In conversation with your clients you may mention off-hand that you are leaving the company. You may be working a customer issue requiring follow-up and you'll have to let your client know that starting next week their contact on this issue will be someone else.
So instead you would escort the epmloyee off and assign someone else to take over with no knowledge of the history of the relationship, starting of with "X is no longer with our company. I'll be working with you from now on. Now, what were you in the middle of doing?" If I was the customer there, I'd be a little concerned. Was X fired for incompetence or worse? Is my account all screwed up now? Is this new guy going to be able to pick up where X left off or are we going to have to start all over?
That's preferable to a clean hand-off, where X has time to introduce the new guy and get him up to speed on whatever X and the customer are working on? Keep in mind that the new guy will most likely either be a new hire or will already be working a full load.
The issue here is not that the commercial private transport companies are choosing to refuse service to people without an ID, it's that the government is requiring them to refuse service.
All this airline "security" we are subjected to now was not dreamed up by the airlines. I doubt they would have added all this extra expense on their own initiative. If it wasn't a government mandate, then why are government forces (police and/or military) ready to take you aside if you so much as look at them funny?
For me it is not a catch, it is the technology that allows WB to broadcast these videos on internet.
This is only the tip of the iceberg. Sure, one proprietary peer-to-peer program doesn't seem like much, but...
Wait until the others join in. Then you'll have the WB viewer, the NBC viewer, the Disney ABC viewer, the CBS viewer, the FOX viewer, and so on. How many different viewers will you be willing to install. It will no longer be a matter of flipping through channels to see what's on TV, but starting up different viewers until you figure out which one has the show you want to watch.
And, if all of these are running in the background to allow others to download, how much of your bandwidth and computer resources is all that going to take up? Will you have to kill all those programs (probably in violation of their terms or service) just to play a game with some friends?
Will all those viewers be compatible with each other (as in, co-exist without causing trouble), or will you have to uninstall and install regularly to acess the shows you want?
If I have never installed the software (and so never had the opportunity to "accept" the license), what is the status then? I have paid for a software package with no mention of licensing ever made as part of that transaction. I now own the copy I have. I do not own copyright, so I may not duplicate and distribute it. But, I do own the copy I have. There is no license agreement in effect.
If I copy the contents of the disk to my computer and start mucking about with it, I still have not been presented with a license request.
Why does clicking "setup.exe" and then the "let me use the software I purchased (I agree to license)" button suddenly mean I no longer own my copy?
Only the original purchaser of the game media is able to create an account using the included key (not documented in either EULA or ToS), and you are not allowed to transfer ownership of the account (documented) even if you subsequently transfer ownership of the media (completely obeying the EULA as documented) which invalidates your account (documented). In other words, you can give/sell your copy of the game to someone else, but then neither you nor they have any right to play it at all. After spending two weeks arguing EULA terms with Blizzard and eventually having a lawyer send them a letter, Blizzard sent me a new CD key so I could create my account. Stupid! Right off the bat, they alienate someone wanting to pay money to them (I should have taken the hint then). Many years ago, book publishers failed to create the right to prevent secondary sales. What makes game companies so special?
You are not allowed to buy/sell any in-game virtual items for any out-of-game compensation, such as real money. Stupid! It's going to happen, and they are only going to catch a tiny fraction of those who are doing it. I never had much interest, because I'm not a power gamer and never had anything worth selling, and I wasn't willing to spend yet more money on playing the game. But, I see nothing wrong with doing it.
Only one person (and one related young child) is allowed to use the account. Stupid! Nobody is going to pay for multiple accounts when the family has only one computer and only one person at a time can play anyway.
I could go on, but that's enough for now. All these do is make people into virtual criminals (not real criminals, because no law is being broken) for doing things that most people would think is perfectly reasonable.
I've quit playing, because I figured out that I have spent more money on this game than any other game I have ever played, and to keep playing it I would have to keep spending money. I've gone back to games where I only have to pay once to play as often and long as I like (until the next expansion pack, which I am not forced to buy to keep playing but usually will anyway).
That's way off. MMORG players are more like the football audience, they are paying to receive the entertainment, not getting paid to provide it. Your analogy is like a GM bribing a programmer to give his character special powers.
If you want a football analogy, try this:
The customers who purchased a ticket to watch the game often get upset at the rules against bringing in outside food/drink, and often bring in 50 cent bottles of water or soda to avoid paying five dollars for the same thing. There is nothing illegal about that, but it could get you escorted out of the arena. The only way they are going to stop it is by lowering the concession prices to something reasonable or by cracking down so hard they annoy even the people who don't try to sneak anything in.
Furthermore, even though the outside food/drink prohibitions are very commonly known (and there are still some few places that allow it), nothing is said at time of purchase or on the ticket. The first official notice is the sign at the entrance gate.
Restrictions like that should be visible at the time of purchase of the ticket (or game).
WoW was my first (and only) MMORG (not counting MUDs a few years ago). Many of the restrictions that chafed me, I never head of until after I had paid for the game, opened it, installed it, and went to subscribe so I could play. By that time, I could not return the game.
When I complained about some of them, other people laughed (some were just downright insulting) and said it's that way every where and couldn't believe I didn't know it. I thought many of those restrictions were stupid then, and still do now.
Blizzard, and most of the others, do have a policy against using real money to buy virtual stuff from others in the game. They enforce what they can, which is probably only a small fraction of what's actually occurring.
The problem with that is that Blizzard makes things artificially scarce, which drives up value. People will use whatever method is available to obtain something they want. Almost all will stay within the law, but most do not agree with the prohibition against using real money (and it's NOT illegal).
Between artificial scarcity and extremely hard (impossibe for many people due to contigous time chunk requirements), a lot of people figure it is not possible for them to obtain certain items through the game and have no objection to purchasing it externally.
After all, it's just another "pay to play" option. You're paying Blizzard to play the game. Blizzard intentionally reduces your ability to enjoy it. You're paying someone else for their efforts to get you an item that you think will help you enjoy the game more.
I see nothing wrong with this, either morally or legally, except that it violates a ToS that you don't see until after you have already paid for and cannot return the game.
Like many others, I have not purchased anything externally, primarily because I am not willing to dump even more real money into the game than I already have by the monthly subscription. (I finally woke up and cancelled that even, and went back to other games where I only have to pay once to play as often and long as I want.)
Gold (resource) farmers are only viable because the resource is so ridiculously scarce. I never minded going out to mine resources. What I minded was never being able to find any because they were always cleared out by the farmers.
The solution: reduce artificial scarcity of resources and make similar equivalent items available to people who are willing to put forth similar effort (but who cannot commit to a single large unbroken chunk of time).
Yeah, the power gamers won't like it. Screw them; the rest of us paid the same money they did. Let them power play all they want; I don't care. But when two friends and I play for seven months, getting multiple characters up to high levels, and we only see one rare "purple" item drop in all that time (yes, we did some raids), it's a little ridiculous. Then we regularly see people who are completely equipped with purple items. We didn't want all that; we just wanted some ability to get a few items that had neat powers. Instead of going to spend real money on external purchases, I just lost interest in the game and eventually quit playing.
It all just depends on the person. Prohibiting use of real money for virtual items is not the answer. Adjusting game economy/mechanics so more players are satisfied or even happy will drastically reduce real world value of those virtual items.
One thing I haven't seen addressed (or maybe I just misseid it?) is WHY it is even possible to implement this "feature" of being able to hide a process by adding the $sys$ prefix. That sounds like a severe bug in Windows.
This "rootkit" doesn't even have to be present now that the virus/trojan/spyware writers know it is possible. Re-implementing this feature would just be one of the first steps of installation. Shouldn't people be demanding a fix for this from Microsoft?
A car manufactuer reccomends a maintence schedule such as oil changes every 3-5k miles, brake/gasket/fluid/hoses checks every 20k miles, and so forth. If a driver ignores these reccomendations, and gets into an accident because his brakes were too worn down, is that the fault of the car manufacturer? I think not. Similarly, if a computer user fails to follow the reccomended maintience schedule (system scans/software updates/defragmentation/etc every month or so), the vendor cannot be blamed for instability or degraded performance.
I can find the car manufacturer's recommended maintenance schedule in my car's owner's manual. Neither my computer's nor my operating system's owner's manual has any mention of "recommended maintenance" (of course, in the couple pages of that pamphlet, there's not much room to mention maintenance). Heck, for the laptop I got last year, the license document was thicker than the owner's manual.
if the manufacturer identifies the problem and issues a satisfactory free recall, subsequent accidents from the defect are the fault of the driver ignoring the recall.
Even if the driver (or maybe the owner?) never received the recall notice or had any reason to suspect one and check?
Yeah, the writers of firewalls recommend firewalls, the writers of antivirus programs recommend antivirus programs. I don't recall Microsoft ever recommending firewalls and antivirus programs, only saying that if you want them you have to buy them separately.
If you want to continue this analogy, then you should require that
computer vendors sell new computers that meet all safety standards (firewalls, antivirus, etc) just like you would expect from a new car.
computer owners take their computer in to a service facility annually for an inspection.
computer vendors include a detailed, clear manual describing service and maintenance requirements.
Yeah, I suppose so. I once was doing some work for a small newspaper, and at a meeting they asked my opinion about one of the ads. I had never seen the ad (at least not conciously). The ad team was shocked when I told them I read the articles and don't even glance at the ads.
Using that new AIM virus, start a program with one of the banned names and watch WoW membership disappear overnight! Shows just how stupid depending on the process name is.
Battle.Net did not cost money to use. The problem is that is was unusable if you were trying to form a game with people you knew. My three friends and I who ploayed could all be talking to each other on a voice chat program. Usually, we could all get logged onto the same Battle.Net server, though sometimes it would take up to an hour of trying. We could all join the same private chat room, though sometimes we could not see everyone in it. We could all join the same private password-protected game, though often it would take up to an hour of trying, disconnecting, reforming, etc. before we could all see each other in the game chat. Then, when we started the game, almost inevitably, at least one of us would be disconnected from the game.
When I setup a BNETD server on a spare box at home, we never had any trouble finding each other and starting a game. The longest part of starting a game suddenly became choosing the map.
Each of my friends and I had legitimate copies of StarCraft and BroodWar. Blizzard had all the money they required from us. In fact, we were saving them money by not using their bandwidth and servers.
Back when Blizzard killed BNETD, which I was using so my friends and I could actually find each other and play our legitimate copies of the game (because Blizzard's Battle.Net was practically unusable), I decided to not buy any more Blizzard products. I never did get WarCraft 3. Then my father-in-law gets me hooked on WoW when we visited for a week earlier this year.
So, I went and bought a copy. Of course, I had trouble right from the beginning (see http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/02/16/ 1855214 )
Once that got straightened out, I made the mistake of signing up for a 6-month subscription. After only two months, I wished I hadn't. I kept on playing until my subscription ended. I enjoyed the game, but not enough to renew my subscription.
Blizzard seems to be focused on making new content for high-level power-gamers, and shows little interest in fixing bugs, no matter how serious. For example, I had a problem where a quest NPC wouldn't talk to me. I searched the web and found comments 6 months old (3 or 4 patch levels old) describing the problem and saying to contact a GM to have the NPC "reset". The GM who responded to my ticket three hours later seemed to know exactly what was wrong and took 5 seconds to fix it.
Also, I despise Blizzard's concept of "honor". There is nothing honorable about the "honor" system. They should call it the "glory" system instead, though to be more accurate, maybe the "slaughter" system or the "genocide" system. And the token "dishonor" system doesn't even make any sense.
I really only have two regrets about my time playing WoW:
(1) I have never spent so much money on a single game. I can't believe I fell for the "purchase the game and also the continuing right to play it" trick, though I guess thatI shouldn't feel too bad since so many millions of other people have fallen for it, too.
(2) I wish I had started off playing a rogue instead of spending the first 4 months getting my paladin up to level 60 first. Those last two months playing a rogue were so much more fun than my paladin ever was.
I don't understand this argument. There is only one book that I have ever seen any advertising for: L Ron Hubberd's "Dianatics" (is that right?). It sounded so corny, I never had a desire to buy it.
The only times I've ordered books online is when I already knew what I wanted, usually sequels or parts of a series that I liked.
When I go to get another book, I go to the store/library and browse the bookshelves, pulling books out to read the description on the back (those that only have praises about the book, quotes usually by people I've never heard of, don't even get considered) to decide if it sounds interesting or not. Then, when one catches my eye, I open it up and read a few pages to help decide if I want it or not.
I doubt online searching will change this for me. Web pages take so long to load, and browsing an entire collection is tedious. Most places seem to just put up a "best-sellers" list or a "newest books" list with pictures, isbn, publisher, publication date, other info, and title and author, and only show 10 per page. If I don't already know what I'm looking for, I'll probably never find it. If new books were shrink-wrapped, I'd probably buy only used books. For the prices new books sell for now, there is no way I'd buy one without having a good feeling that I'll like it.
Nobody puts up a simple list of everything they have, all on one page, just title and author, linked to a summary like what's on the back of the book. If they did, and I found a book that sounded interesting, thenGoogle's indexing, letting me read a few pages of it, could make the difference between buying it or bookmarking it for cosideration after I browse some more.
Embedding it in your skin may make theft more difficult, but it also makes letting someone borrow your car or take care of your house while you are away a lot more difficult. Here, let me just dig this chip out of my arm and wash the blood off...
Yeah, I know you can have an external key or card containing another chip, but that kinda defeats your point, doesn't it?
The day when RFID scanners/duplicators are easily available probably isn't too far off, either. At least now, most people have to have physical possession of the key to make a copy of it.
Maybe I was able to use my car to get out of the disaster area. It'd be nice to have proof (although not official, at least enough to pursue the official version) that I own it. As for property, even if my house is completely demolished, I still own the parcel of land it is on. I may want to rebuild on or just sell it, and proof (not official, blah, blah...) that it's mine would be useful. In the event that the official records are destroyed, such documentation may be determined to be acceptible as proof.
Just because the shit-hits-the-fan doesn't mean there will be no recovery afterward. After all, it looks like a lot of fools are planning to move right back into New Orleans to rebuild and wait for the next hurricane to hit.
Here's what I can think of off the top of my head...
Social Security cards Driver's licenses Recent photos, head only and full body (clothed!) Passports Contact info of relatives, friends Vehicle registration Birth certificates Wedding license Property deeds Will Living will Account and contact information: banks, credit cards, utilities, insurance (health, house, car), mortgages, loans
When I see zSeries, I think mainframe (such as zOS and VTAM), not laptop. I know it's technically not IBM anymore, but couldn't they try to be a little less confusing?
That's the entire problem. With Wal-Mart, the price you see is what you pay (plus state/county/city sales tax (which I've never figured out why they don't add that in, too)). With the phone company, the price you see is only a small portion of what you pay. The difference is the displayed price.
I would much prefer to have the total package price shown before I commit to a contract. With the phone company, you can't even find out what fees will be added or how much they are until you receive your first bill. In the past, I have actually had long distance bills where the taxes and fees were 70% of the final total (if I remember right: $4 in calls and $10 in fees).
That's why I like my ISP, I pay the amount that was advertised (taxes included!) and never more. I used to like my cell phone service; until they recently tacked on a couple new fees, I was paying the advertised price plus taxes. I can't find out if others are doing that too, so I haven't gotten serious about switching yet. I dropped land line service 4 years ago and never looked back; when the $20 service generates a $40 bill each month, something's wrong. I've thought about Vonage a few times, because it looks like another service where the advertised price is actually what you pay, but so far my cell phone has been sufficient for my needs.
Every hotel I have stayed at in the past 10 years has NOT put the room number on the keycard. Some have some kind of code number, not the room number, but most are blank. They have a stack of cards at the front desk; when you check in, they pick one up and scan it, then write your room number on a piece of paper separate from the card. I only need to know the number to find the room the first time, then I just find it by physical location and usually forget the number quickly.
I always assumed this is done for these reasons:
If you lose your card, someone finding it can only identify the hotel but not the room it belongs to. This way, it can be returned, but using to to enter a room would require you trying it in every door till one opened, which could attract some attention.
The hotel doesn't have to maintain specific keys for each room. If a keycard is lost, they just invalidate that card's code and issue a new card. In the old days of actual keys, they would have to change the lock to prevent the lost key from being usable.
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So instead you would escort the epmloyee off and assign someone else to take over with no knowledge of the history of the relationship, starting of with "X is no longer with our company. I'll be working with you from now on. Now, what were you in the middle of doing?" If I was the customer there, I'd be a little concerned. Was X fired for incompetence or worse? Is my account all screwed up now? Is this new guy going to be able to pick up where X left off or are we going to have to start all over?
That's preferable to a clean hand-off, where X has time to introduce the new guy and get him up to speed on whatever X and the customer are working on? Keep in mind that the new guy will most likely either be a new hire or will already be working a full load.
Grammer tip: 'Effect' is used as a noun. 'Affect' is used as a verb.
Grammar tip: Both affect and effect can be used as either a noun or a verb. Learn when each form of each word is appropriate. Consult a dictionary.
All this airline "security" we are subjected to now was not dreamed up by the airlines. I doubt they would have added all this extra expense on their own initiative. If it wasn't a government mandate, then why are government forces (police and/or military) ready to take you aside if you so much as look at them funny?
This is only the tip of the iceberg. Sure, one proprietary peer-to-peer program doesn't seem like much, but...
Wait until the others join in. Then you'll have the WB viewer, the NBC viewer, the Disney ABC viewer, the CBS viewer, the FOX viewer, and so on. How many different viewers will you be willing to install. It will no longer be a matter of flipping through channels to see what's on TV, but starting up different viewers until you figure out which one has the show you want to watch.
And, if all of these are running in the background to allow others to download, how much of your bandwidth and computer resources is all that going to take up? Will you have to kill all those programs (probably in violation of their terms or service) just to play a game with some friends?
Will all those viewers be compatible with each other (as in, co-exist without causing trouble), or will you have to uninstall and install regularly to acess the shows you want?
If I copy the contents of the disk to my computer and start mucking about with it, I still have not been presented with a license request.
Why does clicking "setup.exe" and then the "let me use the software I purchased (I agree to license)" button suddenly mean I no longer own my copy?
Only the original purchaser of the game media is able to create an account using the included key (not documented in either EULA or ToS), and you are not allowed to transfer ownership of the account (documented) even if you subsequently transfer ownership of the media (completely obeying the EULA as documented) which invalidates your account (documented). In other words, you can give/sell your copy of the game to someone else, but then neither you nor they have any right to play it at all. After spending two weeks arguing EULA terms with Blizzard and eventually having a lawyer send them a letter, Blizzard sent me a new CD key so I could create my account. Stupid! Right off the bat, they alienate someone wanting to pay money to them (I should have taken the hint then). Many years ago, book publishers failed to create the right to prevent secondary sales. What makes game companies so special?
You are not allowed to buy/sell any in-game virtual items for any out-of-game compensation, such as real money. Stupid! It's going to happen, and they are only going to catch a tiny fraction of those who are doing it. I never had much interest, because I'm not a power gamer and never had anything worth selling, and I wasn't willing to spend yet more money on playing the game. But, I see nothing wrong with doing it.
Only one person (and one related young child) is allowed to use the account. Stupid! Nobody is going to pay for multiple accounts when the family has only one computer and only one person at a time can play anyway.
I could go on, but that's enough for now. All these do is make people into virtual criminals (not real criminals, because no law is being broken) for doing things that most people would think is perfectly reasonable.
I've quit playing, because I figured out that I have spent more money on this game than any other game I have ever played, and to keep playing it I would have to keep spending money. I've gone back to games where I only have to pay once to play as often and long as I like (until the next expansion pack, which I am not forced to buy to keep playing but usually will anyway).
If you want a football analogy, try this:
The customers who purchased a ticket to watch the game often get upset at the rules against bringing in outside food/drink, and often bring in 50 cent bottles of water or soda to avoid paying five dollars for the same thing. There is nothing illegal about that, but it could get you escorted out of the arena. The only way they are going to stop it is by lowering the concession prices to something reasonable or by cracking down so hard they annoy even the people who don't try to sneak anything in.
Furthermore, even though the outside food/drink prohibitions are very commonly known (and there are still some few places that allow it), nothing is said at time of purchase or on the ticket. The first official notice is the sign at the entrance gate.
Restrictions like that should be visible at the time of purchase of the ticket (or game).
WoW was my first (and only) MMORG (not counting MUDs a few years ago). Many of the restrictions that chafed me, I never head of until after I had paid for the game, opened it, installed it, and went to subscribe so I could play. By that time, I could not return the game. When I complained about some of them, other people laughed (some were just downright insulting) and said it's that way every where and couldn't believe I didn't know it. I thought many of those restrictions were stupid then, and still do now.
The problem with that is that Blizzard makes things artificially scarce, which drives up value. People will use whatever method is available to obtain something they want. Almost all will stay within the law, but most do not agree with the prohibition against using real money (and it's NOT illegal).
Between artificial scarcity and extremely hard (impossibe for many people due to contigous time chunk requirements), a lot of people figure it is not possible for them to obtain certain items through the game and have no objection to purchasing it externally.
After all, it's just another "pay to play" option. You're paying Blizzard to play the game. Blizzard intentionally reduces your ability to enjoy it. You're paying someone else for their efforts to get you an item that you think will help you enjoy the game more.
I see nothing wrong with this, either morally or legally, except that it violates a ToS that you don't see until after you have already paid for and cannot return the game.
Like many others, I have not purchased anything externally, primarily because I am not willing to dump even more real money into the game than I already have by the monthly subscription. (I finally woke up and cancelled that even, and went back to other games where I only have to pay once to play as often and long as I want.)
Gold (resource) farmers are only viable because the resource is so ridiculously scarce. I never minded going out to mine resources. What I minded was never being able to find any because they were always cleared out by the farmers.
The solution: reduce artificial scarcity of resources and make similar equivalent items available to people who are willing to put forth similar effort (but who cannot commit to a single large unbroken chunk of time).
Yeah, the power gamers won't like it. Screw them; the rest of us paid the same money they did. Let them power play all they want; I don't care. But when two friends and I play for seven months, getting multiple characters up to high levels, and we only see one rare "purple" item drop in all that time (yes, we did some raids), it's a little ridiculous. Then we regularly see people who are completely equipped with purple items. We didn't want all that; we just wanted some ability to get a few items that had neat powers. Instead of going to spend real money on external purchases, I just lost interest in the game and eventually quit playing.
It all just depends on the person. Prohibiting use of real money for virtual items is not the answer. Adjusting game economy/mechanics so more players are satisfied or even happy will drastically reduce real world value of those virtual items.
This "rootkit" doesn't even have to be present now that the virus/trojan/spyware writers know it is possible. Re-implementing this feature would just be one of the first steps of installation. Shouldn't people be demanding a fix for this from Microsoft?
I can find the car manufacturer's recommended maintenance schedule in my car's owner's manual. Neither my computer's nor my operating system's owner's manual has any mention of "recommended maintenance" (of course, in the couple pages of that pamphlet, there's not much room to mention maintenance). Heck, for the laptop I got last year, the license document was thicker than the owner's manual.
if the manufacturer identifies the problem and issues a satisfactory free recall, subsequent accidents from the defect are the fault of the driver ignoring the recall.
Even if the driver (or maybe the owner?) never received the recall notice or had any reason to suspect one and check?
Software makers reccomend analogous 'safety' devices
Yeah, the writers of firewalls recommend firewalls, the writers of antivirus programs recommend antivirus programs. I don't recall Microsoft ever recommending firewalls and antivirus programs, only saying that if you want them you have to buy them separately.
If you want to continue this analogy, then you should require that
- computer vendors sell new computers that meet all safety standards (firewalls, antivirus, etc) just like you would expect from a new car.
- computer owners take their computer in to a service facility annually for an inspection.
- computer vendors include a detailed, clear manual describing service and maintenance requirements.
well... you get the point...I wonder how Story Plot patents and Freedom of the Press will collide? Which will win, and how many years will it take to resolve it?
I guess marketing folk must hate me.
Using that new AIM virus, start a program with one of the banned names and watch WoW membership disappear overnight! Shows just how stupid depending on the process name is.
When I setup a BNETD server on a spare box at home, we never had any trouble finding each other and starting a game. The longest part of starting a game suddenly became choosing the map.
Each of my friends and I had legitimate copies of StarCraft and BroodWar. Blizzard had all the money they required from us. In fact, we were saving them money by not using their bandwidth and servers.
So, I went and bought a copy. Of course, I had trouble right from the beginning (see http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/02/16/ 1855214 )
Once that got straightened out, I made the mistake of signing up for a 6-month subscription. After only two months, I wished I hadn't. I kept on playing until my subscription ended. I enjoyed the game, but not enough to renew my subscription.
Blizzard seems to be focused on making new content for high-level power-gamers, and shows little interest in fixing bugs, no matter how serious. For example, I had a problem where a quest NPC wouldn't talk to me. I searched the web and found comments 6 months old (3 or 4 patch levels old) describing the problem and saying to contact a GM to have the NPC "reset". The GM who responded to my ticket three hours later seemed to know exactly what was wrong and took 5 seconds to fix it.
Also, I despise Blizzard's concept of "honor". There is nothing honorable about the "honor" system. They should call it the "glory" system instead, though to be more accurate, maybe the "slaughter" system or the "genocide" system. And the token "dishonor" system doesn't even make any sense.
I really only have two regrets about my time playing WoW:
(1) I have never spent so much money on a single game. I can't believe I fell for the "purchase the game and also the continuing right to play it" trick, though I guess thatI shouldn't feel too bad since so many millions of other people have fallen for it, too.
(2) I wish I had started off playing a rogue instead of spending the first 4 months getting my paladin up to level 60 first. Those last two months playing a rogue were so much more fun than my paladin ever was.
The only times I've ordered books online is when I already knew what I wanted, usually sequels or parts of a series that I liked.
When I go to get another book, I go to the store/library and browse the bookshelves, pulling books out to read the description on the back (those that only have praises about the book, quotes usually by people I've never heard of, don't even get considered) to decide if it sounds interesting or not. Then, when one catches my eye, I open it up and read a few pages to help decide if I want it or not.
I doubt online searching will change this for me. Web pages take so long to load, and browsing an entire collection is tedious. Most places seem to just put up a "best-sellers" list or a "newest books" list with pictures, isbn, publisher, publication date, other info, and title and author, and only show 10 per page. If I don't already know what I'm looking for, I'll probably never find it. If new books were shrink-wrapped, I'd probably buy only used books. For the prices new books sell for now, there is no way I'd buy one without having a good feeling that I'll like it.
Nobody puts up a simple list of everything they have, all on one page, just title and author, linked to a summary like what's on the back of the book. If they did, and I found a book that sounded interesting, thenGoogle's indexing, letting me read a few pages of it, could make the difference between buying it or bookmarking it for cosideration after I browse some more.
Yeah, I know you can have an external key or card containing another chip, but that kinda defeats your point, doesn't it?
The day when RFID scanners/duplicators are easily available probably isn't too far off, either. At least now, most people have to have physical possession of the key to make a copy of it.
That makes no sense...
Slow torrent download: hours or days while you do other things
Fast DVD release: end of year, have to drive out to purchase or wait days for mail delivery
Which seems quicker to you?
Just because the shit-hits-the-fan doesn't mean there will be no recovery afterward. After all, it looks like a lot of fools are planning to move right back into New Orleans to rebuild and wait for the next hurricane to hit.
The original quote was something like this, if I remember right:
/.'s sig length limit.
Think about it...
Isn't having a smoking section in a restaurant kinda like having a peeing section in a swimming pool?
I had to shorten and paraphrase it to squeeze it into
feel free. I borrowed it from someone else. never found the original author though.
Here's what I can think of off the top of my head...
Social Security cards
Driver's licenses
Recent photos, head only and full body (clothed!)
Passports
Contact info of relatives, friends
Vehicle registration
Birth certificates
Wedding license
Property deeds
Will
Living will
Account and contact information: banks, credit cards, utilities, insurance (health, house, car), mortgages, loans
When I see zSeries, I think mainframe (such as zOS and VTAM), not laptop. I know it's technically not IBM anymore, but couldn't they try to be a little less confusing?
I would much prefer to have the total package price shown before I commit to a contract. With the phone company, you can't even find out what fees will be added or how much they are until you receive your first bill. In the past, I have actually had long distance bills where the taxes and fees were 70% of the final total (if I remember right: $4 in calls and $10 in fees).
That's why I like my ISP, I pay the amount that was advertised (taxes included!) and never more. I used to like my cell phone service; until they recently tacked on a couple new fees, I was paying the advertised price plus taxes. I can't find out if others are doing that too, so I haven't gotten serious about switching yet. I dropped land line service 4 years ago and never looked back; when the $20 service generates a $40 bill each month, something's wrong. I've thought about Vonage a few times, because it looks like another service where the advertised price is actually what you pay, but so far my cell phone has been sufficient for my needs.
I always assumed this is done for these reasons: