you cannot play the game offline.
Oh, that is a shame. I have been a constant fan of Simcity and have had and played many many hours on every version to date. Unfortunately, I guess I won't be playing this one. I have no interest in playing online with other people and no interest in a piece of software that I have bought and paid for that is not payable because they choose to shut down a server.
It's hardly difficult to do, you know... and whoever you kicked off of the front page can readily jump back onto it if he or she desires. Methinks it's fair play.
Fair play says you. Race to the bottom, says I.
Agreed, I would hope Google catches onto this and stops it. People need to realise it's not only their name and people want to be able to find the other people with that name too.
Yes, for every one person looking for "Good Samantha" I can guarantee that a dozen are more interested in finding "Bad Samantha".
wearing cargo pants and a T-shirt, that they are "surprized I can go to work like that".
Yeah, and what was acceptable and unacceptable has actually switched places in a couple of cases. It used to be that wearing a polo was considered fashionable and a T-shirt slovenly. Now, I have people looking down their nose at my polo and suggesting that I wear a T-Shirt instead. But of course it has to be a hip trendy T-shirt, not the the T-shirts which I actually own.
TFA suggests that a third of the HR folks surveyed admitted to dismissing a candidate in light of the results that came out of researching the candidate on the web.
Great, so now in order to get a job I have to not only be good at my job but also I have to hope that the HR person doing the online screening is good at doing theirs.
This also bodes evil for people who choose not to indulge in online social stuff at all. Now, the only possible hits are people who are not them. So in order to compete for jobs you HAVE to spam as much good stuff with your name on it as possible.
about artificial property
I agree, and a harsh one. But what all the smarmy slashdot posters who look down their nose at the Farmvillers and evillers and Virtual Petters fail to realize is that they have invested far more real dollars in virtual property, the eventual and inevitable loss of which is likely to cause them serious monetary damage, and I include myself in that number. If Google stops providing gmail, a lot of people will lose money. If Facebook shuts down their servers, for a lot of people they have no other way to contact those people. If Apple decides to shut down iTunes some people will have lost thousands of dollars and have no physical copy of the song to go back to. Letting other people control your data means you have no recourse if they shut down.
I play Angry Birds, but have never invested a cent in it. I have purchased some add-ons for some games on PS3, but they are on my harddrive, and I don't have to have a constant on internet connection to play them. I simply don't play WoW or other online only games. But my life is still tied up in some things that if they go away would be a serious inconvenience.
We should always be looking for a way to back up our online activities. if you use Facebook to keep in touch with people, get their phone numbers and addresses. Purchase only songs and software that you can download and that do not "phone home". Discourage companies that require a constant on connection to them by not purchasing from them.
What horrible parent allows their kid on Facebook?
Well, if children were honest, they wouldn't be able to get on Facebook at all, due to the ToS. Me, I'm waiting for the day 30 years down from now when a bunch of grumpy 40-somethings petition Facebook to let them change their age back to their real age because they are tired of appearing older than they are online due to lying about their age when they signed up.
I don't really see how Google becomes criminals by doing this ; but I salute you for your desperate efforts to make Google look evil in any situation.
You're right, I don't know the law in Africa. It may be perfectly acceptable there to invade the privacy of people. It is not legal here in the United States.
Are rhino poachers constitutionally protected in Africa?
I don't know about the laws in Africa, but I would guess that they probably are constitutionally protected until they have been proven guilty. And if not, is Google going through the trouble to determine if they are poaching rhinos or merely out driving in the savannah before they illegally invade their privacy?
Getting on a ladder is "extraordinary means"?
Not for most activities, but if you take a picture of your neighbor's house from a ladder then you have invaded their privacy.
Aircraft were arguably invented for scouting, photos have been taken from them for as long as photos have existed. Taking a photo from an aircraft is not illegal, what do you think "satellite" view in Google Earth is?
Yes, but they are not used to spy on people, and at the resolutions available from Google Earth and whatnot, you can't tell anything incriminating. Well, maybe you can depending on the activity, but it shouldn't be admissable as evidence or used as cause for an investigation. Frankly, I am not real happy that people can tell how many cars I have outside or weather I have a pool or not from Google Earth. That ought to be considered invasion of privacy.
A criminal reporting a crime is still a criminal, but his evidence can still be used against other criminals.
If illegally obtained evidence can be used in evidence of another crime, then all the cops have to do is pay somebody else to illegally obtain the evidence.
Google-Funded Drones To Hunt Rhino Poachers [motherjones.com]: Thanks to a five million dollar grant awarded by Google on Tuesday, the organization is expanding its use of unmanned aerial vehicles to track and deter criminals who illegally hunt endangered animal species around the world. WWF spokesman Lee Poston is not calling these vehicles drones, because he doesn't want people to confuse them with the military kind. According to Poston, they are "sophisticated radio-controlled devices like hobbyists use" that can be "controlled from your iPad or other device." But the WWF website does call them "conservation drones."
Yay google! Way to fight those criminals by becoming criminals yourself. If you can't beat 'em join 'em, I guess.
What next? They'll be claiming the breath you exhale is pollution too!
Any naturally occurring substance, if present due to the action or lack of action of a human being, is apparently a pollutant.
It also depends on what state you are in. Only twelve states (according to that Wikipedia article) have all-party consent laws. A sad minority, if you ask me. I think "one-party consent" is a completely ridiculous standard.
Yes, my state is one party consent, and that party can be the one doing the recording. Kind of pointless.
So... you're afraid of technology? Got it.
Please turn over your geek card on the way out.
Geeks love and fear technology. Gotta get me a GPS, gotta get me an iphone, gotta get me an internet enabled car, gotta put my data in the cloud. Oh noes! The GPS knows where I am! My Iphone is collecting my data! My car is broadcasting my bad driving habits to my insurance company! The cloud is selling off my private data!
new regulations pushed forth by corporate lobbies will restrict drone use or create "air space" restrictions over corporate land.
It is already illegal to take pictures that one would have to take extraordinary means to take. Taking a photo from the street is fine. Getting up on a ladder and taking a photo would be illegal. Taking a photo from a drone would be similarly illegal. It would be illegal to use a photo taken from a UAV to launch an investigation such as was done here. However, once you see something, you can't unsee it, and so as soon as they saw it and launched an investigation, they pretty much had all the evidence they needed. The fact that it was kicked off by somebody else doing something illegal is overlooked. It is the court of public opinion, which is all well and good, unless the public doesn't like something YOU are doing.
This is like a burglar breaking into your house and notices you have some marijuana and calls the cops on you.
Unless your job requires a US Federal Government security clearance.
Or unless you like to bring your private live to work with you, or just no show up for work because your private life got the better of you.
I wonder what happens _if_ you are asked. You could refuse to answer and/or sue for $1000 in damages, but that would probably mean no job. Are you allowed to lie to such questions?
If I could line up 10 such interviews a month, I'd probably be content with that.
Additionally, I will also mention that Robert Half Technology in my local area already has candidates filling out a background check authorization form and even wants to fill out I-9 at their on-site interview before the candidate even has a job offer--keep in mind I-9 usually uses Photo ID and Social Security Card or Birth Certificate as the usual two forms of ID. At my interview, they hinted that not having a completed I-9 on file might be an HR red flag vs. another candidate that already did have an I-9 on file. (And at my interview, they basically wanted to go over my resume job by job for salary information and supervisor names as references, but I was not given a formal job offer for a position I applied for.)
Robert Half Technology is a scam to bilk out-of-work people out of money that they need to survive. They lure you in saying that they have a job that fits you perfectly, then once you are there, they start asking what your skills are. Then they introduce you to their pricing model, where you basically pay them for the privilege of using their database to cold call people who may or may not have any jobs posted. They are basically a headhunting agency where you act as your own headhunter and pay them for the privilege. But 90% of people who use their service do get a job. Of course they do! What else are they going to do? Retire? Die? That's like the weatherman saying it is going to snow. Of course it will, eventually.
Robert Half was a brilliant man with great business ethics who knew that treating employees right was the best way to long term business success. His children were scum licking worthless leeches who sold his good name for a quick buck to unscrupulous ripoff agencies. May Robert Half rest in peace and his offspring burn in hell for their desecration of his good name.
Bad form to reply to oneself, I know, but I also remembered that I wanted to point out that in all three states in which I do business, companies are REQUIRED to report new hires to the state just in case they are a deadbeat dad. This includes Date of Birth. Although, of course, there is always the possibility that the company obtained that information after hire.
Now, having obtained that information (as required by the state), the employer can now be sued for age discrimination if they ever terminate the employee.
Anybody who put those on their application forms these days is just asking to be sued.
I have never seen a job application that did not ask for Date of Birth.
the failed MSN TV debacle. People (for the most part) don't want to surf the net on their set top boxes.
I don't know why they keep trying to recycle this technology. I guess the investors have deep pockets and short memories. Don't these people remember WebTV?
After 4 months, it began randomly rebooting.
This is what annoys me about modern electronics. They put in all this unnecessary fancy fluff and then it gets in the way of the core functionality. Yeah, it's great that my Android can play games and movies and stuff, but it is really annoying when it reboots in the middle of a phone call. My old Nokia dumb phone never did that. I have also never had a "dumb" TV reboot in the middle of a broadcast. Since they can't stop these devices from rebooting, they need to include an extremely basic OS that is stable and does only what the device is supposed to do, ie make phone calls in the case of a phone, or display programming in the case of a TV.
Reading the article, the companies are unhappy with the Transportation Department rule that requires them to include all taxes in their advertised rates because that rule "violate their free-speech rights".
Too bad for them. If they would compete fairly and advertise honestly, then we wouldn't have to have laws to make them do the right thing.
Slashdot Mirror
When's the last time you were off line for any significant amount of time?
When playing a game? That's easy. I'm never online when playing a game.
you cannot play the game offline.
Oh, that is a shame. I have been a constant fan of Simcity and have had and played many many hours on every version to date. Unfortunately, I guess I won't be playing this one. I have no interest in playing online with other people and no interest in a piece of software that I have bought and paid for that is not payable because they choose to shut down a server.
It's hardly difficult to do, you know... and whoever you kicked off of the front page can readily jump back onto it if he or she desires. Methinks it's fair play.
Fair play says you. Race to the bottom, says I.
Agreed, I would hope Google catches onto this and stops it. People need to realise it's not only their name and people want to be able to find the other people with that name too.
Yes, for every one person looking for "Good Samantha" I can guarantee that a dozen are more interested in finding "Bad Samantha".
wearing cargo pants and a T-shirt, that they are "surprized I can go to work like that".
Yeah, and what was acceptable and unacceptable has actually switched places in a couple of cases. It used to be that wearing a polo was considered fashionable and a T-shirt slovenly. Now, I have people looking down their nose at my polo and suggesting that I wear a T-Shirt instead. But of course it has to be a hip trendy T-shirt, not the the T-shirts which I actually own.
TFA suggests that a third of the HR folks surveyed admitted to dismissing a candidate in light of the results that came out of researching the candidate on the web.
Great, so now in order to get a job I have to not only be good at my job but also I have to hope that the HR person doing the online screening is good at doing theirs.
This also bodes evil for people who choose not to indulge in online social stuff at all. Now, the only possible hits are people who are not them. So in order to compete for jobs you HAVE to spam as much good stuff with your name on it as possible.
about artificial property
I agree, and a harsh one. But what all the smarmy slashdot posters who look down their nose at the Farmvillers and evillers and Virtual Petters fail to realize is that they have invested far more real dollars in virtual property, the eventual and inevitable loss of which is likely to cause them serious monetary damage, and I include myself in that number. If Google stops providing gmail, a lot of people will lose money. If Facebook shuts down their servers, for a lot of people they have no other way to contact those people. If Apple decides to shut down iTunes some people will have lost thousands of dollars and have no physical copy of the song to go back to. Letting other people control your data means you have no recourse if they shut down.
I play Angry Birds, but have never invested a cent in it. I have purchased some add-ons for some games on PS3, but they are on my harddrive, and I don't have to have a constant on internet connection to play them. I simply don't play WoW or other online only games. But my life is still tied up in some things that if they go away would be a serious inconvenience.
We should always be looking for a way to back up our online activities. if you use Facebook to keep in touch with people, get their phone numbers and addresses. Purchase only songs and software that you can download and that do not "phone home". Discourage companies that require a constant on connection to them by not purchasing from them.
What horrible parent allows their kid on Facebook?
Well, if children were honest, they wouldn't be able to get on Facebook at all, due to the ToS. Me, I'm waiting for the day 30 years down from now when a bunch of grumpy 40-somethings petition Facebook to let them change their age back to their real age because they are tired of appearing older than they are online due to lying about their age when they signed up.
I don't really see how Google becomes criminals by doing this ; but I salute you for your desperate efforts to make Google look evil in any situation.
You're right, I don't know the law in Africa. It may be perfectly acceptable there to invade the privacy of people. It is not legal here in the United States.
Are rhino poachers constitutionally protected in Africa?
I don't know about the laws in Africa, but I would guess that they probably are constitutionally protected until they have been proven guilty. And if not, is Google going through the trouble to determine if they are poaching rhinos or merely out driving in the savannah before they illegally invade their privacy?
Getting on a ladder is "extraordinary means"?
Not for most activities, but if you take a picture of your neighbor's house from a ladder then you have invaded their privacy.
Aircraft were arguably invented for scouting, photos have been taken from them for as long as photos have existed. Taking a photo from an aircraft is not illegal, what do you think "satellite" view in Google Earth is?
Yes, but they are not used to spy on people, and at the resolutions available from Google Earth and whatnot, you can't tell anything incriminating. Well, maybe you can depending on the activity, but it shouldn't be admissable as evidence or used as cause for an investigation. Frankly, I am not real happy that people can tell how many cars I have outside or weather I have a pool or not from Google Earth. That ought to be considered invasion of privacy.
A criminal reporting a crime is still a criminal, but his evidence can still be used against other criminals.
If illegally obtained evidence can be used in evidence of another crime, then all the cops have to do is pay somebody else to illegally obtain the evidence.
Google-Funded Drones To Hunt Rhino Poachers [motherjones.com]: Thanks to a five million dollar grant awarded by Google on Tuesday, the organization is expanding its use of unmanned aerial vehicles to track and deter criminals who illegally hunt endangered animal species around the world. WWF spokesman Lee Poston is not calling these vehicles drones, because he doesn't want people to confuse them with the military kind. According to Poston, they are "sophisticated radio-controlled devices like hobbyists use" that can be "controlled from your iPad or other device." But the WWF website does call them "conservation drones."
Yay google! Way to fight those criminals by becoming criminals yourself. If you can't beat 'em join 'em, I guess.
What next? They'll be claiming the breath you exhale is pollution too!
Any naturally occurring substance, if present due to the action or lack of action of a human being, is apparently a pollutant.
It also depends on what state you are in. Only twelve states (according to that Wikipedia article) have all-party consent laws. A sad minority, if you ask me. I think "one-party consent" is a completely ridiculous standard.
Yes, my state is one party consent, and that party can be the one doing the recording. Kind of pointless.
So... you're afraid of technology? Got it. Please turn over your geek card on the way out.
Geeks love and fear technology. Gotta get me a GPS, gotta get me an iphone, gotta get me an internet enabled car, gotta put my data in the cloud. Oh noes! The GPS knows where I am! My Iphone is collecting my data! My car is broadcasting my bad driving habits to my insurance company! The cloud is selling off my private data!
new regulations pushed forth by corporate lobbies will restrict drone use or create "air space" restrictions over corporate land.
It is already illegal to take pictures that one would have to take extraordinary means to take. Taking a photo from the street is fine. Getting up on a ladder and taking a photo would be illegal. Taking a photo from a drone would be similarly illegal. It would be illegal to use a photo taken from a UAV to launch an investigation such as was done here. However, once you see something, you can't unsee it, and so as soon as they saw it and launched an investigation, they pretty much had all the evidence they needed. The fact that it was kicked off by somebody else doing something illegal is overlooked. It is the court of public opinion, which is all well and good, unless the public doesn't like something YOU are doing.
This is like a burglar breaking into your house and notices you have some marijuana and calls the cops on you.
Unless your job requires a US Federal Government security clearance.
Or unless you like to bring your private live to work with you, or just no show up for work because your private life got the better of you.
I wonder what happens _if_ you are asked. You could refuse to answer and/or sue for $1000 in damages, but that would probably mean no job. Are you allowed to lie to such questions?
If I could line up 10 such interviews a month, I'd probably be content with that.
Additionally, I will also mention that Robert Half Technology in my local area already has candidates filling out a background check authorization form and even wants to fill out I-9 at their on-site interview before the candidate even has a job offer--keep in mind I-9 usually uses Photo ID and Social Security Card or Birth Certificate as the usual two forms of ID. At my interview, they hinted that not having a completed I-9 on file might be an HR red flag vs. another candidate that already did have an I-9 on file. (And at my interview, they basically wanted to go over my resume job by job for salary information and supervisor names as references, but I was not given a formal job offer for a position I applied for.)
Robert Half Technology is a scam to bilk out-of-work people out of money that they need to survive. They lure you in saying that they have a job that fits you perfectly, then once you are there, they start asking what your skills are. Then they introduce you to their pricing model, where you basically pay them for the privilege of using their database to cold call people who may or may not have any jobs posted. They are basically a headhunting agency where you act as your own headhunter and pay them for the privilege. But 90% of people who use their service do get a job. Of course they do! What else are they going to do? Retire? Die? That's like the weatherman saying it is going to snow. Of course it will, eventually.
Robert Half was a brilliant man with great business ethics who knew that treating employees right was the best way to long term business success. His children were scum licking worthless leeches who sold his good name for a quick buck to unscrupulous ripoff agencies. May Robert Half rest in peace and his offspring burn in hell for their desecration of his good name.
Bad form to reply to oneself, I know, but I also remembered that I wanted to point out that in all three states in which I do business, companies are REQUIRED to report new hires to the state just in case they are a deadbeat dad. This includes Date of Birth. Although, of course, there is always the possibility that the company obtained that information after hire.
Now, having obtained that information (as required by the state), the employer can now be sued for age discrimination if they ever terminate the employee.
Anybody who put those on their application forms these days is just asking to be sued.
I have never seen a job application that did not ask for Date of Birth.
the failed MSN TV debacle. People (for the most part) don't want to surf the net on their set top boxes.
I don't know why they keep trying to recycle this technology. I guess the investors have deep pockets and short memories. Don't these people remember WebTV?
After 4 months, it began randomly rebooting.
This is what annoys me about modern electronics. They put in all this unnecessary fancy fluff and then it gets in the way of the core functionality. Yeah, it's great that my Android can play games and movies and stuff, but it is really annoying when it reboots in the middle of a phone call. My old Nokia dumb phone never did that. I have also never had a "dumb" TV reboot in the middle of a broadcast. Since they can't stop these devices from rebooting, they need to include an extremely basic OS that is stable and does only what the device is supposed to do, ie make phone calls in the case of a phone, or display programming in the case of a TV.
Reading the article, the companies are unhappy with the Transportation Department rule that requires them to include all taxes in their advertised rates because that rule "violate their free-speech rights".
Too bad for them. If they would compete fairly and advertise honestly, then we wouldn't have to have laws to make them do the right thing.