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monkeysuncle83

Listed below are comments made by monkeysuncle83 between Friday, 31st October 2008 and Wednesday, 28th January 2009.

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'Addicted' to Warcraft? 12:24pm on 28 Jan 2009 Just to chime in, I've been playing world of warcraft for 3 years now. I'm not obsessed with reaching the highest levels or ranks. I take my time, enjoy the social aspect and help the noobies get acclimatized, it gives me a warm glow. If I've got something better to do in the real world I won't play, similarly if there's nothing on the telly and I've got some free time and haven't got a book on the go I'll log on and have a couple of hours fun. Also a stern look from my girlfriend is more than enough to dissuade me logging on, computer fan she ain't!

My little brother had been watching me playing and had decided he wanted to give it a go. First thing I did was tell our parents and talked them through setting up all of the parental controls. World of warcraft is now seen as only something he can play if he's done his homework, cleaned his room ect. Fair enough he goes on it more at weekends but that's mixed in with taking the dogs for a walk in the woods and other activities.

My point is that there is a lot built in to World of Warcraft and other MMORPG's to tailor it to suite your needs. Just lately a link to parental controls has been put on the loader trying to make it more visible but maybe there should maybe be something on the box, highlighting parents to this service because most children probably get it and then dissappear for weeks only resurfacing to go to the toilet and eat.

I've never known anyones parent to read the box or instruction manual of a game. I wouldn't suggest moving a computer into a childs bedroom either, it's better to keep it in the living room so you can monitor their time on it. The buck stops at the parents and family, the tools are available it's just that they don't get used nearly enough.
Dear Andy, can we talk? 5:22pm on 12 Jan 2009 @16 Gurubear
I think that everyone knows what is and is not acceptable and I think you are right to point out that by defending freedom of speech in such an unreasonable fashion almost gives a defence to those sections of the internet that don't deserve it aiding them and therefore making the idea of censoring child pornography unthinkable or indefensable on some wierd obtuse level. So kudos to you for pointing out a very important flaw in the whole "I may not like what you look at on the internet but we defend your right to view it"

I think what I do abject to though is the idea that it would be our government who would get to pick and choose what would be censored. I don't feel confortable with the government or any other organisation who could be biased or corrupted censoring what they or powers higher decide is worthy of a censor, without it all being in the public domain and the process being completely transparant. How would we know what had been censored? Explicit images of children, sure that's a given. Document highlighing labor spin? who knows, it was censored so we'd never see it. Civilian casualties in Iraq, some one may have decided that it was in our best interests to remove it.

And aren't the IWF http://www.iwf.org.uk already doing this job? Why do we need the government to do the same job at an increased cost? Maybe the government should give this well meaning organisation increased funding or more powers? Surely the cost of any proposed new system could be given to them to help with thier thankless task? Surely thier staff are already trained up and know the web like the back of thier collective hands.

Rory have you heard anything back from Mr Burnham? I notice his silence on the matter says an awful lot...
Phorm: Opt-in or opt-out? 5:20pm on 22 Dec 2008 A very interesting discussion CabSavLane, looks like we have more than just phorm to be wary of now, oh joy. I personally would not trust a company that edits out unfavourable comments from a wikipedia entry. And to think they'll be deciding which ads are in 'my best interest'

From wikipedia-
In early 2008 Phorm admitted editing the Phorm article on Wikipedia. Phorm admitted removing a quotation from The Guardian's commercial executives describing the opposition they have towards its tracking system, and deleting a passage explaining how BT admitted misleading customers over covert Phorm trials in 2007. These changes were quickly noticed by Wikipedia editors who reversed deletions made by Phorm. [67]

[67] ^ Chris Williams (2008-04-08). "Phorm admits 'over zealous' editing of Wikipedia article", The Register. "Send in the clowns"
Copyright - the empire strikes back 4:23pm on 22 Dec 2008 Firstly let me get this out of the way, Does anyone think that Andy Burnham has very strange eyes and eyebrows?

I don't think anyone would demand free music from a musician, art from an artist or a novel from a writer. Every one understands that hard work deserves to be rewarded and if I thought for a moment that every penny of that £15 cd was going straight to the writers, producers, audio techs and performers of the music I was going to listen to then I wouldn't think twice of joining the 'down with pirates' brigade, but it doesn't.

There are so many people who take thier cut that it just gets silly. And although there are a few of these who ARE neccesary for promoting artists ect much of the money goes to those who aren't really thinking about the artists and are instead involved in getting the shareholders thier returns.

And that is why P2P networks will continue to exist. People don't want to support these music factories any more. The output lately hasn't been great and they now have a choice in how they can consume thier music and apart from a select few online services these new streams cut out those angry little men in thier ivory towers and they aren't happy about it.

When we see more examples of successful artists supporting other newer talent outside of the grips of the Big boys then I think we will see more support in terms of cold hard cash, but until then I can't see anyone paying a record company and shop(Because that's where the money goes according to the beeb herself http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/onemusic/general/moneygoep01.shtml ) over getting something for nothing. They only have themselves to blame by not being quick enough to embrace this technology and every time they demonise the pirate yoof I can imagine the poor guy at Sony PR having a mild panic attack, he certainly earns his cut...
Two days in PC World 11:29am on 19 Dec 2008 I must admit that I agree with Mark_MWFC's last paragraph. The support and ease of use of the windows operating system is by and large a good experience especially for someone with little or no knowledge and 'out-of-the-box" it does what the majority of computer users want it to do and supports tha majority of hardware and software that this user base is likely to use. That is the market that Microsoft cater for and unless windows stops catering for them it will remain that way and why should they look for another product to do things they would never use? For the kind of person who doesn't read these boards or is new to computing I can bet the only two names they are familiar with are "Microsoft" and "Apple" I would love to see a Linux ad but why advertise something that's free? "I'm a Mac", "Well I'm a P.C. ha ha" "WEll, em I'm a penguin!?"
Two days in PC World 12:16pm on 18 Dec 2008 @ cynicaleng, I'm in total agreement, there should be a choice at the point of sale and you should be able to get a reduction in the cost of the machine if you want it free of any OS. In any other industry this monopoly at point of sale would have been picked to pieces by the OFT. I mean imagine if when you bought a TV you HAD to have sky, instead of being able to choose freeview. If more information and choice was offered to consumers by shop sales staff there would be more healthy competion and Microsoft wouldn't get away with being the sluggish behemoth it is today. If competion only means we get a better more streamlined, standards compliant windows with all the benefits of a Unix based system then that is still an improvement from the situation we are in now. However my rose tinted specs aren't that powerful....
Phorm: Opt-in or opt-out? 4:46pm on 17 Dec 2008 I've just had a thought, If a computer has many users will the 'enhanced browsing experience' be tailored for every user or will all users recieve the same adverts?

For instance dad looks at cars, brother guitars, uncle pornography and little sister ponies. You can imagine the problems this would cause with inapropriete targeted advertising especially if there are no users set up and everyone is using the same login. Or will adult sites be given special rights to opt out some how? You can choose which tracking you want?

As NoPhormPlease@2 quite rightly said, just too many unanswered questions....
Is it safe to Explore? 3:25pm on 17 Dec 2008 Oh I do love this discussion, I'm sure it comes around at least twice a month.
Just a few points to make. The majority of people who never change browser are people who are new to computing, the "PC World crowd". I think it is important for people to be made aware of the competition available to them from the off. You get a choice of monitor size, dvd or bluray? but not OS/browser set up or office/open office? Due to the restrictive IT work practices at most public places and in offices it means that people probably won't come into contact with firefox/opera whilst at work or browsing in the library for example. I mean everyone is aware of all the different makes of second hand cars and the choice they have but are unwilling or just not shown the goods in the around in the "PC Showroom". Choice must be promoted and the consumer must make it their first priority to RESEARCH before buying a computer. If the sales person just sends them on thier way with a heap of underperforming junk and a sluggish OS than I think that 'expert' is letting the customer down.
E3 gets set for gaming 11:45am on 03 Nov 2008 Bloofs

I couldn't agree more with your point about the ease of use of consoles. I recently picked up a dirt cheap PS2 so I could play god of war 2 and a few other games that never made it to my expensive grey box and I can safely say that it is the most reliable (It's been accidentally yanked off of a table and didn't complain) and easy to use piece of kit i've ever had the pleasure of using. A real breath of fresh air compared to the regular headaches I get from my PC. I can't say anything of the next gen consoles as I haven't played around with them much.

However, saying that I think there are still some advantages to the PC that I haven't seen come over to the consoles yet but when they do it'll be harder to stay loyal to the PC. The scalability of games for the PC is a god send. My PC won't be at the pinnacle of PC gaming forever and as I slip behind the 'top specs' I can scale games settings back to make them still playable and still keep them pretty. There are also config files, batch files and all sorts of methods of squeezing something extra (in Oblivions case making it better looking than originally) out of an ageing system keeping a game within a respectable fps while still looking gorgeous.
Also the modding aspect of some games for the PC is sometimes unbelievable when the tools are made available. STALKER for pc is hardly recognisable compared to the unoptimized quirky beast that was released, it was fixed primarily by the community. Depending on what mods you have active Oblivion has all sorts of extras and improvments open to it as does almost every other game around today. Heaven knows what will be about for Fallout 3 or GTA IV this time next year.
But as I said when the consoles start to enable and embrace this sort of customization to the software then the advantages that PC gamers have enjoyed for so long will make it a harder choice to make between that new £200 graphics card or a whole system/entertainment hub/blue ray player for just £150 more that doesn't complain even half as much and has all the same benefits.
The cost of Warcraft 4:06pm on 31 Oct 2008 I have a 10gb connection and I'll be lucky to reach that. Not because I don't use it but that my ISP limits me to 16kbs every night between 6pm and 11ish it makes it near enough impossible to download anything bigger than a couple of meg without making me pull my hair out.
Having trawled the internet it's the same story for a lot of people on my 'deal' and the reason garnered from customer support? They do it to so that everyone can experience the internet at a fair speed. I wouldn't have a problem with that if it were true and everyone was limited to a respectable 2 meg but they can't tell me that reducing a connection that regularly performs at 4-5mbs to 16kbs is anything but unfair. Luckily I'm not locked into any contract so I'm now shopping around and examining as much small print as my brain can possibly interpret.

Also a few small points, when my connection dips to 16kbs World of Warcraft does indeed become unplayable. Rendering the game is one thing but when those gnomes start walking past you in strobe it's anything but fun. And although I love World of warcraft to bits nothing beats blowing up a helicopter with a biffa bin like in Crysis. I love discussing world of warcraft and critizising it's faults but they have there own forums for such textual sparring so I won't abuse Rories...

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