Wow, TAU is still up and running? My gawd, I'm actually kinda happy at that. Stop posting on the forum and reading it years ago, glad the community is still ticking, and hopefully your board is just as... esoteric as before (fears the old God thread).
Boycott this, force Mr. Taylor to make Total Annihilation 2. This is what most gamers want.
I think that most people only bought this game because of who made it, and was dreadfully disapointed. Boring as hell.
I want mr. Taylor to develop a new RTS, thats what he is good at, and he should stick with it. Otherwise it's like Blizzard moving out of the Action and RTS's that their good at, and making something lame like, say a MMORPG.
So, if copyrights only exist to enrich creative works, then we can take away the copyrights of all the pop-music on the radio? Brittney Spears, or whoever is "hot" now, isn't enhancing the creative abilities of anyone, and thus should not be allowed a copyright.
I say that ALL creative efforts should be automatically copyrighted, as long as you can prove originality. Screw enforcing creativity, that is a bunch of crap, look at the amount of creativity and public enrichment that the RIAA is instilling upon us, look at what forgery does to our school systems, our media, everything.
Copyrights are ethics with a gun. It *IS* unethical to use something without reference (fair use), and copyright laws stand to enforce this from unscrupulous people.
Sure, I would have written my school papers without a copyright at all, and some proffesor could still use it to unjustly further his own advancement, I really didn't have much of a realistic choice. But if there was a massive threat for my work to be legally copied without attribution I wouldn't have put it before the public, EVER. Go online an look at the content of most online zines, most of 'em have a copyright notice on the bottom, and most of them are not registered, but have that notice there because they want to be protected.
Patents are primarily for the protection of economic investment, it is a capitolist thing, not an intellectual thing. Patents are (mostly) about ONLY money, while copyrights exist in a higher realm. Most copyrights are not protecting an investment, when I right it costs nothing, when I invent a grapefruit-squirt-sheild it costs an initial investment of capitol to develop.
Ah, but we have Monopoly, the greatest board game ever (barring Chess, Go, and Pente of course). And if anybody cracks that Monopoly is based on randomness, I dare you to play me a game, I'm undefeated.
I'll agree that the "family" board games are all random chance, but those are for playing with your family, not being a ruthless cuthroat. Who expects Candyland to have strategy?
Also RISK isn't just all random chance, strategy does play a sizable role. I used to slaughter my ex-girlfreind (when not letting her win), (slaughter = more than 50%).
Also alot of time that people play boardgames they want random social fun, and not blatant competition. You don't want to play a game with a 500+ page rule book, that required an IQ of 150 to win or even comprehend. Sometimes even Scrable is too taxing, and Trivial Pursuit takes to long, so I reach for Monopoly, or RISK, or Stratego.
Eh, I hold all my unregistered copyrights seriously. I can't afford the whole process, but I DO care if someone infringes on my rights. Mostly out of ethical principle, and not monetary reasons. If I create something, it is MY creation, and to use it without attribution (officially copyrighted or no) is ethically wrong.
If I ever found someone using some of my writing as there own, I would then research way in which to stop them, and try my damnest to force them to stop, or at least own up to the fact that they are unoriginal pirates.
Please don't make such broad statements. When you were a student (or if you are now), and you wrote a damn good paper, then later you see the contents published somewhere, without attribution, you wouldn't care? I used to write for an online publication (an oxymoron), and I never registered for a copyright, though I had a a permission blurb on the bottom, and if anyone used my material without asking, I would have been FURIOUS.
Also, how do you register for a copyright? Does 90% of the general population know how to? People writing casually for something, people who don't want to go through the process. I think anything I write should be copyrighted if I say it is, period.
I was going to mod you up, but a reply is even better:
The problem with hand counting is corruption of the people counting, when you have nice shiny machines doing it for you there is less risk of corruption and local miscounts, though there is still the possibility of fraud, but only among the savvy, and not Mrs. Jones the volunteer counter who really want canidate 1 to win because he looks like a good boy. And I do doubt that human nature changes much even when I cross into the great north.
In America we have a bigger problem, more asses per sq/mile, and higher stakes. Don't be offened all ye of Canadia, but you don't rule the world, and we do (of so we think, and act). As you can see from the last election, though, this doesn't safe guard ill activity (not taking sides, from both the dems and reps, Nader actually won, everyone knows this!)
Now I took part in the first online primary here in AZ, and must say that it SUCKED, I didn't get to vote for anyone because IE refused to work, and the gov't servers were running on a DC or c-64. I really hated it, and hope that they improve it. Though I still don't know why it is better than a scantron, works for HS, works for College, works for America. And if your too stupid to fill in the little bubble you shouldn't be voting in the first place.
Also, more OT, I think they use windows because of access and familiarity. How many troops in Iraq of Afghanistan are using *NIX? How many of 'em know how to?
/.'ers like to talk about themselves, and I am no different, so here we go...
In Diablo2, Weredruid: Frank, as in Frank the Wereguy from HoL Barbarian: Porkchop Claw Assasin: Wolverina (vs. my freinds bear druid, Sabertooth) And, Jereth the necromancer.
In UT2k3 I'm either Rev. Omestes (as in the obscure Orphic myth), or Anthroporraistes. Both of which are other names for Dionysus, which was one of my old BBS handles. I was also Zagreus in several muds, as well as Werewolf and Sadim: the God of Decay(Midas backwards).
In paper and pen RPGS, namely V:tm, I was Wyrm, the assamite. Or Paul Mua'dib.
In FF1, I always pick Bill, Bob, MnMx (short for Min-max, for red mage), and whatever else I want my theif to be.
In Morrowind my topless archer assasin theif mage is Antigone, and my pure caster (evil) chick is Medea (also a sorceress I used to play in DiabloII).
Yep, as another ordained reverend, I use the rev. in all my RPG names, just because it looks cool... Especially in UT2k3, nothing better than being fragged by an ordained reverend, especially if you have some cool last-rights sort a speech bound.
My favorite was one of my old screw-around characters on an old MUD, revhacknslash.
I can remember way back in my freshman year of High School, way before Columine or any of the precursor school shootings. Me an my freinds were geeks (of course), half of us wore only black, and the other half wore whatever smelled okay to their unsensative noses. All of us were much maligned by the student body, picked on by those oh-so popular folk who could play football, but were doomed to trailer parks. And all of us listened to heavy metal and were obsessed with Doom leached off of BBS warez boards, and the newly arived Doom II. In the library we always used to plan, in EXCRUSIATING detail the deaths of the entire student body, sans ourselves. Usually we were more creative about it, though, forcing the administration to fight in the football feild, and mounting the heads of the cheerleaders on stakes as a warning. Vats of acid and razor blades, poison gas, shot guns, drugs, disease...
Obviously this never happened. Most of us have lived through school, moving on to such diverse fields as engerneering, system administration, psychology, library sciences, the military, and such. Only one of us ever became a menace, and they was due to drugs, not Doom. I'm sure that we, as social outcasts, were not alone in this plotting and schemeing, many other geeks of today (who were the nerds of yesterday) probably had the same passtime. (oh, and I forgot worshipping the devil by proxy, D&D and V:tm) And I'd say that before Columbine became a media circus, many would never have tried it, it was a cute mental diversion.
Also, looking at all the HS libraries I've ever seen, the munitions and military tech sections are the most browsed by adolecents. Hell, me and one of my comrads used to sell soft and hardcopies of the Anarchist's Cookbook to our classmates, for $5 a pop, with good success. And none of them (our customers) ever blew up the school either.
And, I'm sad to admit it, I WAS a violent person, not a bully, but I had temper problems. And till, I never caused mass violence, because it was *WRONG*, my parents were strict (even if I was spoiled), they instilled a strong sense of right and wrong, real and unreal into me. They taught me to read at an early age PERSONALLY, and thus taught me the difference between Stephen King and the real world. They taught me why hurting animals was wrong, and by proxy people. And yes, my parents allowed me to play on the C64 and 8086 unsupervised, since it was arcane to them. Yes my mom took me to see Silence of the Lambs when I was young, and gave me my first novel to read, Stephen King (forgot title, the one with the Mist), and yes, she read me Poe's The Raven as a child to put me to sleep. But...
In my opinion it was having a stay-at-home mom that saved me. Not being in day care, not learning life from uncaring strangers just doing their jobs. Yes, this is un PC, but who cares. Everything I learned was a moral lesson (both parents are atheists too), as apposed to school, where everything has NO moral value. Sure, we're all so egotistical now, mommies (or daddies) career comes over little billy, so off we send 'im to daycare, or we plug him infront of the television, or on the internet, or infront of the PS2.
The only way to renormalize our children is to RAISE THEM, by hand. Parents are the only people with a chance of doing it right, and its not our teachers job to moralize children, nor should it be. Adult egotism is the problem. If your kid has a problem it is easier (and cheaper, factoring in wages lost) to dope them up, than to fix it, by hand. Doping someone doesn't fix ANYTHING, just the symptoms of an underlying problem. (And don't even get me started on giveing children ridalin, then telling them just to say "no!")
Hmm... Last LAN party I went to was nothing like that. About 6 of us "anti-social gamers" got togother to play UT2k3, and Warcraft, granted that 3 of us are ex-anti-social-BBSers. We spend about 60% of the time killing each other, and the rest was spent watching the Animatrix and drinking great quanities of booze and coffee, while throwing each other into a pool. Pretty antisocial, no?
You might be thinking of the uberLAN parties, the ones where 200+ people show up, then you always get the couple of kids sitting in the corner, but 90% is gatherings of freinds, with all the lolligagging and grabassing that goes along with it. Think of it as an interactive superbowl party, to grab a mainstream analogy.
Eh, not true. I wouldn't have discovered I loved books, if I didn't get suckered into reading by various tricks, now I read foraciously while my peers sit in dark rooms playing crappy sequals all day. How would you know if you love Wordsworth unless you experienced him? How could I want to read Wordsworth BEFORE exporsure? Some odd a priori literary knowledge?
My mom making me like books, and exposing me to library programs planted a seed, I didn't go there on my own seeking to read the meager philosophy section, I had to realize its existance first. I had to start by finding out I loved bad old sci-fi (such as Clifford Simak), then discovered the natural science section while researching something I discovered in a book. Then moved on to bigger and deeper books, on EVERYTHING. All because someone planted a love of books in my, and the knowledge of the existance of the great body of literature out there, on everything.
If I would have never left the confines of my Nintendo and my C-64 I probably wouldn't know half of what I know now, I'd probably (to be honest) be dumber than shit.
Mr. Man does make a mistake though, his all or nothing approach. Just because I game, does not mean that I do not also read. I game like mad, but I also read alot (right now I'm crawling my way through everything Jung has wrote). Video games do not necissarily[sic] rot your brain, the potential is there. But it is also there in books, some people I know ONLY read they never get out and apply what they read, they never leave the house. They are as sick as said kid sitting in a dark room playing crappy sequals.
4 difficulty levels are fine for me. Took me 4 months to get to hell in SP. Took me 3 months to get to hell in uswest, with absolutly no twinking, rushing, or nonlegit items. Died several times, got very angery, was happy.
I might be assuming much here, but I'm guessing you get rushed to hell, then barter for all the best things, then complain your bored. Like 90% of bnet.
And actually if you actually play a character in hell mode, you'll realize that it is PLENTY hard now. My Druid has been killed about five times in act4 hell (hell hell), which is a nice change since he was unstoppable.
But here's the ironic thing about bug reporting, you can't post bugs unless you have an active bnet account, you can't activate a bnet account with 1.10beta since its only TCP/IP, and Single Player. Bugzilla it ain't.
Thats what I get for sticking to single player until the patch came out. I really should keep my mouth shut though, since the only two bugs I've encountered HELPED my character, my circlet was upgraded, and my Assassin can hit people 5 tiles away.
Most of the geeks I know use IE. But then again they aren't/.-geeks, meaning they really don't care about open-source and all that. Some of 'em use a linux dual boot, so 50% of the time don't use IE, by default, but not out of principle.
Most of 'em use IE at work, so use it as home as well. They don't perceive any reason to switch once they get home.
I actually get critisized by a couple of 'em for using Mozilla (firebird), and sometimes using tbird. I'm not sure why.
I find it funny that no one even mentions the ubercrappy Deep Space 9 thing. Like a soap opera in SPACE!!
Seriously though, I was a trek person only through STtNG and the original (reruns), mostly because they actually clicked, damn good casts, good plots, characters you liked, and a small dose of comedy.
DS9, Voyager and Enterprise lacked all of these elements. I hated EVERYONE in DS9, the captian rocked, but his spawn and the worfling took up too much of the show. That and the silly little war stuff, which literally bored me to tears.
Voyager was... drek. Pardon my un-PCness, but I have no desire to watch a show captained by a dyke, flying around in the middle of nowhere, with a cast of complete idiots, whose characters made me WISH that they would die. I got no attachment at all with the characters.
And Enterprise... the shame. On first watching, my trekkness hurt, since it goes against all of the previous treks, somehow they revised history being that the ORIGINAL ENTERPRISE WAS PILOTED BY KURK! There was no ship named enterprise before the Enterprise A. Such crap. Also I really dislike sScott Bakula, I keep expecting that guy with the cool gizmo to show up and tell him the history behind everything. The only thing Mr. Bakula is good at is looking permanently perplexed by everything. Crap. Needless to say, I have no connection with the cast of that one either, meaning no reason to watch it.
Basing something in a decent "universe" isn't enough to grant success, look at the David Lych Dune movie for comparison. Kick ass universe, suck ass movie.
I wonder if they are going to form up, and found a new game company. I hope so. Though in my perfect world they would join up with Gas Powered games, since Chris Taylor is my other idle. And when that dream happens, the possitive influences of ex-Blizzard people will cause Mr. Taylor to make a dungeon seige that DOES NOT SUCK, and might indeed be the "diablo killer" the first was supposed to be. Doubtful.
Though, I seriously hope that they do form their own company, being that Blizzard North developed the best (IMHO) game franchise ever, and I think that with them free of the evil Vivendi vapours they have a chance. Blizzard, IMO, is turning in the wrong direction. Though I still love 'em, and their support for the fan community.
But, sadly, most "rebelions" in the industry don't work.
Really don't get how you can be against that? It shows that they SUPPORT THE COMMUNITY. I'm all for any company that adds features to old games, for free.
Though it DOES add content that I paid for when I bought the expansion, like all the rune words and crafted items I though I'd get with LoD, but didn't, being that I stick to single player.
Um... I'm sure Bliz has done a lot of shitty things, I really don't know of any of them, that *I* consider unjustified. (Yes, I agree with them about bnetd, and this freecraft thing) I am not very alienated. Um, Blizzard treats their customers like kings, sure they might alienate the lunatic fringe, but who cares? 90% of players didn't use Bnetd, or don't really care about freecraft, when for $11 they can get a REAL TRIED-AND-TRUE game, and not some bored programmers mastabatory plaything. Being that it is open-source I'm also pretty sure that it has that "b" affixed to the end, which most users will associate with "buggy".
Why would I be alienated if YOU had a problem with War3? Most people had no problems at all, and like the game. I've installed it on 4 boxes with massivly varying system specs, (800mhz-2.4ghz, 256-512ram, voodoo3-ATI7800 Win98, WinME, XP)and never had a problem, even on the most tweaked of boxes. Most people don't see this "bloat", they just see a solid RTS. And most games do cost $50.00, how is not getting a deal at cosco Blizzard's fault? I just bought a bike for $99, that cost $200 at cosco, not the bike manufacturers fault.
The only thing that pisses me off if Ghost, releaseing it only on Xbox/GameCube... that alienates me as the rare-lunatic-fringe-console-hater.
Um, Blizzard is like that with EVERYTHING. For the longest time Blizzard had a release issue, meaning take when they said they were going to release, and add two years.
Look at the DiabloII 1.10 patch.... 2 years in the making.
I attached a qualifier to my statment on ethics, I said I usually don't, being that there is a reason that they're on my shortlist (namely they suck, as in the Zelda example). But then there are the companies on my list that I disagree with for primarily ethical reasons, like Microsoft, and EA. these companies I really don't care about, I really don't care if I "steal" their property (though as mentioned in an earlier post, you can't steal something no one has, you can't steal/potential/). Microsoft also charges too much, I just built a computer, and Microsoft products cost as much as high end hardware. Being that I'm poor, and refuse to buy prefab PCs, I don't give a rats ass.
The argument could be made that there is no potential profits to be gleamed from most (or some) of piracy. $50 is a lot of money for me (and I figure 80% of the pop would agree), meaning I'm only going to buy things that are superior quality, or things that are needed for my work/studies/hobbies, meaning I have a limited amount of "digital media funds" that will go to products. Anything that is not of very high quality to my investment, is probably not going to get bought, but if it is available, I will download it, if I kinda need it. But I wouldn't buy it, probably COULDN'T buy some things. So if I find it on s73am1n6W4R3z.com, I might get it if it has a possible function, though I woulnd't buy it.
Conversly, most of the warez I've downloaded, I've deleted within a week. Meaning I'm protecting myself as a consumer, if I coughed up 50+ for it, I would of been screwed.
Also, I'm the only person I know with a registered copy of winRAR, I mean ACTUALLY registered, and not just keygened. So I'm not THAT bad. My old 66mhz was 100% pirated. This box is 0%, not counting mp3s and ROMs.
I think that if people started pricing software at non-luxury-item prices, things might improve for them. Same thing for games, CDs, and DVDs.
So my boycotting Walmart and McDonalds is theft? after all I'm depriving them of profits, so by your logic I'm stealing from them...
Also, when I listen to the radio (which I don't) I am depriving the record folk of my purchase of a pricy single. Samething as when I use a schools computer lab, or public library rather than buying a computer, I am depriving someone money.
When I listen to a CD at a freinds house, I am likewise depriving someone money. Or borrow my freinds Xbox and games for a week.
Depriving profits IS NOT theft. Read the definition: (from webster.com) 1 a : the act of stealing; specifically : the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it b : an unlawful taking (as by embezzlement or burglary) of property 2 obsolete : something stolen 3 : a stolen base in baseball
Profits is not personal property, or a base, so you can't STEAL it. Profit isn't a given, it isn't an object, therefore theft isn't possible. To me I don't think that copying digital media (games music software ebooks) should be a legal matter, it is the companies problem to protect their bottom line, not mine. They have the right to make it hard to copy, and I have the right to try to find a way to copy it... Piracy is a moral issue, do you support that which you like, so it continues to exist.
I will BUY games I support, like the Unreal series, the Fallout series, and anything by Blizzard. I will pirate companies/developers I don't, like the Zelda franchise since they ruined it after Zelda 1(nes), any Square game since FFVII, games by EA, music by anyone popular today, ect... Though mostly I just ignore them, since if I don't support them, there is a reason, the company sucks, the franchise sucks, they have no ethics, ect...
And then again I do do the cliche "test" piracy, I download a song or game from KazaaLite, test it out, then buy it if I approve of the quality. And if I don't like the quality, I'll delete it. Unless, of course, it is a CD, where on song rocks, and the rest are just top40 crap.
Being a straight pirate is bad. Being a consumer dupe is worse. Being an ethical pirate is good. Hell, being an ethical anything is good.
I agree, it isn't some god-given-right to have have a stable (or increasing) property value, but it is a GGR to try to protect your property values, especially when you cough up that much. So I can't blaim them for saying NIMBY. If someone wanted to "ruin" (real or perceived) you land values, wouldn't you put up a fight? Ignoring the geeky "it would be neat to have a giant propeller in my backyard" argument of course. Now of course if you are an activist or a rabid enviromentalist you might feel differently, but most folk don't care that much. 1mil+ worth of caring is rare, and a little too much caring for most folk.
Now relocation is a different story. If I grew up, and my children grew up, and my parents grew up (ad naseum) in a house, and the government told me to move, I'd be against it 100%. If it was like here in Phoenix, where Mesa (a suburb) refuses to expand its freeway for piggish reasons, and thus causes EVERYONE to suffer, and there IS ROOM to expand without hurting people (not to be confused with buisness), then its idiotic. But if your kicking our July and Joe Normal to build a highway, then I object if there is history involved. I guess this somehow applies to the current situation...
Now dismissing people just because they have more money than you is... kinda crass. I really don't care if those people lived in card-board boxes, it would not make their arguements better or worse. there might be negative effects from lowering land values, and not just on the uber-rich. I'm sure that there is a local blue-collar community supporting these rich folk (being that rich folk can't use a plunger), hurting the rich folk hurt the po'folk.
To tell the truth, I really am against this whole thing only because I hate vistas being destroyed, albeit for enviromental reasons. Like deciding that the grand canyon would be a good place for a windfarm, or yostemite, or yellow stone, or... pick something nice.
We're destroying beauty, to preserve the enviroment. Bleh.
Slashdot Mirror
Bit OT here;
Wow, TAU is still up and running? My gawd, I'm actually kinda happy at that. Stop posting on the forum and reading it years ago, glad the community is still ticking, and hopefully your board is just as... esoteric as before (fears the old God thread).
Er, not to whine, but how was that flamebait? Since when is disagreeing with someone, politely, considered a flamebait?
Boycott this, force Mr. Taylor to make Total Annihilation 2. This is what most gamers want.
I think that most people only bought this game because of who made it, and was dreadfully disapointed. Boring as hell.
I want mr. Taylor to develop a new RTS, thats what he is good at, and he should stick with it. Otherwise it's like Blizzard moving out of the Action and RTS's that their good at, and making something lame like, say a MMORPG.
So, if copyrights only exist to enrich creative works, then we can take away the copyrights of all the pop-music on the radio? Brittney Spears, or whoever is "hot" now, isn't enhancing the creative abilities of anyone, and thus should not be allowed a copyright.
I say that ALL creative efforts should be automatically copyrighted, as long as you can prove originality. Screw enforcing creativity, that is a bunch of crap, look at the amount of creativity and public enrichment that the RIAA is instilling upon us, look at what forgery does to our school systems, our media, everything.
Copyrights are ethics with a gun. It *IS* unethical to use something without reference (fair use), and copyright laws stand to enforce this from unscrupulous people.
Sure, I would have written my school papers without a copyright at all, and some proffesor could still use it to unjustly further his own advancement, I really didn't have much of a realistic choice. But if there was a massive threat for my work to be legally copied without attribution I wouldn't have put it before the public, EVER. Go online an look at the content of most online zines, most of 'em have a copyright notice on the bottom, and most of them are not registered, but have that notice there because they want to be protected.
Patents are primarily for the protection of economic investment, it is a capitolist thing, not an intellectual thing. Patents are (mostly) about ONLY money, while copyrights exist in a higher realm. Most copyrights are not protecting an investment, when I right it costs nothing, when I invent a grapefruit-squirt-sheild it costs an initial investment of capitol to develop.
Ah, but we have Monopoly, the greatest board game ever (barring Chess, Go, and Pente of course). And if anybody cracks that Monopoly is based on randomness, I dare you to play me a game, I'm undefeated.
I'll agree that the "family" board games are all random chance, but those are for playing with your family, not being a ruthless cuthroat. Who expects Candyland to have strategy?
Also RISK isn't just all random chance, strategy does play a sizable role. I used to slaughter my ex-girlfreind (when not letting her win), (slaughter = more than 50%).
Also alot of time that people play boardgames they want random social fun, and not blatant competition. You don't want to play a game with a 500+ page rule book, that required an IQ of 150 to win or even comprehend. Sometimes even Scrable is too taxing, and Trivial Pursuit takes to long, so I reach for Monopoly, or RISK, or Stratego.
Eh, I hold all my unregistered copyrights seriously. I can't afford the whole process, but I DO care if someone infringes on my rights. Mostly out of ethical principle, and not monetary reasons. If I create something, it is MY creation, and to use it without attribution (officially copyrighted or no) is ethically wrong.
If I ever found someone using some of my writing as there own, I would then research way in which to stop them, and try my damnest to force them to stop, or at least own up to the fact that they are unoriginal pirates.
Please don't make such broad statements. When you were a student (or if you are now), and you wrote a damn good paper, then later you see the contents published somewhere, without attribution, you wouldn't care? I used to write for an online publication (an oxymoron), and I never registered for a copyright, though I had a a permission blurb on the bottom, and if anyone used my material without asking, I would have been FURIOUS.
Also, how do you register for a copyright? Does 90% of the general population know how to? People writing casually for something, people who don't want to go through the process. I think anything I write should be copyrighted if I say it is, period.
I was going to mod you up, but a reply is even better:
The problem with hand counting is corruption of the people counting, when you have nice shiny machines doing it for you there is less risk of corruption and local miscounts, though there is still the possibility of fraud, but only among the savvy, and not Mrs. Jones the volunteer counter who really want canidate 1 to win because he looks like a good boy. And I do doubt that human nature changes much even when I cross into the great north.
In America we have a bigger problem, more asses per sq/mile, and higher stakes. Don't be offened all ye of Canadia, but you don't rule the world, and we do (of so we think, and act). As you can see from the last election, though, this doesn't safe guard ill activity (not taking sides, from both the dems and reps, Nader actually won, everyone knows this!)
Now I took part in the first online primary here in AZ, and must say that it SUCKED, I didn't get to vote for anyone because IE refused to work, and the gov't servers were running on a DC or c-64. I really hated it, and hope that they improve it. Though I still don't know why it is better than a scantron, works for HS, works for College, works for America. And if your too stupid to fill in the little bubble you shouldn't be voting in the first place.
Also, more OT, I think they use windows because of access and familiarity. How many troops in Iraq of Afghanistan are using *NIX? How many of 'em know how to?
/.'ers like to talk about themselves, and I am no different, so here we go...
In Diablo2,
Weredruid: Frank, as in Frank the Wereguy from HoL
Barbarian: Porkchop
Claw Assasin: Wolverina (vs. my freinds bear druid, Sabertooth)
And, Jereth the necromancer.
In UT2k3 I'm either Rev. Omestes (as in the obscure Orphic myth), or Anthroporraistes. Both of which are other names for Dionysus, which was one of my old BBS handles. I was also Zagreus in several muds, as well as Werewolf and Sadim: the God of Decay(Midas backwards).
In paper and pen RPGS, namely V:tm, I was Wyrm, the assamite. Or Paul Mua'dib.
In FF1, I always pick Bill, Bob, MnMx (short for Min-max, for red mage), and whatever else I want my theif to be.
In Morrowind my topless archer assasin theif mage is Antigone, and my pure caster (evil) chick is Medea (also a sorceress I used to play in DiabloII).
I'm pretty much stuck with greek myths and plays.
Yep, as another ordained reverend, I use the rev. in all my RPG names, just because it looks cool... Especially in UT2k3, nothing better than being fragged by an ordained reverend, especially if you have some cool last-rights sort a speech bound.
My favorite was one of my old screw-around characters on an old MUD, revhacknslash.
I can remember way back in my freshman year of High School, way before Columine or any of the precursor school shootings. Me an my freinds were geeks (of course), half of us wore only black, and the other half wore whatever smelled okay to their unsensative noses. All of us were much maligned by the student body, picked on by those oh-so popular folk who could play football, but were doomed to trailer parks. And all of us listened to heavy metal and were obsessed with Doom leached off of BBS warez boards, and the newly arived Doom II. In the library we always used to plan, in EXCRUSIATING detail the deaths of the entire student body, sans ourselves. Usually we were more creative about it, though, forcing the administration to fight in the football feild, and mounting the heads of the cheerleaders on stakes as a warning. Vats of acid and razor blades, poison gas, shot guns, drugs, disease...
Obviously this never happened. Most of us have lived through school, moving on to such diverse fields as engerneering, system administration, psychology, library sciences, the military, and such. Only one of us ever became a menace, and they was due to drugs, not Doom. I'm sure that we, as social outcasts, were not alone in this plotting and schemeing, many other geeks of today (who were the nerds of yesterday) probably had the same passtime. (oh, and I forgot worshipping the devil by proxy, D&D and V:tm) And I'd say that before Columbine became a media circus, many would never have tried it, it was a cute mental diversion.
Also, looking at all the HS libraries I've ever seen, the munitions and military tech sections are the most browsed by adolecents. Hell, me and one of my comrads used to sell soft and hardcopies of the Anarchist's Cookbook to our classmates, for $5 a pop, with good success. And none of them (our customers) ever blew up the school either.
And, I'm sad to admit it, I WAS a violent person, not a bully, but I had temper problems. And till, I never caused mass violence, because it was *WRONG*, my parents were strict (even if I was spoiled), they instilled a strong sense of right and wrong, real and unreal into me. They taught me to read at an early age PERSONALLY, and thus taught me the difference between Stephen King and the real world. They taught me why hurting animals was wrong, and by proxy people. And yes, my parents allowed me to play on the C64 and 8086 unsupervised, since it was arcane to them. Yes my mom took me to see Silence of the Lambs when I was young, and gave me my first novel to read, Stephen King (forgot title, the one with the Mist), and yes, she read me Poe's The Raven as a child to put me to sleep. But...
In my opinion it was having a stay-at-home mom that saved me. Not being in day care, not learning life from uncaring strangers just doing their jobs. Yes, this is un PC, but who cares. Everything I learned was a moral lesson (both parents are atheists too), as apposed to school, where everything has NO moral value. Sure, we're all so egotistical now, mommies (or daddies) career comes over little billy, so off we send 'im to daycare, or we plug him infront of the television, or on the internet, or infront of the PS2.
The only way to renormalize our children is to RAISE THEM, by hand. Parents are the only people with a chance of doing it right, and its not our teachers job to moralize children, nor should it be. Adult egotism is the problem. If your kid has a problem it is easier (and cheaper, factoring in wages lost) to dope them up, than to fix it, by hand. Doping someone doesn't fix ANYTHING, just the symptoms of an underlying problem. (And don't even get me started on giveing children ridalin, then telling them just to say "no!")
Eh.... Sorry for the rant.
And to think, I've drinken copious amounts of beer, and had sex at a LAN party.. Gosh.
Hmm... Last LAN party I went to was nothing like that. About 6 of us "anti-social gamers" got togother to play UT2k3, and Warcraft, granted that 3 of us are ex-anti-social-BBSers. We spend about 60% of the time killing each other, and the rest was spent watching the Animatrix and drinking great quanities of booze and coffee, while throwing each other into a pool. Pretty antisocial, no?
You might be thinking of the uberLAN parties, the ones where 200+ people show up, then you always get the couple of kids sitting in the corner, but 90% is gatherings of freinds, with all the lolligagging and grabassing that goes along with it. Think of it as an interactive superbowl party, to grab a mainstream analogy.
Eh, not true. I wouldn't have discovered I loved books, if I didn't get suckered into reading by various tricks, now I read foraciously while my peers sit in dark rooms playing crappy sequals all day. How would you know if you love Wordsworth unless you experienced him? How could I want to read Wordsworth BEFORE exporsure? Some odd a priori literary knowledge?
My mom making me like books, and exposing me to library programs planted a seed, I didn't go there on my own seeking to read the meager philosophy section, I had to realize its existance first. I had to start by finding out I loved bad old sci-fi (such as Clifford Simak), then discovered the natural science section while researching something I discovered in a book. Then moved on to bigger and deeper books, on EVERYTHING. All because someone planted a love of books in my, and the knowledge of the existance of the great body of literature out there, on everything.
If I would have never left the confines of my Nintendo and my C-64 I probably wouldn't know half of what I know now, I'd probably (to be honest) be dumber than shit.
Mr. Man does make a mistake though, his all or nothing approach. Just because I game, does not mean that I do not also read. I game like mad, but I also read alot (right now I'm crawling my way through everything Jung has wrote). Video games do not necissarily[sic] rot your brain, the potential is there. But it is also there in books, some people I know ONLY read they never get out and apply what they read, they never leave the house. They are as sick as said kid sitting in a dark room playing crappy sequals.
4 difficulty levels are fine for me. Took me 4 months to get to hell in SP. Took me 3 months to get to hell in uswest, with absolutly no twinking, rushing, or nonlegit items. Died several times, got very angery, was happy.
I might be assuming much here, but I'm guessing you get rushed to hell, then barter for all the best things, then complain your bored. Like 90% of bnet.
And actually if you actually play a character in hell mode, you'll realize that it is PLENTY hard now. My Druid has been killed about five times in act4 hell (hell hell), which is a nice change since he was unstoppable.
But here's the ironic thing about bug reporting, you can't post bugs unless you have an active bnet account, you can't activate a bnet account with 1.10beta since its only TCP/IP, and Single Player. Bugzilla it ain't.
Thats what I get for sticking to single player until the patch came out. I really should keep my mouth shut though, since the only two bugs I've encountered HELPED my character, my circlet was upgraded, and my Assassin can hit people 5 tiles away.
Most of the geeks I know use IE. But then again they aren't /.-geeks, meaning they really don't care about open-source and all that. Some of 'em use a linux dual boot, so 50% of the time don't use IE, by default, but not out of principle.
Most of 'em use IE at work, so use it as home as well. They don't perceive any reason to switch once they get home.
I actually get critisized by a couple of 'em for using Mozilla (firebird), and sometimes using tbird. I'm not sure why.
I find it funny that no one even mentions the ubercrappy Deep Space 9 thing. Like a soap opera in SPACE!!
Seriously though, I was a trek person only through STtNG and the original (reruns), mostly because they actually clicked, damn good casts, good plots, characters you liked, and a small dose of comedy.
DS9, Voyager and Enterprise lacked all of these elements. I hated EVERYONE in DS9, the captian rocked, but his spawn and the worfling took up too much of the show. That and the silly little war stuff, which literally bored me to tears.
Voyager was... drek. Pardon my un-PCness, but I have no desire to watch a show captained by a dyke, flying around in the middle of nowhere, with a cast of complete idiots, whose characters made me WISH that they would die. I got no attachment at all with the characters.
And Enterprise... the shame. On first watching, my trekkness hurt, since it goes against all of the previous treks, somehow they revised history being that the ORIGINAL ENTERPRISE WAS PILOTED BY KURK! There was no ship named enterprise before the Enterprise A. Such crap. Also I really dislike sScott Bakula, I keep expecting that guy with the cool gizmo to show up and tell him the history behind everything. The only thing Mr. Bakula is good at is looking permanently perplexed by everything. Crap. Needless to say, I have no connection with the cast of that one either, meaning no reason to watch it.
Basing something in a decent "universe" isn't enough to grant success, look at the David Lych Dune movie for comparison. Kick ass universe, suck ass movie.
I wonder if they are going to form up, and found a new game company. I hope so. Though in my perfect world they would join up with Gas Powered games, since Chris Taylor is my other idle. And when that dream happens, the possitive influences of ex-Blizzard people will cause Mr. Taylor to make a dungeon seige that DOES NOT SUCK, and might indeed be the "diablo killer" the first was supposed to be. Doubtful.
Though, I seriously hope that they do form their own company, being that Blizzard North developed the best (IMHO) game franchise ever, and I think that with them free of the evil Vivendi vapours they have a chance. Blizzard, IMO, is turning in the wrong direction. Though I still love 'em, and their support for the fan community.
But, sadly, most "rebelions" in the industry don't work.
Really don't get how you can be against that? It shows that they SUPPORT THE COMMUNITY. I'm all for any company that adds features to old games, for free.
Though it DOES add content that I paid for when I bought the expansion, like all the rune words and crafted items I though I'd get with LoD, but didn't, being that I stick to single player.
Um... I'm sure Bliz has done a lot of shitty things, I really don't know of any of them, that *I* consider unjustified. (Yes, I agree with them about bnetd, and this freecraft thing) I am not very alienated. Um, Blizzard treats their customers like kings, sure they might alienate the lunatic fringe, but who cares? 90% of players didn't use Bnetd, or don't really care about freecraft, when for $11 they can get a REAL TRIED-AND-TRUE game, and not some bored programmers mastabatory plaything. Being that it is open-source I'm also pretty sure that it has that "b" affixed to the end, which most users will associate with "buggy".
Why would I be alienated if YOU had a problem with War3? Most people had no problems at all, and like the game. I've installed it on 4 boxes with massivly varying system specs, (800mhz-2.4ghz, 256-512ram, voodoo3-ATI7800 Win98, WinME, XP)and never had a problem, even on the most tweaked of boxes. Most people don't see this "bloat", they just see a solid RTS. And most games do cost $50.00, how is not getting a deal at cosco Blizzard's fault? I just bought a bike for $99, that cost $200 at cosco, not the bike manufacturers fault.
The only thing that pisses me off if Ghost, releaseing it only on Xbox/GameCube... that alienates me as the rare-lunatic-fringe-console-hater.
Um, Blizzard is like that with EVERYTHING. For the longest time Blizzard had a release issue, meaning take when they said they were going to release, and add two years.
Look at the DiabloII 1.10 patch.... 2 years in the making.
I attached a qualifier to my statment on ethics, I said I usually don't, being that there is a reason that they're on my shortlist (namely they suck, as in the Zelda example). But then there are the companies on my list that I disagree with for primarily ethical reasons, like Microsoft, and EA. these companies I really don't care about, I really don't care if I "steal" their property (though as mentioned in an earlier post, you can't steal something no one has, you can't steal /potential/). Microsoft also charges too much, I just built a computer, and Microsoft products cost as much as high end hardware. Being that I'm poor, and refuse to buy prefab PCs, I don't give a rats ass.
The argument could be made that there is no potential profits to be gleamed from most (or some) of piracy. $50 is a lot of money for me (and I figure 80% of the pop would agree), meaning I'm only going to buy things that are superior quality, or things that are needed for my work/studies/hobbies, meaning I have a limited amount of "digital media funds" that will go to products. Anything that is not of very high quality to my investment, is probably not going to get bought, but if it is available, I will download it, if I kinda need it. But I wouldn't buy it, probably COULDN'T buy some things. So if I find it on s73am1n6W4R3z.com, I might get it if it has a possible function, though I woulnd't buy it.
Conversly, most of the warez I've downloaded, I've deleted within a week. Meaning I'm protecting myself as a consumer, if I coughed up 50+ for it, I would of been screwed.
Also, I'm the only person I know with a registered copy of winRAR, I mean ACTUALLY registered, and not just keygened. So I'm not THAT bad. My old 66mhz was 100% pirated. This box is 0%, not counting mp3s and ROMs.
I think that if people started pricing software at non-luxury-item prices, things might improve for them. Same thing for games, CDs, and DVDs.
So my boycotting Walmart and McDonalds is theft? after all I'm depriving them of profits, so by your logic I'm stealing from them...
Also, when I listen to the radio (which I don't) I am depriving the record folk of my purchase of a pricy single. Samething as when I use a schools computer lab, or public library rather than buying a computer, I am depriving someone money.
When I listen to a CD at a freinds house, I am likewise depriving someone money. Or borrow my freinds Xbox and games for a week.
Depriving profits IS NOT theft. Read the definition: (from webster.com)
1 a : the act of stealing; specifically : the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it b : an unlawful taking (as by embezzlement or burglary) of property
2 obsolete : something stolen
3 : a stolen base in baseball
Profits is not personal property, or a base, so you can't STEAL it. Profit isn't a given, it isn't an object, therefore theft isn't possible. To me I don't think that copying digital media (games music software ebooks) should be a legal matter, it is the companies problem to protect their bottom line, not mine. They have the right to make it hard to copy, and I have the right to try to find a way to copy it... Piracy is a moral issue, do you support that which you like, so it continues to exist.
I will BUY games I support, like the Unreal series, the Fallout series, and anything by Blizzard. I will pirate companies/developers I don't, like the Zelda franchise since they ruined it after Zelda 1(nes), any Square game since FFVII, games by EA, music by anyone popular today, ect... Though mostly I just ignore them, since if I don't support them, there is a reason, the company sucks, the franchise sucks, they have no ethics, ect...
And then again I do do the cliche "test" piracy, I download a song or game from KazaaLite, test it out, then buy it if I approve of the quality. And if I don't like the quality, I'll delete it. Unless, of course, it is a CD, where on song rocks, and the rest are just top40 crap.
Being a straight pirate is bad. Being a consumer dupe is worse. Being an ethical pirate is good. Hell, being an ethical anything is good.
I agree, it isn't some god-given-right to have have a stable (or increasing) property value, but it is a GGR to try to protect your property values, especially when you cough up that much. So I can't blaim them for saying NIMBY. If someone wanted to "ruin" (real or perceived) you land values, wouldn't you put up a fight? Ignoring the geeky "it would be neat to have a giant propeller in my backyard" argument of course. Now of course if you are an activist or a rabid enviromentalist you might feel differently, but most folk don't care that much. 1mil+ worth of caring is rare, and a little too much caring for most folk.
Now relocation is a different story. If I grew up, and my children grew up, and my parents grew up (ad naseum) in a house, and the government told me to move, I'd be against it 100%. If it was like here in Phoenix, where Mesa (a suburb) refuses to expand its freeway for piggish reasons, and thus causes EVERYONE to suffer, and there IS ROOM to expand without hurting people (not to be confused with buisness), then its idiotic. But if your kicking our July and Joe Normal to build a highway, then I object if there is history involved. I guess this somehow applies to the current situation...
Now dismissing people just because they have more money than you is... kinda crass. I really don't care if those people lived in card-board boxes, it would not make their arguements better or worse. there might be negative effects from lowering land values, and not just on the uber-rich. I'm sure that there is a local blue-collar community supporting these rich folk (being that rich folk can't use a plunger), hurting the rich folk hurt the po'folk.
To tell the truth, I really am against this whole thing only because I hate vistas being destroyed, albeit for enviromental reasons. Like deciding that the grand canyon would be a good place for a windfarm, or yostemite, or yellow stone, or... pick something nice.
We're destroying beauty, to preserve the enviroment. Bleh.
Erm, not flamebait... I'm simply addressing some issues brought up that I disagree with, mostly because I really hate extremists.
Can you just mod me -1 flamebaited, or -1 troll food.