...but did anyone else see it as underhanded that Valve lured the source code thief into a trap by promising them a job?
I'm not trying to say that what the theif did wasn't illegal or that his actions are justified, or even that they deserved a job at Valve, but it just seemed to me like sort of a shady thing to do. I'm sure there have been occasions where "hackers" have been offered jobs as security advisors/consultants for the organizations they exploit. Even though the thief isn't the smartest individual for actually following up on Valve's "offer", he didn't necessarily have any reason to believe otherwise.
Eh, maybe I'm just too trusting and naive. I was just curious to hear anyone else's perspective on this, though.
...to such a proposal. Is the implication that when "terrorists" see a widespread cellphone outage caused by a single location that they now have knowledge of a vulnerable spot in the communication infrastructure?
Personally I think people give "terrorists" too much credit, and the DHS makes them out to be more resourceful than they really are. If terrorism relied on such precise and surgical strikes as the DHS would like us to believe, then we wouldn't need an absurd Terror Alert Level to tell us when we've got something to worry about; if the U.S. had as much to fear as the government tries to proclaim, I'm sure we'd all be feeling the effects firsthand. The attack on the WTC happened nearly 3 years ago, and to this day we have seen how many more massive "terrorist" attacks on US soil? It seems to me that the most damage we've suffered is the extreme paranoia and collective uncertainty fostered by a government that continually proclaims to be keeping us safe with it's "expertise".
This proposal by the DHS just seems like another two-pronged attack to feed a self-inflicted sense of fear and victimization. Make people feel like the DHS can actually do something about those few terrorist groups who can actually get their shit together and carry out something as horrific as the WTC, and at the same time put some more power in government hands. Ya know, just in case...
You make a good point about just having faith and the necessity for immersion that you just might not get from a short demo, but game development over the past few years has shown me that companies are starting to get in the habit of banking on their franchises and past sucesses. There are countless instances to mention, but more recently are Deus Ex:IW , the Fallout franchise (BOS), Unreal 2 and Unreal Tournament 2003 (though UT2004 almost makes up for 2003; luckily I never bought UT2003 so I have no grounds to be bitter on...) Developer loyalty may have been a sound philosohpy back in the days of shareware and small development houses, but as the industry has grown I think we all can see how the financial bottom line is quickly taking over the importance of quality control.
On a more personal level, frankly I thought Quake 3 sucked. Now I've never been one to get completely sucked in by MP-only FPSes, but even for it's time I just wasn't very interested or impressed with the final product. I thought it lacked contect, and really wasn't all that much of an improvement over the multiplayer Quake2. All it seemed to offer was better graphics and a demand for some pretty steep and expensive hardware to run it properly. Unreal Tournament, however, pleasantly suprised me. So I guess it is all relative in the end.
My initial point was just that I don't see it as beneficial to the consumer for companies to keep neglecting demos. I think that releasing a demo shows the developer's confidence in a product, and overall just gets people in general psyched for more.
This is an interesting display in how much we've let our standards go in regards to gaming. While there is all this salivating over the fact that DOOM III is finally fucking done, I've yet to hear any mention about a possible demo release. I was too young to experience it firsthand, but I recall hearing about BBS systems and FTPs being brought to a complete standstill when the original shareware copy of DOOM was released back in 93 or 94 as everyone tried to get their grubby little paws on it. Who cares if the final version has gone gold? As gamers it's only fair that we're able to download a demo before we trust the words of a "exclusive" review. Games like this get hyped for so long, and the pre-order BS get's pushed down your throat everytime you step into a GameStop, that it seems no game is sold on merit anymore. Personally I won't be impressed with anything until I can actually play a little taste of the game without having to pay id a cent.
You actually bring up a good point that I should rectify, and that is that I don't feel that all open source software has horrible graphic production, just a great deal. Maybe I was unclear, or maybe you didn't read my post closely enough, but my intent wasn't to a make negative generalziation about the graphics in open source projects.
With that said, I'll also say that I think open source projects take a lot of work, and I give credit to EVERYONE involved. It's just certain applications (in this case games) take a bit more effort from an interface/aesthetics standpoint, and often times this is a facet in which open source projects are often lacking. But this point has been raised before...
I take this less as a prediction and more as marketing rhetoric to try and push MS products like Windows Media Center edition and jazz like that. We all know Mr. Gates has made stupid claims before, and often times they just aren't based on reality or technologically feasable. Facial recognition? In average people's homes? In ten years? I have a hard time swallowing that one...
No offense to the artists and developers of FreeDOOM, as I'm sure they work very hard, but I saw this a few weeks back and just thought it looks terrible. Personally I think some of the artistic concepts are pretty cool and interesting, but overall they just aren't professionally executed (at least not up to par enough to compete with DOOM and DOOM II, which I've seen on sale for 20 dollars or less at some places.)
This is a pretty consistent problem with "free" software, though. Most of the time the graphics just aren't up to snuff enough to compete with professionally developed games. While the coding seems pretty solid, it's obvious that the art needs some work. It'd be interesting to get some input from artists who use computers as a medium: why is quality art in open-source or free games so lacking? What draw isn't there for good artists to pick up a project and help out? Inspiration? Income concerns? Inquiring minds want to know!
Personally I'm not one to ask for posts to get modded up, but both this post and the parent are just to rich to let sink to the bottom! Both the complete inccoherence of antigrimace's first post (I don't know if he was trying or not, but it's still pretty fucking funnny...), and then the flabbergasted response from Night Goat had me laughing out loud. Sorry for the OT, but I just thought it would be polite to give credit where credit is due...
By the way, antigrimace, with your permission I'd love to archive your post as a potential "sig quote" for future use. Heh.
I'm curious; Microsoft has really given up on IE development over the past few years. The last major release was version 6, and that was well over 3 years ago to the best of my recollection. Could it be that MS no longer sees web browsers as a viable resource for their future strategy? I really have no speculation on what they might have up their sleave, but MS hasn't been one to necessarily drop the ball like this. From a security standpoint, one could say they really screwed the pooch, but as far as releasing a snazzy new version or anything to gloss over the problems under the hood, they've kept their hands off.
I'm sorry, but I really wish people would stop using the argument that alternative operating systems (Linux, OS X, etc.) are better because they are free from vulnerabilities. Yes, they might be more secure from an architecture standpoint, but as soon as a greater number of people start using these systems, the amount of exploits, viruses, etc. will most definitely rise. The alternative systems are not perfect, and thus they have their weaknesses, and it's just plain delusional to think otherwise.
...and as far as your philosophy on proprietary email attachments, if I were to recieve such a self-important response as you describe I would tell you to go fuck yourself. The Mac snob/prick attitude is seriously getting tired. It is not up to the rest of the world to take time out of their days to accomodate your personal quirks. Either deal with inter-OS clevages on a personal level or or stop using a fucking computer.
Personally, I'm pretty impressed with the slashdot crowd in regards to this article. I don't mean this to be a condescending attack on readers of slashdot or anything (which would obviously include myself...a registered user, for fuck's sake...) but moreso that I'm refreshed to see a challenge of intellectual property actually being taken seriously. Before reading any of the comments, I expected to see a whole ton of "...Here we go again, another SCO bidness model rears it's ugly head..." but instead I'm treated to some pretty funny comments regarding the fact that this Orkut fellow not only allegedly copied/stole code, but BUGGY code at that. Too rich...
In an age where too many companies are in fact taking the SCO litigation route to build an income stream, it's just nice to see that not all open source supporters/nerds initially take every single IP challenge as a platform for another string of nasty lawsuits. The only drawback, of course, is the potential for the courts to start adopting a boy who cries wolf mentality when observing IP cases, as we all know this kind of stuff happens all the time to people who've worked hard and end up getting the shaft. It's just a damn shame that as of late, larger organizations have made IP litigation out to be a fucking joke, and now real cases are more likely to get dismissed or brushed aside...
In that case, I'll use my knowledge of your "inside info" as my defense when the MS lawyers come knocking on my door for downloading a copy of Visual Studio.NET 2003 from a warez newsgroup.
...as I've recently downloaded and fell in love with a nifty little free program called SharpDevelop as I've wanted to build some VB applications for a while now but just have no desire to pay so much for a development environment that should be free in the first place. My philosophy is that a development environment encourages use of a particular platform, and while I understand that it costs money to put them together, you're going to get much better developer support in the future if you release your toolsets for free. I mean, look at the various FPS and Neverwinter Nights modding communities. Yes, while mods are not always a commercial product like a software package built in Visual C++ or something, they still build a great deal of support for the initial program and extend it's usefullness for quite some time.
Anyway, I'll quite babling and just say that I think it's about time Microsoft did something like this. I've always been baffled that a Visual Studio suite runs upwards of $1000, and the lesser versions still can cost a few hundred. Right now I'm considering developing a database app to use as a MySQL front end for a small company I'm doing IS work for, and at first SharpDevelop was my only option (though it looks like I might stick with it; it's an incredible program) at least until a VB dev environment is COMPLETELY FREE. The only problem now is I have to decide whether to learn.NET, Visual C++, or C#. Ah, decisions decisions. (Correct me if I'm wrong, but SharpDevelop doesn't support pure unadaulterated VB...)
...yes, I would learn C++ or something otherwise, but time is of the essence right now. If any seasoned Windows developers have any suggestions for a plan of attack I'd love to hear it.
My cell phone crashes and locks up enough as it is (SE T610). Let's iron out the kinks with the cell phones currently on the market before we cram any more useless and half-baked features into the models of the future.
Besides, I think I saw this movie before except it was called the Nokia NGage, and we all know how well that went over...
DISCALMER: This post is in no way sarcastic. Scout's Honor.
That's a pretty cool observation.
If you can somehow integrate this discovery with Freud, the socialization and therefore subconcious adaption of institutions of internet-origin (ie; goatse.cx), and somehow throw an intelligent All Your Base... reference in there somewhere, I think you'd have a pretty impressive dissertation.
In other words, someone should mod this guy or gal up. I think they're on to something...
I think this is a really good point. Take DOOM, for example. Now, that game boasts sales numbering in the millions, which I guess was pretty insane for its time, but for all those millions of people buying DOOM with cash money, my friends nor myself had ever paid a dime. Yet DOOM still remains one of the most popular games ever release for the PC, not to mention several other interesting ports...
Anyway, my point is that even though DOOM raked in enough cash to buy Carmack a shiny new Ferrari, it's "ownership" wasn't based completely on legitimate paying customers. However, the game was HUGE, and it still has a pretty strong loyalist following. Source ports, internet deathmatch clients, you name it. Bottom line is, a greater majority of the 14 year old pirates of today become the 23 year olds of tomorrow with a great deal of disposable income that goes to buying videogames.
The publishers really need to stop having kittens about the fact that people can copy their games. The widespread bootleggers and pirate organizations are the ones they need to go after, not the consumer-base. Strategies like suing a CD-copying software company just displays that the publishers have no faith in the value and merit of their product, and I feel it is essentially an admittance that they are trying to shill the customer with half-assed releases. Why else would anyone get so concerned about a few individuals having the ability to copy a game disc? People spend money on the things they want, and chances are if something is getting stolen or copied it's because that person wasn't interested in buying it anyway. I'm not suggesting that it's justified to take something you weren't going to pay for, but people take things because they can, not because they "don't want to pay for it". Closing off channels people use to take things is only a means of preventing the publisher from being the victim, not a method of increasing sales like the suing companies apparently claim.
You know, you're not the first person I've heard claim that the Genesis version is better than the SNES version. Since you bring the topic up, I'm just curious to know what differences make the Genesis version better?
I'm not flaming or opening things up for a serious debate or anything... I'm authentically interested in what made the two versions of the game so different...
I've seen a lot of comments so far criticizing Microsoft for not letting pirated copies of XP get patched by SP2 and how it will in turn affect legitimate users because all of those pirated machines are now a playground for worms and what have you. I feel this is a completely valid criticism, and I was a bit suprised that MS would not be doing it after I read a lot of the good points made here on slashdot....
...Then my conspiracy theorist gears started turning, and I thought that maybe pirates not getting updates is exactly what MS wants. That way, whenever a nasty worm creeps up in the future, they have an obvious and "evil" group to point the finger at. They can blame the propogation on pirates and not on their own vulnerable systems. The irony is, within months I'm sure most people who've pirated Windows XP will find a work-around for installing SP2 anyway, but MS can still use pirates as ammo for FUD amoung the general XP using public.
I didn't mean to declare that the Atkins doesn't work. In fact, after reading a couple Atkins-based books and going abroad to eastern Europe last summer, my girlfriend lost almost 30 pounds in a span of two and a half months. I mention her going abroad because she was able to get her hands on some "real" and untainted (preservative-free, no added fat, etc) food. Hehehe...
I guess I was a little unclear when I used the term "jazz". The jazz I was referring to wasn't the actual diet, but more so the commodification of it seen so recently here in America. There is a lot more to low carb diets like the Atkins than just buying a wrap from a fucking Subway sandwich shop. My point was that it seems that most Americans don't really care or pay attention to the details or logistics of these types of diets; they expect to just be able to *BUY* Atkins products and watch the pounds melt away. These are the same clowns who will by a triple Big Mac and a extra large fry at a McDonald's and then justify it by washing it all down with a diet Coke.
It was some joke said by 80s comic Yakov Schmirnoff (sp?), however I never remember the exact. Maybe a more enlightened chap (or gal) here on slashdot can help us both out...
I really don't think anyone is eating healthier or dieting... Take a look around, America is still a pretty fat place. The recent jazz about the Atkins diet is just that; jazz. Diets like that have no lasting effects because people do not learn the CONCEPTS before they implement. They hear "Atkins sez: Don't eat bread, eat meat!" so they go eat 2 lbs of ground beef wrapped in cheese and covered with bacon. "It's cool", they say. "...No BREAD!".
I was a vegetarian for about 4 years of my life, and it made me much more selective and concious of what I was eating, and thus I lost a considerable amount of weight and became more aware of my body's needs calorically, etc. Then, about 2 years ago, I went back to eating meat, and ballooned up at least 20 pounds. Why? Because it just became food food food all over again. Burgers, steaks, whatever. Much like you stated with the common American food consumption mentality, you get in a mindset where it becomes so hard to moderate yourself, you really lose a grip on your food intake and just go hog wild. Even an INCREDIBLY active person can not sucessfully maintain a healthy body if they were to participate in the diet of "fat" Americans.
I went back to being a vegetarian about 3 months ago and have also gotten my ass on a treadmill, and I'm starting to shed off those pounds I gained from when I started eating meat again. I'm not advocating that vegetarianism is the means to lose weight here. Rather, I'm just stating that personally, for me, being a vegetarian puts me in a mindset where I'm just so much more concious of what I'm eating that I see HOW BAD most food sold in America really is. And the sad thing is, it seems people aren't necessarily always living to eat rather than eating to live, but they just can't get a decent healthy meal anywhere else.
...how difficult would it be for a company to put all of their time and effort into creating a serious all-out kick ass game for a Linux platform? Now, I understand that developer's today are usually under the publishing thumb of companies who's #1 concern is market-share, so as long as Windows is the dominant platform for the common PC gamer, we aren't going to see EA or Blizzard release a Linux-only game anytime soon.
However, seeing that Medal of Honor has been out for years now, and is most likely reaching the tail end of it's lifespan as a multiplayer game (and even a single player game, for that matter...), my question is this: From a developer standpoint, would it be incredibly difficult for an experienced team to take advantage of Linux as an operating system that can be used for serious hardcore gaming? I'm talking about pulling out all the stops; all the bells and whistles of a high-end PC game, but with the gameplay quality of the most recent highly rated PC games. Forget this 4-year late PC game port nonsense or some guy hacking something out in his living room in his free time*. I'm talking about a game that can do for Linux what Halo did for the XBOX; an exclusive title (or series of titles) that can really turn the tides of the MS dominated PC game platform.
*-Not that there is anything wrong with hacking out a game in your living room. I salute those people, and a lot of them do some great work. However, it just doesn't have the pull to bring in a serious PC gamer...
You know, computers are pretty cranky devices when they aren't already complicated even more by shoddy software, so it's only inevitable that data loss will eventually occur. No manner of human storage is completely and 100% reliable, regardless of whether or not you are paying for a service.
Yeah, it's a damn shame that some user's info was lost. And it's even more a shame that it looks like it was some of them who were paying for it. But anyone who honestly puts complete faith in a human-devised storage system (computer-based or not), has got to get a grip on reality. Microsoft fucked up, some data was lost. It happens, and it can happen to anybody.
If you're gonna pelt Microsoft with criticism, aim for where it belongs. The fact that and manner in which this news was posted to slashdot just comes off as a desperate hit below the belt.
Slashdot Mirror
...but did anyone else see it as underhanded that Valve lured the source code thief into a trap by promising them a job?
I'm not trying to say that what the theif did wasn't illegal or that his actions are justified, or even that they deserved a job at Valve, but it just seemed to me like sort of a shady thing to do. I'm sure there have been occasions where "hackers" have been offered jobs as security advisors/consultants for the organizations they exploit. Even though the thief isn't the smartest individual for actually following up on Valve's "offer", he didn't necessarily have any reason to believe otherwise.
Eh, maybe I'm just too trusting and naive. I was just curious to hear anyone else's perspective on this, though.
...to such a proposal. Is the implication that when "terrorists" see a widespread cellphone outage caused by a single location that they now have knowledge of a vulnerable spot in the communication infrastructure?
Personally I think people give "terrorists" too much credit, and the DHS makes them out to be more resourceful than they really are. If terrorism relied on such precise and surgical strikes as the DHS would like us to believe, then we wouldn't need an absurd Terror Alert Level to tell us when we've got something to worry about; if the U.S. had as much to fear as the government tries to proclaim, I'm sure we'd all be feeling the effects firsthand. The attack on the WTC happened nearly 3 years ago, and to this day we have seen how many more massive "terrorist" attacks on US soil? It seems to me that the most damage we've suffered is the extreme paranoia and collective uncertainty fostered by a government that continually proclaims to be keeping us safe with it's "expertise".
This proposal by the DHS just seems like another two-pronged attack to feed a self-inflicted sense of fear and victimization. Make people feel like the DHS can actually do something about those few terrorist groups who can actually get their shit together and carry out something as horrific as the WTC, and at the same time put some more power in government hands. Ya know, just in case...
You make a good point about just having faith and the necessity for immersion that you just might not get from a short demo, but game development over the past few years has shown me that companies are starting to get in the habit of banking on their franchises and past sucesses. There are countless instances to mention, but more recently are Deus Ex:IW , the Fallout franchise (BOS), Unreal 2 and Unreal Tournament 2003 (though UT2004 almost makes up for 2003; luckily I never bought UT2003 so I have no grounds to be bitter on...) Developer loyalty may have been a sound philosohpy back in the days of shareware and small development houses, but as the industry has grown I think we all can see how the financial bottom line is quickly taking over the importance of quality control.
On a more personal level, frankly I thought Quake 3 sucked. Now I've never been one to get completely sucked in by MP-only FPSes, but even for it's time I just wasn't very interested or impressed with the final product. I thought it lacked contect, and really wasn't all that much of an improvement over the multiplayer Quake2. All it seemed to offer was better graphics and a demand for some pretty steep and expensive hardware to run it properly. Unreal Tournament, however, pleasantly suprised me. So I guess it is all relative in the end.
My initial point was just that I don't see it as beneficial to the consumer for companies to keep neglecting demos. I think that releasing a demo shows the developer's confidence in a product, and overall just gets people in general psyched for more.
This is an interesting display in how much we've let our standards go in regards to gaming. While there is all this salivating over the fact that DOOM III is finally fucking done, I've yet to hear any mention about a possible demo release. I was too young to experience it firsthand, but I recall hearing about BBS systems and FTPs being brought to a complete standstill when the original shareware copy of DOOM was released back in 93 or 94 as everyone tried to get their grubby little paws on it. Who cares if the final version has gone gold? As gamers it's only fair that we're able to download a demo before we trust the words of a "exclusive" review. Games like this get hyped for so long, and the pre-order BS get's pushed down your throat everytime you step into a GameStop, that it seems no game is sold on merit anymore. Personally I won't be impressed with anything until I can actually play a little taste of the game without having to pay id a cent.
Quite possibly flamebait, but I'll bite.
You actually bring up a good point that I should rectify, and that is that I don't feel that all open source software has horrible graphic production, just a great deal. Maybe I was unclear, or maybe you didn't read my post closely enough, but my intent wasn't to a make negative generalziation about the graphics in open source projects.
With that said, I'll also say that I think open source projects take a lot of work, and I give credit to EVERYONE involved. It's just certain applications (in this case games) take a bit more effort from an interface/aesthetics standpoint, and often times this is a facet in which open source projects are often lacking. But this point has been raised before...
See, the classy thing would have been not to bring up the fact that you were right. Now, you just look like a know-it-all prick. Good job!
I take this less as a prediction and more as marketing rhetoric to try and push MS products like Windows Media Center edition and jazz like that. We all know Mr. Gates has made stupid claims before, and often times they just aren't based on reality or technologically feasable. Facial recognition? In average people's homes? In ten years? I have a hard time swallowing that one...
No offense to the artists and developers of FreeDOOM, as I'm sure they work very hard, but I saw this a few weeks back and just thought it looks terrible. Personally I think some of the artistic concepts are pretty cool and interesting, but overall they just aren't professionally executed (at least not up to par enough to compete with DOOM and DOOM II, which I've seen on sale for 20 dollars or less at some places.)
This is a pretty consistent problem with "free" software, though. Most of the time the graphics just aren't up to snuff enough to compete with professionally developed games. While the coding seems pretty solid, it's obvious that the art needs some work. It'd be interesting to get some input from artists who use computers as a medium: why is quality art in open-source or free games so lacking? What draw isn't there for good artists to pick up a project and help out? Inspiration? Income concerns? Inquiring minds want to know!
Personally I'm not one to ask for posts to get modded up, but both this post and the parent are just to rich to let sink to the bottom! Both the complete inccoherence of antigrimace's first post (I don't know if he was trying or not, but it's still pretty fucking funnny...), and then the flabbergasted response from Night Goat had me laughing out loud. Sorry for the OT, but I just thought it would be polite to give credit where credit is due...
By the way, antigrimace, with your permission I'd love to archive your post as a potential "sig quote" for future use. Heh.
I'm curious; Microsoft has really given up on IE development over the past few years. The last major release was version 6, and that was well over 3 years ago to the best of my recollection. Could it be that MS no longer sees web browsers as a viable resource for their future strategy? I really have no speculation on what they might have up their sleave, but MS hasn't been one to necessarily drop the ball like this. From a security standpoint, one could say they really screwed the pooch, but as far as releasing a snazzy new version or anything to gloss over the problems under the hood, they've kept their hands off.
I'm sorry, but I really wish people would stop using the argument that alternative operating systems (Linux, OS X, etc.) are better because they are free from vulnerabilities. Yes, they might be more secure from an architecture standpoint, but as soon as a greater number of people start using these systems, the amount of exploits, viruses, etc. will most definitely rise. The alternative systems are not perfect, and thus they have their weaknesses, and it's just plain delusional to think otherwise.
...and as far as your philosophy on proprietary email attachments, if I were to recieve such a self-important response as you describe I would tell you to go fuck yourself. The Mac snob/prick attitude is seriously getting tired. It is not up to the rest of the world to take time out of their days to accomodate your personal quirks. Either deal with inter-OS clevages on a personal level or or stop using a fucking computer.
Personally, I'm pretty impressed with the slashdot crowd in regards to this article. I don't mean this to be a condescending attack on readers of slashdot or anything (which would obviously include myself...a registered user, for fuck's sake...) but moreso that I'm refreshed to see a challenge of intellectual property actually being taken seriously. Before reading any of the comments, I expected to see a whole ton of "...Here we go again, another SCO bidness model rears it's ugly head..." but instead I'm treated to some pretty funny comments regarding the fact that this Orkut fellow not only allegedly copied/stole code, but BUGGY code at that. Too rich...
In an age where too many companies are in fact taking the SCO litigation route to build an income stream, it's just nice to see that not all open source supporters/nerds initially take every single IP challenge as a platform for another string of nasty lawsuits. The only drawback, of course, is the potential for the courts to start adopting a boy who cries wolf mentality when observing IP cases, as we all know this kind of stuff happens all the time to people who've worked hard and end up getting the shaft. It's just a damn shame that as of late, larger organizations have made IP litigation out to be a fucking joke, and now real cases are more likely to get dismissed or brushed aside...
In that case, I'll use my knowledge of your "inside info" as my defense when the MS lawyers come knocking on my door for downloading a copy of Visual Studio .NET 2003 from a warez newsgroup.
...as I've recently downloaded and fell in love with a nifty little free program called SharpDevelop as I've wanted to build some VB applications for a while now but just have no desire to pay so much for a development environment that should be free in the first place. My philosophy is that a development environment encourages use of a particular platform, and while I understand that it costs money to put them together, you're going to get much better developer support in the future if you release your toolsets for free. I mean, look at the various FPS and Neverwinter Nights modding communities. Yes, while mods are not always a commercial product like a software package built in Visual C++ or something, they still build a great deal of support for the initial program and extend it's usefullness for quite some time.
.NET, Visual C++, or C#. Ah, decisions decisions. (Correct me if I'm wrong, but SharpDevelop doesn't support pure unadaulterated VB...)
...yes, I would learn C++ or something otherwise, but time is of the essence right now. If any seasoned Windows developers have any suggestions for a plan of attack I'd love to hear it.
Anyway, I'll quite babling and just say that I think it's about time Microsoft did something like this. I've always been baffled that a Visual Studio suite runs upwards of $1000, and the lesser versions still can cost a few hundred. Right now I'm considering developing a database app to use as a MySQL front end for a small company I'm doing IS work for, and at first SharpDevelop was my only option (though it looks like I might stick with it; it's an incredible program) at least until a VB dev environment is COMPLETELY FREE. The only problem now is I have to decide whether to learn
My cell phone crashes and locks up enough as it is (SE T610). Let's iron out the kinks with the cell phones currently on the market before we cram any more useless and half-baked features into the models of the future.
Besides, I think I saw this movie before except it was called the Nokia NGage, and we all know how well that went over...
However, judging from my complete butchering of the word disclaimer, you should not enlist me to help you write it...
DISCALMER: This post is in no way sarcastic. Scout's Honor.
That's a pretty cool observation.
If you can somehow integrate this discovery with Freud, the socialization and therefore subconcious adaption of institutions of internet-origin (ie; goatse.cx), and somehow throw an intelligent All Your Base... reference in there somewhere, I think you'd have a pretty impressive dissertation.
In other words, someone should mod this guy or gal up. I think they're on to something...
I think this is a really good point. Take DOOM, for example. Now, that game boasts sales numbering in the millions, which I guess was pretty insane for its time, but for all those millions of people buying DOOM with cash money, my friends nor myself had ever paid a dime. Yet DOOM still remains one of the most popular games ever release for the PC, not to mention several other interesting ports...
Anyway, my point is that even though DOOM raked in enough cash to buy Carmack a shiny new Ferrari, it's "ownership" wasn't based completely on legitimate paying customers. However, the game was HUGE, and it still has a pretty strong loyalist following. Source ports, internet deathmatch clients, you name it. Bottom line is, a greater majority of the 14 year old pirates of today become the 23 year olds of tomorrow with a great deal of disposable income that goes to buying videogames.
The publishers really need to stop having kittens about the fact that people can copy their games. The widespread bootleggers and pirate organizations are the ones they need to go after, not the consumer-base. Strategies like suing a CD-copying software company just displays that the publishers have no faith in the value and merit of their product, and I feel it is essentially an admittance that they are trying to shill the customer with half-assed releases. Why else would anyone get so concerned about a few individuals having the ability to copy a game disc? People spend money on the things they want, and chances are if something is getting stolen or copied it's because that person wasn't interested in buying it anyway. I'm not suggesting that it's justified to take something you weren't going to pay for, but people take things because they can, not because they "don't want to pay for it". Closing off channels people use to take things is only a means of preventing the publisher from being the victim, not a method of increasing sales like the suing companies apparently claim.
You know, you're not the first person I've heard claim that the Genesis version is better than the SNES version. Since you bring the topic up, I'm just curious to know what differences make the Genesis version better?
I'm not flaming or opening things up for a serious debate or anything... I'm authentically interested in what made the two versions of the game so different...
I've seen a lot of comments so far criticizing Microsoft for not letting pirated copies of XP get patched by SP2 and how it will in turn affect legitimate users because all of those pirated machines are now a playground for worms and what have you. I feel this is a completely valid criticism, and I was a bit suprised that MS would not be doing it after I read a lot of the good points made here on slashdot....
...Then my conspiracy theorist gears started turning, and I thought that maybe pirates not getting updates is exactly what MS wants. That way, whenever a nasty worm creeps up in the future, they have an obvious and "evil" group to point the finger at. They can blame the propogation on pirates and not on their own vulnerable systems. The irony is, within months I'm sure most people who've pirated Windows XP will find a work-around for installing SP2 anyway, but MS can still use pirates as ammo for FUD amoung the general XP using public.
I didn't mean to declare that the Atkins doesn't work. In fact, after reading a couple Atkins-based books and going abroad to eastern Europe last summer, my girlfriend lost almost 30 pounds in a span of two and a half months. I mention her going abroad because she was able to get her hands on some "real" and untainted (preservative-free, no added fat, etc) food. Hehehe...
I guess I was a little unclear when I used the term "jazz". The jazz I was referring to wasn't the actual diet, but more so the commodification of it seen so recently here in America. There is a lot more to low carb diets like the Atkins than just buying a wrap from a fucking Subway sandwich shop. My point was that it seems that most Americans don't really care or pay attention to the details or logistics of these types of diets; they expect to just be able to *BUY* Atkins products and watch the pounds melt away. These are the same clowns who will by a triple Big Mac and a extra large fry at a McDonald's and then justify it by washing it all down with a diet Coke.
It was some joke said by 80s comic Yakov Schmirnoff (sp?), however I never remember the exact. Maybe a more enlightened chap (or gal) here on slashdot can help us both out...
Eh? Eh?
I really don't think anyone is eating healthier or dieting... Take a look around, America is still a pretty fat place. The recent jazz about the Atkins diet is just that; jazz. Diets like that have no lasting effects because people do not learn the CONCEPTS before they implement. They hear "Atkins sez: Don't eat bread, eat meat!" so they go eat 2 lbs of ground beef wrapped in cheese and covered with bacon. "It's cool", they say. "...No BREAD!".
I was a vegetarian for about 4 years of my life, and it made me much more selective and concious of what I was eating, and thus I lost a considerable amount of weight and became more aware of my body's needs calorically, etc. Then, about 2 years ago, I went back to eating meat, and ballooned up at least 20 pounds. Why? Because it just became food food food all over again. Burgers, steaks, whatever. Much like you stated with the common American food consumption mentality, you get in a mindset where it becomes so hard to moderate yourself, you really lose a grip on your food intake and just go hog wild. Even an INCREDIBLY active person can not sucessfully maintain a healthy body if they were to participate in the diet of "fat" Americans.
I went back to being a vegetarian about 3 months ago and have also gotten my ass on a treadmill, and I'm starting to shed off those pounds I gained from when I started eating meat again. I'm not advocating that vegetarianism is the means to lose weight here. Rather, I'm just stating that personally, for me, being a vegetarian puts me in a mindset where I'm just so much more concious of what I'm eating that I see HOW BAD most food sold in America really is. And the sad thing is, it seems people aren't necessarily always living to eat rather than eating to live, but they just can't get a decent healthy meal anywhere else.
...how difficult would it be for a company to put all of their time and effort into creating a serious all-out kick ass game for a Linux platform? Now, I understand that developer's today are usually under the publishing thumb of companies who's #1 concern is market-share, so as long as Windows is the dominant platform for the common PC gamer, we aren't going to see EA or Blizzard release a Linux-only game anytime soon.
However, seeing that Medal of Honor has been out for years now, and is most likely reaching the tail end of it's lifespan as a multiplayer game (and even a single player game, for that matter...), my question is this: From a developer standpoint, would it be incredibly difficult for an experienced team to take advantage of Linux as an operating system that can be used for serious hardcore gaming? I'm talking about pulling out all the stops; all the bells and whistles of a high-end PC game, but with the gameplay quality of the most recent highly rated PC games. Forget this 4-year late PC game port nonsense or some guy hacking something out in his living room in his free time*. I'm talking about a game that can do for Linux what Halo did for the XBOX; an exclusive title (or series of titles) that can really turn the tides of the MS dominated PC game platform.
*-Not that there is anything wrong with hacking out a game in your living room. I salute those people, and a lot of them do some great work. However, it just doesn't have the pull to bring in a serious PC gamer...
You know, computers are pretty cranky devices when they aren't already complicated even more by shoddy software, so it's only inevitable that data loss will eventually occur. No manner of human storage is completely and 100% reliable, regardless of whether or not you are paying for a service.
Yeah, it's a damn shame that some user's info was lost. And it's even more a shame that it looks like it was some of them who were paying for it. But anyone who honestly puts complete faith in a human-devised storage system (computer-based or not), has got to get a grip on reality. Microsoft fucked up, some data was lost. It happens, and it can happen to anybody.
If you're gonna pelt Microsoft with criticism, aim for where it belongs. The fact that and manner in which this news was posted to slashdot just comes off as a desperate hit below the belt.