Advertising in games
on
Advergames
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Although the idea of simulated cars doesn't quite seem right to me (do they similate when your Ford truck goes haywire because the steering box gets loose), it sounds like not such a bad idea... and not really a new one either.
A lot of games use realistic/lifelike locations, etc. Movies incorporate subliminal advertising, so why not do this to game. Example, Duke Nukum Never finally comes out, due to being funded by advertisers. Throughout the game, virtual billboards have advertisments for Coke or Pepsi (there's already game billboard anyways). This could apply to any shooter game, or a racing game etc.
Next, we step on to the simulations/etc. The Sims already has a MacDonalds... so it's been done.
I can't really see a use for this in Strategy games though, unless perhaps Starcraft 2 has a few shelled out Macdonalds buildings (hey, they're going to be everywhere in the universe in the future, you know it).
It could be a good thing, if slapping a few pepsi-like billboards in doom3 makes it come out under $50, I'd have no problem. Such subliminal messaging often works best, so they're not a need for huge and obvious advertising (you'll just get a craving for a nice cold drink whilst next fragging Cacodemons).
Do you have an answering machine? Put it on "record" while she's on the phone. Probably a good idea to have her mention "this call monitored" to avoid lawsuits.
If it's a good recording, maybe put it up somewhere and link in slashdot.
p.s. Anyone found any archives of good prank responses pulled on annoying telemarketers.
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So yeah, basically the program will pop-up-ad slam you, give away your personal info, install crap software on your PC, and has the ability to change it's "terms" to allow it to do more behind your back.
The second line is a different representation of the first, but the same data can be extrapolated. Compression works in a similar fashion, finding patterns and reducing them.
You can get the first sample from the second, and have the same data. Visibly, data is less, but there is no real loss, only a change in representation that gives a smaller filesize
And if he didn't give the grade? Newpapers would have a fun day with a story about how a teacher was forced to give out an "A" grade to satisfy parents, especially with curving the grades of a whole class.
BTW: Were these parents perhaps wealthy? Money/power tends to add a little influence in such situations too
Automotive: Your car crashes due to a defect, you die
Drugs (medical): Your pharmacist doesn't check to find that the drug prescribed is something you're listed as being highly allergic to, you die.
SQL Server crashes: You lose money, you require stress leave, but in most cases it isn't life or death.
Last time I patched a windows machine for an email issue, it also created a problem wherein SQL server could not send emails through its link to outlook (which is retarded anyways, SQL server should have an internal mail engine). The next time a server went down, the "page home" feature didn't work, because it couldn't send a paging email.
That's fine for internal policy... but when said politician is wheeling and dealing with other countries, do you actually want him 100% truthful?
Well, actually, we're more-or-less trying to just get ahead ourselves and don't give a sh*t about your insignificant little country. If you hadn't found a huge oil deposit then we wouldn't have noticed you at all.
You collect payment only in currency X, preferable one you know will be going down in value by the end of the year. As you are collecting at current-value, you always get paid the proper equivilent for your work. Once you get paid... immediately exchanged said currency for US$.
Now... on your tax forms, can you claim that you were paid 50000 in currency X. Remember, if the currency is valued lower at the end of the year, you would be paying less tax for that 50,000 - not indicating the fact that you did a turnover to US$.
This would only work if the foreign currency noticably dropped in value between the beginning and end of the tax year, and you'd also have to count the rates for exchanging currency. Anyone know if it would work though?
As users get more and more attached to windows, this actual becomes more and more true. Linux may now or in the future be ready for the desktop user, but even if linux were to look 95% like windows (see Lindows, Lycoris), will the average Joe user be ready to switch?
Even if it's somebody who's not used windows, or at least not often, will Joe User overcome the stigma that "Linux" is for geeks? And if it's a longtime windows user, will Joe U be mentally ready and willing to switch, especially when all his friends are using windows. People are notoriously resistant to change, even good change.
If 'nix crawls into the office desktop market, it stands a better chance of getting into the home desktop market. And the #1 reason it would get onto office desktops is of course: cost and licensing. Perhaps after we get 1 or 2 large companise sucessfully using a 'nix desktop, people will become more aware of linux as something other than a geek tool.
I'm not a MacHead... nor do I even own a Mac (though on occasion I've worked on some)... however, I don't even see how it can claimed that XP has the best colour scheme. Every time I see OS-X I start drooling and wish that I could afford a Mac to play with...
Not really very often, although since I have an email account on a German provider I have gotten a slight bit of German spam. I think a lot of it comes from "sign up" sites, unless you have a strongly public-visible website with your email address on the main page (damn trafficmagnet ads) - most companies in other countries probably aren't going to both pick up your email address if they don't except you to understand the language.
Since a large portion of popular sites onlines are in english, it stands to reason that when you sign in your email address on an english site, it gets added to an english spamlist. Since I don't sign up on any Korean/Swiss/etc sites, they haven't yet gotten my email address yet (or don't care about it).
That being said, people in N. America and english speaking countries do get a lot of spam in english from foreign servers - which is where IP range blocklists and spamassassin come in handy.
I was just looking at sound of the FX, etc boxes for guitar, and choking on some of the rather high pricing. If a niche-market for PC-enabled (or at least PC-hardware enabled) guitars comes out, perhaps we can see something more custom along this line.
I've been considering starting an open-source project (once I have time) to create a custom guitar FX synth - does anyone know what the CPU requirements might be around to process Digital Effects in realtime (probably in one soundcard and out another).
Somebody may have already done this already. If I can get a DSP/ethernet enabled guitar, this could theoretically save a lot of headache in trying to sort out the input/FX/output latency issues.
If P2P became a mass of low-quality, tape-like rips... then would people bother to download copyrighted music? Making home-microphone-quality songs isn't a good idea, but maybe tape-quality or radio-quality would be sufficient.
Many argue that P2P exposes people to new bands, types of music, etc. This would be a good way to go about it. Give somebody a lower-quality copy of the song. If they like it, they can hear the whole song without paying. If they want something that doesn't sound like a 5-yr-old tape when burned onto CD, then they will have to pay for it.
For some artists, such as emerging self-starters, they could publish a few good songs... hoping to be noticed.
Really, as long as the songs can be listened to at a half-decent quality, then P2P would be serving a good purpose without undercutting copyrighted music (or at least quite so badly).
Now it's becoming too easy to get the hacks though. They're aren't quite as common in CS (and it's hard to tell if somebody is hacking) - and sometimes other factors such as latency, etc, are also important. But in some games when there are only two players left... player A is hiding, and those dead can see the map as player B directly homes in on player A's hiding spot...
Same in SC... when we're playing a clan game and planning a drop - somehow 3 times the enemy has moved his little squid of anti-air units directly in path ofthe dropships.
Some players just suck and whine a lot, but there are also a lot of obvious map hackers, cheaters, etc out there.
Which brings in a big debate over cloning and just what makes a person, well, a person. If you have a soul... would a clone be born with a soul? If you were brain-copied over to the clone, does that clone inherit your soul as well? If you original body dies... what goes to heaven/hell? What really defines you.
Yeah, I think cloning really scares the crap outta a lot of religious people, especially with the concept of having a lot of soulless clones.
That being said though, even if you copied the "memories", a lot of the way a body works depends on how it has grown. John Doe "A" may be 5'8" tall, with a slight case of asmthma from living near the local carcinogen plant, etc etc. John Doe "B" would grow up with different ailments, and probably a different biochemical pattern within his body. A lot of how we work is in our hormonal, etc, balances.
So, even if there were no soul issue, growing a new John Doe "B" from DNA of John Doe "A" (or a new fluffy the kitten), will not create an exact replica.
I think that banning anything that might be considered "tainting" to the jury is a good thing.
For innocents (and I don't believe this is the case, considering the XX amount of bodies residing on his property in various locations) it would prevent the jury from being predisposed. For those guilt, when somebody gets nailed in court, it will help prevent some dumbass lawyer from saying "the jury's opinion was tainted, my client didn't get a fair trial."
When you consider all the things that people can get off for... the less ways to screw it up, the better.
They're trying to "decriminalize" it. Which basically means, not illegal to have it in "personal" doses... but still illegal to run a grow-op or to distribute
Remember that evil SPAM thing that used to be so big? That was me'.
Oh, perfect... there's a fresh job opening at the salt mines in the Sahara, accmodation included! Be sure to pack lots of SP-10000 sunblock, a canteen, and some cool clothes. Bruno and Vito will now escort you home and then to the airport.
That, or it means they don't expect the majority to read... and can then gain money sueing anybody who does something that does represent a bad image of the product.
How many tiny little clauses are there that make it easy for big companies to sue. I'm still waiting to see who slips "and will forthwith donate one's firstborn child, upon reaching the age of two years, as a sacri^h^h^h^h token of good esteem to the company."
I have an early Sony MP3-deck for my car. For some reason, when it reaches the end of the MP3's on the disk, it kicks into the data area and starts playing noise. The deck is only supposed to play audio tracks, or files ending in.MP3. Since the last actual song was relatively quiet (volume up) the first time it blasted me I just above did swerve and cause an accident.
Bugs in software and hardware alike can definately be fatal, even if the device is not directly linked to the vehicle driving. Having an automatic seat suddenly slide you away from the wheel/pedals would probably be worse... and there are plenty of other scenarios.
Even if it were linux... I wouldn't necessarily want an embedded OS. Perhaps for something that monitored my car (but unable to change anything)... and for a stereo etc that could definately be known as "off" when it's off... but it still seems like not such a great idea.
Slashdot Mirror
Although the idea of simulated cars doesn't quite seem right to me (do they similate when your Ford truck goes haywire because the steering box gets loose), it sounds like not such a bad idea... and not really a new one either.
A lot of games use realistic/lifelike locations, etc. Movies incorporate subliminal advertising, so why not do this to game. Example, Duke Nukum Never finally comes out, due to being funded by advertisers. Throughout the game, virtual billboards have advertisments for Coke or Pepsi (there's already game billboard anyways). This could apply to any shooter game, or a racing game etc.
Next, we step on to the simulations/etc. The Sims already has a MacDonalds... so it's been done.
I can't really see a use for this in Strategy games though, unless perhaps Starcraft 2 has a few shelled out Macdonalds buildings (hey, they're going to be everywhere in the universe in the future, you know it).
It could be a good thing, if slapping a few pepsi-like billboards in doom3 makes it come out under $50, I'd have no problem. Such subliminal messaging often works best, so they're not a need for huge and obvious advertising (you'll just get a craving for a nice cold drink whilst next fragging Cacodemons).
Do you have an answering machine? Put it on "record" while she's on the phone. Probably a good idea to have her mention "this call monitored" to avoid lawsuits.
If it's a good recording, maybe put it up somewhere and link in slashdot.
p.s. Anyone found any archives of good prank responses pulled on annoying telemarketers.
Terms
- The Xupiter software will report back to our servers what applications may be running on your system and will resolve these conflicts whenever possible
- Xupiter has included an auto update
... upgrades may include installation of third party applications
- To further enhance your media viewing experience, Xupiter reserves the right to run advertisements and promotions
- . Our software license requires that users browser start page be set to Xupiter.com
Privacy PolicySo yeah, basically the program will pop-up-ad slam you, give away your personal info, install crap software on your PC, and has the ability to change it's "terms" to allow it to do more behind your back.
To add this this...using an extremely simplified example but:
ABABABABCDCDCDCDGHGHGH (22 chars)
4AB4CD4GH (9 chars)
The second line is a different representation of the first, but the same data can be extrapolated. Compression works in a similar fashion, finding patterns and reducing them.
You can get the first sample from the second, and have the same data. Visibly, data is less, but there is no real loss, only a change in representation that gives a smaller filesize
And if he didn't give the grade? Newpapers would have a fun day with a story about how a teacher was forced to give out an "A" grade to satisfy parents, especially with curving the grades of a whole class.
BTW: Were these parents perhaps wealthy? Money/power tends to add a little influence in such situations too
Automotive: Your car crashes due to a defect, you die
Drugs (medical): Your pharmacist doesn't check to find that the drug prescribed is something you're listed as being highly allergic to, you die.
SQL Server crashes: You lose money, you require stress leave, but in most cases it isn't life or death.
Last time I patched a windows machine for an email issue, it also created a problem wherein SQL server could not send emails through its link to outlook (which is retarded anyways, SQL server should have an internal mail engine). The next time a server went down, the "page home" feature didn't work, because it couldn't send a paging email.
All I have to say is, thanks Microsoft!
That's fine for internal policy... but when said politician is wheeling and dealing with other countries, do you actually want him 100% truthful?
Well, actually, we're more-or-less trying to just get ahead ourselves and don't give a sh*t about your insignificant little country. If you hadn't found a huge oil deposit then we wouldn't have noticed you at all.
You collect payment only in currency X, preferable one you know will be going down in value by the end of the year. As you are collecting at current-value, you always get paid the proper equivilent for your work. Once you get paid... immediately exchanged said currency for US$.
Now... on your tax forms, can you claim that you were paid 50000 in currency X. Remember, if the currency is valued lower at the end of the year, you would be paying less tax for that 50,000 - not indicating the fact that you did a turnover to US$.
This would only work if the foreign currency noticably dropped in value between the beginning and end of the tax year, and you'd also have to count the rates for exchanging currency. Anyone know if it would work though?
As users get more and more attached to windows, this actual becomes more and more true. Linux may now or in the future be ready for the desktop user, but even if linux were to look 95% like windows (see Lindows, Lycoris), will the average Joe user be ready to switch?
Even if it's somebody who's not used windows, or at least not often, will Joe User overcome the stigma that "Linux" is for geeks? And if it's a longtime windows user, will Joe U be mentally ready and willing to switch, especially when all his friends are using windows. People are notoriously resistant to change, even good change.
If 'nix crawls into the office desktop market, it stands a better chance of getting into the home desktop market. And the #1 reason it would get onto office desktops is of course: cost and licensing. Perhaps after we get 1 or 2 large companise sucessfully using a 'nix desktop, people will become more aware of linux as something other than a geek tool.
I'm not a MacHead... nor do I even own a Mac (though on occasion I've worked on some)... however, I don't even see how it can claimed that XP has the best colour scheme. Every time I see OS-X I start drooling and wish that I could afford a Mac to play with...
Not really very often, although since I have an email account on a German provider I have gotten a slight bit of German spam. I think a lot of it comes from "sign up" sites, unless you have a strongly public-visible website with your email address on the main page (damn trafficmagnet ads) - most companies in other countries probably aren't going to both pick up your email address if they don't except you to understand the language.
Since a large portion of popular sites onlines are in english, it stands to reason that when you sign in your email address on an english site, it gets added to an english spamlist. Since I don't sign up on any Korean/Swiss/etc sites, they haven't yet gotten my email address yet (or don't care about it).
That being said, people in N. America and english speaking countries do get a lot of spam in english from foreign servers - which is where IP range blocklists and spamassassin come in handy.
My night-elf just married a death-knight. Ewww... what an ugly baby.
I was just looking at sound of the FX, etc boxes for guitar, and choking on some of the rather high pricing. If a niche-market for PC-enabled (or at least PC-hardware enabled) guitars comes out, perhaps we can see something more custom along this line.
I've been considering starting an open-source project (once I have time) to create a custom guitar FX synth - does anyone know what the CPU requirements might be around to process Digital Effects in realtime (probably in one soundcard and out another).
Somebody may have already done this already. If I can get a DSP/ethernet enabled guitar, this could theoretically save a lot of headache in trying to sort out the input/FX/output latency issues.
If P2P became a mass of low-quality, tape-like rips... then would people bother to download copyrighted music? Making home-microphone-quality songs isn't a good idea, but maybe tape-quality or radio-quality would be sufficient.
Many argue that P2P exposes people to new bands, types of music, etc. This would be a good way to go about it. Give somebody a lower-quality copy of the song. If they like it, they can hear the whole song without paying. If they want something that doesn't sound like a 5-yr-old tape when burned onto CD, then they will have to pay for it.
For some artists, such as emerging self-starters, they could publish a few good songs... hoping to be noticed.
Really, as long as the songs can be listened to at a half-decent quality, then P2P would be serving a good purpose without undercutting copyrighted music (or at least quite so badly).
Now it's becoming too easy to get the hacks though. They're aren't quite as common in CS (and it's hard to tell if somebody is hacking) - and sometimes other factors such as latency, etc, are also important. But in some games when there are only two players left... player A is hiding, and those dead can see the map as player B directly homes in on player A's hiding spot...
Same in SC... when we're playing a clan game and planning a drop - somehow 3 times the enemy has moved his little squid of anti-air units directly in path ofthe dropships.
Some players just suck and whine a lot, but there are also a lot of obvious map hackers, cheaters, etc out there.
Which brings in a big debate over cloning and just what makes a person, well, a person. If you have a soul... would a clone be born with a soul? If you were brain-copied over to the clone, does that clone inherit your soul as well? If you original body dies... what goes to heaven/hell? What really defines you.
Yeah, I think cloning really scares the crap outta a lot of religious people, especially with the concept of having a lot of soulless clones.
That being said though, even if you copied the "memories", a lot of the way a body works depends on how it has grown. John Doe "A" may be 5'8" tall, with a slight case of asmthma from living near the local carcinogen plant, etc etc. John Doe "B" would grow up with different ailments, and probably a different biochemical pattern within his body. A lot of how we work is in our hormonal, etc, balances.
So, even if there were no soul issue, growing a new John Doe "B" from DNA of John Doe "A" (or a new fluffy the kitten), will not create an exact replica.
Nah, as long as the US insists on using arabic digits (0-9), it's still behind. Everyone knows that real countries use Roman numerals.
Plus... using Roman numerals cuts down on the need for operators, much less people dialing "0."
Not only that... but all the annoying "anti-cadmium" posters seem to ignore all the fun things that are probably in existing monitors anyways.
I think that banning anything that might be considered "tainting" to the jury is a good thing.
For innocents (and I don't believe this is the case, considering the XX amount of bodies residing on his property in various locations) it would prevent the jury from being predisposed. For those guilt, when somebody gets nailed in court, it will help prevent some dumbass lawyer from saying "the jury's opinion was tainted, my client didn't get a fair trial."
When you consider all the things that people can get off for... the less ways to screw it up, the better.
They're trying to "decriminalize" it. Which basically means, not illegal to have it in "personal" doses... but still illegal to run a grow-op or to distribute
Remember that evil SPAM thing that used to be so big? That was me'.
Oh, perfect... there's a fresh job opening at the salt mines in the Sahara, accmodation included! Be sure to pack lots of SP-10000 sunblock, a canteen, and some cool clothes. Bruno and Vito will now escort you home and then to the airport.
Have a nice day
That, or it means they don't expect the majority to read... and can then gain money sueing anybody who does something that does represent a bad image of the product.
How many tiny little clauses are there that make it easy for big companies to sue. I'm still waiting to see who slips "and will forthwith donate one's firstborn child, upon reaching the age of two years, as a sacri^h^h^h^h token of good esteem to the company."
Not at all... just to speed it up for large keys.
I have an early Sony MP3-deck for my car. For some reason, when it reaches the end of the MP3's on the disk, it kicks into the data area and starts playing noise. The deck is only supposed to play audio tracks, or files ending in .MP3. Since the last actual song was relatively quiet (volume up) the first time it blasted me I just above did swerve and cause an accident.
Bugs in software and hardware alike can definately be fatal, even if the device is not directly linked to the vehicle driving. Having an automatic seat suddenly slide you away from the wheel/pedals would probably be worse... and there are plenty of other scenarios.
Even if it were linux... I wouldn't necessarily want an embedded OS. Perhaps for something that monitored my car (but unable to change anything)... and for a stereo etc that could definately be known as "off" when it's off... but it still seems like not such a great idea.