"It is has been discovered that these communist leaders are financially backed by Bush's Moral Majority League, and the Porn Site operators feel particularly duped by a fellow named Oral Roberts..."
I'm personally getting very tired of our elected officials exhibiting less outward courage than the average hamster, and routinely using 9/11 as their excuse-all in the name of "Security", whenever their pushing some pork barrel project that their looking to profit off of.
The question these people should've been asking is, how could we have prevented this with our current in place licensing procedures? *Not* how can we add something totally ineffectual into our licensing procedures that some company of mine will make more money from...
The people who make energizer batteries are going to start suing the RIAA for making their rabbit marketing campaign to look like an also ran/second best, because the RIAA just keeps GOING and GOING...
because of the simple reason that their purposely being limited by their manufacturers in order to achieve consumer lock in & price fixing to profit from. (Thus forcing everyone to buy only so & so's branded cr@p at whatever prices they choose to initially set...)
Since Pc's don't have only one manufacturer making part XYZ, there's more competitiveness in cost & features. Both of which practically guarantee's their dominance. Why?
Because this allows for a lot more configurability for user choices and preferences!
To give a more specific personal example - I generally don't like gaming on consoles because their "one-size-fits-all" mentality sucks big time... Either the controllers are too small for my larger hands or setup for the wrong handedness, the video is too dark for my bad eyesight, or a lack of configurability with the controls, etc.
When I played DL and another similar game, Mad Dog McCree, my basic impressions of them were the same. These aren't games, just greed gone completely overboard! Basically all they were saying to you was "Opps! You didn't move fast enough, you lose your quarter for that." over and over.
This quickly devolves into utter pointlessness for the player. Because it's like playing any multiplayer deathmatch game (quake3/counterstrike/etc) in a quarter fed machine would be at the arcade - a real loud invitation for everyone around you to believe you failed your insanity check...
Zonker comes in and says, "So you want to study my hibernation while using a Opium like drug? That's ok with me, just point me to the cot, and give me my pot."
You go to the table where you get verified as a legimated voter, and get a slip of paper from autotote like machine which has a 2d barcode containing a specially generated, encrypted & salted key number with the polling site number, machine number, transaction number and the public portion of two key numbers (Public & Private Keys) printed on it, one of these serial numbers (the private one) is sent electronically to a central database which creates a verified voter count record for that key, and the rest (public key & so on) of the info is printed on a human & computer readable transciption roll on that auto-tote machine for safe keeping to audit later as needed.
The voter then takes that slip and brings it over to an ATM like machine which reads in the public key number and presents the voter with voting screen, and selects his/her votes while the ATM like machine generates another yet private key and sends the voters choices along with it's salted private key, transaction id, machine Id, and polling site number in another (second) central database, as well as logging it all with a copy of the public key from the slip to a transaction log in the ATM like voting machine. Then the ATM like machine prints it's transaction ID on slip of paper and gives it back to the voter, who takes it back to a different auto-tote like machine which reads in the transaction ID & Public Key and sends them back over the to the first central database, which runs a read only query against the second central database and shows the voter his recorded votes for verification, and he/she punchs yes or no.
And when it's no, it just has the database destroy the record and start over, when yes the Auto-tote appends the it's transaction ID as well as the ATM like machine's transaction ID into the first central database, then prints all that info on a human & computer readable transciption roll. And now that the vote is finished & verified, it prints it's transaction ID on the voters slip and gives it back to the voter, who could then deposit their slip of paper in a locked bin for later recounting or just walk out with it. (Now if anyone wants check for errors, through an electronic or human audit, they can audit the three different voting machines, the two databases, and possibly... the slips of paper!)
So the voter got paper receipt, through which the voter was able to verify his/her vote was registered properly with the system and is kept highly auditable, while maintaining voting anonymity... So it's a little inconvenient to take one slip of paper from one machine, and visit two other machines with it, but what a small price to pay for your kneecaps or your democratic right to vote, Hmm?
Nope. The paper reciept you get from an ATM is too easily tampered with. It doesn't improve trust in the ATM system at all (except prehaps in an irrational way). It's just a convenience for the customer's own recordkeeping.
What, you think that you can walk into a bank with a reciept and tell them "I only withdrew $30, not $3000, so put $2970 into my account immediately." Good luck! (If it does work, it'd be due to a personal trust between the banker and you, not the strength of a faded slip of paper)
But, your forgetting that there still is a paper trail with ATM's - their just inside the ATM where it keeps a record of all of it's transactions, so the bank can track how much money was given out and to whom. Since electronic & mechanical mishaps, like not giving out bills on withdrawls (or gives out to many), happens often enough that there's a need for an audit trail of what exactly was supposed to happen with each transaction.
So, sure the bank may not completely trust that little faded slip of paper in it's customers hands, but they certainly do pay attention to that transcript roll inside the ATM - because it means the difference of losing hundreds of $20 bills to some 'lucky' smuck who only intended to withdraw $40!
Isn't Rick Wallace completely forgetting about...
on
P2P Leaks Surprises
·
· Score: 1
that old hackneyed phrase - "Military Intelligence"?
I'm not *as worried* about Michael Moore being anything, since he's not likely to get anywhere near the nuclear football, as I am about certain other people, whom can (and sometimes have) do more than/steal my food/...
That knockout of a redheaded Swordswoman on the cover of 'The Curse of the Azure Bonds' (http://atariforce.free.fr/st/images/scans/azure.j pg), with that 'oh, my' specially designed armor!;)
Wish i had some mod points...that was really cool-sounding.
It was pretty cool. I think mostly because we allowed lot's of firsts through our highly configurable concept of everything in the game being a mod/construct - the first to allow players to be monsters, creating special have players (knights mostly) create their own castles and dungeons. And with the DM's and Planeswalkers running around constantly building stuff in each of the levels, causing all the places to almost constantly change along with everything else in the game.
One of my Co-Syops likened it to some immense engine, where the participants was the energy that made it all go. And yes, I have seen some MUD's come close to our original game design, but not with our 'universe concept' or level of allowed player participation.
That suck-wad factor was exactly the prime reason why after I ran into that kind of 'required item' stupidity in puzzle games of that genre that I wound up eventually ignoring that whole Genre completely. I simply decided that the frustation was a large enough personal turn off and a waste of time screwing around with them, that they outweighed the 'payoff' of my trying to complete those games.
Back in the Old Days on bbses, games had turn limits. The bbs would usually have a time limit on how long you could be connected, too. Some bbses also featured a time bank which allowed you to deposit unused connection time for a particular day and withdraw at a later time.
I ran a 2-line Gaming bbs back in those old days. My Co-Sysops and I created something rather singular for our paying users, a specially configured D&D style multiplayer MUD, with literally 3 thousand some areas (we called them levels), complete with it's own time bank and honor/fame system. The reason for this was we created the 999 planes (levels) of hell & heaven, along with a HUGE game world to segement out the types of players we had joining the game but whose playing styles didn't mesh very well. For example, whenever some player PK'd another we had a daemon pop them into the first level of hell forever keeping them away from the 'normals' who didn't PK and such. Other players who completed many acts of heroism (or quests) were rewarded by appearances of staircases leading into one of the lower planes of heaven, and normal players who liked exploring around, eventually found new enterances into the other sections of the 'normal' game world and so on.
We had set up DM's for each area, who were charged with keeping that game area flowing smoothly, and doing game maintenance - such as creating new stuff inside their area, or modifying bits of it as needed to prevent abuses. I (and certain other trusted DM's) became 'planeswalkers', and were able to move from section to section, and perform these same functions there as well.
While in appearances it seemed pretty complex (and very similar to many commerical MMORPGS around nowadays), The game pretty much ran itself with a little regular game maintenance. And to our delight, each game area evolved into a more interesting settings onto themselves. For example, the PK'ers eventually formed up thier own demon clans (probably the first 'guilds') through their kills and waged demon gang wars amongst themselves for ascension points/powers/weapons/MI, and the occasional angelic band or planeswalker who came down to their planes for kicks. (and if the devils won, one of their rewards was the option to ascend to the prime plane and play monsters or cash in some fame points and descend into a lower plane of hell and so on.)
Eventually, I think we built in a little something for just about everybody. And it's a real pity that the Internet eventually came along and drew most peoples attention away from BBS's of the time, and caused the game to be abandoned. I can't tell you how many times I've wished I could recreate that old game system to setup & run on the internet somehow. Unfortunately, since I didn't program the whole thing myself, (one of my co-sysop's did most of that grunt work while I managed the BBS itself) - I don't have all of the source code to do so. (Maybe some real kind person here will point me towards a very/completely configurable Perl/JAVA/MySQL/PHP/Python MMORPG game system that I can try-n-recreate it with...)
But anyways, my overall point here is I think if some group (gaming co or otherwise) wanted to address all of these MMORPG playability items, then they could easily recreate this kind of a setup for segmenting players to their own areas, do it in a just as appealing way as we had done it back then.:)
IT: You realize that when something goes wrong on the computer, it tells you what went wrong? That message helps us know what the problem is?
USER: Yes, but e-mail doesn't work.
Hmm, kinda Sounds like a tech support call from Homer Simpson in the Nuclear reactor control room just moments before the next three mile island incident...
IT: Mr. Simpson, when the computer display says "Do you wish to continue the reactor core melt down", You are NOT supposed to just click simply 'OK' to get rid of the error message.
Homer: But it was getting in the way of my virtual doughnuts!
It just demonstrates exactly the point of what some people find annoying. Somedays, I feel just like you expressed above, and on others I don't. (I'm such a pyschotic, aren't I?) But really, that's exactly the way everybody is at one time or another - nice, groovy, easy to get along with at one time, and completely the opposite the next. And if you dig deep enough into the issue, and you'll probably conclude that annoyance is an expression of intolerance for something at hand. Take singles and married couples without kids for example, many of them carp about how unruly kids are, while married couples who have kids simply tolerate that same behavior without comment... So it can be said that annoyance/intolerance is mostly a matter of lack of experience with whatever is at hand.
And, on the other hand, intolerance can (and usually does) lead to Bigotry when it's applied on a larger social group. And it's cliche hearing some Jock/cheerleader/"Normal" griping about how the 'Geeks' just don't fit in, or are so annoying, etc.
But - just change the wording wording of that cliche a little, to so that it's white people saying that about black people and look what you'll get - Lot's of people yelling thats outright racism. Isn't it odd how some people think it's ok word it that way, But not the other?
"He concludes by suggesting ways to make games more attractive again"
Some things that would make games "more attractive again" to me are -
1) REASONABLE prices at release, not two or three years later in the bargain bins. (Where the game might not even be, and thus forcing us to go hunting in the OOP sites...)
2) Games that actually WORK as advestised on installation, not waiting 6 or 7 months later for multiple patchs & Bug fixes to do so. (If you can't hire somebody to fix your cr*p, don't complain when we have to resort someone who can...)
3) REASONABLE Recommended system requirements, and not having to dump practically half a grand to supe up pc before the game becomes decently playable each time. (If you can't hire somebody to program your cr*p tightly, don't be bitchin when we find someone who can...)
4) GOOD playability, and replayability, Not just play it once and discard like another milk carton. (We're trying to keep them from heading into the landfills, but you ain't us helping any by making non quality stuff that isn't fit for a freebie box at a garage sale.)
5) Either STANDARDIZE player interfaces or make them more configurable, so I don't have keep re-learning strange Keyboard/mouse/joystick setups as I move across titles while playing them. Carpal tunnel be damned! Getting Gamer's hand cramps sucks worse! (You wanna pay our Medical bills? I thought not.)
.
.
.
6) Oh yeah, I almost forgot - STOP making silly arse Yet Another Year/famed one, and instead sell modules in which players can add in their own choosen "flavoring". (Hey, you know something? I've been so sick of the 'Yet Another Sports Title' game syndrome, that I won't even bother looking at those titles anymore... Can't live without marketing them ? Go ahead and make them, I'll just keep ignoring them, But don't be complaining that the game industry is 'tapped out' or whatever when you keep on making those stupid decisions.)
"No comment here, no comment at all. We only wanted to introduce you to one of our very special corporations, Microsoft, who conducts business in a place called Seattle in a place that used to be United States of America, land of the free, home of the brave. And if by some strange coincidence you should run across their software on Linux, you had best think only good thoughts. Anything less than that is handled at your own risk, because if you do encounter Microsoft software in your Linux PC you can be sure of one thing: you have entered the Twilight Zone."
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe in the light of all the rabid persecution by RIAA & MPAA everyone is just getting better at hiding their booty.
"Hide everything quick, The RIAA fuzz is pulling out their mudslingers!"
"It is has been discovered that these communist leaders are financially backed by Bush's Moral Majority League, and the Porn Site operators feel particularly duped by a fellow named Oral Roberts..."
So that's where my faded albino wookie costume disappeared too...
I'm personally getting very tired of our elected officials exhibiting less outward courage than the average hamster, and routinely using 9/11 as their excuse-all in the name of "Security", whenever their pushing some pork barrel project that their looking to profit off of.
The question these people should've been asking is, how could we have prevented this with our current in place licensing procedures? *Not* how can we add something totally ineffectual into our licensing procedures that some company of mine will make more money from...
I just give them my old BBS # instead, which laughably enough, is a some companies fax line now.
The people who make energizer batteries are going to start suing the RIAA for making their rabbit marketing campaign to look like an also ran/second best, because the RIAA just keeps GOING and GOING...
because of the simple reason that their purposely being limited by their manufacturers in order to achieve consumer lock in & price fixing to profit from. (Thus forcing everyone to buy only so & so's branded cr@p at whatever prices they choose to initially set...)
Since Pc's don't have only one manufacturer making part XYZ, there's more competitiveness in cost & features. Both of which practically guarantee's their dominance. Why?
Because this allows for a lot more configurability for user choices and preferences!
To give a more specific personal example - I generally don't like gaming on consoles because their "one-size-fits-all" mentality sucks big time... Either the controllers are too small for my larger hands or setup for the wrong handedness, the video is too dark for my bad eyesight, or a lack of configurability with the controls, etc.
When I played DL and another similar game, Mad Dog McCree, my basic impressions of them were the same. These aren't games, just greed gone completely overboard! Basically all they were saying to you was "Opps! You didn't move fast enough, you lose your quarter for that." over and over.
This quickly devolves into utter pointlessness for the player. Because it's like playing any multiplayer deathmatch game (quake3/counterstrike/etc) in a quarter fed machine would be at the arcade - a real loud invitation for everyone around you to believe you failed your insanity check...
Zonker comes in and says, "So you want to study my hibernation while using a Opium like drug? That's ok with me, just point me to the cot, and give me my pot."
I wonder if this is the *real* reason behind their sudden interest in buying up SUSE?
;)
I mean, did Sun recently discover that one of it's (SCO supplied) engineers misappropriated some SUSE code to make Solaris run that way?
You go to the table where you get verified as a legimated voter, and get a slip of paper from autotote like machine which has a 2d barcode containing a specially generated, encrypted & salted key number with the polling site number, machine number, transaction number and the public portion of two key numbers (Public & Private Keys) printed on it, one of these serial numbers (the private one) is sent electronically to a central database which creates a verified voter count record for that key, and the rest (public key & so on) of the info is printed on a human & computer readable transciption roll on that auto-tote machine for safe keeping to audit later as needed.
The voter then takes that slip and brings it over to an ATM like machine which reads in the public key number and presents the voter with voting screen, and selects his/her votes while the ATM like machine generates another yet private key and sends the voters choices along with it's salted private key, transaction id, machine Id, and polling site number in another (second) central database, as well as logging it all with a copy of the public key from the slip to a transaction log in the ATM like voting machine. Then the ATM like machine prints it's transaction ID on slip of paper and gives it back to the voter, who takes it back to a different auto-tote like machine which reads in the transaction ID & Public Key and sends them back over the to the first central database, which runs a read only query against the second central database and shows the voter his recorded votes for verification, and he/she punchs yes or no.
And when it's no, it just has the database destroy the record and start over, when yes the Auto-tote appends the it's transaction ID as well as the ATM like machine's transaction ID into the first central database, then prints all that info on a human & computer readable transciption roll. And now that the vote is finished & verified, it prints it's transaction ID on the voters slip and gives it back to the voter, who could then deposit their slip of paper in a locked bin for later recounting or just walk out with it. (Now if anyone wants check for errors, through an electronic or human audit, they can audit the three different voting machines, the two databases, and possibly... the slips of paper!)
So the voter got paper receipt, through which the voter was able to verify his/her vote was registered properly with the system and is kept highly auditable, while maintaining voting anonymity... So it's a little inconvenient to take one slip of paper from one machine, and visit two other machines with it, but what a small price to pay for your kneecaps or your democratic right to vote, Hmm?
Nope. The paper reciept you get from an ATM is too easily tampered with. It doesn't improve trust in the ATM system at all (except prehaps in an irrational way). It's just a convenience for the customer's own recordkeeping.
What, you think that you can walk into a bank with a reciept and tell them "I only withdrew $30, not $3000, so put $2970 into my account immediately." Good luck! (If it does work, it'd be due to a personal trust between the banker and you, not the strength of a faded slip of paper)
But, your forgetting that there still is a paper trail with ATM's - their just inside the ATM where it keeps a record of all of it's transactions, so the bank can track how much money was given out and to whom. Since electronic & mechanical mishaps, like not giving out bills on withdrawls (or gives out to many), happens often enough that there's a need for an audit trail of what exactly was supposed to happen with each transaction.
So, sure the bank may not completely trust that little faded slip of paper in it's customers hands, but they certainly do pay attention to that transcript roll inside the ATM - because it means the difference of losing hundreds of $20 bills to some 'lucky' smuck who only intended to withdraw $40!
that old hackneyed phrase - "Military Intelligence"?
I'm not *as worried* about Michael Moore being anything, since he's not likely to get anywhere near the nuclear football, as I am about certain other people, whom can (and sometimes have) do more than /steal my food/...
Slamming all those innocent little electrons against the TV screen... We must cease and desist this violence immediately!
With Madden 2004 coming out in the same month as DOOM 3, I *know* my >sports freak boss likely won't be in on that day - Can you say DOOM 3 LANPARTY?
That knockout of a redheaded Swordswoman on the cover of 'The Curse of the Azure Bonds' (http://atariforce.free.fr/st/images/scans/azure.j pg), with that 'oh, my' specially designed armor! ;)
It's no frickin wonder why some of my friends are getting confused about which copy of the game they should buy before coming over to play with me!
It was pretty cool. I think mostly because we allowed lot's of firsts through our highly configurable concept of everything in the game being a mod/construct - the first to allow players to be monsters, creating special have players (knights mostly) create their own castles and dungeons. And with the DM's and Planeswalkers running around constantly building stuff in each of the levels, causing all the places to almost constantly change along with everything else in the game.
One of my Co-Syops likened it to some immense engine, where the participants was the energy that made it all go. And yes, I have seen some MUD's come close to our original game design, but not with our 'universe concept' or level of allowed player participation.
That suck-wad factor was exactly the prime reason why after I ran into that kind of 'required item' stupidity in puzzle games of that genre that I wound up eventually ignoring that whole Genre completely. I simply decided that the frustation was a large enough personal turn off and a waste of time screwing around with them, that they outweighed the 'payoff' of my trying to complete those games.
I ran a 2-line Gaming bbs back in those old days. My Co-Sysops and I created something rather singular for our paying users, a specially configured D&D style multiplayer MUD, with literally 3 thousand some areas (we called them levels), complete with it's own time bank and honor/fame system. The reason for this was we created the 999 planes (levels) of hell & heaven, along with a HUGE game world to segement out the types of players we had joining the game but whose playing styles didn't mesh very well. For example, whenever some player PK'd another we had a daemon pop them into the first level of hell forever keeping them away from the 'normals' who didn't PK and such. Other players who completed many acts of heroism (or quests) were rewarded by appearances of staircases leading into one of the lower planes of heaven, and normal players who liked exploring around, eventually found new enterances into the other sections of the 'normal' game world and so on.
We had set up DM's for each area, who were charged with keeping that game area flowing smoothly, and doing game maintenance - such as creating new stuff inside their area, or modifying bits of it as needed to prevent abuses. I (and certain other trusted DM's) became 'planeswalkers', and were able to move from section to section, and perform these same functions there as well.
While in appearances it seemed pretty complex (and very similar to many commerical MMORPGS around nowadays), The game pretty much ran itself with a little regular game maintenance. And to our delight, each game area evolved into a more interesting settings onto themselves. For example, the PK'ers eventually formed up thier own demon clans (probably the first 'guilds') through their kills and waged demon gang wars amongst themselves for ascension points/powers/weapons/MI, and the occasional angelic band or planeswalker who came down to their planes for kicks. (and if the devils won, one of their rewards was the option to ascend to the prime plane and play monsters or cash in some fame points and descend into a lower plane of hell and so on.)
Eventually, I think we built in a little something for just about everybody. And it's a real pity that the Internet eventually came along and drew most peoples attention away from BBS's of the time, and caused the game to be abandoned. I can't tell you how many times I've wished I could recreate that old game system to setup & run on the internet somehow. Unfortunately, since I didn't program the whole thing myself, (one of my co-sysop's did most of that grunt work while I managed the BBS itself) - I don't have all of the source code to do so. (Maybe some real kind person here will point me towards a very/completely configurable Perl/JAVA/MySQL/PHP/Python MMORPG game system that I can try-n-recreate it with...)
But anyways, my overall point here is I think if some group (gaming co or otherwise) wanted to address all of these MMORPG playability items, then they could easily recreate this kind of a setup for segmenting players to their own areas, do it in a just as appealing way as we had done it back then. :)
IT: You realize that when something goes wrong on the computer, it tells you what went wrong? That message helps us know what the problem is?
USER: Yes, but e-mail doesn't work.
Hmm, kinda Sounds like a tech support call from Homer Simpson in the Nuclear reactor control room just moments before the next three mile island incident...
IT: Mr. Simpson, when the computer display says "Do you wish to continue the reactor core melt down", You are NOT supposed to just click simply 'OK' to get rid of the error message.
Homer: But it was getting in the way of my virtual doughnuts!
No, No. Don't be apolegetic(sp?) about your post.
It just demonstrates exactly the point of what some people find annoying. Somedays, I feel just like you expressed above, and on others I don't. (I'm such a pyschotic, aren't I?) But really, that's exactly the way everybody is at one time or another - nice, groovy, easy to get along with at one time, and completely the opposite the next. And if you dig deep enough into the issue, and you'll probably conclude that annoyance is an expression of intolerance for something at hand. Take singles and married couples without kids for example, many of them carp about how unruly kids are, while married couples who have kids simply tolerate that same behavior without comment... So it can be said that annoyance/intolerance is mostly a matter of lack of experience with whatever is at hand.
And, on the other hand, intolerance can (and usually does) lead to Bigotry when it's applied on a larger social group. And it's cliche hearing some Jock/cheerleader/"Normal" griping about how the 'Geeks' just don't fit in, or are so annoying, etc.
But - just change the wording wording of that cliche a little, to so that it's white people saying that about black people and look what you'll get - Lot's of people yelling thats outright racism. Isn't it odd how some people think it's ok word it that way, But not the other?
"He concludes by suggesting ways to make games more attractive again" Some things that would make games "more attractive again" to me are - 1) REASONABLE prices at release, not two or three years later in the bargain bins. (Where the game might not even be, and thus forcing us to go hunting in the OOP sites...) 2) Games that actually WORK as advestised on installation, not waiting 6 or 7 months later for multiple patchs & Bug fixes to do so. (If you can't hire somebody to fix your cr*p, don't complain when we have to resort someone who can...) 3) REASONABLE Recommended system requirements, and not having to dump practically half a grand to supe up pc before the game becomes decently playable each time. (If you can't hire somebody to program your cr*p tightly, don't be bitchin when we find someone who can...) 4) GOOD playability, and replayability, Not just play it once and discard like another milk carton. (We're trying to keep them from heading into the landfills, but you ain't us helping any by making non quality stuff that isn't fit for a freebie box at a garage sale.) 5) Either STANDARDIZE player interfaces or make them more configurable, so I don't have keep re-learning strange Keyboard/mouse/joystick setups as I move across titles while playing them. Carpal tunnel be damned! Getting Gamer's hand cramps sucks worse! (You wanna pay our Medical bills? I thought not.) . . . 6) Oh yeah, I almost forgot - STOP making silly arse Yet Another Year/famed one, and instead sell modules in which players can add in their own choosen "flavoring". (Hey, you know something? I've been so sick of the 'Yet Another Sports Title' game syndrome, that I won't even bother looking at those titles anymore... Can't live without marketing them ? Go ahead and make them, I'll just keep ignoring them, But don't be complaining that the game industry is 'tapped out' or whatever when you keep on making those stupid decisions.)
"No comment here, no comment at all. We only wanted to introduce you to one of
our very special corporations, Microsoft, who conducts business in a place
called Seattle in a place that used to be United States of America, land of the free, home of the brave.
And if by some strange coincidence you should run across their software on Linux,
you had best think only good thoughts. Anything less than that is handled
at your own risk, because if you do encounter Microsoft software in your Linux PC
you can be sure of one thing: you have entered the Twilight Zone."