Yes, piracy got 3.1 some dominance. But it was still open season until personal computer ownership went from a minority to a majority. This is the late 90s. Linux wasn't anywhere close to being ready for the consumer desktop like it is today, so the options were pretty much Windows or Mac OS...yes, it was alive and well then, and had a much larger marketshare than it does today. But Mac OS was only available on Apple hardware, and they weren't producing anything special back then. So other manufacturers, bundling Windows, won out. That's pretty much it. Not some grand theory about piracy (it might have *helped* make Windows one of those two, but it was far from one of the most important factors), just the fact that only two OS's were ready for the mainstream when everyone was buying computers left and right.
That's not the same thing. The starter area is instanced specifically for you first, and then you enter the public (or saved) one later. This is talking about the non-instanced areas everyone sees. When you save the village, you save it for everyone on the server.
I'm talking about the late 90's, That's when PCs transformed from a novelty item only some had, to a mainstream item that almost every home had.
Windows was more established in the early 90's via the methods you mentioned, true, but the primary reason that Windows became mainstream is because major PC manufacturers pre-installed it during the late 90's when everyone started picking up a PC(this was true in the later days of 3.1/3.11 as well).
Also, like you mentioned, there were many other alternatives at the time, some of which were even free. But people *gasp* wanted Windows for some reason or another. If Windows has sucked, no one would have started using it in the first place. That's what you're trying to say here isn't it? The only reason people use Windows is because they got it for free?
I read a few, and have yet to find one with much substance, much less anything that came anywhere close to converting me into a 'believer'. It's hard to take a site like that seriously. The Anon Coward reply to your original post sums up a lot of what I bascially think about that site: http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=653587&cid=24702121
It could work OK, but the end result would just not be quite as glamorous as they are desribing. If an area had a finite number of states it could be in, this would work ok. Let's use an example with that village.
Let's say the Village is in it's normal state. It has quests available to scout the enemy camp, sabotage it, etc.
But one of those quests triggers an invasion. Now your zone/are is in a state where the village is occupied, enemy camp is full, and villagers are in a refugee camp.
You get quests at the refugee camp to do some more scouting and sabotage, and eventually kill the boss left at the main camp.
Now the state is: Village Invaded, Enemy camp is on fire and only has a few stragglers, and Refugee camp has 2nd set of quests/is gearing up for an invasion.
Now you reinvade the village. Yay, everyone is saved. Returns back to normal state, Village in friendly hands, refugee camp empty/gone, Enemy camp full of (retreating) soldiers.
There was something vaguely similar to this in one of Everquest's Shadows of Luclin zones. Hollowshade Moor had a continual war taking place between Sonic Wolves, Owlbears, and Tribal dudes that I can't remember their names. Basically you kill a leader, and another invades their space. Kill the final leader, and that other race owns the zone. Then it would reset after a little bit and everything would be back to normal. Very basic, but kind of the same principle.
This would still cause a hell of a lot of headaches that would have to be worked around. What if two people are working on a quest at the same time, and one changes the state first? Maybe these guys have something a lot better in mind though, but I don't see how it could be much more complex without everything being monitored or having people play NPCs like the parent stated.
I disagree. Years ago, when PCs cost a hell of a lot more, you actually got full versions of MS Office on your computer, along with a licensed copy of Windows. People building their own systems have pretty much always been in the minority (except a loooong time ago), and pre-built systems from any major manufacturer have always had licensed copies of Windows.
Office stays popular among consumers today probably due to piracy. How many people do you think actually paid $500 for Office Pro? Heck how many paid $150 for Student and Teacher edition? Disks get shared around, borrowed from work or school volume licenses, etc. I would say businesses, in general, pay for most of thier copies of Office, and always have.
We are reducing our emissions and lessening our dependence on oil. But some people apparently think that it is possible to do so much faster than the rate at which we are doing it. It could be a little faster, yes, but not by much. A lot of infrastructure must be changed for these green technologies, and the cost has to go down sharply. While there are savings in the long run, the initial investment is substantial, and many people and businesses don't have that kind of money to throw around. And many of these technologies aren't even ready. Electric cars are not feasible for many people with their current ranges and charge times. And it's going to be much longer before semi's, contstruction equipment, farm equipment, etc. can be replaced by electric, and god knows how long for aircraft and large ships. It's going to be 30+ years before we see the kind of results you want, I would imagine.
Way to take it out of context. I said that mass-produced thermometers helped to provide more consistent measurements, giving just one example of many ways that our technological capabilities improved during the Industrial Revolution. I did not say global warming was a fabrication of faulty measuring instruments. Sheesh.
The short answer: We probably are, but we don't know what is causing it, and it may just be a temporary trend.
Basically there has been a general warming trend that roughly correlates with the Industrial Revolution(IR) in the US and Europe. Year-to-year, it fluxuates, but overal there is an increase. Now the Greenies among us will instantly attribute this to emissions, but remember...correlation is not causation.
The IR brought advances to many aspects of our lives, which include meteorological mesurement and recording. Our temperature readings prior to the IR were not quite as accurate or consistently recorded (mass-produced thermometers anyone?). This is one factor that might affect what we are observing.
There is also geological record, which indicates many cooling and warming periods throughout the history of the Earth. We may just be experiencing a natural trend.
This is a hot-button media topic, and you see a lot of studies thrown around...many of which have questionably biased funding sources. And they all love to throw around one-sided statistics, which are the dirtiest lies that you can tell.
IMHO, don't get worked up about it. You don't need to cover your home in solar panels and go out and buy the first electric car you can find. But I think everyone should be mindful of their energy use, and try not to be wasteful. Save a little where you can, but don't horribly inconvenience yourself.
Basically....there's no competition because it would be pointless to waste money on a new physical media format with the primary intent of content distribution.
I've been meaning to pick that up when my current MMO gets boring. I don't really like turn-based games all too much, but GalCiv 2 was amazing, so I am expecting good things from Sins as well.
Yeah, just cough up for some basic cable service for a few months. Most of the traditional cable companies don't do contracts so signing up for a couple months and then ditching them won't result in termination fees.
Well my information comes from the police officers who did the raid. I go to the pub with them every weekend, lol.
We can claim all the sources in the world if we want. For all I know, you could be an 80 year old Tibetian monk sitting in a hut in India, and for all you know I could be a 9 year old girl playing with Barbie dolls in the US. So you could just as easily be spreding unsourced FUD, and even worse lying about it and claiming you have sources, just to push your own agenda against any sort of governmental authority.
Where does it say they were at home? It doesn't. It just says 'raids', which could be a home, a warehouse, or a just a specific location outside somewhere. The article does not provide enough information to tell.
And bolt cutters can still be suspicious in a home. If they are out and available next to other tools, along with written or drawn plans or diagrams of the facility, then they sure as hell can be suspicious.
But again, we don't know either way because the article doesn't tell us squat.
I'm with the GP. I agree with many more of McCain's stances than Obama's (partly because Obama seems to have few 'real' stances in general), but this is enough to make me vote Obama. The other issues aren't important to me, because I am currently very secure in my job and for the forseeable future (heck I have a friend trying to get me to move to his city, teasing me with job offers), and I make enough money to live comfortably, and I have very little problem with our military being in the middle-east.
I think you should vote based on your current situation, not everyone else's...that's why it's your vote. You don't have the capability to evaluate what everyone in the country wants or needs, and you can't trust much of anyone else to do it for you. So if everyone votes on what they feel will help them personally, then the person who will help the most people will get elected.
It's actually interesting reading. While most of the people there are believers, they are very skeptical of any evidence provided. After spending some time there, I went from "LOL yeah right" to a big "maybe".
They can't even slightly be construed as any kind of evidence for any kind of wrongdoing or even thought of wrongdoing at any time anywhere whatsoever!
So if you're standing next to a chain link fence at a business which is closed with a pair of bolt cutters at 2 a.m., you're saying a police officer should not think that you had any thought of wrongdoing? Not only is that ludicrious, it would be downright irresponsible of them not to question your intentions. Yes, they are tools, and tools by themselves are harmless. But tools of almost any type can be used for many, many harmful things. These tools, can in combination with other evidence, be used in a court of law to prove to a jury that you intended to commit a crime.
What is in question here is if the police had any other evidence to go on. Like I said, the article skimps on details and prefers to dwell on the silly game. No one knows if they had other evidence or not. They might have been sitting around a TV minding their own business, or sitting around a set of blueprints with a sabotage plan. I am just going by common sense and assuming they did have some sort of evidence of wrongdoing. Because if you take a large sampling of raids conducted by police departments, I would be willing to bet the overwhelming majority would have apprehended individuals commiting crimes as opposed to innocents.
But thanks to biased reporting and a good ol' FUD summary typical of this/. editor, we have droves of people assuming that these were innocent and peaceful protesters just 'camping' and living the happy hippy life and getting bullied by mean police officers.
Did you stop reading my post there? I also said that the article is light on important information and just focuses on the game. That's why I said 'presumably'...more often than not, police raid where they expect criminal activity is taking place, so that is why it is 'presumably'. If you can find a reference that pretty clearly indicates they were minding their own business, I'll happily accept that this was an abuse of police power.
And like I said, the damn article is scant on details. There's no way to know if they were planning to break into the plant or if they were just sitting at home minding their own business. I'm giving the police the benefit of the doubt because I have (perhaps foolishly) a shred of faith that they are actually looking out for our best interests.
"The satirical board game was confiscated along with knives, chisels and bolt cutters, from climate protesters during a series of raids near Kingsnorth power station, in Kent, last week."
The game was one of the items they took along with the real dangerous stuff. They were presumably caught planning a break-in to a power plant (the article is scant on important details, and chooses to focus on the board game). It's still kind of stilly that they took the game, but realizing that they had knived and devices intended to break into and probably sabotage a power plant puts a whole different perspective on the situation. I would chalk it more up to police officers being overcautious (or clueless) and siezing anything that could possibly be considered evidence of their intentions. Had they has other baclavas, they probably would have siezed those as well).
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, piracy got 3.1 some dominance. But it was still open season until personal computer ownership went from a minority to a majority. This is the late 90s. Linux wasn't anywhere close to being ready for the consumer desktop like it is today, so the options were pretty much Windows or Mac OS...yes, it was alive and well then, and had a much larger marketshare than it does today. But Mac OS was only available on Apple hardware, and they weren't producing anything special back then. So other manufacturers, bundling Windows, won out. That's pretty much it. Not some grand theory about piracy (it might have *helped* make Windows one of those two, but it was far from one of the most important factors), just the fact that only two OS's were ready for the mainstream when everyone was buying computers left and right.
That's not the same thing. The starter area is instanced specifically for you first, and then you enter the public (or saved) one later. This is talking about the non-instanced areas everyone sees. When you save the village, you save it for everyone on the server.
I'm talking about the late 90's, That's when PCs transformed from a novelty item only some had, to a mainstream item that almost every home had.
Windows was more established in the early 90's via the methods you mentioned, true, but the primary reason that Windows became mainstream is because major PC manufacturers pre-installed it during the late 90's when everyone started picking up a PC(this was true in the later days of 3.1/3.11 as well).
Also, like you mentioned, there were many other alternatives at the time, some of which were even free. But people *gasp* wanted Windows for some reason or another. If Windows has sucked, no one would have started using it in the first place. That's what you're trying to say here isn't it? The only reason people use Windows is because they got it for free?
I read a few, and have yet to find one with much substance, much less anything that came anywhere close to converting me into a 'believer'. It's hard to take a site like that seriously. The Anon Coward reply to your original post sums up a lot of what I bascially think about that site: http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=653587&cid=24702121
It could work OK, but the end result would just not be quite as glamorous as they are desribing. If an area had a finite number of states it could be in, this would work ok. Let's use an example with that village.
Let's say the Village is in it's normal state. It has quests available to scout the enemy camp, sabotage it, etc.
But one of those quests triggers an invasion. Now your zone/are is in a state where the village is occupied, enemy camp is full, and villagers are in a refugee camp.
You get quests at the refugee camp to do some more scouting and sabotage, and eventually kill the boss left at the main camp.
Now the state is: Village Invaded, Enemy camp is on fire and only has a few stragglers, and Refugee camp has 2nd set of quests/is gearing up for an invasion.
Now you reinvade the village. Yay, everyone is saved. Returns back to normal state, Village in friendly hands, refugee camp empty/gone, Enemy camp full of (retreating) soldiers.
There was something vaguely similar to this in one of Everquest's Shadows of Luclin zones. Hollowshade Moor had a continual war taking place between Sonic Wolves, Owlbears, and Tribal dudes that I can't remember their names. Basically you kill a leader, and another invades their space. Kill the final leader, and that other race owns the zone. Then it would reset after a little bit and everything would be back to normal. Very basic, but kind of the same principle.
This would still cause a hell of a lot of headaches that would have to be worked around. What if two people are working on a quest at the same time, and one changes the state first? Maybe these guys have something a lot better in mind though, but I don't see how it could be much more complex without everything being monitored or having people play NPCs like the parent stated.
I disagree. Years ago, when PCs cost a hell of a lot more, you actually got full versions of MS Office on your computer, along with a licensed copy of Windows. People building their own systems have pretty much always been in the minority (except a loooong time ago), and pre-built systems from any major manufacturer have always had licensed copies of Windows.
Office stays popular among consumers today probably due to piracy. How many people do you think actually paid $500 for Office Pro? Heck how many paid $150 for Student and Teacher edition? Disks get shared around, borrowed from work or school volume licenses, etc. I would say businesses, in general, pay for most of thier copies of Office, and always have.
We are reducing our emissions and lessening our dependence on oil. But some people apparently think that it is possible to do so much faster than the rate at which we are doing it. It could be a little faster, yes, but not by much. A lot of infrastructure must be changed for these green technologies, and the cost has to go down sharply. While there are savings in the long run, the initial investment is substantial, and many people and businesses don't have that kind of money to throw around. And many of these technologies aren't even ready. Electric cars are not feasible for many people with their current ranges and charge times. And it's going to be much longer before semi's, contstruction equipment, farm equipment, etc. can be replaced by electric, and god knows how long for aircraft and large ships. It's going to be 30+ years before we see the kind of results you want, I would imagine.
Way to take it out of context. I said that mass-produced thermometers helped to provide more consistent measurements, giving just one example of many ways that our technological capabilities improved during the Industrial Revolution. I did not say global warming was a fabrication of faulty measuring instruments. Sheesh.
Do you have any other sources? Preferrably unbiased ones that don't do all the thinking for you?
The short answer: We probably are, but we don't know what is causing it, and it may just be a temporary trend.
Basically there has been a general warming trend that roughly correlates with the Industrial Revolution(IR) in the US and Europe. Year-to-year, it fluxuates, but overal there is an increase. Now the Greenies among us will instantly attribute this to emissions, but remember...correlation is not causation.
The IR brought advances to many aspects of our lives, which include meteorological mesurement and recording. Our temperature readings prior to the IR were not quite as accurate or consistently recorded (mass-produced thermometers anyone?). This is one factor that might affect what we are observing.
There is also geological record, which indicates many cooling and warming periods throughout the history of the Earth. We may just be experiencing a natural trend.
This is a hot-button media topic, and you see a lot of studies thrown around...many of which have questionably biased funding sources. And they all love to throw around one-sided statistics, which are the dirtiest lies that you can tell.
IMHO, don't get worked up about it. You don't need to cover your home in solar panels and go out and buy the first electric car you can find. But I think everyone should be mindful of their energy use, and try not to be wasteful. Save a little where you can, but don't horribly inconvenience yourself.
That's just a pointless physiical media format, period.
Basically....there's no competition because it would be pointless to waste money on a new physical media format with the primary intent of content distribution.
I've been meaning to pick that up when my current MMO gets boring. I don't really like turn-based games all too much, but GalCiv 2 was amazing, so I am expecting good things from Sins as well.
Yeah, just cough up for some basic cable service for a few months. Most of the traditional cable companies don't do contracts so signing up for a couple months and then ditching them won't result in termination fees.
Well my information comes from the police officers who did the raid. I go to the pub with them every weekend, lol.
We can claim all the sources in the world if we want. For all I know, you could be an 80 year old Tibetian monk sitting in a hut in India, and for all you know I could be a 9 year old girl playing with Barbie dolls in the US. So you could just as easily be spreding unsourced FUD, and even worse lying about it and claiming you have sources, just to push your own agenda against any sort of governmental authority.
Where does it say they were at home? It doesn't. It just says 'raids', which could be a home, a warehouse, or a just a specific location outside somewhere. The article does not provide enough information to tell.
And bolt cutters can still be suspicious in a home. If they are out and available next to other tools, along with written or drawn plans or diagrams of the facility, then they sure as hell can be suspicious.
But again, we don't know either way because the article doesn't tell us squat.
I'm with the GP. I agree with many more of McCain's stances than Obama's (partly because Obama seems to have few 'real' stances in general), but this is enough to make me vote Obama. The other issues aren't important to me, because I am currently very secure in my job and for the forseeable future (heck I have a friend trying to get me to move to his city, teasing me with job offers), and I make enough money to live comfortably, and I have very little problem with our military being in the middle-east.
I think you should vote based on your current situation, not everyone else's...that's why it's your vote. You don't have the capability to evaluate what everyone in the country wants or needs, and you can't trust much of anyone else to do it for you. So if everyone votes on what they feel will help them personally, then the person who will help the most people will get elected.
Yes:
http://www.bfro.net/
It's actually interesting reading. While most of the people there are believers, they are very skeptical of any evidence provided. After spending some time there, I went from "LOL yeah right" to a big "maybe".
They can't even slightly be construed as any kind of evidence for any kind of wrongdoing or even thought of wrongdoing at any time anywhere whatsoever!
So if you're standing next to a chain link fence at a business which is closed with a pair of bolt cutters at 2 a.m., you're saying a police officer should not think that you had any thought of wrongdoing? Not only is that ludicrious, it would be downright irresponsible of them not to question your intentions. Yes, they are tools, and tools by themselves are harmless. But tools of almost any type can be used for many, many harmful things. These tools, can in combination with other evidence, be used in a court of law to prove to a jury that you intended to commit a crime.
/. editor, we have droves of people assuming that these were innocent and peaceful protesters just 'camping' and living the happy hippy life and getting bullied by mean police officers.
What is in question here is if the police had any other evidence to go on. Like I said, the article skimps on details and prefers to dwell on the silly game. No one knows if they had other evidence or not. They might have been sitting around a TV minding their own business, or sitting around a set of blueprints with a sabotage plan. I am just going by common sense and assuming they did have some sort of evidence of wrongdoing. Because if you take a large sampling of raids conducted by police departments, I would be willing to bet the overwhelming majority would have apprehended individuals commiting crimes as opposed to innocents.
But thanks to biased reporting and a good ol' FUD summary typical of this
Did you stop reading my post there? I also said that the article is light on important information and just focuses on the game. That's why I said 'presumably'...more often than not, police raid where they expect criminal activity is taking place, so that is why it is 'presumably'. If you can find a reference that pretty clearly indicates they were minding their own business, I'll happily accept that this was an abuse of police power.
And like I said, the damn article is scant on details. There's no way to know if they were planning to break into the plant or if they were just sitting at home minding their own business. I'm giving the police the benefit of the doubt because I have (perhaps foolishly) a shred of faith that they are actually looking out for our best interests.
To be fair, from TFA:
"The satirical board game was confiscated along with knives, chisels and bolt cutters, from climate protesters during a series of raids near Kingsnorth power station, in Kent, last week."
The game was one of the items they took along with the real dangerous stuff. They were presumably caught planning a break-in to a power plant (the article is scant on important details, and chooses to focus on the board game). It's still kind of stilly that they took the game, but realizing that they had knived and devices intended to break into and probably sabotage a power plant puts a whole different perspective on the situation. I would chalk it more up to police officers being overcautious (or clueless) and siezing anything that could possibly be considered evidence of their intentions. Had they has other baclavas, they probably would have siezed those as well).
1) Do lobbyists every use logic and reasoning?
2) Me too.
It would be a new genre called Spornography. It's primary audience would be young teenagers with a fondness for dirty jokes.
I would assume Phystar is getting it from...selling mac clones? Just a rough guess?