Imagine you belong to a tennis club where you can play scratch games of doubles. Sometimes your doubles partner just deliberately throws the game. You'd probably try to avoid playing that person, but if he persistently did that he might well be subject to sanction and perhaps ejection from the tennis club for unsporting behaviour.
There's an easy solution to that one, don't make an ally you can't trust.
Sure it's unsporting and it's griefing. But life, like a game, is not perfect. If you walk into a game and expect everyone to play nice then you are surely naive. And if I worked for a game company and one day they asked me to start policing griefing, I'd tell them it's impossible to do and then I'd likely be looking for another job.
Dont Open Me I'm a Fucking Virus and I'll Fuck Up Your Computer.exe
Now I know what I'm naming my next "I'm really bored in C++ class and need to write something malicious to pass the time" project! What should be this time... Infinite loop of new folders? Fill the hard drive with useless data in 3 seconds flat? Ah so much to choose from...
I can't wait to see how this is spun into Blizzard being evil.
You need not wait longer!:)
Okay well sort of. I'm not exactly a Blizzard-hater, and I don't even play the game in discussion here. But I have played games where "grief tactics" were considered a bannable offense, and in every case it was a completely utterly fucking retarded policy. As a game developer, you make the game. If there are bugs, you fix them. If people aren't playing the game the way you'd prefer they play it, you change it. You don't go around banning people for "misconduct" and "exploits". Fix it or don't bitch, is what I tell developers.
But of course, the "it's not that simple!" argument comes up. Well to that I say too fucking bad. The EQ developers can't force people to roleplay, so they don't attempt to enforce it. This analogy could be a totally bad example for this Battle.net thing, but even still, with my overwhelming ignorance about the specifics, especially having not read the article, I still suspect the developers are more to blame than the players for this "problem".
In a situation like that, when someone comes to you with a problem, it multiplies the number of possible reasons by so many that it makes supporting them a nightmare.
Easy solution: complete switch. Start supporting Mozilla, stop supporting IE/Outlook. Now you're still only supporting one, except it's the better one. You know, the one with tabbed browsing, built in popup blocking, and no massive security flaws which can rape your public Windows box.
As a guy who provides tech support to people often, when people complain about anything IE or Outlook related, I, as well as the original thread-starter, always just reply with "mozilla.org".
As someone searching for the holy grail of desktop enviornments and window managers, I have recently given WindowMaker a serious shot and found it lacking.
Pros:
Menu system. Totally owns. In fact, I'd say the BlackBox/FluxBox/WMaker menu system is the best of all the desktop envs and window managers from all operating systems put together.
Minimalistic. I love minimalism and a clean interface.
Cons:
Lack of a good intuitive general configuration system. KDE's, GNOMES, and XFCE's are far more comprehensive
Iconified window system, imho, is inferior to a taskbar/systemtray.
If you're interested on where I stand now, recently I've been using XFCE and GNOME a lot. Currently I'm running GNOME, but with Nautilus cut out of the picture. I use Rox as my desktop/file manager in GNOME.
But what's the ultimate answer to alternatives to icons and menus? There is none. They're proven to work great. You just gotta find a gui setup that works for you and stick with it. That's why there's so many operating systems, desktop envs, and window managers to choose from. There is no holy grail of them all, it's all personal preference.
One thing I find kind of funny though is Linux... I don't even know how to get 56k working in Linux because when I started using it, dhcp broadband was already saturated. Taco obviously knows how though.;)
It was their staunch refusal to touch CDs (because they were easily copied) that lost them SquareSoft as a developer to Sony, and the N64's anemic cartrige space nearly dragged them out of the mainstream gaming market.
They were, and still are, well known as one of the most litigous companies when it comes to emulators and ROMs. They crack down the hardest on manufacturers of ROM copier devices.
Funny thing is, this approach flopped on N64 and Nintendos all before it. Search Kazaa for Playstation ISOs and how many do you find, not many. Search Kazaa for N64 dumps, SNES dumps, NES dumps, how many do you find? Tons. Reason? You can make dumps of N64, SNES, and NES catridges that don't get much bigger than 128mb depending on what method you use to dump the data. But CD images are always ~700MB; though some of my Playstation CD images are as small as 300mb, while Final Fantasies are something around ~780mb. My recent rip of Final Fantasy X clocked at 4.19gb.
Nintendo finally (unfortunately) realized that more data storage = pirate unfriendly with the Gamecube, even though those mini DVDs are still loads smaller in filesize than the PS2 disks. But it's their copy protection (burn/read from outside to in, among other theories) that has really stumped emulation enthusiasts like myself. To my knowledge, only a small group of people have figured out how to rip a GC disk, and they're not sharing how. Developers of the Dolphin emu probably know how to do it as well.
Actually, the only (public) method I know of that actually works is using the same exploit as is being used to create this GC Linux. You can supposedly make an ISO of any GC disk by exploiting the update process in Phantasy Star Online, though I wouldn't bother with such a backwards-ass method. I'd rather just tweak a DVD ROM to be able to read and make ISOs of the disks. In any event, PS2 and GC have both been out for just about the same amount of time, and PS2 emulation is lightyears ahead of GC. Nintendo's anti-piracy efforts are so good this time that people even have a hard time getting Linux, which supposedly "runs on anything", to run on one;)
I just wire everythinig unvisibly behind furniture and boxen. If you take the time to look behind crap, you see a mess. But if you look at the surface it's totally clean looking and uncluttered. It's cheap, efficient, and very easy to setup;)
Not being an authority on Morpheus, I can't really answer that question, but in the case of EXT2IFS and Samba, the data is mounted just like your every day drive C: or D:, so it's logical to assume that the spyware associated with Morpheus could read and in some cases write to them.
What do you think of the possibility that Star Trek: Enterprise may be cancelled?
- "Who cares? Kirk rules!"
- "Who cares? Picard rules!"
- "Berman sux. I expected it any day."
- "Ahh... I just watched it for the hot Vulcan chick anyways."
- "I just wait for the Trek movies."
- "That's horrible, I just decided that Crusher was cool because he runs Linux, now this!"
- "It's all the fault of CowboyNeal and his Nielsen-connected TiVo!"
Try, "I love Enterprise and it shall be canceled over my dead body!"
I've been a Trek fan for well over a decade and I'm loving Ent just as much as I loved TNG, DS9, and Voy. Frankly, I'm getting really tired of all this Enterprise bashing, and the fact that there are over a dozen Ent-bashing posts modded up as +5 insightful shows just how bias the moderation system can be sometimes, doesn't it?
Yeah it is kind of disturbing that people do that, but the same thing happens in Final Fantasy games these days too;)
I love the original NGE series and if you've seen the original shows then you know that the few sexual references are indeed harmless humor. It just seems to me that one of the best things the show had going for it was the innocence of the characters, and the movie is destroying that by making it live action with older actors. I would have much preferred the original anime art.
For example, let's pretend this Toshok fellow is completely innocent, and the FBI search of his computers establishes zero link to their original investigation. However, on one computer they find thousands of dollars of unlicensed software and thousands of pirated MP3s and divx vids. Can they confiscate his computer for such an unrelated offense? Can they charge him with a crime? What if during the search of his apartment they found some drugs and an unregistered weapon?
Exactly where is the line?
Oh so because pirated MP3s isn't a severe enough crime they should just ignore it? Before you flame me, I think that there should be nothing illegal about unlicensed software, MP3s, and pirated TV/movies. But strictly legally speaking, they're illegal. Now let's put this in prespective. Same example you gave me, they find no HL source violations in Toshok's house, but they find a dead body. By the logic you're implying, should they just leave and ignore the dead body?
It's a fucking cartoon. If they were real 14 year old actors being portrayed as sexy it would be quite different. And it's not just a cartoon, it's anime which is even more exaggerated than cartoons. It's a long way from being pedophilia.
You know those teeny movies like American Pie and Clueless? Those come a hell of a lot closer to pedophilia than NGE due to the fact that we've got real, underage actors, being portrayed as sexy.
And half the problem with this movie is the fact that it's live action. If they kept it anime and used the original artwork there would be no problems. You can't, or rather you shouldn't take an anime and make a live action movie out of it. It would be like trying to do live action bugs bunny. It just wouldn't work.
phpBB is NOT lightweight. Granted it's not the most bloated forum on earth, it does have tons of totally pointless "features" that go beyond the scope of most websites. If you want true minimalism, try mine out. Of course mine is still in the developmental stages and there are bugs. But it is totally bloat-free.
Okay, done with my shameless plug. Move along now.
There is more truth to that comment than you may realize. I thought the days of the Japanese dumbing down their products for us were long over. When Square released Final Fantasy Chronicles, complete with a translated ORIGINAL FF4, none of this easytype crap, I finally believed that this Americanization crap was history. But I seem to have been proven wrong.
I am a fan. They get their prospective money from people like me. If they can't preserve the look and feel from the original series, then I will not pay to see it.
My first one was also a stunning 112kbps on a 28.8kbps modem, though back then I did everything legally. It was a legal download of an orchastrated version of the opening music from Final Fantasy 6.
I speak from experience, you're full of shit. The Gravis Gamepad Pro is one of the best selling gamepads for a reason, and I've been emulating SNES for almost a decade using it. The "imprecise" D-pad is a myth. Maybe you should learn how to put your thumb in the right spot, and perhaps it will improve your gaming performance.;) In fact, I find it better than the real thing because I can map the controls any way I want.
Apples and oranges. Building a car is nowhere close to assembling a computer. x86 parts (including power supplies) are sold individually, so why not ppc?
Slashdot Mirror
Sure it's unsporting and it's griefing. But life, like a game, is not perfect. If you walk into a game and expect everyone to play nice then you are surely naive. And if I worked for a game company and one day they asked me to start policing griefing, I'd tell them it's impossible to do and then I'd likely be looking for another job.
Okay well sort of. I'm not exactly a Blizzard-hater, and I don't even play the game in discussion here. But I have played games where "grief tactics" were considered a bannable offense, and in every case it was a completely utterly fucking retarded policy. As a game developer, you make the game. If there are bugs, you fix them. If people aren't playing the game the way you'd prefer they play it, you change it. You don't go around banning people for "misconduct" and "exploits". Fix it or don't bitch, is what I tell developers.
But of course, the "it's not that simple!" argument comes up. Well to that I say too fucking bad. The EQ developers can't force people to roleplay, so they don't attempt to enforce it. This analogy could be a totally bad example for this Battle.net thing, but even still, with my overwhelming ignorance about the specifics, especially having not read the article, I still suspect the developers are more to blame than the players for this "problem".
As a guy who provides tech support to people often, when people complain about anything IE or Outlook related, I, as well as the original thread-starter, always just reply with "mozilla.org".
You can develop Kool apps for KDE with it...
GTK > *
Okay I'm done.
Making firewalls illegal so people are more easily identified doing "bad things" eh? Sounds like the RIAA is having trouble nailing some of us.
Pros:
Menu system. Totally owns. In fact, I'd say the BlackBox/FluxBox/WMaker menu system is the best of all the desktop envs and window managers from all operating systems put together.
Minimalistic. I love minimalism and a clean interface.
Cons:
Lack of a good intuitive general configuration system. KDE's, GNOMES, and XFCE's are far more comprehensive
Iconified window system, imho, is inferior to a taskbar/systemtray.
If you're interested on where I stand now, recently I've been using XFCE and GNOME a lot. Currently I'm running GNOME, but with Nautilus cut out of the picture. I use Rox as my desktop/file manager in GNOME.
But what's the ultimate answer to alternatives to icons and menus? There is none. They're proven to work great. You just gotta find a gui setup that works for you and stick with it. That's why there's so many operating systems, desktop envs, and window managers to choose from. There is no holy grail of them all, it's all personal preference.
One thing I find kind of funny though is Linux... I don't even know how to get 56k working in Linux because when I started using it, dhcp broadband was already saturated. Taco obviously knows how though. ;)
Nintendo finally (unfortunately) realized that more data storage = pirate unfriendly with the Gamecube, even though those mini DVDs are still loads smaller in filesize than the PS2 disks. But it's their copy protection (burn/read from outside to in, among other theories) that has really stumped emulation enthusiasts like myself. To my knowledge, only a small group of people have figured out how to rip a GC disk, and they're not sharing how. Developers of the Dolphin emu probably know how to do it as well.
Actually, the only (public) method I know of that actually works is using the same exploit as is being used to create this GC Linux. You can supposedly make an ISO of any GC disk by exploiting the update process in Phantasy Star Online, though I wouldn't bother with such a backwards-ass method. I'd rather just tweak a DVD ROM to be able to read and make ISOs of the disks. In any event, PS2 and GC have both been out for just about the same amount of time, and PS2 emulation is lightyears ahead of GC. Nintendo's anti-piracy efforts are so good this time that people even have a hard time getting Linux, which supposedly "runs on anything", to run on one
I just wire everythinig unvisibly behind furniture and boxen. If you take the time to look behind crap, you see a mess. But if you look at the surface it's totally clean looking and uncluttered. It's cheap, efficient, and very easy to setup ;)
Not being an authority on Morpheus, I can't really answer that question, but in the case of EXT2IFS and Samba, the data is mounted just like your every day drive C: or D:, so it's logical to assume that the spyware associated with Morpheus could read and in some cases write to them.
I've been a Trek fan for well over a decade and I'm loving Ent just as much as I loved TNG, DS9, and Voy. Frankly, I'm getting really tired of all this Enterprise bashing, and the fact that there are over a dozen Ent-bashing posts modded up as +5 insightful shows just how bias the moderation system can be sometimes, doesn't it?
Yeah it is kind of disturbing that people do that, but the same thing happens in Final Fantasy games these days too ;)
I love the original NGE series and if you've seen the original shows then you know that the few sexual references are indeed harmless humor. It just seems to me that one of the best things the show had going for it was the innocence of the characters, and the movie is destroying that by making it live action with older actors. I would have much preferred the original anime art.
It's a fucking cartoon. If they were real 14 year old actors being portrayed as sexy it would be quite different. And it's not just a cartoon, it's anime which is even more exaggerated than cartoons. It's a long way from being pedophilia.
You know those teeny movies like American Pie and Clueless? Those come a hell of a lot closer to pedophilia than NGE due to the fact that we've got real, underage actors, being portrayed as sexy.
And half the problem with this movie is the fact that it's live action. If they kept it anime and used the original artwork there would be no problems. You can't, or rather you shouldn't take an anime and make a live action movie out of it. It would be like trying to do live action bugs bunny. It just wouldn't work.
phpBB is NOT lightweight. Granted it's not the most bloated forum on earth, it does have tons of totally pointless "features" that go beyond the scope of most websites. If you want true minimalism, try mine out. Of course mine is still in the developmental stages and there are bugs. But it is totally bloat-free.
Okay, done with my shameless plug. Move along now.
There is more truth to that comment than you may realize. I thought the days of the Japanese dumbing down their products for us were long over. When Square released Final Fantasy Chronicles, complete with a translated ORIGINAL FF4, none of this easytype crap, I finally believed that this Americanization crap was history. But I seem to have been proven wrong.
I am a fan.
They get their prospective money from people like me.
If they can't preserve the look and feel from the original series, then I will not pay to see it.
I agree with grandparent but only because they are completely redrawing and in some cases renaming the original characters which is fucking retarded.
And trust me, if you think this (from the concept art) looks better than this (original artwork) then it is you who needs a reality check.
My first one was also a stunning 112kbps on a 28.8kbps modem, though back then I did everything legally. It was a legal download of an orchastrated version of the opening music from Final Fantasy 6.
Bummer, and I don't mean to flame so sorry if it came off like that. I have a USB and an old gameport one and both have been great for many years.
I speak from experience, you're full of shit. The Gravis Gamepad Pro is one of the best selling gamepads for a reason, and I've been emulating SNES for almost a decade using it. The "imprecise" D-pad is a myth. Maybe you should learn how to put your thumb in the right spot, and perhaps it will improve your gaming performance. ;) In fact, I find it better than the real thing because I can map the controls any way I want.
Apples and oranges. Building a car is nowhere close to assembling a computer. x86 parts (including power supplies) are sold individually, so why not ppc?