For example Bejeweled (PopCaps big game)is extremely similar to Zookeeper(Not its original home, it went missing from the Jap site where it was originally).
A relation of mine had MD and playing games was one of the few things he could do that put him on a level playing field with the vast majority of us.
I'm not saying that all games should be developed to allow access to all with every conceivable disability - for one thing it's impossible - but if small minor (and cheap) changes can be made to a game, then I can't see a reason not to.
Think of it in terms of buildings. Some old buildings are completely unsuitable to convert to wheelchair access, narrow doors, steps all over the place etc - not even cost effective to try to sort them out. New buildings are much better, open plan, elevators etc - so it's not that hard to go the extra mile to stick in the odd ramp etc (in fact most have been designed now not to even need that).
There are loads of small things that can be done. Deaf gamers get mightily pissed off with games that don't have subtitles (or just have them missing on cut-scenes). Not that much effort to add them is it? (Look at HL2 for a game that has made the effort)
WTF is wrong with a 'Playable by disabled person' sticker on the back? We already have them for 'playable by 18+', 'playable on ninja-PC' and all manner or random shit - just have a look on the back of the box, disk space, sound card blah blah (does anybody have problems with sound compatibility any more)?
How about if somebody came up with some teeny little icons and allowed them to be tucked discreetly on the back - 'subtitles throughout' or 'Full control with mouse only'? If anything they might shift more units - god help you currently if you have a specific problem and are trying to pick a shiny game off the shelf and wondering if you'll be able to play it.
We actually have a few more rating you skipped over there.
Uc - Universal (children) - Films specifically aimed at pre-school children.
U - Universal - Suitable for all.
PG - Parental Guidance - Might have some themes that might upset some children - but generally fine for all.
12A (cinema)/ 12 (video) - Must be over 12 to watch it.(I think 12 used to be a guide, and then 12A was the legally enforcable one)
15 - Must be over 15
18 - Must be over 18
R18 - Restricted 18 - Can only be purchased from certain outlets - it's porn.
The British system still has the weird bias towards violence over smut - but it's got a lot better over the last few years (BBFC replaced their chair with a slightly more enlightened chap).
A few years back R18 didn't exist - hardcore was either not available, or heavily cut. Nowadays pretty much everything can be released with a few notable exceptions (violence, non-consensual stuff etc).
www.bbfc.co.uk has a nice little breakdown of the above rules. Nice little note on the R18 page "These guidelines make no distinction between heterosexual and homosexual activity."
is the fact that if this takes off, then they'll be millions of new linux developers out there - all producing efficient code.
This is a huge threat to both MS and Apple equally.
I'd have thought both of them would release cut down freebie versions of their own OS to try to get market share - I wonder if they'll be any mechanism to stop alternative OS being installed. If there isn't I'm pretty sure a large number would switch to the MS/Apple OS, fragment the market and pretty much stuff up one of the whole points of the project. If there is, then this is all a bit evil DRM...
If nature abhors monopolies - why would we keep getting them?
You're not supposed to like them - but they know they won't exist if nobody'll get off their arse to break them. That's why they always try to hover on the line.
You might hate windows, but it's cheap and anything you create for it has a potential audience. You might want to buy a non-Apple portable music player, but there are all those nifty accessories the others don't have.
Somebody passed this onto me
Now I'm a suspicious chap, so thought maybe it would be a photoshop special..but I noticed those codes stuck on it.
Wonder if those are the sorts of thing you can register on Apple's site? Seemingly it is and it's a marketing part number
so if we take away their protection, then the content operators will just quietly shut down and lay themselves off? Without this wonderous protection, they'll simply decide it's not worthwhile?
I'd no idea it was this serious, I'm also trying to work out how these operators managed to get themselves into the position they're currently in. Surely it can't have been supplying unprotected feeds to people willing to pay for them? (because this simply doesn't work seemingly).
and Floridians (is that the term), knew Jeb Bush was a nut - yet still voted him in. You reap what you sow, and the rest of the world'll point and laugh.
not sure I like it though. I'll just put aside the fact that seemingly victims of domestic abuse 'deserve less sympathy'
The very simplest of investigations would 99% of the time turn up cases where it was gang-related, domestic violence etc. Possibly the only person who'd make the snap judgement is the person skimming through the newspaper and just glancing at the pictures.
I seem to have taken this thread way off topic, so I should probably just shush down now.
obviously feel a lot better after having got that off your chest.
Just to pin my colours to the mast, I'm a nice, white, atheist, middle-class chap from the UK.
The media likes good stories - as that's what people pay them to provide. The media will enforce the stereotypes of their readers - people prefer to pay for views that agree with their own. You reap what you sow (well more precisely you get similar stories to the ones you paid for the last few days)
If a story of a black girl vanishing doesn't get as much coverage of the disappearance of a white girl - then you can be pretty sure that's because the readership don't care as much. Publishers do actually research the correlation between what's in their paper and how many copies they sell. It's not nice, but many things in life aren't - nobody said living was going to be a barrel of laughs.
Right, where was I - oh yes, I've labelled you racist. Well not you personally, just the median media-consumer of your country - I'm sure you're a much nicer bloke.
Maybe it's not strictly racism, it's more just people caring more about stuff they can identify with. If you're a normal white family somewhere in the mid-west, you're unlikely to have your black daughter abducted in Florida - maybe you went to Aruba for your holidays and can see the light of your life playing in the back garden as you read.
What next, erm OK, Christianity. Well on that one, I'm gunning for you along with the media (read on before you get pissy). I personally don't believe it, it doesn't make sense to me. When other people state they're Christians it puts me on edge a little, how did they get fooled when I can see through it? Are they stupid? 99% of Christians you meet are lovely people though, we all have strange ideas, and if there's cause them to help the needy and forgive their neighbour - then in my humanist view of the world they're good people.
What freaks me slightly are the Christians you hear about: Prayer breakfasts in the White House on the eve of war, floods a condemnation on gays, Aids programs denied to any non pro-abstinence organisations, Intelligent Design being taught etc etc.
Christianity has crap PR, the nutters shout and get heard and all the rest of you don't speak out. I'm sure if a few million (you're not short on numbers)of you marched on Washington pointing out that a few billion condoms in Africa might do more good than harm - then maybe you'd get some coverage.
I think the point I was trying to make is that the media is merely a mirror. It prints what people believe and what they buy - sadly it doesn't tell people what to think (well unless it's Murdoch, but he's the exception that proves...oh I'd better stop now).
have been talking about liking having a large number of buttons on their mouse to do simple stuff like changing windows etc.
Just thought they might be interested in this StrokeIt - mouse gestures like with Opera but on everything.
I bought a Griffin iSomething (the big metal knob) just so I could adjust the volume, or mute it - very handy when you're playing BF2 and the girlfriend shouts something towards your gaming-pit-of-filth from the other room.
Alternatives were to fumble about with a little knob on your speakers, or buy some vile 'media' keyboard.
I'm quite fussy about my mouse and really don't want a wireless one - but assuming it's a good mouse, I'm quite happy for them to cover it in buttons, lights and give it a bit of intelligence. If you don't like the feature/button you can just turn it off - never anything wrong with options.
like many other people leave my PC on all the time and the monitor goes into standby. Would be quite nice to have something I could spot as I walked passed.
On the other hand, if this intelligent mouse turns itself off when the computer goes into standby - then yes, it is completely pointless.
MS is daying you can have our software cheap/free if you don't use any other.
There's absolutely nothing to stop the school sticking Linux, OpenOffice and Gimp on every desktop in the place and then popping off down to their local PC store and buying a copy of windows and office for each machine as well - except it costs more.
So we have three alternatives.
Open Source only - Free
MS only - Cheap
Mixed - Horribly expensive
I'm not actually sure what you can complain about here. If cost were the only issue, then surely MS wouldn't get a look in. They have perceived value over the Free alternative.
I'm sure MS isn't too happy that it's competition doesn't actually require paying, have to hit any release windows, nor provide any support if they have a hangover or are in a bad mood.
They are offering the school a choice - not forcing it upon them. Just because MS offer something perceived as more valuable than what the Open Source can isn't a reason to cry foul.
If you care so much about it, then do something.
The school's job is to prepare children for work (oh and all that social guff as well). The harsh reality is that for the vast number of pupils who will never work in IT, experience with MS products will provide them a better skillset - you try explaining on your CV how you can't use windows, have no idea what office looks like - but can compile your own kernel.
Linux is out there, it's free and if anybody has an interest in it, they can pick it up and play with it themselves.
get on a plane, and go and see the stuff where it's supposed to be.
The locals will welcome you with open arms, and shower you with their praises for your enlightened foreign policy that enhances their lives..
On second thoughts, you're probably right and'll be safer with a Lion in your back garden.
the HD is in a little module that just clips on the side - the idea being that if you're going around to a friends you can just take that and the game with you for all your config stuff.
The HD isn't some capacity monster because, it wouldn't be used, it would cost more, it's not a standard 3.5" like the XB1's. (I assume 1.8").
Earlier reports (I've no idea if they're true) are to be believed, MS are going to launch an iPod like device that can be clipped on the side that'll allow you to play your stored music whilst out and about as well - nice idea.
Would be handy for simple votes. Teacher explains something and then asks everybody to click yes/no if they understood to see if they should go back and explain it better.
Nobody likes to stick up their hand and say they didn't understand - but when you didn't you can be pretty sure a large number of other people didn't either.
I tinker and build my own PCs but have never deviated from microsoft.
I felt I out to, so got myself a big box of Suse (seemed germanic and reliable) and put aside a day to get stuck into it.
It started off well, it installed, stuff happened on the screen and some of my devices were installed correctly.
The problems started when I tried to get all the drivers for all my devices working. When I tried to get the refresh rate sorted out and all manner of other little niggling problems.
I genuinely did want to get Linux running, I really wanted to use it, but throughout the process I kept on and on running into problems I knew how to easily fix with windows - but didn't have a clue how to with Linux.
In the end it boiled down very simply. I had tasks I needed to get done. I knew how to do them in windows, but not a clue for Linux. Even assuming I got everything working - the best I could aim for was a system that let me do all the stuff I could do before.
I'm getting really sick of all the Linux stories saying "you can now do something in Linux, you can already do in Windows." What Linux needs is to be able to announce "You can do everything you can already do in Windows AND a load of Linux only stuff" - otherwise what's the point?
If you can't get me to switch over, then god help you in your attempts to get the 95%.
With regards to his previous job as Australia's invincible cyber-warrior:
Some have criticised the AHTCC because there haven't been any noticeable prosecutions to date. How come?
MacGibbon: These things take time. The way I would describe our investigative policy to date is that, in the last year since we opened the doors, we needed to know what the criminal environment was...#blah blah#
Well he gave that job (or it gave him) 18 months - either way I suspect the 15 year olds down under don't have much to fear from selling their imaginary plasma screens for a while longer.
Somebody seems to have emailed in some questions and PR pasted in some answers. I do however now know that there are 1,000 Trust and Safety employees at eBay and PayPal.
Oh and eBay thinks crime is like really and totally bad and stuff - my world is still rocking from the news.
that would keep all parties happy, is a modification of the current craze for bug-bounties.
Flaw is reported, accepted and cash is paid on a daily/weekly basis until the issue is resolved.
Submitters would get more for a complex bug that involves more work to fix it and the can happily keep their gobs shut from announcing the problem as they're getting paid to be quiet.
Just a thought..
I balance it against convenience (and that warm inner glow that you get for doing the right thing).
I bought HL2 on Steam. It patches itself, it reinstalls itself when I rebuild my machine, it works online without any hunting for hacked servers etc etc. My major gripe with most purchased software is having to put the f'in disk in the drive to play - something I don't have to do with a hacked pirate copy.
Slashdot Mirror
For example Bejeweled (PopCaps big game)is extremely similar to Zookeeper(Not its original home, it went missing from the Jap site where it was originally).
A relation of mine had MD and playing games was one of the few things he could do that put him on a level playing field with the vast majority of us.
I'm not saying that all games should be developed to allow access to all with every conceivable disability - for one thing it's impossible - but if small minor (and cheap) changes can be made to a game, then I can't see a reason not to.
Think of it in terms of buildings. Some old buildings are completely unsuitable to convert to wheelchair access, narrow doors, steps all over the place etc - not even cost effective to try to sort them out. New buildings are much better, open plan, elevators etc - so it's not that hard to go the extra mile to stick in the odd ramp etc (in fact most have been designed now not to even need that).
There are loads of small things that can be done. Deaf gamers get mightily pissed off with games that don't have subtitles (or just have them missing on cut-scenes). Not that much effort to add them is it? (Look at HL2 for a game that has made the effort)
WTF is wrong with a 'Playable by disabled person' sticker on the back? We already have them for 'playable by 18+', 'playable on ninja-PC' and all manner or random shit - just have a look on the back of the box, disk space, sound card blah blah (does anybody have problems with sound compatibility any more)?
How about if somebody came up with some teeny little icons and allowed them to be tucked discreetly on the back - 'subtitles throughout' or 'Full control with mouse only'? If anything they might shift more units - god help you currently if you have a specific problem and are trying to pick a shiny game off the shelf and wondering if you'll be able to play it.
Knew I'd not got it quite right.
We actually have a few more rating you skipped over there.
Uc - Universal (children) - Films specifically aimed at pre-school children.
U - Universal - Suitable for all.
PG - Parental Guidance - Might have some themes that might upset some children - but generally fine for all.
12A (cinema)/ 12 (video) - Must be over 12 to watch it.(I think 12 used to be a guide, and then 12A was the legally enforcable one)
15 - Must be over 15
18 - Must be over 18
R18 - Restricted 18 - Can only be purchased from certain outlets - it's porn.
The British system still has the weird bias towards violence over smut - but it's got a lot better over the last few years (BBFC replaced their chair with a slightly more enlightened chap).
A few years back R18 didn't exist - hardcore was either not available, or heavily cut. Nowadays pretty much everything can be released with a few notable exceptions (violence, non-consensual stuff etc).
www.bbfc.co.uk has a nice little breakdown of the above rules. Nice little note on the R18 page "These guidelines make no distinction between heterosexual and homosexual activity."
Good.
is the fact that if this takes off, then they'll be millions of new linux developers out there - all producing efficient code.
This is a huge threat to both MS and Apple equally.
I'd have thought both of them would release cut down freebie versions of their own OS to try to get market share - I wonder if they'll be any mechanism to stop alternative OS being installed. If there isn't I'm pretty sure a large number would switch to the MS/Apple OS, fragment the market and pretty much stuff up one of the whole points of the project. If there is, then this is all a bit evil DRM...
If nature abhors monopolies - why would we keep getting them? You're not supposed to like them - but they know they won't exist if nobody'll get off their arse to break them. That's why they always try to hover on the line.
You might hate windows, but it's cheap and anything you create for it has a potential audience. You might want to buy a non-Apple portable music player, but there are all those nifty accessories the others don't have.
Somebody passed this onto me
Now I'm a suspicious chap, so thought maybe it would be a photoshop special..but I noticed those codes stuck on it.
Wonder if those are the sorts of thing you can register on Apple's site?
Seemingly it is and it's a marketing part number
so if we take away their protection, then the content operators will just quietly shut down and lay themselves off? Without this wonderous protection, they'll simply decide it's not worthwhile?
I'd no idea it was this serious, I'm also trying to work out how these operators managed to get themselves into the position they're currently in. Surely it can't have been supplying unprotected feeds to people willing to pay for them? (because this simply doesn't work seemingly).
and Floridians (is that the term), knew Jeb Bush was a nut - yet still voted him in. You reap what you sow, and the rest of the world'll point and laugh.
not sure I like it though. I'll just put aside the fact that seemingly victims of domestic abuse 'deserve less sympathy'
The very simplest of investigations would 99% of the time turn up cases where it was gang-related, domestic violence etc. Possibly the only person who'd make the snap judgement is the person skimming through the newspaper and just glancing at the pictures.
I seem to have taken this thread way off topic, so I should probably just shush down now.
obviously feel a lot better after having got that off your chest.
Just to pin my colours to the mast, I'm a nice, white, atheist, middle-class chap from the UK.
The media likes good stories - as that's what people pay them to provide. The media will enforce the stereotypes of their readers - people prefer to pay for views that agree with their own. You reap what you sow (well more precisely you get similar stories to the ones you paid for the last few days)
If a story of a black girl vanishing doesn't get as much coverage of the disappearance of a white girl - then you can be pretty sure that's because the readership don't care as much. Publishers do actually research the correlation between what's in their paper and how many copies they sell. It's not nice, but many things in life aren't - nobody said living was going to be a barrel of laughs.
Right, where was I - oh yes, I've labelled you racist. Well not you personally, just the median media-consumer of your country - I'm sure you're a much nicer bloke.
Maybe it's not strictly racism, it's more just people caring more about stuff they can identify with. If you're a normal white family somewhere in the mid-west, you're unlikely to have your black daughter abducted in Florida - maybe you went to Aruba for your holidays and can see the light of your life playing in the back garden as you read.
What next, erm OK, Christianity. Well on that one, I'm gunning for you along with the media (read on before you get pissy). I personally don't believe it, it doesn't make sense to me. When other people state they're Christians it puts me on edge a little, how did they get fooled when I can see through it? Are they stupid? 99% of Christians you meet are lovely people though, we all have strange ideas, and if there's cause them to help the needy and forgive their neighbour - then in my humanist view of the world they're good people.
What freaks me slightly are the Christians you hear about: Prayer breakfasts in the White House on the eve of war, floods a condemnation on gays, Aids programs denied to any non pro-abstinence organisations, Intelligent Design being taught etc etc.
Christianity has crap PR, the nutters shout and get heard and all the rest of you don't speak out. I'm sure if a few million (you're not short on numbers)of you marched on Washington pointing out that a few billion condoms in Africa might do more good than harm - then maybe you'd get some coverage.
I think the point I was trying to make is that the media is merely a mirror. It prints what people believe and what they buy - sadly it doesn't tell people what to think (well unless it's Murdoch, but he's the exception that proves...oh I'd better stop now).
have been talking about liking having a large number of buttons on their mouse to do simple stuff like changing windows etc.
Just thought they might be interested in this StrokeIt - mouse gestures like with Opera but on everything.
I bought a Griffin iSomething (the big metal knob) just so I could adjust the volume, or mute it - very handy when you're playing BF2 and the girlfriend shouts something towards your gaming-pit-of-filth from the other room.
Alternatives were to fumble about with a little knob on your speakers, or buy some vile 'media' keyboard.
I'm quite fussy about my mouse and really don't want a wireless one - but assuming it's a good mouse, I'm quite happy for them to cover it in buttons, lights and give it a bit of intelligence. If you don't like the feature/button you can just turn it off - never anything wrong with options.
like many other people leave my PC on all the time and the monitor goes into standby. Would be quite nice to have something I could spot as I walked passed.
On the other hand, if this intelligent mouse turns itself off when the computer goes into standby - then yes, it is completely pointless.
MS is daying you can have our software cheap/free if you don't use any other.
There's absolutely nothing to stop the school sticking Linux, OpenOffice and Gimp on every desktop in the place and then popping off down to their local PC store and buying a copy of windows and office for each machine as well - except it costs more.
So we have three alternatives.
Open Source only - Free
MS only - Cheap
Mixed - Horribly expensive
I'm not actually sure what you can complain about here. If cost were the only issue, then surely MS wouldn't get a look in. They have perceived value over the Free alternative.
I'm sure MS isn't too happy that it's competition doesn't actually require paying, have to hit any release windows, nor provide any support if they have a hangover or are in a bad mood.
They are offering the school a choice - not forcing it upon them. Just because MS offer something perceived as more valuable than what the Open Source can isn't a reason to cry foul.
If you care so much about it, then do something.
The school's job is to prepare children for work (oh and all that social guff as well). The harsh reality is that for the vast number of pupils who will never work in IT, experience with MS products will provide them a better skillset - you try explaining on your CV how you can't use windows, have no idea what office looks like - but can compile your own kernel.
Linux is out there, it's free and if anybody has an interest in it, they can pick it up and play with it themselves.
get on a plane, and go and see the stuff where it's supposed to be.
The locals will welcome you with open arms, and shower you with their praises for your enlightened foreign policy that enhances their lives..
On second thoughts, you're probably right and'll be safer with a Lion in your back garden.
the HD is in a little module that just clips on the side - the idea being that if you're going around to a friends you can just take that and the game with you for all your config stuff.
The HD isn't some capacity monster because, it wouldn't be used, it would cost more, it's not a standard 3.5" like the XB1's. (I assume 1.8"). Earlier reports (I've no idea if they're true) are to be believed, MS are going to launch an iPod like device that can be clipped on the side that'll allow you to play your stored music whilst out and about as well - nice idea.
Would be handy for simple votes. Teacher explains something and then asks everybody to click yes/no if they understood to see if they should go back and explain it better.
Nobody likes to stick up their hand and say they didn't understand - but when you didn't you can be pretty sure a large number of other people didn't either.
We're all doomed - kill this infernal device before it's too late.
I tinker and build my own PCs but have never deviated from microsoft.
I felt I out to, so got myself a big box of Suse (seemed germanic and reliable) and put aside a day to get stuck into it.
It started off well, it installed, stuff happened on the screen and some of my devices were installed correctly.
The problems started when I tried to get all the drivers for all my devices working. When I tried to get the refresh rate sorted out and all manner of other little niggling problems.
I genuinely did want to get Linux running, I really wanted to use it, but throughout the process I kept on and on running into problems I knew how to easily fix with windows - but didn't have a clue how to with Linux.
In the end it boiled down very simply. I had tasks I needed to get done. I knew how to do them in windows, but not a clue for Linux. Even assuming I got everything working - the best I could aim for was a system that let me do all the stuff I could do before.
I'm getting really sick of all the Linux stories saying "you can now do something in Linux, you can already do in Windows." What Linux needs is to be able to announce "You can do everything you can already do in Windows AND a load of Linux only stuff" - otherwise what's the point?
If you can't get me to switch over, then god help you in your attempts to get the 95%.
With regards to his previous job as Australia's invincible cyber-warrior:
Some have criticised the AHTCC because there haven't been any noticeable prosecutions to date. How come?
MacGibbon: These things take time. The way I would describe our investigative policy to date is that, in the last year since we opened the doors, we needed to know what the criminal environment was...#blah blah#
Well he gave that job (or it gave him) 18 months - either way I suspect the 15 year olds down under don't have much to fear from selling their imaginary plasma screens for a while longer.
Somebody seems to have emailed in some questions and PR pasted in some answers. I do however now know that there are 1,000 Trust and Safety employees at eBay and PayPal.
Oh and eBay thinks crime is like really and totally bad and stuff - my world is still rocking from the news.
that would keep all parties happy, is a modification of the current craze for bug-bounties.
Flaw is reported, accepted and cash is paid on a daily/weekly basis until the issue is resolved.
Submitters would get more for a complex bug that involves more work to fix it and the can happily keep their gobs shut from announcing the problem as they're getting paid to be quiet.
Just a thought..
I balance it against convenience (and that warm inner glow that you get for doing the right thing).
I bought HL2 on Steam. It patches itself, it reinstalls itself when I rebuild my machine, it works online without any hunting for hacked servers etc etc. My major gripe with most purchased software is having to put the f'in disk in the drive to play - something I don't have to do with a hacked pirate copy.