I would seriously doubt your stats on "aim-bot users".
First off, people pull off ridiculously insane and difficult shots regularly in the console versions of the game. I would submit that a vast majority of aim-bot users are simply 13 year olds with twitch reflexes that make you and I and our much more aged and rusty 20-30 year old reflexes pale in comparison.
As a personal anecdote, computerized medical records most likely saved my father's life.
He woke up in the middle of the night with unbearable pain in his abdomen, and when he didn't fight my mom about going to the hospital she knew it was serious. Five hours later and untold scans and prodding later (not to mention a significant amount of morphine) they determined a blood vessel leading to my father's colon had been blocked and basically part of his colon was dead or dying. Not having the facilities or expertise to handle the necessary surgery in my mid-size town of Owensboro, KY, they sent him to the University of Louisville Medical center telling us that basically, even done by the best surgeons in the business there is a 3 out of 4 chance he wouldnt' make it through surgery unless it was done in the next few hours. The trip to Louisville takes two hours. Following the ambulance we arrived in Louisville in an hour and a half, and he was in his room and being prepped when the doctors realized they didn't have any scans of his abdomen, the EMTs had left them behind in their rush to get us all there. Faxing them was the only option, and to do that they would have to get in touch with someone in Owensboro, convince them who they were, have them look up the records, and then get them to a fax machine that could handle the scans. It could take another hour.
Except my mother (who, frankly, is the smartest person I know) insisted that she be given a copy of the CD with all the electronic scans and data the doctors had collected that morning. I thought the surgeon was going to kiss her. 20 minutes later my father is in surgery, and 5 hours after that (or so, it was a long day) he was back out and kept in ICU for two weeks before finally coming home. The doctor had said if he'd had to wait much longer chances would have shot up considerably that my father would have died.
So, there is at least one example of how Electronic Medical Records did help a doctor save a life.
Wasn't this one of the more popular free games around? I've played this for hours and it was totally free to download and play all the levels. It was super fun, and I'd have donated a few bucks if there had been someplace to do that... but 20 bucks? I don't think so.
I use crossloop myself. Simple, more secure than a lot of options.. and a really neat backend for saying how well you do. It seems to want a username and password lately, but you can still use it without (there is a very small SKIP hyperlink that lets you bypass the signon)
My vote is for this.
I daresay people's anthropomorphizing and self-indentification with their pets is MUCH higher now than in the 50's. And the farther back you go, the less animals lives mean to the average human. I'm sure that has to do with dogs and cats often being 'work' animals in rural communities, and often pests in cities... I'm guessing as people started having fewer children their pets became more important. I know I don't have kids and at 32 I would seriously consider beating anyone within an inch of their lives who killed my doberman with intent.
For what it's worth. I stand corrected. And I would agree that war solves issues.. who's issues and to what extent those issues are to the overall benefit of mankind, obviously that is arguable.
Fair point. But you then admit that ending slavery (in America of course) was, at best, a by product of war, not caused by war.
And hell, in England, Slavery was ended by the guy who wrote Amazing Grace. I saw it in a movie.
If that is something that would be possible (obviously in the distant future) why bother even getting out of the machine? I'm sure if scanning and storage have advanced to that level, the simulation and processing power has improved similarly. Why not just run a simulation of yourself for all eternity, orbiting the sun for power, and never feeling want or need again... being able to live out your imagination in any possible way because not only are you in a holodeck of sorts... you are part of the holodeck.
Frankly, it wouldn't surprise me if Heaven as it were, is just a huge database we all live in now, but after we 'die' the constraints on the simulation are removed and we are free to go on our merry way as we please.. only we cannot interfere with the system we were part of before we 'died'.
Well... I would be surprised of course if that was the case... but still.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
I don't mean to be Pedantic, but in response to your sig.
I'm pretty sure wars were started in defense of slavery, and *against* American independence. After all the south could have simply said, "Okay" when slavery was outlawed, and the British could have simply said "alright then." when American's proclaimed their Independence. Those wars were fought to maintain slavery and to maintain British rule, and the aggressors lost.
Similarly, the Nazi's started WW2 by invading another country. The war was fought to defend against the Nazi's, WW2 wasn't started with the idea to rid the world of Nazism.
Also, I'm curious which war ended communism?
Considering four people have possibly died due to the malfunction mentioned in the article, I would expect a loud whine and bang while in neutral would be a preferable result.
Well, my understanding of evolution is that it only works on disadvantageous genes. Specifically, a trait has to keep a rat from reproducing, or reproduce less often in order to weed out that trait.
Perhaps the reason this hasn't come up naturally is because there is no pressure exerted on the rat's reproductive cycle if he can't remember as long as some other rat. Basically, a rat only has to be as smart as necessary to reproduce. Perhaps there is no advantage to a longer memory, remembering longer simply doesn't get you more tail.
Your average slashdotter is not going to get a cheapy $550 computer. Your average Joe maybe, and then they will complain to us that their computer is so slow...
I would suggest your average slashdotter will be very distressed if they have to pay $550 for a simple storage system. To suggest someone is going to buy a gaming pc for storage and backup is exactly what your 'Average joe' would do.. not a slashdotter.
Of course I understand this is article is about MMOs, but I was surprised/not surprised about the Sims 3 making their new items all micropayment based using 'Simsbucks' or something like that (1 cent = 1 simbuck) most items are a dollar or less. And the only things that are free are people's recolorings of existing items and the little people and the lots they make. What with the Sims being the biggest game ever or something I would be interested to see exactly what sort of money they make from that?
I'd be willing to bet that's been done before.
Many gas pipeline companies bury communications links right alongside their pipelines that communicate with flow meters and pressure gauges, send instructions to compressor stations along the pipeline to throttle up or down, or shut and open valves remotely to keep up with demand. They wouldn't run the cable inside the pipelines, though, because they occasionally send devices called "pigs" through the pipes to check for corrosion on the inside of the pipeline. The pigs would simply shred any cables inside the pipeline.
Now it's conceivable that a secret agency could slip in their communications link alongside the pipeline company's link as it's being built; of course they would lie and tell the pipeline constructors that they're such-and-such communications company looking for a protected right-of-way for their cable. Then when someone dials the call-before-you-dig hotline, they're told there's two communications links and a 36 inch gas pipeline buried there. Guaranteed the contractor will be more concerned about hitting the pipeline than any cables buried right next to it, and stay far away from it.
Why not encase the fiber in a tiny steel tube or something, and actually have the fiber embedded into the pipe itself. that way it would never be detected, cleaning pigs could do their job, and not only would the maps be marked, but they would be properly marked at that, instead of just decoy. All it would take is money right? and repairs in case the pipe was ever ruptured, but still.
I have a question... if it is free to download as often as you like, automatically patches and installs itself, and there is no limit to the number of machines you can install it on, isn't that the same as DRM-less?
Or is your objection mainly philosophical, if that's the case I can understand that. I'd like to stick it to tha man as much as the next guy.
But what if DRM literally did nothing but make sure you paid for your game? Is this a bad thing? I'm sure there is something I'm missing here, and as always, I count on the Slashdot community to point it out to me.
When 2K games released NFL 2K5 or 6 or something for $20 BRAND NEW on the day of release it came damn close to outselling Madden (I'm sure most people here understand what a coup that would have been). It scared EA so much that the very same year it pressured the NFL and ESPN to give exclusive licensing just to make sure they weren't forced to reduce their prices in the future. This experiment was run three or four years ago and succeeded mightily.
Re:Legal standards of search and seizure
on
You Are Not a Lawyer
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Holy crap.. you seriously walked around with a police scanner in your ear ALL the TIME... and you were still invited to parties?
And you are PROUD of this?
Gee, I wonder where the rest of the world got the idea that techies are a bunch of awkward losers who think they're so much smarter than anyone else.
frankly, the people inviting the crazy-paranoid-police-scanner dude were the smartest in that entire scenario.
Er.. look I don't claim to be some super tech heavy.. er.. tech. But Gmail has the ability to go and FETCH email from other domains.
The only problem is you have to give it your credentials, and since it is on your personal domain, you may not want to do that. But you can have Gmail go and collect email from several other email addresses (this is how I finally got my father to dump AOL completely, his Gmail Account automatically goes to look for his AOL mail and he can reply using either @gmail.com or @aol.com).
Couldn't you do something similar with your own domain?
Any review that barely touches on multiplayer does a serious disservice to those who would play this game. This is easily the most engrossing and impressive multiplayer FPS to come out in the last two or three years. The fact that your 'superpowers' really feel like they do some good without completely overwhelming the battle and the relatively rapid pace of advancement means a game can still feel balanced even if you are playing with people many many levels ahead of you. This is easily a buy for anyone interested in multiplayer FPS games.
If you're in it for the single player only, absolutely worth a rental because the campaign is only five or six hours long, but it is a very impressive five or six hours.
But be ye not fooled, this is a multiplayer game first, a single player game second.
To suggest this game has no innovation speaks TOMES about how you have not played the game and are dismissing it, most likely because you are a halo fanboi. So there!
Slashdot Mirror
I would seriously doubt your stats on "aim-bot users".
First off, people pull off ridiculously insane and difficult shots regularly in the console versions of the game. I would submit that a vast majority of aim-bot users are simply 13 year olds with twitch reflexes that make you and I and our much more aged and rusty 20-30 year old reflexes pale in comparison.
As a personal anecdote, computerized medical records most likely saved my father's life.
He woke up in the middle of the night with unbearable pain in his abdomen, and when he didn't fight my mom about going to the hospital she knew it was serious. Five hours later and untold scans and prodding later (not to mention a significant amount of morphine) they determined a blood vessel leading to my father's colon had been blocked and basically part of his colon was dead or dying. Not having the facilities or expertise to handle the necessary surgery in my mid-size town of Owensboro, KY, they sent him to the University of Louisville Medical center telling us that basically, even done by the best surgeons in the business there is a 3 out of 4 chance he wouldnt' make it through surgery unless it was done in the next few hours. The trip to Louisville takes two hours. Following the ambulance we arrived in Louisville in an hour and a half, and he was in his room and being prepped when the doctors realized they didn't have any scans of his abdomen, the EMTs had left them behind in their rush to get us all there. Faxing them was the only option, and to do that they would have to get in touch with someone in Owensboro, convince them who they were, have them look up the records, and then get them to a fax machine that could handle the scans. It could take another hour.
Except my mother (who, frankly, is the smartest person I know) insisted that she be given a copy of the CD with all the electronic scans and data the doctors had collected that morning. I thought the surgeon was going to kiss her. 20 minutes later my father is in surgery, and 5 hours after that (or so, it was a long day) he was back out and kept in ICU for two weeks before finally coming home. The doctor had said if he'd had to wait much longer chances would have shot up considerably that my father would have died. So, there is at least one example of how Electronic Medical Records did help a doctor save a life.
Wasn't this one of the more popular free games around? I've played this for hours and it was totally free to download and play all the levels. It was super fun, and I'd have donated a few bucks if there had been someplace to do that... but 20 bucks? I don't think so.
I use crossloop myself. Simple, more secure than a lot of options.. and a really neat backend for saying how well you do. It seems to want a username and password lately, but you can still use it without (there is a very small SKIP hyperlink that lets you bypass the signon) My vote is for this.
FYI, canines are technically omnivores. They don't eat much vegetation. But they do need some. Cats are pure carnivores.
I daresay people's anthropomorphizing and self-indentification with their pets is MUCH higher now than in the 50's. And the farther back you go, the less animals lives mean to the average human. I'm sure that has to do with dogs and cats often being 'work' animals in rural communities, and often pests in cities... I'm guessing as people started having fewer children their pets became more important. I know I don't have kids and at 32 I would seriously consider beating anyone within an inch of their lives who killed my doberman with intent.
I wuv my widdle doggie.
For what it's worth. I stand corrected. And I would agree that war solves issues.. who's issues and to what extent those issues are to the overall benefit of mankind, obviously that is arguable.
Fair point. But you then admit that ending slavery (in America of course) was, at best, a by product of war, not caused by war. And hell, in England, Slavery was ended by the guy who wrote Amazing Grace. I saw it in a movie.
This person makes an excellent point.
Is there a reason this racist crap isn't modded flamebait?
If that is something that would be possible (obviously in the distant future) why bother even getting out of the machine? I'm sure if scanning and storage have advanced to that level, the simulation and processing power has improved similarly. Why not just run a simulation of yourself for all eternity, orbiting the sun for power, and never feeling want or need again... being able to live out your imagination in any possible way because not only are you in a holodeck of sorts... you are part of the holodeck. Frankly, it wouldn't surprise me if Heaven as it were, is just a huge database we all live in now, but after we 'die' the constraints on the simulation are removed and we are free to go on our merry way as we please.. only we cannot interfere with the system we were part of before we 'died'. Well... I would be surprised of course if that was the case... but still.
+1 for Dwarf Fortress! Damn Those LAVAMEN!!!
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
I don't mean to be Pedantic, but in response to your sig. I'm pretty sure wars were started in defense of slavery, and *against* American independence. After all the south could have simply said, "Okay" when slavery was outlawed, and the British could have simply said "alright then." when American's proclaimed their Independence. Those wars were fought to maintain slavery and to maintain British rule, and the aggressors lost. Similarly, the Nazi's started WW2 by invading another country. The war was fought to defend against the Nazi's, WW2 wasn't started with the idea to rid the world of Nazism. Also, I'm curious which war ended communism?
Just out of curiosity, how do you hold down the clutch, the brake and the accelerator all at the same time?
Considering four people have possibly died due to the malfunction mentioned in the article, I would expect a loud whine and bang while in neutral would be a preferable result.
Dear christ on a cracker.. I literally said that yesterday while watching Mike Rowe, hilarious!
Well, my understanding of evolution is that it only works on disadvantageous genes. Specifically, a trait has to keep a rat from reproducing, or reproduce less often in order to weed out that trait. Perhaps the reason this hasn't come up naturally is because there is no pressure exerted on the rat's reproductive cycle if he can't remember as long as some other rat. Basically, a rat only has to be as smart as necessary to reproduce. Perhaps there is no advantage to a longer memory, remembering longer simply doesn't get you more tail.
Your average slashdotter is not going to get a cheapy $550 computer. Your average Joe maybe, and then they will complain to us that their computer is so slow...
I would suggest your average slashdotter will be very distressed if they have to pay $550 for a simple storage system. To suggest someone is going to buy a gaming pc for storage and backup is exactly what your 'Average joe' would do.. not a slashdotter.
Of course I understand this is article is about MMOs, but I was surprised/not surprised about the Sims 3 making their new items all micropayment based using 'Simsbucks' or something like that (1 cent = 1 simbuck) most items are a dollar or less. And the only things that are free are people's recolorings of existing items and the little people and the lots they make. What with the Sims being the biggest game ever or something I would be interested to see exactly what sort of money they make from that?
I'd be willing to bet that's been done before. Many gas pipeline companies bury communications links right alongside their pipelines that communicate with flow meters and pressure gauges, send instructions to compressor stations along the pipeline to throttle up or down, or shut and open valves remotely to keep up with demand. They wouldn't run the cable inside the pipelines, though, because they occasionally send devices called "pigs" through the pipes to check for corrosion on the inside of the pipeline. The pigs would simply shred any cables inside the pipeline. Now it's conceivable that a secret agency could slip in their communications link alongside the pipeline company's link as it's being built; of course they would lie and tell the pipeline constructors that they're such-and-such communications company looking for a protected right-of-way for their cable. Then when someone dials the call-before-you-dig hotline, they're told there's two communications links and a 36 inch gas pipeline buried there. Guaranteed the contractor will be more concerned about hitting the pipeline than any cables buried right next to it, and stay far away from it.
Why not encase the fiber in a tiny steel tube or something, and actually have the fiber embedded into the pipe itself. that way it would never be detected, cleaning pigs could do their job, and not only would the maps be marked, but they would be properly marked at that, instead of just decoy. All it would take is money right? and repairs in case the pipe was ever ruptured, but still.
I have a question... if it is free to download as often as you like, automatically patches and installs itself, and there is no limit to the number of machines you can install it on, isn't that the same as DRM-less? Or is your objection mainly philosophical, if that's the case I can understand that. I'd like to stick it to tha man as much as the next guy. But what if DRM literally did nothing but make sure you paid for your game? Is this a bad thing? I'm sure there is something I'm missing here, and as always, I count on the Slashdot community to point it out to me.
When 2K games released NFL 2K5 or 6 or something for $20 BRAND NEW on the day of release it came damn close to outselling Madden (I'm sure most people here understand what a coup that would have been). It scared EA so much that the very same year it pressured the NFL and ESPN to give exclusive licensing just to make sure they weren't forced to reduce their prices in the future. This experiment was run three or four years ago and succeeded mightily.
Holy crap.. you seriously walked around with a police scanner in your ear ALL the TIME... and you were still invited to parties? And you are PROUD of this? Gee, I wonder where the rest of the world got the idea that techies are a bunch of awkward losers who think they're so much smarter than anyone else. frankly, the people inviting the crazy-paranoid-police-scanner dude were the smartest in that entire scenario.
Er.. look I don't claim to be some super tech heavy.. er.. tech. But Gmail has the ability to go and FETCH email from other domains. The only problem is you have to give it your credentials, and since it is on your personal domain, you may not want to do that. But you can have Gmail go and collect email from several other email addresses (this is how I finally got my father to dump AOL completely, his Gmail Account automatically goes to look for his AOL mail and he can reply using either @gmail.com or @aol.com). Couldn't you do something similar with your own domain?
Any review that barely touches on multiplayer does a serious disservice to those who would play this game. This is easily the most engrossing and impressive multiplayer FPS to come out in the last two or three years. The fact that your 'superpowers' really feel like they do some good without completely overwhelming the battle and the relatively rapid pace of advancement means a game can still feel balanced even if you are playing with people many many levels ahead of you. This is easily a buy for anyone interested in multiplayer FPS games. If you're in it for the single player only, absolutely worth a rental because the campaign is only five or six hours long, but it is a very impressive five or six hours. But be ye not fooled, this is a multiplayer game first, a single player game second. To suggest this game has no innovation speaks TOMES about how you have not played the game and are dismissing it, most likely because you are a halo fanboi. So there!