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Comment Re:Twenty Seconds? (Score 1) 587

Twenty seconds...that's too much for you to suffer through?

Fuck, get a drink or take a piss. You probably won't have time to do either.

If this is the level of inconvenience that would cause anyone to get upset, they need to see a shrink because they have issues.

Well, yeah. Except I stick the disc in to the machine, wander off to get a drink, or a snack, or take a piss, and when I get back the DVD is stuck on a language select screen, which is only there so that it can better serve me the copyright warning. So I still have to wait around to get to that screen, or come back and wait through the copyright messages. On a disc I've bought.

Then there are the discs that start playing the feature automatically after a short period of time, because, I dunno, they think some people are too stupid to work out how to start it running? So I stick the disc in the machine, go to get a drink, snack, or have a piss, and before I get back the film starts and I have to skip back to where I want to be.

No, on the level of frustration it's not particularly high, but it is a frustration. I only wander away from the machine because it has lots of unskippable crap. I have been conditioned to start a disc before I'm ready to watch it. This isn't right, and certainly not when I've been a good little consumer and paid for the product. I should be able to get myself ready, then start the disc, in much the same way that I do with a computer game, book, bath, car, washing machine, cooker, board game, any-other-thing. I have yet to find that I need to prime a toilet twenty seconds before I need to use it, just so that it flushes there and then and doesn't have me standing near my own filth waiting for it to be ready.

Comment Re:Isn't bad... (Score 1) 228

Then you get product placement like in I, Robot, where products are not just in the world but featured, talked about, shoved in your face in a blatant attempt to influence your purchases. Rather than being immersed in a real world, we are snapped back in to our own world full of obvious advertising.

I suppose product placement isn't bad in itself, it's how product placement is used that determines how it is perceived. Populating a world with items increases the verisimilitude of the circumstances, making it too obvious reminds us we are only the pawns of big corporations.

Comment Re:It's actually a discount (Score 1) 499

Lower prices on 2.0GHz chips. This will increase sales, but means giving up on the money of those people who really need (or think they need) the extra speed and are willing to pay for it.

Oh, boo-fucking-hoo. They have advanced their manufacturing process to give superior yields, and rather than offer these yields to more people they want to suck the market for as much money as possible by artificially restricting demand. Yes, they're a business and that's their job, but those are still weasel words apologising for a corporation who are stitching up the public.

Comment Re:trying to imagine... (Score 1) 833

Why shouldn't I seperate my online persona(s) from my real life identity? What problem is Blizzard trying to solve here?

The Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory. People are less likely to act like an asshole if they don't have anonymity to hide behind. The only people who will be idiots any more are those who are idiots already.

But what is 'anonymity' on the internet anyway? If someone is thousands of miles away in a different country and I am never likely to meet them, see them, or even bump in to them in a different on-line game, how does knowing their real name affect their idea of personal responsibility?

I fear the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory will still apply when real names are used, because most people will remain effectively anonymous.

Comment Re:The Correct Way(TM) (Score 1) 702

I guess the 21/6 rationale is that some people call it "the twenty-first of June." Those people are wrong. It is "June twenty-first," or if you prefer, "June twenty-one." Do those people call the time "the thirty-seventh of three p.m."? I think not.

And do you call the full date 'two thousand and ten June twenty-one'? I think not.

Your 'one and only' correct date format makes sense for computers but not for people. I do not ASCII-sort dates in my head and I seem to prefer more specific information first before the more general.

I'll stick with 21st June 2010. You can do what you like.

Comment Re:PC gamers think they should get games for free (Score 1) 1027

People say Ubisoft shouldn't treat them like criminals.

No one is saying that. Go ahead, treat the pirates like criminals, find them and prosecute the fuckers. What everyone is saying is: don't treat paying customers like criminals.

When DRM seriously and significantly inconveniences the people who have legitimately bought the game, there is a fundamental problem with the protection scheme being used. You don't need to stop a legitimate customer from using the product, nor do you need to remind him that pirating games is illegal and shouldn't be done. Customers know this already!

Target pirates. Stop them. But you're fools for doing it in a way that annoys legitimate customers.

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