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User: regular_gonzalez

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  1. Re:So what they really mean is.. on ArenaNet's MMO Design Manifesto · · Score: 1

    Unless I'm parsing it wildly incorrectly, I think he's saying the exact opposite of that.

  2. Re:dont be silly on BioShock 2's First DLC Already On Disc · · Score: 1

    No, it's like buying Windows Home Premium for $120 and finding out that hey! it also has Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Ultimate on that disc. I mean they already did the work before it even shipped, but if I find out later that Windows 7 Professional is the version I really wanted, I'd have to pay to upgrade. How come I can't just install Windows 7 Ultimate instead?



    The answer will blow your mind. It's because you didn't pay for it.

  3. Re:What is this "entitlement mentality"? on The Difficulty of Dismantling Constellation · · Score: 1

    Any money they can *take* from the government is rightfully theirs? Methinks you have it backwards. The government doesn't have their own money, they have that of taxpayers. How can one take one's own money?
    Honest question, and answer with your first, gut instinct: Does the government grant rights to the people, or do the people grant power to the government?

  4. Re:life in the old browsers yet on Five Years of YouTube and Forced Evolution · · Score: 1

    2007: Youtube accounts for 10% of all traffic
    2008: Youtube accounts for 35% of all streaming video; Streaming media accounts for 50% of all internet traffic. Doing the math, that puts Youtube around 12-15% of *all* traffic.

    There's no good alternative because there's no good alternative.

  5. Re:or..... on Five Years of YouTube and Forced Evolution · · Score: 2, Funny

    Not even the same ballpark. That's like needing to drive to Chicago for the weekend and your car has broken down. Your friend pipes up, "Hey, we can take a go-cart!"

  6. Re:*always* connected? on Blizzard Previews Revamped Battle.net · · Score: 1

    I imagine the subset of the population that this will impact is vanishingly small. Your desktop is obviously always connected, so we're looking at laptops. Given that the graphics are fairly modern, we can eliminate vast swaths of the notebook market. RTS games require a mouse - using a touchpad for an RTS is an exercise in frustration and can only sound like a viable option to someone who has never actually tried it. So now we're looking at a gaming laptop with enough flat area to use a mouse - something like a desk or table. Certainly a larger area than, say, the fold-up tray on an airplane; something more like a table at your local coffee shop (which almost assuredly has free wifi). It's not a huge leap to say that the number of people who will play this game on a gaming laptop in an area with no internet connection is miniscule.

    And that's not even taking into account that there will likely be an offline mode similar to Steam.

  7. Re:BEGIN (partisanBickering) on Reported Obama Plan Would Privatize Manned Launches · · Score: 1

    You're so close to really getting it. Just need to take that last step and realize that Democrats do the exact. same. thing.

    To wit: Keith Olberman's rant about Scott Brown, who if he were a Texan would be leftist. You say, "And at which point Rush Limbaugh would say the same things Olberman did instead of defending him!" Which is true, but leaves out the bigger picture - Olberman would instantly have jumped to Scott Brown's defense and ripped into Rush.

    Ah, so it goes.

  8. Re:Free trade of ideas, anyone? on Google Hacked, May Pull Out of China · · Score: 1

    Terrorism?

  9. Re:Free trade of ideas, anyone? on Google Hacked, May Pull Out of China · · Score: 2, Insightful

    What you call a failure I'd call a great success, showing a robust system that is operating well. A ruler in power for 50 years worries me much more than one that rules for 5 months.

  10. Re:Verizon and Microsoft on Verizon Removes Search Choices For BlackBerrys · · Score: 1

    M$? You mean MS - Microsoft?
    Wait, oh, I get it -- it's because they like money?
    I also like money, I wonder if I can get my /. name changed to regu£ar_gonza£ez.

  11. Re:That is STILL nothing on $2,000 Bribe Bought Password To DC P.O. System · · Score: 1

    And let's not forget about Bill and Hillary, who have their own legacy of corruption they left behind.

    In other words, all national level politicians are bought and owned, else they wouldn't be able to make it on a nation-wide stage.

  12. Re:Heh on Left 4 Dead 2 Banned In Australia · · Score: 2, Informative

    They would have to block the sales of the game, or face legal penalties. There is a workaround, however, that is used in every sizeable gaming community where Game A is not available in Region B for whatever reason -- a friend who *is* in Region A can buy the game as a gift, and then gift it to the person in Region B (whereupon B paypals money to A). Inconvenient? Definitely. But not insurmountable, if you're a regular on a gaming forum like Shacknews.

  13. Re:How to do rock band without "Rock Band" on The Design Failures That Led To Rock Band · · Score: 1

    Oh, I agree, and I'm learning guitar right now. But comparing a video game to real life is missing the point. Spending 15 hours in Guitar Hero, I can have fun rocking out to classic songs. After 15 hours on a real guitar, I could play Go Tell Aunt Rhodie.

  14. Re:How to do rock band without "Rock Band" on The Design Failures That Led To Rock Band · · Score: 5, Funny

    I've seen people play Crysis. I've never played it. I'm not sure exactly what it is. I think that there are some kind of weapons and enemies displayed on a monitor and you try to use the weapons to shoot them. Allow me to suggest an alternative. Buy a real gun and go to the shooting range. Buy a selection of guns, and practice until you're good. When you feel good and up to it, consider joining the Army so you can shoot real life people in the middle east. I've seen people play Forza. I've never played it. I'm not sure exactly what it is. I think that you take a plastic controller and maneuver a car around a racetrack displayed on a monitor, avoiding other vehicles at the same time. Allow me to suggest an alternative. Buy a sports car and go to your local track. Practice driving a lot, trying to avoid accidents. When you feel good and up to it, consider joining organized races at the racetrack. Wait, that sounds stupid.

  15. Re:Gameplay beyond level 20: Unfair ganking. on Aion Open Beta Starts September 6th · · Score: 1

    Age of Conan does this -- if you gank people more then (iirc) 8 levels lower, you get murder points. The lower their level, the more murder points. If you have any murder points, all city guards will kill you on sight, vendors won't trade with you, etc. You have to work them off via questing. I can count on one hand how many times I've been killed by someone more then 8 levels above my own, due largely to this system.

  16. Re:Rootkits for everyone! on Aion Open Beta Starts September 6th · · Score: 1

    Would you give, say, me permission to install a rootkit on your machine and monitor everything that you do on it? Yeah, that's how I feel about letting someone else - an individual or company - install a rootkit on *my* machine.

  17. Rootkits for everyone! on Aion Open Beta Starts September 6th · · Score: 5, Informative

    A word of warning - Aion uses GameGuard which for all intents and purposes, is a rootkit. The article is a bit outdated w/ regards to incompatibility issues with other apps, as the Steam incompatibility was fixed a month or two ago iirc. Either way, it's a terrible and invasive bit of software that I won't allow anywhere near my PC.

  18. SMB on Videogame Places You're Not Supposed To Go · · Score: 1

    I'm surprised no one's mentioned the one I assumed was the well-known, the negative world in Super Mario Bros. It wasn't exactly fun and it was a one-way trip so you had to restart your game if you got tired of playing the same level over and over again, but it was a novelty and something I doubt was meant to be found by the average gamer.

  19. Re:Leftover Bush Fearmongering plus some reality on WHO Raises Swine Flu Threat Level · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Can you imagine any possible news story where you would not find it relevant to bring up Bush? Let it go already, it's over.

  20. 20 questions on Why the CAPTCHA Approach Is Doomed · · Score: 1

    I'm sure most here have played that online 20 questions game, which used user input to create an impressive database that would guess your item every time. What about using that kind of information as a captcha? Tell the user to do the answering for a predetermined item randomly chosen, and the user will navigate to the correct item via the answers. For instance, the captcha program says "Think of a %s ('bee', for this example) and answer the following questions:

    CAPTCHA: Is it alive?
    User: Yes
    CAPTCHA: Is it bigger than a shoebox?
    User: No
    CAPTCHA: Does it fly
    User: Yes
    etc.

    Sure, it would take a bit of time on the user's part, but it's fairly entertaining, easy for the end user, time-intensive on a large scale for scammers, and difficult for a computer to answer.

  21. Re:Have to publish it in the right place on How Do I Put an Invention Into the Public Domain? · · Score: 5, Informative

    This has long since been discredited, and it's simple to disprove with basic logic. What's to prevent you from mailing an unsealed envelope to yourself? The date will be on it, and then five years later you can stuff it with the details of GE's new holographic television (or whatever), seal it, and voila! You "invented" it five years previous.

  22. Re:Quebeqois and French on Shouldn't Every Developer Understand English? · · Score: 1

    That's odd you can't tell the difference. While I speak French on a very rudimentary level, the difference in accents among various French speakers is fairly distinct to me. A couple years back, I saw the Godard film "Out of Breath" and knew within the first few minutes that the woman's French was odd just based on the sound of it (it's mentioned a bit later in the film that she is American).

    I'm sure I'd miss out on more subtle varients akin to English as spoken by Texans vs. Alabamans, but gross differences are pretty obvious in my experience.

  23. Re:Sesame Street & the Importance of Bilingual on Shouldn't Every Developer Understand English? · · Score: 1

    That's a bit odd. In my time in Paris, about a week also, I'd say it was 50/50. One thing I did notice was that an attempt to speak in French (rudimentary though mine may be - 4 years of high school french 15 years ago) was met with surprised pleasure and a much increased willingness to help, either via French, English, or gesturing and pidgin.

  24. Re:So what happens with Rule 11? on RIAA Backs Down In Texas Case · · Score: 1

    Only a truly stubborn fool gets Rule 11 sanctioned most of the time.

    So just how many has Jack Thompson had, then?

  25. Re:haha on Alaska's Mt. Redoubt Has Erupted · · Score: 1

    The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected.