I've actually been buying more music. In fact, looking at my ever-growing CD collection, my music purchases (in physical CD format no less,) have been going up yearly.
Of course, my purchases don't count in any of the statistics companies like to throw around. I don't purchase from any RIAA labels at all (I could stand tall and say it's a political statement - but really, it's a matter of taste, since they churn out little but shit,) and the label I do purchase the majority of my music from (Metropolis Records,) doesn't get much, if any, shelf space in stores, so virtually all of my CD orders are direct from their online shop.
In fact, Front Line Assembly,:wumpscut:, VNV Nation and Assemblage 23 all have new releases coming out in the next month. Like always, I'll wind up giving them a listen to on Napster, and then hopping over to Metro's online store and purchasing the actual CDs.
You might want to inform the Cherokee of that... to think, all this time we were taught the Cherokee alphabet was created by Sequoyah, who was neither American nor a missionary!
Since iTunes radio is just an aggregate of links to other external radio stations and nothing more, I doubt they have to pay so much as a penny of royalties in the first place.
Personally, as long as nothing happens to stations like club977 and biodustrial.com, I'm happy.
For me, with a full-time job and a ton of responsibilities at home (including a halfway decent social life,) it took about 1-2 nights per level when I logged on, only managing an hour or two every night.
Of course, not counting the nights I'd log on and just hang around Shattrath, BSing with my friends and guild and such.
Hillary: The first thing you notice, and the largest thing on her page is her giant section begging for money.
I can't put a finger on it, but every single thing about Hillary rubs me the absolute wrong way lately. I hope she wasn't counting on the female vote, neither myself nor any of my friends can stand her.
If you read the press release, the wording is quite plain and out in the open.
They aren't going to, nor are they planning, on offering any systems with any distro of Linux preinstalled. All they're offering is to get more systems 'certified' with primarily Dell's distros of choice (RHEL and Novell,) and then possibly more distros as well.
Of course, these systems will most likely also be moved off into the 'n' series line - which will probably cause it to be a failure. If they -really- want to impress me, they need to not only throw the Inspiron line in there (there are already 'n' series Dimensions,) but offer the No OS option,/or/ a Linux Distro option (even if they don't install it, and just ship media with it,) right there on the regular purchase page.
If they don't, it's little more than a token gesture to try to make the minority happy.
(But on an unrelated note - it's good to see Michael stepping back up and taking charge of things. Dell plumetted even downhill than it usually is when he wasn't leading things.)
Have you run Vista at all? The functionality is nothing at all like the GUI sudo functionality in KDE, Gnome or OSX - the last time I checked I didn't require sudo to do such things as: change my desktop background, copy of a text file in my home folder... in my home folder, put a file in my home folder in the recycle bin, empty my recycle bin that just has that file, run a known secure program.
About the only thing you CAN do in Windows with UAC enabled without it popping up and giving you 1, or somethings more, confirmation dialogs to make sure you really, really, REALLY want to do that is look at the pretty icons on your desktop and pull up your start menu. If you, as a user, decide to step beyond that, Vista considers your actions pretty insecure and starts incessantly prompting for confirmation. The more I think about that, the more fitting that is for the typical Windows user.
EDS may as well just stand for Extended Dell Support - since IT and 'support' from EDS server-side seems to consist of nothing more than calling the dell Gold support line and having them do everything for you.
Rated M, what does that mean? Does it mean that you have to 18 yrs or older to buy the game? Nope. Does it mean you have to have your parents with you to buy the game? Nope. It means nothing at all. It's voluntarily rated M as a warning to parents who may be buying the game for their preacher's kid, nothing more. There is no legal binding behind it You mean like the movie rating system from the MPAA?
You're right - the ESRB's rating system has no legal binding behind it - as it shouldn't. It's a guide-line for parents because, you know, they foolishly thought that parents might actually give a damn enough to take a part in the upbringing of their children.
But as anyone with half a clue knows, this isn't the American way. It's government's job to step in and tell the parents what their kids can or can't play. The alternative would just take too much effort from good ol' Mom and Dad.
Yup - I woke up in the morning with my bezel still pulsing it's nice blue, letting me know that there was a message from Nintendo/outside - so I hopped over to my message board and there it was.
It's anoying engought that german politicians flat-out lie to the public and the public doesn't take notice even though the could easyly know better. This would be different than the politicians in any other country... how?
Microsoft only holds its place because people are too timid to try something else. Apple's OS is slick. Whereas I find it to be anything but slick. I used to be one of those raving Mac fans, my first Mac was the original, and it kept getting upgraded to various other models throughout the years to my current G3 and G4 iBooks that I have.. and I find OSX to be a sheer abomination.
I hate it, pure and simple. I damn near hate every single aspect of the 'user experience' side of the operating system. My main system now is a MCE2005/Ubuntu system, and to me, both Windows and Gnome are -far- better experiences. It's actually quicker and easier to get things done in both of them than OS X could ever dream of getting it done.
When my mom's desktop went down due to hardware failures awhile back, I sent her my G4 to use until she bought a new system (it was time for her to upgrade anyway,) thinking she might like the Mac, being in one of the demographics Apple targets, and everyone says Macs are -so- wonderful for. The result? After using it exclusively for 3 months, she hated it. "I was considering getting a Mac, but now I know there's no way in hell I'll buy one."
It's all about personal preferences - Macs, just like Windows, Linux, BSD, anything, aren't for everyone - and it's a great thing that the choices are out there.
(Ugh.. need more coffee.)
Agreed - Sanitarium was a wonderful game, one of the last greats of the 'graphic adventure' genre. If adventure games make this so called comeback, I hope it's games more along this line, and not the exercise in tedium that is the Myst/7th Guest-like adventure.
As for Dreamforge? They don't exist anymore:(
A clean install of Vista uses 544meg ram without any applications running - completely ridiculous IMHO. You're right - that is completely ridiculous and also not-at all normal for Vista. Have things you added later running in the background perchance?
On my notebook, with both gaim and ventrilo currently running, I'm sitting at a 313MB memory usage. Pulling up my Vista VM on my desktop (also with 1 gig of ram allocated,) gives quite similar results. This is running Vista Ultimate on both.
Comparatively, my desktop, running MCE2005 uses up about 420MB at boot-time - but sure, I have a little bit more stuff running on it.
In the "Gold" server area at least, this problem didn't exist in the Oklahoma City area for awhile after they moved there - and it showed in their performance and the satisfaction of their customers. Doesn't seem to be the case anymore though - their biggest foes and largest brick walls have become their coworkers down in Austin.
I'm sure the Caananites, Amalekites, and the Midianites would love to argue that statement with you - but, oh, wait, that's right, the very same God ordered the Israelites to genocide against those peoples. Ooops.
Before you note that all that happened in the OT -- get yourself to Malachi 3:6.
" but is it a GREAT game in the LONG term?"
Not particularly. After a week or so, you'll be tired of the fact that every single character o fany race looks pretty much the same - the environments, while pretty, all have an eerie sort of 'sameness' to them.
About this time, you'll also discover that beneath the pretty cartoon graphics, the game itself is pretty hollow and lacking. There's really little to do beyond the same quests you've been doing for dozens of levels, and you don't even get to the semi-nifty instanced dungeons until you've reached a fairly high level, so until then, it's often like pulling teeth performing the most basic of tasks thanks to camping.
No, the game itself has absolutely no long-term staying power, but then, what MMO does? All MMOs are, honestly, pretty piss poor games, what makes or breaks any MMO is the people. I've met some -really- great people on the RP servers that I have a blast playing with, both for the most part? The quality of the WoW player base seems to be slightly below that of EQ -- one of the worst I've found in an MMO yet.
As with any MMO, having good people to play with is what makes the game fun, not the game itself. It's a shame that the majority of the game is geared towards solo play.
Wow. That's pretty sad - in comparison, I just wandered into EB around lunch time, and picked up one of the many dozen copies of the game they had that wasn't a pre-order.
"Avatars are disposable only if the player considers the cumulative time that they have put into developing their character as worthless."
That's actually the effect I've noticed in CoH with it's increasingly steep XP debt. I know a lot of people who wind up with characters every month or so because the sheer amount of XP debt they accrue makes it not worth their while to spend time with the character any longer. I encountered people disposing their characters and starting over in CoH more than I have in any other game.
World of Warcraft. It's possible to max your level out at 60 with very little actual effort at all whatsoever - especially if you avoid grouping and play solo.
Unfortunately, you're also doing the exact same things over and over, and even if you do it only a few hours a night it gets tedious REALLY quickly.
And yet, they still let me renew my pictureless driver's license via the internet with no actual proof that I am who I'm saying I am beyond the PIN number they included on the paper they mailed me.
Slashdot Mirror
I've actually been buying more music. In fact, looking at my ever-growing CD collection, my music purchases (in physical CD format no less,) have been going up yearly. Of course, my purchases don't count in any of the statistics companies like to throw around. I don't purchase from any RIAA labels at all (I could stand tall and say it's a political statement - but really, it's a matter of taste, since they churn out little but shit,) and the label I do purchase the majority of my music from (Metropolis Records,) doesn't get much, if any, shelf space in stores, so virtually all of my CD orders are direct from their online shop. In fact, Front Line Assembly, :wumpscut:, VNV Nation and Assemblage 23 all have new releases coming out in the next month. Like always, I'll wind up giving them a listen to on Napster, and then hopping over to Metro's online store and purchasing the actual CDs.
You might want to inform the Cherokee of that... to think, all this time we were taught the Cherokee alphabet was created by Sequoyah, who was neither American nor a missionary!
Because if you're the average person on the street you don't have the faintest clue who Jack Thompson is?
I run Linux, I also own an Inspiron e1505 and it's one of the best notebooks I've ever had...
So where does that put me?
Since iTunes radio is just an aggregate of links to other external radio stations and nothing more, I doubt they have to pay so much as a penny of royalties in the first place.
Personally, as long as nothing happens to stations like club977 and biodustrial.com, I'm happy.
For me, with a full-time job and a ton of responsibilities at home (including a halfway decent social life,) it took about 1-2 nights per level when I logged on, only managing an hour or two every night. Of course, not counting the nights I'd log on and just hang around Shattrath, BSing with my friends and guild and such.
Hillary: The first thing you notice, and the largest thing on her page is her giant section begging for money.
I can't put a finger on it, but every single thing about Hillary rubs me the absolute wrong way lately. I hope she wasn't counting on the female vote, neither myself nor any of my friends can stand her.
If you read the press release, the wording is quite plain and out in the open. They aren't going to, nor are they planning, on offering any systems with any distro of Linux preinstalled. All they're offering is to get more systems 'certified' with primarily Dell's distros of choice (RHEL and Novell,) and then possibly more distros as well. Of course, these systems will most likely also be moved off into the 'n' series line - which will probably cause it to be a failure. If they -really- want to impress me, they need to not only throw the Inspiron line in there (there are already 'n' series Dimensions,) but offer the No OS option, /or/ a Linux Distro option (even if they don't install it, and just ship media with it,) right there on the regular purchase page.
If they don't, it's little more than a token gesture to try to make the minority happy.
(But on an unrelated note - it's good to see Michael stepping back up and taking charge of things. Dell plumetted even downhill than it usually is when he wasn't leading things.)
Have you run Vista at all? The functionality is nothing at all like the GUI sudo functionality in KDE, Gnome or OSX - the last time I checked I didn't require sudo to do such things as: change my desktop background, copy of a text file in my home folder... in my home folder, put a file in my home folder in the recycle bin, empty my recycle bin that just has that file, run a known secure program. About the only thing you CAN do in Windows with UAC enabled without it popping up and giving you 1, or somethings more, confirmation dialogs to make sure you really, really, REALLY want to do that is look at the pretty icons on your desktop and pull up your start menu. If you, as a user, decide to step beyond that, Vista considers your actions pretty insecure and starts incessantly prompting for confirmation. The more I think about that, the more fitting that is for the typical Windows user.
EDS may as well just stand for Extended Dell Support - since IT and 'support' from EDS server-side seems to consist of nothing more than calling the dell Gold support line and having them do everything for you.
Yup - I woke up in the morning with my bezel still pulsing it's nice blue, letting me know that there was a message from Nintendo/outside - so I hopped over to my message board and there it was.
Agreed - Sanitarium was a wonderful game, one of the last greats of the 'graphic adventure' genre. If adventure games make this so called comeback, I hope it's games more along this line, and not the exercise in tedium that is the Myst/7th Guest-like adventure. As for Dreamforge? They don't exist anymore :(
In the "Gold" server area at least, this problem didn't exist in the Oklahoma City area for awhile after they moved there - and it showed in their performance and the satisfaction of their customers. Doesn't seem to be the case anymore though - their biggest foes and largest brick walls have become their coworkers down in Austin.
I'm sure the Caananites, Amalekites, and the Midianites would love to argue that statement with you - but, oh, wait, that's right, the very same God ordered the Israelites to genocide against those peoples. Ooops. Before you note that all that happened in the OT -- get yourself to Malachi 3:6.
" but is it a GREAT game in the LONG term?" Not particularly. After a week or so, you'll be tired of the fact that every single character o fany race looks pretty much the same - the environments, while pretty, all have an eerie sort of 'sameness' to them. About this time, you'll also discover that beneath the pretty cartoon graphics, the game itself is pretty hollow and lacking. There's really little to do beyond the same quests you've been doing for dozens of levels, and you don't even get to the semi-nifty instanced dungeons until you've reached a fairly high level, so until then, it's often like pulling teeth performing the most basic of tasks thanks to camping. No, the game itself has absolutely no long-term staying power, but then, what MMO does? All MMOs are, honestly, pretty piss poor games, what makes or breaks any MMO is the people. I've met some -really- great people on the RP servers that I have a blast playing with, both for the most part? The quality of the WoW player base seems to be slightly below that of EQ -- one of the worst I've found in an MMO yet. As with any MMO, having good people to play with is what makes the game fun, not the game itself. It's a shame that the majority of the game is geared towards solo play.
Wow. That's pretty sad - in comparison, I just wandered into EB around lunch time, and picked up one of the many dozen copies of the game they had that wasn't a pre-order.
"Avatars are disposable only if the player considers the cumulative time that they have put into developing their character as worthless." That's actually the effect I've noticed in CoH with it's increasingly steep XP debt. I know a lot of people who wind up with characters every month or so because the sheer amount of XP debt they accrue makes it not worth their while to spend time with the character any longer. I encountered people disposing their characters and starting over in CoH more than I have in any other game.
World of Warcraft. It's possible to max your level out at 60 with very little actual effort at all whatsoever - especially if you avoid grouping and play solo. Unfortunately, you're also doing the exact same things over and over, and even if you do it only a few hours a night it gets tedious REALLY quickly.
And yet, they still let me renew my pictureless driver's license via the internet with no actual proof that I am who I'm saying I am beyond the PIN number they included on the paper they mailed me.