Good for them. When you give in to pressure from big business to censor you lose all of your credibility.
It depends on your target audience. If your goal to introduce independent gaming to the general public then maybe Columbine: The RPG is not where you want to begin.
It is easy to lose credibility with the Geek.
The eternal sophomore. To whom everything is black and white, all or nothing, 1 or 0.
Much harder to win the respect and trust of those whose primary interests and values are rooted outside his own community.
violence depictions based on real-world events need a certain buffer
That is why Rod Serling knew The Twilight Zone would give him freedom of speech he would not be permitted when working in any other genre.
In the stealth shooter you can explore the necessity and moral ambiguity of the sniper's role in combat.
The action in Columbine comes down to the casual murder of defenseless kids. There is no way you can spin that into an RPG that is going to look anything other than vicious and exploitive.
Give it 20 more years and the general public will feel just a bit more detached to accept this game, or something to its liking, anyway.
shooting unarmed kids in a school. "god mode" in gaming terms. you could like the shooter of the Amish girls introduce rape and torture into the game. until the sniper from the SWAT team puts a bullet through your head.
Please explain to me in the most civil terms possible why is it okay that businesses even as large as Dell should be afraid of Microsoft's disapproval?
The only thing that Dell fears is the market, service and support costs.
Dell will sell the bare bones, FreeDOS or Linux PC, in any quantity to its commercial and institutional buyers, who are typically thinking RHEL. It isn't persuaded by the die-hard Geek who thinks that OEM Linux is right for the direct seller in the domestic consumer market.
Walmart lost interest in Linux quite some time back, though at Walmart.com you will probably find one or two mediocre Microtel boxes remaining on life-support. If you look hard enough.
Wouldn't it be nice to be a company so large and dominant in it's industry yet so inept in delivering a code-complete product it gets help (I'm assuming for free) from government agencies to try and get it right? So, my tax dollars at work for Microsoft..
"Federal Government Provides Technical Assistance To Trade, Industry and Agriculture"
Breaking News. In 1790.
Even more reason to be upset about their usurious rates for their new OS. Consider that the drive I bought at Costco 10 years ago (500MB) costs on the order of 500 to 1000 times more (that's almost two magnitudes) than storage today, and that Microsoft continues to charge at the same rate -- they even seem to adjust for inflation.
The hard drive is cheap because PC hardware is mass-market.
The PC became mass market with the success of MSDOS and Windows. Installed base of 300-500 million systems.
MSDOS entered the market at $49.95 US.
In constant dollars, OEM Vista Premium from HP or Dell is likely to cost much less.
The retail box upgrade from Amazon is $155 US. In constant dollars, less, I suspect, than the cost of upgrading to Windows 95.
I don't give a damn if modern games have no vocals whatsoever.
I beg to differ. I think that strong vocal performances and talent are no longer dispensable if you want the "total experience" of the best "modern" RPGs, adventures, strategy games, and first-person shooters, genres which are becoming difficult to distinguish.
1 First to market will be from HP. 1.8GHx Sempron. Four Drive Bays. Four USB Ports, 10"x5"x9."
2 Software based on Windows Server 2003. No sales to end users.
3 "Smart" automated backups of all Windows systems on the network. Remote access through free WindowsLiveInternet address.
4 Stream media to the XBox 360 and (any?) Windows device.
5 Appears as SMB file server to other operating systems.
6 Open a drawer to an unused bay, snap in a drive, no need to power down. (Hot-swappable RAID configurations?)
7 Should be in stores around September.
The IBM PC-Compatible of the 80's got the job done quickly and cheaply when the Mac was the high-priced spread.
Windows 95 swept in on the perfect storm. It ran on entry-level hardware. It arrived at a time when services like AOL were driving towards mass-market acceptance.
The Mac is typically available only in a half dozen or so standard configurations while the Windows PC can be customized endlessly for every environment from the auto body shop to your kid's basement playroom.
The Mac holds the same niche markets it claimed in 1984, both sustained and burdened by its identification with an upscale urban lifestyle.
Windows remains solidly middle class. The gamer's PC. The office workhorse.
Imagine that MS, Apple, RedHat, Ubuntu... only had 10% marketshare each...
It's called "That 70's Show." The 5 1/4 inch floppy disk drive. CP/M. The Apple II. The Commodore Pet. "100 Games in BASIC."
We got to where we are because one hardware platform and one software platform began to attract serious investment and mass market sales--and I am not talking about Apple.
Same is true for biological systems - diversity is a good thing as it is less likely to be infected with a disease. Genetic diversity implies a more robust "operating system" species that's harder to destroy. Remember all the hell around the blaster worm.
Blaster was hell only on those who had left their systems unpatched for months. The storm passed over the naive home user who installed security updates without question.
Diveraity is a good only when it implies something more than a universal weakness.
There have beem many mass extinctions. As for myself, I distrust analogies to biological systems on principle. The social environment in which an OS thrives has its own complexities and rules.
The article runs to five, short, selectively quoted, paragraphs. There isn't a lot of meat on these bones, nothing, really to raise the spirits of those posting here.
The essentials, with emphasis added:
Botnet programs and other malicious software largely take aim at PCs running the Microsoft Windows operating system, because Windows' ubiquity makes it fertile ground for network-based attacks.
Using a non-Windows-based PC may be one defense against these programs, known as malware; in addition, anti-malware programs and antivirus utilities for the PC are available from several vendors. Windows users should use the Windows Update feature.
Microsoft itself entered the computer-security business last year and now offers a free malware-removal tool for download from its Web site. The company says the program removes about two million pieces of malware each month, of which 200,000, or about 10 percent, are botnet infections.
Like Windows, Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser is also a large, convenient target for code-writing vandals. Alternative browsers, like Firefox and Opera, may insulate users. Microsoft's most recent browser release, Internet Explorer 7, is said to offer significantly improved defenses.
Adding software to your browser like Noscript, a plug-in utility, can limit the ability of remote programs to run potentially damaging programs on your PC.
"Wouldn't America be a better place if Disney were running it." I contend that the correct response to this statement would have been involuntary entry to an organ donation programme.
Interesting that a Geek should complain of this. You'll find no more throughly programmed, efficient and technocratic a "government" at work than at Disney World. This is the world as the Geek would make it. His libertarian fantasies not withstanding.
Minivan -> Wagon -> Full Sized -> Mid Size -> Compact -> Sub-Compact -> Smart Car -> Scooter -> Bicycle ) and used public transit where possible rather than if everyone switched to electric cars.
The bike and scooter aren't for winter commutes in Minneapolis or Buffalo.
Public transit can be successful when population densities and usage approach those of a major city.
But the inadequate and awkwardly routed suburban services we see are used (and subsidized for use) almost exclusively by the poor, the elderly, the sick and disabled.
The twenty minute commute becomes a two hour marathon run because of the need to service isolated nursing homes, group homes, outpatient clinics, hospitals, senior centers and the like.
The "foundation" is a scam. It always has been. All the "charitable" foundations by the various robber barons are. They are intended to create positive press for otherwise horrible and cut-throat people or organizations.
Capitalist hardball is the American national sport, not baseball, always has been.
Hatred of the entrepreneur may drive some needed reforms, but is notoriously confined and short-lived in the states.
One reason for this, of course, is that the American entrepreneurial capitalist is one of the most civil and responsible examples of the breed, any European with a sense of history will understand this perfectly.
If you look closely at all of the funds that you can choose from,
you may well find that most of them have big oil, or questionable companies like Microsoft or Walmart.
why stop at the 401K?
where did you think your bank, your HMO, your employer, your church invests its money? probably not always, perhaps not ever, in companies that meet your own standards of purity.
allofmp3's survival is dependent on two very simple equations:
does Putin think membership in the WTO is worth more to the Russian economy than gray market sales of mp3s? does Putin need this minor irritant in his increasingly chilly relationship with the West?
an authoritarian like Putin doesn't ask whether allofmp3's sales to the west are legal, he only asks whether they serve his own interests.
if the answer is no, then allofmp3 will disappear into the shadows as if it never existed.
The video has be preserved for posterity and their refusal to accept this only makes people like me want to rub their noses in it.
which ia precisely why it is becoming more difficult to find refuge in some foreign jurisdiction. arrogance wins you no friends. you want to maintain a presence in Brazil, you respect Brazilian law and customs.
He was telling me that within a few years, nobody will be manufacturing ladders in the United States anymore
The more interesting question is who will buying a ladder years from now.
Integrated storm-screen windows that can be cleaned from inside. Vinyl siding that never needs repainting. LED floods that burn for five years.
The 40 foot orchard ladder disappeared from my father's farm twenty years ago. The introduction of dwarf trees cut labor costs and accidents dramatically.
Slashdot Mirror
I have no desire to relive the joys of getting a working MSDOS configuration in a game like Doom or Tomb Raider.
That and the fact that the masses have a twenty-five years investment in MSDOS and Windows.
Next Entry: God, how I hate Ramen noodles.
It depends on your target audience. If your goal to introduce independent gaming to the general public then maybe Columbine: The RPG is not where you want to begin.
It is easy to lose credibility with the Geek.
The eternal sophomore. To whom everything is black and white, all or nothing, 1 or 0.
Much harder to win the respect and trust of those whose primary interests and values are rooted outside his own community.
That is why Rod Serling knew The Twilight Zone would give him freedom of speech he would not be permitted when working in any other genre.
In the stealth shooter you can explore the necessity and moral ambiguity of the sniper's role in combat.
The action in Columbine comes down to the casual murder of defenseless kids. There is no way you can spin that into an RPG that is going to look anything other than vicious and exploitive.
shooting unarmed kids in a school. "god mode" in gaming terms. you could like the shooter of the Amish girls introduce rape and torture into the game. until the sniper from the SWAT team puts a bullet through your head.
thanks, but no thanks.
The only thing that Dell fears is the market, service and support costs.
Dell will sell the bare bones, FreeDOS or Linux PC, in any quantity to its commercial and institutional buyers, who are typically thinking RHEL. It isn't persuaded by the die-hard Geek who thinks that OEM Linux is right for the direct seller in the domestic consumer market.
Walmart lost interest in Linux quite some time back, though at Walmart.com you will probably find one or two mediocre Microtel boxes remaining on life-support. If you look hard enough.
It is business as usual. Cases are settled. Life goes on.
"Federal Government Provides Technical Assistance To Trade, Industry and Agriculture"
Breaking News. In 1790.
Even more reason to be upset about their usurious rates for their new OS. Consider that the drive I bought at Costco 10 years ago (500MB) costs on the order of 500 to 1000 times more (that's almost two magnitudes) than storage today, and that Microsoft continues to charge at the same rate -- they even seem to adjust for inflation.
The hard drive is cheap because PC hardware is mass-market.
The PC became mass market with the success of MSDOS and Windows. Installed base of 300-500 million systems.
MSDOS entered the market at $49.95 US.
In constant dollars, OEM Vista Premium from HP or Dell is likely to cost much less.
The retail box upgrade from Amazon is $155 US. In constant dollars, less, I suspect, than the cost of upgrading to Windows 95.
When Great-Grandpa spent a weekend with his girl friend at the Dew Drop Inn the clerk wrote down the license plate number of his Model T Ford.
I beg to differ. I think that strong vocal performances and talent are no longer dispensable if you want the "total experience" of the best "modern" RPGs, adventures, strategy games, and first-person shooters, genres which are becoming difficult to distinguish.
1 First to market will be from HP. 1.8GHx Sempron. Four Drive Bays. Four USB Ports, 10"x5"x9."
2 Software based on Windows Server 2003. No sales to end users.
3 "Smart" automated backups of all Windows systems on the network. Remote access through free WindowsLiveInternet address.
4 Stream media to the XBox 360 and (any?) Windows device.
5 Appears as SMB file server to other operating systems.
6 Open a drawer to an unused bay, snap in a drive, no need to power down. (Hot-swappable RAID configurations?)
7 Should be in stores around September.
Microsoft, HP Unveil Windows Home Server
The IBM PC-Compatible of the 80's got the job done quickly and cheaply when the Mac was the high-priced spread.
Windows 95 swept in on the perfect storm. It ran on entry-level hardware. It arrived at a time when services like AOL were driving towards mass-market acceptance.
The Mac is typically available only in a half dozen or so standard configurations while the Windows PC can be customized endlessly for every environment from the auto body shop to your kid's basement playroom.
The Mac holds the same niche markets it claimed in 1984, both sustained and burdened by its identification with an upscale urban lifestyle.
Windows remains solidly middle class. The gamer's PC. The office workhorse.
It is much less than that.
It is simply a quarter page of filler that can be read in an eye blink.
Turn on Windows Update. Install a program like Windows Defender. Use Firefox or upgrade to IE7.
not particularily. it's how you remain the dominant player in any business. whether you a Boeing in manufacturing or a Wells, Fargo & Co. in banking.
It's called "That 70's Show." The 5 1/4 inch floppy disk drive. CP/M. The Apple II. The Commodore Pet. "100 Games in BASIC."
We got to where we are because one hardware platform and one software platform began to attract serious investment and mass market sales--and I am not talking about Apple.
Same is true for biological systems - diversity is a good thing as it is less likely to be infected with a disease. Genetic diversity implies a more robust "operating system" species that's harder to destroy. Remember all the hell around the blaster worm.
Blaster was hell only on those who had left their systems unpatched for months. The storm passed over the naive home user who installed security updates without question.
Diveraity is a good only when it implies something more than a universal weakness.
There have beem many mass extinctions. As for myself, I distrust analogies to biological systems on principle. The social environment in which an OS thrives has its own complexities and rules.
The essentials, with emphasis added:
Botnet programs and other malicious software largely take aim at PCs running the Microsoft Windows operating system, because Windows' ubiquity makes it fertile ground for network-based attacks.
Using a non-Windows-based PC may be one defense against these programs, known as malware; in addition, anti-malware programs and antivirus utilities for the PC are available from several vendors. Windows users should use the Windows Update feature.
Microsoft itself entered the computer-security business last year and now offers a free malware-removal tool for download from its Web site. The company says the program removes about two million pieces of malware each month, of which 200,000, or about 10 percent, are botnet infections.
Like Windows, Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser is also a large, convenient target for code-writing vandals. Alternative browsers, like Firefox and Opera, may insulate users. Microsoft's most recent browser release, Internet Explorer 7, is said to offer significantly improved defenses.
Adding software to your browser like Noscript, a plug-in utility, can limit the ability of remote programs to run potentially damaging programs on your PC.
I contend that the correct response to this statement would have been involuntary entry to an organ donation programme.
Interesting that a Geek should complain of this. You'll find no more throughly programmed, efficient and technocratic a "government" at work than at Disney World. This is the world as the Geek would make it. His libertarian fantasies not withstanding.
The bike and scooter aren't for winter commutes in Minneapolis or Buffalo.
Public transit can be successful when population densities and usage approach those of a major city.
But the inadequate and awkwardly routed suburban services we see are used (and subsidized for use) almost exclusively by the poor, the elderly, the sick and disabled.
The twenty minute commute becomes a two hour marathon run because of the need to service isolated nursing homes, group homes, outpatient clinics, hospitals, senior centers and the like.
you were expecting HD-DVD to overtake DVD sales in less than six months when HDTV has become mass market only in the past year?
Capitalist hardball is the American national sport, not baseball, always has been.
Hatred of the entrepreneur may drive some needed reforms, but is notoriously confined and short-lived in the states.
One reason for this, of course, is that the American entrepreneurial capitalist is one of the most civil and responsible examples of the breed, any European with a sense of history will understand this perfectly.
why stop at the 401K?
where did you think your bank, your HMO, your employer, your church invests its money? probably not always, perhaps not ever, in companies that meet your own standards of purity.
no, it doesn't.
allofmp3's survival is dependent on two very simple equations:
does Putin think membership in the WTO is worth more to the Russian economy than gray market sales of mp3s? does Putin need this minor irritant in his increasingly chilly relationship with the West?
an authoritarian like Putin doesn't ask whether allofmp3's sales to the west are legal, he only asks whether they serve his own interests.
if the answer is no, then allofmp3 will disappear into the shadows as if it never existed.
which ia precisely why it is becoming more difficult to find refuge in some foreign jurisdiction. arrogance wins you no friends. you want to maintain a presence in Brazil, you respect Brazilian law and customs.
The more interesting question is who will buying a ladder years from now.
Integrated storm-screen windows that can be cleaned from inside. Vinyl siding that never needs repainting. LED floods that burn for five years.
The 40 foot orchard ladder disappeared from my father's farm twenty years ago. The introduction of dwarf trees cut labor costs and accidents dramatically.