Unless you need one for business purposes very few people have a UPS in their home.
This is off topic. Maybe I'm a dinosaur, but I've always had one. The prices now are incredibly cheap compared to yesteryear, too. You get very good ones for $100. And I have always seen them as "another piece of equipment that can fry before my hard drive does" during a thunderstorm.
Also I would argue that the trend nowadays is that "most users" are actually moving to laptops - which come with their own built in battery back up.
You conveniently left out how much their costs are.
Irrelevant. The figure is SALES, not profit. Cost has nothing to do with the revenue figure. If you're losing money with 400+ million pounds per quarter, er, may I suggest you leave the airline business?
By the way the doc I meant to link to is here and it's euros not pounds. I blame the error on it being 3 am and too much pain medication.
And who are you to tell how much companies should be allowed to make?
Oh they can try to make as much as they want. I'm just a guy with a brain that destroyed the 85% piracy argument. Like someone else said, that would be 82 million copies sold PER QUARTER. Uh yeah. Sure. They're losing 85%...
But then again I'm sure you believe in UFO's and Al Gore.
Now let's see if I get the math right, if 495 million is 15 percent, then 33 million is 1 percent, therefore 3.3 billion pounds is 100 percent.
So, according to you, a company like Ubisoft should be selling 3.3 billion pounds PER QUARTER? Just as a minor comparison, General Dynamix (a small defense company that makes oh, fighter jets and boats) only sold 2.1 billion DOLLARS last quarter.
I absolutely LAUGH at "piracy hurts sales" whiners who start throwing BS numbers like that 85% about. You are full of shit.
because electricity went off for 1-2 seconds. Good luck trying to play your game with that "disconnection" too.
It's called an "uninterruptible power supply". I know they've been around since the late 80's, but still they might not have reached your corner of Africa and I pity you. Especially since I live in a two bit country in Central America and I have 3 of them, which I bought at my local Office Depot. I can play my games through power outages lasting up to an hour or more, and if you're real smart you put your router/modem on one too and that way you don't even lose internet when the power goes!
And the subsequent increase in piracy of this game will be blamed on DRM that wasn't draconian enough.
Yes pretty soon you'll be forced to pay airfare to their offices and chain yourself to a terminal to play their game and then sign an NDA afterwards. But that's ok. When you've lived long enough, you see companies come and go. The only exception really is EA, and those fuckers deserve a fiery death (in my opinion your honor). But big gaming companies (Microprose, Sierra, SSI) eventually forget that games were supposed to be fun to make and fun to play, and end up being swallowed and digested by someone else. Ubisoft won't last forever either. Especially not when they pull crap like this.
I'm sorry to say that since you have not saved the game, we have no choice but to start you back at the beginning.
I haven't played the series but knowing the types of games these people produce, it's probably a linear "follow the path and the game will auto-save at pre-arranged spots" type of game. Not that sucky game design is an excuse for sucky DRM. But then again considering the intellect that is attracted to this sort of game, they probably are willing to take whatever Ubisoft wants to do to them.
The added services to the game (unlimited installs
Wow, they make it sound like they're doing me a FAVOR by allowing me to install the game more than once. Screw the right of first sale, they're going to be charging you per install in a few years.
Because not everyone has multiple cores so PC games have to go for some version of the lowest common denominator
Which is honestly quite strange, because most games I know require you have the latest uber-$500 graphics card to run properly. I would argue that there is something else involved (eye candy important, multi-core not) in the design process.
Since when does MS have the right to say "To get software truly correct..."? They KNOW how to make software secure?
Well it's kind of like the TSA giving us advice on flight safety. In order to be truly safe, make sure there are no passengers on the plane. In order for software to be truly secure: while(1);
This is not necessarily true. Bug finding is not always a matter of brain-power, sometimes it's just someone with a different perspective who hasn't been staring at the same code for the last 20 hours. Some bugs are just a product of carelessness, while others arise from a fundamental misunderstanding of the code they are trying to manipulate. In very complex programs no one has a full understanding of the complete code. It's just not possible.
I could not follow your point there, neither taking it personally, nor rhetorically. Kindly clarify,
I meant that you obviously hold the view that a democratic system is the best system for you, yet you acknowledge that it has shortcomings. Therefore my assumption is that you believe yourself to be voting "correctly", yet since political corruption exists, the "majority" must be voting different from you and thus "incorrectly". Not a personal attack. I don't do those. However I tend to make points passionately.
Bloodshed is almost never the answer to anything except to answer if you want more bloodshed.
Since we're into clichés and quotes: "The most persistent sound which reverberates through man's history is the beating of war drums." - Koestler
when citizens don't vote, they get what's coming to them.
Please explain your rationale? Considering the sample size of a vote, it's fair to say that the proportion of votes is going to be similar no matter how many voters you pull at random out of the total. If there were more voters, the election result would probably be the same to within a few decimal places. It's rare that elections are won by a handful of votes - a recent example being George W Bush the first time. But since he won a second term...
No, it's not voter abstinence that's the problem. Voter abstinence is the SYMPTOM. The problem is that every candidate is as crooked as his opponent. It doesn't matter WHO you vote for. This problem has been known as far back as ancient Greece, and Plato touched on it. Anyone who wants to seek public office de facto is someone who thinks they have something to gain by being elected. It's democracy that's broken at its very core. Then add to this the fact that a great number of people vote for a candidate because of "looks", or "he has a cute wife", or "I'm with party X because my family have always been with party X" or "This candidate's dad was a previous incumbent", etc.
But sure, be short-sighted and continue to think that you are the ONE TRUE VOTER, and everyone else is against you voting for the "wrong" people all the time. But the real problem lies elsewhere. The real solution is bloodshed. It happens from time to time, and then the game begins again.
giving at least as much as it takes from your state?
Oh I see. Government financial mismanagement, corruption and ineptitude is actually the CITIZEN's fault, not the fault of the people actually doing the financial mismanagement, corruption and ineptitude. I get it now.
Please remove yourself from the population so that you can do your part to help curb the deficit!
Anyone who has ever flown in a small plane knows that you have to balance the plane out
Apples and oranges. Considering your typical 737 can weigh up to 150,000 lbs at take-off, it's not the 300 lb passenger (under 0.1% of the weight if you allowed for a 150 lb passenger originally anyway) that's going to alter the plane's center of gravity so much as to cause a dangerous condition... we're not talking about a Cessna here.
The system is able to run perpetually by periodically recharging the on-board battery with a solar cell (neglecting physical wear-out of the system)."
Yeah that's cute. Able to run perpetually neglecting physical wear out of the system. And I have invented a perpetual motion machine, neglecting friction, air resistance and gravity.
You license it on the condition that you agree to the EULA.
This has not been tested in court AFAIK. What if, for instance, I don't agree with their terms? I added a condition to the EULA stating that Steve Ballmer can come to my house and personally collect my copy if they disagree with my using their software under the amended terms. Oh, letting their program install on my computer signified their acceptance of the new terms.
Firstly, I doubt that Jammie would ever have had 2.odd million dollars to give to the RIAA. $54k she might be able to manage eventually. However you forget that this was never about the MONEY. It was about deterring "piracy". Therefore they are going to milk this for all the publicity and all the headlines they can get. Jammie Thomas is just an excuse, and the money is irrelevant. So long as they can scare pimply 13 year olds (or the parents of pimply 13 year olds) into thinking they can get caught and have to pay between $54k and $2.5 million, they are "winning".
Who cares? Most people don't want a bezel in the middle of their desktop. It's just not something they would be into.
So this whole idea that "multi monitor is a killer" is just PC gamer wannabe nonsense.
Thank you all for proving my point. Of course it's nonsense that I make a couple thousand bucks a day, but I need at least 6 monitors to do it. Of course there's no "need" for this, I just want my desktop to "look cool". Of course anyone who needs more than ZOMG 2 monitors is doing nothing but wasting time playing games. And of course I get modded flamebait for bringing up a valid point. That's ok linux people. You may continue with your heads in the sands of ignorance. I can afford the Windows license anyway.
See my comment to the other guy. I didn't mean 2 monitors. I meant MULTIPLE, as in 6 or 8. You try setting THAT up. I have. I gave up. You may laugh at what seems like an insane amount of monitors, but we day traders need them.
Slashdot Mirror
Unless you need one for business purposes very few people have a UPS in their home.
This is off topic. Maybe I'm a dinosaur, but I've always had one. The prices now are incredibly cheap compared to yesteryear, too. You get very good ones for $100. And I have always seen them as "another piece of equipment that can fry before my hard drive does" during a thunderstorm.
Also I would argue that the trend nowadays is that "most users" are actually moving to laptops - which come with their own built in battery back up.
You conveniently left out how much their costs are.
Irrelevant. The figure is SALES, not profit. Cost has nothing to do with the revenue figure. If you're losing money with 400+ million pounds per quarter, er, may I suggest you leave the airline business?
By the way the doc I meant to link to is here and it's euros not pounds. I blame the error on it being 3 am and too much pain medication.
And who are you to tell how much companies should be allowed to make?
Oh they can try to make as much as they want. I'm just a guy with a brain that destroyed the 85% piracy argument. Like someone else said, that would be 82 million copies sold PER QUARTER. Uh yeah. Sure. They're losing 85%...
But then again I'm sure you believe in UFO's and Al Gore.
If your customers somehow took 85% of your revenue
[citation needed]
Ubisoft: 3rd quarter sales (Feb 9, 2010) 495 million pounds sterling.
Now let's see if I get the math right, if 495 million is 15 percent, then 33 million is 1 percent, therefore 3.3 billion pounds is 100 percent.
So, according to you, a company like Ubisoft should be selling 3.3 billion pounds PER QUARTER? Just as a minor comparison, General Dynamix (a small defense company that makes oh, fighter jets and boats) only sold 2.1 billion DOLLARS last quarter.
I absolutely LAUGH at "piracy hurts sales" whiners who start throwing BS numbers like that 85% about. You are full of shit.
because electricity went off for 1-2 seconds. Good luck trying to play your game with that "disconnection" too.
It's called an "uninterruptible power supply". I know they've been around since the late 80's, but still they might not have reached your corner of Africa and I pity you. Especially since I live in a two bit country in Central America and I have 3 of them, which I bought at my local Office Depot. I can play my games through power outages lasting up to an hour or more, and if you're real smart you put your router/modem on one too and that way you don't even lose internet when the power goes!
I can understand some level of online authentication
And I can't understand ANY level of online authentication.
And the subsequent increase in piracy of this game will be blamed on DRM that wasn't draconian enough.
Yes pretty soon you'll be forced to pay airfare to their offices and chain yourself to a terminal to play their game and then sign an NDA afterwards. But that's ok. When you've lived long enough, you see companies come and go. The only exception really is EA, and those fuckers deserve a fiery death (in my opinion your honor). But big gaming companies (Microprose, Sierra, SSI) eventually forget that games were supposed to be fun to make and fun to play, and end up being swallowed and digested by someone else. Ubisoft won't last forever either. Especially not when they pull crap like this.
I'm sorry to say that since you have not saved the game, we have no choice but to start you back at the beginning.
I haven't played the series but knowing the types of games these people produce, it's probably a linear "follow the path and the game will auto-save at pre-arranged spots" type of game. Not that sucky game design is an excuse for sucky DRM. But then again considering the intellect that is attracted to this sort of game, they probably are willing to take whatever Ubisoft wants to do to them.
fuck the children.
Also, the above comment would probably land me in jail in Australia.
The added services to the game (unlimited installs
Wow, they make it sound like they're doing me a FAVOR by allowing me to install the game more than once. Screw the right of first sale, they're going to be charging you per install in a few years.
Because not everyone has multiple cores so PC games have to go for some version of the lowest common denominator
Which is honestly quite strange, because most games I know require you have the latest uber-$500 graphics card to run properly. I would argue that there is something else involved (eye candy important, multi-core not) in the design process.
Well it's kind of like the TSA giving us advice on flight safety. In order to be truly safe, make sure there are no passengers on the plane. In order for software to be truly secure: while(1);
someone smarter than you looks at it
This is not necessarily true. Bug finding is not always a matter of brain-power, sometimes it's just someone with a different perspective who hasn't been staring at the same code for the last 20 hours. Some bugs are just a product of carelessness, while others arise from a fundamental misunderstanding of the code they are trying to manipulate. In very complex programs no one has a full understanding of the complete code. It's just not possible.
I could not follow your point there, neither taking it personally, nor rhetorically. Kindly clarify,
I meant that you obviously hold the view that a democratic system is the best system for you, yet you acknowledge that it has shortcomings. Therefore my assumption is that you believe yourself to be voting "correctly", yet since political corruption exists, the "majority" must be voting different from you and thus "incorrectly". Not a personal attack. I don't do those. However I tend to make points passionately.
Bloodshed is almost never the answer to anything except to answer if you want more bloodshed.
Since we're into clichés and quotes: "The most persistent sound which reverberates through man's history is the beating of war drums." - Koestler
when citizens don't vote, they get what's coming to them.
Please explain your rationale? Considering the sample size of a vote, it's fair to say that the proportion of votes is going to be similar no matter how many voters you pull at random out of the total. If there were more voters, the election result would probably be the same to within a few decimal places. It's rare that elections are won by a handful of votes - a recent example being George W Bush the first time. But since he won a second term...
No, it's not voter abstinence that's the problem. Voter abstinence is the SYMPTOM. The problem is that every candidate is as crooked as his opponent. It doesn't matter WHO you vote for. This problem has been known as far back as ancient Greece, and Plato touched on it. Anyone who wants to seek public office de facto is someone who thinks they have something to gain by being elected. It's democracy that's broken at its very core. Then add to this the fact that a great number of people vote for a candidate because of "looks", or "he has a cute wife", or "I'm with party X because my family have always been with party X" or "This candidate's dad was a previous incumbent", etc.
But sure, be short-sighted and continue to think that you are the ONE TRUE VOTER, and everyone else is against you voting for the "wrong" people all the time. But the real problem lies elsewhere. The real solution is bloodshed. It happens from time to time, and then the game begins again.
you believe a multinational corporation is a "CITIZEN"
Yes, I do.
you also believe that funding fire, police and education services are government ineptitude.
(Shaking head) OK, every penny spent by your government is spent in the most efficient manner. Government is wiser than all of us.
giving at least as much as it takes from your state?
Oh I see. Government financial mismanagement, corruption and ineptitude is actually the CITIZEN's fault, not the fault of the people actually doing the financial mismanagement, corruption and ineptitude. I get it now.
Please remove yourself from the population so that you can do your part to help curb the deficit!
Well in South Carolina you would have to register before conducting your subversive activities. That takes care of THAT...
Anyone who has ever flown in a small plane knows that you have to balance the plane out
Apples and oranges. Considering your typical 737 can weigh up to 150,000 lbs at take-off, it's not the 300 lb passenger (under 0.1% of the weight if you allowed for a 150 lb passenger originally anyway) that's going to alter the plane's center of gravity so much as to cause a dangerous condition... we're not talking about a Cessna here.
The system is able to run perpetually by periodically recharging the on-board battery with a solar cell (neglecting physical wear-out of the system)."
Yeah that's cute. Able to run perpetually neglecting physical wear out of the system. And I have invented a perpetual motion machine, neglecting friction, air resistance and gravity.
No you see I don't have to play their game. THEY can take ME to court.
You license it on the condition that you agree to the EULA.
This has not been tested in court AFAIK. What if, for instance, I don't agree with their terms? I added a condition to the EULA stating that Steve Ballmer can come to my house and personally collect my copy if they disagree with my using their software under the amended terms. Oh, letting their program install on my computer signified their acceptance of the new terms.
What good is the new trial going to do?
Firstly, I doubt that Jammie would ever have had 2.odd million dollars to give to the RIAA. $54k she might be able to manage eventually. However you forget that this was never about the MONEY. It was about deterring "piracy". Therefore they are going to milk this for all the publicity and all the headlines they can get. Jammie Thomas is just an excuse, and the money is irrelevant. So long as they can scare pimply 13 year olds (or the parents of pimply 13 year olds) into thinking they can get caught and have to pay between $54k and $2.5 million, they are "winning".
Who cares? Most people don't want a bezel in the middle of their desktop. It's just not something they would be into.
So this whole idea that "multi monitor is a killer" is just PC gamer wannabe nonsense.
Thank you all for proving my point. Of course it's nonsense that I make a couple thousand bucks a day, but I need at least 6 monitors to do it. Of course there's no "need" for this, I just want my desktop to "look cool". Of course anyone who needs more than ZOMG 2 monitors is doing nothing but wasting time playing games. And of course I get modded flamebait for bringing up a valid point. That's ok linux people. You may continue with your heads in the sands of ignorance. I can afford the Windows license anyway.
Surprisingly, I use linux for games...
See my comment to the other guy. I didn't mean 2 monitors. I meant MULTIPLE, as in 6 or 8. You try setting THAT up. I have. I gave up. You may laugh at what seems like an insane amount of monitors, but we day traders need them.
I have been using muti-monitors under Linux for over a decade
How many monitors? I wasn't referring to two. I have EIGHT monitors on my windows box, and it took a total of 2 minutes to set up.