No, you do NOT do this AC. Read the simple fucking instructions. I know this minor point isn't clear, but AC's are ignored both by preference and habit. If you want to help, log in.
From the article: "[It] would regulate the display of violent video games, requiring that games with a mature rating be stocked on a shelf separate from other games and at least five feet off the ground."
Did I miss an important study or something? Do psychotic killers now average under five feet in height?
Would you rather walk to the store once, or pay $10/month for a game? I think Steam is a wolf in sheep's clothing, honestly; the cute exterior is a download-based aquisition model that makes it more convenient to get content, but that wolf is the per-month fee you'll have to pay. It's a clever way to squeeze more money from the fans.
I'll second this. When I buy a game, I don't think of it as getting a cd, jewel case, manual, etc. I think of it as getting a key for multiplayer.
The interesting thing to watch now is Valve's Steam system. I think they're trying to make an Everquest-type subscription model out of their Half-Life sequel. The next "leverage" might be real-time DRM authentication that requires an active subscription. That's something to chew on.
I wouldn't get too worked up over the "socialist thought" on Slashdot. There are wonderful debates over the merits of profit-driven, collectivist, and command economies, but you'll rarely find them here. Many of the self-styled "socialists" among us are just kids who thinks it's cool to rub against the grain of mainstream America and its authority figures. There are certainly some intelligent and thoughtful leftwingers here, but the post you're responding to is just more cookie-cutter drivel attacking an imaginary opponent.
Re:You kicked my dog...
on
Dotcom Era Fads
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Since nobody here seems to know the original source, I'd better chime in. The prank is from a Jerky Boys CD. Despite their stupid movie, those guys produced two (maybe more) hilarious CD's full of these types of calls. Even though the "why you kick my dog!" routine is funny, it isn't their best material. If you like the skit, I suggest you look into the full CD's. (I have no financial interest here; I'm simply a fan.)
Re:McBride and capitalism
on
SCO Roundup
·
· Score: 1
While your argument isn't necessarily false, I think you missed the point here. If you had read the rest of the article you probably wouldn't have posted this. The headline is not a value judgement against the CEO or linux users--it's an intentionally over-emphasised statement to give you a glimpse of what it looks like from SCO's point of view. Reading the Economist requires a higher level of comprehension than slashdot, and you need to keep that in mind when following links. Slashdot is written for roughly the middle-school level of reading comprehension (a rough guess), while some of the sites linked here presume a readership that's well-read. Sometimes it's like switching from first to fourth gear.
No offense, but if you go to India, you'd better not tell anyone you're from the Imperialist UK. Maybe you can be Canadian? Try it: aboot. There ya go.
Nah, you're just paranoid. See my rebuttal on page two, and my reinforcement of opinions on page three. Pages four and possibly five will have counter-points to my argument.
[ ] Your post is modded insightful, informative, or interesting. In fact it is neither of the three. This is because:
You're missing an important classification: you need to add one for the posters who post irrelevant links and get modded informative. Beyond that, though, it looks very good to me. I look forward to your policing of the moderators, PoorPost Troll.
It's important to remember that even though identity thieves are among the lowest of criminals, they aren't necessarily stupid. It's a common tactic for thieves to prey upon those who offer the greatest "return" on the investment of the thieves' time. Those most at risk are likely to have a number of common factors: high-limit or even limitless credit cards, excellent credit ratings, a complex network of high-balance accounts in various banks, a significant amount of money in savings and investments, etc. In order to best protect yourself and your loved ones, I recommend that you minimize your profile to the would-be thieves. There are a number of simple steps you can take to ensure your safety. For example:
* Do you have student loans? If so, consider letting the payments slip a little. Nobody wants an identity that can't take out student loans!
* Keeping up on your car payments? Stop. Thieves are less likely to steal the identity of someone who is being harassed by a repo man. As an added bonus, your chances of being victim to auto-theft just decreased significantly!
* Do you have a mortgage? Possibly, but I doubt you have enough of them! No thief wants to inherit the wrath of a bank trying to track down three mortgages' worth of money!
* How are your long-term investments? CD's? Mutual funds? Privately-managed portfolio? It doesn't matter; all of these glitter to the eyes of a veteran identity thief. You are much safer holding your money in an interest-free highly-liquid invesment account (coffee can). By reducing your apparent (and real) wealth, you become a much less desirable target.
* Employed? Then why not just toss your credit cards out the window? Nothing says "bullseye" like reliable employment. And consider this: when's the last time your heard someone in the unemployment line complain about identity theft. Never? Nobody likes to go through the effort of stealing an identity only to be rewarded with food stamps and meager checks.
In the end, identity theft will remain a significant problem in America--but only to those unlucky enough to ignore the above advice. The intelligent self-accountant will even find some more creative ways to be less attractive to thieves; consider child-support payments, court-ordered deportation, and terrorist sponsorship as well! Your safety in these trying times is only limited by your imagination.
It closes with the observation that "intellectual property is verging on thought crime."
This is a rather crass assumption. "Thought crime" gives the gov't control over what you think; this ip measure is just another over-excited corporate-sponsored piece of legislation. Don't get me wrong here--I don't like this garbage any more than the rest of/. I just wish people would quit trying to make parallels to Orwell's work every time they see something that threatens their liberty. It's the intellectual equivalent of solving philosophical problems using Dr. Seuss analogies.
I read the article, and all I found was a few sensationalist generalities coupled with unsubstantiated analysis. Why not cite some of the injustices that the American DMCA has caused? Or talk about the long-term economic impact of creating all these false barriers to entry, rather than a few vauge assumptions? Nay, it's simply Orwellian.
I can live with recompiling my kernel for scsi-emulation support. I don't mind wading through the occasional dense man page to find out exactly how some tool works. But what bothers me is the amazing lack of comments in bash scripts. I'm not talking about obvious type of syntax clarification; I can look up certain commands if I don't know them. What I want is simple statements of purpose--why are you doing this? After switching to a new distro (though I won't mention which since I'll be called a Gentoo zealot) I had to sort through a number of scripts to figure out how the boot process worked. I quickly got tired of staring at two different scripts and asking myself what the programmer is trying to do here. The same goes for many scripts designed to check/set the environment before launching a binary. Troubleshooting would be easier if I knew why certain things were done. I can figure out what on my own, but sometimes I need to be told why.
I absolutely agree. There's nothing worse than some idiot who naturally assumes you know exactly what he's replying to. It takes meaning away from the message and often requires you to re-read the post to glean the important stuff after reading the quote. They should be shot!
But please, not Microsoft, the inventors of default top posting. This is one of the things which is making Usenet increasingly difficult to use.
Valve periodically updates their VAC system to catch new cheats. Sometimes it breaks compatibility. This time it did, and they haven't fixed it or even said anything about it for a couple of weeks. Here's a relevent quote posted a couple of days ago from the transgaming forums from one of the WineX devs:
"Due to a recent Valve-Anti-Cheat (VAC) update WineX users cannot currently play Half-Life online. We are investigating the reasons for this are working on a solution."
This also includes wine. Nobody knows if/when this will get fixed, unfortunately.
Making the UI is another matter. DX9 ports poorly (as in - not at all).
Half-Life doesn't use DX9; it uses DX6. Furthermore, the game has a very complete OpenGL renderer. Porting it would still take some work, I'm sure, but it's not like they would have to re-write it. And for the record, I'm neither "inanely biased" or "out of touch with reality". I simply have the rare and mystical ability to see through the PR hype and their "community support." But who cares, eh? Pretty movies make all ok.
My problem is that Valve thinks it's cool for me to run a server for their game even though I can't play it. That bugs me. I can respect that the financial decision to make a client might not be a great idea today, but there was certainly a time when it would have made sense. I, along with many others, would happily pay for a Linux client. I never once said they should do it for free. I don't expect things like that from game companies. As far as fixing wine, that might take a precious hour or two away from their team. Or they could have told people roughly how VAC would work client-side so the wine team and contributors could work around it.
As far as your other points, I think you need to sit back and take a look at just what you're defending. The SDK was cool, fine, but the financial support was simply good business. I have no doubt that they've made far more money from CS, DOD, etc. than they've given in financial support. The mod community has contributed significantly to the success of Half-Life.
Valve has set up a very complex network of mod developers to make money off of. I don't think you have the tools to realize it at this point, but you're being strung around like some corporate fanboy tool. Valve has very carefully crafted themselves in this we're-just-like-you-gamers image. In turn, they receive untold amount of defense from almost all of their fans. I hate to tell you this, but Valve honestly doesn't care about you or the mod community. As long as it's profitable, they'll continue on as they have been. This isn't necessarily wrong, mind you, but I see no reason for you to champion them as this gracious benefactor to the gaming industry. In reality, they're a business out to make money.
Even though I'm complaining about Valve, this argument could be applied to almost any big game company. I've just been dissapointed in the way things have been turning out lately. Games are watered-down to be "accessible" to as many people as possible. Slick advertisements and clever lures get massive amounts of people to pre-order games they haven't even played. Corporate branding creates legions of blind fanboys running about the 'net exalting their favorite companies. I'm not asking for anything too big here. I'd just like to see a few more companies that genuinely care about their fans and strive for positive long-term relationships and not this short-term profitability. Valve could have been one of them. Unfortunately, success killed them.
They still haven't fixed VAC (valve anti-cheat) so wine users can play Half-Life. This doesn't stop them from assuming Linux fans will host their games via dedicated servers though. I'm still a little pissed off that they think Linux is good enough to host their games but not worthy of a client. This is just more of the same old excellent community support from Valve.
If I were a telemarketer, I'd be overjoyed at the prospect of a national do-not-call list.
Not necessarily; the businesses are probably happy about the list, but the telemarketing firms themselves are very upset. I have no doubt that the "best" telemarketing firms are those that misrepresent the allure of their consumer lists and their services. For a specific example, look at OSDN's ad page. Evidently, the/. editor's uneducated jabs this week's $current_villan are "[..] the richest, most relevant editorial content [..]" around.
Equal weaponry, yes. But the axis team has a serious advantage on all but one map. If you want to be a nice guy and use auto-team, more often than not, you'll end up on the camped-against allies.
But more importantly is the bullshit XP system they've implemented. If you're playing a three-map campaign and you join towards the end, you're faced with opponents who have skills much higher than you. Don't even bother playing a six-map campaign unless you start from the beginning.
Though the worst is really the class imbalances. Medics (after they get enough XP) are too powerful. Likewise for panzerfaust wielders. Weapons like the machinegun, mortar, and flamethrower are only useful in a few situations. This leads to a game of relatively few types of players going against each other in what ends up as boring and routine gunfights.
This game could have been great. The maps and in-game communications are well thought out. The level design is excellent. But in the end the polish is missing. I can't complain though, since it's a free game. But I hope Splash Damage is capable of more than this if they're working on Doom 3.
[...] on a level co-developed by id Software and U.K.-based developer Splash Damage, Ltd. Splash Damage has most recently worked with id Software on Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory [...]
So it looks like Doom 3 will have buggy multiplayer with blatant imbalances while never being patched. Hopefully the single-player game is a little better.
Slashdot Mirror
If the cd-drive works in DOS and is bootable, the bios can see it. This is 99% likely a WinXP/Win2k problem.
And what exactly is a "fair price" for prescription medication?
I knew the Galileo project would run into trouble, but I honestly thought it would be the Catholics causing it.
No, you do NOT do this AC. Read the simple fucking instructions. I know this minor point isn't clear, but AC's are ignored both by preference and habit. If you want to help, log in.
From the article: "[It] would regulate the display of violent video games, requiring that games with a mature rating be stocked on a shelf separate from other games and at least five feet off the ground."
Did I miss an important study or something? Do psychotic killers now average under five feet in height?
From the article: "Nowadays, gamers can shoot cops, beat prostitutes and torch still-struggling victims."
This reads like an advertisement for Grand Theft Auto III.
Would you rather walk to the store once, or pay $10/month for a game? I think Steam is a wolf in sheep's clothing, honestly; the cute exterior is a download-based aquisition model that makes it more convenient to get content, but that wolf is the per-month fee you'll have to pay. It's a clever way to squeeze more money from the fans.
I'll second this. When I buy a game, I don't think of it as getting a cd, jewel case, manual, etc. I think of it as getting a key for multiplayer.
The interesting thing to watch now is Valve's Steam system. I think they're trying to make an Everquest-type subscription model out of their Half-Life sequel. The next "leverage" might be real-time DRM authentication that requires an active subscription. That's something to chew on.
I wouldn't get too worked up over the "socialist thought" on Slashdot. There are wonderful debates over the merits of profit-driven, collectivist, and command economies, but you'll rarely find them here. Many of the self-styled "socialists" among us are just kids who thinks it's cool to rub against the grain of mainstream America and its authority figures. There are certainly some intelligent and thoughtful leftwingers here, but the post you're responding to is just more cookie-cutter drivel attacking an imaginary opponent.
Since nobody here seems to know the original source, I'd better chime in. The prank is from a Jerky Boys CD. Despite their stupid movie, those guys produced two (maybe more) hilarious CD's full of these types of calls. Even though the "why you kick my dog!" routine is funny, it isn't their best material. If you like the skit, I suggest you look into the full CD's. (I have no financial interest here; I'm simply a fan.)
While your argument isn't necessarily false, I think you missed the point here. If you had read the rest of the article you probably wouldn't have posted this. The headline is not a value judgement against the CEO or linux users--it's an intentionally over-emphasised statement to give you a glimpse of what it looks like from SCO's point of view. Reading the Economist requires a higher level of comprehension than slashdot, and you need to keep that in mind when following links. Slashdot is written for roughly the middle-school level of reading comprehension (a rough guess), while some of the sites linked here presume a readership that's well-read. Sometimes it's like switching from first to fourth gear.
No offense, but if you go to India, you'd better not tell anyone you're from the Imperialist UK. Maybe you can be Canadian? Try it: aboot. There ya go.
Nah, you're just paranoid. See my rebuttal on page two, and my reinforcement of opinions on page three. Pages four and possibly five will have counter-points to my argument.
[ ] Your post is modded insightful, informative, or interesting. In fact it is neither of the three. This is because:
You're missing an important classification: you need to add one for the posters who post irrelevant links and get modded informative. Beyond that, though, it looks very good to me. I look forward to your policing of the moderators, PoorPost Troll.
It's important to remember that even though identity thieves are among the lowest of criminals, they aren't necessarily stupid. It's a common tactic for thieves to prey upon those who offer the greatest "return" on the investment of the thieves' time. Those most at risk are likely to have a number of common factors: high-limit or even limitless credit cards, excellent credit ratings, a complex network of high-balance accounts in various banks, a significant amount of money in savings and investments, etc. In order to best protect yourself and your loved ones, I recommend that you minimize your profile to the would-be thieves. There are a number of simple steps you can take to ensure your safety. For example:
* Do you have student loans? If so, consider letting the payments slip a little. Nobody wants an identity that can't take out student loans!
* Keeping up on your car payments? Stop. Thieves are less likely to steal the identity of someone who is being harassed by a repo man. As an added bonus, your chances of being victim to auto-theft just decreased significantly!
* Do you have a mortgage? Possibly, but I doubt you have enough of them! No thief wants to inherit the wrath of a bank trying to track down three mortgages' worth of money!
* How are your long-term investments? CD's? Mutual funds? Privately-managed portfolio? It doesn't matter; all of these glitter to the eyes of a veteran identity thief. You are much safer holding your money in an interest-free highly-liquid invesment account (coffee can). By reducing your apparent (and real) wealth, you become a much less desirable target.
* Employed? Then why not just toss your credit cards out the window? Nothing says "bullseye" like reliable employment. And consider this: when's the last time your heard someone in the unemployment line complain about identity theft. Never? Nobody likes to go through the effort of stealing an identity only to be rewarded with food stamps and meager checks.
In the end, identity theft will remain a significant problem in America--but only to those unlucky enough to ignore the above advice. The intelligent self-accountant will even find some more creative ways to be less attractive to thieves; consider child-support payments, court-ordered deportation, and terrorist sponsorship as well! Your safety in these trying times is only limited by your imagination.
It closes with the observation that "intellectual property is verging on thought crime."
/. I just wish people would quit trying to make parallels to Orwell's work every time they see something that threatens their liberty. It's the intellectual equivalent of solving philosophical problems using Dr. Seuss analogies.
This is a rather crass assumption. "Thought crime" gives the gov't control over what you think; this ip measure is just another over-excited corporate-sponsored piece of legislation. Don't get me wrong here--I don't like this garbage any more than the rest of
I read the article, and all I found was a few sensationalist generalities coupled with unsubstantiated analysis. Why not cite some of the injustices that the American DMCA has caused? Or talk about the long-term economic impact of creating all these false barriers to entry, rather than a few vauge assumptions? Nay, it's simply Orwellian.
I can live with recompiling my kernel for scsi-emulation support. I don't mind wading through the occasional dense man page to find out exactly how some tool works. But what bothers me is the amazing lack of comments in bash scripts. I'm not talking about obvious type of syntax clarification; I can look up certain commands if I don't know them. What I want is simple statements of purpose--why are you doing this? After switching to a new distro (though I won't mention which since I'll be called a Gentoo zealot) I had to sort through a number of scripts to figure out how the boot process worked. I quickly got tired of staring at two different scripts and asking myself what the programmer is trying to do here. The same goes for many scripts designed to check/set the environment before launching a binary. Troubleshooting would be easier if I knew why certain things were done. I can figure out what on my own, but sometimes I need to be told why.
I absolutely agree. There's nothing worse than some idiot who naturally assumes you know exactly what he's replying to. It takes meaning away from the message and often requires you to re-read the post to glean the important stuff after reading the quote. They should be shot!
But please, not Microsoft, the inventors of default top posting. This is one of the things which is making Usenet increasingly difficult to use.
Valve periodically updates their VAC system to catch new cheats. Sometimes it breaks compatibility. This time it did, and they haven't fixed it or even said anything about it for a couple of weeks. Here's a relevent quote posted a couple of days ago from the transgaming forums from one of the WineX devs:
"Due to a recent Valve-Anti-Cheat (VAC) update WineX users cannot currently play Half-Life online. We are investigating the reasons for this are working on a solution."
This also includes wine. Nobody knows if/when this will get fixed, unfortunately.
Making the UI is another matter. DX9 ports poorly (as in - not at all).
Half-Life doesn't use DX9; it uses DX6. Furthermore, the game has a very complete OpenGL renderer. Porting it would still take some work, I'm sure, but it's not like they would have to re-write it. And for the record, I'm neither "inanely biased" or "out of touch with reality". I simply have the rare and mystical ability to see through the PR hype and their "community support." But who cares, eh? Pretty movies make all ok.
My problem is that Valve thinks it's cool for me to run a server for their game even though I can't play it. That bugs me. I can respect that the financial decision to make a client might not be a great idea today, but there was certainly a time when it would have made sense. I, along with many others, would happily pay for a Linux client. I never once said they should do it for free. I don't expect things like that from game companies. As far as fixing wine, that might take a precious hour or two away from their team. Or they could have told people roughly how VAC would work client-side so the wine team and contributors could work around it.
As far as your other points, I think you need to sit back and take a look at just what you're defending. The SDK was cool, fine, but the financial support was simply good business. I have no doubt that they've made far more money from CS, DOD, etc. than they've given in financial support. The mod community has contributed significantly to the success of Half-Life.
Valve has set up a very complex network of mod developers to make money off of. I don't think you have the tools to realize it at this point, but you're being strung around like some corporate fanboy tool. Valve has very carefully crafted themselves in this we're-just-like-you-gamers image. In turn, they receive untold amount of defense from almost all of their fans. I hate to tell you this, but Valve honestly doesn't care about you or the mod community. As long as it's profitable, they'll continue on as they have been. This isn't necessarily wrong, mind you, but I see no reason for you to champion them as this gracious benefactor to the gaming industry. In reality, they're a business out to make money.
Even though I'm complaining about Valve, this argument could be applied to almost any big game company. I've just been dissapointed in the way things have been turning out lately. Games are watered-down to be "accessible" to as many people as possible. Slick advertisements and clever lures get massive amounts of people to pre-order games they haven't even played. Corporate branding creates legions of blind fanboys running about the 'net exalting their favorite companies. I'm not asking for anything too big here. I'd just like to see a few more companies that genuinely care about their fans and strive for positive long-term relationships and not this short-term profitability. Valve could have been one of them. Unfortunately, success killed them.
They still haven't fixed VAC (valve anti-cheat) so wine users can play Half-Life. This doesn't stop them from assuming Linux fans will host their games via dedicated servers though. I'm still a little pissed off that they think Linux is good enough to host their games but not worthy of a client. This is just more of the same old excellent community support from Valve.
If I were a telemarketer, I'd be overjoyed at the prospect of a national do-not-call list.
/. editor's uneducated jabs this week's $current_villan are "[..] the richest, most relevant editorial content [..]" around.
Not necessarily; the businesses are probably happy about the list, but the telemarketing firms themselves are very upset. I have no doubt that the "best" telemarketing firms are those that misrepresent the allure of their consumer lists and their services. For a specific example, look at OSDN's ad page. Evidently, the
Equal weaponry, yes. But the axis team has a serious advantage on all but one map. If you want to be a nice guy and use auto-team, more often than not, you'll end up on the camped-against allies.
But more importantly is the bullshit XP system they've implemented. If you're playing a three-map campaign and you join towards the end, you're faced with opponents who have skills much higher than you. Don't even bother playing a six-map campaign unless you start from the beginning.
Though the worst is really the class imbalances. Medics (after they get enough XP) are too powerful. Likewise for panzerfaust wielders. Weapons like the machinegun, mortar, and flamethrower are only useful in a few situations. This leads to a game of relatively few types of players going against each other in what ends up as boring and routine gunfights.
This game could have been great. The maps and in-game communications are well thought out. The level design is excellent. But in the end the polish is missing. I can't complain though, since it's a free game. But I hope Splash Damage is capable of more than this if they're working on Doom 3.
[...] on a level co-developed by id Software and U.K.-based developer Splash Damage, Ltd. Splash Damage has most recently worked with id Software on Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory [...]
So it looks like Doom 3 will have buggy multiplayer with blatant imbalances while never being patched. Hopefully the single-player game is a little better.