Posts by historymaker118 27 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Aug 2012
saw the headline came to the comments ctrl-f 'hideous strength'. Yay more people thought exactly the same thing as I did. I love the cosmic trilogy and this has to be one of my favourite books. The whole book is almost prophetic in the way it describes society, this is just an extension of that.
Seriously, as an example, the My Little Pony game from Gameloft came out on iPhone/Android with eye-wateringly high prices for in app currency, ($99 for enough gems/coins to finish HALF the game) and fans worked out that it would take ~28 YEARS of playing every single day to complete without paying money. To just complete the main quest (the bare minimum) in less time it costs ~$40. The *buy more stuff* page pops up almost constantly, and it becomes hard NOT to open the store to do anything.
Parents should check what games they let their children play, most if not all games on iPhone/Android have some sort of in app purchase available and there are far too many companies out there looking to rip off customers by taking lots of money from unsuspecting parents accounts.
MICRO transactions are one thing, but anything over £10 for imaginary currency/items is just taking everyone for a ride.
I didn't think it was possible to fully remove IE from a windows machine? I would really appreciate some instructions on how to do this, because for now, I've just shoved it out of the way where my parents can't find it and have disguised firefox as IE so they don't complain about where the 'internet button' has gone.
I've registered a place and am now booking train tickets to get there. I've been looking for something like this to go to for a while (next thing I had on my events list was a gamejam in January) and now I can't wait to go.
Mines the one with a pi in one pocket and pie in the other :P
As someone who has recently graduated with a degree in computer science from a top uk university for the subject, and having had these 'IT' (or Microsoft Office) lessons, where I literally spent 8 years of high school and sixth form doing nothing but be taught how to use microsoft office. (oh and we had to use dreamweaver for the web-design module in AS ICT *cringes with pain*) I entered uni with no real experience of programming other than what I had been teaching myself for a couple of years.
I think we are still looking at this all wrong, I think programming, should be a part not only of IT lessons, but of maths lessons too, and in primary schools, along with addition, multiplication and fractions, children should learn about if then else statements, and a simple programming language like python to do simple tasks.
As a Christian* girl myself, I am proud to say I would have done exactly what this girl did, and for exactly the same reasons. While I admit that these lanyards are not the mark of the beast, they aren't far off it, and I certainly would not wear one.
Beer, because I want to buy her a pint.
*Bring on the down votes you bunch of Atheistic Liberals.
I think that Microsoft are doing this because they know how bad windows 8 is, and that a lot of people aren't going to like it, so are preventing people 'jumping ship' onto linux. I know that for a lot of people, vista was the big tipping point that made them try other things, such as ubuntu, and I know many of them that haven't looked back since.
Before the internet, the only music people could buy and listen to was what the big studios published. People had no real choice, and bought what was available, making the studio's a lot of money. As technology has improved more musicians and artists who otherwise might have never got contracts with the major labels, have been able to record from their basements and bedrooms and publish online. Suddenly there was an explosion of new unheard music and artists, and people started listening to them.
Yes, people also became able to 'pirate' media, but I think the main reason the big studios have been 'losing' money, isn't so much that people are 'stealing' their music, but that less people actually want or need the music they put out there.
I myself don't pirate, I listen to independent artists, and pay them directly either through donations/pay what you want websites, or on occasion itunes or similar. I think that the problem with the music industry is that it has become obsolete.
Windows and Firefox are both jumping on the 'store' bandwagon, and I'm getting more than a little worried.
I don't like the direction things in IT seem to be going with 'apps' replacing 'proper' software, and companies charging you micro-payments for them. (and then again to unlock features inside them) I'm half expecting to see in windows 9 only being able to install software that has been bought from the windoze store and approved by microsoft, who then take a hefty slice of the profits. All this on top of the cost of a machine, and in windows case, the operating system as well. Oh and if it will probably be covered in ads as well if Xbox Live is anything to go by!
I'm rather hoping that things don't continue along this dangerous direction, or it could spell the end for smaller developers and free software.
I've had enough of people* thinking that trolls and bullies mean the same thing. They do not. Trolling is for teh lulz, doing something for fun, a digital prankster if you will. Bullying is doing something to hurt someone else. Put it this way, if the general population would find your actions funny - its trolling. If they would find it upsetting or offensive then it is bullying.
*read the media and non-internet users.
However it seems to be horribly overpriced for something that is limited to only 12 numbers, and has no other features. Perhaps at a lower price they could have mass market appeal for those looking for a disposable mobile, but I don't think there's much of a market for it currently.
^^horible pun
I think this is the least excited I've ever been about a new season of Doctor who. The trailer just wasn't all that interesting, and really, Daleks again? I'm getting completely fed up with the inability to be creative with enemies and just reusing the same ones over and over. /rant
New season of MLP: FiM on the other hand...
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