It's pretty neat feature but ultimately it isn't going to help the grow the Linux and OS X game library
Not in the short term no. But it theoretically makes the linux based steambox a viable gaming platform, since windows gamers can add one next to the TV and play windows games on it.
If all goes according to valves plan, a few years down the road AAA windows game developers look up and realize there's millions of these linux steam boxes around, installed, hooked up to TVs with controllers... and suddenly realeasing a linux port doesn't seem all that risky.
Espeically if the steambox installed base is growing, while the dedicated windows gaming rigs are stagnating or declining... at some point releasing directly for steambox becomes a nobrainer.
that's the valve dream anyway. No idea if it will take off, but they've definitely put a lot of the right pieces out there to make it succeed.
Lavabit has a clear case if you're right considering the feds are outright lying about the first warrant (according to you.) Have you read the warrants or any court filings? I guess you don't need to.
Yes, Exhibit I, Attachment 2, whereupon lavabit is required to allow the FBI to install a pen/trap to capture all Snowden's email.
Strictly speaking the order only applied to Snowden's email, but the FBI interpreted such that in order to comply with the order, the pen/trap device would require Lavabit turn over its master SSL keys to *decrypt* all traffic, even just to comply with an order that technically only allowed them Snowden's.
Lavabit objected to this. The FBI insisted this original order did in fact grant them the right to the master keys and it snowballed from there.
So yes, while the initial order didn't demand the SSL keys explicitly it demanded something that effectively would have required the SSL keys in order to comply; at least by the FBIs interpretation of the order.
couple reasons. 1) Cars are a lot more visible and other drivers are more likely to see / pay attention to / acknowledge other cars. So they are less likely to hit them in the first place.
2) Cars get up to speed much faster, reducing the impact of having to stop?
Or maybe it is true of cars; for what its worth the trend here is away from 2 and 4 way stops towards roundabouts with yield entrances...
Cool, so I can drive through stop signs and not get a ticket?
Course not. Technically its still not legal for bikes either. The study only made the recommendation, as far as i know no laws anywhere have acted on it at this point.
I *hate* it that bike riders aren't given tickets for the same things car riders are, or even pedestrians doing dangerous things (like jaywalking across the boulevard in front of my workplace).
I do agree with this. The rules should be enforced, especially vs dangerous behaviour. Although I also think the rules for bikes -should- be different in some scenarios.
Putting criminals into unserviceable debt so they get zero extra income from making money legally does not sound like a good strategy for fighting crime.
Very true; im going to spell it out for anyone who missed your point:
Saddling a criminal with a huge debt will de-motivate him from getting a job as his wages will be garnished to pay his debt; and it will instead motivate him to seek income that will be exempt from collection -- and that would be income from criminal enterprises.
So saddling criminals with large debts would result in a) criminals avoiding paying it by seeking illicit income (ie criminal activities) b) result in the bills never getting paid (meaning using it as a solution to fund policing doesn't work)
This is why I am opposed to the law busses must stop to check for a train. Has anyonr bothered to check if a bis stopping, then stalling as it pulled ahead, increased the rate of hits rather than decrease it?
You might be interested to find out that a study WAS done to determine whether bikes stopping for stop signs increased their rate of accident.
The assumption being that the longer a bike is in an intersection the higher the odds of it being involved in an accident, and stopping for a stop sign means that it has to enter the intersection starting from zero, leading to it being in the intersection longer.
The study found that the bikes having to stop for stop signs did in fact increase the accident rate, and recommended that they only stop when they needed to stop. (ie if they could see approaching cars as they approached the intersection)
Not your bus example, but similar in many respects.
When I was a kid, I thought they were saying "My name is...." and then trailing off in death.
I always thought that was neat, that it humanized them in some way, that they weren't "faceless nazis" but ordinary people, with kids, families, names... i had to kill them, but it was not as morally unambiguouous as simply I'm the good guy killing the bad guy.
Later on I found it was "mein leben"... or "my life" in german; and that was the end of that.
That a small business owner is ill-equipped to deal with the weight of the federal government coming down on him.
We learned that you can't go from nothing to fighting the FBI and NSA on constitutional grounds in the space of a few days. You won't even FIND a lawyer able to take up your case; nevermind be able to bring him up to speed, and get him the evidence you need, and have him prepare an actual defense for you; especially when everything is under seal, and secret gag orders.
He refused to comply with a court order and provide the metadata (email headers, not the body) after which the prosecutors obtained a warrant for SLL keys.
His version of the story contradicts that claim. I doubt you have authoritative inside knowledge as to the truth here.
Warrants for email headers are commonly obtained in criminal investigations and its not unusual or surprising that they wanted Snowden's as he is a subject of federal investigation for multiple serious crimes.
Have you read the warrant? Some how I doubt it. Because he's claiming they wanted a lot more than that.
The general consensus is that he handled his defense poorly, and as a result made things worse for himself. What this interview shone the spotlight on is that his 'poor handling' of his defense was, in many respects, entirely beyond his control -- trapped between tight deadlines, restrictive sealed gag orders, being a '3rd party' to the actual case instead of an actual defendant, and not having a lawyer already lined up and primed meant that he was effectively denied justice by these process constraints put on him.
You can do gritty without it being dark. Its more of a roughness of the area. Think Hoth, that is gritty and white.
Nearly all of the original star wars sets were "gritty". That was one of the better Lucas decisions in the film.
I was just taking the piss out of your post; because "make it gritty and dark" seems to be the new fashion. Whether its lord of the rings, or start trek, or a new FPS or anything else... it just needs to be gritty and dark.
And then that sort of dovetailed with the black and brown palette that all things gritty and dark must now use to show us just how gritty and dark they are.
I'd like to see something light and optimistic once in a while. I'm sick of everything needing to be 'gritty and dark'. Gritty and dark is just a cultural fad, and its starting to get old.
As for Mass Effect in particular:
The issue people had with it was that the premise of the series is that you make choices that matter, and it didn't really.
And this is PRECISELY the last thing you want for a movie. Where you do all this plot and the characters do all this development, and then you have a big dumb deus ex machina at the end that makes everything they se tup to that point completely irrelevant.
Tax the criminals by the "service" of capture them.
So who pays for the criminals that 'get away'? Just the ones that get caught?
So now some punk ass kid spray paints a building and gets dinged with a $250,000 fine? Even if you -wanted- it to work like that you'd still end up short because most criminals wouldn't or couldn't pay those fines.
Though you're (deliberately, of course) not counting the thousands and thousands of cases each year where defensive brandishment stops an attack.
What difference does that make. You can defensively brandish a smart gun too. Its not like its inability to fire as reliably makes it any less effective at "defensive brandishment".
The crook isn't going to go "... oh... i see you have a smart gun pointed at me, and there is an extra 1% chance (or even extra 30% chance) that it will fail when you attempt to shoot me... so now I feel emboldened to ignore it and go about my criminal business...".
Making it a bit darker in a gritty way would be nice
Because god forbid anything be bright or light-hearted.
Gritty and dark is always better? And everyone has to wear black, or really dark grey. Or maybe dark brown, but it has to be dark enough that it looks black. And everyone has to be a miserable tortured soul. That's a sure sign that its 'good'. Its like AAA FPS development right? Because all those need to be good is more grit and darkness with each iteration.
From the link you posted...
"Maybe kind of like a Star Wars version of Shepard from Mass Effect."
Yeah! Make it like Mass Effect! That ended well right?/sarcasm
The fact that they are using the money for basic funding is an admission of corruption.
Maybe, or maybe its evidence that they aren't actually getting enough basic funding; and are dipping into the traffic fine revenue just to make ends meet.
It is amazing that anyone would argue against the ending of corruption in our police departments.
Nobody is arguing that. By all means have all traffic fine money directed to the lottery for all I care*. But if you do, be prepared to add funding to the police some other way.
(* Because directing it anywhere else would have the same problem... for example directing it to medical research would mean a reduction in fine revenue would result in research labs and projects being cancelled... )
But what does any of that have to do with traffic?
Nothing. Nothing at all.
It is very unfair to take the burdens of society in general and redirect the costs to just those who drive. It would be better to use more general revenue like income taxes to support police work.
I agree.
I am not "supporting" a fee on EV nor even on all cars to fund core police work. I am merely pointing out that a new revenue source must be created.
I agree that an Income tax or a property tax is a much more logical target than a vehicle tax.
You'll note I didn't mention any drug crimes at all, for two reasons: a) because they do have a revenue potential b) because as the states grow up, the 'war on drugs' might also fade to a much less significant source of revenue
And it doesn't matter to my argument, because the reality is still that the crimes I listed as non-revenue crimes that will still need to be paid for.
Eliminating the need for traffic enforcement by largely eliminating traffic violations is a -good thing-, but but right now its revenue component is currently helping pay for other police work and a replacement source of revenue will need to be created.
Seems to me that if enforcement actions are no longer necessary, then you won't need as big of a police force so the loss of revenue will be offset by not having to pay the salaries of all of those traffic cops. This is a non-issue
Traffic enforcement is clearly revenue generating, over and above the cost of the enforcement itself.
Other police work, is clearly not. There is no revenue from solving a murder, or a missing person, nor for catching a rapist, or theif.
So the traffic enforcement was subsidizing the rest of the police work.
Take away the enforcenment revenue, sure, you can dump the enforcment division to offset a small part of the loss of revenue, but the rest of the police work is going to need a new revenue source to offset the removal of the enforcement revenue that was subsidizing it.
Adding an enforcement fee for a car that doesn't need enforcement is just absurd.
The way I read it, is its not an enforcement fee for a car that doesn't need enforcement. Its a $1000 tax on (I think) all cars to support local police municipal revenues so they can continue to pursue criminals where there isn't a net payoff at the end... like nearly all of them.
Right now, it appears some of the revenue from traffic fines pays for the detectives investigating theft, arson, fraud, missing persons, murder, hunting with out a license, public urination, vandalism, and so on.
Take away the traffic fines, and sure, you don't need nearly as much traffic enforcement, but they would also face a budget crisis within the rest of the department even if they let go of all the excess 'traffic enforcement' officers. Clearly that money to pay for regular police work is still going to have to come from somewhere. Raising local taxes is the obvious solution, whether its a tax-per-vehicle, or it gets added into property taxes, or whatever... its going to have to happen.
Its still scary and confusing, and given how much ink is spilled on the site about the situation, avoiding the situation, resolving the situation... it ~seems~ like it happens a lot, to someone who doesn't know better.
And ironically its going to happen with more frequency to precisely the people who don't know better -- because they are the ones likely to fail to follow instructions select the wrong firmware, reboot mid-process, and other 'oops' scenarios.
How much does an OUYA game cost (the price of the main entitlement) compared to the average Wii U game?
Yeah, comparing Batman Arkam Asylum or Lego Lord of the Rings to "CandyCrush" clones isn't exactly that informative.
Silly party minigames vs silly party minigames? Well the WiiUpartyU is $30 bucks including a controller... so basically free assuming you want a controller, which if multiplayer in-room gaming is the goal... you do.
Still your point is made. I think a lot of WiiU's virtual console stuff is overpriced relative to equivalent content on other platforms.
But I think if Nintendo ran a more open store and an android emulation layer on their platform, including the 3DS, they could make a killing and wipe out the inroads tablets etc have made into their market.
'In Hidden In Plain Sight, your character is one ninja lost in a sea of CPU-controlled ninjas with exactly the same texture. In the first few seconds, you have to walk left, right, up, down, anything that will let you understand which of the characters on the screen is yours. Once you've got that, you have to figure out your opponents. Any move that doesn't look like is performed by the AI could give you away.'
Yeah, there's a Wii U party game disc that has about a dozen variations on this; along with a dozen variations on a dozen more mini-game archetypes...
Not to rag on the Ouya, but if this is the Ouya's niche, they're taking on Nintendo on their home turf, without Mario, Metroid, Zelda, or Pokemon... not even a Pikman or Skylanders to back them up.
The Ouya's about half the price after you get some extra controllers relative to a WiiU with a few extra wiimotes. But the value proposition of the Wii U is far greater... not to mention unlike the other current gen systems... they kept back-compat with the original Wii.
Slashdot Mirror
It's pretty neat feature but ultimately it isn't going to help the grow the Linux and OS X game library
Not in the short term no. But it theoretically makes the linux based steambox a viable gaming platform, since windows gamers can add one next to the TV and play windows games on it.
If all goes according to valves plan, a few years down the road AAA windows game developers look up and realize there's millions of these linux steam boxes around, installed, hooked up to TVs with controllers... and suddenly realeasing a linux port doesn't seem all that risky.
Espeically if the steambox installed base is growing, while the dedicated windows gaming rigs are stagnating or declining... at some point releasing directly for steambox becomes a nobrainer.
that's the valve dream anyway. No idea if it will take off, but they've definitely put a lot of the right pieces out there to make it succeed.
Lavabit has a clear case if you're right considering the feds are outright lying about the first warrant (according to you.) Have you read the warrants or any court filings? I guess you don't need to.
Yes, Exhibit I, Attachment 2, whereupon lavabit is required to allow the FBI to install a pen/trap to capture all Snowden's email.
Strictly speaking the order only applied to Snowden's email, but the FBI interpreted such that in order to comply with the order, the pen/trap device would require Lavabit turn over its master SSL keys to *decrypt* all traffic, even just to comply with an order that technically only allowed them Snowden's.
Lavabit objected to this. The FBI insisted this original order did in fact grant them the right to the master keys and it snowballed from there.
So yes, while the initial order didn't demand the SSL keys explicitly it demanded something that effectively would have required the SSL keys in order to comply; at least by the FBIs interpretation of the order.
Why wouldn't the same be true of cars?
couple reasons.
1) Cars are a lot more visible and other drivers are more likely to see / pay attention to / acknowledge other cars. So they are less likely to hit them in the first place.
2) Cars get up to speed much faster, reducing the impact of having to stop?
Or maybe it is true of cars; for what its worth the trend here is away from 2 and 4 way stops towards roundabouts with yield entrances...
Cool, so I can drive through stop signs and not get a ticket?
Course not. Technically its still not legal for bikes either. The study only made the recommendation, as far as i know no laws anywhere have acted on it at this point.
I *hate* it that bike riders aren't given tickets for the same things car riders are, or even pedestrians doing dangerous things (like jaywalking across the boulevard in front of my workplace).
I do agree with this. The rules should be enforced, especially vs dangerous behaviour. Although I also think the rules for bikes -should- be different in some scenarios.
You seem to be under that this behavior is not corruption.
How is it "corruption"?
Where do you think the fine revenue should go that would in some way be less corrupt?
Putting criminals into unserviceable debt so they get zero extra income from making money legally does not sound like a good strategy for fighting crime.
Very true; im going to spell it out for anyone who missed your point:
Saddling a criminal with a huge debt will de-motivate him from getting a job as his wages will be garnished to pay his debt; and it will instead motivate him to seek income that will be exempt from collection -- and that would be income from criminal enterprises.
So saddling criminals with large debts would result in
a) criminals avoiding paying it by seeking illicit income (ie criminal activities)
b) result in the bills never getting paid (meaning using it as a solution to fund policing doesn't work)
This is why I am opposed to the law busses must stop to check for a train. Has anyonr bothered to check if a bis stopping, then stalling as it pulled ahead, increased the rate of hits rather than decrease it?
You might be interested to find out that a study WAS done to determine whether bikes stopping for stop signs increased their rate of accident.
The assumption being that the longer a bike is in an intersection the higher the odds of it being involved in an accident, and stopping for a stop sign means that it has to enter the intersection starting from zero, leading to it being in the intersection longer.
The study found that the bikes having to stop for stop signs did in fact increase the accident rate, and recommended that they only stop when they needed to stop. (ie if they could see approaching cars as they approached the intersection)
Not your bus example, but similar in many respects.
""mein laven!" [sic]
When I was a kid, I thought they were saying "My name is...." and then trailing off in death.
I always thought that was neat, that it humanized them in some way, that they weren't "faceless nazis" but ordinary people, with kids, families, names... i had to kill them, but it was not as morally unambiguouous as simply I'm the good guy killing the bad guy.
Later on I found it was "mein leben"... or "my life" in german; and that was the end of that.
The truth behind the story is [...]
That a small business owner is ill-equipped to deal with the weight of the federal government coming down on him.
We learned that you can't go from nothing to fighting the FBI and NSA on constitutional grounds in the space of a few days. You won't even FIND a lawyer able to take up your case; nevermind be able to bring him up to speed, and get him the evidence you need, and have him prepare an actual defense for you; especially when everything is under seal, and secret gag orders.
He refused to comply with a court order and provide the metadata (email headers, not the body) after which the prosecutors obtained a warrant for SLL keys.
His version of the story contradicts that claim. I doubt you have authoritative inside knowledge as to the truth here.
Warrants for email headers are commonly obtained in criminal investigations and its not unusual or surprising that they wanted Snowden's as he is a subject of federal investigation for multiple serious crimes.
Have you read the warrant? Some how I doubt it. Because he's claiming they wanted a lot more than that.
The general consensus is that he handled his defense poorly, and as a result made things worse for himself. What this interview shone the spotlight on is that his 'poor handling' of his defense was, in many respects, entirely beyond his control -- trapped between tight deadlines, restrictive sealed gag orders, being a '3rd party' to the actual case instead of an actual defendant, and not having a lawyer already lined up and primed meant that he was effectively denied justice by these process constraints put on him.
I think he makes a good care here.
You can do gritty without it being dark. Its more of a roughness of the area. Think Hoth, that is gritty and white.
Nearly all of the original star wars sets were "gritty". That was one of the better Lucas decisions in the film.
I was just taking the piss out of your post; because "make it gritty and dark" seems to be the new fashion. Whether its lord of the rings, or start trek, or a new FPS or anything else... it just needs to be gritty and dark.
And then that sort of dovetailed with the black and brown palette that all things gritty and dark must now use to show us just how gritty and dark they are.
I'd like to see something light and optimistic once in a while. I'm sick of everything needing to be 'gritty and dark'. Gritty and dark is just a cultural fad, and its starting to get old.
As for Mass Effect in particular:
The issue people had with it was that the premise of the series is that you make choices that matter, and it didn't really.
And this is PRECISELY the last thing you want for a movie. Where you do all this plot and the characters do all this development, and then you have a big dumb deus ex machina at the end that makes everything they se tup to that point completely irrelevant.
Tax the criminals by the "service" of capture them.
So who pays for the criminals that 'get away'? Just the ones that get caught?
So now some punk ass kid spray paints a building and gets dinged with a $250,000 fine? Even if you -wanted- it to work like that you'd still end up short because most criminals wouldn't or couldn't pay those fines.
Though you're (deliberately, of course) not counting the thousands and thousands of cases each year where defensive brandishment stops an attack.
What difference does that make. You can defensively brandish a smart gun too. Its not like its inability to fire as reliably makes it any less effective at "defensive brandishment".
The crook isn't going to go "... oh... i see you have a smart gun pointed at me, and there is an extra 1% chance (or even extra 30% chance) that it will fail when you attempt to shoot me... so now I feel emboldened to ignore it and go about my criminal business...".
Give me a break.
Making it a bit darker in a gritty way would be nice
Because god forbid anything be bright or light-hearted.
Gritty and dark is always better? And everyone has to wear black, or really dark grey. Or maybe dark brown, but it has to be dark enough that it looks black. And everyone has to be a miserable tortured soul. That's a sure sign that its 'good'. Its like AAA FPS development right? Because all those need to be good is more grit and darkness with each iteration.
From the link you posted...
"Maybe kind of like a Star Wars version of Shepard from Mass Effect."
Yeah! Make it like Mass Effect! That ended well right? /sarcasm
More character development
Agree. Make a compelling movie.
The fact that they are using the money for basic funding is an admission of corruption.
Maybe, or maybe its evidence that they aren't actually getting enough basic funding; and are dipping into the traffic fine revenue just to make ends meet.
It is amazing that anyone would argue against the ending of corruption in our police departments.
Nobody is arguing that. By all means have all traffic fine money directed to the lottery for all I care*. But if you do, be prepared to add funding to the police some other way.
(* Because directing it anywhere else would have the same problem... for example directing it to medical research would mean a reduction in fine revenue would result in research labs and projects being cancelled... )
Really? That must be why I wrote in my first response to the thread...
"[...] Raising local taxes is the obvious solution [...]"
so you don't object to simply paying regardless of your driving status?
If anything I think that makes more sense.
But what does any of that have to do with traffic?
Nothing. Nothing at all.
It is very unfair to take the burdens of society in general and redirect the costs to just those who drive. It would be better to use more general revenue like income taxes to support police work.
I agree.
I am not "supporting" a fee on EV nor even on all cars to fund core police work. I am merely pointing out that a new revenue source must be created.
I agree that an Income tax or a property tax is a much more logical target than a vehicle tax.
Of course it shouldn't. But they -do- have to be funded, so if we eliminate a source of funding, a new source will have to be found.
I don't disagree with you at all.
You've never heard of civil asset forfeitures?
You'll note I didn't mention any drug crimes at all, for two reasons: a) because they do have a revenue potential
b) because as the states grow up, the 'war on drugs' might also fade to a much less significant source of revenue
And it doesn't matter to my argument, because the reality is still that the crimes I listed as non-revenue crimes that will still need to be paid for.
Eliminating the need for traffic enforcement by largely eliminating traffic violations is a -good thing-, but but right now its revenue component is currently helping pay for other police work and a replacement source of revenue will need to be created.
Seems to me that if enforcement actions are no longer necessary, then you won't need as big of a police force so the loss of revenue will be offset by not having to pay the salaries of all of those traffic cops. This is a non-issue
Traffic enforcement is clearly revenue generating, over and above the cost of the enforcement itself.
Other police work, is clearly not. There is no revenue from solving a murder, or a missing person, nor for catching a rapist, or theif.
So the traffic enforcement was subsidizing the rest of the police work.
Take away the enforcenment revenue, sure, you can dump the enforcment division to offset a small part of the loss of revenue, but the rest of the police work is going to need a new revenue source to offset the removal of the enforcement revenue that was subsidizing it.
Taxes will have to go up.
Adding an enforcement fee for a car that doesn't need enforcement is just absurd.
The way I read it, is its not an enforcement fee for a car that doesn't need enforcement. Its a $1000 tax on (I think) all cars to support local police municipal revenues so they can continue to pursue criminals where there isn't a net payoff at the end... like nearly all of them.
Right now, it appears some of the revenue from traffic fines pays for the detectives investigating theft, arson, fraud, missing persons, murder, hunting with out a license, public urination, vandalism, and so on.
Take away the traffic fines, and sure, you don't need nearly as much traffic enforcement, but they would also face a budget crisis within the rest of the department even if they let go of all the excess 'traffic enforcement' officers. Clearly that money to pay for regular police work is still going to have to come from somewhere. Raising local taxes is the obvious solution, whether its a tax-per-vehicle, or it gets added into property taxes, or whatever... its going to have to happen.
Its still scary and confusing, and given how much ink is spilled on the site about the situation, avoiding the situation, resolving the situation... it ~seems~ like it happens a lot, to someone who doesn't know better.
And ironically its going to happen with more frequency to precisely the people who don't know better -- because they are the ones likely to fail to follow instructions select the wrong firmware, reboot mid-process, and other 'oops' scenarios.
How much does an OUYA game cost (the price of the main entitlement) compared to the average Wii U game?
Yeah, comparing Batman Arkam Asylum or Lego Lord of the Rings to "CandyCrush" clones isn't exactly that informative.
Silly party minigames vs silly party minigames? Well the WiiUpartyU is $30 bucks including a controller... so basically free assuming you want a controller, which if multiplayer in-room gaming is the goal... you do.
Still your point is made. I think a lot of WiiU's virtual console stuff is overpriced relative to equivalent content on other platforms.
But I think if Nintendo ran a more open store and an android emulation layer on their platform, including the 3DS, they could make a killing and wipe out the inroads tablets etc have made into their market.
'In Hidden In Plain Sight, your character is one ninja lost in a sea of CPU-controlled ninjas with exactly the same texture. In the first few seconds, you have to walk left, right, up, down, anything that will let you understand which of the characters on the screen is yours. Once you've got that, you have to figure out your opponents. Any move that doesn't look like is performed by the AI could give you away.'
Yeah, there's a Wii U party game disc that has about a dozen variations on this; along with a dozen variations on a dozen more mini-game archetypes...
http://www.nintendo.com/games/...
Not to rag on the Ouya, but if this is the Ouya's niche, they're taking on Nintendo on their home turf, without Mario, Metroid, Zelda, or Pokemon... not even a Pikman or Skylanders to back them up.
The Ouya's about half the price after you get some extra controllers relative to a WiiU with a few extra wiimotes. But the value proposition of the Wii U is far greater... not to mention unlike the other current gen systems... they kept back-compat with the original Wii.
. Enough chemo pills to bankrupt a horse later
"bankrupt a horse" ? That's an odd expression.
I am sorry to hear about your father though. Here's hoping indeed!