No one cares what you do in your off time. No really they don't. But if you're going to perform watersports on a dog, while licking ice cream off an asian prostitute, while sodomizing a bum, at least put it under an alias.
The shit people do and then link to their name is ridiculous. If I post something under my given name that can reflect badly onto me and the company I work for. Now at the same time if I post something under a pseudonym (kinglink is one) then that at least should not be considered the same thing. However at the same time if I link my account to my last name in any way (signing a post with my real name?) then again that becomes public knowledge. My company likely knows kinglink is me, that's fine I'm not betraying my company I'm not being stupid, I'm not trying to hide who I am, but the minute I would need to believe me, Kinglink will not be the name I try that with.
At the very least let's all realize that the internet is here to stay. So it's fine to post a picture of you as a fairy in a pride parade. But at the same time also realize someone searching for your information is likely to find and can and will make opinions on you or your background based on it.
Oh and a little hint, if you're playing hooky, and you take pictures DONT POST THEM ON FACEBOOK OR ANYTHING LINKED TO YOU! There's too many stories about this with people getting busted. Or again at the very least tamper with the date and time on your camera before you take your pictures.
We've grown up on Star Trek and Star Wars, and every other sci fi tripe we can get. We have games based on exploring the galaxy now. It's man's dream to go to outerspace. Yet congress is still standing in our way.
Come on, the people want to go to mars, date (and mate with) aliens, and have pimped out space ships. Let's get with the program and start funding this.
Jeff Gerstmann has slowly killed Gamespot. He's green lit (and written) reviews that grade games harshly. And while that's his job, he has allowed reviews to ding games a number of points off with out giving any explanation about it.
In addition Gamespot overall has adopted a "no point breakdown".5 increment style of reviewing games that overall leave a reader with out a clue how the reviewer is grading a game. He has reviewed a couple games and overall his reviews are unnecessarily harsh. He basically will ding game points with 0 negatives mentioned. It's also clear at times reviews are being written by people who don't enjoy the genre. That's fine if it's "my little pony" but can't Gamespot find one racing fan to review racing games? If a game is suitably big, what's the harm of letting someone who enjoys Japanese RPGs review a dragon warrior (or blue dragon) or someone who enjoys Western RPGs review Mass effect? These are all issues that Gerstmann should be in charge of, but instead Gamespot has taken a "what the hell are we doing" approach to their reviews.
Under Gerstmann's reign Gamespot has gone from mostly respectable to laughable, their reviews are weak and usually "harsh" to be edgy, rather than fair and balanced. When you see Halo 3 getting 9.5 and many other games far above average (and above Halo 3) not even able to hit 8.5 it's laughable. Gamespot and IGN was the place to get game reviews for the last 6 years, and now gamespot has fallen from grace.
I don't agree he should be fired over Kane and Lynch's review. I argue however he should be fired for general incompetence, and just running the review system at Gamespot into the ground with out considering the fact that his changes have not only hurt the site, but also the reader, and the developer (who have to consider the reviews as much as the sales).
Personally I hope he stays fired, the worst thing that could happen is he gets rehired because of this and the rest of his issues are allowed to slide because of the fallout from this one act.
Cut calories, cut snacks, you'll drop weight. All this little device is going to do is build up muscles in your legs, and "500" calories an hour? Seriously? Just for moving your feet? I think not unless you're pushing the Rock of Gibraltar. Do you want giant calfs and muscles on top of them? I think not.
If you can't exercise cut your caloric intake, even on a week where I worked 70 hours I still dropped 3 pounds. The whole secret is watch what you eat. Exercise makes the body look better, and cutting calories isn't a substitute for most of what exercise does, but the fact is there's not enough time to work out for everyone, and this device is a joke.
I'm sorry, you're little comic book isn't important. You're cat's nickname isn't important. The fact that the 23rd letter of both Star Trek II and Star Trek III's script is P isn't important.
Everyone thinks "my stuff is important" but I'm sorry, it's not. Wikipedia has slowly became overrun with crap and the editors are overrun having to take a look at these articles. Speedy delete doesn't hurt Wikipedia if it's used correctly, otherwise you'd have more articles added to Wikipedia then ever could be deleted. Look at a real encyclopedia, you have a very specific and direct area to cover. Important stuff, with concise articles targeting the major points. Compare that to Wikipedia, which can have more space, so they can have better and larger articles on more topics. That doesn't mean every thing in the world needs a wiki article. You don't see me writing an article on my monitor, or my paper hat that I create.
The problem sounds like this guy isn't "notable". I've never heard of him, I'm sure most people here haven't heard of him either. So exactly why are we trying to protect unneeded Wikipedia article. Wikipedia has always had the ideals that articles should be useful to Wikipedia and it's readers. I find random comic's article to not satisfy the noteworthy. You had a local paper write an article about you? Wow, that's fantastic. However I'd like to think Wikipedia avoids having articles about every local event in every town across the world.
Gain some notability, gain some publicity, and maybe then you'll be worthy of Wikipedia. But sorry, just because you self publish a book in your basement, doesn't mean you're notable for that.
Apparently someone doesn't understand the article or summary in the least, I'd put even money that he read enough words to realize it's a security issue and then decided to pimp his Anti-virus. I mean I can understand if it's a hard to understand problem but rushing out the first post to be the first, and not even understanding that the problem isn't software, but the fact that users are the issue. Hell I'd put even money down that the parent didn't even read the topic header where it mentions "PEBKAC".
And then bragging about how you use "safe practices" compounds the obvious fact that you didn't get the problem. This is not a software problem, it's a user problem, claiming you use great practices is great but it's also the exact problem. You use these "solutions" but every one around you is still a problem case, and while Avast might work for you, some idiot who downloads the free games in the cubicle next you will infect not only his computer but the entire network.
As a 24 year old guy, my parents went to the movies to see 28 weeks or some other Sandra bullock snooze fest. Somehow I was roped into going even though I would rather have stabbed myself than see it (oh end review... it still sucked, no happy ending where I began liking Sandra Bullock again).
The law and movie theaters shouldn't be in charge of who gets taken to see what movie. A teenage couple on the first date can choose to go see a bad movie. They also aren't in charge of the dysfunctional family that takes their kids to violent movies the kids don't want to go see. That's a problem with the family unit, not the movie going system.
Most anti violence laws attempt to legislate the developer or publisher of games. However they are creating a product. The fact that the product is violent is irrelevant, it's not a immediately dangerous product. Almost certainly less harmless than alcohol and tobacco. But the big point is you're trying to suppress the game. That's hardly allowed in America.
Instead a solid law that someone wants to pass should focus on the retail clerks, but most of the laws being passed around target the producer and the fact remains they are not the point of sale, they are just the creators.
This is like a violent movie. No one really tries to shut down Saw or Hostel. No one goes after the director, or the movie company, instead the laws focus on the MPAA and the movie theaters it's shown in. That's acceptable. In addition there's acknowledgment that if a child wants to see a movie a parent or legal guardian is allowed to take them to see that movie. That works
Most of the way these laws that target the stores are worded even says that a parent who buys the game and gives it the kid would still be considered criminal. A violent video game law is likely to happen soon, however the change to the industry from the law is minimal as it's already decently regulated by the ESRP. The big "snafus" that have happened are very very special cases where the ESRP was unable to find all the content in the game. Even if we give them a year they would not have found neither Oblivions nor San Andreas "easter eggs". To expect them to do so is hardly reasonable.
I can not stand it when I am told "call us" you have email support but you aren't willing to deal with anything with out a call, so what's the point of email. Microsoft does this now all the time, as does many others. In addition when calling about a problem with the telephone don't make it so I MUST have a second telephone. I called T-mobile the other day because my cellphone was acting up and it was misrouting my calls. The first thing they told me is they needed me to go to my home phone. I didn't have one. I don't have use a second phone. They would not help me unless I had that. That's horrible service. We could have done it by email or me writing down the steps and then doing them, instead they denied me customer support.
However please don't send form letter emails and don't ask 20 unrelated questions. Resolve MY problem, not every possible problem.
When I worked in Tech support at Harvard university the policy was answer the email and then use a form letter if it's a common problem. We had Sasser and blaster on campus at the time and we would send those as form letter (essentially telling them to come in or make an appointment as they have a major virus) but that's the exception. If people were having problems with their network card we would NEVER ask about what sound card they had, how fast the machine was or any other question that is out of the ordinary with out trying the normal path first.
The whole thing is email is "fire and forget" technology. I can write the company an email at any time. If I call I have to make a dedicated effort to resolving this, planning 30 minutes to an hour of being talked down to until they get to the ACTUAL solution part. Even then resolution is never guarenteed on the phone. I can be passed off as "We can't help you, it's user error". Yeah when my 360 scratched a disc it's a user error. It can't be because they used a poor component for the DVD drive?
The reason they want you to call is so they can ask you the 300 questions to get your personal information in a system with out you realizing it and that's what I find the most offensive.
The day after a successor is announced or it's first/second service pack dependant. Which ever is earlier.
95 was "stable" when 98 came out. 98 was workable when 2000 came out. 2000 pretty much out of the box but grew in stability as time went on. XP got better at SP1 and far more stable at SP2. Vista is a dog but when vista 2 comes I'm sure the SP 1 and SP2 will have improved vista to the point where people WANT to waste their hardware with it.
Of course this ignores ME, which never had a successor, and I'm pretty sure never had a service pack, but honestly this is when "I" adopted many of these new technologies. XP I got into a bit early and suffered for it, but the truth is the reason Microsoft used to go from 95 to 98 is 95 got "too stable", they wanted to avoid the sort of the problem they have with XP and vista. XP is amazing, stable, and gives very few problems. Why upgrade to vista which will double the load on your computer, but not give you any performance upgrade. Hell it's a performance DOWNgrade if anything.
The fact there's no answer is what will hurt Microsoft's OS business for a long time.
Ok let's think about this for a minute. I edit Wikipedia. I'm editing an article on... which is a likely title
A. Legend of Zelda
B. The mating habits of beetles.
C. The list of solar systems that begin with B discovered in 1945.
Well A. is the most likely, and that's my point. The people editing these articles HAVE interest in them. So Diebold got caught? No let's look at the edit and decide if it was acceptable (and likely it wasn't) but just because someone removes something that is related to them doesn't mean it's not a correct edit.
It's not ok for Diebold to remove the offensive article's text, but if an employee of Diebold who got fired "unfairly" put it there that's ok? Are we now going to decide that a person having an interest in a topic is wrong. If all I edit is information about lockpicking does that mean I work at a lock manufacturer and thus can't be trusted?
The whole point I'm trying to make is we need to look at the EDIT not the editor to decide if changes are fair. Wikipedia is community edited and some people are trying to say that if you're involved with the article's target you're not able to edit. So really should wikipedia be "community edited except for people who work with the article" or should we reevaluate the standards by which we point out "partisanship".
Btw if you choose the second choice above that means we can't have any experienced people talk about the article which is the problem. If I own an iPhone I can't write about in wikipedia so all we then have is second hand experience with products and PR postings. Like I said the solution is to stop worrying about WHO edits wikipedia and instead focus on edits being done to wikipedia.
If they decide to charge I'll be on the same side as you. But until that point where they start charging everyone unreasonable sums (note anything over 20 bucks for a free app) for the SDK or the certification I'll be the first in line of complaining.
But everyone just will become negative at the first sign of a change. Let's see what actually happens before we pull out our torches and pitchforks.
They are CLOSING the source. They aren't charging for the protocol, they are still making it available but only in an SDK kit, not the raw source itself.
First off if you decided to stay home instead of vote because someone said a state was decided, you were never going to vote in the first place. No one sits at home finds out a state is still open and goes and votes. They'll vote before that point, or are on the way to vote.
Seriously, what's the next excuse? "Gas prices were too high so I couldn't drive the mile to the polling station"? "The Republicans caused a hurricane so we couldn't leave our houses". "The democrats collapsed a bridge."
If you want to vote there's many easy ways, hell the simplest is absentee ballot, you can even get them at your house, you never have to leave it (except for the mail, maybe).
Btw Tom Brokaw's idea sucks for a simple fact. If I had a way to get a valid voting ID (which we all know is not the most difficult thing in the world to get) I could bet you that I could hit at least 20 states. Now I wouldn't but I can bet you less than scrupulous people would, no matter which party they belong to. It's not like the dead weren't voting in a certain state, and no one would ever cart homeless around from district to district getting them to vote for party candidates with the promises of food and beer.
So now instead of giving them only a limited amount of time we'll now give them 48 hours or 72 hours to try some large scale plans. Great idea, I have a good feeling about that particular idea.
So you're brother has a band who plays locally. Apparently someone took his music put it on file sharing and now he's not getting rapidly popular so filesharing doesn't work.
A. You do realize that people who download his music isn't necessarly local to you.
B. You do realize that selling CDs locally doesn't mean he won't get more sales. Has he tried a website and a well publicized website to sell music.
C. Face facts, maybe people "like" his music, at the same level I like ricky martin's, (aka I'm happy he's not around so I don't have to punch him in the face). If I hear a good song on the radio I'm not going to run out to buy a copy just because I sort of enjoy the song, if there was a cheap cd of it and a couple other songs I like I might buy it.
So here's some suggestions. Look at who's keeping him from putting his music on the airwaves, that's a local ability that might get people interested. If someone does put him on and likes him get them to announce shows.
People arn't going to magically fly around the world because they heard your brothers band.
Or maybe instead send the music to record companies. Let him get a contract, and then come back next year and bitch after you see what the record companies due to his cd sale profits or the fact that to make any money he has to constantly be on tour.
I'm just going to go out and say this, screw the ACLU. I grow tired of any time a device that actually can HELP deter crime or even assist the police, I notice some group protesting it. Often times when it's a device that is extremely helpful it's the ACLU or some other "civil rights" group who seems to go crazy.
Let's roll back though. These are license plates. Plates that are government issue, on highways that are government funded (yes by the taxes of the people, but government funded) and a device that is government controlled. So where's the problem? Oh yes, we're going to claim privacy issues, even though we should realize that by joining civilization, by owning a car, by driving on government owned roads we need to give up some of our privacy (hell stepping out of our house means other people can see us.) I'm sure if they win this one next we'll have protests of police officers sitting at the side of the road?
Some groups seem to think they have a right to privacy until the point that the police are blindfolded and are only allowed to point at people with fingers, before the last 20 years these people were called "criminals", but now they are being touted as "privacy advocates". They claim "slippery slope" with any invention and claim it'll lead to police state, because that's the easiest way to win. They'll claim that the police have no right to even investigate a crime because it invades their privacy.
Is it any wonder why crimes go unsolved? With out concrete evidence (where apparently DNA or fingerprints or even photographic evidence isn't enough) the police are hard pressed to even talk to a suspect. I find it amazing that we even can believe in the police force when for every crime prevention device we have someone claiming that it's unlawful. I just hope no one steals the ACLU's lawyers' cars if they win.
No, there is censorship that is not "well-meaning".
Examples:
Political leader of a country (cuba, Germany early 1940s, Venezuela) who censors an opponent or opposition's speech to retain power.
A country censoring history. (Ignoring history like the Japanese did for a time about World war 2 or the south did for the civil war isn't the problem. The problem is if someone said America can no longer any civil war ending except the one where the south won).
Just because censorship can be "rationalized" doesn't mean that the censorship itself is well meaning if there's an agenda behind it. That being said I believe that censorship isn't inherently a bad thing or a good thing, it's the reason that it's being used which defines it.
Anyone who played the demo will tell you it's short. Kotaku published an opinion of it in where he timed himself at 7 minutes. That's with a death.
Most people put it at 5 minutes time range. If anything that's a red light. Now length of a demo has no bearing on the worth of the demo but the fact that you have a game of X length, and the most you're willing to show is 5 minutes should set off the warnings of anyone but the most die hard fans. What aren't they showing? The fact that 90 percent of the battles are the same? The fact there's little variety in the environment? What isn't shown here should be attracting our attentions.
Contrary to popular beliefs Demos are demonstrations of the game. We should be making value judgments off of them. They should be telling us "This game is worth your 60 dollars". The fact that this game is so short doesn't mean we are getting a small "taste". A great example is Just cause. The demo came out, it was a 15 minute stale piece of gaming. The full game came out. It was a longer piece of boring crusted gaming. Yet people were shouting during the demo "it's just a taste, buy the game before you make a judgment" This is wrong obviously.
The problem that just keeps coming up is that any game can be good for 5 minutes. Yet the fact that's all they are willing to show us when almost every other game seems to push for 15 minutes in a demo means that there's is likely some flaw that they arn't willing to show us.
Personally I'll be holding off on the game. I've been fooled once before by a "fake taste" demo and personally there's more than enough games this fall that we don't have to grasp at straws just to look good. Unless you only have a PS3 and then you might have to (Ratchet and clank looks solid, however Lair has been getting mix reactions from previews, and the rest of the crew isn't impressing). Personally I think we should be outraged at Sony for hyping a 5 minute demo so much that even slashdot publishes an article about it.
After Michael (Al Pacino's character) goes into hiding, Tom Hagen(Robert Duvall) says to Kay (Diane Keaton): "If I accept that letter and you told a Court of Law I accepted it, they would interpret it as my having knowledge of his whereabouts. Just wait Kay, he'll contact you."
Hey Slashdotters, let's stop applauding Second Life and move on. They arn't the first "real life" simulator, they claim to be the biggest but almost anyone who actually has tried to market a business in Second Life has come to the same conclusion, the numbers that Linden posts (the millions of subscribers) are vastly inflated. The consensus is there's around 40 thousand active users and with this move I'm guessing that might drop to 30 thousand.
This is just a PR move by Second life to get more attention but instead we should just move on to other stuff. We moved from too many WoW stories to too many Second Life stories, and now we just seem to be stagnating, anyone have an idea for the next "big thing"?
More choices is absolutely the WORST idea. We already have what? 5-6 variants of Windows and that's just English. Two completely different versions of windows each with X variants would just complicate the problem.
What we need is Three things.
A. Make features, not bullet points. This means give us features to help us. Not a newly designed interface that just looks pretty. Make stability and bug free a FEATURE. Look for features we can't get elsewhere, and ways for us to extend it. That means don't worry about firewalls (ship with Zonealarm) don't give us a weak anti-virus and pretend that's a major feature. Don't pretend "integrated music player" is a feature. Microsoft's current beliefs are bullet points are better than other goals. Games that run at 60 fps are more important than games that are "fun". Office suite that integrate perfectly are better than bug free. Get over it and get us actual innovation. And if you offer Backwards compatibility with old windows code make sure it's 100 percent Backwards compatibility before you ship.
B. Ignore the side projects. Windows 7 is about WINDOWS not Media player, outlook, office, and the rest. Want to include those? Great make them bug free, and allow us to uninstall all of them, otherwise focus on Windows. Giving us 30 programs along with windows doesn't make you my friend, when I have to work around 29 of them to get MY functionality back.
C. Cut the price, cut the fat. Two versions of Windows. Upgrade for 100 dollars, Full for 200 dollars. don't try to nickle and dime us saying "well ultimate has..." Ultimate has shit. Either an upgrade or full and make them AFFORDABLE. When Windows costs more than any of 4 tvs I own. (Including a 52 inch CRT) that's a problem.
Vista died because no one needed it and no one wanted it, but Windows is slowly forcing it's bloated corpse on us. That's what caused the Vista Like release, an unwanted unneeded product who's only benefit is making Microsoft more money and looking pretty.
Well it sounds illegal but it requires looking at two things.
Did they repeatedly use the system or have knowledge of the problem before they put money into the system the first time?
If the answer to either of those two are yes then it's possible it's criminal intent and there's a case.
But allow me to raise another point Two situations arise. A. You go to the grocer's and you give a 5 to the cashier, who in turn gives you back a 20. Do you have to give this money back?
B. You go to an ATM. The ATM gives you a 50 instead of a 20. Do you have to give this money back?
Last I checked the answer is no to those, unless there's some sort of agreement between you and the bank/store which says any mistakes are decided in the store's favor and you must alert them of all mistakes. Which means if the players were playing and didn't realize the mistake, they shouldn't be required to give the money back.
I think there's none because half the stories published on here would be marked that.
The submission quality has been meaningless hype piece (see E3 info for the last week in games), non-Slashdot Politic pieces to push the liberal agenda (there's some conservative pieces too but not that many, most of the political crap is edited by Kdawson, but he's hardly the only one), summary reading too far into the story (see the comcast/firefox article, comcast is lazy, go figure) and "DUH" articles, such as this one.
Slashdot Mirror
No one cares what you do in your off time. No really they don't. But if you're going to perform watersports on a dog, while licking ice cream off an asian prostitute, while sodomizing a bum, at least put it under an alias.
The shit people do and then link to their name is ridiculous. If I post something under my given name that can reflect badly onto me and the company I work for. Now at the same time if I post something under a pseudonym (kinglink is one) then that at least should not be considered the same thing. However at the same time if I link my account to my last name in any way (signing a post with my real name?) then again that becomes public knowledge. My company likely knows kinglink is me, that's fine I'm not betraying my company I'm not being stupid, I'm not trying to hide who I am, but the minute I would need to believe me, Kinglink will not be the name I try that with.
At the very least let's all realize that the internet is here to stay. So it's fine to post a picture of you as a fairy in a pride parade. But at the same time also realize someone searching for your information is likely to find and can and will make opinions on you or your background based on it.
Oh and a little hint, if you're playing hooky, and you take pictures DONT POST THEM ON FACEBOOK OR ANYTHING LINKED TO YOU! There's too many stories about this with people getting busted. Or again at the very least tamper with the date and time on your camera before you take your pictures.
We've grown up on Star Trek and Star Wars, and every other sci fi tripe we can get. We have games based on exploring the galaxy now. It's man's dream to go to outerspace. Yet congress is still standing in our way.
Come on, the people want to go to mars, date (and mate with) aliens, and have pimped out space ships. Let's get with the program and start funding this.
Jeff Gerstmann has slowly killed Gamespot. He's green lit (and written) reviews that grade games harshly. And while that's his job, he has allowed reviews to ding games a number of points off with out giving any explanation about it.
.5 increment style of reviewing games that overall leave a reader with out a clue how the reviewer is grading a game. He has reviewed a couple games and overall his reviews are unnecessarily harsh. He basically will ding game points with 0 negatives mentioned. It's also clear at times reviews are being written by people who don't enjoy the genre. That's fine if it's "my little pony" but can't Gamespot find one racing fan to review racing games? If a game is suitably big, what's the harm of letting someone who enjoys Japanese RPGs review a dragon warrior (or blue dragon) or someone who enjoys Western RPGs review Mass effect? These are all issues that Gerstmann should be in charge of, but instead Gamespot has taken a "what the hell are we doing" approach to their reviews.
In addition Gamespot overall has adopted a "no point breakdown"
Under Gerstmann's reign Gamespot has gone from mostly respectable to laughable, their reviews are weak and usually "harsh" to be edgy, rather than fair and balanced. When you see Halo 3 getting 9.5 and many other games far above average (and above Halo 3) not even able to hit 8.5 it's laughable. Gamespot and IGN was the place to get game reviews for the last 6 years, and now gamespot has fallen from grace.
I don't agree he should be fired over Kane and Lynch's review. I argue however he should be fired for general incompetence, and just running the review system at Gamespot into the ground with out considering the fact that his changes have not only hurt the site, but also the reader, and the developer (who have to consider the reviews as much as the sales).
Personally I hope he stays fired, the worst thing that could happen is he gets rehired because of this and the rest of his issues are allowed to slide because of the fallout from this one act.
I find this stupid.
Cut calories, cut snacks, you'll drop weight. All this little device is going to do is build up muscles in your legs, and "500" calories an hour? Seriously? Just for moving your feet? I think not unless you're pushing the Rock of Gibraltar. Do you want giant calfs and muscles on top of them? I think not.
If you can't exercise cut your caloric intake, even on a week where I worked 70 hours I still dropped 3 pounds. The whole secret is watch what you eat. Exercise makes the body look better, and cutting calories isn't a substitute for most of what exercise does, but the fact is there's not enough time to work out for everyone, and this device is a joke.
I'm sorry, you're little comic book isn't important. You're cat's nickname isn't important. The fact that the 23rd letter of both Star Trek II and Star Trek III's script is P isn't important.
Everyone thinks "my stuff is important" but I'm sorry, it's not. Wikipedia has slowly became overrun with crap and the editors are overrun having to take a look at these articles. Speedy delete doesn't hurt Wikipedia if it's used correctly, otherwise you'd have more articles added to Wikipedia then ever could be deleted. Look at a real encyclopedia, you have a very specific and direct area to cover. Important stuff, with concise articles targeting the major points. Compare that to Wikipedia, which can have more space, so they can have better and larger articles on more topics. That doesn't mean every thing in the world needs a wiki article. You don't see me writing an article on my monitor, or my paper hat that I create.
The problem sounds like this guy isn't "notable". I've never heard of him, I'm sure most people here haven't heard of him either. So exactly why are we trying to protect unneeded Wikipedia article. Wikipedia has always had the ideals that articles should be useful to Wikipedia and it's readers. I find random comic's article to not satisfy the noteworthy. You had a local paper write an article about you? Wow, that's fantastic. However I'd like to think Wikipedia avoids having articles about every local event in every town across the world.
Gain some notability, gain some publicity, and maybe then you'll be worthy of Wikipedia. But sorry, just because you self publish a book in your basement, doesn't mean you're notable for that.
The problem is there's no way anyone on Slashdot is willing to believe a HILF according to that site, is working at Microsoft.
Apparently someone doesn't understand the article or summary in the least, I'd put even money that he read enough words to realize it's a security issue and then decided to pimp his Anti-virus. I mean I can understand if it's a hard to understand problem but rushing out the first post to be the first, and not even understanding that the problem isn't software, but the fact that users are the issue. Hell I'd put even money down that the parent didn't even read the topic header where it mentions "PEBKAC".
And then bragging about how you use "safe practices" compounds the obvious fact that you didn't get the problem. This is not a software problem, it's a user problem, claiming you use great practices is great but it's also the exact problem. You use these "solutions" but every one around you is still a problem case, and while Avast might work for you, some idiot who downloads the free games in the cubicle next you will infect not only his computer but the entire network.
As a 24 year old guy, my parents went to the movies to see 28 weeks or some other Sandra bullock snooze fest. Somehow I was roped into going even though I would rather have stabbed myself than see it (oh end review... it still sucked, no happy ending where I began liking Sandra Bullock again).
The law and movie theaters shouldn't be in charge of who gets taken to see what movie. A teenage couple on the first date can choose to go see a bad movie. They also aren't in charge of the dysfunctional family that takes their kids to violent movies the kids don't want to go see. That's a problem with the family unit, not the movie going system.
Most anti violence laws attempt to legislate the developer or publisher of games. However they are creating a product. The fact that the product is violent is irrelevant, it's not a immediately dangerous product. Almost certainly less harmless than alcohol and tobacco. But the big point is you're trying to suppress the game. That's hardly allowed in America.
Instead a solid law that someone wants to pass should focus on the retail clerks, but most of the laws being passed around target the producer and the fact remains they are not the point of sale, they are just the creators.
This is like a violent movie. No one really tries to shut down Saw or Hostel. No one goes after the director, or the movie company, instead the laws focus on the MPAA and the movie theaters it's shown in. That's acceptable. In addition there's acknowledgment that if a child wants to see a movie a parent or legal guardian is allowed to take them to see that movie. That works
Most of the way these laws that target the stores are worded even says that a parent who buys the game and gives it the kid would still be considered criminal. A violent video game law is likely to happen soon, however the change to the industry from the law is minimal as it's already decently regulated by the ESRP. The big "snafus" that have happened are very very special cases where the ESRP was unable to find all the content in the game. Even if we give them a year they would not have found neither Oblivions nor San Andreas "easter eggs". To expect them to do so is hardly reasonable.
I can not stand it when I am told "call us" you have email support but you aren't willing to deal with anything with out a call, so what's the point of email. Microsoft does this now all the time, as does many others. In addition when calling about a problem with the telephone don't make it so I MUST have a second telephone. I called T-mobile the other day because my cellphone was acting up and it was misrouting my calls. The first thing they told me is they needed me to go to my home phone. I didn't have one. I don't have use a second phone. They would not help me unless I had that. That's horrible service. We could have done it by email or me writing down the steps and then doing them, instead they denied me customer support.
However please don't send form letter emails and don't ask 20 unrelated questions. Resolve MY problem, not every possible problem.
When I worked in Tech support at Harvard university the policy was answer the email and then use a form letter if it's a common problem. We had Sasser and blaster on campus at the time and we would send those as form letter (essentially telling them to come in or make an appointment as they have a major virus) but that's the exception. If people were having problems with their network card we would NEVER ask about what sound card they had, how fast the machine was or any other question that is out of the ordinary with out trying the normal path first.
The whole thing is email is "fire and forget" technology. I can write the company an email at any time. If I call I have to make a dedicated effort to resolving this, planning 30 minutes to an hour of being talked down to until they get to the ACTUAL solution part. Even then resolution is never guarenteed on the phone. I can be passed off as "We can't help you, it's user error". Yeah when my 360 scratched a disc it's a user error. It can't be because they used a poor component for the DVD drive?
The reason they want you to call is so they can ask you the 300 questions to get your personal information in a system with out you realizing it and that's what I find the most offensive.
The day after a successor is announced or it's first/second service pack dependant. Which ever is earlier.
95 was "stable" when 98 came out. 98 was workable when 2000 came out. 2000 pretty much out of the box but grew in stability as time went on. XP got better at SP1 and far more stable at SP2. Vista is a dog but when vista 2 comes I'm sure the SP 1 and SP2 will have improved vista to the point where people WANT to waste their hardware with it.
Of course this ignores ME, which never had a successor, and I'm pretty sure never had a service pack, but honestly this is when "I" adopted many of these new technologies. XP I got into a bit early and suffered for it, but the truth is the reason Microsoft used to go from 95 to 98 is 95 got "too stable", they wanted to avoid the sort of the problem they have with XP and vista. XP is amazing, stable, and gives very few problems. Why upgrade to vista which will double the load on your computer, but not give you any performance upgrade. Hell it's a performance DOWNgrade if anything.
The fact there's no answer is what will hurt Microsoft's OS business for a long time.
Ok let's think about this for a minute. I edit Wikipedia. I'm editing an article on ... which is a likely title
A. Legend of Zelda
B. The mating habits of beetles.
C. The list of solar systems that begin with B discovered in 1945.
Well A. is the most likely, and that's my point. The people editing these articles HAVE interest in them. So Diebold got caught? No let's look at the edit and decide if it was acceptable (and likely it wasn't) but just because someone removes something that is related to them doesn't mean it's not a correct edit.
It's not ok for Diebold to remove the offensive article's text, but if an employee of Diebold who got fired "unfairly" put it there that's ok? Are we now going to decide that a person having an interest in a topic is wrong. If all I edit is information about lockpicking does that mean I work at a lock manufacturer and thus can't be trusted?
The whole point I'm trying to make is we need to look at the EDIT not the editor to decide if changes are fair. Wikipedia is community edited and some people are trying to say that if you're involved with the article's target you're not able to edit. So really should wikipedia be "community edited except for people who work with the article" or should we reevaluate the standards by which we point out "partisanship".
Btw if you choose the second choice above that means we can't have any experienced people talk about the article which is the problem. If I own an iPhone I can't write about in wikipedia so all we then have is second hand experience with products and PR postings. Like I said the solution is to stop worrying about WHO edits wikipedia and instead focus on edits being done to wikipedia.
If they decide to charge I'll be on the same side as you. But until that point where they start charging everyone unreasonable sums (note anything over 20 bucks for a free app) for the SDK or the certification I'll be the first in line of complaining.
But everyone just will become negative at the first sign of a change. Let's see what actually happens before we pull out our torches and pitchforks.
Are we reading the same story?
They are CLOSING the source. They aren't charging for the protocol, they are still making it available but only in an SDK kit, not the raw source itself.
First off if you decided to stay home instead of vote because someone said a state was decided, you were never going to vote in the first place. No one sits at home finds out a state is still open and goes and votes. They'll vote before that point, or are on the way to vote.
Seriously, what's the next excuse? "Gas prices were too high so I couldn't drive the mile to the polling station"? "The Republicans caused a hurricane so we couldn't leave our houses". "The democrats collapsed a bridge."
If you want to vote there's many easy ways, hell the simplest is absentee ballot, you can even get them at your house, you never have to leave it (except for the mail, maybe).
Btw Tom Brokaw's idea sucks for a simple fact. If I had a way to get a valid voting ID (which we all know is not the most difficult thing in the world to get) I could bet you that I could hit at least 20 states. Now I wouldn't but I can bet you less than scrupulous people would, no matter which party they belong to. It's not like the dead weren't voting in a certain state, and no one would ever cart homeless around from district to district getting them to vote for party candidates with the promises of food and beer.
So now instead of giving them only a limited amount of time we'll now give them 48 hours or 72 hours to try some large scale plans. Great idea, I have a good feeling about that particular idea.
Seriously I know they aren't exactly the most prudish, but calling them holes is just crude.
Oh we're talking about security? My bad.
So you're brother has a band who plays locally. Apparently someone took his music put it on file sharing and now he's not getting rapidly popular so filesharing doesn't work.
A. You do realize that people who download his music isn't necessarly local to you.
B. You do realize that selling CDs locally doesn't mean he won't get more sales. Has he tried a website and a well publicized website to sell music.
C. Face facts, maybe people "like" his music, at the same level I like ricky martin's, (aka I'm happy he's not around so I don't have to punch him in the face). If I hear a good song on the radio I'm not going to run out to buy a copy just because I sort of enjoy the song, if there was a cheap cd of it and a couple other songs I like I might buy it.
So here's some suggestions. Look at who's keeping him from putting his music on the airwaves, that's a local ability that might get people interested. If someone does put him on and likes him get them to announce shows.
People arn't going to magically fly around the world because they heard your brothers band.
Or maybe instead send the music to record companies. Let him get a contract, and then come back next year and bitch after you see what the record companies due to his cd sale profits or the fact that to make any money he has to constantly be on tour.
I'm just going to go out and say this, screw the ACLU. I grow tired of any time a device that actually can HELP deter crime or even assist the police, I notice some group protesting it. Often times when it's a device that is extremely helpful it's the ACLU or some other "civil rights" group who seems to go crazy.
Let's roll back though. These are license plates. Plates that are government issue, on highways that are government funded (yes by the taxes of the people, but government funded) and a device that is government controlled. So where's the problem? Oh yes, we're going to claim privacy issues, even though we should realize that by joining civilization, by owning a car, by driving on government owned roads we need to give up some of our privacy (hell stepping out of our house means other people can see us.) I'm sure if they win this one next we'll have protests of police officers sitting at the side of the road?
Some groups seem to think they have a right to privacy until the point that the police are blindfolded and are only allowed to point at people with fingers, before the last 20 years these people were called "criminals", but now they are being touted as "privacy advocates". They claim "slippery slope" with any invention and claim it'll lead to police state, because that's the easiest way to win. They'll claim that the police have no right to even investigate a crime because it invades their privacy.
Is it any wonder why crimes go unsolved? With out concrete evidence (where apparently DNA or fingerprints or even photographic evidence isn't enough) the police are hard pressed to even talk to a suspect. I find it amazing that we even can believe in the police force when for every crime prevention device we have someone claiming that it's unlawful. I just hope no one steals the ACLU's lawyers' cars if they win.
No, there is censorship that is not "well-meaning".
Examples:
Political leader of a country (cuba, Germany early 1940s, Venezuela) who censors an opponent or opposition's speech to retain power.
A country censoring history. (Ignoring history like the Japanese did for a time about World war 2 or the south did for the civil war isn't the problem. The problem is if someone said America can no longer any civil war ending except the one where the south won).
Just because censorship can be "rationalized" doesn't mean that the censorship itself is well meaning if there's an agenda behind it. That being said I believe that censorship isn't inherently a bad thing or a good thing, it's the reason that it's being used which defines it.
Anyone who played the demo will tell you it's short. Kotaku published an opinion of it in where he timed himself at 7 minutes. That's with a death.
Most people put it at 5 minutes time range. If anything that's a red light. Now length of a demo has no bearing on the worth of the demo but the fact that you have a game of X length, and the most you're willing to show is 5 minutes should set off the warnings of anyone but the most die hard fans. What aren't they showing? The fact that 90 percent of the battles are the same? The fact there's little variety in the environment? What isn't shown here should be attracting our attentions.
Contrary to popular beliefs Demos are demonstrations of the game. We should be making value judgments off of them. They should be telling us "This game is worth your 60 dollars". The fact that this game is so short doesn't mean we are getting a small "taste". A great example is Just cause. The demo came out, it was a 15 minute stale piece of gaming. The full game came out. It was a longer piece of boring crusted gaming. Yet people were shouting during the demo "it's just a taste, buy the game before you make a judgment" This is wrong obviously.
The problem that just keeps coming up is that any game can be good for 5 minutes. Yet the fact that's all they are willing to show us when almost every other game seems to push for 15 minutes in a demo means that there's is likely some flaw that they arn't willing to show us.
Personally I'll be holding off on the game. I've been fooled once before by a "fake taste" demo and personally there's more than enough games this fall that we don't have to grasp at straws just to look good. Unless you only have a PS3 and then you might have to (Ratchet and clank looks solid, however Lair has been getting mix reactions from previews, and the rest of the crew isn't impressing). Personally I think we should be outraged at Sony for hyping a 5 minute demo so much that even slashdot publishes an article about it.
After Michael (Al Pacino's character) goes into hiding, Tom Hagen(Robert Duvall) says to Kay (Diane Keaton): "If I accept that letter and you told a Court of Law I accepted it, they would interpret it as my having knowledge of his whereabouts. Just wait Kay, he'll contact you."
Somehow I don't think that's far off.
Hey Slashdotters, let's stop applauding Second Life and move on. They arn't the first "real life" simulator, they claim to be the biggest but almost anyone who actually has tried to market a business in Second Life has come to the same conclusion, the numbers that Linden posts (the millions of subscribers) are vastly inflated. The consensus is there's around 40 thousand active users and with this move I'm guessing that might drop to 30 thousand.
This is just a PR move by Second life to get more attention but instead we should just move on to other stuff. We moved from too many WoW stories to too many Second Life stories, and now we just seem to be stagnating, anyone have an idea for the next "big thing"?
More choices is absolutely the WORST idea. We already have what? 5-6 variants of Windows and that's just English. Two completely different versions of windows each with X variants would just complicate the problem.
What we need is Three things.
A. Make features, not bullet points. This means give us features to help us. Not a newly designed interface that just looks pretty. Make stability and bug free a FEATURE. Look for features we can't get elsewhere, and ways for us to extend it. That means don't worry about firewalls (ship with Zonealarm) don't give us a weak anti-virus and pretend that's a major feature. Don't pretend "integrated music player" is a feature. Microsoft's current beliefs are bullet points are better than other goals. Games that run at 60 fps are more important than games that are "fun". Office suite that integrate perfectly are better than bug free. Get over it and get us actual innovation. And if you offer Backwards compatibility with old windows code make sure it's 100 percent Backwards compatibility before you ship.
B. Ignore the side projects. Windows 7 is about WINDOWS not Media player, outlook, office, and the rest. Want to include those? Great make them bug free, and allow us to uninstall all of them, otherwise focus on Windows. Giving us 30 programs along with windows doesn't make you my friend, when I have to work around 29 of them to get MY functionality back.
C. Cut the price, cut the fat. Two versions of Windows. Upgrade for 100 dollars, Full for 200 dollars. don't try to nickle and dime us saying "well ultimate has..." Ultimate has shit. Either an upgrade or full and make them AFFORDABLE. When Windows costs more than any of 4 tvs I own. (Including a 52 inch CRT) that's a problem.
Vista died because no one needed it and no one wanted it, but Windows is slowly forcing it's bloated corpse on us. That's what caused the Vista Like release, an unwanted unneeded product who's only benefit is making Microsoft more money and looking pretty.
Well it sounds illegal but it requires looking at two things.
Did they repeatedly use the system or have knowledge of the problem before they put money into the system the first time?
If the answer to either of those two are yes then it's possible it's criminal intent and there's a case.
But allow me to raise another point Two situations arise. A. You go to the grocer's and you give a 5 to the cashier, who in turn gives you back a 20. Do you have to give this money back?
B. You go to an ATM. The ATM gives you a 50 instead of a 20. Do you have to give this money back?
Last I checked the answer is no to those, unless there's some sort of agreement between you and the bank/store which says any mistakes are decided in the store's favor and you must alert them of all mistakes. Which means if the players were playing and didn't realize the mistake, they shouldn't be required to give the money back.
I think there's none because half the stories published on here would be marked that.
The submission quality has been meaningless hype piece (see E3 info for the last week in games), non-Slashdot Politic pieces to push the liberal agenda (there's some conservative pieces too but not that many, most of the political crap is edited by Kdawson, but he's hardly the only one), summary reading too far into the story (see the comcast/firefox article, comcast is lazy, go figure) and "DUH" articles, such as this one.