stands for Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation
Hongkong and Shanghai are no longer part of the UK. You need to update your map (I hear Google has good maps). No-one said that they were. They said that HSBC is a UK-based bank, which it has been since the early-1990s.
What's the story about someone selling their birthright for a bowl of porridge? Sounds like the bastard offspring of the biblical story of Esau selling his birthright for a bowl of pottage (lentil stew) and The Three Bears.... sort of "Goldilocks 5:14";-)
in the run-up to her 16th birthday (age of sexual consent in the UK). I remember the day before they ran with a large photo of her on the front page, bare-chested apart from a finger covering each nipple, and a headline something like "Tomorrow she's TOPLESS!".
Meanwhile, they were joining in the general tabloid frenzy about paedophiles. Is this legal any more? I'm sure that they changed the law at some stage so that topless photos of under-18s (at least in the papers) weren't allowed.
FWIW, it would have been far sleazier if the girl had looked like she was 12 or 13 with a flat chest, and they were doing the same stunt.
Okay; the age consent laws- both for photography and intercourse- are (supposedly) in place for the protection of the child, and anyone actually f****** a 15-year old knowing his/her age probably should be locked up. (*)
However, since teenagers can look quite a bit older or younger than their real age, it's kind of meaningless to say that someone getting turned on by someone under the age of consent is necessarily a paedophile. (Let's not get into that pedantic discussion over what "paedophile" actually covers). Whilst I accept that the papers were typically two-faced and hysterical over genuine paedophilia, I don't think that implying that a large-breasted 15-year-old may be sexually attractive is really paedophilic.
Let me put it this way; which is "worse"- someone being turned on by a 15 year old who looks 18, or the same person being turned on by a 17 year old who looks 14? (Especially bearing in mind that he may not know their real ages).
(*) With IMHO one exception being if the person in question was (e.g.) 16 or 17 themselves. Frankly, a 16-year-old boy being locked up for sleeping with his 15-year-old girlfriend would be a travesty of justice. A 30-year-old doing the same thing would be somewhat different.
Also, HD-DVD has the "shitty name" problem. Regardless of whether one thinks that HD-DVD or Blu-Ray has the shitty name, it's worth remembering that "DVD" itself is (or rather was) a pretty shitty name.
I mean, "DVD", WTF does that mean?!! Yeah, we all know it was meant to stand for "Digital Video Disc", and then they realised their mistake (stupid name for a disc if it can hold audio and data too) too late, so had to pretend that it was meant to stand for "Digital Versatile Disc" (what a vile contrivance), and then they changed their mind and said it didn't stand for anything.
But I digress; my point is that 10 years ago, if you'd suggested "DVD" on its own as a marketing name, it would have sounded awful; and it still does when you think about it.
If you wanted it that much, you should have registered it when you had the chance. You obviously aren't aware of the scam involving domain name registration, then. The act of searching a whois database indicates your interest. Someone involved with one of those companies then snaps it up or passes on the information to another company.
I know, this has happened to me; a domain I had my eye on for years *just happened* to get snapped up earlier on the same day that my hosting company tried to buy it; I was suspicious at the time, and right to be- I found out what had happened later on.
I wasn't about to waste time approaching the thieving vermin who stole it, as I knew they'd try to extort me more than I was prepared to pay. Lo and behold, I checked again a month later and it was no longer registered. Presumably they got a refund when they realised that they weren't going to make any money, so I got the domain after all, though I registered it myself this time.
I wonder what they plan to do in five years time when the entire namespace has been registered and the only people selling domains are domain squatters and resellers? Bribe some US congressmen into creating a few new TLDs and sell them instead; with the bonus that people who already own fzzbrgle.com will want to snap up fzzbrgle.moc, fzzbrgle.con, fzzbrgle.zap, to avoid squatters buying them up.
This isn't the first gaming magazine I've seen go (or announce going) away. I guess it just isn't cost-effective enough to operate a gaming magazine nowadays. Yep; Computer and Video Games (C+VG or CVG), the British magazine that had been running since 1981 was shut down in late 2004 (supposedly a temporary rest for a few months, but it hasn't returned, and I don't think it's likely to now). Of course, it was probably more susceptible to competition from the net, being a no-cover-disk, lower-middle market magazine with bite-sized content and aimed mainly at tweens/early-teens. That is, the type of content that can go online most easily, with the type of audience most likely to want to find it online anyway...
But all that probably tells us is that CVG was an early warning, going first because it was most prone. The more adult-oriented mainstream publications such as "Computer Gaming" falling seems to indicate a trend (or perhaps it really was just down to the parent company's financial problems?)
But regarding CVG, what intrigues me is whether it's still possible to sell a computer games magazine aimed at a similar under-16s market. What form would it take? It can't compete with the net directly, or be as up-to-date, but perhaps they could focus on maps and large multi-page playing guides that might be hard to put online effectively (or print out). I don't think that alone is enough to sustain a magazine, though.
Maybe you should have played it instead of asking the opinion of your friends? I have played it- and personally, I didn't think it was radically different from KO2. I was acknowledging that some people think that there are some differences, however.
I've long argued piracy is good for the various companies Indeed.... and I'd daresay that the article summary only gives half the story. Specifically, that not only "should software piracy occur, Microsoft's desire is that the pirated software should be theirs", but that given the choice between someone legally purchasing a rival's software or pirating MS's, MS would rather that person pirated *their* software.
This is just speculation, and I wouldn't expect them to admit it; it would reveal their mentality and justify piracy, which they can't be seen to be doing. But I'd be very surprised if this weren't the case...
Whilst there's some ignorance from the Americans about how popular Sensible Soccer and its descendants were elsewhere, it's still pushing things to say that it belongs in the top 10. It's obviously heavily-influenced by Kick Off/Kick Off 2 and I'm not convinced that it in turn has had *that* much long-term influence. Sure, a lot of people remember it fondly, and I'm in no doubt that it was probably the best-regarded overhead football game if you're into that sort of thing, but Top 10 most culturally important/influential? Nope.
Elite was done in 32K of RAM (though the screen probably swallowed much of that). Although Star Raiders is a much simpler game, it was equally (if not more) innovative for the time it came out, and probably influenced Elite.
That having been said, I think this list is stupid; Sensible World of Soccer, whatever its merits does not credibly belong there.
I'm from the UK (where Sensible Software were based and where football is very popular), and *I* don't think SWOS belongs in the top 10.
Sure; the Sensible Soccer games were popular at the time and well put-together. But the original SS wasn't the first football game. It wasn't even particularly innovative within its own field; its overhead vertical view and graphical style was very similar to Kick Off and Kick Off 2's (which came out 2-3 years earlier, and were already hits).
I'm not claiming the two were identical (one of my friends who enjoyed football games assured me that the playing style in SS was somewhat different to Kick Off's), but it was nevertheless an evolutionary game, and not one that belongs in this top 10.
I also don't see why they chose Sensible World of Soccer (a sequel) instead of the original SS. I don't recall it being particularly innovative or significantly more popular.
Google has a huge dev center in Bangalore, and many other cities in India. If they screw with the government, they are in for it. That's the bottom line. If the Indian government made life hard for Google, or blackmailed them in this way, chances are that a lot of other companies would look at this and (at best) limit any further expansion in India or (at worst) pull out or never establish there in the first place. Cuts both ways.
The fact that you can say so out loud in the middle of Colaba in Mumbai without getting arrested, strung upside down and flogged with a stick by "Secret Police" proves that it is a REAL democracy Mr "Rao". No, it doesn't actually *prove* it at all- free speech and democracy are two distinct concepts. Although there is a tendency for them to go together, it is quite possible to have a democratically elected government that suppresses speech and other rights ("Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote."). Conversely, it's quite possible (though less likely) to have free speech under a non-democratic government.
Seriously, he shouldn't have posted these words until he was done with the test. Absolutely, and a major problem I have with taking it seriously now is that Google uses words in links *to* a particular site. This means that there is now a very high risk of false positives if *anyone* has done so with the words that are only dynamically-written on the original page.
If he'd been serious that "Over the next two weeks, I'll be watching to see two things", he should have kept his mouth shut for those two weeks.
Well, you'd better hope no one tries to search for a webcomic on this thing. No, on the contrary. A fanboy of said obscure webcomic will try to include it and make it a prominent result on all related searched, even if 99.999% of people aren't likely to be searching for it. For example:-
You searched for "BBC". Results in order of importance follow:-
#1 RESULT:- "Brian Robert Coleman", usually known as Bri, initials BRC, but in volume 3, episode 24, his friend once called him "BBC" by mistake because someone told him Brian's middle name was "Bob".
#2 RESULT:- "Bob Brown cafe", a cafeteria on the Buttfuck University of Illinois campus, sometimes called BBC (*).
#3 RESULT:- British Broadcasting Corporation
(*) Well, a couple of times anyway, by one of the staff there until she left a couple of months ago.
No, I dumbed it down when it became clear you couldn't understand the detail. Yep; keep telling yourself that. Of course it's my fault and Mikkelm's for not being able to understand you.
Even if you're a foreigner. Yes, I am, I live in the UK.
Pretty convenient for you to make demands of the US to give away subsidized tech leadership to other foreigners when you are one. Where did I demand that? Ah, I didn't.
Enough to make clear that you're just another grabby entitlement freak with your hand out and your ears closed. Even if your ears were open, I suspect all you'd be able to hear would be your own voice. You jump to conclusions and respond based on angry assumptions of what you *expected* the person to say.
In a search engine, though, how can anyone say whether Mr. Bennet from Heroes or Mr. Bennet from Pride and Prejudice is more important? Your search returned results for two different subjects:-
"Mr. Bennet" from "Heroes" (Click link for all results on this subject)
(Top 5 results follow)
[blah]
"Mr. Bennet" from "Pride and Prejudice" (Click link for all results on this subject)
(Top 5 results follow)
Complete results list follows:-
[blah]
Displaying the top 10 results from each category:-
[etc]
The bit about dirty foreigners wasn't meant as a quote, just a reflection of the underlying vibe. I apologise if it came across as such.
So just because you can't follow the less than reflex logic of my completely legitimate dislike of subsidizing foreign corporations with my NASA budget, doesn't make that my limitation. It's yours. Sure; it's my fault that you're so damn longwinded. For a point supposedly as simple as you imply (you summarise it above in one sentence), you sure as hell took a long time to say it.
And yes, I had noticed the "logic" in your original post. Unfortunately, it's the convoluted pseudo-logic of the angry nerd argument.... and a piss-poor excuse for the inability to structure your endless rant and to make your point clearly.
Oh, and by the way; from your earlier post
the Danish people are accountable for the government you elect Yep. And the Americans are accountable for the government you elect; and it was that government which started the scheme in the first place. Enough said.
To make matters worse, that missile defense system you're collaborating with is part of a giant system, Star Wars, to defraud Americans of $TRILLIONS more in insecurity extortion, and generations of counterproductive fearmongering to grease its wheels. My God, what a rant. I could barely follow your point, much less its relevance to the post you were replying to, but to whine at Denmark for their involvement in a scheme created by *your* fearmongering government is pretty lame. They're your fucking politicians, supposedly democratically elected, and the Danish didn't concoct the scheme to defraud you. If anyone did that, it was your own people.
By the way, you're whining that NASA are offering the dirty foreigners facilities that it would have cost them more to create and manufacture themselves. Well, duh; that's how business works. Why would they pay NASA if they could do it cheaper themselves?
No, I'm New Here I was going to complain about the down modding of your comment, but then I realised that you probably chose that name for the purpose of making endless bad jokes like that....:-)
Slashdot Mirror
FWIW, it would have been far sleazier if the girl had looked like she was 12 or 13 with a flat chest, and they were doing the same stunt.
Okay; the age consent laws- both for photography and intercourse- are (supposedly) in place for the protection of the child, and anyone actually f****** a 15-year old knowing his/her age probably should be locked up. (*)
However, since teenagers can look quite a bit older or younger than their real age, it's kind of meaningless to say that someone getting turned on by someone under the age of consent is necessarily a paedophile. (Let's not get into that pedantic discussion over what "paedophile" actually covers). Whilst I accept that the papers were typically two-faced and hysterical over genuine paedophilia, I don't think that implying that a large-breasted 15-year-old may be sexually attractive is really paedophilic.
Let me put it this way; which is "worse"- someone being turned on by a 15 year old who looks 18, or the same person being turned on by a 17 year old who looks 14? (Especially bearing in mind that he may not know their real ages).
(*) With IMHO one exception being if the person in question was (e.g.) 16 or 17 themselves. Frankly, a 16-year-old boy being locked up for sleeping with his 15-year-old girlfriend would be a travesty of justice. A 30-year-old doing the same thing would be somewhat different.
I mean, "DVD", WTF does that mean?!! Yeah, we all know it was meant to stand for "Digital Video Disc", and then they realised their mistake (stupid name for a disc if it can hold audio and data too) too late, so had to pretend that it was meant to stand for "Digital Versatile Disc" (what a vile contrivance), and then they changed their mind and said it didn't stand for anything.
But I digress; my point is that 10 years ago, if you'd suggested "DVD" on its own as a marketing name, it would have sounded awful; and it still does when you think about it.
I know, this has happened to me; a domain I had my eye on for years *just happened* to get snapped up earlier on the same day that my hosting company tried to buy it; I was suspicious at the time, and right to be- I found out what had happened later on.
I wasn't about to waste time approaching the thieving vermin who stole it, as I knew they'd try to extort me more than I was prepared to pay. Lo and behold, I checked again a month later and it was no longer registered. Presumably they got a refund when they realised that they weren't going to make any money, so I got the domain after all, though I registered it myself this time.
Well, I exaggerate, but you get the idea.
But all that probably tells us is that CVG was an early warning, going first because it was most prone. The more adult-oriented mainstream publications such as "Computer Gaming" falling seems to indicate a trend (or perhaps it really was just down to the parent company's financial problems?)
But regarding CVG, what intrigues me is whether it's still possible to sell a computer games magazine aimed at a similar under-16s market. What form would it take? It can't compete with the net directly, or be as up-to-date, but perhaps they could focus on maps and large multi-page playing guides that might be hard to put online effectively (or print out). I don't think that alone is enough to sustain a magazine, though.
This is just speculation, and I wouldn't expect them to admit it; it would reveal their mentality and justify piracy, which they can't be seen to be doing. But I'd be very surprised if this weren't the case...
Whilst there's some ignorance from the Americans about how popular Sensible Soccer and its descendants were elsewhere, it's still pushing things to say that it belongs in the top 10. It's obviously heavily-influenced by Kick Off/Kick Off 2 and I'm not convinced that it in turn has had *that* much long-term influence. Sure, a lot of people remember it fondly, and I'm in no doubt that it was probably the best-regarded overhead football game if you're into that sort of thing, but Top 10 most culturally important/influential? Nope.
Elite was done in 32K of RAM (though the screen probably swallowed much of that). Although Star Raiders is a much simpler game, it was equally (if not more) innovative for the time it came out, and probably influenced Elite.
That having been said, I think this list is stupid; Sensible World of Soccer, whatever its merits does not credibly belong there.
I'm from the UK (where Sensible Software were based and where football is very popular), and *I* don't think SWOS belongs in the top 10.
Sure; the Sensible Soccer games were popular at the time and well put-together. But the original SS wasn't the first football game. It wasn't even particularly innovative within its own field; its overhead vertical view and graphical style was very similar to Kick Off and Kick Off 2's (which came out 2-3 years earlier, and were already hits).
I'm not claiming the two were identical (one of my friends who enjoyed football games assured me that the playing style in SS was somewhat different to Kick Off's), but it was nevertheless an evolutionary game, and not one that belongs in this top 10.
I also don't see why they chose Sensible World of Soccer (a sequel) instead of the original SS. I don't recall it being particularly innovative or significantly more popular.
If he'd been serious that "Over the next two weeks, I'll be watching to see two things", he should have kept his mouth shut for those two weeks.
(#1 was supposed to read something like...
"Brian Robert Coleman", a character in the video gaming comic strip "Furry vs. Obscura", usually known as Bri....)
You searched for "BBC". Results in order of importance follow:-
#1 RESULT:- "Brian Robert Coleman", usually known as Bri, initials BRC, but in volume 3, episode 24, his friend once called him "BBC" by mistake because someone told him Brian's middle name was "Bob".
#2 RESULT:- "Bob Brown cafe", a cafeteria on the Buttfuck University of Illinois campus, sometimes called BBC (*).
#3 RESULT:- British Broadcasting Corporation
(*) Well, a couple of times anyway, by one of the staff there until she left a couple of months ago.
Moryath: enhancements for body parts I don't possess
...you.. YOU'RE A GIRRRRRLLL!!!
AC:
Either that or he's Walter Peck.
"Mr. Bennet" from "Heroes" (Click link for all results on this subject)
(Top 5 results follow)
[blah]
"Mr. Bennet" from "Pride and Prejudice" (Click link for all results on this subject)
(Top 5 results follow)
Complete results list follows:-
[blah]
Displaying the top 10 results from each category:-
[etc]
And yes, I had noticed the "logic" in your original post. Unfortunately, it's the convoluted pseudo-logic of the angry nerd argument.... and a piss-poor excuse for the inability to structure your endless rant and to make your point clearly.
Oh, and by the way; from your earlier post the Danish people are accountable for the government you elect Yep. And the Americans are accountable for the government you elect; and it was that government which started the scheme in the first place. Enough said.
By the way, you're whining that NASA are offering the dirty foreigners facilities that it would have cost them more to create and manufacture themselves. Well, duh; that's how business works. Why would they pay NASA if they could do it cheaper themselves?