I've had preorders of both Guild Wars 2 and Secret World, and have just cancelled the TSW order and will be buying more family copies of Guild Wars.
The world, story and especially fantastic writing for NPCs seem to put TSW ahead, but the gameplay mechanics are so frustrating that I had no enthusiasm for logging on any more. It would work well as a single-player RPG but the game mechanics and monthly fee limit its appeal in its current form.
The comments here are perpetrating a myth that those who avoid the MMR vaccine for their children are therefore not vaccinating them. This is very far from the truth. At the height of the scare we decided to avoid the MMR for our two children, arranging instead for them to have three single vaccines, given a little time apart.
When they were due for their booster shots, the doctor tested them and said their immunity levels were way higher then he expected and they didn't need the normal booster. We mentioned that we'd skipped MMR and the doctor confirmed that the single vaccines give a higher level of protection.
In summary, I was suspicious about the science behind the MMR scare but decided not to chance it - all I risked was a little money, by skipping the free government MMR and paying myself for the three singles. Even though the MMR risk seemed very low, it wasn't zero.
Avoiding the MMR was a prudent, sensible choice. The hysteria that skipping MMR must inevitably lead to unprotected children is itself scaremongering. If measles is rising it's simple parental negligence and nothing to do with MMR.
What about Netvouz http://www.netvouz.com/ who seem to be just like Delicious and have been around for a few years (2003 ?). I don't know who owns them, though.
That's almost been done. UK TV 'Gadget Show' has someone who'd never flown a plane (real or sim) try to learn to fly just using a sim, then they tried to fly a circuit in the real thing. The video's here:
OK, it turns out there a bug in their HTML code that can prevent registration. If there's an error (in my case, it didn't like the '+' in the first email I used) it sets a cookie. This is then checked every submission and if present, registration is blocked by Javascript. It seems to be trying to catch people who give a young age, get rejected, then lie to get in.
The fix of course is to delete cookies and resubmit the form.
I was delighted to see Tor following the lead of Baen Books and tried to register, but received the error 'we cannot register you at this time, but check back in a few weeks'.
Either the deal is closed, or it's slashdotted, or it didn't like my attempt to fake a ZIP code (I'm in England, so didn't really know what to enter).
Losing access to your purchase is a real issue. It just happened to me. My retail, boxed copy of XP Home was this week refused activation by the Microsoft phone line - in fact I was hung up on. I was told it was 'installed on too many computers' when in fact it's only ever been on one, and the retail box is still sitting on the shelf next to it. The Microsoft phone line told me to get another license from a retailer!
The fact that I've been upgrading the hardware one paycheck at a time, so one reactivation per month since November, has clearly upset them.
In the end I repeatedly called the activation line and deliberately chose the wrong option, where I found a helpdesk person who activated my PC with only the first code group from the reactivation screen - not going through the normal conversation - so they didn't know who I was. I was lucky this week.
The next reactivation my computer's gone for sure, and I'll have to re-buy. My fear is I will be forced to re-buy Vista, which I don't want - so what to do? I'm seriously considering buying another XP key now, while I can still get one. This makes me about as happy as you'd expect.
Re:I spoke with the President of ICAAN about this.
on
VeriSign Usurps .com
·
· Score: 1
Surely that note just means they won't grab domains at once, but will instead wait until the outcry has died down ('appropriate transition period').
There is nothing at all in that note that gives hope. Lose your domain in a month, or twelve months, or eighteen months... is there really much difference?
Before Turning To The Dark Side and joining the commercial world, I spent a while at Keele University (though involved with CS, not the optoelectronics group).
This is far from a sudden announcement from an obscure eccentric - there's been serious, respected high density storage research going on there for ages, since writing data to round shiny things was a dream.
The fact that they've been talking about similar projects for a while doesn't make it vapo[u]rware - thats just how research works. Turning pure science into a consumer product doesn't happen in Internet time. Ok, it might have problems - they haven't said enough about data transfer, robustness, manufactoring issues - but it sounds like they're moving the science forward and that's what counts.
Slashdot Mirror
I've had preorders of both Guild Wars 2 and Secret World, and have just cancelled the TSW order and will be buying more family copies of Guild Wars.
The world, story and especially fantastic writing for NPCs seem to put TSW ahead, but the gameplay mechanics are so frustrating that I had no enthusiasm for logging on any more. It would work well as a single-player RPG but the game mechanics and monthly fee limit its appeal in its current form.
We mentioned that we'd skipped MMR and the doctor confirmed that the single vaccines give a higher level of protection.
So what? All that does is change the booster schedule.
It supports the point that "skip MMR = disease magnet" is false.
It's true that in hindsight Wakefield was running a scam but at the time, for a concerned parent with no medical training, it was far less clear.
The comments here are perpetrating a myth that those who avoid the MMR vaccine for their children are therefore not vaccinating them. This is very far from the truth. At the height of the scare we decided to avoid the MMR for our two children, arranging instead for them to have three single vaccines, given a little time apart.
When they were due for their booster shots, the doctor tested them and said their immunity levels were way higher then he expected and they didn't need the normal booster. We mentioned that we'd skipped MMR and the doctor confirmed that the single vaccines give a higher level of protection.
In summary, I was suspicious about the science behind the MMR scare but decided not to chance it - all I risked was a little money, by skipping the free government MMR and paying myself for the three singles. Even though the MMR risk seemed very low, it wasn't zero.
Avoiding the MMR was a prudent, sensible choice. The hysteria that skipping MMR must inevitably lead to unprotected children is itself scaremongering. If measles is rising it's simple parental negligence and nothing to do with MMR.
What about Netvouz http://www.netvouz.com/ who seem to be just like Delicious and have been around for a few years (2003 ?). I don't know who owns them, though.
That's almost been done. UK TV 'Gadget Show' has someone who'd never flown a plane (real or sim) try to learn to fly just using a sim, then they tried to fly a circuit in the real thing. The video's here:
http://fwd.five.tv/gadget-show/videos/challenge?page=2
(it's 'simulator challenge' parts one, two, three) He did surprisingly well.
OK, it turns out there a bug in their HTML code that can prevent registration. If there's an error (in my case, it didn't like the '+' in the first email I used) it sets a cookie. This is then checked every submission and if present, registration is blocked by Javascript. It seems to be trying to catch people who give a young age, get rejected, then lie to get in.
The fix of course is to delete cookies and resubmit the form.
I was delighted to see Tor following the lead of Baen Books and tried to register, but received the error 'we cannot register you at this time, but check back in a few weeks'.
Either the deal is closed, or it's slashdotted, or it didn't like my attempt to fake a ZIP code (I'm in England, so didn't really know what to enter).
Is anyone else still able to sign up?
Losing access to your purchase is a real issue. It just happened to me. My retail, boxed copy of XP Home was this week refused activation by the Microsoft phone line - in fact I was hung up on. I was told it was 'installed on too many computers' when in fact it's only ever been on one, and the retail box is still sitting on the shelf next to it. The Microsoft phone line told me to get another license from a retailer!
The fact that I've been upgrading the hardware one paycheck at a time, so one reactivation per month since November, has clearly upset them.
In the end I repeatedly called the activation line and deliberately chose the wrong option, where I found a helpdesk person who activated my PC with only the first code group from the reactivation screen - not going through the normal conversation - so they didn't know who I was. I was lucky this week.
The next reactivation my computer's gone for sure, and I'll have to re-buy. My fear is I will be forced to re-buy Vista, which I don't want - so what to do? I'm seriously considering buying another XP key now, while I can still get one. This makes me about as happy as you'd expect.
Surely that note just means they won't grab domains at once, but will instead wait until the outcry has died down ('appropriate transition period').
There is nothing at all in that note that gives hope. Lose your domain in a month, or twelve months, or eighteen months... is there really much difference?
Before Turning To The Dark Side and joining the commercial world, I spent a while at Keele University (though involved with CS, not the optoelectronics group).
This is far from a sudden announcement from an obscure eccentric - there's been serious, respected high density storage research going on there for ages, since writing data to round shiny things was a dream.
The fact that they've been talking about similar projects for a while doesn't make it vapo[u]rware - thats just how research works. Turning pure science into a consumer product doesn't happen in Internet time. Ok, it might have problems - they haven't said enough about data transfer, robustness, manufactoring issues - but it sounds like they're moving the science forward and that's what counts.