I've always thought the 'Gingers have no souls' bit was invented totally by Matt Stone, a Jewish/Irish/American ginger, for 'South Park' as a 'take that' for Jewish critics of the show who describe him as a 'Self-hating Jew'.
I've always thought that Ginger skin-tone and hair coloration was very attractive on women. I've not heard a lot of disrespect for Gingers before the South Park episode, and then it's been entirely tongue-in-cheek.
- Appreciating data-types, their limitations and the perils of using casting them incorrectly helped me a lot in understanding about things I need to be careful about
This is a fairly serious issue, but one that can be brought up after the basics of computer programming have been instilled. Most languages are either loosely typed, duck-typed, or have robust conversion features these days. Kids who learn to mangle a string in Javascript will pick up quickly on 'You have to use a 'to_str' method in some other languages'.
The place where this will really catch them is math... but again there are robust solutions in almost all languages.
- Are they going skip the concept of Pointers ? It's not wise to use them unless necessary but to be aware of the concept was very rewarding for me
Pointers in anything other than the very lowest-level-touching-the-metal code are an abomination. They cause far more confusion and grief than they ever help. Yes, there are situations in which the best way to address a problem is to pass a pointer around. However, in this day and age of multi-gigabyte ram sticks, I'd rather bloat up a program's ram usage with maybe unnecessary copies of large objects than dick around with pointers.
- How will they teach multi-threaded programming? We're not quite there yet in JS.
Threading and thread safety are not really beginner concepts, nor are they really required for the majority of code work in the real world.
However, JS approaches the issue obliquely by being bolted onto the threading model of the underlying interpreter. In a browser, which is probably what most of these kids will be learning on, you have to worry about concurrency of the browser instance. If I run a script in this named window, is it going to affect anything in that named window? No, that's not really threading, but it's the same mental concept.
Likewise, beginners are not going to be writing their own output handlers, which is the obvious usage for threading. The advanced ones are going to be playing with painting on HTML5 canvas elements while maybe playing sounds at the same time. They'll be using the browser's already threaded output for those functions.
The MOR for TSG shows total assets as $0 (yes, that's "zero"), down from $1,326,293 on petition date, and total liabilities of $1,119,238, up from $418,965 on petition date. The MOR for TSG Operations shows total assets as $1,515,129, down from $15,493,080 on petition date, and total liabilities of $9,739,295, up from $4,311,640 on petition date. Go SCO! It was not bankrupt when it entered bankruptcy protection, but it surely is now.
Total assets: $1,515,129. Total Debt: $10,858,533
Hmm... SCO's in a world of hurt. I'm trying to figure out how they can even get lawyers to work with them at this point, unless they're using a 'We don't get paid unless you get paid!' ambulance chaser-type personal liability attorney.
Hey, IBM. That's a total of $12,373,662. According to your 2010 income report, it looks like you're making a net of about 14 billion dollars a year... literally more than a thousand times that. And I'm thinking that at least some of that $10.9m is owed to you. If you guys negotiate a bit with the other creditors, I'm betting you could simply up and purchase all SCO's assets for about $2-4m.
That's lunch money for a company like IBM. It's less than a certain Kickstart project we've all been reading about.
Think about the good will you could create by taking a dump truck to what's left of SCO and then public-domaining the entire shebang.
And while all this fear mongering, submission to armed authority, 'convenience arrests', and security theater is happening, thousands of Americans will be singing
"mumble mumble mumble something something Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave!"
*shakes head sadly*
Yeah. Enjoy the game. Really. There's not a lot else left now, is there?
I was recently reading through some of the '2012 hysteria' on your site and your affiliates... mostly responses to uneducated or superstitious people who've bought into the 'The End is Nigh' madness.
Since I grew up in a similar environment, I've also been watching the apocalyptic religious fervor surrounding people like Harold Camping with some horror.
My understanding is that this kind of thing tends to peak near century markers... 'End of the Century == End of the World', so theoretically, the silliness should be tapering off. Right?
What is your experience on this? Are we seeing a slowdown to the 'End of World' craziness, or is it going to get worse?
Yeah, Sony earned my ongoing boycott well before the 'Other OS' fiasco. I've refused to buy Sony anything since the rootkit'd CDs incident. I haven't regretted my decision once.
I even try to avoid purchasing anything that pays a license to Sony. That's more difficult, but doable if you do the research.
1. Pick a substance that can be shipped to space fairly gracefully in large, thin, flexible sheets. You'd need BIG sheets. This can either be something that is already adhesive or can be activated or coated with adhesive in orbit. Either way, it should be cheap and disposable. The edges of this material should be fairly durable so that if it tears, the torn bits will hang on to the edges. High relative-velocity impacts should either go right through the material or stick to it.
2. Attach a small, single-use, steerable rocket to one corner of each sheet. These need not be designed to stand the test of time but should be durable enough not to break apart on use.
3. Ship many of these to a 'messy' orbit as cheaply as possible. Deploy, unfold, and activate the adhesive as necessary, preferably without any kind of human-aided EVA. Ideally this should be done with the cheapest, lightest of rockets, and activation and unfolding is something that should happen entirely electronically.
4. Let these orbit a few times, sweeping up crap. Monitor from the ground via telescope.
5. Activate the single-use rocket remotely to nudge the whole mess into reentry.
First, how the hell is 'supernatural' not the same thing as 'possessed'? Y'wanna quibble on fine points or personal definitions?
Second, anyone who wants the long version of the story is more than welcome to click the link. I didn't feel the need to discuss the merits of loli-vampires, loli-snakes, the almost-entirely conversation-driven nature of the story, its light-novel origins, or even Studio Shaft's over-the-top psychedelic animation. This is a discussion on the merits of breaking copyright for the greater good.
If you want to pit Araragi-kun against Mr. Cullen, or want to talk shit on the story,/a/ is on a different website.
You think U.S. fans would know what to expect from a title like Bakemonogatari is without having seen a fansub first?
Turns out that the aforementioned title is a popular romantic fantasy story about a young ex-vampire and the various supernatural girls he meets. Its title is probably best translated as 'Ghost Story'.
Despite the relative obscurity of both the story and the source material, It has a fairly strong U.S. fanbase that will likely make publishing a run of Region 1 DVDs profitable for both the Japanese and North American companies involved.
Without fansubs, that market simply wouldn't exist and everyone would miss out.
I've always thought that Child's Play was the most fantastic take on this. Video games distract you from the suck when you're sick or in pain. Gabe, Tycho, and thousands of gamers have grown up in the last couple decades experiencing that and have brought the same relief to lots of kids.
Can't we just save the effort and convict 'Anonymous' in absentia? It'd be much more efficient.
Err... no. No you can't, at least in the U.S.. I'm not sure if you Limeys still enjoy the right since you've gutted the Magna Carta so well, but in the U.S., it's coded into the Constitution that anyone charged with a crime has the right to face their accuser and defend themselves in a fair trial.
You can bring charges against a 'John Doe', here, but you can't convict or sentence them before they have a chance to go before a jury.
As his time with his books has grown, Sir Terry is somewhat known for spending time with weapons in order to describe his characters using them better.
(I'm trying to find an official source, but haven't seen one more authoritative than TVtropes yet, so take this with a grain of salt.)
In particular, the various City Watchmen of Ankh Morpork are all shown to use crowsbows at one point or another. Mister Pratchett learned to use a crossbow himself.
This sword sounds somewhat like Carrot Ironfoundersson's very sharp, well-used, and above all highly unmagical sword. However, another part of the standard issue for AMCW cops is a short sword, so we may get to see some more details on sword care and swordmanship in the next Discworld Book.
Generously, if 90% of that is illegal, that means that about 20% to 45% of all traffic on the internet is illegal.
Obviously, what he have here is not a problem with the populace, but a problem with the law itself.
Sadly, the 'War on Copyright Infringement' looks like it's going to be every bit as damaging on the 'War on Drugs', with the possible silver lining that we don't pay for the former with our tax dollars. YET.
Yeah, I noticed that just immediately after I posted. You always miss the *one* thing...
Anyway, my mistake comes from living in Texas (long enough for the cumulative brain damage to be noticeable), where the governor's signature does, rather infamously, go on execution orders.
This is a good thing, regardless of your stance on capital punishment.
The most important aspect of the internet, in my opinion, is that it shoves transparency down the throat of government.
For better or worse, this Governor's name and decision is now tied irrevocably to his decision to sign the execution order. He is accountable and his constituents and other voters around the country know what he did.
KACV is the student-run radio station for Amarillo College. Frankly, it's one of the best college radio stations in the country. Now that ClearChannel/Cirrus own all the other radio stations, it's one of the best period.
Yeah, it's got some 'Dead air... uhm............ Dead air...' due to the student DJing and announcing, but has otherwise excellent programming, including new release and jazz shows. It's also got some of the nicest, most competent staff I've ever had the privilege to meet.
The station has one of the most powerful FM transmitters in the country, so if you are anywhere in or around the TX panhandle (driving down i40 on your way through, even) turn your dial over to 89.9 and give 'em a listen... if for no other reason than to laugh at the first year broadcasting students.
They also have a live stream available from the link above. I've used it to listen to Dr. Demento's show many times.
I hope the contractual thing allowing them to keep broadcasting his is mutual and amiable, but either way, it's been a treat.
This does very little to deter 'real' pirates who mockup fake merchandice.
This does very little to deter downloaders.
What it does do is try to provide a frame-by-frame signature of video, so if a video's been ripped, they know which copy it was.
Until, of course, those in part 2 and 3 above start detecting and scrubbing that data.
Meanwhile, you're going to charge your customers more for a product that's crippled, and therefore inferior to the pirated version.
It's honestly like you guys are determined to kill yourselves in the most expensive, controversial way possible. May I humbly recommend the Hutchins/Carradine route instead. It's a lot more pleasant and leaves a lot less mess.
If I'm going to be treated like a criminal I may as well act like one.
NOTE TO GAME PUBLISHERS: This line should keep you up at night and give you nightmares. If it doesn't make you question every 'security' decision you've ever made, you're a fool.
The first time I ever used a threaded message client was WinVN newsreader way back in the wilds of 1993. The first email reader I used that was threaded was Eudora... pre-2000. I'm very sure that tin supported threads before I ever saw an ethernet cable.
So here it is 2009, and Microsoft is just NOW including a threaded view in Outlook.
Yeah. Way to innovate there, Redmon. Congratulations on entering the 1990s!
That assumes that the average American cares. Our population is currently massively bloated from top to bottom with those who neither understand, enjoy, or particularly want the freedoms they could have if they stood up for them.
I'm having difficulty finding the quote, but not long after our invasion of Iraq some very senior general was quoted as saying that he thought that the United States constitution would not survive another attack on the scale of the September 11th bombings and that our 'Experiment with freedom' would have failed.
That smacks of Mussolini-type fascism to me. Here's one of our most ranking military leaders indicating he thinks its about time to declare nation-wide martial law.
On the lower end of the personal power meter, Joe Midwest Sixpack has a very few things he cares about. He wants to be treated well at work and home. He wants his family to do what he tells them. He wants to feel like he's part of a larger animal that's going generally in the right direction. Those desires are met entirely by church and the kind of neo-conservative ramblings that pass for 'news' on cable television these days. He gets a sense of superiority that's entirely fictitious. (Another facet of old-school fascism. Mussolini had the farmer class eating out of the same hand all the WWI vets did.)
If he thinks about freedom at all, it's in the context of 'Obama better not take my guns!' without ever thinking about why the 2nd Amendment was included in the Bill of Rights at all. In the land of the 'Free and the Brave', this individual is neither free nor brave enough to stand up for his freedoms. He would, frankly, be happier with a absolute monarchy or theocracy.
I've been Sony-Free since about 2004. I purchase no products, services, or media that allows Sony to profit.
It's a pain in the ass since Sony owns patents and rights on a huge amount of computer hardware that people take for granted these days. However, I've made a game out of it, carefully researching all my purchases beforehand to make sure they don't contain any Sony parts or licenses.
There are lots of reasons to boycott Sony. Why not join me over this one?
Available software for Linux fulfills almost all my needs with a few glaring exceptions:
The thing that really busted me the last time I worked my way through a linux install was that I need the ability to switch resolutions, display modes, monitor outputs quickly and painlessly, without restarting the majority of my apps. I need to be able to switch TV outputs on and off, and maintain displays on multiple monitors with nVidia graphics chipsets.
Currently, there's no 'out of box' way to do this on most Linux distros. Most tutorials have you hand-editing x.conf files. There are a few 3rd party apps that claim to be able to do this, but I haven't been able to get any of them to work.
Wired's article reads just like the slew of 'Wah! I can't do what I want to so I'm taking my ball and going home,' posts on the COH message boards when Matt 'Positron' Miller's anti-farming announcement came out.
The Mission Architect system is an amazing add-on to the game. Players are creating literally thousands of missions and arcs that are NOT farms. The real difficulty at that point is not avoiding the farms, but finding the gems among the brass.
I have in the last few days
- Stopped the filming of the latest Highlander movie - Rescued chocolate makers from kidnappers and a corrupt corporation bent on making (dangerously) addictive chocolate. - Helped newbie heroes fight against the hardest foes in Paragon City - Defended myself from love-lorn super-villains responding to a crank personals ad. - Saved the world countless times.
The change in the reward system was completely unnoticeable UNLESS you were abusing the hell out of the system. Most players weren't doing that, but those who were screamed long and loud.
Positron's announced changes were welcomed warmly by the majority of the CoH playerbase. They were pinpointed to hurt exactly those who'd broken the (Very new) system, and they did. Everyone else is busy kicking ass and taking names in player-created missions.
Slashdot Mirror
I've always thought the 'Gingers have no souls' bit was invented totally by Matt Stone, a Jewish/Irish/American ginger, for 'South Park' as a 'take that' for Jewish critics of the show who describe him as a 'Self-hating Jew'.
I've always thought that Ginger skin-tone and hair coloration was very attractive on women. I've not heard a lot of disrespect for Gingers before the South Park episode, and then it's been entirely tongue-in-cheek.
This is a fairly serious issue, but one that can be brought up after the basics of computer programming have been instilled. Most languages are either loosely typed, duck-typed, or have robust conversion features these days. Kids who learn to mangle a string in Javascript will pick up quickly on 'You have to use a 'to_str' method in some other languages'.
The place where this will really catch them is math... but again there are robust solutions in almost all languages.
Pointers in anything other than the very lowest-level-touching-the-metal code are an abomination. They cause far more confusion and grief than they ever help. Yes, there are situations in which the best way to address a problem is to pass a pointer around. However, in this day and age of multi-gigabyte ram sticks, I'd rather bloat up a program's ram usage with maybe unnecessary copies of large objects than dick around with pointers.
Threading and thread safety are not really beginner concepts, nor are they really required for the majority of code work in the real world.
However, JS approaches the issue obliquely by being bolted onto the threading model of the underlying interpreter. In a browser, which is probably what most of these kids will be learning on, you have to worry about concurrency of the browser instance. If I run a script in this named window, is it going to affect anything in that named window? No, that's not really threading, but it's the same mental concept.
Likewise, beginners are not going to be writing their own output handlers, which is the obvious usage for threading. The advanced ones are going to be playing with painting on HTML5 canvas elements while maybe playing sounds at the same time. They'll be using the browser's already threaded output for those functions.
Total assets: $1,515,129. Total Debt: $10,858,533
Hmm... SCO's in a world of hurt. I'm trying to figure out how they can even get lawyers to work with them at this point, unless they're using a 'We don't get paid unless you get paid!' ambulance chaser-type personal liability attorney.
Hey, IBM. That's a total of $12,373,662. According to your 2010 income report, it looks like you're making a net of about 14 billion dollars a year... literally more than a thousand times that. And I'm thinking that at least some of that $10.9m is owed to you. If you guys negotiate a bit with the other creditors, I'm betting you could simply up and purchase all SCO's assets for about $2-4m.
That's lunch money for a company like IBM. It's less than a certain Kickstart project we've all been reading about.
Think about the good will you could create by taking a dump truck to what's left of SCO and then public-domaining the entire shebang.
And while all this fear mongering, submission to armed authority, 'convenience arrests', and security theater is happening, thousands of Americans will be singing
"mumble mumble mumble something something Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave!"
*shakes head sadly*
Yeah. Enjoy the game. Really. There's not a lot else left now, is there?
Phil,
I was recently reading through some of the '2012 hysteria' on your site and your affiliates... mostly responses to uneducated or superstitious people who've bought into the 'The End is Nigh' madness.
Since I grew up in a similar environment, I've also been watching the apocalyptic religious fervor surrounding people like Harold Camping with some horror.
My understanding is that this kind of thing tends to peak near century markers... 'End of the Century == End of the World', so theoretically, the silliness should be tapering off. Right?
What is your experience on this? Are we seeing a slowdown to the 'End of World' craziness, or is it going to get worse?
Yeah, Sony earned my ongoing boycott well before the 'Other OS' fiasco. I've refused to buy Sony anything since the rootkit'd CDs incident. I haven't regretted my decision once.
I even try to avoid purchasing anything that pays a license to Sony. That's more difficult, but doable if you do the research.
1. Pick a substance that can be shipped to space fairly gracefully in large, thin, flexible sheets. You'd need BIG sheets. This can either be something that is already adhesive or can be activated or coated with adhesive in orbit. Either way, it should be cheap and disposable. The edges of this material should be fairly durable so that if it tears, the torn bits will hang on to the edges. High relative-velocity impacts should either go right through the material or stick to it.
2. Attach a small, single-use, steerable rocket to one corner of each sheet. These need not be designed to stand the test of time but should be durable enough not to break apart on use.
3. Ship many of these to a 'messy' orbit as cheaply as possible. Deploy, unfold, and activate the adhesive as necessary, preferably without any kind of human-aided EVA. Ideally this should be done with the cheapest, lightest of rockets, and activation and unfolding is something that should happen entirely electronically.
4. Let these orbit a few times, sweeping up crap. Monitor from the ground via telescope.
5. Activate the single-use rocket remotely to nudge the whole mess into reentry.
6. Repeat as necessary to clean the orbit.
Well, EXCUUUSE ME
/a/ is on a different website.
</SteveMartin>
First, how the hell is 'supernatural' not the same thing as 'possessed'? Y'wanna quibble on fine points or personal definitions?
Second, anyone who wants the long version of the story is more than welcome to click the link. I didn't feel the need to discuss the merits of loli-vampires, loli-snakes, the almost-entirely conversation-driven nature of the story, its light-novel origins, or even Studio Shaft's over-the-top psychedelic animation. This is a discussion on the merits of breaking copyright for the greater good.
If you want to pit Araragi-kun against Mr. Cullen, or want to talk shit on the story,
You think U.S. fans would know what to expect from a title like Bakemonogatari is without having seen a fansub first?
Turns out that the aforementioned title is a popular romantic fantasy story about a young ex-vampire and the various supernatural girls he meets. Its title is probably best translated as 'Ghost Story'.
Despite the relative obscurity of both the story and the source material, It has a fairly strong U.S. fanbase that will likely make publishing a run of Region 1 DVDs profitable for both the Japanese and North American companies involved.
Without fansubs, that market simply wouldn't exist and everyone would miss out.
I've always thought that Child's Play was the most fantastic take on this. Video games distract you from the suck when you're sick or in pain. Gabe, Tycho, and thousands of gamers have grown up in the last couple decades experiencing that and have brought the same relief to lots of kids.
These guys are in Seattle. They need to hook up.
Err... no. No you can't, at least in the U.S.. I'm not sure if you Limeys still enjoy the right since you've gutted the Magna Carta so well, but in the U.S., it's coded into the Constitution that anyone charged with a crime has the right to face their accuser and defend themselves in a fair trial.
You can bring charges against a 'John Doe', here, but you can't convict or sentence them before they have a chance to go before a jury.
As his time with his books has grown, Sir Terry is somewhat known for spending time with weapons in order to describe his characters using them better.
(I'm trying to find an official source, but haven't seen one more authoritative than TVtropes yet, so take this with a grain of salt.)
In particular, the various City Watchmen of Ankh Morpork are all shown to use crowsbows at one point or another. Mister Pratchett learned to use a crossbow himself.
This sword sounds somewhat like Carrot Ironfoundersson's very sharp, well-used, and above all highly unmagical sword. However, another part of the standard issue for AMCW cops is a short sword, so we may get to see some more details on sword care and swordmanship in the next Discworld Book.
According to Wiki, around a quarter to a half of all internet traffic is torrents.
Generously, if 90% of that is illegal, that means that about 20% to 45% of all traffic on the internet is illegal.
Obviously, what he have here is not a problem with the populace, but a problem with the law itself.
Sadly, the 'War on Copyright Infringement' looks like it's going to be every bit as damaging on the 'War on Drugs', with the possible silver lining that we don't pay for the former with our tax dollars. YET.
Yeah, I noticed that just immediately after I posted. You always miss the *one* thing...
Anyway, my mistake comes from living in Texas (long enough for the cumulative brain damage to be noticeable), where the governor's signature does, rather infamously, go on execution orders.
This is a good thing, regardless of your stance on capital punishment.
The most important aspect of the internet, in my opinion, is that it shoves transparency down the throat of government.
For better or worse, this Governor's name and decision is now tied irrevocably to his decision to sign the execution order. He is accountable and his constituents and other voters around the country know what he did.
This is as it should be.
KACV is the student-run radio station for Amarillo College. Frankly, it's one of the best college radio stations in the country. Now that ClearChannel/Cirrus own all the other radio stations, it's one of the best period.
http://kacvfm.org/
Yeah, it's got some 'Dead air... uhm.... .... .... Dead air...' due to the student DJing and announcing, but has otherwise excellent programming, including new release and jazz shows. It's also got some of the nicest, most competent staff I've ever had the privilege to meet.
The station has one of the most powerful FM transmitters in the country, so if you are anywhere in or around the TX panhandle (driving down i40 on your way through, even) turn your dial over to 89.9 and give 'em a listen... if for no other reason than to laugh at the first year broadcasting students.
They also have a live stream available from the link above. I've used it to listen to Dr. Demento's show many times.
I hope the contractual thing allowing them to keep broadcasting his is mutual and amiable, but either way, it's been a treat.
Still far less mess.
People are actually gainfully employed in the death-scene cleanup biz.
The other kind of mess isn't gainful to ANYONE.
This does bupkiss to aid consumers.
This does very little to deter 'real' pirates who mockup fake merchandice.
This does very little to deter downloaders.
What it does do is try to provide a frame-by-frame signature of video, so if a video's been ripped, they know which copy it was.
Until, of course, those in part 2 and 3 above start detecting and scrubbing that data.
Meanwhile, you're going to charge your customers more for a product that's crippled, and therefore inferior to the pirated version.
It's honestly like you guys are determined to kill yourselves in the most expensive, controversial way possible. May I humbly recommend the Hutchins/Carradine route instead. It's a lot more pleasant and leaves a lot less mess.
NOTE TO GAME PUBLISHERS: This line should keep you up at night and give you nightmares. If it doesn't make you question every 'security' decision you've ever made, you're a fool.
The first time I ever used a threaded message client was WinVN newsreader way back in the wilds of 1993. The first email reader I used that was threaded was Eudora... pre-2000. I'm very sure that tin supported threads before I ever saw an ethernet cable.
So here it is 2009, and Microsoft is just NOW including a threaded view in Outlook.
Yeah. Way to innovate there, Redmon. Congratulations on entering the 1990s!
That assumes that the average American cares. Our population is currently massively bloated from top to bottom with those who neither understand, enjoy, or particularly want the freedoms they could have if they stood up for them.
I'm having difficulty finding the quote, but not long after our invasion of Iraq some very senior general was quoted as saying that he thought that the United States constitution would not survive another attack on the scale of the September 11th bombings and that our 'Experiment with freedom' would have failed.
That smacks of Mussolini-type fascism to me. Here's one of our most ranking military leaders indicating he thinks its about time to declare nation-wide martial law.
On the lower end of the personal power meter, Joe Midwest Sixpack has a very few things he cares about. He wants to be treated well at work and home. He wants his family to do what he tells them. He wants to feel like he's part of a larger animal that's going generally in the right direction. Those desires are met entirely by church and the kind of neo-conservative ramblings that pass for 'news' on cable television these days. He gets a sense of superiority that's entirely fictitious. (Another facet of old-school fascism. Mussolini had the farmer class eating out of the same hand all the WWI vets did.)
If he thinks about freedom at all, it's in the context of 'Obama better not take my guns!' without ever thinking about why the 2nd Amendment was included in the Bill of Rights at all. In the land of the 'Free and the Brave', this individual is neither free nor brave enough to stand up for his freedoms. He would, frankly, be happier with a absolute monarchy or theocracy.
I've been Sony-Free since about 2004. I purchase no products, services, or media that allows Sony to profit.
It's a pain in the ass since Sony owns patents and rights on a huge amount of computer hardware that people take for granted these days. However, I've made a game out of it, carefully researching all my purchases beforehand to make sure they don't contain any Sony parts or licenses.
There are lots of reasons to boycott Sony. Why not join me over this one?
Available software for Linux fulfills almost all my needs with a few glaring exceptions:
The thing that really busted me the last time I worked my way through a linux install was that I need the ability to switch resolutions, display modes, monitor outputs quickly and painlessly, without restarting the majority of my apps. I need to be able to switch TV outputs on and off, and maintain displays on multiple monitors with nVidia graphics chipsets.
Currently, there's no 'out of box' way to do this on most Linux distros. Most tutorials have you hand-editing x.conf files. There are a few 3rd party apps that claim to be able to do this, but I haven't been able to get any of them to work.
Wired's article reads just like the slew of 'Wah! I can't do what I want to so I'm taking my ball and going home,' posts on the COH message boards when Matt 'Positron' Miller's anti-farming announcement came out.
The Mission Architect system is an amazing add-on to the game. Players are creating literally thousands of missions and arcs that are NOT farms. The real difficulty at that point is not avoiding the farms, but finding the gems among the brass.
I have in the last few days
- Stopped the filming of the latest Highlander movie
- Rescued chocolate makers from kidnappers and a corrupt corporation bent on making (dangerously) addictive chocolate.
- Helped newbie heroes fight against the hardest foes in Paragon City
- Defended myself from love-lorn super-villains responding to a crank personals ad.
- Saved the world countless times.
The change in the reward system was completely unnoticeable UNLESS you were abusing the hell out of the system. Most players weren't doing that, but those who were screamed long and loud.
Positron's announced changes were welcomed warmly by the majority of the CoH playerbase. They were pinpointed to hurt exactly those who'd broken the (Very new) system, and they did. Everyone else is busy kicking ass and taking names in player-created missions.
They showed up in the first SSB. The number was greatly increased in Melee and then again in Brawl, adding 'stickers' to the mix.