I agree completely - I'm not American, I'm from the UK. With a corrupt police force, these kind of things are necessary.
With an generally honest police force, and populace, no one sees the need for these. The chances they might actually be useful does not outweigh the hassle of installing it.
Now... I personally am glad some people do feel the need for it here, because the police always need to be kept in check. I'm also glad most people don't.
In the UK if you're waiting to exit a junction and someone flashes their lights at you, it's a signal they're letting you out. (If you flash someone out in the UK and it causes an accident, you can be liable despite not being involved directly)
On the continent, it's the opposite - they're coming through and alerting you to their presence.
I only learnt about this recently, despite having driven many times on the continent.
I speed - and I am not angry in the slightest when someone pulls out in front of me & cuts me up. It's very, very rare I ever brake hard (I don't remember the last time I did) when it's not just me on the road.
When you're going quickly, you've got to anticipate people pulling out in front of you. If you don't, you should not be going quickly. You should not blame people going a reasonable speed moving into the overtaking lane in front of you, if you're going quick. It's very easy to do - you do not expect someone to be approaching from behind quickly.
People who speed then blame others is moronic IMO. However, people who do stupid stuff then blame people who speed is also moronic.
I was responding to the OP, who claimed PC games could be categorised into FPS, RTS & MMO.
In terms of the PC industry being risk averse, I somewhat agree with you. However, you're comparing an industry now, which is decades old, to an industry which was brand new. If the industry is brand new, of course every game is going to be original. Once the industry gets more mature, ideas are going to be reused inevitably.
Portal was a massively innovative concept, done well, the sequel is more of the same. Endless Space is a _great_ turn based strategy game produced at high risk to the developers - they did not play it safe. XCOM no one thought would turn a profit, that was a risk, despite being a sequel (of a game 15 years old). CKII is very niche, and a great example of a developer producing a game that they _know_ is never going to be a AAA hit. Civilization 5 is a sequel - what do you want them to call it? Do you really think that a company producing a TBS game based onthe history of civilisation with the rights to call it civilization 5 could call it anything else? Torchlight II is essentially what Torchlight would have been if the developers had had the funding - the original was produced on a pretty low budget. With the success of the original, they expanded it into a better game, and it's wonderful. They're both great games though. Skyrim is more of the same, but better (this is not necessarily a bad thing). Before you claim otherwise, play through the earlier games in the series, compare and contrast.
On my list, there are 3 that are slightly inflicted with consolitus (one was developed solely for the xbox 360 originally, then ported by the original developer very well, afaik). The rest have absolutely fine UI's. However... it's just an issue of a slightly clunky UI in those games - it's far, far from game breaking. If a slightly unwieldy UI breaks a game for you, you'll miss out on a lot of games. Possibly the game on that list with the worst UI IMO was developed and released exclusively for PC originally.
No... the asshats are the corporations that sell limited numbers to try to pump the 2nd hand price to get their product in the news. There is _no_ reason why the corporation just cannot produce more, if there is demand.
4.... Which leads me to my next point. The industry has become so risk averse in general that there are really only three valid genres in the commercial PC space anymore, and all of them can be summarized with a three-letter abbreviation: FPS, RTS, and MMO. (And MMOs are on their way out.) Ten years ago, the platform was already contracting but a lot more broad than it is now. Twenty years ago, the PC (and the last of the family computers) was an extremely ambitious platform. The PC actually has an advantage here already in that anyone can develop for it, but that doesn't forgive the industry for pussing out and ignoring anyone who doesn't want to play a three letter word.
That's news to me. Here's a short list of what I've played recently:
Torchlight II
Portal II
Civilization 5
Skyrim
Deus Ex : HR
Endless Space
Total War : Shogun II
Beat Hazard
Crusader Kings II
The Witcher
XCOM : Enemy Unknown
The only one that could fit into one of your categories is Deus Ex... and the way I'm playing it, I'm hardly using a gun at all. Try a few different games.
If we were banning 'art' on the basis of how horrific it is, we'd have to ban that movie and countless others, along with crucifixes and many other kinds of religious art and that would be a loss.
No one is yet. Not one person advocating banning anything before you in the discussion. You're replying to an argument entirely constructed by yourself.
The fact is, the wealth of the world is being redistributed, and the US and EU are coming up losers.
The wealth of the world being rebalanced so everyone has more equal wealth is a good thing, in my opinion. I'm not sure how it isn't, in any way at all.
Now, if you're saying that corporations are taking most of the money, and distributing the wealth unequally, that's a different issue, which is a result of our current system, which they've adopted to some degree.
More equal wealth will allow manufacturing and farming to actually exist in the west without subsidies, too. At the moment we're clinging on to high tech specialised manufacturing, but I doubt that will last for that long.
I think many future political activists who were very 'open' on the net when young and stupid will end up paying for it hugely down the line when they mature and want to change the world for the better and then find out your political enemies goons know about things that could discredit you in the public eye.
Part of the problem is that there's this expectation that everyone be squeaky clean, and never have had made a mistake. It shouldn't matter all that much if someone did something stupid when they were young (or old, for that matter). Almost 1/2 of the male population in the UK has a (non-driving) criminal record by the time they are 40. Soon those with a record will outnumber those without, probably.
can start any app with a single mouse click anywhere on desktop
Yeah, but how many people have a mouse with 342 buttons?
I personally just set up just about any OS like I like it. I just create directories or folders on the desktop, and have links to applications in these. Takes about 2 or 3 seconds to launch whatever I want. It takes about 20 seconds to set up a link. I personally think the GUI has done what it needed for me, in terms of launching applications, almost since it started.
Switching between running applications nicely is a different matter.
I'm quite a long time user of Steam on Windows. There are a few games I've had difficulty with (less than 2-3% I'd guess). Most of those, one of the troubleshooting tips was to delete ClientRegistry.blob manually (never fixed anything for me). This Steam support page tells you how to do it on Windows and Mac, saying that it may resolve certain Steam issues.
It's one of the things I quite like about steam - it doesn't worry too much about you fucking it up, because it just checks and reloads what it needs. Also, copying game directories from one computer to another works, different user or not; no need to download that 30gb game again.
I believe that copyright law in Germany is less draconian than that in the US, so there is more freedom of speech in that arena in Germany than the US.
In general I agree with you - Germany does seem to have more restrictions. However, there are some areas which have less.
The war on drugs is a morality and political issue. The war on crime is entirely a morality issue.
The "war" on crime has always been a morality issue. The entire point of a legal system is to enforce moral codes.
We have to have this in a society... without it, there would be no legal system.
The war on terror has absolutely nothing to do with criminality, and has everything to do with restricting individual's freedoms. That is the problem with it.
ps. I am a convicted drug user, and believe that drug use should not be illegal.
These have been around for quite a while, and are getting pretty good reviews. $380 with free shipping for a 2560x1440.... I haven't got one yet, because my current monitor is good enough (1920x1200), and I'm not made of money. They're IPS LG panels. The cheap ones don't have upscalers, but for that reason are also great for gaming - they have very low screen lag.
Made in Britain has been a joke for a long while in Britain.... even now it hangs on (in some cases deservedly), despite us producing some decent stuff (like aircraft engines, and lots of cars under license). Anyway, an example : The IT Crowd.
Hate to tell you this... but it's already happened. All consumer goods are made in China, or somewhere else with cheap labour, basically. No one cares where they come from. Even if they say "Manufactured in the USA", if means they import all the parts and assemble them in the US.
There are notable exceptions, like some of the famous chip manufacturers. They don't produce most of the world's chips though, they only produce the best ones. Everything that is relatively easy to manufacture will have been manufactured somewhere with cheap labour.... that's not going to be the US.
Who looks at their DVD player for the made in the USA sticker?
With technology which is evolving quickly, it's very difficult to pin price fixing schemes on anyone - the moment you find collaboration, the next best thing is already there, and everyone has moved on. I personally do not think that schemes like these are that important to Western consumers - I'm much more worried by contracts purported as being free for a few months that users cannot get out of, with an up front bribe.
I built the system myself - Vista OEM when it came out, which had big problems installing. Hardware-wise, I've replaced one HDD which died, and upgraded the graphics card. I'm running Skyrim at high detail 1920*1200 at a good FPS. Any system which has over 1000 hours uptime and runs fine is a good system IMO.... your standards may vary.
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I agree completely - I'm not American, I'm from the UK. With a corrupt police force, these kind of things are necessary.
With an generally honest police force, and populace, no one sees the need for these. The chances they might actually be useful does not outweigh the hassle of installing it.
Now... I personally am glad some people do feel the need for it here, because the police always need to be kept in check. I'm also glad most people don't.
The Finns are the best drivers in the world... possibly the maddest sometimes, too, but the best.
This.
In the UK if you're waiting to exit a junction and someone flashes their lights at you, it's a signal they're letting you out. (If you flash someone out in the UK and it causes an accident, you can be liable despite not being involved directly)
On the continent, it's the opposite - they're coming through and alerting you to their presence.
I only learnt about this recently, despite having driven many times on the continent.
I speed - and I am not angry in the slightest when someone pulls out in front of me & cuts me up. It's very, very rare I ever brake hard (I don't remember the last time I did) when it's not just me on the road.
When you're going quickly, you've got to anticipate people pulling out in front of you. If you don't, you should not be going quickly. You should not blame people going a reasonable speed moving into the overtaking lane in front of you, if you're going quick. It's very easy to do - you do not expect someone to be approaching from behind quickly.
People who speed then blame others is moronic IMO. However, people who do stupid stuff then blame people who speed is also moronic.
Try Braid if you haven't... I only didn't include it in that list because I only have the demo now.
I was responding to the OP, who claimed PC games could be categorised into FPS, RTS & MMO.
In terms of the PC industry being risk averse, I somewhat agree with you. However, you're comparing an industry now, which is decades old, to an industry which was brand new. If the industry is brand new, of course every game is going to be original. Once the industry gets more mature, ideas are going to be reused inevitably.
Portal was a massively innovative concept, done well, the sequel is more of the same. Endless Space is a _great_ turn based strategy game produced at high risk to the developers - they did not play it safe. XCOM no one thought would turn a profit, that was a risk, despite being a sequel (of a game 15 years old). CKII is very niche, and a great example of a developer producing a game that they _know_ is never going to be a AAA hit. Civilization 5 is a sequel - what do you want them to call it? Do you really think that a company producing a TBS game based onthe history of civilisation with the rights to call it civilization 5 could call it anything else? Torchlight II is essentially what Torchlight would have been if the developers had had the funding - the original was produced on a pretty low budget. With the success of the original, they expanded it into a better game, and it's wonderful. They're both great games though. Skyrim is more of the same, but better (this is not necessarily a bad thing). Before you claim otherwise, play through the earlier games in the series, compare and contrast.
On my list, there are 3 that are slightly inflicted with consolitus (one was developed solely for the xbox 360 originally, then ported by the original developer very well, afaik). The rest have absolutely fine UI's. However... it's just an issue of a slightly clunky UI in those games - it's far, far from game breaking. If a slightly unwieldy UI breaks a game for you, you'll miss out on a lot of games. Possibly the game on that list with the worst UI IMO was developed and released exclusively for PC originally.
No... the asshats are the corporations that sell limited numbers to try to pump the 2nd hand price to get their product in the news. There is _no_ reason why the corporation just cannot produce more, if there is demand.
What about "loo"?
Few of us do, really. We can be patient, and wait for ten minutes to get a file that would have downloaded almost instantly on fiber.
That's all very well for small files. Loads of games on steam are over the 10Gb download mark now.
4. ... Which leads me to my next point. The industry has become so risk averse in general that there are really only three valid genres in the commercial PC space anymore, and all of them can be summarized with a three-letter abbreviation: FPS, RTS, and MMO. (And MMOs are on their way out.) Ten years ago, the platform was already contracting but a lot more broad than it is now. Twenty years ago, the PC (and the last of the family computers) was an extremely ambitious platform. The PC actually has an advantage here already in that anyone can develop for it, but that doesn't forgive the industry for pussing out and ignoring anyone who doesn't want to play a three letter word.
That's news to me. Here's a short list of what I've played recently :
Torchlight II
Portal II
Civilization 5
Skyrim
Deus Ex : HR
Endless Space
Total War : Shogun II
Beat Hazard
Crusader Kings II
The Witcher
XCOM : Enemy Unknown
The only one that could fit into one of your categories is Deus Ex... and the way I'm playing it, I'm hardly using a gun at all. Try a few different games.
If we were banning 'art' on the basis of how horrific it is, we'd have to ban that movie and countless others, along with crucifixes and many other kinds of religious art and that would be a loss.
No one is yet. Not one person advocating banning anything before you in the discussion. You're replying to an argument entirely constructed by yourself.
So the OP's point to "look at a map" was a little pointless then. Russia and Canada are the two biggest countries in the world.
The fact is, the wealth of the world is being redistributed, and the US and EU are coming up losers.
The wealth of the world being rebalanced so everyone has more equal wealth is a good thing, in my opinion. I'm not sure how it isn't, in any way at all.
Now, if you're saying that corporations are taking most of the money, and distributing the wealth unequally, that's a different issue, which is a result of our current system, which they've adopted to some degree.
More equal wealth will allow manufacturing and farming to actually exist in the west without subsidies, too. At the moment we're clinging on to high tech specialised manufacturing, but I doubt that will last for that long.
I think many future political activists who were very 'open' on the net when young and stupid will end up paying for it hugely down the line when they mature and want to change the world for the better and then find out your political enemies goons know about things that could discredit you in the public eye.
Part of the problem is that there's this expectation that everyone be squeaky clean, and never have had made a mistake. It shouldn't matter all that much if someone did something stupid when they were young (or old, for that matter). Almost 1/2 of the male population in the UK has a (non-driving) criminal record by the time they are 40. Soon those with a record will outnumber those without, probably.
This. It is essential for people who wish to track data to make it seem like trying to avoid your data being tracked is useless or counterproductive.
can start any app with a single mouse click anywhere on desktop
Yeah, but how many people have a mouse with 342 buttons?
I personally just set up just about any OS like I like it. I just create directories or folders on the desktop, and have links to applications in these. Takes about 2 or 3 seconds to launch whatever I want. It takes about 20 seconds to set up a link. I personally think the GUI has done what it needed for me, in terms of launching applications, almost since it started.
Switching between running applications nicely is a different matter.
I'm quite a long time user of Steam on Windows. There are a few games I've had difficulty with (less than 2-3% I'd guess). Most of those, one of the troubleshooting tips was to delete ClientRegistry.blob manually (never fixed anything for me). This Steam support page tells you how to do it on Windows and Mac, saying that it may resolve certain Steam issues.
It's one of the things I quite like about steam - it doesn't worry too much about you fucking it up, because it just checks and reloads what it needs. Also, copying game directories from one computer to another works, different user or not; no need to download that 30gb game again.
That's easy - it's on top of the passwords.
I believe that copyright law in Germany is less draconian than that in the US, so there is more freedom of speech in that arena in Germany than the US.
In general I agree with you - Germany does seem to have more restrictions. However, there are some areas which have less.
The war on drugs is a morality and political issue. The war on crime is entirely a morality issue.
The "war" on crime has always been a morality issue. The entire point of a legal system is to enforce moral codes.
We have to have this in a society... without it, there would be no legal system.
The war on terror has absolutely nothing to do with criminality, and has everything to do with restricting individual's freedoms. That is the problem with it.
ps. I am a convicted drug user, and believe that drug use should not be illegal.
These have been around for quite a while, and are getting pretty good reviews. $380 with free shipping for a 2560x1440.... I haven't got one yet, because my current monitor is good enough (1920x1200), and I'm not made of money. They're IPS LG panels. The cheap ones don't have upscalers, but for that reason are also great for gaming - they have very low screen lag.
Made in Britain has been a joke for a long while in Britain.... even now it hangs on (in some cases deservedly), despite us producing some decent stuff (like aircraft engines, and lots of cars under license). Anyway, an example : The IT Crowd.
Hate to tell you this... but it's already happened. All consumer goods are made in China, or somewhere else with cheap labour, basically. No one cares where they come from. Even if they say "Manufactured in the USA", if means they import all the parts and assemble them in the US.
There are notable exceptions, like some of the famous chip manufacturers. They don't produce most of the world's chips though, they only produce the best ones. Everything that is relatively easy to manufacture will have been manufactured somewhere with cheap labour.... that's not going to be the US.
Who looks at their DVD player for the made in the USA sticker?
With technology which is evolving quickly, it's very difficult to pin price fixing schemes on anyone - the moment you find collaboration, the next best thing is already there, and everyone has moved on. I personally do not think that schemes like these are that important to Western consumers - I'm much more worried by contracts purported as being free for a few months that users cannot get out of, with an up front bribe.
I built the system myself - Vista OEM when it came out, which had big problems installing. Hardware-wise, I've replaced one HDD which died, and upgraded the graphics card. I'm running Skyrim at high detail 1920*1200 at a good FPS. Any system which has over 1000 hours uptime and runs fine is a good system IMO.... your standards may vary.