Comments on: PC – The Subscription Platform

By: I HAS PC » Skills Baby

I HAS PC » Skills Baby — Mon, 25 May 2009 13:26:58 +0000

[...] is still modded and updated since pickens’ are slim for us PC sports gamers. Some are just skipping the PC altogether now. So after reading a few reviews about 2K9 I decided to give it a shot – although I have had my [...]

By: Turning Back Time « Tish Tosh Tesh

Turning Back Time « Tish Tosh Tesh — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 04:40:59 +0000

[...] just aren’t for me”, but if the industry is going to have a dalliance with the subscription/verification model, these are valid concerns trying to decide where to aim for future game [...]

By: Tesh

Tesh — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 04:40:08 +0000

Interesting corollary to the "90% thievery" guesstimation: World of Goo piracy rate

By: Chris F

Chris F — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 14:19:38 +0000

@Cap’n: My uncle was a higher upper with Commodore back in the day so I was ALWAYS on the BLEEDING EDGE with Commodore products. Tape drive? I had it FIRST! I am good like that. He probably had to go find a new job because of the piracy that I participated in back then. I should probably call him and apologize.

By: Capn John

Capn John — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 14:07:55 +0000

Alright, alright! I’ll admit it! I’m a former owner of a Vic-20, and yes, it was when all my friends had C64s

It wasn’t until my friends had Amiga 500s that I upgraded…to a C64, of course

By: Chris F

Chris F — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 12:59:12 +0000

@Cap’n: LMAO. I had a VIC 20 first, then a C64, and yeah, in the same boat (although I had completely forgotten about it)

By: Cap'n John

Cap'n John — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 02:45:58 +0000

I fondly recall my Commodore 64 days, where the average C64 owner had at least one shoebox-sized case filled with floppies of copied games…and maybe 5 legitimate games.

Everyone I knew loved what the C64 could do, but none of us realized our boxes of floppies were probably the biggest reason Commodore was forced to bow out of the home PC market.

I’d have to agree with PT5 about the 9/10 employees taking advantage of their employer. Is it stealing to bring home a stapler, hole punch, box of pens, ream of paper? If you keep it/them, absolutely. Am I guilty of doing just that? Yes, yes I am.

By: Chris F

Chris F — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 00:38:58 +0000

@Pt5: That right there proves my point that pirating is as much about opportunity as it is about “stealing”. So, your bet, let me guess – you are willing to put $2000 down on it? =)

By: Tesh

Tesh — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 23:47:42 +0000

Sounds to me like stealing from parents, but maybe I read that wrong.

By: Plead_the_5th

Plead_the_5th — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 22:06:15 +0000

A long time ago, in a place of employment far, far away, my Boss (a horrible man, a sentiment shared by not just me but pretty much all of his employees) had a contract with a couple of local schools to supply the text books the students needed for that year. The catch was the parents needed to order the supplies through my Boss’s store, so he stood to make a lot of money out of this deal. We’re talking well over 1,000 orders for books, stationery, etc, with each order being (IIRC) $200 or more. And when the books arrived I was put in charge of serving the parents and keeping the lines moving.

As the day progressed and I rang up transaction after transaction, hundreds of dollars in cold, hard cash passed through my hands into my register…and a thought entered my mind. An evil little thought. This particular Mom, this one right here. She just gave me $200 in cash to pay for a $180 order (as an example). How easy it would be to ring it up as a $150 transaction, while still giving the Mom her correct change. And later, when I balance my Till, I’ll be $30 over. That’s $30 for me. And how easy would it be to do it for another transaction. And how easy would it be if I’m really busy to just leave the drawer open and not even ring up a transaction here and there. And so I did.

When I balanced the Till that night I appeared to be almost $1,000 over. I counted and double-checked, then I took out the $1,000 (or so) and recounted and rebalanced…and now I was good. I discretely slid the “extra” cash into my pocket, completed the balance, then took my till drawer to the Boss’s office and slid it into his Safe. I waved goodbye to the evening shift clerks, left the store, walked down the road to my bank and, like an idiot, promptly used the ATM to deposit almost $1,000 in cash into my account.

The next day at work as more Moms came in I repeated my trick, confident I would once again have a nice little bonus waiting for me at the end of the day. Then midway through the morning the Boss’s wife called me into their office. Yes, to discuss my Till balance from the night before. Apparently I was a hundred dollars or so off. I was sweating bullets, but I’ve got an innocent face and because my Boss was such an arrogant prick he assumes everyone else is stupid; that includes us, his employees, which is just one of the many reasons we despised him. So I was able to play dumb and act bewildered quite convincingly. I said that while I was closing out the night before a couple of Moms had come in to pick up their orders, so that may have messed up my count. And they bought it.

That evening when I balanced my Till I was once again $1,000 or so over, but this time I triple checked my counting and calculations. I made dead fucking sure my Till balanced correctly this time, and again I pocketed another $1,000 which also got deposited into my bank via the ATM. Had my Boss suspected I was stealing from him and got a court order to check my bank account, I’d have been fucked, but he didn’t. And that was the second & last day I ripped him off…except when I quit, when I helped myself to a couple of really nice $100 ballpoint pens as a “retirement” present. Who the fuck uses $100 pens? I do

I’d be willing to bet good money that 9 out of 10 employees would steal from their boss if they thought they could get away with it.