If you think an iPad is better for reading than eInk, your missing the point of eInk. This isn't to see that your preferences are wrong, you like what you like, but you miss why people like me prefer eInk.
I have a Transformer, and a Nook Touch (and a first gen Nook 3g), I never read anything more than webpages and comic books on my tablet. I read anything dealing with large amounts of static text on the Nook. Why? I hate backlights (or front lights, or glowing screens in general). It hurts my eyes at night, it keeps me from sleeping when I should, and they generally give me severe eye strain. I might be special, since when I read I generally sit down for over a two hour clip, and when I use a glowy screen I take breaks every 15 minutes to half hour.
For me, a tablet is a small portable computer, and an ebook is a small portable dead tree book. I don't want or expect to much crossover. My ebook not being tablety enough is a good thing. If they could make my tablet more ebooky (matte screen, high contrast, no backlight, massive battery life) I'd be as happy as a clam, though.
Fun fact: I've thrown away more book lights than Amazon has probably sold Kindles. Every damn year for 20+ years everyone figures that since I'm a reader I need a damn booklight. I still dont' think I've ever actually used one (I lie, one had a nice clip, and I used to clip it to PC cases while I was working on them). I have a nice lamp. When my girlfriend is sleeping I read in our library room, or my office (both with good lamps and comfy chairs). I haven't actually found myself stranding in the wilderness without any source of light, and an odd hankering for Stephen King, if I had no light source I'd probably be more worried about that.
It, in the end, I suppose is a case of different strokes for different folks, though.
If your going to try to sound like two separate people, at least vary your style. Or are we to believe that a horde of uneducated eight year-olds have invaded/., all of whom are members of some strange Microsoft sponsored cult.
Further, if "either" of you want to be taken seriously, please stop ditching your primary school English lessons.
Microsoft will still be there, as it has been for decades. What is your point? The kids will grow up with changes; as we all did (on Microsoft's or anyone else's software). Change is a fact of life in the field of computing, get used to it. [very good!]
You fail to note that there are radically differing versions of *NIX desktops too, such as KDE, Gnome, XFCA, etc... They change over time as well. Plus the changes that occur in its attendant software as well (that aren't used 1/100th as much as Windows and its software).
Thus, Your very argument is defeated on its very basis, albeit[?], turned around on Linux, ala "reverse-psychology" and the numbers prove the rest for me in terms of usership/mindshare (as well as marketshare).
So if you have an argument against fracking... make it good. Because it needs to be REALLY good to matter at all.
I don't. I don't know enough right now to actually form a decent opinion on it. We need more science, like this study, to actually come up with a cohesive argument either way.
I'm just saying, as a person with a vague interest in geology, that it wouldn't be terribly surprising if there was an effect. If a fault has a large amount of energy stored up in it, a small trigger could let it lose. This isn't news, nor very surprising. I would be actually shocked if there was no potential for fracking to cause at least some quakes. This, wouldn't necessarily be an argument against it (depending on the magnitude of the effect). It, would, on the other hand, be an interesting bit of science. If there is found to be a decent sized effect, we, the public, have to weigh the potential benefits against the potential risks.
They don't care if there is a problem in fact, they just don't like fracking because this has gotten political. The Michael Moore people got all hot and bothered about it and now swarms of idiots are attacking it despite the fact that it's doing great things for the US energy market.
You're getting a bit trolly there. I don't know enough science to form an opinion (which is mostly true for everyone, those for it, and those against) on its safety, but having some concerns is fine, it is much healthier than just being a cheerleader. Personally I'm more concerned about ground water issues, and industrial safety (I don't trust the petroleum industry in the slightest). Not enough to fully oppose it (again, need more data), but enough to be skeptical. If I was in charge of policy, I'd let them roll it out in a limited basis, and areas where there is limited risk, until we can fully weigh the evidence, and then roll it out on a large scale, or try to mitigate whichever proven risks that are found.
Having concerns is normal. It isn't some "Michael Moore idiot blah blah blah" thing. Being concerned and being anti-whatnot are very different things. For example, I generally am an advocate for nuclear power, but I also have a fair amount of concerns about various issues about it. My philosophy is proceed with caution until we fully know the risks and limitations.
And if it's already unstable then the fracking isn't causing the quake so much as triggering something now that would have happened later.
Perhaps. Again, need more science. Though a lot of quakes relieve small amounts of pressure, so it is conceivable that something could trigger an unnatural massive release of energy. Is this possible? Is this probable? This is why we need more science. You saying you think it isn't, and me saying I think it is, is completely meaningless, nature doesn't care what our opinion is. You are standing on the same shaky empirical ground as the people who say it IS a risk. Without evidence, both of you are just making mouth noises based on various subjective political ideals.
Furthermore, what sort of damage have we suffered so far from fracking related quakes? Any cities leveled? Seriously, can we show any damage what so ever from it? Or are people saying that it shook their house for a couple seconds once when the pump across the street turned on. Because I can believe that. Of course, a large truck driving by will have a similar effect.
Because something hasn't happened, doesn't mean it won't, or can't, happen. Hence the need for objective science.
How exactly is a relatively small amount of water being pumped into the ground supposed to destabilize TECTONIC PLATES...
Except no one has ever claimed that it will destabilize plates, since earthquakes can occur for thousands of other reasons that don't directly involve plates. There are still earth quakes in the central continent caused by the lack of glacial pressure, there are earth quakes caused by hot spots, there are earth quakes caused by compression pressures, there are... you get the point. There are areas of the continent completely peppered with faults, far from the nearest plate boundary, this includes vast swaths of Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico, this is due to compression and expansion, this causes the "basin and range" effect that defines their geography. There are huge amounts of faults in the middle of the old continental core caused by glaciation, and the easing of pressure. Areas are dying lakes generally have tons of faults, for the same reasons. If you Googled a fault map of the US, you'd noticed that we're pretty much completely covered in them, everywhere.
Fracking in increasing the local pressure, which can jar, or lubricate existent faults. This can lead to localized disturbances.
Again, they don't have to rewrite it, and I don't have to give them money again. Where is the problem here? Should I be forced to give them money in the future for producing things I didn't enjoy? Are they entitled to my continued patronage?
If an author wrote a book with a horrible ending, I would probably not buy books from them again. I might also be tempted to go online and complain to potential customers, so they don't waste their money either. I do the same for faulty products, bad customer service, and deceptive practices, so I don't see why I shouldn't be allowed to do the same for media.
. not to demand changes.
No one is really demanding anything, sure people are whining, and being generally vocal with their dissatisfaction. There are plenty of people saying "Make it better, or I'll never give you money again", which isn't forcing them to do anything, they can side with "integrity" and keep things as they are. EA or Bioware can do whatever the hell they want, and the customer can do whatever the hell they want as well, including saying "fix it, or I'm done with you". No one has a gun to anyone's head, though.
but fuck this seemingly prevailing attitude that fans are entitled to a change. did it ever occur to you that there's no concensus on how it should be changed?
First; they aren't entitled, but they can still ask for it.
Sure there is. Fans want a satisfying, genuine feeling, ending. I don't think that many of them care WHAT that ending is specifically, only that it is an ending that doesn't feel cheap, or like a "to be continued" scamming for DLC, or tacked on due to publication time, or budget, constraints.
And for your information, I have given feedback to game devs, photographers, painters, musicians, and writers over the course of my life, feedback from the position of "mere" customer. 90% of them have appreciated this.
just because you can whine really loud it doesn't mean you can dictate to a game developer how to make their games.
Why ever not? They make a consumer product, the consumers don't like it. They either fix it, or the consumers go else where with their money next time.
Works just fine. We're not talking about fine art here. EA can keep their "artistic integrity", but no one has to buy it; that also is a perfectly fine conclusion to this story. Outside of the fact that people won't give them money again, no one is forcing them to change their ending, or make their game in a certain way. They are free to make the worlds crappiest game, and I'm free to never give them money again.
I'm not one to talk though, since EA has been on my shit-list for a long time (over a decade now). I always think twice before giving them money, and generally wait for the first month of player reviews, if the game looks really solid (more solid that anything else made by a different company). And I will never, ever, buy their DLC. Further, I'm one of the only person who never really found Mass Effect terribly fun. The first one was okay (outside of being forced to hide behind walls 90% of the time). The second one took away everything I liked about the first, so I never really gave two shits about the third one.
A claim like that needs evidence, not just "look it up". Further it needs REALLY strong evidence, well researched and corroborated, not just some internet (or television) loony toon.
"You don't agree with me, YOU ARE A COMMUNIST"... 90% of discussions with Republicans I've had on the internet (not in real life, the number drops to around 60%).
"You want to take away our guns!" (who does, most of the people I know with guns are Liberals...)
"Global warming is a hoax on behalf of BIG SCIENCE!" Commonly seen here (ignore big oil, or big coal, or big pollution)
Blah. I can play too. Dogma is stupid, no matter if you agree with it or not.
Er... In Arizona (and the US) most Conservatives ALSO don't want to block illegal immigrants... They are useful for both sides. The Liberals love them, because someday they will vote. The Conservatives love them because the depress wages and can be used to break unions. Listen to the rhetoric on the Right, "we won't get rid of them until we stop them from coming!"... Which is a pretty transparent pile of shit. Also. why haven't the right actually DONE anything, or even attempted to on a purely symbolic basis?
Here in Arizona we have a liberal rag (The Phoenix New Times, owned by the Village Voice), and our actual paper which slants heavily to the right (The Arizona Republic, owned by the Quayle family)., their coverage of illegal immigration and Sheriff Joe Ariapo (heavily anti immigration, to the point of idiotic zealotry) is almost completely identical. They diverge on pretty much everything else, but on that one issue it gets hard to know which rag your actually reading at times, completely lockstep.
Also, Liberals here are about as powerless as possible, this is one of the most conservative states in the Union. Hell, they weren't actually invited to several of our tragic budget talks.
Arizona's plight is wholly on our Government, which is almost 100% conservative. The Liberals couldn't do anything if they wanted to, such a minority they are. From the Wikipedia:
The party breakdown in the Arizona Legislature is currently as follows: Senate: 21 Republicans, 9 Democrats House of Representatives: 40 Republicans, 20 Democrats
This isn't to say our Liberals are at all sane either. They're just as bat-shit insane, but completely powerless.
As a disgruntled Arizonan: Arizona wins, hands down. We're in the national news for crap like this every week, we brought the US John McCain (carpet bagger who can't not be reelected), and John Kyle (carpet bagger who can't not be reelected), we brought the world Barry Goldwater and the general crapification of the Republican party. We have Sheriff "pink underwear" Joe, and several cops with connections to white supremacy. We had Dennis DeConcini (of Keating Five fame, see also John McCain, who somehow got to almost be president). We had Fife Symington, who managed massive wire fraud, and later decided to learn to cook, and occasionally is discussed as a potential governor (again). Lets not forget Janet Napolitano, who wasn't bad (no worse than anyone else), but wasted huge amounts of money trying to rip the Joe Arpaio down, at the expense of doing anything; who eventually accepted an appointment by Obama just to continue trying to get Arpaio.
We have the Babbits, who managed to sell away large amounts of our water rights to the local tribes, so they could sell it back to us at a higher rate. We also gave away our first choice of Colorado River water to build a silly canal, to help cotton farmers (a water intensive crop).
I could go on. If there is a state with dumber voters (oh yeah, look up our standing on various education statistics, we're consistently at the absolute bottom of every metric), and a dumber, more corrupt, government than ours, I'd be truly frightened.
If it wasn't for the terrain, and family, I'd be out of here like a rat of a sinking ship.
Games haven't been fun for 15 years or more at this point, and knowledge of how to actually make a fun game seems to have disappeared from the earth.
What games have you been playing? I've been having a blast, and plan on continuing to do so through at least the rest of the year (this is a very good year for gaming, at least on the PC). With the rise of indie studios, and small release games I've been as happy as I've been in a long time. Yes, there is a ton of big market crap, yes there is a bit of a plague going on in the console scene (oh boy, a stealthy tactical shooter involving hiding behind brown walls! Woo!), but I'd say the industry is doing pretty well. Yes, the big studios are getting stale, releasing only "safe" games, but smaller studios have more than made up for it. There does need to be an "Interplay" out there releasing interesting titles, and rock solid turn-based RPGs (there is always Atlus in console land, I suppose)... But other than that...
Also, realize that most of everything, even back in the day, was also crap. Go to an independent game store (or browse a large ROM site), one that still stocks used NES games, and ponder how many of them are terrible marketing tie ins thrown together in a weekend. Kids will buy anything and enjoy it, but luckily the game market is starting to pander to adults now (the people who grew up with the Atari or NES).
Also, realize that there is more than "hyper-realistic" AAA titles out there. I sank more time into Minecraft and Terraria than I probably spent playing any retro game outside of the occasion Square title. Torchlight 2 is going to stress my relationship with my girlfriend. I managed to sink more time into The Binding of Isaac than I'm willing to admit, same with Dungeons of Dredmore and S.P.A.Z. These are just the more popular ones, I've gotten a good amount of enjoyment out of TOME (a roguelike), and a decent amount of Android games. Since the bad-days of the mid-2000s (oh boy, another console shooter...), I haven't really been without a decent game. There is more right now that look good than I'd ever be able to play, even if I still had the schedule I did when I was eight.
And funny that you cite Fallout: New Vegas, but Obsidian just ended up laying off 30 people. The owner of the company hasn't taken any salary in over six months and they're fighting bankruptcy. But surely, they're making too much money and should lay off the rest of their staff.
From what I've read, they are in money trouble because of some bad licensing with Bethesda, instead of getting straight royalties they went for a multi-million dollar bonus based off of good Metacritic scores. They then had some nasty bugs on release which lead to bad reviews, which lead to no bonus, even if most of those bugs were finally fixed. I'm not 100% sure of this, but I've heard that they little more than broke even on Fallout NV because of this.
Which says: they made a dumb decision, suffer from hubris, and Bethesda is a bit of a dick (see also the Mojang problem).
Conspiracy theory: They didn't split online and offline communities (ala Diablo 2) to channel more people into the RMT auctions, meaning more profit. People like me (I play games to get away from morons, not to interact with them) would never be tempted to ever interact with the RMT market, since I'd be sandboxed away in my own single player world, and thus the mighty Activision-Blizzard would never see a single red cent from me beyond purchase price. But now I might get an epic drop, have no use for it, and try to sell it for real money, meaning Activision-Blizzard gets their cut.
This, truth be told, isn't a large game killer for me. Annoying, yes; but it isn't going to keep me from playing. Originally, though, I was going to use Torchlight 2 (which was supposed to be out now) as a bridge to keep me busy until Diablo 3. Now Diablo 3 is the bridge to keep me busy until Torchlight 2 and Guild Wars 2. Which is sad, since Blizzard has gotten a metric shit-ton of money from me (every single game since Blackthorne through WotLK, and about 3.5 cumulative years of paying for WoW). I would buy any Blizzard game without reading reviews, just because they never released a game previously that was bad (the only other company that ever was in the same category was Black Isle). But now Diablo 3 is their test, if it fails, or goes to casual (in the pejorative) I'm probably going to give up on them. Looking at the development of Diablo 3 doesn't build faith, they've chopped out far too much, they seemed to renege on their general "when its done" philosophy, and they seem to be trying to get house wives and children to play while alienating their old fans (nothing wrong with the former, as long as it doesn't come at the expense of the latter). The last minute rune changes exemplify all of these suspicions.
Granted this is all opinion based on my experience with the beta, and my opinions might change dramatically with the full release. But right now I'm far more excited about Torchlight 2 (which, from a talent perspective is truly Diablo 3) and Guild Wars 2. Back when Diablo 2, and its expansion, came out it was all I could think about. The expectation was unbearable. and me and several friends would sit around and talk exclusively about them. Diablo 2 (and LoD) were, to me and my ilk, more important than the second coming of Christ. Now... We're all kind of "meh", about it. But then again, we're all much older than we were then, with far more to worry about (and be excited about).
No, it makes mundane photos look like they were passed through filters.
It makes interesting photos more interesting.
No, it makes interesting photos look like they were passed through filters (and thus are less interesting).
Some pics lend themselves very well to the Instagram treatment and do have artistic* merit.
Yes, some do. But sadly most of them look like mundane pictures passed though filters.
...and do have artistic* merit... Art, for the benefit of the naysayers, evokes an emotion. If a photo looks a certain way that makes you feel excited, nostalgic, happy sad or any other emotion, then it has succeeded in becoming a piece of art
Is this all art is now? That is, in my opinion, rather depressing. Art, as a rule, also depends on a level of mastery, skill, technique, experience, and control. A crappy out-of-focus snapshot, taken on a crappy phone camera, and run through some quick pre-rolled filters doesn't really fit any of these. Yes, one or two people can probably do something great with it, but a majority of it is utter and complete crap (aesthetically). I don't really have the time to suss out the 1 beautiful work out of the 100 million boring LOMO HDR cats.
So why don't you all take your stuck up "I'm too cool for this app" attitudes and your artistic illiteracy back down to Mommy's basement.
... Wow. If you had a point, you pretty much rendered it irrelevant. I'm not too cool for squat, I just find it useless. I'm sorry I don't subscribe to your personal idea of "cool". Though, conversely, I rather doubt you subscribe to mine, so why don't you head back to your mother's basement? This is life... I don't agree with you, and that has no bearing on your own enjoyment of something, so why so defensive?
As for your Apple comparison... Er... You're comparing apples to oranges.
Back in the mid-90's when I was in high school, one of our hall monitor type people got drunk in Mexico, and did all manner of silly drunken things. She did this on a "faculty" trip. The guy who ran the study hall (yes, I was a bad apple) showed the pictures too all of us on a website maintained by another faculty member during one round of detention. I don't think he got in any trouble over it, and the woman in the pictures actually found it rather amusing too, as did we, since she was known as a hard-ass, and probably put most of us in study hall to begin with.
He was eventually fired though, since he allowed "bad" kids to sit around chatting instead of being duly punished (and would warn us when someone official was about to come in the room, so we could all scamper back to our corners). He also used to let us smoke in the bathrooms, keeping watch against teachers and monitors. I loved him. Then again, school was much more lax then, pre-Columbine.
If they had things that did that when I was in college, I probably would have spent most of my time trying to come up with syntactically correct nonsense.
But the truly humorous things is that a large portion of the worlds crops are also fertilized by bees... So, perhaps in the end, either solution ends up in the same place.
Though I think we should hire little immigrant children to run around in bee costumes, with q-tips. Take that, bees!
Slashdot Mirror
Fry's is very much in business. And sadly is the only electronic component store in my area.
Thoughts of their customer service make me shudder.
But trolling /. is somehow different?
Keep up the important work ACs! The world needs you!
If you think an iPad is better for reading than eInk, your missing the point of eInk. This isn't to see that your preferences are wrong, you like what you like, but you miss why people like me prefer eInk.
I have a Transformer, and a Nook Touch (and a first gen Nook 3g), I never read anything more than webpages and comic books on my tablet. I read anything dealing with large amounts of static text on the Nook. Why? I hate backlights (or front lights, or glowing screens in general). It hurts my eyes at night, it keeps me from sleeping when I should, and they generally give me severe eye strain. I might be special, since when I read I generally sit down for over a two hour clip, and when I use a glowy screen I take breaks every 15 minutes to half hour.
For me, a tablet is a small portable computer, and an ebook is a small portable dead tree book. I don't want or expect to much crossover. My ebook not being tablety enough is a good thing. If they could make my tablet more ebooky (matte screen, high contrast, no backlight, massive battery life) I'd be as happy as a clam, though.
Fun fact: I've thrown away more book lights than Amazon has probably sold Kindles. Every damn year for 20+ years everyone figures that since I'm a reader I need a damn booklight. I still dont' think I've ever actually used one (I lie, one had a nice clip, and I used to clip it to PC cases while I was working on them). I have a nice lamp. When my girlfriend is sleeping I read in our library room, or my office (both with good lamps and comfy chairs). I haven't actually found myself stranding in the wilderness without any source of light, and an odd hankering for Stephen King, if I had no light source I'd probably be more worried about that.
It, in the end, I suppose is a case of different strokes for different folks, though.
If your going to try to sound like two separate people, at least vary your style. Or are we to believe that a horde of uneducated eight year-olds have invaded /., all of whom are members of some strange Microsoft sponsored cult.
Further, if "either" of you want to be taken seriously, please stop ditching your primary school English lessons.
Microsoft will still be there, as it has been for decades. What is your point? The kids will grow up with changes; as we all did (on Microsoft's or anyone else's software). Change is a fact of life in the field of computing, get used to it. [very good!]
You fail to note that there are radically differing versions of *NIX desktops too, such as KDE, Gnome, XFCA, etc... They change over time as well. Plus the changes that occur in its attendant software as well (that aren't used 1/100th as much as Windows and its software).
Thus, Your very argument is defeated on its very basis, albeit[?], turned around on Linux, ala "reverse-psychology" and the numbers prove the rest for me in terms of usership/mindshare (as well as marketshare).
C- Needs work.
So if you have an argument against fracking... make it good. Because it needs to be REALLY good to matter at all.
I don't. I don't know enough right now to actually form a decent opinion on it. We need more science, like this study, to actually come up with a cohesive argument either way.
I'm just saying, as a person with a vague interest in geology, that it wouldn't be terribly surprising if there was an effect. If a fault has a large amount of energy stored up in it, a small trigger could let it lose. This isn't news, nor very surprising. I would be actually shocked if there was no potential for fracking to cause at least some quakes. This, wouldn't necessarily be an argument against it (depending on the magnitude of the effect). It, would, on the other hand, be an interesting bit of science. If there is found to be a decent sized effect, we, the public, have to weigh the potential benefits against the potential risks.
They don't care if there is a problem in fact, they just don't like fracking because this has gotten political. The Michael Moore people got all hot and bothered about it and now swarms of idiots are attacking it despite the fact that it's doing great things for the US energy market.
You're getting a bit trolly there. I don't know enough science to form an opinion (which is mostly true for everyone, those for it, and those against) on its safety, but having some concerns is fine, it is much healthier than just being a cheerleader. Personally I'm more concerned about ground water issues, and industrial safety (I don't trust the petroleum industry in the slightest). Not enough to fully oppose it (again, need more data), but enough to be skeptical. If I was in charge of policy, I'd let them roll it out in a limited basis, and areas where there is limited risk, until we can fully weigh the evidence, and then roll it out on a large scale, or try to mitigate whichever proven risks that are found.
Having concerns is normal. It isn't some "Michael Moore idiot blah blah blah" thing. Being concerned and being anti-whatnot are very different things. For example, I generally am an advocate for nuclear power, but I also have a fair amount of concerns about various issues about it. My philosophy is proceed with caution until we fully know the risks and limitations.
And if it's already unstable then the fracking isn't causing the quake so much as triggering something now that would have happened later.
Perhaps. Again, need more science. Though a lot of quakes relieve small amounts of pressure, so it is conceivable that something could trigger an unnatural massive release of energy. Is this possible? Is this probable? This is why we need more science. You saying you think it isn't, and me saying I think it is, is completely meaningless, nature doesn't care what our opinion is. You are standing on the same shaky empirical ground as the people who say it IS a risk. Without evidence, both of you are just making mouth noises based on various subjective political ideals.
Furthermore, what sort of damage have we suffered so far from fracking related quakes? Any cities leveled? Seriously, can we show any damage what so ever from it? Or are people saying that it shook their house for a couple seconds once when the pump across the street turned on. Because I can believe that. Of course, a large truck driving by will have a similar effect.
Because something hasn't happened, doesn't mean it won't, or can't, happen. Hence the need for objective science.
How exactly is a relatively small amount of water being pumped into the ground supposed to destabilize TECTONIC PLATES...
Except no one has ever claimed that it will destabilize plates, since earthquakes can occur for thousands of other reasons that don't directly involve plates. There are still earth quakes in the central continent caused by the lack of glacial pressure, there are earth quakes caused by hot spots, there are earth quakes caused by compression pressures, there are... you get the point. There are areas of the continent completely peppered with faults, far from the nearest plate boundary, this includes vast swaths of Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico, this is due to compression and expansion, this causes the "basin and range" effect that defines their geography. There are huge amounts of faults in the middle of the old continental core caused by glaciation, and the easing of pressure. Areas are dying lakes generally have tons of faults, for the same reasons. If you Googled a fault map of the US, you'd noticed that we're pretty much completely covered in them, everywhere.
Fracking in increasing the local pressure, which can jar, or lubricate existent faults. This can lead to localized disturbances.
Everything that people enjoy was CREATED by somebody,
Wait... I just went for a nice hike though the mountains, I didn't realize, though, that someone created them. Who should I pay for use?
Oh... this is why I'm not a Randbuckling Freemarketeer, because I'm an atheist. Hm.
(this post is intentionally snarky, and not to be taken at all seriously)
Again, they don't have to rewrite it, and I don't have to give them money again. Where is the problem here? Should I be forced to give them money in the future for producing things I didn't enjoy? Are they entitled to my continued patronage?
If an author wrote a book with a horrible ending, I would probably not buy books from them again. I might also be tempted to go online and complain to potential customers, so they don't waste their money either. I do the same for faulty products, bad customer service, and deceptive practices, so I don't see why I shouldn't be allowed to do the same for media.
. not to demand changes.
No one is really demanding anything, sure people are whining, and being generally vocal with their dissatisfaction. There are plenty of people saying "Make it better, or I'll never give you money again", which isn't forcing them to do anything, they can side with "integrity" and keep things as they are. EA or Bioware can do whatever the hell they want, and the customer can do whatever the hell they want as well, including saying "fix it, or I'm done with you". No one has a gun to anyone's head, though.
but fuck this seemingly prevailing attitude that fans are entitled to a change. did it ever occur to you that there's no concensus on how it should be changed?
First; they aren't entitled, but they can still ask for it.
Sure there is. Fans want a satisfying, genuine feeling, ending. I don't think that many of them care WHAT that ending is specifically, only that it is an ending that doesn't feel cheap, or like a "to be continued" scamming for DLC, or tacked on due to publication time, or budget, constraints.
And for your information, I have given feedback to game devs, photographers, painters, musicians, and writers over the course of my life, feedback from the position of "mere" customer. 90% of them have appreciated this.
just because you can whine really loud it doesn't mean you can dictate to a game developer how to make their games.
Why ever not? They make a consumer product, the consumers don't like it. They either fix it, or the consumers go else where with their money next time.
Works just fine. We're not talking about fine art here. EA can keep their "artistic integrity", but no one has to buy it; that also is a perfectly fine conclusion to this story. Outside of the fact that people won't give them money again, no one is forcing them to change their ending, or make their game in a certain way. They are free to make the worlds crappiest game, and I'm free to never give them money again.
I'm not one to talk though, since EA has been on my shit-list for a long time (over a decade now). I always think twice before giving them money, and generally wait for the first month of player reviews, if the game looks really solid (more solid that anything else made by a different company). And I will never, ever, buy their DLC. Further, I'm one of the only person who never really found Mass Effect terribly fun. The first one was okay (outside of being forced to hide behind walls 90% of the time). The second one took away everything I liked about the first, so I never really gave two shits about the third one.
A claim like that needs evidence, not just "look it up". Further it needs REALLY strong evidence, well researched and corroborated, not just some internet (or television) loony toon.
"You don't agree with me, YOU ARE A COMMUNIST"... 90% of discussions with Republicans I've had on the internet (not in real life, the number drops to around 60%).
"You want to take away our guns!" (who does, most of the people I know with guns are Liberals...)
"Global warming is a hoax on behalf of BIG SCIENCE!" Commonly seen here (ignore big oil, or big coal, or big pollution)
Blah. I can play too. Dogma is stupid, no matter if you agree with it or not.
I live there, and I endorse this message.
Er... In Arizona (and the US) most Conservatives ALSO don't want to block illegal immigrants... They are useful for both sides. The Liberals love them, because someday they will vote. The Conservatives love them because the depress wages and can be used to break unions. Listen to the rhetoric on the Right, "we won't get rid of them until we stop them from coming!"... Which is a pretty transparent pile of shit. Also. why haven't the right actually DONE anything, or even attempted to on a purely symbolic basis?
Here in Arizona we have a liberal rag (The Phoenix New Times, owned by the Village Voice), and our actual paper which slants heavily to the right (The Arizona Republic, owned by the Quayle family)., their coverage of illegal immigration and Sheriff Joe Ariapo (heavily anti immigration, to the point of idiotic zealotry) is almost completely identical. They diverge on pretty much everything else, but on that one issue it gets hard to know which rag your actually reading at times, completely lockstep.
Also, Liberals here are about as powerless as possible, this is one of the most conservative states in the Union. Hell, they weren't actually invited to several of our tragic budget talks.
Arizona's plight is wholly on our Government, which is almost 100% conservative. The Liberals couldn't do anything if they wanted to, such a minority they are. From the Wikipedia:
The party breakdown in the Arizona Legislature is currently as follows:
Senate: 21 Republicans, 9 Democrats
House of Representatives: 40 Republicans, 20 Democrats
This isn't to say our Liberals are at all sane either. They're just as bat-shit insane, but completely powerless.
You never met my wife.
(I'm not married, but couldn't resist)
As a disgruntled Arizonan: Arizona wins, hands down. We're in the national news for crap like this every week, we brought the US John McCain (carpet bagger who can't not be reelected), and John Kyle (carpet bagger who can't not be reelected), we brought the world Barry Goldwater and the general crapification of the Republican party. We have Sheriff "pink underwear" Joe, and several cops with connections to white supremacy. We had Dennis DeConcini (of Keating Five fame, see also John McCain, who somehow got to almost be president). We had Fife Symington, who managed massive wire fraud, and later decided to learn to cook, and occasionally is discussed as a potential governor (again). Lets not forget Janet Napolitano, who wasn't bad (no worse than anyone else), but wasted huge amounts of money trying to rip the Joe Arpaio down, at the expense of doing anything; who eventually accepted an appointment by Obama just to continue trying to get Arpaio.
We have the Babbits, who managed to sell away large amounts of our water rights to the local tribes, so they could sell it back to us at a higher rate. We also gave away our first choice of Colorado River water to build a silly canal, to help cotton farmers (a water intensive crop).
I could go on. If there is a state with dumber voters (oh yeah, look up our standing on various education statistics, we're consistently at the absolute bottom of every metric), and a dumber, more corrupt, government than ours, I'd be truly frightened.
If it wasn't for the terrain, and family, I'd be out of here like a rat of a sinking ship.
Games haven't been fun for 15 years or more at this point, and knowledge of how to actually make a fun game seems to have disappeared from the earth.
What games have you been playing? I've been having a blast, and plan on continuing to do so through at least the rest of the year (this is a very good year for gaming, at least on the PC). With the rise of indie studios, and small release games I've been as happy as I've been in a long time. Yes, there is a ton of big market crap, yes there is a bit of a plague going on in the console scene (oh boy, a stealthy tactical shooter involving hiding behind brown walls! Woo!), but I'd say the industry is doing pretty well. Yes, the big studios are getting stale, releasing only "safe" games, but smaller studios have more than made up for it. There does need to be an "Interplay" out there releasing interesting titles, and rock solid turn-based RPGs (there is always Atlus in console land, I suppose)... But other than that...
Also, realize that most of everything, even back in the day, was also crap. Go to an independent game store (or browse a large ROM site), one that still stocks used NES games, and ponder how many of them are terrible marketing tie ins thrown together in a weekend. Kids will buy anything and enjoy it, but luckily the game market is starting to pander to adults now (the people who grew up with the Atari or NES).
Also, realize that there is more than "hyper-realistic" AAA titles out there. I sank more time into Minecraft and Terraria than I probably spent playing any retro game outside of the occasion Square title. Torchlight 2 is going to stress my relationship with my girlfriend. I managed to sink more time into The Binding of Isaac than I'm willing to admit, same with Dungeons of Dredmore and S.P.A.Z. These are just the more popular ones, I've gotten a good amount of enjoyment out of TOME (a roguelike), and a decent amount of Android games. Since the bad-days of the mid-2000s (oh boy, another console shooter...), I haven't really been without a decent game. There is more right now that look good than I'd ever be able to play, even if I still had the schedule I did when I was eight.
And funny that you cite Fallout: New Vegas, but Obsidian just ended up laying off 30 people. The owner of the company hasn't taken any salary in over six months and they're fighting bankruptcy. But surely, they're making too much money and should lay off the rest of their staff.
From what I've read, they are in money trouble because of some bad licensing with Bethesda, instead of getting straight royalties they went for a multi-million dollar bonus based off of good Metacritic scores. They then had some nasty bugs on release which lead to bad reviews, which lead to no bonus, even if most of those bugs were finally fixed. I'm not 100% sure of this, but I've heard that they little more than broke even on Fallout NV because of this.
Which says: they made a dumb decision, suffer from hubris, and Bethesda is a bit of a dick (see also the Mojang problem).
Conspiracy theory: They didn't split online and offline communities (ala Diablo 2) to channel more people into the RMT auctions, meaning more profit. People like me (I play games to get away from morons, not to interact with them) would never be tempted to ever interact with the RMT market, since I'd be sandboxed away in my own single player world, and thus the mighty Activision-Blizzard would never see a single red cent from me beyond purchase price. But now I might get an epic drop, have no use for it, and try to sell it for real money, meaning Activision-Blizzard gets their cut.
This, truth be told, isn't a large game killer for me. Annoying, yes; but it isn't going to keep me from playing. Originally, though, I was going to use Torchlight 2 (which was supposed to be out now) as a bridge to keep me busy until Diablo 3. Now Diablo 3 is the bridge to keep me busy until Torchlight 2 and Guild Wars 2. Which is sad, since Blizzard has gotten a metric shit-ton of money from me (every single game since Blackthorne through WotLK, and about 3.5 cumulative years of paying for WoW). I would buy any Blizzard game without reading reviews, just because they never released a game previously that was bad (the only other company that ever was in the same category was Black Isle). But now Diablo 3 is their test, if it fails, or goes to casual (in the pejorative) I'm probably going to give up on them. Looking at the development of Diablo 3 doesn't build faith, they've chopped out far too much, they seemed to renege on their general "when its done" philosophy, and they seem to be trying to get house wives and children to play while alienating their old fans (nothing wrong with the former, as long as it doesn't come at the expense of the latter). The last minute rune changes exemplify all of these suspicions.
Granted this is all opinion based on my experience with the beta, and my opinions might change dramatically with the full release. But right now I'm far more excited about Torchlight 2 (which, from a talent perspective is truly Diablo 3) and Guild Wars 2. Back when Diablo 2, and its expansion, came out it was all I could think about. The expectation was unbearable. and me and several friends would sit around and talk exclusively about them. Diablo 2 (and LoD) were, to me and my ilk, more important than the second coming of Christ. Now... We're all kind of "meh", about it. But then again, we're all much older than we were then, with far more to worry about (and be excited about).
It makes mundane photos look more interesting.
No, it makes mundane photos look like they were passed through filters.
It makes interesting photos more interesting.
No, it makes interesting photos look like they were passed through filters (and thus are less interesting).
Some pics lend themselves very well to the Instagram treatment and do have artistic* merit.
Yes, some do. But sadly most of them look like mundane pictures passed though filters.
...and do have artistic* merit... Art, for the benefit of the naysayers, evokes an emotion. If a photo looks a certain way that makes you feel excited, nostalgic, happy sad or any other emotion, then it has succeeded in becoming a piece of art
Is this all art is now? That is, in my opinion, rather depressing. Art, as a rule, also depends on a level of mastery, skill, technique, experience, and control. A crappy out-of-focus snapshot, taken on a crappy phone camera, and run through some quick pre-rolled filters doesn't really fit any of these. Yes, one or two people can probably do something great with it, but a majority of it is utter and complete crap (aesthetically). I don't really have the time to suss out the 1 beautiful work out of the 100 million boring LOMO HDR cats.
So why don't you all take your stuck up "I'm too cool for this app" attitudes and your artistic illiteracy back down to Mommy's basement.
... Wow. If you had a point, you pretty much rendered it irrelevant. I'm not too cool for squat, I just find it useless. I'm sorry I don't subscribe to your personal idea of "cool". Though, conversely, I rather doubt you subscribe to mine, so why don't you head back to your mother's basement? This is life... I don't agree with you, and that has no bearing on your own enjoyment of something, so why so defensive?
As for your Apple comparison... Er... You're comparing apples to oranges.
Back in the mid-90's when I was in high school, one of our hall monitor type people got drunk in Mexico, and did all manner of silly drunken things. She did this on a "faculty" trip. The guy who ran the study hall (yes, I was a bad apple) showed the pictures too all of us on a website maintained by another faculty member during one round of detention. I don't think he got in any trouble over it, and the woman in the pictures actually found it rather amusing too, as did we, since she was known as a hard-ass, and probably put most of us in study hall to begin with.
He was eventually fired though, since he allowed "bad" kids to sit around chatting instead of being duly punished (and would warn us when someone official was about to come in the room, so we could all scamper back to our corners). He also used to let us smoke in the bathrooms, keeping watch against teachers and monitors. I loved him. Then again, school was much more lax then, pre-Columbine.
If they had things that did that when I was in college, I probably would have spent most of my time trying to come up with syntactically correct nonsense.
So Monsanto-provided labels are God?
Not being a pesticide has nothing to do with being good or bad for you. It just isn't a pesticide.
RoundUp, last I checked, was an herbicide, not a pesticide.
But the truly humorous things is that a large portion of the worlds crops are also fertilized by bees... So, perhaps in the end, either solution ends up in the same place.
Though I think we should hire little immigrant children to run around in bee costumes, with q-tips. Take that, bees!
(I kid... mostly)