The John Titor stuff does not really describe time travel. If you bother to really read what he describes it's really just universe hopping. He jumps to a an alternate Earth to scavange what he needs then jumps back to his Earth. In his writings he shared the history of his Earth. This does not mean his history is our future/history. I've noticed people seem to only read what they want in his writings and not what he actually wrote. I suspect he was just a BS artist who was well aware of modern scientific theory. Remember the best lie is one in which you mix a little bit of truth.
Last I checked we had presidents not kings as our leaders. It's President elect Bush. He can't do much w/o the OK of the other branches of government. You guys make it sound like he can do whatever he likes. Please study our system of gov then look at what you are saying. In order for him to have done most of the things he's accused of doing on his own he would have needed the support of congress. Which he obviously had. We went into Iraq with the full sopport of the other branches. It's nice how people stop thinking for themselves and let our "free" media do the thinking for them.
LOL! Sorry but reporting it stolen is a good idea. Computers are so cheap now that getting another one wouldn't be hard. Just back up the stuff you wanna keep and off to mexico the PC goes!
LOL!!! You do know we have never been able to cure any sickness caused by Virus right? A virus mutates way to fast for us to mount any kind of real deffense against it. The best we can hope to do is treat the symptoms but never the sickness itself. When you think you've got it beat it changes and negates all the work you have done. Modern medicine hasn't even been able to cure the cold and yet we expect them to deal with "avian" flu. All you can really do is hope you don't catch a virus that can overpower your system.
Ummm... no..... They are doing this becasue they know games in which users can design levels have a much longer life. Just look at the fan base of games like Unreal Tournament. People play the game long after they have played the hell out of the standard levels. Why? Becasue there are lots of good user designed levels worth playing. And I suspect they had this in mind for Gears Of War which will be hitting stores soon. Then we have Unreal Torunament 2007 wich will most likely have an XBOX 360 port of it. This is actually a good step forward. It will make the XBOX 360 much more attractive since it will give console gamers the same opprtunity/ability that PC gamers have had for the past 15 or so years. To create their own game content and games. This could only help MS. They are making their LIVE service worth the money you pay for it. I was not going to renew my subscription but after this news I will give it another year or two to see how this develops.
Apple's problem started back in the 80's when they chose to bundle their hardware witht he OS. The whole reason Intel/AMD based systems have pretty much been the only game in town for persoanl computers is the fact that IBM allowed clones to be made. IBM computers were hella expensive. The clones were not. Guess which machines everyone and their mom went for? Then you have Microsoft who doesn't force vedors to fork over their left testicle and first born to create software for their OS. This combo is what has made Microsoft the jugernaut it is today and Intel/AMD systems so dominant. You can't expect someone with a bunch of software they already know and love to switch to a whole new platform and more than likely be forced to look for other apps to fill the holes left by the apps that simply do not exist in the Apple OS universe. OK let's say that Apple can compete on price. (snickers) Can they compete with available software libraries? The answer is no.:-) I seem many windows apps with ports to Linux and Unix but very few to Apple OS. Why do you suppose that is? Lack of market share. Apple, try as they have in the past, is not mainstream. It's actually loosing ground. The places where it traditionally reigned supreme (schools and Multimedia) are being taken over by Windows boxes. Let's try to remember the only reason Apple is aropund to day is that Microsoft (Bill Gates) saved them. They invested 150 million in Apple. I suspect to avoind even more chrages of being a monopoly. Had that not happened Apple would not be here to day to make these wishful boasts. If Apple really wants to gain marhet share they will have to drasticly change the way they do business.
I suggest you try using your Gmail account when registering for different forums and such. You will find after doign this on a few sites you will start to get hammered. No spam filter can get rid of the majority of spam. That's a pipe dream. Only way to get rid of spam on your system is to set your email app to only allow email form your contact/address list to get through. If they are not on either list they get tossed into the trash. I have 2 domains. Both email addresses listed in the whois info are hammered with junk. All the other email accounts I have created which are not posted for all the world to see are junk free. Only becasue I don't use them for anything other than business. I use a special junk account when applying for membership to different sites. Big suprise it's become the mother of all junkmail magnets. Mind you the places I sign up with claim to not sell or share your address with anyone if you select this little box telling them no. LOL!!! You also can't control what others do with your email address.:-) Your claim that "better filters" will reduce the problem is not true. The best draconian filters will stop the email but they will also add some administrative tasts to your email exp. The best practice is not to hand out your regular email to anyone other than those you truest. Do not use it to register with ANY website other than banking stitutions and so on. Maintain a current list of contacts and block all but the people on this list in. It's a pain but you can have a junk free email in box. It's something akin to what China does. It's not a bad idea but you have to be willing to maintain your filters. If you don't you will miss important emails and give up on it.
Remember the stink the antigame folks made about doom back in the day? These people don't bother playing the games they crit. How bad is a game where you play a marine fighting the forces of hell? All they did was provide loads of free publicity for the game. I suspect we will see the same with this game. WOOT!!!
"Steam is not perfect but better than CD copy protection."
You can't be serious! Steam sucks ass. Waiting a horribly long time to connect to their servers just to install/play the game the first time...well....SUX. How is this better then copy protection? Oh and do you happen to work for one of these game companies that puts out crap like this? I ask because I have yet to find anyone that has anything good to say about Valve and Steam. SO how about it? Are you?
Game pirating is not much different than pirating movies and songs. The peopel that pirate games are usually the ones that wouldn't buy these things in the first place. I see the bigger issue with poor game sales is the crazy pricing. Most games just suck. Back in the day many stores let you buy a game and return it for stroe credit. I did that many times due to the high suckage factor. WoW is not a good example. LOL!!! It's a game that can not be played offline. So they ask you to PAY full price for such a game THEN ask you to pay an additional $15 or so a month just to be able to play the very same game you already bought. This alone has kept me from plunking down my hard earned cash. Get this. I downwloaded the game from their site then started the 1 week free trial. when the time was up they flaty out told me I had to go out and BUY a copy of the game I already had installed. THEN pay the monthly fee. Why owuld I buy a copy of the game I already have installed? Why not just charge me the monthly fee? I refused to bend over for them. Diablo 2 was yet another example of garbage. I loved the first one and wanted to support Blizzard so I bought it. It felt like a freaking beta. The only reason for buying the game was for the online play which was free BTW. You spent way too much time waiting for a game slot to open up to allow you to play. Plus many bugs that made playing it a pain. I outright told the moderators of the chat area you waited in that I felt I was ripped off and wished I had pirated their game. THEN I owulhave felt I got my money's worth. Let's face it. If they release a good game people will buy it. Take a look at the makers of Galactic Civs 2. They are a shining example of this. PIracy isn't killing the game industry. Piss poor games are.
You had me until you mentioned the Gimp. (A very accurate name for the application BTW) Dude are you seriously trying to say Gimp is a good alternative to Adobe Photoshop? Shall I slap you around or later? I have been forced to use Gimp at work since it's free. I feel like someone chopped off both my legs and one arm when I use it. The free stuff is not always a good alternative. Sometimes if you really wnat to get your work done you have to bend over and take it.
Unfortunatly you are not the average user. For the average user an OS like Linux is pretty but useless. Most of their apps will not run. No Linux ports. And very few of the popular games are out for Linux. The average Linux user is usually a techhead where the average windows user is not.
LOL!!! If you want to be able to play the latest and most popular games guess which OS you better be running? Guess the percentage of Windows apps can be found for a Mac? If you guess 50 you are being way too optomistic. Fact is no matter how much nicer, prettier, or better another OS is you have to deal with reality. If I made the change howmany of my apps would I still be able to use? Fact is OS X is not a mainstream OS. It's a toy OS. I predict Linux will become a mainstream OS LONG before Apple's offering will. If OS X was all that and a bag of chips I would have jumped ship long ago. But since I pref to have an OS that is actually useful I stay with my current OS. The OS well over 90% of the developers out there code for. To change simply based on looks and feel is complete stupidity.
Paranormal is a junk term. Much like supernatural. LOL Thin about it. If you see something happen then it must be 100% normal and natural. By definition nothing can happen within this universe that is against the laws that govern it's existance.
Now why do peopel get so bent when they hear there is real research being done into ideas most "logical" people deem fantasy? Coudl it be that it's treatment as a worth while subject of research means it may not be the total BS they believe it to be? Keep in mind the government's long run with what is termed "Remote Viewing." Their accuracy was reportedly over 80%. That alone tends to say there was more at work there than mere chance. if it was BS you'd expect their accuracy to be more like 50%. But no it makes more sense to attack it and call it BS. Please leave your religious or superstitions preconceptions at the door and look at this whole thing with an open mind. Yeah.... Sure.... Like that's gonan happen!
"OS X runs on Intel now, and Apple is working hard on compatibility layers for multiple OSs and it is the slickest, most stable, most beautiful mainstream OS out there right now."
LOL!!! You cant be serious. OSX does not qualify as "mainstream." You forget the patheticly low market share it has. But that will change along with it's claim of being the most stable. The viral coders and crackers will change that soon enough. Mainstream makes you a target for both whicg will require you to constantly be writing and releasing updates to your OS which will usually fix one problem but cause others.:-) Let the fun begin.
LOL. I feel games like WOW are nothing new. Jsut more of the same. Chat and repetative quests. I feel paying full price THEN being required to pay a monthly subcription fee to play the game you just bought is a rip big time. Give me Halo 1,2,3 or HL1,2 any day. MMORPG's are a wind fall for the publishers for sure. Sony reps came to my Cg school and we asked them how much money they made from EQ. They grinned real big and said they pulled in from just subscriptions $3 million monthly easily. Kinda summed up the whole reason why publishers are trying to come up with their own. I fail to see the apeal of these games. The graphics aren't all that great. the game play becomes pretty blah after a week or two and you accomplish nothing in the game. It becomes more like Myspace.com with mini games and less like a real RPG videogame. I personally like to test drive a game before buying it. I hate the idea of spending over $50 on a game and having it suck more than a freaking blackhole. And lets face it, there aren't that many gems being produced by the industry as of late. Kinda reminds me of hollywood. Publishers should be making better games not looking to make the prettiest POS and charging an arm and a leg for it. Games like Halo and Halflife are great examples of games that were def worth the money you paid for them. Great game play and an engrossing story. So No MMORPG's are not getting any of my money. Most of the kids and adults I know say the same thing. Even about WoW.
I have a similar experience to yours. I was diagnosed as being allergic to pollen, animal dander, dust of any sort, and so on. My mom protected my brother and I from those things like crazy. When I was in the presence of a cat for example I would have a hard time breathing and my eyes would swell up and water like crazy. But guess what? After my sisters started adopting just about every stray or orphaned animal they found my reactions to them became less and less untill completely gone. At one point our house was like a petting zoo with all kinds of animals we were nursing back to health and/or rasing. The family doctor was very interested in what happened with me. At that time they were conducting a study into the theory of prolanged exposure to allergens can can help lessen or completely remove the allergic reactions. After that my parents started sending me to summer camp and again guess what? After the first 2 summers my allergic reactions to pollen were gone as well. Dust still makes me prey for death but that is the only allergy I haven't been able to shake. So yeah it's my own personal exp but I have spoken with MANY people with similar exp. Now my younger brother was not so lucky. He got the same exposure as I did but his allergies never went away. But they did decline noticably during the zoo period or our lives. But that only lasted until we left home. They have in fact gotten stronger over the years. So who knows. There needs to be more study done on this but I know in my case exposure did seem to cure me of most of my allergies.
Do you really think it would be any different had some other OS become the #1 OS? Highly unlikely. Had Linux, Mac OS, or anything else become as widely used as Windows is today guess what? We'd still be going through this. There is no such thing as bulletproof code. HAckers and crackers will always find flaws to exploit and the code owners will always be playing catch up. Your post sounds like just another bitter person sticking it to MS cuz they can.
Poor analogy. Mac's poor market share is the main reason they haven't been targeted by the virus writers. You are just fooling yourself if you think it has anything to do witht he architecture of the OS. It's simple logic. You don't go after the minority systems you go after the majority. But Apple is changing and joining the rest of the world and as such they will prob come under fire. The irritating and misguided boasting of the Mac fanboys may be taken as a challenge by the kids that write the viruses. Oh well move along nothing interesting to see.....
Here's some more info to counter the BS: http://www.pbs.org/kcts/videogamerevolution/impact /myths.html
"8. Video game play is desensitizing.
Classic studies of play behavior among primates suggest that apes make basic distinctions between play fighting and actual combat. In some circumstances, they seem to take pleasure wrestling and tousling with each other. In others, they might rip each other apart in mortal combat. Game designer and play theorist Eric Zimmerman describes the ways we understand play as distinctive from reality as entering the "magic circle." The same action -- say, sweeping a floor -- may take on different meanings in play (as in playing house) than in reality (housework). Play allows kids to express feelings and impulses that have to be carefully held in check in their real-world interactions. Media reformers argue that playing violent video games can cause a lack of empathy for real-world victims. Yet, a child who responds to a video game the same way he or she responds to a real-world tragedy could be showing symptoms of being severely emotionally disturbed. Here's where the media effects research, which often uses punching rubber dolls as a marker of real-world aggression, becomes problematic. The kid who is punching a toy designed for this purpose is still within the "magic circle" of play and understands her actions on those terms. Such research shows us only that violent play leads to more violent play. " Hmmmm.....
Sorry but I have read what they are saying and it's BS. Virtual killing is not the same as killing a real live flesh and blood person. And so it would not have the same effect as you going out and doign the real deal. If you think they are the same then most likely there is prob something wrong with you. I have no problem with killing a room full of virtual opponents. It's all in fun and not real. It's quite another to go into a public place and start offing everyone in site. Pretty simple. It's the same as watching cartoon characters killing each other. Also like the simulated violence in the games boys have played for a VERY LONG time. If you can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality then again you have a much more serious problem.
This is rediculous. Kids share games just like they share music. The parents that say they need this will still not pay much attention to what their kids are playing let alone doing online. Kids don't need to ask their parents permission to get a game any more than they need theor permission to get mp3's of any given band. They will go ahead and download whatever they want. Parents are the only ones that can control what their kids do at home on their own PC's. Government can't do much. Parents need to take their jobs as parents seriously and not try to push the job off on to local or federal gov.
Horse pucky!!! Hehehe always wanted to say that.:-)
Anyway.... It's a load of crap. I grew up on violent media. I grew up on a violent neighborhood. In the park a few blocks away from my home they were finding on average 1 dead person a week. I was confronted with violence on a daily basis. guns were pretty easy to get for us kids. The gangs sold all kinds of illegal guns. No waiting.:-) I watched the most violent animation out there. I'm talking about anime. Plus the old classics were more violent than today's cartoon. Tom & Jerry, Popeye, and many others. I loved watching those as well. The games I played with my friends were things like War, cops and robbers, and general play fights. Oh and don't forget the occasional sneaky raiding of pasrent's "secret" porn stash. Now since I have been saturated by the "culture of violence" how do these supposed experts explain my not being a violent or devient person? I have pretty much never had to raise my hands to anyone. I have never had any problems with the law. Was an excellent student. I may be going out on a imb here but could it have been my PARENTS? My parents knew where I was at all times when I was small. They made sure me and my siblings knew right from wrong. We were all firmly grounded in reality. Sorry but I get so tired of hearing people blaming games and movies for the poor choices kids make. The people to blame are the parents. They drop the ball and we have to deal with it. Shifting blame is not dealing with it.
LOL!!! If you bothered to really think about what the def they are using says you would see they do make it a point of adding homosexuality. Even tho it's not needed. By adding this they are infering that anything that implies homosexuality is not acceptable. so simple holding of hands by 2 men or a simple kiss would fall under their definition. Which is rediculous but then we have to remember where this is coming from. I see a lawsuit coming their way if this joke of a bill passes.
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The John Titor stuff does not really describe time travel. If you bother to really read what he describes it's really just universe hopping. He jumps to a an alternate Earth to scavange what he needs then jumps back to his Earth. In his writings he shared the history of his Earth. This does not mean his history is our future/history. I've noticed people seem to only read what they want in his writings and not what he actually wrote. I suspect he was just a BS artist who was well aware of modern scientific theory. Remember the best lie is one in which you mix a little bit of truth.
Last I checked we had presidents not kings as our leaders. It's President elect Bush. He can't do much w/o the OK of the other branches of government. You guys make it sound like he can do whatever he likes. Please study our system of gov then look at what you are saying. In order for him to have done most of the things he's accused of doing on his own he would have needed the support of congress. Which he obviously had. We went into Iraq with the full sopport of the other branches. It's nice how people stop thinking for themselves and let our "free" media do the thinking for them.
A simple low-level format of the drive should have been enough to keep them from pulling anything from it.
LOL! Sorry but reporting it stolen is a good idea. Computers are so cheap now that getting another one wouldn't be hard. Just back up the stuff you wanna keep and off to mexico the PC goes!
LOL!!! You do know we have never been able to cure any sickness caused by Virus right? A virus mutates way to fast for us to mount any kind of real deffense against it. The best we can hope to do is treat the symptoms but never the sickness itself. When you think you've got it beat it changes and negates all the work you have done. Modern medicine hasn't even been able to cure the cold and yet we expect them to deal with "avian" flu. All you can really do is hope you don't catch a virus that can overpower your system.
Ummm... no..... They are doing this becasue they know games in which users can design levels have a much longer life. Just look at the fan base of games like Unreal Tournament. People play the game long after they have played the hell out of the standard levels. Why? Becasue there are lots of good user designed levels worth playing. And I suspect they had this in mind for Gears Of War which will be hitting stores soon. Then we have Unreal Torunament 2007 wich will most likely have an XBOX 360 port of it. This is actually a good step forward. It will make the XBOX 360 much more attractive since it will give console gamers the same opprtunity/ability that PC gamers have had for the past 15 or so years. To create their own game content and games. This could only help MS. They are making their LIVE service worth the money you pay for it. I was not going to renew my subscription but after this news I will give it another year or two to see how this develops.
Apple's problem started back in the 80's when they chose to bundle their hardware witht he OS. The whole reason Intel/AMD based systems have pretty much been the only game in town for persoanl computers is the fact that IBM allowed clones to be made. IBM computers were hella expensive. The clones were not. Guess which machines everyone and their mom went for? Then you have Microsoft who doesn't force vedors to fork over their left testicle and first born to create software for their OS. This combo is what has made Microsoft the jugernaut it is today and Intel/AMD systems so dominant. You can't expect someone with a bunch of software they already know and love to switch to a whole new platform and more than likely be forced to look for other apps to fill the holes left by the apps that simply do not exist in the Apple OS universe. OK let's say that Apple can compete on price. (snickers) Can they compete with available software libraries? The answer is no. :-) I seem many windows apps with ports to Linux and Unix but very few to Apple OS. Why do you suppose that is? Lack of market share. Apple, try as they have in the past, is not mainstream. It's actually loosing ground. The places where it traditionally reigned supreme (schools and Multimedia) are being taken over by Windows boxes. Let's try to remember the only reason Apple is aropund to day is that Microsoft (Bill Gates) saved them. They invested 150 million in Apple. I suspect to avoind even more chrages of being a monopoly. Had that not happened Apple would not be here to day to make these wishful boasts. If Apple really wants to gain marhet share they will have to drasticly change the way they do business.
I suggest you try using your Gmail account when registering for different forums and such. You will find after doign this on a few sites you will start to get hammered. No spam filter can get rid of the majority of spam. That's a pipe dream. Only way to get rid of spam on your system is to set your email app to only allow email form your contact/address list to get through. If they are not on either list they get tossed into the trash. I have 2 domains. Both email addresses listed in the whois info are hammered with junk. All the other email accounts I have created which are not posted for all the world to see are junk free. Only becasue I don't use them for anything other than business. I use a special junk account when applying for membership to different sites. Big suprise it's become the mother of all junkmail magnets. Mind you the places I sign up with claim to not sell or share your address with anyone if you select this little box telling them no. LOL!!! You also can't control what others do with your email address. :-) Your claim that "better filters" will reduce the problem is not true. The best draconian filters will stop the email but they will also add some administrative tasts to your email exp. The best practice is not to hand out your regular email to anyone other than those you truest. Do not use it to register with ANY website other than banking stitutions and so on. Maintain a current list of contacts and block all but the people on this list in. It's a pain but you can have a junk free email in box. It's something akin to what China does. It's not a bad idea but you have to be willing to maintain your filters. If you don't you will miss important emails and give up on it.
Remember the stink the antigame folks made about doom back in the day? These people don't bother playing the games they crit. How bad is a game where you play a marine fighting the forces of hell? All they did was provide loads of free publicity for the game. I suspect we will see the same with this game. WOOT!!!
"Steam is not perfect but better than CD copy protection." You can't be serious! Steam sucks ass. Waiting a horribly long time to connect to their servers just to install/play the game the first time...well....SUX. How is this better then copy protection? Oh and do you happen to work for one of these game companies that puts out crap like this? I ask because I have yet to find anyone that has anything good to say about Valve and Steam. SO how about it? Are you?
Game pirating is not much different than pirating movies and songs. The peopel that pirate games are usually the ones that wouldn't buy these things in the first place. I see the bigger issue with poor game sales is the crazy pricing. Most games just suck. Back in the day many stores let you buy a game and return it for stroe credit. I did that many times due to the high suckage factor. WoW is not a good example. LOL!!! It's a game that can not be played offline. So they ask you to PAY full price for such a game THEN ask you to pay an additional $15 or so a month just to be able to play the very same game you already bought. This alone has kept me from plunking down my hard earned cash. Get this. I downwloaded the game from their site then started the 1 week free trial. when the time was up they flaty out told me I had to go out and BUY a copy of the game I already had installed. THEN pay the monthly fee. Why owuld I buy a copy of the game I already have installed? Why not just charge me the monthly fee? I refused to bend over for them. Diablo 2 was yet another example of garbage. I loved the first one and wanted to support Blizzard so I bought it. It felt like a freaking beta. The only reason for buying the game was for the online play which was free BTW. You spent way too much time waiting for a game slot to open up to allow you to play. Plus many bugs that made playing it a pain. I outright told the moderators of the chat area you waited in that I felt I was ripped off and wished I had pirated their game. THEN I owulhave felt I got my money's worth. Let's face it. If they release a good game people will buy it. Take a look at the makers of Galactic Civs 2. They are a shining example of this. PIracy isn't killing the game industry. Piss poor games are.
You had me until you mentioned the Gimp. (A very accurate name for the application BTW) Dude are you seriously trying to say Gimp is a good alternative to Adobe Photoshop? Shall I slap you around or later? I have been forced to use Gimp at work since it's free. I feel like someone chopped off both my legs and one arm when I use it. The free stuff is not always a good alternative. Sometimes if you really wnat to get your work done you have to bend over and take it.
Unfortunatly you are not the average user. For the average user an OS like Linux is pretty but useless. Most of their apps will not run. No Linux ports. And very few of the popular games are out for Linux. The average Linux user is usually a techhead where the average windows user is not.
LOL!!! If you want to be able to play the latest and most popular games guess which OS you better be running? Guess the percentage of Windows apps can be found for a Mac? If you guess 50 you are being way too optomistic. Fact is no matter how much nicer, prettier, or better another OS is you have to deal with reality. If I made the change howmany of my apps would I still be able to use? Fact is OS X is not a mainstream OS. It's a toy OS. I predict Linux will become a mainstream OS LONG before Apple's offering will. If OS X was all that and a bag of chips I would have jumped ship long ago. But since I pref to have an OS that is actually useful I stay with my current OS. The OS well over 90% of the developers out there code for. To change simply based on looks and feel is complete stupidity.
Paranormal is a junk term. Much like supernatural. LOL Thin about it. If you see something happen then it must be 100% normal and natural. By definition nothing can happen within this universe that is against the laws that govern it's existance. Now why do peopel get so bent when they hear there is real research being done into ideas most "logical" people deem fantasy? Coudl it be that it's treatment as a worth while subject of research means it may not be the total BS they believe it to be? Keep in mind the government's long run with what is termed "Remote Viewing." Their accuracy was reportedly over 80%. That alone tends to say there was more at work there than mere chance. if it was BS you'd expect their accuracy to be more like 50%. But no it makes more sense to attack it and call it BS. Please leave your religious or superstitions preconceptions at the door and look at this whole thing with an open mind. Yeah.... Sure.... Like that's gonan happen!
"OS X runs on Intel now, and Apple is working hard on compatibility layers for multiple OSs and it is the slickest, most stable, most beautiful mainstream OS out there right now." LOL!!! You cant be serious. OSX does not qualify as "mainstream." You forget the patheticly low market share it has. But that will change along with it's claim of being the most stable. The viral coders and crackers will change that soon enough. Mainstream makes you a target for both whicg will require you to constantly be writing and releasing updates to your OS which will usually fix one problem but cause others. :-) Let the fun begin.
LOL. I feel games like WOW are nothing new. Jsut more of the same. Chat and repetative quests. I feel paying full price THEN being required to pay a monthly subcription fee to play the game you just bought is a rip big time. Give me Halo 1,2,3 or HL1,2 any day. MMORPG's are a wind fall for the publishers for sure. Sony reps came to my Cg school and we asked them how much money they made from EQ. They grinned real big and said they pulled in from just subscriptions $3 million monthly easily. Kinda summed up the whole reason why publishers are trying to come up with their own. I fail to see the apeal of these games. The graphics aren't all that great. the game play becomes pretty blah after a week or two and you accomplish nothing in the game. It becomes more like Myspace.com with mini games and less like a real RPG videogame. I personally like to test drive a game before buying it. I hate the idea of spending over $50 on a game and having it suck more than a freaking blackhole. And lets face it, there aren't that many gems being produced by the industry as of late. Kinda reminds me of hollywood. Publishers should be making better games not looking to make the prettiest POS and charging an arm and a leg for it. Games like Halo and Halflife are great examples of games that were def worth the money you paid for them. Great game play and an engrossing story. So No MMORPG's are not getting any of my money. Most of the kids and adults I know say the same thing. Even about WoW.
I have a similar experience to yours. I was diagnosed as being allergic to pollen, animal dander, dust of any sort, and so on. My mom protected my brother and I from those things like crazy. When I was in the presence of a cat for example I would have a hard time breathing and my eyes would swell up and water like crazy. But guess what? After my sisters started adopting just about every stray or orphaned animal they found my reactions to them became less and less untill completely gone. At one point our house was like a petting zoo with all kinds of animals we were nursing back to health and/or rasing. The family doctor was very interested in what happened with me. At that time they were conducting a study into the theory of prolanged exposure to allergens can can help lessen or completely remove the allergic reactions. After that my parents started sending me to summer camp and again guess what? After the first 2 summers my allergic reactions to pollen were gone as well. Dust still makes me prey for death but that is the only allergy I haven't been able to shake. So yeah it's my own personal exp but I have spoken with MANY people with similar exp. Now my younger brother was not so lucky. He got the same exposure as I did but his allergies never went away. But they did decline noticably during the zoo period or our lives. But that only lasted until we left home. They have in fact gotten stronger over the years. So who knows. There needs to be more study done on this but I know in my case exposure did seem to cure me of most of my allergies.
Do you really think it would be any different had some other OS become the #1 OS? Highly unlikely. Had Linux, Mac OS, or anything else become as widely used as Windows is today guess what? We'd still be going through this. There is no such thing as bulletproof code. HAckers and crackers will always find flaws to exploit and the code owners will always be playing catch up. Your post sounds like just another bitter person sticking it to MS cuz they can.
Poor analogy. Mac's poor market share is the main reason they haven't been targeted by the virus writers. You are just fooling yourself if you think it has anything to do witht he architecture of the OS. It's simple logic. You don't go after the minority systems you go after the majority. But Apple is changing and joining the rest of the world and as such they will prob come under fire. The irritating and misguided boasting of the Mac fanboys may be taken as a challenge by the kids that write the viruses. Oh well move along nothing interesting to see.....
Here's some more info to counter the BS: http://www.pbs.org/kcts/videogamerevolution/impact /myths.html
"8. Video game play is desensitizing.
Classic studies of play behavior among primates suggest that apes make basic distinctions between play fighting and actual combat. In some circumstances, they seem to take pleasure wrestling and tousling with each other. In others, they might rip each other apart in mortal combat. Game designer and play theorist Eric Zimmerman describes the ways we understand play as distinctive from reality as entering the "magic circle." The same action -- say, sweeping a floor -- may take on different meanings in play (as in playing house) than in reality (housework). Play allows kids to express feelings and impulses that have to be carefully held in check in their real-world interactions. Media reformers argue that playing violent video games can cause a lack of empathy for real-world victims. Yet, a child who responds to a video game the same way he or she responds to a real-world tragedy could be showing symptoms of being severely emotionally disturbed. Here's where the media effects research, which often uses punching rubber dolls as a marker of real-world aggression, becomes problematic. The kid who is punching a toy designed for this purpose is still within the "magic circle" of play and understands her actions on those terms. Such research shows us only that violent play leads to more violent play. " Hmmmm.....
Sorry but I have read what they are saying and it's BS. Virtual killing is not the same as killing a real live flesh and blood person. And so it would not have the same effect as you going out and doign the real deal. If you think they are the same then most likely there is prob something wrong with you. I have no problem with killing a room full of virtual opponents. It's all in fun and not real. It's quite another to go into a public place and start offing everyone in site. Pretty simple. It's the same as watching cartoon characters killing each other. Also like the simulated violence in the games boys have played for a VERY LONG time. If you can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality then again you have a much more serious problem.
This is rediculous. Kids share games just like they share music. The parents that say they need this will still not pay much attention to what their kids are playing let alone doing online. Kids don't need to ask their parents permission to get a game any more than they need theor permission to get mp3's of any given band. They will go ahead and download whatever they want. Parents are the only ones that can control what their kids do at home on their own PC's. Government can't do much. Parents need to take their jobs as parents seriously and not try to push the job off on to local or federal gov.
Horse pucky!!! Hehehe always wanted to say that. :-)
Anyway.... It's a load of crap. I grew up on violent media. I grew up on a violent neighborhood. In the park a few blocks away from my home they were finding on average 1 dead person a week. I was confronted with violence on a daily basis. guns were pretty easy to get for us kids. The gangs sold all kinds of illegal guns. No waiting. :-) I watched the most violent animation out there. I'm talking about anime. Plus the old classics were more violent than today's cartoon. Tom & Jerry, Popeye, and many others. I loved watching those as well. The games I played with my friends were things like War, cops and robbers, and general play fights. Oh and don't forget the occasional sneaky raiding of pasrent's "secret" porn stash. Now since I have been saturated by the "culture of violence" how do these supposed experts explain my not being a violent or devient person? I have pretty much never had to raise my hands to anyone. I have never had any problems with the law. Was an excellent student. I may be going out on a imb here but could it have been my PARENTS? My parents knew where I was at all times when I was small. They made sure me and my siblings knew right from wrong. We were all firmly grounded in reality. Sorry but I get so tired of hearing people blaming games and movies for the poor choices kids make. The people to blame are the parents. They drop the ball and we have to deal with it. Shifting blame is not dealing with it.
LOL!!! If you bothered to really think about what the def they are using says you would see they do make it a point of adding homosexuality. Even tho it's not needed. By adding this they are infering that anything that implies homosexuality is not acceptable. so simple holding of hands by 2 men or a simple kiss would fall under their definition. Which is rediculous but then we have to remember where this is coming from. I see a lawsuit coming their way if this joke of a bill passes.