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Comment Re:No (Score 1) 186

Some of the games for the Wii you could consider 'mature' in the gritty/violent sense are: No More Heroes. The Conduit. Madworld. Resident Evil 4. House of the Dead: Maximum Overkill. Dead Space: Extraction. Left for Dead. Onechanbara: Bikini Zombie Slayers

Did you mean Left 4 Dead? Because that has definitely not been released on the Wii.

Comment Re:Disaster for Regular Users (Score 1) 334

I totally agree. So instead of regular users burning out the clutch (ie, Windows), they should be using a computer specifically designed to stop them from doing so. I guess that's the idea behind a Mac, and I guess that additional cost is probably worth it for those users. Shame about the lack of gaming though. Then again, you can play FarmVille just fine on a Mac...

Comment Re:Huh? Why are we trying to protect lemmings? (Score 1) 334

You are being completely unfair. First of all, many of those programs are known for installing without the user's permission. Secondly, they are rather tricky. They produce screens that are very similar to screens that Windows and Security Suites use. Someone good with computers will quickly spot the problems, but fairly intelligent people that just browse the web a bit won't. This is not just happening to knuckle dragging mouthbreathers or something. I'm sure there are subjects where you would look like an idiot too (Cars, Plumbing, electrical, etc.) We can't all be proficient at everything.

Comment Re:Disaster for Regular Users (Score 1) 334

I wasn't looking for a real answer. My point is that there isn't one. The two people I know didn't have disaster recovery files and they lost their system restore CDs awhile ago. I was actually prepared to install a cracked copy of Windows as a last resort. Even if they did have that stuff, it is still just way too complicated to be themselves. I'm supposed to tell the to RTFM? That ain't gonna' help.

Even advice from above is almost useless. Don't install anything from the internet unless you know it is safe. How the hell would they know it was safe? My mom claims she downloaded everything from "google". I couldn't get across the idea that while Google does have some of of it's own software for download, it is also a search engine with ads.

I don't need "instruction" from slashdot, I'm just saying that this is a huge problem for regular users.

Comment Disaster for Regular Users (Score 1) 334

I got to fight with Windows Police Pro after it got onto my Mom's computer. It pretty much makes the computer useless. It even changed the file registration for .exe's and .com's. Luckily, after fixing the registry I was able to get Malwarebyte working and got things running again.

My wife later told me about someone at work getting something similar. She asked what to do and I started rambling on about all the steps. She then asked what this non-techie should do. I had no idea. Find a geek or pay for one at Best Buy or something? It looks like that option would cost about $200! Maybe this is a good opportunity to buy a new computer? If I hadn't been able to help my Mom she would pretty much not have a usable computer now.

Anyone have advice for the average (or below average) joe on what to do when they are stuck with this? What advice is even good to avoid this? Don't install anything from the internet?

Comment Re:Hope they win (Score 1) 488

Off-topic, but it might be time for you to return to the loving folds of PC Gaming. Yes, the used market is pretty much dead, but PC Gaming is now insanely cheaper than console gaming, especially for the kind of person who can handle waiting for used games. Digital download services like Steam, Direct to Drive, Good old Games, Impulse, etc. are selling great PC games (sometimes less than a year old) for $5 - $20. Except for GoG, the game might be a little DRM encumbered, but at those prices I can ignore it. If I really want to play Fallout 3 in 10 years I'll just pirate it. I now have more PC games than I have time to even get to and I'm actually spending less than I did 10 years ago!

Or you could stay on the consoles where licensing fees automatically add to the price. And because the horde of teens will pay $50 for a 2 year old game, the prices on console games drop really, really slowly. I think most slashdotters can handle keeping a PC up to spec (and better than the consoles) for less than $200 a year, so the old "Gaming PCs cost too much" canard is no problem either.

Comment Re:More An Issue of Censorship Than Copyright (Score 1) 150

Or that he wrote dirty letters to his wife?

What, what, what?? Dirty letters? Surely you don't mean the James Joyce that wrote Ulysses, right? I couldn't imagine such an updstanding author as Joyce sullying his reputation with dirty letters.

Hmm... that reminds me, I really should finish Ulysses. I just got to the last chapter!

Comment Re:If you need it, you'll know it (Score 1) 705

I had mandatory touch-typing in middle school (6th-8th grades) and it was worthless. I didn't learn a thing - I typed slowly and uncomfortably. Then one day, I decided I wanted to learn to program computers. I taught myself C, and halfway through the project discovered that I had become a pretty good touch typist. Typing is a skill like riding a bike - you'll learn it by doing it.

Hmm, my story is similar, except I didn't get to take the class. I taught myself C, and halfway through the project discovered that I had become pretty good at hunt and peck. A few years later, I took a typing class in High School. Then I cried about all wasted hours with the hunting and the pecking.

Maybe I'm just stupid, but even if kids don't like the touch typing class it will teach them the basic technique they need to know. They will only be good at it if they find reasons to type on their own. But without the basic technique, they'll just end up creating some horrible system of their own.

Comment Re:Dark Tan? (Score 1) 964

The original showed an Asian guy, a black guy and a white woman. How tediously politically correct. Also completely unrealistic for Poland. (Is it even realistic for the US?)

No, not really. If you ask the average person in the US what percentage of Americans are black you'll get crazy responses like 20% - 40%. I guess this comes from stuff like advertising and TV. Anyway, blacks make up about 13.4% of the US population.

OTOH, it is quite possible to actually see this kind of diversity. Most large businesses do not discriminate based on race.

Comment Clearly fair use - So What? (Score 2, Interesting) 869

Let's assume that this is an "open and shut" fair use claim. So what? This will do absolutely nothing to stop you from being sued. The suit will cost you a ton of money or you will lose. Now, you might feel that is a great way to spend your money, but Flickr doesn't want to spend their money dealing with this. Flickr did nothing wrong here. They made a simple, obvious business decision. The problem here is our copyright laws, which give big corporations that can pay for expensive lawyers all the power.

Fair Use is pretty much dead.

Comment Re:Different Audiences? (Score 1) 399

The parent tried to make the point that essentially mouse/keyboard players simply haven't had enough time using a controller to do it properly. I guess he was saying that a controller is actually better than kb/mouse? Certainly for platformers this is true. But for FPS a mouse is definitely better. Actually a Wii Nunchuck/mouse combination would be best. WASD is ok, but I wish I could hold an analog thumbstick in my left (w/several buttons at my fingertips) to move around.

Anyway, Pyrion, you are bit incorrect too. Early FPSs on consoles were simply awful. The aiming was terrible and the games totally had to rely on autoaiming. This really isn't true anymore. Just watch some 360 addict play Modern Warfare online. They are almost as good as an average player with a mouse. There is no autoaim there. Sure, some crappy FPS might still use autoaim, and it shows up in games where FPS shooting isn't the point, like GTA. But the major FPS titles actually work pretty well with a controller.

In a multiplayer match the kb/mouse guys would win, but you might be shocked at how well the gamepad players actually do. I wish someone could actually make this happen. I think uber-elite XBOX users could actually beat an average group of PC players.

Comment Re:Good riddance. (Score 3, Insightful) 225

you might as well buy a cheap guitar / bass / drum kit and do it for real.

No. I don't want to learn how to play a guitar. I'm not musically talented at all, but I can do pretty good on Expert in the games. This is fun. I get to listen to and experience the music in a fun way. To learn guitar would take forever, and I would never be very good at it. It doesn't matter how much time I spend on guitar games; I'm only doing it to have fun. Why not tell FPS players to quit wasting their time and join the army??

Comment Re:A good combination of a storyline and graphics. (Score 4, Insightful) 506

No, this isn't true. Half-life is, of course, such an important milestone in gaming mainly because of stuff not directly related to the graphics. However, Half-life simply could not have existed if it had looked like Doom. A certain level of realism was required for Valve to reach their goals in terms of gameplay and story telling.

Graphics alone will rarely make a game better, but better graphics actually create the possibilities of certain types of improved gameplay. Could Star Wars have been created with 1950s movie tech? No, the advances in special effects had to be created first and then used in an exciting way.

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