It's more an issue that some people think that HA == DR.. which obviously this story reminds us that it is not the same thing.
Mirroring / RAID == HA.. if one of your HDDs let the smoke out, you still don't incur downtime. If you have a hot-spare, you're even better.. all it does it let you have alittle time to correct the issue (ie: "It can wait until morning").
Also, one other very important thing.. mirroring doesn't prevent/restore data corruption. If you're mirroring your rm -rf (as pointed out by Corsec67 below), your RAID will happy do what it does.. and span your command to all your disks.... Congrats, you just successfully gave yourself HA to your disk erasing!:]
Backups are DR.. If your RAID croaks.. your SOL if you don't off-machine backups. If you accidently nuke your disks with an rm or something, you can still go back and restore data.. sure you'll likely loose -some- data, but -some- is better then all in this case.
2 Ubuntus, 2 SuSes, a new Fedora.. and a host of applications that just version incremented this year, and a twitter clone.
Meh.
Not dissing the applications.. I think OO3 is a vast improvement, and newer versions of an OS is probably a good thing.. I was just hoping for stuff that wasn't just 'Newest release of MyFlavourHere linux based OS'
There's even an PDF of their 07-08 financial there with projections for the 08-09 FY.
Yes, $6mill could provide alot of clean drinking water.. but did you ever think that maybe information provided to those same people might enable them to provide themselves with drinking water? Wikipedia won't make you an expert in a topic, but it can definitely get you thinking about it.. it's a decent tool for getting a feel for the problems/solutions/etc on a topic of which you are unfamiliar... now we just need to provide useful/accessibility to impoverished persons so they can enable themselves.
They are separate animals with regards to this topic. So if it's an MMO, you're just SOL. If it's a game from a failed download service, then I'd suggest you look for a emulator of that service.
I agree that the risk of an online content service going under is a possibility, and it really sucked for many of the legit users that used some of the ones that failed earlier on. I believe at least one of them however, worked with some of the game companies to try and provide physical media replacements, imo, the 'right' thing to do in that circumstance.
Not to mention you can buy alot more music/albums with $50 from a 2nd hand shop.
The last time I seriously bought music, not counting direct from musician and Magnatune stuff, I picked up this way and ended up getting 2-3x the number of albums then they would have been new.
Overall, I don't resell music/games/whatever anyway.. I alittle more picky on the front side of the games I buy so I've only had a few lemons I didn't like. Lately, I get demos or wait for things to go on sale on Steam before I usually buy them as well.
Actually some games do (factor in at least rudimentary ballistics like BC), (looking at you RO).. most games do not or they use a cone-of-fire mechanism to 'approximate' it.
Many of the games out there today have fairly short engagement distances.. at those short distances, the return on stuff in all those ballistics is pretty minimal.. as a programmer I would probably not even bother calculating ballistics at such distances, or fall back to a simple Cone-of-Fire setup.
One of the other things about war games is, statistically, most people miss what they are firing at. A popular statistic used for WW2 is something like 2% of all rounds fired actually hit their opponent. This is in part to the subliminal influence of the combatant to NOT want to kill people. This is a factor that obviously doesn't exist in games.. you can call it something like the lack of 'fear of death' because you know that your opponent won't really die in a game.. and likewise, you won't really die either.
When was the last time you played a game and got only a 2% hit ratio? Personally I average like 30-40% in L4D.. and I often just shoot indiscriminately through walls.
I haven't played alot of the newer SWAT series, but the Sniper training scenario in SWAT (3?) was prob the most realistic I've played.. probably because in that section of the game, it's geared 100% towards putting a bullet on target.
--- In conclusion.. you will never be able to simulate everything that goes into putting a bullet on target inside of a video game 100% realistically, but most game developers are to (lazy|deadline bound|never thought about it) and stick to a simplified random style Cone-of-Fire for most of their ballistics. It's easier for the programmer, faster for the game.
I bought HL2 solely to try the mods (specifically Insurgency; NOT CS:S).. same reason I bought UT2004 (specifically for Red Orchestra, and some of the other UT2k4 mods) and UT2007 aka: UT3..
I think I put a total of 10 hours into both CS and CS:S over my entire life. As for HL2, I've only gotten like an hour into it (the stage where you're escaping via sewers/aquaducts).. although it's a compelling scenario (semi-post-apocy distopia, hell ya!), the linear-story FPS as a whole has lost most of it's appeal to me.
Every piece of free software I've ever installed has clearly explained one important thing:
- This software comes with no Warranty.. Use at your own risk.
As such, I agree that someone writing software is not obliged to support any of their users. Usually they will do so out of the kindness of their own heart. On larger projects, you'll have a community of users that are able to help each other out.
One of the biggest arguments I've heard in favor of OSS is it's better TCO. The argument is it's cheaper to have someone on your site learn enough care and feeding of software you didn't have to pay for; then it is to buy licenses and support for a commercial product.
Also a benefit is usually if you need to customize a piece of software, if it's OSS, you can do it yourself (or have one of your existing IT people do it); whereby if you are licensing it, you'll have to beg and plead with the offering company to do it, and it's usually -very- expensive.
Re:You do realize the other hobbies are the same?
on
How Do Games Grow Up?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Your daughter can end up scraping by on a minimum wage playing in some orchestra or some unknown band in a bar, he can end up a minimum-wage game tester.
Apparently the fringe benefit of becoming a Minimum wage game tester is a free sex change.:] (I joke.. I myself am a fairly horrible spelling/grammar person)
In general, I can agree with your abstract level of thought.. however I still disagree with the principles.
I think the problem may arise that, at least to me, a significant majority of the games out there teach no true auxiliary skills.
Yes; shooters/reaction games can in fact heighten your reaction time. Strategy games can improve critical thinking, etc..
But I'm not seeing what the auxiliary skills are for games like FO3 or GTA3+ (both games I love btw).. maybe reaction times; but it's not the defining aspect of those types of games.
Just it seems to me that most games being put out by the big houses are just more about entertainment and what's 'fun'. (I like fun.. I'm not bashing fun!).
Why don't people just mind their business for a night or two and wake up and find out who the president is?
What good is there to watch the play by play on the election? Every time I've done it's resulted in network news "predicting" election outcomes; in Florida this is significant because part of the state is in another time zone (thus polls close in the majority of the state before they close in the rest). Sure, it may or may not affect the ballots cast by the other part of the state; but my point is that I'm getting fed up with news networks 'predicting' people winning.
The last 2 presidential elections really really catered to the craziness that happens because of this.
And even if you do hear about someone twittering that they didn't get a sharp No2 pencil to vote with, why do you care, and what are you going to do about it? If people were really concerned about 'election day fairness' maybe they should become poll workers themselves?
Me, I'm still hoping that they figure out a way for the Doctor to break to the time locks on the Time War so that they can do another Five Doctors episode with the remaining Doctor's still living.
First rule of DrWho^H^H^H^H^H Sci-Fi: If it needs to be done. we'll do it. then just make an excuse to smooth it over alittle.
Aside from that, the Time lock has technically already been broken by Dalek Caan, so we know it's possible. They could make it easy as 'The Lock has already been broken'; or what I would enjoy; is a series of epi's during the timewar; sorta like when T.Baker crossed into E-Space and they had a few E-Space epis.
between blocking and actually seeing what enemies had resistance to what types of attacks, it make the game a good casual play for me.
Ya, there was some growing pains where I was getting my ass kicked by hobos, but once I learned how to block correctly -and- that Tyco's gun wasn't effective against 'Enemy Type X' so I used him to just do group effects or toss bombs, etc.
There is a Civ '5'.. i think it's for consoles only.. unfortunately it looks like Sid did to it what he did to alot of the newer titles.. 'streamlined and simplified it for Consoles'.:[
Now I do have and like Civ4.. some of the mods for it are pretty damn nifty.. unfortunately since I never got the BTS expansion it means I can't play -some- of them.. but the ones I can play still entertain me and help to mix up the whole Ironmaking->GunPowder->Rule The World formula.
Um.. there are other RTS games out there that don't require building squat.. in those games sometimes you -can- win by 'diddle-assing' (depending on your definition of course)
Myth is an excellent example.. there of course were several levels in WarCraft (and I assume the sequels, but I never played them, but also StarCraft as well) where you didn't get to build anything either.
I have fond memories of playing Slug-Matches and VRPoolParty.... it's a shame Bungie put on blinders for the Halo franchise, they used to be my favorite company before it.
"..but when things don't work we could at least debug and find out why not. "
How does blender factor into it? Or it just a FOSS option for 3d for you?
TBH; you did cite one reason I'm glad I'm modding on the UE engine.. Epic is fairly decent at providing documentation (even though to get -all- of it and do some low-level stuff you have to be a licensee). We're also fortunate that the company whose game we are modding is fairly open and helpful regarding it; perhaps because they started as modders..
Unfortunately in the RO:O community, there has been no end of the realism debates over the years.. such is life.
If Jumpgate was being billed as a MMO-Space-Sim, then yes: It should definately be more sim oriented. This article bills it as a "space-fighter MMO", so that in my mind makes it just a 3d version of Subspace.. and that's fine too.
On an aside.. i'd play a MMO space sim.... something the likes of the old X-Wing games or the X^n games.
can I run around with my "Network Operator" guild tag over my head and engage in open combat with those members of the "Webpage Design" guild?.. plz plz plz!
Well I only skimmed the article; but it seemed more about people -wanting- to work after retirement. Not people -needing- to work.
Given i'll be able to retire from my company with a pretty livable pension (not including the 457 plan I'm in) in my mid-40s; frankly I'll probably be in the same boat.. not -needing- to work; but rather wanting to pick up something to do; but also get alittle scratch from it..
Now I am aware that there are alot of people that will -need- to work after 'retirement' for whatever reasons, ranging from unexpected widowship, to their company going under and unable to pay out their pension, to just plain poor management of their money.
As we get a larger population of 'post-retirement age' people, it's bound to happen that the number of people working during their 'retirement' will also increase for whatever reason.
As some pointed out.. what is defined as 'Cheap'? And also what level of work are you doing?
If you're just a cable/server/network guy (like me) then you really just need a cleaner and something basic to check for breaks.. (see comments about mag-lites; etc). I mostly deal with pre-made patch MM/SM. A decent DB tester on 1300/850 is helpful too just so you can check for light-loss assuming your optics don't tell you (some do).
If you are a 'Fibre Guy', or make your own SM/MM; then you'll want to look at things like Fusion Splicers and OTDRs and other (generally expensive) test kit.
Slashdot Mirror
It's more an issue that some people think that HA == DR.. which obviously this story reminds us that it is not the same thing.
Mirroring / RAID == HA.. if one of your HDDs let the smoke out, you still don't incur downtime. If you have a hot-spare, you're even better.. all it does it let you have alittle time to correct the
issue (ie: "It can wait until morning").
Also, one other very important thing.. mirroring doesn't prevent/restore data corruption. If you're mirroring your rm -rf (as pointed out by Corsec67 below), your RAID will happy do what it does.. and span your command to all your disks.... Congrats, you just successfully gave yourself HA to your disk erasing! :]
Backups are DR.. If your RAID croaks.. your SOL if you don't off-machine backups. If you accidently nuke your disks with an rm or something, you can still go back and restore data.. sure you'll likely loose -some- data, but -some- is better then all in this case.
2 Ubuntus, 2 SuSes, a new Fedora.. and a host of applications that just version incremented this year, and a twitter clone.
Meh.
Not dissing the applications.. I think OO3 is a vast improvement, and newer versions of an OS is probably a good thing.. I was just hoping for stuff that wasn't just 'Newest release of MyFlavourHere linux based OS'
If you want to see how they spend their money, go here: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate/Questions/en#How_is_the_revenue_spent.3F
There's even an PDF of their 07-08 financial there with projections for the 08-09 FY.
Yes, $6mill could provide alot of clean drinking water.. but did you ever think that maybe information provided to those same people might enable them to provide themselves with drinking water? Wikipedia won't make you an expert in a topic, but it can definitely get you thinking about it.. it's a decent tool for getting a feel for the problems/solutions/etc on a topic of which you are unfamiliar... now we just need to provide useful/accessibility to impoverished persons so they can enable themselves.
Very "Colossus: The Forbin Project"...
MMOs or from one of the failed game services?
They are separate animals with regards to this topic. So if it's an MMO, you're just SOL. If it's a game from a failed download service, then I'd suggest you look for a emulator of that service.
I agree that the risk of an online content service going under is a possibility, and it really sucked for many of the legit users that used some of the ones that failed earlier on. I believe at least one of them however, worked with some of the game companies to try and provide physical media replacements, imo, the 'right' thing to do in that circumstance.
Not to mention you can buy alot more music/albums with $50 from a 2nd hand shop.
The last time I seriously bought music, not counting direct from musician and Magnatune stuff, I picked up this way and ended up getting 2-3x the number of albums then they would have been new.
Overall, I don't resell music/games/whatever anyway.. I alittle more picky on the front side of the games I buy so I've only had a few lemons I didn't like. Lately, I get demos or wait for things to go on sale on Steam before I usually buy them as well.
Actually some games do (factor in at least rudimentary ballistics like BC), (looking at you RO).. most games do not or they use a cone-of-fire mechanism to 'approximate' it.
Many of the games out there today have fairly short engagement distances.. at those short distances, the return on stuff in all those ballistics is pretty minimal.. as a programmer I would probably not even bother calculating ballistics at such distances, or fall back to a simple Cone-of-Fire setup.
One of the other things about war games is, statistically, most people miss what they are firing at. A popular statistic used for WW2 is something like 2% of all rounds fired actually hit their opponent. This is in part to the subliminal influence of the combatant to NOT want to kill people. This is a factor that obviously doesn't exist in games.. you can call it something like the lack of 'fear of death' because you know that your opponent won't really die in a game.. and likewise, you won't really die either.
When was the last time you played a game and got only a 2% hit ratio? Personally I average like 30-40% in L4D.. and I often just shoot indiscriminately through walls.
I haven't played alot of the newer SWAT series, but the Sniper training scenario in SWAT (3?) was prob the most realistic I've played.. probably because in that section of the game, it's geared 100% towards putting a bullet on target.
---
In conclusion.. you will never be able to simulate everything that goes into putting a bullet on target inside of a video game 100% realistically, but most game developers are to (lazy|deadline bound|never thought about it) and stick to a simplified random style Cone-of-Fire for most of their ballistics. It's easier for the programmer, faster for the game.
What's the Karma hit if I blow up the studios because Mister Riccitiello told me too ?
Lies..
I bought HL2 solely to try the mods (specifically Insurgency; NOT CS:S) .. same reason I bought UT2004 (specifically for Red Orchestra, and some of the other UT2k4 mods) and UT2007 aka: UT3..
I think I put a total of 10 hours into both CS and CS:S over my entire life.
As for HL2, I've only gotten like an hour into it (the stage where you're escaping via sewers/aquaducts).. although it's a compelling scenario (semi-post-apocy distopia, hell ya!), the linear-story FPS as a whole has lost most of it's appeal to me.
Every piece of free software I've ever installed has clearly explained one important thing:
- This software comes with no Warranty.. Use at your own risk.
As such, I agree that someone writing software is not obliged to support any of their users. Usually they will do so out of the kindness of their own heart. On larger projects, you'll have a community of users that are able to help each other out.
One of the biggest arguments I've heard in favor of OSS is it's better TCO. The argument is it's cheaper to have someone on your site learn enough care and feeding of software you didn't have to pay for; then it is to buy licenses and support for a commercial product.
Also a benefit is usually if you need to customize a piece of software, if it's OSS, you can do it yourself (or have one of your existing IT people do it); whereby if you are licensing it, you'll have to beg and plead with the offering company to do it, and it's usually -very- expensive.
Your daughter can end up scraping by on a minimum wage playing in some orchestra or some unknown band in a bar, he can end up a minimum-wage game tester.
Apparently the fringe benefit of becoming a Minimum wage game tester is a free sex change. :]
(I joke.. I myself am a fairly horrible spelling/grammar person)
In general, I can agree with your abstract level of thought.. however I still disagree with the principles.
I think the problem may arise that, at least to me, a significant majority of the games out there teach no true auxiliary skills.
Yes; shooters/reaction games can in fact heighten your reaction time. Strategy games can improve critical thinking, etc..
But I'm not seeing what the auxiliary skills are for games like FO3 or GTA3+ (both games I love btw).. maybe reaction times; but it's not the defining aspect of those types of games.
Just it seems to me that most games being put out by the big houses are just more about entertainment and what's 'fun'. (I like fun.. I'm not bashing fun!).
I concur.
Why don't people just mind their business for a night or two and wake up and find out who the president is?
What good is there to watch the play by play on the election? Every time I've done it's resulted in network news "predicting" election outcomes; in Florida this is significant because part of the state is in another time zone (thus polls close in the majority of the state before they close in the rest). Sure, it may or may not affect the ballots cast by the other part of the state; but my point is that I'm getting fed up with news networks 'predicting' people winning.
The last 2 presidential elections really really catered to the craziness that happens because of this.
And even if you do hear about someone twittering that they didn't get a sharp No2 pencil to vote with, why do you care, and what are you going to do about it?
If people were really concerned about 'election day fairness' maybe they should become poll workers themselves?
Me, I'm still hoping that they figure out a way for the Doctor to break to the time locks on the Time War so that they can do another Five Doctors episode with the remaining Doctor's still living.
First rule of DrWho^H^H^H^H^H Sci-Fi: If it needs to be done. we'll do it. then just make an excuse to smooth it over alittle.
Aside from that, the Time lock has technically already been broken by Dalek Caan, so we know it's possible. They could make it easy as 'The Lock has already been broken'; or what I would enjoy; is a series of epi's during the timewar; sorta like when T.Baker crossed into E-Space and they had a few E-Space epis.
I'm some random /. reader, and I approve the preceding message.
I love how TFA suggests you go out and shot-gun register anything associated with your brand.
in short.. he's saying you should fight squatting by squatting it first.
Gotta love that.
I was hoping he would travel time, then fly to Pluto, pick up a Phaser, then go back in time and chill with Minax. .. but that's just me.
between blocking and actually seeing what enemies had resistance to what types of attacks, it make the game a good casual play for me.
Ya, there was some growing pains where I was getting my ass kicked by hobos, but once I learned how to block correctly -and- that Tyco's gun wasn't effective against 'Enemy Type X' so I used him to just do group effects or toss bombs, etc.
Sure.. i mean everyone can say 'ORGO'..
"Hey.. lets goto the market OR-GO to the pub.. no one says FTOOMSH!"
There is a Civ '5'.. i think it's for consoles only.. unfortunately it looks like Sid did to it what he did to alot of the newer titles.. 'streamlined and simplified it for Consoles'. :[
Now I do have and like Civ4.. some of the mods for it are pretty damn nifty.. unfortunately since I never got the BTS expansion it means I can't play -some- of them.. but the ones I can play still entertain me and help to mix up the whole Ironmaking->GunPowder->Rule The World formula.
Um.. there are other RTS games out there that don't require building squat.. in those games sometimes you -can- win by 'diddle-assing' (depending on your definition of course)
Myth is an excellent example.. there of course were several levels in WarCraft (and I assume the sequels, but I never played them, but also StarCraft as well) where you didn't get to build anything either.
I have fond memories of playing Slug-Matches and VRPoolParty.... it's a shame Bungie put on blinders for the Halo franchise, they used to be my favorite company before it.
"..but when things don't work we could at least debug and find out why not. "
How does blender factor into it? Or it just a FOSS option for 3d for you?
TBH; you did cite one reason I'm glad I'm modding on the UE engine.. Epic is fairly decent at providing documentation (even though to get -all- of it and do some low-level stuff you have to be a licensee). We're also fortunate that the company whose game we are modding is fairly open and helpful regarding it; perhaps because they started as modders..
Unfortunately in the RO:O community, there has been no end of the realism debates over the years.. such is life.
If Jumpgate was being billed as a MMO-Space-Sim, then yes: It should definately be more sim oriented.
This article bills it as a "space-fighter MMO", so that in my mind makes it just a 3d version of Subspace.. and that's fine too.
On an aside.. i'd play a MMO space sim.... something the likes of the old X-Wing games or the X^n games.
Oo.. IT guilds..
can I run around with my "Network Operator" guild tag over my head and engage in open combat with those members of the "Webpage Design" guild?.. plz plz plz!
*Cor Por* *Cor Por* *Cor Por*
Well I only skimmed the article; but it seemed more about people -wanting- to work after retirement. Not people -needing- to work.
Given i'll be able to retire from my company with a pretty livable pension (not including the 457 plan I'm in) in my mid-40s; frankly I'll probably be in the same boat.. not -needing- to work; but rather wanting to pick up something to do; but also get alittle scratch from it..
Now I am aware that there are alot of people that will -need- to work after 'retirement' for whatever reasons, ranging from unexpected widowship, to their company going under and unable to pay out their pension, to just plain poor management of their money.
As we get a larger population of 'post-retirement age' people, it's bound to happen that the number of people working during their 'retirement' will also increase for whatever reason.
As some pointed out.. what is defined as 'Cheap'? And also what level of work are you doing?
If you're just a cable/server/network guy (like me) then you really just need a cleaner and something basic to check for breaks.. (see comments about mag-lites; etc). I mostly deal with pre-made patch MM/SM.
A decent DB tester on 1300/850 is helpful too just so you can check for light-loss assuming your optics don't tell you (some do).
If you are a 'Fibre Guy', or make your own SM/MM; then you'll want to look at things like Fusion Splicers and OTDRs and other (generally expensive) test kit.