Funny, I only ever played Dungeon Siege multiplay as well, and I thought it absolutly blew. The game balancing was terrible, if you had more than two or three players the mage skills were useless. Even if you were a fighter the game in multi was just boring. You click to attack a monster, and get up to get a soda, lunch, and a seven course dinner, come back and watch that monster fall, click on the next and go to bed. Sure, in some of the nasitier areas, someone in the group has to be the designated healer, he watches people's health and goes over to their keyboard and hits 'H' every once in a while, but the rest of the players could be doing something else. We tried this game at two separate LAN weekends, the first was ok, the game was fresh, and there is the enjoyment of advancement early on. The second weekend we continued it out of interia, but all of us started to realize just how much the gameplay sucked for multiplayer. We just sort of gave up on it, and have no intention of going back. In fact, we found the most fun on that second weekend in going back to the first areas and killing the level 1 monsters with a single blow, it became a race to who killed the pathetic monster the fastest.
Now, when DS2 releases, we might give it a go. I really did like the premise of the game, though it would be nice to see a broader skillset. I just hope it doesn't turn out to be as broken as the first for multiplayer. There just hasn't been a really good multiplayer game for my group since we beat Diablo 2. I really would love to see a 3 in that series, sure 2 was mostly a rehash of the first, but it had enough new bits to make it fun. And the gameplay is addictive.
I thnik we siltl need temh, jsut to hlep us srot out the nmuebr of lteters in a wrod. The urndecsreos can be a ltitle cnofnuisg, at lseat for me, as I cnaont fgurie out how mnay lteetrs are in the wrod. Aslo, tehy seem to hlep gvie smoe itdcaniion of waht the wrod is. But mybae its jsut me.
Unfortunately, I have an aversion to the Logitech Marble F/X trackball. Mostly because the way it was designed made configuring the functions on the device through Logitech's MouseWare software suite quite difficult to do. Not to mention the fact it takes quite a lot of practice to use that device properly, too. =(
That's not too suprising. I often find that people who are not used to a trackball really don't like my trackball, and even those that are don't usually work well with it the first time. Both my roomate and my girlfriend have a hell of a time using my computer (thought they are getting better). For me, I just found that it was really comfortable to use, and for some reason, I liked the way it feels/moves.
Configuration was easy enough for me, just pick the button functions, and turn off that damned "mouse accelleration" feature, I hate that thing, why is it a default, it makes the mouse unusable? Also, you have to make sure you do the verticle configuration, its sets the trackball's axies to the way you tend to move the ball.
In the end though, if you have found something you like, stick with it, I just wish I could find another Marble FX to attach to my server (though the terminal services setup works pretty well for me).
Well, one of the first mice I ever used was one of those screwy Pen-Mice. It was an attempt to make the mouse similar to a known technology, a pen; but it failed miserably. You had to hold it just so, the buttons were annoying to work with, and the cord (which came out the top) was forever in the way. It was an interesting concept, but just wasn't right.
My current "mouse" is a Logitech Marble FX trackball. It has got to be the most comfortable pointing device I have ever used, and I like the ability to simply pull my fingers away, and the cursor doesn't move, even when I click the buttons. I could never get that from a mouse, clicking always caused me to move a bit this way or that.
Don't really have anything I would say is an alternate rule, though one thing that we do, which we infered from the written rules, is that when we kill a zombie, we keep the miniature as a counter. If there are no more miniatures in the pool, then no new zombies can be added, i.e. new tiles lack zombies, cards which add zombies to the map can only add as many zombies as there are miniatures in the pool, etc. We didn't do this the first time we played, and it really screwed the game, we ended up with the map forever swamped in zombies, you couldn't take a step without having to fight, and you tended to run out of bullets and health real quick. Once we implimented this particular rule, we find that we tend to get to a point where everyone is holding between 10 and 20 zombies in their kill pile, and the board is rather sparse on zombies. It makes it possible to stock up on bullets/health again before somone has a bad run of luck and replinishes the pool. And, of course, using the cards right can make for a lot of fun. Its amazing how easy it can be to kill someone off by forcing them through a guantlet of zombies, and just waiting for thier luck with the dice to run out. Though the other side of this coin is, don't run someone with the fire axe through a ton of zombies, it just tends to get them a lot of kills.
As for there being no "real" strategy, yes, you are right, its not a game to be played be hardcore war gammers. Basically, if your into warhammer and its ilk, the this game is going to seem simplistic. The cards are not, however, useless, you just aren't being imaganitive enough with them. Most of the cards are great for dicking with your opponents, and often can turn a game against someone. Also, you should always try and find a use for a card each round, never let your hand get stale. And yes, there is a large element of luck in the game (it has dice in it, of course luck plays a factor), but that just makes it fun, IMHO, it provides for some great moments when the dice either simle on you, or the dice screw you. If a game has no randomness, it just seems to lack something, because the outcome is often very predictable.
Also, try playing this game with alcohol around, Zombies is a blast with less blood in your alcohol stream. Cheers!:-)
What makes a law unjust? In a democracy, the majority defines the law, so if we accept the behavior of the majority as evidence, then the law she broke was unjust.
Alright, I know I'm getting trolled, but I have to...
AMERICA IS NOT A DEMOCRACY!!!!!!!!!
I realize that this little distinction is not taught much in schools, but it is very important. Our govenment is better described as a republic with democratic tendancies. This is by design, specifically to avoid the problem you seemed to miss in your own statement. Mob rule tends to lead to a tyrany of the majority, basically, if anything the majority says goes, you end up with minorities being trampled ruthlessly. For example, slavery would probably still be in effect.
Now, this is not to say that copyright laws aren't broken. In my opinion then content owners ave managed to break thier side of the copyright bargin by buying extensions of it. Though, more to blame are our duly elected representatives, who willing sold us out to the content owners. Every representative that voted in favor of any extension on copyrights should be taken out and beaten to death with a wiffle bat. Ok, that's a bit extreme, but they should at least be thrown out of office.
What did you find so broken about Zombies? Other than the fact that getting to the Helipad is usually never accomplished, we always end up with someone killing 25 zombies first.
Not according to the law as written. In fact, both the judge and the plantiff were letting the spammer off easy.
As the article stated, the law allows for a penalty of $500 per email. This guy had received 58,000 emails, so some quick math:
$500 * 58,000 = $29,000,000
Compare that to the $250,000 he got nailed for, at the moment (I expect an appeal), and you can see that he got off real light. Much too light, IMHO, he should have been forced to pay the entire 29 million, that'd be a hell of a deterent to him restarting his spam business.
The thing I don't understand, though, is why the RIAA necessarily feels its a good thing to form the webcasting industry into a more professional, tightly-knit one. Wouldn't they benefit from a stronger bargaining position when dealing with small independent webcasters who have little leverage and are a dime a dozen?
Its the same reason the RIAA loves Clear Channel, control. Its easy to buy off one large company, sure, it takes a chunk of change, but the RIAA has that. And in return, it buys them exclusivity, the vast majority of radio stations only play RIAA blessed content, so the independent labels get shut out. If you have thousands of smaller stations running things, the RIAA has to track down, and convince each one to play only their stuff, which might be a tad harder to do. Individually, each station will cost less to buy off, but as a whole, when considering the logistics of it, the overall cost is probably much higher.
Further, the fewer avenues of distribution available to independent artists, the less likely they are to be heard, and choosen over a RIAA backed artist. This keeps the RIAA in control, and keeps the money rolling in.
I'm just glad to see someone finally standing up to the RIAA, and calling them an abusive monopoly. The tactics employed by them to keep control make Microsoft look like a chior boy in comparison. At the very least MS couldn't keep people from hearing about alternatives, what the RIAA is doing with these fees is just that. Its a fee designed to keep small webcasters from attracting an audiance, who might just hear an independent band, mixed in with the RIAA bands, and decide that they want the independent's CD rather than the RIAA's.
Why all those old rich people keep moving to places like Palm Springs:
Prolonged exposure to extreme temperatures is also harmful, but Rattan has found that heating up human skin cells to 41 degrees Celsius (106 degrees Fahrenheit) twice a week for an hour slows aging in the cells.
Seriously, if you've never been though Palm Springs, CA, you aren't missing much. Its a couple of golf courses in the hottest damn place, its not quite the middle of nowhere, but its in the same zipcode. Though, I might just be bitter about it, because the first job I ever held involved delivering medicines to people, in home, and I had to drive to Palm Springs every other week in a truck with no A/C. Nice enough drive, little to no traffic, and the desert can be kinda pretty at the right times, but if its summer take a lot of water with you.
I personally don't feel that complexity it an issue with games today. A bit of a challange is a good thing. The problem I am seeing with games is that they are no longer about playing a game and having fun, and more about the producer trying to tell some story. Now, storylines are fine, and good, we need them to hold the violence together, but I start having a problem when I am spending more time watching cut-scenes than I am actually playing the game. A great example of this is the Final Fantasy series, I loved the first one in the US on the NES, in fact, I still go back and play it occasionally (working on getting a party to 30th level before beating Garland, innane but fun). The second one (US based again) just didn't capture my interest as much, too much emphasis on the cut-scenes, and the incredibally pathetic story, not to mention the sub-desert castle kinda turned me off to it. The third one, I beat once and never touched again, dealing with the cut-scenes the first time was painful enough, and the story was pretty much the exact same story as the second one, and still just as insulting to the intellegence of the player. I'm afraid I can only take so much of the "choose your lover; oh, and we need to save that world thingy" type story before I retch and I dislike the whole steampunk genre to boot. I never did play FF7 myself, I saw a friend playing it, and realized that it hadn't gotten any better. FF8 feel into the same boat, saw it, and just didn't bother. Not had a chance to see FF9 or FF10 yet, but from everything I have heard, they sound to be the same, "look at our graphics" fests with more trite dialogue, and the hero who is caught between potential lovers.
Can we please get more games where the story doesn't get in the way of good gameplay? It should be there to tie all of the action together, not make me feel like I am watching a damn movie with frantic button mashing in between scenes. And you can keep the dating sim to yourself, I just want to pick up my sword, go out into the world and cut down a few thousand baddies, and maybe save the world while I'm at it.
You're probably right, I've just not seen it run on anything slower than what I mentioned. And even that has the occasional graphical hiccup, so I was simply giving a baseline that I knew would run the game at a passable level.
Assuming that you either have 10 or more people regularly, and/or plan on having internet access.
Enemy Territory is a blast. Moreover, it relies on teamplay, if all you have is a bunch of people running around, playing death-match or Lewis and Clark the videogame, your team tends to lose, fast. And, best of all, its completely free, you don't even have to pirate it. Though, it does require a good bit of horsepower. Nothing under a P4 (not Celeron, never Celeron), and at least the GeForce 4 Ti4800 or better (note: GeForce FX 5600 Ultra is not better), and at least 256MB RAM. Granted, at the moment, this probably isn't an overly expensive rig, but when multiplied by several machines, it'll cost some money. But, if this setup is really for gaming, you should probably be shooting at about these specs as a minimum anyways.
Yes, you are right, I glossed over that point a bit. What I was refering to, but seemed to have failed to get across, was independent artists who have agreed to have their songs shared on P2P services, sorry, I should have been a bit clearer.
Don't forget his cameo in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, as Cock-knocker. That scene was funny, and at least it looks like Mark Hamill has a sense of humor and is willing to make fun of himself.
Or, since this is China, perhaps the court system can be convinced that this guy's hands need a good break, perhaps one or two compound fractures. This guy needs to quit whining and turn the game off. Seriously, I realize that a lot of time can go into one of these games to get some cool item, but its just a game, nothing more.
Close, its more like coporate feudalism. The congress critters are the local lords, the heads of the coporations are the dukes etc. And the president is the king, it just so happenes that, like often did in feudalistic society, that the aristocricy wields much of the power, but the king is a nice figurehead for people to rally around, and for all of the blame to fall on.
Great, the next big worm will be the Dance Dance Revolution worm. Suits will get infetced and dance their elderly occupents to death, all to the sounds of sythesized techno-pop music.
You're probably right, though I think that doing it publicly to save ones skin is probably forgivable, while secretly keeping faith. Then again, you might want to look at my sig for my view on religon anyway, it tends to affect my view of people willing to die for their religion.
"Religion is the opiate of the masses"
Along with that, anyone who is that dedicated to their beliefs worries me. An inability to question one's own belifes is the sure sign of a nutcase who just needs the right proding to go kill someone.
Let's see, you have the huge coporations who own most of the govenment at this point versus an average serf, er... citizen. Not to be cynical about it, or maybe just to be cynical about it, but I don't think this lawsuit has a snowball's chance in hell. I would love to see this person win her case, and maybe undo some of the damage from the DMCA, but I just don't see it happening. The RIAA is going to do everything it can to convince the judge that she is just another pirate who is trying to hide behind that annoying privacy thing, and that the DMCA is necessary to finding and persecuting, er... prosecuting her. And the judge will probably buy it.
Perhaps I have just given up, but I think at this point we mihgt as well go all the way and rename the USA the UFSC (United Feudalistic States of the Corporations).
Ok, so you have a linux server on the net, you are a novice, I hack your server I use it to do bad things, it gets traced back to you, not to me, you get charged. You say " but I diden't know, I must have been hacked, it wasen't me... etc. etc. " the fact that you were "ignorant" of how to properly secure your machine should not make you responsible for the actions of another who hacked your machine. a license to use a computer would be nice but it dosen't exist as of now so this is all pretty much a grey area, I don't think that ancient sayings like "ignorance is no defence" are as clear cut in cyberspace.
Alright, I feel like I am getting trolled, but I couldn't resist.
That saying, to which the above poster was refering to, which is true, is "ignorance of the law is no defense." Which is a hell of a lot different than what you are describing. If you are truly ignorant of a crime being commited, even if it is using your property, then you have a pretty valid defense. Except in cases where the ignorance is willful, basically you see someone digging a hole in your yard at night with a big plastic bag, say about 6 feet long and 3 feet wide, and you simply ignore the situation and don't report it.
So yes, the "ignorance is no defense" saying is just as valid in cyberspace as it is anywhere else, unless you are ignorant of the meaning of that saying. There is nothing magical about cyberspace, all the smae basic rules apply, its just the execution that gets fuzzy.
She ADMITS to using Kazaa to share. She KNOWS how to rip her files (and if anyone showed her how to rip them), I will put money on the fact that they told her to use either WMP or WinAMP.
The question that I didn't see answered, which is going to be very material to this case, was: what was she downloading? If it was music from independant artists or freeware, then she has done nothing wrong. Now I admit, most likely, she was downloading copyrighted music, and therefore in trouble, but if she claims she didn't, and can explain away her sharing as the legal kind, then the onus shoud be on the RIAA to prove otherwise, if they can't, and the judge isn't just another coporate worshiper, then she may just get away with this and set a very nice precident, something along the lines of, you actually have to file a suit and ask the judge to let you subpeona those records before getting them.
Regarding your question in the first paragraph: The only lasting methods of social change are nonviolent, so the answer is through nonviolent methods.
I seem to recall that a lasting change was made in Germany, rather directly by WWII, and that Germany has yet to revert back to Nazism. Heck, the US was founded on violent acts, and doesn't seem to be going anywhere soon. I'm sorry, this idea is very obviously wrong. War is a tool for affecting change, the fact that it is used so often to create a very bad change is sad.
As for Ghandi's view:
Gandhi's view was that the German Jews ought to commit collective suicide, which "would have aroused the world and the people of Germany to Hitler's violence." After the war he justified himself: the Jews had been killed anyway, and might as well have died significantly.
So basically, what is being proposed is, the jews were likely to die anyway, so they should have killed themselves to make a political statement, that would have probably been either covered up by the Nazi's or ignored by the world. I have a lot of respect for Ghandi and his beliefs, but bullshit. The jews would have done better to resist and die fighting, than to do Hitler's work for him; they just got screwed by the slow boil principal for govenments to oppress people. Where they needed to start resisting was when the German govenment forced them to wear the Star of David so that they could be identified easily, if they had just gone underground, and publicly denied their religion, they might have been better able to resist the Nazi's plan to put them all in death camps. For example, look at the French Underground resistance, rather than try and make some flashy public display, they quitely fought to provide information and support to the allies, and that support was crucial. In the end, a lot of the memebers of the underground survived. But you and Ghandi would propose that they should have just killed themselves, and deprive the allies of a lot of the support and information that made D-Day successful. And what happenes when all anyone does is kill themselves when faced with a tyrant, you get a lot of dead people, and a tyrant who gets to continue being a tyrant. Sure, eventually that tyrant dies, though usually another one steps up. The only way tyrants are ever removed is through violence or infrastucture collapse. Violence tends to stop the tyrant now, infrastructure collapse often takes a few centuries. Sorry, I just don't buy into the idea that we should just roll over and let people step on us, yes it might kill me to resist, but if my resisting will make the lives of my decendants better, the so be it.
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Funny, I only ever played Dungeon Siege multiplay as well, and I thought it absolutly blew. The game balancing was terrible, if you had more than two or three players the mage skills were useless. Even if you were a fighter the game in multi was just boring. You click to attack a monster, and get up to get a soda, lunch, and a seven course dinner, come back and watch that monster fall, click on the next and go to bed. Sure, in some of the nasitier areas, someone in the group has to be the designated healer, he watches people's health and goes over to their keyboard and hits 'H' every once in a while, but the rest of the players could be doing something else. We tried this game at two separate LAN weekends, the first was ok, the game was fresh, and there is the enjoyment of advancement early on. The second weekend we continued it out of interia, but all of us started to realize just how much the gameplay sucked for multiplayer. We just sort of gave up on it, and have no intention of going back. In fact, we found the most fun on that second weekend in going back to the first areas and killing the level 1 monsters with a single blow, it became a race to who killed the pathetic monster the fastest.
Now, when DS2 releases, we might give it a go. I really did like the premise of the game, though it would be nice to see a broader skillset. I just hope it doesn't turn out to be as broken as the first for multiplayer. There just hasn't been a really good multiplayer game for my group since we beat Diablo 2. I really would love to see a 3 in that series, sure 2 was mostly a rehash of the first, but it had enough new bits to make it fun. And the gameplay is addictive.
I thnik we siltl need temh, jsut to hlep us srot out the nmuebr of lteters in a wrod. The urndecsreos can be a ltitle cnofnuisg, at lseat for me, as I cnaont fgurie out how mnay lteetrs are in the wrod. Aslo, tehy seem to hlep gvie smoe itdcaniion of waht the wrod is. But mybae its jsut me.
Unfortunately, I have an aversion to the Logitech Marble F/X trackball. Mostly because the way it was designed made configuring the functions on the device through Logitech's MouseWare software suite quite difficult to do. Not to mention the fact it takes quite a lot of practice to use that device properly, too. =(
That's not too suprising. I often find that people who are not used to a trackball really don't like my trackball, and even those that are don't usually work well with it the first time. Both my roomate and my girlfriend have a hell of a time using my computer (thought they are getting better). For me, I just found that it was really comfortable to use, and for some reason, I liked the way it feels/moves.
Configuration was easy enough for me, just pick the button functions, and turn off that damned "mouse accelleration" feature, I hate that thing, why is it a default, it makes the mouse unusable? Also, you have to make sure you do the verticle configuration, its sets the trackball's axies to the way you tend to move the ball.
In the end though, if you have found something you like, stick with it, I just wish I could find another Marble FX to attach to my server (though the terminal services setup works pretty well for me).
Well, one of the first mice I ever used was one of those screwy Pen-Mice. It was an attempt to make the mouse similar to a known technology, a pen; but it failed miserably. You had to hold it just so, the buttons were annoying to work with, and the cord (which came out the top) was forever in the way. It was an interesting concept, but just wasn't right.
My current "mouse" is a Logitech Marble FX trackball. It has got to be the most comfortable pointing device I have ever used, and I like the ability to simply pull my fingers away, and the cursor doesn't move, even when I click the buttons. I could never get that from a mouse, clicking always caused me to move a bit this way or that.
Don't really have anything I would say is an alternate rule, though one thing that we do, which we infered from the written rules, is that when we kill a zombie, we keep the miniature as a counter. If there are no more miniatures in the pool, then no new zombies can be added, i.e. new tiles lack zombies, cards which add zombies to the map can only add as many zombies as there are miniatures in the pool, etc. We didn't do this the first time we played, and it really screwed the game, we ended up with the map forever swamped in zombies, you couldn't take a step without having to fight, and you tended to run out of bullets and health real quick. Once we implimented this particular rule, we find that we tend to get to a point where everyone is holding between 10 and 20 zombies in their kill pile, and the board is rather sparse on zombies. It makes it possible to stock up on bullets/health again before somone has a bad run of luck and replinishes the pool. And, of course, using the cards right can make for a lot of fun. Its amazing how easy it can be to kill someone off by forcing them through a guantlet of zombies, and just waiting for thier luck with the dice to run out. Though the other side of this coin is, don't run someone with the fire axe through a ton of zombies, it just tends to get them a lot of kills. :-)
As for there being no "real" strategy, yes, you are right, its not a game to be played be hardcore war gammers. Basically, if your into warhammer and its ilk, the this game is going to seem simplistic. The cards are not, however, useless, you just aren't being imaganitive enough with them. Most of the cards are great for dicking with your opponents, and often can turn a game against someone. Also, you should always try and find a use for a card each round, never let your hand get stale. And yes, there is a large element of luck in the game (it has dice in it, of course luck plays a factor), but that just makes it fun, IMHO, it provides for some great moments when the dice either simle on you, or the dice screw you. If a game has no randomness, it just seems to lack something, because the outcome is often very predictable.
Also, try playing this game with alcohol around, Zombies is a blast with less blood in your alcohol stream. Cheers!
What makes a law unjust? In a democracy, the majority defines the law, so if we accept the behavior of the majority as evidence, then the law she broke was unjust.
Alright, I know I'm getting trolled, but I have to...
AMERICA IS NOT A DEMOCRACY!!!!!!!!!
I realize that this little distinction is not taught much in schools, but it is very important. Our govenment is better described as a republic with democratic tendancies. This is by design, specifically to avoid the problem you seemed to miss in your own statement. Mob rule tends to lead to a tyrany of the majority, basically, if anything the majority says goes, you end up with minorities being trampled ruthlessly. For example, slavery would probably still be in effect.
Now, this is not to say that copyright laws aren't broken. In my opinion then content owners ave managed to break thier side of the copyright bargin by buying extensions of it. Though, more to blame are our duly elected representatives, who willing sold us out to the content owners. Every representative that voted in favor of any extension on copyrights should be taken out and beaten to death with a wiffle bat. Ok, that's a bit extreme, but they should at least be thrown out of office.
What did you find so broken about Zombies? Other than the fact that getting to the Helipad is usually never accomplished, we always end up with someone killing 25 zombies first.
Not according to the law as written. In fact, both the judge and the plantiff were letting the spammer off easy.
As the article stated, the law allows for a penalty of $500 per email. This guy had received 58,000 emails, so some quick math:
$500 * 58,000 = $29,000,000
Compare that to the $250,000 he got nailed for, at the moment (I expect an appeal), and you can see that he got off real light. Much too light, IMHO, he should have been forced to pay the entire 29 million, that'd be a hell of a deterent to him restarting his spam business.
The thing I don't understand, though, is why the RIAA necessarily feels its a good thing to form the webcasting industry into a more professional, tightly-knit one. Wouldn't they benefit from a stronger bargaining position when dealing with small independent webcasters who have little leverage and are a dime a dozen?
Its the same reason the RIAA loves Clear Channel, control. Its easy to buy off one large company, sure, it takes a chunk of change, but the RIAA has that. And in return, it buys them exclusivity, the vast majority of radio stations only play RIAA blessed content, so the independent labels get shut out. If you have thousands of smaller stations running things, the RIAA has to track down, and convince each one to play only their stuff, which might be a tad harder to do. Individually, each station will cost less to buy off, but as a whole, when considering the logistics of it, the overall cost is probably much higher.
Further, the fewer avenues of distribution available to independent artists, the less likely they are to be heard, and choosen over a RIAA backed artist. This keeps the RIAA in control, and keeps the money rolling in.
I'm just glad to see someone finally standing up to the RIAA, and calling them an abusive monopoly. The tactics employed by them to keep control make Microsoft look like a chior boy in comparison. At the very least MS couldn't keep people from hearing about alternatives, what the RIAA is doing with these fees is just that. Its a fee designed to keep small webcasters from attracting an audiance, who might just hear an independent band, mixed in with the RIAA bands, and decide that they want the independent's CD rather than the RIAA's.
Why all those old rich people keep moving to places like Palm Springs:
Prolonged exposure to extreme temperatures is also harmful, but Rattan has found that heating up human skin cells to 41 degrees Celsius (106 degrees Fahrenheit) twice a week for an hour slows aging in the cells.
Seriously, if you've never been though Palm Springs, CA, you aren't missing much. Its a couple of golf courses in the hottest damn place, its not quite the middle of nowhere, but its in the same zipcode. Though, I might just be bitter about it, because the first job I ever held involved delivering medicines to people, in home, and I had to drive to Palm Springs every other week in a truck with no A/C. Nice enough drive, little to no traffic, and the desert can be kinda pretty at the right times, but if its summer take a lot of water with you.
Sure, they have the game consoles, but they have to play the DOA:XBV mod that has all of the women in burquas.
I personally don't feel that complexity it an issue with games today. A bit of a challange is a good thing. The problem I am seeing with games is that they are no longer about playing a game and having fun, and more about the producer trying to tell some story. Now, storylines are fine, and good, we need them to hold the violence together, but I start having a problem when I am spending more time watching cut-scenes than I am actually playing the game. A great example of this is the Final Fantasy series, I loved the first one in the US on the NES, in fact, I still go back and play it occasionally (working on getting a party to 30th level before beating Garland, innane but fun). The second one (US based again) just didn't capture my interest as much, too much emphasis on the cut-scenes, and the incredibally pathetic story, not to mention the sub-desert castle kinda turned me off to it. The third one, I beat once and never touched again, dealing with the cut-scenes the first time was painful enough, and the story was pretty much the exact same story as the second one, and still just as insulting to the intellegence of the player. I'm afraid I can only take so much of the "choose your lover; oh, and we need to save that world thingy" type story before I retch and I dislike the whole steampunk genre to boot. I never did play FF7 myself, I saw a friend playing it, and realized that it hadn't gotten any better. FF8 feel into the same boat, saw it, and just didn't bother. Not had a chance to see FF9 or FF10 yet, but from everything I have heard, they sound to be the same, "look at our graphics" fests with more trite dialogue, and the hero who is caught between potential lovers.
Can we please get more games where the story doesn't get in the way of good gameplay? It should be there to tie all of the action together, not make me feel like I am watching a damn movie with frantic button mashing in between scenes. And you can keep the dating sim to yourself, I just want to pick up my sword, go out into the world and cut down a few thousand baddies, and maybe save the world while I'm at it.
You're probably right, I've just not seen it run on anything slower than what I mentioned. And even that has the occasional graphical hiccup, so I was simply giving a baseline that I knew would run the game at a passable level.
Assuming that you either have 10 or more people regularly, and/or plan on having internet access. Enemy Territory is a blast. Moreover, it relies on teamplay, if all you have is a bunch of people running around, playing death-match or Lewis and Clark the videogame, your team tends to lose, fast. And, best of all, its completely free, you don't even have to pirate it. Though, it does require a good bit of horsepower. Nothing under a P4 (not Celeron, never Celeron), and at least the GeForce 4 Ti4800 or better (note: GeForce FX 5600 Ultra is not better), and at least 256MB RAM. Granted, at the moment, this probably isn't an overly expensive rig, but when multiplied by several machines, it'll cost some money. But, if this setup is really for gaming, you should probably be shooting at about these specs as a minimum anyways.
As you are the second to point this out, please refer to my response to the previous poster as to this faux pas.
Yes, you are right, I glossed over that point a bit. What I was refering to, but seemed to have failed to get across, was independent artists who have agreed to have their songs shared on P2P services, sorry, I should have been a bit clearer.
Don't forget his cameo in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, as Cock-knocker. That scene was funny, and at least it looks like Mark Hamill has a sense of humor and is willing to make fun of himself.
Or, since this is China, perhaps the court system can be convinced that this guy's hands need a good break, perhaps one or two compound fractures. This guy needs to quit whining and turn the game off. Seriously, I realize that a lot of time can go into one of these games to get some cool item, but its just a game, nothing more.
Close, its more like coporate feudalism. The congress critters are the local lords, the heads of the coporations are the dukes etc. And the president is the king, it just so happenes that, like often did in feudalistic society, that the aristocricy wields much of the power, but the king is a nice figurehead for people to rally around, and for all of the blame to fall on.
Great, the next big worm will be the Dance Dance Revolution worm. Suits will get infetced and dance their elderly occupents to death, all to the sounds of sythesized techno-pop music.
You're probably right, though I think that doing it publicly to save ones skin is probably forgivable, while secretly keeping faith. Then again, you might want to look at my sig for my view on religon anyway, it tends to affect my view of people willing to die for their religion.
"Religion is the opiate of the masses"
Along with that, anyone who is that dedicated to their beliefs worries me. An inability to question one's own belifes is the sure sign of a nutcase who just needs the right proding to go kill someone.
Let's see, you have the huge coporations who own most of the govenment at this point versus an average serf, er... citizen. Not to be cynical about it, or maybe just to be cynical about it, but I don't think this lawsuit has a snowball's chance in hell. I would love to see this person win her case, and maybe undo some of the damage from the DMCA, but I just don't see it happening. The RIAA is going to do everything it can to convince the judge that she is just another pirate who is trying to hide behind that annoying privacy thing, and that the DMCA is necessary to finding and persecuting, er... prosecuting her. And the judge will probably buy it.
Perhaps I have just given up, but I think at this point we mihgt as well go all the way and rename the USA the UFSC (United Feudalistic States of the Corporations).
Ok, so you have a linux server on the net, you are a novice, I hack your server I use it to do bad things, it gets traced back to you, not to me, you get charged. You say " but I diden't know, I must have been hacked, it wasen't me... etc. etc. " the fact that you were "ignorant" of how to properly secure your machine should not make you responsible for the actions of another who hacked your machine. a license to use a computer would be nice but it dosen't exist as of now so this is all pretty much a grey area, I don't think that ancient sayings like "ignorance is no defence" are as clear cut in cyberspace.
Alright, I feel like I am getting trolled, but I couldn't resist.
That saying, to which the above poster was refering to, which is true, is "ignorance of the law is no defense." Which is a hell of a lot different than what you are describing. If you are truly ignorant of a crime being commited, even if it is using your property, then you have a pretty valid defense. Except in cases where the ignorance is willful, basically you see someone digging a hole in your yard at night with a big plastic bag, say about 6 feet long and 3 feet wide, and you simply ignore the situation and don't report it.
So yes, the "ignorance is no defense" saying is just as valid in cyberspace as it is anywhere else, unless you are ignorant of the meaning of that saying. There is nothing magical about cyberspace, all the smae basic rules apply, its just the execution that gets fuzzy.
She ADMITS to using Kazaa to share. She KNOWS how to rip her files (and if anyone showed her how to rip them), I will put money on the fact that they told her to use either WMP or WinAMP.
The question that I didn't see answered, which is going to be very material to this case, was: what was she downloading? If it was music from independant artists or freeware, then she has done nothing wrong. Now I admit, most likely, she was downloading copyrighted music, and therefore in trouble, but if she claims she didn't, and can explain away her sharing as the legal kind, then the onus shoud be on the RIAA to prove otherwise, if they can't, and the judge isn't just another coporate worshiper, then she may just get away with this and set a very nice precident, something along the lines of, you actually have to file a suit and ask the judge to let you subpeona those records before getting them.
Regarding your question in the first paragraph: The only lasting methods of social change are nonviolent, so the answer is through nonviolent methods.
I seem to recall that a lasting change was made in Germany, rather directly by WWII, and that Germany has yet to revert back to Nazism. Heck, the US was founded on violent acts, and doesn't seem to be going anywhere soon. I'm sorry, this idea is very obviously wrong. War is a tool for affecting change, the fact that it is used so often to create a very bad change is sad.
As for Ghandi's view:
Gandhi's view was that the German Jews ought to commit collective suicide, which "would have aroused the world and the people of Germany to Hitler's violence." After the war he justified himself: the Jews had been killed anyway, and might as well have died significantly.
So basically, what is being proposed is, the jews were likely to die anyway, so they should have killed themselves to make a political statement, that would have probably been either covered up by the Nazi's or ignored by the world. I have a lot of respect for Ghandi and his beliefs, but bullshit. The jews would have done better to resist and die fighting, than to do Hitler's work for him; they just got screwed by the slow boil principal for govenments to oppress people. Where they needed to start resisting was when the German govenment forced them to wear the Star of David so that they could be identified easily, if they had just gone underground, and publicly denied their religion, they might have been better able to resist the Nazi's plan to put them all in death camps. For example, look at the French Underground resistance, rather than try and make some flashy public display, they quitely fought to provide information and support to the allies, and that support was crucial. In the end, a lot of the memebers of the underground survived. But you and Ghandi would propose that they should have just killed themselves, and deprive the allies of a lot of the support and information that made D-Day successful. And what happenes when all anyone does is kill themselves when faced with a tyrant, you get a lot of dead people, and a tyrant who gets to continue being a tyrant. Sure, eventually that tyrant dies, though usually another one steps up. The only way tyrants are ever removed is through violence or infrastucture collapse. Violence tends to stop the tyrant now, infrastructure collapse often takes a few centuries. Sorry, I just don't buy into the idea that we should just roll over and let people step on us, yes it might kill me to resist, but if my resisting will make the lives of my decendants better, the so be it.