That’s an interesting thought. So the woman gets paid and then the next day is robbed and killed by a roving gang or a warlord’s hunt and terminate party. The other investors complain to the Somalian Stock Exchange that they don’t feel safe investing because their money can’t be guaranteed. Business suffers as a result until the Stock Exchange or some other business springs up and offers protection for that money. For only a few percentage points off the top they can keep you safe. And hey, now that you have all that money and you are safe you might want to spend it and get the good things in life. Right? So you start to make purchases and start to acquire things. New businesses have to come into being to supply you with the food and housing and coca cola that you lust for. Given a long enough time a middle class emerges that begins to demand not only protection but running water, electricity, communications, etc. It wouldn’t be the first time that a group of criminals have created a society.
I have killed more people than Hitler. It's true.
I have murdered millions of Nazis and slaughtered as many dragons. I have raped Native Americans and killed hundreds of thousands of cops. I have killed aliens that looked like pigs dressed as cops. I have destroyed feminism by flashing cash at strippers. I have committed genocide. I have wiped the earth clean of barbarians, Romans, Egyptians, Germans, and the Mongols. I have brought sword to creatures great and small because they may be carrying gold. I have killed creatures and then thrown away anything they were carrying because I did not deem it worthy. I have lied, cheated and double crossed denizens of the wasteland, a fairy kingdom, an ancient alien race and time travelers. I have shot mutants and bounty hunters in the groin and face. After killing someone else who I have never met and who had done me no wrong I crouched over his dead body and tea bagged him. I have enslaved a star faring race and then traded those slaves for military secrets. I have spied on other countries, planets and star systems and sabotaged numerous public works to cause strife and disorder. I have starved cities and brought whips down on my workers so that they may finish great works in my name before someone else did the same. I have stabbed kings and rezoned miles of pristine wilderness into ash spewing city hell holes. I have built nuclear reactors and then let them go critical so that I may laugh at the death toll and then, while the people were still putting out the atomic fires, I have unleashed Godzilla and a hurricane onto them. I have built swimming pools and then removed the exit ladders to watch people drown. I have smashed buildings to grab people inside and then eat them.
All of these simulations have trained me well in the off chance I am ever presented with the ability to be an omnipotent, immortal, time traveling, alien, city building, world conquering, sword wielding, post apocalyptic, giant fire breathing, car jacking last great hope for humanity...who also happens to be a complete and total bastard.
To me the best thing about Myst was that you were alone and trapped in a mysterious place left to discover what happened to the world and its inhabitants. In a way it reminded me of Planetfall. You "crash land" onto a world and have to fix what is wrong and find out what made it that way. I don't know how you could extend that to an online MMORPG. I never played it though so it may be the best thing since free cake...but the original with its isolation, loneliness, and haunting music is what made it fun.
So what happens if they win? I am not a lawyer but if someone sues you for a trizzillion dollars and you don't have it...what happens? They can't throw you in jail. They can't take your stuff...or can they? They can screw your credit rating up and maybe garnish your wages in the few states that allow it. I have won civil suits before and never got a dime. The judge slaps his gavel down, says "you owe the that dude 500 dollars" and then nothing happens. So what happens if you don't or can't pay the RIAA?
Come on marketing and PR department of Redmond, even I know the answer to this one and I haven't ever taken a class in marketing or sucking up.
1. Issue a statement of apology explaining that you will get to the bottom of the problem.
2. Go ahead and look for the Xbox (but secretly you know this is futile and the box is next to the Ark or was really cleaned).
3. Contact the complaining customer and ask him what signatures were on the Xbox.
4. Contact the artists that signed the box. Make a big PR festival out of it! Have Bill Gates (or heck...anyone famous will do) take a brand new Xbox to each artist and have them sign it.
5. Send the Xbox back to the kid. No wait, have Bill Gates deliver it in person. Film the whole thing and put it on youtube, etc.
6. PR disaster averted and gold stars for everyone.
The media would eat this up and the free publicity would be worth its weight in cheetos.
The older generation that buys music as a physical medium already has purchased everything they want. My mom isn't going to repurchase the White Album no matter what new wacky format it comes out in. The new generation doesn't see those shiny metal discs as storing music. They grew up with everything being digital. Even if they burn everything to an MP3 cd, how many songs will that store? 200-300? Their friggin phones can hold that. Their ipods, zunes, etc can hold thousands or more. Do you think they are going to buy an album for 20 bucks that has ONLY 10 songs?
The end of the physical medium is here. Open up a web site and sell all of your stuff online for a good price. Oh wait...Apple already is:)
Dear makers of DRM: please keep this up!
Please, please, please keep making it harder for consumers to view your stuff.
I've got an idea! How about a program that deletes all mp3s and (why the hell not) installs a root kit.
I still don't think that goes far enough. You might want to kill all avi file usage too. Of course this only hurts the low tech pirates. You might want to limit streaming to ANY device that hasn't been registered. How about if I decide to take a game to a friend's house to show him how awesome it is? Fuck that! He hasn't paid a license so brick his machine. Pop a new HD-DVD/Blue Ray/ETC into a car stereo? Better make that thing call home before he can hear it. Also maybe make him swipe a card, enter a password and give a retinal scan too.
Make him jump through hoops! Hoops that are on FIRE!
Maybe then people will dump this tired crap and move to a standard that works for everyone.
I'm going to make a crazy guess here. Google will release product after product until the have almost all of the MS Office Suite covered. Most businesses won't use it though as the idea of putting their files up on some nebulous file cloud spooks them. They don't want corporate secrets in the hands of who knows who. Then Google will drop their bombshell: their office suite will be made to work ONLINE and OFFLINE (and still in a browser!) jumping the final hurdle for a business suite. On an even wilder note they may even release the source code claiming "see, even if we go out of business you can compile it yourself". Their online model will be supported by ads and their offline one will make money by selling support.
The sound you hear is a thousand chairs flying into walls.
Dragging a 16 year old into court before a jury will hurt the RIAA more then anything. Most juries will side with the "poor" kid before they would hand judgment to a team of high priced lawyers.
Think about it:
people tend to dislike huge corporation
people tend to hate lawyers for huge corporation
No matter what happens the media will report it and public opinion will be on his side.
Even if he is guilty this is a massive PR debacle.
Setting an example works if the person can be portrayed as EVIL and VICIOUS (like for profit pirates) not young children.
Whatever RIAA lawyer thought this was a good idea should be fired...into the sun.
So I say please keep suing grandmothers and children. Come on RIAA...aren't there Eskimo retarded paraplegics in wheelchairs who have AIDS that you can go after? Please do.
Seems a little expensive. Could someone build one of these printers and then print the printer itself and mail it to me? I promise to duplicate it as well and give some to my friends.
Seriously though, if I owned a manufacturing company of any any kind I would be scared of this thing. In 30 years you might witness the end of large scale production of small consumer goods. Throwing a party? Print up the plates and forks and chairs and tables you need. Need a gift? Print up some Barbie dolls.
In 50 years the only thing that might actually be sold are the plans needed to fabricate something and the "ink" for this thing. If I was very cynical I would say this could end capitalism itself:)
Hey you!
Stop fighting. Seriously, I said stop it now.
Are you listening to me?
Put down that knife.
What would your mother think?
And those shoes with those pants.
Sweet jesus!
Who dressed you this morning?
Stop hitting him I said!
This will all end in tears you know.
I try and I try but you just won't listen.
Well go ahead and fight, see if I care.
I know the DEVS made some changes to the game with update patch 6 and I think they finally fixed the Badtz-Maru bug where you could take double cute points from mobs that used Enveloping Cute Shields. That's great and I think the people who play Badtz toons will really appreciate it. I think the DEVS have introduced another problem though.
I finally got my Hello Kitty character up to 21 and I have Cute 3 slotted and Strange Attraction From Asian Girls 4 slotted. We went out Keroppi hunting in the Land of Unholy Pink where I have never had a problem before. We find a huge mob of them gathered around and having a tea party (did they increase mob size as well, 'cause I have never seen them in groups this size!?). So the Pochaccos move in to take agg and we are holding our own when suddenly they drop my Cute Shield and stun me with kisses! How can a +1 mob do stuns and holds now? The DEVS need to seriously reconsider this. I can see Chococat bosses doing these types of mezzes but this is ridiculous. Anyway, I managed to grab about 30k in debt last night from this debacle. Anyone else?
I thought so too, but you can get Creatures 1-3 to work in XP. Just right click on the setup file before you install it and tell it to run in compatibility mode. I think I chose Windows 95. I actually played a game of Creatures last night.
11.7 Billion?!
Oh man, the dark side is calling me. It's whispering in the back of my mind "Go ahead and just send out millions of emails a day and rake in millions of dollars. So what if you are hated by almost every living person on the planet....11.7 billion!"
Then I smack myself and remember the most important lesson my dad ever taught me "never degrade yourself for money, only for personal enjoyment".
They are never going to be able to stop these guys now. With that kind of money they can buy all the influence they need to keep pumping this crap out until the system becomes so overloaded that people stop using email altogether.
This is a great idea but Japanese isn't that hard to learn to speak. Compare it to Finish or Dutch or even German. What's nice is that Japanese has a set of rules and it hardly ever breaks them: no conjugation of verbs, the verb always comes last in the sentence, etc. Sure, there are those tricky adjectives and politeness words but they aren't that hard. I cringe when I think of hundreds of foreigners running around with little PDAs asking questions like
"Where the bathroom be?"
"How much the coffee if milk in it?"
"Where the titty show for cheap?"
At least learn a little bit of the language when you travel. It really impresses the locals when you try. Also, could you imagine going to a business meeting and trying to use some talking robot to give your presentation...hmmm...on second thought that would be kinda cool. Now if they made one of these to translate kanji my wallet would be all a quiver.
Remedy Entertainment and 3D Realms developed the game together. You are correct though, the Finland guys did most of the work. They also did a game called Death Rally in 1996 that is awesome. All of this data I am pulling from www.mobygames.com (to site my sources).
I have begun to suspect that Duke Nukem Forever is a joke being played on us by 3d Realms. Either that or it is just a smoke screen for any other project that they are really working on. Since they have announced "Forever" (6 years ago) they have produced 3 games: Duke Nukem 3D Atomic Edition, Duke Nukem 3D Plutonium Pak, and Max Payne.
They use "Forever" as a cover to hide what they are really making!
In the end they get to pull the largest practical joke on the gaming public since Daikatana.
They couldn't possible still be working on it...could they?
JPL engineers played Baha Men's "Who Let the Dogs Out" in the control room as they watched new images confirming that the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit successfully rolled off its lander platform early Thursday morning.
NASA then announced that all new scientific advances would be accompanied by craptastic music. The building of a new permanent base on the moon will be announced by Jefferson Starship's "We Built This City". The launching of a new long range probe will be complemented by Europe's "The Final Countdown".
Ha Ha, I know you are being sarcastic but I'll bite anyway. The fish-eye effect is caused by the wide angle lense of the camera they are using. It allows for more area to be photographed but things that are further away from the center of view are warped.
I agree with you for the most part, but there is some good stuff out there.
For story try Planescape:Torment. Yes, they use CDs and play a few movies but the story is incredible (I consider it the best RPG plot ever made) and there is a lot to do. Let me repeat that: A LOT!
If you want a dungeon hack that just happens to have a story then grab Wizardry 8. Very complex game with over 11 races and 15 character classes.
There are quality RPGs being made...just not as often. After a while gamers will not be wowed anymore by pretty graphics and FMV and video game makers will have to return to gameplay.
The Union of Standard Generic Player Classes scored another victory today when it was announced that World of Warcraft would allow rouges, priests, and paladins.
"This is a great win for us", announced Ulog Beg, President of USGPC. "Could you imagine an RPG without people like fighters, wizards, or thieves? It would be chaos!"
This win represents the largest gain for the union since Morrowind in 2002.
Also involved in talks with Blizzard are the Union of Standard Weak Creatures (representing large rats and skeletons) and the Union of 'Ye Ol English' which hopes to make everyone use words like "sire" and "liege". It is unknown whether the Union of Undead has approached Blizzard yet but many industry insiders agree that they will.
Yes, yes, I am just being sarcastic. I'm sure the game will rock. Although I didn't enjoy Warcraft 3 as much as I had hoped I think Blizzard has a great track record so far.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm suing Black Berry as well. It told me to take a right and I drove into a lake.
That’s an interesting thought. So the woman gets paid and then the next day is robbed and killed by a roving gang or a warlord’s hunt and terminate party. The other investors complain to the Somalian Stock Exchange that they don’t feel safe investing because their money can’t be guaranteed. Business suffers as a result until the Stock Exchange or some other business springs up and offers protection for that money. For only a few percentage points off the top they can keep you safe. And hey, now that you have all that money and you are safe you might want to spend it and get the good things in life. Right? So you start to make purchases and start to acquire things. New businesses have to come into being to supply you with the food and housing and coca cola that you lust for. Given a long enough time a middle class emerges that begins to demand not only protection but running water, electricity, communications, etc. It wouldn’t be the first time that a group of criminals have created a society.
Norway is excellent. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/05/norway-best-place-to-live_n_309698.html and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGTzbj3fRSw and yes, hot women
BRAWNDO!! It's got what BEES CRAVE! It's like DRIVING a MONSTER TRUCK into a field of pollen! BRAWNDO!!
I have killed more people than Hitler. It's true. I have murdered millions of Nazis and slaughtered as many dragons. I have raped Native Americans and killed hundreds of thousands of cops. I have killed aliens that looked like pigs dressed as cops. I have destroyed feminism by flashing cash at strippers. I have committed genocide. I have wiped the earth clean of barbarians, Romans, Egyptians, Germans, and the Mongols. I have brought sword to creatures great and small because they may be carrying gold. I have killed creatures and then thrown away anything they were carrying because I did not deem it worthy. I have lied, cheated and double crossed denizens of the wasteland, a fairy kingdom, an ancient alien race and time travelers. I have shot mutants and bounty hunters in the groin and face. After killing someone else who I have never met and who had done me no wrong I crouched over his dead body and tea bagged him. I have enslaved a star faring race and then traded those slaves for military secrets. I have spied on other countries, planets and star systems and sabotaged numerous public works to cause strife and disorder. I have starved cities and brought whips down on my workers so that they may finish great works in my name before someone else did the same. I have stabbed kings and rezoned miles of pristine wilderness into ash spewing city hell holes. I have built nuclear reactors and then let them go critical so that I may laugh at the death toll and then, while the people were still putting out the atomic fires, I have unleashed Godzilla and a hurricane onto them. I have built swimming pools and then removed the exit ladders to watch people drown. I have smashed buildings to grab people inside and then eat them.
All of these simulations have trained me well in the off chance I am ever presented with the ability to be an omnipotent, immortal, time traveling, alien, city building, world conquering, sword wielding, post apocalyptic, giant fire breathing, car jacking last great hope for humanity...who also happens to be a complete and total bastard.
To me the best thing about Myst was that you were alone and trapped in a mysterious place left to discover what happened to the world and its inhabitants. In a way it reminded me of Planetfall. You "crash land" onto a world and have to fix what is wrong and find out what made it that way. I don't know how you could extend that to an online MMORPG. I never played it though so it may be the best thing since free cake...but the original with its isolation, loneliness, and haunting music is what made it fun.
So what happens if they win? I am not a lawyer but if someone sues you for a trizzillion dollars and you don't have it...what happens? They can't throw you in jail. They can't take your stuff...or can they? They can screw your credit rating up and maybe garnish your wages in the few states that allow it. I have won civil suits before and never got a dime. The judge slaps his gavel down, says "you owe the that dude 500 dollars" and then nothing happens. So what happens if you don't or can't pay the RIAA?
Come on marketing and PR department of Redmond, even I know the answer to this one and I haven't ever taken a class in marketing or sucking up.
1. Issue a statement of apology explaining that you will get to the bottom of the problem.
2. Go ahead and look for the Xbox (but secretly you know this is futile and the box is next to the Ark or was really cleaned).
3. Contact the complaining customer and ask him what signatures were on the Xbox.
4. Contact the artists that signed the box. Make a big PR festival out of it! Have Bill Gates (or heck...anyone famous will do) take a brand new Xbox to each artist and have them sign it.
5. Send the Xbox back to the kid. No wait, have Bill Gates deliver it in person. Film the whole thing and put it on youtube, etc.
6. PR disaster averted and gold stars for everyone.
The media would eat this up and the free publicity would be worth its weight in cheetos.
The older generation that buys music as a physical medium already has purchased everything they want. My mom isn't going to repurchase the White Album no matter what new wacky format it comes out in. The new generation doesn't see those shiny metal discs as storing music. They grew up with everything being digital. Even if they burn everything to an MP3 cd, how many songs will that store? 200-300? Their friggin phones can hold that. Their ipods, zunes, etc can hold thousands or more. Do you think they are going to buy an album for 20 bucks that has ONLY 10 songs? The end of the physical medium is here. Open up a web site and sell all of your stuff online for a good price. Oh wait...Apple already is :)
Dear makers of DRM: please keep this up! Please, please, please keep making it harder for consumers to view your stuff. I've got an idea! How about a program that deletes all mp3s and (why the hell not) installs a root kit. I still don't think that goes far enough. You might want to kill all avi file usage too. Of course this only hurts the low tech pirates. You might want to limit streaming to ANY device that hasn't been registered. How about if I decide to take a game to a friend's house to show him how awesome it is? Fuck that! He hasn't paid a license so brick his machine. Pop a new HD-DVD/Blue Ray/ETC into a car stereo? Better make that thing call home before he can hear it. Also maybe make him swipe a card, enter a password and give a retinal scan too. Make him jump through hoops! Hoops that are on FIRE! Maybe then people will dump this tired crap and move to a standard that works for everyone.
I'm going to make a crazy guess here. Google will release product after product until the have almost all of the MS Office Suite covered. Most businesses won't use it though as the idea of putting their files up on some nebulous file cloud spooks them. They don't want corporate secrets in the hands of who knows who. Then Google will drop their bombshell: their office suite will be made to work ONLINE and OFFLINE (and still in a browser!) jumping the final hurdle for a business suite. On an even wilder note they may even release the source code claiming "see, even if we go out of business you can compile it yourself". Their online model will be supported by ads and their offline one will make money by selling support. The sound you hear is a thousand chairs flying into walls.
Correct. Which is why they should drop it quick. Pressing forward against a kid is just bad no matter how it turns out.
Dragging a 16 year old into court before a jury will hurt the RIAA more then anything. Most juries will side with the "poor" kid before they would hand judgment to a team of high priced lawyers.
Think about it:
people tend to dislike huge corporation
people tend to hate lawyers for huge corporation
No matter what happens the media will report it and public opinion will be on his side. Even if he is guilty this is a massive PR debacle. Setting an example works if the person can be portrayed as EVIL and VICIOUS (like for profit pirates) not young children. Whatever RIAA lawyer thought this was a good idea should be fired...into the sun.
So I say please keep suing grandmothers and children. Come on RIAA...aren't there Eskimo retarded paraplegics in wheelchairs who have AIDS that you can go after? Please do.
Seems a little expensive. Could someone build one of these printers and then print the printer itself and mail it to me? I promise to duplicate it as well and give some to my friends. Seriously though, if I owned a manufacturing company of any any kind I would be scared of this thing. In 30 years you might witness the end of large scale production of small consumer goods. Throwing a party? Print up the plates and forks and chairs and tables you need. Need a gift? Print up some Barbie dolls. In 50 years the only thing that might actually be sold are the plans needed to fabricate something and the "ink" for this thing. If I was very cynical I would say this could end capitalism itself :)
Hey you! Stop fighting. Seriously, I said stop it now. Are you listening to me? Put down that knife. What would your mother think? And those shoes with those pants. Sweet jesus! Who dressed you this morning? Stop hitting him I said! This will all end in tears you know. I try and I try but you just won't listen. Well go ahead and fight, see if I care.
I know the DEVS made some changes to the game with update patch 6 and I think they finally fixed the Badtz-Maru bug where you could take double cute points from mobs that used Enveloping Cute Shields. That's great and I think the people who play Badtz toons will really appreciate it. I think the DEVS have introduced another problem though.
I finally got my Hello Kitty character up to 21 and I have Cute 3 slotted and Strange Attraction From Asian Girls 4 slotted. We went out Keroppi hunting in the Land of Unholy Pink where I have never had a problem before. We find a huge mob of them gathered around and having a tea party (did they increase mob size as well, 'cause I have never seen them in groups this size!?). So the Pochaccos move in to take agg and we are holding our own when suddenly they drop my Cute Shield and stun me with kisses! How can a +1 mob do stuns and holds now? The DEVS need to seriously reconsider this. I can see Chococat bosses doing these types of mezzes but this is ridiculous. Anyway, I managed to grab about 30k in debt last night from this debacle. Anyone else?
I thought so too, but you can get Creatures 1-3 to work in XP. Just right click on the setup file before you install it and tell it to run in compatibility mode. I think I chose Windows 95. I actually played a game of Creatures last night.
11.7 Billion?!
Oh man, the dark side is calling me. It's whispering in the back of my mind "Go ahead and just send out millions of emails a day and rake in millions of dollars. So what if you are hated by almost every living person on the planet....11.7 billion!"
Then I smack myself and remember the most important lesson my dad ever taught me "never degrade yourself for money, only for personal enjoyment".
They are never going to be able to stop these guys now. With that kind of money they can buy all the influence they need to keep pumping this crap out until the system becomes so overloaded that people stop using email altogether.
This is a great idea but Japanese isn't that hard to learn to speak. Compare it to Finish or Dutch or even German. What's nice is that Japanese has a set of rules and it hardly ever breaks them: no conjugation of verbs, the verb always comes last in the sentence, etc. Sure, there are those tricky adjectives and politeness words but they aren't that hard. I cringe when I think of hundreds of foreigners running around with little PDAs asking questions like
"Where the bathroom be?"
"How much the coffee if milk in it?"
"Where the titty show for cheap?"
At least learn a little bit of the language when you travel. It really impresses the locals when you try. Also, could you imagine going to a business meeting and trying to use some talking robot to give your presentation...hmmm...on second thought that would be kinda cool. Now if they made one of these to translate kanji my wallet would be all a quiver.
Remedy Entertainment and 3D Realms developed the game together. You are correct though, the Finland guys did most of the work. They also did a game called Death Rally in 1996 that is awesome. All of this data I am pulling from www.mobygames.com (to site my sources).
I have begun to suspect that Duke Nukem Forever is a joke being played on us by 3d Realms. Either that or it is just a smoke screen for any other project that they are really working on. Since they have announced "Forever" (6 years ago) they have produced 3 games: Duke Nukem 3D Atomic Edition, Duke Nukem 3D Plutonium Pak, and Max Payne.
They use "Forever" as a cover to hide what they are really making!
In the end they get to pull the largest practical joke on the gaming public since Daikatana.
They couldn't possible still be working on it...could they?
JPL engineers played Baha Men's "Who Let the Dogs Out" in the control room as they watched new images confirming that the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit successfully rolled off its lander platform early Thursday morning.
NASA then announced that all new scientific advances would be accompanied by craptastic music. The building of a new permanent base on the moon will be announced by Jefferson Starship's "We Built This City". The launching of a new long range probe will be complemented by Europe's "The Final Countdown".
Ha Ha, I know you are being sarcastic but I'll bite anyway. The fish-eye effect is caused by the wide angle lense of the camera they are using. It allows for more area to be photographed but things that are further away from the center of view are warped.
I agree with you for the most part, but there is some good stuff out there.
For story try Planescape:Torment. Yes, they use CDs and play a few movies but the story is incredible (I consider it the best RPG plot ever made) and there is a lot to do. Let me repeat that: A LOT!
If you want a dungeon hack that just happens to have a story then grab Wizardry 8. Very complex game with over 11 races and 15 character classes.
There are quality RPGs being made...just not as often. After a while gamers will not be wowed anymore by pretty graphics and FMV and video game makers will have to return to gameplay.
The Union of Standard Generic Player Classes scored another victory today when it was announced that World of Warcraft would allow rouges, priests, and paladins.
"This is a great win for us", announced Ulog Beg, President of USGPC. "Could you imagine an RPG without people like fighters, wizards, or thieves? It would be chaos!"
This win represents the largest gain for the union since Morrowind in 2002. Also involved in talks with Blizzard are the Union of Standard Weak Creatures (representing large rats and skeletons) and the Union of 'Ye Ol English' which hopes to make everyone use words like "sire" and "liege". It is unknown whether the Union of Undead has approached Blizzard yet but many industry insiders agree that they will.
Yes, yes, I am just being sarcastic. I'm sure the game will rock. Although I didn't enjoy Warcraft 3 as much as I had hoped I think Blizzard has a great track record so far.