My personal pet peeve is games with a dozen little pieces of DLC, which get released but never get reduced in price (aside from the odd sale once in a blue moon.) My personal policy has been to wait for the "ultimate" or "game of the year" edition which has all the DLC bundled in. Because unless I'm playing with other people, there's no pressure on me to play a game right away. It's not like there's a shortage of games to play in the meantime.
As for specific types of DLC, I'll give my takes on them:
Expansion Pack - Great! A full-length or half-length expansion of the regular game is usually welcome.
Mini Expansion - Good! The ones that act as an extension of the main game are better than the ones that are like side quests.
Micro Expansion - Bad. By "micro", I mean a single extra quest or average dungeon, tacked on somewhere in the game world.
Song Tracks - Fair game, as long as the original Guitar Hero/Rock Band game came with a good song selection.
Extra Cars - Also fair, as long as they're not unbalanced in online play.
Map Packs - Lame. Plus it divides the community between the people who bought it and those who haven't.
Extra Items - Usually lame. Like a special weapon or armor that you're given early in the game. Often unbalanced.
Cheats/Unlocks - Terrible. Paying for stuff that really should be free. Like paying to unlock all the fighting game's characters.
Cosmetic Enhancements - Mixed bag. Harmless or cool in multiplayer games, pointless in single player games.
New character - Wildly mixed. Maybe it means you can play through the game again in a whole new way. Or maybe he/she makes little difference. Or maybe they suck, like a really cheap or bad character in an online game.
Unfortunately, the military also has a habit of classifying documents inappropriately. An old video of an attack that left two reporters dead? Reports about the numbers of casualties? We live in a democracy, and we need to know what is happening in order to make democratic choices.
The military seems to classify by default. There are probably a few simple reasons for this:
"I don't have authority to decide if something should be classified or not. That's up to my superiors."
"I don't have time to read all these documents and watch hundreds of hours of video and still do my main job. Just keep them classified."
"What if I un-classify something sensitive by mistake? I'd get in trouble, so screw that."
"Who the hell would want to read all this crap anyway?" (i.e. 99% of the leaked Afghanistan documents)
I'm sure there's occasions where something sensitive (or bad looking) is deliberately kept classified, but that's a minority of the time. Just remember that the military is an enormous bureaucracy first, and a fighting force second. (Or it just seems that way sometimes.)
Boy, some people just buy the propaganda, hook, line, and sinker. The Cuban government has the motivation and the means to lie about those statistics. Do you believe everything that comes out of North Korea too?
Pro-tip: Many countries play fast and loose with infant mortality statistics. The US has the strictest standards when it comes to this - babies we try to save here would be written off as late-term miscarriages elsewhere.
The Tragedy of the Commons can be protected against by only government, not market, action.
Except there are multiple governments in the world, so unless you can get them all to agree on the same regulations, then they're going to pretty much act like players in a large regulations market.
Corporate personhood is a red herring. It's mostly a matter of convenience, like if you wanted to sue one, or regulate one, etc. Heck, part of the reason that laws can ban corporate donations is because corporate personhood exists.
If it was abolished, nothing much would change. There'd just be more paperwork.
Also, since when isn't iPhone jailbreaking associated with piracy? There's been plenty of stories lately about developers complaining about rampant piracy of their iPhone apps. Let's not discuss the merits of those claims, but it does show that "jailbreak" isn't some pristine term.
The one sad, sad thing is that this is called "PS3 jailbreak". Jailbreak is a very specific term that describes breaking out of a filesystem jail (e.g. on the iPhone), and it's being used on the PS3 purely for "brand recognition". This will just make people associate jailbreaks with piracy.
I thought it was when you break your device free of the parent company's control. (e.g. Sony, Apple, etc.) Mostly for the purpose of running unsigned code. So I'd say the PS3 and iPhone are perfectly analogous.
Whereas the Xbox 360 piracy hack isn't Jailbreaking, since it doesn't allow you to run unsigned code. It just circumvents the disc copy protection.
10 - New President gets elected 20 - New President keeps Old President's policies 30 - New President adds a couple more bad policies of his own. 40 - "At least he's better than the Old President, because he's in MY political party." 50 GOTO 10
There, I've just summarized the presidential electoral process.
I'd do Congress next, but it'd require 3 trillion lines of spaghetti code.
What absolutely baffles me is how many months after the "Collateral Murder" tape was released
I mean, if we as a nation aren't livid over watching a video of outright condoned and covered-up murder in our name and on our dime, then what are we ever going to be upset by?
Because that video clip wasn't nearly as controversial as you believe it to be? The most controversial thing about it might be the editorial title that Wikileaks gave it.
I'm not going to bother trying to explain that to you, though. It's been months since the video was released, so you clearly must have avoided or ignored every analysis of it that challenges your worldview.
Really guys, your president is Center-Right from the perspective of the rest of the world
I keep seeing that repeated, but I'm not sure it's actually true. I mean, he might be center-right when compared to Cuba, but I'd say he's center-left with regards to Western Europe, for example.
The ruling didn't change campaign contribution laws. It was about 3rd parties buying political advertising during a campaign. And yes, an individual can buy political airtime too, if they have enough money. If they don't have enough money, they can form or join a group.
And, news organizations are totally irrelevant to the conversation, since they are required to give equal air time to political opponents.
I do not know the rules on labor unions, but I see no reason they should need to give money to politicians. I actually think it would be best if they don't. They could do just as well organizing their membership into giving individually.
If labor unions had to ask their members before performing an action, I don't think they'd get anything done.
The new Xbox 360 redesign seems to indicate that they've obtained the requisite experience. And by all accounts, the Zune and Kin were fine hardware devices at least.
Zune integration is 'killer' you say? That's going to do it, huh? Well, everybody who owns a Zune now has the option to integrate it. All five of them..
I presume he's talking about the Zune Pass music service, which got good reviews but is pretty much doomed due to poor marketing.
There's so many more things to be considered when taking a real photograph - ISO, exposure length (and thus motion blur or lack thereof, and over- or under-exposure for artful purposes), aperture (influencing depth of field), choice of lens (influencing perspective and framing).
In PC games at least, there are a lot of things you can tweak or hack. Either with the game or with your display drivers. It's a different skillset, and probably easier overall, but here's a few real-life examples off the top of my head:
Increasing foliage density - this is often just a slider that can be turned up or overridden
Filters like film-grainyness or sepia, though I suppose these could be added in post-processing
Finer shadows, brighter lights, more realistic darkness (many games add a minimum amount of "lighting" to characters or environments, regardless of how many lights actually exist in the virtual space)
And this is all without altering the game itself on a basic level. Honestly it seems interesting now that I think about it.
The problem is that what made the Android OS a serious competitor to Apple was that it wasn't locked. If a phone running Android is locked as tight as an Iphone, I may as well get the Iphone and the "coolness" of owning an Apple product.
You can still load whatever apps you want, so it'll never be locked as tight as an iPhone.
Wait, so if the corn isn't capable of reproducing, then how would it spread over the globe in some kind of apocalyptic way? And no, not all farmers will adopt it. And yes, genetic backups of original crops are kept by Monsanto and other organizations.
Also, I would think anti-GM people would be against GM crops cross-pollinating with other crops. Because of random mixing of genes and what not. It is possible to keep crops segregated so they don't cross-pollinate, you know. (Or they could buy the sterile variety.)
Which is why Monsanto (and other organizations) are keeping genetic backups of various DNA strains (original and modified). If some plague wipes out one of their biggest products, they would want to come out with a plague-proof variety.
(Cue the conspiracy theorists saying that Monsanto will invent such a plague, and that anti-virus writers create computer viruses, and etc. etc.)
What private data are we talking about? The list of apps you've downloaded from the market? I've got some bad news for you, most online markets keep track of that.
Android Market is more than just an app repository. It is also the installer and uninstaller for those apps (and checks for updates). So the Android Market application itself is what has the permissions to do these things.
Did you try putting the app into full screen mode? I figure that might help with the scrolling problem. (I don't have it on my phone yet so I'm not sure.)
So you're saying that you need an intermediate game with easier rules and controls, but more depth than casual games?
Though there are people who can't grasp the simplest of "hardcore" gaming concepts, like how to move and look around in a first-person game. I mean, that's gotten about as simple as it can get, and yet still some people just can't learn it. Honestly, if someone can't get that after a little bit of effort, I think they might have a learning disability.
Slashdot Mirror
My personal pet peeve is games with a dozen little pieces of DLC, which get released but never get reduced in price (aside from the odd sale once in a blue moon.) My personal policy has been to wait for the "ultimate" or "game of the year" edition which has all the DLC bundled in. Because unless I'm playing with other people, there's no pressure on me to play a game right away. It's not like there's a shortage of games to play in the meantime.
As for specific types of DLC, I'll give my takes on them:
Unfortunately, the military also has a habit of classifying documents inappropriately. An old video of an attack that left two reporters dead? Reports about the numbers of casualties? We live in a democracy, and we need to know what is happening in order to make democratic choices.
The military seems to classify by default. There are probably a few simple reasons for this:
I'm sure there's occasions where something sensitive (or bad looking) is deliberately kept classified, but that's a minority of the time. Just remember that the military is an enormous bureaucracy first, and a fighting force second. (Or it just seems that way sometimes.)
Boy, some people just buy the propaganda, hook, line, and sinker. The Cuban government has the motivation and the means to lie about those statistics. Do you believe everything that comes out of North Korea too?
Pro-tip: Many countries play fast and loose with infant mortality statistics. The US has the strictest standards when it comes to this - babies we try to save here would be written off as late-term miscarriages elsewhere.
The Tragedy of the Commons can be protected against by only government, not market, action.
Except there are multiple governments in the world, so unless you can get them all to agree on the same regulations, then they're going to pretty much act like players in a large regulations market.
Corporate personhood is a red herring. It's mostly a matter of convenience, like if you wanted to sue one, or regulate one, etc. Heck, part of the reason that laws can ban corporate donations is because corporate personhood exists.
If it was abolished, nothing much would change. There'd just be more paperwork.
Also, since when isn't iPhone jailbreaking associated with piracy? There's been plenty of stories lately about developers complaining about rampant piracy of their iPhone apps. Let's not discuss the merits of those claims, but it does show that "jailbreak" isn't some pristine term.
The one sad, sad thing is that this is called "PS3 jailbreak". Jailbreak is a very specific term that describes breaking out of a filesystem jail (e.g. on the iPhone), and it's being used on the PS3 purely for "brand recognition". This will just make people associate jailbreaks with piracy.
I thought it was when you break your device free of the parent company's control. (e.g. Sony, Apple, etc.) Mostly for the purpose of running unsigned code. So I'd say the PS3 and iPhone are perfectly analogous.
Whereas the Xbox 360 piracy hack isn't Jailbreaking, since it doesn't allow you to run unsigned code. It just circumvents the disc copy protection.
That brings up a good point.
10 - New President gets elected
20 - New President keeps Old President's policies
30 - New President adds a couple more bad policies of his own.
40 - "At least he's better than the Old President, because he's in MY political party."
50 GOTO 10
There, I've just summarized the presidential electoral process.
I'd do Congress next, but it'd require 3 trillion lines of spaghetti code.
What absolutely baffles me is how many months after the "Collateral Murder" tape was released
I mean, if we as a nation aren't livid over watching a video of outright condoned and covered-up murder in our name and on our dime, then what are we ever going to be upset by?
Because that video clip wasn't nearly as controversial as you believe it to be? The most controversial thing about it might be the editorial title that Wikileaks gave it.
I'm not going to bother trying to explain that to you, though. It's been months since the video was released, so you clearly must have avoided or ignored every analysis of it that challenges your worldview.
Really guys, your president is Center-Right from the perspective of the rest of the world
I keep seeing that repeated, but I'm not sure it's actually true. I mean, he might be center-right when compared to Cuba, but I'd say he's center-left with regards to Western Europe, for example.
The ruling didn't change campaign contribution laws. It was about 3rd parties buying political advertising during a campaign. And yes, an individual can buy political airtime too, if they have enough money. If they don't have enough money, they can form or join a group.
And, news organizations are totally irrelevant to the conversation, since they are required to give equal air time to political opponents.
Not since the Fairness Doctrine was repealed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine
Not that the Fairness Doctrine was a good idea in the first place.
I do not know the rules on labor unions, but I see no reason they should need to give money to politicians. I actually think it would be best if they don't. They could do just as well organizing their membership into giving individually.
If labor unions had to ask their members before performing an action, I don't think they'd get anything done.
And half of them broke because of a design flaw
And then they eventually fixed the design flaw and recently redesigned the product from the ground up. Trial by fire.
Hell, you even forgot their other big problem, which was quality control at their production facilities. Another hard lesson to learn.
It is possible for a company to get better at something over time. Crazy but true!
The new Xbox 360 redesign seems to indicate that they've obtained the requisite experience. And by all accounts, the Zune and Kin were fine hardware devices at least.
The Kin even had great battery life:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3814/microsofts-kin-a-eulogy/4
I'm not saying that making phones is a good idea, but it's certainly possible.
Zune integration is 'killer' you say? That's going to do it, huh? Well, everybody who owns a Zune now has the option to integrate it. All five of them..
I presume he's talking about the Zune Pass music service, which got good reviews but is pretty much doomed due to poor marketing.
There's so many more things to be considered when taking a real photograph - ISO, exposure length (and thus motion blur or lack thereof, and over- or under-exposure for artful purposes), aperture (influencing depth of field), choice of lens (influencing perspective and framing).
In PC games at least, there are a lot of things you can tweak or hack. Either with the game or with your display drivers. It's a different skillset, and probably easier overall, but here's a few real-life examples off the top of my head:
And this is all without altering the game itself on a basic level. Honestly it seems interesting now that I think about it.
The problem is that what made the Android OS a serious competitor to Apple was that it wasn't locked. If a phone running Android is locked as tight as an Iphone, I may as well get the Iphone and the "coolness" of owning an Apple product.
You can still load whatever apps you want, so it'll never be locked as tight as an iPhone.
Wait, so if the corn isn't capable of reproducing, then how would it spread over the globe in some kind of apocalyptic way? And no, not all farmers will adopt it. And yes, genetic backups of original crops are kept by Monsanto and other organizations.
Also, I would think anti-GM people would be against GM crops cross-pollinating with other crops. Because of random mixing of genes and what not. It is possible to keep crops segregated so they don't cross-pollinate, you know. (Or they could buy the sterile variety.)
Which is why Monsanto (and other organizations) are keeping genetic backups of various DNA strains (original and modified). If some plague wipes out one of their biggest products, they would want to come out with a plague-proof variety.
(Cue the conspiracy theorists saying that Monsanto will invent such a plague, and that anti-virus writers create computer viruses, and etc. etc.)
Unskippable ads. Unlike with cable (with a DVR), where you can fast forward or skip through them, if you've recorded it.
But at least with Hulu you don't have to record it first. A fair trade I'd say.
The main problem is that they don't have enough shows. They're not ready to be a complete replacement for cable yet.
Control and privacy aren't the same thing. There was no privacy violated in this case, is all I'm saying.
violating user privacy
What private data are we talking about? The list of apps you've downloaded from the market?
I've got some bad news for you, most online markets keep track of that.
Android Market is more than just an app repository. It is also the installer and uninstaller for those apps (and checks for updates). So the Android Market application itself is what has the permissions to do these things.
Did you try putting the app into full screen mode? I figure that might help with the scrolling problem. (I don't have it on my phone yet so I'm not sure.)
If I recall, there's an option in the Android browser to only load flash apps "on-demand", i.e. when you click one. Kinda like Flashblock for Firefox.
Also, since this is the final version, does it finally have hardware acceleration? Hopefully we'll see some tests soon.
So you're saying that you need an intermediate game with easier rules and controls, but more depth than casual games?
Though there are people who can't grasp the simplest of "hardcore" gaming concepts, like how to move and look around in a first-person game. I mean, that's gotten about as simple as it can get, and yet still some people just can't learn it. Honestly, if someone can't get that after a little bit of effort, I think they might have a learning disability.