Honestly, if they have solved mortality, interstellar travel, and a slew of other issues that it takes to become a space-faring race
Who says you need to solve any of these problems to be a space-faring race? They're as likely to be Klingons as Vulcans (both of whom seemed perfectly capable of developing warp drives!)
I just hate this assumption that aliens are these perfect God-like being who have solved all problems ever and will come and save us from ourselves. It's stupid.
The Vikings actually kept decently detailed records, you know. In Jared Diamond's "Collapse" he cites the Viking record that explains why Eric the Red "discovered" Greenland after being kicked out of virtually every other Viking land for killing dozens of people in bar brawls. And that's one of their national heroes.
I think you declared that I said the Vikings were an "advanced civilization". I certainly didn't say anything of the sort. I don't even know what you're definition of "advanced civilization" is... it seems to assume there's some sort of continuum of civilizations with "advanced" at one end and "Vikings" at the other, and I'm not convinced such a beast exists.
I was using them as an example of a civilization of people whose basic needs were all met, and yet were still extremely violent to combat the parent's claim that the only possible reason for violence was to obtain resources.
Why do so many people on these forums obsess about conflict? Do any of you posters ever feel like going into bad neighborhoods to hang out? Gee, why not? Our planet is the bad neighborhood of galactic civilization. Once we clean up the trash (pollution), fix up the infrastructure (build spaceports, house our own people), get rid of the drugs (mostly alcohol, or the concept of immoderate consumption of any kind), prostitution (fascist/corrupt politicians) and violence (war, military rulers), they'll be happy to see us. Oh, and we'll have to get rid of the insanity too (wacky religions of all stripes).
Wow, every science fiction cliche of the 50s and 60s in one easy-to-digest paragraph.
There's no reason to believe that an alien race wouldn't also have pollution, housing shortages, drug consumption, corrupt politicians (what that has to do with prostitution I don't know!), or war, or wacky religions. If anything, being "more advanced" would mean they'd be likely to have a lot more pollution-- technological advance requires energy, and virtually every method of producing energy involves waste.
Why does it never occur to people that all sentient races go through several stages before they're going to be welcome on the scene? Ours isn't ready yet.
Why do you assume: 1) There's some kind of continuum that all civilizations pass though (certainly isn't for civilizations here on earth!) 2) It's hierarchical (meaning some spots on the continuum are obviously less desirable than others.) 3) That we're at, or towards, the bottom of the scale?
I hate this kind of mamby-pamby "the aliens are here to help us help ourselves" science fiction ideal. I can't stand movies like "The Abyss" (the Director's cut especially, which really ham-handed it) or The Day the Earth Stood Still, or Close Encounters of the Third Kind. (Sure the aliens kidnapped people over decades, scared the crap out of people for no reason, but they came back and played some music, and awww look it's all ok in the end!) Bah.
This type of science fiction is condescending (oh it's impossible for man to solve his own problems, the aliens have to help), it's offensive to large portions of the world (those who take solace in religious beliefs, specifically, since there's always an anti-religion message attached), and it's about the biggest cliche used by lazy screenwriters.
Give me a science fiction universe like Dune, where there's all the things listed above in abundance and it's a lot more interesting a story, to boot.
Any civilization sufficiently advanced to come here in force from another star has solved the energy, food and mortality puzzles, which leaves conquest unlikely as a goal I should think.
Or at the risk of being "Richard Rank" from Contact, maybe they've solved those problems and yet they still like killing other civilizations just for the sheer joy of it. Vikings were filthy rich at one point in history, and had everything they could possibly want (or could get it just by making threats), and yet that didn't stop them from slaughtering others and themselves on a regular basis. Who even knows? It's so hypothetical, we can't even speculate.
Why take the trouble to scrap it up with a pestilent life form at the bottom of a steep gravity well when mass and energy are abundant in the oort cloud and asteroid belt free for the taking?
1) Because you're fighting for some reason other than lack of resources. As another example, look at the planet Krikket in the last couple books in the Hitchhiker's Guide. They seemed to have everything they wanted, and yet they still engaged in a campaign to destroy everybody else just so they could be alone in the universe. True, it's a comedy, but you're making a lot of assumptions about the nature of conflict here that don't necessarily hold true.
I do agree with you that the V scenario, where the aliens come to steal food and water, is pretty stupid.
2) There's energy in the Oort Cloud? I thought it was just a bit of dust flying around.
Why travel all the way to another star just for that since those things are doubtless abundant where you came from?
Because the resource "people to kill" may not be abundant where they come from.
The real point is that we simply don't know the answer to any of this. ETs could be so different from us that we don't even recognize them (maybe we've already had contact, but they move so slow that we didn't notice.) They could have motivations entirely different than any that apply to us.
Mission: Thunderbolt was always my favorite. Not just the maps varied between plays, but also the creatures you encountered and when you encountered them. You could play a game and not see a single Icky Lump but find a Disruptor Pistol, then play a new game and see thousands with no Disruptor Pistols in sight.
My advice: Get a frickin' Google mail account already and use Google Talk [google.com] instead.
Sage advice, for a person with no friends. (Then again, if you have no friends, why would you use IM in the first place?)
"Switching" to GoogleTalk is easy; convincing the 40+ people on my list to all "switch" to GoogleTalk is less easy. Saying that they need to "switch" to GoogleTalk to talk to me will most likely result in them not talking to me. (So I guess I'm not as popular as I though!)
Of couse I put "switch" in quotes, because this is like the Mac Vs PC argument: there's absolutely nothing that stops you from using both, so the term "switch" is kind of stupid in this context.
The part of this bridge that collapsed was rated "satisfactory." The part that didn't have a problem (well, the investigation will show) and was rated "deficient" was *already being worked on* at the time it collapsed.
In short, they could have had 500 trillion dollars in the coffer, and this bridge still wouldn't have been repaired, because it was judged to be in satisfactory condition and wasn't due for replacement until 2020.
I agree with you in general, but the funding question does not apply to this bridge. The only thing it calls into question is the state's inspection program... then again, this collapse could be from some factor that had never been considered before, like "Galloping Gurdy's" collapse in Tacoma, WA. In which case it's hard to blame anybody; you can't inspect for something you didn't know to look for.
It's hard to play when the game requires PunkBuster, and PunkBuster boots you from servers every 10 minutes for no reason whatsoever.
I understand your point of view, but when you put in a Xbox 360 game, you can be "playing the damn game" a hell of a lot quicker with a lot less annoyance.
Yes, but in WOW you can do things other than mining in the first 10 hours of gameplay. It takes a certain kind of personality to play EVE for longer than a few hours.
If you think it's too expensive you could, you know, not play it. I think a lot of things are too expensive. I solve this hard-hitting moral crisis by not buying those things. It's an amazing and inventive strategy, and I think you should consider trying it.
You can teach a lot by explaining that some things are bunk. For instance, horoscopes could be useful in a statistics class-- "you will receive good news this week", do a back of the envelope calculation of how many people that applies to, kind of assignment.
I'm kind of peeved that you're so close-minded you think a little teeny bit of creativity is terrible. If the horoscopes (undoubtedly treated more as a spoof or joke than a serious prediction!) helps the material, then by all means, have horoscopes. Similarly, if you want to present geography material using Feng Shui rules to outline the discussion, then go for it.
Of course, the financial analyst also believes the PS3 version is a port of the 360 version, when in fact the PS3 has always been the lead platform for the game.
Has it? They've been demoing it on Xbox 360 this entire time, and it's using the same engine as their previous Xbox 360 game. Not that it really matters which platform is the primary development platform, but still, I've never heard that the PS3 is considered the "lead" platform by Rockstar.
I'd just like to point out the irony of running a closed-source OS then complaining about untrusted code run as administrator.
I see no irony... even if my OS was open source, it's not like I have time to read and understand every line of code, so as far as I'm concerned open source and closed source is the same level of "untrusted." In any case, I trust Microsoft a hell of a lot more than I trust some random games developer who can't even put out a product without a monumental number of bugs.
Pragmatically, there's also the lack of proof of concept attacks via games in this way.
Look, it's a video game. It does not require admin access. It's not a device driver, it's not some complicated web service, it's a video game. There's nothing a video game does, ever, that requires admin access. Period.
Stop defending this crap software. You're only proving the point: PC gamers relish in buggy, crappy games, then say "thank you, sir, may I have another?"
All the OS issues are because vista is legendarily crap at compatibility/stability.
Uh, no. Running an Internet-enabled video game with Administrator access is a terrible idea regardless of what OS you're running. (Yes, even Mac OS X.) It's not Microsoft's fault that this game requires administrator access.
BTW, this is one of those areas where compatibility and stability are mutually-exclusive: Microsoft *shouldn't* support moronic software, like video games that require admin access, because they are huge threats to system stability. Who knows how many security holes are in this game? And with admin access, it can install anything it wants on my system.
In any case, while the Vista issues are the ones that I think are most important (security hole, with the admin access one, and not being able to play with the PunkBuster one), it still doesn't explain the other half-dozen ways this game is crap.
All your issues with serials/copy protection go away with steam (though you can't resell the games there).
That's great, but this specific game that my friends were pressuring me to buy is not available on Steam.
You have a point, though. Both Steam and Microsoft's Games For Windows have pretty much the same goal: Make gaming on PC less crappy. The question is how many games developers they can get to actually make use of it. Now that consoles support all the download, modding, and online play of PC games, the PC games industry is going to need to change, because customers are going to stop buying the shit products.
Vista isn't ready for gaming, even though Microsoft has been touting it as the next big kick in graphics, they haven't kept up with the rest of the things that make a gaming session. This is one of the reasons, a lot of people call vista an unfinished product.
I would understand completely if this was a game from pre-2006, but when the game is released while Vista has open betas all over the place, than it's simply criminal for games companies to NOT test on Vista. That should be apparently to everyone. I find Vista a very good, finished, product-- it's not Microsoft's fault that games companies don't test their product on it.
(In any case, an online video game requiring administrative privileges to run is a security risk regardless of the OS you're running. God knows what kind of security holes it has, and what kind of crap it can install on my system.)
Next is, get a proper I.M. client then you won't ever mess with buddy-lists ingame again.
Oh, and tell me which "proper" IM client tells me which Battlefield: 2142 server my buddies are playing on? Would that be MSN? AIM? GoogleTalk? Or is it just possible that none of those do that and you're just talking out of your ass?
Funny, I don't even have a grudge against Vista, just against people who use it without realizing what it is.
So I shouldn't be allowed to run a video game on Vista Home Pro because I use it without realizing what it is. What is it, then? The "Don't Run Games On This" OS? Bullshit. If EA didn't realize their game would be run on Windows boxes, then they deserve as much customer badwill as possible because they're morons.
Christ. You're the perfect example of the person the grandparent was complaining about. How can you tolerate so many obvious bugs and just blame it on Microsoft?
And even then you've only addressed the issues that you could reasonably blame on Microsoft. For instance, it can't possibly be Microsoft's fault that it doesn't support wide-screen monitors, can it? That would take a little too much twisting of logic there.
You should play some Xbox 360 and experience the amazement of friends lists that actually work (and tell you what server/game your friend is playing!) Games that actually work on widescreen TVs and monitors. Games that can automatically patch themselves so you don't need to quit playing to find a download. Games that don't require you to type in long complicated serial numbers before playing. The Windows games industry is in serious trouble now that consoles support all the same features.
I mentioned using an external display merely as a situation where one might want to have their laptop operating with the lid closed, one that I don't think is particularly unusual.
We're talking about running the laptop with the lid closed (A). We're NOT talking about plugging an external monitor into the laptop (B). If I say A doesn't work, you can't then declare that B doesn't work since B has nothing to do with A. Take this following example: "My email client puts too many emails in the spam folder." "Oh, so that means you can't minimize the window of your email client!?" That's basically what you did.
If a laptop gets too warm it should increase the speed of its fans, if this doesn't work it should shutdown.
If your laptop draws air in through the keyboard, then increasing the speed of its fans will do nothing when the airflow is blocked. For the record, my iBook *does* increase the speed of its fans when it gets hot.
As far as I am aware, this is what all laptops these days do.
It might be. Mine's an older PPC G4 model, not the new shiny ones with Intel chips.
My MacBook Pro is certainly one, the manual explicitly indicates support of closed-lid operation.
Ok. And my iBook explicitly indicates that it doesn't support closed-lid operation.
What happens if you have a runaway process in OS X?
Then OS X kills it before it goes into sleep. Come on, how long have you been using OS X? 10 minutes? Apple's thought about these issues, you know. They're not retards.
The reason I've compared the iBook to a mid-range machine from 1996 is that the iBook, despite coming from a company with a reputation for high-quality hardware and software, seems to lack basic functionality present in hardware that is certainly not considered high-end.
1) The iBook isn't a high-end laptop. At most it's midrange.
2) When you buy a small laptop, you make trade-offs that you may not need to make for a larger one. I love the size of my laptop, and I'd buy another this small in a heartbeat.
But all this is beside the point. The simple fact is that there are models of iBooks that can overheat if they run with the lid closed, and Ubuntu released an operating system that defaults to running with the lid closed. Ubuntu lacks the most basic QA process involved to make sure their OS is compatible with the hardware it claims to run on, and it's soured my experience of the open source community greatly.
(As has this pointless "it's Apple's fault!!" debate; regardless of whose fault it is the laptop works the way it does, it's an easy fix for Ubuntu to do and an impossible fix for Apple to do. Therefore, Ubuntu should fix the bug.)
So you shouldn't use an iBook with an external display, keyboard, and mouse?
As long as you don't close the lid while it's running, you can use however many external devices you want. I don't know if you're being purposely dense or not; plugging in an external monitor has nothing to do with whether it's safe to close the lid of a laptop while it's running.
If you close the lid, and are running the OS that shipped with the machine (OS X), it'll sleep the laptop regardless of whether an external monitor is plugged in or not. That's the entire reason I know this little factoid about iBooks in the first place: I called Apple customer support asking if it was possible to use an external monitor with an iBook while it is closed.
PC gamers are an interesting group. They're willing to spend a lot on their hobby and don't seem to expect a lot of quality in return. I can't explain why they put up with it.
Amen.
A friend recently hassled me into picking up Battlefield: 2142 for my PC, and I've never had a worse gaming experience:
- The user registration was a pain in the butt, since almost every nickname imaginable is already taken and it doesn't give suggestions for unused ones. (It also doesn't accept some for random stupid reasons; I couldn't use "18 Rabbit" because you can't start a nickname with a numeral. Of course it doesn't TELL you you can't use a numeral, you have to get the retards at EA customer service to say it.)
- Trying to get my nickname changed through EA's customer service site is like pulling teeth. I had to make 7 requests, saying the same thing over and over, before an agent that knew what the hell he was doing actually replied with something helpful. It's still not resolved, because it's impossible to pick a new unused nickname without creating a new account using their retarded account system.
- It won't run on my widescreen monitor, instead just setting it to 1024x768 like a moron. When you put in a customer service ticket for this, they reply that the game was not tested on widescreen monitors. WTF?! The game came out in 2006, when widescreen monitors have never been more popular.
- You have to give it admin access and "allow" it on the firewall, because it also wasn't tested on Windows Vista, thus opening up security holes in your system as you're running an internet capable app with no protections whatsoever against malware.
- Even when you do that, PunkBuster will still randomly kick you from games, because apparently PunkBuster *also* wasn't tested in Vista. (How long has Vista been in public betas? All of 2006, for sure. Why the hell hasn't anybody tested in it?!)
- The buddy list in the game works maybe half the time. Maybe. It's hard to say because occasionally it'll work with one person I know, and show the rest as offline (even when they aren't, and even when I'm playing on the same server they're on.) Or, even worse, it won't show them as online OR offline, they just don't show up at all.
- Trying to outfit your character is extremely annoying, as the outfit tab will randomly change to the "pick a team" tab... even when you're in the middle of a drag-and-drop operation!
- Oh, and to cap things off, there's no auto-updater: You have to actually go to the website to find updates, and manually install them. Tribes had an auto-updater over a decade ago, what the hell is so hard about it?
- (Not specifically about this game, but all PC games): Why do I need a serial number AND the CD in the drive to play? Why can't I just have the disk in the drive like on Xbox, or Playstation 3, or Wii, or any other gaming system? Hell, games for consoles are more expensive, if anything they should have more copy protection.
It really, really made me miss Xbox Live. I really hope Microsoft's Games for Windows initiative catches on to save us from this stupidity.
It's an EA game. Did you just drop out of the womb, or are you actually ignorant of how EA works? They squeeze every drop out of a game engine/concept. That's how they started with the really great Battlefield: 1942, moved to the not-too-bad Battlefield 2, and are now selling the buggy POS Battlefield: 2152. Expect a medieval Battlefield game any day now.
Well, there is a certain amount of concrete features that Bethesda has released in previews. Which are technically "marketing materials," but at the same time they're an accurate reflection of what the game will be like. (Yes, it's unfinished, but it's close to being finished and the featureset is without a doubt final at this point.) So it's quite possible for someone to have read those and be excited about the game based on the facts available without being on anybody's payroll.
In any case, your argument swings both ways: Sure, someone excited about the game can't really be 100% sure if the game will be good, but at the same time those forum posters can't 100% be sure that the game will be the horrible mess they think it will.
What it really is is an exercise in groupthink. Some guy really likes Fallout so he makes a forum. People enjoy talking about the games, so they post there. He's either really vocal about his opinions of the game, or he boots/censors people who disagree with him, so after a few months the only people still posting are those who agree with him entirely, or at least pretend to. Since the forum admin is boss, there's no way for a rational opinion to slip through the cracks without either being completely trashed by his minions, or simply deleted by the admin. The result is what you see in the SomethingAwful article-- people with zero sense of perspective actually making death threats over a videogame.
Slashdot Mirror
Honestly, if they have solved mortality, interstellar travel, and a slew of other issues that it takes to become a space-faring race
Who says you need to solve any of these problems to be a space-faring race? They're as likely to be Klingons as Vulcans (both of whom seemed perfectly capable of developing warp drives!)
I just hate this assumption that aliens are these perfect God-like being who have solved all problems ever and will come and save us from ourselves. It's stupid.
Despite your ignorant little point.
You've never heard of a hardware load-balancer, and HE'S the ignorant one? Hah!
The Vikings actually kept decently detailed records, you know. In Jared Diamond's "Collapse" he cites the Viking record that explains why Eric the Red "discovered" Greenland after being kicked out of virtually every other Viking land for killing dozens of people in bar brawls. And that's one of their national heroes.
I think you declared that I said the Vikings were an "advanced civilization". I certainly didn't say anything of the sort. I don't even know what you're definition of "advanced civilization" is... it seems to assume there's some sort of continuum of civilizations with "advanced" at one end and "Vikings" at the other, and I'm not convinced such a beast exists.
I was using them as an example of a civilization of people whose basic needs were all met, and yet were still extremely violent to combat the parent's claim that the only possible reason for violence was to obtain resources.
Why do so many people on these forums obsess about conflict? Do any of you posters ever feel like going into bad neighborhoods to hang out? Gee, why not? Our planet is the bad neighborhood of galactic civilization. Once we clean up the trash (pollution), fix up the infrastructure (build spaceports, house our own people), get rid of the drugs (mostly alcohol, or the concept of immoderate consumption of any kind), prostitution (fascist/corrupt politicians) and violence (war, military rulers), they'll be happy to see us. Oh, and we'll have to get rid of the insanity too (wacky religions of all stripes).
Wow, every science fiction cliche of the 50s and 60s in one easy-to-digest paragraph.
There's no reason to believe that an alien race wouldn't also have pollution, housing shortages, drug consumption, corrupt politicians (what that has to do with prostitution I don't know!), or war, or wacky religions. If anything, being "more advanced" would mean they'd be likely to have a lot more pollution-- technological advance requires energy, and virtually every method of producing energy involves waste.
Why does it never occur to people that all sentient races go through several stages before they're going to be welcome on the scene? Ours isn't ready yet.
Why do you assume:
1) There's some kind of continuum that all civilizations pass though (certainly isn't for civilizations here on earth!)
2) It's hierarchical (meaning some spots on the continuum are obviously less desirable than others.)
3) That we're at, or towards, the bottom of the scale?
I hate this kind of mamby-pamby "the aliens are here to help us help ourselves" science fiction ideal. I can't stand movies like "The Abyss" (the Director's cut especially, which really ham-handed it) or The Day the Earth Stood Still, or Close Encounters of the Third Kind. (Sure the aliens kidnapped people over decades, scared the crap out of people for no reason, but they came back and played some music, and awww look it's all ok in the end!) Bah.
This type of science fiction is condescending (oh it's impossible for man to solve his own problems, the aliens have to help), it's offensive to large portions of the world (those who take solace in religious beliefs, specifically, since there's always an anti-religion message attached), and it's about the biggest cliche used by lazy screenwriters.
Give me a science fiction universe like Dune, where there's all the things listed above in abundance and it's a lot more interesting a story, to boot.
Any civilization sufficiently advanced to come here in force from another star has solved the energy, food and mortality puzzles, which leaves conquest unlikely as a goal I should think.
Or at the risk of being "Richard Rank" from Contact, maybe they've solved those problems and yet they still like killing other civilizations just for the sheer joy of it. Vikings were filthy rich at one point in history, and had everything they could possibly want (or could get it just by making threats), and yet that didn't stop them from slaughtering others and themselves on a regular basis. Who even knows? It's so hypothetical, we can't even speculate.
Why take the trouble to scrap it up with a pestilent life form at the bottom of a steep gravity well when mass and energy are abundant in the oort cloud and asteroid belt free for the taking?
1) Because you're fighting for some reason other than lack of resources. As another example, look at the planet Krikket in the last couple books in the Hitchhiker's Guide. They seemed to have everything they wanted, and yet they still engaged in a campaign to destroy everybody else just so they could be alone in the universe. True, it's a comedy, but you're making a lot of assumptions about the nature of conflict here that don't necessarily hold true.
I do agree with you that the V scenario, where the aliens come to steal food and water, is pretty stupid.
2) There's energy in the Oort Cloud? I thought it was just a bit of dust flying around.
Why travel all the way to another star just for that since those things are doubtless abundant where you came from?
Because the resource "people to kill" may not be abundant where they come from.
The real point is that we simply don't know the answer to any of this. ETs could be so different from us that we don't even recognize them (maybe we've already had contact, but they move so slow that we didn't notice.) They could have motivations entirely different than any that apply to us.
Mission: Thunderbolt was always my favorite. Not just the maps varied between plays, but also the creatures you encountered and when you encountered them. You could play a game and not see a single Icky Lump but find a Disruptor Pistol, then play a new game and see thousands with no Disruptor Pistols in sight.
My advice: Get a frickin' Google mail account already and use Google Talk [google.com] instead.
Sage advice, for a person with no friends. (Then again, if you have no friends, why would you use IM in the first place?)
"Switching" to GoogleTalk is easy; convincing the 40+ people on my list to all "switch" to GoogleTalk is less easy. Saying that they need to "switch" to GoogleTalk to talk to me will most likely result in them not talking to me. (So I guess I'm not as popular as I though!)
Of couse I put "switch" in quotes, because this is like the Mac Vs PC argument: there's absolutely nothing that stops you from using both, so the term "switch" is kind of stupid in this context.
But you're kind of ignoring the bigger problem:
The part of this bridge that collapsed was rated "satisfactory." The part that didn't have a problem (well, the investigation will show) and was rated "deficient" was *already being worked on* at the time it collapsed.
In short, they could have had 500 trillion dollars in the coffer, and this bridge still wouldn't have been repaired, because it was judged to be in satisfactory condition and wasn't due for replacement until 2020.
I agree with you in general, but the funding question does not apply to this bridge. The only thing it calls into question is the state's inspection program... then again, this collapse could be from some factor that had never been considered before, like "Galloping Gurdy's" collapse in Tacoma, WA. In which case it's hard to blame anybody; you can't inspect for something you didn't know to look for.
I think most of us are still playing Texas Hold 'Em with broadband. But if you know of a good Russian Roulette site...
It's hard to play when the game requires PunkBuster, and PunkBuster boots you from servers every 10 minutes for no reason whatsoever.
I understand your point of view, but when you put in a Xbox 360 game, you can be "playing the damn game" a hell of a lot quicker with a lot less annoyance.
Yes, but in WOW you can do things other than mining in the first 10 hours of gameplay. It takes a certain kind of personality to play EVE for longer than a few hours.
If you think it's too expensive you could, you know, not play it. I think a lot of things are too expensive. I solve this hard-hitting moral crisis by not buying those things. It's an amazing and inventive strategy, and I think you should consider trying it.
You can teach a lot by explaining that some things are bunk. For instance, horoscopes could be useful in a statistics class-- "you will receive good news this week", do a back of the envelope calculation of how many people that applies to, kind of assignment.
I'm kind of peeved that you're so close-minded you think a little teeny bit of creativity is terrible. If the horoscopes (undoubtedly treated more as a spoof or joke than a serious prediction!) helps the material, then by all means, have horoscopes. Similarly, if you want to present geography material using Feng Shui rules to outline the discussion, then go for it.
Wow, your humor is amazingly topical! Do you take requests? Do a joke about that Taco Bell dog!
Of course, the financial analyst also believes the PS3 version is a port of the 360 version, when in fact the PS3 has always been the lead platform for the game.
Has it? They've been demoing it on Xbox 360 this entire time, and it's using the same engine as their previous Xbox 360 game. Not that it really matters which platform is the primary development platform, but still, I've never heard that the PS3 is considered the "lead" platform by Rockstar.
I'd just like to point out the irony of running a closed-source OS then complaining about untrusted code run as administrator.
I see no irony... even if my OS was open source, it's not like I have time to read and understand every line of code, so as far as I'm concerned open source and closed source is the same level of "untrusted." In any case, I trust Microsoft a hell of a lot more than I trust some random games developer who can't even put out a product without a monumental number of bugs.
Pragmatically, there's also the lack of proof of concept attacks via games in this way.
Look, it's a video game. It does not require admin access. It's not a device driver, it's not some complicated web service, it's a video game. There's nothing a video game does, ever, that requires admin access. Period.
Stop defending this crap software. You're only proving the point: PC gamers relish in buggy, crappy games, then say "thank you, sir, may I have another?"
All the OS issues are because vista is legendarily crap at compatibility/stability.
Uh, no. Running an Internet-enabled video game with Administrator access is a terrible idea regardless of what OS you're running. (Yes, even Mac OS X.) It's not Microsoft's fault that this game requires administrator access.
BTW, this is one of those areas where compatibility and stability are mutually-exclusive: Microsoft *shouldn't* support moronic software, like video games that require admin access, because they are huge threats to system stability. Who knows how many security holes are in this game? And with admin access, it can install anything it wants on my system.
In any case, while the Vista issues are the ones that I think are most important (security hole, with the admin access one, and not being able to play with the PunkBuster one), it still doesn't explain the other half-dozen ways this game is crap.
All your issues with serials/copy protection go away with steam (though you can't resell the games there).
That's great, but this specific game that my friends were pressuring me to buy is not available on Steam.
You have a point, though. Both Steam and Microsoft's Games For Windows have pretty much the same goal: Make gaming on PC less crappy. The question is how many games developers they can get to actually make use of it. Now that consoles support all the download, modding, and online play of PC games, the PC games industry is going to need to change, because customers are going to stop buying the shit products.
Vista isn't ready for gaming, even though Microsoft has been touting it as the next big kick in graphics, they haven't kept up with the rest of the things that make a gaming session. This is one of the reasons, a lot of people call vista an unfinished product.
I would understand completely if this was a game from pre-2006, but when the game is released while Vista has open betas all over the place, than it's simply criminal for games companies to NOT test on Vista. That should be apparently to everyone. I find Vista a very good, finished, product-- it's not Microsoft's fault that games companies don't test their product on it.
(In any case, an online video game requiring administrative privileges to run is a security risk regardless of the OS you're running. God knows what kind of security holes it has, and what kind of crap it can install on my system.)
Next is, get a proper I.M. client then you won't ever mess with buddy-lists ingame again.
Oh, and tell me which "proper" IM client tells me which Battlefield: 2142 server my buddies are playing on? Would that be MSN? AIM? GoogleTalk? Or is it just possible that none of those do that and you're just talking out of your ass?
Funny, I don't even have a grudge against Vista, just against people who use it without realizing what it is.
So I shouldn't be allowed to run a video game on Vista Home Pro because I use it without realizing what it is. What is it, then? The "Don't Run Games On This" OS? Bullshit. If EA didn't realize their game would be run on Windows boxes, then they deserve as much customer badwill as possible because they're morons.
Christ. You're the perfect example of the person the grandparent was complaining about. How can you tolerate so many obvious bugs and just blame it on Microsoft?
And even then you've only addressed the issues that you could reasonably blame on Microsoft. For instance, it can't possibly be Microsoft's fault that it doesn't support wide-screen monitors, can it? That would take a little too much twisting of logic there.
You should play some Xbox 360 and experience the amazement of friends lists that actually work (and tell you what server/game your friend is playing!) Games that actually work on widescreen TVs and monitors. Games that can automatically patch themselves so you don't need to quit playing to find a download. Games that don't require you to type in long complicated serial numbers before playing. The Windows games industry is in serious trouble now that consoles support all the same features.
I mentioned using an external display merely as a situation where one might want to have their laptop operating with the lid closed, one that I don't think is particularly unusual.
We're talking about running the laptop with the lid closed (A). We're NOT talking about plugging an external monitor into the laptop (B). If I say A doesn't work, you can't then declare that B doesn't work since B has nothing to do with A. Take this following example:
"My email client puts too many emails in the spam folder." "Oh, so that means you can't minimize the window of your email client!?" That's basically what you did.
If a laptop gets too warm it should increase the speed of its fans, if this doesn't work it should shutdown.
If your laptop draws air in through the keyboard, then increasing the speed of its fans will do nothing when the airflow is blocked. For the record, my iBook *does* increase the speed of its fans when it gets hot.
As far as I am aware, this is what all laptops these days do.
It might be. Mine's an older PPC G4 model, not the new shiny ones with Intel chips.
My MacBook Pro is certainly one, the manual explicitly indicates support of closed-lid operation.
Ok. And my iBook explicitly indicates that it doesn't support closed-lid operation.
What happens if you have a runaway process in OS X?
Then OS X kills it before it goes into sleep. Come on, how long have you been using OS X? 10 minutes? Apple's thought about these issues, you know. They're not retards.
The reason I've compared the iBook to a mid-range machine from 1996 is that the iBook, despite coming from a company with a reputation for high-quality hardware and software, seems to lack basic functionality present in hardware that is certainly not considered high-end.
1) The iBook isn't a high-end laptop. At most it's midrange.
2) When you buy a small laptop, you make trade-offs that you may not need to make for a larger one. I love the size of my laptop, and I'd buy another this small in a heartbeat.
But all this is beside the point. The simple fact is that there are models of iBooks that can overheat if they run with the lid closed, and Ubuntu released an operating system that defaults to running with the lid closed. Ubuntu lacks the most basic QA process involved to make sure their OS is compatible with the hardware it claims to run on, and it's soured my experience of the open source community greatly.
(As has this pointless "it's Apple's fault!!" debate; regardless of whose fault it is the laptop works the way it does, it's an easy fix for Ubuntu to do and an impossible fix for Apple to do. Therefore, Ubuntu should fix the bug.)
So you shouldn't use an iBook with an external display, keyboard, and mouse?
As long as you don't close the lid while it's running, you can use however many external devices you want. I don't know if you're being purposely dense or not; plugging in an external monitor has nothing to do with whether it's safe to close the lid of a laptop while it's running.
If you close the lid, and are running the OS that shipped with the machine (OS X), it'll sleep the laptop regardless of whether an external monitor is plugged in or not. That's the entire reason I know this little factoid about iBooks in the first place: I called Apple customer support asking if it was possible to use an external monitor with an iBook while it is closed.
PC gamers are an interesting group. They're willing to spend a lot on their hobby and don't seem to expect a lot of quality in return. I can't explain why they put up with it.
Amen.
A friend recently hassled me into picking up Battlefield: 2142 for my PC, and I've never had a worse gaming experience:
- The user registration was a pain in the butt, since almost every nickname imaginable is already taken and it doesn't give suggestions for unused ones. (It also doesn't accept some for random stupid reasons; I couldn't use "18 Rabbit" because you can't start a nickname with a numeral. Of course it doesn't TELL you you can't use a numeral, you have to get the retards at EA customer service to say it.)
- Trying to get my nickname changed through EA's customer service site is like pulling teeth. I had to make 7 requests, saying the same thing over and over, before an agent that knew what the hell he was doing actually replied with something helpful. It's still not resolved, because it's impossible to pick a new unused nickname without creating a new account using their retarded account system.
- It won't run on my widescreen monitor, instead just setting it to 1024x768 like a moron. When you put in a customer service ticket for this, they reply that the game was not tested on widescreen monitors. WTF?! The game came out in 2006, when widescreen monitors have never been more popular.
- You have to give it admin access and "allow" it on the firewall, because it also wasn't tested on Windows Vista, thus opening up security holes in your system as you're running an internet capable app with no protections whatsoever against malware.
- Even when you do that, PunkBuster will still randomly kick you from games, because apparently PunkBuster *also* wasn't tested in Vista. (How long has Vista been in public betas? All of 2006, for sure. Why the hell hasn't anybody tested in it?!)
- The buddy list in the game works maybe half the time. Maybe. It's hard to say because occasionally it'll work with one person I know, and show the rest as offline (even when they aren't, and even when I'm playing on the same server they're on.) Or, even worse, it won't show them as online OR offline, they just don't show up at all.
- Trying to outfit your character is extremely annoying, as the outfit tab will randomly change to the "pick a team" tab... even when you're in the middle of a drag-and-drop operation!
- Oh, and to cap things off, there's no auto-updater: You have to actually go to the website to find updates, and manually install them. Tribes had an auto-updater over a decade ago, what the hell is so hard about it?
- (Not specifically about this game, but all PC games): Why do I need a serial number AND the CD in the drive to play? Why can't I just have the disk in the drive like on Xbox, or Playstation 3, or Wii, or any other gaming system? Hell, games for consoles are more expensive, if anything they should have more copy protection.
It really, really made me miss Xbox Live. I really hope Microsoft's Games for Windows initiative catches on to save us from this stupidity.
It's an EA game. Did you just drop out of the womb, or are you actually ignorant of how EA works? They squeeze every drop out of a game engine/concept. That's how they started with the really great Battlefield: 1942, moved to the not-too-bad Battlefield 2, and are now selling the buggy POS Battlefield: 2152. Expect a medieval Battlefield game any day now.
Well, there is a certain amount of concrete features that Bethesda has released in previews. Which are technically "marketing materials," but at the same time they're an accurate reflection of what the game will be like. (Yes, it's unfinished, but it's close to being finished and the featureset is without a doubt final at this point.) So it's quite possible for someone to have read those and be excited about the game based on the facts available without being on anybody's payroll.
In any case, your argument swings both ways: Sure, someone excited about the game can't really be 100% sure if the game will be good, but at the same time those forum posters can't 100% be sure that the game will be the horrible mess they think it will.
What it really is is an exercise in groupthink. Some guy really likes Fallout so he makes a forum. People enjoy talking about the games, so they post there. He's either really vocal about his opinions of the game, or he boots/censors people who disagree with him, so after a few months the only people still posting are those who agree with him entirely, or at least pretend to. Since the forum admin is boss, there's no way for a rational opinion to slip through the cracks without either being completely trashed by his minions, or simply deleted by the admin. The result is what you see in the SomethingAwful article-- people with zero sense of perspective actually making death threats over a videogame.