Great, they delete hacks and dupes only, then those players just hack and dupe more stuff, no lesson learned. Deleting the account sends a STRONG message, especially if Blizzard makes good on threats of banning keys. If you steal something, and they just take the item that you stole, you'll just do it it again, if they stick you in jail, you MIGHT learn a lesson. (or a more apt example for bnet, if you're the towns drunken jerk, taking off your pants in public and offering crack to school children, if they just took your booze and crack, you'd get more, but if they demolished your house, and exiled you, you might just stop, especially if there was a threat of death.)
And don't pull this "1% might be innocent" crap, 1% innocence means that 99% are guilty, and I'm doubting the ratio is much higher than this, since this is serverside logging recording offenders, if you have an abnormal account, that means that your CHEATING, since Bliz doesn't allow any 3rd party programs, and all copies of Diablo are the same, at least each version sends the same data, so there is no reason that you'd be abnormal, unless your doing something you shouldn't be.
I'm going for BANNING everyone, screw this namby-pamby account banning crap. BAN them.
Also Bliz did do the item purging thing, it didn't work, the idiots and lamers found a work around within days, deleting them cannot be worked around.
Isn't the fact that their still working on an old game, with no direct profit to them a sign of caring? The much lauded 1.10 is going to be FREE, just like 1.9, 1.8 and all the other patches since 1.0. The fact that their deleting accounts is also a sign of caring, if they didn't they wouldn't even bother, no? You already forked over your $50 or $100 (plus LoD), so why bother keeping the community happy. (yes I know, so we remain attached and buy Diablo III, but the side effects are worth it.)
When I *RULE* the world, ruining a kickass game will be punishable by REMOVING THEIR HANDS. CS is ruined, Diablo I was ruined, Warcraft 3 is on its way to being ruined. Just think how these people must also be in real life! If you exploit people online, and knowingly ruin a community, then you must be an ass in real life as well. And don't tell me your not.
Right now I have a nice symetrical "marble mouse", but I want one like the highend righthanded ones. With a scroll and two buttons on the left side, as opposed to the right.
I keep my wrist straight, and tilt the paper. I also end up hunched over whatever I'm writing like a vulture, though. I almost never tilt my wrist at an angle, I usually orient myself at 90deg, orient the paper at 90deg, or just right fast enough to get an angle.
I write cursive slowly because it isn't in my rote memory (pun not intended), I have to think about what I'm doing. Writing noncursive with good penmanship is easy thoough, since that is what I do. I always carry a notebook with me, for notes and observations.
I was trying to be scientific with my observations, just wondering if my observations might be a common occurance in others.
Being a lefthander as well, I disagree. I write FASTER than most of the righties I know. I doubt that handedness is a detriment once one knows HOW to write in the first place. Throughout school it was a cast-iron-bitch to learn how to write for me, but I don't know how much of this is the mild dislexia I had, how much was "thinking to fast", and how much was being taught by right handers, in a class of righties, with righties as parents. Monkey-see-monkey-do didn't work when everyone was opposite, and msmd is essencial to learning.
Though now, enviroment willing, I am the fastest printer I know, BECAUSE OF MY PREVIOUS TROUBLES. I had to work harder, and improvise on my own, to get writing to work for me.
To me typing is worse, since the keyboard is NOT taught for lefties, so I'm stuck being a sub-hunt-and-pecker (fast but unorthodox, and slower than most of my fellow righthanded geeks (40-45wpm)). Also I have trackball problems, those damn right-handed-facist at logitic refuse to make a mouse that has 2+ buttons, and a scroll, for lefties. Damnit.
I'm not sure how much of this is me, and how much is actually due to my hand preference, though. Anyone else notice these things?
God I hated the curleycue lessons in grade school, especially in a private school, where actual emphasis was put on being presentable, unlike public grade school where your being taught for only two reasons, curriculum says so, and teachers learned that way.
I had mild dislexia, and visual/speech problems all through my childhood, so it was even worse, I knew what I was writing, I just couldn't read it afterwards. All my teachers wanted us to write like that all through 3rd grade, and I really tried. One problem for me though was that it was so SLOW, I had a hard enough time writing normal (or talking), but those little loops all slanted to about 90 degrees, and became one large scribble.
About the time I got my first computer (C64), and started to learn basic, I ditched the cursive. Taking little programming notes (and, I admit Zork maps) on scratch paper is almost impossible with cursive. Especially when your in a hurry to get the next idea out.
And don't make me mention EVERY girl from 3rd grade to my junior year in high school and their cute rounded cursive (w/ requisite smilie), which happens to be EXACTLY like they taught it in 3rd grade. Bah.
The only times I use cursive now is for my signature, and for occasional art projects. the rest is acute leftward sloping scrawl.
As a side note: the thing that caused my writing to get better was college history of religion classes. My prof was obsessed with mesoamerican religions, and WRITTEN EXAMS! No, you couldn't type it. For finals he told us all to take out 6 pages of paper, and use front and back to answer the question he was going to write on the board. He wrote "MESOAMERICA?", and told us we had 2 hours. I could life a mac truck with my wrist afterwards.
Actually I don't buy things I see advertised, think geek excluded. Most television advertisments don't fit my lifestyle, and don't bring useful products to my attention. And the only pop-ups I see are the ones here on/. And mot telemarketers hate me, since I get them to call 911 everyonce in while, or tell 'em my home number is a cell.
I rallydon't fit into a demographic, poor starving geek, drinks only imported beer and hakutsuru sake, watches anime and "odd movies with no genre", hates console gaming, reads old books, goes to school for philosophy, is celebate, hates people, health food, liberals, conservatives, hippys, yuppies, rich people, poor trash, special interest groups, cuteness, good, evil, and... er... You get the point.
Showing my twelve guys drinking beer and talking about chicks with big breasts doesn't make me want to buy the product, it makes me want to NOT buy it. You can't target the ads to people who are NOT mainstream, like those silly things that Amazon.com tells me I want, none of them have ANYTHING to do with me.
I will admit that targeted is better in theory than non-targeted, IF you can fit into a demographic. And if targeted ads were effective, it would cause less ads, that would be nice. BUT IT WOULDN'T, there would just be the same amount of ads, targeted or no. And as ads get more invasive, it will matter less and less what their selling to me.
Maybe this will be differend for the Mtv/ADHD generation, who likes constant change, flashes, and things linked to products/identity linked to other entities, but I can't stand it. I don't like ads, I want to avoid them, so I can concentrate on things that matter. I HATE people intruding in my life uninvited, and that what advertiser are trying to do, break in to my though processes, change my behaviour, making me do something, thus reducing free-will. If they could hook wires into your skull, they would, if they could put flatscreen billboards into your house, directly opposite the toilet, they would. Every printed book in america would have full color ads on every other page. Textbooks would advertise. EVERYTHING would.
Another thing is people advertising for things you have. Like microsoft advertsing itself inside windows. Buggers.
I try to avoid all forms of conflict, especially when I only bought 3 things, and just wanted to go home. Living in phoenix, in the summer, tends to make one more compliant. "It's hot... Just shut up and I'll do it so I can go home and drink some cherry lime-aid."
Actually I considered resisting, not violently, but in the manner you suggested. That store is miles from my house, first time I've ever been there. And I really don't care enough about being allowed back. That and I really don't like getting the police involved in anything.
Bitch all you want, until you find yourself making minimum wage, and a ghuy doing the same thing making twice as much, with full benefits, and a pension that isn't dependant on the stockmarket.
My freind works interstate with Swift, and make something like $2 a mile, with a speed regulator. My father worked for road way, and made 22/h, with no regulator, full benefits for his family, had guarenteed vacations, didn't HAVE to work ot, and is now retired at 50, making 25k/year for sitting on his ass.
I was actually 86ed from my local walmart, for NOT shoplifting. I went into the store with some freinds, we split up so everyone could buy what they wanted, I put down a tube of toothpase in the garden center because it was either toothpaste of a ficus, ficus won. Went to garden center checkout, payed for ficus, biketubes, and a hose, left walmart. About halfway across the LARGE parking lot a HUGE plain clothes chases me down, and attempts to search my backpack and bags. I let him search the bag, but refuse the backpack search. He threatens to call the cops, I let him search backpack, he messes up all my school crap, and breaks the cover of my graphing calc, then takes me to the store to take my picture.
Why? Because even if they couldn't find what I stole, and refused to look at where I put it, I *MUST* of stolen something.
On one of those "fun with physics" sites, I remember seeing a way to remove the element out of a micro, and make it directional. Just scan you clothes post-purchase, or hook it up to a car battery in a backpack, and have fun at the mall.
Zzzzzzt. Woe to the person with a pacemaker though.
Innocent 'til proven guilty is a nice buzzword, but false. You are guilty until proven innocent in america, if not in the courts, then in the media. Look at that poor scientist who Herr Ashcrock decided was guilty, then the media made his life hell.
The "if you have nothing to hide" arguement is great in a perfect world, but false in the REAL world. If Osama buys Crest, Keds, and ATI, and I buy Crest, Keds, and ATI, then I must be a terrorist. Any type of individualized correlary database is going to be prone to errors, and when the government is the people behind it, those errors can fsck you over for life.
Remove them? First you got to locate them. Then you have to cut them out, which can be a real issue if their woven into the product.
This is no tinfoil hat thing, I'm just sick and tired of being a demographic. I know you LOVE comercials, and cookies, and targeted popups, telemarketers calling you for dinner, for services you don't want/need. (autoglass repair for me, I own a damn bicycle! Natch!) You fill out all those forms they send you, you subscribe to NYT, and Porn4free, then bitch about Penis Enlarger spam, and preach the joys of Mozillas junk filter. Sure.
Let some people "tie themselves intimately to corporations", if they want to, GREAT! I don't want to follow their lead. I'm sick of mindless consumerism, and tracking. I'm sick of statistics and demographics. I'm sick of tergeted marketing, I'm sick of being studied. If that puts me into a "tin foil" hat crowd, GOOD! Hopefully said tinfoil hat will not have an RFID logo.
What right does anyone have to invade my privacy? NONE, as long as there is no suspicion of a crime, and as long as someone has to work for it.
Privacy concern: If their not deactivated, your basically wearing a consumer profile where ever you go. Lets say these things catch on everywhere, and become a standard like UPC codes, you walk into Target, or Walmart, or Circle Jerk, door sensor notices that you respond to a ping. Customer #204013 is wearing a Lands End sweater, a pair of JNCOs, a Cubs hat, Fruit of the Loom undies, a Swatch, Nikes, and a Victorias Secret brassier, customer #204013 buys a Jolk and a pack of Camels, and some pr0n. *POOF* A new database entry is born.
Now imagine that each one of these RFIDs has a unique number, and somewhere along the line you become attached to one of these tags, now all of your purchasing history is associated with YOU, and not an aggregate. And the wonderful thing is, YOU HAVE NO CHOICE. To most people this is no problem, to me, it is. I try my damndest to stay out of all forms of database, with mixed results, and with these tags, I CAN'T. My purchasing history will follow me.
How can you be down on this? I LIKE companies making a 3rd party community. Nothing wrong with the company making money on it either, hell I hope they make MORE money than companies who don't, just to encourage more of a connection with players.
Its not a parasitic relation ship, as is the usual company policy, or like MMOs like everquest. This benefits BOTH parties, the gamers and the developers. Developers make money, and also may find things that could be done to their products, to fullfill customer demand. Gamers get community, and content, for a one time price.
I HOPE that something good comes of this. And I wish more success to Epic for this, than HL2, and the industrialized CS.
I actually would use the Unreal Engine if I was to make a game. From screens, the Doom3 engine is prettier, but MUCH more system intensive. Don't want to force everyone to go out and buy a new Alienware box. Unreal is pretty enough, and works well enough.
As for HL2, its nice... but... I wasn't impressed with the first Half Life's engine, too blocky, cheap light mapping. Also if they are going to make it work on consoles, that means that they are probably sacrificing the brute force a good PC can offer. Compatibility suchs for the more powerful ones. That is if they are going to be using the same engine cross-console.
From some of the random inane speculation that I've heard, Unreal Warfare engine isn't going to be for Massive battles, 'tis just a title.
And in actuality there are TWO unreal engines, one for UT2k3, and one for Unreal II. Unreal 2 got all the good physics, modeling, and enviromentals, UT2k3 got compact, and was a very nice experiment in ragdoll physics. I might be wrong in this, Unreal 2 might just be an uber build of the Unreal engine that UT2k3 uses.
I was also under the impression that Unreal Warfare is the engine that the ports use (postal, raven shield, et al), and not the true Unreal engine. I forgot where I read this, but I read it reguarding postal.
No, Schodinger's Cat Burglers, MAY steal something, we don't know until we observe said stolen object, then the larceny wave collapses into either a postive (not stolen) or negative (stolen) state.
Either that, or We don't know if the burgler actually exists, until we observe him. Kinda like those damn underwear gnomes.
I will not download it through Kazaa, for two reasons. The first (and practicle reason) is that I'm stuck at 26k right now. I have no idea why. I just moved into a new apartment complex, and the fasted dial-up speed I can get is 26400. I spent a whole night that I should have been unpacking boxes messing with my network settings... Damn erfwink. So download UT2k+4 would take a week and a half to download. It summer, free bandwidth isn't available for another 3 months, when I get to play with that nice ph4t T1 again.
Now the big ethereal ethical reason; I support Epic/Atari. The Unreal series of games has been very good, and I have gleamed much enjoyment from them. And being that I like the product, and would play it obsesivly, I'll pay for it. I view buying a product like voting, if it is good it gets my vote, if not, it doesn't. My vote being my hard-earned cash. Now I'm not completely against piracy, I've pirated some utilities (and an OS) in the past, just because I'd only use it once, and that it wasn't quite the software of choice. Sometimes I pirate because prices are too high, I can't afford a $300 peice of software, so I hit up kazaa, or search astalavista. But for things I want, and can afford, I buy.
Yes they will be. Being that I really like 3rd party scenes, and I'm sure that while UT2k+4 is going to be backwards compatable with UT2k+3, UT2k+3 isn't going to be forwards compatable. Meaning I'll have that "left out" feeling in the modding community. That and it will decrease some of the online players pool, meanining that there will be EVEN LESS people setting up invasion servers.
This is the sae reason I ended up buying every Sims expansion through HotDate, I needed them to download all the good (better than 1st party, in most cases) 3rd party items. When I refused to buy a single expansion, then cruised one of the fan sites looking for items, I always wanted the ones that needed the newest Sims Expansion.
Same thing for UT2k+4, I'm sure.
I just hope that the Unreal franchise doesn't do the Windows thing, starting slow, then spamming the user with rushed releases.
Eh, k = 1000. 2k4 2000 + 4 = 2004. Not quite a buzz word, being that it is correct notation. Y2k was pure buzzword.
Also officially Ut2k3 is Unreal Tournament 2003, so it just user shortening, jus' like typing MS to be Microsoft, IE6 being Internet Explorer 6.**. Geeks like acronyms, alot. With all our big nasty RAMs, ROMs, MP3s, MMORPGS, MUDs, BMPs, etc etc... Saying "Unreal Tournament 2003" is cumbersome, saying "YOO TEE TWO Kay THREE" is easier.
Back OT (on topic), I'm miffed at Epic/Atari/whatnot for this. I just forked over my $50 for UT2k3 (unreal tournament two thousand and three), and now I'm expected to fork over ANOTHER $50 for the same damn game. Change content as much as you want, I didn't really buy it for content, I bought it because it was a really pretty engine. I don't (do not)think a minor engine update, and some inhouse mods (modifications) are really worth another chunk of cash. Why not remake Unreal2, except make it better, that might be worth my money.
I mean that $50 is already slotted for Frozen Throne and the Morrowind expansion, not for a game I already have two copies of. (UT, and UT2k3 (unreal tournament, and unreal tournament two thousand and three).
seriously, I thought that this was something VERY important. Lie/. announcing the end of time impending to us lowely nonsubscribers, out og generosity.
But it probably is a marketing plow. Or some editor REALLY grokked the book.
it is already, count the amount of times the term "BitTorrent" has been used in the last month. Except its not like, 'a beowolf cluster of these would be cool", but setting up a bittorrent of these would be cool.
Setting up a bittorrent of the frontpage of goatse would be COOL! A beowolf cluster of Natalie Portman as the Goatse guy wouleed be coolER, set up a bittorrent link to that shit! (with a darn EViL BIT!)
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Great, they delete hacks and dupes only, then those players just hack and dupe more stuff, no lesson learned. Deleting the account sends a STRONG message, especially if Blizzard makes good on threats of banning keys. If you steal something, and they just take the item that you stole, you'll just do it it again, if they stick you in jail, you MIGHT learn a lesson. (or a more apt example for bnet, if you're the towns drunken jerk, taking off your pants in public and offering crack to school children, if they just took your booze and crack, you'd get more, but if they demolished your house, and exiled you, you might just stop, especially if there was a threat of death.)
And don't pull this "1% might be innocent" crap, 1% innocence means that 99% are guilty, and I'm doubting the ratio is much higher than this, since this is serverside logging recording offenders, if you have an abnormal account, that means that your CHEATING, since Bliz doesn't allow any 3rd party programs, and all copies of Diablo are the same, at least each version sends the same data, so there is no reason that you'd be abnormal, unless your doing something you shouldn't be.
I'm going for BANNING everyone, screw this namby-pamby account banning crap. BAN them.
Also Bliz did do the item purging thing, it didn't work, the idiots and lamers found a work around within days, deleting them cannot be worked around.
Isn't the fact that their still working on an old game, with no direct profit to them a sign of caring? The much lauded 1.10 is going to be FREE, just like 1.9, 1.8 and all the other patches since 1.0. The fact that their deleting accounts is also a sign of caring, if they didn't they wouldn't even bother, no? You already forked over your $50 or $100 (plus LoD), so why bother keeping the community happy. (yes I know, so we remain attached and buy Diablo III, but the side effects are worth it.)
When I *RULE* the world, ruining a kickass game will be punishable by REMOVING THEIR HANDS. CS is ruined, Diablo I was ruined, Warcraft 3 is on its way to being ruined. Just think how these people must also be in real life! If you exploit people online, and knowingly ruin a community, then you must be an ass in real life as well. And don't tell me your not.
Go Bliz!
Right now I have a nice symetrical "marble mouse", but I want one like the highend righthanded ones. With a scroll and two buttons on the left side, as opposed to the right.
I keep my wrist straight, and tilt the paper. I also end up hunched over whatever I'm writing like a vulture, though. I almost never tilt my wrist at an angle, I usually orient myself at 90deg, orient the paper at 90deg, or just right fast enough to get an angle.
I write cursive slowly because it isn't in my rote memory (pun not intended), I have to think about what I'm doing. Writing noncursive with good penmanship is easy thoough, since that is what I do. I always carry a notebook with me, for notes and observations.
I was trying to be scientific with my observations, just wondering if my observations might be a common occurance in others.
Being a lefthander as well, I disagree. I write FASTER than most of the righties I know. I doubt that handedness is a detriment once one knows HOW to write in the first place. Throughout school it was a cast-iron-bitch to learn how to write for me, but I don't know how much of this is the mild dislexia I had, how much was "thinking to fast", and how much was being taught by right handers, in a class of righties, with righties as parents. Monkey-see-monkey-do didn't work when everyone was opposite, and msmd is essencial to learning.
Though now, enviroment willing, I am the fastest printer I know, BECAUSE OF MY PREVIOUS TROUBLES. I had to work harder, and improvise on my own, to get writing to work for me.
To me typing is worse, since the keyboard is NOT taught for lefties, so I'm stuck being a sub-hunt-and-pecker (fast but unorthodox, and slower than most of my fellow righthanded geeks (40-45wpm)). Also I have trackball problems, those damn right-handed-facist at logitic refuse to make a mouse that has 2+ buttons, and a scroll, for lefties. Damnit.
I'm not sure how much of this is me, and how much is actually due to my hand preference, though. Anyone else notice these things?
God I hated the curleycue lessons in grade school, especially in a private school, where actual emphasis was put on being presentable, unlike public grade school where your being taught for only two reasons, curriculum says so, and teachers learned that way.
I had mild dislexia, and visual/speech problems all through my childhood, so it was even worse, I knew what I was writing, I just couldn't read it afterwards. All my teachers wanted us to write like that all through 3rd grade, and I really tried. One problem for me though was that it was so SLOW, I had a hard enough time writing normal (or talking), but those little loops all slanted to about 90 degrees, and became one large scribble.
About the time I got my first computer (C64), and started to learn basic, I ditched the cursive. Taking little programming notes (and, I admit Zork maps) on scratch paper is almost impossible with cursive. Especially when your in a hurry to get the next idea out.
And don't make me mention EVERY girl from 3rd grade to my junior year in high school and their cute rounded cursive (w/ requisite smilie), which happens to be EXACTLY like they taught it in 3rd grade. Bah.
The only times I use cursive now is for my signature, and for occasional art projects. the rest is acute leftward sloping scrawl.
As a side note: the thing that caused my writing to get better was college history of religion classes. My prof was obsessed with mesoamerican religions, and WRITTEN EXAMS! No, you couldn't type it. For finals he told us all to take out 6 pages of paper, and use front and back to answer the question he was going to write on the board. He wrote "MESOAMERICA?", and told us we had 2 hours. I could life a mac truck with my wrist afterwards.
Very nice Pynchon... Very nice...
To bad I lack modpoints, and a new cat called "+4 clever pun"
(For those who don't grok, read Pynchon's Crying of lot 49)
Has to be said, albeit anonymously, RTFA!!!
Actually I don't buy things I see advertised, think geek excluded. Most television advertisments don't fit my lifestyle, and don't bring useful products to my attention. And the only pop-ups I see are the ones here on /. And mot telemarketers hate me, since I get them to call 911 everyonce in while, or tell 'em my home number is a cell.
I rallydon't fit into a demographic, poor starving geek, drinks only imported beer and hakutsuru sake, watches anime and "odd movies with no genre", hates console gaming, reads old books, goes to school for philosophy, is celebate, hates people, health food, liberals, conservatives, hippys, yuppies, rich people, poor trash, special interest groups, cuteness, good, evil, and... er... You get the point.
Showing my twelve guys drinking beer and talking about chicks with big breasts doesn't make me want to buy the product, it makes me want to NOT buy it. You can't target the ads to people who are NOT mainstream, like those silly things that Amazon.com tells me I want, none of them have ANYTHING to do with me.
I will admit that targeted is better in theory than non-targeted, IF you can fit into a demographic. And if targeted ads were effective, it would cause less ads, that would be nice. BUT IT WOULDN'T, there would just be the same amount of ads, targeted or no. And as ads get more invasive, it will matter less and less what their selling to me.
Maybe this will be differend for the Mtv/ADHD generation, who likes constant change, flashes, and things linked to products/identity linked to other entities, but I can't stand it. I don't like ads, I want to avoid them, so I can concentrate on things that matter. I HATE people intruding in my life uninvited, and that what advertiser are trying to do, break in to my though processes, change my behaviour, making me do something, thus reducing free-will. If they could hook wires into your skull, they would, if they could put flatscreen billboards into your house, directly opposite the toilet, they would. Every printed book in america would have full color ads on every other page. Textbooks would advertise. EVERYTHING would.
Another thing is people advertising for things you have. Like microsoft advertsing itself inside windows. Buggers.
I try to avoid all forms of conflict, especially when I only bought 3 things, and just wanted to go home. Living in phoenix, in the summer, tends to make one more compliant. "It's hot... Just shut up and I'll do it so I can go home and drink some cherry lime-aid."
Actually I considered resisting, not violently, but in the manner you suggested. That store is miles from my house, first time I've ever been there. And I really don't care enough about being allowed back. That and I really don't like getting the police involved in anything.
Bitch all you want, until you find yourself making minimum wage, and a ghuy doing the same thing making twice as much, with full benefits, and a pension that isn't dependant on the stockmarket.
My freind works interstate with Swift, and make something like $2 a mile, with a speed regulator. My father worked for road way, and made 22/h, with no regulator, full benefits for his family, had guarenteed vacations, didn't HAVE to work ot, and is now retired at 50, making 25k/year for sitting on his ass.
I was actually 86ed from my local walmart, for NOT shoplifting. I went into the store with some freinds, we split up so everyone could buy what they wanted, I put down a tube of toothpase in the garden center because it was either toothpaste of a ficus, ficus won. Went to garden center checkout, payed for ficus, biketubes, and a hose, left walmart. About halfway across the LARGE parking lot a HUGE plain clothes chases me down, and attempts to search my backpack and bags. I let him search the bag, but refuse the backpack search. He threatens to call the cops, I let him search backpack, he messes up all my school crap, and breaks the cover of my graphing calc, then takes me to the store to take my picture.
Why? Because even if they couldn't find what I stole, and refused to look at where I put it, I *MUST* of stolen something.
On one of those "fun with physics" sites, I remember seeing a way to remove the element out of a micro, and make it directional. Just scan you clothes post-purchase, or hook it up to a car battery in a backpack, and have fun at the mall.
Zzzzzzt. Woe to the person with a pacemaker though.
Innocent 'til proven guilty is a nice buzzword, but false. You are guilty until proven innocent in america, if not in the courts, then in the media. Look at that poor scientist who Herr Ashcrock decided was guilty, then the media made his life hell.
The "if you have nothing to hide" arguement is great in a perfect world, but false in the REAL world. If Osama buys Crest, Keds, and ATI, and I buy Crest, Keds, and ATI, then I must be a terrorist. Any type of individualized correlary database is going to be prone to errors, and when the government is the people behind it, those errors can fsck you over for life.
Remove them? First you got to locate them. Then you have to cut them out, which can be a real issue if their woven into the product.
This is no tinfoil hat thing, I'm just sick and tired of being a demographic. I know you LOVE comercials, and cookies, and targeted popups, telemarketers calling you for dinner, for services you don't want/need. (autoglass repair for me, I own a damn bicycle! Natch!) You fill out all those forms they send you, you subscribe to NYT, and Porn4free, then bitch about Penis Enlarger spam, and preach the joys of Mozillas junk filter. Sure.
Let some people "tie themselves intimately to corporations", if they want to, GREAT! I don't want to follow their lead. I'm sick of mindless consumerism, and tracking. I'm sick of statistics and demographics. I'm sick of tergeted marketing, I'm sick of being studied. If that puts me into a "tin foil" hat crowd, GOOD! Hopefully said tinfoil hat will not have an RFID logo.
What right does anyone have to invade my privacy? NONE, as long as there is no suspicion of a crime, and as long as someone has to work for it.
Privacy concern: If their not deactivated, your basically wearing a consumer profile where ever you go. Lets say these things catch on everywhere, and become a standard like UPC codes, you walk into Target, or Walmart, or Circle Jerk, door sensor notices that you respond to a ping. Customer #204013 is wearing a Lands End sweater, a pair of JNCOs, a Cubs hat, Fruit of the Loom undies, a Swatch, Nikes, and a Victorias Secret brassier, customer #204013 buys a Jolk and a pack of Camels, and some pr0n. *POOF* A new database entry is born.
Now imagine that each one of these RFIDs has a unique number, and somewhere along the line you become attached to one of these tags, now all of your purchasing history is associated with YOU, and not an aggregate. And the wonderful thing is, YOU HAVE NO CHOICE. To most people this is no problem, to me, it is. I try my damndest to stay out of all forms of database, with mixed results, and with these tags, I CAN'T. My purchasing history will follow me.
Log onto the server, and do a head count. TDM games far outnumber DM games. Its all about intigib Team DM, or Instigib CTF.
How can you be down on this? I LIKE companies making a 3rd party community. Nothing wrong with the company making money on it either, hell I hope they make MORE money than companies who don't, just to encourage more of a connection with players.
Its not a parasitic relation ship, as is the usual company policy, or like MMOs like everquest. This benefits BOTH parties, the gamers and the developers. Developers make money, and also may find things that could be done to their products, to fullfill customer demand. Gamers get community, and content, for a one time price.
I HOPE that something good comes of this. And I wish more success to Epic for this, than HL2, and the industrialized CS.
I actually would use the Unreal Engine if I was to make a game. From screens, the Doom3 engine is prettier, but MUCH more system intensive. Don't want to force everyone to go out and buy a new Alienware box. Unreal is pretty enough, and works well enough.
As for HL2, its nice... but... I wasn't impressed with the first Half Life's engine, too blocky, cheap light mapping. Also if they are going to make it work on consoles, that means that they are probably sacrificing the brute force a good PC can offer. Compatibility suchs for the more powerful ones. That is if they are going to be using the same engine cross-console.
From some of the random inane speculation that I've heard, Unreal Warfare engine isn't going to be for Massive battles, 'tis just a title.
And in actuality there are TWO unreal engines, one for UT2k3, and one for Unreal II. Unreal 2 got all the good physics, modeling, and enviromentals, UT2k3 got compact, and was a very nice experiment in ragdoll physics. I might be wrong in this, Unreal 2 might just be an uber build of the Unreal engine that UT2k3 uses.
I was also under the impression that Unreal Warfare is the engine that the ports use (postal, raven shield, et al), and not the true Unreal engine. I forgot where I read this, but I read it reguarding postal.
No, Schodinger's Cat Burglers, MAY steal something, we don't know until we observe said stolen object, then the larceny wave collapses into either a postive (not stolen) or negative (stolen) state.
Either that, or We don't know if the burgler actually exists, until we observe him. Kinda like those damn underwear gnomes.
I will not download it through Kazaa, for two reasons. The first (and practicle reason) is that I'm stuck at 26k right now. I have no idea why. I just moved into a new apartment complex, and the fasted dial-up speed I can get is 26400. I spent a whole night that I should have been unpacking boxes messing with my network settings... Damn erfwink. So download UT2k+4 would take a week and a half to download. It summer, free bandwidth isn't available for another 3 months, when I get to play with that nice ph4t T1 again.
Now the big ethereal ethical reason; I support Epic/Atari. The Unreal series of games has been very good, and I have gleamed much enjoyment from them. And being that I like the product, and would play it obsesivly, I'll pay for it. I view buying a product like voting, if it is good it gets my vote, if not, it doesn't. My vote being my hard-earned cash. Now I'm not completely against piracy, I've pirated some utilities (and an OS) in the past, just because I'd only use it once, and that it wasn't quite the software of choice. Sometimes I pirate because prices are too high, I can't afford a $300 peice of software, so I hit up kazaa, or search astalavista. But for things I want, and can afford, I buy.
Also, buying it more convenient.
Yes they will be. Being that I really like 3rd party scenes, and I'm sure that while UT2k+4 is going to be backwards compatable with UT2k+3, UT2k+3 isn't going to be forwards compatable. Meaning I'll have that "left out" feeling in the modding community. That and it will decrease some of the online players pool, meanining that there will be EVEN LESS people setting up invasion servers.
This is the sae reason I ended up buying every Sims expansion through HotDate, I needed them to download all the good (better than 1st party, in most cases) 3rd party items. When I refused to buy a single expansion, then cruised one of the fan sites looking for items, I always wanted the ones that needed the newest Sims Expansion.
Same thing for UT2k+4, I'm sure.
I just hope that the Unreal franchise doesn't do the Windows thing, starting slow, then spamming the user with rushed releases.
Eh, k = 1000. 2k4 2000 + 4 = 2004. Not quite a buzz word, being that it is correct notation. Y2k was pure buzzword.
Also officially Ut2k3 is Unreal Tournament 2003, so it just user shortening, jus' like typing MS to be Microsoft, IE6 being Internet Explorer 6.**. Geeks like acronyms, alot. With all our big nasty RAMs, ROMs, MP3s, MMORPGS, MUDs, BMPs, etc etc... Saying "Unreal Tournament 2003" is cumbersome, saying "YOO TEE TWO Kay THREE" is easier.
Back OT (on topic), I'm miffed at Epic/Atari/whatnot for this. I just forked over my $50 for UT2k3 (unreal tournament two thousand and three), and now I'm expected to fork over ANOTHER $50 for the same damn game. Change content as much as you want, I didn't really buy it for content, I bought it because it was a really pretty engine. I don't (do not)think a minor engine update, and some inhouse mods (modifications) are really worth another chunk of cash. Why not remake Unreal2, except make it better, that might be worth my money.
I mean that $50 is already slotted for Frozen Throne and the Morrowind expansion, not for a game I already have two copies of. (UT, and UT2k3 (unreal tournament, and unreal tournament two thousand and three).
Yes. The-make-the-title-bar-of-that-one-article-red-vir us. Terrible plague.
/. announcing the end of time impending to us lowely nonsubscribers, out og generosity.
seriously, I thought that this was something VERY important. Lie
But it probably is a marketing plow. Or some editor REALLY grokked the book.
it is already, count the amount of times the term "BitTorrent" has been used in the last month. Except its not like, 'a beowolf cluster of these would be cool", but setting up a bittorrent of these would be cool.
Setting up a bittorrent of the frontpage of goatse would be COOL! A beowolf cluster of Natalie Portman as the Goatse guy wouleed be coolER, set up a bittorrent link to that shit! (with a darn EViL BIT!)