Posts by Kevin 6

Pirates scoff at games dev sim's in-game piracy lesson

Re: Indeed

"Really, publishers should bring back the days of the free demo, for instance, Diablo II had the entire first chapter available as a demo, and it is precisely because of this that I bought the game. Diablo 3 had no demo, just hype, and in hindsight, I might have saved my money, had I known. The cynic might suggest that the reason most publishers no longer offer game demos is that the games are of poor quality and derivative and when people see them, they decide not to buy the full version. In other words, if you offer a demo of a good game, it is a sale gained, and if you offer a demo of a bad game, it is a sale lost."

WELL I know for a fact if I got a demo for D3 I wouldn't have bothered with it. Hell I got a "demo" for Mist of pandaria(the beta), and didn't buy it after being a loyal wow subscriber for many years. Hell if there was a demo for StarCraft 2 WoL I wouldn't have bought it either as after a few hours that game ceased being fun.

To fight piracy is simple give people an incentive to get the legit copy. Blizzard used to be great at this with SC1, and diablo 1, and 2 as B.net requires a legit key to play on their servers. I actually had all 3 of those pirated originally, and I ended up buying them soon after as I felt the value was worth it(I've done this quite often). Now if I did the same with SC2, and D3 I wouldn't have bought them as I stopped playing those after 2 days (aka pissed money down the drain) as neither was fun in the slightest to me, and I've never touched them since.

It seems most companies instead of saying HEY WE MADE A SHITTY GAME NO ONE WANTS instead say OUR SALES DID BAD DUE TO PIRACY PIRATES ARE EVIL NOW LETS PUNISH THE PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY BUY OUR SHIT WITH DRM THAT IMPEDES GAME PLAY TO FORCE THEM TO PIRACY TO BE ABLE TO PLAY

I am also someone who has like 30 or so steam games, and regularly buy stuff I find fun, and will spend some cash on those F2P MMO's that have item shops. So no I am not some freetard as I will spend money on things I see worth it.

@Geraint Jones

"Also; maybe they only sold 214 copies because the game is shit? I've not played it, but it's a distinct possibility..."

looking at the pictures of it the game more then likely is shit

I'd be more than interested in knowing out of those 214 people that bought it how many of them previously played the "cracked" edition.

Would have been also neat to have a survey in the game for people that played the "cracked" copy to submit if they even thought the game was even worth the time it took to download(again looking at the screen shot I'd almost say no)

Use the ""'s around cracked cause technically can it even be considered a cracked game if a company puts it out themselves? I'd say it was more keen to shareware of the early 90s that would put out games that had some functions gimped to get you to buy the full thing, but for the most part they ended up sucking so bad no one would bother with the full version(kinda what I think happened here).

Judge sets the date for Patent Smackdown 2: The Damages

Re: Public Domain

difference in samsungs patents the majority they have is for actual chips used in devices(and apple has not paid to use but get away with), and other things that are required for phones to work

Vs apples rounded corners, and other prior art patents that are for superficial looks.

Apples patents being thrown free domain I won't argue as they shouldn't even be valid in the 1st place, but samsungs actually required R&D money and paperwork that wouldn't fit on the back of a bar napkin.

Next Xbox to be called ‘Xbox Infinity’... er... ‘Xbox’

Re: I wonder how much

well in the states AT&T, and most other ISP's would be ecstatic as after reaming people for the $50 or so a month for 100gigs after its used that all up in a week they could ream an additional $5-10 per 5 gigs every time.

Continued lack of women in tech bemoaned by ex-techie lady MP

Maybe there is less women in IT because they did their homework before embarking on the dead end career path as they don't feel like competing with people from India for the jobs they won't be getting.

Vs men who rush in not looking first like I did(and regret) :(

Ten ancestors of the netbook

Re: Less is more

Well as for the windows I will agree if you bought a netbook with windows on it yes it ran like crap due to all the crappy trial ware the companies put on them. That and that absolutely terrible bloated program that can make quad core pc's behave like 486's named iTunes killed windows performance. Everyone I ever knew that claimed their windows netbook was too slow I would disable symantec (we fuck up the pc more then a virus) anti-virus, and iTunes, and they would be like WHOA YOU MUST HAVE UPGRADED MY NETBOOK ITS SO MUCH FASTER...

But then again disabling those 2 infernal pieces of software services on any windows PC will free up like 40-60% of its resources though.

Now I have one of the 1st netbooks dell made laying around here with windows XP installed, and honestly I've never noticed any issues with it running or the speed of it. Only issue the dell has (and it seemed chronic) was the damn hard drive's wire comes loose requiring 20 something screws to get to so the cable can be pushed back in. Actually the cable issue is how I got it for nothing as its original owner was so fed up with having to push the cable in 2 times a week they were going to just throw it out.

They ended up buying a normal laptop as by this point the netbook prices were almost the same as the low end laptop prices that eclipsed them greatly.

Study suggests US companies use overseas workers to cut wages

Re: THere is a shortage of skilled people

Hard to get skills when the bottom level entry positions require 5-10 years exp, over $1k of certs in very niche things all for a whopping $10-12 an hour tops, and HR drones pass over anyone that doesn't tick every box of what they are looking for.

There is no shortage of workers that can usually be easily trained to become skilled, but there is a gigantic shortage of companies that will train new employees, or even give someone a shot.

White House backs US web sales tax - eBay hits panic alarm

Re: @Tom 35

Kinda what I was trying to get at this is just to create more money for the politicians to piss away while doing nothing for the average citizens while using trying to help local businesses as an excuse. Basically kinda like most laws of recent...

Re: God I hate politicians...

Gene Cash there is that too 90% of what I do buy online is not available by me. I only know one store that can order it but they are over 40 mins away... And half the times screw up orders up getting the wrong part(then blaming the customer for poor penmanship), or tell you to come back in 3 days after they order it and they never got it, because you find out later there was no record of the order. I USED to shop there all the time(place was ALWAYS busy) even with the local tax's, and cost to go out there till it ended up under new management which fucked the place up completely.

And the people that think this means more brick, and mortar stores will hire more people are disillusioned at best, they will just make what they have work harder for no additional pay.

The politicians just want a pay raise which I bet will be the thing after this if it passes voted on.

Re: God I hate politicians...

Where I live it won't make a difference as to park by most local businesses(which the bill should help) you have to pay $4-5 for 30 minutes...

Actually when the city put that parking fee in a few years back was when the local businesses got hurt, not before. But this is where I live. I also doubt it will help anywhere else.

God I hate politicians...

What these idiots in D.C.(Dumbass Capitol) don't think of is these stores are able to hire people due to no interstate taxes, and they get to ream the additionally employed peoples paychecks instead.

So now that this will more then likely do is kill most online places tax revenues will more then likely fall as people will also no longer afford to be able to buy as much as they were, and people who were employed will now become unemployed.

Shipping companies profits will drop as why would people pay $10 shipping, and 10% tax , and they will more then likely terminate jobs.

Amazon on the other hand offers free shipping due to their insane size, will make out like a bandit...

Always told people putting a dumb fuck politician from Illinois (land of corruption, just look at how many politicians end up in jail, and they are mostly democrats...) in the white house was the worst decision imaginable.

Obamas thing last time he ran for president should have been striving to put americans out of work.

US Senate vote to add internet sales tax this week

Re: Wrong solution, as usual

exactly

About 25% of my paycheck is already stolen by the government for them doing jack shit for me. I also have to pay ludicrous taxes on everything else I can't buy online like gasoline (our taxes are over 30% of the price), juice is considered a sin, and has like a $15 cent additional tax on the dollar. Hell we have a tax on bottle water cause its a sin to drink water...

Any wonder people shop heavily online to avoid taxes?

I bet after this is passed you will hear all politicians give themselves a pay raise across the board like the last time my state raised taxes cause we were so broke, the govenor, and all the state legislators gave themselves a 15% raise... While the taxpayers got a 1% cut of pay due to them

well guess I'll have to go back to ordering my parts I need from china, and having them marked "present cost $2"

Or like others said Canada if I can find any distributors there.

I order online as my state, city, and county taxes are friggin ludicrous(some of the highest in the country), and honestly these SOB's don't deserve a single damn penny for the crappy job they do, and the retarded laws they pass.

US to hand out wads of green (cards) in bid to staff tech industry

Or maybe they could follow suit put a job ad for a CEO that none could possibly fill and bring someone from another country over to act as CEO for $20k a year and no benefits. Cant be worst than a fair chunk of CEO's I've seen at screwing the company up.

Re: hmm

not really all that does is keep the lawmakers quiet as they can keep giving themselves raises.

If the taxes were hit hard then they would do something about it which would happen to off shoring them to another country, but as that does not happen in this case they can give a shit less what goes on.

Also to the people that say or think well vote the people out. Problem is the other party isn't any better 99.9999999% of the time. Either they are just as corrupt, or worst. And I know by me to run for office you need a LOT of cash just to get on the ballot, let alone the fortune you need for advertising.

So pretty much it is set up so if if you are a politician, and you don't sell your soul to these companies that pull this shit off you can't win unless you are a multimillionaire, but at that point you probably pull similar crap off yourself.

The US government does not represent the people, and hasn't for awhile it represents the corporations, and all this gun control crap they spout is just so the people will not be able to rise up against the oppressors like what has happened in the past for far less :(

sad thing is I've seen too many job ads not far off that...

Re: I think this says all that needs to be said on this.....

Well that explains why 99% of job ads I've seen in engineering over the past 8 years or so had such insane mandatory requirements for just above minimum wage that to fill the requirements you almost had to be their employee already.

Wish I could turn back time and skip the degree I would have probably gone further...

Google: 'Austin is our next Fiber city.' AT&T: 'Us, too – maybe'

all I will say is god damn....

I'll be paying almost what they are charging for my 20mbit connection, and WAS paying that prior to AT&T(aka the crappiest ISP on the planet) for 1Mbps ADSL about a year ago...

Is it sad I would trust google more with my privacy then I trust my current ISP or AT&T?

Wish the googleian overlords would grace my city next

'1337 hacker' scrawls all over careless coders' SourceForge sites

Re: Leet or not...

Well better that he put a nice message there instead of people with less morals that would add some malicious backdoor to a trusted program on the site that would have infected a pile of people who would give the program permissions to install it if asked for it.

Get lost, drivers: Google Maps is not for you – US judge

Re: Sometimes US Judges act like idiots just to prove a point

The issue from how I read it isn't that he was using it as a GPS, but he was holding the phone, and using it while driving. That is illegal where I live too(no where near California), and can be met with a $250 ticket if I remember it right.

Now if he would have secured it to the windshield or somewhere else, and not had it in his hands he would have been fine. Honestly he was more likely texting while driving than using it as a GPS IMO if he had to hold it in his hands, even if he was setting coordinates in a GPS he should have pulled over, and done it, not do it while moving. A idiot like this deserves the ticket, and like some of the other posts I saw I agree they should reword it to any mobile device not just phones.

Norkoshop: How Pyongyang well and truly forked Adobe

Didn't know LOHAN really stood for Low Orbit Homing Assisted Nuke

Icon for obvious reasons

Patent shark‘s copyright claim could bite all Unix

Almost had me for a minute as I've see real lawsuits that were stupider till I noticed 2 glaring issues in the story itself. Then checked the date, and was like OK nice try

I am NOT a PC repair man. I will NOT get your iPad working

Funny enough Dilbert covered this a little while ago http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2013-03-17/

Pyongyang Photoshop tomfoolery shows wet Norks, skirts blown up

Well I tell people all the time the US is not the land of the free anymore, but at least I don't have to eat tree bark as a meal due to the government screwing us over (yet at least...)

West Virginia seeks Google Glass driving ban

OMG

The world must be ending, a politician that wants to make a sensible amendment to a law....

Seriously I don't know how bad it is in other countries currently, but you have no idea how many times I've almost been rammed off the road due to people being distracted by cell phones, MP3 players, or I've even seen them watching god damn movies while driving on LCD screens while almost ramming people. I can't even begin to imagine them with things like google glass on, and how bad it would be.

I vote they also go one step further, and ban them on people walking on the damn street cause I've seen pedestrians walk into the street so many times into oncoming traffic while they were so engrossed in texting(while wearing ear buds blasting music so they can't even hear you honk the damn horn) its not even funny.

SimCity owners get free game, EA will get A NEW CEO

Re: Translation

would like to do a minor correction to the last line

Here, have a free crap game on us for being our good little bitches that will require you to buy at least $40 in DLC to finish.

Modder hacks SimCity for unlimited offline play

Re: Thoughts..

reminds me of the sims free play for the tablet's requires an internet connection to play. Unless you log in facebook all data is saved on the tablet. It only checks the internet connection at start to see if there is an update cause I've lost connection (was on a extremely weak hotspot), and was able to play like normal till I accidentally hit the bottom button to pull up a menu, that forces it to check the servers again for an update...

I remember when I had to reset my tablet and lost all my play thinking it saved on their servers seeing that is how they made it look...

Re: DRM Encourages Piracy

Actually I was going to buy it till I read about all the issues

Hell the past few months I've spent a nice chunk of change on games that have that online 1 player DRM bull shit, but only time I will pay for it is when it is at vastly reduced prices say like on steam. But still my progress saved to my computer, and not had to reply on EA which my friends lost over 8 hours of game play so far cause their servers said it saved, and went back next day and BOOM no saves...

Ten serious sci-fi films for the sentient fan

Well only thing I disliked about ST TMP was its length. It took me like 6 times watching it to not fall asleep usually near the same exact point. 5th time I tried watching it on VHS (1st 4 times was while it was airing on TV), and for the 6th I was like screw it I just jumped to where I nodded off on the 5th attempt, and hyped myself up on caffine. The point I usually fell out was the part where the enterprise is flying with music playing in the background with no action of any kind for like 4-7 minutes(might be wrong on its duration as it seemed like hours)... But outside the extremely long scenes of the enterprise just flying I enjoyed it.

Wii-U boat torpedoes Nintendo's '¥20bn profit' into ¥20bn loss

Re: Mobile gaming is a joke

agree tried a few games out on my tablet, and honestly I don't see why people keep saying its going to decimate handheld sales. The on screen controllers I find inadequate for the majority of games outside stuff like angry birds or that one jewel matching game.

And before people start chiming in you could use a wireless PS3 controller with a tablet or some other huge bulky thing that is not portable. You at that point need a dedicated stand, a surface to sit it, and something to carry the extra controller in as it doesn't all fit neat in your pocket.

"Point is, the Wii U is too similar to the Wii to be sold. " umm you mean like how the PS3, and xbox 360 were too similar to the PS2, and Xbox to be sold?

I've played a Wii U, and want one. Would have had one if I was able to locate one (the high end model not that base thing) before xmas, and now a tad too broke to get one. If I get a good tax return I might pick one up though as I like how they give the option for normal gamepads(in the games I tried on my nephews at least, and they had EVERY launch title), and the new controller I think is a good idea.

I just hope they move away from the motion controls a bit, and make that an option in games as honestly there were a lot of games I would have bought on the wii if I didn't have to flail my arms around like a madman for hours on end to play.

The motion controls are find for games like wii bowling or other multi-player party games, but for things like zelda no matter how much I wanted the game I refuse the have to hold my controller at certain angles to play as that is a game that lasts more than 10-15 mins at a time with no breaks in between. The motion controls like I said are fun with party games sometimes even if you are watching, hell one of the funniest thing I've seen are a pile of drunks playing wii bowling :D

Japanese boffins tout infrared specs to thwart facial recognition

and they double as extremely effective means of birth control

VIA bakes a fruitier Rock cake to rival the Brit Raspberry Pi

Hmm this is tempting as it runs andriod unlike the rasberry pi

And yes I own a rasberry pi that I originally bought to watch videos till I found out that it sucked at that(EVERY video format I tried had video, and audio sync issues past 480p AVI's), then I had hopes of andriod from broadcom as it was announced on their main page which never materialized.

Aw grandad, I asked for an iPad and you got me an iPod

Re: Completely agreee

Know how you feel my brother is the same way with his kids.

But my brother will go one up if he finds out we bought something for them he didn't yet, he will go out and buy it and give it to them before us so he looks like the hero instead... My brother has some REAL issues.

Funny thing is this year my brother spent way over $1500 on presents for his kids this year (Wii U, pile of other things), and my little nephew is playing with 2 $20 batman toys I got him the most(which my brother said not to buy as he would never play with it) :D

2012: The year that netbooks DIED

My take on netbooks

The intel atom is not a bad processor, and can run windows quite happily. Hell my parents computer runs an intel atom board (the 2nd version) with 1 gig of ram(it makes the last gen of netbooks look extremely powerful) and for what they need the PC for it works great, They never once complained about the speed of this one, but they complained all the time about the old board that fried as the comp had all that background junk installed that comes pre-installed(and the old board was a P4 2.5ghz on top of it)

Also have a Dell 10something sitting here from my sister, as she got fed up with the hard drive cable falling out every 1-2 weeks(seriously why didn't they secure it in) which is the only reason she replaced it. She complained about how slow it was the day she got it as it had so many background trial applications running it wasn't funny. After I re-installed windows clean she never complained about speed.

I don't see it as it was much of an issue with the processors speed with windows that caused its death. The issue as I see it was from the manufacturers had 4-10 programs running in the background that make the newest of processors run like shit on a processor not meant for it. So pretty much they destroyed the line themselves because lets face it the standard person doesn't know to uninstall everything that is running on a new PC to make it not preform like shit.

Senator pushes data cap and ISP monitoring legislation

Can care less what companies payroll he is on, as long as it benefits the general public which this potentially could unlike SOPA, and al those other bad legislations that punish the people.

Report: US telcos cashing in on data caps and poor competition

This article pretty much sums it up pretty accurately. The good ISP's that had good speeds in the past went belly up in early 2000's, and were taken over by the price fixing ass hats that are around now. Service has gotten worst, and costs have went up. Its sad till 3 months ago I had the same exact broadband speed that I had back in 2000, but was paying more, and had a insanely low data cap thrown on...

All I know is the US has to change this, and force the companies to play fair so the consumers don't suffer, but the chances of this happening are slim to nothing with the way the government is ran.

Shh! Proxima Centauri can hear us!

"However, separating any useful information from the mass of signals sharing the same radio band would pose something of a challenge."

So you seem to be talking about FOX, and all their other stations eh?

Anonymous hacks Westboro Baptists over Sandy Hook protests

Re: Probably...

ditto, and the way they seem to act, and choose targets it will probably will be the only one

The best tablets for Christmas

Re: Well...

I went with the galaxy tab 2 7in with a 32g class 10 SDHC card it was still cheaper than the nexus 7, and played every video I flung at it perfectly(what I bought it for)

Slash A THIRD off Surface RT price or it's toast, Microsoft told

Re: Anyone seen one in the wild?

Actually yes they have, and plus as someone who's family member owned a pawn shop you would be surprised at what comes in, and how much is stolen property ;)

The days when I used to fix comps, and game systems at the shop I would see people bring in brand new boxed devices that sold for hundreds, and take $40(so you had a good idea they were nicked), but as long as for 1 month the serial number wasn't reported as stolen it could be sold. Seeing they went on sale in October if the law is the same as here its quite possible they could be in pawn shops. Also that is the pawn shops that do things legally, I seen quite a few that will buy something and throw it right up for sale not doing the mandatory 30 day hold.

Six of the best Nintendo Wii U games

Gotta hand it to developers

They bring old games over to a new system to test the water, and when those old games don't sell well as the majority of the people who wanted it already have it on the original systems over a year ago have it already, they will say there is no market on the new Wii U, and screw it over for games.

I've seen this on the Wii, and other other systems they bring a old, and terrible edition of a game from japan over it bombs they cancel the good release in the US as there is no market.

As for people judging a system on the 1st round of games... seriously when has a game system even been remotely pushed at all when they 1st came out. I don't think I can recall a launch game really push any system or show what they can do.

Ten technology FAILS

UMPC's

Intel x86 UMPC's are still made (or were as of year ago haven't looked since) as I bought a Villiv S5 (with an atom processor) when my Samsung Q1 blew out. They are kinda pricey though, but the only real option when you want a full fledged OS in your pocket.

I wouldn't count them as a Technology Fail like the author did though as they have also mutated into the netbooks, and tablets people love now.

Don't touch Sony, Panasonic's junk, says credit agency

Re: @Richard Cartledge

I miss my samsung laptop thing worked around 4 years or so, it was HEAVILY used by me too.

Ordered a samsung tablet after I confused it with an iPad.

J/K about the ipad confusion I'd never buy an apple product ;)

One week left before US faces clamp down on piracy

Re: 42% of ALL US Upstream traffic used to consume media illegally

when 99.9999% of the stuff is complete crap that has been released by the record labels, and movie industry they expect profits to go up?

Lets face it the VAST majority of movies IMO are not even worth pirating. Lets see there are sequels of sequels, and remakes of remakes of remakes of classic movies, or reboots of the reboot of the reboot of a franchise. Hell I have satellite with well over a hundred channels(98% are crap) and I don't even bother watching the movies on it as most suck.

As for music majority of what I hear for these "musicians" sounds like some auto tuned pile of crap that they just slapped a pretty face on the album saying they "sang" it

Next we'll have software companies following suit I can just imagine MS, or apple doing this OMG WE LOST PROFIT SUE EVERYONE THEY MUST BE PIRATING OUR NEW CRAP OS

Re: These companies can blow themselves

g e but in the US our infrastructure is extremely old, and instead of upgrading it(or the government forcing them) they prefer to rape out pocket books as in most places cause there really is no choice. Out side comcast, and AT&T where I am there is Covad(and like 20 places that resell their connection for more),

Example(what I really paid) when I was with Covad I was paying $110 a month for DSL 1.5Mb, went to AT&T for $25(back then went up to $45 with low data caps where they socked $5 per 5 gigs in the end) for the same speed, and now am at comcast and get approximately 10X the speed(2MBs) for $30

Might just have to pay for a newsgroup account again, but then again the stuff I torrent isn't even licensed in the US so it shouldn't effect me unless they start slamming false positives.

How Intel's faith in x86 cost it the mobile market

Re: Gordon 11's Huh?

@Anonymous Coward

last week...

not saying the hardware setup hasn't gotten way better(will say that end has gotten easy as I remember the FUN it was 10 years ago) just trying to install something not in the repository is a royal PITA like for my VM I had a piece of software to install to get it to function properly in ubuntu the process I will say was very easy, but mandriva I went clicked on the icon it had an install option hit it, and was given a nice lengthy list of commands to type in, and after all was said and done it still didn't work even after all the commands executed... Debian was a few months ago similar experience spent over 40 mins of typing commands to get a program not under the default repository to run, and honestly said screw it half way as I deemed that it wasn't worth the time.

As for windows 7's hardware I'd put it on the same level as I didn't need any additional drivers for my particular hardware (now XP or similar for dells I would say that is a royal PITA)

Wii U disassembly reveals unusual innards

Only one thing I want to know

Does the Wii U still force the Wiimote(outside old wii games) on people for over used motion controls, or do they now got a proper controller to use(not counting that tablet thing)?

or a set of tire marks on the box, and a nice rattling sound as one guy I used to talk to a long time ago one mother board had

Nintendo downplays Wii U 'hidden control panel' hack fears

hacked in?

He got an admin panel big whoop. He also didn't see if he got any admin rights with it.. I've had admin panels pop up before by accident in programs, and guess what I couldn't do a damn thing with it as my account didn't have the permissions needed.