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User: bonch

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  1. Re:Wii Music, Huh? on Nintendo's Miyamoto On Innovation, Wii Ambitions · · Score: 2, Informative

    The MIDI music on the Wii is using sound samples. Sometimes I think people misunderstand what MIDI is. It's just raw music data, and the output can be anything. I haven't heard FM synthesized MIDI in a long time.

  2. Re:No surprise on Age of Conan Servers To Merge, Funcom Sees Layoffs · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    Please, no. Don't do what WoW does. WoW is seriously flawed. It's popular because of slick graphics and controls. It's the Myspace of MMOs.

    In my opinion, Warhammer has already pushed things forward with innovations like Public Quests.

  3. Re:No surprise on Age of Conan Servers To Merge, Funcom Sees Layoffs · · Score: 2, Informative

    Wrath of the Lich King has some neat moments, but it's killed when you start to come across the same "Kill X of Y" quests of the last four years. The game is very imbalanced right now as well. Warlocks are nearly debilitated in damage and survivability, and elemental shamans are hurting. Retribution paladins and arcane mages are dominating the landscape because of their ridiculous burst damage.

    In PvE, Blizzard created redundant buffs between classes so that there is no longer a special reason to bring a certain class. This hurts certain classes in specific encounters. For instance, you mention Malycgos--during the encounter, there is an area-of-effect vortex attack in which only instant heals can be cast. This screws restoration shamans and holy paladins because the priest spell Circle of Healing saves the group.

    What's going to happens is a lot of people are going to hit level 80 and realize there's nothing to do but the same things they did in Burning Crusade--mindlessly grind a dungeon every night or stand around battlemasters waiting in a PvP queue. There isn't actually anything new here once you've played through the 10 levels of Northrend. Sure, you could grind achievements, but that brings me to Warhammer (which they were blatantly ripped off from).

    Warhammer is still doing well and is coming out with a major content patch to include two of the previously cut classes for free. Contrast this to Blizzard who promised Death Knights (and other hero classes) over four years ago and just now got around to it. I have a feeling the WoW playerbase will get restless again in a few months when they've hit the level and content caps and figure out that it's still the same game with repetitive PvE and wildly imbalanced PvP that mostly takes place in little instanced duels. Warhammer is the most fun I've had in an MMO in years. Defending a keep for half an hour is a real rush. At least Mythic is quick to respond to feedback and make changes. Blizzard can take at least six months before addressing obvious class problems that everybody discusses on their official forums. Sometimes it takes years...

    Before you mention Wintergrasp as an example of a new direction for WoW, it's on a two and a half hour timer, and the vehicles are buggy. It's essentially the Spirit Towers from Burning Crusade. Like I said, there's little that is actually new here.

  4. Re:It's no more appropriate than the local library on After Columbine, Eric Holder Advocated Internet "Restrictions" · · Score: 1

    What an odd justification. I don't know about you, but I don't want the government to ever have enough power that it can do and say things it wouldn't normally do. I don't care if it was a decade ago that he said this.

  5. Re:God on Science's Alternative To an Intelligent Creator · · Score: 1

    Well, my thinking is, if there actually is such an entity, it exists outside of physical laws. Thus, it didn't need to be created to exist...or it both exists and doesn't exist...basically, throw all logic out the window because such a being would exist outside of physical constructs like that (and because of that, there will never be scientific evidence for it).

  6. Re:Their fears were justified. on Microsoft Feared Mac Vs. Vista In '05 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If Apple would simply allow their OS to run on generic PCs, Microsoft would have a true competitor.

    Apple makes their money as a hardware vendor. People would just pirate the OS, and everyone else would rather just run Windows on their PCs and have all their apps. Apple would fade away if you were running the company.

    Oh, and the iPhone isn't going anywhere. THAT'S how Apple is taking on Microsoft--invading the mobile market where PCs are inevitably headed. Their laptop sales go up every year, and they have portable media and cell phones.

  7. God on Science's Alternative To an Intelligent Creator · · Score: 3, Interesting

    One of the things that confuses me about this article is its assumption that science is providing an alternative to an intelligent creator. If there are multiple universes, doesn't the question shift to who made the multiple universes? If there are infinite universes, how and why is there an infinity of physical universes existing in the first place? As far back as science goes in describing the origins of things, people will ask, "Okay, but who or what set up the whole process in the first place?" These questions will never be answered and will always exist as long as we do.

    For me, it's weird and disturbing to think there's just this bunch of physical universes here for no reason. It almost feels more illogical that it would exist out of the blue than for there to be something that "made" it all. We'll get better and better at describing the actual physical processes of what created our universe and possibly others, eventually accurately describing the Big Bang and maybe even what came before, but that will always raise the question in my mind, "Great, but I still don't know how or why the hell all these processes are here in the first place! Why is all this stuff here?!" It's a maddening question.

  8. Re:You see?That's what happens when making things on Stallman Unsure Whether Firefox Is Truly Free · · Score: 1

    The BSD sandwich will let you sell a whole new sandwich based on the old recipe if you so choose. It's more freedom and a tastier sandwich.

  9. Re:How are you being restricted? on Stallman Unsure Whether Firefox Is Truly Free · · Score: 0, Troll

    It's amusing just how angry Stallman fanboys get when you criticize their beloved GPL's licensing scheme.

  10. Re:Success is being in the right place at the righ on Success Not Just a Matter of Talent · · Score: 1

    People keep bringing up dos, which did give Microsoft its start..but keep forgetting about windows..which revolutionized the desktop computer industry.

    People bring up DOS because it is what gave Microsoft the distribution platform and cash to ship Windows, itself a really bad clone of MacOS. As for Windows revolutionizing the desktop computer industry...huh? Xerox and Apple handled that over a decade earlier.

    Bill gates had the foresight to know the potential of the IBM contract. This was a very intelligent business move. IBM also needed an OS for their hardware..and MS provided it for them. At the time, it was win-win.

    The contract did not require foresight. It was dumb luck.

    The people in the open source community have been trying for the last 15 years to make a GUI as good as Microsoft windows..and have failed miserably. Even OSX beat them out..and it has only been around for half the time.

    Microsoft has to be doing something right when they can always beat out 1000s of individul programmers hands-down.

    I'm not sure what any of this has to do with the topic other than as flamebait. I am unphased because I don't use an open source desktop.

    The entertainment industry is almost always about who you know..it has nothing to to with knowledge or talent.

    Such applies to every industry, which was my point about Microsoft.

  11. Re:I Just Took A Huge Shit on Stallman Unsure Whether Firefox Is Truly Free · · Score: 1

    Most people are more practical and will use what works, whether or not it fits Stallman's definition of freedom.

  12. Re:I Just Took A Huge Shit on Stallman Unsure Whether Firefox Is Truly Free · · Score: 0, Redundant

    The problem is that the GPL is viral while the BSD license is not.

  13. Re:Success is being in the right place at the righ on Success Not Just a Matter of Talent · · Score: 1

    It's not an excuse from un-successful people. It's a logical conclusion after going back through history and seeing all the people who actually did have superior ideas and talents but never got anywhere because other people were in the right places and times, with the right connections.

    If you think of how our selective memory only remembers a coincidence and forgets all the times the coincidence didn't occur...so it is that many successful people are glorified by our society for their skills while we forget all the more talented people who just weren't as lucky in terms of location and timing. For example, Microsoft's success is due to luck and stupidity on the part of IBM in giving Microsoft a contract, not some amazing level of quality in Microsoft's software or even Bill Gates' business acumen.

    If you want another example, look at the success of Miley Cyrus, who just so happens to be the daughter of Billy Ray Cyrus and thus had the entertainment connections to get a TV show started and a music tour. More talented girls without those connections aren't touring the country right now making millions of dollars.

  14. Re:Charged in Germany anyway on The Trap Set By the FBI For Half Life 2 Hacker · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Assuming you're correct since you don't cite a source, tackling organized piracy is a valid fight against what might be considered a form economic terrorism. I'm talking organized piracy rings, which is what they likely investigated.

    As for who was in charge of their budget, if that was a dig at Republicans, may I remind you that 9/11 was first planned in 1998, and it was under Clinton that we got the DMCA in the first place?

  15. Re:No PC Support... on Review: Gears of War 2 · · Score: 1

    Except that this is no longer true. In fact, most PC games are now console ports.

  16. Piracy killed PC gaming on Review: Gears of War 2 · · Score: 1

    A PC port won't happen. Rampant piracy has done so much damage to PC gaming that developers don't consider it worth the expense. Console gaming is exploding, while PC gaming is hanging on a thread.

  17. Re:knew it had to happen on The Best Fictional Doomsday Devices · · Score: 1

    /. had for long been one of the last holdouts against this type of "journalistic" garbage.

    Since when? I've been coming here since the late 90s, and people have always bashed the story selection.

  18. Re:Big duh on Scientists Discover Proteins Controlling Evolution · · Score: 1

    *whoosh*

  19. Re:I'm still hoping that he was quoted wrong. on Scientists Discover Proteins Controlling Evolution · · Score: 1

    Perhaps he meant to say that mutation is random, not evolution.

  20. Re:Creationist Lexicon on Scientists Discover Proteins Controlling Evolution · · Score: 1

    It will never happen, because humans will always wonder what all this is doing here, and no matter how far back in the process that scientists go in explaining our universe's physical origins, there will always be the question raised--"Okay, but why is it here?"

  21. Re:Trailer Story FAIL on First Trek Film Footage Unveiled · · Score: 4, Funny

    *whoosh*

  22. Re:so? on Windows 7 Benchmarks Show Little Improvement On Vista · · Score: 1

    PC game sales are down...I don't know what else to tell you. They've been down for years, while console game sales are exploding.

  23. Re:so? on Windows 7 Benchmarks Show Little Improvement On Vista · · Score: 1

    One PC game is supposed to prove me wrong? Have you compared sales of PC games to console games in the last few years? It's well-known that PC gaming is a dead market.

  24. Re:so? on Windows 7 Benchmarks Show Little Improvement On Vista · · Score: 1

    I, on the other hand, can't even get Ubuntu to display X on my Dell Dimension 2400 with an Intel video card. Meanwhile, everything from classic XP to Vista x64 run perfectly fine on that hardware.

  25. Re:so? on Windows 7 Benchmarks Show Little Improvement On Vista · · Score: 1

    The difference is that the console doesn't require you to upgrade your hardware to run the damn game. You buy a console for a few hundred, and you're set for the next five years for any game you buy for it.

    PC hardware requirements, coupled with rampant piracy, have killed gaming on that platform. It's a dead horse.