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Games

Ubisoft's Constant Net Connection DRM Confirmed 631

A few weeks ago we discussed news of Ubisoft's DRM plans for future games, which reportedly went so far as to require a constant net connection, terminating your game if you get disconnected for any reason. Well, it's here; upon playing review copies of the PC version of Assassin's Creed 2 and Settlers VII, PCGamer found the DRM just as annoying as you might expect. Quoting: "If you get disconnected while playing, you're booted out of the game. All your progress since the last checkpoint or savegame is lost, and your only options are to quit to Windows or wait until you're reconnected. The game first starts the Ubisoft Game Launcher, which checks for updates. If you try to launch the game when you're not online, you hit an error message right away. So I tried a different test: start the game while online, play a little, then unplug my net cable. This is the same as what happens if your net connection drops momentarily, your router is rebooted, or the game loses its connection to Ubisoft's 'Master servers.' The game stopped, and I was dumped back to a menu screen — all my progress since it last autosaved was lost."
User Journal

Journal Journal: Dr SimianOverlord, back from the dead

2006. Holy shit. Did I really use to be on Slashdot? Back then, I was working just outside of London - as the name suggests, using primates as a model of HIV infection. The funny thing with research is that you're busy all the time, but with significant downtime in between. I should have been reading the literature, catching up on my reports or presentations, or figuring out some other experiment I could slip in between my main ones. But I wasn't. I had discovered slashdot.

Comment Agree with journal, not title (Score 1) 10

It sounds similar to recent comments made in Britain by Harman about a Royal Bank of Scotland Charimans ridiculusly generous pension. I'm more concerned by eroding legal frameworks for mindless populism than by the undeserving getting a fat bonus.

I'll leave it to A.N.Other to post that cliche Moore quote from 'A Man For All Seasons'.

Comment Second Life is transitory - global warming (Score -1, Offtopic) 151

I do not understand why people are using virtual communities like Second life. Surely fads like Second life are simply doomed, since global warming and/or peak oil will rapidly deplete our ability to use gas / coal burning power stations for supplying electricity for such entertainment? I cannot understand why someone would go to the trouble of building an elaborate alternate reality that will be switched off within the decade.

Are second lifers people who simply don't accept anthropomorphic global warming is a reality? Are they simply fiddling while Rome burns?
User Journal

Journal Journal: UK Health - Following the Blogs

You know, blogs get a really bad name, and in most cases that is justified. But even the hardiest cynic would admit that there are some of them out there that are an absolute pleasure to read.
User Journal

Journal Journal: Irreducible complexity and a man on top of a cliff 6

An oft-cited explanation for many people's belief in Intelligent Design(ID) is the argument of "Irreducible Complexity". This states that certain processes, structures, or biomechanics due to their inherent complexity, or their reliance on many simultaneous, finely interdependent parts, could not have resulted from Darwinian evolution.
User Journal

Journal Journal: P23 5S

And anon, I would look upward, and see the grey, metalled mountain going up measureless into the gloom of the everlasting night; and from my feet the sheer downward sweep of the grim, metal walls, six full miles, and more, to the plain below.

William Hope Hodgsen, The Night Land
User Journal

Journal Journal: Dumb little "amigos" trick 2

It's kind of fun. I don't know if anyone's noticed it before. There's a useful little feature called "amigos" which lets you catch up on all the journals your friends have written recently, in a nice readable format. Yours is here.

But if you want to read what other people's friends are saying you can...
User Journal

Journal Journal: Explosions in London

Breaking news on the BBC.

First reports suggested a power surge on the London Underground stopped trains and possibly caused a collision. Since then I've heard:

whole Underground has been closed

About 30 deaths according to eyewitness who had spoken to police

An eyewitness said a litterbin had exploded

Recently, there have been reports of a bus exploding.

Businesses

Journal Journal: Business Opportunity (NOT NIGERIAN) 4

I'm looking for a general manager to do all the work for this great startup idea I've had. I wanted to recruit the cream of the crop, which is why I'm posting this to journal land. No timewasters here.

Anyway, I'm going to start a new product called... wait for it... Open Sauce. It's ketchup - but with a twist. The twist is the name! The brilliance is in the simplicity.

The Gimp

Journal Journal: I'm drunk and it's all OnLawn's fault 2

You see (this will go down on my permanent record), I invented an OnLawn drinking game.

It's quite simple - but the beauty lies in the simplicity, you see. For this you need:
  • Abouta week's worth of posts by OnLawn
    • A bottle of "liquor" as you Yanks callit
      • (optional) An open communicative portal with a like minded Slarshdort regular

        The RULES
The Matrix

Journal Journal: More Republican Cognitive Dissonance

Newsweek is incredible! They printed inflammatory allegations that have caused deaths around the globe based on single source! How could they do such a thing?

You critics are incredible! While we may have deliberately manipulated public opinion with inflammatory allegations like 'Saddam had mobile chemical weapons labs' based on a single source, it's no big deal. Get over it!
Worms

Journal Journal: Creation and Evolution: A Collision of World Views 27

What do you call it when two different people can look at the same data set and come to two completely different and largely incompatible conclusions? Moreover, two conclusions that implicitly depend on the way they view the world around them, the path they have travelled, their experiences and attained knowlege, their upbringing, their highs and lows? For want of a better word, I would call it a collision of worldviews. And I believe I detect it in specific instances of the Creationism/ Evoluti
Education

Journal Journal: 30/330 1

I have been known to troll the frontpage from time to time. I'm pretty sure it's the only rational response possible to the front page. I draw the line at trolling journals, I have standards. Here are some trolls that I especially enjoyed writing, saved for posterity. Knock yourself out.

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"Well I don't see why I have to make one man miserable when I can make so many men happy." -- Ellyn Mustard, about marriage

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