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User: CryptoJoe

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  1. I can'd be evil on Why Aren't There More Civilians In Military Video Games? · · Score: 1

    When I play video games, I can't choose the bad guy. I even have trouble being the Russians in Bad Company 2 (no offense to Russians, but they are the bad guys in the campaign, and I grew up in the USA during the late cold war). Even in total fantasyland, Star Wars games, I can't do the dark side, which made The Force Unleashed particularly troubling for me (fortunately, I had a suspicion about how the game would end). So Bach's conclusion is an imperfect generalization, when given the choice, I wouldn't kill civilians in game, and I'd hope that there are more like me than not. I think having killable civilians in game could be a good realism feature in the urban warfare environment. For gameplay, it would have to be hard to confuse a combatant for a civilian, and of course, the penalty for killing a civilian should be steep. I'm looking forward to Battlefield 3.

  2. Re:Used books on On the Economics of the Kindle · · Score: 1

    That is definitely a downside to ebooks. With a paper book, you can lend it, sell it, give it away, or save it for ever. None of this is really feasible (legally) with ebooks. You might be able to save it forever, but as we've seen with music, the DRM can make it difficult to move to other devices, or from one computer to another. You can share books with kindles on the same amazon account, but then again, you'd need more than one kindle in the house!

  3. Gift for my wife on On the Economics of the Kindle · · Score: 1

    The Kindle is something that neither of us would have bought for ourselves, but I know that my wife really wanted an ebook reader, so I gave one to her as a birthday gift. The good thing about gifts is that it doesn't have to make economic sense, the point is to bring joy to the gift recipient. When thinking about it, I thought that I could have bought her 20 - 30 books for what the kindle cost me, but it didn't take me long to realize that that wasn't the point.

  4. Top Secret? on Boeing Successfully Launches Mammoth Delta-4 Heavy · · Score: 1

    I hardly think that the US would spend $140 million to launch a dummy satellite "demosat" into orbit. I haven't seen anything on what they are going to do with this "demosat" after it reaches orbit which leads me to believe that it is going to be doing something that "they" don't want us to know about. The best way to keep something top secret, is to just lie and say it is something else.

  5. Re:adding to the sillyness... on Maryland Declares Anti-Spam Law Unconstitutional · · Score: 1

    What about someone standing in Delaware and shooting a gun that kills somebody across the state line in Maryland?

  6. Lookout on Yahoo! Releases Desktop Search Tool · · Score: 1

    I had to evaluate Lookout (bought my Microsoft) for work. Since I ran Google Destkop Search at home, I wrote a short comparison. http://cryptojoe.blogspot.com/2004/12/google-deskt op-search-vs-lookout.html Wish I would have known about yahoo at the time.

  7. Re:What about productivity on Australian TCO Study: Linux Wins Again · · Score: 1

    My take is that users tend to be a little less productive, but it really depends on the user. Some things that impact productivity would be a higher learning curve for new employees. Most office workers are familer with Windows and other Microsoft Products. There is also those pesky document incompatabilities and websites that use activex.