gunnergoz

Whatever else you can say about these CEO's, they sure have big brass ones while the sheep in Washington try to cast about for a pair between them.

Oh, I don't know about that...my wife used to be an Aeroflot stew; she just loves airplanes and damn near has me pull over the car anytime anthing bigger than a gnat is seen in the air over San Diego. Her favorite spot downtown is where she can watch planes coming into Lindbergh Field over the city high rises. Loves airshows, too. Guess I'm lucky!

One more dried up old skeleton falls out of the musty closet and into the daylight...

Whatever else may be the cause for this trend, it is clear that not many companies see their employees as being any component of success and thus not worth rewarding to the degree they reward the CEO's.

I think these guys are behind the Wall Street mess...

This sort of tripe has been the stuff of Russian nationalists' wet dreams for years. They wish! They really are, for the most part, not very well schooled on American society and politics. Economics is a different thing - I had a Russian banker friend asking me almost 3 years ago about the implications of the coming American housing finance market collapse. He saw it long before the geniuses on Wall Street and Pennsylvania Avenue ever figured out what was happening. So some of them understand our economics pretty well. The real problem is that, even with this knowledge, they still haven't figured out the "American character." They know our science, our business techniques, our military secrets and probably who is sleeping with whom in Washington - but they still haven't "grokked" the U.S.A. (thanks, Mr. Heinlein.) But this drivel does serve a purpose over there, in the usual role of giving the media and the politicians something else to focus upon while their own economy goes into the sewer and their governance by law is ground under the heels of Putin and his followers.

Got lots o' mates, just no game-mates! Never acquired the taste for all that multiplayer stuff. Bah! Humbug!

Let's hope good old Kenji doesn't find one of these in the mail someday soon... http://www.muckflash.com/?p=236 He might find other ways to "vocalize his love" with that little goodie.

Yeah, that's fine for online multi-players, but it does nothing for the likes of me who don't play anything except the AI.

The things that traditionally cause conflict are usually related to the unequal distribution of wealth, freedom and power. Equalizing education, maximizing individual opportunity to prosper and avoiding the accumulation of all the wealth and power in the hands of a minority elite, are all good ways to make for a more enduring, equitable society. A rational populace should normally elect more rational leaders. Such leaders should be able to work out the issues related to climatological change and energy resources; issues that would otherwise be another source of conflict if left unresolved. Do that across many nations and we should see considerable reduction in conflicts.

Hear, hear! I'm also hearing from other sources that some players are managing to unlock the "special" extra-cost units, without having purchased the "upgraded" version of the game. That's going to boil someone's cabbage, if true.

I rest my case. (It was getting heavy anyway.)

Well, I appreciate the positive comments being made too. I guess I'm just a reactionary: I like having the game on my drive and not having the computer sending info out of my PC about what I'm doing. "They" already know too damn much already...why do I have to be logged on? OK - the EULA says I don't own it - but they don't own my PC either. Guess I'm going to miss out on a lot of games if this crap keeps being popular with developers.

Moon, et al, thanks for a very interesting and informative discussion. I'm not sure I could have had this sort of discussion (certainly one including a major developer personage like Moon is - ) on any other developer's forums. That's why this place is and will be my forum home for as long as it is here for me. Perhaps my pique over Steam is overblown (no pun intended) and perhaps I need to re-think it. Now I've some opinions to refer back to that matter to me. Thanks, guys!

I just posted my last on a forum for a game (ETW) that required STEAM to register and operate. I had waited for this game for a long time - tried the demo, tried STEAM, and decided not to buy, despite my enthusiasm for the title and eagerness to purchase the product. I really detest systems like this that require me to run something in the background. Worse still if they require me to log on to use software I already purchased. I can see logging in to a company's servers once, to register the product, confirm the S/N and to then start the game and enter the S/N. But that's all that I expect to have to do. I don't want to have to be online to play a game, or to have to do all sorts of stuff to transfer a game from one computer to the other. Intrusion is intrusion. Purchase is purchase. Ownership is ownership. And enough is enough. I don't engage in criminal behavior and don't want to be treated as if I will do so or already have done so. I don't think I'm being unreasonable but I welcome a discussion of this topic. I'd love to hear from anyone from BFC about their thoughts on this too.

Cool Michael, thanks.

I already deleted the demo. I'll never buy from people using a DRM system, especially with attitudes like these folks; no matter what is wrong, it's the customer's fault.

We have a house guest right now, a Russian lady from Siberia, where she lives on the Amur River. She found Southern California cold! But I think that is because she is out of her element, probably a bit under-dressed, expecting Summer while it is still wintery for us...windbreaker and sweater weather. Once she started wearing layers again, she stopped complaining. They are big on layers. I've seen her and her kids in teleconferences using Skype, after coming home in mid-winter back in Siberia, and it looks like it takes them 10 minutes just to get down to their house clothes, they have on so many layers.

Some people have waaay too much time on their hands... (said with ill-concealed jealousy).

Voted Most Pointless Thread In A While

Just be sure that your PC's power supply can handle a second hard drive without too much load or heat buildup.

The complaint came out of France - what else need I say?

I'd go with putting the new drive in to replace the old internal drive, and placing the latter into an enclosure as an external. You want fastest possible access to your primary drive and the internal is the way to achieve that. The external, older, drive can be accessed for its data more slowly without affecting overall PC functionality.

I wasn't being cynical...hopeful is more like it.

Nice. Maybe they'll come to the USA too and provide medications for the ordinary folk who can't afford health insurance or meds.