...give me a seat next to an electric cigarette smoker over a cigarette smoker any day.
There's a lot of FUD about nicotine, when it is not apparent that nicotine is dangerous, compared to all the other chemicals that get delivered with the traditional nicotine cigarette.
I've never seen the need for treating nicotine like a controlled substance outside cigarettes. If I want Nicorette for uses other than smoking-cessation, how is that any more dangerous than my ability to buy aspirin, acetaminophen, or caffeine tablets, all of which can be used to a harmful degree?
Because the last time I e-filed, the IRS sent me a form whose only purpose was for me to have a real signature.
Frankly, I don't need the hassle. If I'm going to have to mail something anyway, I'll just do my taxes myself (not that big a deal), and send the form in the mail, rather than have what happened last time where I had to send a different form in the mail anyway.
That and the fact that although the federal government and my state government both have e-file laws in place, I have to go through a "third party" rather than just filing directly on the IRS's website, and all of these third parties try to push premium services at you. What's more, the third parties that the federal government and the state government list aren't the same, so I have to shop around for the subset that includes both?
Give me 20 minutes with a paper form, no ambiguity, and mailing the same amount of physical mail as I would have to with e-filing anyway. And, of course, a routing number so if I'm due a return, it gets deposited directly. I'm not a Neanderthal, after all.
I liked Asheron's Call quite a bit, and Turbine was the first of the mass-market MMOGs not to take its customers for granted - Origin's (then EA's) Ultima Online management was clueless, and Verant's Everquest management was actively at war with its users.
Recently with DDO, however, they installed a torrent client for updates. Lest you have visions of World of Warcraft's torrent client that actively fetches updates then stops when it's done, Turbine uses Pando's Media Booster, a torrent client that starts on OS boot, and gives the user no indication it is running unless one goes into its control panel.
I took Turbine and Pando to task for this, and Pando did actually reply, but not much to my satisfaction.
The cost of the OS is not the primary issue.
on
Ubuntu on a Dime
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I could run BeOS for free. And on today's machines, it would play the fastest game of Tetris ever.
Jokes aside, who considers the price of the OS the primary issue? Way to miss the point. The primary issue is "does this OS run the applications I want to run".
I encounter naive Linux desktop converts occasionally. And no, that's not to suggest all Linux desktop converts are naive. It's very frustrating to hear them pontificate about their latest install Ubuntu Malodorous Moose, and then on the other hand ask "what's the Linux equivalent of [some Windows application]?" every two days.
If it doesn't run the applications I need to run, you could give me the OS for free and it still won't run them.
Throwing in red herrings about what certain security apps cost when there are free alternatives for Windows is pretty disingenuous as well.
It was originally fourteen years, and swiftly amended to twenty eight years.
If fourteen years was originally considered sufficient protection when culture traveled at the speed of horseback, then five years is more than sufficient when culture travels at the speed of light down a fiber optic cable.
Jack Tramiel may be an unsung hero of the personal computer, but he also had the dubious distinction of playing key roles in the destruction of two of the most important computer companies of the era, Commodore and later, Atari.
Tramiel - and more importantly, his engineers - is often left out in the modern retelling of the personal computer story, which is often presented as if everything that wasn't Intel, Microsoft, and Apple was some sort of bizarre tangental experiment that really didn't matter. Sadly, his management style was typical of the small-minded businessman, who treated his company as a fief and a playground for his personal grudges.
I often wonder how the Amiga would have fared long-term if a more competently-managed company than Commodore had bought it.
Maybe joining one of these new pseudo-religious religions (wicca, jedi, LaVey-style Satanism, whatever) isn't such a great idea.
These sorts of religions aren't faiths. They're social playgrounds for bored agnostics and atheists who don't really believe in religion per se, but they miss the silly ritualism, dress codes, and liturgy. It furthers the notion that adhering to some form of religion is better than agnosticism, atheism, or just plain being honest about what you do or do not believe.
Freedom of religion is a great thing. So rather than fight for fake faith rights, maybe we should fight for the right for an atheist or strongly agnostic politician to not have to lie about being a Christian just to be electable.
industry. I work with equipment whose speed and certain other capabilities are determined by the license codes you pay for. To me, this seems dishonest.
I'm sad to see software publishers embrace this model, but not terribly surprised.
...this is about a record label subverting a contract. EMI clearly feels EMI will make more money by subverting the contract and selling tracks, Pink Floyd clearly feels Pink Floyd will make more money by selling entire albums and doesn't want to jeopardize that. EMI is probably right, Pink Floyd possibly so. The courts only come in due to the fact that they can actually afford to sue their label over EMI's failure to live up to its contract.
This drive to make TBS games as graphics intensive as possible goes hand in hand with reducing map size, amount of cities you can have at once, etc. In short, graphics require compromises which result in exactly the sorts of concessions which are important to multiplayer games (brief game, small maps, small amount of total cities) and which reduce my ability to play truly epic games that take place on vast maps with hundreds of cities.
I think I'd take simpler graphics with the current ruleset on huge maps than better graphics with the current ruleset on "reasonably sized" maps.
"For my money, I personally think that the best "Civ" game ever made was, by leaps and bounds, Alpha Centauri."
Seconded.
It's also the last game of its sort that allowed me to play the epic scale game I prefer: preposterously large maps and unreasonable amounts of cities. I enjoy that sort of gameplay, with very long-form games.
Every game since Civ 3 has seemed to make a mission out of forcing me to play a single-player game as if it were a multi-player game; short, small, and decisive. I wish the licensing for Alpha Centauri was such that it could have a proper sequel. But I also suspect they'd shrink it down for multiplayer expectations the way they did with Civ3 and Civ4.
Thanks, good to hear from you again. A few years ago, I tried to get a KoS archive together, but I didn't have all the content (even with the help of archive.org).
I think the WoW-centric playerbase of MMOGs have a difficult time understanding how different UO was from even its immediate successors, let alone WoW, for good or bad.
I had the misfortune of having to explain a UO joke a few weeks ago that required re-hashing a lot of things that simply aren't common in MMOGs anymore (ridiculously loose interfaces, the lack of consent-based PvP, and the whole gear issue). I'm glad I was there for the UO experience, but honestly, I don't miss it. A lot of the old r33t.org people sure do, and it's sad to see them pine for glory days (for them) that will never return, simply for lack of unwilling victims.
I forgot to develop the thought about bugs. The reason I brought up UO's bugginess is that knowing the current bugs and exploits was crucial in PKing, because if you didn't know them, the guy you fought very well might. Those who were uninterested in PVP were also rarely aware of the latest developments on that front.
All of the people I know who miss UO were into the PK scene.
Calling it PVP is misleading because for people who never played UO, that brings to mind more modern games' consent-based PVP systems. In WoW, you consent to PvP by playing on a PvP server, starting a duel, enabling your PvP flag, and/or joining a battleground. In UO, you could kill other players outside town, period. There were originally some "disincentives" to excessive PKing, but the biggest was getting a badass title that showed how notorious you were, so that was really more of an incentive.
Also, to those who didn't play it, it's necessary to understand that UO was not a level-based system where the only way to kill someone ten levels over you was for them to be comatose. It was a character skill-based system where the skills you used the most increased the most.
The typical PKer had an advantage over non-PKers because they had a different understanding (and in retrospect, a correct one) of how PVP combat worked. The typical non-PKer was far too enamoured of gear and character skills. The PKer understood that if you weren't ready to fight ten seconds after resurrection, you probably already lost. If your gameplay depended on superior equipment, you were quite honestly doing it wrong, and the difference between character skills was far, far less important than player experience. To add to the issue, UO was also riddled with a ridiculous amount of huge bugs. If you think you know what bugs are strictly from WoW experience, I have to say, you honestly have no idea.
Non-PVP zones were limited to cities, so the exits to the cities were a killing ground. Graveyards were resurrection zones, so those were a killing ground. Dungeons were favorite destinations, so those were a killing ground.
Many other posters have brought some or all of these issues up.
The key for wolves was to have enough sheep, and that's where the legacy of the Ultima series comes into play. Ultima was a game series that, for its time, had a very large fan base. Furthermore, it was a very moral series of games. Ultima 1-3 where pretty much standard-fare RPG mishmashes of Tolkien, every bad fantasy book ever made, and science fiction. When U4 came out, it was extremely different. Though it hasn't aged well (meaning I don't think you'll get a correct sense of how different it was at the time, if you emulate it today), it was a revelatory experience. No longer could you win the game by destroying everything in sight and not taking everything that wasn't locked down (assuming you were strong enough to defeat the guards or clever enough to evade them). Ultima 4 was a game about what it means to be virtuous. Ultima 5 dealt with what it means to enforce virtue as draconian law, subverting virtue. Ultima 6 concerned itself with the problem of evil and the moral ramifications of messiah prophecy. Ultima 7 was less about moral dimensions, but had solid gameplay, and Ultima 8 was the first game which really failed to meet fan expectations.
Due to the moral dimensions of U4-6, and the quality of U7, Ultima not only had a very strong following, but it appealed to a lot of people who liked the fact that it wasn't just another game where you can kill your way out of every situation. It appealed to players' senses of justice, fairness, and compassion. In fact, U4 introduced a Virtue System which not only codified 8 virtues (honesty, compassion, valor, justice, honor, sacrifice, spirituality and humility) and 3 principles which guided them (truth, love and courage). Ultima Online had a lot of players who remembered the U4-6 legacy with fondness, and had a fan base where such virtues were often exemplified in the community.
Ultima Online shipped without any virtue system, needless to say. It was filled with a lot of non-PVPers, for many of whom UO was their first mulitplayer RPG. Many of the PK crowd came from other smaller games where PVP was more common. The collision of values is what was important, because it gave a lot of the n
Slashdot Mirror
...give me a seat next to an electric cigarette smoker over a cigarette smoker any day.
There's a lot of FUD about nicotine, when it is not apparent that nicotine is dangerous, compared to all the other chemicals that get delivered with the traditional nicotine cigarette.
I've never seen the need for treating nicotine like a controlled substance outside cigarettes. If I want Nicorette for uses other than smoking-cessation, how is that any more dangerous than my ability to buy aspirin, acetaminophen, or caffeine tablets, all of which can be used to a harmful degree?
Because the last time I e-filed, the IRS sent me a form whose only purpose was for me to have a real signature.
Frankly, I don't need the hassle. If I'm going to have to mail something anyway, I'll just do my taxes myself (not that big a deal), and send the form in the mail, rather than have what happened last time where I had to send a different form in the mail anyway.
That and the fact that although the federal government and my state government both have e-file laws in place, I have to go through a "third party" rather than just filing directly on the IRS's website, and all of these third parties try to push premium services at you. What's more, the third parties that the federal government and the state government list aren't the same, so I have to shop around for the subset that includes both?
Give me 20 minutes with a paper form, no ambiguity, and mailing the same amount of physical mail as I would have to with e-filing anyway. And, of course, a routing number so if I'm due a return, it gets deposited directly. I'm not a Neanderthal, after all.
link, sorry:
http://www.unhelpful.org/2010/02/15/underhanded-and-sneaky-pando-ddo-online-and-turbine/
I liked Asheron's Call quite a bit, and Turbine was the first of the mass-market MMOGs not to take its customers for granted - Origin's (then EA's) Ultima Online management was clueless, and Verant's Everquest management was actively at war with its users.
Recently with DDO, however, they installed a torrent client for updates. Lest you have visions of World of Warcraft's torrent client that actively fetches updates then stops when it's done, Turbine uses Pando's Media Booster, a torrent client that starts on OS boot, and gives the user no indication it is running unless one goes into its control panel.
I took Turbine and Pando to task for this, and Pando did actually reply, but not much to my satisfaction.
http://www.unhelpful.org/2010/02/15/underhanded-and-sneaky-pando-ddo-online-and-turbine/
Oh, wrong pink!
I could run BeOS for free. And on today's machines, it would play the fastest game of Tetris ever.
Jokes aside, who considers the price of the OS the primary issue? Way to miss the point. The primary issue is "does this OS run the applications I want to run".
I encounter naive Linux desktop converts occasionally. And no, that's not to suggest all Linux desktop converts are naive. It's very frustrating to hear them pontificate about their latest install Ubuntu Malodorous Moose, and then on the other hand ask "what's the Linux equivalent of [some Windows application]?" every two days.
If it doesn't run the applications I need to run, you could give me the OS for free and it still won't run them.
Throwing in red herrings about what certain security apps cost when there are free alternatives for Windows is pretty disingenuous as well.
I'm a little disappointed these days that less funny punchlines make it to the top tags.
I know I'm not the only one that tagged this "hollywoodlovesdick".
It was originally fourteen years, and swiftly amended to twenty eight years.
If fourteen years was originally considered sufficient protection when culture traveled at the speed of horseback, then five years is more than sufficient when culture travels at the speed of light down a fiber optic cable.
I hate today.
Enough already. It's done to death and not funny.
At least the OMGPONIES joke was fun, since it didn't rely on an endless avalanche of stupid fake news stories.
Amen.
Jack Tramiel may be an unsung hero of the personal computer, but he also had the dubious distinction of playing key roles in the destruction of two of the most important computer companies of the era, Commodore and later, Atari.
Tramiel - and more importantly, his engineers - is often left out in the modern retelling of the personal computer story, which is often presented as if everything that wasn't Intel, Microsoft, and Apple was some sort of bizarre tangental experiment that really didn't matter. Sadly, his management style was typical of the small-minded businessman, who treated his company as a fief and a playground for his personal grudges.
I often wonder how the Amiga would have fared long-term if a more competently-managed company than Commodore had bought it.
Maybe joining one of these new pseudo-religious religions (wicca, jedi, LaVey-style Satanism, whatever) isn't such a great idea.
These sorts of religions aren't faiths. They're social playgrounds for bored agnostics and atheists who don't really believe in religion per se, but they miss the silly ritualism, dress codes, and liturgy. It furthers the notion that adhering to some form of religion is better than agnosticism, atheism, or just plain being honest about what you do or do not believe.
Freedom of religion is a great thing. So rather than fight for fake faith rights, maybe we should fight for the right for an atheist or strongly agnostic politician to not have to lie about being a Christian just to be electable.
industry. I work with equipment whose speed and certain other capabilities are determined by the license codes you pay for. To me, this seems dishonest.
I'm sad to see software publishers embrace this model, but not terribly surprised.
If it weren't about money, it wouldn't have ended up in the courts in an issue concerning the amount of royalties the band was due.
I'm a fan, but let's be fair.
...this is about a record label subverting a contract. EMI clearly feels EMI will make more money by subverting the contract and selling tracks, Pink Floyd clearly feels Pink Floyd will make more money by selling entire albums and doesn't want to jeopardize that. EMI is probably right, Pink Floyd possibly so. The courts only come in due to the fact that they can actually afford to sue their label over EMI's failure to live up to its contract.
This drive to make TBS games as graphics intensive as possible goes hand in hand with reducing map size, amount of cities you can have at once, etc. In short, graphics require compromises which result in exactly the sorts of concessions which are important to multiplayer games (brief game, small maps, small amount of total cities) and which reduce my ability to play truly epic games that take place on vast maps with hundreds of cities.
I think I'd take simpler graphics with the current ruleset on huge maps than better graphics with the current ruleset on "reasonably sized" maps.
"For my money, I personally think that the best "Civ" game ever made was, by leaps and bounds, Alpha Centauri."
Seconded.
It's also the last game of its sort that allowed me to play the epic scale game I prefer: preposterously large maps and unreasonable amounts of cities. I enjoy that sort of gameplay, with very long-form games.
Every game since Civ 3 has seemed to make a mission out of forcing me to play a single-player game as if it were a multi-player game; short, small, and decisive. I wish the licensing for Alpha Centauri was such that it could have a proper sequel. But I also suspect they'd shrink it down for multiplayer expectations the way they did with Civ3 and Civ4.
I see what you did there, and it breaks my heart that I don't have mod points.
For the uninitiated: http://catb.org/jargon/html/magic-story.html
Thanks, good to hear from you again. A few years ago, I tried to get a KoS archive together, but I didn't have all the content (even with the help of archive.org).
I think the WoW-centric playerbase of MMOGs have a difficult time understanding how different UO was from even its immediate successors, let alone WoW, for good or bad.
I had the misfortune of having to explain a UO joke a few weeks ago that required re-hashing a lot of things that simply aren't common in MMOGs anymore (ridiculously loose interfaces, the lack of consent-based PvP, and the whole gear issue). I'm glad I was there for the UO experience, but honestly, I don't miss it. A lot of the old r33t.org people sure do, and it's sad to see them pine for glory days (for them) that will never return, simply for lack of unwilling victims.
Killed on Sight. Sadly, I do not have a complete archive between what I have on one computer backup and what's up on archive.org.
I forgot to develop the thought about bugs. The reason I brought up UO's bugginess is that knowing the current bugs and exploits was crucial in PKing, because if you didn't know them, the guy you fought very well might. Those who were uninterested in PVP were also rarely aware of the latest developments on that front.
All of the people I know who miss UO were into the PK scene.
Calling it PVP is misleading because for people who never played UO, that brings to mind more modern games' consent-based PVP systems. In WoW, you consent to PvP by playing on a PvP server, starting a duel, enabling your PvP flag, and/or joining a battleground. In UO, you could kill other players outside town, period. There were originally some "disincentives" to excessive PKing, but the biggest was getting a badass title that showed how notorious you were, so that was really more of an incentive.
Also, to those who didn't play it, it's necessary to understand that UO was not a level-based system where the only way to kill someone ten levels over you was for them to be comatose. It was a character skill-based system where the skills you used the most increased the most.
The typical PKer had an advantage over non-PKers because they had a different understanding (and in retrospect, a correct one) of how PVP combat worked. The typical non-PKer was far too enamoured of gear and character skills. The PKer understood that if you weren't ready to fight ten seconds after resurrection, you probably already lost. If your gameplay depended on superior equipment, you were quite honestly doing it wrong, and the difference between character skills was far, far less important than player experience. To add to the issue, UO was also riddled with a ridiculous amount of huge bugs. If you think you know what bugs are strictly from WoW experience, I have to say, you honestly have no idea.
Non-PVP zones were limited to cities, so the exits to the cities were a killing ground. Graveyards were resurrection zones, so those were a killing ground. Dungeons were favorite destinations, so those were a killing ground.
Many other posters have brought some or all of these issues up.
The key for wolves was to have enough sheep, and that's where the legacy of the Ultima series comes into play. Ultima was a game series that, for its time, had a very large fan base. Furthermore, it was a very moral series of games. Ultima 1-3 where pretty much standard-fare RPG mishmashes of Tolkien, every bad fantasy book ever made, and science fiction. When U4 came out, it was extremely different. Though it hasn't aged well (meaning I don't think you'll get a correct sense of how different it was at the time, if you emulate it today), it was a revelatory experience. No longer could you win the game by destroying everything in sight and not taking everything that wasn't locked down (assuming you were strong enough to defeat the guards or clever enough to evade them). Ultima 4 was a game about what it means to be virtuous. Ultima 5 dealt with what it means to enforce virtue as draconian law, subverting virtue. Ultima 6 concerned itself with the problem of evil and the moral ramifications of messiah prophecy. Ultima 7 was less about moral dimensions, but had solid gameplay, and Ultima 8 was the first game which really failed to meet fan expectations.
Due to the moral dimensions of U4-6, and the quality of U7, Ultima not only had a very strong following, but it appealed to a lot of people who liked the fact that it wasn't just another game where you can kill your way out of every situation. It appealed to players' senses of justice, fairness, and compassion. In fact, U4 introduced a Virtue System which not only codified 8 virtues (honesty, compassion, valor, justice, honor, sacrifice, spirituality and humility) and 3 principles which guided them (truth, love and courage). Ultima Online had a lot of players who remembered the U4-6 legacy with fondness, and had a fan base where such virtues were often exemplified in the community.
Ultima Online shipped without any virtue system, needless to say. It was filled with a lot of non-PVPers, for many of whom UO was their first mulitplayer RPG. Many of the PK crowd came from other smaller games where PVP was more common. The collision of values is what was important, because it gave a lot of the n
Second Life? I'd better get my penis helmet in order.
Ultima 4? I'd better start trying to be a better person.
Ultima Online? I'd better start trying to be a much, much worse person.
WoW? I'd better start practicing being a hot elf chick.
A Squaresoft RPG? Christ, I'd better start working on my hour long monologue skills.
"Achievement Unlocked"
http://armorgames.com/play/2893/achievement-unlocked
I think it's an excellent statement about the prevalent use of achievement systems for their own sake.