I suppose it would be OK for the US government to give every person in Europe $10,000 because they gave Tesla a loan as well? The fact that Tesla got a loan does not invalidate the fact that Fisker got a loan...
If educational computer games have taught us anything, a top-flight longbowman can look forward to a long career of defending cities from tanks and aircraft.
High prices, just like every other product, are often a reflection of fraud and theft. Pirates steal and justify it by claiming they do so because prices are so high. In reality, prices are often so high because they steal.
This gets brought up in most discussions about piracy but it simply isn't true. Games that are immune to piracy by design (MMOs) are by far the most expensive games available. Games cost what they do because that is how much people are willing to pay for them. If piracy were somehow defeated tomorrow the only thing that would change is profit margins.
1. I'd rather download the music from home - -email me the link. (I would choose this, and tell my coworker that he could get in trouble doing this at work, anywhere from wasting company time, committing criminal acts at work (if it is actually some sort of pirate site, and lets be honest freely available music is mostly (but not entirely) not worth my time) or at worst inviting security problems into the workplace computer.
It seems you have divulged details of our countries classified briefing/debriefing procedures on an internationally viewable website. An unmarked van will be by to pick you up shortly.
In the past battle.net has just done match making and left it up to one of the players to actually be the server when a game started. Hopefully this is a sign that games will be served by the battle.net servers. This would cut down on things like map hacks because no one player would need to know where all of the units are.
Blaming gameplay elements for how addictive MMOs are has never held water for me. There are plenty of single player games that reward repetitive behavior. What makes MMOs different should be obvious; It's the community.
MMOs reward you for congregating with other players. Eventually most players will end up with a network of social contacts that they only know through the game. Quitting the game is then sort of like abandoning these people. If you start getting bored with a single player game you stop playing. If you start getting bored with an MMO you keep coming back for the social aspects. Your friends pressure you to stay. It's not the gameplay that keeps you there, it's the other players.
I don't know whether to laugh or cry at that one. Linux is viruses free BECAUSE of its security model! A program you run from the web will NOT change your root settings! If you get "infected" because you got the "I want to see the dancing bunnies" syndrome, you can still log in as root and fix your infected user account. Yes, an infected user will NOT infect other users!
Try that with Windows.
You do realize that Vista users are not logged in as administrators don't you? Vista enjoys the same user partitioning scheme as Linux. There seem to be alot of comments on Slashdot that compare Linux to whichever old version of Windows is most convienant. Windows has been as stable as Linux since Windows 2000, and its user model has been as secure since Vista.
While I agree that what Intel did was wrong, don't Coke and Pepsi do the same thing? It seems like most establishments sell products from one or the other, but almost never both. I always assumed there was some kind of exclusivity discount in play.
There is a serious problem in economics called "the war puzzle" or "the war problem" that tries to figure out why the hell people ever go to war, because it is never economically rational for either side to do so, regardless of outcome.
I have always felt that the main reason wars happen is that whoever strikes first gets an advantage. When tensions build between two groups over resources both sides assume the other will attack them. Eventually one side decides to make the first strike so that they can win. If a war is inevitable then it makes sense to attack first. You might say that the belief that war is inevitable makes it so.
Or maybe they were just forced into that moniker by Apple's "Mac vs PC" ads. If you really need this to be a conspiracy you should probably start with Apple.
Be that as it may, consider a different situation. Let's say my neighbor was up all night doing bad karaoke and I am not happy about it. I simply use aircrack to penetrate his WEP encrypted wireless, help myself to the music he has on a shared drive and then upload it all using his internet connection. Now the files will pass any sort of screening as they are in fact the files that he purchased.
It could be argued that he should have used WPA, but should you really be liable for thousands of dollars in damages because you wanted to use your Nintendo DS on your wireless network?
A common way to render alpha blended (translucent) objects is to first render everything that is not alpha blended, then turn off the depth buffer and render the alpha blended objects in order of furthest from the camera to closest. This is necessary to keep an object you can see through from occluding objects that are behind it. How does their software account for these objects that were rendered without any depth information?
This is a great opportunity for those of you who have never played a MUD to give one a try. The majority are free to play, and you don't even need to download a client. All you have to do is pick one out and point the telnet client you already have at it and you will be playing in no time.
Free MUD source code is easy to find, so there is not alot of overhead in starting a new MUD. This means that you can often find MUDs that employ concepts your run-of-the-mill MMO won't touch. For example, characters at The Abandoned Realms can die 61 times, then they die a permanent death and cannot be brought back. Players within a range of levels of you can attack and kill you, and then loot everything you were carrying from your corpse. While this seems harsh, it gives the game an element of paranoia you really can't find anywhere else.
Swing by www.abandonedrealms.com and give it a try.
Slashdot Mirror
I suppose it would be OK for the US government to give every person in Europe $10,000 because they gave Tesla a loan as well? The fact that Tesla got a loan does not invalidate the fact that Fisker got a loan...
If educational computer games have taught us anything, a top-flight longbowman can look forward to a long career of defending cities from tanks and aircraft.
Canonical agrees. They announced their intent to develop a moblin remix for Ubuntu back in June.
at an estimated cost of 43e9 dollars
$43,000,000,000 is a lot of dollars...
High prices, just like every other product, are often a reflection of fraud and theft. Pirates steal and justify it by claiming they do so because prices are so high. In reality, prices are often so high because they steal.
This gets brought up in most discussions about piracy but it simply isn't true. Games that are immune to piracy by design (MMOs) are by far the most expensive games available. Games cost what they do because that is how much people are willing to pay for them. If piracy were somehow defeated tomorrow the only thing that would change is profit margins.
Automobiles are statistically even more dangerous, but that doesn't make it rational to call 911 every time someone drives by your house.
1. I'd rather download the music from home - -email me the link. (I would choose this, and tell my coworker that he could get in trouble doing this at work, anywhere from wasting company time, committing criminal acts at work (if it is actually some sort of pirate site, and lets be honest freely available music is mostly (but not entirely) not worth my time) or at worst inviting security problems into the workplace computer.
(5,430): error CS1026: ) expected
Yeah, because christians never contribute to science.
Many sources are reporting that researchers have created the world's smallest laser since the inception of lasers almost a half-century ago.
How necessary is the end of that statement? Were they worried someone might assume a smaller laser had been created before the inception of lasers?
Mr. Caladine,
It seems you have divulged details of our countries classified briefing/debriefing procedures on an internationally viewable website. An unmarked van will be by to pick you up shortly.
See you soon,
The Government
In the past battle.net has just done match making and left it up to one of the players to actually be the server when a game started. Hopefully this is a sign that games will be served by the battle.net servers. This would cut down on things like map hacks because no one player would need to know where all of the units are.
I just go for MPlayer. (which almost never fails, but has an even worse UI. Or rather, it has no UI; it's just a box with the video playing in it.
You should take a look at smplayer. It's a GUI for mplayer that makes it much more user friendly.
Blaming gameplay elements for how addictive MMOs are has never held water for me. There are plenty of single player games that reward repetitive behavior. What makes MMOs different should be obvious; It's the community. MMOs reward you for congregating with other players. Eventually most players will end up with a network of social contacts that they only know through the game. Quitting the game is then sort of like abandoning these people. If you start getting bored with a single player game you stop playing. If you start getting bored with an MMO you keep coming back for the social aspects. Your friends pressure you to stay. It's not the gameplay that keeps you there, it's the other players.
I was a Seaworld in San Diego a few weeks back
Well, you look fantastic all things considered.
I don't know whether to laugh or cry at that one. Linux is viruses free BECAUSE of its security model! A program you run from the web will NOT change your root settings! If you get "infected" because you got the "I want to see the dancing bunnies" syndrome, you can still log in as root and fix your infected user account. Yes, an infected user will NOT infect other users! Try that with Windows.
You do realize that Vista users are not logged in as administrators don't you? Vista enjoys the same user partitioning scheme as Linux. There seem to be alot of comments on Slashdot that compare Linux to whichever old version of Windows is most convienant. Windows has been as stable as Linux since Windows 2000, and its user model has been as secure since Vista.
While I agree that what Intel did was wrong, don't Coke and Pepsi do the same thing? It seems like most establishments sell products from one or the other, but almost never both. I always assumed there was some kind of exclusivity discount in play.
In soviet Russia, Commisar Meme enters the fray.
There is a serious problem in economics called "the war puzzle" or "the war problem" that tries to figure out why the hell people ever go to war, because it is never economically rational for either side to do so, regardless of outcome.
I have always felt that the main reason wars happen is that whoever strikes first gets an advantage. When tensions build between two groups over resources both sides assume the other will attack them. Eventually one side decides to make the first strike so that they can win. If a war is inevitable then it makes sense to attack first. You might say that the belief that war is inevitable makes it so.
Or maybe they were just forced into that moniker by Apple's "Mac vs PC" ads. If you really need this to be a conspiracy you should probably start with Apple.
New?
Be that as it may, consider a different situation. Let's say my neighbor was up all night doing bad karaoke and I am not happy about it. I simply use aircrack to penetrate his WEP encrypted wireless, help myself to the music he has on a shared drive and then upload it all using his internet connection. Now the files will pass any sort of screening as they are in fact the files that he purchased. It could be argued that he should have used WPA, but should you really be liable for thousands of dollars in damages because you wanted to use your Nintendo DS on your wireless network?
A common way to render alpha blended (translucent) objects is to first render everything that is not alpha blended, then turn off the depth buffer and render the alpha blended objects in order of furthest from the camera to closest. This is necessary to keep an object you can see through from occluding objects that are behind it. How does their software account for these objects that were rendered without any depth information?
I don't know if you wanna count this as the first chink in the army
Ah, good ol' unintentional racism.
You can't just tell people something to get their consent to make changes, and then not follow through on your end of the bargain.
You must be new here...
This is a great opportunity for those of you who have never played a MUD to give one a try. The majority are free to play, and you don't even need to download a client. All you have to do is pick one out and point the telnet client you already have at it and you will be playing in no time.
Free MUD source code is easy to find, so there is not alot of overhead in starting a new MUD. This means that you can often find MUDs that employ concepts your run-of-the-mill MMO won't touch. For example, characters at The Abandoned Realms can die 61 times, then they die a permanent death and cannot be brought back. Players within a range of levels of you can attack and kill you, and then loot everything you were carrying from your corpse. While this seems harsh, it gives the game an element of paranoia you really can't find anywhere else.
Swing by www.abandonedrealms.com and give it a try.