The problem with Broken Steel raising the level cap to 30 was that it basically trivialized the portion of the game with regards to "it's better to be a specialist then a generalist" aspect. With 10 more levels, it was pretty easy to get to 90+ in all skills.
Fallout 3 Wanderers Edition fixes this with its "level 30 balance" module, you get a lot less points to distribute. FWE also uses skill books to give you perks instead of skill points. The end result is that you actually have to specialize in certain skills.
What really annoys me is the "almost perfect" perk added by BS. Why did I waste my perks doing all that Intense Training, when Broken Steel comes along and all my SPECIALs can go up to 9 at once? It also makes it way to easy to max out your character, just wait until you get the perk and then grab the bobbleheads.
On the iphone, ringtones are aac files with a different extension, so you can just clip them to 30 seconds and rename the file. Drag and drop in itunes, and you've got free ringtones.
As for applications... I paid for one, an ssh client. I don't see it as a great hardship to pay $3 for something like that, it's worth it if I use it on the road for work just once.
There are a lot of nice free apps available too, the only thing I really feel like I'm missing is tethering.
Don't forget that at one point in time, it was considered acceptable to blame AIDS on homosexuals and make fun of them. Sometimes when things seem their darkest, you just need to try to stay HIV-positive.
OK Computer, one of the most successful albums of all time
That's somewhat of an exageration (great album though). IIRC they sold about 4 million copies, didn't Michael Jackson sell 50 million copies of Thriller? Not that sales are in any way an indication of quality... just saying.
Yes, but it's not likely, the big tech employers have given politicians a lot of money. Removing the exemption would not sit well with them, and they have their foot in the door in DC.
People that lace joints should be given a severe beating and their teeth kicked out, for starters.
Yeah, they're assholes. Funny how the dusted joint thing is often used as a scare tactic by anti-pot crusaders, yet it wouldn't happen if the stuff were legal.
Angel Dust, huh? That's up there with Quaaludes in the "fantasy drugs they warned me about in high school but don't really exist" category...Seriously, I've never seen or heard a firsthand account of PCP in my life.
Hmm, I was offered PCP when I was in high school (this was about 7 years ago), I declined because I had plans for the afternoon. A few of my friends did partake, one of them still has the occasional flashback. A couple years later, a friend of mine (who was a talented programmer a few years younger than me, and an avid pot smoker) smoked a joint with some people before class. As they were smoking it, one of them informed him the joint was dusted. They went to school. I was not there, but from what I'm told, my friend walked into class, the teacher said something to him, and he freaked out. He was throwing chairs around and yelling that he was gay, but that was ok because he was also God. Scary shit. The cops came, they took him to the hospital and pumped him full of tranquillizers. He spent the next few weeks sedated in a mental institution. The last time I spoke with him, he was still being heavily medicated and hadn't done any coding since the incident.
I'm not trying to use this story to preach to you that 'drugs are bad, mmkay', I am in favor of legalizing all drugs. It's your body, you choose what you put in it. But PCP is not a "fantasy drug", it's very real.
Sooner or later the record labels would have realised there was money to be made from honest customers in on-line music downloads and done it anyway, and it would have been a lot more convenient for those of us who do just want to back up the material, or burn a CD with our favourite mix to listen to in the car.
Sounds like you should be directing your anger towards copyright infringers, not DVD John. His programs don't "steal" music or movies, they just strip DRM and allow you to do things like make backups (not to mention playing DVDs on Linux, in the case of DeCSS).
as on-line distribution with thin margins becomes the dominant form of music sale, the record labels actually are going to start losing money
Fine, they've had their racket for too long already.
we'll lose a lot of the manufactured popular crap (but obviously a lot of people do like it; that's why it's popular)
Couldn't care less. That sort of music is all about marketing, if they can't come up with a succesful business model for their manufactured crap, that's their problem. We shouldn't have to take drastic measures to support them.
Most of the record industry isn't U2 or Britney Spears or $BIG_NAME_BAND, and without the publicity and promotional engine provided by the record labels, a lot of the smaller guys -- many of whom got that far by being pretty good at making music
First off, small bands don't make much from record sales. Most of them live on gigs. In any case, those people lose out if they sign with the majors. A major label considers an album a failure if it doesn't sell millions of copies. And they want to recoup their expenses. When artists sign a record deal, they are basically taking out a loan. They get an advance, and have to pay it back. It's not exactly like the labels are "providing" for them. Most of the smaller artists are on indie labels nowadays. A small band can be do pretty well for themselves without being involved with the RIAA (which is the entity pushing for tough DRM and high-margin online sales).
I would LOVE to have a label come along and "exploit" us with a five-year, multi-million dollar record contract, even if it meant seeing every (crappy) song I ever wrote locked down by eeeeeevil DRM layers.
So you have no problem with signing away the rights to your work? Good for you. You have every right to sell your rights. That doesn't mean record contracts are a good deal. Personally I want control of my own copyrights. It's not just DRM, I want control over whether my music is used in an advertisement or a film or as a sample in someone elses work.
There's no way schmucks like you are ever going to hear my music unless I "sell my soul" to the record industry, because I don't have hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend on marketing and promotion.
What you get from a label when you sign a record deal is an advance. Most new artists are not succesful (despite big money marketing). Enjoy paying it back.
That's what he is you know, a fucking asshole...The very simple and easy to live with rules that Apple laid out are just too much for some people...All the crying people do about the big bad evil DRM screwing up the world and the "1984" type predictions are going to come true but it'll end up happening because the assholes among us will turn their noses up at every reasonable compromise along the way...it will be in a sense our own fault.
It's wrong to assert that "assholes among us" are the source of the problem. The labels are the ones imposing restrictive DRM. When a person or a entity acts in a reactionary manner, it is their own fault, not the fault of the thing they are reacting to.
If you don't like the rules at iTMS then go buy your music elsewhere and quit screwing with the way the rest of us buy it)
I don't buy at ITMS. I buy CDs, so I can rip to whatever format I want, with no DRM. But I support people like DVD John who are proving that DRM doesn't work. The record labels will have to change their business model to work with human behavior. What you propose is us changing our behavior to work with their business model. I couldn't disagree more.
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Fallout 3 Wanderers Edition fixes this with its "level 30 balance" module, you get a lot less points to distribute. FWE also uses skill books to give you perks instead of skill points. The end result is that you actually have to specialize in certain skills.
What really annoys me is the "almost perfect" perk added by BS. Why did I waste my perks doing all that Intense Training, when Broken Steel comes along and all my SPECIALs can go up to 9 at once? It also makes it way to easy to max out your character, just wait until you get the perk and then grab the bobbleheads.
You must be posting from an alternate universe where karma whoring doesn't exist.
The dev kit has only been around since March.
On the iphone, ringtones are aac files with a different extension, so you can just clip them to 30 seconds and rename the file. Drag and drop in itunes, and you've got free ringtones.
As for applications... I paid for one, an ssh client. I don't see it as a great hardship to pay $3 for something like that, it's worth it if I use it on the road for work just once.
There are a lot of nice free apps available too, the only thing I really feel like I'm missing is tethering.
They broke my bones :(
OK Computer, one of the most successful albums of all time
That's somewhat of an exageration (great album though). IIRC they sold about 4 million copies, didn't Michael Jackson sell 50 million copies of Thriller? Not that sales are in any way an indication of quality... just saying.
they took our jobs!
isn't it time to start getting overtime?
Yes, but it's not likely, the big tech employers have given politicians a lot of money. Removing the exemption would not sit well with them, and they have their foot in the door in DC.
People that lace joints should be given a severe beating and their teeth kicked out, for starters.
Yeah, they're assholes. Funny how the dusted joint thing is often used as a scare tactic by anti-pot crusaders, yet it wouldn't happen if the stuff were legal.
Whoever modded me as a troll, fuck you. That's a true story.
Angel Dust, huh? That's up there with Quaaludes in the "fantasy drugs they warned me about in high school but don't really exist" category ...Seriously, I've never seen or heard a firsthand account of PCP in my life.
Hmm, I was offered PCP when I was in high school (this was about 7 years ago), I declined because I had plans for the afternoon. A few of my friends did partake, one of them still has the occasional flashback.
A couple years later, a friend of mine (who was a talented programmer a few years younger than me, and an avid pot smoker) smoked a joint with some people before class. As they were smoking it, one of them informed him the joint was dusted. They went to school.
I was not there, but from what I'm told, my friend walked into class, the teacher said something to him, and he freaked out. He was throwing chairs around and yelling that he was gay, but that was ok because he was also God. Scary shit.
The cops came, they took him to the hospital and pumped him full of tranquillizers. He spent the next few weeks sedated in a mental institution. The last time I spoke with him, he was still being heavily medicated and hadn't done any coding since the incident.
I'm not trying to use this story to preach to you that 'drugs are bad, mmkay', I am in favor of legalizing all drugs. It's your body, you choose what you put in it. But PCP is not a "fantasy drug", it's very real.
Sooner or later the record labels would have realised there was money to be made from honest customers in on-line music downloads and done it anyway, and it would have been a lot more convenient for those of us who do just want to back up the material, or burn a CD with our favourite mix to listen to in the car.
Sounds like you should be directing your anger towards copyright infringers, not DVD John. His programs don't "steal" music or movies, they just strip DRM and allow you to do things like make backups (not to mention playing DVDs on Linux, in the case of DeCSS).
as on-line distribution with thin margins becomes the dominant form of music sale, the record labels actually are going to start losing money
Fine, they've had their racket for too long already.
we'll lose a lot of the manufactured popular crap (but obviously a lot of people do like it; that's why it's popular)
Couldn't care less. That sort of music is all about marketing, if they can't come up with a succesful business model for their manufactured crap, that's their problem. We shouldn't have to take drastic measures to support them.
Most of the record industry isn't U2 or Britney Spears or $BIG_NAME_BAND, and without the publicity and promotional engine provided by the record labels, a lot of the smaller guys -- many of whom got that far by being pretty good at making music
First off, small bands don't make much from record sales. Most of them live on gigs.
In any case, those people lose out if they sign with the majors. A major label considers an album a failure if it doesn't sell millions of copies. And they want to recoup their expenses. When artists sign a record deal, they are basically taking out a loan. They get an advance, and have to pay it back. It's not exactly like the labels are "providing" for them.
Most of the smaller artists are on indie labels nowadays. A small band can be do pretty well for themselves without being involved with the RIAA (which is the entity pushing for tough DRM and high-margin online sales).
I would LOVE to have a label come along and "exploit" us with a five-year, multi-million dollar record contract, even if it meant seeing every (crappy) song I ever wrote locked down by eeeeeevil DRM layers.
So you have no problem with signing away the rights to your work? Good for you. You have every right to sell your rights. That doesn't mean record contracts are a good deal.
Personally I want control of my own copyrights. It's not just DRM, I want control over whether my music is used in an advertisement or a film or as a sample in someone elses work.
There's no way schmucks like you are ever going to hear my music unless I "sell my soul" to the record industry, because I don't have hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend on marketing and promotion.
What you get from a label when you sign a record deal is an advance. Most new artists are not succesful (despite big money marketing). Enjoy paying it back.
That's what he is you know, a fucking asshole ...The very simple and easy to live with rules that Apple laid out are just too much for some people ...All the crying people do about the big bad evil DRM screwing up the world and the "1984" type predictions are going to come true but it'll end up happening because the assholes among us will turn their noses up at every reasonable compromise along the way ...it will be in a sense our own fault.
It's wrong to assert that "assholes among us" are the source of the problem. The labels are the ones imposing restrictive DRM. When a person or a entity acts in a reactionary manner, it is their own fault, not the fault of the thing they are reacting to.
If you don't like the rules at iTMS then go buy your music elsewhere and quit screwing with the way the rest of us buy it)
I don't buy at ITMS. I buy CDs, so I can rip to whatever format I want, with no DRM. But I support people like DVD John who are proving that DRM doesn't work. The record labels will have to change their business model to work with human behavior. What you propose is us changing our behavior to work with their business model. I couldn't disagree more.