This summary and article read like someone issuing a denial about actually making a video game.
Blizzard would like to announce it is delaying the release of a product it has not yet announced.
We at Blizzard are actively pondering creating the Next Big Thing, but we might cancel it, or we might not, but we're doing it with fewer people, starting from scratch, and won't have anything for several years. But don't panic, we have agile programming.
Oh, I was being entirely serious, but I do understand your point.
My wife and I actually play golf together anywhere between 2 and 7 times/week, and usually with friends. It's how we both get away for a break from stuff, see some of our buddies, and is a major influence on our vacations.
But it also means that while some of our friends need to check with the wife or can't play some of the time, both of us want to get out golfing as often as time allows.
Sometimes, having a hobby with the wife is a good choice as well.
Why would the SCADA system controlling things like gas and power be connected to any machine with an Internet routable IP or that is able to connect to any machine with an Internet routable IP?
And the answer never changes -- incompetence and laziness.
We all know you shouldn't have your critical infrastructure on the web, but that never really seems to change anything.
For the same reasons people get earrings, tattoos, or pretty much other body art... either they want it because they like it and like the look of it, or they want it because it's trendy to do so.
Kinda like why people go straight for the full sleeves and neck tattoos. Whereas the people who have been quietly getting tattooed for years are just sort of wondering if these kids have really thought this through.
I can go into the office and nobody will know I've got tats, but I see a lot of kids go straight for the most visible tattoo they can think of. When I see an 18 year old with the New York Yankees logo tattooed on their neck, I feel a little bad for them. Because, like it or not, people will judge them on it.
And, to your specific question, I believe the pierced nipples gives you increased sensitivity, and something interesting for your partner to play with.
Was thinking the same thing. Used to be you kept your secure stuff on a network with an air-gap between it and the rest of the world.
Given how many stories we've been seeing about these hacking attempts, to have those machines accessible from the outside network means people haven't been paying attention.
Given that you still can't export some software due to encryption, to have the plans for these kinds of things be something hackers can get into is a pretty stunning failure.
And, what games can you get on your Ubuntu laptop? Tuxracer?
Because it seems to me that while you might indeed have better specs, your choices of games would be much smaller.
You're not getting any of the big game titles, so are you ending up with a better gaming setup with shittier games? At which point, is that actually an improvement?
Bullies? Murdering 90% of animals that make it to their shelters in the first 24 hours, isn't that more like genocidal maniacs
I'll stay away from your Godwinning, but at the very least I'd call the hypocrites.
So, killing animals is bad, and it's OK to essentially assault people to protest fur, but point out they're euthanizing most of their animals a la Kevorkian, and they want to sue?
As TFA points out, the truth is always a defense against libel claims. They might not like the negative characterization, but it doesn't change the fact that they're killing these animals.
But given their extreme and inflexible stance, it's a little bit rich to want to sue someone for saying "PETA are animal killers, they just don't want you to know".
Also in Canada, but mine gives me about 50GB of downstream data before they start charging extra. And this is Rogers, so we're not talking about one of the smaller players.
I mean, in what reality are people actually using a PC or game console that is not connected to a network?
In the surprisingly widespread reality in which people don't play on-line games and don't care about on-line content.
The current XBox can be ran just fine without a network connection, and just because you can't imagine a world in which people do that, it doesn't mean that a lot of us don't do it. Of the people I know who own XBoxes now, almost none of them use any on-line features or even have their XBox connected to the network, and they don't even have accounts on XBox Live.
Mine got disconnected from the network the first time I saw ads in both the home screen and in games last fall, and it will never be connected again.
So unless you happen to have very exact stats on what percentage of XBox owners don't use the on-line stuff, you're speaking out of your butt. Because I can tell you a lot of people right now don't connect them to the network -- right now, they don't need to unless they play on-line games. Microsoft is changing that and saying we will need to connect to the network if we want to use this box at all.
Also while turfing used games sales is bad, I would rather have $30 games than $60 games. I mean you are only getting a $10 - $20 discount buying used from a store, I'd rather games just come down $10 - $20 in price FOR EVERYONE.
How do you envision that happening? You think MS and the publishers will lower prices for us because they're now charging for used games? No, they'll keep the prices high and look to pad out their bottom line. They're not going to lower prices, they'll keep 'em high and maximize profits.
A friend has had a few of my games for several months now -- and to date, it's been none of Microsoft's business. If they insist on changing that, they'll get sales from neither of us.
If that is an issue for you, perhaps you need to reprioritize your spending and NOT buy a game console.
I will not be buying THIS game console, specifically because of this crap with the network.
Microsoft, obviously, won't give a shit that I'm not buying this. But they might discover that quite a few people have decided they don't want this set of features.
They want to become central to my entertainment experience -- but they can keep hoping. What you say people should just get over, I say I will not even consider buying this because it's stuff I don't want, and it lets Microsoft have more control over how I use game consoles now.
And, quite frankly, since it offers me nothing but losing some rights and putting up with more of their crap, they can keep the damned thing. Other than DRM, and the ability for them to collect my information and sell ads on my screen, there isn't a single reason why this is any better for me.
I fear if they're going to start off assuming all of this extra power in the cloud, they might be unplayable within the first 15 days.
This just screams as something which is going to experience major problems on day 1, and will leave loads of people without a usable system.
I have no interest in having my games handled in the cloud, and I definitely won't be getting an XBox which wants access the network as it sees fit -- I tried that once, got ads in games for my trouble, and subsequently disconnected it from the network.
This whole console sounds like a non-starter to me and anybody else who doesn't want what Microsoft is envisioning. It's either capable of being a stand-alone box which isn't networked, or it isn't getting bought. And from the sounds of it, it's the latter.
But if Microsoft thinks I want their product to be my entertainment hub of the future, they're grossly mistaken.
Are we still having this conversation in 2013? You lost. It's over. Our society at large accepts and supports file sharing for non-commercial use.
But, sadly, the lawmakers will still do what they've been paid to do by these lobbyists, and the US has increasingly set themselves up to pin their future on copyright and all other forms of IP. They simply can't afford to do anything different now.
So I fear they're going to keep pushing from their end as hard as they can. Eventually, I'm pretty sure they're going to want every general purpose computer to be built in such a way that they have control over it.
Is anyone really entertaining the delusions of these detached, clueless, dinosaurs?
Yes, the lawmakers who keep passing the laws they ask for.
So they basically want the right to maliciously hack and damage other people's computers on their belief that someone is stealing from them.
No court, no proof, just what they believe. So they want to be judge, jury, and executioner.
OK Anonymous, there's your targets. Each one of the people who contributed to this report are now fair game. Since they've decided it should be their right to hack us, they're now perfect valid targets. Their families, bank accounts, and mistresses are good starting points.
What a bunch of douchebags. These guys would have us undercut all of computer security to give them special access to enforce their claims without oversight, and in the process, they'd probably make most computers far less secure.
If these guys want the right to commit what would be crimes for anyone else, then I suggest they don't deserve a whole lot of consideration.
This is shameful, and I really hope the lawmakers tell them a big "no friggin' way".
I have no idea how committed they were to this particular model, I didn't get the memo, but they sure as hell better commit to something which is going to work for them:
With HTC's monthly revenues for the first four months of 2013 at under two-thirds of that for the same period in 2012, and first-quarter operating profits down by 99%, the company is struggling to cope with the growing power of South Korean rival Samsung
Making a product which everyone has decided they don't want isn't how you succeed in the long run. That's the sign of a company in its death throws.
If people are leaving like rats on a sinking ship, you only get so many more chances to do something which works. I can only assume this is likely to turn into a costly mistake.
More importantly, what does the Facebook platform bring to the table beyond their existing app?
My perception of this was to basically ensure Facebook gets even more of your personal information, since the TOS likely grants them a perpetual license to your data.
Somehow, HTC decided to play along. Now they're the ones making a phone nobody seems interested in buying. This is kinda like Nokia pinning their company future on Windows phones -- if nobody bought them, it was Nokia left holding the bag.
Ever notice that when you deliver something, they've managed to change the requirements?
Ever delivered something which met the formal requirements and had them say "well, that's not what we wanted"?
There is often an unbelievable disconnect between what users tell you they want versus what they actually really really wanted but had no idea until it was too late.
End users will often help you design unusable software which is exactly what they asked for.
This is just like every time software asks you, "are you sure?" before deleting a file or record.
And why it's so easy for shitware like the ask.com toolbar to end up on systems.
People got used to thinking "oh, crap, I just need to keep clicking next until it finally installs". Now you need to check every page of the install to be sure that installing someone's toolbar or whatever isn't checked by default (which it always is).
People either start ignoring the warnings, or stop caring what they say and click next anyway.
If it's for Joe Sixpack, and he might metaphorically poke out an eye with it, then maybe.
If it's for system admins and the like who neither need nor want training wheels, not so much.
You certainly can expose too much functionality to people who shouldn't have it. But you can also make something useless to the people who actually do need to do it.
Slashdot Mirror
This summary and article read like someone issuing a denial about actually making a video game.
Blizzard would like to announce it is delaying the release of a product it has not yet announced.
We at Blizzard are actively pondering creating the Next Big Thing, but we might cancel it, or we might not, but we're doing it with fewer people, starting from scratch, and won't have anything for several years. But don't panic, we have agile programming.
Oh, I was being entirely serious, but I do understand your point.
My wife and I actually play golf together anywhere between 2 and 7 times/week, and usually with friends. It's how we both get away for a break from stuff, see some of our buddies, and is a major influence on our vacations.
But it also means that while some of our friends need to check with the wife or can't play some of the time, both of us want to get out golfing as often as time allows.
Sometimes, having a hobby with the wife is a good choice as well.
LOL, just get your wife interested in golf, it worked for me.
Now she's the one asking if we're golfing tonight, and the weekend golfing is a given.
Can't help you with the hookers or the fishing boat though. You're on your own there.
I think in this case, people are pointing out their conclusions also apply to free software.
I don't believe the BSA is suddenly saying free software is good for the economy, that's someone else's conclusions.
And the answer never changes -- incompetence and laziness.
We all know you shouldn't have your critical infrastructure on the web, but that never really seems to change anything.
And if Britain allows people to shop around for jurisdictions which will allow such stupidity, then Britain's lawmakers are morons.
If none of this took place in Britain, there should be a point where they simply say "this isn't a case for a British court".
For the same reasons people get earrings, tattoos, or pretty much other body art... either they want it because they like it and like the look of it, or they want it because it's trendy to do so.
Kinda like why people go straight for the full sleeves and neck tattoos. Whereas the people who have been quietly getting tattooed for years are just sort of wondering if these kids have really thought this through.
I can go into the office and nobody will know I've got tats, but I see a lot of kids go straight for the most visible tattoo they can think of. When I see an 18 year old with the New York Yankees logo tattooed on their neck, I feel a little bad for them. Because, like it or not, people will judge them on it.
And, to your specific question, I believe the pierced nipples gives you increased sensitivity, and something interesting for your partner to play with.
Was thinking the same thing. Used to be you kept your secure stuff on a network with an air-gap between it and the rest of the world.
Given how many stories we've been seeing about these hacking attempts, to have those machines accessible from the outside network means people haven't been paying attention.
Given that you still can't export some software due to encryption, to have the plans for these kinds of things be something hackers can get into is a pretty stunning failure.
And, what games can you get on your Ubuntu laptop? Tuxracer?
Because it seems to me that while you might indeed have better specs, your choices of games would be much smaller.
You're not getting any of the big game titles, so are you ending up with a better gaming setup with shittier games? At which point, is that actually an improvement?
I'll stay away from your Godwinning, but at the very least I'd call the hypocrites.
So, killing animals is bad, and it's OK to essentially assault people to protest fur, but point out they're euthanizing most of their animals a la Kevorkian, and they want to sue?
As TFA points out, the truth is always a defense against libel claims. They might not like the negative characterization, but it doesn't change the fact that they're killing these animals.
But given their extreme and inflexible stance, it's a little bit rich to want to sue someone for saying "PETA are animal killers, they just don't want you to know".
Also in Canada, but mine gives me about 50GB of downstream data before they start charging extra. And this is Rogers, so we're not talking about one of the smaller players.
In the surprisingly widespread reality in which people don't play on-line games and don't care about on-line content.
The current XBox can be ran just fine without a network connection, and just because you can't imagine a world in which people do that, it doesn't mean that a lot of us don't do it. Of the people I know who own XBoxes now, almost none of them use any on-line features or even have their XBox connected to the network, and they don't even have accounts on XBox Live.
Mine got disconnected from the network the first time I saw ads in both the home screen and in games last fall, and it will never be connected again.
So unless you happen to have very exact stats on what percentage of XBox owners don't use the on-line stuff, you're speaking out of your butt. Because I can tell you a lot of people right now don't connect them to the network -- right now, they don't need to unless they play on-line games. Microsoft is changing that and saying we will need to connect to the network if we want to use this box at all.
How do you envision that happening? You think MS and the publishers will lower prices for us because they're now charging for used games? No, they'll keep the prices high and look to pad out their bottom line. They're not going to lower prices, they'll keep 'em high and maximize profits.
A friend has had a few of my games for several months now -- and to date, it's been none of Microsoft's business. If they insist on changing that, they'll get sales from neither of us.
I will not be buying THIS game console, specifically because of this crap with the network.
Microsoft, obviously, won't give a shit that I'm not buying this. But they might discover that quite a few people have decided they don't want this set of features.
They want to become central to my entertainment experience -- but they can keep hoping. What you say people should just get over, I say I will not even consider buying this because it's stuff I don't want, and it lets Microsoft have more control over how I use game consoles now.
And, quite frankly, since it offers me nothing but losing some rights and putting up with more of their crap, they can keep the damned thing. Other than DRM, and the ability for them to collect my information and sell ads on my screen, there isn't a single reason why this is any better for me.
I fear if they're going to start off assuming all of this extra power in the cloud, they might be unplayable within the first 15 days.
This just screams as something which is going to experience major problems on day 1, and will leave loads of people without a usable system.
I have no interest in having my games handled in the cloud, and I definitely won't be getting an XBox which wants access the network as it sees fit -- I tried that once, got ads in games for my trouble, and subsequently disconnected it from the network.
This whole console sounds like a non-starter to me and anybody else who doesn't want what Microsoft is envisioning. It's either capable of being a stand-alone box which isn't networked, or it isn't getting bought. And from the sounds of it, it's the latter.
But if Microsoft thinks I want their product to be my entertainment hub of the future, they're grossly mistaken.
But, sadly, the lawmakers will still do what they've been paid to do by these lobbyists, and the US has increasingly set themselves up to pin their future on copyright and all other forms of IP. They simply can't afford to do anything different now.
So I fear they're going to keep pushing from their end as hard as they can. Eventually, I'm pretty sure they're going to want every general purpose computer to be built in such a way that they have control over it.
Yes, the lawmakers who keep passing the laws they ask for.
Sadly, if the lawmakers were targeted, it would come under lots of federal laws, and they might decide they need to allow this.
But the guys proposing this? Absolutely.
So they basically want the right to maliciously hack and damage other people's computers on their belief that someone is stealing from them.
No court, no proof, just what they believe. So they want to be judge, jury, and executioner.
OK Anonymous, there's your targets. Each one of the people who contributed to this report are now fair game. Since they've decided it should be their right to hack us, they're now perfect valid targets. Their families, bank accounts, and mistresses are good starting points.
What a bunch of douchebags. These guys would have us undercut all of computer security to give them special access to enforce their claims without oversight, and in the process, they'd probably make most computers far less secure.
If these guys want the right to commit what would be crimes for anyone else, then I suggest they don't deserve a whole lot of consideration.
This is shameful, and I really hope the lawmakers tell them a big "no friggin' way".
Wow, you should be careful, that could lead to the Blue Balls of Death and could seriously impair your uptime. ;-)
I have no idea how committed they were to this particular model, I didn't get the memo, but they sure as hell better commit to something which is going to work for them:
Making a product which everyone has decided they don't want isn't how you succeed in the long run. That's the sign of a company in its death throws.
If people are leaving like rats on a sinking ship, you only get so many more chances to do something which works. I can only assume this is likely to turn into a costly mistake.
More importantly, what does the Facebook platform bring to the table beyond their existing app?
My perception of this was to basically ensure Facebook gets even more of your personal information, since the TOS likely grants them a perpetual license to your data.
Somehow, HTC decided to play along. Now they're the ones making a phone nobody seems interested in buying. This is kinda like Nokia pinning their company future on Windows phones -- if nobody bought them, it was Nokia left holding the bag.
Well, we can expand it to cover everyone if you prefer -- e-Q, Q 2.0, social-Q, cloud-Q ...
Ever delivered something which met the formal requirements and had them say "well, that's not what we wanted"?
There is often an unbelievable disconnect between what users tell you they want versus what they actually really really wanted but had no idea until it was too late.
End users will often help you design unusable software which is exactly what they asked for.
That's eye-Q, not IQ. :-P
Please, the presence of a checkbox which says don't ask me again doesn't signify anything useful.
Out of the box, IE more or less says "you are about to access the internet now, are you sure?" unless you check the damned box.
And why it's so easy for shitware like the ask.com toolbar to end up on systems.
People got used to thinking "oh, crap, I just need to keep clicking next until it finally installs". Now you need to check every page of the install to be sure that installing someone's toolbar or whatever isn't checked by default (which it always is).
People either start ignoring the warnings, or stop caring what they say and click next anyway.
Who is the target market for your product?
If it's for Joe Sixpack, and he might metaphorically poke out an eye with it, then maybe.
If it's for system admins and the like who neither need nor want training wheels, not so much.
You certainly can expose too much functionality to people who shouldn't have it. But you can also make something useless to the people who actually do need to do it.