Pay per play is less appealing to the houses running the games, because there's not the potential for residual income from people who sign up, lose interest, and forget to cancel for a few months.
I think that if your business model involves relying on people to forget to stop paying for your product after they're done with it, then you are NOT WORKING HARD ENOUGH.
Uh, the Xbox version has this bug too. The only difference is that they can't patch it. In fact, if you pay careful attention, you'll find that quite a number of console games have bugs that they *can't patch* for the most part. See: Enter the Matrix, Tomb Raider:Angel of Darkness etc.
This is espeically true because a lot of cellphones only accept one button press at a time. While this is great for making sure that people with big fingers can dial phone numbers accurately, it makes making good games for cellphones REALLY HARD. Want to run AND shoot? Good luck to you.
If cellphones are going to rival PSP and GBA/DS as portable gaming devices, input is the big thing they need to change.
It's GameSpot, not IGN that's involved with GameFAQs. If it was IGN, then every now and then GIANT HAMBURGERS would dance all over the screen while you desperately tried to figure out how to see more of the DOA girls' breasts.
I'll move to a browser that people don't exploit as much. One of the big reasons I use Mozilla is for security. Security through obscurity doesn't work, unless no-one knows about the program/not enough users use it to make exploiting vulnerabilities productive.
Security through obscurity doesn't work unless the (secure) thing is obscure?
Christ, you people. You are exactly the reason why working in a call center is so soul deadening and why people with perfectly reasonable requests get crappy service. If you think that the only reason to call a support line is BECAUSE YOUR SERVICE IS NOT PROVIDING WHAT YOUR CLIENT PAID FOR then you are a moron.
Here are some more reasons: 1) I broke my phone and I'm going to lie and claim that I didn't break it and that it stopped working on its own.
2) I'm an idiot who can't read directions and I think that the best way to learn about unsupported 3rd party applications on my phone is to call my service provider and shout at them.
3) I'm an idiot who can't understand my bill and is misinterpreting the numbers and so the solution is - shouting!
4) I'm a fool who signed up for 1 900 numbers and they're appreaing on my bill and the wife saw them so I'm calling to angrily pretend that they don't belong there.
5) There is a general service problem in my area and I think that the best way to get it fixed is to call and shout at you and stay on the phone shouting at you until it gets fixed.
6) There is an imaginary problem with my phone and I am using fictional tools, liberally mixed with misapplied jargon, to document the existence of the problem.
Let me explain something to you and to all the other indignant assholes who think that the customer is always right, even if that requires a blind denial of technical, historical and logical fact. Level 1 CSRs are the gate keepers. We don't have the authority to give you substantial credits, we can't really directly fix anything that you have a problem with aside from really easy stuff.
Our job is to evaluate your situation and determine whether or not your issue warrants escalation. In making that determination, we have a fair bit of leeway. YOU WANT US ON YOUR SIDE.
By all means, be angry. But don't be angry at us. We didn't cause the problem and we can't fix it. But we can make sure that the right people get to hear about the problem quickly or we can follow official procedure and make you jump through hoops for hours. If you attack us, we have no incentive to help you. If you are polite (but firm) then most of us will return the favour. Being firm is important. One of our metrics for performance is how quickly we get through calls so, unfortunately, nice people get shunted off too quickly.
Here's a handy phrase to use "I'm really angry with your company right now. I know that you didn't do this, but what can you do to help me? Or who should I talk to, to get this fixed?"
Sometimes you will get a crappy, useless and stupid CSR. That's OK. Hang up and call back. Eventually, you'll get one of the good ones.
Which means that now you are required to pay for the maintenance and upkeep of your phone wires instead of the phone company being responsible for it. Which has good and bad sides, I guess.
If you don't have them in the RAM, read them from the drive, don't waste time putting them where they mostly are in the first place.
Hold on a sec. A compressed file on my hard drive looks very different from its uncompressed instance that's been decoded and loaded into memory. Storing the decompressed "RAM version" of the file on HDD and then loading it into RAM as needed would be faster than decoding the file all over again, no? Less processor intensive for sure.
If passing the other laws just resulted in the DOJ looking at the new law and then looking at their teetering stacks of current investigations and then shrugging their shoulders and continuing as usual doesn't this move, if anything, reduce the risk that you'll get sued?
I mean I'd rather be on a DOJ's scale of priority (which goes from stealing mail to murdering thousands of children) than onthe RIAA's (which goes from suing pirates to suing pirates).
So after wading through pages and pages of comments by slashdotters self-satisfiedly explaining that it would betechnically impossible to use distributed computing to render scenes, this guy finds a link to a story from Linux Journal about how ILM is already doing it. Awesome.
Admitedly, this doesn't solve the security issues, so it's probably still a bad idea, just not an impossible one.
Isn't that why the Celeron 300A was such an overclocker's dream for awhile? Because it turned out that they had made too many chips that binned at 450 and that no one wanted to pay for those, so they just called them 300s?
Should Half the Planet sue HalfThePlanet.com for their use of the name and reference to those with disabilities? No.
Best class-action lawsuit, ever.
In order to join the the class action lawsuit ou would have to prove that you were a member of half-the-planet. Initially, this would present no serious problems (a class in a class-action lawsuit doesn't have to include all of the mebers that it could include). But there exists the chance that more than half-the-planet might try to indentify themselves as being a part of half-the-planet. Which would mean that the class would no longer be half-the-planet (2/3 of the planet isn't half-the-planet), so it would collapse. Which would I guess raise the possibility of starting a new class action lawsuit on behalf of the real half-the-planet.
You're absolutely right. Rotten Tomatoes recognizes the problem that you raise, explicitly, when they determine if a game got enough 'good' reviews to be rated "Fresh".
From the FAQ: Why is the cutoff for a Fresh Tomato so much higher for individual game reviews? Although most publishers rate games on a 1-10 scale, it is a rarity for a game to get a score below 6. Because game reviews are mostly positive (a very high majority fall in the 7-10 range), the cutoff for a Fresh Tomato is raised to 8/10. This higher cutoff actually produces a wider spread of Tomatometer scores that is equivalent to movies; otherwise, almost all games are recommended!
The problem is that the bar being set this high has become a defacto standard. Some review site or magazine that starts doing what you suggest (and you're absolutely right, they should) will stand out as a sore thumb and as a company that routinely gives low scores. Which means that companies will stop sending them review copies to play. Which means that they can't compete (especially if they're a magazine) with the other reviewers.
It's an educational product. It's for educating people about what it's like to try to live in different places in the world. I can't believe you got modded +5 Inightful.
No, you don't lose all rights to that code. The only difference it that the people who download it aren't liable, it's the people who originally posted it as GPL code.
If you can't be held liable for having the code and you distribute the code as part of some GPL project and other people download it and they can't be held liable either, then how on earth am I going to regain control of my code? Ask nicely and hope that everyone complies?
If someone steals my code, then posts it online under the GPL illegally and then other people download it, I don't think that those other people should have Carte Blanche to do what they want with my code. I think that if I inform them and can prove to them that they are using code that should never have been in the GPL, then they have an obligation to stop using my code.
If we go with the great-grandparent's plan, then anything released under the GPL, no matter how it got there, would stay GPL. In other words, thieves would be totally free to steal and distribute code.
Oh yeah, and for our protection, I think laws should passed worldwide that anything posted on the Internet and subsequently removed cannot be recalled once downloaded by at least one person, so that if a company releases something as GPL and then pulls it, even if that is due to copyright violations on their part in including the thing in a GPL download, that company is subject to damages but not the downloaders, since they downloaded something as licensed under the GPL.
In other words, you want the international community to pass a law that makes it so that if someone steals my code and posts it online and then has a friend download it, I lose all rights to that code.
Slashdot Mirror
Pay per play is less appealing to the houses running the games, because there's not the potential for residual income from people who sign up, lose interest, and forget to cancel for a few months.
I think that if your business model involves relying on people to forget to stop paying for your product after they're done with it, then you are NOT WORKING HARD ENOUGH.
Uh, the Xbox version has this bug too. The only difference is that they can't patch it. In fact, if you pay careful attention, you'll find that quite a number of console games have bugs that they *can't patch* for the most part. See: Enter the Matrix, Tomb Raider:Angel of Darkness etc.
This is espeically true because a lot of cellphones only accept one button press at a time. While this is great for making sure that people with big fingers can dial phone numbers accurately, it makes making good games for cellphones REALLY HARD. Want to run AND shoot? Good luck to you.
If cellphones are going to rival PSP and GBA/DS as portable gaming devices, input is the big thing they need to change.
It's GameSpot, not IGN that's involved with GameFAQs. If it was IGN, then every now and then GIANT HAMBURGERS would dance all over the screen while you desperately tried to figure out how to see more of the DOA girls' breasts.
"Oh woe is me! He only gave it a 9/10! He must be the worst person alive!"
I'll move to a browser that people don't exploit as much. One of the big reasons I use Mozilla is for security. Security through obscurity doesn't work, unless no-one knows about the program/not enough users use it to make exploiting vulnerabilities productive.
Security through obscurity doesn't work unless the (secure) thing is obscure?
Christ, you people. You are exactly the reason why working in a call center is so soul deadening and why people with perfectly reasonable requests get crappy service. If you think that the only reason to call a support line is BECAUSE YOUR SERVICE IS NOT PROVIDING WHAT YOUR CLIENT PAID FOR then you are a moron.
Here are some more reasons:
1) I broke my phone and I'm going to lie and claim that I didn't break it and that it stopped working on its own.
2) I'm an idiot who can't read directions and I think that the best way to learn about unsupported 3rd party applications on my phone is to call my service provider and shout at them.
3) I'm an idiot who can't understand my bill and is misinterpreting the numbers and so the solution is - shouting!
4) I'm a fool who signed up for 1 900 numbers and they're appreaing on my bill and the wife saw them so I'm calling to angrily pretend that they don't belong there.
5) There is a general service problem in my area and I think that the best way to get it fixed is to call and shout at you and stay on the phone shouting at you until it gets fixed.
6) There is an imaginary problem with my phone and I am using fictional tools, liberally mixed with misapplied jargon, to document the existence of the problem.
Let me explain something to you and to all the other indignant assholes who think that the customer is always right, even if that requires a blind denial of technical, historical and logical fact. Level 1 CSRs are the gate keepers. We don't have the authority to give you substantial credits, we can't really directly fix anything that you have a problem with aside from really easy stuff.
Our job is to evaluate your situation and determine whether or not your issue warrants escalation. In making that determination, we have a fair bit of leeway. YOU WANT US ON YOUR SIDE.
By all means, be angry. But don't be angry at us. We didn't cause the problem and we can't fix it. But we can make sure that the right people get to hear about the problem quickly or we can follow official procedure and make you jump through hoops for hours. If you attack us, we have no incentive to help you. If you are polite (but firm) then most of us will return the favour. Being firm is important. One of our metrics for performance is how quickly we get through calls so, unfortunately, nice people get shunted off too quickly.
Here's a handy phrase to use "I'm really angry with your company right now. I know that you didn't do this, but what can you do to help me? Or who should I talk to, to get this fixed?"
Sometimes you will get a crappy, useless and stupid CSR. That's OK. Hang up and call back. Eventually, you'll get one of the good ones.
Another employee could write the completely opposite review of MS and it would be every bit as convincing.
Not if it was posted on Slashdot.
If you aren't living near a fast food restaurant, you probably aren't living in North America.
Which means that now you are required to pay for the maintenance and upkeep of your phone wires instead of the phone company being responsible for it. Which has good and bad sides, I guess.
No, compressed files. Files that need to be decoded when they're loaded into memory. MP3, JPEG, etc. etc.
Most files takle up more RAM than they take up disk space.
If you don't have them in the RAM, read them from the drive, don't waste time putting them where they mostly are in the first place.
Hold on a sec. A compressed file on my hard drive looks very different from its uncompressed instance that's been decoded and loaded into memory. Storing the decompressed "RAM version" of the file on HDD and then loading it into RAM as needed would be faster than decoding the file all over again, no? Less processor intensive for sure.
If passing the other laws just resulted in the DOJ looking at the new law and then looking at their teetering stacks of current investigations and then shrugging their shoulders and continuing as usual doesn't this move, if anything, reduce the risk that you'll get sued?
I mean I'd rather be on a DOJ's scale of priority (which goes from stealing mail to murdering thousands of children) than onthe RIAA's (which goes from suing pirates to suing pirates).
So after wading through pages and pages of comments by slashdotters self-satisfiedly explaining that it would betechnically impossible to use distributed computing to render scenes, this guy finds a link to a story from Linux Journal about how ILM is already doing it. Awesome.
Admitedly, this doesn't solve the security issues, so it's probably still a bad idea, just not an impossible one.
Bloops!
Too late!
I've patented "A method for extracting money from others for perceived civil wrongdoing" (colloquially known as 'sueing'). So I'll see you in court.
Good with that, because I've patented "Defending yourself from a method for extracting money from others for perceived civil wrongdoing" as well.
You mean: more reasons to get away from the filth- and pizza-encrusted mess you call a desk.
NANOBACTERIA ON MY HANDS OH GOD THEY'RE CRAWLING OUT OF MY KEYBOARD
Isn't that why the Celeron 300A was such an overclocker's dream for awhile? Because it turned out that they had made too many chips that binned at 450 and that no one wanted to pay for those, so they just called them 300s?
Should Half the Planet sue HalfThePlanet.com for their use of the name and reference to those with disabilities? No.
Best class-action lawsuit, ever.
In order to join the the class action lawsuit ou would have to prove that you were a member of half-the-planet. Initially, this would present no serious problems (a class in a class-action lawsuit doesn't have to include all of the mebers that it could include). But there exists the chance that more than half-the-planet might try to indentify themselves as being a part of half-the-planet. Which would mean that the class would no longer be half-the-planet (2/3 of the planet isn't half-the-planet), so it would collapse. Which would I guess raise the possibility of starting a new class action lawsuit on behalf of the real half-the-planet.
If you've seen the documentary you'd know that he tried to get it field tested but that no Grizzlies would come near him.
You're absolutely right. Rotten Tomatoes recognizes the problem that you raise, explicitly, when they determine if a game got enough 'good' reviews to be rated "Fresh".
From the FAQ:
Why is the cutoff for a Fresh Tomato so much higher for individual game reviews?
Although most publishers rate games on a 1-10 scale, it is a rarity for a game to get a score below 6. Because game reviews are mostly positive (a very high majority fall in the 7-10 range), the cutoff for a Fresh Tomato is raised to 8/10. This higher cutoff actually produces a wider spread of Tomatometer scores that is equivalent to movies; otherwise, almost all games are recommended!
The problem is that the bar being set this high has become a defacto standard. Some review site or magazine that starts doing what you suggest (and you're absolutely right, they should) will stand out as a sore thumb and as a company that routinely gives low scores. Which means that companies will stop sending them review copies to play. Which means that they can't compete (especially if they're a magazine) with the other reviewers.
I give it 2 stars.
It's an educational product. It's for educating people about what it's like to try to live in different places in the world. I can't believe you got modded +5 Inightful.
No, you don't lose all rights to that code. The only difference it that the people who download it aren't liable, it's the people who originally posted it as GPL code.
If you can't be held liable for having the code and you distribute the code as part of some GPL project and other people download it and they can't be held liable either, then how on earth am I going to regain control of my code? Ask nicely and hope that everyone complies?
I don't think I'm reading his post selectively.
If someone steals my code, then posts it online under the GPL illegally and then other people download it, I don't think that those other people should have Carte Blanche to do what they want with my code. I think that if I inform them and can prove to them that they are using code that should never have been in the GPL, then they have an obligation to stop using my code.
If we go with the great-grandparent's plan, then anything released under the GPL, no matter how it got there, would stay GPL. In other words, thieves would be totally free to steal and distribute code.
Which is a very bad idea, I think
Oh yeah, and for our protection, I think laws should passed worldwide that anything posted on the Internet and subsequently removed cannot be recalled once downloaded by at least one person, so that if a company releases something as GPL and then pulls it, even if that is due to copyright violations on their part in including the thing in a GPL download, that company is subject to damages but not the downloaders, since they downloaded something as licensed under the GPL.
In other words, you want the international community to pass a law that makes it so that if someone steals my code and posts it online and then has a friend download it, I lose all rights to that code.
That's a very bad idea.