Last time I checked, copyright law left the enforcement of copyrights up to the holder. For instance, if you wanted to distribute your work, but didn't want anyone else to, as a copyright holder, you could pursue legal action against the violator of your copyrights. A great example is fanfiction. It is against copyright law to create a derivative work without permission, yet there are plenty of people creating fanfiction. It just so happens that the owners of the original works caught the first syllable of fanfiction and said, "Hey! Somebody likes us!"
When I was talking 4 hours, I meant games like Resident Evil. And even when I played Resident Evil games the first time, it tool me 12 hours. To support your final argument, a game that can easily be beaten in 4 hours is The Bouncer. I bought it used and still wanted my money back. On the other hand, it takes less than a half hour to beat Super Mario Bros.
Furthermore, Starcraft was released years ago and people still love playing it. Those four hours it took to learn how to build everything is just a drop in the bucket. I'm really considering the time spent learning how to play the game, the amount of time until you stop figuring out how to play and start having fun. My main point is that learning how to play the game occupies an insignificant portion of the total playing time.
When I esitmated how much time it takes to learn how to play a game, I'm really only thought about the mechanics. Getting good at the game could take forever.
If 10% of any of the games I played were devoted to learning how to play them, they would be very short games. I would estimate that 10 or 20 mins in any game is ample time to learn how to play it. Given that games usually take longer than 4 hours to beat the first time (some take 50), that's less than 10%.
When it comes to character development, it doesn't always have to occur in a cut scene. For instance, in Max Payne, Max thinks about what's going on while you are walking through a building, or shoot-dodging or just after you've wiped out a bunch of "cleaners."
I was trying to crack the passwords on Rock 'n Roll racing. I was unable to start myself off with loads o' cash, but I did figure out what password locations defined the characters. I was able to then start with Olaf (before I found out there was an easier way). I also uncovered a viable password that gave you an unidentified character. Its face was the shadow of the planet's boss, and when the announcer ever said anything about me (i.e. Olaf light's him up), it just skipped the name. I'm not quite sure what this bug-character's attributes were. The major downfall with this discovery was that all of my friends were buying Playstations because the price had dropped to $200.
My friend found one of those bootleg NES console paddles at a flea market. The whole thing was very shady looking. It contained a bunch of authentic-looking games, and then another bunch of games that were clearly rip-off of legit games. Also, most of the game names were in Engrish.
Narayanan's program parses speech by transforming it into electrical waveforms. "If you plot these waveforms given off by speech -- those wiggly things -- a high energy will give a greater amplitude, which affects the way the waves come out," Narayanan said.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't energy related to frequency and not amplitude.
I can't say that looking at a Coca Cola ad will *make* me drink more Coca Cola. It may suggest it, but it certainly doesn't make me buy a coke. In fact, the only ads that influence me to buy said beverage come from the supermarket. I live in a highly competitive area with three supermarkets withing 1 mile and dozens within driving distance. I only buy the stuff when it is on sale *and* when the price is low enough. Essentially, I'm not really paying the advertisers. Suckers who pay full price, and those who don't practice good shopping pay for it.
Both Yahoo and Hotmail sell premium accounts, so somebody pays for email. I do agree, however, that paying to use email (paying for anything other than your own server, bandwitdh, etc.) is pretty lame. We might be able to rely on consumer rejection because there will probably always be a free (or near free) alternative to paying to send email.
There are advantages to the technique. If it is implemented, spammers may stop sending porn to my yahoo and hotmail accounts, and these type accounts probably make up the bulk of non-corporate email addresses. So a side effect may be a drop in spam across the board (providing the spammers don't adapt).
"Are there still games that break all rules of logic..?"
No. Not only are there no games that break all the rules of logic, there are no games that break any rule of logic. There never were, and I suspect that there may never be an illogical video game.
The premise for this is simple. Games are written for state machines. These machines only compute logical commands. Even the highest level programming language must break itsellf into logical machine code. Grabbing a feather to become Racoon Mario may be far from realistic, but the argument "if Mario grabs a feather then Mario becomes Racoon Mario" falls well within the rules of logic.
While browsing the network at college, I discovered a folder with r/w permissions. So I placed in the folder a little "do not run this.exe" that made some autoexec.bat changes, and poorly so. It included recovery instructions and backed up the file.
A few months later, my friend has trouble starting his computer. Guess who had to fix it...
When I've got 70 MB on the partition that has Windows, and plenty of space elsewhere, I should be able to patch, right? Just install IE on another partition. Turns out IE wants to install only on _that_ partition. As a result, I'm stuck with IE 4.
A 1800 MHz Duron + motherboard combo would have run him $49 at Fry's, utterly blowing the Celeron system out of the water by every conceivable measure of utility.
Don't you mean "inconceivable", maybe with an exclamation or two?
The Palm Beach Post makes these guys out to be ambulance chasers. They pretty much laugh in the lawyers faces.
Also, I would not be totally against stronger enforcement of ESRB guidelines. A lot of these games are just not meant for kids. Maybe a more acceptable sollution is the gaming industry enforcing better policies among retailers.
Slashdot Mirror
I have never bought a music CD shipped with a EULA. Furthermore, on the music CDs I've bought, I haven't encountered copy protection.
Last time I checked, copyright law left the enforcement of copyrights up to the holder. For instance, if you wanted to distribute your work, but didn't want anyone else to, as a copyright holder, you could pursue legal action against the violator of your copyrights. A great example is fanfiction. It is against copyright law to create a derivative work without permission, yet there are plenty of people creating fanfiction. It just so happens that the owners of the original works caught the first syllable of fanfiction and said, "Hey! Somebody likes us!"
When I was talking 4 hours, I meant games like Resident Evil. And even when I played Resident Evil games the first time, it tool me 12 hours. To support your final argument, a game that can easily be beaten in 4 hours is The Bouncer. I bought it used and still wanted my money back. On the other hand, it takes less than a half hour to beat Super Mario Bros.
Furthermore, Starcraft was released years ago and people still love playing it. Those four hours it took to learn how to build everything is just a drop in the bucket. I'm really considering the time spent learning how to play the game, the amount of time until you stop figuring out how to play and start having fun. My main point is that learning how to play the game occupies an insignificant portion of the total playing time.
When I esitmated how much time it takes to learn how to play a game, I'm really only thought about the mechanics. Getting good at the game could take forever.
If 10% of any of the games I played were devoted to learning how to play them, they would be very short games. I would estimate that 10 or 20 mins in any game is ample time to learn how to play it. Given that games usually take longer than 4 hours to beat the first time (some take 50), that's less than 10%.
When it comes to character development, it doesn't always have to occur in a cut scene. For instance, in Max Payne, Max thinks about what's going on while you are walking through a building, or shoot-dodging or just after you've wiped out a bunch of "cleaners."
I was trying to crack the passwords on Rock 'n Roll racing. I was unable to start myself off with loads o' cash, but I did figure out what password locations defined the characters. I was able to then start with Olaf (before I found out there was an easier way). I also uncovered a viable password that gave you an unidentified character. Its face was the shadow of the planet's boss, and when the announcer ever said anything about me (i.e. Olaf light's him up), it just skipped the name. I'm not quite sure what this bug-character's attributes were. The major downfall with this discovery was that all of my friends were buying Playstations because the price had dropped to $200.
My friend found one of those bootleg NES console paddles at a flea market. The whole thing was very shady looking. It contained a bunch of authentic-looking games, and then another bunch of games that were clearly rip-off of legit games. Also, most of the game names were in Engrish.
Narayanan's program parses speech by transforming it into electrical waveforms. "If you plot these waveforms given off by speech -- those wiggly things -- a high energy will give a greater amplitude, which affects the way the waves come out," Narayanan said.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't energy related to frequency and not amplitude.
Lambda=hv/E
I can't say that looking at a Coca Cola ad will *make* me drink more Coca Cola. It may suggest it, but it certainly doesn't make me buy a coke. In fact, the only ads that influence me to buy said beverage come from the supermarket. I live in a highly competitive area with three supermarkets withing 1 mile and dozens within driving distance. I only buy the stuff when it is on sale *and* when the price is low enough. Essentially, I'm not really paying the advertisers. Suckers who pay full price, and those who don't practice good shopping pay for it.
I believe the correct grammar is "all your idea are belong to us."
Has anyone ever been sued into existence?
You can still make money off the dead (ie. undertakers, hit men, identity thieves).
Both Yahoo and Hotmail sell premium accounts, so somebody pays for email. I do agree, however, that paying to use email (paying for anything other than your own server, bandwitdh, etc.) is pretty lame. We might be able to rely on consumer rejection because there will probably always be a free (or near free) alternative to paying to send email.
There are advantages to the technique. If it is implemented, spammers may stop sending porn to my yahoo and hotmail accounts, and these type accounts probably make up the bulk of non-corporate email addresses. So a side effect may be a drop in spam across the board (providing the spammers don't adapt).
That's because your buddy didn't give him "A Link to the Past"
"Are there still games that break all rules of logic ..?"
No. Not only are there no games that break all the rules of logic, there are no games that break any rule of logic. There never were, and I suspect that there may never be an illogical video game.
The premise for this is simple. Games are written for state machines. These machines only compute logical commands. Even the highest level programming language must break itsellf into logical machine code. Grabbing a feather to become Racoon Mario may be far from realistic, but the argument "if Mario grabs a feather then Mario becomes Racoon Mario" falls well within the rules of logic.
Halo portrays those things. Well, they haven't really talked about eating much. But they do spend an awful long time waiting.
You're not a pie-like yellow guy popping pills and colored ghosts aren't chasing you around?
I guess it's time to put down the Quaaludes.
While browsing the network at college, I discovered a folder with r/w permissions. So I placed in the folder a little "do not run this.exe" that made some autoexec.bat changes, and poorly so. It included recovery instructions and backed up the file.
A few months later, my friend has trouble starting his computer. Guess who had to fix it...
When I've got 70 MB on the partition that has Windows, and plenty of space elsewhere, I should be able to patch, right? Just install IE on another partition. Turns out IE wants to install only on _that_ partition. As a result, I'm stuck with IE 4.
76% of all people know that!
A 1800 MHz Duron + motherboard combo would have run him $49 at Fry's, utterly blowing the Celeron system out of the water by every conceivable measure of utility.
Don't you mean "inconceivable", maybe with an exclamation or two?
but our princess is in another castle.
Who is to say Orkut has any friends?
I think we all are forgetting the clickety-klackety keyboards from days of old. Call me nostalgic, but I miss those super loud mechanical keyswitches.
The Palm Beach Post makes these guys out to be ambulance chasers. They pretty much laugh in the lawyers faces.
Also, I would not be totally against stronger enforcement of ESRB guidelines. A lot of these games are just not meant for kids. Maybe a more acceptable sollution is the gaming industry enforcing better policies among retailers.
"It's Ogg. It's Ogg. It's big. It's heavy. It's wood."
Isn't that an old Ren and Stimpy song?
No, wait. That was _log_.