I kind of doubt that students are paying thousands of dollars in books, tuition, and housing just to "shield themselves from prosecution" and "hide behind university lawyers". And the banning of protocols is generally not a good idea, since there are often many legitimate uses for them-- in bittorrent's example, Linux distros, WoW patches, and legally available music, for instance-- but building blacklists at the firewall level wouldn't be unreasonable.
"...and IT people who frankly have better things to do than stick up for the illegal activities of the students..."
Like spend their time policing their network, banning protocols and websites, instead? I think either is going to take a fair amount of time, but in this case the UofO isn't defending the students, it's defending against... wasting the time of their IT staff in chasing people down. I'm sure they have better things to do.
I think that our current system of regimented divisions according to chronological age is a major problem.
100% agree. I learned the most at school when I had a teacher that allowed me to go at an accelerated pace "on my own"; I would wager that a lot of people here have had the same experience (or did most of their learning outside of the traditional structure). And, of course, the most horrible times in school were the remedial courses.
For example: I had been taking some kind of advanced reading or English course in school every year since first grade. In ninth grade, they decided to "re-evaluate" everyone and stuck everyone in basic English classes for the first half of the year. Being resigned to learning comma usage and reading one 120-page book over nine weeks, I have never been so bored.
The system should be redesigned according to some measure of skill, IMHO.
I'm a TF noob, but if by "rocket jumping" you mean a soldier using his rockets and timing his jump off of th explosion to get to otherwise improbable places, then I've seen it at least once in TF2.
The gameplay is stale, the story even more contrived than usual, the graphics always sub-par, etc.
While I agree on all of those points, except for maybe the nebulous "etc.", Halo delivers in an replay value that's self-perpetuating: the online modes are plentiful, the "sub-par" graphics (leagues beyond where anything was ten years ago, but, eh) keep the frame rates up, and its own success ensures that when you go online, if your friends aren't already there to play it with, there will be a few hundred thousand other people to play with.
I enjoyed going through the campaign on co-op, but I probably wouldn't replay it solo. I'm also not a huge fan of their online compared to, say, Team Fortress 2, but it's a lot easier to find a game.
Plus, it keeps these annoying console kiddies who are screaming profanities from a wholesale invasion of the other XBox Live games I find enjoyable (read: skate.;) ).
Plus the headaches that come from alternatively either staring at a screen or clenching one's jaw at people driving 50 mph inches from each others' bumpers. If I just recall those feelings, I can much more easily find the motivation to get up early enough to bike to the rail station in the morning.
Funny, just before I read your comment I was thinking almost the same thing: After how many comments I've seen about people who have sworn to wait to adopt Vista until an SP1, MS should just push out *something* -- unicode support in the calculator!-- and call it SP1.
Well, that's a chicken-and-egg problem, then. One of the reasons most often cited for the prevalence of Windows is the availability of software. Your user base is never going to consider moving to Linux if they can't do x, y, or z with it.
When my old record player died, I picked up one of these, the Numark PT01. It has a built-in speaker, and will run off of batteries, and it even has pitch and tone controls. Best of all, it's light and small:)
The artwork looks even better on the record covers, too. They do take up a lot of space though. I've long since given up keeping CD jewel cases.
$15 for 100 blank CDs is as much permanence as most people need. If you want true longevity, get the vinyl. I've seen vinyl that comes with free MP3 downloads of the songs, at shows. That seems like a good way to do it.
Well, they're not *forcing* the OS upgrade on you. Personally, I'll be content to run 10.4 until I bother to upgrade my PowerBook someday, anyway. I haven't seen a single feature in 10.5 that is a "must".
I, too, used to be bitter about Halo. It was originally developed for the Mac, way back in the day before Bungie got bought by MS. It took four years from when it was shown at MacWorld (1999) to when it finally was released for OS X (2003), and it didn't even support basic options like co-op play.
However, you have to remember that MS doesn't really make money on the console itself. It makes the money back on games, and licensing the games. If you really, truly hate them, you can just go buy three or four consoles and no games, just to give them the finger right back!
Or you could just not worry about it and play some damn games, already.
I'm really glad to hear good things about "Pushing Up Daisies", from the ads I've seen it looks pretty great. The main actor was really good as the older brother in Wonderfalls, too, I hope this show doesn't meet the same fate.
From TFA: "She's extremely lucky she followed the instructions." How is that luck, exactly? She's lucky that the people who are trained to handle live firearms in public places are responsible people? I was kind of hoping there was more to their training than, "Here's a gun. Luck will guide you."
Again, very environment-dependent. At my last employer, I was one of only two programmers in the whole company. Both male, but that's besides the point.
Well, for one, motion capture is more important than plot in, say, most sports games. Also, it would be really fucking cool if you could play a game like Zork but where nearly every puzzle doesn't have a single, contrived answer.
Then maybe you could be in an environment where, as the hulking barbarian with the double-bitted axe, you encounter The Locked Door and, instead of having to find The Key, you can just break the damn thing in. Simplistic example, but hopefully it illustrated the point: a better physical simulation can allow for more creativity in the game.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know what these "apple numbnuts" are that you speak of, but the earliest example of it that *I* can remember is Apple's eWorld from 1994.
I kind of doubt that students are paying thousands of dollars in books, tuition, and housing just to "shield themselves from prosecution" and "hide behind university lawyers". And the banning of protocols is generally not a good idea, since there are often many legitimate uses for them-- in bittorrent's example, Linux distros, WoW patches, and legally available music, for instance-- but building blacklists at the firewall level wouldn't be unreasonable.
"...and IT people who frankly have better things to do than stick up for the illegal activities of the students..."
Like spend their time policing their network, banning protocols and websites, instead? I think either is going to take a fair amount of time, but in this case the UofO isn't defending the students, it's defending against... wasting the time of their IT staff in chasing people down. I'm sure they have better things to do.
"...those of us who don't use drugs of any type other than medicinal purposes."
Or some of us just have a broader definition of what constitutes a medicinal purpose.
I think that our current system of regimented divisions according to chronological age is a major problem.
100% agree. I learned the most at school when I had a teacher that allowed me to go at an accelerated pace "on my own"; I would wager that a lot of people here have had the same experience (or did most of their learning outside of the traditional structure). And, of course, the most horrible times in school were the remedial courses.
For example: I had been taking some kind of advanced reading or English course in school every year since first grade. In ninth grade, they decided to "re-evaluate" everyone and stuck everyone in basic English classes for the first half of the year. Being resigned to learning comma usage and reading one 120-page book over nine weeks, I have never been so bored.
The system should be redesigned according to some measure of skill, IMHO.
I was thinking perhaps he meant a literal hammer, like that 70-year-old woman of a couple weeks back...
I'm a TF noob, but if by "rocket jumping" you mean a soldier using his rockets and timing his jump off of th explosion to get to otherwise improbable places, then I've seen it at least once in TF2.
The gameplay is stale, the story even more contrived than usual, the graphics always sub-par, etc.
While I agree on all of those points, except for maybe the nebulous "etc.", Halo delivers in an replay value that's self-perpetuating: the online modes are plentiful, the "sub-par" graphics (leagues beyond where anything was ten years ago, but, eh) keep the frame rates up, and its own success ensures that when you go online, if your friends aren't already there to play it with, there will be a few hundred thousand other people to play with.
I enjoyed going through the campaign on co-op, but I probably wouldn't replay it solo. I'm also not a huge fan of their online compared to, say, Team Fortress 2, but it's a lot easier to find a game.
Plus, it keeps these annoying console kiddies who are screaming profanities from a wholesale invasion of the other XBox Live games I find enjoyable (read: skate. ;) ).
Plus the headaches that come from alternatively either staring at a screen or clenching one's jaw at people driving 50 mph inches from each others' bumpers. If I just recall those feelings, I can much more easily find the motivation to get up early enough to bike to the rail station in the morning.
Robots coming out of the sun?! I think that nukes will only fuel that thing, we need a plan B!
Oddly enough, it was your comment here that made me finally curious enough to try the new comment system. Maybe I'm just sadistic.
Hopefully he's not the one who wroted the dialogue...
Funny, just before I read your comment I was thinking almost the same thing: After how many comments I've seen about people who have sworn to wait to adopt Vista until an SP1, MS should just push out *something* -- unicode support in the calculator!-- and call it SP1.
Well, that's a chicken-and-egg problem, then. One of the reasons most often cited for the prevalence of Windows is the availability of software. Your user base is never going to consider moving to Linux if they can't do x, y, or z with it.
Do a search for "50 cent" and you'll see that the prices vary slightly, but are overall pretty good.
I did a search for "50 cent" and all I got back was a bunch of hip-hop! Wtf?
When my old record player died, I picked up one of these, the Numark PT01. It has a built-in speaker, and will run off of batteries, and it even has pitch and tone controls. Best of all, it's light and small :)
The artwork looks even better on the record covers, too. They do take up a lot of space though. I've long since given up keeping CD jewel cases.
$15 for 100 blank CDs is as much permanence as most people need. If you want true longevity, get the vinyl. I've seen vinyl that comes with free MP3 downloads of the songs, at shows. That seems like a good way to do it.
Well, they're not *forcing* the OS upgrade on you. Personally, I'll be content to run 10.4 until I bother to upgrade my PowerBook someday, anyway. I haven't seen a single feature in 10.5 that is a "must".
I, too, used to be bitter about Halo. It was originally developed for the Mac, way back in the day before Bungie got bought by MS. It took four years from when it was shown at MacWorld (1999) to when it finally was released for OS X (2003), and it didn't even support basic options like co-op play.
However, you have to remember that MS doesn't really make money on the console itself. It makes the money back on games, and licensing the games. If you really, truly hate them, you can just go buy three or four consoles and no games, just to give them the finger right back!
Or you could just not worry about it and play some damn games, already.
I'm really glad to hear good things about "Pushing Up Daisies", from the ads I've seen it looks pretty great. The main actor was really good as the older brother in Wonderfalls, too, I hope this show doesn't meet the same fate.
Add in K.I.T.T. and Groucho Marx, and I'm in!
From TFA: "She's extremely lucky she followed the instructions." How is that luck, exactly? She's lucky that the people who are trained to handle live firearms in public places are responsible people? I was kind of hoping there was more to their training than, "Here's a gun. Luck will guide you."
Yep; the LEDs formed a star, as in her first name.
Again, very environment-dependent. At my last employer, I was one of only two programmers in the whole company. Both male, but that's besides the point.
If only these domain owners had some legal recourse...
Well, for one, motion capture is more important than plot in, say, most sports games. Also, it would be really fucking cool if you could play a game like Zork but where nearly every puzzle doesn't have a single, contrived answer.
Then maybe you could be in an environment where, as the hulking barbarian with the double-bitted axe, you encounter The Locked Door and, instead of having to find The Key, you can just break the damn thing in. Simplistic example, but hopefully it illustrated the point: a better physical simulation can allow for more creativity in the game.