or, should I say, what's with izzy stevens still having hallucinations of denny?
well, I guess it's a good way for the writers to get back at katherine heigl for her comments about them: make her look crazy so they can write her off the show.
hey guys, look what DIVX brought us! chapter 11 to circuit city! where is that correlationisnotcausation tag when you need it...
for anyone that doesn't remember, circuit city had "activated" movies that you bought for your DIVX player. You'd pay like $6-8 for a movie, and activate it for 48 hours [from when you ACTIVATED it, or it had a movie watch limit, like 3 times total or 48 hours]. if you wanted it longer, you had to pay for it.
I sound like a total conspiracy theorist here, but do you think they're blaming lost sales not only on the economic crisis, but on piracy? if you build it [good games, movies, software], they will come. if you continue to make crap, people will either not buy it or pirate it. DRM only causes more of the latter. congratulations.
oh, and agreed. prices are way too steep. I actually didn't even mind paying $40 for a game. $60 for these "GOLD BOX ZOMG" editions is tiring. from free until $40 I can stand, per game.
I could start another rant on how games are too short these days too [Call of Duty 4, I'm looking at you], or instead of putting in more GAMEPLAY, they just make it take longer to get where you need to go. I remember the old graphical adventures with quirky puzzle solving that took hours because you were trying to solve puzzles, not kill level 1 demonoids for 6 hours so that you can level up so you could fight the level 80 boss.
most places are willing to part on the school requirement if you have experience. but usually, it's somewhat heavy-handed for those without degrees.
such as: BS in computer science or equivalent experience [which usually turns out being like 3-5 years doing whatever is related].
I know that degrees can be utter crap these days, but I guess it's supposed to prove that you're motivated or something [or that you can stick with a plan and won't use this new job as a stepping stone; being able to stay the course]. I'm just rambling now. just my 2 cents.
azureus used to be my favorite until I saw how big of a footprint it was on my system. didn't matter if you were grabbing a few gigs for a linux ISO or a game like wolf: enemy territory [free, by the way!] still chugged.
It's interesting because I don't think they have to fully disclose the reasons to you when they do so. they have to if someone in a legal position asks them, but they can always find SOMETHING to fire you for, such as "Not being on time" or "Reading Slashdot while at work" or whatever they have, even if you are a model employee.
As long as they have SOME reason to fire you, they can. It doesn't have to make sense to you, but that's how it works unfortunately.
lolwut has to be my favorite tag for slashdot ever.
but really, unsurprisingly, our government has lost TONS of stuff over the years, not limited to just hardware, but essential records and documents. there's no real idea of "safe" anything really. any hardware can break. any documents can be destroyed, and even if they stand the test of time, the place in which they are stored can come down without anyone knowing about it.
considering how many renewal projects the world has had, what are the chances we're going to find another landfill with ET tapes or battlefield earth videos?
why the hate against dinosaur jr? j mascis/lou barlow/murph had some pretty great songs. I don't know which one(s) are in GH:WT but in rock band it's "Feel the Pain" which is an excellent 90's cut.
freak on a leash had a pretty damn cool video, but seriously, ranking that song over other great tracks that I saw in the listing? how is that song not 'long and repetitive' unlike all of the other songs? I'm not trying to be a dick, just trying to figure out where that logic comes from.
most pop/rock music is very very repetitive. verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, and a repeat of verse/chorus and maybe a guitar solo. it's the hook that makes it enjoyable.
you know, I was reading the awesome book waiter rant today and this same issue was discussed in one of the chapters. people are quick to say "THEY TOOK OUR JOERBS!" but they're the same people who don't want to work in the fields, restaurants, and factories.
some of them are even being paid minimum wage [not all, of course], and yes, they pay into SS while knowing they will never see a dime of it. but they do it anyway, because it still apparently beats life back where they came from.
geekold, truer words have not been said. the same american complaining about jobs being stolen is bitching about produce costs and other amenities as well. I'm not saying one way or the other is wrong, but based on what's going on, I doubt they're "stealing" jobs we necessarily want.
Sometimes I feel like the AV companies are the ones who write the viruses, or at least the different strains, so that everyone will be scared into using their anti-virus product. Does anyone have any proof or thoughts on this?
I am a Norton user myself, mainly because my University continues to pay for licensing for it and I've only had one real bad outbreak in the past 6 or 8 years [and it was caused by my family using my computer]. I remember people sang praises of NOD32. Anyone have any experience with that AV?
Also, I think Mcafee is pure trash, considering how many viruses I've cleaned up on friends' computers that had a working subscription that they were doing updates on. *shakes head*
the renegade demo was promising. the main game was pretty buggy.
absurd load times, crashes to desktop, lagging with the same settings I used in the demo, buggy, lots of clipping...
no surprise this one got canned. even the MP was kind of boring, mainly since no one was ever playing. I reinstalled the demo after getting rid of the game and found way more players and more fun, even though not everything was available in the demo.
I know they're talking user created, but the headline is misleading. HL had the other mods supported, even Sven Coop [which I didn't think was official, considering how many parts were broken and how many bugs it had] and I think a soccer mod for HL. I used to play it on Steam with friends. Action HL I don't think had any official backing either.
Did I miss something here?
It's not one MAIN reason that wins it all. there are ALWAYS going to be people who don't want to pay for anything. but here are the issues I see with gaming [I haven't even bought or downloaded games in a long time because of these issues, in no particular order]:
1. DRM [self-explanatory] - do you not trust us when we buy the game? I used to buy games and use a crack anyway because I hated having to use a dongle or CD or have it phone home to prove I am a paying customer.
2. Demos - they're not as easily available anymore. look at some demos; they end up being like 2 GB installer, and the full game would be a 2 GB compressed iso to download off tpb or something. if you have fios you're in good shape, but some of us are still stuck with comcast [who are STILL throttling, even after the FCC ruling, those heinous bastards], and we'd rather not spend 2 days downloading your demo which will be a crippled version of your game and could've downloaded the full thing in that time. I'd like to see more episodic based content like sam 'n max, and where a shareware version would really give you a whole part of the game, like doom or wolfenstein.
3. Quality - EA is one of the most guilty, although not all of their games are like this. everyone wants to push out these games every year and have big sales, but the problem is, good things come to those who wait [by that principle, duke nukem forever should be the valhalla of all games].
4. Difficulty - games are getting shorter and attempting to be easier to appeal to the casual market. Call of Duty 4 would've been more fun/longer if you [in the words of yahtzee for other games that do this] couldn't just go hide in a corner sucking your thumb every time you got shot and be back at full health. sure, you can do infinite lives, but how about a punishment [bioshock, I'm looking at you] for not staying alive? think risk/reward. make multiple difficulty settings where you CAN suffer a little to play through it [it makes the game a little frustrating, but don't go overboard]. it doesn't need to be another rygar or anything, but at least make the game last longer than 4-5 hours which leads me to...
5. Price - games are short. attention spans are shorter. you release a game you can finish in 1-2 sittings and you still want $50-70? I could get several bottles of alcohol for that price and it would last a lot longer than this. if the game's gonna be done quickly, charge a modest $20. if it's going to be a long investment [some games deserve this!], then charge that full $50-70.
I'd like to see games go the way of the digital download, and be cheaper. charge me $20-30 for the orange box if I spend my time to download the whopping 9 GB instead of the $50 box with the fancy tin. I'm trying to save YOU money. this is like when artists release music on the internet but don't release it in say, FLAC and still want to charge you several dollars per song. it shouldn't cost the same as a CD if you aren't getting true lossless quality! offer tiers: $5-7 for 320 kbps or V0 VBR, $8-10 for FLAC, and I bet the CD is $12-15. and for christ's sake, give the artwork as part of the package!
he said he lives in the midwest. I don't see ice being THAT big of a problem there. if he said he lived in NYC, maybe that'd be something to consider.
actually, there was a post on/. a while ago about a guy explaining how a bigger vehicle actually doesn't decrease the chance of the driver getting seriously hurt, but rather increases the chances of the OTHER driver being hurt or killed. hooray for america.
RTFA. it used to be called Legendary: The Box.
clever pun to remove the extraneous name and have a storyline that appears to be 'cool.' and also to work "pandora's box" into the description [letting demons out of the box].
I don't know if you've ever talked to the guy, but he's probably one of the most positive people I've ever met. he goes far beyond what his lecture and book have. he's the guy who would find the good in everything, as cliched as that sounds.
I kept up on his personal blog, which talked about his health as he dealt with the cancer. this guy was RUNNING and doing exercise and being outside and feeling alive while having cancer. he said it best, "I may have a lot of my stamina [from chemo], but I can probably run a quarter mile faster than most Americans."
and what he did for pancreatic cancer research is huge. RIP Randy, we'll miss you.
if he's a municipal employee and this is important data for local government employees, couldn't this be considered a terrorist act? wouldn't they be able to do all sorts of nasty stuff to him until he fixes what is wrong, and then blackball him from just about any job he could ever get?
they must've really been screwing with him for the dude to get this cheesed off about it and FUBAR the entire system on them. a lot of times, it's not the employer's fault, but with this severe of a/kill, I think they really must've done something to him.
I'm just shocked he was able to do all of that. wonder how long it took him [and how long he knew that he was going to be sent off].
it's the potential that hasn't gotten a chance to be realized. companies are forcing the programmers to work faster, fit in more product placement, put in stuff that's supposed to sell more games...
then they forget about working on the main idea itself, and that's where the game goes to shit. after they tell the company 'you gave us such a short time to work on this, there's NO WAY this will sell,' the overseers say nay, and ship it out the door: broken.
this is where patches come in. and that's why we keep getting 'bad games.' they are great ideas that never get a chance to be really tested and developed. for a great example, see any game electronic arts has put out in the past, I dunno, 8-10 years [especially sequels].
Slashdot Mirror
or, should I say, what's with izzy stevens still having hallucinations of denny?
well, I guess it's a good way for the writers to get back at katherine heigl for her comments about them: make her look crazy so they can write her off the show.
dude, music for airports is PHENOMENAL. glad to see people have a taste for this kind of stuff on here.
hey guys, look what DIVX brought us! chapter 11 to circuit city! where is that correlationisnotcausation tag when you need it...
for anyone that doesn't remember, circuit city had "activated" movies that you bought for your DIVX player. You'd pay like $6-8 for a movie, and activate it for 48 hours [from when you ACTIVATED it, or it had a movie watch limit, like 3 times total or 48 hours]. if you wanted it longer, you had to pay for it.
I sound like a total conspiracy theorist here, but do you think they're blaming lost sales not only on the economic crisis, but on piracy? if you build it [good games, movies, software], they will come. if you continue to make crap, people will either not buy it or pirate it. DRM only causes more of the latter. congratulations.
oh, and agreed. prices are way too steep. I actually didn't even mind paying $40 for a game. $60 for these "GOLD BOX ZOMG" editions is tiring. from free until $40 I can stand, per game.
I could start another rant on how games are too short these days too [Call of Duty 4, I'm looking at you], or instead of putting in more GAMEPLAY, they just make it take longer to get where you need to go. I remember the old graphical adventures with quirky puzzle solving that took hours because you were trying to solve puzzles, not kill level 1 demonoids for 6 hours so that you can level up so you could fight the level 80 boss.
most places are willing to part on the school requirement if you have experience. but usually, it's somewhat heavy-handed for those without degrees. such as: BS in computer science or equivalent experience [which usually turns out being like 3-5 years doing whatever is related]. I know that degrees can be utter crap these days, but I guess it's supposed to prove that you're motivated or something [or that you can stick with a plan and won't use this new job as a stepping stone; being able to stay the course]. I'm just rambling now. just my 2 cents.
why wasn't the huntington's disease experimental trial on there, along with searches on olivia wilde/13 if melioidosis made it there...
clever dialogue from a bipedal dog and a hyper spazzy rabbity thing?
utorrent seems to be one of the most popular.
azureus used to be my favorite until I saw how big of a footprint it was on my system. didn't matter if you were grabbing a few gigs for a linux ISO or a game like wolf: enemy territory [free, by the way!] still chugged.
It's interesting because I don't think they have to fully disclose the reasons to you when they do so. they have to if someone in a legal position asks them, but they can always find SOMETHING to fire you for, such as "Not being on time" or "Reading Slashdot while at work" or whatever they have, even if you are a model employee. As long as they have SOME reason to fire you, they can. It doesn't have to make sense to you, but that's how it works unfortunately.
parent said, please use a car analogy. perhaps something in the vein of 'and there goes coffee through my nose, like oil through my windshield.'
just don't put all of your eggs in one basket.
lolwut has to be my favorite tag for slashdot ever.
but really, unsurprisingly, our government has lost TONS of stuff over the years, not limited to just hardware, but essential records and documents. there's no real idea of "safe" anything really. any hardware can break. any documents can be destroyed, and even if they stand the test of time, the place in which they are stored can come down without anyone knowing about it.
considering how many renewal projects the world has had, what are the chances we're going to find another landfill with ET tapes or battlefield earth videos?
why the hate against dinosaur jr? j mascis/lou barlow/murph had some pretty great songs. I don't know which one(s) are in GH:WT but in rock band it's "Feel the Pain" which is an excellent 90's cut. freak on a leash had a pretty damn cool video, but seriously, ranking that song over other great tracks that I saw in the listing? how is that song not 'long and repetitive' unlike all of the other songs? I'm not trying to be a dick, just trying to figure out where that logic comes from. most pop/rock music is very very repetitive. verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, and a repeat of verse/chorus and maybe a guitar solo. it's the hook that makes it enjoyable.
you know, I was reading the awesome book waiter rant today and this same issue was discussed in one of the chapters. people are quick to say "THEY TOOK OUR JOERBS!" but they're the same people who don't want to work in the fields, restaurants, and factories.
some of them are even being paid minimum wage [not all, of course], and yes, they pay into SS while knowing they will never see a dime of it. but they do it anyway, because it still apparently beats life back where they came from.
geekold, truer words have not been said. the same american complaining about jobs being stolen is bitching about produce costs and other amenities as well. I'm not saying one way or the other is wrong, but based on what's going on, I doubt they're "stealing" jobs we necessarily want.
Sometimes I feel like the AV companies are the ones who write the viruses, or at least the different strains, so that everyone will be scared into using their anti-virus product. Does anyone have any proof or thoughts on this?
I am a Norton user myself, mainly because my University continues to pay for licensing for it and I've only had one real bad outbreak in the past 6 or 8 years [and it was caused by my family using my computer]. I remember people sang praises of NOD32. Anyone have any experience with that AV?
Also, I think Mcafee is pure trash, considering how many viruses I've cleaned up on friends' computers that had a working subscription that they were doing updates on. *shakes head*
I guess it makes them feel safer, like a child hiding under the covers to be protected from the monsters.
wait, so you're saying that the blanket won't protect me? what about a towel instead?
the renegade demo was promising. the main game was pretty buggy. absurd load times, crashes to desktop, lagging with the same settings I used in the demo, buggy, lots of clipping... no surprise this one got canned. even the MP was kind of boring, mainly since no one was ever playing. I reinstalled the demo after getting rid of the game and found way more players and more fun, even though not everything was available in the demo.
hey man, Urban Hymns was actually a decent album. but yes, Bittersweet Symphony was overplayed.
I mean on Steam that is. I remember playing them via Steam. I know mods have been around since the dawn of time.
I know they're talking user created, but the headline is misleading. HL had the other mods supported, even Sven Coop [which I didn't think was official, considering how many parts were broken and how many bugs it had] and I think a soccer mod for HL. I used to play it on Steam with friends. Action HL I don't think had any official backing either. Did I miss something here?
It's not one MAIN reason that wins it all. there are ALWAYS going to be people who don't want to pay for anything. but here are the issues I see with gaming [I haven't even bought or downloaded games in a long time because of these issues, in no particular order]:
1. DRM [self-explanatory] - do you not trust us when we buy the game? I used to buy games and use a crack anyway because I hated having to use a dongle or CD or have it phone home to prove I am a paying customer.
2. Demos - they're not as easily available anymore. look at some demos; they end up being like 2 GB installer, and the full game would be a 2 GB compressed iso to download off tpb or something. if you have fios you're in good shape, but some of us are still stuck with comcast [who are STILL throttling, even after the FCC ruling, those heinous bastards], and we'd rather not spend 2 days downloading your demo which will be a crippled version of your game and could've downloaded the full thing in that time. I'd like to see more episodic based content like sam 'n max, and where a shareware version would really give you a whole part of the game, like doom or wolfenstein.
3. Quality - EA is one of the most guilty, although not all of their games are like this. everyone wants to push out these games every year and have big sales, but the problem is, good things come to those who wait [by that principle, duke nukem forever should be the valhalla of all games].
4. Difficulty - games are getting shorter and attempting to be easier to appeal to the casual market. Call of Duty 4 would've been more fun/longer if you [in the words of yahtzee for other games that do this] couldn't just go hide in a corner sucking your thumb every time you got shot and be back at full health. sure, you can do infinite lives, but how about a punishment [bioshock, I'm looking at you] for not staying alive? think risk/reward. make multiple difficulty settings where you CAN suffer a little to play through it [it makes the game a little frustrating, but don't go overboard]. it doesn't need to be another rygar or anything, but at least make the game last longer than 4-5 hours which leads me to...
5. Price - games are short. attention spans are shorter. you release a game you can finish in 1-2 sittings and you still want $50-70? I could get several bottles of alcohol for that price and it would last a lot longer than this. if the game's gonna be done quickly, charge a modest $20. if it's going to be a long investment [some games deserve this!], then charge that full $50-70.
I'd like to see games go the way of the digital download, and be cheaper. charge me $20-30 for the orange box if I spend my time to download the whopping 9 GB instead of the $50 box with the fancy tin. I'm trying to save YOU money. this is like when artists release music on the internet but don't release it in say, FLAC and still want to charge you several dollars per song. it shouldn't cost the same as a CD if you aren't getting true lossless quality! offer tiers: $5-7 for 320 kbps or V0 VBR, $8-10 for FLAC, and I bet the CD is $12-15. and for christ's sake, give the artwork as part of the package!
he said he lives in the midwest. I don't see ice being THAT big of a problem there. if he said he lived in NYC, maybe that'd be something to consider. actually, there was a post on /. a while ago about a guy explaining how a bigger vehicle actually doesn't decrease the chance of the driver getting seriously hurt, but rather increases the chances of the OTHER driver being hurt or killed. hooray for america.
RTFA. it used to be called Legendary: The Box. clever pun to remove the extraneous name and have a storyline that appears to be 'cool.' and also to work "pandora's box" into the description [letting demons out of the box].
I don't know if you've ever talked to the guy, but he's probably one of the most positive people I've ever met. he goes far beyond what his lecture and book have. he's the guy who would find the good in everything, as cliched as that sounds. I kept up on his personal blog, which talked about his health as he dealt with the cancer. this guy was RUNNING and doing exercise and being outside and feeling alive while having cancer. he said it best, "I may have a lot of my stamina [from chemo], but I can probably run a quarter mile faster than most Americans." and what he did for pancreatic cancer research is huge. RIP Randy, we'll miss you.
if he's a municipal employee and this is important data for local government employees, couldn't this be considered a terrorist act? wouldn't they be able to do all sorts of nasty stuff to him until he fixes what is wrong, and then blackball him from just about any job he could ever get? they must've really been screwing with him for the dude to get this cheesed off about it and FUBAR the entire system on them. a lot of times, it's not the employer's fault, but with this severe of a /kill, I think they really must've done something to him.
I'm just shocked he was able to do all of that. wonder how long it took him [and how long he knew that he was going to be sent off].
it's the potential that hasn't gotten a chance to be realized. companies are forcing the programmers to work faster, fit in more product placement, put in stuff that's supposed to sell more games... then they forget about working on the main idea itself, and that's where the game goes to shit. after they tell the company 'you gave us such a short time to work on this, there's NO WAY this will sell,' the overseers say nay, and ship it out the door: broken. this is where patches come in. and that's why we keep getting 'bad games.' they are great ideas that never get a chance to be really tested and developed. for a great example, see any game electronic arts has put out in the past, I dunno, 8-10 years [especially sequels].