Ever notice the 3G networks around the other parts of the world haven't needed to bitch and moan about data usage of smartphones?
Hate to tell you this, but that's because many parts of the world charge their users per megabyte they download. Changes the way people approach usage when they're going be charged an extra 25c/Mb (at a minimum) if they go over a certain (minuscule) amount.
Does this remind anyone else of the armorgel in Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash?
Liquid that hardens on impact, mostly used in body armor, looks like gritty jello... Certainly sounds like the same kinda stuff.
I hope Stephenson's getting a cut. So many things from that book have come to pass that I'm getting worried about an insane Aelut showing up with a nuke...
Yes, there is a lot of creativity and players come up with smart combinations that are very effective against certain other decks, but that's kind of the point. If you're a serious player, you're supposed to keep yourself updated about that and construct your deck to face known strong decks accordingly. That's what makes the whole thing so interesting.
The thing is, there are so many cards, effects, and ways of playing that there is never a single deck at the top. At worse, all major decks contain the overpowered card, but that's not a problem.
Once again, you seem to be missing that this is what game balance does. MTG's remarkable balance is why the there is never a single deck at the top. If you want to see what happens when the game isn't balanced, look at this article, when your only options are Necropotence deck, or deck that is tuned specifically to beat Necropotence decks, then it's a less healthy metagame.
The fact that, as you say, 'there are so many cards, effects, and ways of playing' and not one of those is flat out best is a testament to how good Wizards are. Although, I bet they wish they hadn't printed a couple of Faeries (Mistbind Clique, I'm looking at you.)
The vowel sound in 'Wii' is usually written as 'ee' and sometimes 'ea' or just 'e', examples would include 'we', 'wee', 'weed', 'read' and so on.
As jo_ham posted, 'ii' in English is usually associated with an 'eye' pronounciation, which would have made the Wii, sound like it was called the 'why'.
I found Nintendo's attempt to force the 'ee' sound out of 'ii' baffling when I first heard it, but after a couple of minutes it made sense - when Romanising Japanese, double vowels mean a long pronounciation. So for native Japanese speakers, 'Wii' is intuitively phonetic. I'm still hoping they'll go back to calling the console the Revolution, personally.
As for phonetic impairment, not so much, but thanks for your concern.
Unless you have your class one hundred percent nailed, the differences are cancelled out by differences in individual skill, approach and work-ethic in most games.
It sounds like you're saying that class balance doesn't matter. The situation you're describing only happens if the classes are balanced.
If classes aren't balanced, then one class will almost always beat another in a fight, no matter how good or bad the classes are. Differences in skill determining outcomes is a sign that the game is balanced.
The complex metagames that spring up around MMOs are very difficult to keep on track, but at least game designers can change things. If you want to see a metagame that can be completely broken, look at a collectible card game like Magic. Once the cards are out, you can't change them, and so some horribly broken decks can dominate the metagame.
Yeah... "studies" such as this are why Psychology is NOT a science
The four authors of this study are assistant or associate professors from the schools of communication or departments of media of their various institutions. They are not psychologists. This makes your little outburst particularly pointless and makes you looks like someone who started with a rant and worked back from there.
Psychology isn't a science, it isn't debatable. It doesn't meet the formal definition of a science on several grounds,
falsifiability, honoring of the null hypothesis, and lack of rigor in experiments all being among them.
Bullshit. Each of those points is incorrect. You've clearly got an axe to grind, but I have no idea what you're talking about with regard to falsifiability - psychology has had thousands of theories tested, some of which have been vindicated, some have been dismissed, and some are still being debated. This isn't a bad thing.
The null hypothesis is the absolute baseline in psychological research. It's built into the way that statistics are used in psych - looking for a statistical difference at a p
As for lack of rigor - I'm sure this is case in some studies, as it is in all branches of science. But there's been plenty of extremely solid research done in psychology over the years, and it has led to a much better understanding of how our brains work and how we work in society.
Due to the risk of incurring even greater legal costs the company is closing its doors in Australia, and will ban their fellow countrymen from posting there again.
Wait what?
As a longtime user (~10 years) of Zgeek, and an Aussie, I'm pretty sure we haven't been banned. It's just that the site, which is hosted in the US already is going to legally set up shop outside of Australia to avoid these kinds of legal hassles.
For the record, the whole lawsuit thing is a joke, and everyone's aware that it's doomed to failure. The problem is that since Zgeek is essentially run by one guy in his spare time, he doesn't have the resources to fight it effectively, so it's better to run away rather than set yourself up for future problems.
For the record, the site really isn't too much more than a place were people post random news, and a forum which is dominated by in-fighting, trolling, and a bizarre 'shit-in-his-shoes' meme (it was started after Google started rating us highly as place to get life advice). And yes, it's as much fun as it sounds.
Most of my friends from work go to their doctor whenever they have a cold.
Then your friends are idiots.
Nationalized coverage wont help. It will make it worse!
Nothing will ever stop idiots from being idiots. But this myth that if people are able to see doctors then they will swarm to the nearest medical clinic on a daily basis needs to be addressed. Look at places like the UK or Australia - what you're describing simply doesn't happen.
Going to the doctor is not a particularly fun experience. Sensible people only go to the doctor when there's a reason to. Common cold? Don't go - the doctor can't do anything. Food poisoning? Go - antibiotics will fix you right up. As another poster has mentioned (and numerous studies have shown), easy access to frontline health care ends up creating a lot LESS of a burden on the health care system as problems are diagnosed at an earlier stage when they are more easily correctable or preventable.
Cheaper system and a higher standard of living! What are you Americans so afraid of?
PS. I have experience with both the US and Australian medical systems. The Aussie (single payer, government) system is light-years better - faster, simpler, better care, and peace of mind.
Can someone who understands Chinese culture a little better than I explain why skeletons are considered so taboo?
I've heard of the problems that WoW has had including them, as well as other games such as Magic the Gathering being told to take the bones out if they want to sell in the Middle Kingdom. I haven't heard much of an explanation other than that skeletons aren't allowed...
Anyone care to give a bit more of an explanation? (I've tried a quick google, but all I get is people reporting that WoW got rejected in China.
Why... is there... there so much... punctionations in the summary?
Because the summary is directly quoting the article and using ellipses to indicate that certain party of the quotation have been omitted. Usually there would be a space on either side of the ellipsis when this was done, but this is/. so I'll let this one slide.
Seems like you're the one who is 'certifiably retarded'.
Sometimes this means they've got their bots out keeping a given zone completely barren of mobs, so that any actual players who want to do anything in the zone are unable to do so.
In four years I've never seen it or heard of it.
Try playing WoW. It's been a couple of years but I used regularly come across level 60s grinding mobs around level 40. And the same toon would be doing it for DAYS. Either being played by gold farmers or a bot, I don't know, but they wouldn't talk to me, and when I had a quest that involved me having to kill the same mobs, it was difficult to find them, since they were all already dead.
Sometimes it means that the gold sellers flood the auction house with the items they have farmed up, meaning that any legitimate player who wants to sell some items for a bit of gold can't do so because the going rate for those items is so low that they can't turn a profit.
That's counter productive on the farmers part. Why would they want to sell it super cheap rather than the actual market price? Makes no sense.
Supply and demand. If there's lots of an item being farmed, then the market price drops. Come on, this isn't exactly hard.
On the flip side, the people who have bought gold now have so much money that the market price for other (non-farmable) items goes through the roof, meaning that honest players can't afford the things they want.
No. If it's overpriced, less people will buy it and the price will go down.
No moron, the price goes up because a minority of people have bought themselves a pile of gold and will bid stupid prices on these things on the auction house. Meanwhile, the people who don't buy gold can't afford the items any more. It's like if 10% of people suddenly had 10 times more money - you can bet property prices would go up in response.
Also, shame on you for making up that anecdote about your friend. They don't need your account info to trade gold (it's either mailed or you put up a shitty item on the auction house for whatever amount of gold you bought).
See, now I'm not even sure if you're really this dumb or you're just trolling. The goldfarmers hack your account, then they sell your gear for gold, which they in turn sell for real money. They don't steal from their customers - they steal from EVERYONE - at least everyone unfortunate enough to have their account compromised.
Calling Slashdot a game, even on April 1st, is somewhat disengaging for those of us coming here in an attempt to have an intellectually honest discussion, while flooded by meme trolls and fanboys posting for sport.
Disagree. Mostly because although I might not object to hearing a song twice in two months, I want to be able to listen to any song when I want to hear it.
Same applies to photos and a number of movies/videos. With a music collection of around 60Gb, 17Gb of podcasts (less essential), and many more of photos and videos, larger capacity becomes a requirement.
I know you're going to say that that's not the point of the iPod, but it was originally, and that was the iPod that I like. Why is maximum capacity going down instead of up in these things? And why can't we have a slightly bigger iPod touch that can carry around your media collection?
Slashdot Mirror
Ever notice the 3G networks around the other parts of the world haven't needed to bitch and moan about data usage of smartphones?
Hate to tell you this, but that's because many parts of the world charge their users per megabyte they download. Changes the way people approach usage when they're going be charged an extra 25c/Mb (at a minimum) if they go over a certain (minuscule) amount.
A lot of people (i.e. wives and girlfriends) don't want to have a laptop sitting around on their living room table...
Get real. This is slashdot. None of us have those things you mentioned - wives, girlfriends, living rooms.
All of those involve leaving our parents' basements.
Since one can never prove that a network is secure, what are they going to do: lock him up forever?
No, just till he's dead and can't sue them anymore.
Does this remind anyone else of the armorgel in Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash?
Liquid that hardens on impact, mostly used in body armor, looks like gritty jello... Certainly sounds like the same kinda stuff.
I hope Stephenson's getting a cut. So many things from that book have come to pass that I'm getting worried about an insane Aelut showing up with a nuke...
The right to speak does not imply the freedom from responsibility.
Why do you hate America?
Yes, there is a lot of creativity and players come up with smart combinations that are very effective against certain other decks, but that's kind of the point. If you're a serious player, you're supposed to keep yourself updated about that and construct your deck to face known strong decks accordingly. That's what makes the whole thing so interesting. The thing is, there are so many cards, effects, and ways of playing that there is never a single deck at the top. At worse, all major decks contain the overpowered card, but that's not a problem.
Once again, you seem to be missing that this is what game balance does. MTG's remarkable balance is why the there is never a single deck at the top. If you want to see what happens when the game isn't balanced, look at this article, when your only options are Necropotence deck, or deck that is tuned specifically to beat Necropotence decks, then it's a less healthy metagame.
The fact that, as you say, 'there are so many cards, effects, and ways of playing' and not one of those is flat out best is a testament to how good Wizards are. Although, I bet they wish they hadn't printed a couple of Faeries (Mistbind Clique, I'm looking at you.)
The vowel sound in 'Wii' is usually written as 'ee' and sometimes 'ea' or just 'e', examples would include 'we', 'wee', 'weed', 'read' and so on.
As jo_ham posted, 'ii' in English is usually associated with an 'eye' pronounciation, which would have made the Wii, sound like it was called the 'why'.
I found Nintendo's attempt to force the 'ee' sound out of 'ii' baffling when I first heard it, but after a couple of minutes it made sense - when Romanising Japanese, double vowels mean a long pronounciation. So for native Japanese speakers, 'Wii' is intuitively phonetic. I'm still hoping they'll go back to calling the console the Revolution, personally.
As for phonetic impairment, not so much, but thanks for your concern.
Unless you have your class one hundred percent nailed, the differences are cancelled out by differences in individual skill, approach and work-ethic in most games.
It sounds like you're saying that class balance doesn't matter. The situation you're describing only happens if the classes are balanced.
If classes aren't balanced, then one class will almost always beat another in a fight, no matter how good or bad the classes are. Differences in skill determining outcomes is a sign that the game is balanced.
The complex metagames that spring up around MMOs are very difficult to keep on track, but at least game designers can change things. If you want to see a metagame that can be completely broken, look at a collectible card game like Magic. Once the cards are out, you can't change them, and so some horribly broken decks can dominate the metagame.
Just because it has a name that is not intuitively pronounceable. Idiots.
Yeah, just like Nintendo's latest console, which flopped because its name was both not intuitively pronounceable. Does anyone even remember the Wii?
Alright, I'll bite.
Yeah... "studies" such as this are why Psychology is NOT a science
The four authors of this study are assistant or associate professors from the schools of communication or departments of media of their various institutions. They are not psychologists. This makes your little outburst particularly pointless and makes you looks like someone who started with a rant and worked back from there.
Psychology isn't a science, it isn't debatable. It doesn't meet the formal definition of a science on several grounds, falsifiability, honoring of the null hypothesis, and lack of rigor in experiments all being among them.
Bullshit. Each of those points is incorrect. You've clearly got an axe to grind, but I have no idea what you're talking about with regard to falsifiability - psychology has had thousands of theories tested, some of which have been vindicated, some have been dismissed, and some are still being debated. This isn't a bad thing.
The null hypothesis is the absolute baseline in psychological research. It's built into the way that statistics are used in psych - looking for a statistical difference at a p
As for lack of rigor - I'm sure this is case in some studies, as it is in all branches of science. But there's been plenty of extremely solid research done in psychology over the years, and it has led to a much better understanding of how our brains work and how we work in society.
Yeah, gee, you wouldn't want to destroy the credibility of an esteemed site like 4chan, which up till now has been held in such high regard...
Destruction as a form of protest only hurts themselves and other innocents.
"Other innocents"?
You've never actually visited /b/, have you?
Wait what?
As a longtime user (~10 years) of Zgeek, and an Aussie, I'm pretty sure we haven't been banned. It's just that the site, which is hosted in the US already is going to legally set up shop outside of Australia to avoid these kinds of legal hassles.
For the record, the whole lawsuit thing is a joke, and everyone's aware that it's doomed to failure. The problem is that since Zgeek is essentially run by one guy in his spare time, he doesn't have the resources to fight it effectively, so it's better to run away rather than set yourself up for future problems.
For the record, the site really isn't too much more than a place were people post random news, and a forum which is dominated by in-fighting, trolling, and a bizarre 'shit-in-his-shoes' meme (it was started after Google started rating us highly as place to get life advice). And yes, it's as much fun as it sounds.
Have to agree with you (and the other poster agreeing). Overkill was fantastic two player action with laugh out loud funny cutscenes.
It's already been said, but I'm saying it too in case people are unsure about picking it up.
Most of my friends from work go to their doctor whenever they have a cold.
Then your friends are idiots.
Nationalized coverage wont help. It will make it worse!
Nothing will ever stop idiots from being idiots. But this myth that if people are able to see doctors then they will swarm to the nearest medical clinic on a daily basis needs to be addressed. Look at places like the UK or Australia - what you're describing simply doesn't happen.
Going to the doctor is not a particularly fun experience. Sensible people only go to the doctor when there's a reason to. Common cold? Don't go - the doctor can't do anything. Food poisoning? Go - antibiotics will fix you right up. As another poster has mentioned (and numerous studies have shown), easy access to frontline health care ends up creating a lot LESS of a burden on the health care system as problems are diagnosed at an earlier stage when they are more easily correctable or preventable.
Cheaper system and a higher standard of living! What are you Americans so afraid of?
PS. I have experience with both the US and Australian medical systems. The Aussie (single payer, government) system is light-years better - faster, simpler, better care, and peace of mind.
Can someone who understands Chinese culture a little better than I explain why skeletons are considered so taboo?
I've heard of the problems that WoW has had including them, as well as other games such as Magic the Gathering being told to take the bones out if they want to sell in the Middle Kingdom. I haven't heard much of an explanation other than that skeletons aren't allowed...
Anyone care to give a bit more of an explanation? (I've tried a quick google, but all I get is people reporting that WoW got rejected in China.
German politicians are treading the thinnest line possible between Liberty and Hitler.
Because those are the only two possible options...
#0099CC
Great. Now I have to change the combination on my briefcase...
-1 crazed conspiracy theory
You must be new here. The crazed conspiracy theories are the best part of Slashdot.
Why... is there... there so much... punctionations in the summary?
Because the summary is directly quoting the article and using ellipses to indicate that certain party of the quotation have been omitted. Usually there would be a space on either side of the ellipsis when this was done, but this is /. so I'll let this one slide.
Sometimes this means they've got their bots out keeping a given zone completely barren of mobs, so that any actual players who want to do anything in the zone are unable to do so.
In four years I've never seen it or heard of it.
Try playing WoW. It's been a couple of years but I used regularly come across level 60s grinding mobs around level 40. And the same toon would be doing it for DAYS. Either being played by gold farmers or a bot, I don't know, but they wouldn't talk to me, and when I had a quest that involved me having to kill the same mobs, it was difficult to find them, since they were all already dead.
Sometimes it means that the gold sellers flood the auction house with the items they have farmed up, meaning that any legitimate player who wants to sell some items for a bit of gold can't do so because the going rate for those items is so low that they can't turn a profit.
That's counter productive on the farmers part. Why would they want to sell it super cheap rather than the actual market price? Makes no sense.
Supply and demand. If there's lots of an item being farmed, then the market price drops. Come on, this isn't exactly hard.
On the flip side, the people who have bought gold now have so much money that the market price for other (non-farmable) items goes through the roof, meaning that honest players can't afford the things they want.
No. If it's overpriced, less people will buy it and the price will go down.
No moron, the price goes up because a minority of people have bought themselves a pile of gold and will bid stupid prices on these things on the auction house. Meanwhile, the people who don't buy gold can't afford the items any more. It's like if 10% of people suddenly had 10 times more money - you can bet property prices would go up in response.
Also, shame on you for making up that anecdote about your friend. They don't need your account info to trade gold (it's either mailed or you put up a shitty item on the auction house for whatever amount of gold you bought).
See, now I'm not even sure if you're really this dumb or you're just trolling. The goldfarmers hack your account, then they sell your gear for gold, which they in turn sell for real money. They don't steal from their customers - they steal from EVERYONE - at least everyone unfortunate enough to have their account compromised.
Actually, it's an acronym. ;-)
What's you're point? It's still a word. ;-)
Calling Slashdot a game, even on April 1st, is somewhat disengaging for those of us coming here in an attempt to have an intellectually honest discussion, while flooded by meme trolls and fanboys posting for sport.
How I mine for fish?
It's cute how you assume that all Muslims are a single group.
Disagree. Mostly because although I might not object to hearing a song twice in two months, I want to be able to listen to any song when I want to hear it.
Same applies to photos and a number of movies/videos. With a music collection of around 60Gb, 17Gb of podcasts (less essential), and many more of photos and videos, larger capacity becomes a requirement.
I know you're going to say that that's not the point of the iPod, but it was originally, and that was the iPod that I like. Why is maximum capacity going down instead of up in these things? And why can't we have a slightly bigger iPod touch that can carry around your media collection?