Yeah, I was a little put off by the rating-my-friends thing too.
After I went through and rated them (some actually *were* acquaintances -- future friends should I hang out with them more), I noticed that Orkut had already used that information to filter out my acquaintances from who was shown.
It was a little annoying at first to see the granularity popping up with that default, but I could see it as being very helpful for people with > 30 friends or for people who are actually trying to make use of the Business Networking aspect.
There are many people with over 100 friends in Orkut. Without that kind of granularity I think it'd be a lot more difficult to manage the information. (They also offer the ability to make friend 'groups'.) Not all 100 friends are likely to be real friends (although I suppose that's up to one's definition of 'friend').
If you have business contacts, there's a good chance that they'll be more acquaintances than friends, and if you log into your homepage there for personal stuff, you'd want to be able to filter out all the business contacts (and other acquaintances).
Surely this isn't for everyone, and I can see how it'd rankle some people to have to rate their friends, but that level of granularity can be very useful. Of course it opens up the possibility of Orkut/Google mining your information for future considerations, but this thing's still in beta and they seem receptive to input...
With all due respect, I don't think Mars needs property rights. If the purpose of reaching mars is scientific, then I believe Antarctica provides a realistic way of achieving our goals without property rights.
Since 1959 (through a cold war) Antarctica has been the model for the suspension of territorial and property rights. Perhaps the idea of keeping science as the paramount priority there would also enable something like the Antarctic treaty to work on Mars -- even while the population on Mars builds the diverse infrastructure needed to sustain life there...
"The Crusoe TM5700/TM5900 processors are another significant step in advancing the cause of efficient computing," said Dr. Matthew R. Perry, president and CEO of Transmeta. "By delivering a solution that is 50 percent smaller than our existing Crusoe TM5800 processors, Transmeta allows system designers to further leverage the high performance and low-heat dissipation characteristics of Transmeta's proven hardware and software architecture for a wide range of new smaller form factor, fan-less designs."
Important tidbit not in the article, but needed to be:
Dr. Perry then proceeded to explain the seemingly confusing numbering scheme, "Well, since we had cut down the form factor some of thought we should also cut the model number down. But, we didn't want to alienate those who are used to seeing newer products with higher model numbers, so we compromised and named it higher and lower than its predecessor."
When I was in elementary school on an air force base, not only did we have to recite the pledge, but we had to sing either 'This Land is Your Land', 'God Bless America', or 'America (the Beautiful)' too. The song was chosen by whichever student was chosen to lead the class in the pledge.
I wonder if military bases will be influenced by this (whichever way it goes)...
P2P really helps narrow down responsibility for shareing. With http, you've got:
The ISP
The webhoster (customer of ISP)
The sharer
ISPs have rights, and navigating through their rights to find some wrongs isn't worth the fight.
Go for the source and if you can't snuff it, try to limit it (like using scare tactics/lawsuits)...
It would seem to me that if DAoC is their only title, they've spent more time trying to make a great game, and less time with the legal types creating a more defined agreement.
Speaking as one who's been unofficially affiliated with Verant for a number of years, I can tell you that Everquest has been around for much longer that even its beta program. What I mean by this is that they've (ever since EQ's predecessor Tanarus came out) had since early '97 to tweak their user agreement to close loopholes and make their "I Accept" button much more ironclad.
It's a sort of changing of the times in that a company that develops a MMORPG *must* spend an ordinate amount of time/money/resources on the legal aspect of the game, instead of just creating a kick-a$$ game that everyone will enjoy...:\
Slashdot Mirror
Good stuff.
Yeah, I was a little put off by the rating-my-friends thing too.
After I went through and rated them (some actually *were* acquaintances -- future friends should I hang out with them more), I noticed that Orkut had already used that information to filter out my acquaintances from who was shown.
It was a little annoying at first to see the granularity popping up with that default, but I could see it as being very helpful for people with > 30 friends or for people who are actually trying to make use of the Business Networking aspect.
There are many people with over 100 friends in Orkut. Without that kind of granularity I think it'd be a lot more difficult to manage the information. (They also offer the ability to make friend 'groups'.) Not all 100 friends are likely to be real friends (although I suppose that's up to one's definition of 'friend').
If you have business contacts, there's a good chance that they'll be more acquaintances than friends, and if you log into your homepage there for personal stuff, you'd want to be able to filter out all the business contacts (and other acquaintances).
Surely this isn't for everyone, and I can see how it'd rankle some people to have to rate their friends, but that level of granularity can be very useful. Of course it opens up the possibility of Orkut/Google mining your information for future considerations, but this thing's still in beta and they seem receptive to input...
This was kind of amusing (From the top of the article):
:)
By Brock N. Meeks
Cheif Washington correspondent
MSNBC
Updated: 8:52 p.m. ET Jan. 20, 2004
So Brock's the Cheif eh?
With all due respect, I don't think Mars needs property rights. If the purpose of reaching mars is scientific, then I believe Antarctica provides a realistic way of achieving our goals without property rights.
Since 1959 (through a cold war) Antarctica has been the model for the suspension of territorial and property rights. Perhaps the idea of keeping science as the paramount priority there would also enable something like the Antarctic treaty to work on Mars -- even while the population on Mars builds the diverse infrastructure needed to sustain life there...
From the article:
"The Crusoe TM5700/TM5900 processors are another significant step in advancing the cause of efficient computing," said Dr. Matthew R. Perry, president and CEO of Transmeta. "By delivering a solution that is 50 percent smaller than our existing Crusoe TM5800 processors, Transmeta allows system designers to further leverage the high performance and low-heat dissipation characteristics of Transmeta's proven hardware and software architecture for a wide range of new smaller form factor, fan-less designs."
Important tidbit not in the article, but needed to be:
Dr. Perry then proceeded to explain the seemingly confusing numbering scheme, "Well, since we had cut down the form factor some of thought we should also cut the model number down. But, we didn't want to alienate those who are used to seeing newer products with higher model numbers, so we compromised and named it higher and lower than its predecessor."
---
When I was in elementary school on an air force base, not only did we have to recite the pledge, but we had to sing either 'This Land is Your Land', 'God Bless America', or 'America (the Beautiful)' too. The song was chosen by whichever student was chosen to lead the class in the pledge.
I wonder if military bases will be influenced by this (whichever way it goes)...
- The ISP
- The webhoster (customer of ISP)
- The sharer
ISPs have rights, and navigating through their rights to find some wrongs isn't worth the fight. Go for the source and if you can't snuff it, try to limit it (like using scare tactics/lawsuits)..."I don't believe it's an advertising rotation..."
It's a feature!
Perpare to have "new, 3D ad blocking!" Eagle Eye sunglass infomercials on TVs everywhere.
It's still in developmental stages, but it'll come to fruition and when it does we can also use Iceland to test it for the world. :)
This is from the same guy that's running the Disclosure Project.
Sovereign is due out "Soon" (tm Verant Interactive)
It would seem to me that if DAoC is their only title, they've spent more time trying to make a great game, and less time with the legal types creating a more defined agreement.
Speaking as one who's been unofficially affiliated with Verant for a number of years, I can tell you that Everquest has been around for much longer that even its beta program. What I mean by this is that they've (ever since EQ's predecessor Tanarus came out) had since early '97 to tweak their user agreement to close loopholes and make their "I Accept" button much more ironclad.
It's a sort of changing of the times in that a company that develops a MMORPG *must* spend an ordinate amount of time/money/resources on the legal aspect of the game, instead of just creating a kick-a$$ game that everyone will enjoy...