It has been a while since I checked up on the GUI of those distros, but then again, my point is that the typical slashdotter greatly overestimates the computer literacy of the general populace; I have enough trouble explaining the fisher-price interface of Windows to family members. I checked some recent screens and it looks fairly intuitive, aside from the initial installation... but then again, even if it seems intuitive to me, I'm certain that many of the people in my family would find ways to become confused by it.
Iraq is a relatively small country with little military power compared to its access to particularly desireable resources.
China is a 1,300,000,000-strong giant with immense military capability. Now, I would have gladly fought for an actual, worthy ideal, say, liberating China from an oppressive government; however, those that lead my government are not so eager to take on someone their own size, or bigger. Suddenly, logic and reasoning re-enter the equation when confronted with an adversary so behemoth, the logic and reasoning that say war is actually supposed to be a last resort, and diplomacy is a much better idea.
That's "I Have Been Told".:) Yeah, that'll teach me to post without sleep... and to ignore 360 announcements. What can I say? I must do my best to resist the dark side...
Honestly, I want Nintendo to come back on top... it seems like the last couple rounds humbled them a great deal. Humility + developers = good. I like Sony a lot, but it seems like the dept. in charge of the Playstation and its iterations has become the target of greedy execs elsewhere in the company... never good. That, and Kutaragi's lost his marbles. I like where he's going if I just wanted something great for myself, but Sony's got a responsibility, at least in my eyes, to keep Microsoft, the butcher of the art of game making, at bay.
Er, for one thing, the Post fucked the numbers up. The high end 360 is $500, the stripped down version is $400, which if you bothered reading the article, you'd fucking know. Sony's also selling a stripped down model for $500 that still has a hard drive, unlike the 360's "core system". So, uh, let's see: $500~$400 + $250 != $500. Idiot.
Oh, and Sony's online service is free, for at least 5 years I believe, whereas the same Xbox Live service would cost an extra $250, at $50 per year.
"Microsoft predicted on Tuesday it will have 10 million Xbox 360 consoles in the market before Sony launches the PS3. The high-end Xbox 360 sells for $399, but it does not include a built-in high-definition DVD video player that comes with Sony's PS3. Sony plans to sell a premium PS3 model for $599 when it debuts in North America on November 17, and Nintendo has not yet disclosed pricing for Wii."
Uh, I guess the Washington Post can't even count. The stripped down 360 costs $399, the higher-end costs $499 and that's without the HD-DVD. Plus, Sony's online play is free, and MS charges $50 a year for theirs. In fact, the 360's real "high-end" bundle costs $599, remember? All Sony has to do is throw in a couple games and they'd have MS beat already.
I don't think I could count the number of linux gurus I've talked to that praise Nintendo for creating games that are accessible and fun for everyone to play, and then turn right around and complain about linux not penetrating the common at-home user market... and all I can do is blink in astonishment. C'mon guys, would it really kill you to have at least one distro that only required the user to pop it in the CD drive and answer a few simple questions?
Very true, but until the public has the means and the motivation readily available to drastically alter the political structuring in Washington, we really have little choice but to play ball... and that means pick the lesser evil, which is by all my averages and figures, the Democratic party. When we have that requisite level of education and communication in the populace, then and only then should we concentrate our efforts into changing the way the government works. To seriously attempt that now is a waste of effort, and in situations like this, game theory is not something to be taken lightly; even that kind of action will invite destruction, as we learned with Nader, and that destruction will cost lives, lots of them. I believe it was Sun Tzu that first remarked upon the grave and oft-unnoticed villainy of placing one's egotistical, ethical and/or political pride above the good of people.
People need to realize the extent of their actions, particularly in a country as powerful as America, and they need to realize that morals and ethics are the principles for action, not the methods that should be used. That kind of naiveté is reserved solely for philosophical meandering.
That makes it such that politicians have to know what the blithering fuck they're talking about before writing any legislation ever again. Don't know how the hell the internet works, let alone what the fuck forums are used for, (wonder if this applies to the "forums for discussion" that school programs like FirstClass have) but you still want to politically grandstand? Too fucking bad! I should include they have to pay a fine.... and take some classes. Honestly, from what I've heard, many of the politicians in DC have no idea how computers or the internet work. Let me illustrate my point: how simple would it be for the average slashdotter to amend that bill into something that's actually useful, as in, keeps kids from wasting time on MySpace but retains educational material and online journalism? Not hard, right? I swear, I am continually aghast at the utter lack of knowledge of politicians about something so blindingly important.... Sigh.
At some point you can't just keep on reducing this stuff down to metaphors and buzz words and expect a useful understanding of the subjects to magic itself into people's heads, and I'm damn sure that point is well before writing laws.
I've actually had dreams recently about Bush further eroding civil rights continuing to outright ignoring and trying to rewrite the Constitution that made me so angry, I've been awoken by my body suddenly punching at the nearest wall (thank god I'm single right now). The people that run this administration are not only corrupt but neurotic to imagine they're going to get away with this stuff. In fact, I have it on rather good authority (and by authority I mean someone else that's become disillusioned who works at the WH... shhhh) that the reason there's been so much voting fishery is that if the Democrats gain control of both Houses again, there is going to be a decent sized shitstorm when they start firing off real inquiries. I'm not talking conspiracy theories about 9/11, I'm talking about things like the large amounts of "insider trading" that lots of congressmen are engaging in by playing the stock market according to their votes on legislation and good deal of bending the rules (this could be going on at the patent offices too, but haven't heard anything).
There's just a huge fuckton of bad shit that's been snowballing in DC for a while now, and this administration has no idea how to stop it. If real investigations are launched, I can promise you that there is no containment strategy (talking about leaks here, not commies) on the planet that's going ward off this one. Someone's going to crack and spill it all.
If you haven't seen it already, the new real-time trailer for MGS 4 doesn't seem like it needs a Hollywood counterpart. Just tape the in game play and release it on the big screen.:)
Yet again, I can add another reason as to why I don't want MS in the gaming market. I mention this because MS is pushing Vista as the next best thing since sliced bread for gaming (if you haven't heard their nutjob sales reps going "DIRECT X 10 WOOOO!", just do a google search), and I'm sure they'll try to hook it up with the 360. This might be a little off-topic, but they and their "business" tactics need to be kept as far away from the still young gaming industry. You know that as soon as they get a foothold, they'll stop developement and real innovation and use the same strong-arm intimidation to keep developers and distributors in tow. Want to improve the image of games as an art form? Too bad, MS is pushing the same shit in HALO 12.
I'm sorry, did I just hear you right? Disabled people should do everything for themselves? Now, independence and respect is something the unfortunate can be fairly sensitive about, but let's not try and intuit social programs and responsibility by our greedy little selves, mmm? What would you have them do, build all of their wheelchair ramps too? Or shit, how about the wheelchairs themselves? Surely they can handle some factory work.
The first thing I thought of when I saw this was how the Playstation originally overtook the N64: it only had half the graphical capability of the N64, but it and it's games were cheaper and there were lots of them that appealed to many different demographics. Nintendo had the advantage of having more SNES consoles that any competitor's in homes coming into that next-gen battle, and wow, they got beaten to a pulp.
I don't see why Sony thinks it can pull an N64-esque move and price the system like this. What's the point of having a 20 GB hard-drive? Why don't they have a base model with only 5 gigs or something? And for god's sake, rehearse your fucking presentations.
If Nintendo dumps a ton of effort and cash into developing lots of cheap and really fun titles for the Wii and maybe throw in some online play with an option of playing for free with ads or something (and maybe change the bloody name back or to something else) they could easily retake their old throne. I don't think they'd have to worry about the 360 too much. I sense monumental blunders from MS in the near future, including pissing off hardcore gamers with more fees for every little thing on their online feature. That, and the price of the 360 ain't going down folks. That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Yeah, Microsoft can afford to drop such a hardware intensive unit's price with all the shenanigans going on in the EU and Vista and IE. Sure.
And here I was complaining about family time before your post brought me to the disconcerting realization that working those kinds of hours... well, it certainly isn't the kind of lifestyle that gives you ample time enough to put the needed effort into wooing a potential spouse. So I guess I don't have anything to worry about.:) Perhaps game developement companies should just reclassify themselves as a new type of monastery...
I am fairly worried about this kind of thing. I can foresee myself spending as many hours modeling/texturing/animating as possible, and that's all well and good while young and single. I thoroughly enjoy working and taking pride in what I do, and doubleshifts or longer hours a day don't bother me in the least... but what happens when if I get married and have kids? Do game developers allow senior employees to work from home at least some of the time? The last thing I want is to retire and realize I'd missed out on my kids' growing up. That kind of thing isn't just "quality of life", but an essential of life; that kind of thing you can't make up for or get back, very important things that are just plain gone. Hopefully I just worry too much...
Just put them in jail for a while and/or give them community service (extensive) and either keep them away from computers or monitor their computer activity for a set period of time. Too many spammers aren't receiving any kind of punishment at all.
You know, writing code and assuming that an end user somewhere will do the dumbest thing imaginable, but I guess nobody ever imagined the possible effects of collusion between extreme stupidity and cleverness (spammers). I know I'd never would have thought that someone would go to such lengths and spend so much time to barely scrape out a living while pissing off countless hordes of people. How do you go about creating enough international legislation and cooperation to catch these guys without crippling the internet with regulation? Are third world countries even capable of compliance? All I can think of is that we need something on the level of the UN where tech-heavy countries are given jurisdiction over other nations that don't have the resources needed to police these kinds of things in exchange for a fee , or maybe a guarantee that said nation will dedicate x amount of troops to any areas needing occupation to stop civil war or genocide or something. Am I over-reacting here? I just can't help but think that dealing with this problem without any legal consequence for the spammers is just encouraging and allowing them to come up with ways around whatever solution is currently in place.
Eh, or I could be completely off my rocker, and just not competent enough to see a simple and effective method of combating these guys.
I think it's the only area of the internet that would greatly benefit from heavy regulation and cooperation between email providers. This whole attitude of allowing anybody to make an email server and fire off whatever the fuck they want has to go, either forever or until we get more international focus on catching and jailing spammers. Imagine if/. or any other similar site or online forum ran the same way, and just let anyone comment anytime in any amount from anywhere.
I know it'd be tricky to keep someone from getting to much power over the whole situation and gravely misusing it, but something needs to be done in this area.
Sorry, but that is possibly the worst analogy I've ever heard. Stationary and lighters and small shit like that isn't a business you could possibly used FUD campaigning for, so of course Bic isn't going to use FUD tactics through published papers or otherwise, because, well, WTF would they say? "WARNING!! Lots of rain spreading across the midwest, matches won't be enough to light your smokes!!" Or maybe "Caution, consumer! You may die alone and depressed if you don't carry enough pens and paper with you at all times to write down a possible life partner's number when first meeting them!"
Honestly now, I don't mean to offend, but this is a matter of common sense. The reason that those kinds of businesses don't use the kind of ultra-capitalist tactics that security companies use is because they can't. I'm sure some companies have tried it before, but quickly realized that you're not going to scare someone into buying a fuckload of your ultra-durable coffee cups or chairs.
Eh, I just know my dear/.'s been flooded with migrant ms fanboys, at least enough to either balance out modding up or mod me down in spite of other, more sensible mod point spending.
If the ESRB flat out lied and implied that the topless skin was already in the game, whereas this response seems to indicate that the skin was added by 3rd party modders, shouldn't they be filing a lawsuit? I mean, this is pretty much the definition of libel and it's going to hurt Bethesda's sales.
Slashdot Mirror
Not entirely sure what I was thinking. I couldn't sworn that damn thing cost more.
Oh well, earned myself a fine and pointy dunce cap for the day.
It has been a while since I checked up on the GUI of those distros, but then again, my point is that the typical slashdotter greatly overestimates the computer literacy of the general populace; I have enough trouble explaining the fisher-price interface of Windows to family members. I checked some recent screens and it looks fairly intuitive, aside from the initial installation... but then again, even if it seems intuitive to me, I'm certain that many of the people in my family would find ways to become confused by it.
Iraq is a relatively small country with little military power compared to its access to particularly desireable resources.
China is a 1,300,000,000-strong giant with immense military capability. Now, I would have gladly fought for an actual, worthy ideal, say, liberating China from an oppressive government; however, those that lead my government are not so eager to take on someone their own size, or bigger. Suddenly, logic and reasoning re-enter the equation when confronted with an adversary so behemoth, the logic and reasoning that say war is actually supposed to be a last resort, and diplomacy is a much better idea.
That's "I Have Been Told". :) Yeah, that'll teach me to post without sleep... and to ignore 360 announcements. What can I say? I must do my best to resist the dark side...
Honestly, I want Nintendo to come back on top... it seems like the last couple rounds humbled them a great deal. Humility + developers = good. I like Sony a lot, but it seems like the dept. in charge of the Playstation and its iterations has become the target of greedy execs elsewhere in the company... never good. That, and Kutaragi's lost his marbles. I like where he's going if I just wanted something great for myself, but Sony's got a responsibility, at least in my eyes, to keep Microsoft, the butcher of the art of game making, at bay.
This is Konami we're talking about here. Not many other companies with the credibility they have.
Er, for one thing, the Post fucked the numbers up. The high end 360 is $500, the stripped down version is $400, which if you bothered reading the article, you'd fucking know. Sony's also selling a stripped down model for $500 that still has a hard drive, unlike the 360's "core system". So, uh, let's see: $500~$400 + $250 != $500. Idiot.
Oh, and Sony's online service is free, for at least 5 years I believe, whereas the same Xbox Live service would cost an extra $250, at $50 per year.
Uh, I guess the Washington Post can't even count. The stripped down 360 costs $399, the higher-end costs $499 and that's without the HD-DVD. Plus, Sony's online play is free, and MS charges $50 a year for theirs. In fact, the 360's real "high-end" bundle costs $599, remember? All Sony has to do is throw in a couple games and they'd have MS beat already.
After seeing things like the recent real-time trailer for Metal Gear Solid 4, Sony could ask for my left nut and $600, and I'd still go for it.
I don't think I could count the number of linux gurus I've talked to that praise Nintendo for creating games that are accessible and fun for everyone to play, and then turn right around and complain about linux not penetrating the common at-home user market... and all I can do is blink in astonishment. C'mon guys, would it really kill you to have at least one distro that only required the user to pop it in the CD drive and answer a few simple questions?
Very true, but until the public has the means and the motivation readily available to drastically alter the political structuring in Washington, we really have little choice but to play ball... and that means pick the lesser evil, which is by all my averages and figures, the Democratic party. When we have that requisite level of education and communication in the populace, then and only then should we concentrate our efforts into changing the way the government works. To seriously attempt that now is a waste of effort, and in situations like this, game theory is not something to be taken lightly; even that kind of action will invite destruction, as we learned with Nader, and that destruction will cost lives, lots of them.
I believe it was Sun Tzu that first remarked upon the grave and oft-unnoticed villainy of placing one's egotistical, ethical and/or political pride above the good of people.
People need to realize the extent of their actions, particularly in a country as powerful as America, and they need to realize that morals and ethics are the principles for action, not the methods that should be used. That kind of naiveté is reserved solely for philosophical meandering.
That makes it such that politicians have to know what the blithering fuck they're talking about before writing any legislation ever again. Don't know how the hell the internet works, let alone what the fuck forums are used for, (wonder if this applies to the "forums for discussion" that school programs like FirstClass have) but you still want to politically grandstand? Too fucking bad! I should include they have to pay a fine.... and take some classes. Honestly, from what I've heard, many of the politicians in DC have no idea how computers or the internet work. Let me illustrate my point: how simple would it be for the average slashdotter to amend that bill into something that's actually useful, as in, keeps kids from wasting time on MySpace but retains educational material and online journalism? Not hard, right? I swear, I am continually aghast at the utter lack of knowledge of politicians about something so blindingly important.... Sigh.
At some point you can't just keep on reducing this stuff down to metaphors and buzz words and expect a useful understanding of the subjects to magic itself into people's heads, and I'm damn sure that point is well before writing laws.
I've actually had dreams recently about Bush further eroding civil rights continuing to outright ignoring and trying to rewrite the Constitution that made me so angry, I've been awoken by my body suddenly punching at the nearest wall (thank god I'm single right now). The people that run this administration are not only corrupt but neurotic to imagine they're going to get away with this stuff. In fact, I have it on rather good authority (and by authority I mean someone else that's become disillusioned who works at the WH... shhhh) that the reason there's been so much voting fishery is that if the Democrats gain control of both Houses again, there is going to be a decent sized shitstorm when they start firing off real inquiries. I'm not talking conspiracy theories about 9/11, I'm talking about things like the large amounts of "insider trading" that lots of congressmen are engaging in by playing the stock market according to their votes on legislation and good deal of bending the rules (this could be going on at the patent offices too, but haven't heard anything).
There's just a huge fuckton of bad shit that's been snowballing in DC for a while now, and this administration has no idea how to stop it. If real investigations are launched, I can promise you that there is no containment strategy (talking about leaks here, not commies) on the planet that's going ward off this one. Someone's going to crack and spill it all.
If you haven't seen it already, the new real-time trailer for MGS 4 doesn't seem like it needs a Hollywood counterpart. Just tape the in game play and release it on the big screen. :)
Yet again, I can add another reason as to why I don't want MS in the gaming market. I mention this because MS is pushing Vista as the next best thing since sliced bread for gaming (if you haven't heard their nutjob sales reps going "DIRECT X 10 WOOOO!", just do a google search), and I'm sure they'll try to hook it up with the 360. This might be a little off-topic, but they and their "business" tactics need to be kept as far away from the still young gaming industry. You know that as soon as they get a foothold, they'll stop developement and real innovation and use the same strong-arm intimidation to keep developers and distributors in tow. Want to improve the image of games as an art form? Too bad, MS is pushing the same shit in HALO 12.
I am beyond pissed. I can't say any more. God dammit.
I'm sorry, did I just hear you right? Disabled people should do everything for themselves? Now, independence and respect is something the unfortunate can be fairly sensitive about, but let's not try and intuit social programs and responsibility by our greedy little selves, mmm? What would you have them do, build all of their wheelchair ramps too? Or shit, how about the wheelchairs themselves? Surely they can handle some factory work.
Jerk-off...
The first thing I thought of when I saw this was how the Playstation originally overtook the N64: it only had half the graphical capability of the N64, but it and it's games were cheaper and there were lots of them that appealed to many different demographics. Nintendo had the advantage of having more SNES consoles that any competitor's in homes coming into that next-gen battle, and wow, they got beaten to a pulp.
I don't see why Sony thinks it can pull an N64-esque move and price the system like this. What's the point of having a 20 GB hard-drive? Why don't they have a base model with only 5 gigs or something? And for god's sake, rehearse your fucking presentations.
If Nintendo dumps a ton of effort and cash into developing lots of cheap and really fun titles for the Wii and maybe throw in some online play with an option of playing for free with ads or something (and maybe change the bloody name back or to something else) they could easily retake their old throne. I don't think they'd have to worry about the 360 too much. I sense monumental blunders from MS in the near future, including pissing off hardcore gamers with more fees for every little thing on their online feature. That, and the price of the 360 ain't going down folks. That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Yeah, Microsoft can afford to drop such a hardware intensive unit's price with all the shenanigans going on in the EU and Vista and IE. Sure.
And here I was complaining about family time before your post brought me to the disconcerting realization that working those kinds of hours... well, it certainly isn't the kind of lifestyle that gives you ample time enough to put the needed effort into wooing a potential spouse. So I guess I don't have anything to worry about. :) Perhaps game developement companies should just reclassify themselves as a new type of monastery...
I am fairly worried about this kind of thing. I can foresee myself spending as many hours modeling/texturing/animating as possible, and that's all well and good while young and single. I thoroughly enjoy working and taking pride in what I do, and doubleshifts or longer hours a day don't bother me in the least... but what happens when if I get married and have kids? Do game developers allow senior employees to work from home at least some of the time? The last thing I want is to retire and realize I'd missed out on my kids' growing up. That kind of thing isn't just "quality of life", but an essential of life; that kind of thing you can't make up for or get back, very important things that are just plain gone. Hopefully I just worry too much...
Just put them in jail for a while and/or give them community service (extensive) and either keep them away from computers or monitor their computer activity for a set period of time. Too many spammers aren't receiving any kind of punishment at all.
You know, writing code and assuming that an end user somewhere will do the dumbest thing imaginable, but I guess nobody ever imagined the possible effects of collusion between extreme stupidity and cleverness (spammers). I know I'd never would have thought that someone would go to such lengths and spend so much time to barely scrape out a living while pissing off countless hordes of people. How do you go about creating enough international legislation and cooperation to catch these guys without crippling the internet with regulation? Are third world countries even capable of compliance? All I can think of is that we need something on the level of the UN where tech-heavy countries are given jurisdiction over other nations that don't have the resources needed to police these kinds of things in exchange for a fee , or maybe a guarantee that said nation will dedicate x amount of troops to any areas needing occupation to stop civil war or genocide or something. Am I over-reacting here? I just can't help but think that dealing with this problem without any legal consequence for the spammers is just encouraging and allowing them to come up with ways around whatever solution is currently in place.
Eh, or I could be completely off my rocker, and just not competent enough to see a simple and effective method of combating these guys.
I think it's the only area of the internet that would greatly benefit from heavy regulation and cooperation between email providers. This whole attitude of allowing anybody to make an email server and fire off whatever the fuck they want has to go, either forever or until we get more international focus on catching and jailing spammers. Imagine if /. or any other similar site or online forum ran the same way, and just let anyone comment anytime in any amount from anywhere.
I know it'd be tricky to keep someone from getting to much power over the whole situation and gravely misusing it, but something needs to be done in this area.
Sorry, but that is possibly the worst analogy I've ever heard. Stationary and lighters and small shit like that isn't a business you could possibly used FUD campaigning for, so of course Bic isn't going to use FUD tactics through published papers or otherwise, because, well, WTF would they say? "WARNING!! Lots of rain spreading across the midwest, matches won't be enough to light your smokes!!" Or maybe "Caution, consumer! You may die alone and depressed if you don't carry enough pens and paper with you at all times to write down a possible life partner's number when first meeting them!"
Honestly now, I don't mean to offend, but this is a matter of common sense. The reason that those kinds of businesses don't use the kind of ultra-capitalist tactics that security companies use is because they can't. I'm sure some companies have tried it before, but quickly realized that you're not going to scare someone into buying a fuckload of your ultra-durable coffee cups or chairs.
Eh, I just know my dear /.'s been flooded with migrant ms fanboys, at least enough to either balance out modding up or mod me down in spite of other, more sensible mod point spending.
If the ESRB flat out lied and implied that the topless skin was already in the game, whereas this response seems to indicate that the skin was added by 3rd party modders, shouldn't they be filing a lawsuit? I mean, this is pretty much the definition of libel and it's going to hurt Bethesda's sales.