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User: PrimalChrome

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  1. Re:Dear D&D Designers on Slashdot's Rob Rozeboom Interviews D&D Designer Mike Mearls (video) · · Score: 1

    Sounds like your problem was the DM, not the actual rules. Most DMs allow rerolls of '1' on a HP roll. Most DMs also use one of the alternative stat rolling systems rather than forcing you to live with the exact three die that you rolled for a particular stat.

  2. Re:to the detriment of the user experience on The Ugly, Profitable Details About Xbox Live Advertising · · Score: 1

    Just out of curiosity, do you really feel that the PSN interface is better than XBox? Whereas XBox is more complex and not as simple to navigate, it has always felt like a richer experience overall. That being said, I don't subscribe to Live....because I"m not willing to pay for a service that is free on every other platform. Fanboi console monkeys seem to be willing to settle for dumbed down gameplay, poor control schemes, and price gouging....but that's the world they choose. (I do own a PS3, Xbox360, and a few PCs.)

    Valve's Steam has ever other online gaming/marketplace/matchmaking service I've seen beaten...hands down. Nothing else really compares for overall value and usability.

  3. Re:Rich people don't like to go slow? on Will Speed Limits Inhibit Autonomous Car Adoption? · · Score: 1

    The explanation is in the verbal use rather than the written. If you're speaking at a relatively fast clip, "would have" blurs into "would've"....which sounds like "would of". People become accustomed to using it in this fashion and then begin writing out what they would of said rather than what they would have written.

  4. Is it real or is it memorex? on Ask Slashdot: Old Dogs vs. New Technology? · · Score: 1

    Perhaps his next environment will be the same...and the one after that....and perhaps the fourth as well.... Maybe by the fifth he'll wonder if the issue isn't the workplace or culture, but more between the ears of the viewer.

    I'm not saying he's not a brilliant, young up-and-comer that can do no wrong and has to fight the righteous fight against the entrenched evil old men that are ruining the world around him.... But I would say that sounds a lot like half the movies coming out of Hollywood. If he's that good...and his shop that bad....he should have *PLENTY* of contemporaries in other companies that could get him into a healthier IT culture.

  5. Black ICE got him.... on Hacked Companies Fight Back With Controversial Steps · · Score: 1

    Looks like he pulled a Wilson.

  6. Re:Can someone explain to me on Growing Evidence of Football Causing Brain Damage · · Score: 2

    Those who modded this post insightful should have done a little research first. Bareknuckles boxing was popular for a very long time....but most of the great boxers of that era were VERY careful about their bouts, some of which lasted an hour or more. Why? Not for fear of a nice liver punch or a busted nose....but the fear of splitting a hand open on a tooth or breaking a hand that would never heal correctly.

    For a dock worker or farm hand.... A single knockout rarely causes notable cognitive loss. A single broken hand can ruin a man's ability to feed himself for the rest of his life.

  7. Re:Righteous indignation! on Best Buy Scans Drivers License For Returns — No More Allowed For 90 Days · · Score: 1

    Wish I could mod you up... I too know of people that take advantage of fair return policies...and in effect ruin it for the rest of us. Those that deny the truth of it should show up at a Best Buy the weekend before the SuperBowl or any major SEC rivalry game and see how quickly televisions are walking out the door.

  8. Re:When people abuse prices go up on Best Buy Scans Drivers License For Returns — No More Allowed For 90 Days · · Score: 1

    I'm shocked that you mentioned ebay/paypal as being 'no hassle'. Just about everyone I know at one time was a regular ebay user....and most haven't used their account in over a year due to past hassles. Paypal has become pretty straightforward, but I can remember my account being locked for two months because of a credit card expiration.....which is why now I only use it for payment and never to receive money.

  9. Re:EA strangles another once great studio on BioWare Announces Free DLC To Add More To the Mass Effect 3 Endings · · Score: 1

    I really wonder if that wasn't the intent of the ending. One man cannot save the universe....only effect a very small part within his sphere of influence.

  10. Re:America Online on Online Services: The Internet Before the Internet · · Score: 1

    Yah, I was always amazed that The Matrix BBS had 20+ lines and served as an EZnet hub. That was simply an amazing feat for a BBS that a guy just ran for fun. Rocky and Tom were ahead of their time.

  11. America Online on Online Services: The Internet Before the Internet · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I remember when America Online was a BBS run by Rocky Rawlins in Birmingham, AL. He sold the name to some unheard of upstart company who offered him stock instead of cash. He took the $15k in cash. Oops.

  12. Re:All of these answers on Ask Slashdot: What Is the Best Note-Taking Device For Conferences? · · Score: 1

    Utilizing the Evernote app....the Transformer Prime is the only thing I can think of that would be as good as, if not better, than [smart]pen and paper.

  13. Free to play will have to show balance to thrive. on Can $60 Games Survive? · · Score: 2

    I expect the market to correct the model of $5 DLC for one hour of play to occur before $60 for 40 hours of play. DLC, hats, and paid content with regards to Free-To-Play will do well in the market....but there is a lot to be said for a level playing field and flat initial cost for people that play in even casual/competitive games. Knowing another player can drop $20 and get a BFG-2000 that insta-nukes his opponents may encourage griefing kiddies to play...but eventually drives away the core market.

    That being said, it Riot Games has done an excellent job with balancing Free-To-Play competitive gaming with League of Legends.

  14. Re:Bad news for HP on Dell Announces Intent To Acquire SonicWALL · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Whereas I agree that IBM's server solutions stand a head higher than Dell, I would not dream of saying the same of HP. We are primarily a Dell shop and looked at swapping over to HP after numerous issues with Dell's Partner program. At the end of last year, HP accounted for 5% of our server install base. They accounted for closer to 20% of our server degraded/downtime for clients.

    Horrid product support consisting of smug warranty reps with little product knowledge. Getting parts was even more of a chore. Dell's 4 hour turnaround on parts is generally just that. 4 hours. HP's 4 hour parts warranty was regularly 24 hours, and in one instance, four days. Yes, days. Admittedly the actual failure rate was comparable with Dell (not better), but when you couple it with a disdain for supporting their products....sorry, we're done with HP.

    I also think you're spot on with the take on Equallogic's gear and Sonicwall's future at Dell.

  15. Homeopathy and holistic medicine on Growth of Pseudoscience Harming Australian Universities · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It's worth noting that the handful of homeopathy practitioners that I've met over the years have a holistic approach to their medicine. I'll try to provide an example :

    Western Doctor visit : You sit in the waiting room for an hour before being taken back to a room. They spend 2 minutes to weigh, measure, and get your vitals. Doc walks in and you complain of headaches. He nods, looks you over, and prescribes Tylenol 3 and ushers you to the payment processor.

    Homeopathy practitioner visit : You sit in the deserted waiting room for 5 minutes before going back to a room. The practitioner comes in and gets your measurements/vitals and asks you what's wrong. You say you're having headaches. They ask more questions about activity cycle, diet, stressors, and your social situation. They prescribe you a placebo, tell you to quit playing League of Legends until 2am, and get another 2 hours of exercise per week.

    There are positives to the methodology that contribute to the observed successes in those that believe.....but the actual treatments are not one of them.

  16. Not for 'professionals' on From the Nuremberg Toy Fair, a New Linux System For RC Cars · · Score: 1

    ....in any sense. Professional RC applications are high end rigs that demand precision and low latency. "Professional" RC racers require the same kind of response time and controls that grant tight precision. This system covers not a single requirement. Essentially it can only bee for one of two things...
    - Hobbiest geeks
    - Automated RC tasks

  17. This is news? on 4G Phones Are Really Fast — At Draining Batteries · · Score: 1

    Seriously?

  18. Re:Not on the disc on Anger With Game Content Lock Spurs Reaction From Studio Head Curt Shilling · · Score: 1

    Very odd.... As an avid gamer, I can't remember the last time I had a game that I had to 'fight' to get it to work.....DRM or no. And that's across two gaming machines, a mac w/bootcamp, and two laptops. Unless, of course, you're not talking about 'fighting' a legally purchased game and instead you're talking about 'finding a hack so that I can use a pirated copy'.

  19. Re:If it was one bullet, I would agree with you. on The Iraq War, the Next War, and the Future of the Fat Man · · Score: 1

    Professional wetwork usually results in no collateral damage.

    Leaving entire an entire city block standing while accurately destroying a room or wing of a target structure qualifies as 'Light' collateral damage.

    Heavy collateral damage would be something more like firebombing a city (Tokyo/Dresden), burning most of a city to the ground (Atlanta), deforesting hectares of land (Operation Ranch Hand), viral warfare (Native American suppression), or fat man & little boy (Nagasaki/Hiroshima). And before you howl about the evils of modern warfare....do a little research into the 30 years war for some really beautiful examples of heavy collateral damage.

    "One death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic." - Stalin. At the end of the day, every single death is a horrible thing...but keep it in perspective.

  20. Re:Bogus premise on The New Transparency of War and Lethality of Hatred · · Score: 1

    Wars are always fought for one reason and one reason only.

    Power.

    If you believe the US civil war or WWII were fought for morality, you're buying into the same propaganda that was used to fuel all conflicts since. Ask yourself this... If the US was fighting the civil war over moral outrage over slavery, why didn't they free all slaves in the Union? Did you realize that most of New York, at the time, was built by slave labor? Or how about all the US concentration camps used for Japanese-American citizens? Don't even get me started on the similarities between HUAC and the Nazi party....

    Next time you open a few history texts....read the facts only and gloss over the bias and presentation.

  21. Re:Marathon and the Halo Series on Aleph One 1.0 Released · · Score: 1

    If you're talking about *firsts for the Mac*....maybe. By far not the first in the genre.

  22. Re:I've noticed this too on Europe's Largest IT Company To Ban Internal Email · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How many 'legal organizations' do you work with, exactly? We have about 600 clients, many in the legal/financial markets. Most have retention policies requiring years of emails to be kept. I believe law requires some financial institutions to archive email for a number of years as well.

    "Why do they do this crazy thing?" asks the five minute attention span twitter generation of teens and twixties that have never held a full time job with any more responsibility than making sure that a coffee had extra cream. They do this to cover their asses. One email, a SINGLE email, can make the difference between a multi million dollar lawsuit or a lost account that pays your salary.

  23. Re:I wonder on Drug-Resistant Superbugs Sweeping Across Europe · · Score: 1

    Why do you hate America? Only libertarians believe in actually paying our debts.

    There, fixed that for you.

  24. Re:History or psychology? on Ron Paul Wants To End the Federal Student Loan Program · · Score: 1

    Factory jobs for the uneducated are gone - like the farm jobs before them - so you need education if you want a sizable middle class.

    What do you need that higher education (most of which was previously available in secondary school coursework) for? Do you really need a 2 year degree for data entry or childcare? Do you really need a four year degree to manage a McDonalds or perform secretarial duties? Isn't a masters overkill for managing a network or writing code? Sure, if you want a fasttrack into business, hard sciences, or higher level accounting you need that degree. To be a plumber, mechanic, fabricator, or mid level manager in most corporations.....your degree in asian studies and hentai really isn't applicable.

    The part where education comes in is when people like Hugo Chavez come in promising the ignorant everything, and the ignorant never learned what a dictator looks like so they vote him all sorts of special powers as he stubs out freedom of the press, nationalizes industries, and destroys the economy. Of course entitlement is a problem, but educated people can see when they are in a pickle - .

    Thankfully, those rational educated folk were at the wheel for the management of Social Security, the national debt, Homeland Security, and the bailout. Whew! Don't know what I would've done without their brilliance wasting trillions of dollars and teaching the citizenry that they cannot function without government assistance and creative balancing of the books.

    Having a higher education does not in any way make you wise or rational....it means you had the time, money, and the ability to regurgitate what was required to advance. It generally means you have a decent level of intelligence, but does not ensure that you're on the right side of the bell curve. It means that (hopefully) you learned something about a field that interests you, furthered your career opportunities, or connected you to a social network that will facilitate one of the above. I wish education of all levels encouraged free will and the ability to approach challenges with logic and rational action.......but from the education courses I took in college it became apparent that that was being phased out more than 60 years ago.

  25. History or psychology? on Ron Paul Wants To End the Federal Student Loan Program · · Score: 1

    Isn't that what the 'large educated class of people' are doing by voting in government subsidies for education?

    I find it depressing that so many of our educated class that want to funnel government money into higher education (read funding sports programs and campus life) have no reasoning ability whatsoever. For the past two centuries we have had a large 'uneducated class' of voters. This middle class was the mainstay of our democracy, gaining enough of an education in primary and later secondary schools that had both high 3-R standards as well as vocational programs. University educations were for scholars, people capable of higher education, and the american equivalent of nobility.

    A democracy lacking a strong grounded middle class will soon find itself crumbling because the voter's ballots will be bought with politicians shilling social programs. This has less to do with education and more to do with entitlement.....which can be found across the socioeconomic spectrum.