Thread: Fairwell CGW

  1. #1
    Registered User VirtualAce's Avatar
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    Fairwell CGW

    Here's to a fantastic 26 year run CGW/GFW.

    Former Computer Gaming World, now Games For Windows, announced that the printed magazine will no longer be available. This news hit home today when my CGW/GFW mag arrived as a PC Gamer mag. Those with ongoing subscriptions for CGW/GFW will now receive PC Gamer till their subscription runs out. CGW/GFW will still be available online at 1UP but without an actual magazine it won't be the same.

    Another gaming icon bites the dust.
    Last edited by VirtualAce; 08-09-2008 at 03:50 PM.

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    Lurking whiteflags's Avatar
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    So does anyone here think that printed media is gonna die?

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    Registered User VirtualAce's Avatar
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    No.

    The internet, IMO, is too widely available and thus suffers serious credibility issues. Knowing which sites to trust and which news stories to trust on the internet is pretty much like playing Russian roulette.

  4. #4
    & the hat of GPL slaying Thantos's Avatar
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    I think parts of paper media will die off. Mainly those that are using for temporial information. So things like newspapers, magazines, etc. I think books will be around for awhile though as people actually like having a physical object for them. In addition a book doesn't require it to be placed in the temporial period that it was written. Heck I remember reading "The President's Plane is Missing" and not realizing until probably a good 2/3 of the way through that it was set about 40-50 years ago. The only thing that gave it away was a reference to using an oven to make a TV dinner.

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    Devil's Advocate SlyMaelstrom's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bubba View Post
    No.

    The internet, IMO, is too widely available and thus suffers serious credibility issues. Knowing which sites to trust and which news stories to trust on the internet is pretty much like playing Russian roulette.
    Yeah, but for how many years now has the printed media as well as the television media been taking stories from the internet, reporting them, and taking no liability when the facts turn sour? There is just as little credibility in the printed media as there is with the internet because so much of the printed media is taken from the internet.

    It's funny... you don't have to go that far back in time to remember a day when nobody got information on stories or facts outside of their local region. Then the internet came along and news became globalized. Now it seems like we've backtracked to the point where we just can't believe any stories that can't be discovered first hand. It seems nothing good can last in this world without someone poisoning the well.
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    Reverse Engineer maxorator's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bubba View Post
    No.

    The internet, IMO, is too widely available and thus suffers serious credibility issues. Knowing which sites to trust and which news stories to trust on the internet is pretty much like playing Russian roulette.
    About the internet - the fact that everyone has access to it gives it more value, you can see things in a wider perspective, you see what different kind of people (not only journalists) and people from different places think about things.

    The true value of printed media is that is easier to read, it feels good to hold the information physically in your hand, you can make notes on it, you can put it in your drawer. And of course that it's usually well organised and compact.

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    Devil's Advocate SlyMaelstrom's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by maxorator View Post
    The true value of printed media is that is easier to read, it feels good to hold the information physically in your hand, you can make notes on it, you can put it in your drawer. And of course that it's usually well organised and compact.
    That's pretty subjective. I couldn't possibly agree that printed media is in any way more "compact" than digital media from a physical standpoint. I mean, how many articles can I fit on a 2GB microSD card?
    Last edited by SlyMaelstrom; 08-10-2008 at 03:54 AM.
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    Reverse Engineer maxorator's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by SlyMaelstrom View Post
    That's pretty subjective. I couldn't possibly agree that printed media is in any way more "compact" than digital media from a physical standpoint. I mean, how many articles can I fit on a 2GB microSD card?
    And then you need a computer to get the information from it...

    That's another reason why digital information isn't always good. It's not human-readable.

  9. #9
    Lurking whiteflags's Avatar
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    >> That's another reason why digital information isn't always good. It's not human-readable.

    Sometimes it's very human readable! HTML and other source code, e-books, and plain text files are all examples.

    I have to agree with Thantos though, there will be a demand for books for a very long time. A lot of max's comments are valid too. I personally love to open up a book after I use the computer screen for several hours in a day. The technology still works!

    I haven't written in a book before, but I've been told to if I'm reading critically, perhaps some people actually do that.

  10. #10
    & the hat of GPL slaying Thantos's Avatar
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    Only time I've written in a book is if it is for learning purposes. If I'm reading a book for entertainment (yes people still do that) then I just read.

    I think maxorator's comment was not that the encoding of it is/is not human readable but the storage of it. I can pickup a book and read it (assuming I know the language) without aid of any other technology. However, I can't pickup an SD card and read the information contained within without the use of technology.

  11. #11
    Disrupting the universe Mad_guy's Avatar
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    The internet more lends itself to misinformation due to the fact under the guise of anonymity, anybody can say they are an expert, or, at the very least, sound like one. This is the reason many people will not accept wikipedia as a credible source in e.g. research papers. There is too much of an opening for misinformation to come up. This is not meant to say that wikipedia is not right on many things, but in many cases it might not cover the whole issue, it can be discreetly edited to avert critical information, it can be biased and, worse is, that anybody can do such a thing. Wikipedia has citations for lots of stuff and many people religiously fix up articles, but in many cases (especially not high-ranking or controversial articles) things can easily slip through the cracks.

    See Poe's Law.

    Printed stuff on the other hand is more generally left in the hands of those who are not anonymous and therefore have more at stake, in most cases, it is their job to do such research and report on it. This is not to say that there is not misguided or simply wrong things published in printed material. It happens, but generally the research guiding the information is going to be more concrete and left in the hands of professionals, not just some guy who uses the internet and thinks he knows what he's talking about (lets face it: it's hard for people to admit they are flat out wrong sometimes and they will fight it no matter how ridiculous the stance.)

    In the case of a gaming or computer magazine, much of it *is* left to opinion, so you can argue and fight it all you want (I've come across a lot of reviews that simply came across as stupid or missing the point myself.) In other areas though, it is not so subjective and printed material will probably have more viable backing and be done by someone more knowledgeable.

    Of course, this is all somewhat meaningless since it varies so greatly from topic to topic and many people are of the opinion that 'all generalizations are wrong,' but that's just about the way I see it and I don't think I'm alone on this stance when I say generally the internet has a lot of crap on it, anybody can contribute to it and anybody can be fooled by it. Printed material is typically done by people who are simply better equipped and more seasoned to talk on the subject (and I don't want to hear bullcrap conspiracy theories about how it's all a trick and the government edits it to make it all seem real and all that other stuff about how you're a sheep and whatever other nonsense.)

    That's pretty subjective. I couldn't possibly agree that printed media is in any way more "compact" than digital media from a physical standpoint. I mean, how many articles can I fit on a 2GB microSD card?
    And then you need a computer to get the information from it...
    This is what we call a non-sequitur.

    I haven't written in a book before, but I've been told to if I'm reading critically, perhaps some people actually do that.
    I had to do it pretty regularly when writing research papers in my HS senior english class; my teacher wanted almost all of our books marked pretty heavily.
    Last edited by Mad_guy; 08-10-2008 at 02:37 PM.
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  12. #12
    Devil's Advocate SlyMaelstrom's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by maxorator View Post
    And then you need a computer to get the information from it...
    And how much space does that take? I mean, in today's world where the top selling form of computer is designed around the concept of a notebook, what's to argue about? Right now, I'm typing this on a notebook that in terms of length and width is no bigger than a standard magazine and maybe three times the thickness. One of these and a handful of those microSD cards and I got my entire local library in my backpack.

    Now, as I said... the feeling that a book feels better to read is subjective. While many will agree, I personally do not. I generally have trouble finding a comfortable position to read a book and would much rather read a digital version from a computer screen.

    Anyway, not to deviate greatly from topic, I thought I never read Computer Gaming World, but just last night I had dug through my boxes of periodicals to find that I owned three editions. Was a good magazine if I can recall reading these.
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  13. #13
    & the hat of GPL slaying Thantos's Avatar
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    However, what happens when the technology is removed? We've all seen what can happen during a natural diaster. Sure you can run your notebook on batteries for a time, but if there is no power to recharge them then the laptop just becomes a giant paperweight. IMO manuals for vital equipment need to be in both forms. When I worked on a telephone switchboard I used the searchable PDFs 99.9% of the time. But I made sure I knew how to find the vital stuff in the hard copies just in case.

    One thing that books have over digital format is a long lifespan. Your CD, SD card, etc isn't going to be uncorrupted 100 years from now. Hell even if it manage to remain uncorrupted the likelyhood that someone could easily retrieve the data from it is unlikely.

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