They control a big database and know when someone's about to buy something from one of their competitors, so they instantly buy it so the person has to buy it from them for any fee they want to charge. This is historically one of the most unethical companies around, I always assumed they did this, I'm just glad I got my domain ~10 years ago when it was actually possible.
... getting people to pay for stuff they won't use. There are entire industries centered on exploiting this concept, most notably the prepaid calling card market. You pay for $20 and get $17 worth of product, and you can't use the remaining $3 for anything, so the company makes extra money on you. You see it everywhere... reward points on credit cards, etc.
... and wasn't even in the top 20 guilds, unless you go by sheer size of the guild. They epitomized the newbie zerg and were totally a stepping stone guild. Their guild leader was always pretty full of himself, but this is a new dimension of lameness.
How does this set any kind of precedent? It's certainly not the first MMO to ship before it's bug-free, or even feature-complete. Sony has a long history of releasing EQ expansions when they're ~50% complete, banking on it taking players N months to get to that point. This Anarchy Online review shows that it too fell victim to being pushed out the door well before its time. The only MMO game I've seen that was significantly complete at almost every step of the way has been WoW.
I'm sorry, but that's a ridiculous idea. They let you download it. It can't be more than 3 gigs, so just download it. This is the worst complaint I've ever heard for Gmail.
1) Where's the "mysterious" part? Someone's putting ads into the clip before uploading them. Nothing "mysterious."
2) Appending means they're being tacked onto the end. If they're being added at the beginning, they're being prepended. Next time save the embarrassment and just say "added."
SOE has been pushing in-game ads for over a year now on many of it's games. Guess what? The Subscription prices have NOT COME DOWN! The in-game ads are NOT to make the game cheaper for gamers. They are there to provide on-going profit margins for game manufacturers. The profits aren't coming back to the consumers, they are going into the game company coffers! I'd say this holds true for all industries, and not even limited to advertising. Companies want to make more money any way they can, and this is NEVER passed on to the consumer. If Gap sells a shirt for $15 that it costs them $4 to produce, and they find a new supplier that can sell them the same shirt for $1, are they going to lower the price of the shirt to $14, or pocket the extra dollar? They'd laugh at the idea.
One of the biggest production systems in the world no longer needs weekly reboots, I'd say that's a pretty big deal, technologically if nothing else. In Beta there was no weekly downtime, but when the game went live they fought serious scalability issues and thus began the weekly reboot. I don't know about the rest of you, but several hours each week != the 5-nines availability that I expect from machines I administer, so I've always found Blizzard's weekly downtime a copout, and an embarrassment.
Actually I still think 90% of Zonk's posts are utter shit, his fanboyism bleeds through in everything he says or does (as far as choosing what to post and what not to post). The reason I ended up unblocking him was that when I had him blocked, entire days would pass without any new articles showing up on Slashdot. Ah well.
I just use Craigslist. Create a fake ad looking to buy a 2007 BMW for $100, Craigslist issues you an anon redirect email address, expires after a couple of weeks. Voila.
Most email verification functions consider + an illegal character; quite annoying for the above use. You can also intersperse '.' in your gmail username wherever you want; that does work everywhere.
120 miles is at least a 2-hour commute (assuming traffic's moving well), so unless you're planning to relocate closer, that's 4-6 hours wasted each day unless the Perl job is fine with you telecommuting. Personally I couldn't deal with anything over 30 minutes for a commute. And if you're willing to look in a 120 mile radius, I'm sure you could find another Perl job that might pay more.
If you're proficient in.NET and they're going to pay more and are around the block, it seems like a no-brainer. Work there for 2 years, save your cash, start your own Perl shop.
I learned long ago from RedHat never to download major dot-zero releases of software and to wait for the.1 (or in the case of RedHat 7.x, the.3) before actually using it. I'm surprised more people don't share this view.
I realize this may seem pedantic but it's worth pointing out (again): censorship is restriction of speech by government actions. YouTube is under no obligation to host anything it doesn't want to. If YouTube decides it doesn't want any videos from Jews, well, that's their right as a private entity (a status which will change when Google acquires them).
The problem with the Zune's wireless is that it's just the result of Microsoft sitting down and saying, "Let's copy the iPod exactly as a baseline, then see what we can add to make it stand out." Wireless is a "natural" feature to include, so Microsoft figured out the quickest way to include support for it so they can release marketing trash that says "Hey! Look at us! We do everything Apple does, plus wireless!" Changing what the unit actually does with that wireless is just a matter of getting people to update their software once MS figures out what that something actually is. My guess is they'll figure out what to do with the wireless about 6 hours after Apple unveils an iPod with wireless. For now, the Zune at least has the hardware support for it, so MS can still ostensibly claim superiority... somehow.
Why does Microsoft feel the need to copy every single "new thing" out there? I realize they are incapable of innovation or independent thought, but the past 10 years for MS has been nothing but showing up to a party already in progress shouting "HEY GUYS, WE'RE HERE!!" With the Zume (after the DOA "Plays Anywhere" program) playing catch-up to the iPod and now Soapbox trying to play with YouTube and Google Video it's getting nauseatingly blatant. Tens of thousands of employees and still no innovation. Pretty depressing really.
Slashdot Mirror
10 years from now the dollar will be so weak nobody will be able to afford these cars, so they'll be driverless and passengerless!
They control a big database and know when someone's about to buy something from one of their competitors, so they instantly buy it so the person has to buy it from them for any fee they want to charge. This is historically one of the most unethical companies around, I always assumed they did this, I'm just glad I got my domain ~10 years ago when it was actually possible.
... getting people to pay for stuff they won't use. There are entire industries centered on exploiting this concept, most notably the prepaid calling card market. You pay for $20 and get $17 worth of product, and you can't use the remaining $3 for anything, so the company makes extra money on you. You see it everywhere... reward points on credit cards, etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakage_(accounting)
... and wasn't even in the top 20 guilds, unless you go by sheer size of the guild. They epitomized the newbie zerg and were totally a stepping stone guild. Their guild leader was always pretty full of himself, but this is a new dimension of lameness.
Come on, this is Google we're talking about, they're probably strapped for cash.
How does this set any kind of precedent? It's certainly not the first MMO to ship before it's bug-free, or even feature-complete. Sony has a long history of releasing EQ expansions when they're ~50% complete, banking on it taking players N months to get to that point. This Anarchy Online review shows that it too fell victim to being pushed out the door well before its time. The only MMO game I've seen that was significantly complete at almost every step of the way has been WoW.
I'm sorry, but that's a ridiculous idea. They let you download it. It can't be more than 3 gigs, so just download it. This is the worst complaint I've ever heard for Gmail.
1) Where's the "mysterious" part? Someone's putting ads into the clip before uploading them. Nothing "mysterious."
2) Appending means they're being tacked onto the end. If they're being added at the beginning, they're being prepended. Next time save the embarrassment and just say "added."
One of the biggest production systems in the world no longer needs weekly reboots, I'd say that's a pretty big deal, technologically if nothing else. In Beta there was no weekly downtime, but when the game went live they fought serious scalability issues and thus began the weekly reboot. I don't know about the rest of you, but several hours each week != the 5-nines availability that I expect from machines I administer, so I've always found Blizzard's weekly downtime a copout, and an embarrassment.
What next? Politicians who don't keep their campaign promises? What is this world coming to?
This controller has a trigger at the bottom, and predates 1995 by quite a bit, IIRC...
Actually I still think 90% of Zonk's posts are utter shit, his fanboyism bleeds through in everything he says or does (as far as choosing what to post and what not to post). The reason I ended up unblocking him was that when I had him blocked, entire days would pass without any new articles showing up on Slashdot. Ah well.
Third place by what metric? Units sold? If they're netting the most, doesn't that make them #1?
I just use Craigslist. Create a fake ad looking to buy a 2007 BMW for $100, Craigslist issues you an anon redirect email address, expires after a couple of weeks. Voila.
Most email verification functions consider + an illegal character; quite annoying for the above use. You can also intersperse '.' in your gmail username wherever you want; that does work everywhere.
120 miles is at least a 2-hour commute (assuming traffic's moving well), so unless you're planning to relocate closer, that's 4-6 hours wasted each day unless the Perl job is fine with you telecommuting. Personally I couldn't deal with anything over 30 minutes for a commute. And if you're willing to look in a 120 mile radius, I'm sure you could find another Perl job that might pay more.
.NET and they're going to pay more and are around the block, it seems like a no-brainer. Work there for 2 years, save your cash, start your own Perl shop.
If you're proficient in
I learned long ago from RedHat never to download major dot-zero releases of software and to wait for the .1 (or in the case of RedHat 7.x, the .3) before actually using it. I'm surprised more people don't share this view.
Looks like it should have really been http://www.flickr.com/photos/jollyjake/278562314/ - their server is apparently better equipped to handle the load.
I realize this may seem pedantic but it's worth pointing out (again): censorship is restriction of speech by government actions. YouTube is under no obligation to host anything it doesn't want to. If YouTube decides it doesn't want any videos from Jews, well, that's their right as a private entity (a status which will change when Google acquires them).
He's only out of it until he decides to come back. /yawn
The problem with the Zune's wireless is that it's just the result of Microsoft sitting down and saying, "Let's copy the iPod exactly as a baseline, then see what we can add to make it stand out." Wireless is a "natural" feature to include, so Microsoft figured out the quickest way to include support for it so they can release marketing trash that says "Hey! Look at us! We do everything Apple does, plus wireless!" Changing what the unit actually does with that wireless is just a matter of getting people to update their software once MS figures out what that something actually is. My guess is they'll figure out what to do with the wireless about 6 hours after Apple unveils an iPod with wireless. For now, the Zune at least has the hardware support for it, so MS can still ostensibly claim superiority... somehow.
Huh, sounds like the whole thing can be summed up with "Intel was better and cheaper."
Why does Microsoft feel the need to copy every single "new thing" out there? I realize they are incapable of innovation or independent thought, but the past 10 years for MS has been nothing but showing up to a party already in progress shouting "HEY GUYS, WE'RE HERE!!" With the Zume (after the DOA "Plays Anywhere" program) playing catch-up to the iPod and now Soapbox trying to play with YouTube and Google Video it's getting nauseatingly blatant. Tens of thousands of employees and still no innovation. Pretty depressing really.
That's an odd way to sue someone, I'd think they'd do it in a court of law.