Yes but, in the past 5 years or so, PC upgrades have gotten cheaper and less frequent. My last upgrade, from dual core, to quad core, cost about $110 and effectively doubled my BC2 frame rate at 1920x1200 res.
About two years prior to that, I spent $150 on a video card to go SL
Not too bad. The base system is over 5 years old... some parts are 8 years old.
But what I'm really noing to is WHY the sales are dropping. Its not because of the iPhone.
You are correct sir. They are confusing an almost entirely new market with competition. Hell, if the iPeople get hooked on video games it will probably be GOOD for Nintendo in the long run.
The myth that cracked software = malware needs to die. It is simply untrue. Cracked software is no more susceptible or infected than legit software. Crackers =! malware authors. They have no incentive to include malware in their cracks.
Or do enough kids have iPads now to make this a real concern? (who the hell buys their still learning to read kid an iPad anyway?)
Based on my own experience, I'd say that audio books (and of course TV) are more of a problem. My daughter has been surrounded by books and read to for her entire 8 years yet she is falling behind in reading. (though she's ahead in comprehension or vocabulary/) She'd prefer to listen to a book than read it herself and we've, regrettably, made this too easy for her to do. Much like TV (which she doesn't watch much of at home.... only on weekends and never live TV with commercials), I now find myself in the position of having to limit her intake of audio books from the library in a bid to motivate her to actually read for herself. I would think that interactive books, as long as they don't read the entire text, are an improvement over the totally passive experience of listening/watching.
I am usually one of those 5 hour (single player) gamers but Assassins Creed 2 & Mass Effect 2 are the games I played most this past year, apart from my multi-player FPS habit. I finished ME2 and am close to the end of AC2. No game is without it's annoyances but I think that these two Action/RPGs have done most things right. AC2 is perhaps the most beautiful game ever made and, while I'm ready for it to end after 50 or 60 hours of play, I'm still having fun with most of the missions. My biggest issue with AC2 has been the occasionally annoying control scheme but it has been worth my while to stick it out. (though the least they could have done on the PC is show hints with the actual bound keys rather than generic icons)
Replayability is absolutely NOT crucial for me in single-player games. I'm happy to play a game through once. I did start a new Mass Effect 2 game because I enjoyed it so much but realized after about an hour that while there may be some different plot twists, the game remains essentially the same and I didn't really care to spend another 20-30 hours in it. Doesn't really matter to me, there's alway something else on the way.
Debit cards losses are usually covered by the bank, but they are under no legal obligation to do so.
My debit card #s have been stolen & misused twice. In the first case, the bank noticed before I did and called me about it. In both cases, my money was returned/reimbursed by the bank with very minimal hassle and within a few weeks. I am no fan of big banks, but I can live with this.
Just don't keep all your money in the same account and you should be able to weather most debit card losses.
"The analogy is that the internet is like a pool. It can be dangerous for your children, so you should either keep them out of it, or teach them how to survive inside it."
Sorry, I'm still not getting the analogy. Is he trying to say that it's just a matter of telling our children, "No, you shouldn't go to pr0ntube.com during class."? Even if that works for most, it wouldn't for a some, and school internet censorship is as much about preventing classroom disruption as it is about "protecting the children".
Not that I'm for censorship... but I can't fault anyone for trying to block gonzo porn on school networks.
It seems to me that allowing teachers to temporarily bypass the filters as needed is the best compromise.
'Swimming pools can be dangerous for children. To protect them, one can install locks... [or] teach them to swim.'
I'm tired & slow today... someone please explain this analogy with respect to internet porn (which is the context from which the quote was taken). The possibilities seem endless.
Most importantly for you, probably, is that they already have expensive clearances. A clearance appears to be worth more than experience to many defense contractors.
I second both parents. MSE is the best free AV at this time. (and NOD32 is the best overall)
My criteria for AV is that it has to be reasonably accurate and unobtrusive, not necessarily in that order.
The only problem with MSE, recently introduced, is that it's now using Windows Updates for virus definitions, so you no have a Windows Update notification every single day. In my experience, this means that most casual & small business users will rarely be up-to-date. It's funny, but half of them seem to think the little yellow shield icon is a scam these days and simply ignore it & the other half just don't give a damn. Many shut their machines off at night so even if I have them set to automatically update, it doesn't happen.
What was wrong with the automatic download of definitions by the client itself?
This is going to piss everyone off but seriously...
Other than the hassle of an infected/compromised and possible identity theft, what do most people have to fear if their PC is compromised? The worst case for most people would be identity theft, and most of those cases would simply result in bogus credit card charges which, in general, get refunded by the credit card agency. Clean your PC, cancel your card(s), & change your passwords and get on with your life. Many worse things can happen.
I'm sure you can all come up with more serious doomsday scenarios and there will always be serious exceptions but give me just one that is has the likelihood & consequences to make an average user really care.
I would even say the average business has little to fear as well. Certainly their employees do.
As much as I also loath Comcast, they have never even come close to delivering the horribly bad customer service I got from Verizon. Be careful what you wish for.
Parent is so right. I've been playing Super Mario Galaxy on & off for two years with my daughter and we still haven't beaten it. It's not easy... and I tend to lose interest, at least temporarily, after playing and failing on the same level for the 20th time in a row. Hell, even Bebbled on my Android is a challenge (anyone get past Xmas level 10?). On the other hand I've beaten every FPS I've ever installed on my PC on Normal to Hard difficultys. I suppose I'm a pussy for not playing them at the highest difficulty level but, personally, when I want that kind of challenge (and I frequently do) I rather play against people instead of AI. I can't say I get much gratification from beating AI at any level. I mean really, who cares if I beat MW2 on Insane?
I would also like to point out that there is a difference between Hard and Complex. I don't mind hard as much as I dislike unnecessary complexity like, say, a billion secret button combos or tedious inventory management (on the other hand, I do like my keyboard mouse FPS controls and I hate the console controller equivalents but I don't find mouse/keyboard to be all that complex) I've got enough complexity in my life, and I don't feel the need or impulse to spend vast amounts of time mastering overly complex games for the sole reward of beating the AI.
Finally, as for RPGs, I welcome the Mass Effect 2 interface/controls. It's the first RPG in years that I will probably play all the way through because I don't feel like I'm forced to repeat tedious tasks over & over & over again...
Well, it's a cheesy, implausible space opera through & through but it's VERY well done.
I'm not much for RPGs but I might actually finish this one. It seems to have the right combination of action & cinematics. I played for 7 or 8 hours this weekend and I'm itching for more. The characters have as much if not more life in them than any other video game I've ever played.
"They never did come up with a good answer to how they can recruit the necessary talent when the aforementioned is generally anti-authoritarian."
Not only that, but I've been in MD for a year now and every day I see job postings for "Linux Sys Admin with active full scope poly clearances" and I keep wondering where the hell they expect to find them. I mean it's one thing to find a good Linux sys admin but finding one with an active clearance? If you do find one you'd just be stealing them from some other agency/contractor.
NSA is ramping up a cyber security force at Ft. Meade.
Generally speaking, News in America is not really a product or a service and consumers of news are not really customers. The primary product of the news business is advertising and the real customers are the corporations that purchase that advertising.
The news we get to see is filtered in a big way by the system we've set up. "Keeping the public informed" is almost entirely incidental these days.
There was a time when we thought we could rely on ethics to keep things in check.... how has that worked out for us?
However, once the jaywalking impalement law is passed, some people are going to experience a loved one being impaled for jaywalking. Now what do people want to hear news about?
Well, some people probably want to hear news about the law but what about everyone else? Until you reach a critical mass of citizen impalements, I think the parent is correct.
I think giving people the news they want is the only way this has worked.
How exactly has it worked? I find my fellow countrymen to be more ignorant about history & current events, both national & international, than the citizens of most other countries, even 3rd world ones. No offense....
Sounds like you've only played action-RPG's or MMORPG's. A real RPG (Baldur's Gate, Morrowind, games like that) are about telling a story
I cut my teeth on pen & paper RPGs so I know what you're are saying, and you have a point. I'm not saying RPGs are not fun, not rewarding, or even that there aren't certain benefits to be gained for some people. I think that real learning can take place in RPGs.
However, I still feel that, in current form(s), they are a huge time sink with little real life enriching pay off for most people considering the amount of time invested, as well as generally being more addictive in the clinical sense than any other video game genre. Just my opinion though.... Some people thrive on these games and I'm happy for them. But when corporate publishers start putting the useless but addictive bits into every other genre, it gets a little worrisome. Kind of like tobacco companies and their 'additives' way back when.... (yeah I know... the analogy is a bit extreme but you get the idea)
As for the feeling of accomplishment after "working hard and training", you might want to check out the "Addicted to Fake Accomplishment" article (by a hard core MMORPG player) that someone else posted in this thread. I thought it was an interesting way to put it.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes but, in the past 5 years or so, PC upgrades have gotten cheaper and less frequent. My last upgrade, from dual core, to quad core, cost about $110 and effectively doubled my BC2 frame rate at 1920x1200 res.
About two years prior to that, I spent $150 on a video card to go SL
Not too bad. The base system is over 5 years old... some parts are 8 years old.
... at "according to Symantec."
But what I'm really noing to is WHY the sales are dropping. Its not because of the iPhone.
You are correct sir. They are confusing an almost entirely new market with competition. Hell, if the iPeople get hooked on video games it will probably be GOOD for Nintendo in the long run.
The myth that cracked software = malware needs to die. It is simply untrue. Cracked software is no more susceptible or infected than legit software. Crackers =! malware authors. They have no incentive to include malware in their cracks.
Any child should intuitively turn the illustrations off, or simply ignore them if they are distracting.
You obviously don't hang out with young children much.
Or do enough kids have iPads now to make this a real concern? (who the hell buys their still learning to read kid an iPad anyway?)
Based on my own experience, I'd say that audio books (and of course TV) are more of a problem. My daughter has been surrounded by books and read to for her entire 8 years yet she is falling behind in reading. (though she's ahead in comprehension or vocabulary/) She'd prefer to listen to a book than read it herself and we've, regrettably, made this too easy for her to do. Much like TV (which she doesn't watch much of at home.... only on weekends and never live TV with commercials), I now find myself in the position of having to limit her intake of audio books from the library in a bid to motivate her to actually read for herself. I would think that interactive books, as long as they don't read the entire text, are an improvement over the totally passive experience of listening/watching.
I am usually one of those 5 hour (single player) gamers but Assassins Creed 2 & Mass Effect 2 are the games I played most this past year, apart from my multi-player FPS habit. I finished ME2 and am close to the end of AC2. No game is without it's annoyances but I think that these two Action/RPGs have done most things right. AC2 is perhaps the most beautiful game ever made and, while I'm ready for it to end after 50 or 60 hours of play, I'm still having fun with most of the missions. My biggest issue with AC2 has been the occasionally annoying control scheme but it has been worth my while to stick it out. (though the least they could have done on the PC is show hints with the actual bound keys rather than generic icons)
Replayability is absolutely NOT crucial for me in single-player games. I'm happy to play a game through once. I did start a new Mass Effect 2 game because I enjoyed it so much but realized after about an hour that while there may be some different plot twists, the game remains essentially the same and I didn't really care to spend another 20-30 hours in it. Doesn't really matter to me, there's alway something else on the way.
Debit cards losses are usually covered by the bank, but they are under no legal obligation to do so.
My debit card #s have been stolen & misused twice. In the first case, the bank noticed before I did and called me about it. In both cases, my money was returned/reimbursed by the bank with very minimal hassle and within a few weeks. I am no fan of big banks, but I can live with this. Just don't keep all your money in the same account and you should be able to weather most debit card losses.
"The analogy is that the internet is like a pool. It can be dangerous for your children, so you should either keep them out of it, or teach them how to survive inside it."
Sorry, I'm still not getting the analogy. Is he trying to say that it's just a matter of telling our children, "No, you shouldn't go to pr0ntube.com during class."? Even if that works for most, it wouldn't for a some, and school internet censorship is as much about preventing classroom disruption as it is about "protecting the children".
Not that I'm for censorship... but I can't fault anyone for trying to block gonzo porn on school networks. It seems to me that allowing teachers to temporarily bypass the filters as needed is the best compromise.
'Swimming pools can be dangerous for children. To protect them, one can install locks ... [or] teach them to swim.'
I'm tired & slow today... someone please explain this analogy with respect to internet porn (which is the context from which the quote was taken). The possibilities seem endless.
Most importantly for you, probably, is that they already have expensive clearances. A clearance appears to be worth more than experience to many defense contractors.
I second both parents. MSE is the best free AV at this time. (and NOD32 is the best overall)
My criteria for AV is that it has to be reasonably accurate and unobtrusive, not necessarily in that order.
The only problem with MSE, recently introduced, is that it's now using Windows Updates for virus definitions, so you no have a Windows Update notification every single day. In my experience, this means that most casual & small business users will rarely be up-to-date. It's funny, but half of them seem to think the little yellow shield icon is a scam these days and simply ignore it & the other half just don't give a damn. Many shut their machines off at night so even if I have them set to automatically update, it doesn't happen.
What was wrong with the automatic download of definitions by the client itself?
This is going to piss everyone off but seriously...
Other than the hassle of an infected/compromised and possible identity theft, what do most people have to fear if their PC is compromised? The worst case for most people would be identity theft, and most of those cases would simply result in bogus credit card charges which, in general, get refunded by the credit card agency. Clean your PC, cancel your card(s), & change your passwords and get on with your life. Many worse things can happen.
I'm sure you can all come up with more serious doomsday scenarios and there will always be serious exceptions but give me just one that is has the likelihood & consequences to make an average user really care.
I would even say the average business has little to fear as well. Certainly their employees do.
We sure know how to pick 'em.
...the Romans did it over 2000 years ago...but AFAIK labor shortage isn't a problem in most 3rd world countries, is it?
You're thinking of slave labor, and yes, there is a slave labor shortage in most countries.
As much as I also loath Comcast, they have never even come close to delivering the horribly bad customer service I got from Verizon. Be careful what you wish for.
Parent is so right. I've been playing Super Mario Galaxy on & off for two years with my daughter and we still haven't beaten it. It's not easy... and I tend to lose interest, at least temporarily, after playing and failing on the same level for the 20th time in a row. Hell, even Bebbled on my Android is a challenge (anyone get past Xmas level 10?). On the other hand I've beaten every FPS I've ever installed on my PC on Normal to Hard difficultys. I suppose I'm a pussy for not playing them at the highest difficulty level but, personally, when I want that kind of challenge (and I frequently do) I rather play against people instead of AI. I can't say I get much gratification from beating AI at any level. I mean really, who cares if I beat MW2 on Insane?
I would also like to point out that there is a difference between Hard and Complex. I don't mind hard as much as I dislike unnecessary complexity like, say, a billion secret button combos or tedious inventory management (on the other hand, I do like my keyboard mouse FPS controls and I hate the console controller equivalents but I don't find mouse/keyboard to be all that complex) I've got enough complexity in my life, and I don't feel the need or impulse to spend vast amounts of time mastering overly complex games for the sole reward of beating the AI.
Finally, as for RPGs, I welcome the Mass Effect 2 interface/controls. It's the first RPG in years that I will probably play all the way through because I don't feel like I'm forced to repeat tedious tasks over & over & over again...
Well, it's a cheesy, implausible space opera through & through but it's VERY well done.
I'm not much for RPGs but I might actually finish this one. It seems to have the right combination of action & cinematics. I played for 7 or 8 hours this weekend and I'm itching for more. The characters have as much if not more life in them than any other video game I've ever played.
"They never did come up with a good answer to how they can recruit the necessary talent when the aforementioned is generally anti-authoritarian."
Not only that, but I've been in MD for a year now and every day I see job postings for "Linux Sys Admin with active full scope poly clearances" and I keep wondering where the hell they expect to find them. I mean it's one thing to find a good Linux sys admin but finding one with an active clearance? If you do find one you'd just be stealing them from some other agency/contractor.
NSA is ramping up a cyber security force at Ft. Meade.
Generally speaking, News in America is not really a product or a service and consumers of news are not really customers. The primary product of the news business is advertising and the real customers are the corporations that purchase that advertising.
The news we get to see is filtered in a big way by the system we've set up. "Keeping the public informed" is almost entirely incidental these days.
There was a time when we thought we could rely on ethics to keep things in check.... how has that worked out for us?
However, once the jaywalking impalement law is passed, some people are going to experience a loved one being impaled for jaywalking. Now what do people want to hear news about?
Well, some people probably want to hear news about the law but what about everyone else? Until you reach a critical mass of citizen impalements, I think the parent is correct.
I think giving people the news they want is the only way this has worked.
How exactly has it worked? I find my fellow countrymen to be more ignorant about history & current events, both national & international, than the citizens of most other countries, even 3rd world ones. No offense....
Submitting this to /. is like putting up a billboard that says only, "Please check out my product."
If you'd said what it was you'd be half way there.
. 'Using code written for the VDM, an unprivileged user can inject code of his choosing directly into the system's kernel,
As if 99% of all Windows users aren't already running as root.
Sounds like you've only played action-RPG's or MMORPG's. A real RPG (Baldur's Gate, Morrowind, games like that) are about telling a story
I cut my teeth on pen & paper RPGs so I know what you're are saying, and you have a point. I'm not saying RPGs are not fun, not rewarding, or even that there aren't certain benefits to be gained for some people. I think that real learning can take place in RPGs.
However, I still feel that, in current form(s), they are a huge time sink with little real life enriching pay off for most people considering the amount of time invested, as well as generally being more addictive in the clinical sense than any other video game genre. Just my opinion though.... Some people thrive on these games and I'm happy for them. But when corporate publishers start putting the useless but addictive bits into every other genre, it gets a little worrisome. Kind of like tobacco companies and their 'additives' way back when.... (yeah I know... the analogy is a bit extreme but you get the idea)
As for the feeling of accomplishment after "working hard and training", you might want to check out the "Addicted to Fake Accomplishment" article (by a hard core MMORPG player) that someone else posted in this thread. I thought it was an interesting way to put it.