First of all, I don't know where you think you're going to find a library that stocks recent RPG modules and campaign settings. Assuming you can find one, you'd have found a library that is in the minority.
Secondly, just because you can get the book out of the library doesn't make it legal or ethical for you to make a permanent copy the book for yourself out of the library copy rather than buying your own.
You realize that you're talking about a different site than me?
RPGNow prices it's PDFs at half or less than the hard cover price. I don't recommend buying anything from DriveThruRPG.com. They're over priced and you can't read them on Linux or MacOS.
The money going into the system now supports today's seniors, as it always has;
Why do people always neglect to comment on the huge percentage of Social Security payouts that go to people who aren't seniors? Why does nobody ask about the criterion for collecting from Social Security Disablilty? If you are disabled and can no longer do your job, but you are able to do other jobs, why are you eligible to sit on your ass and collect anyway?
Why doesn't anybody talk about the length of retirement? With life expectencies increasing, why is the expected length of retirement as measured by the amount of time elegible to collect Social Security increasing without a similar increase on the length of time we expect people to continue to be productive and working members of society?
Or download them, DRM-free, from your favourite P2P network. Decisions, decisions...
Support the people who are publishing these materials, or don't and let the people who make them go out of business...
That said, I bought a couple modules offboth RPGNow and drivethrurpg.com two weeks ago. First off, the RPGNow PDFs are *NOT* Adobe DRM protected, and secondly, you can't read the drivethrurpg.com PDFs on a non-windows machine. In other words... Buy from RPGNow, and not drivethrurpg.com.
Anybody have an updated version of that Elcomsoft utility?
It's unAmerican. When someone has done their time, their debt to society is repaid, and they should have all their rights back, including the right to vote. If they don't get their right to vote back, then that's effectively an additional punishment.
Since when has punishment for a crime been limited to "time"? We've got sex offernder registries, GPS anklets, conviction databases, felony disclosure laws for job applicants... (Personally, I don't nescicarily agree with these things, but they exist)
Essentially, their debt to society hasn't been repaid... At least not officially, since they have been sentenced to whatever time they did in addition to all this other stuff.
No one will be buying season 1 of The Simpsons when they can buy FAMILY GUY 3D in HDTV2.
Just like nobody buys old black and white movies anymore?
Also, broadcast TV really beings to lose its luster when I have 20,000 hrs of video sitting on its shelf at home. I have 500 channels today, and its 99% garbage. I'd be much better off buying the shows i like in a static format, but the price point isn't quite there yet.
Theoretically, it should never be there. Broadcasting should always be cheaper than distributing static media. Most of the stuff that worth watching is still only worth watching once anyway. I mean, aside from the pack-rat mentality, why else would you need a permanant copy of something that you're probably never going to watch again? Luckily, said pack-rat/collectors mentality keeps the static media option viable, but also allows the price point to stay right where it is.
What percentage of people do you think fall into this category? Do you think it's higher than the percentage that the publisher will keep of the sale price? If it's like every other PC game these days it'll cost $49. On a retail purchase, if Valve is lucky they get $10. Through steam they're pulling close to the whole fifty bucks.
While you don't have to leave the house to get it, it can be quicker to go out and buy it if its a large game that does not preload, and you don't get the media, manual, or nice shiney box.
Let's use Doom 3 as an example here. In the box was a 3 CD jewel case with three disks. The box just takes up space for 10 minutes before you throw it out. Extras? What extras? To top it off, when you get the games as an actual disk lots of people I know, including me, rip the disk to the hard drive and play the game from a virtual drive to improve load times and reduce noise and drive wear. You want media? Burn a copy of what you download.
On the other hand, if Vivendi delays release beyond the Christmas season, and somehow manages to prohibit Valve form releasing on Steam, they will not be able to post that revenue in Q4 and there's a real chance sales will be lower than they would have been had the game been released in time for Christmas.
I think you're wrong. The people who are going to buy Half Life 2 are going to buy Half Life 2. If it comes out around the "Christmas Season" makes no difference for a game like this. The marketing folks may not get that, but really, either you're waiting on the edge of your seat for this game or you're not going to buy it. Waiting VU out is a win for Valve.
The only way Vivendi can win this is by compelling Valve not to release on Steam and still getting the game out in time for Christmas.
This is true, but let's hope that doesn't happen. The sooner all these traditional publishers die off the better off we all are. Let's hope Valve has the cash to sit around and wait VU out on this one and that almost everybody buys the game off Steam. What the hell do we need the middle-man for anymore? All they do is keep the small developers out of the market.
Things are really bad in the U.S. now, it seems. Everything to help powerful people get richer. Nothing to take care of the average person.
It's easy to think that when you assume that everybody who owns or runs a business is rich and/or powerful. Too bad that's not the case. Most people who run a small to medium sized business are average people.
Just like in 2000 a vote for Nader was ironically a vote for Bush.
Oh I forgot to mention...
Unlike what you're implying, what's truly ironic about that situation is that instead of strengthening a third party and pushing policy that isn't aligned with either of the two major parties in a way similar to what Perot did, Nader's run in 2000 convinced a bunch of people that it's better to vote for a mediocre candidate and compromise your beliefs in certain issues than to express your views.
Just like in 2000 a vote for Nader was ironically a vote for Bush.
People keep saying this, but the math doesn't work out. At best, it's a half a vote. If the person had *actually* voted for either Bush or Gore, not only would one of the two have lost a vote, but the other would have gained a vote. And that's before you get into what percentage of people who vote for a third party candidate wouldn't have voted at all if that candidate hadn't run.
replace all coal-fired power plants with those new pebble-bed reactors
That one comment makes you thousands of times more rational than the Greenpeace agenda would allow. When I describe them as anti-consumption, I mean that as them being in an entirely different league than where you are. Replacing incandescent lights wouldn't lower your quality of life enough to satisfy them. You shouldn't need that power plant, no matter what fires it.
It's clear what the unspoken meaning is though. They're throwing out red herrings to inderectly support their anti-nuclear power agenda. They don't directly care about potential terrorist threats, they are just anti energy consumption. People like this aren't really environmentalists. Their goal isn't truly to protect the environment, but to enforce a particular lifestyle on others. The members of these organizations have either bought into that policy, are essentially cattle following the group, are horribly misinformed about what is actually best for the environment, or are just plain stupid. Whenever a chance presents it self, the oportunity should be taken to expose groups like greenpeace (and especially greenpeace) as social engineering organizations with goals that are not merely environmental, or in many cases not actualy envorinmental at all. As long as a single person still views what a group like Greenpeace says as credible, there is one too many people believing them.
It doesn't take a nuclear physicist to see that this is a dangerous thing...
In other news, people do dangerous things every day... Like transport sulfuric acid in train tankers through residential neighborhoods. Some things are dangerous. That's life.
Environmentalists say it presents a major terrorist target.
Shouldn't environmentalists be worrying about the environment? How come the article doesn't say anything about *security experts* being worried about this? Couldn't they have found any?
Greenpeace says the plutonium should be disposed of as nuclear waste to avoid the transport and proliferation risks.
Right, because being stored in a hole somewere will be safer than reprocessing it and using it. We're much better off with all this weapons grade material sitting around than not existing....
Man, I loved my sinclair. Still have it too, but the 'L' button doesn't work...
Those were the days.. When programming *was* the user interface. Sure for business all the modern interface stuff is great, but for a kid starting out.... They're best off with as low-level an interface as will grab their interest. If Timex Basic is to low level, try starting them off with logo.
Sucks when that one dead pixel is always on, and is red, or green, and in the middle of the display.
It especially sucks when that happens and you didn't buy the display somewhere that takes returns regardless of the number of dead pixels. Many retail stores will take a display back within three days for any reason, including "I didn't like it", as long as it's in it's perfect original condition.
Almost any retail store will take back a monitor for any reason, even one dead pixel.
Regardless of what most places do, when you buy something it should work completely. They advertize a certain number of pixels and they should all work.
I love NewEgg, and I buy a ton of stuff from them. They're only slightly more expensive than the cheapest you can find, and they're super reliable. You can't buy LCDs from the though, and here's why:
Dead Pixels Policy: Replacement or Refund for 8 or more DEAD PIXELS ONLY!
I don't know about you, but even one dead pixel is unacceptable.
2005, eh? Do they have advance knowledge of when hell is going to freeze over?
Really, only one in ten startups succeed... And those are ordinary startups, not one that are trying to compete against Microsoft and have a CEO with a history of fraud.
I'm not saying it's not an issue... but maybe, just maybe, could it be either user error, or possibly something with a pirated version of the game?
Since you have no trouble accusing me of pirating software Or being an idiot, I'm going to have no trouble accusing you of lying. If you have CloneCD installed, and it's not some fancy new stealth version that I haven't heard of yet you didn't get something protected with SafeDisc 3 to run without intervention. As for it being something with a pirated version, read my comment again... The cracked version works fine. It was the retail version I couldn't run.
I haven't tried Sims 2 since I have no interest in playing it, but Thief 3 and Doom 3 definatly checked for registry keys and refused to run. You could run it with a registry and file monitor running and see exactly what registry keys and driver files it checked for. This isn't speculation.
It says it conflicts with cd emulation software. It really detects cd emulation software and refuses to run. They try to make it sound like there's an overlap in resource utilization, or an incompatibility of some sort, but it's a lie. They just don't trust you.
Furthermore, disabling the emlation functionality doesn't solve the problem, since they're not actually checking that, they're just checking for the existance of registry keys associated with certain programs. Doom 3 and Thief 3 did the same thing. You have to uninstall it, or the software won't run. In fact, with Doom 3, uninstalling didn't even work if you had a ligitamately registered copy of CloneCD, because it left a registry key behind with your license number, so you had to delete that registry key manually. Or, download the no-CD hack so you don't have to spend ten minutes uninstalling, registry hacking, and rebooting every time you wanted to switch from playing a game to doing something productive.
Slashdot Mirror
First of all, I don't know where you think you're going to find a library that stocks recent RPG modules and campaign settings. Assuming you can find one, you'd have found a library that is in the minority.
Secondly, just because you can get the book out of the library doesn't make it legal or ethical for you to make a permanent copy the book for yourself out of the library copy rather than buying your own.
You realize that you're talking about a different site than me?
RPGNow prices it's PDFs at half or less than the hard cover price. I don't recommend buying anything from DriveThruRPG.com. They're over priced and you can't read them on Linux or MacOS.
The money going into the system now supports today's seniors, as it always has;
Why do people always neglect to comment on the huge percentage of Social Security payouts that go to people who aren't seniors? Why does nobody ask about the criterion for collecting from Social Security Disablilty? If you are disabled and can no longer do your job, but you are able to do other jobs, why are you eligible to sit on your ass and collect anyway?
Why doesn't anybody talk about the length of retirement? With life expectencies increasing, why is the expected length of retirement as measured by the amount of time elegible to collect Social Security increasing without a similar increase on the length of time we expect people to continue to be productive and working members of society?
Check out RPGNow. You may be surprised... Modules are much cheaper in PDF form through them than the published hard copy prices.
Most of the things published on those two sites are *not* published by Hasbro/WoTC
Or download them, DRM-free, from your favourite P2P network. Decisions, decisions...
Support the people who are publishing these materials, or don't and let the people who make them go out of business...
That said, I bought a couple modules offboth RPGNow and drivethrurpg.com two weeks ago. First off, the RPGNow PDFs are *NOT* Adobe DRM protected, and secondly, you can't read the drivethrurpg.com PDFs on a non-windows machine. In other words... Buy from RPGNow, and not drivethrurpg.com.
Anybody have an updated version of that Elcomsoft utility?
It's unAmerican. When someone has done their time, their debt to society is repaid, and they should have all their rights back, including the right to vote. If they don't get their right to vote back, then that's effectively an additional punishment.
Since when has punishment for a crime been limited to "time"? We've got sex offernder registries, GPS anklets, conviction databases, felony disclosure laws for job applicants... (Personally, I don't nescicarily agree with these things, but they exist)
Essentially, their debt to society hasn't been repaid... At least not officially, since they have been sentenced to whatever time they did in addition to all this other stuff.
No one will be buying season 1 of The Simpsons when they can buy FAMILY GUY 3D in HDTV2.
Just like nobody buys old black and white movies anymore?
Also, broadcast TV really beings to lose its luster when I have 20,000 hrs of video sitting on its shelf at home. I have 500 channels today, and its 99% garbage. I'd be much better off buying the shows i like in a static format, but the price point isn't quite there yet.
Theoretically, it should never be there. Broadcasting should always be cheaper than distributing static media. Most of the stuff that worth watching is still only worth watching once anyway. I mean, aside from the pack-rat mentality, why else would you need a permanant copy of something that you're probably never going to watch again? Luckily, said pack-rat/collectors mentality keeps the static media option viable, but also allows the price point to stay right where it is.
What percentage of people do you think fall into this category? Do you think it's higher than the percentage that the publisher will keep of the sale price? If it's like every other PC game these days it'll cost $49. On a retail purchase, if Valve is lucky they get $10. Through steam they're pulling close to the whole fifty bucks.
While you don't have to leave the house to get it, it can be quicker to go out and buy it if its a large game that does not preload, and you don't get the media, manual, or nice shiney box.
Let's use Doom 3 as an example here. In the box was a 3 CD jewel case with three disks. The box just takes up space for 10 minutes before you throw it out. Extras? What extras? To top it off, when you get the games as an actual disk lots of people I know, including me, rip the disk to the hard drive and play the game from a virtual drive to improve load times and reduce noise and drive wear. You want media? Burn a copy of what you download.
On the other hand, if Vivendi delays release beyond the Christmas season, and somehow manages to prohibit Valve form releasing on Steam, they will not be able to post that revenue in Q4 and there's a real chance sales will be lower than they would have been had the game been released in time for Christmas.
I think you're wrong. The people who are going to buy Half Life 2 are going to buy Half Life 2. If it comes out around the "Christmas Season" makes no difference for a game like this. The marketing folks may not get that, but really, either you're waiting on the edge of your seat for this game or you're not going to buy it. Waiting VU out is a win for Valve.
The only way Vivendi can win this is by compelling Valve not to release on Steam and still getting the game out in time for Christmas.
This is true, but let's hope that doesn't happen. The sooner all these traditional publishers die off the better off we all are. Let's hope Valve has the cash to sit around and wait VU out on this one and that almost everybody buys the game off Steam. What the hell do we need the middle-man for anymore? All they do is keep the small developers out of the market.
Things are really bad in the U.S. now, it seems. Everything to help powerful people get richer. Nothing to take care of the average person.
It's easy to think that when you assume that everybody who owns or runs a business is rich and/or powerful. Too bad that's not the case. Most people who run a small to medium sized business are average people.
"don't count people who're no longer collecting unemployment and have simply given up.."
As it should be. You can't say they can't find a job if they're not looking.
Just like in 2000 a vote for Nader was ironically a vote for Bush.
Oh I forgot to mention...
Unlike what you're implying, what's truly ironic about that situation is that instead of strengthening a third party and pushing policy that isn't aligned with either of the two major parties in a way similar to what Perot did, Nader's run in 2000 convinced a bunch of people that it's better to vote for a mediocre candidate and compromise your beliefs in certain issues than to express your views.
Just like in 2000 a vote for Nader was ironically a vote for Bush.
People keep saying this, but the math doesn't work out. At best, it's a half a vote. If the person had *actually* voted for either Bush or Gore, not only would one of the two have lost a vote, but the other would have gained a vote. And that's before you get into what percentage of people who vote for a third party candidate wouldn't have voted at all if that candidate hadn't run.
replace all coal-fired power plants with those new pebble-bed reactors
That one comment makes you thousands of times more rational than the Greenpeace agenda would allow. When I describe them as anti-consumption, I mean that as them being in an entirely different league than where you are. Replacing incandescent lights wouldn't lower your quality of life enough to satisfy them. You shouldn't need that power plant, no matter what fires it.
It's clear what the unspoken meaning is though. They're throwing out red herrings to inderectly support their anti-nuclear power agenda. They don't directly care about potential terrorist threats, they are just anti energy consumption. People like this aren't really environmentalists. Their goal isn't truly to protect the environment, but to enforce a particular lifestyle on others. The members of these organizations have either bought into that policy, are essentially cattle following the group, are horribly misinformed about what is actually best for the environment, or are just plain stupid. Whenever a chance presents it self, the oportunity should be taken to expose groups like greenpeace (and especially greenpeace) as social engineering organizations with goals that are not merely environmental, or in many cases not actualy envorinmental at all. As long as a single person still views what a group like Greenpeace says as credible, there is one too many people believing them.
It doesn't take a nuclear physicist to see that this is a dangerous thing...
In other news, people do dangerous things every day... Like transport sulfuric acid in train tankers through residential neighborhoods. Some things are dangerous. That's life.
Environmentalists say it presents a major terrorist target.
Shouldn't environmentalists be worrying about the environment? How come the article doesn't say anything about *security experts* being worried about this? Couldn't they have found any?
Greenpeace says the plutonium should be disposed of as nuclear waste to avoid the transport and proliferation risks.
Right, because being stored in a hole somewere will be safer than reprocessing it and using it. We're much better off with all this weapons grade material sitting around than not existing....
Man, I loved my sinclair. Still have it too, but the 'L' button doesn't work...
Those were the days.. When programming *was* the user interface. Sure for business all the modern interface stuff is great, but for a kid starting out.... They're best off with as low-level an interface as will grab their interest. If Timex Basic is to low level, try starting them off with logo.
Sucks when that one dead pixel is always on, and is red, or green, and in the middle of the display.
It especially sucks when that happens and you didn't buy the display somewhere that takes returns regardless of the number of dead pixels. Many retail stores will take a display back within three days for any reason, including "I didn't like it", as long as it's in it's perfect original condition.
Almost any retail store will take back a monitor for any reason, even one dead pixel.
Regardless of what most places do, when you buy something it should work completely. They advertize a certain number of pixels and they should all work.
I love NewEgg, and I buy a ton of stuff from them. They're only slightly more expensive than the cheapest you can find, and they're super reliable. You can't buy LCDs from the though, and here's why:
Dead Pixels Policy: Replacement or Refund for 8 or more DEAD PIXELS ONLY!
I don't know about you, but even one dead pixel is unacceptable.
2005, eh? Do they have advance knowledge of when hell is going to freeze over?
Really, only one in ten startups succeed... And those are ordinary startups, not one that are trying to compete against Microsoft and have a CEO with a history of fraud.
I'm not saying it's not an issue... but maybe, just maybe, could it be either user error, or possibly something with a pirated version of the game?
Since you have no trouble accusing me of pirating software Or being an idiot, I'm going to have no trouble accusing you of lying. If you have CloneCD installed, and it's not some fancy new stealth version that I haven't heard of yet you didn't get something protected with SafeDisc 3 to run without intervention. As for it being something with a pirated version, read my comment again... The cracked version works fine. It was the retail version I couldn't run.
I haven't tried Sims 2 since I have no interest in playing it, but Thief 3 and Doom 3 definatly checked for registry keys and refused to run. You could run it with a registry and file monitor running and see exactly what registry keys and driver files it checked for. This isn't speculation.
it conflicts with cd emulation software
No it doesn't.
It says it conflicts with cd emulation software. It really detects cd emulation software and refuses to run. They try to make it sound like there's an overlap in resource utilization, or an incompatibility of some sort, but it's a lie. They just don't trust you.
Furthermore, disabling the emlation functionality doesn't solve the problem, since they're not actually checking that, they're just checking for the existance of registry keys associated with certain programs. Doom 3 and Thief 3 did the same thing. You have to uninstall it, or the software won't run. In fact, with Doom 3, uninstalling didn't even work if you had a ligitamately registered copy of CloneCD, because it left a registry key behind with your license number, so you had to delete that registry key manually. Or, download the no-CD hack so you don't have to spend ten minutes uninstalling, registry hacking, and rebooting every time you wanted to switch from playing a game to doing something productive.