You do realise all consoles have a games on demand option now to download games too if that's what floats your boat right?
Oh, and:
"a $100 graphics card will get you better graphics than a console at a lower price than a console."
Have you ever actually seen a console game? This kind of clearly false comment would suggest not. Or by better graphics did you just mean more pixels, even if the contents of those pixels combine to create far inferior quality images?
Oh, and did I forget to mention that the different between my retail 360 games and my Steam games (including those bought at retail but that have to be activated via Steam) is that I can actually sell my 360 games on?
How about when Steam's setup completely fails as it does and I can't even activate my game to play?
What about when your games just simply don't work as in the recent Saboteur article here on Slashdot?
How do any of these stack up to a better experience?
In fact, have you ever even been near a console? None of your comments would suggest you have, because they're simply wrong. I'm not saying PC gaming doesn't have it's advantages- I'd never play an MMO on a console for example, but you just don't seem to know anything about console gaming judging by your comments.
It's rather sad that you realise in the first half of your post that a direct PC/console comparison is stupid, and then continue to make the same stupid comparison further down.
The idea that an extra $300 will make a general use PC capable of gaming better than a console is laughable. They're different platforms, sticking a decent graphics card in wont make up for the fact that a console is dedicated to gaming (as you note earlier on) is exactly what allows it to run better games at better framerates well after it's spec drops below the average spec of a PC.
The generic nature, the nature of the fact PCs can have an unlimited amount of addons is what cripples them in terms of gaming performance, the various generic buses capable of handling a plethora of different addons is what acts as a bottleneck in relation to buses dedicated to transferring game related data between game related hardware.
Don't be an idiot and try and turn the perfectly "you can't make a direct comparison" argument into an attempt to show the PC as somehow superior- use it for what it is, an argument that simply points out you can't make a direct comparison. Each has it's advantages and disadvantages for it's specific purpose, each has a different price point. The very idea that you can get more gaming bang for buck out of a PC compared to dedicated gaming hardware is quite simply false otherwise they'd simply put in standard PC components all the way through rather than have custom built processors, motherboards and graphics cards. The benefit of the PC is although you get much lower bang per buck in terms of gaming, as you correctly state to start with, you can do fuck loads more than just gaming with it.
So in other words you're just twisting the figures to suit your argument?
How do the figures look for 5 years- a reasonable life for a console, possible even an underestimate, by which time you'll have had to pay another $1200 to upgrade your PC again whilst your 360 is still playing it's games just fine and still looking great?
It's not as if a $1200 PC will even play the latest and greatest PC games. I bought a high end PC for double that (and yes, I used the cheapest possible source for components, I've been building gaming PCs years, I know what I'm doing) 18 months ago without a monitor as I already had one and it still wouldn't run Crysis in full detail at a reasonable framerate. It ran the likes of Spore, Warhammer Online and Dawn of War II fine of course, but you'd have to spend far more to get all games to run fine. Again, you just don't get this problem with a console, it just works, and still nearly always looks better than the PC, even as the console hardware ages and drops below the spec of your average gaming PC, largely because it's a single gaming dedicated hardware platform and hence easier to optimize for.
There's realistically too many factors to do a sensible price comparison, you'd have to do it long term rather than cherry picking favourable stats like the life of the PC, rather than the life of the console. Mentioning 2 chat pads when most people use a headset and you can only use one chatpad at a time because the onscreen keyboard can only show one at a time doesn't exactly help your cause for providing a balanced comparison either.
I'd wager that the people asking for the raw data and source code wouldn't even know how to interpret it or what to do with it anyway.
What they would do is find some irrelevant non-bug in the source code and falsely extrapolate from that that man is not to blaming for global warming.
Effectively, it'd just breed more idiocy, because the people who do know what to do with the code and data are already working with it and have come to the same conclusions independetly anyway.
Those asking for raw data would have more of a leg to stand on if they actually took what they've already been given for what it is, rather than just twist it into what it isn't to suit their own agenda.
"Any system that attempts to enforce the "equality" of people in general, such as socialism, is doomed to failure. The real world doesn't work that way. Those who excel, which generally benefits society, should be rewarded. Those who don't, not so much."
I think you're confusing socialism and communism, but don't worry, I've noticed a lot of Americans do that as communism was demonised in the cold war as it was the politics of the enemy, and since then all right wing Republicans try and tie any attempt at something like socialised healthcare to communism in an attempt to demonise such ideas. Sometimes a few throwbacks to the Nazi's being billed as a socialist party (even though they were primarily fascist) are often thrown in for good measure too. As such, America has a general misunderstanding of what socialism is, as you kindly demonstrate.
Socialism doesn't preclude the idea that people get compensated more for working harder, or compensated less for working less. What it does do is suggest that all people should have equal access to certain shared resources- these being things like the police, the fire brigade, health services, schooling and so on. In that respect, yes, and I know this will crush your vision of you fantastic nation almost violently, even America is partly socialist because you pay taxes which cover the costs of the police and fire services such that everyone can have equal access.
But as with many things, things can be done in parts, a country that has some socialist aspects does not necessarily have to have entirely socialist aspects, America unlike say Britain or France does not have socialised healthcare for example but all 3 have socialised police, so it's fair to say Britain and France are more socialist than the US, but it's wrong to say the US isn't socialist at all.
Now here's the real killer for your world view, the EU is more socialist than the US in general, and yet in pretty much all measures that relate to the good of the individual the EU scores higher than the US too- the EU has a stronger economy, it has higher levels of literacy, higher levels of personal happyness, higher access to healthcare, longer life expectancy and so on. All this despite being hit harder by World War II in terms of damage, and despite having taken on board many of the poorer ex-soviet nations. The idea then, that lower levels of socialism always offer a better deal, is quite clearly false.
Socialism doesn't have to be an absolute, it doesn't have to be bad, personally, I'd actually rather than Britain was a little less socialist, because I think here we do give too much away for free to the lazy and inept, but again, it's a game of balance- I'd hate to lose the NHS and become too much less socialist also. Similarly though, I think absolute Capitalism is bad- a nation without a socialised military would almost certainly be a nation likely long ago invaded and taken over.
You're right, the real world doesn't work in terms of absolute socialism if absolute socialism is what you meant simply by socialism. It also however doesn't work in absolutes at all really or at least very infrequently, it works in balance- as they say, all things in moderation.
So now that the idea of socialism should be clear, and how it applies to different countries, including the US, let's get back to the all people are equal thing.
I don't think anyone would suggest that all people are identical, I think when people say all people are equal they're referring to the idea that all people should be treated equally in terms of core rights, or socialised services. That is, if you have a socialised police forces or healthcare then all people should have equal access to that whatever their sex, religion, colour or sexual orientation. If you have the right to free speech in your constitution, again, it should go for everyone. That's not to say a man should necessarily be able to walk into the Ladies changing rooms just like a Lady can- I think anyone suggesting that level of equality would have
There's been no major hack and subsequent large data leak AFAIK, but Facebook has had countless vulnerabilities, one of which has gone unfixed that allows you to grab someone's private photos, messages and other private information that I discovered and reported over 2 years ago.
I gather many other people who have discovered and reported vulnerabilities have seen a similar story.
Yep, I use it daily on my commute, it's not just about direction finding but the information it provides is useful.
Primarily, on sections of road/motorway which are poorly signed I always know how far it is to my exit, I know if I have enough distance at current speed to overtake a row of traffic before having to pull back in to get off, I know my exact speed rather than the rough estimate that car speedometers provide, it beeps if a camera is coming up so that I can be sure I haven't edged over the speed limit when I inevitably switch into autopilot mode on the 50 minute commute there and back each day. On such a commute I travel past places I never normally go, I follow my route but don't know the side streets and areas, but if a road is closed on my normal route due to an accident I can get to/from work in exactly the same amount of time because the satnav detours me through an equally sensible route to that I normally take, but would not otherwise know. People don't have to give me directions that may or may not be correct because they're working from memory and have mis-counted the number of turns, the whereabouts of landmarks and such, I don't have to try and read those instructions whilst driving because the satnav tells me.
I wouldn't pretend they're perfect devices, you have to use common sense when using them, sometimes they don't always get it right, but just as with a desktop computer- if you use it as a tool to assist you in your job, rather than expect it to do your job for you then complain when it gets it wrong then it's a great device. Information overload? Not at all, if I felt it was information overload, I'd just, you know, switch it off.
Nah, Google's biggest threat right now is Microsoft with Bing and they know it. This is why Google recently accepted to allow media outlets to limit the number of articles that could be viewed on Google news before being confronted with a paywall- because some outlets were threatening to delist from Google and only list from Bing, presumably Google felt the threat was big enough that Google news would lose enough content to matter.
This Mozilla guy is playing the same game- he recommended Bing because he knows that word is enough to make Google stand up, take notice and hopefully take action, not because he seriously advocates a search engine switch unless Google really do continue this attitude. A search engine comparison doesn't catch the headlines quite like a high profile mention of a switch to Google's main search threat.
But yours is one of how many decent companies out there? It's not like there isn't a shortage of job adverts around even a few months back in the middle of the recession, and it's not like a decent percentage of these aren't from good employers that don't have obscure policies of having to look at backgrounds other than officially recognised criminal records, if they even have to look at that.
My point is that for the most part he really shouldn't worry, and if he does miss 1 in 100 opportunities because of fringe cases like that you cite then well yeah, there are repercussions for being a dick and then bragging about it but it's not something that needs to prevent him having a decent career if he just goes elsewhere. Even getting his foot in the door is enough to get started because if he works for a year or so without trouble at some company it'll open doors for even employers that do look him up on the internet to have a bit more trust in him.
His time would be better spent just proving himself and applying for jobs than going on some quest to try and cover it all up. That's assuming what's out there can even be linked to him in the first place- unless he has a really uncommon name or included details of his address and such too then it's pretty unlikely they can really demonstrate it's anything to do with him in the first place.
...or alternatively just don't sweat about not getting jobs where the employers are a bunch of cockends when there are plenty of good employers out there if you're a smart hard working guy. Even in the recession with high unemployment I've not met any competent people out of work for more than a few months when made redundant, the long term unemployed are generally the incompetent and/or lazy.
"Er, that's not really how wifi works... it steps down to different transmission schemes when the signal/noise ratio gets too low."
What do you think a modulation scheme is? It's merely an error detection/correction algorithm- my example was extremely simplified yes, but your link reaffirms exactly what I said. My example was based on the underlying math of data transmission on which just about all (or in fact all?) data transmission is based. It just becomes more relevant on communication methods like wifi which have higher levels of noise than say, fibre optics.
In fact, I just tried it myself: after pressing the standby button, it took 2-3 minutes before I was signed out of Live.
No, you're mistaking the trusted link for the live notification sign out here- a better test is to try it in CoD:MW2 or similar, and (assuming you can even tell you're the host) you'll see host migration when you plug back in. Note that I'm not saying a bit of packet loss causes this, but packet loss for any usable amount of time (i.e. enough to be exploitable) absolutely does cause this. This is my point regarding intermittent wifi- either your wifi is so bad that you get periods of around one second or more (which is a really really long time in computing terms) and you do get dropped, or the packet loss is merely intermittent and you get a slower, but still stable system which doesn't cause this.
So it's a good thing consoles are never vulnerable to buffer overflows and other expoits that let you run your own code, right? Oh wait, they are. That's how the Xbox, PSP, and Wii softmods work.
Yes that's certainly true, but you have to be able to built 360 binary blocks, and get access to an execution environment to be able to exploit the buffer overflow in the first place. With code signing this would take some doing, and as you state, it's something that hasn't been managed yet and something that is easily fixable from software and detectable regardless- again, you can't say the same about the PC.
There's no inherent reason why a firmware mod would have to be detectable. The console can only check the drive's firmware by going through the drive. If the drive has been modified to lie about the contents of its own firmware, what's the console going to do about that?
This is certainly true on the PC platform as it depends on standardised specifications. The same can't be said of custom hardware like consoles- there is custom hardware for example whereby you have a separate chip that can read the actual direct memory contents of the firmware and return the checksum bypassing the firmware. This means the checksum of the firmware is always returned independently of the firmware and again, you'd need some pretty high end (again- DARPA/Intel type labs) equipment to be able to defeat that. I don't know if this is the exact method Microsoft use in the 360, but presumably it's something similar as they haven't failed to detect modified firmware yet.
COD 4 did, and from what I can tell, so do World at War and Modern Warfare 2. Maybe it's subtle enough that you don't notice it, but it's helping you nonetheless.
These forum posts don't really provide much useful information but they may be right. One thing's for sure though it's not the default multiplayer option as I've never played with it, it's not mere subtlety because it's on by default in single player and I did play through the single player campaign with it- it's easy to tell when it's there. If it does exist in multiplayer and is off by default, then that doesn't seem to make any difference over those that use it either, as I don't struggle to do well in game. Perhaps somewhat ironically, years of playing on the PC still gives me a competitive advantage when playing on the 360- even with a switch of co
"Well, it certainly was possible on Halo 2. As for the 360, I doubt they'll drop you if your connection goes down for just a few seconds at a time (which is how the cheat works) - otherwise the game would be unplayable on wifi or any other connection that isn't 100% reliable."
That's not how wifi works, it doesn't just randomly drop or become unstable unless the hardware itself is fault in which case yes, you would get disconnected. When a connection becomes weak it doesn't send any less data back and forth to the client, what changes is the proportion of usable data to the proportion of redundant data for error checking and correcting, this has the effect of making the wifi connection speed appear slower, so for example if you have a wifi connection of 54mbps that means you're transmitting/receiving say, 54mbps of usable data along with 6mbps of data for error checking/correcting, when you move away from the access point and your speed drops to 10mbps you're still receiving 60mbps or whatever of data overall, but 50mbps of that is for error checking/correcting. There is no inherent instability in wifi in this respect, which is why it's not an issue to play over wifi whilst Microsoft retain strict limits on safely connected clients.
"The same is true of console games, of course. In the long run, the game maker has no control over what people do at home with their own hardware. What matters is how easily and commonly exploited the games are in practice, and so far, the only cheating I've seen in VAC games has been in-game exploits."
You keep repeating this but I'm not sure you really understand the console hardware. It's absolutely not possible to read/write the memory of modern consoles unless you get access to an execution environment where you can execute your own code (outside the limited sandbox of say, XNA). No one has managed to do this on the 360 since a hack about 4 years ago which was quickly made obsolete with a patch and has never been replicated since. Even though the hardware is in people's homes, and is theoretically hence possible to hack, it's not practically possible to crack because we don't have people with electron microscopes sat around their houses, clusters of supercomputers to crack encryption keys that are embedded in hardware you'd need a lab like those at DARPA or Intel to get into. This is why despite the console having been out since 2005, no such hack has yet been successful- all hacks have depended on detectable modifications to DVD drive firmwares and similar. In contrast, on the PC, all you need is a debugger, knowledge of assembly and a little time- that makes a hell of a difference in the practicality of attacking the two systems.
"I don't know about "most" games, but the Halo, COD, and L4D games certainly do have aiming assistance in multiplayer."
CoD: MW2 certainly doesn't and I'm pretty sure MW and CoD5 didn't either. I've been playing MW2 quite a lot lately including last night, not sure about Left 4 Dead though, not played it in ages because it was shit. Halo 3 does, but can be disabled if you prefer to free aim which I do because you can play better when going for headshots and such. Games like Flashpoint and GRAW/GRAW2 don't, these are also good examples because they require precision aiming- Flashpoint in fact requires you to use the rangefinder on your sights to aim just above the head of targets at long range to make the round arc down onto them and again this works just fine with a console controller with no assistance and with typical sway you get looking down scopes on some games. So even a game that requires a massive amount of near pixel precision aiming doesn't come off as a problem on a console gamepad which again is evidence that the supposed disadvantages of accuracy and aiming of a gamepad are imagined, not real.
"The majority of television watchers use standard-definition TV sets. Does that mean HDTV isn't better quality?"
This is another straw man argument, pretty much everyone had an SDTV before HDTV came along to be ad
"As for console games not being any less fun or playable... well, as I said, I beg to differ. I found Halo to be fun on PC, and not fun on Xbox. I found Halo 2 to be mostly fun on an Xbox when I was able to play with keyboad and mouse, not fun when I had to use the gamepad. And like I said, that wasn't due to a lack of time spent getting used to the controls."
I'll admit I never played on the original XBox, maybe it was that console that's the issue. Have you tried playing since on the 360?
"Meanwhile, you ignore the problems of peer-hosted games: the host has zero lag, which gives him an advantage whether he's trying to cheat or not"
This is really a non-issue because the host is randomly selected with no way to game that as it's decided by a central server and not by the players. Everyone with a reasonable connection gets a turn at hosting, but furthermore a lot of games do a lot to mitigate this by adding a virtual lag comparative to the average of the rest of the players so if the average ping is 50ms they'll add a 50ms lag such that in practice it's not really noticable.
"and the host can push his router's standby button to freeze all the other players while he runs around and slaughters them."
Never played a console game online where this is possible, it certainly doesn't work on the 360 because if you do that your Live connection will drop and you'll get booted out the game yourself.
"(And of course, if he has a modded console, he can do much worse things.)"
It's certainly true, but as yet no mod for the 360 (or PS3 that I'm aware) allows for serious cheats. The 360 bans were because of modified models because stupidly Microsoft didn't put any checks on game content by default- only the executable. As the check on the executable has yet to be bypassed it means that so far the 360 has been immune to more serious cheats like aimbot and radar, I believe the PS3 is the same. There are also repercussions for 360 people who do use hacked consoles or controllers in that the consoles get kicked off of Live too- none of these points can be said of the PC. In fact, Microsoft even gave suspensions to people exploiting the recent javelin glitch in CoD:MW2 which was a game exploit and affected all versions of the game, afaik they are also the only ones who have been able to do this.
"I've actually seen that happen. I have not, however, seen anyone use these PC hacks you complain about. Maybe it's because I only play on VAC servers."
Even VAC is defeatable. On the PC you have access to read/write areas of memory as you wish, even if network transport is encrypted it has to be decrypted by the client for it to work with it so no matter what VAC does it is defeatable, it can at best make it harder to cheat, or catch old cheats when it gets updated, but it can do nothing in the long run to prevent cheating. This has always been the issue with PB too- ultimately they can at best delay the inevitable and catch people who use old cheats post update but even smart cheats can mitigate this by detecting changes to VAC/PB and then disable cheats until the cheat too has been patched for the update.
"Er, no. Without aiming assistance, you'd never hit anyone because it's hard to actually get the crosshair where you want it with a gamepad."
You do realise most online console shooters don't even have any aiming assistance in multiplayer right? It's primarily used in single player and even then can be disabled.
Regarding Shadowrun, the IGN comments don't make sense, whilst some weapons have a lot of spread like shotguns, there are plenty of precision weapons also, the PC version didn't add any delay onto mouse movement or anything, but then, using IGN as a source is like using The Christian Daily as evidence that god exists. IGN's reviews are entirely based on how many perks the company in question gives the reviewer as is the case unfortunately with most online review sites nowadays.
"My concern is that you're basically insulting everyone who finds a gamepad unus
Because being able to instantly turn 180 degrees somehow makes the game better, more skillful, and more fun?
I suppose you think aimbots make a game better too because it means you can instantly snap on to a target? Or is the fact they're not part of the game by default somehow different?
Sorry, what has that illogical, stupid little quirk in the PC version of the game got to do with PC gaming somehow offering superior controls?
Really, is that all PC gaming has to offer now? the ability to still bind stupid stuff like that? Is that really what the benefits of PC gaming has dropped to? The relative instability of PC gaming (as show by tfa), the mass cheating, the DRM, the often much lower framerates, and often poorer graphics are all no problem because you can still bind the ability to turn 180 degrees instantly?
Wow, I think I'll go back to PC gaming right away.
"Believe me, I've spent as much time with the gamepad as it took me to get used to the mouse and keyboard, and I'm not alone. The gamepad still feels like playing in quicksand.
Maybe you're an exception. Or maybe you were just never very good with the mouse and keyboard, so you don't notice a difference."
On the contrary, I'm far from the exception, as I pointed out, multiplayer PC gamers are by far a minority nowadays like for like.
"The reason it's "just not a problem" is that they all have the same handicap."
What handicap? The difficulty of games isn't any less on a console, multiplayer isn't any less competitive even when put up against PC players, the game isn't any less fun or playable.
"Personally, I've seen more cheating on console games than PC games, thanks to the fact that they're hosted on other players' consoles instead of impartial third-party servers."
and
"I suppose you think that had nothing to do with the weak PC controls, the gamepad aiming assistance, and the fact that Shadowrun de-emphasizes quick aiming in favor of other skills anyway?"
Oh I see, it's now down to outright lies? Your earlier point about games being hosted on peoples consoles making them more vulnerable shows a complete lack of understanding about how the most serious of cheats work, the difference between using cheats on the closed architecture of consoles vs. the open architecture of PCs and in fact a lack of understanding about client/server computing in general- hint: aimbots, wallhacks, radar, model hacks are all client side cheats, who the host is is entirely irrelevant. Of course, that's before you even go in to the problems of getting such cheats onto a console in the first place, which, in terms of code changes like aimbot, radars and so forth no one has actually yet successfully managed to do on the 360, Wii or PS3 but yet are already rampant even on Call of Duty: MW2 despite it having only been out a few weeks on the PC. Do Slashdot a favour, don't waste people's time commenting on things you demonstrate with your comment that you have absolutely no understanding of, either that, or stop trying to use ignorance to push your false argument- it doesn't work for the simple fact that what you said is transparently extremely nonsensical.
Regarding Shadowrun, pretty much everything you said was bs so I wont waste time covering it in detail, but basically the PC controls were no different to any other PC FPS and your comments about aiming assistance and aiming being unimportant run completely contradictory to each other. Shadowrun had no less shooting emphasis than most other FPS games over the last 15 years. Even as far back as more simple FPS games like Quake the likes of rocket jumping, powerups and so forth were important to do well.
I can buy the argument about how some people don't get on with console controllers because it is quite subjective, however I would still argue it's simply because despite what they say, they've never owned a console and/or spent much time giving it a chance, I say this because it's been the case with many of my PC playing friends who have used the same arguments until they give it a go and got used to it. What I don't buy are when people still playing PC games defend it so vigorously that they have to resort to straw men arguments and outright lies as you have- what's the concern exactly? If you really really don't get on with a console fine, but again, the majority of gamers nowadays do, you don't have to start rabidly spouting lies to try and defend it, or is it a deep seated concern of yours that you'll soon have no one to play with because you're one of the few who can't/wont switch to consoles? Really, if it was fine then the market would support it, but the PC gaming market simply is shrinking for most games, it's as simple as that- MMOs and relatively simple casual games are about the only growth areas, although even casual games are seeing an equivalent growth level on consoles because it's a growing market in general.
People keep bringing up the idea of using Senator's IP addresses and so forth to get them caught, but the reason this doesn't happen is simple, even if you did, big media would let a Senator get away with it for exactly the reason they want to keep abusing these laws.
When they ask the ISP for the IP address and are given "Senator Joe Bloggs, 1 Senator Street, Senatorville" they will just discard it and allow the Senator's kids to keep infringing.
The laws doesn't treat everyone equally unfortunately, and in civil cases like copyright infringement it's down to the accuser to decide how and to who the law should be applied. Even in criminal cases this is the case- why do you think pop stars can consistently get away with taking hard drugs like cocaine in front the cameras without so much as a slap on the wrist, whilst the guy on the street gets busted for a few grams of weed?
The fact is, the law barely even applies to the rich and famous.
If you want to make an impact, the real key is to get someone to put up content you have produced and put the IPs of music industry execs and so forth on that, so that you are in control of who does and doesn't get punished. In this scenario you'll probably still lose because of the afformentioned problem that the law is never applied fairly, but at least you've created a precedent that a case based on such data is not proof of any actual infringement.
"You say that as if PC gamers hold those beliefs mistakenly and have never actually tried it."
You say that as if I wasn't a PC gamer who knows first hand that if you give it a chance and get used to the controller just like you had to with mouse and keyboard originally then there is absolutely no issue. This is mirrored by the fact there are so many console players playing online now, enough to dwarf the PC playing population in just about every dual platform multiplayer game- because it's just not a problem, or at very least not enough of a problem to be unable to outweigh the rampant cheating issue on the PC.
"Ever wonder why games that are released on both console and PC rarely have cross-platform multiplayer?"
Not really, it's primarily because XBox live requires a specific networking model and unless the developers are willing to use Live for Windows it wont work, if you want to develop say a Mac or Linux version too then this option is out the window. But then, games like Shadowrun that had PC vs. XBox multiplayer worked fine and XBox players were certainly at no disadvantage, you really couldn't tell if you were playing against another XBox or a PC player from the XBox and vice versa.
If it was for any other reason than the networking models/licensing issues as you suggest then there'd be more PS3 vs. XBox 360 multiplayer games as console vs. console wouldn't have the disadvantage you claim exists, but currently there is none.
"If you're really good at what you do and like your job, it's time to say no."
Without meaning to sound harsh to the guy I have to wonder if there's another side to this. Honestly, if you're good at your job then even the most incompetent of management wont want to move you away from it, they'll want to keep you in it to make them look good. Good managers that realise treating employees well by promoting rather than keeping them in a role to make them look good will recognise value in also ensuring they're promoting them to a job they'll enjoy and hence perform well in.
I can't help but think there's probably more to this story as promoting someone to a job they will not enjoy, whilst moving them out of a job they're good at and benefit the company in doesn't really make a lot of sense from the perspective of a good manager or a bad manager. I wouldn't be suprised if they're trying to move him into an administrative job, because they do not feel he is doing a good job in his current role, this is generally the only reason people get moved in this manner when if the guy was good at his job, the move would be detrimental to the company. I would wager this new manager is trying to make his mark by cleaning shop and improving the place as all new managers usually tend to try to do, albeit some more competently than others.
How sad that you got modded troll when what you say is true.
I've been playing The Saboteur on my XBox for a week now without any problems, despite being a PC gamer for years I switched to the 360 in 2006 and have never looked back. The key drivers have been no fucking around with drivers and stuff to make things even work, and also no real serious issues with cheating. Sure you get people exploit game glitches but at least there are no aimbots, radar or anything stupid and game destroying like that.
I have tried PC gaming since 2006 on multiple occasions, but it's just not as good and I end up back on my 360. Shit like Crysis ran like crap even on a £1500 PC and still didn't look as good as games like Gears of War 2. Then there's the fact you have to deal with DRM shit from the likes of Steam and on EA games.
Contrary to popular belief amongst PC gamers, FPS and even RTS games are just as fun with console controls, I always figured I'd never play an RTS on the 360 because I thought it wouldn't be as good without a mouse, but it's just not true, when you get used to using a console controller it's just as easy. Some games, like Overlord for example actually worked better on the console in terms of controls than they did on the PC. In terms of RTS games I complete C&C3 and RA3 on hardest difficulty on the 360 no problem and find no issue playing online either.
The issue is for PC gaming that it's getting worse rather than better too- if I buy a 360 retail game I can still sell it on second hand, I can't even do that now if I buy a game in a shop for the PC and have to activate it on Steam. Some issues are the fault of the platform- the PC's openness is the reason it's easier to cheat and cheat more spectacularly, whilst others are the fault of game developers- i.e. DRM, and other problems again are half developer, half platform fault- i.e. bugs like this caused by hardware with millions of combinations of different configurations to cater to and developers not catering to them.
Yeah I was thinking about that option but even that has complications, ignoring the rights aspect in that many would be up in arms at forced operations, what happens if one or both of their children die for example? They would be prevented from having any at that point.
I think this is why as the world's population grows these will actually become serious rather than merely speculative talking points.
That's probably because you don't pay much attention to the world. If you had, you may have heard of this African country called Sudan, and a particularly a region in it called Darfur, a place where mass genocide has been going on- in fact, where as many as half a million civilians may have been slaughtered so far. Eritrea is one of the nations that has been accused of supporting the Darfur rebels fighting against the Sudanese government, but has since moved into a mediating position over the crisis.
To be fair though, part the reason you probably hadn't heard about it is because the world's media was mostly too busy covering middle east stuff like Israel's war with Lebanon. Apparently Israel killing 1000 odd Lebanese, many of which were Hezbollah militans and Hezbollah killing 130 Israelis, many of which were soldiers is somehow so much bigger a tragedy than the 10s of thousands of African civilians that were brutally raped, mutilated and murdered around the same time. For some reason, the tragedy in Darfur and the hundreds of thousands of dead, the hundreds of thousands raped and mutilated and the millions displaced just don't get the attention of the media like a good old fashioned suicide bombing in downtown Baghdad or a verbal spat between the US and Iran.
So yeah, Eritrea is an African nation with some quite close ties to the Darfur conflict. In it's short existence as a sovereign nation (since 1993 iirc) it's also managed to get itself in fights with Ethiopia, Yemen and possibly even Somalia I believe. It's relatively pro-Western, but not blindly so as there was some fuss about them allowing some militant in that the US claimed had Al Qaeda ties. It borders the red sea towards the North Eastern end of Africa.
"Interestingly, all you need to limit the immortal population is to allow a maximum of two children per parents (or maximum one child per person)."
I agree it's a valid option certainly, but China has a different culture to us- here in the UK for example there would be uproar if you put a limit on child birth. What about accidental pregnancies beyond the limit- do you force an abortion because she already has 2 kids even if it's against the mother's will for example?
"That is in fact quite a long time. 91 years ago was the time of first cars, planes and electronics..."
It both is and isn't, you're right that we've done all that, but how much has the car changed? We're only just now slowly moving away from the combustion engine for example. Similarly we went to the moon 40 years ago, but we've really done very little by way of manned missions since.
You're right that a lot has changed, but a lot has stayed the same also.
"Also, thinking about it.... Does not "hibernation" technology also give you means to deal with growing population? Would not be bad if you get bored to hibernate until more interesting times. Putting to the extreme, you can hibernate large fraction of population until you develop technology to colonize the space:)"
It's true but I would presume you still need to consume resources to achieve hibernation- bodies would have to be kept likely in temperature controlled environments and looked after such that even a body in hibernation is consuming at least some resources.
"Really, this is how I see medicine in the future."
Yes, unfortunately it's also what I see as the cause of the 22nd century's major problem just as ours is climate change. Their problem will be massive overpopulation, how do you deal with a population that doesn't die but keeps increasing when the resources of the planet they live on can't sustain their population even right now, let alone then?
The only options are to either let people die, stop new people being born, or move to other planets. I'm not convinced in a hundred years we'll have the technology to get to other inhabitable planets and, well, inhabit them. If this is indeed the case it'll be a decision between preventing new births or enforcing maximum life spans to achieve the former options.
The ability to keep people alive indefinitely and recover people from even the most horrific incidents may well be the next atomic bomb- a technology that we may find that we would often perhaps like to be able to undiscover.
Does anyone else have any ideas how we might go about solving the population problem should we obtain the ability to keep people alive much longer and fight back death? A solution that can realistically be achieved in at most, the next 91 years.
Slashdot Mirror
You do realise all consoles have a games on demand option now to download games too if that's what floats your boat right?
Oh, and:
"a $100 graphics card will get you better graphics than a console at a lower price than a console."
Have you ever actually seen a console game? This kind of clearly false comment would suggest not. Or by better graphics did you just mean more pixels, even if the contents of those pixels combine to create far inferior quality images?
Oh, and did I forget to mention that the different between my retail 360 games and my Steam games (including those bought at retail but that have to be activated via Steam) is that I can actually sell my 360 games on?
How about when Steam's setup completely fails as it does and I can't even activate my game to play?
What about when your games just simply don't work as in the recent Saboteur article here on Slashdot?
How do any of these stack up to a better experience?
In fact, have you ever even been near a console? None of your comments would suggest you have, because they're simply wrong. I'm not saying PC gaming doesn't have it's advantages- I'd never play an MMO on a console for example, but you just don't seem to know anything about console gaming judging by your comments.
It's rather sad that you realise in the first half of your post that a direct PC/console comparison is stupid, and then continue to make the same stupid comparison further down.
The idea that an extra $300 will make a general use PC capable of gaming better than a console is laughable. They're different platforms, sticking a decent graphics card in wont make up for the fact that a console is dedicated to gaming (as you note earlier on) is exactly what allows it to run better games at better framerates well after it's spec drops below the average spec of a PC.
The generic nature, the nature of the fact PCs can have an unlimited amount of addons is what cripples them in terms of gaming performance, the various generic buses capable of handling a plethora of different addons is what acts as a bottleneck in relation to buses dedicated to transferring game related data between game related hardware.
Don't be an idiot and try and turn the perfectly "you can't make a direct comparison" argument into an attempt to show the PC as somehow superior- use it for what it is, an argument that simply points out you can't make a direct comparison. Each has it's advantages and disadvantages for it's specific purpose, each has a different price point. The very idea that you can get more gaming bang for buck out of a PC compared to dedicated gaming hardware is quite simply false otherwise they'd simply put in standard PC components all the way through rather than have custom built processors, motherboards and graphics cards. The benefit of the PC is although you get much lower bang per buck in terms of gaming, as you correctly state to start with, you can do fuck loads more than just gaming with it.
So in other words you're just twisting the figures to suit your argument?
How do the figures look for 5 years- a reasonable life for a console, possible even an underestimate, by which time you'll have had to pay another $1200 to upgrade your PC again whilst your 360 is still playing it's games just fine and still looking great?
It's not as if a $1200 PC will even play the latest and greatest PC games. I bought a high end PC for double that (and yes, I used the cheapest possible source for components, I've been building gaming PCs years, I know what I'm doing) 18 months ago without a monitor as I already had one and it still wouldn't run Crysis in full detail at a reasonable framerate. It ran the likes of Spore, Warhammer Online and Dawn of War II fine of course, but you'd have to spend far more to get all games to run fine. Again, you just don't get this problem with a console, it just works, and still nearly always looks better than the PC, even as the console hardware ages and drops below the spec of your average gaming PC, largely because it's a single gaming dedicated hardware platform and hence easier to optimize for.
There's realistically too many factors to do a sensible price comparison, you'd have to do it long term rather than cherry picking favourable stats like the life of the PC, rather than the life of the console. Mentioning 2 chat pads when most people use a headset and you can only use one chatpad at a time because the onscreen keyboard can only show one at a time doesn't exactly help your cause for providing a balanced comparison either.
I'd wager that the people asking for the raw data and source code wouldn't even know how to interpret it or what to do with it anyway.
What they would do is find some irrelevant non-bug in the source code and falsely extrapolate from that that man is not to blaming for global warming.
Effectively, it'd just breed more idiocy, because the people who do know what to do with the code and data are already working with it and have come to the same conclusions independetly anyway.
Those asking for raw data would have more of a leg to stand on if they actually took what they've already been given for what it is, rather than just twist it into what it isn't to suit their own agenda.
"Any system that attempts to enforce the "equality" of people in general, such as socialism, is doomed to failure. The real world doesn't work that way. Those who excel, which generally benefits society, should be rewarded. Those who don't, not so much."
I think you're confusing socialism and communism, but don't worry, I've noticed a lot of Americans do that as communism was demonised in the cold war as it was the politics of the enemy, and since then all right wing Republicans try and tie any attempt at something like socialised healthcare to communism in an attempt to demonise such ideas. Sometimes a few throwbacks to the Nazi's being billed as a socialist party (even though they were primarily fascist) are often thrown in for good measure too. As such, America has a general misunderstanding of what socialism is, as you kindly demonstrate.
Socialism doesn't preclude the idea that people get compensated more for working harder, or compensated less for working less. What it does do is suggest that all people should have equal access to certain shared resources- these being things like the police, the fire brigade, health services, schooling and so on. In that respect, yes, and I know this will crush your vision of you fantastic nation almost violently, even America is partly socialist because you pay taxes which cover the costs of the police and fire services such that everyone can have equal access.
But as with many things, things can be done in parts, a country that has some socialist aspects does not necessarily have to have entirely socialist aspects, America unlike say Britain or France does not have socialised healthcare for example but all 3 have socialised police, so it's fair to say Britain and France are more socialist than the US, but it's wrong to say the US isn't socialist at all.
Now here's the real killer for your world view, the EU is more socialist than the US in general, and yet in pretty much all measures that relate to the good of the individual the EU scores higher than the US too- the EU has a stronger economy, it has higher levels of literacy, higher levels of personal happyness, higher access to healthcare, longer life expectancy and so on. All this despite being hit harder by World War II in terms of damage, and despite having taken on board many of the poorer ex-soviet nations. The idea then, that lower levels of socialism always offer a better deal, is quite clearly false.
Socialism doesn't have to be an absolute, it doesn't have to be bad, personally, I'd actually rather than Britain was a little less socialist, because I think here we do give too much away for free to the lazy and inept, but again, it's a game of balance- I'd hate to lose the NHS and become too much less socialist also. Similarly though, I think absolute Capitalism is bad- a nation without a socialised military would almost certainly be a nation likely long ago invaded and taken over.
You're right, the real world doesn't work in terms of absolute socialism if absolute socialism is what you meant simply by socialism. It also however doesn't work in absolutes at all really or at least very infrequently, it works in balance- as they say, all things in moderation.
So now that the idea of socialism should be clear, and how it applies to different countries, including the US, let's get back to the all people are equal thing.
I don't think anyone would suggest that all people are identical, I think when people say all people are equal they're referring to the idea that all people should be treated equally in terms of core rights, or socialised services. That is, if you have a socialised police forces or healthcare then all people should have equal access to that whatever their sex, religion, colour or sexual orientation. If you have the right to free speech in your constitution, again, it should go for everyone. That's not to say a man should necessarily be able to walk into the Ladies changing rooms just like a Lady can- I think anyone suggesting that level of equality would have
There's been no major hack and subsequent large data leak AFAIK, but Facebook has had countless vulnerabilities, one of which has gone unfixed that allows you to grab someone's private photos, messages and other private information that I discovered and reported over 2 years ago.
I gather many other people who have discovered and reported vulnerabilities have seen a similar story.
Yep, I use it daily on my commute, it's not just about direction finding but the information it provides is useful.
Primarily, on sections of road/motorway which are poorly signed I always know how far it is to my exit, I know if I have enough distance at current speed to overtake a row of traffic before having to pull back in to get off, I know my exact speed rather than the rough estimate that car speedometers provide, it beeps if a camera is coming up so that I can be sure I haven't edged over the speed limit when I inevitably switch into autopilot mode on the 50 minute commute there and back each day. On such a commute I travel past places I never normally go, I follow my route but don't know the side streets and areas, but if a road is closed on my normal route due to an accident I can get to/from work in exactly the same amount of time because the satnav detours me through an equally sensible route to that I normally take, but would not otherwise know. People don't have to give me directions that may or may not be correct because they're working from memory and have mis-counted the number of turns, the whereabouts of landmarks and such, I don't have to try and read those instructions whilst driving because the satnav tells me.
I wouldn't pretend they're perfect devices, you have to use common sense when using them, sometimes they don't always get it right, but just as with a desktop computer- if you use it as a tool to assist you in your job, rather than expect it to do your job for you then complain when it gets it wrong then it's a great device. Information overload? Not at all, if I felt it was information overload, I'd just, you know, switch it off.
Nah, Google's biggest threat right now is Microsoft with Bing and they know it. This is why Google recently accepted to allow media outlets to limit the number of articles that could be viewed on Google news before being confronted with a paywall- because some outlets were threatening to delist from Google and only list from Bing, presumably Google felt the threat was big enough that Google news would lose enough content to matter.
This Mozilla guy is playing the same game- he recommended Bing because he knows that word is enough to make Google stand up, take notice and hopefully take action, not because he seriously advocates a search engine switch unless Google really do continue this attitude. A search engine comparison doesn't catch the headlines quite like a high profile mention of a switch to Google's main search threat.
But yours is one of how many decent companies out there? It's not like there isn't a shortage of job adverts around even a few months back in the middle of the recession, and it's not like a decent percentage of these aren't from good employers that don't have obscure policies of having to look at backgrounds other than officially recognised criminal records, if they even have to look at that.
My point is that for the most part he really shouldn't worry, and if he does miss 1 in 100 opportunities because of fringe cases like that you cite then well yeah, there are repercussions for being a dick and then bragging about it but it's not something that needs to prevent him having a decent career if he just goes elsewhere. Even getting his foot in the door is enough to get started because if he works for a year or so without trouble at some company it'll open doors for even employers that do look him up on the internet to have a bit more trust in him.
His time would be better spent just proving himself and applying for jobs than going on some quest to try and cover it all up. That's assuming what's out there can even be linked to him in the first place- unless he has a really uncommon name or included details of his address and such too then it's pretty unlikely they can really demonstrate it's anything to do with him in the first place.
...or alternatively just don't sweat about not getting jobs where the employers are a bunch of cockends when there are plenty of good employers out there if you're a smart hard working guy. Even in the recession with high unemployment I've not met any competent people out of work for more than a few months when made redundant, the long term unemployed are generally the incompetent and/or lazy.
Sorry, was that too pragmatic ;) ?
What do you think a modulation scheme is? It's merely an error detection/correction algorithm- my example was extremely simplified yes, but your link reaffirms exactly what I said. My example was based on the underlying math of data transmission on which just about all (or in fact all?) data transmission is based. It just becomes more relevant on communication methods like wifi which have higher levels of noise than say, fibre optics.
No, you're mistaking the trusted link for the live notification sign out here- a better test is to try it in CoD:MW2 or similar, and (assuming you can even tell you're the host) you'll see host migration when you plug back in. Note that I'm not saying a bit of packet loss causes this, but packet loss for any usable amount of time (i.e. enough to be exploitable) absolutely does cause this. This is my point regarding intermittent wifi- either your wifi is so bad that you get periods of around one second or more (which is a really really long time in computing terms) and you do get dropped, or the packet loss is merely intermittent and you get a slower, but still stable system which doesn't cause this.
Yes that's certainly true, but you have to be able to built 360 binary blocks, and get access to an execution environment to be able to exploit the buffer overflow in the first place. With code signing this would take some doing, and as you state, it's something that hasn't been managed yet and something that is easily fixable from software and detectable regardless- again, you can't say the same about the PC.
This is certainly true on the PC platform as it depends on standardised specifications. The same can't be said of custom hardware like consoles- there is custom hardware for example whereby you have a separate chip that can read the actual direct memory contents of the firmware and return the checksum bypassing the firmware. This means the checksum of the firmware is always returned independently of the firmware and again, you'd need some pretty high end (again- DARPA/Intel type labs) equipment to be able to defeat that. I don't know if this is the exact method Microsoft use in the 360, but presumably it's something similar as they haven't failed to detect modified firmware yet.
These forum posts don't really provide much useful information but they may be right. One thing's for sure though it's not the default multiplayer option as I've never played with it, it's not mere subtlety because it's on by default in single player and I did play through the single player campaign with it- it's easy to tell when it's there. If it does exist in multiplayer and is off by default, then that doesn't seem to make any difference over those that use it either, as I don't struggle to do well in game. Perhaps somewhat ironically, years of playing on the PC still gives me a competitive advantage when playing on the 360- even with a switch of co
"Well, it certainly was possible on Halo 2. As for the 360, I doubt they'll drop you if your connection goes down for just a few seconds at a time (which is how the cheat works) - otherwise the game would be unplayable on wifi or any other connection that isn't 100% reliable."
That's not how wifi works, it doesn't just randomly drop or become unstable unless the hardware itself is fault in which case yes, you would get disconnected. When a connection becomes weak it doesn't send any less data back and forth to the client, what changes is the proportion of usable data to the proportion of redundant data for error checking and correcting, this has the effect of making the wifi connection speed appear slower, so for example if you have a wifi connection of 54mbps that means you're transmitting/receiving say, 54mbps of usable data along with 6mbps of data for error checking/correcting, when you move away from the access point and your speed drops to 10mbps you're still receiving 60mbps or whatever of data overall, but 50mbps of that is for error checking/correcting. There is no inherent instability in wifi in this respect, which is why it's not an issue to play over wifi whilst Microsoft retain strict limits on safely connected clients.
"The same is true of console games, of course. In the long run, the game maker has no control over what people do at home with their own hardware. What matters is how easily and commonly exploited the games are in practice, and so far, the only cheating I've seen in VAC games has been in-game exploits."
You keep repeating this but I'm not sure you really understand the console hardware. It's absolutely not possible to read/write the memory of modern consoles unless you get access to an execution environment where you can execute your own code (outside the limited sandbox of say, XNA). No one has managed to do this on the 360 since a hack about 4 years ago which was quickly made obsolete with a patch and has never been replicated since. Even though the hardware is in people's homes, and is theoretically hence possible to hack, it's not practically possible to crack because we don't have people with electron microscopes sat around their houses, clusters of supercomputers to crack encryption keys that are embedded in hardware you'd need a lab like those at DARPA or Intel to get into. This is why despite the console having been out since 2005, no such hack has yet been successful- all hacks have depended on detectable modifications to DVD drive firmwares and similar. In contrast, on the PC, all you need is a debugger, knowledge of assembly and a little time- that makes a hell of a difference in the practicality of attacking the two systems.
"I don't know about "most" games, but the Halo, COD, and L4D games certainly do have aiming assistance in multiplayer."
CoD: MW2 certainly doesn't and I'm pretty sure MW and CoD5 didn't either. I've been playing MW2 quite a lot lately including last night, not sure about Left 4 Dead though, not played it in ages because it was shit. Halo 3 does, but can be disabled if you prefer to free aim which I do because you can play better when going for headshots and such. Games like Flashpoint and GRAW/GRAW2 don't, these are also good examples because they require precision aiming- Flashpoint in fact requires you to use the rangefinder on your sights to aim just above the head of targets at long range to make the round arc down onto them and again this works just fine with a console controller with no assistance and with typical sway you get looking down scopes on some games. So even a game that requires a massive amount of near pixel precision aiming doesn't come off as a problem on a console gamepad which again is evidence that the supposed disadvantages of accuracy and aiming of a gamepad are imagined, not real.
"The majority of television watchers use standard-definition TV sets. Does that mean HDTV isn't better quality?"
This is another straw man argument, pretty much everyone had an SDTV before HDTV came along to be ad
"As for console games not being any less fun or playable... well, as I said, I beg to differ. I found Halo to be fun on PC, and not fun on Xbox. I found Halo 2 to be mostly fun on an Xbox when I was able to play with keyboad and mouse, not fun when I had to use the gamepad. And like I said, that wasn't due to a lack of time spent getting used to the controls."
I'll admit I never played on the original XBox, maybe it was that console that's the issue. Have you tried playing since on the 360?
"Meanwhile, you ignore the problems of peer-hosted games: the host has zero lag, which gives him an advantage whether he's trying to cheat or not"
This is really a non-issue because the host is randomly selected with no way to game that as it's decided by a central server and not by the players. Everyone with a reasonable connection gets a turn at hosting, but furthermore a lot of games do a lot to mitigate this by adding a virtual lag comparative to the average of the rest of the players so if the average ping is 50ms they'll add a 50ms lag such that in practice it's not really noticable.
"and the host can push his router's standby button to freeze all the other players while he runs around and slaughters them."
Never played a console game online where this is possible, it certainly doesn't work on the 360 because if you do that your Live connection will drop and you'll get booted out the game yourself.
"(And of course, if he has a modded console, he can do much worse things.)"
It's certainly true, but as yet no mod for the 360 (or PS3 that I'm aware) allows for serious cheats. The 360 bans were because of modified models because stupidly Microsoft didn't put any checks on game content by default- only the executable. As the check on the executable has yet to be bypassed it means that so far the 360 has been immune to more serious cheats like aimbot and radar, I believe the PS3 is the same. There are also repercussions for 360 people who do use hacked consoles or controllers in that the consoles get kicked off of Live too- none of these points can be said of the PC. In fact, Microsoft even gave suspensions to people exploiting the recent javelin glitch in CoD:MW2 which was a game exploit and affected all versions of the game, afaik they are also the only ones who have been able to do this.
"I've actually seen that happen. I have not, however, seen anyone use these PC hacks you complain about. Maybe it's because I only play on VAC servers."
Even VAC is defeatable. On the PC you have access to read/write areas of memory as you wish, even if network transport is encrypted it has to be decrypted by the client for it to work with it so no matter what VAC does it is defeatable, it can at best make it harder to cheat, or catch old cheats when it gets updated, but it can do nothing in the long run to prevent cheating. This has always been the issue with PB too- ultimately they can at best delay the inevitable and catch people who use old cheats post update but even smart cheats can mitigate this by detecting changes to VAC/PB and then disable cheats until the cheat too has been patched for the update.
"Er, no. Without aiming assistance, you'd never hit anyone because it's hard to actually get the crosshair where you want it with a gamepad."
You do realise most online console shooters don't even have any aiming assistance in multiplayer right? It's primarily used in single player and even then can be disabled.
Regarding Shadowrun, the IGN comments don't make sense, whilst some weapons have a lot of spread like shotguns, there are plenty of precision weapons also, the PC version didn't add any delay onto mouse movement or anything, but then, using IGN as a source is like using The Christian Daily as evidence that god exists. IGN's reviews are entirely based on how many perks the company in question gives the reviewer as is the case unfortunately with most online review sites nowadays.
"My concern is that you're basically insulting everyone who finds a gamepad unus
Because being able to instantly turn 180 degrees somehow makes the game better, more skillful, and more fun?
I suppose you think aimbots make a game better too because it means you can instantly snap on to a target? Or is the fact they're not part of the game by default somehow different?
Sorry, what has that illogical, stupid little quirk in the PC version of the game got to do with PC gaming somehow offering superior controls?
Really, is that all PC gaming has to offer now? the ability to still bind stupid stuff like that? Is that really what the benefits of PC gaming has dropped to? The relative instability of PC gaming (as show by tfa), the mass cheating, the DRM, the often much lower framerates, and often poorer graphics are all no problem because you can still bind the ability to turn 180 degrees instantly?
Wow, I think I'll go back to PC gaming right away.
"Believe me, I've spent as much time with the gamepad as it took me to get used to the mouse and keyboard, and I'm not alone. The gamepad still feels like playing in quicksand.
Maybe you're an exception. Or maybe you were just never very good with the mouse and keyboard, so you don't notice a difference."
On the contrary, I'm far from the exception, as I pointed out, multiplayer PC gamers are by far a minority nowadays like for like.
"The reason it's "just not a problem" is that they all have the same handicap."
What handicap? The difficulty of games isn't any less on a console, multiplayer isn't any less competitive even when put up against PC players, the game isn't any less fun or playable.
"Personally, I've seen more cheating on console games than PC games, thanks to the fact that they're hosted on other players' consoles instead of impartial third-party servers."
and
"I suppose you think that had nothing to do with the weak PC controls, the gamepad aiming assistance, and the fact that Shadowrun de-emphasizes quick aiming in favor of other skills anyway?"
Oh I see, it's now down to outright lies? Your earlier point about games being hosted on peoples consoles making them more vulnerable shows a complete lack of understanding about how the most serious of cheats work, the difference between using cheats on the closed architecture of consoles vs. the open architecture of PCs and in fact a lack of understanding about client/server computing in general- hint: aimbots, wallhacks, radar, model hacks are all client side cheats, who the host is is entirely irrelevant. Of course, that's before you even go in to the problems of getting such cheats onto a console in the first place, which, in terms of code changes like aimbot, radars and so forth no one has actually yet successfully managed to do on the 360, Wii or PS3 but yet are already rampant even on Call of Duty: MW2 despite it having only been out a few weeks on the PC. Do Slashdot a favour, don't waste people's time commenting on things you demonstrate with your comment that you have absolutely no understanding of, either that, or stop trying to use ignorance to push your false argument- it doesn't work for the simple fact that what you said is transparently extremely nonsensical.
Regarding Shadowrun, pretty much everything you said was bs so I wont waste time covering it in detail, but basically the PC controls were no different to any other PC FPS and your comments about aiming assistance and aiming being unimportant run completely contradictory to each other. Shadowrun had no less shooting emphasis than most other FPS games over the last 15 years. Even as far back as more simple FPS games like Quake the likes of rocket jumping, powerups and so forth were important to do well.
I can buy the argument about how some people don't get on with console controllers because it is quite subjective, however I would still argue it's simply because despite what they say, they've never owned a console and/or spent much time giving it a chance, I say this because it's been the case with many of my PC playing friends who have used the same arguments until they give it a go and got used to it. What I don't buy are when people still playing PC games defend it so vigorously that they have to resort to straw men arguments and outright lies as you have- what's the concern exactly? If you really really don't get on with a console fine, but again, the majority of gamers nowadays do, you don't have to start rabidly spouting lies to try and defend it, or is it a deep seated concern of yours that you'll soon have no one to play with because you're one of the few who can't/wont switch to consoles? Really, if it was fine then the market would support it, but the PC gaming market simply is shrinking for most games, it's as simple as that- MMOs and relatively simple casual games are about the only growth areas, although even casual games are seeing an equivalent growth level on consoles because it's a growing market in general.
People keep bringing up the idea of using Senator's IP addresses and so forth to get them caught, but the reason this doesn't happen is simple, even if you did, big media would let a Senator get away with it for exactly the reason they want to keep abusing these laws.
When they ask the ISP for the IP address and are given "Senator Joe Bloggs, 1 Senator Street, Senatorville" they will just discard it and allow the Senator's kids to keep infringing.
The laws doesn't treat everyone equally unfortunately, and in civil cases like copyright infringement it's down to the accuser to decide how and to who the law should be applied. Even in criminal cases this is the case- why do you think pop stars can consistently get away with taking hard drugs like cocaine in front the cameras without so much as a slap on the wrist, whilst the guy on the street gets busted for a few grams of weed?
The fact is, the law barely even applies to the rich and famous.
If you want to make an impact, the real key is to get someone to put up content you have produced and put the IPs of music industry execs and so forth on that, so that you are in control of who does and doesn't get punished. In this scenario you'll probably still lose because of the afformentioned problem that the law is never applied fairly, but at least you've created a precedent that a case based on such data is not proof of any actual infringement.
"You say that as if PC gamers hold those beliefs mistakenly and have never actually tried it."
You say that as if I wasn't a PC gamer who knows first hand that if you give it a chance and get used to the controller just like you had to with mouse and keyboard originally then there is absolutely no issue. This is mirrored by the fact there are so many console players playing online now, enough to dwarf the PC playing population in just about every dual platform multiplayer game- because it's just not a problem, or at very least not enough of a problem to be unable to outweigh the rampant cheating issue on the PC.
"Ever wonder why games that are released on both console and PC rarely have cross-platform multiplayer?"
Not really, it's primarily because XBox live requires a specific networking model and unless the developers are willing to use Live for Windows it wont work, if you want to develop say a Mac or Linux version too then this option is out the window. But then, games like Shadowrun that had PC vs. XBox multiplayer worked fine and XBox players were certainly at no disadvantage, you really couldn't tell if you were playing against another XBox or a PC player from the XBox and vice versa.
If it was for any other reason than the networking models/licensing issues as you suggest then there'd be more PS3 vs. XBox 360 multiplayer games as console vs. console wouldn't have the disadvantage you claim exists, but currently there is none.
"If you're really good at what you do and like your job, it's time to say no."
Without meaning to sound harsh to the guy I have to wonder if there's another side to this. Honestly, if you're good at your job then even the most incompetent of management wont want to move you away from it, they'll want to keep you in it to make them look good. Good managers that realise treating employees well by promoting rather than keeping them in a role to make them look good will recognise value in also ensuring they're promoting them to a job they'll enjoy and hence perform well in.
I can't help but think there's probably more to this story as promoting someone to a job they will not enjoy, whilst moving them out of a job they're good at and benefit the company in doesn't really make a lot of sense from the perspective of a good manager or a bad manager. I wouldn't be suprised if they're trying to move him into an administrative job, because they do not feel he is doing a good job in his current role, this is generally the only reason people get moved in this manner when if the guy was good at his job, the move would be detrimental to the company. I would wager this new manager is trying to make his mark by cleaning shop and improving the place as all new managers usually tend to try to do, albeit some more competently than others.
How sad that you got modded troll when what you say is true.
I've been playing The Saboteur on my XBox for a week now without any problems, despite being a PC gamer for years I switched to the 360 in 2006 and have never looked back. The key drivers have been no fucking around with drivers and stuff to make things even work, and also no real serious issues with cheating. Sure you get people exploit game glitches but at least there are no aimbots, radar or anything stupid and game destroying like that.
I have tried PC gaming since 2006 on multiple occasions, but it's just not as good and I end up back on my 360. Shit like Crysis ran like crap even on a £1500 PC and still didn't look as good as games like Gears of War 2. Then there's the fact you have to deal with DRM shit from the likes of Steam and on EA games.
Contrary to popular belief amongst PC gamers, FPS and even RTS games are just as fun with console controls, I always figured I'd never play an RTS on the 360 because I thought it wouldn't be as good without a mouse, but it's just not true, when you get used to using a console controller it's just as easy. Some games, like Overlord for example actually worked better on the console in terms of controls than they did on the PC. In terms of RTS games I complete C&C3 and RA3 on hardest difficulty on the 360 no problem and find no issue playing online either.
The issue is for PC gaming that it's getting worse rather than better too- if I buy a 360 retail game I can still sell it on second hand, I can't even do that now if I buy a game in a shop for the PC and have to activate it on Steam. Some issues are the fault of the platform- the PC's openness is the reason it's easier to cheat and cheat more spectacularly, whilst others are the fault of game developers- i.e. DRM, and other problems again are half developer, half platform fault- i.e. bugs like this caused by hardware with millions of combinations of different configurations to cater to and developers not catering to them.
Yeah I was thinking about that option but even that has complications, ignoring the rights aspect in that many would be up in arms at forced operations, what happens if one or both of their children die for example? They would be prevented from having any at that point.
I think this is why as the world's population grows these will actually become serious rather than merely speculative talking points.
That's probably because you don't pay much attention to the world. If you had, you may have heard of this African country called Sudan, and a particularly a region in it called Darfur, a place where mass genocide has been going on- in fact, where as many as half a million civilians may have been slaughtered so far. Eritrea is one of the nations that has been accused of supporting the Darfur rebels fighting against the Sudanese government, but has since moved into a mediating position over the crisis.
To be fair though, part the reason you probably hadn't heard about it is because the world's media was mostly too busy covering middle east stuff like Israel's war with Lebanon. Apparently Israel killing 1000 odd Lebanese, many of which were Hezbollah militans and Hezbollah killing 130 Israelis, many of which were soldiers is somehow so much bigger a tragedy than the 10s of thousands of African civilians that were brutally raped, mutilated and murdered around the same time. For some reason, the tragedy in Darfur and the hundreds of thousands of dead, the hundreds of thousands raped and mutilated and the millions displaced just don't get the attention of the media like a good old fashioned suicide bombing in downtown Baghdad or a verbal spat between the US and Iran.
So yeah, Eritrea is an African nation with some quite close ties to the Darfur conflict. In it's short existence as a sovereign nation (since 1993 iirc) it's also managed to get itself in fights with Ethiopia, Yemen and possibly even Somalia I believe. It's relatively pro-Western, but not blindly so as there was some fuss about them allowing some militant in that the US claimed had Al Qaeda ties. It borders the red sea towards the North Eastern end of Africa.
"Google cant withold information that the governments asks for if it doesnt have any support in law."
No, but if they don't log it in the first place then there's nothing to hand over when the law comes knocking.
"Interestingly, all you need to limit the immortal population is to allow a maximum of two children per parents (or maximum one child per person)."
I agree it's a valid option certainly, but China has a different culture to us- here in the UK for example there would be uproar if you put a limit on child birth. What about accidental pregnancies beyond the limit- do you force an abortion because she already has 2 kids even if it's against the mother's will for example?
"That is in fact quite a long time. 91 years ago was the time of first cars, planes and electronics..."
It both is and isn't, you're right that we've done all that, but how much has the car changed? We're only just now slowly moving away from the combustion engine for example. Similarly we went to the moon 40 years ago, but we've really done very little by way of manned missions since.
You're right that a lot has changed, but a lot has stayed the same also.
"Also, thinking about it.... Does not "hibernation" technology also give you means to deal with growing population? Would not be bad if you get bored to hibernate until more interesting times. Putting to the extreme, you can hibernate large fraction of population until you develop technology to colonize the space :)"
It's true but I would presume you still need to consume resources to achieve hibernation- bodies would have to be kept likely in temperature controlled environments and looked after such that even a body in hibernation is consuming at least some resources.
Well, at minimum you can expect to learn how to make a damn good cup of tea or coffee.
"Really, this is how I see medicine in the future."
Yes, unfortunately it's also what I see as the cause of the 22nd century's major problem just as ours is climate change. Their problem will be massive overpopulation, how do you deal with a population that doesn't die but keeps increasing when the resources of the planet they live on can't sustain their population even right now, let alone then?
The only options are to either let people die, stop new people being born, or move to other planets. I'm not convinced in a hundred years we'll have the technology to get to other inhabitable planets and, well, inhabit them. If this is indeed the case it'll be a decision between preventing new births or enforcing maximum life spans to achieve the former options.
The ability to keep people alive indefinitely and recover people from even the most horrific incidents may well be the next atomic bomb- a technology that we may find that we would often perhaps like to be able to undiscover.
Does anyone else have any ideas how we might go about solving the population problem should we obtain the ability to keep people alive much longer and fight back death? A solution that can realistically be achieved in at most, the next 91 years.