After it finishes recording a program, it scans through the tape and seems to mark where it thinks the commercials are. On playback, it skips right over the commercials, and I see a blue screen for a couple of seconds.
...
Is Replay really that different?
I'll admit, no. Replay is no different in the commercial-skip request. Replay IS different in this respect, in my opinion:
A VCR allows you to lend/copy/give tapes to your friends.
If you lend a VHS tape to a friend, you can no longer watch it until you give it back . If you copy a tape and then give it to a friend, there is a little bit of degeneration on the picture. Replay's give perfect digital copies every time, and you can still watch it.
I'm not saying I agree with the Network's decision to get all sue happy, but this is their reasoning.
I just really hope that we don't start having commercials on the bottom of the screen during shows because nobody watches the commercials anymore. (I think Oxygen already does this?) Of course then, the new Replay's will probably have a feature where you can crop out the bottom part of the screen.:>
The reason that I see them suing Replay and not TiVo is because of the 30 second skip, and it is different than a fast forward button.
When I fast forward at the highest speed with my TiVo, I STILL SEE THE COMMERCIALS. Granted, I only see them for one second instead of 30, but I still see it. And every once in a while one catches my eye and I stop and actually watch it at a slower fast forward speed.
The Replay box skips them alltogether - your eyes don't even see the commercial for a second. That's why Replay is affected, and not TiVo.
Educate yourselves without asking questions?
on
Bert Is Evil
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I continue to be shocked by the short-sightedness of most Americans when it comes to international affairs. Was someone really so surprised by the revelation that kids in Afghanistan don't watch the same TV shows as kids in Iowa that they moderated that comment Insightful?
Citizens of a democracy have a responsibility to educate themselves. Citizens of a democracy that bombs other countries have a responsibility to educate themselves about those other countries. Americans, please get a clue about the rest of the world before it's too late.
Sarcasm On
Yes, everybody. Be sure to educate yourselves on the other countries.
However, asking questions trying to educate yourselves on the other country is NOT a valid way to educate yourself. You should know it all before asking any questions.
sarcasm off
I felt that the question asked (do they get PBS) was a VERY valid question that I was even asking myself. Just because you know all the answers doesn't mean that everybody else does.
When I graduated back in December of 1999, it took me a long time to find a job. I had made the mistake of thinking that taking summer classes were better than interning with a company in the summer. Whoops!
The funniest thing was, I interviewed with a company for an ENTRY LEVEL JAVA position - I had helped TEACH a class on Java at my Uni, I had been programming with it on my own for three or four years (I coded instead of going out to bars at night)...
...And I was told that I was "too entry level" for the entry level position. The fact that I didn't make a dime from my Java coding meant that I had no experience - even though I'd probably been programming in it longer than he had.
It took me seven months and nine days (yes, I counted) from graduation day to getting an offer letter from a company who was willing to "take a chance" on a recent graduate. The best thing I did was I had some cheezy little programs on my website (one of them was a Java Yahtzee applet I made in a class) and that proved to the interviewer that I COULD code...My boss still plays that game today sometimes, and he's given me a bug list of things to fix.:)
So, don't give up hope. If you need to, get a job at a retail store while you look to help with some of the costs. And, be yourself in the interview. The irony of the job I was actually given an offer for was the one job I _KNEW_ I wasn't gonna get (it was my 30th interview, I was set up for disappointment) so I wasn't all uptight - and they wound up giving me an offer the next day.
And then, once you get a few years experience, you'll be fine for the rest of your life. Hopefully.
Re:Has the X-Box EVER worked?
on
XBox Delayed
·
· Score: 1
Wansn't there one with some large and lound fans hidden on the back side?
There might have been - I must not have looked too closely to see it. I do remember seeing the design of the box, but I never saw a WORKING X-Box. All of the demos on the show floor had the console nicely hidden.
Has the X-Box EVER worked?
on
XBox Delayed
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
When one of the X-Box consoles running Halo went out at E3, there was an RCA box behind the glass that the Microsoft people went to reset - so I don't even know if there's a working X-Box in existence.
The other funny thing is, I went into E3 expecting to be blown away by the X-Box and go ho-hum at the Gamecube...And I went out being blown away by the Gamecube and going ho-hum at the X-Box. (Personal opinion.)
I saw the game at E3 for the past two years, and I dare say that it was the most anticipated game of the next year in my personal opinion. It wasn't SimCity, it wasn't The Sims. It was a mix, sort of. It had some cool concepts.
But, if it wasn't that good behind the scenes (they only show the best stuff at E3), then I applaud Maxis for not releasing it. That's why I stand behind Maxis and their products - even if it is a dissapointment that they cancel something.
So, bottom line, yeah I'm disappointed (as I have been waiting for the game for about 2 years now) but it's not the end of the world - and it sounds like I would have been more disappointed come February 2002.
Funcom was having database issues on their forums which were temporarily eating posts. But after I read the.plan I went over there to look, and lo and behold his thread was there getting bumped to high heaven.
You can use the software all you want. You just can't connect to Sony's servers that you paid $9.89/mo to access if you don't agree to the terms. Nothing's stopping you from connecting the client to a hacked server that doesn't have 1/100th of the funcitonality of Sony's servers.
I have no obligation to you or Sony to maintain the playability of the game. I paid my $10/month, I can do whatever I want with my character. If you don't like it, band together and kill me. Or, move to a different server. Or host another server. Or have Sony put in NPC's that kill campers. Whatever the fsck you want to do, but don't whine that I'm ruining the "playability" of the game for you, and therefore should be stripped of my rights. That's ridiculous.
BTW, I do not, have not, and never will play EverQuest or any Internet MP game because of campers and people who have just WAY too much time to play these games. That is my choice...I suggest you make the same.
As far as scammers go, Sony should just flat-out refuse to take any part in it. Perhaps a link on the webpage/game server to existing contract/fraud laws for victims to pursue on their own time. Don't blame me for Son't inept handling of the situation.
Here goes my karma, but since you've never played the game, you wouldn't know that everything you suggested here is impossible to do in EverQuest. Can't PK people unless you're on one of the 3 servers that allow it, can't change servers (due to people selling characters on eBay) and you can't set up your own server because the people who write the emulated servers haven't gotten good enough to actually put any NPC's in there. This isn't Neverwinter Nights or Diablo II - Sony runs all 35 servers currently operational.
Sony does refuse to take part of it, but people have put pressure upon Sony to do something about the situation. So now they have.
I'd like that solution, personally, but I do not play on a server which allows for PvP combat. Only 3 of the 35 servers would allow for this type of solution.
Unfortunately the only way to beat them is to get more people and try to outdamage him when he tries to take the kill. But many farmers utilize spell nukes which would outdamage 6 people because they're uber and we're not.:(
On this one, I'm with Sony. I've been an avid EQ player since about a month after it went public, and I've seen the trend that is going on here.
What happens is that people who are level 35-40 in the game are camping areas that are for level 15-20 players in order to get the PH4T L3WT to sell on eBay. So, I can't play the game because someone else has quit his job to sit in an area where I'd like to be and is "stealing my kills" because he can make a buck.
This happened to me once, he got the item, and he said "I'll sell it to ya for $50."
And you can probably say "well why don't you move to another area?" I would, but there's an ebayer at every nice area of the game.
What has happened is that it's not the fact that they're selling it, but the "eBay Farmers" have taken up all of the locations of these items so THE ONLY WAY TO GET THEM IS TO BUY THEM ON EBAY.
You cannot quest for these items, you cannot kill the creature that has the item anymore, you MUST buy it from an eBay person. Is that really fair?
Also what happens, is that people will get scammed. They'll send the money to the person on eBay, and then the person will give them an item that looks the same as the one they bought, but really wasn't. Then, they either petition the in-game customer service Guides or call Sony to say "this person scammed me, get me the item I rightfully paid for on eBay!" There are many times that the in-game CS would be so tied up with people being scammed from eBay that they weren't helping the people that truly needed it.
So, the Slashdot crowd may say "It's their right to sell it! Down with The Man!" but it really makes it impossible to PLAY EverQuest, since you must BUY the items over eBay that you should have gotten playing since the people selling on eBay won't let you play the game it was intended to so they can make a quick buck.
I'm open to critisisms on what I said, so if there's something I'm missing here, please reply. I'm sure the flames will come soon.:)
Not that I'm all for Nazi paraphanelia, but this just brings up something that's interesting to note.
Pretty soon we won't be able to have a "World Wide Web", because there will be something everywhere that violates a law in some other country. I'm sure the sight of an American flag could violate a law in some country we don't know about, should we no longer have websites that have an American flag on it just because it violates the law in that country?
Now, if you read the legalese, it says that Yahoo.com must do everything IN IT'S POWER to block the French from it's site. It doesn't say that it MUST BLOCK ALL FRENCH. So all they need to do is to block the.fr domain and then boom, they've done everything in their power. (They also should take away the "research further on yahoo.com" link that the legalese mentions.)
If we're so anti-censorship, why aren't there naked chicks on prime-time network TV in America?
Now, granted, this probably isn't anywhere CLOSE, but Sony has already gone into amateur Playstation programming with their "Net Yaroze" deal. It was about a $600 product with a sleek black Playstation, two black controllers, two black memory cards, and a PC devkit. It had about two megs of RAM that you could store a game created on the devkit (no textures or FMV's, obviously) and you could upload it to their website (which no longer exists, it seems). It was discontinued in the US for lack of support, but the Japanese version is still alive and kicking, and they have yearly contests.
I would have killed to have had the money back then for one of those.:> I wonder how much functionality this BASIC thing will have. Probably not nearly as much.
Still, I feel like killing my friend in the UK and taking his YABasic.:>
The US systems do not need the memory card for the DVD driver - it's built into the system. In Japan you needed one, but that was also when a memory card was packaged with the system.
I was one of the crazy's who sat in line (well, not really, I was the only one there for 3 hours) to get one of these on the 26th. Skipped the second half of the day from work (I was "sick" from exhaustion from being up all night, cough cough) and took it home to find that the CD Drive doesn't spin or the CD Laser isn't connected to the motherboard correctly. (In either case, I put a CD in and nothing happens. I can do everything else, though.)
Spent 30-45 minutes with Sony tech support, and they're sending me an airbill and I'm sending my PS2 to Fremont, CA (from Atlanta) and 10-14 days later they'll send me back.
All in all, I'll get it back in 4-6 weeks.
So, yes, it's a disappointment, because I didn't sit in line all night to get a system on Christmas day. Right now it's a $600 paperweight (after buying all the games and accessories) sitting on my dining room table.
Since I'm sure that Kalisto members are all around the globe, it's probably a better idea to say "Hey, you got us, we admit it. We'll call off the dogs if you'll accept these stock options."
Look at it this way, for those who think that they won't accept the options - if they absolutely hated the Dreamcast do you think they'd be making the ISO's in the first place? It takes TIME to rip a Dreamcast game. (It's not cut and dry due to the GD-ROM encoding.)
But, don't worry, other groups have stepped up to the plate to keep the scene alive.
The MPAA has begun to contract out brain surgeons to figure out how to implement copy protection devices into the brain of human beings.
"The reasoning is simple," says a spokesman of the MPAA. "Say Joe goes to the movie theatre and pays his hard-earned $10 to see a movie. He then goes to his friend Bob and tells him the entire plot of the movie, start to finish. Bob has now been enriched with the storytelling of the movie without paying a cent. Bob, therefore, has an illegal copy of the experience in his brain."
The MPAA has contracted out BigBrotherInYourBrain, Inc. to develop the copy protection devices. "The device is simple," stated Dr. Reginald Buttplug. "While viewing a copy protected movie, undetectible waves will be emitted and picked up by our chip. During the time that the chip is active, every thought and experience will be treated as normal. However, when the movie is over and the waves stop, the chip will force the brain to 'forget' everything that occured during that time."
"This is the next step into stopping the community from stealing our products," said the MPAA spokesman. "It is atrocious how many people copy our stories via their brain functions. We estimate that it has cost the movie industry millions of dollars in unspent ticket money."
Of course, having this implant is not manditory. However, movie theatres will not admit anyone not carrying an identification card stating that they have successfully completed the procedure.
Expect these to hit the airwaves Real Soon Now(TM).
(My karma was too high. I needed to get it down somehow.)
I have to ask this, because it's been bugging me for a while. What's the point to doing this? So Verant doesn't get their $10/month?
Yes, you already paid for the game in the box. However, there is still maintenence in the game, plus there are paid GM's that handle customer service issues, there are servers/bandwidth they need to maintain, etc. It costs a lot of money to host a game with 200,000 players. I guess they're just supposed to foot the bill for all those T1/T3/whatever connections, huh? Maybe they should just sell the game for an extraordinarily high amount of money, and not charge at all per month.
The other thing people say is "EverQuest is running a monopoly." No they're not. Sure, Verant is the only company that can host EverQuest servers, but they are definately not a monopoly. There's Ultima Online and Asheron's Call that are in the same genre. There are a bunch of games in development (Horizon, Atriarch, etc) that are in the same genre of EverQuest. Verant is not trying to stop other companies from making MMORPG's, but they are trying to stop people from running EVERQUEST SERVERS. I don't see at all what the problem is here. If someone can explain it to me better (I'm sure I'm not understanding something correctly) PLEASE tell me.
Personally, I'd like to know, so that if I do wind up doing a client/server thing like this, if it's legal to get an insulted slap-in-the-face when some hacker decides that I (the creator) am not worthy of running it.
I've seen kids many times that have ADD, and can't keep their mind focused on anything. However, sit them in front of Final Fantasy and they won't stop playing.
It's because videogames have the imagery of being FUN. Now, if we could use this knowledge and have the ADD kids use edutainment that has the imagery of being FUN, they can learn just as fast, if not faster, than the other kids.
Some people I've known with ADD are really smart. Even I have a very mild case of ADD. Make something fun, and we'll pay attention.
I mean, it might cost the place more money, but maybe having someone there and walking around just to make sure there's no boobies on the monitor. I don't know if this place is 24 hours or not, but it might be good to have during peak hours to have someone at least glimpsing.
One thing they did in high school several years ago when they only had one machine was they had the computer also output to a TV in another area, where they could keep watch on what they were doing.
Also, to quell the fears, that person could help them find some interesting things to do on the net, perhaps have good websites bookmarked. So the glimpser serves two purposes...To kick out anybody doing unwholesome things and to help others find the "joy of the Net".
Remember the kid who had his own website at gumby.com because that was the nickname his parents gave him? And then the corporation that owned the Gumby character tried to take it away from him? Ugh...I also heard about a Quake player who's handle was Sting get harrased by the musician Sting for the rights over sting.com. (Sting is not the official name of the musician, either, so it didn't hold up in court.)
What's next? Kids' names? We can't name our kids the same thing a political figure or a movie superstar is named? "No, you can't name your child Newt." (Who would want to name their kid Newt anyway?)
This could be abused. If you don't like someone's website, trademark their website's name or just something close to it and shut it down. Granted, something like a guy making "\ Dotmark", a school supplies company (markers, crayons, etc) won't take down Slashdot, but if Slashdot wasn't trademarked, they could use WIPO to say that Slashdot.org was too close to the tradename of "\ Dotmark" and transfer ownership.
Just about everybody that I have spoken to who has Linux installed, has it dual-booted with Windows. Because of this, the number will show them growing the same, because many casual users (not all) have both the Windows and a Linux OS on the same machine.
These numbers don't show what's used more, it's just showing what's been bought and installed.
The newsgroups will only allow so many lines, I believe...So they have many utilities which will break up 20 meg posts into 93 parts, and then piece them together later...
But with other services that do the same thing, who will use this?
Slashdot Mirror
After it finishes recording a program, it scans through the tape and seems to mark where it thinks the commercials are. On playback, it skips right over the commercials, and I see a blue screen for a couple of seconds.
:>
...
Is Replay really that different?
I'll admit, no. Replay is no different in the commercial-skip request. Replay IS different in this respect, in my opinion:
A VCR allows you to lend/copy/give tapes to your friends.
If you lend a VHS tape to a friend, you can no longer watch it until you give it back . If you copy a tape and then give it to a friend, there is a little bit of degeneration on the picture. Replay's give perfect digital copies every time, and you can still watch it.
I'm not saying I agree with the Network's decision to get all sue happy, but this is their reasoning.
I just really hope that we don't start having commercials on the bottom of the screen during shows because nobody watches the commercials anymore. (I think Oxygen already does this?) Of course then, the new Replay's will probably have a feature where you can crop out the bottom part of the screen.
The reason that I see them suing Replay and not TiVo is because of the 30 second skip, and it is different than a fast forward button.
When I fast forward at the highest speed with my TiVo, I STILL SEE THE COMMERCIALS. Granted, I only see them for one second instead of 30, but I still see it. And every once in a while one catches my eye and I stop and actually watch it at a slower fast forward speed.
The Replay box skips them alltogether - your eyes don't even see the commercial for a second. That's why Replay is affected, and not TiVo.
I continue to be shocked by the short-sightedness of most Americans when it comes to international affairs. Was someone really so surprised by the revelation that kids in Afghanistan don't watch the same TV shows as kids in Iowa that they moderated that comment Insightful?
Citizens of a democracy have a responsibility to educate themselves. Citizens of a democracy that bombs other countries have a responsibility to educate themselves about those other countries. Americans, please get a clue about the rest of the world before it's too late.
Sarcasm On
Yes, everybody. Be sure to educate yourselves on the other countries.
However, asking questions trying to educate yourselves on the other country is NOT a valid way to educate yourself. You should know it all before asking any questions.
sarcasm off
I felt that the question asked (do they get PBS) was a VERY valid question that I was even asking myself. Just because you know all the answers doesn't mean that everybody else does.
When I graduated back in December of 1999, it took me a long time to find a job. I had made the mistake of thinking that taking summer classes were better than interning with a company in the summer. Whoops!
:)
The funniest thing was, I interviewed with a company for an ENTRY LEVEL JAVA position - I had helped TEACH a class on Java at my Uni, I had been programming with it on my own for three or four years (I coded instead of going out to bars at night)...
...And I was told that I was "too entry level" for the entry level position. The fact that I didn't make a dime from my Java coding meant that I had no experience - even though I'd probably been programming in it longer than he had.
It took me seven months and nine days (yes, I counted) from graduation day to getting an offer letter from a company who was willing to "take a chance" on a recent graduate. The best thing I did was I had some cheezy little programs on my website (one of them was a Java Yahtzee applet I made in a class) and that proved to the interviewer that I COULD code...My boss still plays that game today sometimes, and he's given me a bug list of things to fix.
So, don't give up hope. If you need to, get a job at a retail store while you look to help with some of the costs. And, be yourself in the interview. The irony of the job I was actually given an offer for was the one job I _KNEW_ I wasn't gonna get (it was my 30th interview, I was set up for disappointment) so I wasn't all uptight - and they wound up giving me an offer the next day.
And then, once you get a few years experience, you'll be fine for the rest of your life. Hopefully.
There might have been - I must not have looked too closely to see it. I do remember seeing the design of the box, but I never saw a WORKING X-Box. All of the demos on the show floor had the console nicely hidden.
When one of the X-Box consoles running Halo went out at E3, there was an RCA box behind the glass that the Microsoft people went to reset - so I don't even know if there's a working X-Box in existence.
The other funny thing is, I went into E3 expecting to be blown away by the X-Box and go ho-hum at the Gamecube...And I went out being blown away by the Gamecube and going ho-hum at the X-Box. (Personal opinion.)
I saw the game at E3 for the past two years, and I dare say that it was the most anticipated game of the next year in my personal opinion. It wasn't SimCity, it wasn't The Sims. It was a mix, sort of. It had some cool concepts.
But, if it wasn't that good behind the scenes (they only show the best stuff at E3), then I applaud Maxis for not releasing it. That's why I stand behind Maxis and their products - even if it is a dissapointment that they cancel something.
So, bottom line, yeah I'm disappointed (as I have been waiting for the game for about 2 years now) but it's not the end of the world - and it sounds like I would have been more disappointed come February 2002.
Funcom was having database issues on their forums which were temporarily eating posts. But after I read the .plan I went over there to look, and lo and behold his thread was there getting bumped to high heaven.
This is being developed by British set-top box manufacturer Pace Micro Technology in a joint venture with Sega.
Sega getting out of the hardware market just means that THEY won't produce the units - someone else will for them while they provide the chipset.
You can use the software all you want. You just can't connect to Sony's servers that you paid $9.89/mo to access if you don't agree to the terms. Nothing's stopping you from connecting the client to a hacked server that doesn't have 1/100th of the funcitonality of Sony's servers.
Here goes my karma, but since you've never played the game, you wouldn't know that everything you suggested here is impossible to do in EverQuest. Can't PK people unless you're on one of the 3 servers that allow it, can't change servers (due to people selling characters on eBay) and you can't set up your own server because the people who write the emulated servers haven't gotten good enough to actually put any NPC's in there. This isn't Neverwinter Nights or Diablo II - Sony runs all 35 servers currently operational.
Sony does refuse to take part of it, but people have put pressure upon Sony to do something about the situation. So now they have.
I'd like that solution, personally, but I do not play on a server which allows for PvP combat. Only 3 of the 35 servers would allow for this type of solution.
:(
Unfortunately the only way to beat them is to get more people and try to outdamage him when he tries to take the kill. But many farmers utilize spell nukes which would outdamage 6 people because they're uber and we're not.
On this one, I'm with Sony. I've been an avid EQ player since about a month after it went public, and I've seen the trend that is going on here.
:)
What happens is that people who are level 35-40 in the game are camping areas that are for level 15-20 players in order to get the PH4T L3WT to sell on eBay. So, I can't play the game because someone else has quit his job to sit in an area where I'd like to be and is "stealing my kills" because he can make a buck.
This happened to me once, he got the item, and he said "I'll sell it to ya for $50."
And you can probably say "well why don't you move to another area?" I would, but there's an ebayer at every nice area of the game.
What has happened is that it's not the fact that they're selling it, but the "eBay Farmers" have taken up all of the locations of these items so THE ONLY WAY TO GET THEM IS TO BUY THEM ON EBAY.
You cannot quest for these items, you cannot kill the creature that has the item anymore, you MUST buy it from an eBay person. Is that really fair?
Also what happens, is that people will get scammed. They'll send the money to the person on eBay, and then the person will give them an item that looks the same as the one they bought, but really wasn't. Then, they either petition the in-game customer service Guides or call Sony to say "this person scammed me, get me the item I rightfully paid for on eBay!" There are many times that the in-game CS would be so tied up with people being scammed from eBay that they weren't helping the people that truly needed it.
So, the Slashdot crowd may say "It's their right to sell it! Down with The Man!" but it really makes it impossible to PLAY EverQuest, since you must BUY the items over eBay that you should have gotten playing since the people selling on eBay won't let you play the game it was intended to so they can make a quick buck.
I'm open to critisisms on what I said, so if there's something I'm missing here, please reply. I'm sure the flames will come soon.
Not that I'm all for Nazi paraphanelia, but this just brings up something that's interesting to note.
.fr domain and then boom, they've done everything in their power. (They also should take away the "research further on yahoo.com" link that the legalese mentions.)
Pretty soon we won't be able to have a "World Wide Web", because there will be something everywhere that violates a law in some other country. I'm sure the sight of an American flag could violate a law in some country we don't know about, should we no longer have websites that have an American flag on it just because it violates the law in that country?
Now, if you read the legalese, it says that Yahoo.com must do everything IN IT'S POWER to block the French from it's site. It doesn't say that it MUST BLOCK ALL FRENCH. So all they need to do is to block the
If we're so anti-censorship, why aren't there naked chicks on prime-time network TV in America?
Now, granted, this probably isn't anywhere CLOSE, but Sony has already gone into amateur Playstation programming with their "Net Yaroze" deal. It was about a $600 product with a sleek black Playstation, two black controllers, two black memory cards, and a PC devkit. It had about two megs of RAM that you could store a game created on the devkit (no textures or FMV's, obviously) and you could upload it to their website (which no longer exists, it seems). It was discontinued in the US for lack of support, but the Japanese version is still alive and kicking, and they have yearly contests.
:> I wonder how much functionality this BASIC thing will have. Probably not nearly as much.
:>
I would have killed to have had the money back then for one of those.
Still, I feel like killing my friend in the UK and taking his YABasic.
The US systems do not need the memory card for the DVD driver - it's built into the system. In Japan you needed one, but that was also when a memory card was packaged with the system.
I was one of the crazy's who sat in line (well, not really, I was the only one there for 3 hours) to get one of these on the 26th. Skipped the second half of the day from work (I was "sick" from exhaustion from being up all night, cough cough) and took it home to find that the CD Drive doesn't spin or the CD Laser isn't connected to the motherboard correctly. (In either case, I put a CD in and nothing happens. I can do everything else, though.)
Spent 30-45 minutes with Sony tech support, and they're sending me an airbill and I'm sending my PS2 to Fremont, CA (from Atlanta) and 10-14 days later they'll send me back.
All in all, I'll get it back in 4-6 weeks.
So, yes, it's a disappointment, because I didn't sit in line all night to get a system on Christmas day. Right now it's a $600 paperweight (after buying all the games and accessories) sitting on my dining room table.
Since I'm sure that Kalisto members are all around the globe, it's probably a better idea to say "Hey, you got us, we admit it. We'll call off the dogs if you'll accept these stock options."
Look at it this way, for those who think that they won't accept the options - if they absolutely hated the Dreamcast do you think they'd be making the ISO's in the first place? It takes TIME to rip a Dreamcast game. (It's not cut and dry due to the GD-ROM encoding.)
But, don't worry, other groups have stepped up to the plate to keep the scene alive.
The MPAA has begun to contract out brain surgeons to figure out how to implement copy protection devices into the brain of human beings.
"The reasoning is simple," says a spokesman of the MPAA. "Say Joe goes to the movie theatre and pays his hard-earned $10 to see a movie. He then goes to his friend Bob and tells him the entire plot of the movie, start to finish. Bob has now been enriched with the storytelling of the movie without paying a cent. Bob, therefore, has an illegal copy of the experience in his brain."
The MPAA has contracted out BigBrotherInYourBrain, Inc. to develop the copy protection devices. "The device is simple," stated Dr. Reginald Buttplug. "While viewing a copy protected movie, undetectible waves will be emitted and picked up by our chip. During the time that the chip is active, every thought and experience will be treated as normal. However, when the movie is over and the waves stop, the chip will force the brain to 'forget' everything that occured during that time."
"This is the next step into stopping the community from stealing our products," said the MPAA spokesman. "It is atrocious how many people copy our stories via their brain functions. We estimate that it has cost the movie industry millions of dollars in unspent ticket money."
Of course, having this implant is not manditory. However, movie theatres will not admit anyone not carrying an identification card stating that they have successfully completed the procedure.
Expect these to hit the airwaves Real Soon Now(TM).
(My karma was too high. I needed to get it down somehow.)
I have to ask this, because it's been bugging me for a while. What's the point to doing this? So Verant doesn't get their $10/month?
Yes, you already paid for the game in the box. However, there is still maintenence in the game, plus there are paid GM's that handle customer service issues, there are servers/bandwidth they need to maintain, etc. It costs a lot of money to host a game with 200,000 players. I guess they're just supposed to foot the bill for all those T1/T3/whatever connections, huh? Maybe they should just sell the game for an extraordinarily high amount of money, and not charge at all per month.
The other thing people say is "EverQuest is running a monopoly." No they're not. Sure, Verant is the only company that can host EverQuest servers, but they are definately not a monopoly. There's Ultima Online and Asheron's Call that are in the same genre. There are a bunch of games in development (Horizon, Atriarch, etc) that are in the same genre of EverQuest. Verant is not trying to stop other companies from making MMORPG's, but they are trying to stop people from running EVERQUEST SERVERS. I don't see at all what the problem is here. If someone can explain it to me better (I'm sure I'm not understanding something correctly) PLEASE tell me.
Personally, I'd like to know, so that if I do wind up doing a client/server thing like this, if it's legal to get an insulted slap-in-the-face when some hacker decides that I (the creator) am not worthy of running it.
I've seen kids many times that have ADD, and can't keep their mind focused on anything. However, sit them in front of Final Fantasy and they won't stop playing.
It's because videogames have the imagery of being FUN. Now, if we could use this knowledge and have the ADD kids use edutainment that has the imagery of being FUN, they can learn just as fast, if not faster, than the other kids.
Some people I've known with ADD are really smart. Even I have a very mild case of ADD. Make something fun, and we'll pay attention.
I mean, it might cost the place more money, but maybe having someone there and walking around just to make sure there's no boobies on the monitor. I don't know if this place is 24 hours or not, but it might be good to have during peak hours to have someone at least glimpsing.
One thing they did in high school several years ago when they only had one machine was they had the computer also output to a TV in another area, where they could keep watch on what they were doing.
Also, to quell the fears, that person could help them find some interesting things to do on the net, perhaps have good websites bookmarked. So the glimpser serves two purposes...To kick out anybody doing unwholesome things and to help others find the "joy of the Net".
Remember the kid who had his own website at gumby.com because that was the nickname his parents gave him? And then the corporation that owned the Gumby character tried to take it away from him? Ugh...I also heard about a Quake player who's handle was Sting get harrased by the musician Sting for the rights over sting.com. (Sting is not the official name of the musician, either, so it didn't hold up in court.)
What's next? Kids' names? We can't name our kids the same thing a political figure or a movie superstar is named? "No, you can't name your child Newt." (Who would want to name their kid Newt anyway?)
This could be abused. If you don't like someone's website, trademark their website's name or just something close to it and shut it down. Granted, something like a guy making "\ Dotmark", a school supplies company (markers, crayons, etc) won't take down Slashdot, but if Slashdot wasn't trademarked, they could use WIPO to say that Slashdot.org was too close to the tradename of "\ Dotmark" and transfer ownership.
Just about everybody that I have spoken to who has Linux installed, has it dual-booted with Windows. Because of this, the number will show them growing the same, because many casual users (not all) have both the Windows and a Linux OS on the same machine.
These numbers don't show what's used more, it's just showing what's been bought and installed.
The newsgroups will only allow so many lines, I believe...So they have many utilities which will break up 20 meg posts into 93 parts, and then piece them together later...
But with other services that do the same thing, who will use this?