That's exactly why you *shouldn't* pay people based on their years of service.
Employment is only successful when both parties feel that the arrangement is beneficial. When you keep paying someone *more* to do the *same*, in time, you end up with a guy who is earning a lot more that someone else who can do the same job, just as well.
At that point, the company has no motivation to keep on the guy with 20 years of experience when a guy with 2 years can do the same job for half the wage.
Your argument doesn't really make any sense...but you sure sound angry. I remember what it was like to be a teenager who really likes to download music too - so I guess I understand.
You say that "...many sane people don't even want to completely abolish copyright". My original argument was that you'd be able to convince a lot of people that copyright is good.
So your panties are all in a wad because...we pretty much, sorta, agree?
You also talk about how 'things will just change, man!' but you don't really explain how. This new business model you speak of...you didn't really explain. The Nine Inch Nails example doesn't really have anything to do with the discussion. They are a band that got famous with the help of millions of dollars worth of advertising and who are already rich. The fact that they gave away a CD doesn't mean that, if ALL of their music was free, they'd still exist and produce music of the same quality. It just means that, they are so rich, they can do whatever they want.
Can you name *one* band who got rich and/or famous without charging anyone for anything?
I think the answer is 'No'.
The honest truth here is that NOTHING STOPS *YOU* from giving away YOUR work. If you really believe in this concept of free - *YOU* can make a movie and give it away. You can make a CD and give it away. You can write software and give it away.
Anyone can.
So why don't you?
If you are going to honestly try to argue that either approach is equally good (or better) then why do the people who produce stuff continue to copyright it?
It's really easy to say, 'I should be able to download that - cause I like stuff and I want stuff, but I don't want to pay for it, and the business model will just change, and I'll get everything I want for free'. It's much, much harder to say, 'I spent three years of my life working on this. Now - here you go, have it for free. I'll just eat water for dinner'.
The reasonable alternative is to find a way to force consumers to pay for your work. And while that's certainly possible, it doesn't really change anything. You end up back into the model of people paying for things they want to enjoy.
With software that means either built in ads (like Google) or server-side dependencies (like TotalFark or MMORPGs that require you to be online). All that's done is....made it hard or impossible to 'copy' the game, since the game lives on a server.
Short term - sure; letting everyone copy everything for free is great.
Long term - you end up with a society where nobody produces anything that can be copied for free.
I earn a living writing software. People pay for that software; that payment allows me to keep writing software. If tomorrow comes and everyone can copy my software for free - short term, the people all end up with software for free. They are happy. Long term, I stop being a computer programmer and find a profession where my work can't be digitally copied. Maybe I become a plumber. Long term, there is no new software.
Same with Movies and Music. Without $$$ things don't happen. You can't have a high budget action movie without $$$. And you don't get $$$ unless people are paying for your content.
You'd be able to convince a lot of people that laws to protect these things are good things.
FireFox has gone from the mostly unknown underdog to having some 25% of the market share. And yes, I do remember countless articles proclaiming the downfall of IE every single step of the way. 'OMG - 5%!' 'OMG - 10%'.
And Linux? Linux does the same thing, only 10x worse. Every year, since (at least) 2001 has been proclaimed as 'THE YEAR' for Linux to triumph over MS. The year that the average Joe and the soccer Mom will install Linux.
These articles typically boast the (very tiny) market share that Linux has gained in the last year. Then it goes on to do a 'head-to-head' comparison between Linux and Windows that grossly misrepresents facts (something that Linux fans adamantly deny, until the next year - when they start there new article about how great Linux is *this* year and start by saying 'In the past, some users had trouble with hardware support - but NOT ANYMORE). But last year, if you'd said hardware support was weak, you'd be flamed into the dirt.
As a disclaimer - I think both Firefox and Linux are awesome. I'm running Slackware at home and it's amazing.
Calories In vs. Calories out - at least at the level that any reasonable person can measure it - is worthless. I that it's easy to remember and even sounds kind of cool - but science doesn't support it. There are plenty of studies that show things eating the same number of calories and having dramatically different weight gain or loss.
Measuring what you eat and estimating how much you burn by your daily activities is clearly not enough to accurately determine if a person will gain or lose weight.
Here's two studies - you can find many, many, many more....
http://www.nature.com/oby/journal/v17/n11/abs/oby2009264a.html Here's a study where different groups of mice ate the same number of calories, but at different times of the day/night, and the different groups saw different levels of weight gain/loss.
http://www.reeis.usda.gov/web/crisprojectpages/206775.html Here's a study where different groups of mice ate the same number of calories, but one group had a low-gi diet and another group had a high-gi diet. The high-GI diet mice gained more weight than the low-GI diet mice.
I'm not trying to be argumentative, and I like the 'gist' of the Hacker Diet. But the entire premise of the diet doesn't hold up. Not in any way that a regular person can measure. Maybe, the habits like how much you sleep or when you eat or the GI index affect either how much you burn (even though your activities are no different) or how effective your digestion is - but until you've got a magic toilet that tells you how many calories you've just dumped off and a watch that will tell you exactly how many calories you are burning - it's not useful.
But yeah, the general idea of eating less, eating better, and exercising are all generally good things. Those things are hardly unique to the 'Hacker Diet' though. I don't know of anyone who eats healthy food, in moderation, and follows some sort of physical fitness routine who isn't in decent shape; but grossly oversimplifying what's going on doesn't benefit anyone.
I detailed all of the steps I took. I followed all four pages of suggestions on the forums and nobody could come up with anything that worked.
If you read the thread, you'll see that I was actively seeking out information and solutions and all that jazz. I tried, they tried, and it didn't work.
From the same Ubuntu forum - from 2007 - here is a post where I asked the Ubuntu community to provide me with a link to a Wireless USB network adapter that would work in Ubuntu. I said, I'd buy anything, as long as it would work, 100%, in Linux. Notice the lack of responses...
And here - here is another thread from 2008 where I was struggling with WiFi again. I asked for someone to simply tell me which one to buy again. Here's the first response http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=782925
"Unfortunately, wireless drivers on linux are usually written by very determined individuals with time on their hands. There are few "guarantees" about anything.
As a general rule, to answer your second question, every card model has a single chipset in it. The "chipset" really is a description of the interface between the card and your computer, which is what any driver has to deal with in order to communicate with it. Broadcomm chips, for example, appear in many cards, but can all be used by the same driver, bcm43xx (though this has its own quirks).
If you look for the driver's webpage, you can often find lists of cards with broadcomm chips the drivers have been tested in. Sometimes the card manufactuerers will tell on their "detailed specification" sheets, but often they won't. Unfortunately, you "just have to know" what kind of chip controls your card. Google is your friend (try "PCI wireless card your-brand linux driver" or something like that).
Attempts have been made to rectify this situation. Probably the best one is ndiswrapper, a package which Ubuntu provides, but does not support as far as I know (in terms of its use in any particular driver). It allows you to take a wireless driver from Windows, like with an install CD that came with the card, and use it on Linux. Again, this is by no means a guarantee, but it seems to work for a lot of people. For the device you mentioned, this method has a set of instructions here.
Alas, like many things in life -- and many more in linux -- there is no easy answer. I hope this helps anyway."
So, yeah, you can sit there and tell me how every wifi you've ever used worked. But I've been there, for years, using Linux and seeing, first hand, what kind of support there is. Before Ubuntu, I was having the same troubles with RedHat and the before that I was screwing with Slackware. When the regulars at the forums tell you that WiFi support is 'iffy at best', I'd believe it.
I think there is an understandable difference between not meeting the minimum requirements and not being able to use a device because of lack of driver support.
Crysis won't run on seven year old hardware; but that doesn't mean Crysis doesn't support that hardware.
Anyway, I certainly wouldn't disagree with the claim that 'Linux has much better support for seven year old hardware'. My objection is that the hardware support is presented as being both infinitely better than Windows *and* so bad you need special Linux hardware....at the same time.
One or the other.
My personal opinion is that, while Linux 'can' run on virtually anything under the sun (I'm sure some guy, somewhere, has managed to install Linux on his toaster...just because he can) the typical PC hardware that I see people using has much better 'out of the box' support in Windows. But I'm not trying to say Linux has bad support - just that I constantly see Linux supports claim both things, at the same time.
Here is what I went through on my last attempt to install Ubunutu...four pages long, at least one other person posting saying he has the same problem. Zero solutions.
I know this thread is getting pretty long so I thought it might help if I consolidated everything into a single post so that people who see this don't have to read through all 4 pages of posts.
Ubuntu 9.04 Install Problems Summary
1. Download the Ubuntu 9.04 i386 ISO
2. Burn ISO to a blank DVD using IMG Burn
3. Reboot, try to install Linux
4. Install fails - I see an error message about ACPI and find myself at a command prompt.
5. Read - Edit BIOS - I'm directed to https://help.ubuntu.com/9.04/install...ios-setup.html - I read and find that I didn't disable my 'Memory Hole' so I do that.
6. Reboot, try to install Linux
7. Install fails - I see an error message about ACPI and find myself at a command prompt.
8. Read - Edit BIOS - After visiting this and other forums, I found that by enabling AMD Quiet N Cool the ACPI error would be resolved. This information was not included in the 9.04 installation-guide linked to above.
9. Reboot, try to install Linux
10. Install fails - I see *no* error message - so that's a good sign (I think) - but I still end up at a command prompt.
11. Read - At this point, it seems like the install disk itself is the most likely source of my problems. I'm told to check the md5 of the download and the CD itself though the install screen.
12. Install winmd5sum And use this to verify that my download was correct (and it was).
13. Reboot, try to have the Ubuntu installer verify the disk.
14. Disk Check Fails The same as with the install, I end up at the command prompt. Unsure of what to do next I...
15. Re-Burned ISO to a blank DVD using IMG Burn on a separate PC, hoping that the burn was bad. As recommended, I use a low speed burn to reduce the chances of errors. IMG Burn 'verifies' that the burn was successful (I'm not sure if that means anything or not).
16. Reboot, try to install Linux (with the new disk)
17. Install fails - Same as before, no error message that I can see - just the command prompt.
18. Read the forums and end up directed to https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BootOptions - without really understanding the boot options in the F6 menu
19. Reboot - Install fails Same sort of fail as before, did this a bunch of different times with the different options.
20. Read the forums again. I end up at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/FakeRaidHowto - I have three hard-drives two are configured in a RAID 0 though my BIOS. I'm unsure if the FakeRaid would impact the installer or not (I'm trying to install to the un-raided hard-drive).
21. Read the forums again. It's suggested that I try the alternate download.
22. Download the Ubuntu 9.04 i386 alternate installer ISO
23. Use winmd5sum To verify that my download was correct (and it was).
24. Burned ISO to a blank DVD using IMG Burn
25. Reboot, try to install Linux
26. Install fails - This time I end up stuck in an infinite loop. The text based installer says it can't mount the CD and to insert the CD, but the CD is in. My DVD drive seems to be functioning though - I used it to install Windows 7 two day
The claim I frequently hear is that, in order for Linux to really work as intended, you need to buy a machine with 'Linux supported' hardware.
The other claim I hear is that Linux has vastly superior hardware support than Windows.
When I said it can't be both - I meant that both of the above can't be true. You can buy any PC - even one preloaded with Linux and there is zero doubt in my mind that Windows will be able to run on that hardware.
The fact that you have to hand-pick hardware for Linux means that it can't be better than Windows.
I suppose that would make sense; but I've never seen it explained quite like that.
I do know that Wireless-N support was, well, none existent a while ago. I've heard wireless is greatly improved, but my last attempt with Ubuntu didn't even get me to the point where I could test it.
For the record though - my next purchase is going to be a machine with Linux pre-loaded. And the reason I'm doing this is because, at least for me, personally, hardware support is much better in Windows. I'm 100% confident that I'll be able to find Windows drivers and run Windows on the Linux machine. I'm not 100% confident that I could buy a windows machine and have Linux support the hardware.
I'm not trolling, because I just spent two weeks trying to Ubuntu to install on my modern PC that ran great on Windows 7.
I'm also not trolling because of the nightmare that is WiFi support in Linux.
Look, I'm not anti-linux, I think Linux rocks. But you are doing a disservice to Linux and the Linux community when you make posts like you are making.
'Linux can actually run more hardware'....might be technically true. But if I walk into BestBuy after work *today* and I grab any piece of hardware, off the shelf, it will come with a disk that provides drivers for Windows. How many will include drivers for Linux?
Maybe a default install of Linux supports more hardware than a default install of Windows. Maybe. The difference is, every piece of hardware you or I have purchased almost certainly came with Windows drivers on a disk and almost certainly has drivers available for download on the internet.
The opposite is not true of Linux.
And, if you really want, I can dig up my multi-page post on the Ubunutu Forums where I was eventually told, 'Umm, barrow or buy a new DVD drive'.
The Linux community, as a whole, needs to get it's story straight. (Yeah, I'll probably get modded troll, I'm okay with that).
One day I hear Linux has great hardware support. It's not like Linux in the past, we even have *BETTER* hardware support than Windows now.
Then, the next day I hear, 'Well, yeah, Linux doesn't work; but you don't have the right hardware. You need to BUY A NEW FRIGGIN MACHINE if you want to bank on Linux working without spending hours trying to get it to work.
Pirated copies of Windows will very often fail the WGA check needed to install a handful of select, but really important, type updates.
Most of the time one of the hacker groups will put out their own version or whatever but it can be hit or miss. At least in my experience. Often you'll either have to decide to go without SP1 or you'll have to re-downloaded another pirated copy that already has SP1 added by the pirates who created it.
An OS is the last thing I'd want to pirate and use as my main OS. If it's just a sandbox - that's another story.
I mean, I understand the whole, 'You don't get to decide what a fair price is - either pay it or don't' mentality. And I'm not saying pirating software because you disagree with the pricing model is okay to do....
But, here you've got a guy on the internet who is claiming (and we have every reason to believe him) that he'd be a paying customer *if* the prices weren't so high.
I'm a full-time.Net software developer, so I realize I probably have more exposure to Microsoft software releases that the average guy (even the average computer guy who isn't on the MS stack) - but I completely and utterly agree with the parent.
Microsoft pricing is *crazy*. I fully respect their right to have a crazy pricing model, but yes, it it crazy. When I was younger I used to pirate MS software because it was too expensive. Now, I get legit copies - but always at a tiny fraction of the actual price.
Microsoft is currently selling copies of Windows 7 Professional for $30 dollars, if you are a student. Before that, Microsoft was giving out copies of Windows 7 to anyone who went to their 'Windows 7 Party Host' website and filled out a quick questioner. Everyone I know who went to that site received a shipment from MS with Windows 7 in it.
And they had large user group meetings at major cities throughout the entire country where you could attend *for free* and walk out with a legit copy of Windows 7. That's right, everyone who showed up, received a legit copy. Free.
Then, you've got the group licensing stuff going on. You can buy a copy of Windows 7 for $200 dollars or spend $350 and get Windows 7 installed *on a brand new laptop*. The laptop manufacturer is only paying a tiny fraction of what you pay. And then you've got things like the MSDN licensing where the company pays some money and gets everyone access to everything (and yes, the license you get there is supposed to limit use of the product to professional development but I've yet to meet anyone who doesn't violate that). Then you've got the MSDN AA for schools - same story. And the student discounts.
Hell, I was a 'Microsoft Student Ambassador' back in college - MS shipped me boxes filled with boxed software to distribute at the '.Net Programmers Club'. They were, literally, just begging people to take it.
I've spoken to several of my friends about Windows 7 (and this applies to any of the major windows software, it's just that 7's release was so recent) and they are all relatively successful, young, professional types. None of them are going to buy Windows 7 because it's too expensive for what it is, in their opinions. I doubt they'll go through the trouble of pirating it. If they could pick it up for $50-100 dollars, they'd buy it.
But they can't. And they aren't willing to spend $200 or $300 dollars for it from a store like Best Buy. And they aren't willing to spend that amount of money and only be able to legitimately use it one computer. My buddy has a laptop and a desktop and he wants the same OS on both because it's easier to remember how to work on OS than two OSes.
So, like lots of other people, he simply isn't going to buy any copies of Windows 7. Eventually, he'll buy a new PC and eventually, he'll get a new laptop and he'll run whatever they come with. Unlike the parent - he's not going to take the time and effort to pirate an OS because he's not much of a computer guy and he doesn't want the headaches associated with that.
But he's a guy with plenty of disposable income who would gladly pay $100 dollars to have Windows 7 on his machines at home and know that he can upgrade a hard-drive or something in the future and still be able to have Windows 7 on it and working. He's certainly not going to track down an OEM copy, nor is he going to buy it knowing it's tied to the hardware. He's not going to buy two retail copies for $400 dollars either.
Basically, he's just a lost sale for MS. Yes, it's their right to set
A couple of reasons I guess. First, the girlfriend and I will watch TV together on the couch and often what is happening is that the shows that I really do enjoy watching (cartoons mostly) for her, she doesn't much care about. And the reverse is true - she's got a thing for cops-type shows like NCIS and then reality stuff like the Amazing Race. She also religiously watches Jeopardy.
So, I'll be screwing around on the laptop half watching/half ignoring some show I don't much care for - but she really likes. The commercial breaks give us time for conversation and what not. Yes, I know that *sounds* pathetic, and before I would agreed that it is pathetic; until I went without it.
I think of it like going to a restaurant with a date. Typically, you show up and have to wait a few minutes (annoying). Then they seat you and you have to wait a bit (also annoying). Then, they take your order and you have to wait a bit. Then you get your salad/appetizer or whatever...then you get your actual meal. Then you wait, ask for a check, then you wait, then you get the check, then you pay and leave.
At first glance, it's easy to say, 'Man all that waiting sucks'. But when you remove it; you realize that the breaks actually added to the experience. Certainly, it can be excessive - an hour long wait without being seated and I'd have already left and gone somewhere else. But if you just showed up and were taken to your table with the food already there and you sat and ate the food and left immediately after - the experience would actually be *less* enjoyable even though all you did was remove the annoying parts.
It sounds weird, I guess. But I found this to be true in quite a few places. Take video games. A lot of what you do in video games is annoying (the grind in WoW or other MMORPGs, for example). And you think, if they game didn't have any of this crap, it'd be so much better. Then you jump on a pirated server or you learn the cheat codes or something and the next thing you know you are tired of the game because you already did everything or something. It turns out to be less fun.
So yeah - three months ago, I would have agreed that commercials are nothing but annoying. But once they were gone I missed them.
That's not to say I'd want to watch commercials 100% of the time or that I think they are more entertaining that the actual shows. I just think it's a buffer zone.
I've recently jumped on the streaming media bandwagon. I setup the scheduler in uTorrent and downloaded the newest version of TED. Now my PC seeks out new episodes of the shows I want and downloads them during off-peak hours. Then I've got Tversity or whatever it is acting as my UPNP server. Each TV has it's own media receiver.
One side effect of this setup is that the TV shows I've downloaded don't have commercials. At first, I saw this as a good thing. But, after the first few shows, I realized I *missed* the commercials.
Some TV watching, I think of as a 100% attention activity. Think 'really good movies' - you don't want interruptions. You don't want any distractions. No talking to your wife, no running to the kitchen to check on dinner, no talking about what is happening in the movie or what you did at work that day.
But then, some other TV watching - most of the TV watching I do...it's more laid back. The TV is on, but I'm also working on the laptop or cooking dinner or whatever. Commercial breaks give are a welcome interruption. It gives my girl and me a chance to make funny/witty/ remarks about the show we're watching or to talk about other stuff or to get up and check on dinner or to grab a coke, or to run to the bathroom, or to do whatever.
It sounds stupid - but I prefer the commercials for a lot of shows that I don't much care about.
The 'pause' button is an option but then you've got *zero* content on the TV. Commercials are more entertaining than nothing. I like them in certain situations.
I'm totally not trying to support OEMs throwing Adobe Reader onto PCs at all. Yeah, I agree that even as far as.pdf files go, there are better tools available for reading them.
Last I looked into it, FoxIt reader was a good alternative that was much faster and worked great. I'm still running it, I think, but I'm fairly sure my version is a few years old.
The reason is mostly because the law says they can't.
Trust me, Microsoft wants nothing more than to bundle it's own version of just about every application you can think of. But, the legal system says they can't. They were declared a monopoly and part of that has limited their ability to include things you want into the OS.
I'm not 'Pro MS' or 'Pro Linux' or anything, I just don't care. But I do think that it's funny that, essentially, the same people who used to complain that Microsoft is an evil monopoly and is destroying small companies by bundling their own XYZ into the operating system are now the same people who still say MS is an evil monopoly but advocate Linux because it includes far more stuff you'll need than Windows.
But yeah, it's really not that MS doesn't want it - it's that it's hands are tied. At least, that's been my understanding of it.
I don't know - I think there is something to be said for trying to evoke change before jumping ship.
"Don't like the fact that a teacher at your kid's elementary school is a convicted sex offender? Don't talk about it at the town meeting and try to get her fired....just move to another school!"
"Don't like your countries policy on gun control laws....don't argue for why your viewpoint is better and vote in people who agree with your views....just move to another country!"
When it comes to OSes, the options are pretty slim and/or come with a hefty cost. Most people are running some version Windows. The mostly realistic alternatives include Linux and OS X. Linux, for many people, require hardware changes, advanced technical skill, and is largely incompatible with the software you could buy on the shelf at your local Best Buy/Walmart/whatever. OS X requires a Mac computer with an intel processor. I've heard of people hacking around that requirement, but again, advanced technical knowledge is required and you still have to buy the OS and you are instantly removing any chance of getting technical help for your product.
So, for most people who have a particular complaint with their current OS...biatching about it until it gets fixed is easier than switching to another OS. And, the other OS is going to have plenty of fresh things to biatch about.
That's what happens when people screw with supply and demand.
There are too many people who are more than willing to work with animals in crappy pay and crappy conditions. Girls that love ponies and all that....and they don't care how much they earn. If they did care they'd have picked another profession.
Rather than having the average salary for a vet. be $30k and require 8 years of school, they had to lower the pool of available vets. In walks the AAVMC. You can't be a vet unless they say you can be. And only the schools that they recognize can declare you a vet.
Worked on a farm your whole life? Know all there is to know about animals? *Too bad*. You can't be a vet, because they say you aren't a vet.
So, the AAVMC decides which schools have programs that will turn people into vets. And they keep it drastically low.
There are 199 law schools in the US. There are 125 medical schools in the US. There are 28 vet schools in the US.
Medical schools have a higher acceptance rate than vet schools. That means it's harder to get a license to cut open a pig than it is to cut open a person.
When you've got a situation where lots and lots and lots of people want into a program and you know that, no matter what, you are going to have every single seat in your classroom full, no matter what you charge....well, gee - it's not really a big surprise that vet schools can charge whatever they want.
All this, so that the wages of vets can remain artificially high.
I have to say though - I have zero sympathy for people who play the vet game and get shafted. Eight years of higher education and you'll be lucky to make as much as an accountant or programmer with a four year degree.
And when you buy an item on the AH - do you really know where that item came from? No. You don't.
Of course, people who steal accounts take any items of value and list them on the AH. So, buying items from the AH just contributes to the problem. Do you verify that the seller is an honest guy before you buy?
I guess what I'm saying is that (both in game and in real life) there is always a chance that someone is running a scam. When you buy something from a garage sale *it could* be stolen. And you buying it you *could* be helping finance future criminal activity.
Would you argue that, like gold buyers, anyone who buys items off EBay and Criagslist are supporting theft? I mean, even if it's just 1% of deals that come about as a result of criminal activity; we are talking HUGE AMOUNTS of crime.
Odds are you don't. If you do feel that way, then pretty much everyone is guilty of something. Even buying a pair of shoes means you are supporting slave labor and child labor. Do you *really* know where each part of your PC came from? Do you really know that none of the items you buy help to support these immoral things?
Me? Personally? I'll keep buying WoW Gold and computers and food and the occasional used item off EBay or criagslist. If I have a reason or even a suspicion that I'm dealing with criminals, I'll avoid it. But I'm not going to *not* do these things on the off chance that something bad *could* happen.
I fail at economics as much as you fail at reading comprehension.
The gold on WoW servers appears magically as far as the game is concerned. There is no limit on the amount of gold on a WoW server, in any practical sense.
If you want to get all asinine about it; the gold isn't infinite....it's limited by the storage ability of the WoW servers (which is damn near limitless for all practical purposes). There are open source 'rip-offs' of the WoW servers that are completely functional. You can download them and look at the database structure and consider the limitations of your own hardware....
But yes, the gold is, for all practical intents and purposes, infinite. Same with the supply of monsters. When you kill one, it will respawn. The servers constantly respawn monsters. You will never, ever, kill all of the murlocs - no matter how many you kill, they will always come back. When they come back, they will always have gold and various items.
The supply of gold is infinite. That doesn't mean that players have access to all of it at once. It just means no matter how many times they kill and loot something, they can always kill it again, loot it again, and the WoW universe now has more gold.
I'm guessing you are either a jackass who wanted to argue on the internet or someone who hasn't ever played WoW. Either way, your comment is pretty childish.
I'd argue that the intelligent person is able to recognize WoW for what it is; a game. And act accordingly. Since I've yet to hear a compelling argument for how my cheating negatively impacts anyone else, I have no moral objection to cheating. It's simply a trade off.
Regardless, intelligence says nothing of character or morality. Even if cheating *does* hurt other people, being intelligent doesn't necessarily mean a person wouldn't chose to cheat anyway. Intelligent people can be assholes too.
That's an awfully big assumption you are making...
"When it comes to powerleving and automation that means the cheater now has 5 level 60 avatars when he really should have one"
Years ago, I used WoWGlider to automate my game play. I didn't use it build an army of maxed out level 60 characters....I used it so that I could keep pace with my friends who had more free time to play the game.
"We're going to play on Saturday - going to do the deadmines, want to come?"
'The deadmines? What level are you? I'm only 12'
"12? Dude - we're all 19. Why didn't you play last week?
'I had to go to work man'
"Bummer. Well, if you get up to 19 or even like 16 you could totally come with"
'Okay, I'll see what I can do'
So, I could run my bot while I did house work or something and keep up. The net result was no different than my actually playing the game.
And even with a bot, you'd level significantly slower than you would with refer a friend.
For all of my cheating - gold buying, bot using (the fish bot I wrote myself, I've also used WoWGlider and WoWBot (I think that's what it was. It went open source and was written in C#), two boxing (which isn't considered cheating by Blizzard, officially) I've never even hit the level cap. My highest character is 60-something (the cap is 80 last I checked).
I'm just not willing to invest large quantities of time into the game; but the game is still more enjoyable to me if I cheat than if I don't.
Claiming that all cheaters are destroying the game seems awfully overzealous to me.
You might as well say 'Quitting your job and playing 80 hours a week is cheating!'. People like that advance through content faster than expected then have nothing to do. They are more likely to grief lowbies. They have more gold and better items. They can out level everyone who doesn't have 80 hours a week to play. It gives them an unfair advantage and they get top pick of all the raid groups, the best gear, the best guilds, the best pvp ranks, etc, etc...
Basically, what it comes down to is being successful and having an enjoyable experience in WOW is about how much time you can devote to it. More time = more stuff = better character.
If you use all of your time to play WoW - that's considered fine; even though it introduces all of the same problems you've talked about in association with cheating.
If someone has more spendable income than time and is willing to use money to avoid hours of grinding in the game...he's a dirty cheater.
I'm fine with the title of 'dirty cheater'; but I disagree with the idea that my cheating negatively affects anyone else.
Slashdot Mirror
That's true of any success.
For most people who end up highly successful at *anything* they have to put forth an effort that would described by most as 'crazy'.
That's exactly why you *shouldn't* pay people based on their years of service.
Employment is only successful when both parties feel that the arrangement is beneficial. When you keep paying someone *more* to do the *same*, in time, you end up with a guy who is earning a lot more that someone else who can do the same job, just as well.
At that point, the company has no motivation to keep on the guy with 20 years of experience when a guy with 2 years can do the same job for half the wage.
U mad? You sound mad....
Your argument doesn't really make any sense...but you sure sound angry. I remember what it was like to be a teenager who really likes to download music too - so I guess I understand.
You say that "...many sane people don't even want to completely abolish copyright". My original argument was that you'd be able to convince a lot of people that copyright is good.
So your panties are all in a wad because...we pretty much, sorta, agree?
You also talk about how 'things will just change, man!' but you don't really explain how. This new business model you speak of...you didn't really explain. The Nine Inch Nails example doesn't really have anything to do with the discussion. They are a band that got famous with the help of millions of dollars worth of advertising and who are already rich. The fact that they gave away a CD doesn't mean that, if ALL of their music was free, they'd still exist and produce music of the same quality. It just means that, they are so rich, they can do whatever they want.
Can you name *one* band who got rich and/or famous without charging anyone for anything?
I think the answer is 'No'.
The honest truth here is that NOTHING STOPS *YOU* from giving away YOUR work. If you really believe in this concept of free - *YOU* can make a movie and give it away. You can make a CD and give it away. You can write software and give it away.
Anyone can.
So why don't you?
If you are going to honestly try to argue that either approach is equally good (or better) then why do the people who produce stuff continue to copyright it?
It's really easy to say, 'I should be able to download that - cause I like stuff and I want stuff, but I don't want to pay for it, and the business model will just change, and I'll get everything I want for free'. It's much, much harder to say, 'I spent three years of my life working on this. Now - here you go, have it for free. I'll just eat water for dinner'.
The reasonable alternative is to find a way to force consumers to pay for your work. And while that's certainly possible, it doesn't really change anything. You end up back into the model of people paying for things they want to enjoy.
With software that means either built in ads (like Google) or server-side dependencies (like TotalFark or MMORPGs that require you to be online). All that's done is....made it hard or impossible to 'copy' the game, since the game lives on a server.
Short term - sure; letting everyone copy everything for free is great.
Long term - you end up with a society where nobody produces anything that can be copied for free.
I earn a living writing software. People pay for that software; that payment allows me to keep writing software. If tomorrow comes and everyone can copy my software for free - short term, the people all end up with software for free. They are happy. Long term, I stop being a computer programmer and find a profession where my work can't be digitally copied. Maybe I become a plumber. Long term, there is no new software.
Same with Movies and Music. Without $$$ things don't happen. You can't have a high budget action movie without $$$. And you don't get $$$ unless people are paying for your content.
You'd be able to convince a lot of people that laws to protect these things are good things.
This is a complete no-brainer to me...
Yes. Of course, you should get paid for being 'on-call'.
Google? No.
But Firefox and Linux? Hell yes.
FireFox has gone from the mostly unknown underdog to having some 25% of the market share. And yes, I do remember countless articles proclaiming the downfall of IE every single step of the way. 'OMG - 5%!' 'OMG - 10%'.
And Linux? Linux does the same thing, only 10x worse. Every year, since (at least) 2001 has been proclaimed as 'THE YEAR' for Linux to triumph over MS. The year that the average Joe and the soccer Mom will install Linux.
These articles typically boast the (very tiny) market share that Linux has gained in the last year. Then it goes on to do a 'head-to-head' comparison between Linux and Windows that grossly misrepresents facts (something that Linux fans adamantly deny, until the next year - when they start there new article about how great Linux is *this* year and start by saying 'In the past, some users had trouble with hardware support - but NOT ANYMORE). But last year, if you'd said hardware support was weak, you'd be flamed into the dirt.
As a disclaimer - I think both Firefox and Linux are awesome. I'm running Slackware at home and it's amazing.
Calories In vs. Calories out - at least at the level that any reasonable person can measure it - is worthless. I that it's easy to remember and even sounds kind of cool - but science doesn't support it. There are plenty of studies that show things eating the same number of calories and having dramatically different weight gain or loss.
Measuring what you eat and estimating how much you burn by your daily activities is clearly not enough to accurately determine if a person will gain or lose weight.
Here's two studies - you can find many, many, many more....
http://www.nature.com/oby/journal/v17/n11/abs/oby2009264a.html
Here's a study where different groups of mice ate the same number of calories, but at different times of the day/night, and the different groups saw different levels of weight gain/loss.
http://www.reeis.usda.gov/web/crisprojectpages/206775.html
Here's a study where different groups of mice ate the same number of calories, but one group had a low-gi diet and another group had a high-gi diet. The high-GI diet mice gained more weight than the low-GI diet mice.
I'm not trying to be argumentative, and I like the 'gist' of the Hacker Diet. But the entire premise of the diet doesn't hold up. Not in any way that a regular person can measure. Maybe, the habits like how much you sleep or when you eat or the GI index affect either how much you burn (even though your activities are no different) or how effective your digestion is - but until you've got a magic toilet that tells you how many calories you've just dumped off and a watch that will tell you exactly how many calories you are burning - it's not useful.
But yeah, the general idea of eating less, eating better, and exercising are all generally good things. Those things are hardly unique to the 'Hacker Diet' though. I don't know of anyone who eats healthy food, in moderation, and follows some sort of physical fitness routine who isn't in decent shape; but grossly oversimplifying what's going on doesn't benefit anyone.
Maybe I didn't reply to the correct post.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1429856&cid=29970560
I detailed all of the steps I took. I followed all four pages of suggestions on the forums and nobody could come up with anything that worked.
If you read the thread, you'll see that I was actively seeking out information and solutions and all that jazz. I tried, they tried, and it didn't work.
From the same Ubuntu forum - from 2007 - here is a post where I asked the Ubuntu community to provide me with a link to a Wireless USB network adapter that would work in Ubuntu. I said, I'd buy anything, as long as it would work, 100%, in Linux. Notice the lack of responses...
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=2962510
And here - here is another thread from 2008 where I was struggling with WiFi again. I asked for someone to simply tell me which one to buy again. Here's the first response http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=782925
"Unfortunately, wireless drivers on linux are usually written by very determined individuals with time on their hands. There are few "guarantees" about anything.
As a general rule, to answer your second question, every card model has a single chipset in it. The "chipset" really is a description of the interface between the card and your computer, which is what any driver has to deal with in order to communicate with it. Broadcomm chips, for example, appear in many cards, but can all be used by the same driver, bcm43xx (though this has its own quirks).
If you look for the driver's webpage, you can often find lists of cards with broadcomm chips the drivers have been tested in. Sometimes the card manufactuerers will tell on their "detailed specification" sheets, but often they won't. Unfortunately, you "just have to know" what kind of chip controls your card. Google is your friend (try "PCI wireless card your-brand linux driver" or something like that).
Attempts have been made to rectify this situation. Probably the best one is ndiswrapper, a package which Ubuntu provides, but does not support as far as I know (in terms of its use in any particular driver). It allows you to take a wireless driver from Windows, like with an install CD that came with the card, and use it on Linux. Again, this is by no means a guarantee, but it seems to work for a lot of people. For the device you mentioned, this method has a set of instructions here.
Alas, like many things in life -- and many more in linux -- there is no easy answer. I hope this helps anyway."
So, yeah, you can sit there and tell me how every wifi you've ever used worked. But I've been there, for years, using Linux and seeing, first hand, what kind of support there is. Before Ubuntu, I was having the same troubles with RedHat and the before that I was screwing with Slackware. When the regulars at the forums tell you that WiFi support is 'iffy at best', I'd believe it.
I think there is an understandable difference between not meeting the minimum requirements and not being able to use a device because of lack of driver support.
Crysis won't run on seven year old hardware; but that doesn't mean Crysis doesn't support that hardware.
Anyway, I certainly wouldn't disagree with the claim that 'Linux has much better support for seven year old hardware'. My objection is that the hardware support is presented as being both infinitely better than Windows *and* so bad you need special Linux hardware....at the same time.
One or the other.
My personal opinion is that, while Linux 'can' run on virtually anything under the sun (I'm sure some guy, somewhere, has managed to install Linux on his toaster...just because he can) the typical PC hardware that I see people using has much better 'out of the box' support in Windows. But I'm not trying to say Linux has bad support - just that I constantly see Linux supports claim both things, at the same time.
Here is what I went through on my last attempt to install Ubunutu...four pages long, at least one other person posting saying he has the same problem. Zero solutions.
http://ubuntu-ky.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1253711&page=1
I know this thread is getting pretty long so I thought it might help if I consolidated everything into a single post so that people who see this don't have to read through all 4 pages of posts.
Ubuntu 9.04 Install Problems Summary
1. Download the Ubuntu 9.04 i386 ISO
2. Burn ISO to a blank DVD using IMG Burn
3. Reboot, try to install Linux
4. Install fails - I see an error message about ACPI and find myself at a command prompt.
5. Read - Edit BIOS - I'm directed to https://help.ubuntu.com/9.04/install...ios-setup.html - I read and find that I didn't disable my 'Memory Hole' so I do that.
6. Reboot, try to install Linux
7. Install fails - I see an error message about ACPI and find myself at a command prompt.
8. Read - Edit BIOS - After visiting this and other forums, I found that by enabling AMD Quiet N Cool the ACPI error would be resolved. This information was not included in the 9.04 installation-guide linked to above.
9. Reboot, try to install Linux
10. Install fails - I see *no* error message - so that's a good sign (I think) - but I still end up at a command prompt.
11. Read - At this point, it seems like the install disk itself is the most likely source of my problems. I'm told to check the md5 of the download and the CD itself though the install screen.
12. Install winmd5sum And use this to verify that my download was correct (and it was).
13. Reboot, try to have the Ubuntu installer verify the disk.
14. Disk Check Fails The same as with the install, I end up at the command prompt. Unsure of what to do next I...
15. Re-Burned ISO to a blank DVD using IMG Burn on a separate PC, hoping that the burn was bad. As recommended, I use a low speed burn to reduce the chances of errors. IMG Burn 'verifies' that the burn was successful (I'm not sure if that means anything or not).
16. Reboot, try to install Linux (with the new disk)
17. Install fails - Same as before, no error message that I can see - just the command prompt.
18. Read the forums and end up directed to https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BootOptions - without really understanding the boot options in the F6 menu
19. Reboot - Install fails Same sort of fail as before, did this a bunch of different times with the different options.
20. Read the forums again. I end up at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/FakeRaidHowto - I have three hard-drives two are configured in a RAID 0 though my BIOS. I'm unsure if the FakeRaid would impact the installer or not (I'm trying to install to the un-raided hard-drive).
21. Read the forums again. It's suggested that I try the alternate download.
22. Download the Ubuntu 9.04 i386 alternate installer ISO
23. Use winmd5sum To verify that my download was correct (and it was).
24. Burned ISO to a blank DVD using IMG Burn
25. Reboot, try to install Linux
26. Install fails - This time I end up stuck in an infinite loop. The text based installer says it can't mount the CD and to insert the CD, but the CD is in. My DVD drive seems to be functioning though - I used it to install Windows 7 two day
The claim I frequently hear is that, in order for Linux to really work as intended, you need to buy a machine with 'Linux supported' hardware.
The other claim I hear is that Linux has vastly superior hardware support than Windows.
When I said it can't be both - I meant that both of the above can't be true. You can buy any PC - even one preloaded with Linux and there is zero doubt in my mind that Windows will be able to run on that hardware.
The fact that you have to hand-pick hardware for Linux means that it can't be better than Windows.
I suppose that would make sense; but I've never seen it explained quite like that.
I do know that Wireless-N support was, well, none existent a while ago. I've heard wireless is greatly improved, but my last attempt with Ubuntu didn't even get me to the point where I could test it.
For the record though - my next purchase is going to be a machine with Linux pre-loaded. And the reason I'm doing this is because, at least for me, personally, hardware support is much better in Windows. I'm 100% confident that I'll be able to find Windows drivers and run Windows on the Linux machine. I'm not 100% confident that I could buy a windows machine and have Linux support the hardware.
I'm not trolling, because I just spent two weeks trying to Ubuntu to install on my modern PC that ran great on Windows 7.
I'm also not trolling because of the nightmare that is WiFi support in Linux.
Look, I'm not anti-linux, I think Linux rocks. But you are doing a disservice to Linux and the Linux community when you make posts like you are making.
'Linux can actually run more hardware'....might be technically true. But if I walk into BestBuy after work *today* and I grab any piece of hardware, off the shelf, it will come with a disk that provides drivers for Windows. How many will include drivers for Linux?
Maybe a default install of Linux supports more hardware than a default install of Windows. Maybe. The difference is, every piece of hardware you or I have purchased almost certainly came with Windows drivers on a disk and almost certainly has drivers available for download on the internet.
The opposite is not true of Linux.
And, if you really want, I can dig up my multi-page post on the Ubunutu Forums where I was eventually told, 'Umm, barrow or buy a new DVD drive'.
The Linux community, as a whole, needs to get it's story straight. (Yeah, I'll probably get modded troll, I'm okay with that).
One day I hear Linux has great hardware support. It's not like Linux in the past, we even have *BETTER* hardware support than Windows now.
Then, the next day I hear, 'Well, yeah, Linux doesn't work; but you don't have the right hardware. You need to BUY A NEW FRIGGIN MACHINE if you want to bank on Linux working without spending hours trying to get it to work.
Which is it? It can't be both.
Pirated copies of Windows will very often fail the WGA check needed to install a handful of select, but really important, type updates.
Most of the time one of the hacker groups will put out their own version or whatever but it can be hit or miss. At least in my experience. Often you'll either have to decide to go without SP1 or you'll have to re-downloaded another pirated copy that already has SP1 added by the pirates who created it.
An OS is the last thing I'd want to pirate and use as my main OS. If it's just a sandbox - that's another story.
I'm not sure why parent is modded 'troll'.
I mean, I understand the whole, 'You don't get to decide what a fair price is - either pay it or don't' mentality. And I'm not saying pirating software because you disagree with the pricing model is okay to do....
But, here you've got a guy on the internet who is claiming (and we have every reason to believe him) that he'd be a paying customer *if* the prices weren't so high.
I'm a full-time .Net software developer, so I realize I probably have more exposure to Microsoft software releases that the average guy (even the average computer guy who isn't on the MS stack) - but I completely and utterly agree with the parent.
Microsoft pricing is *crazy*. I fully respect their right to have a crazy pricing model, but yes, it it crazy. When I was younger I used to pirate MS software because it was too expensive. Now, I get legit copies - but always at a tiny fraction of the actual price.
Microsoft is currently selling copies of Windows 7 Professional for $30 dollars, if you are a student. Before that, Microsoft was giving out copies of Windows 7 to anyone who went to their 'Windows 7 Party Host' website and filled out a quick questioner. Everyone I know who went to that site received a shipment from MS with Windows 7 in it.
And they had large user group meetings at major cities throughout the entire country where you could attend *for free* and walk out with a legit copy of Windows 7. That's right, everyone who showed up, received a legit copy. Free.
Then, you've got the group licensing stuff going on. You can buy a copy of Windows 7 for $200 dollars or spend $350 and get Windows 7 installed *on a brand new laptop*. The laptop manufacturer is only paying a tiny fraction of what you pay. And then you've got things like the MSDN licensing where the company pays some money and gets everyone access to everything (and yes, the license you get there is supposed to limit use of the product to professional development but I've yet to meet anyone who doesn't violate that). Then you've got the MSDN AA for schools - same story. And the student discounts.
Hell, I was a 'Microsoft Student Ambassador' back in college - MS shipped me boxes filled with boxed software to distribute at the '.Net Programmers Club'. They were, literally, just begging people to take it.
I've spoken to several of my friends about Windows 7 (and this applies to any of the major windows software, it's just that 7's release was so recent) and they are all relatively successful, young, professional types. None of them are going to buy Windows 7 because it's too expensive for what it is, in their opinions. I doubt they'll go through the trouble of pirating it. If they could pick it up for $50-100 dollars, they'd buy it.
But they can't. And they aren't willing to spend $200 or $300 dollars for it from a store like Best Buy. And they aren't willing to spend that amount of money and only be able to legitimately use it one computer. My buddy has a laptop and a desktop and he wants the same OS on both because it's easier to remember how to work on OS than two OSes.
So, like lots of other people, he simply isn't going to buy any copies of Windows 7. Eventually, he'll buy a new PC and eventually, he'll get a new laptop and he'll run whatever they come with. Unlike the parent - he's not going to take the time and effort to pirate an OS because he's not much of a computer guy and he doesn't want the headaches associated with that.
But he's a guy with plenty of disposable income who would gladly pay $100 dollars to have Windows 7 on his machines at home and know that he can upgrade a hard-drive or something in the future and still be able to have Windows 7 on it and working. He's certainly not going to track down an OEM copy, nor is he going to buy it knowing it's tied to the hardware. He's not going to buy two retail copies for $400 dollars either.
Basically, he's just a lost sale for MS. Yes, it's their right to set
A couple of reasons I guess. First, the girlfriend and I will watch TV together on the couch and often what is happening is that the shows that I really do enjoy watching (cartoons mostly) for her, she doesn't much care about. And the reverse is true - she's got a thing for cops-type shows like NCIS and then reality stuff like the Amazing Race. She also religiously watches Jeopardy.
So, I'll be screwing around on the laptop half watching/half ignoring some show I don't much care for - but she really likes. The commercial breaks give us time for conversation and what not. Yes, I know that *sounds* pathetic, and before I would agreed that it is pathetic; until I went without it.
I think of it like going to a restaurant with a date. Typically, you show up and have to wait a few minutes (annoying). Then they seat you and you have to wait a bit (also annoying). Then, they take your order and you have to wait a bit. Then you get your salad/appetizer or whatever...then you get your actual meal. Then you wait, ask for a check, then you wait, then you get the check, then you pay and leave.
At first glance, it's easy to say, 'Man all that waiting sucks'. But when you remove it; you realize that the breaks actually added to the experience. Certainly, it can be excessive - an hour long wait without being seated and I'd have already left and gone somewhere else. But if you just showed up and were taken to your table with the food already there and you sat and ate the food and left immediately after - the experience would actually be *less* enjoyable even though all you did was remove the annoying parts.
It sounds weird, I guess. But I found this to be true in quite a few places. Take video games. A lot of what you do in video games is annoying (the grind in WoW or other MMORPGs, for example). And you think, if they game didn't have any of this crap, it'd be so much better. Then you jump on a pirated server or you learn the cheat codes or something and the next thing you know you are tired of the game because you already did everything or something. It turns out to be less fun.
So yeah - three months ago, I would have agreed that commercials are nothing but annoying. But once they were gone I missed them.
That's not to say I'd want to watch commercials 100% of the time or that I think they are more entertaining that the actual shows. I just think it's a buffer zone.
^^^ This.
I've recently jumped on the streaming media bandwagon. I setup the scheduler in uTorrent and downloaded the newest version of TED. Now my PC seeks out new episodes of the shows I want and downloads them during off-peak hours. Then I've got Tversity or whatever it is acting as my UPNP server. Each TV has it's own media receiver.
One side effect of this setup is that the TV shows I've downloaded don't have commercials. At first, I saw this as a good thing. But, after the first few shows, I realized I *missed* the commercials.
Some TV watching, I think of as a 100% attention activity. Think 'really good movies' - you don't want interruptions. You don't want any distractions. No talking to your wife, no running to the kitchen to check on dinner, no talking about what is happening in the movie or what you did at work that day.
But then, some other TV watching - most of the TV watching I do...it's more laid back. The TV is on, but I'm also working on the laptop or cooking dinner or whatever. Commercial breaks give are a welcome interruption. It gives my girl and me a chance to make funny/witty/ remarks about the show we're watching or to talk about other stuff or to get up and check on dinner or to grab a coke, or to run to the bathroom, or to do whatever.
It sounds stupid - but I prefer the commercials for a lot of shows that I don't much care about.
The 'pause' button is an option but then you've got *zero* content on the TV. Commercials are more entertaining than nothing. I like them in certain situations.
I'm sorry if I wasn't very clear in my post.
I'm totally not trying to support OEMs throwing Adobe Reader onto PCs at all. Yeah, I agree that even as far as .pdf files go, there are better tools available for reading them.
Last I looked into it, FoxIt reader was a good alternative that was much faster and worked great. I'm still running it, I think, but I'm fairly sure my version is a few years old.
The reason is mostly because the law says they can't.
Trust me, Microsoft wants nothing more than to bundle it's own version of just about every application you can think of. But, the legal system says they can't. They were declared a monopoly and part of that has limited their ability to include things you want into the OS.
I'm not 'Pro MS' or 'Pro Linux' or anything, I just don't care. But I do think that it's funny that, essentially, the same people who used to complain that Microsoft is an evil monopoly and is destroying small companies by bundling their own XYZ into the operating system are now the same people who still say MS is an evil monopoly but advocate Linux because it includes far more stuff you'll need than Windows.
But yeah, it's really not that MS doesn't want it - it's that it's hands are tied. At least, that's been my understanding of it.
I don't know - I think there is something to be said for trying to evoke change before jumping ship.
"Don't like the fact that a teacher at your kid's elementary school is a convicted sex offender? Don't talk about it at the town meeting and try to get her fired....just move to another school!"
"Don't like your countries policy on gun control laws....don't argue for why your viewpoint is better and vote in people who agree with your views....just move to another country!"
When it comes to OSes, the options are pretty slim and/or come with a hefty cost. Most people are running some version Windows. The mostly realistic alternatives include Linux and OS X. Linux, for many people, require hardware changes, advanced technical skill, and is largely incompatible with the software you could buy on the shelf at your local Best Buy/Walmart/whatever. OS X requires a Mac computer with an intel processor. I've heard of people hacking around that requirement, but again, advanced technical knowledge is required and you still have to buy the OS and you are instantly removing any chance of getting technical help for your product.
So, for most people who have a particular complaint with their current OS...biatching about it until it gets fixed is easier than switching to another OS. And, the other OS is going to have plenty of fresh things to biatch about.
That's what happens when people screw with supply and demand.
There are too many people who are more than willing to work with animals in crappy pay and crappy conditions. Girls that love ponies and all that....and they don't care how much they earn. If they did care they'd have picked another profession.
Rather than having the average salary for a vet. be $30k and require 8 years of school, they had to lower the pool of available vets. In walks the AAVMC. You can't be a vet unless they say you can be. And only the schools that they recognize can declare you a vet.
Worked on a farm your whole life? Know all there is to know about animals? *Too bad*. You can't be a vet, because they say you aren't a vet.
So, the AAVMC decides which schools have programs that will turn people into vets. And they keep it drastically low.
There are 199 law schools in the US.
There are 125 medical schools in the US.
There are 28 vet schools in the US.
Medical schools have a higher acceptance rate than vet schools. That means it's harder to get a license to cut open a pig than it is to cut open a person.
When you've got a situation where lots and lots and lots of people want into a program and you know that, no matter what, you are going to have every single seat in your classroom full, no matter what you charge....well, gee - it's not really a big surprise that vet schools can charge whatever they want.
All this, so that the wages of vets can remain artificially high.
I have to say though - I have zero sympathy for people who play the vet game and get shafted. Eight years of higher education and you'll be lucky to make as much as an accountant or programmer with a four year degree.
And when you buy an item on the AH - do you really know where that item came from? No. You don't.
Of course, people who steal accounts take any items of value and list them on the AH. So, buying items from the AH just contributes to the problem. Do you verify that the seller is an honest guy before you buy?
I guess what I'm saying is that (both in game and in real life) there is always a chance that someone is running a scam. When you buy something from a garage sale *it could* be stolen. And you buying it you *could* be helping finance future criminal activity.
Would you argue that, like gold buyers, anyone who buys items off EBay and Criagslist are supporting theft? I mean, even if it's just 1% of deals that come about as a result of criminal activity; we are talking HUGE AMOUNTS of crime.
Odds are you don't. If you do feel that way, then pretty much everyone is guilty of something. Even buying a pair of shoes means you are supporting slave labor and child labor. Do you *really* know where each part of your PC came from? Do you really know that none of the items you buy help to support these immoral things?
Me? Personally? I'll keep buying WoW Gold and computers and food and the occasional used item off EBay or criagslist. If I have a reason or even a suspicion that I'm dealing with criminals, I'll avoid it. But I'm not going to *not* do these things on the off chance that something bad *could* happen.
I fail at economics as much as you fail at reading comprehension.
The gold on WoW servers appears magically as far as the game is concerned. There is no limit on the amount of gold on a WoW server, in any practical sense.
If you want to get all asinine about it; the gold isn't infinite....it's limited by the storage ability of the WoW servers (which is damn near limitless for all practical purposes). There are open source 'rip-offs' of the WoW servers that are completely functional. You can download them and look at the database structure and consider the limitations of your own hardware....
But yes, the gold is, for all practical intents and purposes, infinite. Same with the supply of monsters. When you kill one, it will respawn. The servers constantly respawn monsters. You will never, ever, kill all of the murlocs - no matter how many you kill, they will always come back. When they come back, they will always have gold and various items.
The supply of gold is infinite. That doesn't mean that players have access to all of it at once. It just means no matter how many times they kill and loot something, they can always kill it again, loot it again, and the WoW universe now has more gold.
I'm guessing you are either a jackass who wanted to argue on the internet or someone who hasn't ever played WoW. Either way, your comment is pretty childish.
I'd argue that the intelligent person is able to recognize WoW for what it is; a game. And act accordingly. Since I've yet to hear a compelling argument for how my cheating negatively impacts anyone else, I have no moral objection to cheating. It's simply a trade off.
Regardless, intelligence says nothing of character or morality. Even if cheating *does* hurt other people, being intelligent doesn't necessarily mean a person wouldn't chose to cheat anyway. Intelligent people can be assholes too.
That's an awfully big assumption you are making...
"When it comes to powerleving and automation that means the cheater now has 5 level 60 avatars when he really should have one"
Years ago, I used WoWGlider to automate my game play. I didn't use it build an army of maxed out level 60 characters....I used it so that I could keep pace with my friends who had more free time to play the game.
"We're going to play on Saturday - going to do the deadmines, want to come?"
'The deadmines? What level are you? I'm only 12'
"12? Dude - we're all 19. Why didn't you play last week?
'I had to go to work man'
"Bummer. Well, if you get up to 19 or even like 16 you could totally come with"
'Okay, I'll see what I can do'
So, I could run my bot while I did house work or something and keep up. The net result was no different than my actually playing the game.
And even with a bot, you'd level significantly slower than you would with refer a friend.
For all of my cheating - gold buying, bot using (the fish bot I wrote myself, I've also used WoWGlider and WoWBot (I think that's what it was. It went open source and was written in C#), two boxing (which isn't considered cheating by Blizzard, officially) I've never even hit the level cap. My highest character is 60-something (the cap is 80 last I checked).
I'm just not willing to invest large quantities of time into the game; but the game is still more enjoyable to me if I cheat than if I don't.
Claiming that all cheaters are destroying the game seems awfully overzealous to me.
You might as well say 'Quitting your job and playing 80 hours a week is cheating!'. People like that advance through content faster than expected then have nothing to do. They are more likely to grief lowbies. They have more gold and better items. They can out level everyone who doesn't have 80 hours a week to play. It gives them an unfair advantage and they get top pick of all the raid groups, the best gear, the best guilds, the best pvp ranks, etc, etc...
Basically, what it comes down to is being successful and having an enjoyable experience in WOW is about how much time you can devote to it. More time = more stuff = better character.
If you use all of your time to play WoW - that's considered fine; even though it introduces all of the same problems you've talked about in association with cheating.
If someone has more spendable income than time and is willing to use money to avoid hours of grinding in the game...he's a dirty cheater.
I'm fine with the title of 'dirty cheater'; but I disagree with the idea that my cheating negatively affects anyone else.