Gorgon

Then I saw that Bioshock was selling 5 to 1 on console vs. PC. And Call of Duty 4 was selling 10 to 1. These are hardcore games, shooters, classic PC audience stuff. Given the difference in install base, I can't believe that there's that big of a difference in who played these games, but I guess there can be in who actually payed for them. Hmm, this would suggest that the idea that piracy is jacking up the prices of games does not hold water, since console games are noticeably more expensive. More likely companies will charge exactly what they can get away, and be sure to hit that ceiling regardless of piracy levels.

The hack was able to get around it, somewhat, I played my pirated game, got bored with it, and when I decided to go back to it a week later, lo and behold, it didn't work anymore. Other versions were a compilation of downloaded game content re arranged and re released, a tall order to complete, but at the time probably the most prestigeous thing you could have your name attached to.

Aren't most Mmogs more or less immune to piracy by the fact that what you are really paying for is your account information, and that practically no hackers bother with online support. Given that there is a 90% profit increase available here, I don't understand why all PC games don't require you to register and authenticate the product online. Just wondering. It didn't work with integrated steam, people were able to get around it, but that hack was like a rite of passage, like cracking the latest version of windows, meaning everyone and their grandmother wanted a go at it. A huge difference from merely mounting a CD image. If all games required the same large effort, and if certain content was only added as you played the game surely it would cut down noticeably.

Well how often do you see sons of monarchs on the front line, they usually get some out of the way duty like navy or reserve officer. Of course they are usually able to capitalise on their education and qualify for something other than front line infantry. Either way, kudos to Harry for doing something other than screwing up.

Don't any of you get sick of replaying games you already know everything there is to know about.

Illustrator is bad because there are only 3 geometry tools, they expect you to build the rest with an impossible little widget that manipulates anchor points. How this became the choice in design I will never understand. Friend of mine tried to wow me by demoing some of the stuff it can do. I can see how it might be useful if you were designing logos or a can of tomatoes, other than that, not really. I have no experience of flash whatsoever, but I take it it can't work with photoshop layers, you really need photoshop for the coloring. Painter (the successor to corel paint) does a real mess of layers, individual brushes will start their own layers and you will have to sort them out when you are deleting part of your work, 80% of the brushes are gimmics you would never use in a million years except for a laugh, and they clutter up the palettes and the useful ones.

The Danish police block IP ranges that contain child porn. I can't say my freedom feels that violated because of it.

Antiviruses can be bypassed these days, it involves destroying part of the native windows file protection and loading a spetial driver at startup. I just had to reinstall everything after I got hit with a rootkit trojan, although using a trojan to plant a virus seems like a complete waste of the effort. I mean you would rather have control of the machine to use for DOS attacks and such, right.

Any of you know of a good program to help you draw geometry for use in 2d art. Photoshop will let you draw a straight line by holding down a button, thats about it. Illustrator is not much better, way too spetialised to be any good for my needs. I need something that will let me create tubes ovals, lines, perspectives etc, without being an engineering tool that takes 5 years to learn to operate.

This guy has some really sexy lines, the rest are ok i guess.

The German used horse to draw artillery and supplies, in fact they weren't anything near fully motorized going into Russia. Cavalry was used mainly to get there, then get off and fight on foot. A horse makes a rather tempting target with a soldier on it.

Many of the points are valid, especially the battle Germany and France have been waging with pentions and wages which are entirely unsustainable in a global market, and yet these underpin the political leadership and will continue to do so in future. We are having a similar debacle in Denmark, the economy is sound and private sector jobs are paying off much more now than public ones, so now the pressure is on for wage increases that are pretty much guaranteed to hurt state finances the next 20 years. Others are not, biotech companies clutter around scandinavia because of the high level of education, and exports are rebounding. Europe is not insular in any sense of the word, except perhaps militarily, but what really does that matter, we have no credible threats to our borders and I propose we can be forgiven for being complacent in that area as long as we lead the field in development aid.

Who's gonna win though democrat or republican, or do polls even matter with that college of cardinals funnybuisiness you are running. ( intentional. )

Thats entirely possible, and an understandable reaction after playing Ranbow Six Vegas.

but the point is that Bungie made a console FPS that WASN'T just a dumbed down PC FPS that you had to had to play with a contoler, it was designed for consoles and most of the indistry now follows the president it set. And so the shooter went down the console drain as well. A depressing history lesson, and a crappy game. All just in my opinion of course.

I tried playing HALO once after several people had told me how awesome it was, after which I concluded that they must have all been on crack.

Gorgon did you read my last post? Guns have never been LESS available in the US than they are today. As I pointed out, 30 years ago any 18 year old could walk into a department store, buy a gun and ammo and load it there on the spot and shoot everyone in sight. But it just did not happn. By blaming it all on the guns you are pinning a fairly recent social phenomenon on an inanimte object that has been readily available to anyone who wanted it for hundreds of years. A gun never killed anyone sitting on a shelf. it is the hand and mind that wields it that is dangerous. If I were to seriously pose the argument that video game violence put the impulses in the shooters head therefore video games are to blame you would laugh at me. You would no doubt argue that video games are inanimate objects that are enjoyed by countless thousands of people who would never hurt a fly. How does that exact same argument not work on guns? I own several and I would not hurt a fly. Ohh guns are not the only problem, far from it, there must be more catalysts at work here, but they are not completely removed from the context as you seem to want to believe, and if availablilty is 'less' but still 'more' than almost everywhere else it doesen't really help that much.

Ohh were back to that bit of nonsense again. Yes, i'm sure the school massacres would have been done with sharpened kiwis regardless. After all a gun is just a tool.

I can't fathom how you all can keep up this collective self hypnosis, and keep repeating in all earnest how the easy availability of guns is not at all connected to the shooting sprees in your schools. Denial is a powerful thing indeed.

They don't make games for true nerds anymore, not after the soccermoms started playing WOW.

Very old news

And theres all those people who have never recieved any kind of professional help for their condition. Being stamped as 'crazy' in some manner of federal database is a strong incentive to stay away.

About 'passive' pedophiles, sexuality and sex drive may not be supressed permanently, and if the only way to act out your sexuality is to violate children there is always going to be a chance that it will happen for real.

1) Give everyone a gun, empower the individual. Fear and survival instinct will nurture people, and the status quo will make people think twice before pulling a weapon. I'm sure the suicidal nutjobs will suddenly start caring about their own survival once they see everyone else has a gun. It would make the gunfights more fair though, but the effects of mandatory gun ownership are incalcuable. Domestic disturbances and drunken brawls would likely wind up like the wild west. I apologise for being unclear. I am rather tired today.* I mean that if we took proper care of people who needed psychiatric care then many of these incidents wouldn't happen. Indeed I would allege that doing so woud prevent more incidents than full gun banning. Not to mention the human benefit of properly caring for loons. Well obviously it would help, but what do you propose practically, the resources needed would have to come from an already dismally ineffective public health care system. A gun ban is a practical solution, but it's not a sacrifice the US is ready to make. So really it's off the table as well.

I don\t understand how a border guard can demand the password. If that happened to me I think I would conveniently forget. In this case i'm glad they found him out though.