The fact that they even play a game of semantics instead of accepting responsibility for their own actions is indicative of their guilty conscience. When was the last time you had to rephrase, "I'm downloading the latest version of the Linux kernel right now" in an online discussion?
If you were okay with what you were doing you wouldn't even feel the need to defend it, much less twist words around or spout some philosophical nonsense as if it actually negates the fact that the law is being broken.
Part of me knew that despite.Net getting GUI development completely right, that there was still a better way to express constraints in GUI programming beyond glorified code generators. This looks like exactly the ticket.
You don't have to have a basis to make an absurd claim on Slashdot. Google is officially 'hip' with the kids here until they slip and then we hate them. Unless its the third week of the month. Or the moon is full. Gah, I can't keep up.
1. Begin with blanket statement about EULAs being inherently evil. Follow-up with supporting statement involving the Constitutional rights being infringed. No need to use court cases or any other sort of documentation for claims -- that would detract from the overall argument.
2. (Optional, but effective) Utilize slippery slope fallacy to conjecture about how this country is turning into [1984|Communism|run by corporations]. Throw in pro-GPL comments for good measure. Additionally, also consider making ridiculous claims such as, "if you buy this software you are just selling yourself out." Dogma makes for very effective arguments!
3. Include personal anecdote about how *you* always disliked Blizzard and never bought their products to begin with. To know that someone who disliked Blizzard beforehand is voicing their distaste of them now after this decision makes the argument THAT much better!
4. Create online petition. Include poorly formed arguments (e.g. copy-paste steps 1-3) and post link on Internet.
5. One month later, forget about the whole thing and buy World of Warcraft. On the next post involving Blizzard at Slashdot, repeat the above process.
Your blatant disregard for copyright in no way chastises a company for its bad behavior. It only fulfills your inherently selfish desires. If you really cared about this issue you would donate the money you would have spent on the game to the EFF.
Somehow, I don't think you will. Don't kid yourself into thinking you're sticking it to the man, because you aren't. You're just looking out for yourself at the expense of others.
Yes, I'm sure Blizzard worries about the wrath of the vengeful Slashdotter. They might receive a nasty email...that is, if said Slashdotter finishes compiling his Gentoo install and cleaning up his parents basement.
Seriously though, I know a guy at Blizzard, and they just laugh at Slashdot in general. My boss has the same attitude toward this site. Can't say I blame them.
Ahh, the spirit of open source: Developer: "I'm working on Y. It is a better version of X!" OSS community: "You foolish mortal! You should be working on X! Not Y! You can't possibly best X!" Developer: "I like working on Y though!" OSS community: "You're just wasting your time, work on X and make it like Y!"
Nice post. It is easy to see communities go downhill when all that is at stake is virtual fame. I can't fathom what it is like when actual money is involved. I doubt Doom 3 had potential as a multiplayer game though - the CPL probably just jumped on because it was the latest id release.
You gotta wonder about "pro" gamers, too. I mean, if they can earn money that way, more power to them, but I know I'd get extremely bored of the game playing it 8 hours a day in a month or less. I don't care how good the game is, or how much depth it has. It would get old. I don't even see how pro Counterstrike players can continue playing -- the gameplay is *extremely* simplistic.
Your definition of moral doesn't have to be my definition of moral. Google's unofficial motto may be "let's not be evil," but that doesn't mean they will always act with the one true American way in mind.
Expecting corporate entities to even be nice is absurd in the first place. They exist to make profit. Nothing more, nothing less.
Nice post. Usually the whiners are the people who lack the motivation to do anything themselves. There is a difference between whining and constructive criticism -- you just see a lot more whining at this site. Especially if it can be construed towards the Slashbot mentality and earn the oh-so-great +5 Insightful mark.
I'm just surprised no one has invented some absurd theory involving the RIAA, DMCA, and Microsoft while talking about their favorite operating system yet.
Sun has often been nicknamed the Hamlet of the IT world...and they pretty much deserve it. Remember all the crying they did about Java's inclusion/non-inclusion in Windows? Good Lord - customers don't give a damn about what middleware an app uses, they just want something that meets their needs!
I love how people argue about browsers as if they're actually going to change each other's mind. This occurs frequently at Neowin, where a news post is made about a new release of a product, and inevitably someone with a nick like "DarkVageta98182" spouts "Firefox is pwnd by Opera LOL!!!" and the thread only gets worse.
Might as well argue over whose favorite color is better.
Well put. When you care about technology for its own sake -- rather than how it can solve problems for you -- you're taking it too seriously. This applies for operating systems, programming languages, text editors, etc.
Well said. What makes it hilarious are the statistics that show most people visiting the site run Windows. A very large percentage, actually. And everyone cries about how evil and wrong it is. Anyone know of a similar site that with a bit more balanced converage of just news in general? Most articles degrade into Soviet Russia jokes, porn references, ridiculous alarmist conspiracy theories involving the DMCA, and generally cynical comments.
Posts with actual content often get lost in the noise. The moderation system sucks, and too often misinformation gets modded up to informative. It becomes easy to predict which comments are modded up because the hivemind sort of mentality is at work.
Spontaneous reboots are a sign of hardware problems and they are all logged in the event log. Memory dumps can be analyzed with WinDBG and often the offending driver can be found pretty easily (if it wasn't listed on the BSOD).
Then again, it isn't quite as 'cool' to learn the ins and outs of Windows system administration as it is simply bashing it, so I'll let you continue spreading misinformation like "they removed the BSOD."
We've put up with their inept drivers (sorry, you need the installation CD to reinstall drivers!), crappy marketing (Audigy 1 is 24-bit! well, internally, then it downsamples to 16-bit on the way out), and basically constant rehashing of the same product over and over. Meanwhile PC audio is not moving at anything like the pace the graphics are, and it is a damn shame. Do the newest Creative cards even work with SMP properly nowadays?
What? Agreeing with Microsoft? Everyone mod him down quick! He poses a threat to our groupthink!
So, are you new around here?
on
Palmtop Nirvana?
·
· Score: -1, Offtopic
The modus operandi of this site is to complain. No matter what happens, people will complain, and not do a damn thing about it. In a recent article talking about how XP was going to get Longhorn's GUI engine almost all of the posts were people complaining about getting an upgrade.
Tribes Vengeance beta just came out, and one of the weapons is a grappling hook. You can always switch roles in Tribes if you needed to by just dropping the current weapon you have and picking up another one. Obviously some of the weapons have armor restrictions, but still. I dislike pure class based gameplay because I often switch roles on the fly depending on what is needed. Tribes offers a very high skill ceiling in its skiing ability, which lets you traverse terrain much faster than you'd expect. Better ski routes mean you are able to move faster.
The point about gameplay is very true however. I cannot see why this game is so anticipated other than the fact that the XBox's core audience has never seen online PC FPS games. Halo always has excellent production values (such is Bungie) but that doesn't replace the fact that the gameplay is as basic as they come.
Anyway, you sound like a Tribes player in the making, as it offers a lot of abilities to practice (turreting, skiing, flag capping, grappling, flag defense, base defense).
It is ridiculous that you MUST use interfaces to implement callbacks. It is this asinine, "there-is-only-one-way-to-do-something-and-it-is-i nherently-elegant" attitude that Java has about it that I dislike. When you point things out like this, then inevitably someone comes along and chastises you for wanting another feature in the language, pointing you toward some GoF design pattern as if it were holy writ. News flash: GoF patterns are nice but language support for them is nicer, witness.NET's built-in event handling.
Also, I don't see how function pointers are a "hack," but this is usually leveled at anything that isn't the One Java Way. So have fun making factories that consist of switch statements inside instead of just plopping the switch statement at the point where you need it.
Amen. I love how for every app that is available on Linux you hear, "oh well this is as good or even BETTER than what is on Windows and it is FREE," but then when you bring up Gimp they flip the coin and say, "well it isn't fair to compare a FREE program to a REAL one! Average home users don't need to use Photoshop! If you need to do serious graphics don't use Linux, use a mac!" Never mind that Linux's core audience *is* power users, not average home users.
Admit it. Nothing can touch Photoshop. And don't give me bullshit about Joe Sixpack in an attempt to dodge the question. I realize this may cause massive amounts of cognitive dissonance, however.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd be really interested in SF if it would support SVN, since there are a bunch of IDE plugins for it already.
The fact that they even play a game of semantics instead of accepting responsibility for their own actions is indicative of their guilty conscience. When was the last time you had to rephrase, "I'm downloading the latest version of the Linux kernel right now" in an online discussion?
If you were okay with what you were doing you wouldn't even feel the need to defend it, much less twist words around or spout some philosophical nonsense as if it actually negates the fact that the law is being broken.
Part of me knew that despite .Net getting GUI development completely right, that there was still a better way to express constraints in GUI programming beyond glorified code generators. This looks like exactly the ticket.
Who wants to work on a WTL port of this?
You don't have to have a basis to make an absurd claim on Slashdot. Google is officially 'hip' with the kids here until they slip and then we hate them. Unless its the third week of the month. Or the moon is full. Gah, I can't keep up.
1. Begin with blanket statement about EULAs being inherently evil. Follow-up with supporting statement involving the Constitutional rights being infringed. No need to use court cases or any other sort of documentation for claims -- that would detract from the overall argument.
2. (Optional, but effective) Utilize slippery slope fallacy to conjecture about how this country is turning into [1984|Communism|run by corporations]. Throw in pro-GPL comments for good measure. Additionally, also consider making ridiculous claims such as, "if you buy this software you are just selling yourself out." Dogma makes for very effective arguments!
3. Include personal anecdote about how *you* always disliked Blizzard and never bought their products to begin with. To know that someone who disliked Blizzard beforehand is voicing their distaste of them now after this decision makes the argument THAT much better!
4. Create online petition. Include poorly formed arguments (e.g. copy-paste steps 1-3) and post link on Internet.
5. One month later, forget about the whole thing and buy World of Warcraft. On the next post involving Blizzard at Slashdot, repeat the above process.
Your blatant disregard for copyright in no way chastises a company for its bad behavior. It only fulfills your inherently selfish desires. If you really cared about this issue you would donate the money you would have spent on the game to the EFF.
Somehow, I don't think you will. Don't kid yourself into thinking you're sticking it to the man, because you aren't. You're just looking out for yourself at the expense of others.
Yes, I'm sure Blizzard worries about the wrath of the vengeful Slashdotter. They might receive a nasty email...that is, if said Slashdotter finishes compiling his Gentoo install and cleaning up his parents basement.
Seriously though, I know a guy at Blizzard, and they just laugh at Slashdot in general. My boss has the same attitude toward this site. Can't say I blame them.
Ahh, the spirit of open source:
Developer: "I'm working on Y. It is a better version of X!"
OSS community: "You foolish mortal! You should be working on X! Not Y! You can't possibly best X!"
Developer: "I like working on Y though!"
OSS community: "You're just wasting your time, work on X and make it like Y!"
Nice post. It is easy to see communities go downhill when all that is at stake is virtual fame. I can't fathom what it is like when actual money is involved. I doubt Doom 3 had potential as a multiplayer game though - the CPL probably just jumped on because it was the latest id release.
You gotta wonder about "pro" gamers, too. I mean, if they can earn money that way, more power to them, but I know I'd get extremely bored of the game playing it 8 hours a day in a month or less. I don't care how good the game is, or how much depth it has. It would get old. I don't even see how pro Counterstrike players can continue playing -- the gameplay is *extremely* simplistic.
Your definition of moral doesn't have to be my definition of moral. Google's unofficial motto may be "let's not be evil," but that doesn't mean they will always act with the one true American way in mind.
Expecting corporate entities to even be nice is absurd in the first place. They exist to make profit. Nothing more, nothing less.
Nice post. Usually the whiners are the people who lack the motivation to do anything themselves. There is a difference between whining and constructive criticism -- you just see a lot more whining at this site. Especially if it can be construed towards the Slashbot mentality and earn the oh-so-great +5 Insightful mark.
I'm just surprised no one has invented some absurd theory involving the RIAA, DMCA, and Microsoft while talking about their favorite operating system yet.
Sun has often been nicknamed the Hamlet of the IT world...and they pretty much deserve it. Remember all the crying they did about Java's inclusion/non-inclusion in Windows? Good Lord - customers don't give a damn about what middleware an app uses, they just want something that meets their needs!
I love how people argue about browsers as if they're actually going to change each other's mind. This occurs frequently at Neowin, where a news post is made about a new release of a product, and inevitably someone with a nick like "DarkVageta98182" spouts "Firefox is pwnd by Opera LOL!!!" and the thread only gets worse.
Might as well argue over whose favorite color is better.
Well put. When you care about technology for its own sake -- rather than how it can solve problems for you -- you're taking it too seriously. This applies for operating systems, programming languages, text editors, etc.
Well said. What makes it hilarious are the statistics that show most people visiting the site run Windows. A very large percentage, actually. And everyone cries about how evil and wrong it is. Anyone know of a similar site that with a bit more balanced converage of just news in general? Most articles degrade into Soviet Russia jokes, porn references, ridiculous alarmist conspiracy theories involving the DMCA, and generally cynical comments.
Posts with actual content often get lost in the noise. The moderation system sucks, and too often misinformation gets modded up to informative. It becomes easy to predict which comments are modded up because the hivemind sort of mentality is at work.
Spontaneous reboots are a sign of hardware problems and they are all logged in the event log. Memory dumps can be analyzed with WinDBG and often the offending driver can be found pretty easily (if it wasn't listed on the BSOD).
Then again, it isn't quite as 'cool' to learn the ins and outs of Windows system administration as it is simply bashing it, so I'll let you continue spreading misinformation like "they removed the BSOD."
We've put up with their inept drivers (sorry, you need the installation CD to reinstall drivers!), crappy marketing (Audigy 1 is 24-bit! well, internally, then it downsamples to 16-bit on the way out), and basically constant rehashing of the same product over and over. Meanwhile PC audio is not moving at anything like the pace the graphics are, and it is a damn shame. Do the newest Creative cards even work with SMP properly nowadays?
What? Agreeing with Microsoft? Everyone mod him down quick! He poses a threat to our groupthink!
The modus operandi of this site is to complain. No matter what happens, people will complain, and not do a damn thing about it. In a recent article talking about how XP was going to get Longhorn's GUI engine almost all of the posts were people complaining about getting an upgrade.
Either contest the points I made about Halo being nothing more than basic FPS gameplay or don't say anything at all.
Tribes Vengeance beta just came out, and one of the weapons is a grappling hook. You can always switch roles in Tribes if you needed to by just dropping the current weapon you have and picking up another one. Obviously some of the weapons have armor restrictions, but still. I dislike pure class based gameplay because I often switch roles on the fly depending on what is needed. Tribes offers a very high skill ceiling in its skiing ability, which lets you traverse terrain much faster than you'd expect. Better ski routes mean you are able to move faster.
The point about gameplay is very true however. I cannot see why this game is so anticipated other than the fact that the XBox's core audience has never seen online PC FPS games. Halo always has excellent production values (such is Bungie) but that doesn't replace the fact that the gameplay is as basic as they come.
Anyway, you sound like a Tribes player in the making, as it offers a lot of abilities to practice (turreting, skiing, flag capping, grappling, flag defense, base defense).
It is ridiculous that you MUST use interfaces to implement callbacks. It is this asinine, "there-is-only-one-way-to-do-something-and-it-is-i nherently-elegant" attitude that Java has about it that I dislike. When you point things out like this, then inevitably someone comes along and chastises you for wanting another feature in the language, pointing you toward some GoF design pattern as if it were holy writ. News flash: GoF patterns are nice but language support for them is nicer, witness .NET's built-in event handling.
Also, I don't see how function pointers are a "hack," but this is usually leveled at anything that isn't the One Java Way. So have fun making factories that consist of switch statements inside instead of just plopping the switch statement at the point where you need it.
ZoneAlarm isn't written by MS, which absolves them from our communal hate.
Don't be so delusional to think that you're doing any damage to MS by downloading directly from them.
Amen. I love how for every app that is available on Linux you hear, "oh well this is as good or even BETTER than what is on Windows and it is FREE," but then when you bring up Gimp they flip the coin and say, "well it isn't fair to compare a FREE program to a REAL one! Average home users don't need to use Photoshop! If you need to do serious graphics don't use Linux, use a mac!" Never mind that Linux's core audience *is* power users, not average home users.
Admit it. Nothing can touch Photoshop. And don't give me bullshit about Joe Sixpack in an attempt to dodge the question. I realize this may cause massive amounts of cognitive dissonance, however.