Delayed PS3 game + angry gamers + Anon. internet forums + people who've actually studied Islam as opposed to trolls who don't know shit about it but flame about people "misunderstanding it" anyways = A lot of wasted/. Moderator points slaying trolls.
There. Fixed that for you.
Now go do some research on Islam. Here's a reading list for you:
#1 - Koran. #2 - Hadith. Read both the Sunni and Shi'a preferred sets. For extra credit, check into other schools that have their own "authoritative" sets. #3 - Read up on the various fatwa that are considered "core" to belief, or to interpretation, by each of the major branches.
NOW come back and tell me you've actually studied it, in depth, before declaring it a "religion of peace." Because it is most definitively not one, unless you believe that slavery, definitive tiers of haves and have-nots based on who's a member of the official state religion, definitive tiers of haves and have-nots based on which genitalia you were born with, and an admonition to subjugate, enslave, or otherwise wipe out anyone who doesn't believe in the state-sponsored religion can actually be a "religion of peace."
The problem seems to be worry that you'll get the same sort of reaction from a group of people whose religion tells them to burn effigies over cartoons, or stick knives in people's chests, for "offending" them.
Just look at what happened to Theo Van Gogh and Salman Rushdie, to name just two.
Now ask yourself whether that's really a "religion of peace" or something else. I can understand why the Little Big Planet studios were afraid of this.
(Sura 2:191-193) "And slay them wherever ye find them, and drive them out of the places whence they drove you out, for persecution [of Muslims] is worse than slaughter [of non-believers]...and fight them until persecution is no more, and religion is for Allah."
(Sura 8:12) "I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them."
(Sura 8:59-60) "And let not those who disbelieve suppose that they can outstrip (Allah's Purpose). Lo! they cannot escape. Make ready for them all thou canst of (armed) force and of horses tethered, that thereby ye may dismay the enemy of Allah and your enemy."
(Sura 9:20) - "Those who believe, and have left their homes and fought jihad with their wealth and their lives in Allah's way are of much greater worth in Allah's sight. These are they who are triumphant."
(Sura 9:29) - "Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued."
(Sura 9:30) - "And the Jews say: Ezra is the son of Allah; and the Christians say: The Messiah is the son of Allah; these are the words of their mouths; they imitate the saying of those who disbelieved before; may Allah destroy them"
(Sura 9:41) - "Go forth, light-armed and heavy-armed, and fight jihad with your wealth and your lives in the way of Allah! That is best for you if ye but knew."
Yeah. I'm sure they were worried about "offending" people whose idea of responding is to kill anyone who "offends" them. Like, say, Theo Van Gogh or Salman Rushdie.
Solar Angels can be beaten, in fact SHOULD be beaten if you're facing a collection of enemies (rather than one action-starved uber-CR enemy). And if you're at the level you can cast Gate, the game is already fundamentally broken.
As for the rest... saving throw, saving throw, saving throw, saving throw, environment that doesn't allow its casting, saving throw...
Ray of Enfeeblement: you should try empowering it. And then you should realize that at the higher CR's, even a (max roll) 16-point strength penalty is largely meaningless to the monsters.
Sorry, but you obviously read too much and don't play enough to see the game actually working from both the player and DM sides of the table. Trust it from one who spent a tremendous amount of time on this both in home and organized play: past level 9-10, it is simply NOT the mages the DM is worried about.
In D&D 3rd edition, mages went from being "artillery pieces" (past about level 10) to being ornaments for the fighters. Their "best" spells weren't the ones that hit the enemy, they were the ones that gave buffs to the fighters to allow them to attack 4-5 times around, at Full Power Attack, while still needing only to not roll a 1 to hit the enemy.
Their secondary spells, the best ones, were the battlefield-control or debuff types - again a buff to the fighters who would actually kill stuff.
The THIRD rank of their spells were the damage types... half because everything was f'ing immune to the basic stuff (or had a jacked-out saving throw), half because a fighter could do the same damage (albeit to one target) in one swing as the average damage of most damage spells. In a game where an enemy with 1 hit point left is just as effective (damage-wise) as one with full HP, the point is to kill them individually as fast as you can... an area-effect spell that takes off 1/4 of each enemy's HP might be impressive until you realize that 4 monsters standing, rather than 2, means twice the damage coming back at you.
And of course, the more "prestige classes" got into the game (along with the feats system), the more and more and more fighter-types got to play with.
The "Level" system isn't about "balance", either... what it *does* do is provide an easy rubric for comparing relative power or advancement ("I'm level 5 therefore I'm more powerful than X at level 4.") This is in comparison to non-level systems, where you have to count up how many character points it takes to "build" in a certain way, and you have to weigh the fact that you could theoretically "build" the same character in multiple ways, some ways costing more points than others.
It has nothing to do with "inherent balance", it just makes it easier for munchkinny types who need to have easily-defined comparisons between their characters and easily-defined "ding" points to have them and takes away the need to "store up" character points for that ability or advancement that you want to see happen.
One of the nicest things I've ever seen was a 3.5 adaptation (sorry, don't have a current URL) for someone who took the various abilities and gave them each a point score (for example: d4 hit die free, 2 points per bump, so a d12 hit die would cost you 8 advancement points; similar for skill points and class abilities and feats), and allowed all characters a set number (I think it was 20) of advancement points per level with the option to "store" overflow for future use. It gave an interesting alternative to the silly "I'll take a level of X and a level of Y and a level of Z which will allow me into P-class Q and then P-class R and then P-class S" munchkinning that became the trademark of D&D in the past 8 years.
If you want scary games, here's a few (not entirely today, but relatively recent) titles.
And no, I'm not meaning the "shit will jump out of windows" stuff.
Grab your Gamecube or Wii and play "Eternal Darkness." With the lights off. And let your sanity meter get a little low, just to have some more fun.
Go into Thief 3 and play the "Cradle" stage. THAT was fucking scary. Not only that, it did it with ATMOSPHERE and not just "OMG ammo starvation and stuff jumping through windows."
If you want to make a horror game, that's how you do it. Make the game's atmosphere stand out, give players a LOT of bits and pieces for their mind to chew on. Save your surprises and "stuff jumping from shadows" and use them sparingly... make people THINK there could be something in any shadow, but don't let them "know" that there is... when only 1 out of every 10 shadows has something to it, or 1 out of 20, THEN you have the chance to get them when they're complacent. Games that do THAT will scare you... games like Nosferatu: The Wrath of Malachi, intending to be "scary", simply throw waves on waves of enemies at you. That's not scary.
This holds true for other genres, too. I played Keepsake (yeah I know, I play adventure titles) and it blew me away to find a game that could actually make me afraid for a character I barely knew... the ending REALLY got me simply because I sat back thinking "this isn't how these type of games are supposed to end."
There's nothing wrong with a beatfest. There's actually nothing terribly wrong with a "shit jumps out of windows" game if you're in the mood for one. They're just not scary and they're not good story. Atmosphere's the key, and I think most game publishers have simply forgotten that and spend too little time on it.
Hell, the movie industry's that way too. Think about movies that really get you - all of them spend plenty of time building up their characters and story. If you want a great recent example of this, go see City of Ember. They get halfway through the movie before the "plot" really begins... but because they spend so much time on the characters and the "main character" (the city itself), once they DO have the plot running, nothing seems unbelievable within the setting and the story works.
I usually ignore those "take me off your list" things. I figured the Obama campaign would be a different story once I verified that it was actually going to their servers and not elsewhere.
Silly me - I found out how honest Obama really is (read: not at all) the hard way.
Nope, not Missouri, and I'm not a member of the Repuglican party either. I don't have any friends who pull that kind of prank (they're much more the "replace toiletries with something amusing" types). I also keep my work and private email separate, and my relatives (even grandparents) know better than to include me on any chain or "blanket the entire address book" emails.
The interesting part is that my private, work, and even my "this is probably going to get spammed so I'll only use it when I'm doing a weird site registration" (like I used for Megaupload membership) addresses have all been getting Obamaspam. Since that third is basically a spam honeypot, I'm 99% sure that the Obama campaign got into it by purchasing a "list of known addresses" from a spammer somewhere or paying the spammers to blast out the spam from their own network.
Interesting link on the voter registration fraud. I knew about a lot of his bad connections, but that one's even worse than most.
I NEVER signed up for Obama campaign mail. In fact, after they repeatedly ignored my unsubscribe demands, I called them via voice to demand they remove my name and email from any of their lists (I don't need my work email clogged with their spam, I have enough trouble sorting what comes through that's actually relevant).
I can guarantee you, I've been receiving the same ones you are. The reply-to address changes names from "Barack Obama", "Michele Obama", "David Plouffe", etc, but the underlying address is always "info@barackobama.com" and it always has their "how to unsubscribe" boilerplate at the bottom that goes directly to a page that CLAIMS it'll remove the address from their lists, but never does.
I tried to submit stories on this MONTHS ago, after the Obama campaign somehow got my email and started sending me their constant spam messages. Content directly traced back, emails all about their campaign stops, from "David Plouffe", "Michele Obama", links to their blog entries on the official Obama site, etc... but the headers most DEFINITELY through known spam houses and zombie spam networks.
For some reason, Slashdot wasn't interested that the Obama campaign does this. I'd think it should be a major concern to us - not only is he corrupt, but he's in bed with the spammers. That doesn't bode well for tech issues for us if he gets elected...
Sorry to say this Ray, but this one is beyond the pale.
The judge needs to be investigated - for incompetence, for monetary anomalies, for improper connections.
In addition, there needs to be one hell of a set of appeals of this unimaginably corrupt decision.
I was waiting for this to be a joke... but I bet the judge's thoughts, even while penning the decision, were on counting the big bag of money the MafiAA lawyers had just laid at his feet.
Because they already soaked a lot of people buying SD cards for the Wii... hands up if when you bought your Wii, there were peripherals in the bundle (extra controller, 1GB SD card, etc) that they were pushing like there was no tomorrow.
Now Big N wants to soak the user again (at one hell of a markup compared to market price on a normal SD card) and still give them barely enough space, unless they buy more than one.
Countdown until some morally better people reverse engineer this and offer up a solution to just enable your OWN SD card to work as a "wiicard" in 3...2...1...
Funny. D&D Online is certainly "real-time." What you're saying is that putting in enough automation that WoW stops being an annoying clickfest and starts being a reasonably-paced game somehow kills the charm?
And if I'm guiding my character around from point A to point B, and directing them to an enemy (but letting the fight itself work as it would on stats anyways because I don't have the muscle control to time everything perfectly), where is the problem?
Again... "Player Interaction" is a widely defined field. What line, specifically, it that gives you a problem when crossed? I'll offer you a few points.
#1 - Automatically moving the character around the world #2 - Player moving character around the world... but character automatically attacking enemies it can. #3 - Player moving character around, AND having to tell character to attack enemy #4 - Player moving character around, AND having to tell character to attack, AND having to set off macro for each individual attack command #5 - Player having to do everything one button-press at a time.
And the difference between someone using Final Fantasy 12-style macros (literally, control where the character goes and let it fight the nearest enemy, or not, or click an enemy to engage) and someone building in-game macros that must be triggered manually, is what precisely?
The problem with providing such thing is that even non-disabled people could use those to trivialize the game.
Why would it trivialize the game? Because people wouldn't get frustrated with the control system, they'd play less? You're saying that the entirety of the gaming community are a bunch of masochists?
That would make game designers sadists... which actually makes sense now that I think about the controller designs we've been subjected to over the years (Dreamcast anyone?)
Helping disabled people play is one thing; Build something to play for disabled people is another.
What's the difference between a gamer hitting alt-c, alt-q, w,r,t,6,2,7,8,0,m,p,z for their attack actions... and just hitting a single button for a macro that does the same? More to the point, what's the gameplay difference as seen by any other players?
Also, how can they be sure that someone really need some automated actions? I bet if it were easy, they would do.
Not if they don't care... which is kind of the point. The gaming industry, as a whole, has become less and less open to those who are physically disabled as time has gone on and control systems added more and more levels of sometimes needless complexity.
My point is: Blizzard can't mold it's software for an small piece of market with the risk of make it worse in a general view.
How does it make it worse? Show me how it negatively impacts the play experience of anyone to have usable controls by MORE people, especially in a game that's supposed to be multiplayer to begin.
blind gamers are definitely "disabled" - but there are limits to what can be done (we can't, for example, allow the blind to drive cars due to near certainty of accidents). We CAN compensate relatively easily, especially in pseudo-turn-based games like WoW, for people without the manual dexterity to control a mouse and keyboard all at once, hitting 6 different keys every 30 seconds.
Of course, eventually the "blind" will all get visors with direct nerve inputs hooked up to little CCD eyeball replacements... but until that happens, that doesn't mean real solutions for those with dexterity problems (whether from amputation, physical defect, or nerve damage) should be disallowed or destroyed.
The ability to set this to run completely unattended? BAD. I totally agree that botting is no good, it's killed a lot of MMO's.
However, the ability to set this up to do ordinary tasks for users who have disabilities would be GOOD. It would enlarge the potential WoW audience. I'm not saying make it fine as-is, I'm saying that a "semi-unattended" setup where people playing the game just set up and monitor their macros isn't any worse than the normal mode of play (hell, wasn't that the entire control system of Final Fantasy 12?).
A lot of potential WoW players (potential gamers in general, actually) have problems. Someone who has partial paralysis or has had a hand/arm amputated has trouble using the standard game controllers. Now think about the game systems that get around this. If you've got two good legs, you can do DDR or Wii Fit without arms. If you only have one good arm, you can use the Wiimote and at least 50% of the Wii's games (though you still can't play Zelda). On the other hand, if you go near the Xbox360 or PS3, you're pretty much fucked.
Older titles didn't have this problem. If you have one hand, or even one of those face-stick setups with a single button, you can play Space Quest, King's Quest, and probably map the joystick to play single-button arcade games. If you have a working thumb and two fingers, you can get a two-button joystick and play NES titles.
Do I really care if someone who has disability problems, or even carpal tunnel, is able to set off macros to do the same thing I would do in multiple steps? Not really. I can still group with them, or play the game without them.
For some reason, however, the WoW designers don't want disabled gamers playing their game. They have ignored REPEATED entreaties from the disabled community to program in ways to make it feasible for disabled gamers to play. For quite a few, programs like WoW Glider were the fix. This is just one more symptom of the gaming industry not getting it when it comes to making their titles and systems accessible.
That's presuming you can get MythTV to work properly, a dicey proposition at best.
I've had FAR more luck getting XBMC to talk correctly to pre-recorded media (of almost any format) from my NAS and winboxen.
As for the GUI... I love the XBMC GUI. I love the fact that the Xboxes I purchased at a flea market for comparative pennies make lovely network video boxes for the spare rooms in my house to pull just about everything I've recorded from NAS.
I'm looking forward to the "new" Windows-based XBMC so my home theater PC can run it and do the HD content thing, but that's a minor concern - and only relevant once they get the surround 5.1 audio upsampling and ATi Remote Wonder support to work properly (neither of which, alas, is in this edition). Till then, I just let VLC play the HD content and run the rest off a standard XBMX-Xbox.
Unfortunately, automation/stock triggers ("sell when X", etc) are the only way for the common-man trader who isn't an on-the-ground insider member of one of the stock exchanges to make a timely trade.
The stock market is itself a pretty asinine setup; a large number of insiders (the only guys allowed on the floor) are allowed to run around trading back and forth, "increasing" the wealth of themselves and the people who hire them based on a relatively arbitrary stock valuation number at a given time. The rest of the world has to work through intermediaries to make a stock transaction and invest in various companies/funds, and pay a brokering fee (further enhancing the wealth only of the lucky-enough-to-get-in brokers) each step of the way.
End result: those who are NOT in the loop (e.g. the little guy) gets screwed, those who ARE in the insular center keep getting wealthier.
A "Dry Reference" is a tidy work arranged primarily for the purpose of being able to quickly identify items or reach the information you want. Think most of the standard reference works (dictionary, Encyclopedia Brittanica, Star Trek or Star Wars encyclopedias, owners' manuals or service manuals for commercial products, various manuals for operating systems or software languages, journals for various professional organizations).
A "Wet Reference" is a reference work written largely in-universe and intended to be read cover-to-cover for its own reading value. Think of many of the looser reference guides to various fantasy worlds often written either by the author or with direct author involvement, such as the Dragonriders' Guide to Pern or the Silmarillion.
The term "dry", in terms of books, is often a substitute for the word "boring" - not that it necessarily is to all people, but in that a general reader (which is to say, someone without interest in the subject of the reference work) trying to sit down with it is going to have about as much fun as someone who forgot to bring a novel on their plane flight and is now stuck reading the torturously boring in-flight magazine.
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Buddha says I should forgive you and remind you that two wrongs don't make a right.
Delayed PS3 game + angry gamers + Anon. internet forums + people who've actually studied Islam as opposed to trolls who don't know shit about it but flame about people "misunderstanding it" anyways = A lot of wasted /. Moderator points slaying trolls.
There. Fixed that for you.
Now go do some research on Islam. Here's a reading list for you:
#1 - Koran.
#2 - Hadith. Read both the Sunni and Shi'a preferred sets. For extra credit, check into other schools that have their own "authoritative" sets.
#3 - Read up on the various fatwa that are considered "core" to belief, or to interpretation, by each of the major branches.
NOW come back and tell me you've actually studied it, in depth, before declaring it a "religion of peace." Because it is most definitively not one, unless you believe that slavery, definitive tiers of haves and have-nots based on who's a member of the official state religion, definitive tiers of haves and have-nots based on which genitalia you were born with, and an admonition to subjugate, enslave, or otherwise wipe out anyone who doesn't believe in the state-sponsored religion can actually be a "religion of peace."
The problem seems to be worry that you'll get the same sort of reaction from a group of people whose religion tells them to burn effigies over cartoons, or stick knives in people's chests, for "offending" them.
Just look at what happened to Theo Van Gogh and Salman Rushdie, to name just two.
Now ask yourself whether that's really a "religion of peace" or something else. I can understand why the Little Big Planet studios were afraid of this.
Hmm... do religions of peace say things like:
(Sura 2:191-193) "And slay them wherever ye find them, and drive them out of the places whence they drove you out, for persecution [of Muslims] is worse than slaughter [of non-believers]...and fight them until persecution is no more, and religion is for Allah."
(Sura 8:12) "I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them."
(Sura 8:59-60) "And let not those who disbelieve suppose that they can outstrip (Allah's Purpose). Lo! they cannot escape. Make ready for them all thou canst of (armed) force and of horses tethered, that thereby ye may dismay the enemy of Allah and your enemy."
(Sura 9:20) - "Those who believe, and have left their homes and fought jihad with their wealth and their lives in Allah's way are of much greater worth in Allah's sight. These are they who are triumphant."
(Sura 9:29) - "Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued."
(Sura 9:30) - "And the Jews say: Ezra is the son of Allah; and the Christians say: The Messiah is the son of Allah; these are the words of their mouths; they imitate the saying of those who disbelieved before; may Allah destroy them"
(Sura 9:41) - "Go forth, light-armed and heavy-armed, and fight jihad with your wealth and your lives in the way of Allah! That is best for you if ye but knew."
Yeah. I'm sure they were worried about "offending" people whose idea of responding is to kill anyone who "offends" them. Like, say, Theo Van Gogh or Salman Rushdie.
Sad day to see this happen.
Solar Angels can be beaten, in fact SHOULD be beaten if you're facing a collection of enemies (rather than one action-starved uber-CR enemy). And if you're at the level you can cast Gate, the game is already fundamentally broken.
As for the rest... saving throw, saving throw, saving throw, saving throw, environment that doesn't allow its casting, saving throw...
Ray of Enfeeblement: you should try empowering it. And then you should realize that at the higher CR's, even a (max roll) 16-point strength penalty is largely meaningless to the monsters.
Sorry, but you obviously read too much and don't play enough to see the game actually working from both the player and DM sides of the table. Trust it from one who spent a tremendous amount of time on this both in home and organized play: past level 9-10, it is simply NOT the mages the DM is worried about.
Not quite, and it doesn't always work that way.
In D&D 3rd edition, mages went from being "artillery pieces" (past about level 10) to being ornaments for the fighters. Their "best" spells weren't the ones that hit the enemy, they were the ones that gave buffs to the fighters to allow them to attack 4-5 times around, at Full Power Attack, while still needing only to not roll a 1 to hit the enemy.
Their secondary spells, the best ones, were the battlefield-control or debuff types - again a buff to the fighters who would actually kill stuff.
The THIRD rank of their spells were the damage types... half because everything was f'ing immune to the basic stuff (or had a jacked-out saving throw), half because a fighter could do the same damage (albeit to one target) in one swing as the average damage of most damage spells. In a game where an enemy with 1 hit point left is just as effective (damage-wise) as one with full HP, the point is to kill them individually as fast as you can... an area-effect spell that takes off 1/4 of each enemy's HP might be impressive until you realize that 4 monsters standing, rather than 2, means twice the damage coming back at you.
And of course, the more "prestige classes" got into the game (along with the feats system), the more and more and more fighter-types got to play with.
The "Level" system isn't about "balance", either... what it *does* do is provide an easy rubric for comparing relative power or advancement ("I'm level 5 therefore I'm more powerful than X at level 4.") This is in comparison to non-level systems, where you have to count up how many character points it takes to "build" in a certain way, and you have to weigh the fact that you could theoretically "build" the same character in multiple ways, some ways costing more points than others.
It has nothing to do with "inherent balance", it just makes it easier for munchkinny types who need to have easily-defined comparisons between their characters and easily-defined "ding" points to have them and takes away the need to "store up" character points for that ability or advancement that you want to see happen.
One of the nicest things I've ever seen was a 3.5 adaptation (sorry, don't have a current URL) for someone who took the various abilities and gave them each a point score (for example: d4 hit die free, 2 points per bump, so a d12 hit die would cost you 8 advancement points; similar for skill points and class abilities and feats), and allowed all characters a set number (I think it was 20) of advancement points per level with the option to "store" overflow for future use. It gave an interesting alternative to the silly "I'll take a level of X and a level of Y and a level of Z which will allow me into P-class Q and then P-class R and then P-class S" munchkinning that became the trademark of D&D in the past 8 years.
If you want scary games, here's a few (not entirely today, but relatively recent) titles.
And no, I'm not meaning the "shit will jump out of windows" stuff.
Grab your Gamecube or Wii and play "Eternal Darkness." With the lights off. And let your sanity meter get a little low, just to have some more fun.
Go into Thief 3 and play the "Cradle" stage. THAT was fucking scary. Not only that, it did it with ATMOSPHERE and not just "OMG ammo starvation and stuff jumping through windows."
If you want to make a horror game, that's how you do it. Make the game's atmosphere stand out, give players a LOT of bits and pieces for their mind to chew on. Save your surprises and "stuff jumping from shadows" and use them sparingly... make people THINK there could be something in any shadow, but don't let them "know" that there is... when only 1 out of every 10 shadows has something to it, or 1 out of 20, THEN you have the chance to get them when they're complacent. Games that do THAT will scare you... games like Nosferatu: The Wrath of Malachi, intending to be "scary", simply throw waves on waves of enemies at you. That's not scary.
This holds true for other genres, too. I played Keepsake (yeah I know, I play adventure titles) and it blew me away to find a game that could actually make me afraid for a character I barely knew... the ending REALLY got me simply because I sat back thinking "this isn't how these type of games are supposed to end."
There's nothing wrong with a beatfest. There's actually nothing terribly wrong with a "shit jumps out of windows" game if you're in the mood for one. They're just not scary and they're not good story. Atmosphere's the key, and I think most game publishers have simply forgotten that and spend too little time on it.
Hell, the movie industry's that way too. Think about movies that really get you - all of them spend plenty of time building up their characters and story. If you want a great recent example of this, go see City of Ember. They get halfway through the movie before the "plot" really begins... but because they spend so much time on the characters and the "main character" (the city itself), once they DO have the plot running, nothing seems unbelievable within the setting and the story works.
I usually ignore those "take me off your list" things. I figured the Obama campaign would be a different story once I verified that it was actually going to their servers and not elsewhere.
Silly me - I found out how honest Obama really is (read: not at all) the hard way.
Nope, not Missouri, and I'm not a member of the Repuglican party either. I don't have any friends who pull that kind of prank (they're much more the "replace toiletries with something amusing" types). I also keep my work and private email separate, and my relatives (even grandparents) know better than to include me on any chain or "blanket the entire address book" emails.
The interesting part is that my private, work, and even my "this is probably going to get spammed so I'll only use it when I'm doing a weird site registration" (like I used for Megaupload membership) addresses have all been getting Obamaspam. Since that third is basically a spam honeypot, I'm 99% sure that the Obama campaign got into it by purchasing a "list of known addresses" from a spammer somewhere or paying the spammers to blast out the spam from their own network.
Interesting link on the voter registration fraud. I knew about a lot of his bad connections, but that one's even worse than most.
Small problem:
I NEVER signed up for Obama campaign mail. In fact, after they repeatedly ignored my unsubscribe demands, I called them via voice to demand they remove my name and email from any of their lists (I don't need my work email clogged with their spam, I have enough trouble sorting what comes through that's actually relevant).
I can guarantee you, I've been receiving the same ones you are. The reply-to address changes names from "Barack Obama", "Michele Obama", "David Plouffe", etc, but the underlying address is always "info@barackobama.com" and it always has their "how to unsubscribe" boilerplate at the bottom that goes directly to a page that CLAIMS it'll remove the address from their lists, but never does.
I tried to submit stories on this MONTHS ago, after the Obama campaign somehow got my email and started sending me their constant spam messages. Content directly traced back, emails all about their campaign stops, from "David Plouffe", "Michele Obama", links to their blog entries on the official Obama site, etc... but the headers most DEFINITELY through known spam houses and zombie spam networks.
For some reason, Slashdot wasn't interested that the Obama campaign does this. I'd think it should be a major concern to us - not only is he corrupt, but he's in bed with the spammers. That doesn't bode well for tech issues for us if he gets elected...
Sorry to say this Ray, but this one is beyond the pale.
The judge needs to be investigated - for incompetence, for monetary anomalies, for improper connections.
In addition, there needs to be one hell of a set of appeals of this unimaginably corrupt decision.
I was waiting for this to be a joke... but I bet the judge's thoughts, even while penning the decision, were on counting the big bag of money the MafiAA lawyers had just laid at his feet.
Because they already soaked a lot of people buying SD cards for the Wii... hands up if when you bought your Wii, there were peripherals in the bundle (extra controller, 1GB SD card, etc) that they were pushing like there was no tomorrow.
Now Big N wants to soak the user again (at one hell of a markup compared to market price on a normal SD card) and still give them barely enough space, unless they buy more than one.
Countdown until some morally better people reverse engineer this and offer up a solution to just enable your OWN SD card to work as a "wiicard" in 3...2...1...
Funny. D&D Online is certainly "real-time." What you're saying is that putting in enough automation that WoW stops being an annoying clickfest and starts being a reasonably-paced game somehow kills the charm?
I think you're not playing WoW.
It isn't already?
Are we playing the same World of Warcraft?
Bad decisions by incompetent legislatures notwithstanding... did you read the article and see the rate of accidents?
And if I'm guiding my character around from point A to point B, and directing them to an enemy (but letting the fight itself work as it would on stats anyways because I don't have the muscle control to time everything perfectly), where is the problem?
Again... "Player Interaction" is a widely defined field. What line, specifically, it that gives you a problem when crossed? I'll offer you a few points.
#1 - Automatically moving the character around the world
#2 - Player moving character around the world... but character automatically attacking enemies it can.
#3 - Player moving character around, AND having to tell character to attack enemy
#4 - Player moving character around, AND having to tell character to attack, AND having to set off macro for each individual attack command
#5 - Player having to do everything one button-press at a time.
Well?
And the difference between someone using Final Fantasy 12-style macros (literally, control where the character goes and let it fight the nearest enemy, or not, or click an enemy to engage) and someone building in-game macros that must be triggered manually, is what precisely?
The problem with providing such thing is that even non-disabled people could use those to trivialize the game.
Why would it trivialize the game? Because people wouldn't get frustrated with the control system, they'd play less? You're saying that the entirety of the gaming community are a bunch of masochists?
That would make game designers sadists... which actually makes sense now that I think about the controller designs we've been subjected to over the years (Dreamcast anyone?)
Helping disabled people play is one thing; Build something to play for disabled people is another.
What's the difference between a gamer hitting alt-c, alt-q, w,r,t,6,2,7,8,0,m,p,z for their attack actions... and just hitting a single button for a macro that does the same? More to the point, what's the gameplay difference as seen by any other players?
Also, how can they be sure that someone really need some automated actions? I bet if it were easy, they would do.
Not if they don't care... which is kind of the point. The gaming industry, as a whole, has become less and less open to those who are physically disabled as time has gone on and control systems added more and more levels of sometimes needless complexity.
My point is: Blizzard can't mold it's software for an small piece of market with the risk of make it worse in a general view.
How does it make it worse? Show me how it negatively impacts the play experience of anyone to have usable controls by MORE people, especially in a game that's supposed to be multiplayer to begin.
blind gamers are definitely "disabled" - but there are limits to what can be done (we can't, for example, allow the blind to drive cars due to near certainty of accidents). We CAN compensate relatively easily, especially in pseudo-turn-based games like WoW, for people without the manual dexterity to control a mouse and keyboard all at once, hitting 6 different keys every 30 seconds.
Of course, eventually the "blind" will all get visors with direct nerve inputs hooked up to little CCD eyeball replacements... but until that happens, that doesn't mean real solutions for those with dexterity problems (whether from amputation, physical defect, or nerve damage) should be disallowed or destroyed.
is that WoW killed this for the wrong reasons.
The ability to set this to run completely unattended? BAD. I totally agree that botting is no good, it's killed a lot of MMO's.
However, the ability to set this up to do ordinary tasks for users who have disabilities would be GOOD. It would enlarge the potential WoW audience. I'm not saying make it fine as-is, I'm saying that a "semi-unattended" setup where people playing the game just set up and monitor their macros isn't any worse than the normal mode of play (hell, wasn't that the entire control system of Final Fantasy 12?).
A lot of potential WoW players (potential gamers in general, actually) have problems. Someone who has partial paralysis or has had a hand/arm amputated has trouble using the standard game controllers. Now think about the game systems that get around this. If you've got two good legs, you can do DDR or Wii Fit without arms. If you only have one good arm, you can use the Wiimote and at least 50% of the Wii's games (though you still can't play Zelda). On the other hand, if you go near the Xbox360 or PS3, you're pretty much fucked.
Older titles didn't have this problem. If you have one hand, or even one of those face-stick setups with a single button, you can play Space Quest, King's Quest, and probably map the joystick to play single-button arcade games. If you have a working thumb and two fingers, you can get a two-button joystick and play NES titles.
Do I really care if someone who has disability problems, or even carpal tunnel, is able to set off macros to do the same thing I would do in multiple steps? Not really. I can still group with them, or play the game without them.
For some reason, however, the WoW designers don't want disabled gamers playing their game. They have ignored REPEATED entreaties from the disabled community to program in ways to make it feasible for disabled gamers to play. For quite a few, programs like WoW Glider were the fix. This is just one more symptom of the gaming industry not getting it when it comes to making their titles and systems accessible.
That's presuming you can get MythTV to work properly, a dicey proposition at best.
I've had FAR more luck getting XBMC to talk correctly to pre-recorded media (of almost any format) from my NAS and winboxen.
As for the GUI... I love the XBMC GUI. I love the fact that the Xboxes I purchased at a flea market for comparative pennies make lovely network video boxes for the spare rooms in my house to pull just about everything I've recorded from NAS.
I'm looking forward to the "new" Windows-based XBMC so my home theater PC can run it and do the HD content thing, but that's a minor concern - and only relevant once they get the surround 5.1 audio upsampling and ATi Remote Wonder support to work properly (neither of which, alas, is in this edition). Till then, I just let VLC play the HD content and run the rest off a standard XBMX-Xbox.
Unfortunately, automation/stock triggers ("sell when X", etc) are the only way for the common-man trader who isn't an on-the-ground insider member of one of the stock exchanges to make a timely trade.
The stock market is itself a pretty asinine setup; a large number of insiders (the only guys allowed on the floor) are allowed to run around trading back and forth, "increasing" the wealth of themselves and the people who hire them based on a relatively arbitrary stock valuation number at a given time. The rest of the world has to work through intermediaries to make a stock transaction and invest in various companies/funds, and pay a brokering fee (further enhancing the wealth only of the lucky-enough-to-get-in brokers) each step of the way.
End result: those who are NOT in the loop (e.g. the little guy) gets screwed, those who ARE in the insular center keep getting wealthier.
Sure.
A "Dry Reference" is a tidy work arranged primarily for the purpose of being able to quickly identify items or reach the information you want. Think most of the standard reference works (dictionary, Encyclopedia Brittanica, Star Trek or Star Wars encyclopedias, owners' manuals or service manuals for commercial products, various manuals for operating systems or software languages, journals for various professional organizations).
A "Wet Reference" is a reference work written largely in-universe and intended to be read cover-to-cover for its own reading value. Think of many of the looser reference guides to various fantasy worlds often written either by the author or with direct author involvement, such as the Dragonriders' Guide to Pern or the Silmarillion.
The term "dry", in terms of books, is often a substitute for the word "boring" - not that it necessarily is to all people, but in that a general reader (which is to say, someone without interest in the subject of the reference work) trying to sit down with it is going to have about as much fun as someone who forgot to bring a novel on their plane flight and is now stuck reading the torturously boring in-flight magazine.