The difference is, "normal" games have an END, and a "save state." I can mess with Gears, or Dead Rising, or almost any other game for a few hours, maybe even upwards of 16-20. I can knock Halo out 24 hours after launch, and it's done. It's finished. Or play through a 6-hour session of Blue Dragon and walk away, come back later. MMORPGs are persisting, you're missing out when you're not plugged in, and on top of that, they do NOT end.
The fact that MMORPGs have no end is by far the largest advantage to them. For example, a dedicated player can complete the storyline of most "normal" games in a weekend. After that the game gets shoved in a box or possibly resold and the gamer feels like he or she wasted $50. On the other hand, a MMORPG will always be new and changing. The $100 you spent on an MMORPG will last you ~2 years, compare that with 2-3 months casually playing a normal game.
A lot of people like that an MMORPG has no ending, with most games you feel cheated at the end because eventually a sub-par sequel comes out and you spend another $50 relearning the game and eventually beat it and then get the third game, etc.
I just cry a little cry for little Johnny who's mom will take away his Xbox 360 because she's afraid of him being 'addicted'. Parents need to stop guarding their children like pets and teach them to make smart decisions so that when Johnny is 20 and moves out (we're being optimistic here folks), he won't turn into an obsessed World of Warcraft fiend because he can finally access everything his parents never taught him how to deal with on his own.
Exactly. Whats the best way to keep kids off of sweets? Either A) forbid them to ever have them so they binge sweets while at school or at a friends house or B) Let them eat all the candy they can get over a weekend and watch how they get a stomach ache and don't eat that much candy again.
So wait... somehow the person who gets home at 6:00 and watches TV almost endlessly until 12:00 for 6 hours a day 5 days a week and for about 7 hours on the weekends for a total of 44 hours a week watching TV isn't addicted but yet if you told someone that you played WoW for 40 hours a week somehow you have to be some slob who never exercises and has no social life and is addicted to it.
The thing is, MS tries to patent things the same way that IBM and Red Hat patent things: to keep them out of the hands of patent trolls. The downside is, we can't trust MS. IBM (in recent years) and Red Hat have both stood to defeat patent trolls along with the MS monopoly, MS on the other hand still uses patent threats to try to stop Linux adoption.
The patent system is to blame yes, but with MS no one can really fight them. With a random patent troll you can give them $40,000 and they will back off, for MS even $4 million is pocket change. Not to mention how a random patent troll will attack all projects just the same, MS only wants to sue F/OSS projects.
But the lawyers don't have to take the case. They can say "No, that's stupid" and move on. Saying lawyers aren't responsible is like saying that drug dealers aren't responsible for drugs getting into the hands of kids, its really just the kids fault.
Well, it would actually be informative because he informed you that he sent those in. Now, honestly I think that a funny mod would be better but hey! At least it isn't insightful.
What we really need is a congress, court system and president that follows the constitution. You know, it wouldn't really matter if they were right wing or left wing so long as they followed it, but it seems that the right wing is always pushing for warrantless arrests for "terrorists" and the left wing is always pushing for the abolishment of the second and parts of the first amendment. And we all know that at this time no third party candidate stands a chance.
...And what can the government not do to track down "terrorists"? They use the word terrorist and congress will pay them millions of dollars to do track down these "terrorists", they don't need to get warrants, they can tap phones, etc. The government can and has shredded the constitution and burned it to ashes. There is no limited government when they say the word terrorist.
Can you say "pandemonium and vigilantism"? Sure. I knew you could.
Can you say sued for libel and slander? The government can do practically the same thing by having its secret list and stopping 6 year olds from getting on a plane because they have the same name of an alleged "terrorist".
Sure, I think that the *AA is evil, and MediaSentry is bad, but unless you show me how the government funds it, I won't believe you. Sure, the government has managed to screw up enough things to keep our economy lagging behind for the next 70 years with the DMCA and such, but I can't find any information of MediaSentry being funded by the US government. The Chinese government though on the other hand did use MediaSentry.
Not lately. Besides the endless election coverage there is all this "OMG a hurricane!!!!11!1!!1" talk going on that anything dealing with it gets breaking news status.
The problem is, what counts as a terrorist? Sure, we all think it means the people who put anthrax in the mail, blow up buildings and plant bombs. But it seems that lately (as in after 9/11) we count anything that doesn't agree with current US politics as terrorist. Not to mention on how we limit our constitutional rights to go after these "terrorists".
Paying an OSS developer to fix a bug or add a feature seems like it would be simple, but unfortunately it's not.
First, most OSS projects work on a charity model. "You give us money, we work on whatever we feel like." You can ask for whatever feature or bugfix you want, but the devs won't work on it unless they want to. There's nothing wrong with that -- as I implied, most charities work in exactly this way -- but it means that there is literally no way, other than hiring the dev into your company directly, to get a specific feature or bugfix added to most OSS projects.
Developer != project. Any programmer with a bit of knowledge of the sourcecode and how the program works should be able to do a simple bugfix on an OSS project. Just because you e-mailed RMS about a bugfix on Emacs and he declined the offer doesn't mean that Joe Programmer can't fix the bug.
There are, of course, companies which form around OSS software specifically to do work-for-hire. The problem there is that the work they do for you typically ends up back in the OSS project. Logical enough: that is the way OSS is supposed to work, after all. But it removes any competitive advantage you have, and it's contrary to the way software contracting has traditionally worked (where the company to whom the programmers are contracted will usually have the rights for the software).
Unless you make software, software should not give you any more of an advantage. The product you sell and the employees you hire should give you the advantage, yes, upgrading your desktops will give you a possible productivity boost, but for most businesses technology should stay in the background. If I am at a restaurant, I am going to go to wherever has fast service, and cheap and decent food. If having a new cash register helps them do that fine. If having a new server helps them do that, fine. But the main object for them is to sell the most food to make the most money, that is what gives them a competitive advantage, not a new server.
Compared to professional labor working in an office environment, Vista+Office is already a cheap commodity.
Wrong. A decent computer running Vista costs about $400 for a desktop and about $600 for a laptop. You can easily get the same or better performance out of a $250-300 desktop or a $400 laptop with Linux. Office Small Business costs $269 (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8182593&st=2007+office&type=product&id=1164154035835) for a license. So that leaves you with $669 for a desktop and $869 for a laptop. Are there some jobs that need Office? Yes. But for most businesses Open Office is the better choice.
Free Software is doomed if it tries to compete on price (widespread perception is that MS Office is the best office software; Microsoft is making enormous profits and could still operate while charging much less); Free Software needs to compete on quality.
And they already compete with quality. For example, if you take Office 2007 and have someone who has used previous versions of Office and had them do a simple task they would be completely confused. Take that same person and give them OOo and they would be able to work it just fine. Sure, Office has more features, but Office costs more in training and in price.
Yes, dial-up is simi-usable for computer gaming, but totally unsuitable for console gaming if only for the fact that just about no major system has a modem.
Of course online play is the future. But as the summery pointed out, there is just too much lag right now. Take lag and add in some spots here in the US that simply can't get broadband at the moment (just about anywhere outside of a small town only has dial-up or satellite as options) and even broadband connections lag sometimes.
Most businesses use at least one major OSS project, be it Linux, Apache, MySQL, or perhaps even an OSS language like Perl, Python or Ruby. And a lot of minor businesses lack a good programmer to fix bugs, so it should be natural for them to pay some OSS developers to fix a bug, or add in a new feature.
Yes, but the problem is, most JavaScript has to be tested on Firefox, IE, Safari, Opera, Konqueror, etc. And most likely you will be rewriting code or removing features to make it work on IE or older versions of Safari, Opera, Konqueror, etc.
No doubt they should be able to. No doubt that Comcast should be able to upgrade the lines they have to allow *true* unlimited internet without throttling. But Comcast probably won't.
Slashdot Mirror
The difference is, "normal" games have an END, and a "save state." I can mess with Gears, or Dead Rising, or almost any other game for a few hours, maybe even upwards of 16-20. I can knock Halo out 24 hours after launch, and it's done. It's finished. Or play through a 6-hour session of Blue Dragon and walk away, come back later. MMORPGs are persisting, you're missing out when you're not plugged in, and on top of that, they do NOT end.
The fact that MMORPGs have no end is by far the largest advantage to them. For example, a dedicated player can complete the storyline of most "normal" games in a weekend. After that the game gets shoved in a box or possibly resold and the gamer feels like he or she wasted $50. On the other hand, a MMORPG will always be new and changing. The $100 you spent on an MMORPG will last you ~2 years, compare that with 2-3 months casually playing a normal game.
A lot of people like that an MMORPG has no ending, with most games you feel cheated at the end because eventually a sub-par sequel comes out and you spend another $50 relearning the game and eventually beat it and then get the third game, etc.
I just cry a little cry for little Johnny who's mom will take away his Xbox 360 because she's afraid of him being 'addicted'. Parents need to stop guarding their children like pets and teach them to make smart decisions so that when Johnny is 20 and moves out (we're being optimistic here folks), he won't turn into an obsessed World of Warcraft fiend because he can finally access everything his parents never taught him how to deal with on his own.
Exactly. Whats the best way to keep kids off of sweets? Either A) forbid them to ever have them so they binge sweets while at school or at a friends house or B) Let them eat all the candy they can get over a weekend and watch how they get a stomach ache and don't eat that much candy again.
So wait... somehow the person who gets home at 6:00 and watches TV almost endlessly until 12:00 for 6 hours a day 5 days a week and for about 7 hours on the weekends for a total of 44 hours a week watching TV isn't addicted but yet if you told someone that you played WoW for 40 hours a week somehow you have to be some slob who never exercises and has no social life and is addicted to it.
Did anyone else look at this title and wondering why restaurant owners were doing something with the NES Zapper lightgun?
The thing is, MS tries to patent things the same way that IBM and Red Hat patent things: to keep them out of the hands of patent trolls. The downside is, we can't trust MS. IBM (in recent years) and Red Hat have both stood to defeat patent trolls along with the MS monopoly, MS on the other hand still uses patent threats to try to stop Linux adoption.
The patent system is to blame yes, but with MS no one can really fight them. With a random patent troll you can give them $40,000 and they will back off, for MS even $4 million is pocket change. Not to mention how a random patent troll will attack all projects just the same, MS only wants to sue F/OSS projects.
But the summery implies that the USDA regulated testing would still be done just with 100% of the beef tested rather than the 1% needed.
But the lawyers don't have to take the case. They can say "No, that's stupid" and move on. Saying lawyers aren't responsible is like saying that drug dealers aren't responsible for drugs getting into the hands of kids, its really just the kids fault.
Well, it would actually be informative because he informed you that he sent those in. Now, honestly I think that a funny mod would be better but hey! At least it isn't insightful.
What we really need is a congress, court system and president that follows the constitution. You know, it wouldn't really matter if they were right wing or left wing so long as they followed it, but it seems that the right wing is always pushing for warrantless arrests for "terrorists" and the left wing is always pushing for the abolishment of the second and parts of the first amendment. And we all know that at this time no third party candidate stands a chance.
...And what can the government not do to track down "terrorists"? They use the word terrorist and congress will pay them millions of dollars to do track down these "terrorists", they don't need to get warrants, they can tap phones, etc. The government can and has shredded the constitution and burned it to ashes. There is no limited government when they say the word terrorist.
Can you say "pandemonium and vigilantism"? Sure. I knew you could.
Can you say sued for libel and slander? The government can do practically the same thing by having its secret list and stopping 6 year olds from getting on a plane because they have the same name of an alleged "terrorist".
The gov't funds MediaSentry.
Citation needed.
Sure, I think that the *AA is evil, and MediaSentry is bad, but unless you show me how the government funds it, I won't believe you. Sure, the government has managed to screw up enough things to keep our economy lagging behind for the next 70 years with the DMCA and such, but I can't find any information of MediaSentry being funded by the US government. The Chinese government though on the other hand did use MediaSentry.
Not lately. Besides the endless election coverage there is all this "OMG a hurricane!!!!11!1!!1" talk going on that anything dealing with it gets breaking news status.
The problem is, what counts as a terrorist? Sure, we all think it means the people who put anthrax in the mail, blow up buildings and plant bombs. But it seems that lately (as in after 9/11) we count anything that doesn't agree with current US politics as terrorist. Not to mention on how we limit our constitutional rights to go after these "terrorists".
Too late, the elections are already decided http://www.theonion.com/content/video/diebold_accidentally_leaks
Paying an OSS developer to fix a bug or add a feature seems like it would be simple, but unfortunately it's not. First, most OSS projects work on a charity model. "You give us money, we work on whatever we feel like." You can ask for whatever feature or bugfix you want, but the devs won't work on it unless they want to. There's nothing wrong with that -- as I implied, most charities work in exactly this way -- but it means that there is literally no way, other than hiring the dev into your company directly, to get a specific feature or bugfix added to most OSS projects.
Developer != project. Any programmer with a bit of knowledge of the sourcecode and how the program works should be able to do a simple bugfix on an OSS project. Just because you e-mailed RMS about a bugfix on Emacs and he declined the offer doesn't mean that Joe Programmer can't fix the bug.
There are, of course, companies which form around OSS software specifically to do work-for-hire. The problem there is that the work they do for you typically ends up back in the OSS project. Logical enough: that is the way OSS is supposed to work, after all. But it removes any competitive advantage you have, and it's contrary to the way software contracting has traditionally worked (where the company to whom the programmers are contracted will usually have the rights for the software).
Unless you make software, software should not give you any more of an advantage. The product you sell and the employees you hire should give you the advantage, yes, upgrading your desktops will give you a possible productivity boost, but for most businesses technology should stay in the background. If I am at a restaurant, I am going to go to wherever has fast service, and cheap and decent food. If having a new cash register helps them do that fine. If having a new server helps them do that, fine. But the main object for them is to sell the most food to make the most money, that is what gives them a competitive advantage, not a new server.
Compared to professional labor working in an office environment, Vista+Office is already a cheap commodity.
Wrong. A decent computer running Vista costs about $400 for a desktop and about $600 for a laptop. You can easily get the same or better performance out of a $250-300 desktop or a $400 laptop with Linux. Office Small Business costs $269 (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8182593&st=2007+office&type=product&id=1164154035835) for a license. So that leaves you with $669 for a desktop and $869 for a laptop. Are there some jobs that need Office? Yes. But for most businesses Open Office is the better choice.
Free Software is doomed if it tries to compete on price (widespread perception is that MS Office is the best office software; Microsoft is making enormous profits and could still operate while charging much less); Free Software needs to compete on quality.
And they already compete with quality. For example, if you take Office 2007 and have someone who has used previous versions of Office and had them do a simple task they would be completely confused. Take that same person and give them OOo and they would be able to work it just fine. Sure, Office has more features, but Office costs more in training and in price.
Yes, but even if your internet is fast but you are playing a player who is on a pitiful connection, usually you will slow down too.
Aha! So that's what Al Gore was proving with global warming! That the world's servers are overheating.
Yes, dial-up is simi-usable for computer gaming, but totally unsuitable for console gaming if only for the fact that just about no major system has a modem.
Of course online play is the future. But as the summery pointed out, there is just too much lag right now. Take lag and add in some spots here in the US that simply can't get broadband at the moment (just about anywhere outside of a small town only has dial-up or satellite as options) and even broadband connections lag sometimes.
Most businesses use at least one major OSS project, be it Linux, Apache, MySQL, or perhaps even an OSS language like Perl, Python or Ruby. And a lot of minor businesses lack a good programmer to fix bugs, so it should be natural for them to pay some OSS developers to fix a bug, or add in a new feature.
Cross-platorm
Yes, but the problem is, most JavaScript has to be tested on Firefox, IE, Safari, Opera, Konqueror, etc. And most likely you will be rewriting code or removing features to make it work on IE or older versions of Safari, Opera, Konqueror, etc.
No doubt they should be able to. No doubt that Comcast should be able to upgrade the lines they have to allow *true* unlimited internet without throttling. But Comcast probably won't.