If you have to rely on botting, one of two things is wrong: either you're not interested in the game the way it was designed, or it was designed incorrectly by insisting that you "work" for the resources and advancement that you earn during gameplay. If botting is necessary, why don't they just hand out uber characters at the start, allowing players to forego the grind altogether?
The reason they don't do this is because the games are about character development as much as anything else. Deciding that you do not want to participate in a tedious portion of the development process by using a bot, is like going for a college degree while having someone else take the tests for you. In both cases, you gain the reward, having done little of the required work. That's typically called "cheating."
We are used to paying for an item and owning it rather than paying for the function and service performed.
Given the degree with which people depend on the availability (and overuse) of consumer credit, they are quite acclimated to paying for stuff over long periods of time. I'm not sure the issue of "ownership" would really make that much difference, since Joe Average Computeruser isn't attached to the device the way that the tech crowd is. As long as they can surf, read e-mail, chat, and pirate music/software, they're good to go.
Just think though - if everything is centralized, Microsoft can execute absolute control over what you can and cannot do while running the software. Microsoft Pwnage 1.0.
It's more about the spineless, dependent wussbags who keep voting these morons into office. They dare not bite the hand the feeds them, and that is ALWAYS a problem with large government the spending programs that always ensue.
But there is also the matter of public opinion. Microsoft put itself in the limelight with its monopoly over the desktop, so it's something they'll just have to contend with. What makes this whole story funny is that there ARE alternatives.
Re:Following that analogy...
on
Ma Bell is Back
·
· Score: 1
You do know what the next phase is, don't you? A large corporate mass that will eventually collapse in on itself.
The question is, will this cause it to become so infinately strong as to devour everything within its influence, or will it simply cease to exist?
After playing with the test files (only on OpenOffice mind you, since I don't run Microsoft software), I have to say that I'm a bit surprised by the performance. The XML file used by Excel is 147Mb in size, and yet winds up taking only 47MB of memory when loaded. I'm a little puzzled at how it can rip through 147MB (of XML no less) in only a few seconds though. With the huge memory requirements for OpenOffice, I can't help but wonder if it's storing the entire XML DOM in memory.
Whatever the case, the development team should really focus on this. Waiting 3 minutes to for a document to load (as well as saving to an alternate format) is excruciating. In fact, OO crashed while saving that test file to the ods format.
Much of the reason that people can't just "switch" from one OS to another is because of the tremendous investment they have in the current infrastructure - knowledge, document formats, proprietary technology, etc. WoW and other RPGs share a similar quality - the longer you spend building a character, the more painful "taking your money elsewhere" will become. On one hand, it's only a game, but on the other, your character may well represent a very significant investment.
Most on line games have a chat/messaging component. Because of some of the things that we've observed, our gaming clan has enacted really strict rules about this for our "junior league" members. Have adults that are privvy to all the conversations during on-line game play.
Excellent point - all the talk about how violence may affect younger players, little or no mention is made of the influence that other real people can have on them. I've come across some real scumbags, and I've also seen some rather questionable websites run by clans.
You make some good points. I'd forgotten how tainted the process is.
I guess one of the only avenues left to affect change is what affects the bottom line: consumer spending. But that requires a bit of discipline, so nothing will happen there, either.
I wish there was some reasonable way to cap the salary of executives to, say,
There is. It's called outsourcing. Is there any legitimate reason that the functions of a CEO cannot be outsourced to someone else with equally viable knowledge of a certain industry, and who is equally capable of making sound business decisions? It would save companies millions of dollars in annual salaries and bonuses, and as an added benefit there might even be fewer ethical problems.
There is nothing on the face of the earth that says the CEO of an American corporation has to be as highly-overpaid and self-important as they are now. Of course, my bet is that the first sign that the boards of Corporate America get wise to this, CEOs will be lobbying hard for laws to protect them.
If I were India, the next area I'd be pushing is business education.
I lovingly term a "tool junkie:" a person who can only be productive with a certain set of tools from a certain vendor....a "visual" programmer. You can be very productive using a visual toolset, but the same thing that makes them strong, also makes them weak - they also cover up a lot of the "nuts and bolts", making complex tasks more accessible to people that don't necessarily understand the subtleties. Same as a math "expert" that relies solely on a calculator.
You never know...is there any privacy policy associated with this network? I'd be worried about invasive spying by various agencies...to track dissi^Wterrorists, of course.
Since every government deployment of new technology for law enforcement is supposed to net these awesome reductions in [insert targeted criminal act here], I'd like to see statistics on just how many counterfeiters have been caught using this method of tagging printed documents.
I think one of the WORST additions to modern television is exactly what you've described. We've given up a good percentage of TV screen space to static station logos, little "mini-ads" that slide on and off the bottom of the screen (as if the commercials aren't enough), and now on some channels, we get to watch a static "i/e" logo just to make sure we know, all throughout the show that something is supposed to be educational.
Funny part is, I can do just fine without all this crap. Yes, CRAP.
To the networks: GIVE US BACK OUR SCREEN SPACE, YOU MORONS!
Microsoft can stammer about all it wants with respect to OpenDocument, but what's interesting is that new features WON'T MATTER, if they can't be translated from/to the open format. One thing I think Bill & Co. tend to forget, which is something that Massachusetts insightfully realized, is that a government record should be no LESS open than the openness provided by traditional media - typically paper. Once you start using proprietary formats, you've closed pretty much imposed restricted access.
God this is pure BS. Show me an original storyline, and I'll show you an alien race. Think of the implications here...if I write a story based on events that occurred in my life (or in the life of someone I've may know), it may be similar to the events in someone else's life, or perhaps even the events in another story. If that story happens to have been patented, I would not be able to produce a written work based on this experience!
This guy is moving in entirely the wrong direction - instead of trying to acknowledge the effect of software patents, noting that they are poison, he tries to draw some vague similarity between software and storylines. Here's a clue BOTH IDEAS ARE TRASH, and the sooner they are set out on the curb for pickup, the better.
Re:Intellisense #1 feature, pay Bram to add it
on
Vim 6.4 Released
·
· Score: 1
I mostly use VIM, but I'd just be satisfied with *some* method of very quickly accessing the Java API docs. It's so large it takes a while to load using a standard browser, and the manner in which firefox handles searching isn't the most optimal. I'd love to be able to spend less time scrolling up and down the class list looking for what I need.
It's not that pathetic. The recent track record of the US government with respect to what's REALLY going on in the world was cast into serious doubt with all the tripe about WMD in Iraq. I get the feeling that some people in high places are just ITCHING for a reason to declare a state of national emergency. If/when that happens, it's possible that you may have to kiss life as you know it, goodbye. The way things are currently structured, there will be far too much control in the hands of un-elected entities that will be excempt from judicial/congressional oversight.
Slashdot Mirror
If you have to rely on botting, one of two things is wrong: either you're not interested in the game the way it was designed, or it was designed incorrectly by insisting that you "work" for the resources and advancement that you earn during gameplay. If botting is necessary, why don't they just hand out uber characters at the start, allowing players to forego the grind altogether?
The reason they don't do this is because the games are about character development as much as anything else. Deciding that you do not want to participate in a tedious portion of the development process by using a bot, is like going for a college degree while having someone else take the tests for you. In both cases, you gain the reward, having done little of the required work. That's typically called "cheating."
We are used to paying for an item and owning it rather than paying for the function and service performed.
Given the degree with which people depend on the availability (and overuse) of consumer credit, they are quite acclimated to paying for stuff over long periods of time. I'm not sure the issue of "ownership" would really make that much difference, since Joe Average Computeruser isn't attached to the device the way that the tech crowd is. As long as they can surf, read e-mail, chat, and pirate music/software, they're good to go.
Just think though - if everything is centralized, Microsoft can execute absolute control over what you can and cannot do while running the software. Microsoft Pwnage 1.0.
There's already a huge pile of it in Washington D.C. that's pretty well tagged, it's just that we can't seem to get rid of it.
It's more about the spineless, dependent wussbags who keep voting these morons into office. They dare not bite the hand the feeds them, and that is ALWAYS a problem with large government the spending programs that always ensue.
But there is also the matter of public opinion. Microsoft put itself in the limelight with its monopoly over the desktop, so it's something they'll just have to contend with. What makes this whole story funny is that there ARE alternatives.
You do know what the next phase is, don't you? A large corporate mass that will eventually collapse in on itself.
The question is, will this cause it to become so infinately strong as to devour everything within its influence, or will it simply cease to exist?
After playing with the test files (only on OpenOffice mind you, since I don't run Microsoft software), I have to say that I'm a bit surprised by the performance. The XML file used by Excel is 147Mb in size, and yet winds up taking only 47MB of memory when loaded. I'm a little puzzled at how it can rip through 147MB (of XML no less) in only a few seconds though. With the huge memory requirements for OpenOffice, I can't help but wonder if it's storing the entire XML DOM in memory.
Whatever the case, the development team should really focus on this. Waiting 3 minutes to for a document to load (as well as saving to an alternate format) is excruciating. In fact, OO crashed while saving that test file to the ods format.
Much of the reason that people can't just "switch" from one OS to another is because of the tremendous investment they have in the current infrastructure - knowledge, document formats, proprietary technology, etc. WoW and other RPGs share a similar quality - the longer you spend building a character, the more painful "taking your money elsewhere" will become. On one hand, it's only a game, but on the other, your character may well represent a very significant investment.
Most on line games have a chat/messaging component. Because of some of the things that we've observed, our gaming clan has enacted really strict rules about this for our "junior league" members. Have adults that are privvy to all the conversations during on-line game play.
Excellent point - all the talk about how violence may affect younger players, little or no mention is made of the influence that other real people can have on them. I've come across some real scumbags, and I've also seen some rather questionable websites run by clans.
You make some good points. I'd forgotten how tainted the process is.
I guess one of the only avenues left to affect change is what affects the bottom line: consumer spending. But that requires a bit of discipline, so nothing will happen there, either.
I wish there was some reasonable way to cap the salary of executives to, say,
There is. It's called outsourcing. Is there any legitimate reason that the functions of a CEO cannot be outsourced to someone else with equally viable knowledge of a certain industry, and who is equally capable of making sound business decisions? It would save companies millions of dollars in annual salaries and bonuses, and as an added benefit there might even be fewer ethical problems.
There is nothing on the face of the earth that says the CEO of an American corporation has to be as highly-overpaid and self-important as they are now. Of course, my bet is that the first sign that the boards of Corporate America get wise to this, CEOs will be lobbying hard for laws to protect them.
If I were India, the next area I'd be pushing is business education.
I lovingly term a "tool junkie:" a person who can only be productive with a certain set of tools from a certain vendor. ...a "visual" programmer. You can be very productive using a visual toolset, but the same thing that makes them strong, also makes them weak - they also cover up a lot of the "nuts and bolts", making complex tasks more accessible to people that don't necessarily understand the subtleties. Same as a math "expert" that relies solely on a calculator.
You never know...is there any privacy policy associated with this network? I'd be worried about invasive spying by various agencies...to track dissi^Wterrorists, of course.
Since every government deployment of new technology for law enforcement is supposed to net these awesome reductions in [insert targeted criminal act here], I'd like to see statistics on just how many counterfeiters have been caught using this method of tagging printed documents.
I think one of the WORST additions to modern television is exactly what you've described. We've given up a good percentage of TV screen space to static station logos, little "mini-ads" that slide on and off the bottom of the screen (as if the commercials aren't enough), and now on some channels, we get to watch a static "i/e" logo just to make sure we know, all throughout the show that something is supposed to be educational.
Funny part is, I can do just fine without all this crap. Yes, CRAP.
To the networks: GIVE US BACK OUR SCREEN SPACE, YOU MORONS!
Microsoft can stammer about all it wants with respect to OpenDocument, but what's interesting is that new features WON'T MATTER, if they can't be translated from/to the open format. One thing I think Bill & Co. tend to forget, which is something that Massachusetts insightfully realized, is that a government record should be no LESS open than the openness provided by traditional media - typically paper. Once you start using proprietary formats, you've closed pretty much imposed restricted access.
God this is pure BS. Show me an original storyline, and I'll show you an alien race. Think of the implications here...if I write a story based on events that occurred in my life (or in the life of someone I've may know), it may be similar to the events in someone else's life, or perhaps even the events in another story. If that story happens to have been patented, I would not be able to produce a written work based on this experience!
This guy is moving in entirely the wrong direction - instead of trying to acknowledge the effect of software patents, noting that they are poison, he tries to draw some vague similarity between software and storylines. Here's a clue BOTH IDEAS ARE TRASH, and the sooner they are set out on the curb for pickup, the better.
Translation: If you're in, you're in, if you're not, good luck...and goodbye.
Did you mean ass-wipING, or just ass-wipe?
I mostly use VIM, but I'd just be satisfied with *some* method of very quickly accessing the Java API docs. It's so large it takes a while to load using a standard browser, and the manner in which firefox handles searching isn't the most optimal. I'd love to be able to spend less time scrolling up and down the class list looking for what I need.
It's not that pathetic. The recent track record of the US government with respect to what's REALLY going on in the world was cast into serious doubt with all the tripe about WMD in Iraq. I get the feeling that some people in high places are just ITCHING for a reason to declare a state of national emergency. If/when that happens, it's possible that you may have to kiss life as you know it, goodbye. The way things are currently structured, there will be far too much control in the hands of un-elected entities that will be excempt from judicial/congressional oversight.
The Republican government lays yet another blow on science in America. As if Bush coming out and saying he supports Intelligent Design
I love it when he shows his human side...always wanting what he doesn't have.
Thst cost of Dubya's game of GI-JOE will cost us more than we realize- I have a feeling that this is only one of many side-effects we'll be seeing.
I think placing the blame simply on the "religious right" is a little biased. It is obvious you are not religious...
To be fair, neither are most who claim to be relgious...they just can't seem to span that chasm between talking the talk and walking the walk.
Good info. Thanks. : )