Writing a server is nothing to sneeze at either, especially without specs! Eve Online has an emulator but after much work (years?), all the developer can do is fly between planets.:( Forget massive space battles. A team tried to do a Star Wars Galaxy emulator, but it never got past the bickering stage.:( Besides EQEMU, nothing. Guess everyone else who decides to do write does it commercially. It'd be easier (and far more profitable) to write from scratch..
Funny that with the huge interest in MMPOGs there's been little open source / hobbyist activity. There are plenty of DMs/3d artists/DnD players who could provide material. Guess most people would rather be playing them that writing them. EQ is considered old hat these days, but maybe when the word gets around?
How about a:.spam domain for spammers.squat domain for domain squatters.spybots domain for RIAA and MPAA searchbots.pr0n for sex sites (Congress won't realize what it is so won't ban it like.xxx).massmedia for press releases and interviews with spin doctors.monopoly domain for ICANN and VeriSign
This has to be the dumbest articles to ever come from ComputerWorld.
Think every single poster we've seen here has agreed how his list of mostly good tools, and it does seem targeted against tools that target ads and privacy. There *are* many dumb Firefox extensions he could have covered (like the 'make us your portal' ones) that he didn't. But really, how stupid does he think we are? Anyone even remotely tech savvy will see through his 'list'. Who is this guy anyway? His bio doesn't exactly shine out from the crowd:
> Peter Smith is a Web developer and freelance writer with > a special interest in personal technology and digital entertainment.
Web developer = my 6 year old is also a web developer. freelance = mostly unemployed. special interest = means nothing. personal technology = he owns an iPod. digital entertainment = he watches movies, not at the cinema, but straight off a DVD. Hey Computerworld and your mass media cohorts: print crap articles like this and the Bloggers will eat you alive.
> lobbying California legislators for an exemption to proposed legislation that would outlaw pretexting.
Well why not? These guys already write in the DRM and Copyright extension laws for Congress. Right now everyday they break into tens and maybe hundreds of thousands of people's computers(*) to snoop around in the hope they might find you've got something of theirs. If you or I did this, we'd be sitting in a jail cell that has 'Kevin' scratched into the wall.
Was commenting more on the number of legal stories. I just want to write code, man:
"Bobby, can I use a linked list for a one-click web site?" "No Daddy, they're patented. And don't try a triple linked list. They're patented too" "But Bobby, a patent must be novel, obvious and useful!" "Don't get my started Daddy. I still have to read my RIAA Preschooler Education Kit. Say that CD has a Sharpie Label. Bad Daddy, Bad!"
Had some colleagues who headed over to China for contracts. When they came back, they said the place is so chronically polluted, there's a huge gap between the happy rich and the very pissed off poor, and the Communist Party is panicking and frantically trying to hold it all together. It's like the big Japan panic of the 1980s that turned into a fizzle. China's not going anywhere.
Squatting sucks, but I don't think Verisign are doing this as a move against squatters. They'd didn't even *try* and use that excuse. They said they need the extra cash to "improve security and reliability".
The real reason: It's a fair bet they did it because they can. Extra money. No loss of business. Compliant Politicians. Docile Public. Why not go for the gold?
This isn't going to drive a single squatter out of business. 7% increase in registry prices? Buddy of mine bought a 3 letter.com domain for a five figure sum. "Cost of doing business" he said, and he's profitable to boot.
Another thing: most of the "squatters" are the registrars themselves. They don't have to pay when they register the domain. There is a grace period of something like 5 days, so they register thousands upon thousands. They're those thinnish google ad pages you see when you mistype a domain. After 5 days, they yank them and reissue them. Here's Godaddy complaining about it (maybe because he didn't think of it first) but if ICANN cared about squatting or anything else, surely they wouldn't allow this?
BTW It's not the 42c. It's the $6 already that's the ripoff. For $340M *p.a* from.com alone, must be enough in there for a new server farm every year and then some. For-profit monopolies suck for consumers.
VeriSign sold them off. They're now an independent registrar and here's what your favorite registrar said about VeriSign. From the Article:
"I have no objection to VeriSign's continuing to run the.com registry," said W.G. Mitchell, CEO of Network Solutions (which split from VeriSign in 2003). "What I do have is an objection to it being done in a manner that gives a perpetual monopoly to a company with unregulated price increases."
Currently GoDaddy is charging $6.95 at the moment for new domains, but $6 of that is going to VeriSign. One of these has a government monopoly. The other doesn't and has to price competitively, yet manages to run a profitable business out of it.
The Ripoff is that this cozy deal adds up to $340M a year just for the.com names. A few posters say $6 a year isn't much, so we should stop complaining. Personally I'd rather have that money in my pocket than VeriSigns. If those posters don't think $6 is nothing, I'll gladly bill them an additional $6 per domain name for my "BGLC Internet Oversight Authority". Cough up. (I have to wonder about people who take the time to comment on Slashdot that they they *LIKE* paying VeriSign fees.)
Politicians play this game. They'll frown, bang the desk and promise investigations. After the hearing they'll frown some more and deliver voter-empathic sound bites. It all makes great theater and makes them look great. But once the camera is turned off it's same old, same old. Politicians, who could have the power, could stop pretty much anything tomorrow. They let their buddies milk money out of the public for as long as possible, and transition to the next scam before the heat gets too hot. We smile and take it. If they're lucky the worst that happens is we throw our hands up in the air and say 'Well, watchya going to do anyway?' And it works.
The article says "Momma lied, you're not special, MySpace friends aren't really your friends and the people watching you on YouTube are laughing at you, not with you"
For some people, that's a rupture in the space-time fabric.
No wonder they would rather read something else:-)
If you didn't know any better, "Shaped" could be something good. Like all those technology buzzwords they stick next to things in electronic retail catalogs. A more accurate word would be "Slowed".;-)
Dialup modems were 56Kbps, but only old timers would remember that. Optus' worst shaping is 28.8kbps, so it's actually worse! Everyone else is at least 64Kbps. Just enough for email and light web browsing. The forums on whirlpool.net.au suggest shaping is just a way to cripple users until they get sick of it and subscribe to a more expensive plan.
Now this time Bill Gates really has gone too far: King Gates III! The Brits would never buy it! On the other hand we could see increased coverage of Microsoft in the British Tabloid Press and I'd like to see Steve Balmer try to throw a throne.
"CCTV cameras that tell off people dropping litter or committing anti-social behaviour are to be extended to 20 areas across England."
Will one of those be Buckingham Palace? "Oooi! Prince Harry! Put out that fatty!" Follow a recent royal tradition "Pardon Guvnor! That lady most certainly is not your wife!" Or "Horses *must* be housed in the stable! Oh sorry, 'Mam"
Realistically: One of the guards will leave the loudspeaker on: "Cor Blimey! Check out the norks on that bird. Would love to get me some of that crumpet!"
Optus shapes at 28.8Kbps (Aussie ISP's call it 'shaping' because that sounds so much sexier than the alternative, or perhaps they should call it 'screwed to 28.8Kbps'). The sad and funny thing is that Joe Public has no idea what 28.8Kpbs or 'shaping' means. I've had naive n00bs tell me they're on an Unlimited plan when they are infact shaped. One friend was getting shaped and she didn't realize it: just said the Internet must 'get slow when it's busy.'
TPG shapes to 64/128Kbps depending on your plan. You can get it shaped to 256Kbps, but that's the very expensive plan.
All Aussie ISPs do it. The communications infrastructure in this country sucks. When I was in Japan recently and I saw 100Mbps true Unlimited for $40 a month, I wept.
Shaping sucks. It really, really sucks. 'Clever Country' my ass (arse)?
Cool. Now lets get the corporate regulators to declare any company that makes more than $5M per annum must be engaged in illegal, misleading, predatory, anti-consumer, fake-accounting, shareholder-deceptive practices. Verizon.
> By the way, are the bottom-of-page MOTD's getting most and more surreal or what? > Right now I'm getting "Did YOU find a DIGITAL WATCH in YOUR box of VELVEETA?". > Didn't Slashdot use to have Knuth quotes and shit down there?
The truth is, I and many others only read Slashdot for the MOTD quotes. The articles are something I quickly scroll through with my mouse. I like to think of them as sort of 'editorial advertising'. However you are right. Ever since Zippy (I believe that is Zippy the Pinhead) has gone up the rankings my own discourse has deteriorated from urbane wit to CAPS LOCK HUMOR, which can only end up as a career writing Nigerian Spams.
Now in an effort to ward off the impending (-1: Offtopic) I better add something useful to this debate:
The world has changed. Probably for the worse, but changed nonetheless. Can't wind it back. Educators use essays for marking because it's easier and in today's money-making univer$ity degree factories its mass production. But job interviewers don't choose candidates using essays, and maybe neither should teachers. If you want to know if someone knows their stuff, sit down and talk to them. Ask them questions on the fly. If they can't give you an answer or at least how they'd go about determining an answer, they're making it up as they go. Essays aren't all bad: They let the students learn how to do research and write papers. As the OP article says, that's not 'unuseful'(*) either. If the teacher can still interview them about their paper afterwards, and asks them some hard questions, they'll get a better idea. Then (and this is the best part) judge them on their oral argument defending their essay. That way if the essay is (copied and) briliant but their defense lacks, they still lose without the hassle of the teacher having to call them a cheat. And if even by copying and pasting they've learned enough to defend it anyway, then they should pass anyway. It does cost Universities more one-on-one teacher and student time. Maybe that's a good thing?
(*) 'unuseful' was quoted to stave off the Grammar Ninja. You know who you are.
Hey thanks for that ShooterNeo! I'll give it a shot. (hey: that pun was unintentional:-) Failing that manufacturers are producing AGP cards again so a shiny new ATI card is now an option.
Slashdot Mirror
Writing a server is nothing to sneeze at either, especially without specs! Eve Online has an emulator but after much work (years?), all the developer can do is fly between planets. :( Forget massive space battles. A team tried to do a Star Wars Galaxy emulator, but it never got past the bickering stage. :( Besides EQEMU, nothing. Guess everyone else who decides to do write does it commercially. It'd be easier (and far more profitable) to write from scratch..
:)
Funny that with the huge interest in MMPOGs there's been little open source / hobbyist activity. There are plenty of DMs/3d artists/DnD players who could provide material. Guess most people would rather be playing them that writing them. EQ is considered old hat these days, but maybe when the word gets around?
There is *some* content for EQ EMu:
http://www.shardsofdalaya.com/
http://www.projecteq.net/
Or you can just pay Blizzard their monthly fee and beat up teenagers.
Blizzard is probably real worried that someone will do something like this:
w owressources.free.fr/tutorial_wad_en.phpt e_World_of_Warcraft_server_
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EQEmu
Terrible is those $ub$cription$ were to dry up, eh? I'm not sure if this is real though:
http://web.archive.org/web/20050323031230/http://
http://digg.com/gaming_news/Create_your_own_priva
How about a: .spam domain for spammers .squat domain for domain squatters .spybots domain for RIAA and MPAA searchbots .pr0n for sex sites (Congress won't realize what it is so won't ban it like .xxx) .massmedia for press releases and interviews with spin doctors .monopoly domain for ICANN and VeriSign
This has to be the dumbest articles to ever come from ComputerWorld.
Think every single poster we've seen here has agreed how his list of mostly good tools, and it does seem targeted against tools that target ads and privacy. There *are* many dumb Firefox extensions he could have covered (like the 'make us your portal' ones) that he didn't. But really, how stupid does he think we are? Anyone even remotely tech savvy will see through his 'list'. Who is this guy anyway? His bio doesn't exactly shine out from the crowd:
> Peter Smith is a Web developer and freelance writer with
> a special interest in personal technology and digital entertainment.
Web developer = my 6 year old is also a web developer. freelance = mostly unemployed. special interest = means nothing. personal technology = he owns an iPod. digital entertainment = he watches movies, not at the cinema, but straight off a DVD. Hey Computerworld and your mass media cohorts: print crap articles like this and the Bloggers will eat you alive.
> lobbying California legislators for an exemption to proposed legislation that would outlaw pretexting.
Well why not? These guys already write in the DRM and Copyright extension laws for Congress. Right now everyday they break into tens and maybe hundreds of thousands of people's computers(*) to snoop around in the hope they might find you've got something of theirs. If you or I did this, we'd be sitting in a jail cell that has 'Kevin' scratched into the wall.
(*) = Try this: Load PeerGuardian 2 from http://phoenixlabs.org/ and watch them come!
Was commenting more on the number of legal stories. I just want to write code, man:
"Bobby, can I use a linked list for a one-click web site?"
"No Daddy, they're patented. And don't try a triple linked list. They're patented too"
"But Bobby, a patent must be novel, obvious and useful!"
"Don't get my started Daddy. I still have to read my RIAA Preschooler Education Kit. Say that CD has a Sharpie Label. Bad Daddy, Bad!"
Oh for the days when Programmers didn't need to double major in Law.
> Why? Doesn't Google do enough?
:-)
Call them up and ask for "Brand Dilution"
Had some colleagues who headed over to China for contracts. When they came back, they said the place is so chronically polluted, there's a huge gap between the happy rich and the very pissed off poor, and the Communist Party is panicking and frantically trying to hold it all together. It's like the big Japan panic of the 1980s that turned into a fizzle. China's not going anywhere.
Squatting sucks, but I don't think Verisign are doing this as a move against squatters. They'd didn't even *try* and use that excuse. They said they need the extra cash to "improve security and reliability".
.com domain for a five figure sum. "Cost of doing business" he said, and he's profitable to boot.
.com alone, must be enough in there for a new server farm every year and then some. For-profit monopolies suck for consumers.
The real reason: It's a fair bet they did it because they can. Extra money. No loss of business. Compliant Politicians. Docile Public. Why not go for the gold?
This isn't going to drive a single squatter out of business. 7% increase in registry prices? Buddy of mine bought a 3 letter
Another thing: most of the "squatters" are the registrars themselves. They don't have to pay when they register the domain. There is a grace period of something like 5 days, so they register thousands upon thousands. They're those thinnish google ad pages you see when you mistype a domain. After 5 days, they yank them and reissue them. Here's Godaddy complaining about it (maybe because he didn't think of it first) but if ICANN cared about squatting or anything else, surely they wouldn't allow this?
http://www.bobparsons.com/MayKiting.html
BTW It's not the 42c. It's the $6 already that's the ripoff. For $340M *p.a* from
Sure, but Network Solutions != VeriSign
.com registry," said W.G. Mitchell, CEO of Network Solutions (which split from VeriSign in 2003). "What I do have is an objection to it being done in a manner that gives a perpetual monopoly to a company with unregulated price increases."
VeriSign sold them off. They're now an independent registrar and here's what your favorite registrar said about VeriSign. From the Article:
"I have no objection to VeriSign's continuing to run the
Currently GoDaddy is charging $6.95 at the moment for new domains, but $6 of that is going to VeriSign. One of these has a government monopoly. The other doesn't and has to price competitively, yet manages to run a profitable business out of it.
.com names. A few posters say $6 a year isn't much, so we should stop complaining. Personally I'd rather have that money in my pocket than VeriSigns. If those posters don't think $6 is nothing, I'll gladly bill them an additional $6 per domain name for my "BGLC Internet Oversight Authority". Cough up. (I have to wonder about people who take the time to comment on Slashdot that they they *LIKE* paying VeriSign fees.)
_ International_Corporation run by a Who's Who of retired Government Insiders, who had no problems convincing current Government Insiders to let them introduce a $100 fee right after takeover. http://www.metrotimes.com/news/stories/news/18/21/ LstArk.html
The Ripoff is that this cozy deal adds up to $340M a year just for the
It took years to break the Network Solutions Monopoly. Why did it take so long? Because Network Solutions were owned by SAIC http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_Applications
Politicians play this game. They'll frown, bang the desk and promise investigations. After the hearing they'll frown some more and deliver voter-empathic sound bites. It all makes great theater and makes them look great. But once the camera is turned off it's same old, same old. Politicians, who could have the power, could stop pretty much anything tomorrow. They let their buddies milk money out of the public for as long as possible, and transition to the next scam before the heat gets too hot. We smile and take it. If they're lucky the worst that happens is we throw our hands up in the air and say 'Well, watchya going to do anyway?' And it works.
The article says "Momma lied, you're not special, MySpace friends aren't really your friends and the people watching you on YouTube are laughing at you, not with you"
:-)
For some people, that's a rupture in the space-time fabric.
No wonder they would rather read something else
If you didn't know any better, "Shaped" could be something good. Like all those technology buzzwords they stick next to things in electronic retail catalogs. A more accurate word would be "Slowed". ;-)
Dialup modems were 56Kbps, but only old timers would remember that. Optus' worst shaping is 28.8kbps, so it's actually worse! Everyone else is at least 64Kbps. Just enough for email and light web browsing. The forums on whirlpool.net.au suggest shaping is just a way to cripple users until they get sick of it and subscribe to a more expensive plan.
> EU Rejects Microsoft Royalty Proposal
Now this time Bill Gates really has gone too far: King Gates III! The Brits would never buy it! On the other hand we could see increased coverage of Microsoft in the British Tabloid Press and I'd like to see Steve Balmer try to throw a throne.
I just had a story submission that answered this very question: "Narcissist Technology: Did Mamma Lie?"
h as_myspace_contributed_to_gen_1.htmle b27,0,225486,full.story?coll=la-home-headlines8
Unfortunately it dribbled out of the Slashhot Firehose.
Fortunately you can still read about it elsewhere:
http://www.pbs.org/teachers/learning.now/2007/03/
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-esteem27f
http://www.statenews.com/op_article.phtml?pk=4005
"CCTV cameras that tell off people dropping litter or committing anti-social behaviour are to be extended to 20 areas across England."
Will one of those be Buckingham Palace? "Oooi! Prince Harry! Put out that fatty!"
Follow a recent royal tradition "Pardon Guvnor! That lady most certainly is not your wife!"
Or "Horses *must* be housed in the stable! Oh sorry, 'Mam"
Realistically: One of the guards will leave the loudspeaker on:
"Cor Blimey! Check out the norks on that bird. Would love to get me some of that crumpet!"
Optus shapes at 28.8Kbps (Aussie ISP's call it 'shaping' because that sounds so much sexier than the alternative, or perhaps they should call it 'screwed to 28.8Kbps'). The sad and funny thing is that Joe Public has no idea what 28.8Kpbs or 'shaping' means. I've had naive n00bs tell me they're on an Unlimited plan when they are infact shaped. One friend was getting shaped and she didn't realize it: just said the Internet must 'get slow when it's busy.'
TPG shapes to 64/128Kbps depending on your plan. You can get it shaped to 256Kbps, but that's the very expensive plan.
All Aussie ISPs do it. The communications infrastructure in this country sucks. When I was in Japan recently and I saw 100Mbps true Unlimited for $40 a month, I wept.
Shaping sucks. It really, really sucks. 'Clever Country' my ass (arse)?
Cool. Now lets get the corporate regulators to declare any company that makes more than $5M per annum must be engaged in illegal, misleading, predatory, anti-consumer, fake-accounting, shareholder-deceptive practices. Verizon.
> Not long ago certain former "leader of the free world" took away its citizens' habeas-corpus provision.
Ergo... The 'Monkey President' repealed Human Law and introduced 'The Law of the Jungle'
> By the way, are the bottom-of-page MOTD's getting most and more surreal or what?
> Right now I'm getting "Did YOU find a DIGITAL WATCH in YOUR box of VELVEETA?".
> Didn't Slashdot use to have Knuth quotes and shit down there?
The truth is, I and many others only read Slashdot for the MOTD quotes. The articles are something I quickly scroll through with my mouse. I like to think of them as sort of 'editorial advertising'. However you are right. Ever since Zippy (I believe that is Zippy the Pinhead) has gone up the rankings my own discourse has deteriorated from urbane wit to CAPS LOCK HUMOR, which can only end up as a career writing Nigerian Spams.
Now in an effort to ward off the impending (-1: Offtopic) I better add something useful to this debate:
The world has changed. Probably for the worse, but changed nonetheless. Can't wind it back. Educators use essays for marking because it's easier and in today's money-making univer$ity degree factories its mass production. But job interviewers don't choose candidates using essays, and maybe neither should teachers. If you want to know if someone knows their stuff, sit down and talk to them. Ask them questions on the fly. If they can't give you an answer or at least how they'd go about determining an answer, they're making it up as they go. Essays aren't all bad: They let the students learn how to do research and write papers. As the OP article says, that's not 'unuseful'(*) either. If the teacher can still interview them about their paper afterwards, and asks them some hard questions, they'll get a better idea. Then (and this is the best part) judge them on their oral argument defending their essay. That way if the essay is (copied and) briliant but their defense lacks, they still lose without the hassle of the teacher having to call them a cheat. And if even by copying and pasting they've learned enough to defend it anyway, then they should pass anyway. It does cost Universities more one-on-one teacher and student time. Maybe that's a good thing?
(*) 'unuseful' was quoted to stave off the Grammar Ninja. You know who you are.
Hey thanks for that ShooterNeo! I'll give it a shot. (hey: that pun was unintentional :-) Failing that manufacturers are producing AGP cards again so a shiny new ATI card is now an option.
That's right. The Sun burned up just as much fuel after daylight savings was introduced as it did before. Lawmakers are baffled.
April Fools was *Yesterday*
Seriously. Serenity? It was ok for made for TV flick. But beating Star Wars? BAHAHAHAHHA!
Oh mercy!
Ah crap. Problem with Time Zones. It's April 1 different times at different places.
:(O)| -- egg on face
But nVidia giving support? Silly me. I should have spotted that straight away.