who will have the opportunity (and use it) to make millions from their political connections while drawing a huge salary and pension? Yeah. Ouch. Those poor bastards. Make no mistake, the only good thing to come out of this win is gridlock (and for the record, I'm a Democrate). The Dems want to screw you over just as much as the Reps, they're just not as good at it. They're the washouts from the Republican party. The ones who weren't good enough politicians to make it as Republicans.
Most Racing games use it for acceleration, but since most people just jam the button down hard all the time you'd hardly notice. Mad Maestro uses it, depending on the colors on the screen you have to hit the button with a certain pressure (ruin's the game for me, I'm r/g color blind:( ). Ratchet and Clank used it somewhere iirc. You'd push harder to go faster when you used the rocket booster or something. My experience is it's just like the analog feature: it's too hard to work between the extremes (not pressing at all vs all the way). After years of playing I can control my stearing in racing games somewhat, but I still can't use the pressure sensative button's in any meaningful fashion. Nice idea, didn't work.
This is a myth. Yes, they didn't sell as many N64s as Sony did Playstations. But you know what? They sold plenty of them and where just about the only ones making A grade games for the console (besides Rare). Almost the same situation for the Gamecube. What that means is, Nintendo is virtually guaranteed to sell at least one copy of any game they release for each console they've sold. If there are 10 million N64s out there, that gives Nintendo 10 million sales. And the weak competition for top tear games means those 10 million sales can be done at $50-$40 dollars, instead of the $20 for Greatest Hit titles. Sega of America tried to do this back in the days of the Saturn by discouraging third parties from bringing over popular japanese titles (They blew off Working Designs and wouldn't let Tecmo publish Dead or Alive), but it back fired because Sega couldn't keep up a steady stream of A+ titles on their own (Sonic 3D Blast anyone?). Nintendo's living Sega's dream. They've got total control of the market, and can basically skip market research because they know that if you've got an N64 or GC, chances are you're going to buy the next Mario/Zelda/Pokemon.
you're in backwards compatibility hell. That is, if you're a web dev. It's just about the only reason you still have a job. I remember one poor web dev who was estatic that IE was so popular now, because he could drop support for Netscape. Worked out real well until his company noticed their web dev's workload just got cut in half and fired half the staff (and took advantage of the vast pool or layed off web devs to cut the wages of the survivors).
there's not much to add. In the privacy section of the options dialog, there's an option to acquire licenses automatically. Well, if you're going to run the license, you need some means of verifying it, and often not just the default means. It'll install an active X control. To be fair, after a little research I've found that MS has added the usual security checks (a dialog box) to the install. So I take back what I said initially.
this has been done before with WinXP SP1, we already know it's insecure. But you know what? Most home users have firewalls now, if only in the form of a hardware router from their ISP, and any new users are running XP SP2. A simple firewall and a few trips to www.windowsupdate.com takes care of most problems. Now, a better article would point out who Windows Media Player will run any old code as root on your box if you've got "Obtain licenses automatically" checked. I can't believe there isn't more of a sh*t storm over that.
the vlc client plugin crashing FF every chance it gets? I think this might be one of those finger pointed issues (i.e. Mozilla saying it's a vlc problem and the vlc team saying it's a FF problem). I'd just like to see it fixed:(.
it's probably one customer service rep desparte to make a sale. Most of 'em have to sell a certain number to stay employeed you know. When comcast training materials specify the lies, or at least a manager/trainer is sighted for encouraging this stuff, then I'll sit up and take notice.
you've just reduced your benefits costs by 1/3. You've got those workers doing the work of one extra guy after all. Often, even with overtime this is economical. And if they're in the class of white collar workers who don't get overtime any more thanks to our Republican congress, more's the better.
And ya, the world is too obsessed with money. What they need to obess over is standard of living. If I've got 100,000 rubles, I've got lots of money, but if I'm in Russia, I'm probably still living like crap. But as for sorting it out, pretty soon a big war will kill off most of the poor, and just like it did in the Renaissance and after WWII that'll fix things. Either that or cheaper, more effective birth control, but I won't hold my breath...
if you consider the loss from the poor guy who works an extra shift to buy the latest boxset or movie. If he pirates the movie/show instead, he doesn't work the extra shift. i.e. he's less productive. So the economy loses there. Now, whether you think it's good that the poor guy doesn't have to work an extra shift just to escape from reality for a few hours...
I think what made Nigeria famous was the reams of spam comming out of the country using the scam, and the fact that "419 scam" is catchy. As for the spam, the country's dirt poor, and got a huge influx of free computers and infrastructure from charities in the 90's (the optimist in me calls those charities dumb, they cynic thinks they were developing the next India).
initially, you'll have a wire running from the controller to the console. After roughly 100 hours trying to master the same song and failing, a sharp yank on the cord enables the wireless feature.
the $1500 dollar waranty only kicks in if they can't remove the virus. And hell, what counts as 'removing' a virus anyway. Given that most viruses use random file names and sizes, and many periodically update themselves to change their signatures (becomming 'new' viruses in the process), good luck proving that the virus wasn't fully removed. But that won't prevent the techies from taking the heat from an asshat who thinks he's due $1500.
You might just was well try to hold back a tsunami with a shower curtain then fight against the tide of human stupidity. There's too many of them, and it's not just that they're ignorant, it's not just that they get angry when they're revealed to be ignorant, it's that they get angry when people suggest they can't go on being ignorant. e.g. an illiterate man who gets defensive and frustrated when he's forced to read, and can't. These people consider it a fundemental right to be happy, successful, and obliviously dumb. When you suggest they can't, you're not just insulting them, you're messing with the natural order of things.
The only way to deal with these people is to have less of them. Birth control and wars. I'd really like to see more birth control (the male birth control pill, when it arrives, will be a revolution on par with the female pill), but I'm expecting more wars. So it's off to the trenches with you, little Johnny Illterate.
The oil companies aren't bothered by 'ethics', so I don't see how we can. I said 'how', not 'why'. There's plenty of good to be had adhearing to ethics, but we're way past the stage where doing so will get anything done. The reality of the situation is, as oil gets more scarce, oil companies get richer. They don't care if world economies crumble. Thanks to cheap telecommunications and airplanes they can live thousands of miles away from the hell on earth they create. Something needs to be done, and soon. There isn't a lot of room to maneuver. We're gonna have to make some ugly compromises, fight fire with fire and what not. If that means kicking a few billions to private firms ( like we've been doing since this country was founded), so be it. At least patents eventually expire, energy monopolies aren't so easy to get rid of.
Using the wiimote with RI is just wrong. It completely ruins the core gameplay element of frantically spinning in circles while trying to run away and/or shoot zombies. What's next? A playable Tomb Raider game? That way lies madness.
google hires experts on Electrical Engineering to figure out how to reduce the power bill on those 450,000 servers. Hell, I'm all for it. Less power means less heat means quieter fans (w/o spending an arm/leg on an Antec Sonata or whathaveyou).
They're scared shitless of any one console manufacturer having has much power as Nintendo back in the Famicom days. Back then, Namco threatened a law suite and had to back down because they couldn't survive long enough as a company without a license to release Famicom titles.
Fatal Frame used it pretty well. When you got near something you could photograph the rumble kicked on. Ridge Racer V would rumble when a competitor was trying to pass you. I remember Metal Gear Solid's goofy 'telekinesis' sequence. There aren't a ton of good uses for rumble, but there are a few.
can be done. Software hackers/crackers do it every day. I don't think it's trivial (unless the corporation is really clumsy, i.e. adding reams of new code/functions). e.g., a common way to crack a game is to start with the demo.exe and compare it to the one off the box. Use that to track down the code that checks for the CD and remove it (this is why game companies are copy protecting demos lately). A clever OS programmer ( or a member of his/her community ), could do the same with your libraries and thiers. Once that's done, it wouldn't be hard to threaten suite, and if all else failed sue and win.
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who will have the opportunity (and use it) to make millions from their political connections while drawing a huge salary and pension? Yeah. Ouch. Those poor bastards. Make no mistake, the only good thing to come out of this win is gridlock (and for the record, I'm a Democrate). The Dems want to screw you over just as much as the Reps, they're just not as good at it. They're the washouts from the Republican party. The ones who weren't good enough politicians to make it as Republicans.
Not the most difficult problem to solve, you say? Personally, I'd take cold fusion over beating a large corporation in court any day of the week.
Most Racing games use it for acceleration, but since most people just jam the button down hard all the time you'd hardly notice. Mad Maestro uses it, depending on the colors on the screen you have to hit the button with a certain pressure (ruin's the game for me, I'm r/g color blind :( ). Ratchet and Clank used it somewhere iirc. You'd push harder to go faster when you used the rocket booster or something. My experience is it's just like the analog feature: it's too hard to work between the extremes (not pressing at all vs all the way). After years of playing I can control my stearing in racing games somewhat, but I still can't use the pressure sensative button's in any meaningful fashion. Nice idea, didn't work.
this is a huge emerging demographic. I'm not surprised Nintendo's going after it, I'm just surprised Sony and Microsoft aren't.
I want to go there.
This is a myth. Yes, they didn't sell as many N64s as Sony did Playstations. But you know what? They sold plenty of them and where just about the only ones making A grade games for the console (besides Rare). Almost the same situation for the Gamecube. What that means is, Nintendo is virtually guaranteed to sell at least one copy of any game they release for each console they've sold. If there are 10 million N64s out there, that gives Nintendo 10 million sales. And the weak competition for top tear games means those 10 million sales can be done at $50-$40 dollars, instead of the $20 for Greatest Hit titles. Sega of America tried to do this back in the days of the Saturn by discouraging third parties from bringing over popular japanese titles (They blew off Working Designs and wouldn't let Tecmo publish Dead or Alive), but it back fired because Sega couldn't keep up a steady stream of A+ titles on their own (Sonic 3D Blast anyone?). Nintendo's living Sega's dream. They've got total control of the market, and can basically skip market research because they know that if you've got an N64 or GC, chances are you're going to buy the next Mario/Zelda/Pokemon.
you're in backwards compatibility hell. That is, if you're a web dev. It's just about the only reason you still have a job. I remember one poor web dev who was estatic that IE was so popular now, because he could drop support for Netscape. Worked out real well until his company noticed their web dev's workload just got cut in half and fired half the staff (and took advantage of the vast pool or layed off web devs to cut the wages of the survivors).
there's not much to add. In the privacy section of the options dialog, there's an option to acquire licenses automatically. Well, if you're going to run the license, you need some means of verifying it, and often not just the default means. It'll install an active X control. To be fair, after a little research I've found that MS has added the usual security checks (a dialog box) to the install. So I take back what I said initially.
this has been done before with WinXP SP1, we already know it's insecure. But you know what? Most home users have firewalls now, if only in the form of a hardware router from their ISP, and any new users are running XP SP2. A simple firewall and a few trips to www.windowsupdate.com takes care of most problems. Now, a better article would point out who Windows Media Player will run any old code as root on your box if you've got "Obtain licenses automatically" checked. I can't believe there isn't more of a sh*t storm over that.
if everyone watches them on iPods and what not, they'll be paying for them with cash instead of advertising...
the vlc client plugin crashing FF every chance it gets? I think this might be one of those finger pointed issues (i.e. Mozilla saying it's a vlc problem and the vlc team saying it's a FF problem). I'd just like to see it fixed :(.
it's probably one customer service rep desparte to make a sale. Most of 'em have to sell a certain number to stay employeed you know. When comcast training materials specify the lies, or at least a manager/trainer is sighted for encouraging this stuff, then I'll sit up and take notice.
you've just reduced your benefits costs by 1/3. You've got those workers doing the work of one extra guy after all. Often, even with overtime this is economical. And if they're in the class of white collar workers who don't get overtime any more thanks to our Republican congress, more's the better.
And ya, the world is too obsessed with money. What they need to obess over is standard of living. If I've got 100,000 rubles, I've got lots of money, but if I'm in Russia, I'm probably still living like crap. But as for sorting it out, pretty soon a big war will kill off most of the poor, and just like it did in the Renaissance and after WWII that'll fix things. Either that or cheaper, more effective birth control, but I won't hold my breath...
if you consider the loss from the poor guy who works an extra shift to buy the latest boxset or movie. If he pirates the movie/show instead, he doesn't work the extra shift. i.e. he's less productive. So the economy loses there. Now, whether you think it's good that the poor guy doesn't have to work an extra shift just to escape from reality for a few hours...
I think what made Nigeria famous was the reams of spam comming out of the country using the scam, and the fact that "419 scam" is catchy. As for the spam, the country's dirt poor, and got a huge influx of free computers and infrastructure from charities in the 90's (the optimist in me calls those charities dumb, they cynic thinks they were developing the next India).
but before they could finish the leak, they were overcome with inexplicable sharp, stabbing pains in their neck, chest and stomach.
initially, you'll have a wire running from the controller to the console. After roughly 100 hours trying to master the same song and failing, a sharp yank on the cord enables the wireless feature.
the $1500 dollar waranty only kicks in if they can't remove the virus. And hell, what counts as 'removing' a virus anyway. Given that most viruses use random file names and sizes, and many periodically update themselves to change their signatures (becomming 'new' viruses in the process), good luck proving that the virus wasn't fully removed. But that won't prevent the techies from taking the heat from an asshat who thinks he's due $1500.
You might just was well try to hold back a tsunami with a shower curtain then fight against the tide of human stupidity. There's too many of them, and it's not just that they're ignorant, it's not just that they get angry when they're revealed to be ignorant, it's that they get angry when people suggest they can't go on being ignorant. e.g. an illiterate man who gets defensive and frustrated when he's forced to read, and can't. These people consider it a fundemental right to be happy, successful, and obliviously dumb. When you suggest they can't, you're not just insulting them, you're messing with the natural order of things.
The only way to deal with these people is to have less of them. Birth control and wars. I'd really like to see more birth control (the male birth control pill, when it arrives, will be a revolution on par with the female pill), but I'm expecting more wars. So it's off to the trenches with you, little Johnny Illterate.
The oil companies aren't bothered by 'ethics', so I don't see how we can. I said 'how', not 'why'. There's plenty of good to be had adhearing to ethics, but we're way past the stage where doing so will get anything done. The reality of the situation is, as oil gets more scarce, oil companies get richer. They don't care if world economies crumble. Thanks to cheap telecommunications and airplanes they can live thousands of miles away from the hell on earth they create. Something needs to be done, and soon. There isn't a lot of room to maneuver. We're gonna have to make some ugly compromises, fight fire with fire and what not. If that means kicking a few billions to private firms ( like we've been doing since this country was founded), so be it. At least patents eventually expire, energy monopolies aren't so easy to get rid of.
Using the wiimote with RI is just wrong. It completely ruins the core gameplay element of frantically spinning in circles while trying to run away and/or shoot zombies. What's next? A playable Tomb Raider game? That way lies madness.
google hires experts on Electrical Engineering to figure out how to reduce the power bill on those 450,000 servers. Hell, I'm all for it. Less power means less heat means quieter fans (w/o spending an arm/leg on an Antec Sonata or whathaveyou).
They're scared shitless of any one console manufacturer having has much power as Nintendo back in the Famicom days. Back then, Namco threatened a law suite and had to back down because they couldn't survive long enough as a company without a license to release Famicom titles.
Fatal Frame used it pretty well. When you got near something you could photograph the rumble kicked on. Ridge Racer V would rumble when a competitor was trying to pass you. I remember Metal Gear Solid's goofy 'telekinesis' sequence. There aren't a ton of good uses for rumble, but there are a few.
can be done. Software hackers/crackers do it every day. I don't think it's trivial (unless the corporation is really clumsy, i.e. adding reams of new code/functions). e.g., a common way to crack a game is to start with the demo .exe and compare it to the one off the box. Use that to track down the code that checks for the CD and remove it (this is why game companies are copy protecting demos lately). A clever OS programmer ( or a member of his/her community ), could do the same with your libraries and thiers. Once that's done, it wouldn't be hard to threaten suite, and if all else failed sue and win.