Exactly this. If they actually cared about gamers, then all these features would have been optional for the user. Without an internet connection, everything should have worked just as it did before.
Take a look at GoG Galaxy for a product with a much better claim to "good intentions".
It is neither Muslim-like nor French-like. It is narcissist-like. This mentality transcends all cultural boundaries. If you think you're safe because you're not French or not Muslim, you are wrong.
While funny, your comment is true if and only if the government uses 100% of its black toner for FOIA responses. More to the point, it's irrelevant how much of each response is redacted.
According to this, only around 108 billion people have ever lived. Given that about 7 billion are still alive, the survival rate of life is roughly 6%.
If you're American, aren't your felons disallowed from voting? It would be consistent, then, to disallow them from owning guns, via background checks at gun shows.
[...] I may roll over eventually and join the herd because I could get used to it.
This is the problem. Microsoft is a game publishing company, and the amount of control gamers have over their own games is essentially another price point. Publishers will put that price point exactly where the market will bare it, which means things will get worse until people stop buying games. So if you don't want things to get worse, don't roll over.
Don't buy this console, tell your non-tech-savvy friends not to buy this console, tell your tech-savvy friends not to buy this console, and tell your tech-savvy friends to tell their non-tech-savvy friends not to buy this console.
I'm against homosexual marriage and especially against homosexual adoption. I don't think it is good for kids to be told that they don't need a mommy and a daddy, that mommy and mommy are fine and we don't need a daddy. I think it is harmful on a level that will not manifest itself for a long time, but will eventually. Kids do need both a Mommy and a Daddy, that is optimal. It is sad when we don't strive for Optimal because of selfish desires of people in a relationship that is destined to be sterile.
Do you have any evidence for this, or do you just want to restrict people's freedoms based on what you think?
Not true. In Quebec, we have the CEGEP system, which is equivalent to the last year of high school and freshman year of university. Dawson is a CEGEP, so Ahmed was almost definitely between 16 and 18.
I agree completely. Big props to Bioware (pre-EA) and Namco for making their splash screens skippable. Also, big shits to EA for mandating that their splash screens be un-skippable.
How do you convince people that what they have been taught is completely wrong without insinuating that they or their respected teacher/pastor etc is a complete idiot?
Have you ever seen Richard Dawkins answering questions? I don't think he generally worries about that.
Perhaps if we never had "right-of-way" laws (which usurp individual property rights), people would insist on owning the cable running through their properties.
If we assume people get to own the cable, then, presumably, each person is responsible for maintaining his or her part of the cable. But what if the same cable also runs through your neighbour's property? What if your Internet cuts out due to your neighbour's negligence? What if your neighbour moves, and your new neighbour decides they don't want a cable on their property? Do you pay for the ISP to run new cable around your neighbour's property? What if no one else wants the cable under their property? Do you get to negotiate with them each individually? Are you just out of luck if they still say no?
Oh no, two cables in the ground! The horror! Who would have thought that competition involved duplication?
Do you feel the same way about power lines? Natural gas pipes? Sewers? Roads? Libertarians say that private enterprise accomplishes things more efficiently than public enterprise, but I really don't think that's the case when it comes to infrastructure.
Local governments use their road monopoly to stifle ISP competition.
Has that ever happened? And I don't mean a city charging someone to dig up a road; I mean a city refusing to let someone pay for it.
Why don't you ask the local governments that MAKE them monopolies. Them being monopolies is NOT NATURAL.
How do you figure? It was never illegal to start a new ISP. Like all infrastructure, it does naturally become a monopoly. After all, it doesn't make sense to have multiple companies each running cable to your house so you can choose your favourite. In fact, a few local governments have been sued by ISP's for trying to break their monopolies.
And it was MARKET FORCES that stopped Comcast, when they were found out they shut that down.
Not quite. In fact, the opposite. Granted, Comcast appealed the decision, and won, but it was the FCC that stopped them, not the market.
What has yet to be shown to any reasonable degree is why it is preferable to let the government dictate what goes over a network.
Ideally, net neutrality legislation wouldn't dictate what goes over a network. It would instead prevent ISP's from dictating what goes over their networks.
It has always struck me as funny that so many people that want to keep companies out of the government are seeking to draw them in via net neutrality. Once Comcast is told what to do by the FCC do you think lobbying will go substantially down, or up? And the best part is then Comcast can do whatever it likes because the rules came "from the government". If you loved the torrent throttling they tried to get away with you should be delighted with the total torrent ban in effect once network neutrality rules start allowing the government dictate how networks should be run - and who they can reach. After all, neutrality means only that you must be able to reach equally VALID network endpoints...
What, exactly, do you think will happen without net neutrality laws? Will all the ISP monopolies suddenly start acting like they have competition? Will Comcast just never try to get away with throttling torrents again? Do you realize that if there are no "rules from the government", then ISP's can just do what they want anyway?
While RISUG looks like a great procedure to me, intellectually, I am much more comfortable emotionally with taking a pill than with having a doctor inject a spermicide into my vas deferens.
That's a good point. A lot of math in computer science is used behind-the-scenes, so to speak. It doesn't show up directly in the algorithms, but it's used to show that an algorithm is correct, or that one algorithm is faster than another, or that an algorithm cannot take more than so long, or that an algorithm will take so long on average.
Agreed. Any graphics engine uses a ton of linear algebra under the hood, so you'll need that if you ever want to modify one or write your own. Also, if you want to do any kind of physics simulation (which you probably will, if you're doing games), you may need calculus (but maybe not, since video games fake as much as they can get away with).
Um, didn't US ISP's get billions of dollars in tax breaks to lay down fibre across the country a decade ago? You're getting ripped off with prices, compared to most other first-world countries; you're getting ripped off with service, with unadvertised bandwidth caps and throttled protocols; and you got ripped off by paying taxpayer money for something that was never done. If I lived there, I'd use every bit (pun not intended) of bandwidth I was paying for, all the time, just out of spite. Not that using a service you pay for should be considered a spiteful act.
Exactly this. If they actually cared about gamers, then all these features would have been optional for the user. Without an internet connection, everything should have worked just as it did before.
Take a look at GoG Galaxy for a product with a much better claim to "good intentions".
Starcraft came out over a year before Counter-Strike, and apparently before Quake III Arena as well.
It is neither Muslim-like nor French-like. It is narcissist-like. This mentality transcends all cultural boundaries. If you think you're safe because you're not French or not Muslim, you are wrong.
While funny, your comment is true if and only if the government uses 100% of its black toner for FOIA responses. More to the point, it's irrelevant how much of each response is redacted.
Tell me more about many, if not most, comments today are highly suspect!
I think we all know they'll never get to the third one.
dope
Do you mean marijuana or heroine?
That reminds me of Mr Bones' Wild Ride.
According to this, only around 108 billion people have ever lived. Given that about 7 billion are still alive, the survival rate of life is roughly 6%.
If you're American, aren't your felons disallowed from voting? It would be consistent, then, to disallow them from owning guns, via background checks at gun shows.
Exactly.
[...] I may roll over eventually and join the herd because I could get used to it.
This is the problem. Microsoft is a game publishing company, and the amount of control gamers have over their own games is essentially another price point. Publishers will put that price point exactly where the market will bare it, which means things will get worse until people stop buying games. So if you don't want things to get worse, don't roll over.
Don't buy this console, tell your non-tech-savvy friends not to buy this console, tell your tech-savvy friends not to buy this console, and tell your tech-savvy friends to tell their non-tech-savvy friends not to buy this console.
How is it that census data is creative enough to merit a copyright?
I'm against homosexual marriage and especially against homosexual adoption. I don't think it is good for kids to be told that they don't need a mommy and a daddy, that mommy and mommy are fine and we don't need a daddy. I think it is harmful on a level that will not manifest itself for a long time, but will eventually. Kids do need both a Mommy and a Daddy, that is optimal. It is sad when we don't strive for Optimal because of selfish desires of people in a relationship that is destined to be sterile.
Do you have any evidence for this, or do you just want to restrict people's freedoms based on what you think?
[...] this kid was only twenty years old.
Not true. In Quebec, we have the CEGEP system, which is equivalent to the last year of high school and freshman year of university. Dawson is a CEGEP, so Ahmed was almost definitely between 16 and 18.
I agree completely. Big props to Bioware (pre-EA) and Namco for making their splash screens skippable. Also, big shits to EA for mandating that their splash screens be un-skippable.
How do you convince people that what they have been taught is completely wrong without insinuating that they or their respected teacher/pastor etc is a complete idiot?
Have you ever seen Richard Dawkins answering questions? I don't think he generally worries about that.
Except that bullets can be traced to the gun that fired them, and are usually destroyed on impact.
Perhaps if we never had "right-of-way" laws (which usurp individual property rights), people would insist on owning the cable running through their properties.
If we assume people get to own the cable, then, presumably, each person is responsible for maintaining his or her part of the cable. But what if the same cable also runs through your neighbour's property? What if your Internet cuts out due to your neighbour's negligence? What if your neighbour moves, and your new neighbour decides they don't want a cable on their property? Do you pay for the ISP to run new cable around your neighbour's property? What if no one else wants the cable under their property? Do you get to negotiate with them each individually? Are you just out of luck if they still say no?
Oh no, two cables in the ground! The horror! Who would have thought that competition involved duplication?
Do you feel the same way about power lines? Natural gas pipes? Sewers? Roads? Libertarians say that private enterprise accomplishes things more efficiently than public enterprise, but I really don't think that's the case when it comes to infrastructure.
Local governments use their road monopoly to stifle ISP competition.
Has that ever happened? And I don't mean a city charging someone to dig up a road; I mean a city refusing to let someone pay for it.
Why don't you ask the local governments that MAKE them monopolies. Them being monopolies is NOT NATURAL.
How do you figure? It was never illegal to start a new ISP. Like all infrastructure, it does naturally become a monopoly. After all, it doesn't make sense to have multiple companies each running cable to your house so you can choose your favourite. In fact, a few local governments have been sued by ISP's for trying to break their monopolies.
And it was MARKET FORCES that stopped Comcast, when they were found out they shut that down.
Not quite. In fact, the opposite. Granted, Comcast appealed the decision, and won, but it was the FCC that stopped them, not the market.
What has yet to be shown to any reasonable degree is why it is preferable to let the government dictate what goes over a network.
Ideally, net neutrality legislation wouldn't dictate what goes over a network. It would instead prevent ISP's from dictating what goes over their networks.
It has always struck me as funny that so many people that want to keep companies out of the government are seeking to draw them in via net neutrality. Once Comcast is told what to do by the FCC do you think lobbying will go substantially down, or up? And the best part is then Comcast can do whatever it likes because the rules came "from the government". If you loved the torrent throttling they tried to get away with you should be delighted with the total torrent ban in effect once network neutrality rules start allowing the government dictate how networks should be run - and who they can reach. After all, neutrality means only that you must be able to reach equally VALID network endpoints...
What, exactly, do you think will happen without net neutrality laws? Will all the ISP monopolies suddenly start acting like they have competition? Will Comcast just never try to get away with throttling torrents again? Do you realize that if there are no "rules from the government", then ISP's can just do what they want anyway?
While RISUG looks like a great procedure to me, intellectually, I am much more comfortable emotionally with taking a pill than with having a doctor inject a spermicide into my vas deferens.
That's a good point. A lot of math in computer science is used behind-the-scenes, so to speak. It doesn't show up directly in the algorithms, but it's used to show that an algorithm is correct, or that one algorithm is faster than another, or that an algorithm cannot take more than so long, or that an algorithm will take so long on average.
Agreed. Any graphics engine uses a ton of linear algebra under the hood, so you'll need that if you ever want to modify one or write your own. Also, if you want to do any kind of physics simulation (which you probably will, if you're doing games), you may need calculus (but maybe not, since video games fake as much as they can get away with).
Um, didn't US ISP's get billions of dollars in tax breaks to lay down fibre across the country a decade ago? You're getting ripped off with prices, compared to most other first-world countries; you're getting ripped off with service, with unadvertised bandwidth caps and throttled protocols; and you got ripped off by paying taxpayer money for something that was never done. If I lived there, I'd use every bit (pun not intended) of bandwidth I was paying for, all the time, just out of spite. Not that using a service you pay for should be considered a spiteful act.
I don't think it'll be a problem; Harper is probably looking to get rid of them.