(By contrast, everyone knows what "freedom of the press" means.)
While your post makes some good points, I do have to take exception to this one line. The first amendment is cited incorrectly in at least 3-4 stories posted on/. today alone. The freedom of the press is used erroneously to snoop into the private lives of civilians all the time, and to break into private events. The right is freedom of the press from government not carte blanche to investigate everything a celebrity does.
Where you are at maybe. My mother-in-law lived in the city where they had FiOS, great speeds from when I visited her, even made me a bit jealous despite the fact that I have a pretty decent 50/5 plan. She moved in with her new husband on a farm in Kittaning, and now she has to pay out the nose for cellular "broadband" to the point where she and my wife have to limit the time they skype so it doesn't rack up a big bill.
In other words, "I don't care if I'm being spied on, I have nothing to hide." And also, "I don't care if the computer I paid for is forcefully seized from my control."
I could easily install Linux and remove those problems, at the cost of lesser enjoyment of the programs I want - if Nvidia and AMD would make decent drivers for Linux, and game developers would support Linux (across the board!), then it would make me switch. Conversely, if MS decides to pull something like Apple's app store (I know, I know it's already there!) so that you cannot even install software not received through the store, THAT would be a final straw.
The way I see it, I have a choice - an informed choice. I can use Windows and know that my personal data is being mined to target me for ads or who knows what else, the same way Google, Facebook etc. etc. do, and as a result, not have to worry about whether or not the new game I want to play will work, or I can be free of MS's data collection, take steps to prevent Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. etc. from getting any data about me, and pray that the available graphics card drivers will be good enough and Wine or whatever you have to work with now will work. I choose the former, and as a result I can spend that much more time enjoying my PC, instead of searching for workarounds and fixes.
MS is evil for data mining? Sure, but by the exact same token, so are Google, Facebook and all the other companies who target advertising. I know Safeway is able to track what I buy when I use my club card, but the discount is worth it to me. I recently was browsing for certification training and now I get ads on just about every site pointing me to the trainer for the cert I was looking to pick up. Same deal with Windows, the "discount" of having less administrative work involved in performing the tasks I want to do is worth the nagging updates and data mining.
The real point I was interested in, however is that I have done none of the above-mentioned registry edits to remove the nagging. I have, in fact, seen no nagging on my home PC to update to Windows 10 at all - so as you can see that makes it pretty hard for me to voice an opinion that they are hijacking my computer for their nefarious purposes. I have been debating whether or not to update it based on the fact that there are one or two games which I have been told do not work on Windows 10 and the headache of checking that all the settings of applications I use aren't going to be wiped out.
Honestly? I don't know. I'd be pretty pissed about the 6GB forced download if I knew about it and could see it happening, but I don't think it is on my PC. I have changed no registry settings, and my computer does run automatic updates. It does piss me off when it reboots without my permission occasionally to install updates, but not enough to get me to try to live with a Linux desktop.
I am fluent in Linux. I can do just about anything on Linux that I can on Windows. But my home computer is a gaming rig, and for gaming, Linux just isn't there yet. I'm not too worried about any data Microsoft can harvest from my PC, as all it will let them know is that I buy humble bundles and haven't even played something like 75% of the titles I have purchased.
I'll see if I can spot the download on my or my wife's PC when I get home, but like I said, I haven't been nagged or even suggested on my home PC to update to 10, and I think that is pretty interesting in and of itself.
Good tip, while we were Christmas shopping my wife asked me why in the fark a sample of uranium ore was in my Amazon suggested items. It took me several seconds to realize that it was likely there from reading "The worst stuff for sale" blog which I generally find highly amusing. In fact, I am pretty glad it found the radioactive gag gift instead of several of the other postings that could have come up:-p I'd provide a link, but I can't be arsed.
After using Windows 10 on my work computer for a few months I was pretty happy with it - it seemed like the worst parts of 8 had been fixed and many UI improvements were made - multiple desktops, a taskbar that is duplicated on additional monitors etc. I was planning on updating my home computer with 10, but held off, so it's still running 8.1 which I finally have mostly gotten used to. Strangely, I haven't been bothered at all to upgrade to 10 on my home computer, though both of my wife's computers are telling her to upgrade from 7.
If MS is forcing a 6GB download in the background, that might explain the odd slow speeds I have seen occasionally, and it's definitely a bad move by MS, but I'd say that the alternative is Linux, or live with the nags. Still better than apple!
When you rent a car. some unethical companies will bill you after returning the car for "dings" and "dents" that you are responsible for unless you have paid for their "insurance" up front.
(I started in BASIC myself on a PC clone with MS-DOS 2.1 at the age of 4 or 5. I'm still trying to heal some of the scars from that experience. I think that it gave me some kind of strange intuition for formulating certain thoughts into code, though. Too bad it's BASIC code, so I have to retranslate it into Pascal (my 2nd language) in my head and then write it down as some C derivative...)
I remember back then... and I remember when MS-DOS started including QBasic and I was amazed at how it could possibly use programs without line numbers...and I still have a hard time working with M$'s "Visual" languages.
Yes, but part of this is also Square Enix's fault. The AH is why I quit playing FFXI after only my month trial. By recording the actual sale prices of merchandise instead of letting sellers set prices, inflation goes up quicker as those who are willing to pay overestimate the value of the items. I remember I had to farm for hours to pay for my level 8 monk armor, and the price when i first looked was 3,000 gil. By the time I finished farming some 6,000 gil, and selling loads of crystals and moat carp, the listings showed that 5,000 was the going rate. I tried bidding 4k, then 4.5, then 4.75k and got it. If the actual price the items are set for was shown, the competition would lower the prices.
Gold farmers are not the entire problem - its the buyers who cause the inflation through their willingness to pay out of pocket and damn the costs.
In order to "legally" buy and sell EQ2 items, you have to do it on those two servers. This gets SOE their percentage and makes it safer for all parties to complete the transaction.
But you can buy and sells items and cash from any server - just find a buyer, run the transaction through paypal, then meet up in game and hand over the goods.
I think this idea from SOE is brilliant, and expect to see something similar in most of the next generation of MMOs, since it is a good way to cut down on scammers and what not - if figures out how to dupe plat, SOE can take it out on the seller instead of the buyer by not issuing the cash, but letting the buyer keep the plat.
As for wether or not this ruins the game for others, well, I've played both ways . In SWG it used to be just a matter of grinding out exp and within a week you could master any basic profession, and most master professions. Now with the new combat system its a lot more complicated. Buying cash makes it easier to get your hands on certain items which can help you out, but all in all the economy is so broke its not even funny.
The only way to fix any game economy is to have some sort of steady drain on players holdings to counteract the ease of getting cash. Player housing tries to do this and fails - after all, if you don't want a house you just don't pay it with no negative effect. Look at real life - you cant just walk into a forest with a knife, whack some squirrels, cut out their eyes, and sell them at safeway for a few bucks. MMO's let you do this, paying out of a never ending supply of money. Hence, you can hire some chinese teenagers to do this 24 hours a day for 50 cents an hour, and then sell the amassed plat for ten times what you paid out. If weapons wore down more, food and water was required, etc. etc. the economy would be stronger, but the game would be that much harder too.
How long before the world is connected thru Google Wifi, all shopping is done at Wal-Mart, All coffee is made by Starbucks, and all restaurants are Taco Bell?
This is how it begins - a benign-appearing national company offering its service at a loss to get its foot in the door then WAMMO! Monopoly!!
Now where'd I put my tinfoil hat and body armor set? (gd&r)
Very true, I remember hearing what an awesome movie Sideways was, pre-streeted it (I used to work at HV) and was bored outta my skull.
I'd never pay theatre prices to see another American Pie or such, but at least they are entertaining.
This list is total crap. I mean seriously, in a list of the top 50 SCI-FI shows of all time, what the hell is Batman doing on the list? Not to mention Superman and Xena? And how the hell did Alien Nation get on the list while DS9 and Farscape didn't?
I mean, seriously...did ANYONE like Alien Nation? I thought it was complete crap....and I thought Time Trax was decent back in the day, proving that my standards aren't all too high.
V makes number 18 on the list, outranking Lois and Clark, Superman, Wonder Woman, Andromeda, Stargate Atlantis, just to name a few of the 32 shows it was apparantly better than. The only show I'd rate lower than V on this list is Alien Nation.
TOS takes the top slot, the new BSG takes second, and TNG takes third. Reverse that order and you'd be much closer to the truth.
Finally, Six Million Dollar Man, Bionic Woman, and Man From UNCLE all made the list. Get Smart didn't. And I doubt anyone who has ever seen Get Smart would rank it below the likes of Tales from the Crypt or Xena.
I think Boston.Com just wanted to anger the whole sci-fi community with this completely bullshit list. The only good thing about it is that it gives Sliders some measure of respect - the first two seasons were brilliant and awesome. After that it jumped the shark and bad.
So they are going to start a "legal" emulation site, charging monthly to play old video games?
Legality aside, I think only the most clueless of videogame fans will be interested in this - though the entertainment stuff sounds like it might be interesting enough to watch.
But I'll be damned if I'm paying $15 a month to play asteroids or double dragon in its original glory.
Slashdot Mirror
(By contrast, everyone knows what "freedom of the press" means.)
While your post makes some good points, I do have to take exception to this one line. The first amendment is cited incorrectly in at least 3-4 stories posted on /. today alone. The freedom of the press is used erroneously to snoop into the private lives of civilians all the time, and to break into private events. The right is freedom of the press from government not carte blanche to investigate everything a celebrity does.
Where you are at maybe. My mother-in-law lived in the city where they had FiOS, great speeds from when I visited her, even made me a bit jealous despite the fact that I have a pretty decent 50/5 plan. She moved in with her new husband on a farm in Kittaning, and now she has to pay out the nose for cellular "broadband" to the point where she and my wife have to limit the time they skype so it doesn't rack up a big bill.
In other words, "I don't care if I'm being spied on, I have nothing to hide." And also, "I don't care if the computer I paid for is forcefully seized from my control."
I could easily install Linux and remove those problems, at the cost of lesser enjoyment of the programs I want - if Nvidia and AMD would make decent drivers for Linux, and game developers would support Linux (across the board!), then it would make me switch. Conversely, if MS decides to pull something like Apple's app store (I know, I know it's already there!) so that you cannot even install software not received through the store, THAT would be a final straw. The way I see it, I have a choice - an informed choice. I can use Windows and know that my personal data is being mined to target me for ads or who knows what else, the same way Google, Facebook etc. etc. do, and as a result, not have to worry about whether or not the new game I want to play will work, or I can be free of MS's data collection, take steps to prevent Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. etc. from getting any data about me, and pray that the available graphics card drivers will be good enough and Wine or whatever you have to work with now will work. I choose the former, and as a result I can spend that much more time enjoying my PC, instead of searching for workarounds and fixes. MS is evil for data mining? Sure, but by the exact same token, so are Google, Facebook and all the other companies who target advertising. I know Safeway is able to track what I buy when I use my club card, but the discount is worth it to me. I recently was browsing for certification training and now I get ads on just about every site pointing me to the trainer for the cert I was looking to pick up. Same deal with Windows, the "discount" of having less administrative work involved in performing the tasks I want to do is worth the nagging updates and data mining. The real point I was interested in, however is that I have done none of the above-mentioned registry edits to remove the nagging. I have, in fact, seen no nagging on my home PC to update to Windows 10 at all - so as you can see that makes it pretty hard for me to voice an opinion that they are hijacking my computer for their nefarious purposes. I have been debating whether or not to update it based on the fact that there are one or two games which I have been told do not work on Windows 10 and the headache of checking that all the settings of applications I use aren't going to be wiped out.
Honestly? I don't know. I'd be pretty pissed about the 6GB forced download if I knew about it and could see it happening, but I don't think it is on my PC. I have changed no registry settings, and my computer does run automatic updates. It does piss me off when it reboots without my permission occasionally to install updates, but not enough to get me to try to live with a Linux desktop. I am fluent in Linux. I can do just about anything on Linux that I can on Windows. But my home computer is a gaming rig, and for gaming, Linux just isn't there yet. I'm not too worried about any data Microsoft can harvest from my PC, as all it will let them know is that I buy humble bundles and haven't even played something like 75% of the titles I have purchased. I'll see if I can spot the download on my or my wife's PC when I get home, but like I said, I haven't been nagged or even suggested on my home PC to update to 10, and I think that is pretty interesting in and of itself.
Good tip, while we were Christmas shopping my wife asked me why in the fark a sample of uranium ore was in my Amazon suggested items. It took me several seconds to realize that it was likely there from reading "The worst stuff for sale" blog which I generally find highly amusing. In fact, I am pretty glad it found the radioactive gag gift instead of several of the other postings that could have come up :-p I'd provide a link, but I can't be arsed.
After using Windows 10 on my work computer for a few months I was pretty happy with it - it seemed like the worst parts of 8 had been fixed and many UI improvements were made - multiple desktops, a taskbar that is duplicated on additional monitors etc. I was planning on updating my home computer with 10, but held off, so it's still running 8.1 which I finally have mostly gotten used to. Strangely, I haven't been bothered at all to upgrade to 10 on my home computer, though both of my wife's computers are telling her to upgrade from 7. If MS is forcing a 6GB download in the background, that might explain the odd slow speeds I have seen occasionally, and it's definitely a bad move by MS, but I'd say that the alternative is Linux, or live with the nags. Still better than apple!
When you rent a car. some unethical companies will bill you after returning the car for "dings" and "dents" that you are responsible for unless you have paid for their "insurance" up front.
w00t!! that was l33t! u t0tally pWn3d th3m!
Does this mean we can expect a turn-based sex minigame to be available if we make small adjustments to the game?
Its still not entirely accurate - my tank got destroyed by a samurai.
Yes, but part of this is also Square Enix's fault. The AH is why I quit playing FFXI after only my month trial. By recording the actual sale prices of merchandise instead of letting sellers set prices, inflation goes up quicker as those who are willing to pay overestimate the value of the items. I remember I had to farm for hours to pay for my level 8 monk armor, and the price when i first looked was 3,000 gil. By the time I finished farming some 6,000 gil, and selling loads of crystals and moat carp, the listings showed that 5,000 was the going rate. I tried bidding 4k, then 4.5, then 4.75k and got it. If the actual price the items are set for was shown, the competition would lower the prices. Gold farmers are not the entire problem - its the buyers who cause the inflation through their willingness to pay out of pocket and damn the costs.
In order to "legally" buy and sell EQ2 items, you have to do it on those two servers. This gets SOE their percentage and makes it safer for all parties to complete the transaction. But you can buy and sells items and cash from any server - just find a buyer, run the transaction through paypal, then meet up in game and hand over the goods. I think this idea from SOE is brilliant, and expect to see something similar in most of the next generation of MMOs, since it is a good way to cut down on scammers and what not - if figures out how to dupe plat, SOE can take it out on the seller instead of the buyer by not issuing the cash, but letting the buyer keep the plat. As for wether or not this ruins the game for others, well, I've played both ways . In SWG it used to be just a matter of grinding out exp and within a week you could master any basic profession, and most master professions. Now with the new combat system its a lot more complicated. Buying cash makes it easier to get your hands on certain items which can help you out, but all in all the economy is so broke its not even funny. The only way to fix any game economy is to have some sort of steady drain on players holdings to counteract the ease of getting cash. Player housing tries to do this and fails - after all, if you don't want a house you just don't pay it with no negative effect. Look at real life - you cant just walk into a forest with a knife, whack some squirrels, cut out their eyes, and sell them at safeway for a few bucks. MMO's let you do this, paying out of a never ending supply of money. Hence, you can hire some chinese teenagers to do this 24 hours a day for 50 cents an hour, and then sell the amassed plat for ten times what you paid out. If weapons wore down more, food and water was required, etc. etc. the economy would be stronger, but the game would be that much harder too.
How long before the world is connected thru Google Wifi, all shopping is done at Wal-Mart, All coffee is made by Starbucks, and all restaurants are Taco Bell? This is how it begins - a benign-appearing national company offering its service at a loss to get its foot in the door then WAMMO! Monopoly!! Now where'd I put my tinfoil hat and body armor set? (gd&r)
Very true, I remember hearing what an awesome movie Sideways was, pre-streeted it (I used to work at HV) and was bored outta my skull. I'd never pay theatre prices to see another American Pie or such, but at least they are entertaining.
This list is total crap. I mean seriously, in a list of the top 50 SCI-FI shows of all time, what the hell is Batman doing on the list? Not to mention Superman and Xena? And how the hell did Alien Nation get on the list while DS9 and Farscape didn't? I mean, seriously...did ANYONE like Alien Nation? I thought it was complete crap....and I thought Time Trax was decent back in the day, proving that my standards aren't all too high. V makes number 18 on the list, outranking Lois and Clark, Superman, Wonder Woman, Andromeda, Stargate Atlantis, just to name a few of the 32 shows it was apparantly better than. The only show I'd rate lower than V on this list is Alien Nation. TOS takes the top slot, the new BSG takes second, and TNG takes third. Reverse that order and you'd be much closer to the truth. Finally, Six Million Dollar Man, Bionic Woman, and Man From UNCLE all made the list. Get Smart didn't. And I doubt anyone who has ever seen Get Smart would rank it below the likes of Tales from the Crypt or Xena. I think Boston.Com just wanted to anger the whole sci-fi community with this completely bullshit list. The only good thing about it is that it gives Sliders some measure of respect - the first two seasons were brilliant and awesome. After that it jumped the shark and bad.
So they are going to start a "legal" emulation site, charging monthly to play old video games? Legality aside, I think only the most clueless of videogame fans will be interested in this - though the entertainment stuff sounds like it might be interesting enough to watch. But I'll be damned if I'm paying $15 a month to play asteroids or double dragon in its original glory.