Blizzard, and almost all MMORPG developers have to have a pretense of being against eBay. Otherwise, a court could rule that the in game objects have value and that if there was a server crash, Blizzard would have to pay restitution. A similar scenario would exist if Blizzard were to shut the WOW servers down in five years.
If Sony were to shut-down Everquest 1, the 77th richest nation in the world and all the entailing wealth would be destroyed. It's bizarre to think about. Certainly any Everquest or WOW player would say that there character and virtual posessions have real world value. But Sony and Blizzard must reject that notion so they won't have to pay for the conversion of every in game item to real-world dollars every time there is a server crash.
Re:I will help YOU get a JOB! (Programming puzzles
on
Programming Puzzles
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· Score: 1
11. Well, since C isn't a scripting language I don't see how that's possible.
It's very possible. It's called a quine. They're fascinating, and it's possible for programs to output themselves in all sorts of different interesting ways.
Reminds me of a better game...
on
The Wiki Game
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· Score: 0, Redundant
Start at Yahooligans and see how many clicks it takes to get to a porn site. You can only click, you're not allowed to search.
Hint -- the beginner's method is to click on the "Terms of Service" link at the bottom of the page which features a convenient link to the real Yahoo. From there, it's easy. I consider that cheating, but whatever works for you.
Vivendi being in the water business is hilarious.
A friend of mine's father worked in the water filtration industry. His company was bought by Vivendi. A rather bizarre fringe benefit was that he was allowed to buy any Sierra or Blizzard game for $10.
I did a lot of lego design for a robotics competition I competed in last year. While legos are great because they are so easy to use, I can't stand using them for anything even slightly large in scale because of what I have dubbed "The Lego Design Flaw." Basically, there is a 6:5 ratio of height to width on legos which makes construction and reinforcement much, much more difficult than it needs to be when working in the full 3 dimensions that the Lego Technic allows one to work in.
No one was naysaying Sony because the market was ready for the new console. Everyone knew the new systems were coming. Dreamcast came out, but no one wanted to jump because PS1 and N64 were still going strong and the specs for the PS2 had already been announced, and it was hyped to the moon.
At this point, the market just isn't ready for a new console.
Cory Doctorow's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom has an interesting vision of a future world where immortality has been achieved. Of course, material scarcity has also been eliminated.
The main character has several doctorates and has composed numerous symphonies.
If someone is willing to work as a janitor, they can live a life in leisure in the future world's reputational economy.
Halo controls nothing like Goldeneye. The default Goldeneye control scheme had you using the analog stick to move forward and backwards and turn. To aim up and down, you had to use the C Buttons, which was impractical, or the R-Button which switched the analog stick to aiming.
Halo's controls are more in the spirit of Turok, which used the analog stick for aiming and the C buttons for movement.
Also, for team based games, proximity and sharing the screen can be an advantage. I love playing 4v4 capture the flag across two TVs, and sharing screens just facilitates communication amongst teammates.
I'm very happy with the sound quality of allofmp3, for the most part. It's definitely better than iTunes or any competitor. However, they most definitely misrepresent the quality.
All of their CDs are stored in their database as a 384 kb/s LAME encoded mp3, not in a lossless form. So, you're pretty much wasting your time if you use extremely high quality ogg or mpc encoding since the quality can never be higher than the original mp3, and whatever you use will have been reencoded at least once, with whatever associated quality losses that entails.
Allofmp3 is trying to resolve this quality issue, fortunately. Right now, they have about fifty of their most downloaded CDs (White Stripe's Elephant, Outkast's epic album, REM's greatest hits, etc.) available online [allofmp3.com] to be encoded losslessly. You have to check the box that says "use original cd data" and you also have the option of getting SHN, FLAC, or APE encoded music. However, you have to pay twice as much for that priveledge, at which point it would almost be cheaper to buy the cd new.
See this interview [museekster.com] with someone working for allofmp3.
The interview also reiterates some of the legality issues, but of course, it's straight from the mouth of allofmp3 which certainly isn't a non-biased source.
I'm very happy with the sound quality of allofmp3, for the most part. It's definitely better than iTunes or any competitor. However, they most definitely misrepresent the quality.
All of their CDs are stored in their database as a 384 kb/s LAME encoded mp3, not in a lossless form. So, you're pretty much wasting your time if you use extremely high quality ogg or mpc encoding since the quality can never be higher than the original mp3, and whatever you use will have been reencoded at least once, with whatever associated quality losses that entails.
Allofmp3 is trying to resolve this quality issue, fortunately. Right now, they have about fifty of their most downloaded CDs (White Stripe's Elephant, Outkast's epic album, REM's greatest hits, etc.) available online to be encoded losslessly. You have to check the box that says "use original cd data" and you also have the option of getting SHN, FLAC, or APE encoded music. It's not worth it for me though; it gets expensive downloading such large files. What is beneficial is that these albums are capable of being encoded into any of Allofmp3's formats (ogg, mpc, aac) from the original source.
See this interview with someone working for allofmp3.
The interview also reiterates some of the legality issues, but of course, it's straight from the mouth of allofmp3 which certainly isn't a non-biased source.
Perhaps the metal strip contained in all twenties is the reason the money blew up?
Holding the twenty up to a light with Jackson facing me, I can clearly see the strip just to the left of the zero on the left side. I checked an older "new" twenty and it's there and a new, new twenty and it's also there.
I'm not quite sure why this would cause Jackson's right eye to blow up, but it makes more sense than the RFID transmittor in every twenty.
It annoys me that it's necessary to run both Ad-Aware and Spybot, even with both newly updated.
If you want to get rid of a virus, it's not necessary to use both AVG and Norton. Perhaps it's because there is much more of a network of the anti-virus developers helping each other.
For me, it isn't much of a hassle running both of the programs, but for the average idiot, running SpyBot and AdAware is much too difficult. The problem won't be stopped with legislation, the problem will be stopped whenever Dell and the other OEMs bundle a combined Antivirus/Anti-spyware program with all of their PCs.
I haven't used Norton AV 2004, which claims to fight spyware, yet. Does it work better than the SpyBot/AdAware combo?
Yeah, you're right about that. The PS2 launch did suck (although SSX was pretty good). The Dreamcast didn't work out because the real next-next generation of game consoles was immediately forseable just around the corner and everyone knew they would blow the Dreamcast away.
How about this as a reason for the PS2's success: whenever the PS2 launched in Japan, it was one of the cheaper DVD players available. Once the hardware was a success, as soon as the killer apps were released, they sold like crazy. So it took a year for the real third party support to be there, but once it was there, it was pretty incredible. Sony had Square and Final Fantasy, Gran Turismo, and more. Grand Theft Auto was a hell of a surprise as well.
Your logic only partially works. Yeah, the Atari 5200 failed because of its lack of backwards compatibility.
Saturn failing because of no backwards compatibility? Absolutely completely wrong. It's not like Sega CD was that popular to begin with, or that there were any worthwhile games besides Sega CD. It was more of a marketing issue, along with the fact that it was notoriously hard to program the dual-processor system.
Playstation 2 succeeded because it was released a year before the other systems, along with high-quality third part support from the very beginning. The backward compatibility didn't hurt, but I think the PS2 would have been just as successful without it.
Still, you may very well be right about the Xbox-2. I love my modded Xbox, but even if the system isn't as hacker friendly, the mainstream certainly won't care. What percent of people mod their Xbox? 1%?.1%? Enough for MS to care, but not enough to make the Nextbox a complete failure without the linux geek support.
Microsoft Bob, failure as it was, still oppresses us daily with the friendly Office Assistants. Windows ME made money. Xbox 2 will be at least as succesful, if not more so, than the previous one.
You're being really optimistic. No one questions the fact that Windows 98 SE was an improvement over the first edition, but it's optimistic to assume that's what we'll get with XP reloaded.
More realisticaly, we'll get another version of Windows ME. Useless so-called improvements that somehow break what little functionality was there to begin with and the vow to fix everything with Longhorn.
Slashdot Mirror
Blizzard, and almost all MMORPG developers have to have a pretense of being against eBay. Otherwise, a court could rule that the in game objects have value and that if there was a server crash, Blizzard would have to pay restitution. A similar scenario would exist if Blizzard were to shut the WOW servers down in five years.
If Sony were to shut-down Everquest 1, the 77th richest nation in the world and all the entailing wealth would be destroyed. It's bizarre to think about. Certainly any Everquest or WOW player would say that there character and virtual posessions have real world value. But Sony and Blizzard must reject that notion so they won't have to pay for the conversion of every in game item to real-world dollars every time there is a server crash.
11. Well, since C isn't a scripting language I don't see how that's possible.
It's very possible. It's called a quine. They're fascinating, and it's possible for programs to output themselves in all sorts of different interesting ways.
This page is a great resource.Start at Yahooligans and see how many clicks it takes to get to a porn site. You can only click, you're not allowed to search.
Hint -- the beginner's method is to click on the "Terms of Service" link at the bottom of the page which features a convenient link to the real Yahoo. From there, it's easy. I consider that cheating, but whatever works for you.
Vivendi being in the water business is hilarious. A friend of mine's father worked in the water filtration industry. His company was bought by Vivendi. A rather bizarre fringe benefit was that he was allowed to buy any Sierra or Blizzard game for $10.
I did a lot of lego design for a robotics competition I competed in last year. While legos are great because they are so easy to use, I can't stand using them for anything even slightly large in scale because of what I have dubbed "The Lego Design Flaw." Basically, there is a 6:5 ratio of height to width on legos which makes construction and reinforcement much, much more difficult than it needs to be when working in the full 3 dimensions that the Lego Technic allows one to work in.
Holy referral link, Batman.
My grandfather always proudly spoke of watching the nuclear tests. He got colon cancer, and died a couple years ago.
No one was naysaying Sony because the market was ready for the new console. Everyone knew the new systems were coming. Dreamcast came out, but no one wanted to jump because PS1 and N64 were still going strong and the specs for the PS2 had already been announced, and it was hyped to the moon. At this point, the market just isn't ready for a new console.
Cory Doctorow's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom has an interesting vision of a future world where immortality has been achieved. Of course, material scarcity has also been eliminated.
The main character has several doctorates and has composed numerous symphonies.
If someone is willing to work as a janitor, they can live a life in leisure in the future world's reputational economy.
Halo controls nothing like Goldeneye. The default Goldeneye control scheme had you using the analog stick to move forward and backwards and turn. To aim up and down, you had to use the C Buttons, which was impractical, or the R-Button which switched the analog stick to aiming.
Halo's controls are more in the spirit of Turok, which used the analog stick for aiming and the C buttons for movement.
Also, for team based games, proximity and sharing the screen can be an advantage. I love playing 4v4 capture the flag across two TVs, and sharing screens just facilitates communication amongst teammates.
Tranquility is another game with great, surreal graphics.
I'm very happy with the sound quality of allofmp3, for the most part. It's definitely better than iTunes or any competitor. However, they most definitely misrepresent the quality.
All of their CDs are stored in their database as a 384 kb/s LAME encoded mp3, not in a lossless form. So, you're pretty much wasting your time if you use extremely high quality ogg or mpc encoding since the quality can never be higher than the original mp3, and whatever you use will have been reencoded at least once, with whatever associated quality losses that entails.
Allofmp3 is trying to resolve this quality issue, fortunately. Right now, they have about fifty of their most downloaded CDs (White Stripe's Elephant, Outkast's epic album, REM's greatest hits, etc.) available online [allofmp3.com] to be encoded losslessly. You have to check the box that says "use original cd data" and you also have the option of getting SHN, FLAC, or APE encoded music. However, you have to pay twice as much for that priveledge, at which point it would almost be cheaper to buy the cd new. See this interview [museekster.com] with someone working for allofmp3.
The interview also reiterates some of the legality issues, but of course, it's straight from the mouth of allofmp3 which certainly isn't a non-biased source.
I'm very happy with the sound quality of allofmp3, for the most part. It's definitely better than iTunes or any competitor. However, they most definitely misrepresent the quality.
All of their CDs are stored in their database as a 384 kb/s LAME encoded mp3, not in a lossless form. So, you're pretty much wasting your time if you use extremely high quality ogg or mpc encoding since the quality can never be higher than the original mp3, and whatever you use will have been reencoded at least once, with whatever associated quality losses that entails.
Allofmp3 is trying to resolve this quality issue, fortunately. Right now, they have about fifty of their most downloaded CDs (White Stripe's Elephant, Outkast's epic album, REM's greatest hits, etc.) available online to be encoded losslessly. You have to check the box that says "use original cd data" and you also have the option of getting SHN, FLAC, or APE encoded music. It's not worth it for me though; it gets expensive downloading such large files. What is beneficial is that these albums are capable of being encoded into any of Allofmp3's formats (ogg, mpc, aac) from the original source. See this interview with someone working for allofmp3.
The interview also reiterates some of the legality issues, but of course, it's straight from the mouth of allofmp3 which certainly isn't a non-biased source.
Perhaps the metal strip contained in all twenties is the reason the money blew up?
Holding the twenty up to a light with Jackson facing me, I can clearly see the strip just to the left of the zero on the left side. I checked an older "new" twenty and it's there and a new, new twenty and it's also there.
I'm not quite sure why this would cause Jackson's right eye to blow up, but it makes more sense than the RFID transmittor in every twenty.
It annoys me that it's necessary to run both Ad-Aware and Spybot, even with both newly updated.
If you want to get rid of a virus, it's not necessary to use both AVG and Norton. Perhaps it's because there is much more of a network of the anti-virus developers helping each other.
For me, it isn't much of a hassle running both of the programs, but for the average idiot, running SpyBot and AdAware is much too difficult. The problem won't be stopped with legislation, the problem will be stopped whenever Dell and the other OEMs bundle a combined Antivirus/Anti-spyware program with all of their PCs.
I haven't used Norton AV 2004, which claims to fight spyware, yet. Does it work better than the SpyBot/AdAware combo?
Yeah, you're right about that. The PS2 launch did suck (although SSX was pretty good). The Dreamcast didn't work out because the real next-next generation of game consoles was immediately forseable just around the corner and everyone knew they would blow the Dreamcast away.
How about this as a reason for the PS2's success: whenever the PS2 launched in Japan, it was one of the cheaper DVD players available. Once the hardware was a success, as soon as the killer apps were released, they sold like crazy. So it took a year for the real third party support to be there, but once it was there, it was pretty incredible. Sony had Square and Final Fantasy, Gran Turismo, and more. Grand Theft Auto was a hell of a surprise as well.
Your logic only partially works. Yeah, the Atari 5200 failed because of its lack of backwards compatibility.
.1%? Enough for MS to care, but not enough to make the Nextbox a complete failure without the linux geek support.
Saturn failing because of no backwards compatibility? Absolutely completely wrong. It's not like Sega CD was that popular to begin with, or that there were any worthwhile games besides Sega CD. It was more of a marketing issue, along with the fact that it was notoriously hard to program the dual-processor system.
Playstation 2 succeeded because it was released a year before the other systems, along with high-quality third part support from the very beginning. The backward compatibility didn't hurt, but I think the PS2 would have been just as successful without it.
Still, you may very well be right about the Xbox-2. I love my modded Xbox, but even if the system isn't as hacker friendly, the mainstream certainly won't care. What percent of people mod their Xbox? 1%?
Microsoft Bob, failure as it was, still oppresses us daily with the friendly Office Assistants. Windows ME made money. Xbox 2 will be at least as succesful, if not more so, than the previous one.
Yes, the last one was shown to be a hoax. The author himself came forward and admitted that it was never intended to be taken at face value.
See this poor, but understandable translation of the guy's webpage.
You're being really optimistic. No one questions the fact that Windows 98 SE was an improvement over the first edition, but it's optimistic to assume that's what we'll get with XP reloaded. More realisticaly, we'll get another version of Windows ME. Useless so-called improvements that somehow break what little functionality was there to begin with and the vow to fix everything with Longhorn.
It's just ridiculous. I can't understand what the law is possibly trying to accomplish.