No, really. I know it sounds like typical brain-dead "please reboot your computer" tech support script-mongering, but at least for me (on Firefox 3.6.11), that made the difference. Set the UI, as mentioned above. Then exit the browser and restart it.
And that makes me think: court decisions need Slashdot moderation! This ruling: -1 Offtopic. Software patents are valid? -1 Overrated. Blizzard can disable your copy of Starcraft II for local single-player cheating? -1 Flamebait!
And everyone will clamor to have their cases tried in front of high-karma judges! I tell you, this could completely revamp jurisprudence! It's the best thing to happen to justice since trial by jury of peers!
That's an unfortunate chain of events. When you explain the facts and the "OMG, they're hacking my bank accounts" panic fades away, the truth winds up seeming a lot less grim. People may not be able to work up the appropriate levels of concern. Relief you haven't been shot may keep you from reacting to the fact you're being robbed.
I heard on somewhat good authority that it was disabled due to pressure from companies wanting to sell emulation packs on the PSN store. The Linux support made this business model nonviable because MAME and other emulators had already been ported to the open source Linux platform on the system. Sony were only bowing to pressure from their corporate peers.
And someone go gives in to peer pressure to smoke PCP-laced pot and goes on a slashing rampage isn't a victim of peer pressure, but a drug-crazed violent criminal who should be fairly tried, swiftly convicted, and sternly punished both for criminal drug abuse and violent assault with intent to kill.
I sincerely hope you're not trying to defend Sony's position on the basis of "peer pressure". It's the oldest, and least credible, cop-out in existence.
Of course, you're posting AC, so you probably either (A) realize it's not a defensible position, or (B) are trolling. Oh, well.
You're one of those people who always follows the instructions, don't you?
When you buy Legos, you always carefully unfold the little assembly directions pamphlet and slavishly follow the little numbered steps and illustrations. You probably feel cheated if your model doesn't come out looking precisely like the cover picture. You may even feel cheated if the model accidentally came with extra pieces, since you can't follow the instructions.
Here's the proper way to play with Legos: Open box. Dump all parts into your large bin of other parts. Throw away instructions. Build whatever your imagination tells you to build.
Now, it seems we have a new generation of Legos that come with built-in Imagination Limiters. Follow the rules or your Legos disassemble themselves and flatten all their interlocking nubs so they can't be used any more.
Software is supposed to be a playground. But I guess even playgrounds have become regimented, "do what the Recess Lady tells you to do", "OMG stay out of the dirt!" little dictatorships.
The next generation of blind followers is being prepped. Yaaaaay.
Problem: While you play your single player game ONLINE (that is, connected to their servers), its not just a question of "my game". You agree to certain things while connected, and Blizzard has the right to hold you to that (to what extent is another question).
Which was the exact shape of the anti-mandatory-connection argument in the discussions on this forum when it was announced. Why should Blizzard intrude on single-layer gaming experience? The argument seems to boil down to "because they want to".
Whether or not you think its blatant exhibitionism or not is irrelevant; other people rather like the achievement system (clearly those cheating to get the achievements do), and this breaks that feature for them if it cannot be trusted to be accurate.
It's a "feature" imposed on all players, whether they wish it or not. Whether other people like the achievement system is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is whether I like it, for all values of "I". What the herd wishes should only be imposed on individuals in certain very important situations, and e-peen is absolutely not one of them. (I cannot believe the collectivist, sheeple mindset that has descended onto this culture.)
BTW, this kind of involuntary disclosure of single-person activity on a privately-owned computer verges on "privacy violation", EULA be damned. It should be opt-in from the outset.
Well said. There's way too much e-peen in the gaming world, and the invasion of multiplayer meta-competition in single-player gameplay is absolutely batshit insane.
That was Blizz's mistake: making single-player gameplay meta-competitive. Not every gamer gives a metric rat's ass about "my score is higher than yours". Forcing that on players is offensive. And suing to protect that is beyond offensive, especially on the basis of a legal principle which, while validated in court, still fails the "common sense" sniff test.
No Post Honeycomb cereal. Swarms of cereal-deprived children turning into whirling, raving, wild-eyed (and bug-eyed) brown-furred monsters. Seriously, do you want to live in a world full of millions of these?
If there's anything I've ever learned from being part of a large government organization, it's that you learn that being part of a large government organization teaches you that learn what it's like to be part of a large government organization, learning.
Holding the key basic patent and being surrounded by implementation patents means facing escalating pressure (perhaps even legal pressure) to permit cheap licensing or outright sale of your patent to your besiegers.
Try owning the only block of property not already sold off to a huge developer. Eminent domain, though not strictly applicable here, is still a pretty good snapshot of the mindset involved.
The logical conclusion is that mass-market devices are marketed only to the masses.
Which would bother the vendors not in the slightest, since the lost market share not supporting more tech-savvy and adventurous consumers is hugely made up for by the placement fees for bloatware and the advertising captive audience of the lock-in.
There is no market remedy for this trend. Highly-tailorable artisan electronics with complete (or significant) owner freedom will, if available at all, be very rare and expensive specialist and collector items.
Sorry. It sucks, but can you imagine something turning this around? I don't.
Well, I'm sure that if Apple could find a market-acceptable way to do it, they'd restrict internet access on the iPhone to a safe subset enclosed by a Great Applewall. But people gotta facebook and tweet and whatever.
For <made up statistic>90 percent</made up statistic> of the Internet-using world, the Internet is just what appears on a browser. The fact that many non-browsers applications also use HTTP or HTTPS as their backside protocol emphasizes that point of view. The ideal universe for many providers of devices, content, or communications is where nothing exists except HTTP or HTTPS, and all the tame sheeples don't know that anything else exists. Including downloading anything except more applications for which you pay good money to the appropriate gatekeeper.
I know it's not The Slashdot Way, but the first paragraph of TFA reads:
Oliver Drage, 19, of Liverpool, was arrested in May 2009 by police tackling child sexual exploitation.
(emphasis mine)
At least, that's what the authorities are after. The guy may be completely innocent of that, or of any criminal activity, but could have anything else he may want to hide. His diary. His little black book. Nothing at all, if he's just standing on principle (or being contrary and obstructionist, whatever you prefer according to your current political biases).
Stagnation of engagement ranges for tactical missiles is less about technology and more about rules of engagement (i.e., politics and doctrine). Super long-range air-to-air missiles were about killing enemy aircraft before they could get over friendly territory. True in both the "continental air defense" mission and the "carrier group air defense" mission.
In practice, no one ever got to use those super-long-range AAMs because, frankly, rules of engagement didn't permit that kind of freedom. (Extreme case in point: During the Viet Nam war, U.S. air crews were forced to visually confirm hostile status of opposing aircraft before engaging. That's a little too late to FOX One, Wilbur.)
Similarly, I suspect that the cruise missile thing is a desire to keep these weapons on the "tactical" side of the "strategic/tactical" continuum.
No one is paying defense contractors to increase speed or engagement range, because those are not meta-requirements in the modern battlefield. Accuracy, constrained lethality (kills bad guys dead, leaves innocents completely alone), and asymmetry of threat (stand-off range, stealth, use of adverse conditions like night, etc.--anything that reduces the user's exposure to defense or retaliation) are much more valuable in the current friendly-risk-averse political environment.
I was reading USENET a lot at the time of the Depew incident. Newsgroups were pretty much unusable for nearly a month, and yucky for months after that.
A few minutes trawling the completely brilliant COML website photo gallery (WARNING: FLASH, but not very obnoxious as far as I can tell) turns up the following:
A Fathead (Psychrolutes microporos) trawled during the NORFANZ expeditions at a depth between 1013m and 1340m, on the Norfolk Ridge, nort-west of New Zealand, June 2003. Credit: NORFANZ Founding Parties Photographer Kerryn Parkingson; additional thanks to Peter McMIllan and Andrew Stewart.
I guess sad fish is sad because everyone calls him a fathead.
FWIW, you're missing the fundamental core of Western moral hypocrisy. Borrowing from Hamlet, rigid blue-nosed "morality" is "...a custom More honor'd in the breach than the observance...".
We praise public virtue to the heavens. We rant and rave when we see someone succeeding while flouting it. But in truth, "morality" is a trait we insist on in everyone else but ourselves. It's only cheating if the other guy is doing it.
Slashdot Mirror
It seems to work with preschoolers. I guess we never really grow up, and there always seems to be some truth in "Any attention is good attention."
Exit and restart your browser.
No, really. I know it sounds like typical brain-dead "please reboot your computer" tech support script-mongering, but at least for me (on Firefox 3.6.11), that made the difference. Set the UI, as mentioned above. Then exit the browser and restart it.
Don't know why, but that worked for me. YMMV.
So how does the punishment fit the crime?
It doesn't. It's completely offtopic.
And that makes me think: court decisions need Slashdot moderation! This ruling: -1 Offtopic. Software patents are valid? -1 Overrated. Blizzard can disable your copy of Starcraft II for local single-player cheating? -1 Flamebait!
And everyone will clamor to have their cases tried in front of high-karma judges! I tell you, this could completely revamp jurisprudence! It's the best thing to happen to justice since trial by jury of peers!
That's an unfortunate chain of events. When you explain the facts and the "OMG, they're hacking my bank accounts" panic fades away, the truth winds up seeming a lot less grim. People may not be able to work up the appropriate levels of concern. Relief you haven't been shot may keep you from reacting to the fact you're being robbed.
I heard on somewhat good authority that it was disabled due to pressure from companies wanting to sell emulation packs on the PSN store. The Linux support made this business model nonviable because MAME and other emulators had already been ported to the open source Linux platform on the system. Sony were only bowing to pressure from their corporate peers.
And someone go gives in to peer pressure to smoke PCP-laced pot and goes on a slashing rampage isn't a victim of peer pressure, but a drug-crazed violent criminal who should be fairly tried, swiftly convicted, and sternly punished both for criminal drug abuse and violent assault with intent to kill.
I sincerely hope you're not trying to defend Sony's position on the basis of "peer pressure". It's the oldest, and least credible, cop-out in existence.
Of course, you're posting AC, so you probably either (A) realize it's not a defensible position, or (B) are trolling. Oh, well.
You're one of those people who always follows the instructions, don't you?
When you buy Legos, you always carefully unfold the little assembly directions pamphlet and slavishly follow the little numbered steps and illustrations. You probably feel cheated if your model doesn't come out looking precisely like the cover picture. You may even feel cheated if the model accidentally came with extra pieces, since you can't follow the instructions.
Here's the proper way to play with Legos: Open box. Dump all parts into your large bin of other parts. Throw away instructions. Build whatever your imagination tells you to build.
Now, it seems we have a new generation of Legos that come with built-in Imagination Limiters. Follow the rules or your Legos disassemble themselves and flatten all their interlocking nubs so they can't be used any more.
Software is supposed to be a playground. But I guess even playgrounds have become regimented, "do what the Recess Lady tells you to do", "OMG stay out of the dirt!" little dictatorships.
The next generation of blind followers is being prepped. Yaaaaay.
Problem: While you play your single player game ONLINE (that is, connected to their servers), its not just a question of "my game". You agree to certain things while connected, and Blizzard has the right to hold you to that (to what extent is another question).
Which was the exact shape of the anti-mandatory-connection argument in the discussions on this forum when it was announced. Why should Blizzard intrude on single-layer gaming experience? The argument seems to boil down to "because they want to".
Whether or not you think its blatant exhibitionism or not is irrelevant; other people rather like the achievement system (clearly those cheating to get the achievements do), and this breaks that feature for them if it cannot be trusted to be accurate.
It's a "feature" imposed on all players, whether they wish it or not. Whether other people like the achievement system is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is whether I like it, for all values of "I". What the herd wishes should only be imposed on individuals in certain very important situations, and e-peen is absolutely not one of them. (I cannot believe the collectivist, sheeple mindset that has descended onto this culture.)
BTW, this kind of involuntary disclosure of single-person activity on a privately-owned computer verges on "privacy violation", EULA be damned. It should be opt-in from the outset.
Well said. There's way too much e-peen in the gaming world, and the invasion of multiplayer meta-competition in single-player gameplay is absolutely batshit insane.
That was Blizz's mistake: making single-player gameplay meta-competitive. Not every gamer gives a metric rat's ass about "my score is higher than yours". Forcing that on players is offensive. And suing to protect that is beyond offensive, especially on the basis of a legal principle which, while validated in court, still fails the "common sense" sniff test.
Hopefully, one labeled "Bees". You don't get your decaf mixed up with your caf, and you don't get your caf mixed up with your bees.
I don't much like bee grind; the buzz is too harsh.
Even more tragic.
No Post Honeycomb cereal. Swarms of cereal-deprived children turning into whirling, raving, wild-eyed (and bug-eyed) brown-furred monsters. Seriously, do you want to live in a world full of millions of these?
No way. Bring on the zombies first.
If there's anything I've ever learned from being part of a large government organization, it's that you learn that being part of a large government organization teaches you that learn what it's like to be part of a large government organization, learning.
True story.
In some ways, it's a little worse than that.
Holding the key basic patent and being surrounded by implementation patents means facing escalating pressure (perhaps even legal pressure) to permit cheap licensing or outright sale of your patent to your besiegers.
Try owning the only block of property not already sold off to a huge developer. Eminent domain, though not strictly applicable here, is still a pretty good snapshot of the mindset involved.
The logical conclusion is that mass-market devices are marketed only to the masses.
Which would bother the vendors not in the slightest, since the lost market share not supporting more tech-savvy and adventurous consumers is hugely made up for by the placement fees for bloatware and the advertising captive audience of the lock-in.
There is no market remedy for this trend. Highly-tailorable artisan electronics with complete (or significant) owner freedom will, if available at all, be very rare and expensive specialist and collector items.
Sorry. It sucks, but can you imagine something turning this around? I don't.
FTFY.
That said, the torrenting isn't done over-the-air. It's a proxy torrent system, with ImageShack doing the torrent download.
Well, I'm sure that if Apple could find a market-acceptable way to do it, they'd restrict internet access on the iPhone to a safe subset enclosed by a Great Applewall. But people gotta facebook and tweet and whatever.
For <made up statistic>90 percent</made up statistic> of the Internet-using world, the Internet is just what appears on a browser. The fact that many non-browsers applications also use HTTP or HTTPS as their backside protocol emphasizes that point of view. The ideal universe for many providers of devices, content, or communications is where nothing exists except HTTP or HTTPS, and all the tame sheeples don't know that anything else exists. Including downloading anything except more applications for which you pay good money to the appropriate gatekeeper.
I know it's not The Slashdot Way, but the first paragraph of TFA reads:
(emphasis mine)
At least, that's what the authorities are after. The guy may be completely innocent of that, or of any criminal activity, but could have anything else he may want to hide. His diary. His little black book. Nothing at all, if he's just standing on principle (or being contrary and obstructionist, whatever you prefer according to your current political biases).
Stagnation of engagement ranges for tactical missiles is less about technology and more about rules of engagement (i.e., politics and doctrine). Super long-range air-to-air missiles were about killing enemy aircraft before they could get over friendly territory. True in both the "continental air defense" mission and the "carrier group air defense" mission.
In practice, no one ever got to use those super-long-range AAMs because, frankly, rules of engagement didn't permit that kind of freedom. (Extreme case in point: During the Viet Nam war, U.S. air crews were forced to visually confirm hostile status of opposing aircraft before engaging. That's a little too late to FOX One, Wilbur.)
Similarly, I suspect that the cruise missile thing is a desire to keep these weapons on the "tactical" side of the "strategic/tactical" continuum.
No one is paying defense contractors to increase speed or engagement range, because those are not meta-requirements in the modern battlefield. Accuracy, constrained lethality (kills bad guys dead, leaves innocents completely alone), and asymmetry of threat (stand-off range, stealth, use of adverse conditions like night, etc.--anything that reduces the user's exposure to defense or retaliation) are much more valuable in the current friendly-risk-averse political environment.
What, lean out the window and politely ask for Grey Poupon and the secret of FTL?
I suspect their response would be something like "Oh. I was just about to ask you for the same thing."
Here's a historical lesson in automated spam-fighting in the ancient equivalent of fora:
http://catb.org/jargon/html/A/ARMM.html
I was reading USENET a lot at the time of the Depew incident. Newsgroups were pretty much unusable for nearly a month, and yucky for months after that.
Steampunk = goblins though is a "no way". Steampunk is an established genre that doesn't typically feature different species.
For very small values of "Steampunk".
Major counterexample from an established RPG house: Spelljammer.
Major counterexample from an established console gaming franchise: Final Fantasy VI
Major counterexample from a prominent graphic novel line: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
Not all steampunk is Gibson/Sterling.
A few minutes trawling the completely brilliant COML website photo gallery (WARNING: FLASH, but not very obnoxious as far as I can tell) turns up the following:
I guess sad fish is sad because everyone calls him a fathead.
FWIW, you're missing the fundamental core of Western moral hypocrisy. Borrowing from Hamlet, rigid blue-nosed "morality" is "...a custom More honor'd in the breach than the observance...".
We praise public virtue to the heavens. We rant and rave when we see someone succeeding while flouting it. But in truth, "morality" is a trait we insist on in everyone else but ourselves. It's only cheating if the other guy is doing it.
In Soviet Los Angeles...
Nope. That's it, that's all I've got. Damn. Seemed so promising.
Where?
Oh, there.
This is good. I'm tired of partisan boning, anyway.