Posts by CD001 925 publicly visible posts • joined 23 Jun 2009
Also as many people have pointed out; bandwith for playing online games isn't quite the same as bandwidth for downloads
Playing games no - however there was a 5GB (yes, gigabytes) patch for Shogun 2 that I downloaded over Steam yesterday; most updates for games now come in at hundreds of megabytes, which is unlikely to pop your limits, but it's an upwards trend.
If you're going to play it, you're probably going to want to patch it.
Thing is though, even when you do buy physical media now it's often tied into an online system like Steam or Origin. You can't resell the game and if Steam/Origin closed you're in exactly the same situation whether you bought the physical media or not...
3 games I've bought (fairly) recently have all been tied to an online DRM system, Shogun 2 to Steam, Mass Effect to Origin and Anno 2070 to Ubisoft's UPlay... the only different when consoles go down this route will be that each console will have it's own platform, XBL or PSN atm, rather than disparate DRM systems run by the publishers.
It'll be interesting to see what will happen when the PS4 is released... will there be a new PSN? Will it be open to PS3 owners or will the PS3 version of the PSN be closed - and what will happen to anyone who owns CoD:MW3 where the online game is tied to the PSN (and let's face it, the online game is the game)? Will they effectively be the proud owners of a CoD:MW3 shaped paperweight?
Really - every Game I've been into has had a PC Games section; normally about the same size as the PS3 section, maybe a little smaller, but I bought both Brink and Anno 2070 on whims when I've popped into a Game as I've been walking past. There's only so much shelf space in a physical store and there are a lot of systems for gaming now (PC, PS3, PSP/Vita, XBoX, Wii, Gameboy); it's hardly surprising the amount of space dedicated to PC games has shrunk - I suspect the PC gaming market has also shrunk (relative to the market as a whole).
However, Game used to excel online; especially for pre-orders as they'd ship the game 2 days before the release date to ensure you had it in time... most games I'd pre-ordered arrived the day before the release date (though recently the DRM in the games does a check when you're attempting to install and won't let you if the game's not been released yet).
Yeah, I'd not really had anything against Game before the Mass Effect 3 debacle - it was generally my first-choice for pre-orders.
Which is why there won't be any more physical media or if there is it will just be something to use to download the main product
... which is almost exactly where the PC market is now; the Shogun 2 disks basically just allowed you to install the game into the Steam directory rather than download it - end result is exactly the same and the DRM is managed by Steam. You can't resell the game, it's linked to your Steam account.
Ditto for Mass Effect 3, but replace Steam with Origin.
The only reason for physical media in the PC gaming world (apart from the fact that it's faster to install from disk than download) is when it adds value... collectors editions with art books, mouse mats, t-shirts or whatever.
PC gaming has already gone this way and consoles are following - multiplayer is already getting locked down to user accounts on the PSN so it's only a matter of time.
"remove the special effects and what are you left with?"
...
Would the same not apply to e.g. Star Wars?
Yes and no ... the original Star Wars has a very old, tried and tested plot with a "dashing" pirate, a princess, her magician brother and their evil father... without the space opera setting or the special effects there's still a (fairy) story underneath.
The same cannot be said of Avatar really; generic bad people are chopping down the forest... stopped by magical blue elves with the help of Dian Fossey. It's not a terrible film, just hugely over-rated... you could probably get the same effect from getting drunk and staring at old Yes album covers.
Oh god yes... never before had I seen a film in which I'd wanted "the bad guy" (who/whatever the hell it was) to murder the whole bunch of whining, snivelling, annoying fecktards quite so much... plus "shakeycam" fake documentaries really, really annoy me and this was probably the first - would have probably enjoyed Cloverfield had it not been for that.
1) There is something bad that is likely to happen (e.g. death from lung chancer); your actions may well be adding to that bad thing happening (smoking) ... but if you stop smoking the bad thing may well still happen; you may still die of lung cancer. The chances are lessened but not negated. Something else may give you lung cancer, something completely outside of your control.
2) You will have to change your behaviour now and you will not like it (e.g. giving up smoking) - to greatly reduce the chances of the bad thing happening.
3) However, even if you do stop this particular bad thing happening, other bad things are still going to happen. If lung cancer doesn't get you something else will ... you are, in fact, still going to die.
Back to climate change...
Even if we do manage to maintain the Earth in its current chilly state, so desirable for human life, for the time being - it can't last. If the human species survives long enough to evolve into something else, that something else will, by definition, be able to cope with the planet in whatever state it's in... otherwise it will have gone extinct.
In the past this planet has both been much hotter and much colder than it is now; life has carried on. There's still a couple of billion years for life to adapt before the planet becomes inhospitable to any form of life.
According to the Office for National Statistics the population of the London metropolitan area is 13,709,000
... I assume then that the "metropolitan area" does annex the home counties then, since the very same ONS puts the figure for Greater London at about 7.83 million people.
In the same way that Greater Manchester seems to contain about half of Lancashire (Manchester itself has a population of about half a million, whilst Greater Manchester is somewhere over two and a half million). *shrugs*
Wouldn't we all be better off if we just put up a wall around the M25 and lock all the bankers, politicians and other assorted B-Arkers inside to play politics with each other and leave the rest of us out of it?
Filling the interior of that wall with say, tapioca, afterwards is optional of course.
I'm interested in this research that shows that poverty and lack of education are genetic traits and not societal.
They are societal ... but being thick as two short planks is genetic. If you're somewhat dim with a "bad back" living on incapacity benefit, child benefit and perhaps maintenance BUT you have 15 kids (hence the bad back perhaps); more of your genes are being passed on to the next generation than someone with a Phd in particle physics with only 2 children.
Therefore the evolutionary trend may favour people of lesser intelligence in the long run.
Recently? Forthcoming? Have you been living under a rock?
The EU "no cookie"* law was passed almost a year ago; but the ICO gave companies a year's grace in which to implement it... basically unless you specifically ask the user if you can place cookies FIRST you're not allowed to place cookies (unless they're specifically required for the proper functioning of the site; e.g. for session management, shopping carts and so on).
It's basically designed to screw over Google Analytics and affiliate programs.
*technically it's any tracking technology, not just cookies, so it could be user fingerprints built up from HTTP header/browser/IP address information for instance.
In Wolvo there are 2 GAME shops on the same street - literally only about a dozen shops apart... it's a hang-over from before EB and GAME merged (or at least from before they were all rebranded to GAME) so one used to be an Electronics Boutique, the other GAME.
Why they didn't close one down and save the rent, I never understood.
Actually - I found GAME online ordering was great... would generally be next-day; sometimes I'd get games on pre-release on my doorstep the day before the release date because they allowed 2 days for shipping.
I never found any great difference in price to other retailers (ordering online) and it was always nice when you'd clocked up some points on your reward card to get a "free" game.
Not really used the physical stores very often in recent years though - maybe 1 game in 5 I've bought from GAME has been from a physical shop.
So I'd never really had a bad experience with GAME ... and bear in mind my Reward card started off as an Electronics Boutique one.
Totally loved the original - especially playing it co-op many, many years ago...
Kind of disappointed to see that it's been kludged somewhat in this new version. Still, I may wait until it comes down to "platinum" (budget) type release and then buy it for shits and giggles - except that if it lacks variety the odds are that by the time I get it there'll be nobody left playing it online making it a wasted purchase :\
... not sure about the worst film ever - this "made for TV" film is probably the most depressing I've ever seen. Normally I'm quite happy for bad stuff to happen to people in films but by the end of it I was like "Oh, FFS - just give them a break - the poor feckers haven't had ANYTHING go even slightly right for them, not even once".
Lifepod : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107415/
"we never intended to infringe anyone's copyright"
... by using copyrighted/trademarked imagery from the films? Really?
I wonder if this logic would work if I get booked for speeding - "sorry officer, I never meant to break the speed limit by driving faster than it".
Gamers spend a lot of time saying "it's only a game" or "it's not real" whenever some numpty politician or "speaking as a mother" type person tries to blame computer games when some psycho kid goes on a rampage, jumping on people's heads to steal their gold rings after having spent a few hours on Sonic the Hedgehog... mixing games imagery in with real-world stories is probably unhelpful at best; it dilutes the reality of the situation.
"Lots of people died but it's OK, they'll respawn at the start of the next round... oh, wait, hang on..."
Then I'd feel pretty much the same if they'd used a picture of James Bond or the A Team rather than an image from a game specifically; if you want to report on the horror of Auschwitz, show us the horror of Auschwitz or give us the details - don't mung in some pictures from Wolfenstein 3D to "sex it up" and expect us to take the article seriously.
Actually that's a really good point; if the kids had received a cut from every mug/mousemat/doodah sold with their work on it, it might instil a better understanding of the idea that if you create something you can actually get paid for it... and that by "pirating" that album (for example) instead of buying it you're actually depriving the writer/artist of some cash (perhaps not as much as the middle-men, but even so).
For me, the problem with SC4, the thing that actually sort of turned me off the game a bit, was that it was too easy in some ways... cashflow problem? Just jump in a police car and do some random mission; free money for no real effort - I didn't really like the missions; you're supposed to be the mayor of the city (sort of) not some kind of Harbinger thing from Mass Effect to can "assume control" of your minions.
SC3000 was about the peak for me; nicely complex macro-management - only thing I've played that's come close recently was Anno 2070... I hope the new Sim City is more SC3000 than SC4 (ooh, with Arcologies again please... and the Llamadome); but even if it isn't I'll probably still end up buying it.
I'm actually intrigued now that I've watched the video - wasn't bothered before as I figured they'd just wreck it (I'm a huge fan of the original, well, OK "Terror From The Deep" more than "Enemy Unknown"... there's just something satisfying about nailing a lobsterman with a vibro-blade)...
... but actually it looks promising. Odds are it won't be as difficult/unforgiving as the original though, which was if we're honest, an absolute bastard in the early game (got much easier once you had some good operatives, equipment and mind/molecular control).
I had no end of problems with stability when my machine was new - and it was the first ATI card I'd used for a long, long time ... and yup, I blamed the shonky ATI drivers as well, at first... until I tinkered with everything a bit to try and peg down the instability.
Wasn't actually ATIs fault at all but my own (or Overclockers, take your pick) the overclock on the CPU was just a wee bit too much too be really stable but it only showed up when being hammered by games... once I'd turned it down a bit everything was hunky-dory and my (now ageing) ATI card has taken everything I've thrown at it (including X3:AP).
Since AMD took over they seem to have been giving some love to the ATI drivers and Catalyst software - I'd say the choice between nVidia and AMD now can't be made entirely on driver/software stability.
Last week France passed a law that permits the state to seize authors' rights on books published before 2001
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What exactly is the difference, in practical terms, between this and say a 12 year copyright expiration? Is it not just that any copyrighted books, published before 2001, are being put into the public domain? Isn't that what always happened once copyright expired (Disney made a fortune on making films of books that had passed into the public domain)?
The only difference being that this has an opt-out?
What we really need is to cultivate innovation and lateral thinking, so we find new ways to solve problems.
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And for that you need people with at least a modicum of creativity (software development is as much a creative process as a sciency-mathsy once)... and creative types are not going to head for courses in CS - it's just not "sexy".
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