If you are seeing this page, we have
detected that the browser that you
are using will not render
zone.msn.com correctly. To play on
the Zone you need a computer
running Windows95 or greater and
we recommend either Microsoft
Internet Explorer 4.0 or greater or
Netscape 6.0 or greater.The Zone is
best viewed with Internet Explorer.
To get the latest version, please
select the free download link below.
Note that our Netscape 6 support is
still under construction. Some
games may not function properly
while that support is being
completed.If you do not want to
upgrade your browser, you can still
use the Zone, however some pages
may not render properly and some
games may not function properly.
To continue using the Zone without
upgrading your browser, click here
------------- End Quoting -------------
In other word it implies: if(you are not using windows)
if(you are not using IE)
NO game for you to play, kid!
elseif(you are using netscape)
We are supporting it, but we will make sure
your computer crashs on every mouse click.
endif endif
It seems you are suggesting the requests be processed only when the network load is relatively light. But even if we don't put any time-constraint, the search still demands some crawling around and this will still eat away a significant amount of bandwidth if many people are querying/replying simultaneously(nonetheless this is more network-friendly than realtime crawling). Moreover, due to the nature of P2P network, the files exist a few days ago may not be available now. The owners can be off-line or the files were deleted. Finally, how to effectively/properly probe the network condition is a research by itself.
Who knows, maybe a miracle will happen and M$ will develop Office for Linux (who's laughing now?)
This doesn't change anything. We just shift the platform from Windows to Linux and M$ still can charge the customers arbitrarily high fees. I really doubt M$ is willing to put its software in public domain and abide by the GPL.
Until RTS games have decent enough AI that when your grunt is done building that fort you assigned him to build he goes and either returns to his
previous job or starts doing some other productive job, I won't play them.
Agree, but this runs into the risk of don't know where those grunts are when you need them to fix your burning guard towers. They might happily chopping trees in the other end of the map, dupe!
We should be setting standards for exchanging data between those systems instead
To establish a standard we first need to make sure inputs are sought from all parties involved and the standardization process is transparent to the public.
Now the problem is some big companies are not willing to abide by an 'open' standard, instead, they close the door and just create a proprietary standard so that everyone who uses it will have to pay(either directly or indirectly). That is true users who don't want to adopt can create their own standard, but as long as those companies don't give in, this doesn't solve the heterogeneity problem. Micro$oft comes in mind when I am saying this.
I agree that indiscriminated copying and/or distribution of copyrighted material should be prohibited, but I think asking a person with normal income to pay for each and every piece of written material that he/she reads is too much.
All in all sharing knowledge is the basic goal of a library. Infringement on copyrights by ebooks is not a good excuse to deny our right to access the library. As far as I know there is some ebook out there with a counter built into it(or in the reader), dependent on the number of 'copies' of that particular ebook purchased, it only allows limited number of persons to read/access that book at the same time. I think this is a pretty viable and practical technology.
Slashdot Mirror
I like the message in that page.
:
------ From MSN's games page --------
Browser Not Supported
If you are seeing this page, we have
detected that the browser that you
are using will not render
zone.msn.com correctly. To play on
the Zone you need a computer
running Windows95 or greater and
we recommend either Microsoft
Internet Explorer 4.0 or greater or
Netscape 6.0 or greater.The Zone is
best viewed with Internet Explorer.
To get the latest version, please
select the free download link below.
Note that our Netscape 6 support is
still under construction. Some
games may not function properly
while that support is being
completed.If you do not want to
upgrade your browser, you can still
use the Zone, however some pages
may not render properly and some
games may not function properly.
To continue using the Zone without
upgrading your browser, click here
------------- End Quoting -------------
In other word it implies
if(you are not using windows)
if(you are not using IE)
NO game for you to play, kid!
elseif(you are using netscape)
We are supporting it, but we will make sure
your computer crashs on every mouse click.
endif
endif
The paper mentioned in the above article is available (full version) here
Extended version here
It seems you are suggesting the requests be processed only when the network load is relatively light. But even if we don't put any time-constraint, the search still demands some crawling around and this will still eat away a significant amount of bandwidth if many people are querying/replying simultaneously(nonetheless this is more network-friendly than realtime crawling). Moreover, due to the nature of P2P network, the files exist a few days ago may not be available now. The owners can be off-line or the files were deleted. Finally, how to effectively/properly probe the network condition is a research by itself.
Who knows, maybe a miracle will happen and M$ will develop Office for Linux (who's laughing now?)
This doesn't change anything. We just shift the platform from Windows to Linux and M$ still can charge the customers arbitrarily high fees. I really doubt M$ is willing to put its software in public domain and abide by the GPL.
To establish a standard we first need to make sure inputs are sought from all parties involved and the standardization process is transparent to the public.
Now the problem is some big companies are not willing to abide by an 'open' standard, instead, they close the door and just create a proprietary standard so that everyone who uses it will have to pay(either directly or indirectly). That is true users who don't want to adopt can create their own standard, but as long as those companies don't give in, this doesn't solve the heterogeneity problem. Micro$oft comes in mind when I am saying this.
I agree that indiscriminated copying and/or distribution of copyrighted material should be prohibited, but I think asking a person with normal income to pay for each and every piece of written material that he/she reads is too much.
All in all sharing knowledge is the basic goal of a library. Infringement on copyrights by ebooks is not a good excuse to deny our right to access the library. As far as I know there is some ebook out there with a counter built into it(or in the reader), dependent on the number of 'copies' of that particular ebook purchased, it only allows limited number of persons to read/access that book at the same time. I think this is a pretty viable and practical technology.