"those places where they speak Spanish" are well integrated into the rest of the nation, which speaks Americanized English. Also, most Spanish-speaking Americans have little to no trouble with English, which is still spoken by the vast majority of the nation. Language alone does not a barrier make, and so far the U.S. seems to be adjusting just fine to having Spanish as a second language.
While I am still not convinced that the U.N. has either the ability or even the "right" to govern the Internet, I will give credit where it's due:
Yours is the most level-headed, reasoned argument for giving them control that I've heard yet, without the ranting bias (toward either side) we see so much of on Slashdot. Well done.
"No! Please don't take away my right to own nothing!"
What the hell are you talking about?! Yeah, I get most of your post, but that part... Just, damn.
It could be done in seconds, if there were contingency plans in place.
I'm almost willing to put money on the odds that there's already a contingency plan in place, only the general public doesn't know about it. If by some fluke all 13 of the root DNS servers went down, somehow I don't think the Internet, nor the millions of netizens, would even blink. I mean c'mon, the U.S. gov't is notorious for its paranoid planning for what-if scenarios; do you really think this particular "emergency" scenario doesn't have a contingency?
while the Windows-only games are certainly dominant, they are just as certainly growing fewer.
Unfortunately, the majority of PC games still require Windows, and most likely will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
The single biggest hurdle to games running on Windows and Linux is the entrenchment of DirectX as the foundation for PC-based gaming code (ie. video, sound, input, networking). Love it or hate it, DirectX is getting better with each generation. This is great for developers who want a unified platform upon which to quickly and effectively write code that will run on 90+% of PCs. However, it's bad for any other operating system, or for smaller devs who would really like to code for multiple OS's but simply don't have the resources to retool their game engines to do so. If they go exclusively for Linux, they leave out a huge potential market. Anyone who's ever coded for both OpenGL and Direct3D is well aware that porting a game from one platform to another is no small undertaking; many subroutines need to be entirely rewritten. This lock-in will ensure that, unfortunately, Windows is the default OS of choice for anyone who wants access to the widest selection of PC games for the indefinite future, and probably well into Vista's lifecycle as well.
I'm currently writing a 3D action game myself -- screenshots here http://www.darkicon.com/werewolf/projectx/screenca ps (and yeah, shameless plug) -- which I would love to be playable on Linux, but since this is a spare-time project it's just not feasable for me to write two engines. Companies like id and Blizzard can do it because of their huge resources, but the rest of us small-time devs are basically S.O.L. in any cross-platform venture.
For cryin' out loud, it's about damn time somebody had the sense to put this "cold-temps-don't-cause-colds-only-viruses-do" urban myth to rest. Just wish I'd had the initiative to do it first.:/
Those links are insanely useful. Already have one torrent rolling in at >150KB/sec. Hell, post 'em on/.'s front page for that matter! I know/. isn't entirely Linux-centric, but a huge chunk of users will appreciate seeing these all in one convenient place. At least give parent an Underrated or Interesting... throw the guy a frickin' bone, and do the rest of us a favor as well.
Well, ok... You have some really good points there, cynacism not withstanding.:) The only reason I suspect that we'll get an "Anti-Bush" (as in "opposite") next election is quite simply that not only are leftists really hating the guy (shocker), but also a good chunk of his former supporters are sorely disillusioned at his performance in his 2nd term. And I don't blame them. Hell, I admit there was even a part of me that was kinda hoping he'd win the last election, if only to keep Waffle-Iron Kerry from taking the helm, even though I chose to abstain. The resentment against Bush, for a wide variety of reasons, is growing steadily; I can't imagine that the majority of voters in the next election will place another president in office who will simply pick up where Bush left off (then again, I could be wrong).
I still think GWB was the lesser of two evils, but now only barely; the margin as I see it is much narrow than it was a few years ago. Come to think of it, if all other positions had been voted the same, if Kerry had won, he'd have been limited by an otherwise-conservative majority. Whether one believes this would be good or bad is clearly a matter of opinion, but at least things would've been more balanced than they are now.
We may get someone more to your liking, but then again there could be someone elected whom you may deem even worse that Bush.
That would be someone who's far more to the center (ie. balanced). As for someone worse than Bush, that would have to be someone who's either even more conservative than him (I highly doubt it), or someone who's more liberal than he is conservative. An extremist either way would be bad for most, if not all, of us in the U.S.
Anyway, to get back on topic, it may be in the best interests of those concerned about the U.S.' control over root servers to take a wait-and-see attitude; who knows, they mey either A) get a U.S. leader who's far more ammenable to their requests, or B) get someone about whom they simply don't have to worry.
I have to agree with HanzoSpam's reply to parent on this one.
Also, regarding those who voted for Bush, I know of at least a few who did so simply because they thought Kerry would've been even worse. While I personally agreed with that sentiment (at the time), I didn't vote for either one -- the lesser of two evils is still evil. I only hope our next president can begin to undo the damage done by GWB.
(As an aside, I don't buy the idea that 50%+ of Americans are stupid or corrupt. No. I just think they're fucking pricks who can't stand the thought of their neighbor having sex with someone of the same sex, praying to a different God, or respecting the rights of others.)
You really should qualify that as "50%+ of Americans who voted". IIRC, barely half of the country's eligable voters (citizens of age and non-felons) showed up at the polls. Also please note that not everyone who believes in God thinks it's OK to persecute someone just because they're gay, or follow a different religion. And brace yourself here... some religious folks actually believe quite fervently in respecting the rights of others; it's called the Golden Rule, or in modern vernacular, "live and let live". You don't have to be the slightest bit religious to realize what a great concept that is.:)
Back on-topic, yes it is quite clear that this administration's heavy-handed (to put it mildly) foreign policy bears most of the blame for the current world opinion of the U.S., and consequently the resultant struggle to control the Internet. But I don't think this will turn out so bad if everyone just keeps a cool head, for one simple reason: Next election, we are nearly guaranteed to have someone who's very different than Bush, probably diametrically opposite in many views, and the subsequent change in policy will, hopefully, ease the fears of those who currently mistrust the U.S.
hunterx11 makes a good argument, and I'd also like to add the notion that such a bill completely undermines the validity, effectiveness, and usefulness of the ESRB, who so far are doing a pretty good job IMO. If, by law, you as a game dev can no longer rely on the ESRB to determine the appropriate rating for your game, and thus whether or not its content should be considered violent, then how can you possibly be sure you're not breaking the law in CA? You can't. It now comes down to taking the ESRB's rating of your game as a 'suggestion' and hoping that no one sues you for voilent content, whether the game is properly rated or not. It's now "publish a game and take your chances".
Rant #2: This whole fiasco arose due to the Hot Coffee mod, which depicted a (however laughably crude) sex scene in GTA:SA. But this is a violent games bill. Um... wha-?! Sexually explicit game results in violent game bill. Is anyone else not noticing this incredibly stupid and sheeplike disconnect among the politicians here? Or am I missing something here? If the latter, someone please explain this to me, I'd love to hear it.
LCDs are completely immune to magnets, unless thrown at the display (has happened), in which case cracking can occur if the speed and mass of the magnet is sufficient.
Daaaaamn....
Please, someone, mod parent Funny. More people need to be able to enjoy that one.:)
Therefore he is purposely stating his opinion that will make it flamebait.
Wait... lemme get this straight. You're saying that stating an opinion that is assumed to be counter to the opinions of the majority is legitimate grounds for being modded as Flamebait? In other words, it's perfectly fine for a moderator to use mod points to shut out opinions with which he/she disagrees, or believes will offend the sensibilities of most/.ers.
You, sir, are a tard. That is not how the Flamebait moderation is defined. It was, however, used in the proper manner in this case, only not for the reasons you seem to believe (or more accurately, would like to believe). That's like saying "don't you dare post here if you disagree with us!"
This is an open forum. Anyone may join and contribute to the discussions as long as they behave themselves. Intelligent debates are encouraged. This means that you will occasionally be exposed to opinions with which you strongly disagree. If you don't like it, you're just as free to post a counter-argument. Attack the argument, not the person.
But overshadowing all your comments are your comments on evolution and ID. They show that you do not think logically nor critically.
And yet, sweeping generalizations, and catagorically dismissing arguments that go against your own view, are no problem, right? Nice job with the logical and critical thinking.
Look, I'm not saying ID should be taught in science class... it shouldn't. If anything, it belongs in philosophy. But simply because you don't believe in a surpreme being (your choice, I'm not arguing that) doesn't mean that philosophical ideas like ID have no place anywhere.
Think of it this way: Suppose there were a supreme being that created the universe. If that were true, that fact of and by itself would not in any way invalidate the theory of evolution, especially given all the overwhelming physical evidence in evolution's favor. Or to look at it from the opposite perspective, if evolution were one day proven to be concrete fact (rather than a theory with strong evidence as it stands today), that still would not by itself exclude the possibility of a creator. The two are not mutually exclusive. I'm not saying you should believe in God -- I can't force you to believe anything -- I'm just trying to give you a different perspective to consider.
Yeah, I know it was an AC, but that was a damn good post, and should be ready by many.
My only criticism to parent, why post that as AC? Karma's not everything, but it's there for a reason, and sometimes it's well-earned. Don't hide behind AC when you've got something useful to say.:)
Parent got Flamebated just for stating his opinion. WTF. Hey, Jackass Mod who did this, get a farging clue! You don't mod someone down just because you dislike their opinion; if that's the case, then post to the thread with an opposing viewpoint instead of trying to censor a view you don't like.
Personally, I think parent has a point, if somewhat crudely stated. Many gov't officials here in the U.S. accept "contributions" from large corporations or corporate interests (eg. *AA), and therefore are, in a behind-the-scenes way, obligated to promote the interests of those contributors. That's politics today. It's not right, that's for damn sure, but it is what it is. And as a result we have witch-hunts (hint: that's just my opinion, relax) trying to destroy P2P services, people like Yagen get screwed, etc.
Instead of trying to sweep the problem under the rug by censoring an opinion you don't like, try debating it openly, or better yet, if you're a U.S. citizen, using your vote.
Actually, the latter applies to any democratic country with corrupt politicians as well. Consider yourself (mildly) lectured.:)
I can't think of a legitimate way to consistently download 30GB a month
Nice job, genius. The point isn't that "hey, I can download [x]GB/month", but rather, when you do need to download a large file, it's very, very quick; you don't have to let your PC run unattended for hours on end to download a few GB on those occasions.
We all (well, mostly all) know Cmdr. Wil Riker was duplicated by a freak, one-chance-in-a-billion transporter accident that spawned Thomas Riker, but geez this shit's getting outa hand. Now, if the OLD Enterprise crew could merge the Good Jim Kirk back with the Evil Jim Kirk through the transporter, then maybe -- just maybe -- Cmdr. Taco could fiddle with the packet-transporters to merge ScuttleMonkey and Zonk back into a cohesive whole?
More to the point, when (ok, if) this does happen, hopefully their good/evil duplicate articles will merge back into single entities as well.
Of course, this would mean all the posts between the respective dupes would slam together into a single entity of posts, creating a massive disturbance between their respective mirror universes and...
Of course it could be argued that RPGs simply attract more emotionally unstable gamers, and that if these same players were forced to try Microsoft Flight Simulator, they'd cry like babies when their Cessna crashed into a pylon during a failed runway approach.
Um, yeah, ok.
As a looooong-time RPG player (going back to 1st-ed. D&D from the 70's, not just CRPGs), if I was forced to play Microsoft Flight Simulator, I probably would crash my Cessna into a pylon just out of sheer farging boredom. Don't get me wrong, I love combat flight sims, but the pointless fly-civilian-aircraft-around-just-for-the-sake-of- flying stuff bores me to tears.
Also, I love the hack-n-slash aspects of many CRPGs. Call me a sadist. Yeah, the storylines are a draw (when they're not the generic rescue-the-princess-from-the-evil-badguy crap), but mainly I like improving my player-character(s) and finding new and interesting badguys to take on in battle. The cool stories are just gravy. Mind you, that's just PC/console RPGs, I take a different approach with the pen-and-paper variety, where you get to interact with real people playing their characters, as well as the DM/GM role-playing everyone else in the world.
But back to this non-topic...
Ok, maybe "emotionally unstable" does accurately describe my game-playing mentality. But not in the pussified way the Gamesblog author fantasizes.
...grumble... where's that bitch Diablo... need a punching bag...
Maybe old/budget releases at Walmart, where the entire selection represents perhaps 10% of all the music available for purchase on CD at any given moment, and everything is censored into indecipherable backmasks. But when I go to the music store in the nearest mall here in central Pennsylvania, all of the new releases (by "new" I'm talking within the past year or so) are easily in the $18-$20 range, some as high as $24.99. (And I live in a fairly low-cost-of-living area, where it's still 50 cents for a can of Pepsi and a pack of cigarettes is around four bucks.)
You are certainly as entitled to your opinion as anyone else, and have the right to say it, but please don't distort facts to support it.
Slashdot Mirror
"those places where they speak Spanish" are well integrated into the rest of the nation, which speaks Americanized English. Also, most Spanish-speaking Americans have little to no trouble with English, which is still spoken by the vast majority of the nation. Language alone does not a barrier make, and so far the U.S. seems to be adjusting just fine to having Spanish as a second language.
What was your point again?
There's this really informative and useful tech-oriented site called cooltechzone.com, wo why don't we slashdot the fucking daylights out of 'em!
While I am still not convinced that the U.N. has either the ability or even the "right" to govern the Internet, I will give credit where it's due:
Yours is the most level-headed, reasoned argument for giving them control that I've heard yet, without the ranting bias (toward either side) we see so much of on Slashdot. Well done.
Much better, now I understand what you meant. Thanks for the explanation. :)
Click the randomly appearing Mars Polar Lander to win a Free iPod!
Err, wait...
Well, pathetic punctuation not withstanding...
...you lack the right to own nothing...
"No! Please don't take away my right to own nothing!"
What the hell are you talking about?! Yeah, I get most of your post, but that part... Just, damn.
It could be done in seconds, if there were contingency plans in place.
I'm almost willing to put money on the odds that there's already a contingency plan in place, only the general public doesn't know about it. If by some fluke all 13 of the root DNS servers went down, somehow I don't think the Internet, nor the millions of netizens, would even blink. I mean c'mon, the U.S. gov't is notorious for its paranoid planning for what-if scenarios; do you really think this particular "emergency" scenario doesn't have a contingency?
while the Windows-only games are certainly dominant, they are just as certainly growing fewer.
a ps (and yeah, shameless plug) -- which I would love to be playable on Linux, but since this is a spare-time project it's just not feasable for me to write two engines. Companies like id and Blizzard can do it because of their huge resources, but the rest of us small-time devs are basically S.O.L. in any cross-platform venture.
Unfortunately, the majority of PC games still require Windows, and most likely will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
The single biggest hurdle to games running on Windows and Linux is the entrenchment of DirectX as the foundation for PC-based gaming code (ie. video, sound, input, networking). Love it or hate it, DirectX is getting better with each generation. This is great for developers who want a unified platform upon which to quickly and effectively write code that will run on 90+% of PCs. However, it's bad for any other operating system, or for smaller devs who would really like to code for multiple OS's but simply don't have the resources to retool their game engines to do so. If they go exclusively for Linux, they leave out a huge potential market. Anyone who's ever coded for both OpenGL and Direct3D is well aware that porting a game from one platform to another is no small undertaking; many subroutines need to be entirely rewritten. This lock-in will ensure that, unfortunately, Windows is the default OS of choice for anyone who wants access to the widest selection of PC games for the indefinite future, and probably well into Vista's lifecycle as well.
I'm currently writing a 3D action game myself -- screenshots here http://www.darkicon.com/werewolf/projectx/screenc
wow...
2005 - 1994 = 11, not 13. Say, you didn't by chance attend East Juniata high school in PA, did ya?... er, nevermind.
For cryin' out loud, it's about damn time somebody had the sense to put this "cold-temps-don't-cause-colds-only-viruses-do" urban myth to rest. Just wish I'd had the initiative to do it first. :/
Those links are insanely useful. Already have one torrent rolling in at >150KB/sec. Hell, post 'em on /.'s front page for that matter! I know /. isn't entirely Linux-centric, but a huge chunk of users will appreciate seeing these all in one convenient place. At least give parent an Underrated or Interesting... throw the guy a frickin' bone, and do the rest of us a favor as well.
Well, ok... You have some really good points there, cynacism not withstanding. :) The only reason I suspect that we'll get an "Anti-Bush" (as in "opposite") next election is quite simply that not only are leftists really hating the guy (shocker), but also a good chunk of his former supporters are sorely disillusioned at his performance in his 2nd term. And I don't blame them. Hell, I admit there was even a part of me that was kinda hoping he'd win the last election, if only to keep Waffle-Iron Kerry from taking the helm, even though I chose to abstain. The resentment against Bush, for a wide variety of reasons, is growing steadily; I can't imagine that the majority of voters in the next election will place another president in office who will simply pick up where Bush left off (then again, I could be wrong).
I still think GWB was the lesser of two evils, but now only barely; the margin as I see it is much narrow than it was a few years ago. Come to think of it, if all other positions had been voted the same, if Kerry had won, he'd have been limited by an otherwise-conservative majority. Whether one believes this would be good or bad is clearly a matter of opinion, but at least things would've been more balanced than they are now.
We may get someone more to your liking, but then again there could be someone elected whom you may deem even worse that Bush.
That would be someone who's far more to the center (ie. balanced). As for someone worse than Bush, that would have to be someone who's either even more conservative than him (I highly doubt it), or someone who's more liberal than he is conservative. An extremist either way would be bad for most, if not all, of us in the U.S.
Anyway, to get back on topic, it may be in the best interests of those concerned about the U.S.' control over root servers to take a wait-and-see attitude; who knows, they mey either A) get a U.S. leader who's far more ammenable to their requests, or B) get someone about whom they simply don't have to worry.
I have to agree with HanzoSpam's reply to parent on this one.
:)
Also, regarding those who voted for Bush, I know of at least a few who did so simply because they thought Kerry would've been even worse. While I personally agreed with that sentiment (at the time), I didn't vote for either one -- the lesser of two evils is still evil. I only hope our next president can begin to undo the damage done by GWB.
(As an aside, I don't buy the idea that 50%+ of Americans are stupid or corrupt. No. I just think they're fucking pricks who can't stand the thought of their neighbor having sex with someone of the same sex, praying to a different God, or respecting the rights of others.)
You really should qualify that as "50%+ of Americans who voted". IIRC, barely half of the country's eligable voters (citizens of age and non-felons) showed up at the polls. Also please note that not everyone who believes in God thinks it's OK to persecute someone just because they're gay, or follow a different religion. And brace yourself here... some religious folks actually believe quite fervently in respecting the rights of others; it's called the Golden Rule, or in modern vernacular, "live and let live". You don't have to be the slightest bit religious to realize what a great concept that is.
Back on-topic, yes it is quite clear that this administration's heavy-handed (to put it mildly) foreign policy bears most of the blame for the current world opinion of the U.S., and consequently the resultant struggle to control the Internet. But I don't think this will turn out so bad if everyone just keeps a cool head, for one simple reason: Next election, we are nearly guaranteed to have someone who's very different than Bush, probably diametrically opposite in many views, and the subsequent change in policy will, hopefully, ease the fears of those who currently mistrust the U.S.
Software and MP3s are not a birthright.
Neither is making a profit by abusing the court system and using intimidation tactics to generate revenue from lawsuit settlements.
Normally I don't respond to a sig, but yours happens to be oh so very on-topic to this particular article.
hunterx11 makes a good argument, and I'd also like to add the notion that such a bill completely undermines the validity, effectiveness, and usefulness of the ESRB, who so far are doing a pretty good job IMO. If, by law, you as a game dev can no longer rely on the ESRB to determine the appropriate rating for your game, and thus whether or not its content should be considered violent, then how can you possibly be sure you're not breaking the law in CA? You can't. It now comes down to taking the ESRB's rating of your game as a 'suggestion' and hoping that no one sues you for voilent content, whether the game is properly rated or not. It's now "publish a game and take your chances".
Rant #2: This whole fiasco arose due to the Hot Coffee mod, which depicted a (however laughably crude) sex scene in GTA:SA. But this is a violent games bill. Um... wha-?! Sexually explicit game results in violent game bill. Is anyone else not noticing this incredibly stupid and sheeplike disconnect among the politicians here? Or am I missing something here? If the latter, someone please explain this to me, I'd love to hear it.
LCDs are completely immune to magnets, unless thrown at the display (has happened), in which case cracking can occur if the speed and mass of the magnet is sufficient.
:)
Daaaaamn....
Please, someone, mod parent Funny. More people need to be able to enjoy that one.
You mean "kick the turbofans". :)
Therefore he is purposely stating his opinion that will make it flamebait.
/.ers.
Wait... lemme get this straight. You're saying that stating an opinion that is assumed to be counter to the opinions of the majority is legitimate grounds for being modded as Flamebait? In other words, it's perfectly fine for a moderator to use mod points to shut out opinions with which he/she disagrees, or believes will offend the sensibilities of most
You, sir, are a tard. That is not how the Flamebait moderation is defined. It was, however, used in the proper manner in this case, only not for the reasons you seem to believe (or more accurately, would like to believe). That's like saying "don't you dare post here if you disagree with us!"
This is an open forum. Anyone may join and contribute to the discussions as long as they behave themselves. Intelligent debates are encouraged. This means that you will occasionally be exposed to opinions with which you strongly disagree. If you don't like it, you're just as free to post a counter-argument. Attack the argument, not the person.
But overshadowing all your comments are your comments on evolution and ID. They show that you do not think logically nor critically.
And yet, sweeping generalizations, and catagorically dismissing arguments that go against your own view, are no problem, right? Nice job with the logical and critical thinking.
Look, I'm not saying ID should be taught in science class... it shouldn't. If anything, it belongs in philosophy. But simply because you don't believe in a surpreme being (your choice, I'm not arguing that) doesn't mean that philosophical ideas like ID have no place anywhere.
Think of it this way: Suppose there were a supreme being that created the universe. If that were true, that fact of and by itself would not in any way invalidate the theory of evolution, especially given all the overwhelming physical evidence in evolution's favor. Or to look at it from the opposite perspective, if evolution were one day proven to be concrete fact (rather than a theory with strong evidence as it stands today), that still would not by itself exclude the possibility of a creator. The two are not mutually exclusive. I'm not saying you should believe in God -- I can't force you to believe anything -- I'm just trying to give you a different perspective to consider.
Yeah, I know it was an AC, but that was a damn good post, and should be ready by many.
:)
My only criticism to parent, why post that as AC? Karma's not everything, but it's there for a reason, and sometimes it's well-earned. Don't hide behind AC when you've got something useful to say.
Parent got Flamebated just for stating his opinion. WTF. Hey, Jackass Mod who did this, get a farging clue! You don't mod someone down just because you dislike their opinion; if that's the case, then post to the thread with an opposing viewpoint instead of trying to censor a view you don't like.
:)
Personally, I think parent has a point, if somewhat crudely stated. Many gov't officials here in the U.S. accept "contributions" from large corporations or corporate interests (eg. *AA), and therefore are, in a behind-the-scenes way, obligated to promote the interests of those contributors. That's politics today. It's not right, that's for damn sure, but it is what it is. And as a result we have witch-hunts (hint: that's just my opinion, relax) trying to destroy P2P services, people like Yagen get screwed, etc.
Instead of trying to sweep the problem under the rug by censoring an opinion you don't like, try debating it openly, or better yet, if you're a U.S. citizen, using your vote.
Actually, the latter applies to any democratic country with corrupt politicians as well. Consider yourself (mildly) lectured.
I can't think of a legitimate way to consistently download 30GB a month
:)
Nice job, genius. The point isn't that "hey, I can download [x]GB/month", but rather, when you do need to download a large file, it's very, very quick; you don't have to let your PC run unattended for hours on end to download a few GB on those occasions.
Plus it's great for gaming.
Ok, here's an idea. Bare with me on this one...
We all (well, mostly all) know Cmdr. Wil Riker was duplicated by a freak, one-chance-in-a-billion transporter accident that spawned Thomas Riker, but geez this shit's getting outa hand. Now, if the OLD Enterprise crew could merge the Good Jim Kirk back with the Evil Jim Kirk through the transporter, then maybe -- just maybe -- Cmdr. Taco could fiddle with the packet-transporters to merge ScuttleMonkey and Zonk back into a cohesive whole?
More to the point, when (ok, if) this does happen, hopefully their good/evil duplicate articles will merge back into single entities as well.
Of course, this would mean all the posts between the respective dupes would slam together into a single entity of posts, creating a massive disturbance between their respective mirror universes and...
Aw fuck, what was I sayin'...?
Of course it could be argued that RPGs simply attract more emotionally unstable gamers, and that if these same players were forced to try Microsoft Flight Simulator, they'd cry like babies when their Cessna crashed into a pylon during a failed runway approach.
- flying stuff bores me to tears.
...grumble... where's that bitch Diablo... need a punching bag...
Um, yeah, ok.
As a looooong-time RPG player (going back to 1st-ed. D&D from the 70's, not just CRPGs), if I was forced to play Microsoft Flight Simulator, I probably would crash my Cessna into a pylon just out of sheer farging boredom. Don't get me wrong, I love combat flight sims, but the pointless fly-civilian-aircraft-around-just-for-the-sake-of
Also, I love the hack-n-slash aspects of many CRPGs. Call me a sadist. Yeah, the storylines are a draw (when they're not the generic rescue-the-princess-from-the-evil-badguy crap), but mainly I like improving my player-character(s) and finding new and interesting badguys to take on in battle. The cool stories are just gravy. Mind you, that's just PC/console RPGs, I take a different approach with the pen-and-paper variety, where you get to interact with real people playing their characters, as well as the DM/GM role-playing everyone else in the world.
But back to this non-topic...
Ok, maybe "emotionally unstable" does accurately describe my game-playing mentality. But not in the pussified way the Gamesblog author fantasizes.
CDs aren't $18-20. They've gone down to $12-15.
Maybe old/budget releases at Walmart, where the entire selection represents perhaps 10% of all the music available for purchase on CD at any given moment, and everything is censored into indecipherable backmasks. But when I go to the music store in the nearest mall here in central Pennsylvania, all of the new releases (by "new" I'm talking within the past year or so) are easily in the $18-$20 range, some as high as $24.99. (And I live in a fairly low-cost-of-living area, where it's still 50 cents for a can of Pepsi and a pack of cigarettes is around four bucks.)
You are certainly as entitled to your opinion as anyone else, and have the right to say it, but please don't distort facts to support it.