Re:WTF?! Some of the entries are total bullsh*t.
on
Top Ten Geek Girls
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· Score: 1
Amber MacArthur is friggin obnoxious. She's the first TV "personality" who made me realize the importance of broadcasting school. Everything she says is delivered in uniform robotic fashion. She would use the same inflections giving a eulogy as she would giving a Ruby on Rails lecture. Thanks ever so much for equating her Harry Kissinger monotone with sexiness.
Roberta Williams Paris Hilton
on
Top Ten Geek Girls
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· Score: 4, Interesting
Roberta Williams belongs on this list. Married to the brash and brilliant programmer and founder of Sierra On-Line, Ken Williams, the mousey Roberta wrote fantastical good-natured interactive tales in the form of text adventures. In the company's infancy she also "manned" the only customer support phone, and took great delight in hearing direct praise and personally coaching players through her games without giving direct hints. She later went on to author the Kings Quest series which won countless critical and commercial accolades.
Her games challenged the technologies of the day, with Kings Quest V being the company's first entirely mouse-driven adventure title, and Phantasmagoria being the first adventure game exclusively portraying filmed actors and locations. Despite her mild manner and reserved tongue, Phantasmagoria broke ground as one of the first wide-release PC games unabashedly targeted at mature audiences with scenes of graphic gore and even an infamous rape scene.
Perhaps most important of all, Roberta Williams wrote games for people - not specifically men or women - who enjoyed a good story with strong characters. She is remarkable for excelling in a mostly male-dominated industry without having to resort to the image of "PC game princess".
"During the arrest process, nothing this guy did necessitated the actions the police took. Whatever the situation was before the video, and whatever the student's crime, he would have valid grounds to sue the police for brutality as well."
What if he was behaving in a violent manner? What if he threatened the campus patrol? What if he showed a concealed weapon? There are many circumstances in which the best course of action would be to have this person forcibly removed. I agree that if all he did was go limp and refuse to comply then the best course of action would be to pick him up and carry him out. However, if he made any threat to put anyone - cops included - in danger, then it would be right to subdue him for the greater good. Of all the ways a police officer is trained to subdue a person, the taser is one of the less severe means.
There is no enough data to make an informed opinion on this matter. Hopefully the impartial third party currently investigating the use of the taser will clear everything up.
To grossly simplify my opinion on this, I argue that machines are a form of self-perpetuated evolution. Human beings are adding new senses to their bodies which allow them to perceive otherwise invisible stimuli, and communicate over otherwise unbridgable gaps. Caterpillars must think that butterflies look peculiar - especially butterflies with wings made from sewn-together user manuals.
"Now you have the "knows" and the "know-nots", because if you spend all your youth being prisoners of machines..... you're not going to know anything.... You're gonna fail."
Yuh huh. I'm 26 and I've been playing video games for 20 years. I recently completed a post-graduate program in technical writing (top of my class with high honours) and am employed as a tech writer and sys admin. I also fix PCs on the side.
Video games are the foundation of my full time employment which I enjoy very much. I put up with the drudgery of learning batch files, composing multi-config.sys boot environments, configuring IRQ/DMA/IO ports, memory management, hardware installation, and troubleshooting because the payoff of exciting games was worth the trouble. Games are the gateway to technology because they put a human face on computers.
Does O'Reilly claim that playfighting lion cubs are out of touch with reality? Doesn't play prepare us for real challenges?
My point is that the video reveals nothing but the screaming. He might have been making menacing gestures or something. We can do no more than speculate since the subject is not shown.
I do agree that it's disconcerting to hear the reactions of the other students. I heard someone ask for a badge number but I don't think the cops complied. However, I was in a car accident a few years ago and I asked the cop for his badge number, but he said I should just call the station and they would give me a copy of the official report including the officer's identification plus the name and insurance info of the lady who hit me. Even if there are procedures in place to get this information to the public, I do think that police officers need to be more sensitive to the people at the scene of a crime or incident.
I still say that the cops will get off scot free regardless of whether their use of force was warranted. That's just what I've come to expect from incidents like these. It sucks. Cops should be forced to wear video cameras on their person just as they use cameras in their cruisers. These videos should be uploaded to YouTube every day so that citizens may scrutinize how their tax dollars are being spent. We shouldn't be forced to audit our police with cell phone cameras.
My biggest complaint about the cops' conduct was not the tasering, but the fact that they just yelled and yelled at someone who was already yelling. I think they could have "subdued" the subject just by trying to calm him down instead of forcing him to comply.
Still, the video barely even shows the action so maybe the guy was flailing around as if he was getting violent. He sure sounded that way, but maybe he was just all bark and no bite. Either way, the video does not prove anything one way or the other.
But seriously, if there was a screaming maniac in my lab, student or no, I'd want him removed ASAP. Wouldn't you?
The video starts well after the incident begun. There is nothing clear about the intent of anyone in this video as it only shows the aftermath.
I read the account of a student who was there in the library that day and he said this student is a well known troublemaker and a loudmouth. That 24-hour student library had been the scene of repeated unpleasantness so the school enacted a policy requiring students to show ID after 11pm. Their presence wasn't logged - the ID was shown at the door to ensure that only students were admitted to the all-hours facility. Campus security - fellow students - asked this guy nicely to show his ID but he refused. They warned him that he would not be permitted to stay if he didn't show his ID but he still refused. They asked him to leave but he refused. Security called the campus cops who picked up where this guy's peers gave up. I don't know what happened between the cops arriving and this guy screaming at the top of his lungs, but that's where the video starts.
Is it likely that this student would leave peaceably after all that defiance? Just because he says he was walking out, doesn't mean he really was. I'm all for freedom of anonymity but I've worked as a teacher assistant and lab monitor and I know first hand how important it is to maintain order in public (for registered students) study areas. If there were unpleasant or violent past occurrences with non-students in one of my jurisdictions I'd be pretty quick to enact some kind of students-only policy myself. Anyone who was willing to discuss the matter quietly would be welcome to do so in that area, but if they raised their voice I'd have them ejected immediately.
In the end, a university is private property and whoever attends has the option to comply with the landlord's policies or take their business elsewhere. This kid will sue the university, sue the cops, and lose. From the data I've seen on the topic this kid appears to be a rebel without a cause.
You've contradicted yourself by linking to Wikipedia. What is the benefit to Wikipedia contributors, editors, fact checkers, and proofreaders? These people have donated their time and expertise for the greater good, never expecting any sort of compensation, and the project is flourishing. Furthermore, material copied from Wikipedia and duplicated elsewhere only strengthens the usefulness of the content.
Binary can be duplicated. If something is valuable due to its uniqueness don't put it in binary. Anyone selling something that can be digitally duplicated should plan for their business model's demise from day 1.
I certainly hope Vista won't let apps steal focus while you're fracking typing.
Actually, Vista is pretty smart about security dialogs not stealing focus. If you've used Vista or seen screenshots you'll know that some administrative functions are marked with a windows shield icon. When you click one of those administrative buttons a security prompt appears on the taskbar. When you click the taskbar to open that prompt the entire screen turns grey except that prompt. It stays that way until you make your decision, and if you choose to go through with the task you are prompted for administrator credentials (or if you are on as admin it just accepts your click).
I was really impressed at the way Vista halts powerful administrative tasks until the user okays it, and I love how the security dialogs look so unique and important. No one can say whether third party security apps will conform to this standard, but Microsoft did circulate a UI design best-practises paper to coax developers into keeping the user experience universally uniform.
Well, the title says "Spammer CAN'T Have Accuser's Hard Drive", but the spammer was indeed allowed access. The only reason why the spammer DIDN'T have access to the hard drive was because there was a settlement. Therefore the title remains completely inaccurate.
I often play a demo or a "demo" (wink nudge) before purchasing a game, but it's a little frustrating when many demos these days exceed 1GB or even 1.5GB! That's a lot of time spent downloading to play a 20-minute demo. I don't mind the download times, really, but how about some more substantial demos?
I got antsy and bought Just Cause for PC last week. Oops. If I'd tried a demo (does one exist) I'd know it was an unpolished POS.
I agree with you 100%. There are tons of Windows shops that haven't even installed SP2 because that monolithic collection of patches introduces just too many uncertain factors. Individually-released updates give admins the power to install whichever updates they feel are important and safe enough for their enterprise.
Re:F.E.A.R. is a misnomer
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Fraidy Cat Gamer
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· Score: 0, Troll
The story in Doom 3 was totally stupid, and the gameplay was definitely predictable. However, the levels are very carefully crafted so that creepy ideas sneak in and slowly become the status quo. The first time I played it I thought the game was very ho-hum, but now that I've played it again a year later (on a vastly better machine) I was really impressed by the level design. The increasingly gooey corridors and haunting audio are what immersed me into Doom 3, not the monsters, gameplay, or "surprises".
The EULA wording wasn't very clear to me. I took it to mean that you can install no more than one copy of Vista on a virtual machine on a PC. Does that mean that if you are running Vista you can run the same copy of Vista in a VM on that same physical PC? Are you entitled to one install at one time, or 2 installs on one PC?
"It might actually be easier for the pirates to create a fake cop that constantly authenticates fake versions of Vista than it will be to create a Vista imitation that can pretend to be a legitimate version."
This is exactly what I was thinking when I heard that volume licensed versions of Vista would no longer take the product key's word for it (bye bye FCKGW), but authenticate and activate with a local server. I bet the first pirated versions of "Vista Pro Corp" will include a proxy patch or HOSTS entry that will point the OS to a server run by a warez release group, or maybe 127.0.0.1 with a host-side server.
Either way, it's going to really suck when people need to run a one or more instances of Vista Ultimate in a VM (yes, Ultimate can run in a VM) for testing and staging but quickly run out of licenses on the local activation server.
It really is a weird installer. I got very suspicious when it told me it had successfully removed the old version of Internet Explorer and the IE window was still open!
Also, for those who care, a WGA check is mandatory - twice!
Doy? I said I was going to buy the entire season when it is available retail. I've been following this game for years and I know very well when and where it will be sold. Can't you be bothered to read what you just replied to?
I will absolutely want to revisit these games as I love the dialogue and art design. I don't think an interpreter like SCUMMVM will be necessary because SCUMM was a proprietary game engine, while DirectX is standard.
I used to have trepidations about online distribution schemes like Steam because I feared I would never really own the product. I've since warmed up to Steam but Gametap is where I draw the line. I can't wrap my head around the idea (yet) of playing games only while paying a subscription fee. Sure, lots of people do this in MMOGs like WoW but those aren't my cup of tea either. Even Guild Wars, which is a MMORPG with no monthly fee, will feel like a bargain in terms of bucks per playtime by the time it dries up.
I love Sam and Max enough to buy Season 1 for $35 as soon as it's released retail.
Since Blizzard doesn't engage in any in-game merchandise transactions for real money, I don't think they're the ones the US Government would be trying to tax. Blizzard pays taxes on their income and that amount is reflected in the subscription fees.
So who is the government trying to tax? Offshore gold farmers? One-off eBay sales? Who, of the relatively few Americans who do this, would even claim this as income?
This seems like an issue best left to gaming companies anyway. It's not a developer's best interest to host an economy-based online game since the richest people, in-game and in real life, can defeat the poorer players with gear alone. That's why skill-based games like Guild Wars are so much better. In Guild Wars, farming is all but nonexistant, and whenever player elitism starts to rear its head they host a "triple chance of the best gear dropping" weekend to level the playing field.
The devil's in the details - it's craftily worded. "CD-quality programming" doesn't say anything about audio quality. Programming means what kinds of shows they put on the air, in what order, and by which DJs. It's an apples to oranges comparison. "CD-quality programming" is like saying "bowl-quality soup".
600KB/s x 60 seconds = 36MB/minute
36MB/m x 60 minutes = 2.16GB/hour
The game appeared to be about half done after just over an hour, and when I checked back after 3 hours it was completely downloaded. I live in Toronto, Canada, and my ISP is Rogers. We get 600KB down and 80KB up.
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Amber MacArthur is friggin obnoxious. She's the first TV "personality" who made me realize the importance of broadcasting school. Everything she says is delivered in uniform robotic fashion. She would use the same inflections giving a eulogy as she would giving a Ruby on Rails lecture. Thanks ever so much for equating her Harry Kissinger monotone with sexiness.
Roberta Williams belongs on this list. Married to the brash and brilliant programmer and founder of Sierra On-Line, Ken Williams, the mousey Roberta wrote fantastical good-natured interactive tales in the form of text adventures. In the company's infancy she also "manned" the only customer support phone, and took great delight in hearing direct praise and personally coaching players through her games without giving direct hints. She later went on to author the Kings Quest series which won countless critical and commercial accolades.
Her games challenged the technologies of the day, with Kings Quest V being the company's first entirely mouse-driven adventure title, and Phantasmagoria being the first adventure game exclusively portraying filmed actors and locations. Despite her mild manner and reserved tongue, Phantasmagoria broke ground as one of the first wide-release PC games unabashedly targeted at mature audiences with scenes of graphic gore and even an infamous rape scene.
Perhaps most important of all, Roberta Williams wrote games for people - not specifically men or women - who enjoyed a good story with strong characters. She is remarkable for excelling in a mostly male-dominated industry without having to resort to the image of "PC game princess".
"During the arrest process, nothing this guy did necessitated the actions the police took. Whatever the situation was before the video, and whatever the student's crime, he would have valid grounds to sue the police for brutality as well."
What if he was behaving in a violent manner? What if he threatened the campus patrol? What if he showed a concealed weapon? There are many circumstances in which the best course of action would be to have this person forcibly removed. I agree that if all he did was go limp and refuse to comply then the best course of action would be to pick him up and carry him out. However, if he made any threat to put anyone - cops included - in danger, then it would be right to subdue him for the greater good. Of all the ways a police officer is trained to subdue a person, the taser is one of the less severe means.
There is no enough data to make an informed opinion on this matter. Hopefully the impartial third party currently investigating the use of the taser will clear everything up.
To grossly simplify my opinion on this, I argue that machines are a form of self-perpetuated evolution. Human beings are adding new senses to their bodies which allow them to perceive otherwise invisible stimuli, and communicate over otherwise unbridgable gaps. Caterpillars must think that butterflies look peculiar - especially butterflies with wings made from sewn-together user manuals.
"Now you have the "knows" and the "know-nots", because if you spend all your youth being prisoners of machines..... you're not going to know anything.... You're gonna fail."
Yuh huh. I'm 26 and I've been playing video games for 20 years. I recently completed a post-graduate program in technical writing (top of my class with high honours) and am employed as a tech writer and sys admin. I also fix PCs on the side.
Video games are the foundation of my full time employment which I enjoy very much. I put up with the drudgery of learning batch files, composing multi-config.sys boot environments, configuring IRQ/DMA/IO ports, memory management, hardware installation, and troubleshooting because the payoff of exciting games was worth the trouble. Games are the gateway to technology because they put a human face on computers.
Does O'Reilly claim that playfighting lion cubs are out of touch with reality? Doesn't play prepare us for real challenges?
My point is that the video reveals nothing but the screaming. He might have been making menacing gestures or something. We can do no more than speculate since the subject is not shown.
I do agree that it's disconcerting to hear the reactions of the other students. I heard someone ask for a badge number but I don't think the cops complied. However, I was in a car accident a few years ago and I asked the cop for his badge number, but he said I should just call the station and they would give me a copy of the official report including the officer's identification plus the name and insurance info of the lady who hit me. Even if there are procedures in place to get this information to the public, I do think that police officers need to be more sensitive to the people at the scene of a crime or incident.
I still say that the cops will get off scot free regardless of whether their use of force was warranted. That's just what I've come to expect from incidents like these. It sucks. Cops should be forced to wear video cameras on their person just as they use cameras in their cruisers. These videos should be uploaded to YouTube every day so that citizens may scrutinize how their tax dollars are being spent. We shouldn't be forced to audit our police with cell phone cameras.
My biggest complaint about the cops' conduct was not the tasering, but the fact that they just yelled and yelled at someone who was already yelling. I think they could have "subdued" the subject just by trying to calm him down instead of forcing him to comply.
Still, the video barely even shows the action so maybe the guy was flailing around as if he was getting violent. He sure sounded that way, but maybe he was just all bark and no bite. Either way, the video does not prove anything one way or the other.
But seriously, if there was a screaming maniac in my lab, student or no, I'd want him removed ASAP. Wouldn't you?
The video starts well after the incident begun. There is nothing clear about the intent of anyone in this video as it only shows the aftermath.
I read the account of a student who was there in the library that day and he said this student is a well known troublemaker and a loudmouth. That 24-hour student library had been the scene of repeated unpleasantness so the school enacted a policy requiring students to show ID after 11pm. Their presence wasn't logged - the ID was shown at the door to ensure that only students were admitted to the all-hours facility. Campus security - fellow students - asked this guy nicely to show his ID but he refused. They warned him that he would not be permitted to stay if he didn't show his ID but he still refused. They asked him to leave but he refused. Security called the campus cops who picked up where this guy's peers gave up. I don't know what happened between the cops arriving and this guy screaming at the top of his lungs, but that's where the video starts.
Is it likely that this student would leave peaceably after all that defiance? Just because he says he was walking out, doesn't mean he really was. I'm all for freedom of anonymity but I've worked as a teacher assistant and lab monitor and I know first hand how important it is to maintain order in public (for registered students) study areas. If there were unpleasant or violent past occurrences with non-students in one of my jurisdictions I'd be pretty quick to enact some kind of students-only policy myself. Anyone who was willing to discuss the matter quietly would be welcome to do so in that area, but if they raised their voice I'd have them ejected immediately.
In the end, a university is private property and whoever attends has the option to comply with the landlord's policies or take their business elsewhere. This kid will sue the university, sue the cops, and lose. From the data I've seen on the topic this kid appears to be a rebel without a cause.
You've contradicted yourself by linking to Wikipedia. What is the benefit to Wikipedia contributors, editors, fact checkers, and proofreaders? These people have donated their time and expertise for the greater good, never expecting any sort of compensation, and the project is flourishing. Furthermore, material copied from Wikipedia and duplicated elsewhere only strengthens the usefulness of the content.
Binary can be duplicated. If something is valuable due to its uniqueness don't put it in binary. Anyone selling something that can be digitally duplicated should plan for their business model's demise from day 1.
I certainly hope Vista won't let apps steal focus while you're fracking typing.
Actually, Vista is pretty smart about security dialogs not stealing focus. If you've used Vista or seen screenshots you'll know that some administrative functions are marked with a windows shield icon. When you click one of those administrative buttons a security prompt appears on the taskbar. When you click the taskbar to open that prompt the entire screen turns grey except that prompt. It stays that way until you make your decision, and if you choose to go through with the task you are prompted for administrator credentials (or if you are on as admin it just accepts your click).
I was really impressed at the way Vista halts powerful administrative tasks until the user okays it, and I love how the security dialogs look so unique and important. No one can say whether third party security apps will conform to this standard, but Microsoft did circulate a UI design best-practises paper to coax developers into keeping the user experience universally uniform.
Maybe from the fact the case was settled?
Well, the title says "Spammer CAN'T Have Accuser's Hard Drive", but the spammer was indeed allowed access. The only reason why the spammer DIDN'T have access to the hard drive was because there was a settlement. Therefore the title remains completely inaccurate.
I often play a demo or a "demo" (wink nudge) before purchasing a game, but it's a little frustrating when many demos these days exceed 1GB or even 1.5GB! That's a lot of time spent downloading to play a 20-minute demo. I don't mind the download times, really, but how about some more substantial demos?
I got antsy and bought Just Cause for PC last week. Oops. If I'd tried a demo (does one exist) I'd know it was an unpolished POS.
I agree with you 100%. There are tons of Windows shops that haven't even installed SP2 because that monolithic collection of patches introduces just too many uncertain factors. Individually-released updates give admins the power to install whichever updates they feel are important and safe enough for their enterprise.
The story in Doom 3 was totally stupid, and the gameplay was definitely predictable. However, the levels are very carefully crafted so that creepy ideas sneak in and slowly become the status quo. The first time I played it I thought the game was very ho-hum, but now that I've played it again a year later (on a vastly better machine) I was really impressed by the level design. The increasingly gooey corridors and haunting audio are what immersed me into Doom 3, not the monsters, gameplay, or "surprises".
By all means go ahead and play F.E.A.R. then. It's absolutely formulaic.
What's the loud noise?!?! Oh, it's just a rat.
What's that scary shadow?!?! Oh, it's just a coat rack.
Who's that scary girl?!?!? Oh, it's just the girl from The Ring.
Powerup on my left? Scary noise to the right.
As simplistic as the gameplay is, don't play Doom 3! The spooky elements of the level and sound design really get under your skin!
The EULA wording wasn't very clear to me. I took it to mean that you can install no more than one copy of Vista on a virtual machine on a PC. Does that mean that if you are running Vista you can run the same copy of Vista in a VM on that same physical PC? Are you entitled to one install at one time, or 2 installs on one PC?
Crazier still... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCKGW
"It might actually be easier for the pirates to create a fake cop that constantly authenticates fake versions of Vista than it will be to create a Vista imitation that can pretend to be a legitimate version."
This is exactly what I was thinking when I heard that volume licensed versions of Vista would no longer take the product key's word for it (bye bye FCKGW), but authenticate and activate with a local server. I bet the first pirated versions of "Vista Pro Corp" will include a proxy patch or HOSTS entry that will point the OS to a server run by a warez release group, or maybe 127.0.0.1 with a host-side server.
Either way, it's going to really suck when people need to run a one or more instances of Vista Ultimate in a VM (yes, Ultimate can run in a VM) for testing and staging but quickly run out of licenses on the local activation server.
It really is a weird installer. I got very suspicious when it told me it had successfully removed the old version of Internet Explorer and the IE window was still open!
Also, for those who care, a WGA check is mandatory - twice!
Doy? I said I was going to buy the entire season when it is available retail. I've been following this game for years and I know very well when and where it will be sold. Can't you be bothered to read what you just replied to?
I will absolutely want to revisit these games as I love the dialogue and art design. I don't think an interpreter like SCUMMVM will be necessary because SCUMM was a proprietary game engine, while DirectX is standard.
I used to have trepidations about online distribution schemes like Steam because I feared I would never really own the product. I've since warmed up to Steam but Gametap is where I draw the line. I can't wrap my head around the idea (yet) of playing games only while paying a subscription fee. Sure, lots of people do this in MMOGs like WoW but those aren't my cup of tea either. Even Guild Wars, which is a MMORPG with no monthly fee, will feel like a bargain in terms of bucks per playtime by the time it dries up.
I love Sam and Max enough to buy Season 1 for $35 as soon as it's released retail.
Since Blizzard doesn't engage in any in-game merchandise transactions for real money, I don't think they're the ones the US Government would be trying to tax. Blizzard pays taxes on their income and that amount is reflected in the subscription fees.
So who is the government trying to tax? Offshore gold farmers? One-off eBay sales? Who, of the relatively few Americans who do this, would even claim this as income?
This seems like an issue best left to gaming companies anyway. It's not a developer's best interest to host an economy-based online game since the richest people, in-game and in real life, can defeat the poorer players with gear alone. That's why skill-based games like Guild Wars are so much better. In Guild Wars, farming is all but nonexistant, and whenever player elitism starts to rear its head they host a "triple chance of the best gear dropping" weekend to level the playing field.
The devil's in the details - it's craftily worded. "CD-quality programming" doesn't say anything about audio quality. Programming means what kinds of shows they put on the air, in what order, and by which DJs. It's an apples to oranges comparison. "CD-quality programming" is like saying "bowl-quality soup".
I get 600KB/s (that's kilobyte) downstream.
600KB/s x 60 seconds = 36MB/minute
36MB/m x 60 minutes = 2.16GB/hour
The game appeared to be about half done after just over an hour, and when I checked back after 3 hours it was completely downloaded. I live in Toronto, Canada, and my ISP is Rogers. We get 600KB down and 80KB up.