I don't know if just anyone should have this power, but back in the day in the MUDding circuit I was part of some MUD teams that set up commentary systems. Immortals would play as if they were regular joes, and if they saw someone doing something irritating or awesome they'd flag those players accordingly. People with bad marks couldn't get help from the gods anymore, and people with good marks could get help or even godly assistance whenever they wanted.
Now MUDs were not really "massively" multiplayer with only 100 players online. But some of the things we toyed with would still play out, like having dice rolls go poorly for people if they're flagged as griefers. You know, nothing you could put your finger on as a player, but chance would seem to be always against you.
'Media' is the plural of 'medium'. Hence, 'medias' is nonsense.
We're talking about 2014, remember? Medias will be OK by then. Its will be it's, they're will be there, and you're will be your. Oh, and plurals will be formed with an apostrophe.
I wonder how this will really affect anyone. The last time I was in a Wal-Mart I saw a sign by the service desk that said "Due to copyright laws, we cannot accept returns of opened software or music." I'm no lawyer, but that to me seems like a false statement. There aren't any copyright laws that prohibit merchandise returns. But good luck convincing Wal-Mart otherwise.
And though we'll never have conclusive, accurate metrics on leval vs. illegal use of P2P, common sense tells me that the majority of users aren't downloading the latest version of Gentoo.
This is not an insight about the technology. The technology is used that way because of chokeholds elsewhere in the marketplace (and the market always flows around chokeholds). When those chokeholds relax -- and they will eventually, for one reason or another -- P2P technology won't be misused so much.
This is a good point. If you're low on time, you are probably a little older. Maybe you buy a pint with the gents once in a while. That pint is, what, 5 dollars? I bet it doesn't last an hour, either.
I would guess that pay-as-you-go would create a lot of billing overhead for companies, and prepaid per-hour payments only end up making gamers mad because their time ran out right when they were having fun. All in all, monthly is best.
The word "free" is only mentioned once and in tiny, tiny type.
There are quite a few marketing negatives that go along with the word "Free," especially for software, such as "lack of quality," "unsupported," and "spyware-laden." The ad gives it the importance it deserves.
The giant "1.0" is worthless.
Not so. It is used pretty well here, actually. First, it establishes that this is a real product. Second, it establishes that it's a new product, which underscores the marketing message of opting away from something stagnant and old for something fresh and new.
There's also very little quick information available to differentiate Firefox from the audience's existing browser. There's mention of pop-ups and a lack of crashing, but it's contained in boring testimonials
Now you're just showing ignorance. Marketing has specific, limited objectives. In this case, it's prompting the set of readers who are sick of IE but don't know about alternatives to get interested and check out the web site. That's all. Cramming the page with browser features does not support the objective. And by the way, "boring" testimonials are highly effective marketing tools.
Wow. Theft is equated to the American Revolution, and thieves equated to victims of Saudi Arabia's sharia enforcement thugs. If anyone ever needed an object lesson in the dangers of grossly inappropriate analogies, they need look no further.
Really? I think it's you who is misinformed. The American revolutionaries were most definitely considered thieves and criminals by the British Empire.
A competing organization found similar results. 1/3 of kids reported being good at math, 1/3 reported being bad at math, and the remaining 1/2 were somewhere in the middle.
How unlucky do you have to be to be sued by the RIAA?
Lawsuits are only filed after other thresholds have been met. While I am not privy to all the mechanics of it [1], your chances of being "tagged" by the RIAA in one of their databases as a filesharing IP are quite high. If your IP shows up a lot, you'll make it into a verification stage. If they can verify that you're distributing their stuff, then the lawsuit appears. So the 0.004% of users is just how many have made it into the final, verified stage of (probably massive) copyright infringement. There may be 5-10% who are in process of being verified, or who have not uploaded a sufficient quantity yet to warrant a lawsuit but who are being watched while they do.
[1] Not so long ago I received a friendly note from my ISP that I was being observed (and the ISP was receiving DMCA threats). I got a pretty good look at what was going on that way.
The worst part is spending $50.00 or (iirc) $80.00 for the collectors edition.
I just accept this as the price you pay for early adoption.
Normal game economics don't quite work with some Blizzard products. Diablo II is still taking up retail shelf space at $20-30 a pop four years after its release. Now I hope WoW comes down in price after a while, but realistically I expect it will hold full retail value for 1-2 years minimum.
I don't think it's worth worry about. This will pass, and over the next 2 years the U.S. Congress is going to pass a number of extremely harsh IP-protecting bills. Shortly we will be living under the copyright rules that our founders were desperate to get away from.
However, I believe this will greatly accelerate the movement toward things like the Creative Commons and FOSS. It will be too dangerous to do otherwise. When lending a book carries a jail sentence, the market will quickly shift toward books that explicitly permit sharing. When misplacing your retail Windows XP carton lands you in prison, Linux will be on everyone's computer.
Stargate-Atlantis has the advantage for bringing fresh new ideas (and a fresh new cast) the the concept of the series
I enjoy Atlantis quite a bit. However, I don't feel like they have achieved the character depth of SG-1. The four SG-1 characters all carry pain, which makes them interesting to begin with, but what is fascinating about them is their pain is connected -- they've hurt and healed each other. Example: Daniel carries the with him the loss his wife, but what's worse is that she was ultimately killed by Teal'c, which adds betrayal. Killer lines:
TEAL'C - Is there not some form of human ritual by which I can ask your fogiveness?
DANIEL - No.
Their relationship does heal over time, but there is always something between them in the background. That is an astonishingly complex character relationship for a science fiction series. All four of those characters are interconnected in similar ways. There's some tension between the Atlantis characters, but I'm waiting for something more, er, painful between them before it gets up to the level of SG-1.
In the feature film Stargate (1994), the lead character, whose name was spelled with one L, was played by 'Kurt Russel' and was a much more humorless character.
Russel played him stoically because that's the only character Russel can play. Anderson has a far greater range as an actor, and although he doesn't come right out and say it, Anderson's comments in the DVD extras pretty much amount to "Russel's treatment of this character bit." For comparison, look at the way Daniel Jackson was portrayed by Spader and Shanks. No personality transplant necessary there, because Shanks had something to work with.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Downloading DVD movies off the Internet takes food off the table of Hollywood stuntmen. Do not participate in this crime!!!
This is a good list of criticisms....for me to poop on!
Really, I don't get these problems. Getting networked printing to work with Windows leaves you with red marks on your forehead from banging it against the desk. And P2P networks? Half the time Windows machines don't see each other in the "workgroup" or refuse to exchange information or doggedly insist on logging you in as the wrong user. In both cases, printing and networking, if something doesn't work correctly there's often nothing you can do to fix it besided rebooting and seeing if that helps (which, bizzarely, often does).
On the other hand, networked printing in Linux amounts to selecting a CUPS or Samba printer and clicking OK. Oh, and you might have to specify that it's an HP G85. How is that not functional? I think I took one step to set up my OfficeJet as a shared CUPS printer, which was "apt-get install hpoj". P2P networking, uh, come on you must be kidding me. We had this nailed before Micros~1 even knew what a network was. And with the interfaces now available in Gnome and KDE, traversing networks is almost transparent. "Sharing" is even very Windows-like in KDE (right-click and choose share). How's that not functional again?
Now as for the others -- AD support? That's rich. Not exactly parallel, but where is, for example, the support in Windows for ReiserFS, ext3, and JFS? I say that makes Windows "not ready for the corporate desktop" because it can't read non-MS filesystems. A clever driver-getter would be spiffy, but in Windows it's merely an agreement with hardware manufacturers to bundle/offer their drivers. This would be a reality for Linux if hardware vendors had open source drivers available, so really it's not a Linux shortcoming at all but a hardware vendor problem.
My 11-year-old asked me the other day what the word "liberal" means...it really is the basis on which our country was founded
Although you are right that ideological tolerance is one of the founding princicples of the U.S., "liberal" is also a founding principle in a way that you do not address, namely "freedom from governance." The classic liberal prior to the 70s held the view that government is inherently bad and its reach should be limited wherever possible. Ever since Roe v Wade, however, the conservative and the liberal have polarized along a different axis -- both now view government as a way to enforce their beliefs, and their opposition is about which beliefs shall be enforced. As a poster below has noted, liberals today are sadly just as intolerant, shrill, and preachy as conservatives.
If you wish to be a true liberal, then refuse to take sides in a silly culture war about how government should be used to force people to "do the right thing." If you want to be a true liberal, advocate leaving people alone and getting the government out of it.
TFA goes to some pains to cast a bad light on Kerry, but it also tells a different story: Ashcroft's views on civil liberties have flipped 180 degrees. So it seems that the real lesson is that when Kerry transitions from the legistlative to the executive branch his views on civil liberties will completely reverse. Good to go, then.
This is how Microsoft Bill Gates built his business...Bill Gates seemed quite proud of those feats when he later bragged about them.
This isn't too uncommon in the consulting and business services world, where you see these kinds of deal-makers brought in for the purpose of getting a new company off the ground. These guys will say or do anything to close a deal. A real classic is hiring temps so it looks like you have a staff and a genuine address. Telling someone you've got a product today when it's never even been designed is almost SOP. Ethical? No. Commonplace? Yes. And these deal-makers always like to brag over a few fingers of Johnnie Walker Black how they bamboozled the new client into signing on the dotted line.
and it doesn't necessary look connected, but does anyone know if this is related to the old Bard's Tale game? Is it a remake of the same?
Ah, how fondly I remember sitting in front of that Amiga watching "99 Berserkers miss" scroll across the text window.
You are probably right. He will push the Justice Department to prosecute "piracy" aggressively, and he will sign onerous new legislation to prop up failing business models, but Bush/Ashcroft is going to do the same thing. It's too bad but we Americans are headed for a very rough time over the next 3-6 years (it usually takes a solid decade to halt our episodes of collective rectal-cranial inversion, e.g., Prohibition). After that things will even out -- either government will adjust to the market or the market will route around government.
For the time being, I think it's a good idea to get a change in the office of the Attorney General. 2005 will be an extra-sucky year if Ashcroft gets the impression that America is supporting his behavior.
Re:Why are Nader voters and his party so cluess?
on
The Hidden Swing State?
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Why is it that Ralph Nader and his supporters are doing thier best to ingore how the US Electoral system acutally works?
I agree, but I don't think Nader is playing the game any differently than Bush or Kerry. He's running on "party" not on "issues." That's a problem for him, but not for them, because Bush and Kerry can get to the final stage of the election process riding on party loyalties and then start differentiating themselves on issues.
If a third party candidate with moderate charisma ran under a specific set of issues, he or she could generate a lot of steam [1]. The reason why Clinton was such a vote-getter was that he ran on a specific platorm, including making the radical promise that he would reform health care in his first 100 days in office. If someone picked up that same banner and run under it this election, third party or not, they'd get a hell of a lot of attention because the problem is much more pronounced now.
[1] Perot was probably the best example of this in recent times. But also, in Minnesota, pro wrestler Jesse "The Body" Ventura got himself a governorship as an independent because he ran on an issue. What was his issue? He didn't like being harshly taxed on his recreational vehicles. Just goes to show you it doesn't matter what it is, just have an issue.
It's been my belief for a while that Google is going to be the storage medium of the future. Eventually we'll all share one big searchable "disk" called Google. Gmail and this local search tool are stepping stones toward that end.
Slashdot Mirror
Now MUDs were not really "massively" multiplayer with only 100 players online. But some of the things we toyed with would still play out, like having dice rolls go poorly for people if they're flagged as griefers. You know, nothing you could put your finger on as a player, but chance would seem to be always against you.
We're talking about 2014, remember? Medias will be OK by then. Its will be it's, they're will be there, and you're will be your. Oh, and plurals will be formed with an apostrophe.
This is not an insight about the technology. The technology is used that way because of chokeholds elsewhere in the marketplace (and the market always flows around chokeholds). When those chokeholds relax -- and they will eventually, for one reason or another -- P2P technology won't be misused so much.
http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2004/12/da y_trader_anal.html
I would guess that pay-as-you-go would create a lot of billing overhead for companies, and prepaid per-hour payments only end up making gamers mad because their time ran out right when they were having fun. All in all, monthly is best.
The word "free" is only mentioned once and in tiny, tiny type.
There are quite a few marketing negatives that go along with the word "Free," especially for software, such as "lack of quality," "unsupported," and "spyware-laden." The ad gives it the importance it deserves.
The giant "1.0" is worthless.
Not so. It is used pretty well here, actually. First, it establishes that this is a real product. Second, it establishes that it's a new product, which underscores the marketing message of opting away from something stagnant and old for something fresh and new.
There's also very little quick information available to differentiate Firefox from the audience's existing browser. There's mention of pop-ups and a lack of crashing, but it's contained in boring testimonials
Now you're just showing ignorance. Marketing has specific, limited objectives. In this case, it's prompting the set of readers who are sick of IE but don't know about alternatives to get interested and check out the web site. That's all. Cramming the page with browser features does not support the objective. And by the way, "boring" testimonials are highly effective marketing tools.
Really? I think it's you who is misinformed. The American revolutionaries were most definitely considered thieves and criminals by the British Empire.
Lawsuits are only filed after other thresholds have been met. While I am not privy to all the mechanics of it [1], your chances of being "tagged" by the RIAA in one of their databases as a filesharing IP are quite high. If your IP shows up a lot, you'll make it into a verification stage. If they can verify that you're distributing their stuff, then the lawsuit appears. So the 0.004% of users is just how many have made it into the final, verified stage of (probably massive) copyright infringement. There may be 5-10% who are in process of being verified, or who have not uploaded a sufficient quantity yet to warrant a lawsuit but who are being watched while they do.
[1] Not so long ago I received a friendly note from my ISP that I was being observed (and the ISP was receiving DMCA threats). I got a pretty good look at what was going on that way.
Normal game economics don't quite work with some Blizzard products. Diablo II is still taking up retail shelf space at $20-30 a pop four years after its release. Now I hope WoW comes down in price after a while, but realistically I expect it will hold full retail value for 1-2 years minimum.
However, I believe this will greatly accelerate the movement toward things like the Creative Commons and FOSS. It will be too dangerous to do otherwise. When lending a book carries a jail sentence, the market will quickly shift toward books that explicitly permit sharing. When misplacing your retail Windows XP carton lands you in prison, Linux will be on everyone's computer.
I enjoy Atlantis quite a bit. However, I don't feel like they have achieved the character depth of SG-1. The four SG-1 characters all carry pain, which makes them interesting to begin with, but what is fascinating about them is their pain is connected -- they've hurt and healed each other. Example: Daniel carries the with him the loss his wife, but what's worse is that she was ultimately killed by Teal'c, which adds betrayal. Killer lines:
TEAL'C - Is there not some form of human ritual by which I can ask your fogiveness?
DANIEL - No.
Their relationship does heal over time, but there is always something between them in the background. That is an astonishingly complex character relationship for a science fiction series. All four of those characters are interconnected in similar ways. There's some tension between the Atlantis characters, but I'm waiting for something more, er, painful between them before it gets up to the level of SG-1.
Russel played him stoically because that's the only character Russel can play. Anderson has a far greater range as an actor, and although he doesn't come right out and say it, Anderson's comments in the DVD extras pretty much amount to "Russel's treatment of this character bit." For comparison, look at the way Daniel Jackson was portrayed by Spader and Shanks. No personality transplant necessary there, because Shanks had something to work with.
This is a good list of criticisms....for me to poop on!
Really, I don't get these problems. Getting networked printing to work with Windows leaves you with red marks on your forehead from banging it against the desk. And P2P networks? Half the time Windows machines don't see each other in the "workgroup" or refuse to exchange information or doggedly insist on logging you in as the wrong user. In both cases, printing and networking, if something doesn't work correctly there's often nothing you can do to fix it besided rebooting and seeing if that helps (which, bizzarely, often does).
On the other hand, networked printing in Linux amounts to selecting a CUPS or Samba printer and clicking OK. Oh, and you might have to specify that it's an HP G85. How is that not functional? I think I took one step to set up my OfficeJet as a shared CUPS printer, which was "apt-get install hpoj". P2P networking, uh, come on you must be kidding me. We had this nailed before Micros~1 even knew what a network was. And with the interfaces now available in Gnome and KDE, traversing networks is almost transparent. "Sharing" is even very Windows-like in KDE (right-click and choose share). How's that not functional again?
Now as for the others -- AD support? That's rich. Not exactly parallel, but where is, for example, the support in Windows for ReiserFS, ext3, and JFS? I say that makes Windows "not ready for the corporate desktop" because it can't read non-MS filesystems. A clever driver-getter would be spiffy, but in Windows it's merely an agreement with hardware manufacturers to bundle/offer their drivers. This would be a reality for Linux if hardware vendors had open source drivers available, so really it's not a Linux shortcoming at all but a hardware vendor problem.
There is no logical difference between buying a used CD and downloading the tunes from Kazaa. In both cases:
Although you are right that ideological tolerance is one of the founding princicples of the U.S., "liberal" is also a founding principle in a way that you do not address, namely "freedom from governance." The classic liberal prior to the 70s held the view that government is inherently bad and its reach should be limited wherever possible. Ever since Roe v Wade, however, the conservative and the liberal have polarized along a different axis -- both now view government as a way to enforce their beliefs, and their opposition is about which beliefs shall be enforced. As a poster below has noted, liberals today are sadly just as intolerant, shrill, and preachy as conservatives.
If you wish to be a true liberal, then refuse to take sides in a silly culture war about how government should be used to force people to "do the right thing." If you want to be a true liberal, advocate leaving people alone and getting the government out of it.
This isn't too uncommon in the consulting and business services world, where you see these kinds of deal-makers brought in for the purpose of getting a new company off the ground. These guys will say or do anything to close a deal. A real classic is hiring temps so it looks like you have a staff and a genuine address. Telling someone you've got a product today when it's never even been designed is almost SOP. Ethical? No. Commonplace? Yes. And these deal-makers always like to brag over a few fingers of Johnnie Walker Black how they bamboozled the new client into signing on the dotted line.
For the time being, I think it's a good idea to get a change in the office of the Attorney General. 2005 will be an extra-sucky year if Ashcroft gets the impression that America is supporting his behavior.
I agree, but I don't think Nader is playing the game any differently than Bush or Kerry. He's running on "party" not on "issues." That's a problem for him, but not for them, because Bush and Kerry can get to the final stage of the election process riding on party loyalties and then start differentiating themselves on issues.
If a third party candidate with moderate charisma ran under a specific set of issues, he or she could generate a lot of steam [1]. The reason why Clinton was such a vote-getter was that he ran on a specific platorm, including making the radical promise that he would reform health care in his first 100 days in office. If someone picked up that same banner and run under it this election, third party or not, they'd get a hell of a lot of attention because the problem is much more pronounced now.
[1] Perot was probably the best example of this in recent times. But also, in Minnesota, pro wrestler Jesse "The Body" Ventura got himself a governorship as an independent because he ran on an issue. What was his issue? He didn't like being harshly taxed on his recreational vehicles. Just goes to show you it doesn't matter what it is, just have an issue.