Because these guys act like a bank in that once you pay them off, they are are out of your hair for good. Investors -- they stick around, can take control from you and even remove you from the company.
Frankly, I think it's better to get that loan that become some Angel Investor's Bitch.
I wonder how much this company would have given young Steve Jobs -- a long haired Liberal Arts College drop out back from an Ashram stinking of Patchouli or Bill Gates, another drop out, but from a substantially more well regarded school.
Sorry, but good grades from big name schools does not equal stellar success. We see time and time again that it's the "unlikely underdog" or the free thinker not bound by mainstream convention that has what it takes to be the "upstart" that sets any entrenched industry or paradigm on it's ear. Not the "I got straight A's and was on the honor roll all my life and went to the best schools" type who are more often than not so beholden to established conventions that shaking up anything or taking really big risks would seem unthinkable, if not outright terrifying.
So would the guy who can't afford to go to a big name college or any college at all, didn't get those A's but has the creativity and drive to truly make something happen "if only he had enough money to get by on while he created it" even have a snow balls chance in hell with these guys.
I think probably not. That person would be seen as too risky, and having no "metrics" to indicate success. And that's the problem -- how can we quantify creative genius and identify the next Steve Jobs or Bill Gates?
Amazon deciding to stop selling your product should be ringing alarm bells and costing EA a small fortune in lost revenue.
The only alarm bells that will be ringing over at EA is that Amazon is full of libelous astro-turfers from "the competition" and internet trolls who are jelly of EA's success. The "poor sales" will be seen as a sign that their new-angled DRM is working since most people are Pirates and can't handle their masterful security scheme.
Perhaps you'd understand a bit better if he'd had said the same thing about having a "nagger as a president"? What you've really said is that in your mind gays don't deserve any show of support against DISCRIMINATION BY RABID BIGGOTS.
Funny how Card can go on about the injustice of seing Enders Game constantly being put on banned book lists by "Mormon hating Christian Fundies" but is such an open and vocal biggotry against homosexuals.
Frankly, Card can go fuck himself. Calling for the overthrow of the government to force biggotry on all of us, is just plain fascist. I think we should imprison this asshole for sedition.
UNtil now I was looking forward to seeing the upcoming Enders Game movie - now the idea makes me feel sick. I don't want to support the works of a vocal biggot who is calling for waging war on the American Government and people who want an open and free society.
Well, maybe you aren't as social as me. I have many PSN friends who I play with and we like to share in-game loot while we chat and kill things.
And I liked the weapons building -- having seen it first in Dead Island, and seeing it made more freeform in Deadspace 3. I hope Dead Island: Riptide (not an EA Title) rips EA off in return and incorporates the build your own weapon feature.
In my experience, all my friends have tried sharing guns with me at some point only to find they can no longer share, or just can't share. It took some doing to figure out why.
Funny how they ADVERTISED "Blueprint Sharing" on their packaging and in their Demo and how they offer a "trophy" for creating and sharing a blueprint.
EA made this feature a major selling point, and regardless of wether or not you use is, others do. And it's clearly broken.
ohh --and who plays on "normal"? Impossible is they way to go. Especially for the co-op mode. Not slamming you, but the default setting for classic, survival and hardcore is "hard", I recommend adding some spice to the game. It's supposed to be survival horror, not a simple stroll through the park.
EA ripped off the Weapon Blueprint system from Dead Island and then made it so you could create your own custom blueprints. That was a good thing.
Then EA decided that they couldn't "give away the farm", so made it so you could not give other players special parts only available as DLC, which NO ONE PAYS MONEY FOR -- they use Ration Seals, which are found in-game.
They also decided that any Blueprint you make that references advanced parts found in-game or DLC parts CAN NOT BE SHARED with other players, regardless of whether or not they have the part themselves.
In this greedy, short-sighted bone head move, EA crippled a much touted feature, this so called "Blue Print Sharing" to be totally useless for anyone who has spent more than a couple days playikng, because as son as you're more than half way through the game, you're building guns that use special parts -- so this feature no longer works, with no explanation to why other than a unhelpful screen that says "THIS BLUEPRINT CAN NO BE SHARED!"
I have never seen a company so blatantly throw their core product (gameplay) out the window in what can only be seen as a short-sighted cash grab.
The irony of it is that no one in their right mind would pay CASH for this DLC when you can spend a few ration seals (hell, I have over 1,000 ration seals and can't spend them fast enough) so they aren't making any more money by pulling this shit.
For what it's worth, I wrote in a request through support channels that they either uncripple this feature or remove it entirely. I doubt they wil change anything and I am rather certain they will cripple other gameplay features in future games with this BS, so I've resolved myself to never buy another EA title until I hear that they have stoppe pulling this crap.
I'm not against them making money, I'm not against micropayments. I am against crippled gameplay features for obvious and petty reasons. As such, I no longer see EA as a game company, they are profit hounds who seek to disguise vending machines as games. Gameplay should be first and foremost for any game company. If the game is good and the game play is not broken, I will happily buy DLC expansions to add to my enjoyment.
Simply put, even the world’s most pro-woman, sex-positive, pro-consent talk about sex is likely to have negative effects on women at a technical conference.
More simply put: "Any talk of sex at a technical conference is bad m'kay, because a rape survivor might get offended."
Sorry, but covering the ears and mouths of others to suppress information YOU DON'T LIKE is against feminism since it presumes that women are too fragile to handle sexuality in a positive and adult manner, is sexist to men since it presumes that the mere talk of sex, no matter the content of message of purpose will push some men to rape or "give women bad sexual experiences".
And how many of these men would attend this fabled "Conference on Sexuality" where Violet Blue's talk would be "on topic"? I predict none. So a chance to raise awareness, engage, inform and encourage healthy debate has been lost because one group with a very clear agenda decide that no one t a "Tech Conference" should be able to be so educated and informed on subjects they feel are harmful based solely on their own ideals.
The Ada Initiative should be wholeheartedly shunned by the tech circles who value freedom of information and freedom of choice for being counter to the very principles upon which their culture is formed. This is a culture based on curiosity, exploration, boundary pushing and self-education -- we don't need Ada Initiative telling us where or how to educate ourselves or dictating what topics are "safe".
This is one of the many problems with "guilty until proven innocent"...often you have to prove a negative, and sometimes that can't be done.
FYI: "Guilty till proven innocent" is a concept of Criminal Case Law and has no role in Civil Litigation, where you must only show "probable cause". And even then, this is not a Civil Action, this is a wholly private action by a Private Enterprise to terminate your service agrement with them for supposedly braking that service agreement.
And off hand, I can't think of any way to sue them in Civil Court, since they are the ones claiming "breach of contract" and unless you have a home business or can show other tangible loss, anyone shut down wrongly really has no legal recourse since exactly what damages are to be awarded? Sorry, but "nerd rage" does not constitute personal injury.
However, it's possible an actual lawyer might come up with something, but it would likely be a class action, and only serve to enrich themselves.
What we need is for the US Gov't to come down and declare that Internet Access is a fundamental necessity and prevent such terminations of service outside of the legal system. Good luck on that happening any time soon. It will happen, but not this decade.
You couldn't even rely on them as alarm clocks, given their propensity to hang and/or crash.
I'll be sure to remind my iPhone of that reality first thing tomorrow when it diligently wakes me at 7:30am against my wishes, but in accordance to my command -- as it and it's predecessors have seemed to have done this without fail over the last several years.
Seems the Government Pork-Barrel is sewn-up by the Multi-Nationals who are only interested in milking mega-buck projects for all they are worth rather than delivering a working product anywhere near their promised completion date and cost estimates. And the problem doesn't stop there, even if the project is completed, typically the Contractor continues to milk it via Support Contracts and added Consulting Fees. These Support Contracts can eat away substantially at the State Budget in the event of unforeseen issues or changing requirements resulting in upgrades.
As it stand, the current situation is not in the interests of the Government or the Tax Payer. It stands to reason that the Government could save substantial amounts of money on projects by building it's own IT Agency which could operate like CalTrans does by building and maintaining the needed infrastructure and hiring contractors where needed to perform task specific work and in a much more controlled capacity. Additionally, the smaller scope of work would open the door for smaller companies to come in and compete for these contracts since the man-power and support requirements of these limited-scope sub-projects would be far lower. Think Caltrans hiring a local Paving Contractor to come in and help repair a stretch of roadway in a pinch -- no need to bring in a big player, just someone who can bid low and deliver on time.
Of course, bringing something new in-house and running it brings in it's own set of challenges, but even a halfway decently run shop should be able to operate and deliver projects at a far lower cost than what they are paying now. I'm sure if they add up all the costs of IT Contracts for the next year, they'll see they are spending in excess of the entire operating budget of their Big-Name IT Contractor.
Interesting -- so is there a compatible Open Source JVM that can run this? I'm aware of Open JDK, but seeing that the code is targeted for Linux, I don't see that as a truly open solution for most users.
So how would this be more open that Flash? While the Flash Player (AVM) is closed source, the entire AS3 library is open source. And seeing that the security situation has no fix in the foreseeable future -- why is this something that anyone should consider using?
I understand what you are saying, and it's true. They also make money by friends lending out copies, or from rentals. There are many 3rd party channels that lead to sales.
The reality is that intangibles like "goodwill", "word of mouth" etc just don't make it into the all mighty spreadsheets that are the end all be all for corporate decision making. But "estimated annual lost revenue" from resale and rental channels does.
Halo 5? Wow, I wonder what you have to do in *that* game!? (hint: shoot aliens...)
And what are they supposed to do? Race Penguins in go-carts? Grow things on their Farm and sell them at the Market? Save a Princess from an Ape? Don't bag on a franchise for sticking to formula, it's what the audience wants.
I just bought DeadSpace 3 for my PS3 yesterday and love that it's essentially the same as 1 and 2 and hope to see a DeadSpace 5 and would expect it to be the same thing all over again as well. Because. It's. What. I. Want. To. Play.
Neither Microsoft or Sony have any interest in eliminating rental companies like Gamefly or resellers like Gamestop. What they do want is what the Publishers want -- Increased Revenue. It's well known that the Publishers have put pressure on Sony and Microsoft to restrict game resales because they don't get a dime of profit from 2nd hand sales.
Yes, Sony and Microsoft will be tying unlock codes to game systems to prevent play from 2nd hand owners. But what they don't tell you is that they will allow 2nd hand owners to BUY an unlock code via the Playstation or XBox stores for either unlimited or fixed duration (rental) game play.
So the question is not whether you can play a pre-owned game, because you will be able to, but whether or not game rental companies and game retailers can remain profitable with the added cost of the unlock codes in the mix.
Gamestop and Gamefly will work with this new system to include activation codes for rentals and pre-owned with the sale to make the customers life easier. I know that I already get all sorts of PlayStation Store redemption codes from GameStop when I pre-order Games or buy added DLC at point of sale. So an unlock code should not be that big a deal, since all it really is is a redemption code anyway.
In the end, I suspect that not much will change other than it might cost a bit more to own that 2nd hand game.
So what you're saying is you WANT to have to go out and replace ALL your DVDs, CD and Games every time you buy a new DVD Player or Console? I can't even begin to describe the amount of utter stupidity you have posted here.
I'd say they have a very flimsy case as.ini is a commonly implemented newline delimited text format consisting of name value pairs. There is no base for any legal case other than "well OUR software generated those file, we are suing him for creating a program that can read text files our software created".
As absurd as it may be, in the real world such an argument may be enough to win a lawsuit -- the law is not about right or wrong, but whose lawyer can make the best case and how ignorant a judge may be (or choose to be) about technology cases.
So yes, they have a claim, and as flimsy as it is, is a valid one Yes, you need to get a lawyer if you plan on supporting this feature. No, you may not have to go to court
Essentially, hire a lawyer who is willing to work on a small retainer and fire off a few nasty-grams in reply, that while not threatening, cite the law and the fact that.ini files are exempt from DMCA restrictions and by making use of these files at the operator's discretion and permission (by being the file owner), are not infringing on copyright.
If they file suit against you, you'll have to pony up a larger retainer and respond to the suit. However, since there is no contract or agreement between your parties, you may be able to threaten counter-suit and sue them for legal expenses. Any competent lawyer will be mindful to remind them of these realities and most likely they wont sue.
But all of this requires you obtain counsel and allow said counsel to present your party as a serious player to them. If you reply personally, they will not take you half as seriously as they would a letter bearing the letterhead from a law firm no matter how small.
'They are earning degrees in the fields of the future, like engineering and computer science...We are giving them the skills to figure that out
Last I checked, you pay through the nose to attend top US Universities. Sure, you may "earn" the degree by attending classes and doing coursework and turning in papers -- but you get the ability to do that by PAYING FOR IT.
It seems Obama has a huge disconnect with the Americans by failing to realize that these expensive Universities are every bit as profit driven as any other Corporation. And in fact, the lure of Foreign dollars has caused many schools to woo foreign students who are able and willing to pay more expensive Out of State tuition such as we see with the University of California, which is chock full of Chinese and yet keeps raising local tuition rates to the point where many California Born and Raised are having to leave the school before getting their degrees.
I'm feeling disturbed by the daftness that Obama is displaying. He misses the point completely. The point being, that in the generations before, the students would come here and typically stay in the US, taking jobs with US companies. But that is not the case any more for a number of reasons, but mainly because employment chances are slim here, even for American born graduates.
The market demands are all overseas now, especially in the fields of science and engineering. The America market is tapped out. No matter what we may innovate, our market has peaked - all 330 Million Americans are reached and the birth rate has slowed. Asia is where it's at, where billions of potential consumers who currently live in backwards conditions and are not reached wait to be tapped into.
It only makes sense that once these billions of consumers are reached, Asia will become the dominant superpower in the world, and before too long will be tapping into that talent pool to start developing products for themselves and everyone else rather than relying on American innovation. And at that point, it's game over for America.
And I think Obama knows that it's game over. Because when a Democrat President starts talking up a NATIONALIST platform (limit foreign students etc) to preserve our economic prosperity, the writing is on the wall.
This is a problem Nationalism wont solve. Nationalism is what has caused our market to peak and cap out. We need MORE IMMIGRANTS not less fewer and we need more jobs to keep the immigrants here. If we want to compete in the future, we must keep our own market growing while maintaining our technological lead. Looking at it from a purely market-driven perspective, we must practicality DOUBLE our population, to about 700 million over the next few generations time to maintain a growth rate. That growth rate will cause a demand for resources that will require a wealth of new jobs and technology to maintain. After we have hit that target, the market will begin stagnate again, but at the point, the sizes of the global markets will be more equalized, keeping the US in about equal footing with markets in Asia.
But the President doesn't have the power to mandate such national growth of the population or of the direction of private Industry, so we are pretty much locked in the present course at this time. And so, while Foreign Students are willing and able to pay extra Tuition Fees for our Universities, we might as well enjoy it while it lasts, because it's only a matter of time before Universities in Asia match or surpass the reputations held by the top Universities in America and will no longer want to pay a premium to come here when they can pay less in Asia and take a job in Asia.
Pakistan is the most lawless of the US' so called "allies" and is in fact at heart no Ally of the US or any Western Nation. They openly harbor Terrorists and are can't even protect their own citizenry against the likes of the Taliban and Al Qaida.
They are as corrupt as Mexico and the US would be right to bomb them even further back into the Stone Age than they already are, but since they are in a death grip with India -- that's a no go.
Fuck Pakistan -- they are no friend of the Free World and are nothing short of a Lucy to the Al Qaida fighting Charlie Brown, pretending to help, but openly acting to subvert our efforts.
In the post Flash era we are taking HUGE steps back. In-browser support for Video Codecs are neither here nor there, where we quite literally have to encode to two or even three standards. But, at least we have Wowza that can stream to various standards and Codecs. Audio is no better, with Google and Apple are using the Web Audio API while Firefox is committed to the Audio Data API, which has NOTHING in common with the Webkit standard. And the built in audio player on the Android Browser? WHAT. A. FUCKING. JOKE. And of course Apple's "HTTP Live Streaming" is NOT at all suited for actual Live Streaming. The latency is terrible!
And then we have Real Time Communication, an area that Flash excelled at with and RTMP and AMF, as well as various servers such as FMS, Wowza and SmartFox capable of facilitating chat rooms, multi-player games, even MMORPGs.
Getting data and devices streaming FROM THE BROWSER just isn't there. The support is incomplete, undecided and very much in flux. We are quite literally still a few years out from a standard and usable platform across browsers. And now we have Microsoft wading in to offer what will surely be a typical Proprietary Solution only available to Microsoft Partners and Licensees.
Frankly, this rush to kill Flash has been a self-centered money grab to try to take away the video market from Adobe and HAS FUCKED the users, leaving them with a broken internet and competing standards.
The hype of HTML5 has been years coming, with Steve Jobs and legions of techies on slashdot and other sites calling for the death of Flash. Yet here we are, years out and we don't have anywhere near what we had with Multi-Media and Real Time Communication in 2005 with Flash.
How anyone can sit here and look at the current state of affairs and not see it as a monumental clusterfuck that is HOLDING BACK the progress and innovation we were promised with HTML5 is beyond me.
Check out Amazon Instant Video. The have most all the free content Netflix does AND blockbusters like the Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises for reasonable prices, plus a "buy" option.
I might just cut Netflix loose in a couple months since I'm watching it less and less in favor of Amazon. But I'll wait till their Disney contract kicks in before making that decision.
That's total bullshit. Any player that knows what a fools mate is can spot it in a heart beat. You're opening the king bishops pawn FFS -- one of the most common points of attack by white against black in Kings Pawn Openings.
But you did say Yahoo chess -- so that explains this useless as fuck solution and why you probably think it "works" to indicate anything.
Slashdot Mirror
Because these guys act like a bank in that once you pay them off, they are are out of your hair for good.
Investors -- they stick around, can take control from you and even remove you from the company.
Frankly, I think it's better to get that loan that become some Angel Investor's Bitch.
I wonder how much this company would have given young Steve Jobs -- a long haired Liberal Arts College drop out back from an Ashram stinking of Patchouli or Bill Gates, another drop out, but from a substantially more well regarded school.
Sorry, but good grades from big name schools does not equal stellar success. We see time and time again that it's the "unlikely underdog" or the free thinker not bound by mainstream convention that has what it takes to be the "upstart" that sets any entrenched industry or paradigm on it's ear. Not the "I got straight A's and was on the honor roll all my life and went to the best schools" type who are more often than not so beholden to established conventions that shaking up anything or taking really big risks would seem unthinkable, if not outright terrifying.
So would the guy who can't afford to go to a big name college or any college at all, didn't get those A's but has the creativity and drive to truly make something happen "if only he had enough money to get by on while he created it" even have a snow balls chance in hell with these guys.
I think probably not. That person would be seen as too risky, and having no "metrics" to indicate success. And that's the problem -- how can we quantify creative genius and identify the next Steve Jobs or Bill Gates?
That's what the US State Dept is crying over in Beijing right now.
Amazon deciding to stop selling your product should be ringing alarm bells and costing EA a small fortune in lost revenue.
The only alarm bells that will be ringing over at EA is that Amazon is full of libelous astro-turfers from "the competition" and internet trolls who are jelly of EA's success. The "poor sales" will be seen as a sign that their new-angled DRM is working since most people are Pirates and can't handle their masterful security scheme.
The only foreign policy problem that's worse than the NK question is the Palestinian question. And not by a huge amount.
What problem? We just wait a few more decades and the Israelis will have finally solved the Palestinians.
Perhaps you'd understand a bit better if he'd had said the same thing about having a "nagger as a president"?
What you've really said is that in your mind gays don't deserve any show of support against DISCRIMINATION BY RABID BIGGOTS.
Funny how Card can go on about the injustice of seing Enders Game constantly being put on banned book lists by "Mormon hating Christian Fundies" but is such an open and vocal biggotry against homosexuals.
Frankly, Card can go fuck himself. Calling for the overthrow of the government to force biggotry on all of us, is just plain fascist.
I think we should imprison this asshole for sedition.
UNtil now I was looking forward to seeing the upcoming Enders Game movie - now the idea makes me feel sick.
I don't want to support the works of a vocal biggot who is calling for waging war on the American Government and people who want an open and free society.
Well, maybe you aren't as social as me. I have many PSN friends who I play with and we like to share in-game loot while we chat and kill things.
And I liked the weapons building -- having seen it first in Dead Island, and seeing it made more freeform in Deadspace 3.
I hope Dead Island: Riptide (not an EA Title) rips EA off in return and incorporates the build your own weapon feature.
In my experience, all my friends have tried sharing guns with me at some point only to find they can no longer share, or just can't share. It took some doing to figure out why.
Funny how they ADVERTISED "Blueprint Sharing" on their packaging and in their Demo and how they offer a "trophy" for creating and sharing a blueprint.
EA made this feature a major selling point, and regardless of wether or not you use is, others do.
And it's clearly broken.
ohh --and who plays on "normal"? Impossible is they way to go. Especially for the co-op mode. Not slamming you, but the default setting for classic, survival and hardcore is "hard", I recommend adding some spice to the game.
It's supposed to be survival horror, not a simple stroll through the park.
EA ripped off the Weapon Blueprint system from Dead Island and then made it so you could create your own custom blueprints.
That was a good thing.
Then EA decided that they couldn't "give away the farm", so made it so you could not give other players special parts only available as DLC, which NO ONE PAYS MONEY FOR -- they use Ration Seals, which are found in-game.
They also decided that any Blueprint you make that references advanced parts found in-game or DLC parts CAN NOT BE SHARED with other players, regardless of whether or not they have the part themselves.
In this greedy, short-sighted bone head move, EA crippled a much touted feature, this so called "Blue Print Sharing" to be totally useless for anyone who has spent more than a couple days playikng, because as son as you're more than half way through the game, you're building guns that use special parts -- so this feature no longer works, with no explanation to why other than a unhelpful screen that says "THIS BLUEPRINT CAN NO BE SHARED!"
I have never seen a company so blatantly throw their core product (gameplay) out the window in what can only be seen as a short-sighted cash grab.
The irony of it is that no one in their right mind would pay CASH for this DLC when you can spend a few ration seals (hell, I have over 1,000 ration seals and can't spend them fast enough) so they aren't making any more money by pulling this shit.
For what it's worth, I wrote in a request through support channels that they either uncripple this feature or remove it entirely. I doubt they wil change anything and I am rather certain they will cripple other gameplay features in future games with this BS, so I've resolved myself to never buy another EA title until I hear that they have stoppe pulling this crap.
I'm not against them making money, I'm not against micropayments. I am against crippled gameplay features for obvious and petty reasons.
As such, I no longer see EA as a game company, they are profit hounds who seek to disguise vending machines as games.
Gameplay should be first and foremost for any game company. If the game is good and the game play is not broken, I will happily buy DLC expansions to add to my enjoyment.
From the Ada Initiative's own statement on this:
Simply put, even the world’s most pro-woman, sex-positive, pro-consent talk about sex is likely to have negative effects on women at a technical conference.
More simply put: "Any talk of sex at a technical conference is bad m'kay, because a rape survivor might get offended."
Sorry, but covering the ears and mouths of others to suppress information YOU DON'T LIKE is against feminism since it presumes that women are too fragile to handle sexuality in a positive and adult manner, is sexist to men since it presumes that the mere talk of sex, no matter the content of message of purpose will push some men to rape or "give women bad sexual experiences".
And how many of these men would attend this fabled "Conference on Sexuality" where Violet Blue's talk would be "on topic"? I predict none.
So a chance to raise awareness, engage, inform and encourage healthy debate has been lost because one group with a very clear agenda decide that no one t a "Tech Conference" should be able to be so educated and informed on subjects they feel are harmful based solely on their own ideals.
The Ada Initiative should be wholeheartedly shunned by the tech circles who value freedom of information and freedom of choice for being counter to the very principles upon which their culture is formed. This is a culture based on curiosity, exploration, boundary pushing and self-education -- we don't need Ada Initiative telling us where or how to educate ourselves or dictating what topics are "safe".
This is one of the many problems with "guilty until proven innocent"...often you have to prove a negative, and sometimes that can't be done.
FYI: "Guilty till proven innocent" is a concept of Criminal Case Law and has no role in Civil Litigation, where you must only show "probable cause". And even then, this is not a Civil Action, this is a wholly private action by a Private Enterprise to terminate your service agrement with them for supposedly braking that service agreement.
And off hand, I can't think of any way to sue them in Civil Court, since they are the ones claiming "breach of contract" and unless you have a home business or can show other tangible loss, anyone shut down wrongly really has no legal recourse since exactly what damages are to be awarded? Sorry, but "nerd rage" does not constitute personal injury.
However, it's possible an actual lawyer might come up with something, but it would likely be a class action, and only serve to enrich themselves.
What we need is for the US Gov't to come down and declare that Internet Access is a fundamental necessity and prevent such terminations of service outside of the legal system. Good luck on that happening any time soon. It will happen, but not this decade.
You couldn't even rely on them as alarm clocks, given their propensity to hang and/or crash.
I'll be sure to remind my iPhone of that reality first thing tomorrow when it diligently wakes me at 7:30am against my wishes, but in accordance to my command -- as it and it's predecessors have seemed to have done this without fail over the last several years.
Seems the Government Pork-Barrel is sewn-up by the Multi-Nationals who are only interested in milking mega-buck projects for all they are worth rather than delivering a working product anywhere near their promised completion date and cost estimates. And the problem doesn't stop there, even if the project is completed, typically the Contractor continues to milk it via Support Contracts and added Consulting Fees. These Support Contracts can eat away substantially at the State Budget in the event of unforeseen issues or changing requirements resulting in upgrades.
As it stand, the current situation is not in the interests of the Government or the Tax Payer. It stands to reason that the Government could save substantial amounts of money on projects by building it's own IT Agency which could operate like CalTrans does by building and maintaining the needed infrastructure and hiring contractors where needed to perform task specific work and in a much more controlled capacity. Additionally, the smaller scope of work would open the door for smaller companies to come in and compete for these contracts since the man-power and support requirements of these limited-scope sub-projects would be far lower. Think Caltrans hiring a local Paving Contractor to come in and help repair a stretch of roadway in a pinch -- no need to bring in a big player, just someone who can bid low and deliver on time.
Of course, bringing something new in-house and running it brings in it's own set of challenges, but even a halfway decently run shop should be able to operate and deliver projects at a far lower cost than what they are paying now. I'm sure if they add up all the costs of IT Contracts for the next year, they'll see they are spending in excess of the entire operating budget of their Big-Name IT Contractor.
Interesting -- so is there a compatible Open Source JVM that can run this?
I'm aware of Open JDK, but seeing that the code is targeted for Linux, I don't see that as a truly open solution for most users.
So how would this be more open that Flash? While the Flash Player (AVM) is closed source, the entire AS3 library is open source.
And seeing that the security situation has no fix in the foreseeable future -- why is this something that anyone should consider using?
I understand what you are saying, and it's true. They also make money by friends lending out copies, or from rentals. There are many 3rd party channels that lead to sales.
The reality is that intangibles like "goodwill", "word of mouth" etc just don't make it into the all mighty spreadsheets that are the end all be all for corporate decision making. But "estimated annual lost revenue" from resale and rental channels does.
Halo 5? Wow, I wonder what you have to do in *that* game!? (hint: shoot aliens...)
And what are they supposed to do? Race Penguins in go-carts? Grow things on their Farm and sell them at the Market? Save a Princess from an Ape?
Don't bag on a franchise for sticking to formula, it's what the audience wants.
I just bought DeadSpace 3 for my PS3 yesterday and love that it's essentially the same as 1 and 2 and hope to see a DeadSpace 5 and would expect it to be the same thing all over again as well. Because. It's. What. I. Want. To. Play.
Neither Microsoft or Sony have any interest in eliminating rental companies like Gamefly or resellers like Gamestop. What they do want is what the Publishers want -- Increased Revenue. It's well known that the Publishers have put pressure on Sony and Microsoft to restrict game resales because they don't get a dime of profit from 2nd hand sales.
Yes, Sony and Microsoft will be tying unlock codes to game systems to prevent play from 2nd hand owners. But what they don't tell you is that they will allow 2nd hand owners to BUY an unlock code via the Playstation or XBox stores for either unlimited or fixed duration (rental) game play.
So the question is not whether you can play a pre-owned game, because you will be able to, but whether or not game rental companies and game retailers can remain profitable with the added cost of the unlock codes in the mix.
Gamestop and Gamefly will work with this new system to include activation codes for rentals and pre-owned with the sale to make the customers life easier. I know that I already get all sorts of PlayStation Store redemption codes from GameStop when I pre-order Games or buy added DLC at point of sale. So an unlock code should not be that big a deal, since all it really is is a redemption code anyway.
In the end, I suspect that not much will change other than it might cost a bit more to own that 2nd hand game.
So what you're saying is you WANT to have to go out and replace ALL your DVDs, CD and Games every time you buy a new DVD Player or Console?
I can't even begin to describe the amount of utter stupidity you have posted here.
Dick move? Note even close.
Lesser Evil? My ass.
I'd say they have a very flimsy case as .ini is a commonly implemented newline delimited text format consisting of name value pairs. There is no base for any legal case other than "well OUR software generated those file, we are suing him for creating a program that can read text files our software created".
As absurd as it may be, in the real world such an argument may be enough to win a lawsuit -- the law is not about right or wrong, but whose lawyer can make the best case and how ignorant a judge may be (or choose to be) about technology cases.
So yes, they have a claim, and as flimsy as it is, is a valid one
Yes, you need to get a lawyer if you plan on supporting this feature.
No, you may not have to go to court
Essentially, hire a lawyer who is willing to work on a small retainer and fire off a few nasty-grams in reply, that while not threatening, cite the law and the fact that .ini files are exempt from DMCA restrictions and by making use of these files at the operator's discretion and permission (by being the file owner), are not infringing on copyright.
If they file suit against you, you'll have to pony up a larger retainer and respond to the suit. However, since there is no contract or agreement between your parties, you may be able to threaten counter-suit and sue them for legal expenses. Any competent lawyer will be mindful to remind them of these realities and most likely they wont sue.
But all of this requires you obtain counsel and allow said counsel to present your party as a serious player to them.
If you reply personally, they will not take you half as seriously as they would a letter bearing the letterhead from a law firm no matter how small.
'They are earning degrees in the fields of the future, like engineering and computer science...We are giving them the skills to figure that out
Last I checked, you pay through the nose to attend top US Universities. Sure, you may "earn" the degree by attending classes and doing coursework and turning in papers -- but you get the ability to do that by PAYING FOR IT.
It seems Obama has a huge disconnect with the Americans by failing to realize that these expensive Universities are every bit as profit driven as any other Corporation. And in fact, the lure of Foreign dollars has caused many schools to woo foreign students who are able and willing to pay more expensive Out of State tuition such as we see with the University of California, which is chock full of Chinese and yet keeps raising local tuition rates to the point where many California Born and Raised are having to leave the school before getting their degrees.
I'm feeling disturbed by the daftness that Obama is displaying. He misses the point completely. The point being, that in the generations before, the students would come here and typically stay in the US, taking jobs with US companies. But that is not the case any more for a number of reasons, but mainly because employment chances are slim here, even for American born graduates.
The market demands are all overseas now, especially in the fields of science and engineering. The America market is tapped out. No matter what we may innovate, our market has peaked - all 330 Million Americans are reached and the birth rate has slowed. Asia is where it's at, where billions of potential consumers who currently live in backwards conditions and are not reached wait to be tapped into.
It only makes sense that once these billions of consumers are reached, Asia will become the dominant superpower in the world, and before too long will be tapping into that talent pool to start developing products for themselves and everyone else rather than relying on American innovation. And at that point, it's game over for America.
And I think Obama knows that it's game over. Because when a Democrat President starts talking up a NATIONALIST platform (limit foreign students etc) to preserve our economic prosperity, the writing is on the wall.
This is a problem Nationalism wont solve. Nationalism is what has caused our market to peak and cap out. We need MORE IMMIGRANTS not less fewer and we need more jobs to keep the immigrants here. If we want to compete in the future, we must keep our own market growing while maintaining our technological lead. Looking at it from a purely market-driven perspective, we must practicality DOUBLE our population, to about 700 million over the next few generations time to maintain a growth rate. That growth rate will cause a demand for resources that will require a wealth of new jobs and technology to maintain. After we have hit that target, the market will begin stagnate again, but at the point, the sizes of the global markets will be more equalized, keeping the US in about equal footing with markets in Asia.
But the President doesn't have the power to mandate such national growth of the population or of the direction of private Industry, so we are pretty much locked in the present course at this time. And so, while Foreign Students are willing and able to pay extra Tuition Fees for our Universities, we might as well enjoy it while it lasts, because it's only a matter of time before Universities in Asia match or surpass the reputations held by the top Universities in America and will no longer want to pay a premium to come here when they can pay less in Asia and take a job in Asia.
yes - we caved and lost.
But I still have hope
Pakistan is the most lawless of the US' so called "allies" and is in fact at heart no Ally of the US or any Western Nation.
They openly harbor Terrorists and are can't even protect their own citizenry against the likes of the Taliban and Al Qaida.
They are as corrupt as Mexico and the US would be right to bomb them even further back into the Stone Age than they already are, but since they are in a death grip with India -- that's a no go.
Fuck Pakistan -- they are no friend of the Free World and are nothing short of a Lucy to the Al Qaida fighting Charlie Brown, pretending to help, but openly acting to subvert our efforts.
In the post Flash era we are taking HUGE steps back. In-browser support for Video Codecs are neither here nor there, where we quite literally have to encode to two or even three standards. But, at least we have Wowza that can stream to various standards and Codecs. Audio is no better, with Google and Apple are using the Web Audio API while Firefox is committed to the Audio Data API, which has NOTHING in common with the Webkit standard. And the built in audio player on the Android Browser? WHAT. A. FUCKING. JOKE. And of course Apple's "HTTP Live Streaming" is NOT at all suited for actual Live Streaming. The latency is terrible!
And then we have Real Time Communication, an area that Flash excelled at with and RTMP and AMF, as well as various servers such as FMS, Wowza and SmartFox capable of facilitating chat rooms, multi-player games, even MMORPGs.
Getting data and devices streaming FROM THE BROWSER just isn't there. The support is incomplete, undecided and very much in flux. We are quite literally still a few years out from a standard and usable platform across browsers. And now we have Microsoft wading in to offer what will surely be a typical Proprietary Solution only available to Microsoft Partners and Licensees.
Frankly, this rush to kill Flash has been a self-centered money grab to try to take away the video market from Adobe and HAS FUCKED the users, leaving them with a broken internet and competing standards.
The hype of HTML5 has been years coming, with Steve Jobs and legions of techies on slashdot and other sites calling for the death of Flash.
Yet here we are, years out and we don't have anywhere near what we had with Multi-Media and Real Time Communication in 2005 with Flash.
How anyone can sit here and look at the current state of affairs and not see it as a monumental clusterfuck that is HOLDING BACK the progress and innovation we were promised with HTML5 is beyond me.
Check out Amazon Instant Video. The have most all the free content Netflix does AND blockbusters like the Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises for reasonable prices, plus a "buy" option.
I might just cut Netflix loose in a couple months since I'm watching it less and less in favor of Amazon. But I'll wait till their Disney contract kicks in before making that decision.
The kid's the product of a tranya fueled dalliance by her mom after a night out with Balok on his spaceship.
That's total bullshit. Any player that knows what a fools mate is can spot it in a heart beat. You're opening the king bishops pawn FFS -- one of the most common points of attack by white against black in Kings Pawn Openings.
But you did say Yahoo chess -- so that explains this useless as fuck solution and why you probably think it "works" to indicate anything.