And that just glosses the surface of what is required to have a "working" economy in an MMO.
Right, like I said, "more like EVE.":-)
But I see your point(s). There is more to it than just limiting the amount of cash. The game itself has to be designed around having a working economy (and have a single universe).
Man, I am SOO tempted to reactivate my 2 year idle EVE account right now.
Heh, if I were running an MMORPG and saw out-of-game transactions going on I'd run irregular devaluations/random drop rate changes with the money supply just to screw with the minds of the traders.
If *I* were running an MMORPG, I'd give it a working economy similar to EVE Online. WoW is big enough to have a player run economy with a limited (but not quite finite) amount of total cash, isn't it?
Once Apple gets Safari for Windows to the point where it's very stable, I'll probably be recommending it to IE users. Yes, above FireFox and Opera. I use a Mac with FireFox, but most people don't need the extensions that FireFox offers
Everyone needs Adblock Plus. The difference it makes in browsing is astounding. I recommend it (along with Firefox, of course) to anyone and everyone.
Bottom line question is whether or not you'll control dumping of virtual currency or if you'll institute ranges. If you're not instituting limits or regulating in a Federal Reserve type manner, how are you going to protect against a single person running the market (buying all the gold and sitting on it while letting it drip out slowly at an extreme amount of USD)?
Isn't this only really feasable if the market is small?
The way you talk about it temps me to play this currency trading system to make a little money myself. You know, just make a small initial investment in real $$$ and just buy low, sell high. I don't even play any MMOGs!
How am I assured that my gold is not earned by some innocent kid who is doing this as a job to make money?
As someone else said, the easy answer to this is to just play the damn game yourself and earn your own in-game money. Simple. Don't get involved in gold trading in the first place and you don't need any assurances about human rights.
Seriously, what kind of loser/sucker pays real money of in-game money anyway?
Oh yay, I just love it when some tech savvy Windows user (a developer, no less) chimes in with "..but I run Windows and don't have problems..." even though that is exactly opposite of the kind of user we're talking about here.
Yes, but your non-tech savvy friends who are in the market for $500-$1000 laptops are there because they can't tell the difference. They most likely use them for web browsing, word processing, email, spreadsheets, slide shows and the occasional game of solitaire.
Well, until it breaks, gets infected, or they start buying all the software that comes with the Mac out of the box. It isn't that they can't tell the difference. It is just that they're either short sighted (not really thinking of a computer as an several year investment) or simply don't care. If you gave them a Mac and let them compare them side by side for a significant period of time (assuming they cared enough to bother), I'm sure you'd get a lot of people who could tell the difference.
What is so frustrating about something like using this for insurance purposes is that there is really nothing "evil" about it. I mean, it sucks if you get dropped from your provider because you carry a gene that might make you an expensive liability to them, but really, is it wrong? Don't auto insurance companies look at your driving record to see what kind of risk you are and raise your rates or drop you accordingly? Why should health insurance be any different?
So is the answer that we stop treating health care plans as insurance? Or do we just let the most (genetically) unhealthy among us go without health care because they can't afford it?
Just like in the US? The only difference is that, in the US, we're much more "entertained" than soviets ever were. So are we that much more easily controlled? Is it not exploited by the powers that be?Qu7
Question is, would you have it any other way? I mean, being entertained.
no, he meant NIS, a type of domain system where users are known via an NIS master. You can work without it.
Yes, I know what NIS is, thanks. My question stems from the fact that NIS and LDAP are two different ways of serving up users, groups, hosts, etc. "nisldap" didn't make much sense. Although I did just look up "nisldap" and it seems there is a tool by that name which populates NIS with LDAP data. But that doesn't seem very useful because there's already an nss_ldap package which can enable Linux (or Solaris or FreeBSD or AIX) to get that info directly from the LDAP server. And you can use pam_ldap to authenticate.
Anyway, I'd like to know what the OP actually meant rather than what you think he meant. No offense.
1. Less than 5% know and understand autofs/nis|ldap/netgroups which are essential to run Linux as a corporate desktop. In fact, I have met more non-sysadmin people
Did you mean "nssldap?" Not trying to nitpick. I'm just curious.
If a Linux sysadmin can't use Linux on the desktop, it must be a terrible desktop OS! Right? Right? *looks around frantically*
From TFA: "...for a guy that does 80% standard office tasks and the rest of the time I'm doing Linux admin tasks,..."
What the heck kind of "sysadmin" is he? Part time?
Come on, man. There are plenty of people who have been using Linux as their daily desktop. That would be why there have been so many "desktop" versions of Linux over the years.
Hell, I used Linux as my primary desktop at home AND work since around 1996. I never had a version of Windows as my primary OS. I went right from DOS to Linux. Although there was usually some version of Windows install an another partition "just in case." But I rarely did any work there, i swear.
Of course, I really am a Linux admin.;-)
Though I've recently given up Linux on the desktop in favor of OS X. I'm sure Ubuntu is nice though.
Generally I agree with you. Im not a hardcore PC gamer, I mostly play consoles. But my primary machine is a mac laptop. Its very convinient for me most of the time, but if I could also play Civ V when it comes out and not a year later when the mac version comes out, that would be pretty nice.
Heck, the MacBook Pro video is useful Civ IV. Who would have guessed that Civ woudl have such video requirements...
You bring up an interesting point though. I wonder if big name games in for OS X will actually become less common now that Mac users can boot Windows. I can imagine a lot of game companies just saying "Why should we bother?" Same thing happens to Linux games, I'm guessing. I must admit that when I sit down to play a big name game, I'm probably going to be sitting there for a couple hours at least. Rebooting really isn't a big deal time-wise. I'd love to see games native to whatever OS I prefer, but if I can't get 'em, it isn't a deal breaker. If I really want to play a certain game on the PC/Mac, I'll boot into Windows if I have to.
BTW, is there any news of Civ V? I thought they were still busy building off of the Civ IV engine. They have a lot to live up to. I'd almost like to see the Civ series end on a good note rather than risk Civ V being a bomb.
Why the dichotomy between "hardcore" gamers and people who just play a couple "simple games?" Can't a casual gamer play games that either require a good GPU or just plain look better with a good one? I'm thinking of Oblivion here. Or maybe LOTRO.
One of the main reasons I got a MacBook Pro vs. a MacBook was the ATI X1600. I'm not a hardcore gamer by any means, but there are times when I like to tinker with a game here and there. Sure, it isn't upgradable and will probably be obsolete in a year or two, but until then...
There are three major desktop platforms. Two of them have reasonably functional $0 software for every major desktop task. The fact that the third doesn't is a shortcoming.
What "fact?" There is NeoOffice for the Mac. It does have a free Office suite and it works fine for me. The problem in this case isn't that a free solution doesn't exist. The reviewr just doesn't like it.
Anyway, having used Linux for 10+ years and now OS X for 2, my impression is that there is more high quality freeware/shareware for OS X. I've rarely, if ever, found myself wanting for software... at least applications. It just isn't all on one central repository. You have to search for it and talk to people.
Well he only mentioned the USB hard drive. Did the others not work because they were'nt Mac compatible, etc? Can't get freeware. Well, which application(s)?
It sounds like his "lack of quality freeware" came down to one thing: word processor. Apparently NeoOffice wasn't stable enough and OpenOffice uses X11 which has significant problems on OS X.
I think it is irresponsible to conclude that OSX is lacking in freeware because he wasn't satisfied with one particular application. The question becomes, why should he expect to find a perfect, free solution for every application? I know it is nice, and Linux users in particular are spoiled in this regard... but why make it an expectation? Especially if the application is so "mission critical." Just buy it. Geez.
Ecplipse is an IDE, not an editor. Yeah, too big and clunky.
Try JEdit.
Tried it. Yet another ugly java app. I hate running Java GUIs (SWT/Swing) on the Mac. It is a waste of a perfectly good toolkit (Cocoa).
Well heck how about XCode?
Again, an IDE, not an editor. Limited language support AFAIK. If I happen to be doing Cocoa/Objective-C programming I'd consider using it. For everything else, there's TextMat.
...except this isn't a review of Macs for "true believers". It's a review of Macs for THE REST OF US.
What is that supposed to mean? There are many issues with X11 apps on OS X that most anyone would find to be a problem. The clipboard being one of the biggest. It isn't about being a "true believer." X11 apps on OS X just suck. I'm not trying to be a fanboi or anytthing. X11 apps are fine on a Linux desktop. They just have no place on OS X for regular use.
Really getting tired of people commenting without reading the damn article.
Sorry, like others I was thrown by the link to the conclusion. I guess I should have guessed that you'd do a much more thorough analysis than just a conclusion. But in this day and age, you can't really expect much.
I still disagree with the lack of free software, but I guess it really depends on exactly what you're looking for. For me, Office type apps is not mission criticial. But hten I'm not writing 12 page software reviews either. I'm just a lowly sysadmin/programmer.:-P
When I tried OS X, I was looking for a good free text editor, but I didn't find one (I like Notepad++ on Windows and Gedit/Kate/Scite/Geany on Linux: light apps, with syntax highlighting for tons of languages and tabs, that's all I want).
Normally I am all about free software, but if you really want good syntax highlighting, tons of language support (some support you have to download separately), in a nice Cocoa app, you should really consider buying TextMate. It the only apps I've paid for in years. Well worth it, IMO.
At first I was surprised that after writing an article on 30 Days with Linux, he didn't realize that there were alternatives to Mac programs. But then I checked out his Linux review, and it seems like everything he used came directly from whatever Add/Remove programs gui was available on the particular Linux distro he was using. He likely had no idea that there could be any compatibility with Linux programs and Mac programs. More likely, he didn't want to spend time to figure out how to port Linux programs over, or really, deal with any ported programs;
If by "Linux programs" you mean X11 apps, you can forget it. No Mac user wants to run an X11 app. Besides the fact that they look hideous next to Cocoa/Aqua apps, they just don't integrate with everything else. It is like running Wine... you'll do it if you absolutely have to, but you'll always be on the lookout for something native. And this is coming from a 10+ year Linux user...
Sure, there's macports and you can get nearly all the same commandline tools that you have in Linux. But there's no substitute for a good Cocoa app... at at least a Cocoa front end to a commandline tool;-)
That covers the commandline stuff, but for graphical/desktop applications the "BSDness" becomes moot. You CAN run X stuff, but what OS X user wants to? X apps look hideous next to Cocoa/Aqua.
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Right, like I said, "more like EVE."
But I see your point(s). There is more to it than just limiting the amount of cash. The game itself has to be designed around having a working economy (and have a single universe).
Man, I am SOO tempted to reactivate my 2 year idle EVE account right now.
-matthew
-matthew
If *I* were running an MMORPG, I'd give it a working economy similar to EVE Online. WoW is big enough to have a player run economy with a limited (but not quite finite) amount of total cash, isn't it?
-matthew
Everyone needs Adblock Plus. The difference it makes in browsing is astounding. I recommend it (along with Firefox, of course) to anyone and everyone.
-matthew
I find ironic that the most popular online *game* in the world is so readily compared to work.
-matthew
Isn't this only really feasable if the market is small?
The way you talk about it temps me to play this currency trading system to make a little money myself. You know, just make a small initial investment in real $$$ and just buy low, sell high. I don't even play any MMOGs!
-matthew
As someone else said, the easy answer to this is to just play the damn game yourself and earn your own in-game money. Simple. Don't get involved in gold trading in the first place and you don't need any assurances about human rights.
Seriously, what kind of loser/sucker pays real money of in-game money anyway?
-matthew
Oh yay, I just love it when some tech savvy Windows user (a developer, no less) chimes in with "..but I run Windows and don't have problems..." even though that is exactly opposite of the kind of user we're talking about here.
-matthew
Well, until it breaks, gets infected, or they start buying all the software that comes with the Mac out of the box. It isn't that they can't tell the difference. It is just that they're either short sighted (not really thinking of a computer as an several year investment) or simply don't care. If you gave them a Mac and let them compare them side by side for a significant period of time (assuming they cared enough to bother), I'm sure you'd get a lot of people who could tell the difference.
-matthew
What is so frustrating about something like using this for insurance purposes is that there is really nothing "evil" about it. I mean, it sucks if you get dropped from your provider because you carry a gene that might make you an expensive liability to them, but really, is it wrong? Don't auto insurance companies look at your driving record to see what kind of risk you are and raise your rates or drop you accordingly? Why should health insurance be any different?
So is the answer that we stop treating health care plans as insurance? Or do we just let the most (genetically) unhealthy among us go without health care because they can't afford it?
-matthew
Just like in the US? The only difference is that, in the US, we're much more "entertained" than soviets ever were. So are we that much more easily controlled? Is it not exploited by the powers that be?Qu7
Question is, would you have it any other way? I mean, being entertained.
-matthew
Haha, I see! I thought it was an extra l. Part of a typo.
Yes, I know what NIS is, thanks. My question stems from the fact that NIS and LDAP are two different ways of serving up users, groups, hosts, etc. "nisldap" didn't make much sense. Although I did just look up "nisldap" and it seems there is a tool by that name which populates NIS with LDAP data. But that doesn't seem very useful because there's already an nss_ldap package which can enable Linux (or Solaris or FreeBSD or AIX) to get that info directly from the LDAP server. And you can use pam_ldap to authenticate.
Anyway, I'd like to know what the OP actually meant rather than what you think he meant. No offense.
-matthew
Did you mean "nssldap?" Not trying to nitpick. I'm just curious.
-matthew
From TFA: "...for a guy that does 80% standard office tasks and the rest of the time I'm doing Linux admin tasks,..."
What the heck kind of "sysadmin" is he? Part time?
Hell, I used Linux as my primary desktop at home AND work since around 1996. I never had a version of Windows as my primary OS. I went right from DOS to Linux. Although there was usually some version of Windows install an another partition "just in case." But I rarely did any work there, i swear.
Of course, I really am a Linux admin.
Though I've recently given up Linux on the desktop in favor of OS X. I'm sure Ubuntu is nice though.
-matthew
Heck, the MacBook Pro video is useful Civ IV. Who would have guessed that Civ woudl have such video requirements...
You bring up an interesting point though. I wonder if big name games in for OS X will actually become less common now that Mac users can boot Windows. I can imagine a lot of game companies just saying "Why should we bother?" Same thing happens to Linux games, I'm guessing. I must admit that when I sit down to play a big name game, I'm probably going to be sitting there for a couple hours at least. Rebooting really isn't a big deal time-wise. I'd love to see games native to whatever OS I prefer, but if I can't get 'em, it isn't a deal breaker. If I really want to play a certain game on the PC/Mac, I'll boot into Windows if I have to.
BTW, is there any news of Civ V? I thought they were still busy building off of the Civ IV engine. They have a lot to live up to. I'd almost like to see the Civ series end on a good note rather than risk Civ V being a bomb.
-matthew
Why the dichotomy between "hardcore" gamers and people who just play a couple "simple games?" Can't a casual gamer play games that either require a good GPU or just plain look better with a good one? I'm thinking of Oblivion here. Or maybe LOTRO.
One of the main reasons I got a MacBook Pro vs. a MacBook was the ATI X1600. I'm not a hardcore gamer by any means, but there are times when I like to tinker with a game here and there. Sure, it isn't upgradable and will probably be obsolete in a year or two, but until then...
-matthew
There are. I just like TextMate.
None of them as good as TextMate. jEdit (runs on Mac too) is the only thing that approaches, AFAIK, but that is Java and I hate Java apps.
-matthew
What "fact?" There is NeoOffice for the Mac. It does have a free Office suite and it works fine for me. The problem in this case isn't that a free solution doesn't exist. The reviewr just doesn't like it.
Anyway, having used Linux for 10+ years and now OS X for 2, my impression is that there is more high quality freeware/shareware for OS X. I've rarely, if ever, found myself wanting for software... at least applications. It just isn't all on one central repository. You have to search for it and talk to people.
-matthew
It sounds like his "lack of quality freeware" came down to one thing: word processor. Apparently NeoOffice wasn't stable enough and OpenOffice uses X11 which has significant problems on OS X.
I think it is irresponsible to conclude that OSX is lacking in freeware because he wasn't satisfied with one particular application. The question becomes, why should he expect to find a perfect, free solution for every application? I know it is nice, and Linux users in particular are spoiled in this regard... but why make it an expectation? Especially if the application is so "mission critical." Just buy it. Geez.
-matthew
Ecplipse is an IDE, not an editor. Yeah, too big and clunky.
Tried it. Yet another ugly java app. I hate running Java GUIs (SWT/Swing) on the Mac. It is a waste of a perfectly good toolkit (Cocoa).
Again, an IDE, not an editor. Limited language support AFAIK. If I happen to be doing Cocoa/Objective-C programming I'd consider using it. For everything else, there's TextMat.
-matthew
What is that supposed to mean? There are many issues with X11 apps on OS X that most anyone would find to be a problem. The clipboard being one of the biggest. It isn't about being a "true believer." X11 apps on OS X just suck. I'm not trying to be a fanboi or anytthing. X11 apps are fine on a Linux desktop. They just have no place on OS X for regular use.
-matthew
Sorry, like others I was thrown by the link to the conclusion. I guess I should have guessed that you'd do a much more thorough analysis than just a conclusion. But in this day and age, you can't really expect much.
I still disagree with the lack of free software, but I guess it really depends on exactly what you're looking for. For me, Office type apps is not mission criticial. But hten I'm not writing 12 page software reviews either. I'm just a lowly sysadmin/programmer.
-matthew
Normally I am all about free software, but if you really want good syntax highlighting, tons of language support (some support you have to download separately), in a nice Cocoa app, you should really consider buying TextMate. It the only apps I've paid for in years. Well worth it, IMO.
-matthew
If by "Linux programs" you mean X11 apps, you can forget it. No Mac user wants to run an X11 app. Besides the fact that they look hideous next to Cocoa/Aqua apps, they just don't integrate with everything else. It is like running Wine... you'll do it if you absolutely have to, but you'll always be on the lookout for something native. And this is coming from a 10+ year Linux user...
Sure, there's macports and you can get nearly all the same commandline tools that you have in Linux. But there's no substitute for a good Cocoa app... at at least a Cocoa front end to a commandline tool
-matthew
That covers the commandline stuff, but for graphical/desktop applications the "BSDness" becomes moot. You CAN run X stuff, but what OS X user wants to? X apps look hideous next to Cocoa/Aqua.