I think the dog guy pales in comparison to Youtube 'vloggers' (yes, I hate that portmanteau too), like the guy who's posted literally hundreds of videos of himself smoking, or the girl who just sits there at a Myspace angle, staring at the camera.
Not necessarily. Gamespot will happily buy games from you at a pittance, regardless of where you bought them from in the first place. Buying from them is just a bonus: they get first-sale profit, and you're in the system as a potential source if the game you bought turns out to have long-lasting popularity.
If you and the rest of your buddies are working at reviewing for finals, your addicted friend has already fucked the dog academically. Chances are, that's why he's playing the game for eighteen hours a day: it's a classic avoidance mechanism. He responds with hostility because he considers the game to be his only outlet for frustration and his only source of accomplishment. His guild, assuming he has one, is probably the only social interaction he engages in as well.
Your friend needs help. Professional help. Your school probably has a psychological counseling office, but that's the sort of thing that he needs to seek himself. Confronting him, wrecking his account, getting him banned, or anything else is not going to help you or him at this point.
I say this because I've been that person. Same academic issues, same fixation on a game for social reinforcement (a MUX, in my case), and I'd wager that he's feeling just as depressed and afraid as I did when I was in that situation.
If you want to help him, get in touch with his family. Get in touch with his professors and the dean of his faculty. If he's religious, get in touch with his pastor. Chances are, none of them have any idea what's really going on. It's really easy to just grunt and shrug when someone asks how classes are going. They may have suspicions, but between their desire to treat him as an adult, and the shame and frustration he's feeling at being unable to cope, he doesn't feel like he can ask for help, and they don't feel like they can successfully confront him.
It's not a problem until he flunks out of school, gets booted from the house for not paying rent, and loses his computer and/or internet connection and/or Pirates subscription. His pleasure is at the expense of others, and his creditors are going to come calling sooner rather than later.
No, but I am embarrassed for all of the geeks out there who seem to be under the misapprehension that Stephenson can write effectively.
And if you want to see Banks' Culture on the big screen, just imagine the Star Wars prequels without Yoda-- it's space opera, and to Hollywood that means nothing but CGI spectacle.
They've got to do something with all the corn they keep growing in your country's breadbasket. Too bad it's shit as a biofuel and just as bad as a foodstuff.
And who's to say that Santa Claus won't perform a striptease in the Oval Office? I can pull ridiculous suppositions out of my ass, too.
Look at the worth of EA versus the worth of Apple. Look at the simple fact that Parallels exists. Apple doesn't need to give a shit about the computer gaming industry.
Look at the size of the computer gaming industry vs. the console gaming industry.
Look at the difference in price between Apple's computers and their iPods and iPhones. Look at their shares of the computer market and hand-held media device markets.
If Apple gets into gaming, they're not going to fuck around with trying to move more desktops: they're going to cannonball straight into the console arena. Simpler, cheaper machines are a lot easier to sell in mass quantities, and consumers are a lot more likely to buy replacements or new models when they wear out in a couple of years. A console is also the perfect platform for locking consumers in. Sure you can manually upload MP3s to your iPod, or jailbreak your iPhone, but what big-name developer is going to risk pissing Apple off by sidestepping their licensing program?
The reason we have the larger bundles is that advertising and programming on the more popular channels covers the deficits run by the less popular ones. Programming on Discovery, History or whatnot may be great, but it's the pap like MTV that brings in the lucrative advertising and eyeballs. Breaking the packages up just makes it easier for the stockholders to demand that under-performers get axed... and that's a category more likely to include the ones that we want to see, rather than the ones that the broader public do.
Um, dude? Blizzard is a big company. You know, multiple teams of developers, working on different and unrelated titles? A legal team that has jack and squat to do with development? They're not just some five-man mod team that's getting distracted with flame wars.
And before anyone claims that they should funnel developers from WoW to SC2, you're on Slashdot. That means you should know that faster development isn't a matter of shoving more developers into a meat grinder of code.
Opting out lets them know that someone actually reviews mail coming in to that address. You say 'shut up and leave me alone', they hear the sound of registers cashing out.
In several of the betas I've been in over the last few years, I've been faced with brief questionnaires and comment spaces at the end of every mission/quest/hallucination and quite often upon logging in or going to quit. If anything, their frequency in the early game tends to be annoyingly high, thanks to all of the quests designed to baby-step you through the interface.
But yes, most people who sign up for betas are absolutely fucking terrible at it. They have no QA training, and their posts on the official testing boards are usually 100% noise. It's even worse when they're dyed in the wool fanboys, because you'll never get useful criticism out of them.
Slashdot Mirror
There was supposed to be an Earth-shattering kaboom!
How many of those Mac users are too busy studying, socializing in person, or ransacking the couch for ramen money though?
I think the dog guy pales in comparison to Youtube 'vloggers' (yes, I hate that portmanteau too), like the guy who's posted literally hundreds of videos of himself smoking, or the girl who just sits there at a Myspace angle, staring at the camera.
Not necessarily. Gamespot will happily buy games from you at a pittance, regardless of where you bought them from in the first place. Buying from them is just a bonus: they get first-sale profit, and you're in the system as a potential source if the game you bought turns out to have long-lasting popularity.
Christmas Botnet. Not only are worms the gifts that keep on giving, but you'll always be that much closer to everyone you give them to!
Your friend needs help. Professional help. Your school probably has a psychological counseling office, but that's the sort of thing that he needs to seek himself. Confronting him, wrecking his account, getting him banned, or anything else is not going to help you or him at this point.
I say this because I've been that person. Same academic issues, same fixation on a game for social reinforcement (a MUX, in my case), and I'd wager that he's feeling just as depressed and afraid as I did when I was in that situation.
If you want to help him, get in touch with his family. Get in touch with his professors and the dean of his faculty. If he's religious, get in touch with his pastor. Chances are, none of them have any idea what's really going on. It's really easy to just grunt and shrug when someone asks how classes are going. They may have suspicions, but between their desire to treat him as an adult, and the shame and frustration he's feeling at being unable to cope, he doesn't feel like he can ask for help, and they don't feel like they can successfully confront him.
It's not a problem until he flunks out of school, gets booted from the house for not paying rent, and loses his computer and/or internet connection and/or Pirates subscription. His pleasure is at the expense of others, and his creditors are going to come calling sooner rather than later.
And if you want to see Banks' Culture on the big screen, just imagine the Star Wars prequels without Yoda-- it's space opera, and to Hollywood that means nothing but CGI spectacle.
They've got to do something with all the corn they keep growing in your country's breadbasket. Too bad it's shit as a biofuel and just as bad as a foodstuff.
Look at the worth of EA versus the worth of Apple. Look at the simple fact that Parallels exists. Apple doesn't need to give a shit about the computer gaming industry.
Look at the size of the computer gaming industry vs. the console gaming industry.
Look at the difference in price between Apple's computers and their iPods and iPhones. Look at their shares of the computer market and hand-held media device markets.
If Apple gets into gaming, they're not going to fuck around with trying to move more desktops: they're going to cannonball straight into the console arena. Simpler, cheaper machines are a lot easier to sell in mass quantities, and consumers are a lot more likely to buy replacements or new models when they wear out in a couple of years. A console is also the perfect platform for locking consumers in. Sure you can manually upload MP3s to your iPod, or jailbreak your iPhone, but what big-name developer is going to risk pissing Apple off by sidestepping their licensing program?
...in the Xbox 360. It's white, has a circular interface on the front panel, and as Apple considers the iPods, the RROD makes it disposable.
The reason we have the larger bundles is that advertising and programming on the more popular channels covers the deficits run by the less popular ones. Programming on Discovery, History or whatnot may be great, but it's the pap like MTV that brings in the lucrative advertising and eyeballs. Breaking the packages up just makes it easier for the stockholders to demand that under-performers get axed... and that's a category more likely to include the ones that we want to see, rather than the ones that the broader public do.
And before anyone claims that they should funnel developers from WoW to SC2, you're on Slashdot. That means you should know that faster development isn't a matter of shoving more developers into a meat grinder of code.
That way, society will collapse due to the depredations of the Golden Palace Flu.
Because that's only the projected cost at release? You remember how much writable CD media cost when it was first released, right?
Here's a quarter. Buy yourself a sense of humor.
Welcome to Slashdot, where the libertarians want everything for free.
Yes, we're finally getting that annoying 'signal' out of our noise.
Yes, you poor fool, yes. Why else do you think that every other nerd and geek knows better than to shave, shower, or wear clean clothes?
Opting out lets them know that someone actually reviews mail coming in to that address. You say 'shut up and leave me alone', they hear the sound of registers cashing out.
But yes, most people who sign up for betas are absolutely fucking terrible at it. They have no QA training, and their posts on the official testing boards are usually 100% noise. It's even worse when they're dyed in the wool fanboys, because you'll never get useful criticism out of them.
Because Haselton has such a bug up his ass about censorship, he won't even allow himself to edit his essays.
I'd post a link to that old photo of a note that reads 'BUFFERING' over Real's delivery sign, but the image is still loading.
That's two of us. First thing I thought of.
Don't forget more traditional hearing aids.