There might be a scenario that would be acceptable to me. The blank cd levy may not be perfect, but as we saw in a previous slashdot story, it more than compensates the industry for *ahem* lost revenues due to illegal copying.
From the article:
"...The SODRAC/CMRRA proposals demand the greater of either 15 percent of gross revenues or ten cents per permanent download..." Emphasis mine.
If by "permanent download", they mean non-DRM encumbered file that I may have unlimited personal use in perpetuity, then to me, that is a fair tradeoff for a small tarriff. The 25% figure quoted on the front page would be way too high, but if I can legally download an mp3/flac/ogg/whatever and burn it as many times, put it on as many portable players, and stream it from as many computers as I want for my own personal use, without some retarded DRM app phoning home to ask for permission, then that might be worth a small surcharge.
If they insist or crippling it with DRM or if (download price + tarrif) > (price I'm willing to pay), then guess what? They've just outsmarted themselves out of potential revenue (though we know who they'll want to blame for that...)
True, legimate buyers end up covering the costs of the thieves, but the same goes for any other industry (retail, insurance, etc). I think it's more important for both sides to compromise a bit to keep the system usable for the vast majority of legitimate users, then to screw everyone in sight.
"At least they are finally admitting that it's beta quality."
I know you meant that as a joke, but I think MS has been doing that for a long time now...
When Windows 2000 shipped, wasnt it reported that it shipped with 63,000 bugs based on some leaked internal memo? Microsoft issued a rebuttal and claimed the 63,000 bugs was greatly exaggerated. But it was widely believed that there were indeed some 28,000 known issues with the shipping version Win2K. I'd love to see the details of the MS process where something goes from being called beta -> shipping. I'm no software engineer, but shipping a product that you expect people to pay good money for with that many known flaws smacks of a 'release now; patch later' attitude.
They arent the only culprits either. Many PC games ship and have a patch within days, which means they were furiously working on critical bug-fixes while the game had already been released to manufacturing.
If a desktop windows could not be easily patched after deployment without significant cost (oe. like a console game), I wonder if we would see much better quality in the shipping version of windows?
You'd be surprised how many free, legal songs there are on the net. Oh, but you'd know this if you were doing stuff other than downloading RIAA Stuff, right?
For instance, my Overclocked Remix folder is 4.88 gig. These are mostly 128kbps mp3s.
Stuff from OCremix may be free, but I dont know how legal it is.
From the OCRemix FAQ:
Isn't this music copyrighted?
Yes, the original works which OverClocked ReMixes are based off of are copyrighted. We are not out to infringe on the copyright owner's rights by making money off of their content. ReMixes are not sold, and ad banners on this site go only to pay for the bandwidth / hosting that it requires. Thus far, there have been no complaints. I would hope that any copyright owner that visited here would recognize we are only trying to express our appreciation for their creations.
They basically acknowledge the fact that they are infringing on someone's copyright and hope they dont get shut down because they are doing it as homage, and not for profit. If Nintendo (or whoever) wanted to play hardball, that would probably be the end of OCRemix.
Hopefully that will never happen, as I've heard some fantastic arrangements from that site...
"The new rose is an attractive shade of mauve, similar to the current generation of mauve-lilac roses like 'Blue Moon' and 'Vol de Nuit'... the new rose, with further 'tweaking', has the genetic potential to be truly blue. "
The picture there, while it looks amazing, has almost certainly been color-enhanced and is probably not at all what this rose actually looks like.
If you look closely, it appears even the *leaves* are blue... It's likely just a photoshopped stock photo.
To say that any old cable is the same as the next is not true in my (admittedly limited) experience.
I have not done quantitative measurements, but recently I bought one of those multi-format DVD player (ie. can read a data CD/DVD and play avi & mpeg files). It came with some cheapo cables that I tried and it was terrible. There was a thin bright line that slowly moved up and down the screen, and there was a persistent hum that could be heard whenever the volume was turned up to any reasonable level.
On a larf, I went and bought some of the less expensive Monster cables and the problems totally went away. I assume the shielding made the difference here. I dont attribute my observations to some magical Monster pixie dust, as any other brand of decently constructed cable probably would have been an improvement over the crappy cables that came bundled with the DVD player.
The moral is that from a quality perspective,there is probably no need to go out and pay the premium for Monster cables, but you dont want to use cables from the dollar store either.
There is another reason to go Monster that no one seems to have mentioned yet, the lifetime warranty. Cables dont really break down, but I was told at the checkout that I can get a replacement *under any circumstances*; even if my dog chews it up. We'll see if they actually honor that 5 years down the road, but that's a benefit that has to be worth at least a little price premium.
*There is no market for game on linux, or even the mac right now (this may change)*
I dont know about that, there is definitely a market for Linux games. Cedega survives through a subscription model ($5/mnth) selling a compatibility layer that enables some Windows games to run on Linux. It's a niche product, but there are obviously people who want to play games on linux, and are even willing to fight through all sorts of technical issues to do it.
The question isnt whether the market is there, but whether it's big enough to sustain a business. Could you develop a AAA title and survive only on Linux sales? No, not likely. Could you develop a cross-platform version (ie use OpenGL instead of DX) and have the Linux sales cover the porting costs and even turn a small profit? Quite possibly...
Linux and Mac have something Windows doesnt; a captive audience. When you release a Windows game, you are competing with hundreds of releases a year. With the dearth of high quality commercial linux and mac games, you arent fighting for the attention of your market. If you release a high quality game (like NWN, for example), then anyone using that platform who is interested in that type of game is much more likely to buy it.
I dunno, this sounds much ado about nothing to me. I havent bought anything of ebay in a while, but my rule of thumb was to make one bid; whatever the maximum I was willing to spend and *leave it the hell alone* until the auction was over. If you always bid your max and let ebay's proxy system work the way it's supposed to then you 1) never pay any more that what it takes to outbid the second highest bidder and 2) never get caught up in ridiculous bidding wars.
Another option is to use a sniping site (I used to use esnipe, which worked great. Havent tried it in a while). It would automatically place your bid for you a few seconds before the end of the auction, so you have no chance to re-raise your bid should it fall short. It encourages you to determine how much that item is worth to you first and bid your max.
Automatically increasing the leading bid to the next increment does sound shady, but by allowing himself to be influenced by ebay's "OMFG YOU MIGHT BE OUTBID!!!11" email, he's falling right in thier trap. Ebay takes a percentage of the final sale value, so anything they do to increase the sale price just puts more money in thier pocket.
Apples and oranges really (no pun intended). You cant just say that Shuttles cost as much as Mac minis, yet are five times the size, and therefore are less bang for the buck. While something like a Shuttle may be a lot larger physically, you also get much more expandability ( you can upgrade the CPU, 2 dimm slot vs 1, a graphics slot for a high end vidcard, an PCI slot for something like a TV-Tuner, the ability to use cheaper/faster HDs vs requiring a notebook drive, etc).
AFAIAC, the super compact form factor of the Mac mini is dearly paid for by sacrificing practically any expandability. If your needs require something ultra small and you dont give a hoot about future upgrades, then the Mac mini should be perfect for you. Otherwise, SFF PCs still have a lot to offer. It all depends on your needs and priorities
Then there is the whole issue about being able to run all the popular software and games...
There are a million easy to use backup programs for Windows, yet I hardly know anyone that backs up thier home machines. I'm all for easy-to-use GUI tools, and if this is what it takes for someone to do backups, then so much the better. But people dont generally do back ups not because it's hard to do, but because it's inconvienent or requires specific user intervention. People will spend hours downloading and burning movies, but they wont spend 5 minutes putting thier email, bookmarks, and data directories onto a CD/DVD
Any backup solution wont really be effective unless it it transparent and continues works without ANY user intervention after the intitial configuration. 'Set it; then forget it' as that guy in the informercials likes to say.
I have a very simple bash script set as a cron job that backs up ~10 important data directories to file server at 5am every morning. But that requires leaving the computers on 24/7 (which I do), but most people dont like doing that. So they either have to 1) schedule thier backups to a time when the computer is likely to be on and risk impacting whatever they have to be working on at the moment, or 2) explicity lauch thier backup program when it's convienent for them (IOW, it never gets done).
I always berate my friends for not doing backups, but before I got off my own lazy ass and put a backup strategy in place (whether that be taking half an hour to write a simple script or downloading some whiz-bang GUI tool), I probably went 6 months without backing up a single byte. Terrible, I know, but I think we've all seen first-hand the barrier to backing up is not programs, but users.
Remember the Seinfeld where Babu opens a restaurant at Jerry's suggestion and later regrets it?
It seems oddly fitting here. Just replace the words
'people' with 'WMD' 'Babu' with 'Most of the World' and 'Jerry' with 'GWB'
Most of the World: Quiet!! You shut up!... But where are WMD? You see WMD? Show me WMD. There are no WMD! GWB: You know, I think I'll just take the check. Most of the World: You bad man! You very very bad man! [leaves] GWB thinking: Bad man? Could my mother have been wrong?
I personally liked the gameplay of Splinter Cell, but I think it takes itself too seriously to be a good candidate for movie adaptation. Metal Gear Solid is the seminal 'stealth action' game and it lends it self better to a movie version because it's meant to have over-the-top characters and a little cheesy dialog doesnt look out of place. MGS storylines are pretty outlandish and far-fetched, but they work perfectly well in the context of the game.
Splinter Cell, OTOH aims for gritty, semi-realism; something you might actually believe happens in the real world and a movie that tries to be faithful to the original game would likely fall dreadfully flat. (Though that's usually true of any video game -> movie attempt)
IMHO, a MGS movie that's meant to be a little campy (think Hellboy or Spiderman) would be more appealing to me than a Splinter Cell adaptation.
Wow I didnt expect my post to generate so many responses. To clarify, I usually see movies in a big multiplex with stadium seating. There is a chain of them called Silvercity up here in Canada.
While I've never timed it that accurately, I always glance at my watch just as the movie starts and I usually experience ~15 minutes of ads and crap. Maybe a bit more, but never as long as 30 minutes, which would be very abnormal (at least in my experience) and what prompted my original comment.
Of course every theatre/city/country is different, and those of you reporting *45 minutes* of ads before a feature have my sympathies. The next time I go to a blockbuster new release, I'm definitely going to be timing the ads from now on:)
>14 minutes of commercials (Pepsi, hair mousse, cologne, etc.) followed by >13 minutes of movie trailers (which are also advertising, of course), followed by >a few minutes of junk
30 solid minutes of ads?? Sorry, I don't buy it (no pun intended). I might see a one or two movies a month, and while I've never put a stopwatch to it, there is no where near an entire sitcom's length of ads before a movie.
While I admit that the trailers and ads are getting more pervasive, I think I'd notice if there were *28* consecutive 30-second spots, and a dozen 1-minute trailers shown before a movie.
Just buy your local PC store's Family Friendly Box with Free Internet and achieve the same effect.
A gamecube is $99. People who mod thier consoles into media centres do so either 1) 'cuz it's fun, or 2) it's much cheaper and smaller than getting a typical low-end PC and doesnt look butt-ugly sitting next to the TV.
I'm currently using FireFox PR1.0, it's been open for about 5 days straight, running on Win2KPro. It's using 104MB of RAM. Why I don't know...I only have 4 tabs open at the moment and no flash or java running, and no third party plugins...
I'm going to guess that over the five days, you have opened and closed a whole bunch of tabs (probably dozens). It's a known issue in Firefox that when you close tabs, it doesnt release the memory.
See the bugzilla: bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=131456
I've had FF running for a week straight and using upwards of 200MB and only one tab open:). The only remedy is to restart FF. This has been an issue for over two years now. Dont expect it change anytime soon though, if it was a simple fix, I supppose it would have been done by now.
That's a good tip but how is anyone supposed to know that? Alternative install options seems to be really poorly documented.
Quoting from http://fedora.redhat.com/download/
Download the Files You Need
To install Fedora Core, download the DVD image or the four ISO images of the installation CD-ROMs, even if you are planning to perform a hard drive installation.
They dont even mention the fact there is a network install option. By reading that statement, it sounds like you need to get all the iso's.
Is it possible to install FCx with some sort of net installer so you dont need to download the full iso set? ie. get a small iso that contains a bare install and download the rest as you go?
If you want to set up a thin desktop with only a limited number of apps (GUI, browser, openoffice, email client, XMMS), it seems a waste to download 2+ GB of iso's full of stuff you will probably never use. And because FC is so bleeding edge, by the time you do need package XYZ, there is likely an updated version in the repository anyways...
Other distros (eg. Debian, Suse) do this and it's very convienent. I like to try out different distros but the idea of downloading a full CD set for something I'll only kick around for fun turns me off.
About how this authentication is going to affect future installations. Will Steam keep track of some unique product id (like a CDKey) and tie it to a specific install?
ie. You install HL2 and the next day some hardware/OS failure requires you to reformat/reinstall. Will you be able to re-authenticate on the same CDKey? What about if you delete an old install and want to re-install on a new PC?
What if you trade in your HL2 at EB for some reason (runs too slow, too buggy, you plain dont like it), will the next person who buys it even be able to authenticate and play it? This could effectively destroy the pre-owned market (at least for this game). Which would be total BS; if I want to sell my game, I should be able to. Is that not my right as a consumer?
Go look at the Steam website faq. They specifically state that CDkeys cannot be transferred between Steam accounts. Without a doubt, Valve (and probably every publisher out there) would love nothing better than to ensure that everyone who plays their game has to always buy a full priced new copy. There is just too much potential for abuse here...
Maybe I'm way off base, and I'd love nothing better than Valve to prove me wrong. I was on the fence about buying HL2, now I'd say my mind is made up...
The site has a slick but overproduced flash presentation of the game that includes gameplay clips. Essentially it appears to be a 3D platformer with plenty of running, jumping, shooting, and hand-to-hand combat. Throw in some slo-mo Matrix style camera action for good measure too.
As with all games of this type, it may *look* cool (and it does), but the control scheme is everything. Until it's actually released and we can get some hands on reviews, it's impossible to say whether this will be worth buying...
If a company wants to take such stupid measures with their games, go ahead, but let me know *before I buy it* so I know which lousy products not to waste my $$ on. With most store policies regarding open box returns (ie. dont even think about it) they owe it to the consumers to notify them if something that has become quite common on modern systems may prevent the game from running.
Don't all games have a little section of the box indicating the system requirements? Like:
1 Ghz CPU
Direct X 9 video card
1.2 GB free Hard Drive Space NO Installed CD emulation software: (eg: Nero/Alcohol/CloneCD)
If they did something like that, then consumers would have no complaints. Sales may tank, but that should tell them something too...
And no fair adding emulation detection code in a patch like Ubisoft tried with Raven Shield. (It was retracted quickly after a good backlash from the users)
Make your software behave in such a way no one is willing to use it and then no one will pirate it!
Seriously, this is not the first time a program detects a hacked serial key and then [insert some behaviour], though this is the worst measure I have ever heard of.
Windows XP for instance doesnt allow you to install SP1 if you are using one of a few leaked keys.
IIRC, CDRWIN (a cd-burning program) would slowly 'degrade' your burns over time if you used an invalid key. Very insiduous, as it would seem to work at first then slowly get worse and worse.
What if you mis-type in your valid serial and the program thinks it now matches a banned key? Whoops!
If you insist on deleting something on the detection of a hacked serial, then trash the programs binary, *not* the users whole home directory. That's just assanine.
...there are chairs there that cost in excess of $1000 that alleviate the problem, but that's a lot of money to pay for a chair.
But still a lot less than the price of wrecking your back in 5 years. Really, if you are sitting 10-12 hours a *day* in the same chair, then you are spending a tremendous amount of time in front of your computer and you better get the best ergonomics you can.
Really, if you are willing to spend $600, then you are already considering some high end chairs. Find the one that feels the best and dont worry so much about the price (assuming it doesnt cost $10K or something crazy). They are built to last and will serve you well for years to come.
I'm sure that most people here know that Bioware releases linux binaries for NWN and provides a linux forum where the actual developers can get feedback and provide assistance.
Even though the binaries lagged behind the original box release and are officially 'unsupported', and Bioware deserves a lot of credit for the excellent job they've done with NWN under Linux; it remains the only triple-A RPG title available natively for Linux (AFAIK).
Unfortunately, there was no Linux client forthcoming for KOTOR. Conspiracy theorists speculate that MS paid a premium to have KOTOR first released as an Xbox exclusive and there was no way in hell they'd allow Bioware to work on a linux client (or mac). Fun stuff to chat about, but any posts on the official KOTOR forums asking the developers about a mac or linux port of KOTOR is greeted by a whole lotta silence...
As far NWN2 goes, now that a new studio is working on it, who knows what thier stance on non-MS OS's is going to be. I did find this posting on the Obsidian forums from one of the actual developers:
We are not actively developing an OpenGL (mac/linux) version of NWN2 at the moment. Things may change, and people keeping the issue in the forefront is not a bad thing.
So if you want to see a mac/linux port of NWN2, then head over and make your voice heard.
Slashdot Mirror
From the article:
"...The SODRAC/CMRRA proposals demand the greater of either 15 percent of gross revenues or ten cents per permanent download..." Emphasis mine.
If by "permanent download", they mean non-DRM encumbered file that I may have unlimited personal use in perpetuity, then to me, that is a fair tradeoff for a small tarriff. The 25% figure quoted on the front page would be way too high, but if I can legally download an mp3/flac/ogg/whatever and burn it as many times, put it on as many portable players, and stream it from as many computers as I want for my own personal use, without some retarded DRM app phoning home to ask for permission, then that might be worth a small surcharge.
If they insist or crippling it with DRM or if (download price + tarrif) > (price I'm willing to pay), then guess what? They've just outsmarted themselves out of potential revenue (though we know who they'll want to blame for that...)
True, legimate buyers end up covering the costs of the thieves, but the same goes for any other industry (retail, insurance, etc). I think it's more important for both sides to compromise a bit to keep the system usable for the vast majority of legitimate users, then to screw everyone in sight.
"At least they are finally admitting that it's beta quality."
I know you meant that as a joke, but I think MS has been doing that for a long time now...
When Windows 2000 shipped, wasnt it reported that it shipped with 63,000 bugs based on some leaked internal memo? Microsoft issued a rebuttal and claimed the 63,000 bugs was greatly exaggerated. But it was widely believed that there were indeed some 28,000 known issues with the shipping version Win2K. I'd love to see the details of the MS process where something goes from being called beta -> shipping. I'm no software engineer, but shipping a product that you expect people to pay good money for with that many known flaws smacks of a 'release now; patch later' attitude.
They arent the only culprits either. Many PC games ship and have a patch within days, which means they were furiously working on critical bug-fixes while the game had already been released to manufacturing.
If a desktop windows could not be easily patched after deployment without significant cost (oe. like a console game), I wonder if we would see much better quality in the shipping version of windows?
You'd be surprised how many free, legal songs there are on the net. Oh, but you'd know this if you were doing stuff other than downloading RIAA Stuff, right? For instance, my Overclocked Remix folder is 4.88 gig. These are mostly 128kbps mp3s.
Stuff from OCremix may be free, but I dont know how legal it is.
From the OCRemix FAQ:
Isn't this music copyrighted?
Yes, the original works which OverClocked ReMixes are based off of are copyrighted. We are not out to infringe on the copyright owner's rights by making money off of their content. ReMixes are not sold, and ad banners on this site go only to pay for the bandwidth / hosting that it requires. Thus far, there have been no complaints. I would hope that any copyright owner that visited here would recognize we are only trying to express our appreciation for their creations.
They basically acknowledge the fact that they are infringing on someone's copyright and hope they dont get shut down because they are doing it as homage, and not for profit. If Nintendo (or whoever) wanted to play hardball, that would probably be the end of OCRemix.
Hopefully that will never happen, as I've heard some fantastic arrangements from that site...
From the article that you linked:
... the new rose, with further 'tweaking', has the genetic potential to be truly blue. "
"The new rose is an attractive shade of mauve, similar to the current generation of mauve-lilac roses like 'Blue Moon' and 'Vol de Nuit'
The picture there, while it looks amazing, has almost certainly been color-enhanced and is probably not at all what this rose actually looks like.
If you look closely, it appears even the *leaves* are blue... It's likely just a photoshopped stock photo.
To say that any old cable is the same as the next is not true in my (admittedly limited) experience.
I have not done quantitative measurements, but recently I bought one of those multi-format DVD player (ie. can read a data CD/DVD and play avi & mpeg files). It came with some cheapo cables that I tried and it was terrible. There was a thin bright line that slowly moved up and down the screen, and there was a persistent hum that could be heard whenever the volume was turned up to any reasonable level.
On a larf, I went and bought some of the less expensive Monster cables and the problems totally went away. I assume the shielding made the difference here. I dont attribute my observations to some magical Monster pixie dust, as any other brand of decently constructed cable probably would have been an improvement over the crappy cables that came bundled with the DVD player.
The moral is that from a quality perspective,there is probably no need to go out and pay the premium for Monster cables, but you dont want to use cables from the dollar store either.
There is another reason to go Monster that no one seems to have mentioned yet, the lifetime warranty. Cables dont really break down, but I was told at the checkout that I can get a replacement *under any circumstances*; even if my dog chews it up. We'll see if they actually honor that 5 years down the road, but that's a benefit that has to be worth at least a little price premium.
*There is no market for game on linux, or even the mac right now (this may change)*
I dont know about that, there is definitely a market for Linux games. Cedega survives through a subscription model ($5/mnth) selling a compatibility layer that enables some Windows games to run on Linux. It's a niche product, but there are obviously people who want to play games on linux, and are even willing to fight through all sorts of technical issues to do it.
The question isnt whether the market is there, but whether it's big enough to sustain a business. Could you develop a AAA title and survive only on Linux sales? No, not likely. Could you develop a cross-platform version (ie use OpenGL instead of DX) and have the Linux sales cover the porting costs and even turn a small profit? Quite possibly...
Linux and Mac have something Windows doesnt; a captive audience. When you release a Windows game, you are competing with hundreds of releases a year. With the dearth of high quality commercial linux and mac games, you arent fighting for the attention of your market. If you release a high quality game (like NWN, for example), then anyone using that platform who is interested in that type of game is much more likely to buy it.
I dunno, this sounds much ado about nothing to me. I havent bought anything of ebay in a while, but my rule of thumb was to make one bid; whatever the maximum I was willing to spend and *leave it the hell alone* until the auction was over. If you always bid your max and let ebay's proxy system work the way it's supposed to then you 1) never pay any more that what it takes to outbid the second highest bidder and 2) never get caught up in ridiculous bidding wars.
Another option is to use a sniping site (I used to use esnipe, which worked great. Havent tried it in a while). It would automatically place your bid for you a few seconds before the end of the auction, so you have no chance to re-raise your bid should it fall short. It encourages you to determine how much that item is worth to you first and bid your max.
Automatically increasing the leading bid to the next increment does sound shady, but by allowing himself to be influenced by ebay's "OMFG YOU MIGHT BE OUTBID!!!11" email, he's falling right in thier trap. Ebay takes a percentage of the final sale value, so anything they do to increase the sale price just puts more money in thier pocket.
Apples and oranges really (no pun intended). You cant just say that Shuttles cost as much as Mac minis, yet are five times the size, and therefore are less bang for the buck. While something like a Shuttle may be a lot larger physically, you also get much more expandability ( you can upgrade the CPU, 2 dimm slot vs 1, a graphics slot for a high end vidcard, an PCI slot for something like a TV-Tuner, the ability to use cheaper/faster HDs vs requiring a notebook drive, etc).
AFAIAC, the super compact form factor of the Mac mini is dearly paid for by sacrificing practically any expandability. If your needs require something ultra small and you dont give a hoot about future upgrades, then the Mac mini should be perfect for you. Otherwise, SFF PCs still have a lot to offer. It all depends on your needs and priorities
Then there is the whole issue about being able to run all the popular software and games...
There are a million easy to use backup programs for Windows, yet I hardly know anyone that backs up thier home machines. I'm all for easy-to-use GUI tools, and if this is what it takes for someone to do backups, then so much the better. But people dont generally do back ups not because it's hard to do, but because it's inconvienent or requires specific user intervention. People will spend hours downloading and burning movies, but they wont spend 5 minutes putting thier email, bookmarks, and data directories onto a CD/DVD
Any backup solution wont really be effective unless it it transparent and continues works without ANY user intervention after the intitial configuration. 'Set it; then forget it' as that guy in the informercials likes to say.
I have a very simple bash script set as a cron job that backs up ~10 important data directories to file server at 5am every morning. But that requires leaving the computers on 24/7 (which I do), but most people dont like doing that. So they either have to 1) schedule thier backups to a time when the computer is likely to be on and risk impacting whatever they have to be working on at the moment, or 2) explicity lauch thier backup program when it's convienent for them (IOW, it never gets done).
I always berate my friends for not doing backups, but before I got off my own lazy ass and put a backup strategy in place (whether that be taking half an hour to write a simple script or downloading some whiz-bang GUI tool), I probably went 6 months without backing up a single byte. Terrible, I know, but I think we've all seen first-hand the barrier to backing up is not programs, but users.
Remember the Seinfeld where Babu opens a restaurant at Jerry's suggestion and later regrets it?
... But where are WMD? You see WMD? Show me WMD. There are no WMD!
It seems oddly fitting here. Just replace the words
'people' with 'WMD'
'Babu' with 'Most of the World'
and 'Jerry' with 'GWB'
Most of the World: Quiet!! You shut up!
GWB: You know, I think I'll just take the check.
Most of the World: You bad man! You very very bad man! [leaves]
GWB thinking: Bad man? Could my mother have been wrong?
I personally liked the gameplay of Splinter Cell, but I think it takes itself too seriously to be a good candidate for movie adaptation. Metal Gear Solid is the seminal 'stealth action' game and it lends it self better to a movie version because it's meant to have over-the-top characters and a little cheesy dialog doesnt look out of place. MGS storylines are pretty outlandish and far-fetched, but they work perfectly well in the context of the game.
Splinter Cell, OTOH aims for gritty, semi-realism; something you might actually believe happens in the real world and a movie that tries to be faithful to the original game would likely fall dreadfully flat. (Though that's usually true of any video game -> movie attempt)
IMHO, a MGS movie that's meant to be a little campy (think Hellboy or Spiderman) would be more appealing to me than a Splinter Cell adaptation.
Wow I didnt expect my post to generate so many responses. To clarify, I usually see movies in a big multiplex with stadium seating. There is a chain of them called Silvercity up here in Canada.
:)
While I've never timed it that accurately, I always glance at my watch just as the movie starts and I usually experience ~15 minutes of ads and crap. Maybe a bit more, but never as long as 30 minutes, which would be very abnormal (at least in my experience) and what prompted my original comment.
Of course every theatre/city/country is different, and those of you reporting *45 minutes* of ads before a feature have my sympathies. The next time I go to a blockbuster new release, I'm definitely going to be timing the ads from now on
>14 minutes of commercials (Pepsi, hair mousse, cologne, etc.) followed by
>13 minutes of movie trailers (which are also advertising, of course), followed by
>a few minutes of junk
30 solid minutes of ads?? Sorry, I don't buy it (no pun intended). I might see a one or two movies a month, and while I've never put a stopwatch to it, there is no where near an entire sitcom's length of ads before a movie.
While I admit that the trailers and ads are getting more pervasive, I think I'd notice if there were *28* consecutive 30-second spots, and a dozen 1-minute trailers shown before a movie.
Criminals should not be allowed to hone their talents while doing time.
The penal system should try and make sure their "bad guy" skill-sets are at least a *little* rusty when they inenvitably get out.
A gamecube is $99. People who mod thier consoles into media centres do so either 1) 'cuz it's fun, or 2) it's much cheaper and smaller than getting a typical low-end PC and doesnt look butt-ugly sitting next to the TV.
Ah! So there actually *is* FUD here by way of a Fully Uninformed Dimwit.
I love it when everyone gets to be right...
I'm going to guess that over the five days, you have opened and closed a whole bunch of tabs (probably dozens). It's a known issue in Firefox that when you close tabs, it doesnt release the memory.
See the bugzilla: bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=131456
I've had FF running for a week straight and using upwards of 200MB and only one tab open :). The only remedy is to restart FF. This has been an issue for over two years now. Dont expect it change anytime soon though, if it was a simple fix, I supppose it would have been done by now.
Quoting from http://fedora.redhat.com/download/
Download the Files You Need
To install Fedora Core, download the DVD image or the four ISO images of the installation CD-ROMs, even if you are planning to perform a hard drive installation.
They dont even mention the fact there is a network install option. By reading that statement, it sounds like you need to get all the iso's.
Is it possible to install FCx with some sort of net installer so you dont need to download the full iso set? ie. get a small iso that contains a bare install and download the rest as you go?
If you want to set up a thin desktop with only a limited number of apps (GUI, browser, openoffice, email client, XMMS), it seems a waste to download 2+ GB of iso's full of stuff you will probably never use. And because FC is so bleeding edge, by the time you do need package XYZ, there is likely an updated version in the repository anyways...
Other distros (eg. Debian, Suse) do this and it's very convienent. I like to try out different distros but the idea of downloading a full CD set for something I'll only kick around for fun turns me off.
About how this authentication is going to affect future installations. Will Steam keep track of some unique product id (like a CDKey) and tie it to a specific install?
ie. You install HL2 and the next day some hardware/OS failure requires you to reformat/reinstall. Will you be able to re-authenticate on the same CDKey? What about if you delete an old install and want to re-install on a new PC?
What if you trade in your HL2 at EB for some reason (runs too slow, too buggy, you plain dont like it), will the next person who buys it even be able to authenticate and play it? This could effectively destroy the pre-owned market (at least for this game). Which would be total BS; if I want to sell my game, I should be able to. Is that not my right as a consumer?
Go look at the Steam website faq. They specifically state that CDkeys cannot be transferred between Steam accounts. Without a doubt, Valve (and probably every publisher out there) would love nothing better than to ensure that everyone who plays their game has to always buy a full priced new copy. There is just too much potential for abuse here...
Maybe I'm way off base, and I'd love nothing better than Valve to prove me wrong. I was on the fence about buying HL2, now I'd say my mind is made up...
http://www.ghostintheshell-thegame.com/
The site has a slick but overproduced flash presentation of the game that includes gameplay clips. Essentially it appears to be a 3D platformer with plenty of running, jumping, shooting, and hand-to-hand combat. Throw in some slo-mo Matrix style camera action for good measure too.
As with all games of this type, it may *look* cool (and it does), but the control scheme is everything. Until it's actually released and we can get some hands on reviews, it's impossible to say whether this will be worth buying...
Don't all games have a little section of the box indicating the system requirements? Like:
1 Ghz CPU
Direct X 9 video card
1.2 GB free Hard Drive Space
NO Installed CD emulation software: (eg: Nero/Alcohol/CloneCD)
If they did something like that, then consumers would have no complaints. Sales may tank, but that should tell them something too...
And no fair adding emulation detection code in a patch like Ubisoft tried with Raven Shield. (It was retracted quickly after a good backlash from the users)
Make your software behave in such a way no one is willing to use it and then no one will pirate it!
Seriously, this is not the first time a program detects a hacked serial key and then [insert some behaviour], though this is the worst measure I have ever heard of.
Windows XP for instance doesnt allow you to install SP1 if you are using one of a few leaked keys.
IIRC, CDRWIN (a cd-burning program) would slowly 'degrade' your burns over time if you used an invalid key. Very insiduous, as it would seem to work at first then slowly get worse and worse.
What if you mis-type in your valid serial and the program thinks it now matches a banned key? Whoops!
If you insist on deleting something on the detection of a hacked serial, then trash the programs binary, *not* the users whole home directory. That's just assanine.
But still a lot less than the price of wrecking your back in 5 years. Really, if you are sitting 10-12 hours a *day* in the same chair, then you are spending a tremendous amount of time in front of your computer and you better get the best ergonomics you can.
Really, if you are willing to spend $600, then you are already considering some high end chairs. Find the one that feels the best and dont worry so much about the price (assuming it doesnt cost $10K or something crazy). They are built to last and will serve you well for years to come.
Even though the binaries lagged behind the original box release and are officially 'unsupported', and Bioware deserves a lot of credit for the excellent job they've done with NWN under Linux; it remains the only triple-A RPG title available natively for Linux (AFAIK).
Unfortunately, there was no Linux client forthcoming for KOTOR. Conspiracy theorists speculate that MS paid a premium to have KOTOR first released as an Xbox exclusive and there was no way in hell they'd allow Bioware to work on a linux client (or mac). Fun stuff to chat about, but any posts on the official KOTOR forums asking the developers about a mac or linux port of KOTOR is greeted by a whole lotta silence...
As far NWN2 goes, now that a new studio is working on it, who knows what thier stance on non-MS OS's is going to be. I did find this posting on the Obsidian forums from one of the actual developers:
We are not actively developing an OpenGL (mac/linux) version of NWN2 at the moment. Things may change, and people keeping the issue in the forefront is not a bad thing.
So if you want to see a mac/linux port of NWN2, then head over and make your voice heard.