2.0 is king. In fact, I'm off to install Linux 2.0 right now. Too bad it doesn't appear to be a beta releae. After all, everyone knows that betas are better than regular products, right?
[...] Vista is based on Server 2003. Longhorn was based on XP [...]
Vista is Longhorn. Longhorn was the internal development name for what is now known as Windows Vista. See Chicago/Windows 95, Whistler/Windows XP or Yukon/SQL Server 2005.
I don't know whether confiscations work legally, but foreclosure sales work very well (and, as far as I know, also on companies). You are right, however. If the EU really wants that money there probably isn't much Microsoft can do to prevent them from taking it.
As for "draw out the day": They get fined daily. The only way to avoid losing another three million dollars per day is to comply with the ruling. There isn't much Microsoft can do about it.
Microsoft is paying in a really hard currency right now: Reputation. During a time when half of the EU is talking about how great Linux is pissing off that very EU is a bad step for Microsoft to make. The EU can always standardize away from their formats, demand compatibility with non-Microsoft standards and generally make life miserable for MS by switching over to something else post haste and handing out generous subsidies to people who do the same.
See the discussion about MS Office's ODF import plugin and how MS is trying to keep their file format relevant? The EU could pass a directive stating that until 2010 all office-relevant documents used in correspondence with govermnents etc. have to be fully standards-compliant ODF. No legal trouble and they can say they were going to staandardsize on ODF anyway - and we can't let people send broken files, can we? That would pretty much doom MS Office's native format to obsolescence over here.
The great thing about being a sovereign (compund of) nation(s) and the currently biggest economy in the world is that you don't need to take off the kid gloves to fight. And you don't have to worry much about things like profitability, so you can easily pass restrictions like that.
n the US, the constitution only allows the taking of property (real, personal, or intellectual) in cases of public need, and requires the gov't to reimburse the private party for that property.
Think "foreclosure sale". MS has huge debt, MS won't pay up, EU auctions off MS property.
Instead of forcing Apple to give that up, why did they not simply rescind DRM protection laws similar to our beloved DMCA?
Because they like not being at the receiving end of WTO sanctions. TRIPS has ensured that the DMCA is everawhere. If you don't implement DMCA-like legislation you receive trade sanctions, period.
Definitely one of the more evil treaties, and one that pretty much ensures that stuff like the DMCA is here to stay.
Games however *do* tend to get better as more sequals are made. For example, compare the original Unreal to Unreal Tournament.
As a counterexample, compare Unreal Tournament to UT2k3. Unreal to Unreal 2. X-COM: UFO Defense to Terror From The Deep and especially Interceptor (I refuse to accept Enforcer as part of the X-COM franchise). Monkey Island 4 to Monkey Island 5. Deus Ex to DX: Invisible War. Simon the Sorceror 2 to StS 3D.
There are countless examples of a company taking a good franchise and turning it into utter drek. There is a difference between "we take this established concept and improve on it" and "we reiterate this established concept so we can cash in on it again". TFTD was an UFO Defense rehash. UT was an improvement over Unreal, UT2k3 was a step in the wrong direction (though I hear that recent UTs have become better). MI5 and StS 3D were cases of "it's in 3D so it has to be better", resulting in gameplay and/or presentation that is much inferior to that of the predecessors.
I'm not denying the fact that some sequels are better, but it's not like it's always like that. Just like in the other content industries there is a whole lot of drek on the market, even in previously known-good franchises.
True. I have recently bought a game, more or less the first time in well over a year. It's an independent title, or at least the publisher isn't a soulless megacorporation. I found the game (the Mac version of Escape Velocity Nova) when my IBM Compatible's system drive went the way of the eight-figure disgnostic code (PowerMax users might know what I'm talking about) and I was stuck with just my iBook for a couple days. Since reinstalling Gentoo Linux involves long periods of waiting I decided to hunt for Mac games to play while waiting for the next unstable package's compilation to unexpectedly fail. The EV Nova demo hooked me with a great plot string (of which there are six and I happened to stumble across the most involving one right away) - I bought the game just to finish that one string. Okay, and for the other ones and for the plugin support, but the Vell-os string alone was worth the thirty US bucks to me.
I don't care much about big titles anymore. Firstly, most are Win-only and booting into Windows isn't really worth the hassle (plus, the Windows Setup CD seems to dislike my hardware)* and secondly, independent games tend to be more interesting - either due to more innovation or just because they don't rush their product out the door to meet that pre-christmas deadline.
Between StepMania (OSS for the win!), EV Nova and the Jets'n'Guns demo (soon to be bought) my iBook has become the gaming machine. The only thing that contests Apple's utter domination of my gaming life is the fact that ePSXe and Dosbox run better on the IBM.
* Yes, I know about Cedega. But still, for some games there isn't much you can do besides booting into Windows.
That's because we're all evil thieves (chaotic evil, actually). Yup, Linus Torvalds is a level 15 Thief/Wizard specializing on Thievery:Copyright Infringement. After we have stolen Windows we will proceed to steal Christmas, the fire and your time. (Then again, we already are doing that last part, via this very site.) But we aren't done yet. After we're done stealing Microsoft we will steal Bill Gates' thoughts from his mind and sell them on the black market. Which we will also steal.
Now excuse me, I have to go to my (obviously stolen) kitchen and steal me a sandwich. The flavor is peanut butter crime.
Seriously. He should try putting the mouse on the floor and moving it around with his foot. Manipulating mouse buttons doesn't really require a lot of manual dexterity.
This might be a situation where an Apple mouse is useful - provided that your OS allows right click emulation. Right clicks might even work with a Mighty Mouse.
Maybe, but it amazes the heck out of those who consider a graphics card to be adequate as long as the game doesn't outright refuse to run on it. When I'll switch to an X2/AM2 (mainly for the extra core and for Pacifica) I'll have to upgrade to a PCIe GPU. Whatever I'll get, it will be cheap, passively cooled and from NVidia.
Well, HBCI/FinTS can be used with TAN blocks (which would work under AMD64 Linux, but I consider using TANs more of a hassle than virtualizing Windows), mTAN (the bank sends you the TANs on demand via SMS) as well as smart cards. The important (for customers) thing is that one compatible app works with all banks (unless it's the one your bank gave you; those are usually locked down). If you don't want a smart card you don't need one, they're just much more user friendly than TAN blocks.
Interesting. I'll have to look into that game, as well (ie. emerge uqm). One question, though: Do you start out with nearby powerful factions hating you? That's one thing that put me off of Vega Strike (which otherwise wasn't bad) - whenever I'm trying to play it it takes me thirty minutes at most until a random Aeran fighter shows up in $SYSTEM and kills me. EV Nova has the decency of making most factions neutral to you in the beginning, which makes for a much smoother start into the game.
As long as you don't get caught up between two fleets bashing in each others heads, that is.
A few of your favourite websites (including your net banking) no longer work because of ActiveX, Flash 8 or severe rendering bugs.
No flame intended, but that's one thing that confounds me - the USA, of all nations, seem to rely on ActiveX-based online banking. Over here in Germany we have developed an online banking standard called HBCI (to be superseded by FinTS), which allows any compliant online banking software to interact with any bank, provided you have a smartcard reader (Linux compatible ones are available for less than thirty bucks, although the driver isn't AMD64 compatible yet), the card (which at least my bank provides free of charge) and the server's address (which your bank's support hotline will provide to you). If I wasn't using AMD64 I'd use Gnucash for my online banking, currently I'm using the software provided by the bank (running in a VMWare'd Windows).
*cough* Well, I'm currently using SABS and SMILE to create a little mod that forces you to play the game out of order (such as starting out with Power Bombs; regular bombs only become available after obtaining the Speed Booster). Before starting on the mod I played through the game for the... fourth time, I think. Definitely a great game.
Prime as Marathon with a Morph Ball... Tempting. I really should look into getting a Gamecube (also because I want to play Eternal Darkness again; the insanity sequences are fun to watch - a nice example of non-story derived replay value, actually).
It's true that a game that relies too heavily on storytelling does not have high replay value. However, so does a game with storytelling that isn't worth crap. A well-told story should be there but there should be a decent gameplay to back it up. (I won't comment on Baldur's Gate; I tend to lump all third-person RPGs with (pseudo-)realtime combat together with Diablo...)
If games were food good storytelling would be... glutamate? It makes sense as an additive (and it makes people want more), but as a main ingredient it has far lesser impact, at least as far as er, re-eat value is concerned.
Okay, that analogy sucked.
As for WoT: It might be important that I'm reading the German version, so some minor bugs might have been ironed out during translation (although of course some annoyances were introduced, such as some places changing names when the translator changed). While Jordan might not be a second Tolkien I do find the books enjoyable, even if there are some glaring flaws such as the main character killing off half of the oh-so-powerful bad guys within a couple books*. What's lacking in narrative is there in presenting an interesting world, however. Even if Jordan spends most of his time systematically demolishing it.
* Yet another artifact of the German translation - every English book is released as ~three German books. The advantage is that we get the books faster. (Ha! I've been waiting for the next book for almost two years!)
To be honest I didn't play any Metroid game after Zero Mission (which was superior to Fusion in terms of gameplay), mostly due to the fact that I don't own a Gamecube. I might get one after the Wii comes out, though.
You don't want to immediately play it again, but a few years down the road, you might want to. I'm currently rereading the Wheel of Time series. I know what happens (well, most of it, but at more than 10.000 pages the WoT series is too big to remember all details), but it's still good reading and I do enjoy watching the story unfold again.
Also, when I'm done rereading the whole thing they'll maybe finally release the next book.
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2.0 is king. In fact, I'm off to install Linux 2.0 right now. Too bad it doesn't appear to be a beta releae. After all, everyone knows that betas are better than regular products, right?
You meant Crappr 2.0 beta.
I hear they will soon expand the lineup with great classics such as Gigli and Mortal Kombat 2.
Well, most versions of Unix don't conform to the LSB either! ;)
[...] Vista is based on Server 2003. Longhorn was based on XP [...]
Vista is Longhorn. Longhorn was the internal development name for what is now known as Windows Vista. See Chicago/Windows 95, Whistler/Windows XP or Yukon/SQL Server 2005.
I don't know whether confiscations work legally, but foreclosure sales work very well (and, as far as I know, also on companies). You are right, however. If the EU really wants that money there probably isn't much Microsoft can do to prevent them from taking it.
As for "draw out the day": They get fined daily. The only way to avoid losing another three million dollars per day is to comply with the ruling. There isn't much Microsoft can do about it.
Microsoft is paying in a really hard currency right now: Reputation. During a time when half of the EU is talking about how great Linux is pissing off that very EU is a bad step for Microsoft to make. The EU can always standardize away from their formats, demand compatibility with non-Microsoft standards and generally make life miserable for MS by switching over to something else post haste and handing out generous subsidies to people who do the same.
See the discussion about MS Office's ODF import plugin and how MS is trying to keep their file format relevant? The EU could pass a directive stating that until 2010 all office-relevant documents used in correspondence with govermnents etc. have to be fully standards-compliant ODF. No legal trouble and they can say they were going to staandardsize on ODF anyway - and we can't let people send broken files, can we? That would pretty much doom MS Office's native format to obsolescence over here.
The great thing about being a sovereign (compund of) nation(s) and the currently biggest economy in the world is that you don't need to take off the kid gloves to fight. And you don't have to worry much about things like profitability, so you can easily pass restrictions like that.
n the US, the constitution only allows the taking of property (real, personal, or intellectual) in cases of public need, and requires the gov't to reimburse the private party for that property.
Think "foreclosure sale". MS has huge debt, MS won't pay up, EU auctions off MS property.
Instead of forcing Apple to give that up, why did they not simply rescind DRM protection laws similar to our beloved DMCA?
Because they like not being at the receiving end of WTO sanctions. TRIPS has ensured that the DMCA is everawhere. If you don't implement DMCA-like legislation you receive trade sanctions, period.
Definitely one of the more evil treaties, and one that pretty much ensures that stuff like the DMCA is here to stay.
Games however *do* tend to get better as more sequals are made. For example, compare the original Unreal to Unreal Tournament.
As a counterexample, compare Unreal Tournament to UT2k3. Unreal to Unreal 2. X-COM: UFO Defense to Terror From The Deep and especially Interceptor (I refuse to accept Enforcer as part of the X-COM franchise). Monkey Island 4 to Monkey Island 5. Deus Ex to DX: Invisible War. Simon the Sorceror 2 to StS 3D.
There are countless examples of a company taking a good franchise and turning it into utter drek. There is a difference between "we take this established concept and improve on it" and "we reiterate this established concept so we can cash in on it again". TFTD was an UFO Defense rehash. UT was an improvement over Unreal, UT2k3 was a step in the wrong direction (though I hear that recent UTs have become better). MI5 and StS 3D were cases of "it's in 3D so it has to be better", resulting in gameplay and/or presentation that is much inferior to that of the predecessors.
I'm not denying the fact that some sequels are better, but it's not like it's always like that. Just like in the other content industries there is a whole lot of drek on the market, even in previously known-good franchises.
True. I have recently bought a game, more or less the first time in well over a year. It's an independent title, or at least the publisher isn't a soulless megacorporation. I found the game (the Mac version of Escape Velocity Nova) when my IBM Compatible's system drive went the way of the eight-figure disgnostic code (PowerMax users might know what I'm talking about) and I was stuck with just my iBook for a couple days. Since reinstalling Gentoo Linux involves long periods of waiting I decided to hunt for Mac games to play while waiting for the next unstable package's compilation to unexpectedly fail. The EV Nova demo hooked me with a great plot string (of which there are six and I happened to stumble across the most involving one right away) - I bought the game just to finish that one string. Okay, and for the other ones and for the plugin support, but the Vell-os string alone was worth the thirty US bucks to me.
I don't care much about big titles anymore. Firstly, most are Win-only and booting into Windows isn't really worth the hassle (plus, the Windows Setup CD seems to dislike my hardware)* and secondly, independent games tend to be more interesting - either due to more innovation or just because they don't rush their product out the door to meet that pre-christmas deadline.
Between StepMania (OSS for the win!), EV Nova and the Jets'n'Guns demo (soon to be bought) my iBook has become the gaming machine. The only thing that contests Apple's utter domination of my gaming life is the fact that ePSXe and Dosbox run better on the IBM.
* Yes, I know about Cedega. But still, for some games there isn't much you can do besides booting into Windows.
That's exactly what they want. Of course, you'll have to pay a monthly fee; we can't allow something like convenience now, right?
That's because we're all evil thieves (chaotic evil, actually). Yup, Linus Torvalds is a level 15 Thief/Wizard specializing on Thievery:Copyright Infringement. After we have stolen Windows we will proceed to steal Christmas, the fire and your time. (Then again, we already are doing that last part, via this very site.) But we aren't done yet. After we're done stealing Microsoft we will steal Bill Gates' thoughts from his mind and sell them on the black market. Which we will also steal.
Now excuse me, I have to go to my (obviously stolen) kitchen and steal me a sandwich. The flavor is peanut butter crime.
Microsoft only licenses something when they can't buy the company...
Very true. SHODAN will always have a special place in my heart. Only the best are shut down young...
Seriously. He should try putting the mouse on the floor and moving it around with his foot. Manipulating mouse buttons doesn't really require a lot of manual dexterity.
This might be a situation where an Apple mouse is useful - provided that your OS allows right click emulation. Right clicks might even work with a Mighty Mouse.
Maybe, but it amazes the heck out of those who consider a graphics card to be adequate as long as the game doesn't outright refuse to run on it. When I'll switch to an X2/AM2 (mainly for the extra core and for Pacifica) I'll have to upgrade to a PCIe GPU. Whatever I'll get, it will be cheap, passively cooled and from NVidia.
Well, HBCI/FinTS can be used with TAN blocks (which would work under AMD64 Linux, but I consider using TANs more of a hassle than virtualizing Windows), mTAN (the bank sends you the TANs on demand via SMS) as well as smart cards. The important (for customers) thing is that one compatible app works with all banks (unless it's the one your bank gave you; those are usually locked down). If you don't want a smart card you don't need one, they're just much more user friendly than TAN blocks.
Interesting. I'll have to look into that game, as well (ie. emerge uqm). One question, though: Do you start out with nearby powerful factions hating you? That's one thing that put me off of Vega Strike (which otherwise wasn't bad) - whenever I'm trying to play it it takes me thirty minutes at most until a random Aeran fighter shows up in $SYSTEM and kills me. EV Nova has the decency of making most factions neutral to you in the beginning, which makes for a much smoother start into the game.
As long as you don't get caught up between two fleets bashing in each others heads, that is.
Worst. Case mod. Ever.
A few of your favourite websites (including your net banking) no longer work because of ActiveX, Flash 8 or severe rendering bugs.
No flame intended, but that's one thing that confounds me - the USA, of all nations, seem to rely on ActiveX-based online banking. Over here in Germany we have developed an online banking standard called HBCI (to be superseded by FinTS), which allows any compliant online banking software to interact with any bank, provided you have a smartcard reader (Linux compatible ones are available for less than thirty bucks, although the driver isn't AMD64 compatible yet), the card (which at least my bank provides free of charge) and the server's address (which your bank's support hotline will provide to you). If I wasn't using AMD64 I'd use Gnucash for my online banking, currently I'm using the software provided by the bank (running in a VMWare'd Windows).
you HAVE played Super Metroid, haven't you?
*cough* Well, I'm currently using SABS and SMILE to create a little mod that forces you to play the game out of order (such as starting out with Power Bombs; regular bombs only become available after obtaining the Speed Booster). Before starting on the mod I played through the game for the... fourth time, I think. Definitely a great game.
Prime as Marathon with a Morph Ball... Tempting. I really should look into getting a Gamecube (also because I want to play Eternal Darkness again; the insanity sequences are fun to watch - a nice example of non-story derived replay value, actually).
It's true that a game that relies too heavily on storytelling does not have high replay value. However, so does a game with storytelling that isn't worth crap. A well-told story should be there but there should be a decent gameplay to back it up. (I won't comment on Baldur's Gate; I tend to lump all third-person RPGs with (pseudo-)realtime combat together with Diablo...)
If games were food good storytelling would be... glutamate? It makes sense as an additive (and it makes people want more), but as a main ingredient it has far lesser impact, at least as far as er, re-eat value is concerned.
Okay, that analogy sucked.
As for WoT: It might be important that I'm reading the German version, so some minor bugs might have been ironed out during translation (although of course some annoyances were introduced, such as some places changing names when the translator changed). While Jordan might not be a second Tolkien I do find the books enjoyable, even if there are some glaring flaws such as the main character killing off half of the oh-so-powerful bad guys within a couple books*. What's lacking in narrative is there in presenting an interesting world, however. Even if Jordan spends most of his time systematically demolishing it.
* Yet another artifact of the German translation - every English book is released as ~three German books. The advantage is that we get the books faster. (Ha! I've been waiting for the next book for almost two years!)
To be honest I didn't play any Metroid game after Zero Mission (which was superior to Fusion in terms of gameplay), mostly due to the fact that I don't own a Gamecube. I might get one after the Wii comes out, though.
You don't want to immediately play it again, but a few years down the road, you might want to. I'm currently rereading the Wheel of Time series. I know what happens (well, most of it, but at more than 10.000 pages the WoT series is too big to remember all details), but it's still good reading and I do enjoy watching the story unfold again.
Also, when I'm done rereading the whole thing they'll maybe finally release the next book.
Two posts, two plugs. I should get paid for this.