I have upgraded my system several times while running XP and the only time I needed to call Microsoft CS was once when I upgraded motherboards. That included two seperate video card upgrades, neither of which needed a call.
I guess I don't see what the big deal here is. I won't be upgrading to Vista until the performance is benchmarked significantly past XP, but for people worried about upgrading this seems to be a loosening of the rules currently applied to XP if anything.
FPS play on a console is wildly different compared to play on PC. Even in cases where the exact same game is released for both, the control differences turn them into completely different games. With the standard WASD mouse and keyboard setup gamers are far more accurate, leading to hit boxes that leave little room for error. Weapons also tend to leave little room for error with a focus on projectiles with minimal spread and instant impact.
Whether you prefer the console or the PC for something like Halo2 is determined by what kind of gameplay you enjoy, but enough "hardcore" FPS gamers prefer the microtwitch style that PC's will largely be considered superior.
To be fair, kids in the US also know they can contact emergency personnel by simply dialing "911" at any phone. There are prank 911 calls now and then but that hardly makes the service a poor idea.
"Pixelux Entertainment's Digital Molecular Matter has also been employed, which is a technical way of saying that walls will crumble, glass will shatter, and organic plant life will sway in the game. LucasArts promises that the power of these two consoles has been utilized to offer open-ended and completely destructible environments."
I doubt the environment will be *completely* destructible, but it will be nice if there are some gameplay options that involve multiple paths. While at least one scene trying to outrun a boulder is inevitable, I'd like to see tombs filled with puzzles that can be attacked from any direction. I just have a bad vibe about linear Prince of Persia type gameplay here.
I definitely disagree with this. One of my favorite features in Max Payne 2 was the adjusting AI. It does get a lot harder if you are doing well, and that's what I like about it - it keeps things challenging. I am a longtime clan FPS player and there were several sections that I had to try 3+ times (especially the charge up the hallway toward the end). On the same note my roommate beat the game with limited FPS skills because the AI toned things down for him.
Perhaps it comes down to what kind of FPS gamer you are. I get really tired of runs through games where the "challenging" objectives are to beat it in a faster time, beat it without getting hit once, beat it with a certain low level weapon, etc. I'd much rather have the entire mission in doubt with the knowledge that if I don't make my first shot count and get behind some cover fast I'm going to get hit pretty hard.
First and foremost, there is no way I'm going to pay $200 more for a system that arrived a full year later than the 360 and cannot offer either superior graphics or something innovative like the Wii.
I frankly don't care at all about HD-DVD or Blu-Ray - as has been stated often on \. that is not a feature that most people are clamoring for and I certainly feel no need to upgrade all my media at this point.
Maybe Microsoft and Nintendo are collaborating on this. It will be far too convenient for them if the price of a PS3 ends up being the exact same as the price of both a 360 and a Wii together. Maybe they'll have joint marketing and commercials. "Why get a PS3 when you could have both of us instead???"
Most annoying of all to me has been Sony's constant scrambling to avoid letting the details on their system out as long as possible. Any gamers that would have purchased a XBOX360 but were deterred by sony marketing are just going to go out right now and buy a Xbox360 now anyways. Maybe we'll see a bunch of Sony rumors in the next few days that they are changing their minds and the PS3 just "might" be given away free next november, so consumers better wait to buy a system until then so they can find out for sure??
Certainly the "real" answer is more involved parenting.
However, both the hot coffee and the oblivion mods can be done yourself without downloading anything from the internet. The patches are just executables that "punch in the codes" for you. If something exists in game through a developer easter egg, I think that is a fundamentally different scenario we are talking about then simply a modding community.
If the issue is whether the ESRB should be required to evaluate Easter Eggs, I guess I would have to say yes.
This is pretty interesting. The ESRB does not refute Bethesda's claims that the violence and gore was exactly what they had detailed, so this makes the violence and gore rationale an initial oversight by the ESRB and not a fault of Bethesda.
However, if the nude female images were present and simply "locked out" by Bethesda then we have pretty much the same story as the Hot Coffee incident. IMO the ESRB exists solely to enable parents to feel more confident about buying games for their children, and the idea that the ratings could be changed simply by "unlocking" something in the game does a lot to destroy this confidence.
Honestly, are either of these incidents really that different than if Nintendo were to implement nude characters in super mario bros 3 that was unlocked through an a-b-a-b-a-a-a code?
We do get a lot of seasonal rain here, especially in the fall, but the summers are amazing and vibrantly green. We have one of the most physically active populations with a huge percentage of people taking advantage of the extensive national park system in Washington State. As a result of this Seattle currently ranks 4th nationally in Sperling's best places for "Healthiest" city - San Francisco was 3rd with a similar climate.
Sure, people like to make jokes about the weather here in Seattle - but don't let that deceive you into thinking as a city we don't spend much time outdoors.
Seattle does have many popular tech companies including Microsoft and Nintendo and the workforce/job market is very tech oriented. Combine that with a large group of 20-30 somethings and a pretty limited night-life and I think the answer is a lot more obvious than the weather.
"The problem with sentences like "Digital is always superior to analog" is that it's just not true, not even in specific cases."
Note that the "always" in that quote is your addition, not his. Without your addition, his quote is perfectly valid because a good does not need to dominate every comparison in order to be declared superior to another good. It is enough that it dominates 51% weighted by utility. Furthermore, the use of your counter examples rely on unbalanced examples which proves nothing about the basic relationship between the products compared.
For example, if the consumption of apples gave me a utility of 40 per apple, and the consumption of bananas gave me a utility of 35 per banana, we could say that apples are superior to bananas in terms of my utility. That does not mean I would prefer to eat a worm-ridden rotten apple over a banana split. It does mean that I would likely derive more enjoyment from an apple than a banana *if all else was equal.* This is an implicit (and often unstated) assumption held about nearly every single comparison in any arena. If you have a friend who professes to prefer McDonalds over Burger King, he is making an unstated assumption that the McDonalds meal in question has not been rubbed enthusiastically on the ground.
In the context of the discussion, Digital *is* a superior technology to Analog. The trump card here is Clarity, and Digital has that in spades. A few audiophiles out there will prefer the frequency response advantage to analog sound (the ability to listen to sounds over 19k), but that is a drop in the bucket when evaluating the overall market.
Unfortunately this means that Microsoft definitely isn't going to feel compelled to drop 360 prices anyways. I have a couple of friends who were hoping for a bump down to $299 for the premium versions in a move by MS to get more of an early lead on the PS3.
Or maybe this is all an elaborate play from Sony to keep 360 prices up until they can release the PS3? Get your conspiracy hats on...
Methanol isn't as flammable as Gasoline.. but it's still flammable!!! What's going to happen to us when a passing comet sets off sparks and 460 BILLION KILOMETERS of space explodes? The shock wave will knock earth out of rotation and send us hurtling out of the Solar System! We're all going to freeze to death!
Would you consider Domino's an Evil corporation because they do not charge a fixed fee? I would argue that music offerings on iTunes are far more varied than Domino's pizza selection. All songs are not the same quality and they do not represent the same effort, talent and popularity.. so why should they be the same price exactly?
Fixed pricing is a gimmick, *nothing* more. It does not translate into lower prices, only inflexible prices that cannot compensate for varying demand levels. iTunes has managed to use this gimmick to keep prices reasonable on the highly popular pop hits, but they have done so at the expense of the B-level bands which will never have a chance to be profitable at a price point of $1 per track.
And what's wrong exactly with Google trying to be profitable? Capitalism has been responsible for the standard of living *doubling* every forty years in the US dating back to 1820. Life Expectancy in the US has doubled since 1850. Modern economic growth theory is now focused on laws, institutions, and regulations for a good reason - protecting private property is fundamental for a society to have the ability to reward innovation through profit. Everything you've used today was most likely created out of a corporation's incentive for profit.
Everybody still runs macros fine 24/7. The key is to put your macro command on your hotbar, then make the last line of the command/ui action toolbarSlot 00; or whatever two digit code corresponds to the toolbar slot you put your macro in.
That will run the command to the end, when it will then push the button which restarts the command, where it will run to the end, when it will then push the button which restarts the command, where it will run to the end, etc.
Did you try turning off the auto-pause in KOTOR? Or were you playing a guardian and just queuing flurry?
I find myself drawn to games where I can micromanage and yet I loved the combat in both KOTOR and KOTORII (but the story in KOTORII sucked).
Square is definitely trying to remove some of the "grind" through automation and this is definitely a welcome change in terms of modern gameplay. The problem is all of the gamers who grew up on dungeon crawlers and the early FF titles and have posters of Chrono Trigger on the walls. Automating the leveling is as significant as removing random spawn encounters - and that definitely disappointed a *lot* of the older RPG fans.
>> Which is rather absurd considering that the purchasing >> power of Firefly fans or Arrested Development fans is >> probably far greater than that of "Haunted Houses Extreme >> Makeover".
Unfortunately, it isn't quite this straightforward. While employees in technology fields have extremely high disposable incomes relative to other professions, they are also one of the hardest subsets to influence through advertising. While that might seem fairly intuitive, the result is that advertisers devalue this subset to the detriment of shows like you mentioned.
The "solution" to this is the premium cable channels that depend on the subscribers for their income instead of advertisers. The inability of the sci-fi channel to move into this avenue was a major disappointment for many, and the reason why it eats up so much air time with cheap b-movie horror flicks.
That reminds me of one of my friends. He was initially similar in skill level to several of us back in the Q2 days but fell behind quickly in UT and eventually resorted to hosting our UT games and turning on god mode. The only problem for him was that God Mode didn't protect him from being telefragged, so he still finished last every game...
A 2006 season pass lift ticket at Whistler is $1,329. A 2005 kawasaki jet ski will run you around $10,000. A great home theater system will run you at least $2000.
$400 for a gaming console that you will use heavily for several years is perfectly reasonable, especially when contrasted with typical alternatives that the target Xbox360 audience might select from. It's not even that exclusive of an audience - the recommended entertaintment spending for somebody with an entry level 30k job is 5%, or $1500.
When you come down to the differences between movies and games, there is really only one. Games require interactive participation while movies are entirely passive experiences. Adding interactivity to a movie turns it into a game - in fact quite a few developers tried to incorporate this into PC gaming in the mid 90's.
The real question becomes whether true art is possible when there is a level of interaction with the viewer. The answer to this is clearly yes, in fact it is one of the key characteristics of the postmodern art movement. A simple example of this would be the Hypertext, a postmodern novella form that depends entirely on the user to navigate their own path through the story.
What Ebert is really addressing is that the presence of interaction encourages game developers to focus on gameplay elements to the detriment of the traditional artistic potential of the game. This brings up a valid point, namely the existence of "good art" vs. "bad art". Any veteran gamer can probably give several dozen examples of each, as any movie fan can no doubt give several dozen examples of each as pertains to movies. There's no way that a movie like Gigli is more artistic than an excellent game like Fahrenheit simply because it is non-interactive.
In the end, however, I can't really blame Ebert for being wrong about games. He would change his mind if he was exposed to any of the hundreds of games that feature "good art", such as Fahrenheit, Fable, KOTOR, Max Payne, etc, but even when those are given media coverage it is the other features that are hyped instead of their artistic prowess.
I'll agree it hasn't been very aggressively marketed, but lately it's gotten quite a few mentions from online communities (most recently PA). I certainly wouldn't go so far as to overlook it in terms of sales.
A little more on GalCivII from a non-stardock employee. If you've ever played a game of Civilization and then been disappointed when the game ends at the space age... you'll be happy to know that Galactic Civilizations II follows a similar style but starts where the Civ franchise leaves off.
Highlights of the game include a split production system between social and military, a very interesting futuristic tech tree for research, and the strategic split in damage types (energy/physical/missile) and damage resistances (energy/physical/missle). The ability to create your own ships mixing and matching every part you've researched is also pretty enjoyable, especially the part to design the exterior.
The best thing about GalCivII, however, is the distribution model. When compared to the other releases of late that use aggressive DRM and highly annoying copy protection schemes that force you to constantly swap CDs, it's amazing that Stardock simply delivers the game. They've already released patches based on customer feedback and they respond to issues posted on their forums very promptly.
GalCivII is definitely worth purchasing and easily the best game I've played this year.
This question has no answer unless you specify why the beginner wants to learn how to write code.
Is the beginner trying to start a career path towards becoming a programmer? I would definitely recommend they start with Java, preferably by taking a class at a local community college. It's not as easy or enjoyable for an introduction to programming - but enjoyment isn't the goal.
On the other hand, if the beginner is simply interested in the field and wants to tinker around a bit in their spare time, by all means start them on VB.Net. A complete beginner can be running applications of their own making that have text inputs, clickable buttons, menus, and shiny picture graphics... in their very first session. This has an enormous effect on their confidence and enjoyment, and they learn about variables and procedures very painlessly. Most importantly, this will have the strongest real world applicability for them. Not many people I work with would write their own java application for something, but a significant amount regularly use VB macros.
>> What makes a contract more black-and-white than a law?
Clearly each comparison is going to depend on the specific contract and the specific law. In general most of the laws that are very open to interpretation are those that regulate human behavior (willful). You can argue all day about Roe v. Wade but when you are talking about most tax laws things become much more cut and dried - hence the reason why software manages it so well these days.
Contracts can contain large amounts of negotiable area, for example one that specifies a Fair Market return on an item. They can also have no grey area at all - for example "I will give you 85 US cents on 3/7/06." While that contract leaves me room to pay you in whatever monetary method I choose, that is an immaterial concern in regards to the contract. If I pay you in an item equivalent to 85 cents instead it is clear I am violating the contract. If you demand payment in three quarters and a dime, it is clear that you are violating the contract.
>>>> Every computer that physically belongs to the school is >>>> ultimately the responsibility of the school. >> Based upon what law?
Based on the contract that the school signed in order to get their educational license deals. It comes down to what is better for MS. To include a catchall that will deliberately detail culpability in ALL situations, or to leave things vague and fuzzy.
>> What if the computer was broken into? If a computer is broken into the onus falls on the culprit until the school becomes aware of the break in, or potential of break in. At that point they are responsible to determine that the computer is still in agreement with the license.
>> What if it wasn't a student, but a friend of a student? How did the friend log on? If he used the students account the student is liable, if the computers were unsecured the school is liable.
>> What if it was a program that was installed that malfunctioned? The program would be liable. If it's a MS program, they would be liable to themselves. It is very unlikely that proof would be obtainable of this point, however. Without solid evidence the school would be liable regardless of who did the audit.
>> What if the student meant to download something else, and hadn't realized the error? Student is liable.
Why would MS want any of these to be judgement calls? The strength of the EULA is companies can assign fault in any conceivable situation, no matter how unreasonable.
Slashdot Mirror
I have upgraded my system several times while running XP and the only time I needed to call Microsoft CS was once when I upgraded motherboards. That included two seperate video card upgrades, neither of which needed a call.
I guess I don't see what the big deal here is. I won't be upgrading to Vista until the performance is benchmarked significantly past XP, but for people worried about upgrading this seems to be a loosening of the rules currently applied to XP if anything.
FPS play on a console is wildly different compared to play on PC. Even in cases where the exact same game is released for both, the control differences turn them into completely different games. With the standard WASD mouse and keyboard setup gamers are far more accurate, leading to hit boxes that leave little room for error. Weapons also tend to leave little room for error with a focus on projectiles with minimal spread and instant impact.
Whether you prefer the console or the PC for something like Halo2 is determined by what kind of gameplay you enjoy, but enough "hardcore" FPS gamers prefer the microtwitch style that PC's will largely be considered superior.
To be fair, kids in the US also know they can contact emergency personnel by simply dialing "911" at any phone. There are prank 911 calls now and then but that hardly makes the service a poor idea.
It's easier to support free online play when neither the console nor the games exist.
From the Indiana Jones article:
"Pixelux Entertainment's Digital Molecular Matter has also been employed, which is a technical way of saying that walls will crumble, glass will shatter, and organic plant life will sway in the game. LucasArts promises that the power of these two consoles has been utilized to offer open-ended and completely destructible environments."
I doubt the environment will be *completely* destructible, but it will be nice if there are some gameplay options that involve multiple paths. While at least one scene trying to outrun a boulder is inevitable, I'd like to see tombs filled with puzzles that can be attacked from any direction. I just have a bad vibe about linear Prince of Persia type gameplay here.
I definitely disagree with this. One of my favorite features in Max Payne 2 was the adjusting AI. It does get a lot harder if you are doing well, and that's what I like about it - it keeps things challenging. I am a longtime clan FPS player and there were several sections that I had to try 3+ times (especially the charge up the hallway toward the end). On the same note my roommate beat the game with limited FPS skills because the AI toned things down for him.
Perhaps it comes down to what kind of FPS gamer you are. I get really tired of runs through games where the "challenging" objectives are to beat it in a faster time, beat it without getting hit once, beat it with a certain low level weapon, etc. I'd much rather have the entire mission in doubt with the knowledge that if I don't make my first shot count and get behind some cover fast I'm going to get hit pretty hard.
First and foremost, there is no way I'm going to pay $200 more for a system that arrived a full year later than the 360 and cannot offer either superior graphics or something innovative like the Wii.
I frankly don't care at all about HD-DVD or Blu-Ray - as has been stated often on \. that is not a feature that most people are clamoring for and I certainly feel no need to upgrade all my media at this point.
Maybe Microsoft and Nintendo are collaborating on this. It will be far too convenient for them if the price of a PS3 ends up being the exact same as the price of both a 360 and a Wii together. Maybe they'll have joint marketing and commercials. "Why get a PS3 when you could have both of us instead???"
Most annoying of all to me has been Sony's constant scrambling to avoid letting the details on their system out as long as possible. Any gamers that would have purchased a XBOX360 but were deterred by sony marketing are just going to go out right now and buy a Xbox360 now anyways. Maybe we'll see a bunch of Sony rumors in the next few days that they are changing their minds and the PS3 just "might" be given away free next november, so consumers better wait to buy a system until then so they can find out for sure??
Reposted link for those who missed the AC post:1
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=275
There's an excellent review up at AT.
Certainly the "real" answer is more involved parenting.
However, both the hot coffee and the oblivion mods can be done yourself without downloading anything from the internet. The patches are just executables that "punch in the codes" for you. If something exists in game through a developer easter egg, I think that is a fundamentally different scenario we are talking about then simply a modding community.
If the issue is whether the ESRB should be required to evaluate Easter Eggs, I guess I would have to say yes.
This is pretty interesting. The ESRB does not refute Bethesda's claims that the violence and gore was exactly what they had detailed, so this makes the violence and gore rationale an initial oversight by the ESRB and not a fault of Bethesda.
However, if the nude female images were present and simply "locked out" by Bethesda then we have pretty much the same story as the Hot Coffee incident. IMO the ESRB exists solely to enable parents to feel more confident about buying games for their children, and the idea that the ratings could be changed simply by "unlocking" something in the game does a lot to destroy this confidence.
Honestly, are either of these incidents really that different than if Nintendo were to implement nude characters in super mario bros 3 that was unlocked through an a-b-a-b-a-a-a code?
We do get a lot of seasonal rain here, especially in the fall, but the summers are amazing and vibrantly green. We have one of the most physically active populations with a huge percentage of people taking advantage of the extensive national park system in Washington State. As a result of this Seattle currently ranks 4th nationally in Sperling's best places for "Healthiest" city - San Francisco was 3rd with a similar climate.
Sure, people like to make jokes about the weather here in Seattle - but don't let that deceive you into thinking as a city we don't spend much time outdoors.
Seattle does have many popular tech companies including Microsoft and Nintendo and the workforce/job market is very tech oriented. Combine that with a large group of 20-30 somethings and a pretty limited night-life and I think the answer is a lot more obvious than the weather.
"The problem with sentences like "Digital is always superior to analog" is that it's just not true, not even in specific cases."
Note that the "always" in that quote is your addition, not his. Without your addition, his quote is perfectly valid because a good does not need to dominate every comparison in order to be declared superior to another good. It is enough that it dominates 51% weighted by utility. Furthermore, the use of your counter examples rely on unbalanced examples which proves nothing about the basic relationship between the products compared.
For example, if the consumption of apples gave me a utility of 40 per apple, and the consumption of bananas gave me a utility of 35 per banana, we could say that apples are superior to bananas in terms of my utility. That does not mean I would prefer to eat a worm-ridden rotten apple over a banana split. It does mean that I would likely derive more enjoyment from an apple than a banana *if all else was equal.* This is an implicit (and often unstated) assumption held about nearly every single comparison in any arena. If you have a friend who professes to prefer McDonalds over Burger King, he is making an unstated assumption that the McDonalds meal in question has not been rubbed enthusiastically on the ground.
In the context of the discussion, Digital *is* a superior technology to Analog. The trump card here is Clarity, and Digital has that in spades. A few audiophiles out there will prefer the frequency response advantage to analog sound (the ability to listen to sounds over 19k), but that is a drop in the bucket when evaluating the overall market.
Unfortunately this means that Microsoft definitely isn't going to feel compelled to drop 360 prices anyways. I have a couple of friends who were hoping for a bump down to $299 for the premium versions in a move by MS to get more of an early lead on the PS3.
Or maybe this is all an elaborate play from Sony to keep 360 prices up until they can release the PS3? Get your conspiracy hats on...
Methanol isn't as flammable as Gasoline.. but it's still flammable!!! What's going to happen to us when a passing comet sets off sparks and 460 BILLION KILOMETERS of space explodes? The shock wave will knock earth out of rotation and send us hurtling out of the Solar System! We're all going to freeze to death!
Would you consider Domino's an Evil corporation because they do not charge a fixed fee? I would argue that music offerings on iTunes are far more varied than Domino's pizza selection. All songs are not the same quality and they do not represent the same effort, talent and popularity.. so why should they be the same price exactly?
Fixed pricing is a gimmick, *nothing* more. It does not translate into lower prices, only inflexible prices that cannot compensate for varying demand levels. iTunes has managed to use this gimmick to keep prices reasonable on the highly popular pop hits, but they have done so at the expense of the B-level bands which will never have a chance to be profitable at a price point of $1 per track.
And what's wrong exactly with Google trying to be profitable? Capitalism has been responsible for the standard of living *doubling* every forty years in the US dating back to 1820. Life Expectancy in the US has doubled since 1850. Modern economic growth theory is now focused on laws, institutions, and regulations for a good reason - protecting private property is fundamental for a society to have the ability to reward innovation through profit. Everything you've used today was most likely created out of a corporation's incentive for profit.
Everybody still runs macros fine 24/7. The key is to put your macro command on your hotbar, then make the last line of the command /ui action toolbarSlot 00; or whatever two digit code corresponds to the toolbar slot you put your macro in.
That will run the command to the end, when it will then push the button which restarts the command, where it will run to the end, when it will then push the button which restarts the command, where it will run to the end, etc.
Did you try turning off the auto-pause in KOTOR? Or were you playing a guardian and just queuing flurry?
I find myself drawn to games where I can micromanage and yet I loved the combat in both KOTOR and KOTORII (but the story in KOTORII sucked).
Square is definitely trying to remove some of the "grind" through automation and this is definitely a welcome change in terms of modern gameplay. The problem is all of the gamers who grew up on dungeon crawlers and the early FF titles and have posters of Chrono Trigger on the walls. Automating the leveling is as significant as removing random spawn encounters - and that definitely disappointed a *lot* of the older RPG fans.
>> Which is rather absurd considering that the purchasing
>> power of Firefly fans or Arrested Development fans is
>> probably far greater than that of "Haunted Houses Extreme
>> Makeover".
Unfortunately, it isn't quite this straightforward. While employees in technology fields have extremely high disposable incomes relative to other professions, they are also one of the hardest subsets to influence through advertising. While that might seem fairly intuitive, the result is that advertisers devalue this subset to the detriment of shows like you mentioned.
The "solution" to this is the premium cable channels that depend on the subscribers for their income instead of advertisers. The inability of the sci-fi channel to move into this avenue was a major disappointment for many, and the reason why it eats up so much air time with cheap b-movie horror flicks.
That reminds me of one of my friends. He was initially similar in skill level to several of us back in the Q2 days but fell behind quickly in UT and eventually resorted to hosting our UT games and turning on god mode. The only problem for him was that God Mode didn't protect him from being telefragged, so he still finished last every game...
I'm afraid I have some really bad news for you.
A 2006 season pass lift ticket at Whistler is $1,329.
A 2005 kawasaki jet ski will run you around $10,000.
A great home theater system will run you at least $2000.
$400 for a gaming console that you will use heavily for several years is perfectly reasonable, especially when contrasted with typical alternatives that the target Xbox360 audience might select from. It's not even that exclusive of an audience - the recommended entertaintment spending for somebody with an entry level 30k job is 5%, or $1500.
When you come down to the differences between movies and games, there is really only one. Games require interactive participation while movies are entirely passive experiences. Adding interactivity to a movie turns it into a game - in fact quite a few developers tried to incorporate this into PC gaming in the mid 90's.
The real question becomes whether true art is possible when there is a level of interaction with the viewer. The answer to this is clearly yes, in fact it is one of the key characteristics of the postmodern art movement. A simple example of this would be the Hypertext, a postmodern novella form that depends entirely on the user to navigate their own path through the story.
What Ebert is really addressing is that the presence of interaction encourages game developers to focus on gameplay elements to the detriment of the traditional artistic potential of the game. This brings up a valid point, namely the existence of "good art" vs. "bad art". Any veteran gamer can probably give several dozen examples of each, as any movie fan can no doubt give several dozen examples of each as pertains to movies. There's no way that a movie like Gigli is more artistic than an excellent game like Fahrenheit simply because it is non-interactive.
In the end, however, I can't really blame Ebert for being wrong about games. He would change his mind if he was exposed to any of the hundreds of games that feature "good art", such as Fahrenheit, Fable, KOTOR, Max Payne, etc, but even when those are given media coverage it is the other features that are hyped instead of their artistic prowess.
I'll agree it hasn't been very aggressively marketed, but lately it's gotten quite a few mentions from online communities (most recently PA). I certainly wouldn't go so far as to overlook it in terms of sales.
A little more on GalCivII from a non-stardock employee. If you've ever played a game of Civilization and then been disappointed when the game ends at the space age... you'll be happy to know that Galactic Civilizations II follows a similar style but starts where the Civ franchise leaves off.
Highlights of the game include a split production system between social and military, a very interesting futuristic tech tree for research, and the strategic split in damage types (energy/physical/missile) and damage resistances (energy/physical/missle). The ability to create your own ships mixing and matching every part you've researched is also pretty enjoyable, especially the part to design the exterior.
The best thing about GalCivII, however, is the distribution model. When compared to the other releases of late that use aggressive DRM and highly annoying copy protection schemes that force you to constantly swap CDs, it's amazing that Stardock simply delivers the game. They've already released patches based on customer feedback and they respond to issues posted on their forums very promptly.
GalCivII is definitely worth purchasing and easily the best game I've played this year.
This question has no answer unless you specify why the beginner wants to learn how to write code.
Is the beginner trying to start a career path towards becoming a programmer? I would definitely recommend they start with Java, preferably by taking a class at a local community college. It's not as easy or enjoyable for an introduction to programming - but enjoyment isn't the goal.
On the other hand, if the beginner is simply interested in the field and wants to tinker around a bit in their spare time, by all means start them on VB.Net. A complete beginner can be running applications of their own making that have text inputs, clickable buttons, menus, and shiny picture graphics... in their very first session. This has an enormous effect on their confidence and enjoyment, and they learn about variables and procedures very painlessly. Most importantly, this will have the strongest real world applicability for them. Not many people I work with would write their own java application for something, but a significant amount regularly use VB macros.
>> What makes a contract more black-and-white than a law?
Clearly each comparison is going to depend on the specific contract and the specific law. In general most of the laws that are very open to interpretation are those that regulate human behavior (willful). You can argue all day about Roe v. Wade but when you are talking about most tax laws things become much more cut and dried - hence the reason why software manages it so well these days.
Contracts can contain large amounts of negotiable area, for example one that specifies a Fair Market return on an item. They can also have no grey area at all - for example "I will give you 85 US cents on 3/7/06." While that contract leaves me room to pay you in whatever monetary method I choose, that is an immaterial concern in regards to the contract. If I pay you in an item equivalent to 85 cents instead it is clear I am violating the contract. If you demand payment in three quarters and a dime, it is clear that you are violating the contract.
>>>> Every computer that physically belongs to the school is
>>>> ultimately the responsibility of the school.
>> Based upon what law?
Based on the contract that the school signed in order to get their educational license deals. It comes down to what is better for MS. To include a catchall that will deliberately detail culpability in ALL situations, or to leave things vague and fuzzy.
>> What if the computer was broken into?
If a computer is broken into the onus falls on the culprit until the school becomes aware of the break in, or potential of break in. At that point they are responsible to determine that the computer is still in agreement with the license.
>> What if it wasn't a student, but a friend of a student?
How did the friend log on? If he used the students account the student is liable, if the computers were unsecured the school is liable.
>> What if it was a program that was installed that malfunctioned?
The program would be liable. If it's a MS program, they would be liable to themselves. It is very unlikely that proof would be obtainable of this point, however. Without solid evidence the school would be liable regardless of who did the audit.
>> What if the student meant to download something else, and hadn't realized the error?
Student is liable.
Why would MS want any of these to be judgement calls? The strength of the EULA is companies can assign fault in any conceivable situation, no matter how unreasonable.