Gaming has been around much longer than video games.
Role playing games are not a technology phenomenon at all. Before the "Emotion Engine" did it for you, people would actually design their own games . . . imagine that!
Does no one remember when D&D was considered satanic because the ultimate goal of rolling characters was to roll 6 6 6 as many times in a row as possible?
Neither of these groups make money. My point is, ProcessTree won't either.
Both of the organizations you mentioned are research-oriented. I can understand why people would be willing to donate cycle time in the name of science/betterment of humanity. They don't do it for compensation.
ProcessTree's assumption is that people will do it for compensation. The compensation will simply never be enough to sustain interest.
Helping to crack DES or recognize extraterrestrial communication is a good incentive for many people. A small amount of money, some of which goes towards making someone else rich, is not going to be enough incentive.
This is a failure waiting to happen. Sorry Armin Lenz, but this idea will not work.
From a technical standpoint, distributed computing is damn cool. I don't think anyone here would dispute the technical brilliance of not-for-profit projects such as the SETI network. However, this will not make money.
ProcessTree has a client on-board, but have not yet decided on the compensation rate for the "suppliers". This is where the problem starts. There is not a rate that will work.
If the rate is too high (which it inevitably will be in the beginning, to get "suppliers"), the company will be quickly drained of resources. Whatever ProcessTree is planning to charge the client (can't be much, with the price of processing power these days) will not cover "supplier" compensation, project development time, network bandwidth, administrative overhead, etc.
The only solution to this problem will be to reduce the rate paid to "suppliers". This reduction will continue as ProcessTree attempts to refine their cost structure. Eventually, it will get to the point that "suppliers" don't think maintaining the ProcessTree client is worth the hassle, for a mere buck and a quarter a month. Goodbye, ProcessTree.
To make money, a business must be able to solve an existing problem better than existing means. This project will fail because 1) it will be cheaper and easier for clients to maintain their own Beowulf cluster of monkey brains and 2) the rate paid to "suppliers" will be too low to matter. CPU time is cheap. There is not a significant problem to be solved.
Well, whoever saves their credit card number on their machine deserves to be billed for this new 47" television that's making its way up to my doorstep...
Haha, yeah . . . theft is cool.
Next time I see a bike on the street that's not locked up, I think I'll steal it. They deserve it.
And my neighbor doesn't keep his lawnmower locked up, either. Sure, it's on his property, but I think it'd be cool and 733T to teach him a lesson by stealing it and pawning it for beer.
Sounds like your organization doesn't know how to use Exchange.
My company runs about 2000 users on Exchange, and I personally receive around 80-100 emails/day. Many of those have large attachments, and many are from the Internet. I've never lost anything, ever.
If Exchange is implemented properly, it can be very stable. If the people implementing it don't know what they're doing, it can suck (just like anything else).
Gimme a freakin' break. This is not beta software. I'm so sick of companies pushing software that's not ready for prime time, then saying "Just wait for the next release. That'll be the {good|stable|fast} one.
Netscape would do a lot better if they worked out the stability issues before pushing their crap out the door. As an Information Technology Professional (TM) I have 1-6 browser windows open all day long. A browser that crashes is not an option, and if the x.0 release isn't stable, I most likely won't be interested in the x.1, x.2, x.73, etc.
Whatever happened to Netscape 5.x, anyway? Is this Netscape's way of suggesting that the newest release is biggerbetterfaster than the current version of IE?
Oh well. At least they didn't call it Netscape 2000.
The drawback to a database system is that it generally restricts us to using basic relational data formats only.
Not really sure what you mean by this. Are you familiar with datatypes such as the BLOB (Binary Large OBject)? Any type of data can be stored in a relational database.
Database is one area that needs more conceptual information in the marketplace. You can know every practical command for your database system, but if you don't know how to design the system properly to begin with, you will have trouble and headaches from it forever. I've seen this time and again, where someone goes to a "practical" class on Oracle, SQL Server, DB2, etc. and learns all these commands, but doesn't have the background knowledge to be able to design an effective system.
Practical books are good for something like operating system administration, where design mistakes are much more easily corrected. A database design tends to hang around for years, and should be very thoughtfully executed.
Wow, what a great idea. The world could use more people like you, with all the best intentions, all the methods to change the world, and . . . oh wait, this would cost money?!?
Talk is cheap, and one of the world's richest men is merely talking.
Wrong. He's giving away millions and millions (and millions) of dollars. The Gates' foundation is a very large donor, and is quite appreciated in the world of philanthropy.
Slashdot Mirror
What will they find if they go into human jeans looking for a fugu? And anyway, they say it's not the length of the genome that counts . . .
If you're going to attack someone else's grammar, check your own first. Jeez.
Now LaTeX 2002 Premium Edition is going to have a talking penguin in the bottom corner.
Nice. That made me want to pull out all of my old TMBG albums.
What's it like doing the soundtrack for a successful sitcom? Are you more constrained, or do they give you a lot of freedom?
Role playing games are not a technology phenomenon at all. Before the "Emotion Engine" did it for you, people would actually design their own games . . . imagine that!
Does no one remember when D&D was considered satanic because the ultimate goal of rolling characters was to roll 6 6 6 as many times in a row as possible?
No, and YAAI. You didn't even mention Dave Barry's name!
Nope. The 'i' stands for investigation, not intervention.
Can't be too complicated . . . shoot 'em once and they split in half, shoot 'em again and they split in half again. Repeat until they're pocket-sized.
KILROY!
Even something like 4pm EST is near-useless; much better (and geekier) to use 4pm (GMT -5:00).
. . . you can still read your data (if your fingers are small enough).
Both of the organizations you mentioned are research-oriented. I can understand why people would be willing to donate cycle time in the name of science/betterment of humanity. They don't do it for compensation.
ProcessTree's assumption is that people will do it for compensation. The compensation will simply never be enough to sustain interest.
Helping to crack DES or recognize extraterrestrial communication is a good incentive for many people. A small amount of money, some of which goes towards making someone else rich, is not going to be enough incentive.
From a technical standpoint, distributed computing is damn cool. I don't think anyone here would dispute the technical brilliance of not-for-profit projects such as the SETI network. However, this will not make money.
ProcessTree has a client on-board, but have not yet decided on the compensation rate for the "suppliers". This is where the problem starts. There is not a rate that will work.
If the rate is too high (which it inevitably will be in the beginning, to get "suppliers"), the company will be quickly drained of resources. Whatever ProcessTree is planning to charge the client (can't be much, with the price of processing power these days) will not cover "supplier" compensation, project development time, network bandwidth, administrative overhead, etc.
The only solution to this problem will be to reduce the rate paid to "suppliers". This reduction will continue as ProcessTree attempts to refine their cost structure. Eventually, it will get to the point that "suppliers" don't think maintaining the ProcessTree client is worth the hassle, for a mere buck and a quarter a month. Goodbye, ProcessTree.
To make money, a business must be able to solve an existing problem better than existing means. This project will fail because 1) it will be cheaper and easier for clients to maintain their own Beowulf cluster of monkey brains and 2) the rate paid to "suppliers" will be too low to matter. CPU time is cheap. There is not a significant problem to be solved.
Haha, yeah . . . theft is cool.
Next time I see a bike on the street that's not locked up, I think I'll steal it. They deserve it.
And my neighbor doesn't keep his lawnmower locked up, either. Sure, it's on his property, but I think it'd be cool and 733T to teach him a lesson by stealing it and pawning it for beer.
My company runs about 2000 users on Exchange, and I personally receive around 80-100 emails/day. Many of those have large attachments, and many are from the Internet. I've never lost anything, ever.
If Exchange is implemented properly, it can be very stable. If the people implementing it don't know what they're doing, it can suck (just like anything else).
Yes, they suck. Bad. Netscape's browser is shit, and its "server" software is much much worse.
. . . are weenies.
Netscape would do a lot better if they worked out the stability issues before pushing their crap out the door. As an Information Technology Professional (TM) I have 1-6 browser windows open all day long. A browser that crashes is not an option, and if the x.0 release isn't stable, I most likely won't be interested in the x.1, x.2, x.73, etc.
Oh well. At least they didn't call it Netscape 2000.
Not really sure what you mean by this. Are you familiar with datatypes such as the BLOB (Binary Large OBject)? Any type of data can be stored in a relational database.
Practical books are good for something like operating system administration, where design mistakes are much more easily corrected. A database design tends to hang around for years, and should be very thoughtfully executed.
And are you giving $100 a year?
I guess this is where Bill Gates comes in, eh?
Wrong. He's giving away millions and millions (and millions) of dollars. The Gates' foundation is a very large donor, and is quite appreciated in the world of philanthropy.