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Comment What a shitty summary (Score 2, Informative) 161

3D Realms seems unlikely and the random edit was only in Wikipedia for a few minutes. And why does the summary link to the static "down" html page? The website is up and working. Nice twisting there.

But really, the previous owner was Music Television. I always thought that was a little bit weird.

Comment Too late (Score 4, Insightful) 293

They're too late to join the game. The problem is that Facebook already has everyone you know, so everyone joins it because everyone else already is there. Some random mumblings about walled gardens and open source won't make normal people switch over.

Difference with AOL (never even heard about Prodigy) versus email is that a lot of people used the standard email. I think AOL was mostly just US-centric too, I don't know anyone who would had actually used it. This was also time when internet was mostly used by geeks who understood it and valued open standards.

Someone in these kind of stories always suggests that you set up your own Facebook-like service or just a website. That's just thinking too much of yourself - why would people visit your site just to see your stuff? Facebook is great because it lets me easily see them from all the people, even if I don't keep in touch with them so much.

Also, how do you handle things like Facebook games and cooperation with people in them? Oh, you say Facebook games are stupid and people shouldn't play them. Arrogant attitudes like that don't really help either, because people obviously like the games. We aren't the ones to tell other people what they should or shouldn't like.

In Facebook's case one big service works a lot better than thousand small ones. How would you even search for people, places, events and so on with them? It would go back to the @something.com convention which defeats the whole purpose.

When I was recently visiting a different country I could easily search for the one guy I knew. From his connections I found everyone else I had met and also saw a lot of interesting events and businesses I wouldn't had otherwise known about. You can't really use a search engine for something you don't know about. This was the first time I actually understood how great service Facebook is - you just have to use it correctly.

Comment Re:Hardly (Score 0, Interesting) 362

I play Modern Warfare 2 almost all for it's multiplayer. The single player campaign was great, but the fun begins in multiplayer. I also love games that have co-op play along with single player, because you can play with your friends and it opens up a lot of new possibilities. Games like Left 4 Dead with 4 player co-op (and versus mode) are also extremely fun because you have to work as a group and if you mess up, other players need to save you and you affect the game. It's a lot of fun.

I do also play games like Splinter Cell Conviction and Civilization series where the main point is with the single player. However for example playing Civilization with real people add completely new aspects to it.

Why it has to be either only single player or multiplayer (or badly tossed in multiplayer)? Work on both of them to make them great. The upcoming Medal of Honor actually has two completely different teams working for single player and multiplayer - EA's own team for single player and DICE for multiplayer and they even use different engines.

Multiplayer provides a lot of fun, so why take it off? Especially when it's value that usually only paying customers can enjoy. Many times on slashdot I've read that companies should provide more value to paying customers versus pirates - multiplayer is it and can definitely be a good factor in if a person buys the game or pirates it, and I personally love playing with other people.

Comment Piracy will be impossible (Score 1, Interesting) 83

Note that in this case the games itself would be free like in asian markets and I doubt that the normal games are going anywhere. This is most likely to expand their market. There are a lot of people, especially teens, who rather pay for individual items than go to a store and pay full $60 for a game.

It also makes piracy really hard, especially when the games are played online and the info about items and addons you own are on the server. It's practically impossible to pirate that. With the 90% piracy rate on PC games it's not surprising that publishers are looking for new ways, even if that's sad. PC gamers really need to think about their future and not try to get everything for free, because it just leads to publishers making games where it's not possible - shitty online games with microtransactions for the housewifes.

Comment Re:It's about being truthful (Score -1, Troll) 718

Just because someone makes positive comments doesn't make one a shill. It's funny that I've also been accused of being a shill for Valve, Steam, Google, and large amount of other companies or products I have good experience with. It's almost funny how often someones first defense on slashdot to some positive comment is to call him a "shill". But yeah, lets all be negative.

and fyi, I stopped posting on slashdot because for the last three months some people followed me and down modded all my comments, even many days later, resulting in -1 karma and 2 posts limit.

Submission + - Apple denies iPhone4 signal woes, offers free case

recoiledsnake writes: Apple has rejected calls for a manufacturing hardware fix to the iPhone 4 antenna woes in the highly anticipated press conference today. Instead, Apple will offer a free case to anyone who faces the issue. According to Jobs, only 0.55 % of iPhone 4 customers have contacted AppleCare with the issue and the return rate is less than that of the previous iPhones.While all phones might have a signal drop, according to Consumer Reports' findings in a RF-shielded lab, other phones tested(including the iPhone 3G) do not have the extra drop because of not having an exposed external antenna like the iPhone 4. This also jives with multiple Anandtech articles and field tests that there is indeed a problem specific to the iPhone 4 and call for Apple to fix the hardware. And just as a clarification to their devoted fanbase, Jobs included this gem: "You know, we're not perfect. We know that, you know that. And phones aren't perfect either."
Games

Submission + - Civilization V Team Gets Layoffs (shacknews.com)

sopssa writes: "Take Two Interactive has laid off 20 Firaxis developers, around 15% of the staff, for what it calls a realignment of development resources at the studio. “Firaxis has realigned its development resources in order to streamline its development process, reduce costs and maximize the overall performance of the studio”, 2K said. The layoffs were announced just a day after Firaxis won "Best Strategy Game" from Game Critics Awards at E3 and are really unusual as they were announced just before a major game released by the studio. However Take Two is saying the layoffs will not affect the forthcoming Civilization V or the Facebook game Civilization Network. Since 2K Games is laying off Firaxis developers and because persons like Will Wright are already working with EA, could it be possible that after Civilization V the team would be working with a new Alpha Centauri, which IP Electronic Arts now owns. Sid Meier has previously hinted it as a possibility and an interesting project if it's just possible."

Comment Re:First Post !! (Score -1, Redundant) 190

It may trump IE, but it sure does feel and respond slower than Opera and Chrome. It's not always just about how quick the javascript engine and so on is, but how it feels to the user. Instant rendering of the page as soon as it starts loading (like in Opera) and responsive UI contribute a lot to user experience. Mozilla seems to forget this fact. Opera in comparison is really responsive, even while it comes build-in with huge amount of more features.

Memory footprint doesn't tell much because of the way modern OS tries to allocate RAM. After all, all non-used RAM goes to waste.

Comment Other countries should start policing Internet too (Score 4, Insightful) 343

More recently in 2008, Kentucky courts seized the domain names for 141 online gambling sites (all for companies based in other countries including Malta and Costa Rica). The Kentucky court action threatened to disrupt global traffic to PokerStars, Full Tilt, Absolute Poker and many others. As of March of this year the case is still winding its way through Kentucky appellate and supreme court (the case has been reversed then upheld and is currently resolving issues of standing).

What gives US the right to seize domains of companies based in other countries and force their laws, views and things like ACTA and banning of internet casinos to citizens of other countries?

You wouldn't want China to take down international sites that violate their laws, would you? Or radical countries like North Korea? It's not even just about Internet, but in general too. What makes it OK for USA to do so. Actually, instead of filtering maybe China should start just taking down the sites they don't like.

Since US tries to put laws on the citizens of other countries, I say it's only fair other countries do the same. Like execute the death sentence of Facebook CEO. The best thing about this is that if Zuckerberg gets put into Interpol wanted list, he gets extradited to Pakistan as soon as he visits some other country. It's only fair, right?

Comment Re:I experienced this! (Score -1, Troll) 224

I don't really understand who uses YouTube like that anyway. Usually I search for something and I get what I want, or I follow a link on a discussion that is already interesting to me. Then there also many sites and forums that categorize videos of a certain theme. YouTube is obviously too big to cater for everyone in a different way.

Comment Re:Really? (Score -1, Redundant) 224

They probably introduced the bug recently. It's not like they wrote the code once 6 years and called it done, code on websites changes all the time and generally with any program it's easier to miss something and introduce new bugs in existing code since you can quite easily forget something.

Comment Fear (Score 3, Insightful) 403

This fear of China is just WTF. "my lack of a nickname on this submission being testament to that", VPN's, Tor, all of that just to browse the regular Internet. Anyone who writes these things obviously have not been there or in the other Asian countries.

Most of the western quality hotels provide access to unfiltered Internet and you are most likely staying in one of those. Besides, the Chinese and Asian in general are quite relaxed people. Just think if American cops would be this patient and try to help the guy.

Seriously, the Chinese, Asian and rest of the world hate and fear by Americans is getting beyond ridiculous.

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