That is why online games are so popular with publishers. Instant anti-piracy protection. As long as you make sure only known accounts can play you have instantly killed of piracy. Just check the number of people begging for half-life keys.
If I can carry one in my wallet for a couple of years then yeah sure. Most people in "civilian" accidents don't bleed to death from open wounds so the chances of being or finding someone else in a accident where this is usefull is remote but then again I also always carry a condom.
I do believe that the whole idea that MS has had that local search and internet search where integrated. So it would "know" the music I have on disc, could find box covers and reviews and artist site because it could both search locally and the net.
Anyway, yeah what you say is right. The problem I think is not for MS to come up with a database filesystem. The problem is getting the system to input files with meaningfull descriptions.
Just that I have had to patiently explain to co-workers several time why exactly their celeron that exceeds the minimum spec MHZ still doesn't perform.
Started with the old 386dx/sx and I guess my bitterness blinded me. Just saw cyrix/celeron and went preachy. Sorry.
A strong story with plenty of side quests but wich intertwine with the main quest and wich affect each other.
Let me be a force of good a force of evil (for the 12yr olds who call their mommy sir). I loved the "what happened" at the end of fallout. But give me real freedom. Make it possible to be really really good but make it cost you. Same with evil. So that most people will play in the middle. None of this, give 100 credits out of your one million stash and become a saint. Make good really good, evil really evil and plenty of middle ground for the less idealistic player. I hate games that just make me choose between "sorta nice" and "pointlessly evil".
No icewind dale. I want to meet intresting characters. Not roll up an army.
The past troika games suffered from HUGE empty areas. TOOE especially was bad in the opening. 2 screens full of empty non-enterable barn does not say "ooh nice" it says "what is this an rpg or image scroller?" Keep it tight. I never seen the need for seperate weapons and armour dealers. If there is no story need for seperate stores create a market like plaza. Don't make me walk when there is no story need.
As for the combat if they are going real time make it as complex as possible with plenty of options you can turn off for the lesser players.
I would love to see some real tactically options used. Like machine guns being crap at hitting but excellent for supression fire. The thing I hate most about turnbased games is that things like supression fire and encirclement don't really have an effect like they would in realtime.
BUT most important since this will be a troika game. Get a good publisher that is not afraid to make a rated game or don't make the game rated in the first place. None of this TOEE stuff with half the game ripped out seconds before release.
And please please test this time eh. Past games have been to put it mildly a bit buggy. People are getting fed up with this.
Will I get the game I want? Doubt it. Planescape torment was extremely close to perfect (the graphics could have high-res) and didn't sell. Fallout was almost there. Sadly it been an awfully long time since then and there just doesn't seem to be any demand for games like this.
After the apartheid regime crumbled there was need to settle things. It would have been very easy for the ANC to exact revenge on the whites. Yet Nelson Mandella choose not to. Instead a very lengthy make up process was started in wich people talked to each other. Prison guard to prisoner. Rioter to victim.
South africa had seen a very bitter and long conflict not just between white and black but between whites and whites. Brown and black. Black and black. Zulus where used by the white goverment as a way to keep the ANC down. People from india where put in a middle position. Jews were on the outside white but just as prosecuted.
So why was there no revenge? Their sure was enough on all sides to be bitter about.
Because all sides realized that revenge was not an option. Even the neo-nazis realized that either there was peace or they were going to get slaughtered.
Peace was possible because no side wanted to risk war.
An example to the world that we can rise above ourselves. And sadly one that is almost impossible to duplicate. Usually at least one side thinks that he will win the war. The person cutting you off doesn't consider that he will die horribly in an accident or that you will gun him down. The rapist does not consider he will go to jail. The troll does not consider that someone will look him up and punch his face in.
South africa didn't take revenge because they were afraid of what revenge would do to them.
So I disagree with out. I think revenge is very usefull. Most usefull when both sides fear the potential of revenge.
The extreme side of the lack of fear of revenge are terrorist attacks. Al Quada could attack because they didn't fear anything america could do back. Or do you really think Osama Bin Laden gives a damn about the people on his side killed?
On the other hand america can act like a real prick because it does not live in fear that someday the world will get revenge. Look at vietnam. America slaughtered yet lives free from ever having to face the consequences.
Revenge is sweet but the fear of revenge keeps humans "civilized" where civilized translates as "from bashing each others head in".
A cyrix? For games? Geez. Any game would have spanked that cpu.
There also was a demo available for Half-Life (not sure if it was available before it was for me but holland is always slow with game releases) wich would have told you if it the game ran on your hardware.
Your second machine ain't much better for games. Celerons are office machines. Not meant for games.
This post isn't meant to put you down. I just want to point out that you have to buy the right hardware. Sure cyrix and celerons are cheap but they are also jokes for gaming. You would have been better of with AMD. (Certainly warmer)
Don't buy "cheap" office hardware and expect to play any games. Better to either save up a bit OR buy cheaper real hardware. Those cheap processors leave out features that games need. Need more in fact then a few extra mhz.
I got 3 pc's now 2 are linux machines so I set them up somewhat transparant. Same home directory. Running apps on the headless one that display on the desktop one. But still it is sometimes hard to find the right one. It is like driving a double clutch car. Not hard or impossible to learn but not exactly without effort either. For one thing by default locate doesn't work accross the network. Since the linux machines are full with HD's I also got some on windows. 3 machines to search for content.
The dream is to create a "star trek" like computer. Why should I remember the filepath to a file (or in my case wich computer). That is not how I pick a book from the shelf is it. I don't need to remember the exactly title of the linux o'reilly guide. I can find it very fast by the general size and color even feel and the fact it is most likely near my desk.
The ultimate idea is for you to instantly be able to find what you want without having to remember weird filenames and paths. Even better to be able to find things when you got no idea what the filename is. If you ever had to search for something on a windows shares network you know how hard it is.
I got one simple example that is very hard to organize. Manga/anime. How do you name the file? Japanese name? Japanese but in roman characters? Translated name? Official licensed translated name? I can always use locate (I store mine on a linux san) but that requires me to know the name. I can't search for a series "about a boy visited by a goddess" I need to search for "ah! my goddess" "oh! my goddess" "ah! megami-sama" etc etc. The only common character is the !
The ideal search system would allow me to find all the files belonging or related to the series with a simple description. It would show me related series, give me the mp3's with the box covers. Tell me I got the dvd's.
Not sure if this is what they are trying with winfs but there sure could be a market for the perfect search system. Your 30 level directory works very good for a simple 1 way search system. Kinda like a file cabinet. You can sort the personal records by name. But put it in a database and you can search by anything you want. Even combinations.
But it is going to very hard to do. All the databases I seen work on the principle: crap in crap out. The trick is not in creating a database file system. The trick is in writing code that can insert content into the database and get meaningfull info on it.
People need to be watched to behave. Those who don't believe that live in a dream world. Remove control and you get anarachy and anarchy is not freedom, it is enslavement by whoever happens to have the biggest gun.
There will always be people who get enjoyment from cause grieve to other people. In the real world we spend billions each year combatting them through the legal system. On the net we have no such protection so a community like/. needs all kind of protection. No empty posts, need to wait between posts, no fancy html, signup, ip bans. All because some people enjoy destroying things.
Most of these people are very sad creatures as well. One person I know is involved with GNAA actually spend time bitching on IRC about how a guy was downloading the same file over and over again and how this was a DOS attack and how he would complain the guys ISP and get him banned.
Yet when asked if he wasn't doing the same with GNAA he just couldn't get it.
I am sure a shrink could make a case study out of that guy. I am not a shrink and just think that guy is a sad fucktard who in his real life is nothing and needs the net to pretend to have any meaning.
The internet can be used for great things. Some use it to create Linux, some use it to cause grieve. For now the creators are in the fast majority but the vandals will never go away.
There are stupid things like making a clumsy pass at a girl and there is making a porno and sending it off. It is kinda like the difference between taking a puff of a joint and shooting crack.
If we create a world where people don't have to suffer the results of their mistakes then they will have no reason to stop making mistakes.
The girls that made the porno has to be one of the alltime most stupid people in the world. What is wrong with a love letter? Baking cookies?
I like to think of this as another darwin type removal of the weakest links. Sending self made porn to a teenage boy is like going "Awh cute kittie, come here" to a lion.
I am not intrestted in feeling sympathy untill she gets down on her hands and knees and begs for forgiveness for being an insult to the human race. Legal protection you say? Okay sure, send the boy to jail for copyright infringement but only when she becomes a ward of the state for the rest of her live (not sure about the english term for it but it means she looses the right to ever do anything on her own, is also done to senile people)
Believe it or not but once Microsoft was seen as the rebel delivering freedom from the evil IBM. Except of course that once MS has struck IBM down we soon learned that Microsoft would be even more evil then IBM could ever have dreamed of. Now with linux IBM seems to be coming back stronger then ever before.
IBM is supposed to be the boring suit company yet they have a suprising amount of fun headlines on/. Running quake on clusters with super high graphics. Porting their mainframe OS to playstation. Linux watches. Commercials to rival apple. (the 1984 apple one was not aimed at Microsoft but at Big Blue). Producing the chip in all three upcoming game consoles. Making their own game machine (deep blue).
Compare that with news from Redmond and you might get the idea that IBM is either re-inventing or it never was the company we thought it was.
A lot of people claim that IBM is just behind Linux for the money. I think these people have no idea how real business works. If you seriously believe that none of the top people at IBM want to take a little revenge on Microsoft then you don't know people very well.
Companies are not run by droids, they are run by people who hopefully are good enough not to be blinded by personal desires but are not imune to them either. IBM been screwed over by Microsoft and been denied the desktop. Linux offers them a chance to get back. It is about more then good business. After all IBM makes plenty just selling windows and AIX. Why should they risk on supporting Linux? Not purely for business reasons.
Anyway that is what I like to think. Makes the world a more intresting place to live in.
I am a sucker for those humor pictures like asking can a penquin fly? Answer: picture of tux strapped to a big blue boeing.
GNU has nothing to do with it. It is the Linux kernel that is being claimed by SCO not Linux the OS wich indeed should be GNU/Linux/KDE/pornview^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hsomething-us efull.
It is important to keep the facts straight in an argument especially when one half of the debate is of its rocker.
Linux is a car engine. But JUST the car engine. Wich makes it totally useless unless you got a car or something similar to put it in. Why? Well because the rest of the car provides the controls to the engine and the way of making the engine do something usefull instead of just making noise (mind you most gearheads think that is the perfect use of an engine).
Linux distro X is really just a lot of software put together, GNU (set of tools) Linux (the kernel) X (graphics server) KDE (pretty picture drawer via X) Opera (closed source wetdream of a webbrowser) etc etc etc.
In the same way the say a Supermarine Spitfire is just a load of airfoils, rolls royce engine, fuel tank, big fucking guns, wires etc etc. Not very intresting seen seperatly but put together. WOW.
You don't run linux anymore then you drive your engine.
When people talk about linux they either talk about linux the kernel OR about the whatever Linus Torvalds did that somehow managed to get it altogether. That last bit is most intresting. There are plenty of kernels. Very few Linus Torvalds.
E was never meant to be a replacement for windows. There are two crowds of linux users. Those that want everyone from windows to convert and those that don't give a damn what other people use.
Enlightenment belongs in the latter catogery. KDE and Gnome have a mission and so does Enlightenment but they are not the same mission. Read their site.
It being hard to use is not a problem to the people who use it. That is may be a problem to you is not their problem. This is the hardest to get about opensource. That the programmer doesn't need to give a damn about marketshare or customer satisfaction.
So your last line is right. They don't care and they don't have to. That is freedom. If you want them to care, pay them.
I presume you are female and not a anime/manga/jdrama/dating-game fan. If you were you would soon realize that in japan gender relations are a bit strained. It even been the topic of 3 documenturies on the BBC.
Most males/boys in the media I listed show a tendency to be unable to mend their own clothing, do their own washing or cook a meal. The women on the otherhand so a tendency to accept this. Strange thing is that it doesn't matter wether the story is aimed at girls or boys. Women or men. That is not to say every bit of media has it. There are a few examples of men who can take care of themselves BUT I seen them more in the media aimed at BOYS then the media aimed at girls.
Yet young japanese women are starting to want something different from their men. They don't want to be in a more equal relationship. Same as in the west but where we had a slow movement over several decades Japan is going at the this whole women-lib thing in the last decade or two. Men have found it impossible to catch up.
So these kinda devices, including the Boyfriend Arm Pillow for women are finding a ready market. Not that it is anything new. Childless couples often have pets as replacement for kids and a dog or cat can often become a replacement partner, someone to talk to and care about, for those who have to do without the real thing for whatever reason.
I do think however you got it wrong about the virtual boyfriend and it shows you don't understand men. The virtual girlfriend is not a simulation of REAL women. It is a simulation of what the men who buy it want a woman to be like. Buying gifts is easy. It doesn't require any thought just money. Japanese men know how to make money. Just work 80 hours. It is being a partner for their gf that they find impossible.
So a virtual boyfriend wouldn't be a like a real man either. Instead a virtual boyfriend would love to be set impossible and conflicting targets. Be though but gently, don't cry but be sensitive, don't be a horntoad but always be turned on.
I can see a big market for virtual partners. Just like their is a huge market for dogs and cats.
Japan is having real troubles with this. Western civilisation is already dying out because to few kids are being born but Japan is racing past europe at an alarming speed.
Modern japanese women expect/want a more equal partnership and modern japanese males seem unable to supply that. So many girls are putting of getting married and therefore getting kids. You have heard of the baby boom? This is the opposite. A baby implosion. Even if the women simply postpone getting kids it will have a huge effect as later in live the changes of getting a healthy child go down alarmingly.
I have now seen several documenturies on the problem so it seems to be real.
I got the real sense that there was a huge culture clash going on with both sides expecting the other side to be something they are not.
It is easy to say that feminisme is to blame but if you ever watched a bit of japanese culture it is also easy to see why women are fed up. A male who claims he is starving because there is nobody to cook is pathetic by western standards. I can imagine that Japanese women have grown fed up with it. It is not that the japanese women don't want to get married and have kids. They just don't want to be a slave to their husband. On the other hand the boys are still raised with the ideal of the demure wife who never talks back or makes demands.
Having a few confirmed bachelors around the place adds color to the world. Having a nation of people unwilling to create families is asking for trouble when people are living longer and longer. Japan may not have enough people to take care of their old ones in a decade or two.
And what kinda games do you like?
on
Sims 2 Goes Gold
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· Score: 4, Insightful
I hate to put it to you but most games are very repetitive. I heard this comment before, usually from CS kiddies. People who will happily play the same level over and over again, walk exactly the same path to hone their "skill" to the finest.
Oh yeah. That is fun.
All games get old really fast. The trick is not to make the gameplay to varied. It is to make the basic gameplay so much fun that people want to do it again and again and again. Kinda like sex. Except is usually a lot easier to cheat in a maxis game.
No, no-one ever thought this
on
Sims 2 Goes Gold
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· Score: 5, Funny
The Sims is a dollhouse. Except the dolls move although they clearly took their AI from Barbie.
It is also one of the best selling games of all time. Any game company with a brain would love to have a game like this. It is like having a money press in the basement. Just keep pumping out tiny little version improvements (the expansion packs) and reap the money. Just check the sales charts of the last few years. Not bad for a game engine wich even at launch wasn't that hot.
The most amazing story about The Sims is that no-one seems to have tried to copy it. You got the recent "Singles" and that is it. There seems to be a market for a non-violent, non-competitive game yet all we get is more FPS with extra-gore. Don't get me wrong I LOVE GORE. Just not all the time. Sometimes I want to play a nice game where I can control a households of lesbian teenage girls and get them to pee their pants in sync. Is that really so much to ask?
Far more important reason for linux and mac versio
on
Sims 2 Goes Gold
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· Score: 4, Insightful
There is a far more important reason why they might want to create a linux/mac version. It requires you to know what the true appeal is of "The Sims". If you don't know it is close to what the true appeal of Quake/Half-life/Unreal is.
Right, user created content. The expansion packs are bought less for the extra content but for the extra capabilties given to content creators. New type of chairs, new types of clothing. It may sound strange but the original game had some severe limitations on what kinda seating you could have. You could create a low seat but any sim sitting on it would float.
So why are Mac and to a lesser extent Linux versions important? I think it is save to say that the Mac crowd has a higher percentage of people who like to create artwork. Linux has a higher percentage of coders.
It is telling that a lot of the free content sites I visited had very clear instructions for how to use their content on the mac version.
MS is not exactly known for playing well with others. It is MS way or no way. Opensource is far more relaxed then that. Do you really think MS would ever allow a piece of their work to be forked?
But if this guy is serious and he really does mean it and he really does have any say in the company I got 2 simple opensource projects for him. Samba and OpenOffice. If he wants to prove MS can play nice after all get him to work on these 2 projects and make sure they are compatible whenever MS decides to "rework" their code and "accidently" break compatibilty.
When the next windows version does not break samba, when Microsoft Office opens OpenOffice files and vice versa without problem THEN I will be willing to believe MS can be just another IT company and not the IT company from hell.
At the moment it is like a rapist asking what will help to get him accepted back into society. STOP RAPING!
I am pretty sure that Tolkien was not the first to come up with idea of elephants in battle to be used as big bow platforms. Check out something we call, "WORLD HISTORY", you will be suprising how many ideas writers have stolen from it.
There are no orginal ideas left, the only thing left is to steal. It isn't being original that matters anyway. It is how well you tell it. Kinda like sex. Orginallity doesn't count. Skill does.
The average Apple user I have met isn't a computer whizkid. However there is a huge difference with the unwashed windows hords. The Apple user KNOWS he is a computer moron. Most of them therefore do little things like read the goddamn fucking manual. They are also less likely to be upset about safeguards. (just check with your local emergcency crew, it isn't the 2 left hands doctor who decides to do a bit of DIY who cuts of his thumb. It is the DIYer who think he knows it all and thinks safety catches are for wimps)
The problem with windows isn't that its users are stupid and don't know shit. The problem is that MS has chosen to encourage these computer morons to feel like they know what they are doing and has given them enough rope to hang themselves with.
It makes people feel good and gives helpdesk monkeys around the world fulltime employment.
Remember, virusses, trojans, spyware ARE GOOD for the local economy.
I think it was in an interview but Jay Leno but not sure about that. Anyway it was after he got a pacemaker and he said something along these lines. "I guess this operation finally proves the republicans do have a heart".
To wich of course the perfect comeback would have been. "Yes it does, a diseased weak organ that can only be made to work by the regular appliance of electric shock". Someone fetch me Bush and a cattle prod.
Slashdot Mirror
That is why online games are so popular with publishers. Instant anti-piracy protection. As long as you make sure only known accounts can play you have instantly killed of piracy. Just check the number of people begging for half-life keys.
If I can carry one in my wallet for a couple of years then yeah sure. Most people in "civilian" accidents don't bleed to death from open wounds so the chances of being or finding someone else in a accident where this is usefull is remote but then again I also always carry a condom.
Anyway, yeah what you say is right. The problem I think is not for MS to come up with a database filesystem. The problem is getting the system to input files with meaningfull descriptions.
Started with the old 386dx/sx and I guess my bitterness blinded me. Just saw cyrix/celeron and went preachy. Sorry.
- A strong story with plenty of side quests but wich intertwine with the main quest and wich affect each other.
- Let me be a force of good a force of evil (for the 12yr olds who call their mommy sir). I loved the "what happened" at the end of fallout. But give me real freedom. Make it possible to be really really good but make it cost you. Same with evil. So that most people will play in the middle. None of this, give 100 credits out of your one million stash and become a saint. Make good really good, evil really evil and plenty of middle ground for the less idealistic player. I hate games that just make me choose between "sorta nice" and "pointlessly evil".
- No icewind dale. I want to meet intresting characters. Not roll up an army.
- The past troika games suffered from HUGE empty areas. TOOE especially was bad in the opening. 2 screens full of empty non-enterable barn does not say "ooh nice" it says "what is this an rpg or image scroller?" Keep it tight. I never seen the need for seperate weapons and armour dealers. If there is no story need for seperate stores create a market like plaza. Don't make me walk when there is no story need.
As for the combat if they are going real time make it as complex as possible with plenty of options you can turn off for the lesser players.I would love to see some real tactically options used. Like machine guns being crap at hitting but excellent for supression fire. The thing I hate most about turnbased games is that things like supression fire and encirclement don't really have an effect like they would in realtime.
BUT most important since this will be a troika game. Get a good publisher that is not afraid to make a rated game or don't make the game rated in the first place. None of this TOEE stuff with half the game ripped out seconds before release.
And please please test this time eh. Past games have been to put it mildly a bit buggy. People are getting fed up with this.
Will I get the game I want? Doubt it. Planescape torment was extremely close to perfect (the graphics could have high-res) and didn't sell. Fallout was almost there. Sadly it been an awfully long time since then and there just doesn't seem to be any demand for games like this.
South africa had seen a very bitter and long conflict not just between white and black but between whites and whites. Brown and black. Black and black. Zulus where used by the white goverment as a way to keep the ANC down. People from india where put in a middle position. Jews were on the outside white but just as prosecuted.
So why was there no revenge? Their sure was enough on all sides to be bitter about.
Because all sides realized that revenge was not an option. Even the neo-nazis realized that either there was peace or they were going to get slaughtered.
Peace was possible because no side wanted to risk war.
An example to the world that we can rise above ourselves. And sadly one that is almost impossible to duplicate. Usually at least one side thinks that he will win the war. The person cutting you off doesn't consider that he will die horribly in an accident or that you will gun him down. The rapist does not consider he will go to jail. The troll does not consider that someone will look him up and punch his face in.
South africa didn't take revenge because they were afraid of what revenge would do to them.
So I disagree with out. I think revenge is very usefull. Most usefull when both sides fear the potential of revenge.
The extreme side of the lack of fear of revenge are terrorist attacks. Al Quada could attack because they didn't fear anything america could do back. Or do you really think Osama Bin Laden gives a damn about the people on his side killed?
On the other hand america can act like a real prick because it does not live in fear that someday the world will get revenge. Look at vietnam. America slaughtered yet lives free from ever having to face the consequences.
Revenge is sweet but the fear of revenge keeps humans "civilized" where civilized translates as "from bashing each others head in".
There also was a demo available for Half-Life (not sure if it was available before it was for me but holland is always slow with game releases) wich would have told you if it the game ran on your hardware.
Your second machine ain't much better for games. Celerons are office machines. Not meant for games.
This post isn't meant to put you down. I just want to point out that you have to buy the right hardware. Sure cyrix and celerons are cheap but they are also jokes for gaming. You would have been better of with AMD. (Certainly warmer)
Don't buy "cheap" office hardware and expect to play any games. Better to either save up a bit OR buy cheaper real hardware. Those cheap processors leave out features that games need. Need more in fact then a few extra mhz.
The dream is to create a "star trek" like computer. Why should I remember the filepath to a file (or in my case wich computer). That is not how I pick a book from the shelf is it. I don't need to remember the exactly title of the linux o'reilly guide. I can find it very fast by the general size and color even feel and the fact it is most likely near my desk.
The ultimate idea is for you to instantly be able to find what you want without having to remember weird filenames and paths. Even better to be able to find things when you got no idea what the filename is. If you ever had to search for something on a windows shares network you know how hard it is.
I got one simple example that is very hard to organize. Manga/anime. How do you name the file? Japanese name? Japanese but in roman characters? Translated name? Official licensed translated name? I can always use locate (I store mine on a linux san) but that requires me to know the name. I can't search for a series "about a boy visited by a goddess" I need to search for "ah! my goddess" "oh! my goddess" "ah! megami-sama" etc etc. The only common character is the !
The ideal search system would allow me to find all the files belonging or related to the series with a simple description. It would show me related series, give me the mp3's with the box covers. Tell me I got the dvd's.
Not sure if this is what they are trying with winfs but there sure could be a market for the perfect search system. Your 30 level directory works very good for a simple 1 way search system. Kinda like a file cabinet. You can sort the personal records by name. But put it in a database and you can search by anything you want. Even combinations.
But it is going to very hard to do. All the databases I seen work on the principle: crap in crap out. The trick is not in creating a database file system. The trick is in writing code that can insert content into the database and get meaningfull info on it.
People need to be watched to behave. Those who don't believe that live in a dream world. Remove control and you get anarachy and anarchy is not freedom, it is enslavement by whoever happens to have the biggest gun.
There will always be people who get enjoyment from cause grieve to other people. In the real world we spend billions each year combatting them through the legal system. On the net we have no such protection so a community like /. needs all kind of protection. No empty posts, need to wait between posts, no fancy html, signup, ip bans. All because some people enjoy destroying things.
Most of these people are very sad creatures as well. One person I know is involved with GNAA actually spend time bitching on IRC about how a guy was downloading the same file over and over again and how this was a DOS attack and how he would complain the guys ISP and get him banned.
Yet when asked if he wasn't doing the same with GNAA he just couldn't get it.
I am sure a shrink could make a case study out of that guy. I am not a shrink and just think that guy is a sad fucktard who in his real life is nothing and needs the net to pretend to have any meaning.
The internet can be used for great things. Some use it to create Linux, some use it to cause grieve. For now the creators are in the fast majority but the vandals will never go away.
If we create a world where people don't have to suffer the results of their mistakes then they will have no reason to stop making mistakes.
The girls that made the porno has to be one of the alltime most stupid people in the world. What is wrong with a love letter? Baking cookies?
I like to think of this as another darwin type removal of the weakest links. Sending self made porn to a teenage boy is like going "Awh cute kittie, come here" to a lion.
I am not intrestted in feeling sympathy untill she gets down on her hands and knees and begs for forgiveness for being an insult to the human race. Legal protection you say? Okay sure, send the boy to jail for copyright infringement but only when she becomes a ward of the state for the rest of her live (not sure about the english term for it but it means she looses the right to ever do anything on her own, is also done to senile people)
Copying press release with zero verification of the claims in said press release. See RIAA/MPAA piracy claims and the reporting of those by ALL MEDIA.
IBM is supposed to be the boring suit company yet they have a suprising amount of fun headlines on /. Running quake on clusters with super high graphics. Porting their mainframe OS to playstation. Linux watches. Commercials to rival apple. (the 1984 apple one was not aimed at Microsoft but at Big Blue). Producing the chip in all three upcoming game consoles. Making their own game machine (deep blue).
Compare that with news from Redmond and you might get the idea that IBM is either re-inventing or it never was the company we thought it was.
A lot of people claim that IBM is just behind Linux for the money. I think these people have no idea how real business works. If you seriously believe that none of the top people at IBM want to take a little revenge on Microsoft then you don't know people very well.
Companies are not run by droids, they are run by people who hopefully are good enough not to be blinded by personal desires but are not imune to them either. IBM been screwed over by Microsoft and been denied the desktop. Linux offers them a chance to get back. It is about more then good business. After all IBM makes plenty just selling windows and AIX. Why should they risk on supporting Linux? Not purely for business reasons.
Anyway that is what I like to think. Makes the world a more intresting place to live in.
I am a sucker for those humor pictures like asking can a penquin fly? Answer: picture of tux strapped to a big blue boeing.
It is important to keep the facts straight in an argument especially when one half of the debate is of its rocker.
Linux distro X is really just a lot of software put together, GNU (set of tools) Linux (the kernel) X (graphics server) KDE (pretty picture drawer via X) Opera (closed source wetdream of a webbrowser) etc etc etc.
In the same way the say a Supermarine Spitfire is just a load of airfoils, rolls royce engine, fuel tank, big fucking guns, wires etc etc. Not very intresting seen seperatly but put together. WOW.
You don't run linux anymore then you drive your engine.
When people talk about linux they either talk about linux the kernel OR about the whatever Linus Torvalds did that somehow managed to get it altogether. That last bit is most intresting. There are plenty of kernels. Very few Linus Torvalds.
Enlightenment belongs in the latter catogery. KDE and Gnome have a mission and so does Enlightenment but they are not the same mission. Read their site.
It being hard to use is not a problem to the people who use it. That is may be a problem to you is not their problem. This is the hardest to get about opensource. That the programmer doesn't need to give a damn about marketshare or customer satisfaction.
So your last line is right. They don't care and they don't have to. That is freedom. If you want them to care, pay them.
Most males/boys in the media I listed show a tendency to be unable to mend their own clothing, do their own washing or cook a meal. The women on the otherhand so a tendency to accept this. Strange thing is that it doesn't matter wether the story is aimed at girls or boys. Women or men. That is not to say every bit of media has it. There are a few examples of men who can take care of themselves BUT I seen them more in the media aimed at BOYS then the media aimed at girls.
Yet young japanese women are starting to want something different from their men. They don't want to be in a more equal relationship. Same as in the west but where we had a slow movement over several decades Japan is going at the this whole women-lib thing in the last decade or two. Men have found it impossible to catch up.
So these kinda devices, including the Boyfriend Arm Pillow for women are finding a ready market. Not that it is anything new. Childless couples often have pets as replacement for kids and a dog or cat can often become a replacement partner, someone to talk to and care about, for those who have to do without the real thing for whatever reason.
I do think however you got it wrong about the virtual boyfriend and it shows you don't understand men. The virtual girlfriend is not a simulation of REAL women. It is a simulation of what the men who buy it want a woman to be like. Buying gifts is easy. It doesn't require any thought just money. Japanese men know how to make money. Just work 80 hours. It is being a partner for their gf that they find impossible.
So a virtual boyfriend wouldn't be a like a real man either. Instead a virtual boyfriend would love to be set impossible and conflicting targets. Be though but gently, don't cry but be sensitive, don't be a horntoad but always be turned on.
I can see a big market for virtual partners. Just like their is a huge market for dogs and cats.
Modern japanese women expect/want a more equal partnership and modern japanese males seem unable to supply that. So many girls are putting of getting married and therefore getting kids. You have heard of the baby boom? This is the opposite. A baby implosion. Even if the women simply postpone getting kids it will have a huge effect as later in live the changes of getting a healthy child go down alarmingly.
I have now seen several documenturies on the problem so it seems to be real.
I got the real sense that there was a huge culture clash going on with both sides expecting the other side to be something they are not.
It is easy to say that feminisme is to blame but if you ever watched a bit of japanese culture it is also easy to see why women are fed up. A male who claims he is starving because there is nobody to cook is pathetic by western standards. I can imagine that Japanese women have grown fed up with it. It is not that the japanese women don't want to get married and have kids. They just don't want to be a slave to their husband. On the other hand the boys are still raised with the ideal of the demure wife who never talks back or makes demands.
Having a few confirmed bachelors around the place adds color to the world. Having a nation of people unwilling to create families is asking for trouble when people are living longer and longer. Japan may not have enough people to take care of their old ones in a decade or two.
Oh yeah. That is fun.
All games get old really fast. The trick is not to make the gameplay to varied. It is to make the basic gameplay so much fun that people want to do it again and again and again. Kinda like sex. Except is usually a lot easier to cheat in a maxis game.
It is also one of the best selling games of all time. Any game company with a brain would love to have a game like this. It is like having a money press in the basement. Just keep pumping out tiny little version improvements (the expansion packs) and reap the money. Just check the sales charts of the last few years. Not bad for a game engine wich even at launch wasn't that hot.
The most amazing story about The Sims is that no-one seems to have tried to copy it. You got the recent "Singles" and that is it. There seems to be a market for a non-violent, non-competitive game yet all we get is more FPS with extra-gore. Don't get me wrong I LOVE GORE. Just not all the time. Sometimes I want to play a nice game where I can control a households of lesbian teenage girls and get them to pee their pants in sync. Is that really so much to ask?
Right, user created content. The expansion packs are bought less for the extra content but for the extra capabilties given to content creators. New type of chairs, new types of clothing. It may sound strange but the original game had some severe limitations on what kinda seating you could have. You could create a low seat but any sim sitting on it would float.
So why are Mac and to a lesser extent Linux versions important? I think it is save to say that the Mac crowd has a higher percentage of people who like to create artwork. Linux has a higher percentage of coders.
It is telling that a lot of the free content sites I visited had very clear instructions for how to use their content on the mac version.
But if this guy is serious and he really does mean it and he really does have any say in the company I got 2 simple opensource projects for him. Samba and OpenOffice. If he wants to prove MS can play nice after all get him to work on these 2 projects and make sure they are compatible whenever MS decides to "rework" their code and "accidently" break compatibilty.
When the next windows version does not break samba, when Microsoft Office opens OpenOffice files and vice versa without problem THEN I will be willing to believe MS can be just another IT company and not the IT company from hell.
At the moment it is like a rapist asking what will help to get him accepted back into society. STOP RAPING!
There are no orginal ideas left, the only thing left is to steal. It isn't being original that matters anyway. It is how well you tell it. Kinda like sex. Orginallity doesn't count. Skill does.
Follow a band of rebels as they fight against the remaining entrenched imperial troops.
The gritty of Band of Brothers, the action humor of Indiana Jones and the WOW of Star Wars. Oh yeah that could work.
The problem with windows isn't that its users are stupid and don't know shit. The problem is that MS has chosen to encourage these computer morons to feel like they know what they are doing and has given them enough rope to hang themselves with.
It makes people feel good and gives helpdesk monkeys around the world fulltime employment.
Remember, virusses, trojans, spyware ARE GOOD for the local economy.
To wich of course the perfect comeback would have been. "Yes it does, a diseased weak organ that can only be made to work by the regular appliance of electric shock". Someone fetch me Bush and a cattle prod.