to the direction changes of the aircraft (the joystick model). Latter is about you controlling the actual end result of the movement and is far more natural for human to accept. It's also obviously far less realistic, but I don't think we want to talk about realism in a space flight game that flies like an atmospheric aircraft regardless.
One of the most important concepts of "fun" is to not have to struggle against the controls. They should be your best ally, not your worst enemy.
If you use the standard mouse+keyboard, starlancer's control scheme is your worst enemy by far.
They're popular because they're cheap and fast. With them you get what you pay for.
Problem is, OCZ has openly admitted to its SSD drivers causing blue screens with certain message. Parent is likely talking about those.
It's already been stated that the new project is more of a starlancer and less of a freelancer.
The two are unfortunately very much mutually exclusive due to freelancer's (one of the) biggest asset being the mouse-controlled flight and heavy optimizations for it which made the game incredibly accessible and fun to play for anyone with first person shooter experience. Starlancer and this new project are apparently doing joystick-controlled flight as the priority and will optimize for that. And that completely rules out mouse-based "FPS-y" control scheme.
560ti, and the only crash I ever had on 7 was trying out rift. It actually crashed so badly, OS would not restart even in safe mode and needed a re-installation.
Iirc, the error message was about nvidia driver.
I seriously doubt these people are "running a business". They're most likely "working for a business".
The point is that in most cases, support is paid out of pre-allocated IT budget. The worker who makes the call because he's annoyed with the problem never sees or hears about this. For him/her it's free. Just like the toilets at his workplace. They don't care that employer has to pay for these. Ask them to pay you for visiting a toilet to cover these fees, and you'll get rage.
Then frankly, you're SOL. Most people who use products for work expect them to work, and expect them to come with support, including telephone one if number is available. It's always free for them because it's a part of IT budget.
If they have to pay for it themselves, they're going to be obviously pissed. It's a product support for which they will have to explain to their bosses. Something they don't have to do for a product paid from IT budget.
You can try attaching "this is a free product, support costs money" message in big bold letters next to the phone number in the software and everywhere else, and simply tell the user to go look at it in the software itself. It likely won't save you, but it might at least temper down the rage into annoyance so that they don't spend the effort writing up a bad review. It may be enough to matter. My guess is though, it won't be. And I really can't think of any reasonable solution. The problem in question appears to be a natural side effect of your business model, exacerbated by the ease of writing a bad review during "rage" period of having a problem with no solution and someone asking the money for that solution that you would have to beg your boss for.
What we actually know: Intel's current socket is pinless. CPU has small "pins" that are protrusions and do not "socket" into the socket on the motherboard but just get positioned over it. CPU is fixed into socket in a proper position by socket's outer rims, and then locked in with a clasp mounted on the motherboard.
Rumor: Intel is doing away with current socket.
His claim: Intel will solder all CPUs to motherboards.
What will likely actually happen: current socket doesn't have enough space for sufficient number of connections for more complex chips, new socket with similar interface but more connectors then the current one will be implemented. This socket will have a new name. They will stop making chips and motherboards for old socket, hence "will do away with the current socket".
But hey, shock headlines brings advertisement impressions!
You mean like they have now? :D
The reason why you haven't "seen a homemade PC in years" is because most people who build them are knowledgeable enough, and thanks to internet have enough advice on maintenance and fixing to never have to bring their PC to you.
Corrosion rarely hits the CPU, but can be a real problem in humid climates for motherboard electronics.
For the sake of comparison, a lot of dying cell phones from the old times were dying from motherboard corrosion. Modern ones tend to die faster for a couple of other reasons, before corrosion sets in, but if you have on of those old, gold nokias that seemed to truck on forever - when one of them would finally keel over, it was almost always due to motherboard corrosion.
Another thing that used to fail a lot on cheap PC motherboards is capacitors, they tended to leak after a couple of years. Nowadays many decent motherboards advertise having a longer warranty for capacitors or stamp something like "japanese capacitors" to show that they're using quality components there.
Anarchy more viable then any other functional political structure because it's the BASE power structure. It's the common base political structure in the nature for non-sentient animals, and it's also a base political structure for humanity. When other structure collapses, anarchy typically remains as the underlying power, but its tendencies are harnessed and controlled by higher power (and political) systems such as dictatorial, republican, theistic and so on.
Anarchy as a political structure features power interactions on individual level only. Most political systems build on top of natural anarchy, slowly instituting power to control base, anarchist tendencies, ceasing to be anarchist (by definition) in progress. When these power structures cease to exist, natural anarchy is what remains. Not what "comes to existence", as it always exists on base level, but what gains control when other power structures fails.
This is why anarchy is the typical outcome of power vacuum created by societal collapse, such as that in war-torn countries for example.
In a fairly stable market like specialty retail? Sure.
In a volatile market with constantly changing legislation and a chance that a major player who can undercut you on price at loss until you go out of business will enter your particular area? Not so much.
They are arguing for it because they are both completely failing to compete on performance per core with intel, while they beat intel's GPU offerings with their own.
You essentially have someone who owns a fleet of mopeds arguing that fleet of mopeds is a better way of transporting goods from harbor to the stores. In some cases, they may be right. In many others, they will be wrong. Arguing this as a universal truth is disinformation, and actually believing in these arguments is ignorance of the subject at hand.
While it is true that vote will eventually have to go through EP, EP has no power to set the issue itself (which is what it is trying to do here). It can only vote on the issue presented before it.
This issue was not presented before it, therefore vote is purely advisory and has no binding effect on member states.
It is. EP has no power over governments and their stance. They're sovereign. It can only take an "advisory" vote on such issues, which is non-binding.
Kroes is a snake. But surprisingly, in spite of her history, she's something of a "people's snake". Or more accurately, competitiveness' snake.
Again: cultural clash. Most of your stuff would cause wide condemnation even in extreme right wing in most of EU. Your culture allows for such rules. Ours thinks them downirght barbaric.
On the other hand, US views any limits on public free speech to be barbaric. In many EU countries, limits are considered a norm for things like nazi propaganda for example.
Different cultures. Different values. Attempting to sell your values as somehow "universal" shows a deep lack of understanding of differences between cultures.
Unfortunately you make one massive presumption that is simply impossible to be true, which in turn collapses your house of cards.
You presume that all information about any given person is supplied only by that person.
In modern world, it's often the exact opposite. Aside of a few attention whores, most of the "moderately embarrassing info" is posted by people who know the person in question but are not the person in question.