The industry did what it was supposed to. It rated the games. Stores are bigger culprits in this, as most that I know of don't think twice about selling whatever they want. The biggest culprit? Irresponsible parents who let a video game console or computer parent their child instead of doing it themselves.
For instance, tonight at my job, there was a mother in with her two children, a boy and a girl. The boy couldn't have been much more than 10 years old. What does she rent for him? Darkwatch for the PS2. What rating does Darkwatch have? M for Mature, 17+. I warned the parent about the rating on the game as is my responsibility. She didn't care. Irresponsible parent, didn't even bother to read the box cover.
Thank goodness we have all of the GTA titles labled 18+ and absolutely refuse to rent them to anyone under 18, and we won't rent them to parents who are standing there with their underaged brats in tow either. We'd rather not get the $5.29 for the game rental, and we sure as hell don't care how mad those parents get.
It all boils down to personal responsibility. The game companies have a general responsibility to properly rate and label their games. The stores have a responsibility to enforce their policies when it comes to game rentals to minors. Parents have the personal responsibility to be a good parent, read the damned box and make a good decision.
It's interesting to note that the IPs of the 100% completions/seeders in that screencap belong to the following anti-P2P companies (Note: These IP ranges are already in the Bluetack blocklists, and have been forever):
Performance Systems International -Well-known RIAA/MPAA/BSA toady 38.113.239.234 38.113.239.237 38.113.239.238
Hurricane Electric/Peak Web Hosting -Less well-known, but still a known toady 64.62.179.86 64.62.179.122 64.62.179.134
Nothing that couldn't have been prevented utilizing already established blocklists.
I develop photographs for a living. I can tell you right now that matte finish paper is much better than this glossy crap that everyone seems to like nowadays. Glossy paper is not only more acidic, but it can "smudge" if handled too soon out of the developmental process. There is also the fact that glossy paper retains skin oils more than even regular writing paper...
In essence you get tons of fingerprints all over your pictures, and the oils from those prints eat into the paper over a short period of time. This is not a problem with matte paper, as it contains a higher silver content, and has a more textured surface that doesn't retain skin oils to the degree of glossy paper. Matte paper photos also don't fade as fast as glossies when exposed to direct sunlight.
Matte photographs also produce better results when scanned, and require alot less color, hue, brightness and contrast manipulation in Photoshop when creating copies from a print. I've noticed that with glossies, you get colors that are overly bright, and the reflective shiny surface of the paper (the same shiny surface that makes the photos hard to see at certain angles in bright light) can throw off digital scanners a bit and make the colors off-balanced. For instance: If you scan a black & white glossy and a black and white matte photo of the same subject matter, the results from the glossy make the black appear as a greenish color while the results from the matte photo are identical to the original.
The supply cost for the each paper is the same (At least up until you get into the 11x14 - 12x18 range, then matte cost slightly more since it isn't as common as glossy), so I encourage people to use matte.
BTW - Almost all of the professional photographers in my area (Jamestown/Erie/Buffalo/Niagra) choose matte photographs for their personal collections. They get glossy prints only for customers who want them.
Everyone knows they have a new business model now. It's called: Sue children, single mothers, grandparents and yes, even dead people in some cases.
So, at least in theory, their business model has evolved somewhat.
AVG is a piece of junk. It only scored in the 70th percentile range in independent testing over at virus.gr. Anything below an 85th percentile is considered a failure. So in this case, free as in beer is equal to free as in letting viruses run rampant through your system.
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The industry did what it was supposed to. It rated the games. Stores are bigger culprits in this, as most that I know of don't think twice about selling whatever they want. The biggest culprit? Irresponsible parents who let a video game console or computer parent their child instead of doing it themselves.
For instance, tonight at my job, there was a mother in with her two children, a boy and a girl. The boy couldn't have been much more than 10 years old. What does she rent for him? Darkwatch for the PS2. What rating does Darkwatch have? M for Mature, 17+. I warned the parent about the rating on the game as is my responsibility. She didn't care. Irresponsible parent, didn't even bother to read the box cover.
Thank goodness we have all of the GTA titles labled 18+ and absolutely refuse to rent them to anyone under 18, and we won't rent them to parents who are standing there with their underaged brats in tow either. We'd rather not get the $5.29 for the game rental, and we sure as hell don't care how mad those parents get.
It all boils down to personal responsibility. The game companies have a general responsibility to properly rate and label their games. The stores have a responsibility to enforce their policies when it comes to game rentals to minors. Parents have the personal responsibility to be a good parent, read the damned box and make a good decision.
It's interesting to note that the IPs of the 100% completions/seeders in that screencap belong to the following anti-P2P companies (Note: These IP ranges are already in the Bluetack blocklists, and have been forever):
Performance Systems International -Well-known RIAA/MPAA/BSA toady
38.113.239.234
38.113.239.237
38.113.239.238
Hurricane Electric/Peak Web Hosting -Less well-known, but still a known toady
64.62.179.86
64.62.179.122
64.62.179.134
Nothing that couldn't have been prevented utilizing already established blocklists.
I develop photographs for a living. I can tell you right now that matte finish paper is much better than this glossy crap that everyone seems to like nowadays. Glossy paper is not only more acidic, but it can "smudge" if handled too soon out of the developmental process. There is also the fact that glossy paper retains skin oils more than even regular writing paper... In essence you get tons of fingerprints all over your pictures, and the oils from those prints eat into the paper over a short period of time. This is not a problem with matte paper, as it contains a higher silver content, and has a more textured surface that doesn't retain skin oils to the degree of glossy paper. Matte paper photos also don't fade as fast as glossies when exposed to direct sunlight. Matte photographs also produce better results when scanned, and require alot less color, hue, brightness and contrast manipulation in Photoshop when creating copies from a print. I've noticed that with glossies, you get colors that are overly bright, and the reflective shiny surface of the paper (the same shiny surface that makes the photos hard to see at certain angles in bright light) can throw off digital scanners a bit and make the colors off-balanced. For instance: If you scan a black & white glossy and a black and white matte photo of the same subject matter, the results from the glossy make the black appear as a greenish color while the results from the matte photo are identical to the original. The supply cost for the each paper is the same (At least up until you get into the 11x14 - 12x18 range, then matte cost slightly more since it isn't as common as glossy), so I encourage people to use matte. BTW - Almost all of the professional photographers in my area (Jamestown/Erie/Buffalo/Niagra) choose matte photographs for their personal collections. They get glossy prints only for customers who want them.
Everyone knows they have a new business model now. It's called: Sue children, single mothers, grandparents and yes, even dead people in some cases. So, at least in theory, their business model has evolved somewhat.
AVG is a piece of junk. It only scored in the 70th percentile range in independent testing over at virus.gr. Anything below an 85th percentile is considered a failure. So in this case, free as in beer is equal to free as in letting viruses run rampant through your system.