After reading several things which Jack Thompson wrote, it seems that he lacks a coherent argument, and resorts to ass kissing and name calling more than half of the time.
In the scanned letter, he refers to Penny Arcade as "an extortion ring," a "bunch of computer geeks," and repeatedly spews "facts" about the gaming industry which have yet to be proven. To my limited knowledge, Rockstar Games has not publically admitted that GTA:Vice City is some sort of combat simulator which prepares youth to overthrow authority. Hell, the game has very little bearing on reality from what I have seen.
Lets face it, this letter was designed to have maximum effectiveness with the police, not a third party. He doesn't seem to be bothered by this alleged harrassment, instead, his letter seems to be a vengeful attack on Penny Arcade.
This guy needs to do some research and forget about whatever it is that motivates his attack on "violence." Whether he is after money, political power, or a place in history is not certain, but there is clearly an ulterior motive to his attack on the gaming industry.
Re:LOL, "familiarize new users"
on
Grokking Knoppix
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· Score: 1
Actually, knoppix is what I used to start familiarizing myself with Linux - and also my first taste of how much a pain in the ass it can be!
Knoppix didn't support nforce2 based motherboards by default, and at the time there wasn't a publically available customization containing what I needed. So of course I had to go through the motions of looking up a solution, compiling, etc. It wasn't so bad, but it showed me that with Linux, don't expect something that should be seemingly easy to be. I still use knoppix, but until I get used to Linux, it'll be Live CD's and Windows on my main computer.
A book such as this would have helped me a bit, although I would have used it only as a reference for things I couldn't figure out. Most people don't even look at the manual when using or installing things, unless they run into problems. So why would anybody expect a person to willingly read a book in order to familirize themselves, when we can't even get them to read a manual for more common things?
I enjoyed Halo 2 as well. Although the story could have used some refinement, the multiplayer was nearly exactly the same as the first - and that's not a bad thing in my opinion!
In fact, a good portion of my family will sometimes play multiplayer together. (Nothing like Halo 2 to bring the family togeter!)
The calculator I wrote in BASIC didn't sell too well due to actions of Microsoft. I demand you pay me.
Seriously. These lawsuits are getting fucking crazy. It seems that every product which has failed will eventually seek damages from Microsoft. Sure, some of their business tactics are shady, but they work. When aiming for maximum profit, why wouldn't a company seek to enter into new, profitable markets? These business practices, such as withholding information, are good ones. Hell, if I owned a business, I'd engage in similar tactics!
I guess lawsuits are good for making up profit losses too. It's just a more public form of underhanded tactic.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I do believe that in North Carolina a minor cannot legal be held to a contract. So if the EULA is in essence a contract, are minors simply free to do as they wish?
I've yet to upgrade to the latest releases of "firefox". I'm still using FireBIRD 0.7, which I find to be much more stable. In my experience, anything past 0.7 seems to just suck more and more memory, waste more CPU usage, and offer little more than annoyances. Of course I'll suffer from lack of security updates, but I'll take my functionality, and just keep up on what the latest firefox exploits are so I know what to look for when browsing.
I believe I possess adequate knowledge to operate my computer at a higher level than the 'average' user. Surely not much higher, but I can easily accomplish a hell of a lot of tasks the average person can't. I'm no programmer, graphics artist, network specialist, etc. I'm just an average user. I browse the internet, burn CDs (legally of course!), play games, and all that good stuff.
After hearing so much about Linux, I figured I'd give it a try. I read quite a bit, and decided I'd go with a distro that would be easier to use. I couldn't make up my mind, so I tried SuSe, Mandrake, and RedHat. The installation was a breeze, far from being easier than Windows, but even a child could do it.
Once each was up, I played around with it, tested what it could do. It was a major pain in the ass to get my video card and sound drivers (Epox 8rda+ and an Nvidia MX440.)The packages didn't install right, no sound, no hardware 3d support, no onboard LAN. So I had to go about compiling and tweaking. I eventually got it to work, after putting a different NIC in, and reading up on how other people got it working. There was no short supply of forums detailing how to make the Nvidia drivers work. From there I went on to try Slackware, and of course, Knoppix. I stuck with Knoppix - on CD of course, and went back to Windows.
I've gone back with each major release, just to check the progress. I've seen enough changes, but it still lacks a 'user friendly' environment, which Windows has. Certaintly a lot has been sacrificed to make Windows easy to use right out of the box. The average user won't know what to do if their hardware doesn't work right after the installation (and a lot of the time it doesn't). At this point, I can't honestly say I'd reccommend the switch to Linux unless it's someone who will be truly dedicated to the task. It's like being in a completely new, and different environment. One day Linux may take a large share of the market from Microsoft, but it can't be forgotten this 'market' is mainly comprised of people with only a basic understanding of computers.
I hope you didn't post that from your home computer.. they'll be coming for you!
Regardless of how much people dislike Microsoft, the leak should be investigated, and the person who leaked it should be prosecuted.
In most cases expensive tech support is not needed anyways. If the user has even a slight bit of knowledge, they'll run a search (Google anyone?) on their issue, and easily come up with the solution...
Oh wait... we're talking about typical Windows users.
Slashdot Mirror
After reading several things which Jack Thompson wrote, it seems that he lacks a coherent argument, and resorts to ass kissing and name calling more than half of the time.
In the scanned letter, he refers to Penny Arcade as "an extortion ring," a "bunch of computer geeks," and repeatedly spews "facts" about the gaming industry which have yet to be proven. To my limited knowledge, Rockstar Games has not publically admitted that GTA:Vice City is some sort of combat simulator which prepares youth to overthrow authority. Hell, the game has very little bearing on reality from what I have seen.
Lets face it, this letter was designed to have maximum effectiveness with the police, not a third party. He doesn't seem to be bothered by this alleged harrassment, instead, his letter seems to be a vengeful attack on Penny Arcade.
This guy needs to do some research and forget about whatever it is that motivates his attack on "violence." Whether he is after money, political power, or a place in history is not certain, but there is clearly an ulterior motive to his attack on the gaming industry.
Actually, knoppix is what I used to start familiarizing myself with Linux - and also my first taste of how much a pain in the ass it can be! Knoppix didn't support nforce2 based motherboards by default, and at the time there wasn't a publically available customization containing what I needed. So of course I had to go through the motions of looking up a solution, compiling, etc. It wasn't so bad, but it showed me that with Linux, don't expect something that should be seemingly easy to be. I still use knoppix, but until I get used to Linux, it'll be Live CD's and Windows on my main computer. A book such as this would have helped me a bit, although I would have used it only as a reference for things I couldn't figure out. Most people don't even look at the manual when using or installing things, unless they run into problems. So why would anybody expect a person to willingly read a book in order to familirize themselves, when we can't even get them to read a manual for more common things?
I enjoyed Halo 2 as well. Although the story could have used some refinement, the multiplayer was nearly exactly the same as the first - and that's not a bad thing in my opinion! In fact, a good portion of my family will sometimes play multiplayer together. (Nothing like Halo 2 to bring the family togeter!)
The calculator I wrote in BASIC didn't sell too well due to actions of Microsoft. I demand you pay me.
Seriously. These lawsuits are getting fucking crazy. It seems that every product which has failed will eventually seek damages from Microsoft. Sure, some of their business tactics are shady, but they work. When aiming for maximum profit, why wouldn't a company seek to enter into new, profitable markets? These business practices, such as withholding information, are good ones. Hell, if I owned a business, I'd engage in similar tactics!
I guess lawsuits are good for making up profit losses too. It's just a more public form of underhanded tactic.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I do believe that in North Carolina a minor cannot legal be held to a contract. So if the EULA is in essence a contract, are minors simply free to do as they wish?
I've yet to upgrade to the latest releases of "firefox". I'm still using FireBIRD 0.7, which I find to be much more stable. In my experience, anything past 0.7 seems to just suck more and more memory, waste more CPU usage, and offer little more than annoyances. Of course I'll suffer from lack of security updates, but I'll take my functionality, and just keep up on what the latest firefox exploits are so I know what to look for when browsing.
I believe I possess adequate knowledge to operate my computer at a higher level than the 'average' user. Surely not much higher, but I can easily accomplish a hell of a lot of tasks the average person can't. I'm no programmer, graphics artist, network specialist, etc. I'm just an average user. I browse the internet, burn CDs (legally of course!), play games, and all that good stuff.
After hearing so much about Linux, I figured I'd give it a try. I read quite a bit, and decided I'd go with a distro that would be easier to use. I couldn't make up my mind, so I tried SuSe, Mandrake, and RedHat. The installation was a breeze, far from being easier than Windows, but even a child could do it.
Once each was up, I played around with it, tested what it could do. It was a major pain in the ass to get my video card and sound drivers (Epox 8rda+ and an Nvidia MX440.)The packages didn't install right, no sound, no hardware 3d support, no onboard LAN. So I had to go about compiling and tweaking. I eventually got it to work, after putting a different NIC in, and reading up on how other people got it working. There was no short supply of forums detailing how to make the Nvidia drivers work. From there I went on to try Slackware, and of course, Knoppix. I stuck with Knoppix - on CD of course, and went back to Windows.
I've gone back with each major release, just to check the progress. I've seen enough changes, but it still lacks a 'user friendly' environment, which Windows has. Certaintly a lot has been sacrificed to make Windows easy to use right out of the box. The average user won't know what to do if their hardware doesn't work right after the installation (and a lot of the time it doesn't). At this point, I can't honestly say I'd reccommend the switch to Linux unless it's someone who will be truly dedicated to the task. It's like being in a completely new, and different environment. One day Linux may take a large share of the market from Microsoft, but it can't be forgotten this 'market' is mainly comprised of people with only a basic understanding of computers.
I hope you didn't post that from your home computer.. they'll be coming for you! Regardless of how much people dislike Microsoft, the leak should be investigated, and the person who leaked it should be prosecuted.
Now the trick is to get Windows Update available for other browsers.
In most cases expensive tech support is not needed anyways. If the user has even a slight bit of knowledge, they'll run a search (Google anyone?) on their issue, and easily come up with the solution... Oh wait... we're talking about typical Windows users.