Messages

(to EldKatt - I suggest you read everything provided in your links before you accuse anyone of not knowing what copyright is and isn't).

OK. Seems like you're implying that I have here made some or other incorrect statement about copyright myself. Is this interpretation of your vague little remark correct? If not, I apologize, but that's the only way I can make sense of it.

If that is what you meant, though, I would appreciate if you point out where I'm mistaken instead of just implying that I am with no specific claim, which is a pretty pointless debating tactic that probably nobody is falling for.

The bottom line I guess is please say what you really mean instead of wrapping it up in a rude little implication that leaves me guessing what you're trying to say.

It astonishes me how many people have these strange ideas of what copyright is, and insist on spreading them with the claim that they're right, without bothering to learn about it. Stop making shit up and go educate yourselves. This goes for just about everyone except Nikolas here...

Copyright gives the originator of a work exclusive rights to reproduce and distribute that work, among other things. If someone else wants to do any of that stuff, they need permission from the copyright holder. With no license text included, a "freeware" game is by default protected by copyright to the full extent. If you want people to be able to distribute your game by putting it up on their website or whatever, you need to expressly say so. That's why we have things like Creative Commons, GPL and so forth. I could go on, but the four links above (chosen semi-randomly through google magic but still good) are probably more than enough to correct most of the misinformation here.

I would like to see a hint system with a text input. You tell a database Location: Underground, Last Inventory Item Picked Up: Crystal Shield, Hint Need? How do I get past the lava bridge?

Maybe an existing text parser could be used as a starting point for something like that?

Whatever it is, I would say that the sensible thing to do would be to first make a backend for this system, that could then be used for various purposes, such as generating html, plaintext, some sort of keyboard-navigatable terminal application or whatever fits you. Texinfo for game hints, like. I'd imagine this is in the long term a more rewarding way than to hack it up in Javascript first and then find out you've made too small a cage for yourself.

Zepto sells laptops without an OS. When I did my laptop-buying research a few months ago they seemed to be about the only company that does this (except for a rumor that Dell might do it if you ask nicely). They're highly configurable (Dell-style) and seem pretty solid (I'm nothing but happy with mine as of yet, but that doesn't say a lot given how new it is). I suggest you check it out.

I think the whole reason for this "premium content" thing being considered is that there are now more and more high-bandwidth applications such as video being used on the internet. If ISP's try to keep buying more and more bandwidth to enable it all to download at top speed, they'd have to put prices up to you and me.

Therefore, a way of keeping the prices down to the consumer is to charge the content provider instead. If they don't do this, then in a couple of years we'll end up in one of two situations:
(1) most high-bandwidth content like video streaming becomes unusable at peak times due to bandwidth congestion
(2) end-users like you and me start having to pay per GB for data downloaded, thus funding the network from the other side

Taking this into account, charging the providers sounds like the fairest way to do it.

That's a good point; I hadn't thought about that side of it, which is indeed a more legitimate excuse. However, we can still hope that the technology fairy brings us cheaper bandwidth as the demand rises... Indeed, that has been happening forever, hasn't it? It's not like bandwidth today costs just as much as it did in 1990, and ISPs have just been paying more and more for it...

[TUBES]

I mean, the way out is this: Imagine Virgin decides to install a new network of some sort... Faster, better, etc. (they already have according to adds in the tube). Anyways. They make a "new road", a new "highway". That highway is reserved for people who pay the toll! Not the users, but the websites! adventuregamestudio.co.uk didn't pay? Oh that's too bad. It can't be on that lane! Yahoo did? YAY for yahoo!

It's completely new and unfamiliar to me (I was unaware of this issue until I stumbled upon this thread), but all the Big Guys seem to be using this rhetoric: that the websites are their customers. The common rhetoric seems (from what little I've learned in the past minutes) to be: "They are using our TUBES, and somebody has to be pay for these TUBES, so it's only fair that they pay us!" Well, they already are, in my old-fashioned view of the world: the customers of the ISP, the users, pay for their connection. But the understated premise here is that websites ought to pay the ISPs for their distribution services. The guys driving on the hypothetical toll road are Yahoo and Google, not you and I, and we're not driving on the Big Highway to see them: they're driving to see us. This model implies that the medium belongs, in some way, to the providers (with money), rather than the users. Is that bad for the world? It might be. Is it bad for the good old Internet? Probably.

Seems like everyone is mad at this guy for charging money for freeware games.

Seems like only a few people are mad at this guy for infringing on copyright, which is the only real crime he actually is committing, and which he would still be committing even if he didn't charge people.

This intrigues me.

Really, it's the same argument as toll roads. For most of the day, you can just use a free road and get to your destination fine. But at peak times, the free roads are heavily congested and so if you want to can pay a toll to use the toll road instead and get there faster. Why should the net be any different?

What? If they were charging people for accessing the most popular sites (to avoid congestion in the tubes or something) I could buy the comparison. Or if we're talking about the fact that ISPs want you to pay them so they can do their stuff, just like some roads are financed by tolls. But in this case, what's happening is that a company is paying an ISP in exchange for aiding the delivery of their product, giving them a market advantage. Toll roads do not work that way, in my humble experience.

Now, if I were an ISP I just wouldn't do this, because I think it's unethical and stupid. But I'm a bit skeptical (though I haven't reflected much on this and have no firm opinion) about legislated "net neutrality". Maybe I ought to move with the times, but to me an ISP is just a guy with a huge router, who lets people plug into it for a fee. Why shouldn't he get to do what he likes with it? If he does something stupid (which I think this is, along with morally wrong and so on), people will plug their stuff in somewhere else (I sure would), and others will complain about it (I sure would, if asked). That's the beauty of freedom and that stuff. When it works, that is. If it turns out that everybody starts doing this, and nobody cares, then we're entering dangerous territory (I mean it), but I don't think we're there yet.

[I have not heard this before. Reference?]

What I'm saying is what computer PROS recommend. People who work in the business.
[...]
And today's computers ARE built to be on all the time because the manufacturers know that people expect their computers to work all the time for the sake of everything they do on the internet with downloads and all that stuff. Pros in the IT business recommend not to turn off PCs because today's computers are built to remain on and every time you turn off or turn on your PC electrical shock hits the motherboard, hard drive and other parts. In time these shocks accumlate to damage that shortens the part's lives.

I have not heard this before. Reference?



Seriously, you still haven't made any effort to show why anyone should think you're right. If "the pros", collectively, are saying this, you will have no problem finding articles to support your claim. I would appreciate this because it interests me.

We all know what PCs and Macs and all these names refer to. We all know that PC is an abbreviation of Personal Computer and has nothing to do with any operating system. Despite this, I still say PC and Mac and everyone knows what I am talking about.

(This particular quote used as representative of everyone else saying similar things.)

Actually, I do find this terminology rather problematic. I know whether people are talking about an OS, an IBM PC (if anyone ever talks about that) or just any home computer because I can infer it from the context, but it is certainly not unambiguous! My laptop is a PC, but it's not "evil" or "virus-infested" (not the terms I would use, anyway, so don't call me a fanatic), has no Microsoft stickers or bundled stuff, and runs Debian GNU/Linux. If I want to talk about any other PC that is running Windows, I will refer to it as a computer running Windows (assuming that's the relevant part). I don't see the problem with saying what you really mean, nor do I see the reason for defending not saying what you mean.

Which brings me to another important point - don't turn off your PC. Today's computers are built to be on all the time, there's no reason so shut them down, they can handle it. Turning them off and on again every day just shortens life of components in the computer, like this example.

I have not heard this before. Reference?

...what the shuffle is like (really random or just fake)...

Sorry for not really helping in any way, but this made me curious. What kind of less-than-random shuffle would be unrandom enough to make any noticable difference in this case? It's not like you'll use your shuffled playlist to encrypt business secrets. Or are you?


More on topic, I never use my mp3 player nowadays (mainly because it's crap--a Logik HD33 with a hard drive that screws up in various ways all the time), but my cell phone (Sony Ericsson K800) does that stuff well enough for me. 2GB M2 memory cards are available--I'm not sure if it supports the 4GB cards, but officially it does not. Sound quality probably crap (I can't judge because my headset is the bottleneck at the moment), but it's a decent budget solution if you already have a suitable phone.

Also... you probably won't find any mp3 player with a good microphone. Better get one with a mic jack (or a line jack and an amplifier...) and bring your own.

And obviously jamming a pen in a fan causes damage even it seems to magically solve the problem for the short term, it obviously not a real solution to anything.

AFAIK the reason most fans fail (which gradually they do, with age) is warped blades. Fiddling with the blades to alter their shape (with a pen, sure, though there are probably more subtle ways) can in that case be a decent temporary fix. Considering that the only good solution in such a case is getting a new fan, I don't think there's that much harm in it...

DISAGREE!

If someone I barely knew gave me a gift like that, I would merely get suspicious. I would consider it very strange, I would tell me friends about it, and they would also consider it very strange. She will take it the wrong way (whatever that is). At least she would in any sort of reality I'm familiar with.

As for the "problem" of "excessive" money, I found one way of solving that problem...

Ahem. Seems like the majority of replies are not getting through here... you're not awesomely rich, you'll need that money once you're not living with your parents--you don't have excessive money, and there is no problem. Or am I missing something?

...and "Pundays".

I hope you realize that every day ought to be Punday.

Yeah, the big guy just has a funny way of going about with it really.

You won't complain so much when He manipulates the stock market in your favour.

Every language is constantly changing. The change is slow enough that a lot of people get the impression that it isn't, but that's an illusion. New words, and (more rarely) new grammatic constructs are created all the time, and winnowed out through a kind of memetic natural selection.

My main concern when I speak or write is merely that people should understand what I'm saying (including every intended nuance of style). If I accomplish that, I don't really care how old the words I use are. Or if they existed before I said them.

Get a GM soundfont (Personal Copy, Unison, Cadenza, FluidR3, to name a few) and some kind of SF2-playing software. FluidSynth and TiMidity are the major ones for Unix-like systems, and I think both have been ported to Windows. I don't know what native Windows stuff is available.

Now here's what you should do, regarding your diet: Ask your doctor. He or she is supposed to actually know this stuff. Don't take some forum guy's word for it, because there are loads of conflicting ideas of what you're supposed to eat, some scientific and some nonsense, and unless you spend loads of time reading up on it, you have no way to know what is what.  And by reading up I mean real scientific literature, not some magazine or advice column, so it's not easy. Your doctor is supposed to have already spent loads of time reading up on it, so make it easy for yourself and go find the knowledge where it already exists.

No offence intended to anyone who has posted here, and I understand that giving informal advice about stuff is sort of the beauty of a forum, but these things are not simple, and doing something stupid can have pretty bad effects (particularly if you're diabetic). So please be aware of that.