The easiest way to get someone to be ok with killing someone else is to put them or someone they're concerned about in danger
...and the one you are most concerned about is: you - normally. I totally agree with you. Think of countries that have mandatory military service. Military training just cannot desensitize you, because you will leave the military after 12 month (or 2 years, YMMV). They can't "create a killer" since you will be part of the society after that. Some societies may be strange, but I doubt there is a complete "killer society" anywhere in the world.
Making you protect your 'peers' is a far better strategy. It works anytime - even if you are against killing someone, when it comes to "us or them", you are guaranteed to rethink your position (if you still refuse to kill someone, well... just hope the guy at the other end of your gun has similar thoughts).
Examples of complicated graphs include specialized bar-and-whiskers plots
I had to cope with box-and-whisker plots to visualize data gathered from a statistical survey. Frankly, Perl/Tk was nothing I looked into (and I love Perl & Tk!). I entered the data into an OpenOffice spreadsheet (which made the statistical calculation very easy!) and googled for a solution. There are many commercial packages available for Excel, but this article was really helpful. I managed to create a similar solution for OO (I'm not sure if the result is of interest to anyone - if so, msg me or something).
Does anyone know a repository for statistical analysis programs? Because if you only need to run an analysis once, you think twice about hacking a Perl/Tk program (the 'clean' approach) unless you are a true Perl wiz - the time needed to write the program is (with my programming abilites) two or three times longer than looking for another one shot solution (the 'practical' approach).
If there was a central repository for this, you a) knew where to look first and b) had an incentive to write the program to save someone else the time. Yes, I know I could put it up to some website, but I really doubt anyone would find it or even look for it...
Yes, you are right. The point of that sentence was that even if you wanted to shoot someone, you need a gun for that. No gun - no victim. But gun control is another debate;)
Not true, of course, for the abduct-rape-chain crimes mentioned:(
I also wonder how much effect this actually has on sales
Depends - are we talking "sales" or "edonkey-downloads" here?:) Legally, if you are 18, you can not purchase the game. The dealer has to check your ID, otherwise he commits a crime and can be fined (a lot! of money). I must admit that C&C Generals is not a good example, since it also landed on the index - EA can not place ads for it, and you can't order it over the internet (well, there IS a C&C Generals, but this is a special version for the german market). Otherwise, ordering over the internet is possible. The resoning behind this is that games have to arrive via mail (no, we're not talking STEAM here, please, don't mess up our system *g*) and parents can check/control what their kids have ordered. Odering from outside Germany is also possible, but chances are high you need a credit card for that, and kids don't have one (normally). Shops can also import games from outside Germany, but those games are not rated and therefore automagically 18+.
On a side note: there are categories for 6 and 12 years and older. How does a child prove that it's 7 or 13 years? Show the drivers license?!? And older games like Pac-Man are not rated, because there was no rating system at that time. They are 18+. You can not sell (or show!) them to kids on a flea market.
This is of course all theory. Pircacy being ever so popular with kids, I imagine sales will not be effected too badly. But I doubt they will rise. The laws came into effect on April 1st (no joke), so time will tell what happens.
How's about we blame their jackets?
Ah... no: bread! 80% of all people who killed someone ate bread 24 hours before the crime. Therefore: bread is dangerous. Ban bread!
Seriously, I doubt that any single factor will turn a person into a killer. FPS or other violent games might lower the mental threshold to commit a crime, but they are just a piece of a puzzle. Perhaps it's a good strategy for the lawyers. "Plead guilty and say you played computer games. That will shift most of the blame."
I had Paranoia games that killed off the entire party
Oh yes, Paranoia was - in a way - more a "player killing game" than a "story telling game"... No other game had me spend more time on character creation.
There is no such thing as bad publicity, and I'm sure than incidents like this actually increase sales of the games in question. So why are we complaining?
Errr... as a result of repeated media coverage blaming video games (esp. Counter Strike) for kiddie rampages, the laws in Germany for juvenile protection (regarding movies, videos and games) were "updated" and made stricter. So, no child under the age of 18 can - legally - purchase a copy of C&C Generals. While I agree that children should be protected to a certain degree, the new laws have created quite a stir and confusion. Its going a bit too far, IMHO.
It's true that the multimedia capabilites of the Amiga were better (although that didn't help Commodore or Amiga, their brands pretty much suffer the same fate as Atari). The ST on the other hand had a MIDI interface. Several recording studios today still have a ST with the Steinberg software and the "Tape Operating System" (SCRN).
The Atari 800 was also a great computer
Ah, yes, those were the days. Games and software were sparse, esp. when compared to the C64. On a side note: IIRC, the 1050 was faster than the 1541 (unmodified, no speedloader) *g*
I wonder what the chances are of finding some of the stuff from the pictures on eBay?
According to the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce a person working in one of the categories (Motion Pictures, Television, Radio, Recording, or Live Theatre) is eligible for a star on the walk of fame. The requirements are:
Professional Achievement in the Field of Entertainment
Longevity of Five Years or More
Contribution to the Community
Lara Croft springs to mind somehow. As does Mario. Both have a movie (or two) in their credits, have been around for 5+ year and could be considered professionals. "Contribution to the Community" might be a problem... Also, according to the FAQ deceased persons can be nominated, but I strongly assume they had to be alive in the past, so this is a star-stopper, too.
But, hey, let's start collecting. If we raise the $15.000 maybe they'll grant the star anyway.
Three strings come to a bar. First string orders a beer. The bartender asks "Are you a string?" to which the string truthfully replies "Yes." Says the bartender: "We don't serve strings here!"
Second string orders a beer. Again, the bartender asks: "Are you a string?", again the string says "Yes". "We don't serve strings here!"
The third string - before ordering his beer - messes up his hair and bends into a loop. The bartender asks again: "Are you a string?"
"No, I'm a frayed knot."
I hope I got it right. Saw that one quite a while ago...;)
Now, how much does filesharing influence this? For music, I'd say quite a bit. Not so much for movies - it's l33t to have the latest blockbuster on (S)VCD, even before the premiere, but in the end - if you liked the movie - you still go to the theatre and watch it on the big screen. Supposedly true for music CDs also, but I guess to a lesser extend.
What about games? Yes, you can find virtually any title on (most of) your favourite P2P network. Documentation may be missing, or may be included as a PDF, but there are commercial box version available that do not offer much more than that, especially since the advent of DVD cases...
So either John and Jane Doe take delight in d/l movies, but not games, or the number of people playing a game are much larger than the sales figures. If you have a pirated version of the game, the drawbacks are much lower than those of a pirated movie. And I'm not even convinced that the majority uses the pirated games as a "full demo" and buys the game afterwards, if they like it.
Just my 2 cents. I would be nice to have numbers so a definite statement could be made...:)
What about coffee? Depending on my craving, it may have been on the floor for several minutes. After that, it begins to dry out and becomes solid anyway (after a time). Then the 5 second rule applies again...
BTW, I (and my co-worker) are two of those 44% that have never heard of that rule before.
As a teenager, we used to start a heavy inflation by creating our own money (and dismissing the rules regarding the maximum number of hotels and houses). We kept playing for days and generated billions (debt & fortune). Today we play it by the rules and complete the game after about 2 hours (YMMV, of course).
Oh, and I'm not too fond of risk. Could be because I lost my first couple of games... It was at a time when the goal was still to "conquer", not to "liberate". Talk about PC here!
Didn't Ultima 4, Quest of The Avatar, put this issue in the center of the game? Your behavior was a critical issue in the game.
Yes, you had to meet the necessary requirements in several (7?) virtues. But you had to be good to finish the game. With Black&White, you can play the entire game as a bad god.
Hm... but please have a few games that are a bit more complex than "Deer Hunter". "Sims". Great game. Arguably rather complex. Played by many women and men.
Oh, and how difficult is it to align a crosshair? Most FPS are not really all that difficult (easy to understand - not easy to master!)... not sure if they appeal to the masses, although the sales figures from HL or UT hint at that.
But of course the article seems to focus on the XBox. I guess other rules apply to consoles.
As other's have said. Don't. It's a losing proposition.
Sad but true. If you really want to do web design (and if you are better than all the other designer wannabees), add other design services to your portfolio: create business cards, restaurant menus, invitations, brochures etc. Anything that relates to a website and should have a similar design.
BTW, as far as I know the payment (for multimedia services) is settled in 3 thirds: 1/3 in advance, 1/3 after the final design has been agreed upon, and the final 1/3 after the client has received the final result.
I think the greatest advantage of the N-Gage is that it allows the games to be downloaded as well as to be distributed on a MMC. Other mobile gaming initiatives were download only - and the device could store only one game. And when you switched games, you had to pay the entire fee again.
I'm no developer, so another benefit could be that games for the N-Gage are basically J2ME games for a Series 60 device (I hope I understood that correctly on the developer site). It could run on other devices as well, although I'm not sure about additional functions the N-Gage has to offer.
Has anyone already created some code for it and is willing to share some insights?
It sure smells funny:) Anyway, the release date is said to be September 30th, but, frankly, information is really sparse if that date is realistic. I mean, there aren't even system requirements mentioned at Sierras website, nor a picture of the box...
If there was a poll about whether this article is fake or not, I'd vote "fake".
It will be interesting to see how Nokia and others react.
Honestly, I don't see Nokia, Siemens and Ericsson (Sony) switching to Linux. They have invested time and money into Symbian, and they have the necessary market share (at least in Europe and the US) to sit tight. Japan is another huge market, but tightly controlled by NTT DoCoMo. Device there vary very little.
IMHO, it all boils down to the question whether China really is the market of the future. Sure, it has a large population, and there are currently no mobile phones. But is the infrastructure alread there? What good is a phone without the network? Most likely, they will focus on cities with a high population density. But that will also reduce the number of people, although I admit I have no idea how many chinese live in the urban areas and how many in the rural areas.
Bottom line: designing a phone exclusively for the chinese market can backfire. And why do so? A Linux powered phone may also sell in Europe and the US. Why neglegt those markets?
Slashdot Mirror
Steam is available on Linux, right?
Technically, yes. But all you can download is server software.
The easiest way to get someone to be ok with killing someone else is to put them or someone they're concerned about in danger
...and the one you are most concerned about is: you - normally. I totally agree with you. Think of countries that have mandatory military service. Military training just cannot desensitize you, because you will leave the military after 12 month (or 2 years, YMMV). They can't "create a killer" since you will be part of the society after that. Some societies may be strange, but I doubt there is a complete "killer society" anywhere in the world.
Making you protect your 'peers' is a far better strategy. It works anytime - even if you are against killing someone, when it comes to "us or them", you are guaranteed to rethink your position (if you still refuse to kill someone, well... just hope the guy at the other end of your gun has similar thoughts).
Examples of complicated graphs include specialized bar-and-whiskers plots
I had to cope with box-and-whisker plots to visualize data gathered from a statistical survey. Frankly, Perl/Tk was nothing I looked into (and I love Perl & Tk!). I entered the data into an OpenOffice spreadsheet (which made the statistical calculation very easy!) and googled for a solution. There are many commercial packages available for Excel, but this article was really helpful. I managed to create a similar solution for OO (I'm not sure if the result is of interest to anyone - if so, msg me or something).
Does anyone know a repository for statistical analysis programs? Because if you only need to run an analysis once, you think twice about hacking a Perl/Tk program (the 'clean' approach) unless you are a true Perl wiz - the time needed to write the program is (with my programming abilites) two or three times longer than looking for another one shot solution (the 'practical' approach).
If there was a central repository for this, you a) knew where to look first and b) had an incentive to write the program to save someone else the time. Yes, I know I could put it up to some website, but I really doubt anyone would find it or even look for it...
guns don't kill people. Guns just sit there
;)
:(
Yes, you are right. The point of that sentence was that even if you wanted to shoot someone, you need a gun for that. No gun - no victim. But gun control is another debate
Not true, of course, for the abduct-rape-chain crimes mentioned
I also wonder how much effect this actually has on sales
:) Legally, if you are 18, you can not purchase the game. The dealer has to check your ID, otherwise he commits a crime and can be fined (a lot! of money). I must admit that C&C Generals is not a good example, since it also landed on the index - EA can not place ads for it, and you can't order it over the internet (well, there IS a C&C Generals, but this is a special version for the german market). Otherwise, ordering over the internet is possible. The resoning behind this is that games have to arrive via mail (no, we're not talking STEAM here, please, don't mess up our system *g*) and parents can check/control what their kids have ordered. Odering from outside Germany is also possible, but chances are high you need a credit card for that, and kids don't have one (normally). Shops can also import games from outside Germany, but those games are not rated and therefore automagically 18+.
Depends - are we talking "sales" or "edonkey-downloads" here?
On a side note: there are categories for 6 and 12 years and older. How does a child prove that it's 7 or 13 years? Show the drivers license?!? And older games like Pac-Man are not rated, because there was no rating system at that time. They are 18+. You can not sell (or show!) them to kids on a flea market.
This is of course all theory. Pircacy being ever so popular with kids, I imagine sales will not be effected too badly. But I doubt they will rise. The laws came into effect on April 1st (no joke), so time will tell what happens.
How's about we blame their jackets?
Ah... no: bread! 80% of all people who killed someone ate bread 24 hours before the crime. Therefore: bread is dangerous. Ban bread!
Seriously, I doubt that any single factor will turn a person into a killer. FPS or other violent games might lower the mental threshold to commit a crime, but they are just a piece of a puzzle. Perhaps it's a good strategy for the lawyers. "Plead guilty and say you played computer games. That will shift most of the blame."
Interesting to see that Germany is such a huge market for SR, as there seem to be no publication in languages other than english and german :)
I had Paranoia games that killed off the entire party
Oh yes, Paranoia was - in a way - more a "player killing game" than a "story telling game"... No other game had me spend more time on character creation.
There is no such thing as bad publicity, and I'm sure than incidents like this actually increase sales of the games in question. So why are we complaining?
Errr... as a result of repeated media coverage blaming video games (esp. Counter Strike) for kiddie rampages, the laws in Germany for juvenile protection (regarding movies, videos and games) were "updated" and made stricter. So, no child under the age of 18 can - legally - purchase a copy of C&C Generals. While I agree that children should be protected to a certain degree, the new laws have created quite a stir and confusion. Its going a bit too far, IMHO.
And, of course, guns kill people, not games.
it was HUGE in Europe, especially Germany
It's true that the multimedia capabilites of the Amiga were better (although that didn't help Commodore or Amiga, their brands pretty much suffer the same fate as Atari). The ST on the other hand had a MIDI interface. Several recording studios today still have a ST with the Steinberg software and the "Tape Operating System" (SCRN).
The Atari 800 was also a great computer
Ah, yes, those were the days. Games and software were sparse, esp. when compared to the C64. On a side note: IIRC, the 1050 was faster than the 1541 (unmodified, no speedloader) *g*
I wonder what the chances are of finding some of the stuff from the pictures on eBay?
Seems like nobody mentioned this before. Here seems to be a better source for the answer.
- Professional Achievement in the Field of Entertainment
- Longevity of Five Years or More
- Contribution to the Community
Lara Croft springs to mind somehow. As does Mario. Both have a movie (or two) in their credits, have been around for 5+ year and could be considered professionals. "Contribution to the Community" might be a problem... Also, according to the FAQ deceased persons can be nominated, but I strongly assume they had to be alive in the past, so this is a star-stopper, too.But, hey, let's start collecting. If we raise the $15.000 maybe they'll grant the star anyway.
Three strings come to a bar. First string orders a beer. The bartender asks "Are you a string?" to which the string truthfully replies "Yes." Says the bartender: "We don't serve strings here!"
;)
Second string orders a beer. Again, the bartender asks: "Are you a string?", again the string says "Yes". "We don't serve strings here!"
The third string - before ordering his beer - messes up his hair and bends into a loop. The bartender asks again: "Are you a string?"
"No, I'm a frayed knot."
I hope I got it right. Saw that one quite a while ago...
Music? Sales down. Hollywood? Hit or miss.
:)
Now, how much does filesharing influence this? For music, I'd say quite a bit. Not so much for movies - it's l33t to have the latest blockbuster on (S)VCD, even before the premiere, but in the end - if you liked the movie - you still go to the theatre and watch it on the big screen. Supposedly true for music CDs also, but I guess to a lesser extend.
What about games? Yes, you can find virtually any title on (most of) your favourite P2P network. Documentation may be missing, or may be included as a PDF, but there are commercial box version available that do not offer much more than that, especially since the advent of DVD cases...
So either John and Jane Doe take delight in d/l movies, but not games, or the number of people playing a game are much larger than the sales figures. If you have a pirated version of the game, the drawbacks are much lower than those of a pirated movie. And I'm not even convinced that the majority uses the pirated games as a "full demo" and buys the game afterwards, if they like it.
Just my 2 cents. I would be nice to have numbers so a definite statement could be made...
What about coffee? Depending on my craving, it may have been on the floor for several minutes. After that, it begins to dry out and becomes solid anyway (after a time). Then the 5 second rule applies again...
BTW, I (and my co-worker) are two of those 44% that have never heard of that rule before.
Does anyone play Monopoly to completion anymore?
As a teenager, we used to start a heavy inflation by creating our own money (and dismissing the rules regarding the maximum number of hotels and houses). We kept playing for days and generated billions (debt & fortune). Today we play it by the rules and complete the game after about 2 hours (YMMV, of course).
Oh, and I'm not too fond of risk. Could be because I lost my first couple of games... It was at a time when the goal was still to "conquer", not to "liberate". Talk about PC here!
Didn't Ultima 4, Quest of The Avatar, put this issue in the center of the game? Your behavior was a critical issue in the game.
Yes, you had to meet the necessary requirements in several (7?) virtues. But you had to be good to finish the game. With Black&White, you can play the entire game as a bad god.
And there are movies based on games:
- Super Mario Bros
- Wing Commander
- Tomb Raider
- Resident Evil
Not sure if I got all... And I leave it up the viewer to decide which movies were good and which were badmonopoly (which is a lousy game) ;)
No, sir, if you win, the game really rocks!
Settlers of Catan
A nice game, really. And there are several (!) expansions available to make the game more fun.
Games are still too difficult for a mass audience
Hm... but please have a few games that are a bit more complex than "Deer Hunter". "Sims". Great game. Arguably rather complex. Played by many women and men.
Oh, and how difficult is it to align a crosshair? Most FPS are not really all that difficult (easy to understand - not easy to master!)... not sure if they appeal to the masses, although the sales figures from HL or UT hint at that.
But of course the article seems to focus on the XBox. I guess other rules apply to consoles.
As other's have said. Don't. It's a losing proposition.
Sad but true. If you really want to do web design (and if you are better than all the other designer wannabees), add other design services to your portfolio: create business cards, restaurant menus, invitations, brochures etc. Anything that relates to a website and should have a similar design.
BTW, as far as I know the payment (for multimedia services) is settled in 3 thirds: 1/3 in advance, 1/3 after the final design has been agreed upon, and the final 1/3 after the client has received the final result.
I think the greatest advantage of the N-Gage is that it allows the games to be downloaded as well as to be distributed on a MMC. Other mobile gaming initiatives were download only - and the device could store only one game. And when you switched games, you had to pay the entire fee again.
I'm no developer, so another benefit could be that games for the N-Gage are basically J2ME games for a Series 60 device (I hope I understood that correctly on the developer site). It could run on other devices as well, although I'm not sure about additional functions the N-Gage has to offer.
Has anyone already created some code for it and is willing to share some insights?
That the source is kinda dodgy?
:) Anyway, the release date is said to be September 30th, but, frankly, information is really sparse if that date is realistic. I mean, there aren't even system requirements mentioned at Sierras website, nor a picture of the box...
It sure smells funny
If there was a poll about whether this article is fake or not, I'd vote "fake".
It will be interesting to see how Nokia and others react.
Honestly, I don't see Nokia, Siemens and Ericsson (Sony) switching to Linux. They have invested time and money into Symbian, and they have the necessary market share (at least in Europe and the US) to sit tight. Japan is another huge market, but tightly controlled by NTT DoCoMo. Device there vary very little.
IMHO, it all boils down to the question whether China really is the market of the future. Sure, it has a large population, and there are currently no mobile phones. But is the infrastructure alread there? What good is a phone without the network? Most likely, they will focus on cities with a high population density. But that will also reduce the number of people, although I admit I have no idea how many chinese live in the urban areas and how many in the rural areas.
Bottom line: designing a phone exclusively for the chinese market can backfire. And why do so? A Linux powered phone may also sell in Europe and the US. Why neglegt those markets?
That means they have little plastic or metal figures. Kylie would fit in nicely between my Snoopy and Haegar.
have a few cookies and several mugs of coffee. No genes needed here.
And, no, don't drink the coffee black.