Since we can assume that the big Mario and Zelda games are already on this list, here's my N64 pick:
Mario Party (1, 2, and/or 3) Star Fox 64 Harvest Moon 64 Jet Force Gemini Goldeneye Banjo Kazooie Banjo Tooie
There's going to be some problems with third party developers (and Rare) to get them on board. If they're offered a cut of the take, though, I think most developers would jump on the bandwagon, as they'd be able to take in even more cash for free. (Obviously, offering games for free would be great, but we need to be realistic here.)
I think Nintendo could boost their download service even more by bugging the hell out of Sega. While Sega has made some compilation discs for the current generation, there are so many games, especially for the Dreamcast, that are stuck on Sega systems. Get Sega to allow/sell Genisis/Master System, Game Gear, 32X, Sega CD, Sega Saturn, and (if possible), Dreamcast games, and you'll have a much greater opening line. Games like Road Rash (Genesis), Ecco the Dolphin (Genesis, the Dreamcast version is especially beautiful), and your regular Sonic load would be a great addition to Nintendo's titles.
Is the emulation built into the system, or would they be able to work Sega emulation in somewhere?
There is a large shout for expanding the amount of desktops running Linux. While most users on Slashdot seem fine and dandy with the way Linux desktop is now, I believe that a lot of changes will have to occur before you can get Joe Sixpack to replace Windows or Mac with Linux, such as making tasks more automatic, improving hardware support, and completely removing the need for the command line/terminal (except for development).
Do you believe that the desktop needs to change before its user base expands? If so, what changes do you believe are necessary, and which would be mere "bonuses"?
I've read, on a few different occasions, the hypothesis that the high rate of suicide in Japan is due to the heavy work ethic there. Working hard is good, but from some things I've read, they just overexert themself, at least as I see it as a working American.
As I understand it, failling is frowned upon much harsher there, culturally, than it is here in America.
Also, did anyone think of the anime "Paranoia Agent" while reading this? It just made me think of one of the episodes half way through (6 or so) where the old guy, the younger guy, and the little girl made a pact in some chat room to get together and commit suicide.
So, if I understand this correctly, Sony is bundling the UMDs with the regular DVDs to try and get the regular public more interested in the PSP, right?
But, from the article, the bundles will cost around US$25. Most, if not all, of the movies listed are already available for $15 or so. Why would the average consumer spend an extra $10 to get another copy of a movie that they wouldn't be able to use? The only time I can see them buying this is that they either don't know what they're getting, or they have a relative with a PSP and want to get a cheap gift.
All this will accomplish will be increasing the amount of UMDs sold, as those with both a PSP and DVD player will be more inclined to get the bundle, so he can choose when, where, and how to watch the movie. I don't see anyone buying a $200 portable gaming system because they paid an extra $10 for media for it.
Sony can, of course, spin the result, saying that there is a higher UMD saturation in the market after the fact, or there is now a bigger system:UMD ratio.
Actually, that wouldn't be too bad of a campaign. AFAIK, most of Oprah's audience are parents to some extent, mainly females. Giving them all a free Nintendo DS, a free copy of Nintendogs, and a free copy of Mario Kart would probably do a lot of good. While they probably wouldn't be visably extatic on the show (though, you never know), they'll probably adore it once they get into Nintendogs, especially those with a lot of free time. Mario Kart is a great game that everyone can enjoy, and the males will probably be more interested in it than the females.
In either case, the parents, who may not have even known about it before, will find out how much fun it is, and get one for their kid(s), cause "This DS is for the adults (and we don't want you breaking it). Plus, the value of peer recommendations should never be underestimated.
And, of course, any kids who were dragged along to the show will scream with delight.
So it's $24 or so wholesale. What is the price going to be when it hits Best Buy? IIRC, movies, CDs, and games get a big markup so they make a lot of profit (hence the prices we have today.) So I'm guessing it will be about $30 or so for a new DVD. This really isn't too bad if you're into bleeding edge technology, until you bring in the price of a Blu-Ray player (which was, what, $1500?). Alternatively, you could get a PS3, which will only set you back somewhere between $300 and $500.
How will this affect PS3 games? Storage media, be it on CDs and (now) DVDs has always been cheap. Microsoft is trying out $60 games (from the $50 norm); will Sony/publishers shoot for $70 or $80, so it won't eat into their profits?
If so, it's a good way to make very few people interested in your console. Having worked in electronics departments, I know that most people are very iffy about buying a $50 game. About 3/4 wouldn't be interested if it wasn't under $40. How do you think they'll react to a $70 price tag?
This has the opportunity to really sweep up the anit-virus market.
Using holes first introduced by them, they can identify a virus, protect a user against that virus using OneCare Live, and then dive into their code to see how the virus slipped through, and, two or three weeks later, release a patch to completely stop that virus and any other like it. Since the patch would be available to all users, many would update their system and stop spreading virii, which would cut down on the number of wild virii, which would decrease the work load for the AV service, meaning they can make more profit without changing rates!
They could do more than just make a reactive anti-virus program, they could make a proactive anti-virus program. Within a year or two, they could close up most common security holes in Windows, making their system more lucrative to those trying to decide on an OS.
And, then, they can take what they learn from this, and apply it to Vista, making it a robust and secure OS, rivaling any open source OS! BEST. ANTI-VIRUS. EVAR.
...Whoa, wait... Microsoft is the one making this?
I think we've already passed the time when console updates or extras no longer cross the water, unless they're only useful in one or two games. The internet and mass gaming media has made it so most gamers know about a product being revealed in Japan, even if no American release plans were announced. This drums up a mass furvor to get it sent over, and with a fanbase like Nintendo has, the fans swarm the company with requests to localize it. (Nintendo was probably planning on bringing it over from the start, though.)
I think it's important to note that, from the pictures, it looks like the DS Lite will still have the ability to play GBA games, despite the smaller form. (The original article I saw on it didn't mention that, and I haven't read any followups yet.) I'm glad money has held me back from getting one until now. Much easier to carry around between classes.
One other big thing I noticed is what isn't there. It's called the "DS Lite" partly because you can change the brightness of the screen through a switch, right? I'm not seeing any brightness switch on the model in the pictures. Did they forget that part here, or am I missing it somewhere?
Nintendo better get this through the gate, soon. A simultaneous release worldwide sounds in order. If they hold back on the state-side release, chances are that we'll see what looks to be a three-way tug of war within Nintendo- pay for Twilight Princess, the Revolution, or the DS Lite? (assuming you can't afford all three at once)
Finally, is it me, or is the model they gave the FCC really crappy looking? It's missing the sleek gloss of the display we saw before.
I'm no scientist, but, to my understanding, ice requires water, and water requires oxygen.
Since the moon (again, to my understanding) has little to no atmosphere (and would thus have little or no oxygen), how could there be ice (and, thus, water) on it?
Could it have had an atmosphere many millenia ago, which dissappeared, leaving behind ice? And that, somehow, those patches of ice were never hit by meteor showers, which would slowly chipped away at any exposed ice?
Not rhetorical, I'm really curious as to how that would work.
When I have the CPU bug happen, it's usually after leaving FireFox open for a long period of time. It seems to be triggered by loading large files, such as many big images, flash files, videos, and the like. However, there have been times that I've left FF open (usually to Fark or Slashdot) while something is downloading overnight, only to hear my CPU fan kick into high gear as I'm drifting off to sleep.
Part of the problem is that it doesn't seem to happen the same way each time. Even if I revisit something that, when last accessed, started hogging CPU cycles, FireFox just sits merily with no problems.
The memory/CPU hog is the biggest and most blatent issue of FireFox, and nothing else should be done until the problem is at least identified.
This whole "Hot Coffee" mod thing is and always has been blown completely out of proportion by those who don't know what the hell they're talking about.
Firstly, if parents were doing their job (which is unheard of in this day and age, gasp!), the game wouldn't have been in the hands of anyone who couldn't handle the nudity to begin with. This would have made the whole thing a small blip, where someone goes "Hey, there's sex in this game if you do all these changes", someone would write a program to do it automatically, and it would have faded away.
Second, the only way to access the content was to hack the game. The content was, to my understanding, unreachable through normal play. It's like blaming the toothbrush manufacturer that some inmate turned his toothbrush into a shank and stabbed you. Was the shank already in the toothbrush? Yes, but you had to modify the toothbrush, from it's originally intended purpose, to get to the shank.
Rockstar (or Take Two or whoever) should have removed the content if they weren't going to use it, but leaving it in should not have gotten the attention it did, especially because the ESRB did jump in and pull the M rating.
While I agree that journalism has it out for video games (and porn, and gambling, and...), those aren't the only things that they have trouble with. In fact, there are a lot of other things that should be understood first in journalism, before understanding video games.
Let's start with little subjects, like Politics, fact-checking, and real news.
Skimming through the previous Slashdot story, it looks like the Microsoft vulnerabilities covered both the OS and IE, not just IE. Mozzilla, afaik, only does the browsing and mail programs.
Granted, that's no small task, but it still isn't on the level of fixing an O.S., in my opinion. It's like comparing apples and pumpkins.
It would be better to compare Windows patch release time with Linux patch release time, which I believe has been done before (and then covered on Slashdot- Linux probably had the shorter time.)
Regardless, how much does market share factor into this? With Linux, if a patch breaks a program, most people can just shrug it off and rewrite the program to work with the patch. So mass testing isn't as big of an issue. With Windows, if a patch breaks a program, a user doesn't have a lot they can do except to sit there and weep until Company X releases their own patch or next version.
I saw the repost-a-day when I was searching for housing on Craigslist. I found it very annoying, and made up my mind that I wouldn't use services from that poster, even if it was useful (and it wasn't.)
This got me thinking, though- why not just charge someone to auto-bump? "Pay us $5, and for the the length of your posting, we will automatically bump you to the top at the beginning of each day." It removes the repeats, takes care of those who are the problem, and everyone else goes on having free postings that tend to lack information.
I'm yelling at it, not them. Unless I get an obvious idiot who won't send me to Tier 2 when asked at phone support, I try to be as kind and understanding as possible. I've been on that side of the phone as a telemarketer, so I know what people will say through the phone. And these people are support; no one calls them if something isn't wrong. So they have to deal with people who are already frusturated and mad, and the situtation often turns even uglier.
Because of this, I try to stay as calm as possible when calling tech support, while strangling a voodoo doll (not attached to the person I'm talking to.)
My "it wouldn't listen to my yelling" line was a joke. Symantec's program(s) wouldn't respond to my god-like booming voice and power, so I had to uninstall it to teach it a lesson, and the like.:)
I'm sure we'll see a slump in hardware sales as the man-on-the-street finds out about the Revolution and PS3 coming out this year.
However, to my knowledge, there is absolutely no reason why those awaiting these two new consoles would stop buying games. The Revolution is backwards compatible with all Gamecube games, and I believe the same goes for the PS3-PS2 relationship (though I don't keep up on Playstation news, so I could be wrong.) In fact, it could cause a spur, as people who haven't owned a Gamecube but plan on getting a Revolution will start buying Gamecube games in anticipation (same for PS3-intents that don't have a PS2.)
Aside from that, I'm sure Nintendo is pshawing this 'news'. They have a few choice AAA titles coming out before the Revolution (release Twilight Princess, damn you!), and are still going hot with the DS. The new DS Lite announcement might cause a small slump in DS hardware sales, but I doubt it will be a large chunk, especially since there's been no mention of a U.S. release (I'm sure we'll get it, but when is anyone's guess.)
I have unyielding hate for Symantec. I've spent countless hours trying to get their products to properly allow connectivity for various programs for other people, and even more hours uninstalling it after it wouldn't listen to my yelling.
Nothing Symantec has is good, or can't be replaced by a free alternative.
Anti-Virus? AntiVir (If you want to pay, they have a premium version, too) Firewall? SP2 comes with a moderate firewall that works well. There are a good deal of free firewall programs out there, not to mention that many routers now have some sort of firewall software on them. Ad-aware and MAS have taken care of any spyware problems I've had to deal with (except for some of the really evil ones.)
Any and everything else can be taken care of by good judgement and learning some PC common sense. Don't arbitrarily accept downloads that IE pops up with. Don't open every attachment that claims to be a dancing Ronald McDonald. Don't listen to every e-mail propogated by the feces of the internet that various programs in your windows folder are viruses.
There is absolutely no need to pay $100 for Symantec's horrible piece of crap. People would be better off without it.
Story makes a big part of many of the games I like (since I'm big into RPGs), but it shouldn't be forefront.
The order of game creation should go: Gameplay Story Graphics Cinematics
I'm paying $30-$50 to play a game, not watch a movie. Well done cinematics, when they add to the story and aren't in the way (and can be skipped if I want to), are great, but should only be implemented after good gameplay and story are pretty much wrapped up.
It's been long postulated on Slashdot, by a multitude of posters, that an effective way to remove spam is by setting up a payment system. The key is to make it easy on those who mail casually, while hurting the spammers.
The idea is that you send an e-mail, pay a penny. Or even a quarter of a cent. If you receive an e-mail, you would ideally get the entire amount that the sender paid. But, because of how businesses are, you'll likely get 70% of that. Ideally, most users would only have to pop in $5 a month.
Regardless, this system would make it much harder on spammers. While a user may spend a quarter a week to send e-mails, spammers would be paying tens of thousands of dollars so they can send millions of e-mails. People will actually want to receive spam- the money they receive will more then make up for the mail they send.
One of two things would happen. Either the spammers, suddenly not making nearly the profit before, would drop out, or people would quiet down about the spammer problem, since it would not only pay for their own e-mail, but earn them a small profit (in fact, people getting mail accounts just to receive spam and earn a few bucks a week could become a problem.)
Obviously, there would be some problems initially. Opt-in corporate mailing lists, regular mailing lists, notifications, etc. However, with some brainstorming, I'm sure a good plan could be made, removing one of the major hastles of the internet.
And then all that would be left is Internet Explorer. (And the neocons can entertain themselves with shutting down porn, haha.)
The article states that the virus executes on the third of this month (tomorrow.)
Why not just wind back the clock?
I'm serious. I've fooled many a shareware program that locks the program after x days by setting the date back to when I first installed it (or even earlier, which makes for some funny notices.)
Unless the Kama Sutra virus is programmed in such a way as to store the date and time installed, and then keep track of every (milli)second that's past, and execute once enough seconds have passed to put it on the 3rd, I would think you could easily fool it by simply changing the date on your computer back a week or two. If you're really anal about calendars, you can find a year where the months start on the same day.
Yes, this would mess up some other programs that use the computer's date, but temporarily wonky programs are better than completely deleted files, no? So, set the clock back, and wait until Microsoft finally releases their patch or whatever, if you're afraid that another virus scanner hadn't caught it.
While the slashdot crowd may boo and bitch about cracking down on people downloading or uploading a copy of something, it is a real problem.
Certainly, it should be pretty low on the priority list as far as the FBI or any government agency is concerned, but that doesn't mean it should be ignored when hard evidence can be brought against large-scale criminals, as these 19 supposedly are.
The problem with warez is that it's easy. While cracking DRM and copyright may not be simple, once that's done, it's easy for anyone and everyone to download it. It isn't even limited by speed- a fairly patient person could download, say, a Doom 4 ISO if they wanted.
Because of this ease, and the much lower risk of being caught (hence its prevalence), it is biting into income of companies. The numbers that they throw out may or may not be exact, but you can just shrug them away and say it hurts noone.
However, the penalties placed against some of these people are a bit odd. A slap on the wrist and a $100 fine doesn't really cut it for large distributors, but some of the jailtime and fines that I've read about seem unrealistic. After all, they are copying something, not taking it, so they aren't depriving the original owner of anything (assuming that the original owner didn't intend for the download.) Downloading a CD should bring far less of a penalty than stealing a physical CD from a store.
However, the rest of us usually don't get a chance to complain about it on slashdot, and shoulder rocket launchers are a bit too expensive for regular use, unfortunatly.
Some of those have possibilities, and others just sound perposterous. However, it is amazing how fast the world can change.
It took roughtly 100 years to go from building the first car to lading on the moon. Considering that, and thanks to cures for many diseases, better healthcare, and a wider teaching of knowledge, not to mention population growth, science is probably moving ahead at a near exponential rate, so some of the events from the last one ("Google Is God") could be possible.
Regardless, Google does seem to have unlimited potential. As a company, it only has almost 8 years. Comparatively, Microsoft is 30 years old; Apple is 29; Yahoo! is 11. (numbers from Wikipedia.) But in the short time that it has existed, it has accomplished so much and spread into so many areas. Now that Google is a public company, and thus responsible to their shareholders, it is iffy if they can stick to their "do no evil" catchphrase, but they certainly seem to stay on the straight road without problems.
Slashdot Mirror
Since we can assume that the big Mario and Zelda games are already on this list, here's my N64 pick:
Mario Party (1, 2, and/or 3)
Star Fox 64
Harvest Moon 64
Jet Force Gemini
Goldeneye
Banjo Kazooie
Banjo Tooie
There's going to be some problems with third party developers (and Rare) to get them on board. If they're offered a cut of the take, though, I think most developers would jump on the bandwagon, as they'd be able to take in even more cash for free. (Obviously, offering games for free would be great, but we need to be realistic here.)
I think Nintendo could boost their download service even more by bugging the hell out of Sega. While Sega has made some compilation discs for the current generation, there are so many games, especially for the Dreamcast, that are stuck on Sega systems. Get Sega to allow/sell Genisis/Master System, Game Gear, 32X, Sega CD, Sega Saturn, and (if possible), Dreamcast games, and you'll have a much greater opening line. Games like Road Rash (Genesis), Ecco the Dolphin (Genesis, the Dreamcast version is especially beautiful), and your regular Sonic load would be a great addition to Nintendo's titles.
Is the emulation built into the system, or would they be able to work Sega emulation in somewhere?
There is a large shout for expanding the amount of desktops running Linux. While most users on Slashdot seem fine and dandy with the way Linux desktop is now, I believe that a lot of changes will have to occur before you can get Joe Sixpack to replace Windows or Mac with Linux, such as making tasks more automatic, improving hardware support, and completely removing the need for the command line/terminal (except for development).
Do you believe that the desktop needs to change before its user base expands? If so, what changes do you believe are necessary, and which would be mere "bonuses"?
I've read, on a few different occasions, the hypothesis that the high rate of suicide in Japan is due to the heavy work ethic there. Working hard is good, but from some things I've read, they just overexert themself, at least as I see it as a working American.
As I understand it, failling is frowned upon much harsher there, culturally, than it is here in America.
Also, did anyone think of the anime "Paranoia Agent" while reading this? It just made me think of one of the episodes half way through (6 or so) where the old guy, the younger guy, and the little girl made a pact in some chat room to get together and commit suicide.
So, if I understand this correctly, Sony is bundling the UMDs with the regular DVDs to try and get the regular public more interested in the PSP, right?
But, from the article, the bundles will cost around US$25. Most, if not all, of the movies listed are already available for $15 or so. Why would the average consumer spend an extra $10 to get another copy of a movie that they wouldn't be able to use? The only time I can see them buying this is that they either don't know what they're getting, or they have a relative with a PSP and want to get a cheap gift.
All this will accomplish will be increasing the amount of UMDs sold, as those with both a PSP and DVD player will be more inclined to get the bundle, so he can choose when, where, and how to watch the movie. I don't see anyone buying a $200 portable gaming system because they paid an extra $10 for media for it.
Sony can, of course, spin the result, saying that there is a higher UMD saturation in the market after the fact, or there is now a bigger system:UMD ratio.
Everyone look under your seat!
IT'S A FREE REVOLUTION!
Actually, that wouldn't be too bad of a campaign. AFAIK, most of Oprah's audience are parents to some extent, mainly females. Giving them all a free Nintendo DS, a free copy of Nintendogs, and a free copy of Mario Kart would probably do a lot of good. While they probably wouldn't be visably extatic on the show (though, you never know), they'll probably adore it once they get into Nintendogs, especially those with a lot of free time. Mario Kart is a great game that everyone can enjoy, and the males will probably be more interested in it than the females.
In either case, the parents, who may not have even known about it before, will find out how much fun it is, and get one for their kid(s), cause "This DS is for the adults (and we don't want you breaking it). Plus, the value of peer recommendations should never be underestimated.
And, of course, any kids who were dragged along to the show will scream with delight.
So it's $24 or so wholesale. What is the price going to be when it hits Best Buy? IIRC, movies, CDs, and games get a big markup so they make a lot of profit (hence the prices we have today.) So I'm guessing it will be about $30 or so for a new DVD. This really isn't too bad if you're into bleeding edge technology, until you bring in the price of a Blu-Ray player (which was, what, $1500?). Alternatively, you could get a PS3, which will only set you back somewhere between $300 and $500.
How will this affect PS3 games? Storage media, be it on CDs and (now) DVDs has always been cheap. Microsoft is trying out $60 games (from the $50 norm); will Sony/publishers shoot for $70 or $80, so it won't eat into their profits?
If so, it's a good way to make very few people interested in your console. Having worked in electronics departments, I know that most people are very iffy about buying a $50 game. About 3/4 wouldn't be interested if it wasn't under $40. How do you think they'll react to a $70 price tag?
This has the opportunity to really sweep up the anit-virus market.
...Whoa, wait... Microsoft is the one making this?
Using holes first introduced by them, they can identify a virus, protect a user against that virus using OneCare Live, and then dive into their code to see how the virus slipped through, and, two or three weeks later, release a patch to completely stop that virus and any other like it. Since the patch would be available to all users, many would update their system and stop spreading virii, which would cut down on the number of wild virii, which would decrease the work load for the AV service, meaning they can make more profit without changing rates!
They could do more than just make a reactive anti-virus program, they could make a proactive anti-virus program. Within a year or two, they could close up most common security holes in Windows, making their system more lucrative to those trying to decide on an OS.
And, then, they can take what they learn from this, and apply it to Vista, making it a robust and secure OS, rivaling any open source OS! BEST. ANTI-VIRUS. EVAR.
Nevermind. [sigh]
I think we've already passed the time when console updates or extras no longer cross the water, unless they're only useful in one or two games. The internet and mass gaming media has made it so most gamers know about a product being revealed in Japan, even if no American release plans were announced. This drums up a mass furvor to get it sent over, and with a fanbase like Nintendo has, the fans swarm the company with requests to localize it. (Nintendo was probably planning on bringing it over from the start, though.)
I think it's important to note that, from the pictures, it looks like the DS Lite will still have the ability to play GBA games, despite the smaller form. (The original article I saw on it didn't mention that, and I haven't read any followups yet.) I'm glad money has held me back from getting one until now. Much easier to carry around between classes.
One other big thing I noticed is what isn't there. It's called the "DS Lite" partly because you can change the brightness of the screen through a switch, right? I'm not seeing any brightness switch on the model in the pictures. Did they forget that part here, or am I missing it somewhere?
Nintendo better get this through the gate, soon. A simultaneous release worldwide sounds in order. If they hold back on the state-side release, chances are that we'll see what looks to be a three-way tug of war within Nintendo- pay for Twilight Princess, the Revolution, or the DS Lite? (assuming you can't afford all three at once)
Finally, is it me, or is the model they gave the FCC really crappy looking? It's missing the sleek gloss of the display we saw before.
I'm no scientist, but, to my understanding, ice requires water, and water requires oxygen.
Since the moon (again, to my understanding) has little to no atmosphere (and would thus have little or no oxygen), how could there be ice (and, thus, water) on it?
Could it have had an atmosphere many millenia ago, which dissappeared, leaving behind ice? And that, somehow, those patches of ice were never hit by meteor showers, which would slowly chipped away at any exposed ice?
Not rhetorical, I'm really curious as to how that would work.
When I have the CPU bug happen, it's usually after leaving FireFox open for a long period of time. It seems to be triggered by loading large files, such as many big images, flash files, videos, and the like. However, there have been times that I've left FF open (usually to Fark or Slashdot) while something is downloading overnight, only to hear my CPU fan kick into high gear as I'm drifting off to sleep.
Part of the problem is that it doesn't seem to happen the same way each time. Even if I revisit something that, when last accessed, started hogging CPU cycles, FireFox just sits merily with no problems.
The memory/CPU hog is the biggest and most blatent issue of FireFox, and nothing else should be done until the problem is at least identified.
This whole "Hot Coffee" mod thing is and always has been blown completely out of proportion by those who don't know what the hell they're talking about.
Firstly, if parents were doing their job (which is unheard of in this day and age, gasp!), the game wouldn't have been in the hands of anyone who couldn't handle the nudity to begin with. This would have made the whole thing a small blip, where someone goes "Hey, there's sex in this game if you do all these changes", someone would write a program to do it automatically, and it would have faded away.
Second, the only way to access the content was to hack the game. The content was, to my understanding, unreachable through normal play. It's like blaming the toothbrush manufacturer that some inmate turned his toothbrush into a shank and stabbed you. Was the shank already in the toothbrush? Yes, but you had to modify the toothbrush, from it's originally intended purpose, to get to the shank.
Rockstar (or Take Two or whoever) should have removed the content if they weren't going to use it, but leaving it in should not have gotten the attention it did, especially because the ESRB did jump in and pull the M rating.
While I agree that journalism has it out for video games (and porn, and gambling, and...), those aren't the only things that they have trouble with. In fact, there are a lot of other things that should be understood first in journalism, before understanding video games.
Let's start with little subjects, like Politics, fact-checking, and real news.
Then we'll worry about video games.
Skimming through the previous Slashdot story, it looks like the Microsoft vulnerabilities covered both the OS and IE, not just IE. Mozzilla, afaik, only does the browsing and mail programs.
Granted, that's no small task, but it still isn't on the level of fixing an O.S., in my opinion. It's like comparing apples and pumpkins.
It would be better to compare Windows patch release time with Linux patch release time, which I believe has been done before (and then covered on Slashdot- Linux probably had the shorter time.)
Regardless, how much does market share factor into this? With Linux, if a patch breaks a program, most people can just shrug it off and rewrite the program to work with the patch. So mass testing isn't as big of an issue. With Windows, if a patch breaks a program, a user doesn't have a lot they can do except to sit there and weep until Company X releases their own patch or next version.
I saw the repost-a-day when I was searching for housing on Craigslist. I found it very annoying, and made up my mind that I wouldn't use services from that poster, even if it was useful (and it wasn't.)
This got me thinking, though- why not just charge someone to auto-bump? "Pay us $5, and for the the length of your posting, we will automatically bump you to the top at the beginning of each day." It removes the repeats, takes care of those who are the problem, and everyone else goes on having free postings that tend to lack information.
(And, yes, I did find my housing on Craigslist.)
I'm yelling at it, not them. Unless I get an obvious idiot who won't send me to Tier 2 when asked at phone support, I try to be as kind and understanding as possible. I've been on that side of the phone as a telemarketer, so I know what people will say through the phone. And these people are support; no one calls them if something isn't wrong. So they have to deal with people who are already frusturated and mad, and the situtation often turns even uglier.
:)
Because of this, I try to stay as calm as possible when calling tech support, while strangling a voodoo doll (not attached to the person I'm talking to.)
My "it wouldn't listen to my yelling" line was a joke. Symantec's program(s) wouldn't respond to my god-like booming voice and power, so I had to uninstall it to teach it a lesson, and the like.
I'm sure we'll see a slump in hardware sales as the man-on-the-street finds out about the Revolution and PS3 coming out this year.
However, to my knowledge, there is absolutely no reason why those awaiting these two new consoles would stop buying games. The Revolution is backwards compatible with all Gamecube games, and I believe the same goes for the PS3-PS2 relationship (though I don't keep up on Playstation news, so I could be wrong.) In fact, it could cause a spur, as people who haven't owned a Gamecube but plan on getting a Revolution will start buying Gamecube games in anticipation (same for PS3-intents that don't have a PS2.)
Aside from that, I'm sure Nintendo is pshawing this 'news'. They have a few choice AAA titles coming out before the Revolution (release Twilight Princess, damn you!), and are still going hot with the DS. The new DS Lite announcement might cause a small slump in DS hardware sales, but I doubt it will be a large chunk, especially since there's been no mention of a U.S. release (I'm sure we'll get it, but when is anyone's guess.)
I have unyielding hate for Symantec. I've spent countless hours trying to get their products to properly allow connectivity for various programs for other people, and even more hours uninstalling it after it wouldn't listen to my yelling.
Nothing Symantec has is good, or can't be replaced by a free alternative.
Anti-Virus? AntiVir (If you want to pay, they have a premium version, too)
Firewall? SP2 comes with a moderate firewall that works well. There are a good deal of free firewall programs out there, not to mention that many routers now have some sort of firewall software on them.
Ad-aware and MAS have taken care of any spyware problems I've had to deal with (except for some of the really evil ones.)
Any and everything else can be taken care of by good judgement and learning some PC common sense. Don't arbitrarily accept downloads that IE pops up with. Don't open every attachment that claims to be a dancing Ronald McDonald. Don't listen to every e-mail propogated by the feces of the internet that various programs in your windows folder are viruses.
There is absolutely no need to pay $100 for Symantec's horrible piece of crap. People would be better off without it.
Story makes a big part of many of the games I like (since I'm big into RPGs), but it shouldn't be forefront.
The order of game creation should go:
Gameplay
Story
Graphics
Cinematics
I'm paying $30-$50 to play a game, not watch a movie. Well done cinematics, when they add to the story and aren't in the way (and can be skipped if I want to), are great, but should only be implemented after good gameplay and story are pretty much wrapped up.
It's been long postulated on Slashdot, by a multitude of posters, that an effective way to remove spam is by setting up a payment system. The key is to make it easy on those who mail casually, while hurting the spammers.
The idea is that you send an e-mail, pay a penny. Or even a quarter of a cent. If you receive an e-mail, you would ideally get the entire amount that the sender paid. But, because of how businesses are, you'll likely get 70% of that. Ideally, most users would only have to pop in $5 a month.
Regardless, this system would make it much harder on spammers. While a user may spend a quarter a week to send e-mails, spammers would be paying tens of thousands of dollars so they can send millions of e-mails. People will actually want to receive spam- the money they receive will more then make up for the mail they send.
One of two things would happen. Either the spammers, suddenly not making nearly the profit before, would drop out, or people would quiet down about the spammer problem, since it would not only pay for their own e-mail, but earn them a small profit (in fact, people getting mail accounts just to receive spam and earn a few bucks a week could become a problem.)
Obviously, there would be some problems initially. Opt-in corporate mailing lists, regular mailing lists, notifications, etc. However, with some brainstorming, I'm sure a good plan could be made, removing one of the major hastles of the internet.
And then all that would be left is Internet Explorer. (And the neocons can entertain themselves with shutting down porn, haha.)
The article states that the virus executes on the third of this month (tomorrow.)
Why not just wind back the clock?
I'm serious. I've fooled many a shareware program that locks the program after x days by setting the date back to when I first installed it (or even earlier, which makes for some funny notices.)
Unless the Kama Sutra virus is programmed in such a way as to store the date and time installed, and then keep track of every (milli)second that's past, and execute once enough seconds have passed to put it on the 3rd, I would think you could easily fool it by simply changing the date on your computer back a week or two. If you're really anal about calendars, you can find a year where the months start on the same day.
Yes, this would mess up some other programs that use the computer's date, but temporarily wonky programs are better than completely deleted files, no? So, set the clock back, and wait until Microsoft finally releases their patch or whatever, if you're afraid that another virus scanner hadn't caught it.
It's not ironic; you still have the freedom of speach [sic], but now the government is recording it for posterity. :)
but you can just shrug them away and say it hurts noone.
Er, CAN'T just shrug them away...
And I previewed, too. Dammit.
While the slashdot crowd may boo and bitch about cracking down on people downloading or uploading a copy of something, it is a real problem.
Certainly, it should be pretty low on the priority list as far as the FBI or any government agency is concerned, but that doesn't mean it should be ignored when hard evidence can be brought against large-scale criminals, as these 19 supposedly are.
The problem with warez is that it's easy. While cracking DRM and copyright may not be simple, once that's done, it's easy for anyone and everyone to download it. It isn't even limited by speed- a fairly patient person could download, say, a Doom 4 ISO if they wanted.
Because of this ease, and the much lower risk of being caught (hence its prevalence), it is biting into income of companies. The numbers that they throw out may or may not be exact, but you can just shrug them away and say it hurts noone.
However, the penalties placed against some of these people are a bit odd. A slap on the wrist and a $100 fine doesn't really cut it for large distributors, but some of the jailtime and fines that I've read about seem unrealistic. After all, they are copying something, not taking it, so they aren't depriving the original owner of anything (assuming that the original owner didn't intend for the download.) Downloading a CD should bring far less of a penalty than stealing a physical CD from a store.
You aren't the only person, believe me.
However, the rest of us usually don't get a chance to complain about it on slashdot, and shoulder rocket launchers are a bit too expensive for regular use, unfortunatly.
Some of those have possibilities, and others just sound perposterous. However, it is amazing how fast the world can change.
It took roughtly 100 years to go from building the first car to lading on the moon. Considering that, and thanks to cures for many diseases, better healthcare, and a wider teaching of knowledge, not to mention population growth, science is probably moving ahead at a near exponential rate, so some of the events from the last one ("Google Is God") could be possible.
Regardless, Google does seem to have unlimited potential. As a company, it only has almost 8 years. Comparatively, Microsoft is 30 years old; Apple is 29; Yahoo! is 11. (numbers from Wikipedia.) But in the short time that it has existed, it has accomplished so much and spread into so many areas. Now that Google is a public company, and thus responsible to their shareholders, it is iffy if they can stick to their "do no evil" catchphrase, but they certainly seem to stay on the straight road without problems.