What about a satellite connection? Could that work? Since all you need is a network connection, the latency shouldn't really be a problem.
Yeah, it sucks that they're using this online DRM, but there'll probably be some sort of crack, eventually. No DRM scheme is totally unbreakable. Anyway, there's always classic Diablo, plus the Diablo clones: Sacred and Sacred 2 were both pretty decent, though they both have pretty strong DRM, as well.
The thinking is that pirates have a very short attention span. Most pirates are (theoretically) uninterested in playing games that are months old; if you can keep the game secure for a month or two, then the DRM has justified itself. The people who were sitting on the fence will purchase the game, rather than pirating it, and the people who would have been freeloading are kept off your servers, reducing your operating costs.
Does it really work out that way, in real life? Who knows. But the MBAs really aren't as stupid as you're making them out to be. They know that the DRM will be broken. They're not under some illusion that their DRM is unbreakable and that every pirate will be completely stymied forever, give up, and go buy their game. What they're trying to accomplish is to maximize the amount of sales that they get in the initial rush of interest, when the game is first released. Some companies will even release a patch that disables the DRM (partially or completely), once the game has been out for a while. Granted, in some cases, it takes years for this to happen, but maybe this will become more common and happen sooner, in the future, as it becomes adopted by more companies.
What about Linux support? Blizzard ports all their games to the Mac, but they've expressed absolutely no interest in porting to Linux. Are they fucking over the Linux users? Or are the Linux users just not in the demographic that they're shooting for?
Yeah, I can understand why they're doing it (given the insane piracy and cheating rates in Diablo I and II), but it's still something that I'd rather they didn't do. Personally, I played almost exclusively on battle.net (hardcore, then hardcore ladder), but there were some single player characters that also played, when my internet connection went down, battle.net was unreachable, or I needed the ability to pause the game. I played a few LAN games, too, but the vast majority of my time was spent on battle.net. A few years later, I started dating a fellow gamer and introduced her to Diablo 2. She became a huge fan, but was always too shy to play on battle.net (I guess all the teenage boys intimidated her). As a result, we played LAN games exclusively. I think she missed out on a major part of the appeal of the Diablo franchise (playing MP games on battle.net), but she never really expressed any interest at all in doing so. When I first started playing D1 and D2, I would have scoffed at the idea of anyone ever playing those games single-player or on LANs, but it eventually become clear to me that there are people who play like that and don't want to change. Speaking as someone who fits fairly well into the "MP is where the real game is" mold, it sucks that these people are being tossed aside today, with their concerns ignored. It also sucks that traditional styles of gaming are being phased out, in favor of stronger DRM and bigger profits. At least Diablo 3 still has a single player mode. It seems as though almost everyone but Bethesda has abandoned that.
I'm a pretty big fan of the original Diablo, partially because it was so bleak, dark, and intense. Diablo 2 was a really fun game, as well, but it was significantly less thematically dark. Diablo 3 seems to be continuing the trend, with it transitioning to a more standard, high fantasy theme, which a bad thing, just not the thematic direction that I personally would have taken. More so than draconian DRM, monetization of the game's economy, and the loss of LAN play, this is what worries me most of all. I'm a pretty big fan of Leonard Boyarsky, so I'm trusting that he'll do a good job. It's just a bit frustrating to hear that him talk about how the Diablo franchise is "too dark". Ugh. Oh well. Even if it's got unicorns shitting rainbows and candy, it'll probably still be fun.
Sucks that I'm going to be thinking about that ex-girlfriend every time I play Diablo 3, but, man, she was even more fucked up than me (and that's saying something). Last I heard, she was considering sex reassignment surgery.
Well, you have to understand that this is being framed in terms of the gun control debate. Nobody -- not even the British -- has a problem with hunting rifles. You can get hunting rifles easily enough anywhere in the world. Part of the reason why they're so unregulated is because they're really not very good at doing anything but shooting deer. Or maybe a passerby or two. It's not like you can mow down an entire school. Which brings us to semi-automatic weapons (scary), automatic weapons (very scary), and military-grade hardware (panic-inducing). Do assault rifles sprout legs, walk up to schools, and open fire? Of course not. You need a human to do that. Couldn't our psychopath just run around, hitting people with a nailboard? Yeah... but with an assault weapon, it's much more efficient. It seems somehow different, worse... something that needs to be regulated. At least, when you've got a psychopath with a nailboard, it seems like you've got a chance. Facing down a psychopath with an assault weapon seems terribly unfair, and, even if you've got your own assault rifle, he's fucking crazy -- he's got less to lose than you do.
So, let's recap. Telephones: limited ability to incite anyone, perceived as safe, essentially unregulated. E-mail: can be easily used to incite others, yet the perceived lack of immediacy and instantaneous communication makes it seem a bit less scary. Instant messaging, text messaging, etc: scary, because it combines the ability to incite with the immediacy of face-to-face communications.
People dislike the concept of ideas being communicated easily and quickly almost as much as they dislike bullets being disseminated quickly and easily. Back in the days when you had to run through each individual opponent with a sword or tell each individual citizen your revolutionary ideas, it seemed much safer and easier. Guns and mass communications are very similar. Both changed the world forever, and people have been trying to change the world back to how it used to work, ever since.
I'm not making any value judgements here, just saying that I understand why people are in such a panic and why they're blaming technology, rather than themselves.
Yes, but he has STRONG OPINIONS that NEED TO BE HEARD.
Actually, I've been debating adding him to my ignore list for a good long time, but I think he means well, even if he's a bit of pseudo-intellectual blowhard. Then again, aren't we all? This is Slashdot, after all.
One can either rage at all the trolls, pseudo-intellectuals, and partisans, or one can accept that the internet is actually a very amusing circus, and that each of us play our part to entertain the audience.
Interested in space? This is communicating with space aliens, which is science fiction. It's slightly better than the army spending billions of dollars on remote viewing and other psychic nonsense, but it's still so far removed from science that I shudder to think of all the people wasting their talent on this. It's harmless, it's keeps idealistic dreamers busy, and there's the ever so slight chance that something interesting will turn up, so I'd say that it's probably not worth raising a stink over it. On the other hand, I'm glad that Obama is more concerned with practicality than idealism, because I find the idealism necessary to support SETI naive.
Maybe it's true what they say about how you become more conservative with age, because it becomes harder and harder for me to retain the idealistic beliefs that I had 20 years ago, when I was an ardent socialist. These days, I usually just hope for gridlock, so that nothing gets done and nobody fucks up the system any worse than it already is. I'm still probably more of a social democrat than anything else, these days, but it's difficult to even work up the enthusiasm and idealism for that watered-down philosophy. Oh well. Such is life for that most melodramatic of people, the disillusioned existentialist.
No, you're definitely not the only one to feel that way. In fact, I'd say it's a time-honored tradition for older games to come out and poo-poo the latest Elder Scrolls game, regaling us with stories of how complex and deep the older games were. That's not to say that I disagree; in fact, I whole-heartedly agree with this criticism. However, I also find the later games to be enjoyable for what they are. As long as you're willing to accept that certain features have been irrevocably streamlined away, and they're not coming back, you can still have quite a bit of fun with Morrowind, Oblivion, and Fallout 3 (which isn't an Elder Scrolls game, of course, but still uses the same engine).
I get just as frustrated as everyone else, when I load up the newest Elder Scrolls game, and some weapon or skill that I liked is gone, but -- usually -- the rest of the game makes up for that. And they can never take Arena, Daggerfall, or Morrowind away from us. If you want to levitate, while shooting a crossbow, well, you can always load up one of the older games. In fact, Morrowind and Oblivion both still have a surprisingly active modding community (or, they did, when I last re-installed the games and was collecting mods).
Now, I'm not a fanboy, and I'm not saying Oblivion was an amazing, top-notch game -- but each of the Elder Scrolls games has been deeply flawed in its own idiosyncratic way, and I've been able to overlook those flaws, because I like the overall game design. Arena is a bit fuzzy in my memory, but I remember it being a bit shallow. Personally, I thought Daggerfall was almost unplayably buggy, soullessly random, and had a horrendous UI. Morrowind was frankly a bit boring, with nothing but endless Cliff Divers for miles and miles. Oblivion heavily penalized you for improving any non-combat skills, and the vaunted Radiant AI was a total joke. But there were aspects to those games that kept me playing for years. So, in the end, I'd advise cautious optimism and trust in the game design. The worst thing that happens is that you post another stereotypical "back in MY day" rant on the official forums and wait for a mod that fixes all the bone-headed decisions they made in the new game.
Morrowind was under development for years. That gave them a lot of time to hand craft the world. I like all the Elder Scrolls games, but Daggerfall was, by far, my least favorite, and Oblivion followed Daggerfall more closely than it did Morrowind. I thought that made Oblivion less fun than Morrowind, but it was still a fun game. Unfortunately, there's been a strong trend in the Elder Scrolls series to streamline away all the features, until you're left with an FPS -- but this started with Morrowind, not Oblivion. Daggerfall had more skills and features than Morrowind did. It's just that many Elder Scrolls gamers weren't even alive when Daggerfall was released, much less Arena...
Fallout addressed most, if not all, of Oblivion's problems. You should check that out, if you thought Oblivion had unmet potential. Fallout 3 is probably even more streamlined than Oblivion, but it's got more content and gives you more opportunities to RP, even if it's the ridiculous Bioware-style RP that consists of choosing between angelic good and psychopathic evil dialogue options.
However, consoles only have a subset of features that PCs have. This makes designing a game for the PC, then porting to the consoles a huge pain in the ass. When they design for the console, then port to the PC, they may get legions of angry PC gamers, cursing them for the horrible UI and lack of configurable options, but it's a whole lot less work for them. Designing for a neutral platform, then customizing for each platform is a rather large undertaking, and I can understand why (though I do not condone it, obviously) they would simply release half-assed ports, rather than put in all that effort.
It's a huge fucking pain having to fix all the console-inspired idiocy in each Bethesda game, but, once you install enough UI mods, there's actually a fun game. I'm simply amazed that Bethesda is so lazy that they push all that effort on us, however. I guess we need to be thankful that the interface is even moddable...
I didn't read the linked article, but I did skim the summary. Depending on the contract that you signed and the local laws, that may legally be their code. If I were you, I'd consult a lawyer familiar with intellectual property before I did anything else. Make sure that you have a copy of the contract. If, in the opinion of the lawyer, the code is actually yours, then you should probably follow up with a cease-and-desist letter, courtesy of the lawyer. This won't be all that expensive. Hell, even if the situation is muddier than you'd like, they may still back down, if you can get your lawyer to send an appropriately threatening letter. Depending on the size of the company, they may not be financially capable of defending themselves from a lawsuit. Depending on how ethically challenged you and your lawyer happen to be, this may actually prove to be your best bet, if they are legally in the right. If they blow you off (which is very likely, unless they're very small), then you're going to have to actually bring them to small claims court. A lawyer is not strictly necessary here, but, again, you'd be foolish to avoid using one.
I mean, seriously, what do you expect people to say, other than "consult a lawyer"?
How about just going back to making a good desktop browser? I don't want a Mozilla operating system, some sort of "open web experience", a smartphone browser, or anything else that Mozilla is peddling these days. I want a browser that's dedicated to desktop computers, with a UI designed for a big, desktop monitor (not a netbook or a tablet), and I want the browser to render HTML. I don't need a database in my URL bar; a radical, new UI; an integrated PDF viewer, implemented in Javascript; Harry Potter themes for my browser; or anything else that Mozilla has been advertising (except for the faster Javascript performance, which is pretty nice).
All I want is a web browser. I feel like a throw-back, someone who doesn't belong in today's world, full of ideologically-driven features, heavy-handed developers who tell me how to get my work done (rather than giving me a product that allows me to get the work done the way I want), constant buzz words, and marketing. People keep telling me how fast the web is moving, how fast IT is moving, and all I see are people chasing trends, fads, and buzzwords. That's fine for corporate culture, but when you just want to open your web browser and render some HTML, the last thing you want is to be assaulted with this crap. It's time for someone to make a browser that does nothing but render HTML. And don't suggest Opera, because I certainly don't need a bittorrent client in my browser.
And why the hell is Mozilla experimenting with all these ridiculous things, like low power servers? For fuck's sake, all I want from them is a browser, not a R&D department that makes the world a better place.
Hey, you have to give the editors time to vet each and every story before it's posted. The kind of journalistic integrity that we Slashdotters demand takes a lot of time and effort. Do you think they just sit around all day, giving every story a rubber stamp of approval? That way lies dupes, trolls, thinly-veiled advertisements, and inflammatory nonsense. I for one am glad that they... oh never mind. I can't keep up this level of irony.
That's not entirely true. If you compare 2.6.0 to 3.0, there's a crapload of changes. However, if you're comparing 2.6.39 to 3.0, it's true that there aren't any big changes. The main reason is because there was no experimental 2.7 branch. If 2.6 had progressed to around 2.6.5 or so, then received nothing but occasional bug fixes, I'd think we'd be amazed by all the new features. Linux development has changed quite a lot since the early days, when the stable kernel branch was considered delicate and protected from any major changes. Now that we've changed the way that Linux is developed (old way: even numbered minor versions are stable, odd numbered minor versions are experimental; new way: new features are continually added to the kernel, rather than going to the experimental branch), added in crazy amounts of features, and it's getting to be a bigger pain to maintain, why not bump the major version?
Was there a compelling reason to bump the major version number? It depends on your point of view, really. I agree with Linus on this matter. It was a good a time as any, plus it was warranted. I understand that some people are disappointed that 3.0 doesn't bring substantial changes from the very last 2.6 patch, but that's not how Linux is developed any more. Is the new way better? Who knows. It seems to be working out well, though.
Maybe the Tetris game has a social aspect, where high scores are collected and posted on the internet, along with a geographical tag, like "New York, USA". It could be that the high scores are even customized for your location, so that you can compete against all the other New Yorkers playing that game. Some people would think that was the greatest thing in the entire world, I'm sure. For the more cynical among us, it's difficult to believe that social gaming is anything more than a big scam, but not everyone cares so much about their privacy. One man's privacy invasion is another man's social game, I guess.
Are you seriously saying that you never heard of Somalia before a few days ago? You never heard about the brutality of the warlords, the civil war, the pirates, the international naval effort to patrol the piracy-infested waters, and the kidnappings that the pirates have engaged in? I'm kind of hoping that's not what you meant, but it's difficult to construe it in any other way. Even Slashdot has reported off-and-on about the situation, though nowhere near as much as the constant barrage of Facebook, Twitter, Google, and Apple stories.
I'm honestly surprised that you'd be completely ignorant about what's going on over there. If I weren't so lazy, I'd pull up some slashdot stories about Somalia, to point out that this has been big news for several years now.
The sad thing is that I think that list was not meant ironically. Up until the point at which he mentioned carbon monoxide detectors, I was pretty sure it was ironic. Maybe it's because he led off with edible toothpaste and followed up with freeze dried food. After that, almost anything sounds like it's part of a joke.
Slashdot Mirror
Just because they make less money than you or may be less educated than you doesn't mean that they are stupid or enjoy insipid TV programming.
Myself, I thought Firefly was stupid beyond belief, but -- hey -- different people like different things.
Just for that awesome comment, you can be the deputy mayor of Bartertown, once I establish it.
If he's got a yacht, then it's not an issue. If he's in the Navy, then it might be. :)
Vacuum cleaners are different than vacuum tubes.
What about a satellite connection? Could that work? Since all you need is a network connection, the latency shouldn't really be a problem.
Yeah, it sucks that they're using this online DRM, but there'll probably be some sort of crack, eventually. No DRM scheme is totally unbreakable. Anyway, there's always classic Diablo, plus the Diablo clones: Sacred and Sacred 2 were both pretty decent, though they both have pretty strong DRM, as well.
The thinking is that pirates have a very short attention span. Most pirates are (theoretically) uninterested in playing games that are months old; if you can keep the game secure for a month or two, then the DRM has justified itself. The people who were sitting on the fence will purchase the game, rather than pirating it, and the people who would have been freeloading are kept off your servers, reducing your operating costs.
Does it really work out that way, in real life? Who knows. But the MBAs really aren't as stupid as you're making them out to be. They know that the DRM will be broken. They're not under some illusion that their DRM is unbreakable and that every pirate will be completely stymied forever, give up, and go buy their game. What they're trying to accomplish is to maximize the amount of sales that they get in the initial rush of interest, when the game is first released. Some companies will even release a patch that disables the DRM (partially or completely), once the game has been out for a while. Granted, in some cases, it takes years for this to happen, but maybe this will become more common and happen sooner, in the future, as it becomes adopted by more companies.
....or you could not be a douchebag with an entitlement complex and boycott the game, without pirating it.
If I'm still playing video games in fifty years, I'll be so fucking happy to be alive that I won't care about DRM.
What about Linux support? Blizzard ports all their games to the Mac, but they've expressed absolutely no interest in porting to Linux. Are they fucking over the Linux users? Or are the Linux users just not in the demographic that they're shooting for?
Yeah, I can understand why they're doing it (given the insane piracy and cheating rates in Diablo I and II), but it's still something that I'd rather they didn't do. Personally, I played almost exclusively on battle.net (hardcore, then hardcore ladder), but there were some single player characters that also played, when my internet connection went down, battle.net was unreachable, or I needed the ability to pause the game. I played a few LAN games, too, but the vast majority of my time was spent on battle.net. A few years later, I started dating a fellow gamer and introduced her to Diablo 2. She became a huge fan, but was always too shy to play on battle.net (I guess all the teenage boys intimidated her). As a result, we played LAN games exclusively. I think she missed out on a major part of the appeal of the Diablo franchise (playing MP games on battle.net), but she never really expressed any interest at all in doing so. When I first started playing D1 and D2, I would have scoffed at the idea of anyone ever playing those games single-player or on LANs, but it eventually become clear to me that there are people who play like that and don't want to change. Speaking as someone who fits fairly well into the "MP is where the real game is" mold, it sucks that these people are being tossed aside today, with their concerns ignored. It also sucks that traditional styles of gaming are being phased out, in favor of stronger DRM and bigger profits. At least Diablo 3 still has a single player mode. It seems as though almost everyone but Bethesda has abandoned that.
I'm a pretty big fan of the original Diablo, partially because it was so bleak, dark, and intense. Diablo 2 was a really fun game, as well, but it was significantly less thematically dark. Diablo 3 seems to be continuing the trend, with it transitioning to a more standard, high fantasy theme, which a bad thing, just not the thematic direction that I personally would have taken. More so than draconian DRM, monetization of the game's economy, and the loss of LAN play, this is what worries me most of all. I'm a pretty big fan of Leonard Boyarsky, so I'm trusting that he'll do a good job. It's just a bit frustrating to hear that him talk about how the Diablo franchise is "too dark". Ugh. Oh well. Even if it's got unicorns shitting rainbows and candy, it'll probably still be fun.
Sucks that I'm going to be thinking about that ex-girlfriend every time I play Diablo 3, but, man, she was even more fucked up than me (and that's saying something). Last I heard, she was considering sex reassignment surgery.
Well, you have to understand that this is being framed in terms of the gun control debate. Nobody -- not even the British -- has a problem with hunting rifles. You can get hunting rifles easily enough anywhere in the world. Part of the reason why they're so unregulated is because they're really not very good at doing anything but shooting deer. Or maybe a passerby or two. It's not like you can mow down an entire school. Which brings us to semi-automatic weapons (scary), automatic weapons (very scary), and military-grade hardware (panic-inducing). Do assault rifles sprout legs, walk up to schools, and open fire? Of course not. You need a human to do that. Couldn't our psychopath just run around, hitting people with a nailboard? Yeah... but with an assault weapon, it's much more efficient. It seems somehow different, worse... something that needs to be regulated. At least, when you've got a psychopath with a nailboard, it seems like you've got a chance. Facing down a psychopath with an assault weapon seems terribly unfair, and, even if you've got your own assault rifle, he's fucking crazy -- he's got less to lose than you do.
So, let's recap. Telephones: limited ability to incite anyone, perceived as safe, essentially unregulated. E-mail: can be easily used to incite others, yet the perceived lack of immediacy and instantaneous communication makes it seem a bit less scary. Instant messaging, text messaging, etc: scary, because it combines the ability to incite with the immediacy of face-to-face communications.
People dislike the concept of ideas being communicated easily and quickly almost as much as they dislike bullets being disseminated quickly and easily. Back in the days when you had to run through each individual opponent with a sword or tell each individual citizen your revolutionary ideas, it seemed much safer and easier. Guns and mass communications are very similar. Both changed the world forever, and people have been trying to change the world back to how it used to work, ever since.
I'm not making any value judgements here, just saying that I understand why people are in such a panic and why they're blaming technology, rather than themselves.
I wish that you had posted this from a logged in account, so that I could friend you.
Yes, but he has STRONG OPINIONS that NEED TO BE HEARD.
Actually, I've been debating adding him to my ignore list for a good long time, but I think he means well, even if he's a bit of pseudo-intellectual blowhard. Then again, aren't we all? This is Slashdot, after all.
One can either rage at all the trolls, pseudo-intellectuals, and partisans, or one can accept that the internet is actually a very amusing circus, and that each of us play our part to entertain the audience.
Interested in space? This is communicating with space aliens, which is science fiction. It's slightly better than the army spending billions of dollars on remote viewing and other psychic nonsense, but it's still so far removed from science that I shudder to think of all the people wasting their talent on this. It's harmless, it's keeps idealistic dreamers busy, and there's the ever so slight chance that something interesting will turn up, so I'd say that it's probably not worth raising a stink over it. On the other hand, I'm glad that Obama is more concerned with practicality than idealism, because I find the idealism necessary to support SETI naive.
Maybe it's true what they say about how you become more conservative with age, because it becomes harder and harder for me to retain the idealistic beliefs that I had 20 years ago, when I was an ardent socialist. These days, I usually just hope for gridlock, so that nothing gets done and nobody fucks up the system any worse than it already is. I'm still probably more of a social democrat than anything else, these days, but it's difficult to even work up the enthusiasm and idealism for that watered-down philosophy. Oh well. Such is life for that most melodramatic of people, the disillusioned existentialist.
No, you're definitely not the only one to feel that way. In fact, I'd say it's a time-honored tradition for older games to come out and poo-poo the latest Elder Scrolls game, regaling us with stories of how complex and deep the older games were. That's not to say that I disagree; in fact, I whole-heartedly agree with this criticism. However, I also find the later games to be enjoyable for what they are. As long as you're willing to accept that certain features have been irrevocably streamlined away, and they're not coming back, you can still have quite a bit of fun with Morrowind, Oblivion, and Fallout 3 (which isn't an Elder Scrolls game, of course, but still uses the same engine).
I get just as frustrated as everyone else, when I load up the newest Elder Scrolls game, and some weapon or skill that I liked is gone, but -- usually -- the rest of the game makes up for that. And they can never take Arena, Daggerfall, or Morrowind away from us. If you want to levitate, while shooting a crossbow, well, you can always load up one of the older games. In fact, Morrowind and Oblivion both still have a surprisingly active modding community (or, they did, when I last re-installed the games and was collecting mods).
Now, I'm not a fanboy, and I'm not saying Oblivion was an amazing, top-notch game -- but each of the Elder Scrolls games has been deeply flawed in its own idiosyncratic way, and I've been able to overlook those flaws, because I like the overall game design. Arena is a bit fuzzy in my memory, but I remember it being a bit shallow. Personally, I thought Daggerfall was almost unplayably buggy, soullessly random, and had a horrendous UI. Morrowind was frankly a bit boring, with nothing but endless Cliff Divers for miles and miles. Oblivion heavily penalized you for improving any non-combat skills, and the vaunted Radiant AI was a total joke. But there were aspects to those games that kept me playing for years. So, in the end, I'd advise cautious optimism and trust in the game design. The worst thing that happens is that you post another stereotypical "back in MY day" rant on the official forums and wait for a mod that fixes all the bone-headed decisions they made in the new game.
Morrowind was under development for years. That gave them a lot of time to hand craft the world. I like all the Elder Scrolls games, but Daggerfall was, by far, my least favorite, and Oblivion followed Daggerfall more closely than it did Morrowind. I thought that made Oblivion less fun than Morrowind, but it was still a fun game. Unfortunately, there's been a strong trend in the Elder Scrolls series to streamline away all the features, until you're left with an FPS -- but this started with Morrowind, not Oblivion. Daggerfall had more skills and features than Morrowind did. It's just that many Elder Scrolls gamers weren't even alive when Daggerfall was released, much less Arena...
Fallout addressed most, if not all, of Oblivion's problems. You should check that out, if you thought Oblivion had unmet potential. Fallout 3 is probably even more streamlined than Oblivion, but it's got more content and gives you more opportunities to RP, even if it's the ridiculous Bioware-style RP that consists of choosing between angelic good and psychopathic evil dialogue options.
That's pretty much all that needs to be said.
However, consoles only have a subset of features that PCs have. This makes designing a game for the PC, then porting to the consoles a huge pain in the ass. When they design for the console, then port to the PC, they may get legions of angry PC gamers, cursing them for the horrible UI and lack of configurable options, but it's a whole lot less work for them. Designing for a neutral platform, then customizing for each platform is a rather large undertaking, and I can understand why (though I do not condone it, obviously) they would simply release half-assed ports, rather than put in all that effort.
It's a huge fucking pain having to fix all the console-inspired idiocy in each Bethesda game, but, once you install enough UI mods, there's actually a fun game. I'm simply amazed that Bethesda is so lazy that they push all that effort on us, however. I guess we need to be thankful that the interface is even moddable...
I didn't read the linked article, but I did skim the summary. Depending on the contract that you signed and the local laws, that may legally be their code. If I were you, I'd consult a lawyer familiar with intellectual property before I did anything else. Make sure that you have a copy of the contract. If, in the opinion of the lawyer, the code is actually yours, then you should probably follow up with a cease-and-desist letter, courtesy of the lawyer. This won't be all that expensive. Hell, even if the situation is muddier than you'd like, they may still back down, if you can get your lawyer to send an appropriately threatening letter. Depending on the size of the company, they may not be financially capable of defending themselves from a lawsuit. Depending on how ethically challenged you and your lawyer happen to be, this may actually prove to be your best bet, if they are legally in the right. If they blow you off (which is very likely, unless they're very small), then you're going to have to actually bring them to small claims court. A lawyer is not strictly necessary here, but, again, you'd be foolish to avoid using one.
I mean, seriously, what do you expect people to say, other than "consult a lawyer"?
That's so fucking witty!
I'm sure you'll be duly upmodded by the Slashbots, for repeating the groupthink that appears in every fucking Facebook story.
How about just going back to making a good desktop browser? I don't want a Mozilla operating system, some sort of "open web experience", a smartphone browser, or anything else that Mozilla is peddling these days. I want a browser that's dedicated to desktop computers, with a UI designed for a big, desktop monitor (not a netbook or a tablet), and I want the browser to render HTML. I don't need a database in my URL bar; a radical, new UI; an integrated PDF viewer, implemented in Javascript; Harry Potter themes for my browser; or anything else that Mozilla has been advertising (except for the faster Javascript performance, which is pretty nice).
All I want is a web browser. I feel like a throw-back, someone who doesn't belong in today's world, full of ideologically-driven features, heavy-handed developers who tell me how to get my work done (rather than giving me a product that allows me to get the work done the way I want), constant buzz words, and marketing. People keep telling me how fast the web is moving, how fast IT is moving, and all I see are people chasing trends, fads, and buzzwords. That's fine for corporate culture, but when you just want to open your web browser and render some HTML, the last thing you want is to be assaulted with this crap. It's time for someone to make a browser that does nothing but render HTML. And don't suggest Opera, because I certainly don't need a bittorrent client in my browser.
And why the hell is Mozilla experimenting with all these ridiculous things, like low power servers? For fuck's sake, all I want from them is a browser, not a R&D department that makes the world a better place.
Thank you and get off my lawn.
Hey, you have to give the editors time to vet each and every story before it's posted. The kind of journalistic integrity that we Slashdotters demand takes a lot of time and effort. Do you think they just sit around all day, giving every story a rubber stamp of approval? That way lies dupes, trolls, thinly-veiled advertisements, and inflammatory nonsense. I for one am glad that they... oh never mind. I can't keep up this level of irony.
That's not entirely true. If you compare 2.6.0 to 3.0, there's a crapload of changes. However, if you're comparing 2.6.39 to 3.0, it's true that there aren't any big changes. The main reason is because there was no experimental 2.7 branch. If 2.6 had progressed to around 2.6.5 or so, then received nothing but occasional bug fixes, I'd think we'd be amazed by all the new features. Linux development has changed quite a lot since the early days, when the stable kernel branch was considered delicate and protected from any major changes. Now that we've changed the way that Linux is developed (old way: even numbered minor versions are stable, odd numbered minor versions are experimental; new way: new features are continually added to the kernel, rather than going to the experimental branch), added in crazy amounts of features, and it's getting to be a bigger pain to maintain, why not bump the major version?
Was there a compelling reason to bump the major version number? It depends on your point of view, really. I agree with Linus on this matter. It was a good a time as any, plus it was warranted. I understand that some people are disappointed that 3.0 doesn't bring substantial changes from the very last 2.6 patch, but that's not how Linux is developed any more. Is the new way better? Who knows. It seems to be working out well, though.
Maybe the Tetris game has a social aspect, where high scores are collected and posted on the internet, along with a geographical tag, like "New York, USA". It could be that the high scores are even customized for your location, so that you can compete against all the other New Yorkers playing that game. Some people would think that was the greatest thing in the entire world, I'm sure. For the more cynical among us, it's difficult to believe that social gaming is anything more than a big scam, but not everyone cares so much about their privacy. One man's privacy invasion is another man's social game, I guess.
Are you seriously saying that you never heard of Somalia before a few days ago? You never heard about the brutality of the warlords, the civil war, the pirates, the international naval effort to patrol the piracy-infested waters, and the kidnappings that the pirates have engaged in? I'm kind of hoping that's not what you meant, but it's difficult to construe it in any other way. Even Slashdot has reported off-and-on about the situation, though nowhere near as much as the constant barrage of Facebook, Twitter, Google, and Apple stories.
I'm honestly surprised that you'd be completely ignorant about what's going on over there. If I weren't so lazy, I'd pull up some slashdot stories about Somalia, to point out that this has been big news for several years now.
The sad thing is that I think that list was not meant ironically. Up until the point at which he mentioned carbon monoxide detectors, I was pretty sure it was ironic. Maybe it's because he led off with edible toothpaste and followed up with freeze dried food. After that, almost anything sounds like it's part of a joke.