I have played several Korean MMO's (with engrish interfaces, of course) based off the business model (Maple Story, Flyff and the like), and from my experience, most people can't/won't spend money on them, but those that do tend to spend big, customizing every piece of equipment they possible can. The fact that these games are still running several years on is proof of profitability.
It will be interesting to see how this pans out. It might be quite nice to play a free game with decent english ingame.
approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)
( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses (X) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected (X) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money ( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks ( ) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it (X) Users of email will not put up with it ( ) Microsoft will not put up with it ( ) The police will not put up with it ( ) Requires too much cooperation from spammers ( ) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once ( ) Many email users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers ( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists ( ) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business
Specifically, your plan fails to account for
( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it ( ) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email ( ) Open relays in foreign countries ( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses ( ) Asshats ( ) Jurisdictional problems ( ) Unpopularity of weird new taxes ( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money ( ) Huge existing software investment in SMTP ( ) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack ( ) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email ( ) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes ( ) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches (X) Extreme profitability of spam ( ) Joe jobs and/or identity theft ( ) Technically illiterate politicians ( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers ( ) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves ( ) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering ( ) Outlook
and the following philosophical objections may also apply:
(X) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever been shown practical ( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable ( ) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation ( ) Blacklists suck ( ) Whitelists suck ( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored ( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud ( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks ( ) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually (X) Sending email should be free ( ) Why should we have to trust you and your servers? ( ) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses ( ) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem ( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome ( ) I don't want the government reading my email ( ) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough
Furthermore, this is what I think about you:
( ) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work. (X) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it. ( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your house down!
255 is the largest number than can be fit into 8 bits. If we were to allow addresses up to 999 then the entire TCI/IP protocol stack would have to be redesigned to allow for more bits in an IP address. Which would of course cause exactly the same issue the world has with IPv6.
This article ignores the real question: Why change? I personally see nothing 'outdated' or 'bloated' about Gecko, and there is no point in changing if Webkit provides no real advantage.
I will admit now that I know next to nothing about MIPS processors. However, if it isn't compatable with x86 apps it will need quite a large repository of pre-compiled apps or MIPS will be it's downfall.
I personally have always got a kick out of this particular clause from the iTunes EULA:
You also agree that you will not use these products for any purposes prohibited by United States law, including, without limitation, the development, design, manufacture or production of nuclear, missiles, or chemical or biological weapons.
People in the US don't know how easy they have it. I'm living in New Zealand, and I'm paying 90$ NZD for a 1Mb connection and a 20GB cap.
I would give an arm and a leg to have a 250GB cap for the sort of prices Comcast customers pay. Thats more data than 99% of people could use in a month if they tried.
Welcome to a tiny taste of the rest of the world, America. Can you stomach it?
I find the thought of this genuinley scary. Correct me if I am wrong, but we would have to change the BGP protocol itself to fix this issue. That isn't going to happen anytime soon I reckon, so I guess there is nothing we can do but encrypt senstive transmissions and hope for the best.
I am glad to see that the PHP community, particularly Stefan Esser, can continue to support the system even after the vendor stops....unlike Microsoft, which seems determined to drag all of its products down with closed source.
There, fixed that for you.
That is also a valid statement. It is good to see community support continue, especially to ease the transition. Your comment about Microsoft closed source nature is also very perceptive - access to the source code make the difference between good community legacy support and bad community legacy support.
I am glad to see that the PHP devs can allow an old version to die....unlike Microsoft, which seems determined to drag all of its products down with legacy support.
If you ignore the whole phone integration angle, then an ultramobile little computer like Asus Eee PC should do the trick. I don't think the Eee has a video output for a projector, but there are many ultraportable made by many companies, so one is bound to have what you need. That way, you aren't spending so much money on a mobile that does less for the same price.
In the long run, theme names are easiest for people to remember. For example, I work for a company of 60+ servers, and they are all named after characters and locations in the Discworld series of novels.
They shipped. Thats only step one though. Next, they have to function just as well as a real Mac, which according to the article isn't quite right.
Plus, they have another hurdle - Apple C&D letters should be rolling in by now, if they haven't already.
It should be an interesting court battle. Yet another challenge for intellectual property in relation to software. Lets hope this one goes the way be all want.
However, I will still miss Decipher Script. Just like Use Rope can be replaced with a Dex check, Decipher Script could be replaced by an Int check, but it would have to be a penalty, because code-breaking is a skill you need to be trained in if you want to break more than simple codes.
I see your point, though I still disagree. From your arguement, I would assume that your group spends more time in dank, musty caves and underground labyrinths than in more realistic settings. Our group, for contrasts sake, spends more time in towns dealing with NPCs. Trust me, a good Use Rope scores when attempting to take down and deliver alive a rogue with many ranks in Escape Artist.
Skills like Use Rope and Decipher Script may not be used every game, but when they are used they are incredibly helpful.
Our DM takes particular joy in using relatively obscure in his games, so they are good to put ranks in, so that you can do tasks yourself rather than hiring an NPC. It may be different in your games. I don't know.
Decipher script isnt such a useless school when the DM regularly throws encrypted documents into the game as quest hooks and whatnot. Yeah, and Use Rope isn't useless if your whole campaign revolves around getting Tenderfoot rank in the local Boy Scouts chapter.
Your game doesn't really sound all that free-form if the lack of a skill on a formal list will determine whether or not your plots can still be played through. I never said that our games would be unplayable under the new ruleset. Only that it would probably end with our DM making custom rules for the deciphering the codes he likes so much.
And Use Rope IS a useful skill. If you use it right, that is. It is used for more then tying knots, your know.
Slashdot Mirror
It should read 'Australia to TRY to Block BitTorrent'.
Those poor souls. That must have been totally in the thrall of Jobs' Reality Distortion Field.
It is a mistake you only make once. Believe me.
I have played several Korean MMO's (with engrish interfaces, of course) based off the business model (Maple Story, Flyff and the like), and from my experience, most people can't/won't spend money on them, but those that do tend to spend big, customizing every piece of equipment they possible can. The fact that these games are still running several years on is proof of profitability.
It will be interesting to see how this pans out. It might be quite nice to play a free game with decent english ingame.
Your post advocates a
( ) technical ( ) legislative (X) market-based ( ) vigilante
approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)
( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses
(X) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected
(X) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks
( ) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it
(X) Users of email will not put up with it
( ) Microsoft will not put up with it
( ) The police will not put up with it
( ) Requires too much cooperation from spammers
( ) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
( ) Many email users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers
( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists
( ) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business
Specifically, your plan fails to account for
( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it
( ) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email
( ) Open relays in foreign countries
( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses
( ) Asshats
( ) Jurisdictional problems
( ) Unpopularity of weird new taxes
( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money
( ) Huge existing software investment in SMTP
( ) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack
( ) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email
( ) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
( ) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches
(X) Extreme profitability of spam
( ) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
( ) Technically illiterate politicians
( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers
( ) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves
( ) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering
( ) Outlook
and the following philosophical objections may also apply:
(X) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever
been shown practical
( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable
( ) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation
( ) Blacklists suck
( ) Whitelists suck
( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored
( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud
( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks
( ) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually
(X) Sending email should be free
( ) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?
( ) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses
( ) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome
( ) I don't want the government reading my email
( ) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough
Furthermore, this is what I think about you:
( ) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.
(X) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.
( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your house down!
Not so simple.
255 is the largest number than can be fit into 8 bits. If we were to allow addresses up to 999 then the entire TCI/IP protocol stack would have to be redesigned to allow for more bits in an IP address. Which would of course cause exactly the same issue the world has with IPv6.
I suppose that explains why CoD3 was so horrible. I suppose that means we will be waiting till CoD6 to get another CoD game worth playing.
Har har har! I is made smarterer by playing the WoWs!
Of course I didn't RTFA. Based off most of the comments I've seen, I figure it must be against the rules!
This article ignores the real question: Why change? I personally see nothing 'outdated' or 'bloated' about Gecko, and there is no point in changing if Webkit provides no real advantage.
I will admit now that I know next to nothing about MIPS processors. However, if it isn't compatable with x86 apps it will need quite a large repository of pre-compiled apps or MIPS will be it's downfall.
You also agree that you will not use these products for any purposes prohibited by United States law, including, without limitation, the development, design, manufacture or production of nuclear, missiles, or chemical or biological weapons.
You don't even have to RTFA to find that out. it says it right there in the summary - 3D support is the NEXT step, but it isn't there yet.
People in the US don't know how easy they have it. I'm living in New Zealand, and I'm paying 90$ NZD for a 1Mb connection and a 20GB cap.
I would give an arm and a leg to have a 250GB cap for the sort of prices Comcast customers pay. Thats more data than 99% of people could use in a month if they tried.
Welcome to a tiny taste of the rest of the world, America. Can you stomach it?
I find the thought of this genuinley scary. Correct me if I am wrong, but we would have to change the BGP protocol itself to fix this issue. That isn't going to happen anytime soon I reckon, so I guess there is nothing we can do but encrypt senstive transmissions and hope for the best.
I am glad to see that the PHP community, particularly Stefan Esser, can continue to support the system even after the vendor stops....unlike Microsoft, which seems determined to drag all of its products down with closed source.
There, fixed that for you.
That is also a valid statement. It is good to see community support continue, especially to ease the transition. Your comment about Microsoft closed source nature is also very perceptive - access to the source code make the difference between good community legacy support and bad community legacy support.
I am glad to see that the PHP devs can allow an old version to die....unlike Microsoft, which seems determined to drag all of its products down with legacy support.
This is the way progress is made.
If you ignore the whole phone integration angle, then an ultramobile little computer like Asus Eee PC should do the trick. I don't think the Eee has a video output for a projector, but there are many ultraportable made by many companies, so one is bound to have what you need. That way, you aren't spending so much money on a mobile that does less for the same price.
I would be interested to know just how big the bribe it takes to win SquareEnix's biggest title.
In the long run, theme names are easiest for people to remember. For example, I work for a company of 60+ servers, and they are all named after characters and locations in the Discworld series of novels.
Unfortunately, he would only have chance to have one go splash, since after that he would probably come down with a bad case of dead.
They shipped. Thats only step one though. Next, they have to function just as well as a real Mac, which according to the article isn't quite right.
Plus, they have another hurdle - Apple C&D letters should be rolling in by now, if they haven't already.
It should be an interesting court battle. Yet another challenge for intellectual property in relation to software. Lets hope this one goes the way be all want.
I see your point, in the context of Use Rope.
However, I will still miss Decipher Script. Just like Use Rope can be replaced with a Dex check, Decipher Script could be replaced by an Int check, but it would have to be a penalty, because code-breaking is a skill you need to be trained in if you want to break more than simple codes.
I see your point, though I still disagree. From your arguement, I would assume that your group spends more time in dank, musty caves and underground labyrinths than in more realistic settings. Our group, for contrasts sake, spends more time in towns dealing with NPCs. Trust me, a good Use Rope scores when attempting to take down and deliver alive a rogue with many ranks in Escape Artist.
Skills like Use Rope and Decipher Script may not be used every game, but when they are used they are incredibly helpful.
Our DM takes particular joy in using relatively obscure in his games, so they are good to put ranks in, so that you can do tasks yourself rather than hiring an NPC. It may be different in your games. I don't know.