(parent Anon:0 if you don't seem who I am replying to)
I understand the idea of public trust, I just don't see the system as working anymore.
Simply put there are alternative transmission methods now. I have no problem with the FCC managing the spectrum but the time when they could have any relevant effect on content is gone (very different from when there was no internet, no cellphones, no satellite media and so everyone watched or listened on public analog signals).
If the FCC's content decisions don't stop people from seeing what is subjectively considered "indecent" then all their decisions really end up doing is artificially propping up the pay-for services when the traditional media are restricted. Further they are then mandating that we pay for such services and providing a twisted idea that privacy allows indencency.
In the end I agree with the radio owners who say that the FCC should level the field since the FCC is the one making that field so unplayable. However I don't feel that the FCC should be restricting the pay-for services, rather they should -not- be restricting the others.
Otherwise under the guise of protecting a public asset they are in reality trying to legislate morality and in my final prediction destroying the value of that public asset.
That is what happens with the FCC today. It is used -by- the people who it was originally created to defend -against-.
The FCC wasn't set up to protect the interests of the media outlets. It was setup to protect everyone ELSE who might have interest in the use of broadcast spectrum.
Historically this meant being sure that no media outlet became a monopoly, and therefore smaller outlets would rail (rightly at the time) against the larger ones.
Now that the larger ones begin to feel threatened by a new technology they are converting the FCC into a protectionist organization for them at the expense of all.
If I buy a television or radio, plug it in, turn it on and tune it in I am inviting the signal into my house.
Maybe this could be settled by opening a new market for television and radios where you have to call and pay a slight fee to activate the "uncensored" channels.
Or just turn on the V-chip (and put them in radios) and allow the conscious act of turning it off (and to protect kids have a PIN system like... oh yeah... the V-chip has) to be the acceptance of the purposefulness of my actions.
The whole Janet Jackson debacle should have been left to the free market. MTV/NFL pissed off a whole boatload of people and that was their fault for not understanding their market. If people had to make decisions based on the history of broadcasters instead of using the FCC as a lobby against the entertainment industry, shows would lose viewers (instead they often create "grudge viewers" who watch just to get mad) and the markets would right the boat while viewers would be more intelligent with their watching habits.
The FCC should be for regulating signals and criminal activity. Subjectively "indecent" content should not be able to be punished in a pseudo-criminal manner by an organization that is not representational of their constituency.
The basic summary of the decision is that because you pay for the service you are inviting the information in (ahhh, reminds me of "Lost Boys":) and therefore anything "indecent" is your fault.
I think the whole state of affairs is flawed.
1) If I am a well-off under-18 I likely have access to some form of credit account (even if it is just my debit card attached to my allowance). I can subscribe to one of these services much easier than I can to a satellite TV service because I don't need to deal with an installer.
Is it likely? No, and even then most parents aren't going to care as much. Doesn't change the lack of validity in the presumption.
Plus it doesn't stop me from listening to the music / talk / whatever being played by my friends and simply put satellite radio is a lot more portable than the Playboy channel.
2) I can get access to whatever content I want on the Internet... and by going to a library can do so for free. I can turn on the radio or TV today and still see stuff that is considered indecent by many yet not by me. By equating subscriptions with privacy, we are forced into a culture where to get information we want we have to pay for it. It is the "new" thing today but it will likely be standard tomorrow.
3) It should be up to the adult or a parent and no one else what is indecent. I personally would MUCH rather have a teenage boy listening to Howard Stern enact boyish fantasies than to have that same teenage boy listening to a radical fundamentalist preacher telling him his thoughts are evil (and I know that the reverse is true for many). I may not consider the preacher indecent (though it gets close sometimes), but that just highlights the point AFAIK.
Point is... we shouldn't have to pay to get freedom of expression and we shouldn't have to be subject to what someone -else- considers decent/indecent.
1) buy with a credit card that has purchase protection
2) don't give the vendor 6 months (the longer goes by the less chance of getting the purchase protection invoked)
3) document the condition and any attempts made to remedy it
If done properly (you need to check your credit card policies, don't just assume they'll cover it) it won't matter what the vendor says, the credit card will pay you back and often will remove the money from the vendor's account.
My sister just got scammed on Ebay (her first purchase, $300 which is a big deal for her, and looking at the seller's feedback I wouldn't have had any worry about buying from him). She is probably going to get bitten because she paid with a debit card (charged as a credit, but not all debit cards provide credit style transaction) and didn't go through PayPal even though the seller accepted it, so no PayPal protection.
Simply put... it is one of life's hard lessons but you have to protect yourself before doing remote transactions.
A plastic disc gun (you know, the kind most of us had around the age of 5) is more dangerous.
1) it shoots over a much longer distance
2) it shoots a smaller diameter projectile (meaning easier to get to the eye because less chance of deflection by nose/glasses/head/etc)
3) because of 1 & 2 it is alot easier to aim over moderate distances
4) the gun is small enough to be hidden and light enough to be quickly aimed
5) the gun is cheap enough that if you accidentally sling it / drop it / have it ripped out of your hand it isn't going to make you cry (giving you more incentive to use it)
So do we need to ban plastic disc guns?
Err, have we already banned them? Been a couple of years since I bought one on impulse to play with my cats (my 6 shot rubber band pistol works better for that... and come to think of it is probably even more dangerous).
3000/384 is great for downloading, but most services that let you burst over 1.5M don't provide serious guarrantees about upload bandwidth (and downloading can sometimes crawl if multiple people are slogging it).
When playing an MMORPG and pretty much all other online games downloading speed is literally half the battle. Uploading is equally important. If you are hosting a game (not an MMORPG obviously) then uploading is FAR more important than downloading.
Further, the connection needs to be fairly synchronous (the "s" is sDSL) to feel "smooth".
Last, for the most part sDSL providers will not only have an agreement to make sure you have equal uploading capability, but will also guarantee your packet loss and latency rates. Anyone who is buying their connection primarily for gaming (versus file sharing or downloading) are going to be alot happier with low latency 384/384 than a variable latency 3000/384.
sDSL gives you a guarantee for bandwidth. Not a "384 optimal" but a "if you don't get 384 (or 768 or 1.5M) up -and- down simultaneously then we will fix the problem and prorate your cost".
If you have sDSL and it sucks worse than your aDSL account, you need to be pursuing getting your money back.
Check into Speakeasy... when I was able to get it (before I moved) they were terrific.
And the 384 number is what I meant by paying more for a fast connection.... 384 is not fast for a power gamer.
You don't need to be a leading cause of something to push it out of tolerable boundaries.
Fact is, if a system works for millions (or billions) of years it may well have an EXTREMELY tiny tolerance for change. Say on the order of a few percent max.
Add more than that small amount and while the additional portion may be tiny, it is enough to create havoc and possibly destroy the system's balance entirely.
Reminds me of the story on CNN (I think, no Google for this, I'm lazy) a week or two ago stating that Mt. St. Helens was now the #1 greenhouse gas contributor for the state of Washington. I heard a couple of people say how it proves that global warming is natural. OF COURSE warming and cooling is natural... however that has no say over whether as a whole we are pushing the system out of balance.
And while the Republican Party as a whole does not deny global warming exists, enough key people within it work against remedies for our part in global warming that, combined with their current rise to extreme power, makes them valid targets of people worried about where the world is going.
And last... while there was a similar period 5,200 years ago that =eventually= rebounded in now way shows that that we'll survive this one. First... even if it does happen exactly as it did then we're all in for some nasty problems. Second... if we're adding that small push over the system's boundaries (which I believe we are) then there is no way to correlate the 2 since the previous episode was within natual norms. Maybe our pollution will -shorten- the recovery time. Or maybe we'll push it so far the planet won't recover. I am not saying either way, only that taking a past incident with different circumstances out of context is not a valid idea to me.
Re:Just how little do you value your leisure time?
on
Pay-As-You-Play MMORPGs?
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Add the cost of something like World of Warcraft (say, $45 average w/tax) and safely assume that you're buying 2-3 games/year + maybe 2 expansion packs at around $35 each. So $160 - $225 for the games per year (and that seems a bit low to me based on the gamers I know).
Tack on at least $13/month for a subscription if one of those games is an MMORPG. That brings the min total up to $314/year. And again, that is a bit low compared to reality from what I see.
Now let's assume a power gamer... a new game or expansion pack/month (average cost $40) is about normal and 2 MMORPG subs is candy. We've just gone to $792.
Don't forget around 25% of the cost of your PC/year to keep up with games (meaning that at a minimum games require a new PC every 4 years, again, conservative) and easily 100% for the power gamer. Assume a base cost of $400 for a PC capable of playing a modern game and $2000 for a gaming rig.
That doesn't count feeling the burning need to optimize your bandwidth/throughput so that you enjoy those games more which will likely increase network costs by 25-50% (in some cases easily 100% more for that fine sDSL connection) so we're somewhere between $414 for the minimal gamer to over $3000 for a power gamer.
Now if you want to make the power gamer into a social power gamer (either by going out with the "gents" once in awhile or by helping host LAN parties... I think the end cost will be about the same) you're beginning to not only assume a significant chunk of change but I think you're also going to have to look at a neglected spouse or LACK of spouse.
* Makes consoles alot more attractive
* Means that the Power Gamer likely never leave the house:)
* Definitely shows the attraction of something like Anarchy Online... reasonable PC requirements, free download, free play for the basic module.
Now... this doesn't mean I don't see the attraction of something like World of Warcraft, but I do think the 2 extremes illustrate that the MMORPG world is still evolving how to make money.
I personally do believe that having to pay for the MMORPG box is a bit nuts...
1) the people who have the bandwidth to play an MMORPG often will have bandwidth to download a DVD of material and get an online key to play.
2) any MMORPG worth buying will make FAR more back on subscriptions. Charge me a minimal download fee and then let me play for a couple of hours free to see if I like it. No cost to you if I stop playing and I don't feel ripped off (in other words, more likely to try a future product from you).
3) any MMORPG that is GREAT enough to suck me in for hours and hours can make a lot more money off the power gamers by charging by the hour.
Make the subscription fee tiny, perhaps $2.50/month... that would include the cost of maintaining my data in the system and 1 hour online time as a teaser. After that charge a floating scale... hours 2-10 are $1.00/hour (or 2, whatever). Hours 11-30 are $.60/hour. Hours 30+ are $.40/hour.
No, those hourly figures aren't low... they are high! Let us check into the basic and power gamer scenarios again...
1) basic player is between 4 and 20 hours/month (and the parent to your post fits this nicely at between 9 and 20 hours/month). He pays $2.50 for his monthly upkeep and 1 hour fee. He pays between $3 ($1/hour for hours 2-4) and $15 ($9 for hours 2-10 and $6.00 for hours 11-20). That's a total of $5.50 to $17.50 for the average player.
Face it... the "average" MMORPG player is alot closer to 20 hours/month than 4. The power gamer in my experience with friends is anywhere from 30 to 60 (or more but that gets out of reason) hours per month. 60 isn't so hard... connect 8 hours each day on the weekends and you're over 50% there. Note that a person sp
a) A well encoded VBR MP3 isn't as good as an ATRAC recording but is far better than the average MP3 you will find up for download... and...
b) It doesn't matter how good the ATRAC file sounds on a HiFi system... we're talking about a pocket player that doesn't reproduce sound NEARLY as well.
There is no point in arguing about the fidelity of the format when the player in question can not reproduce it. That is the bigger problem with Sony'd HD players.
When Sony releases an HD player that can reproduce even the quality of the properly encoded VBR MP3, then I'll reconsider it. So far there is not -one- portable HD player that reproduces sound well enough to worry about the format.
My ideal would be something that can reproduce an Ogg at Q8 or an ATRAC3 file within 90% of the reproduction quality of the theoretical for those formats.
And yes, an ATRAC3 file -can- be distinguished from a CD as you can with any lossy format. Less than an optimal MP3, true, but an Ogg at Q10 equals an ATRAC3/ATRAC3+ file.
In the 200-300,000 miles I have flown, most of which during the time when there were phones on most flights, I used the in-flight phone twice and both times for less than 2 minutes.
Point is, if the airlines charge for WiFi/GSM roaming (and you know that they'll probably be able to do so as I think that both connections will proxy through an in-flight satellite transciever from what I'd heard) at the same exacerbated rate or even -close- to it that they marked up their in-flight phones...
Well... I don't think I'll be too annoyed by it if no one is using it. And if someone wants to talk on their phone on the plane it won't be any more annoying than anywhere else.
And if they make it inexpensive enough that everyone is typing/talking... great! I'll be able to afford to sink into a nice/. session and tune them out.
If you reply to a thread all of your mod's get deleted... while your reply to me was Anon, I'm guessing you replied to someone else on the thread in person... so in the end you didn't mod me you replied just as I wanted !
You can download the core game from here for free (not counting your own bandwidth cost). And AO was one of the first to do this... and was one of the first to offer a pay-for download.
Personally, I'd be happier to download it for free than to have to drive to pick it up at a store to pay for the media.
You can also pay for and download the expansions from the same page.
No, not a fanboy (I did beta test and played for a few months when it first came out... enjoyed hacking the interface... got tired of providing free tech support to others who didn't make sense of my scripts:), just providing a little clarification.
No, they don't have unions any more than Wal-Mart does.
Unfortunately, they do have many of the same labor practices and earlier this year a class-action suit was filed against Costco that was literally the same as one brought against Wal-Mart with names and a few details changed.
Costco is on a scale far smaller than Wal-Mart (and Sams) and have had far fewer lawsuits brought against them, but overall I think it highlights the problems when a company has to deal with margins on this level and is not impeccably run.
Unions have no place in the "modern" workplace -so long as- the companies function as modern companies are expected to. Unfortunately for workers, the conditions that favored moving away from unions in the past has fostered companies that have intense power over their empoyees when those conditions faltered.
Which would be better, a union or governmental regulation? In the end it will be one or the other. The argument that the non-union labor can just move to a different company (which usually means a new occupation) doesn't work in alot of these cases... often because the bad-behaving company has taken a stranglehold over it's employee demographic. Besides, if enough people leave that work market, the tendency is to move to outsourcing (not feasible with Wal-Mart, definitely feasible with EA and things like IT departments), which in my mind is worse long-term than unions or regulation.
And it should be pointed out that EA may be the most visible problem here, but is not the only culprit. Same with Wal-Mart (Costco for instance comes to mind).
Not necessarily. Switching off of ipf doesn't affect -every- developer. In fact it likely affected only the developers that went off to work on a replacement.
Assuming OpenBSD uses CVS today, then moving to a new toolset instead of mirroring the functionality of the existing tool affects -every- person who developes on OpenBSD.
That is a far far far more acute impact. One that I know I wouldn't want to be in charge of handling. This is the kind of thing that gives IT folks nightmares... and developers can be some of the most obstinate people to retrain (and I say that with all affection to my father and co-workers).
Not to mention the hassle/risk of switching the systems over in the first place.
However the -player- has been sacrificed. It simply does not put out decent quality sound (the "1" version of the player also has this quality issue).
In fact, so far I have yet to play sound on a portable that could make use of the quality capability of VBR MP3s, Ogg files or ATRAC files.
The point being that it doesn't matter how good the format is if the player sucks -and- with that in mind it makes more sense to play formats that are popular rather than trying to force unpopular formats on people.
Give me a tiny player that can reproduce better sound than the format can handle before I am going to think about using someone else's format.
And converting on the fly from server to player is a PITA, takes up a ton of time, and means that I don't have redundant storage of the files. Further uncoolness.
Interesting... combined with Konspire (from another response) this would be very much what I was getting at. Niether by themselves is quite there but taken together it looks like it is almost all covered.
The problems with many of these mechanisms is that (as you mention) smaller sites may not have the facilities to do it.
On the other hand it seems like everyone and their dog can do P2P.
A P2P-ish RSS system that:
* Attempts to make each client capable (but not always used) of functioning as a caching server for the feed
* Has a top-level owner of a feed who has sole rights to update the feed. Perhaps passing public/private keys with the feed to ensure no tampering. Anyone who wanted to subscribe to the feed would need to connect to the top-level one time to get the keys before using RSS-P2P caches.
* Hopefully has some intelligence to determine the closest feasible cache (perhaps based on # of hops and # of retries) so that we are peering out bandwidth usage as best as possible
* Use a standard port and open protocol such that a large organization can route any RSS-P2P requests through a main RSS-P2P cache at the router (further enhancing the ability to minimize traffic... and also giving a polite way for an organization to shut it off... just like HTTP)
* Possibly can push a "refresh notification" packet to any clients that have connected to the cache... if a client fails to pull a refresh after X # of notification packets, assume it went away... push a "norefresh notification" every X (minutes|hours|etc) to make sure that the client knows the cache is still viable... if the client doesn't get a (norefresh|refresh) notification after X number of (minutes|hours|etc) then assume that the server has gone down and find a new one
* Probably obvious but the RSS-P2P cache would be able to select which caches it wanted to host (though I can see use for a mode where it is told to proxy and cache any RSS-P2P request it receives)
* Since there are existing RSS (not RSS-P2P) setups out there, we could possibly enhance them by allowing the RSS-P2P cache to speak and send RSS over existing mechanisms (HTTP). Further, any RSS-P2P cache that has this mode enabled could, if willing, send a notification to the top-level RSS-P2P server (which would always be maintained by the authoritative feed owner) and be added to a round-robin DNS for the normal RSS feeds so that it helps share the load for normal RSS as well. Only people willing to be "supercaches" would do this, but it allows larger sites to help spread the load.
Most of the analysis I've seen says that Lenovo did this to gain the IBM brand specifically so that they can market in areas that hadn't heard of the Lenovo brand (or were distrustful of it). Very little has been said about the idea that Lenovo is doing this to improve their product lines or enhance R&D.
That doesn't make me feel that this is going to bring Lenovo up to IBM's standards (some people may dislike IBM's PCs but I have been a big fan of the Thinkpads since the 570 model and have 2 Thinkpads right now). This makes me feel that IBM branded PCs and laptops are going to slowly lose ground and become garden variety machines.
I -reeeeeally- wish that IBM had sold their PC line but kept control over the Thinkpads.
Oh come on... a mural found in Iraq -after- 9/11 is supposed to make one "think"? I am assuming by "think about this" you are inferring "look at this and you'll see a connection".
Bogus.
Yes, once 9/11 happened there were people all OVER the Muslim world that were radical and embraced the death and destruction.
That doesn't mean they were guilty of committing the act.
Think about this: if we had been able to prevent 9/11 that mural wouldn't have existed... though I think in the end we would have invaded Iraq anyway. It is obvious (to me, I'm not claiming to be able to know what you see) that there was twisted intel and intent fashioned before 9/11. 9/11 just made it that much easier.
Does having a Nazi swastika in a militia HQ of some radical fascist group at some point after WWII mean that the people there are Nazis and committed murders during the Holocaust? No, the "neo" in "neo-Nazi" is added for a reason. Are they twisted and possibly evil jerks? Yes. Do they represent everyone in their culture or mean that they are guilty of war crimes? No.
Do I think there are Al-Qaeda in Iraq? Sure... but FAR FAR more with far more popular support because we invaded, not because of 9/11.
Slashdot Mirror
(parent Anon:0 if you don't seem who I am replying to)
I understand the idea of public trust, I just don't see the system as working anymore.
Simply put there are alternative transmission methods now. I have no problem with the FCC managing the spectrum but the time when they could have any relevant effect on content is gone (very different from when there was no internet, no cellphones, no satellite media and so everyone watched or listened on public analog signals).
If the FCC's content decisions don't stop people from seeing what is subjectively considered "indecent" then all their decisions really end up doing is artificially propping up the pay-for services when the traditional media are restricted. Further they are then mandating that we pay for such services and providing a twisted idea that privacy allows indencency.
In the end I agree with the radio owners who say that the FCC should level the field since the FCC is the one making that field so unplayable. However I don't feel that the FCC should be restricting the pay-for services, rather they should -not- be restricting the others.
Otherwise under the guise of protecting a public asset they are in reality trying to legislate morality and in my final prediction destroying the value of that public asset.
That is what happens with the FCC today. It is used -by- the people who it was originally created to defend -against-.
The FCC wasn't set up to protect the interests of the media outlets. It was setup to protect everyone ELSE who might have interest in the use of broadcast spectrum.
Historically this meant being sure that no media outlet became a monopoly, and therefore smaller outlets would rail (rightly at the time) against the larger ones.
Now that the larger ones begin to feel threatened by a new technology they are converting the FCC into a protectionist organization for them at the expense of all.
If I buy a television or radio, plug it in, turn it on and tune it in I am inviting the signal into my house.
... oh yeah ... the V-chip has) to be the acceptance of the purposefulness of my actions.
Maybe this could be settled by opening a new market for television and radios where you have to call and pay a slight fee to activate the "uncensored" channels.
Or just turn on the V-chip (and put them in radios) and allow the conscious act of turning it off (and to protect kids have a PIN system like
The whole Janet Jackson debacle should have been left to the free market. MTV/NFL pissed off a whole boatload of people and that was their fault for not understanding their market. If people had to make decisions based on the history of broadcasters instead of using the FCC as a lobby against the entertainment industry, shows would lose viewers (instead they often create "grudge viewers" who watch just to get mad) and the markets would right the boat while viewers would be more intelligent with their watching habits.
The FCC should be for regulating signals and criminal activity. Subjectively "indecent" content should not be able to be punished in a pseudo-criminal manner by an organization that is not representational of their constituency.
The basic summary of the decision is that because you pay for the service you are inviting the information in (ahhh, reminds me of "Lost Boys" :) and therefore anything "indecent" is your fault.
... and by going to a library can do so for free. I can turn on the radio or TV today and still see stuff that is considered indecent by many yet not by me. By equating subscriptions with privacy, we are forced into a culture where to get information we want we have to pay for it. It is the "new" thing today but it will likely be standard tomorrow.
... we shouldn't have to pay to get freedom of expression and we shouldn't have to be subject to what someone -else- considers decent/indecent.
I think the whole state of affairs is flawed.
1) If I am a well-off under-18 I likely have access to some form of credit account (even if it is just my debit card attached to my allowance). I can subscribe to one of these services much easier than I can to a satellite TV service because I don't need to deal with an installer.
Is it likely? No, and even then most parents aren't going to care as much. Doesn't change the lack of validity in the presumption.
Plus it doesn't stop me from listening to the music / talk / whatever being played by my friends and simply put satellite radio is a lot more portable than the Playboy channel.
2) I can get access to whatever content I want on the Internet
3) It should be up to the adult or a parent and no one else what is indecent. I personally would MUCH rather have a teenage boy listening to Howard Stern enact boyish fantasies than to have that same teenage boy listening to a radical fundamentalist preacher telling him his thoughts are evil (and I know that the reverse is true for many). I may not consider the preacher indecent (though it gets close sometimes), but that just highlights the point AFAIK.
Point is
Next time:
... it is one of life's hard lessons but you have to protect yourself before doing remote transactions.
1) buy with a credit card that has purchase protection
2) don't give the vendor 6 months (the longer goes by the less chance of getting the purchase protection invoked)
3) document the condition and any attempts made to remedy it
If done properly (you need to check your credit card policies, don't just assume they'll cover it) it won't matter what the vendor says, the credit card will pay you back and often will remove the money from the vendor's account.
My sister just got scammed on Ebay (her first purchase, $300 which is a big deal for her, and looking at the seller's feedback I wouldn't have had any worry about buying from him). She is probably going to get bitten because she paid with a debit card (charged as a credit, but not all debit cards provide credit style transaction) and didn't go through PayPal even though the seller accepted it, so no PayPal protection.
Simply put
Kids of the 80's these days ... ah how I miss the 70s :)
I know I saw them at flea markets in the 90s but even that has been awhile ago now.
A plastic disc gun (you know, the kind most of us had around the age of 5) is more dangerous.
... and come to think of it is probably even more dangerous).
1) it shoots over a much longer distance
2) it shoots a smaller diameter projectile (meaning easier to get to the eye because less chance of deflection by nose/glasses/head/etc)
3) because of 1 & 2 it is alot easier to aim over moderate distances
4) the gun is small enough to be hidden and light enough to be quickly aimed
5) the gun is cheap enough that if you accidentally sling it / drop it / have it ripped out of your hand it isn't going to make you cry (giving you more incentive to use it)
So do we need to ban plastic disc guns?
Err, have we already banned them? Been a couple of years since I bought one on impulse to play with my cats (my 6 shot rubber band pistol works better for that
Just to clarify a tad further ...
3000/384 is great for downloading, but most services that let you burst over 1.5M don't provide serious guarrantees about upload bandwidth (and downloading can sometimes crawl if multiple people are slogging it).
When playing an MMORPG and pretty much all other online games downloading speed is literally half the battle. Uploading is equally important. If you are hosting a game (not an MMORPG obviously) then uploading is FAR more important than downloading.
Further, the connection needs to be fairly synchronous (the "s" is sDSL) to feel "smooth".
Last, for the most part sDSL providers will not only have an agreement to make sure you have equal uploading capability, but will also guarantee your packet loss and latency rates. Anyone who is buying their connection primarily for gaming (versus file sharing or downloading) are going to be alot happier with low latency 384/384 than a variable latency 3000/384.
sDSL gives you a guarantee for bandwidth. Not a "384 optimal" but a "if you don't get 384 (or 768 or 1.5M) up -and- down simultaneously then we will fix the problem and prorate your cost".
... when I was able to get it (before I moved) they were terrific.
.... 384 is not fast for a power gamer.
If you have sDSL and it sucks worse than your aDSL account, you need to be pursuing getting your money back.
Check into Speakeasy
And the 384 number is what I meant by paying more for a fast connection
You don't need to be a leading cause of something to push it out of tolerable boundaries.
... however that has no say over whether as a whole we are pushing the system out of balance.
... while there was a similar period 5,200 years ago that =eventually= rebounded in now way shows that that we'll survive this one. First ... even if it does happen exactly as it did then we're all in for some nasty problems. Second ... if we're adding that small push over the system's boundaries (which I believe we are) then there is no way to correlate the 2 since the previous episode was within natual norms. Maybe our pollution will -shorten- the recovery time. Or maybe we'll push it so far the planet won't recover. I am not saying either way, only that taking a past incident with different circumstances out of context is not a valid idea to me.
Fact is, if a system works for millions (or billions) of years it may well have an EXTREMELY tiny tolerance for change. Say on the order of a few percent max.
Add more than that small amount and while the additional portion may be tiny, it is enough to create havoc and possibly destroy the system's balance entirely.
Reminds me of the story on CNN (I think, no Google for this, I'm lazy) a week or two ago stating that Mt. St. Helens was now the #1 greenhouse gas contributor for the state of Washington. I heard a couple of people say how it proves that global warming is natural. OF COURSE warming and cooling is natural
And while the Republican Party as a whole does not deny global warming exists, enough key people within it work against remedies for our part in global warming that, combined with their current rise to extreme power, makes them valid targets of people worried about where the world is going.
And last
Add the cost of something like World of Warcraft (say, $45 average w/tax) and safely assume that you're buying 2-3 games/year + maybe 2 expansion packs at around $35 each. So $160 - $225 for the games per year (and that seems a bit low to me based on the gamers I know).
... a new game or expansion pack/month (average cost $40) is about normal and 2 MMORPG subs is candy. We've just gone to $792.
... I think the end cost will be about the same) you're beginning to not only assume a significant chunk of change but I think you're also going to have to look at a neglected spouse or LACK of spouse.
:)
... reasonable PC requirements, free download, free play for the basic module.
... this doesn't mean I don't see the attraction of something like World of Warcraft, but I do think the 2 extremes illustrate that the MMORPG world is still evolving how to make money.
...
... that would include the cost of maintaining my data in the system and 1 hour online time as a teaser. After that charge a floating scale ... hours 2-10 are $1.00/hour (or 2, whatever). Hours 11-30 are $.60/hour. Hours 30+ are $.40/hour.
... they are high! Let us check into the basic and power gamer scenarios again ...
... the "average" MMORPG player is alot closer to 20 hours/month than 4. The power gamer in my experience with friends is anywhere from 30 to 60 (or more but that gets out of reason) hours per month. 60 isn't so hard ... connect 8 hours each day on the weekends and you're over 50% there. Note that a person sp
Tack on at least $13/month for a subscription if one of those games is an MMORPG. That brings the min total up to $314/year. And again, that is a bit low compared to reality from what I see.
Now let's assume a power gamer
Don't forget around 25% of the cost of your PC/year to keep up with games (meaning that at a minimum games require a new PC every 4 years, again, conservative) and easily 100% for the power gamer. Assume a base cost of $400 for a PC capable of playing a modern game and $2000 for a gaming rig.
That doesn't count feeling the burning need to optimize your bandwidth/throughput so that you enjoy those games more which will likely increase network costs by 25-50% (in some cases easily 100% more for that fine sDSL connection) so we're somewhere between $414 for the minimal gamer to over $3000 for a power gamer.
Now if you want to make the power gamer into a social power gamer (either by going out with the "gents" once in awhile or by helping host LAN parties
* Makes consoles alot more attractive
* Means that the Power Gamer likely never leave the house
* Definitely shows the attraction of something like Anarchy Online
Now
I personally do believe that having to pay for the MMORPG box is a bit nuts
1) the people who have the bandwidth to play an MMORPG often will have bandwidth to download a DVD of material and get an online key to play.
2) any MMORPG worth buying will make FAR more back on subscriptions. Charge me a minimal download fee and then let me play for a couple of hours free to see if I like it. No cost to you if I stop playing and I don't feel ripped off (in other words, more likely to try a future product from you).
3) any MMORPG that is GREAT enough to suck me in for hours and hours can make a lot more money off the power gamers by charging by the hour.
Make the subscription fee tiny, perhaps $2.50/month
No, those hourly figures aren't low
1) basic player is between 4 and 20 hours/month (and the parent to your post fits this nicely at between 9 and 20 hours/month). He pays $2.50 for his monthly upkeep and 1 hour fee. He pays between $3 ($1/hour for hours 2-4) and $15 ($9 for hours 2-10 and $6.00 for hours 11-20). That's a total of $5.50 to $17.50 for the average player.
Face it
a) A well encoded VBR MP3 isn't as good as an ATRAC recording but is far better than the average MP3 you will find up for download ... and ...
... we're talking about a pocket player that doesn't reproduce sound NEARLY as well.
b) It doesn't matter how good the ATRAC file sounds on a HiFi system
There is no point in arguing about the fidelity of the format when the player in question can not reproduce it. That is the bigger problem with Sony'd HD players.
When Sony releases an HD player that can reproduce even the quality of the properly encoded VBR MP3, then I'll reconsider it. So far there is not -one- portable HD player that reproduces sound well enough to worry about the format.
My ideal would be something that can reproduce an Ogg at Q8 or an ATRAC3 file within 90% of the reproduction quality of the theoretical for those formats.
And yes, an ATRAC3 file -can- be distinguished from a CD as you can with any lossy format. Less than an optimal MP3, true, but an Ogg at Q10 equals an ATRAC3/ATRAC3+ file.
In the 200-300,000 miles I have flown, most of which during the time when there were phones on most flights, I used the in-flight phone twice and both times for less than 2 minutes.
...
... I don't think I'll be too annoyed by it if no one is using it. And if someone wants to talk on their phone on the plane it won't be any more annoying than anywhere else.
... great! I'll be able to afford to sink into a nice /. session and tune them out.
Point is, if the airlines charge for WiFi/GSM roaming (and you know that they'll probably be able to do so as I think that both connections will proxy through an in-flight satellite transciever from what I'd heard) at the same exacerbated rate or even -close- to it that they marked up their in-flight phones
Well
And if they make it inexpensive enough that everyone is typing/talking
If you reply to a thread all of your mod's get deleted ... while your reply to me was Anon, I'm guessing you replied to someone else on the thread in person ... so in the end you didn't mod me you replied just as I wanted !
I wish someone at the MPAA/RIAA/U.S. Congress would see the analogy between a script like this and, say, a photocopy machine or CD burner.
Conversely, I would -love- to see them go after Xerox or Panasonic/Sony/etc.
Yeesh.
You can download the core game from here for free (not counting your own bandwidth cost). And AO was one of the first to do this ... and was one of the first to offer a pay-for download.
... enjoyed hacking the interface ... got tired of providing free tech support to others who didn't make sense of my scripts :), just providing a little clarification.
Personally, I'd be happier to download it for free than to have to drive to pick it up at a store to pay for the media.
You can also pay for and download the expansions from the same page.
No, not a fanboy (I did beta test and played for a few months when it first came out
No, they don't have unions any more than Wal-Mart does.
Unfortunately, they do have many of the same labor practices and earlier this year a class-action suit was filed against Costco that was literally the same as one brought against Wal-Mart with names and a few details changed.
Details here and here.
Costco is on a scale far smaller than Wal-Mart (and Sams) and have had far fewer lawsuits brought against them, but overall I think it highlights the problems when a company has to deal with margins on this level and is not impeccably run.
Try telling that to:
... often because the bad-behaving company has taken a stranglehold over it's employee demographic. Besides, if enough people leave that work market, the tendency is to move to outsourcing (not feasible with Wal-Mart, definitely feasible with EA and things like IT departments), which in my mind is worse long-term than unions or regulation.
a) Anyone employed by Wal-Mart
b) Anyone employed by EA
etc
Unions have no place in the "modern" workplace -so long as- the companies function as modern companies are expected to. Unfortunately for workers, the conditions that favored moving away from unions in the past has fostered companies that have intense power over their empoyees when those conditions faltered.
Which would be better, a union or governmental regulation? In the end it will be one or the other. The argument that the non-union labor can just move to a different company (which usually means a new occupation) doesn't work in alot of these cases
And it should be pointed out that EA may be the most visible problem here, but is not the only culprit. Same with Wal-Mart (Costco for instance comes to mind).
In the end there will be -some- form of balance.
Not necessarily. Switching off of ipf doesn't affect -every- developer. In fact it likely affected only the developers that went off to work on a replacement.
... and developers can be some of the most obstinate people to retrain (and I say that with all affection to my father and co-workers).
Assuming OpenBSD uses CVS today, then moving to a new toolset instead of mirroring the functionality of the existing tool affects -every- person who developes on OpenBSD.
That is a far far far more acute impact. One that I know I wouldn't want to be in charge of handling. This is the kind of thing that gives IT folks nightmares
Not to mention the hassle/risk of switching the systems over in the first place.
I can't wait to update my JavaStation to a .NETstation ...
yeah.
ATRAC may be better as a theoretical format.
However the -player- has been sacrificed. It simply does not put out decent quality sound (the "1" version of the player also has this quality issue).
In fact, so far I have yet to play sound on a portable that could make use of the quality capability of VBR MP3s, Ogg files or ATRAC files.
The point being that it doesn't matter how good the format is if the player sucks -and- with that in mind it makes more sense to play formats that are popular rather than trying to force unpopular formats on people.
Give me a tiny player that can reproduce better sound than the format can handle before I am going to think about using someone else's format.
And converting on the fly from server to player is a PITA, takes up a ton of time, and means that I don't have redundant storage of the files. Further uncoolness.
Interesting ... combined with Konspire (from another response) this would be very much what I was getting at. Niether by themselves is quite there but taken together it looks like it is almost all covered.
:)
Thanks for the link
The problems with many of these mechanisms is that (as you mention) smaller sites may not have the facilities to do it.
... and also giving a polite way for an organization to shut it off ... just like HTTP)
... if a client fails to pull a refresh after X # of notification packets, assume it went away ... push a "norefresh notification" every X (minutes|hours|etc) to make sure that the client knows the cache is still viable ... if the client doesn't get a (norefresh|refresh) notification after X number of (minutes|hours|etc) then assume that the server has gone down and find a new one
On the other hand it seems like everyone and their dog can do P2P.
A P2P-ish RSS system that:
* Attempts to make each client capable (but not always used) of functioning as a caching server for the feed
* Has a top-level owner of a feed who has sole rights to update the feed. Perhaps passing public/private keys with the feed to ensure no tampering. Anyone who wanted to subscribe to the feed would need to connect to the top-level one time to get the keys before using RSS-P2P caches.
* Hopefully has some intelligence to determine the closest feasible cache (perhaps based on # of hops and # of retries) so that we are peering out bandwidth usage as best as possible
* Use a standard port and open protocol such that a large organization can route any RSS-P2P requests through a main RSS-P2P cache at the router (further enhancing the ability to minimize traffic
* Possibly can push a "refresh notification" packet to any clients that have connected to the cache
* Probably obvious but the RSS-P2P cache would be able to select which caches it wanted to host (though I can see use for a mode where it is told to proxy and cache any RSS-P2P request it receives)
* Since there are existing RSS (not RSS-P2P) setups out there, we could possibly enhance them by allowing the RSS-P2P cache to speak and send RSS over existing mechanisms (HTTP). Further, any RSS-P2P cache that has this mode enabled could, if willing, send a notification to the top-level RSS-P2P server (which would always be maintained by the authoritative feed owner) and be added to a round-robin DNS for the normal RSS feeds so that it helps share the load for normal RSS as well. Only people willing to be "supercaches" would do this, but it allows larger sites to help spread the load.
Or I could be way off base. Been known to happen.
Most of the analysis I've seen says that Lenovo did this to gain the IBM brand specifically so that they can market in areas that hadn't heard of the Lenovo brand (or were distrustful of it). Very little has been said about the idea that Lenovo is doing this to improve their product lines or enhance R&D.
That doesn't make me feel that this is going to bring Lenovo up to IBM's standards (some people may dislike IBM's PCs but I have been a big fan of the Thinkpads since the 570 model and have 2 Thinkpads right now). This makes me feel that IBM branded PCs and laptops are going to slowly lose ground and become garden variety machines.
I -reeeeeally- wish that IBM had sold their PC line but kept control over the Thinkpads.
Oh well.
Oh come on ... a mural found in Iraq -after- 9/11 is supposed to make one "think"? I am assuming by "think about this" you are inferring "look at this and you'll see a connection".
... though I think in the end we would have invaded Iraq anyway. It is obvious (to me, I'm not claiming to be able to know what you see) that there was twisted intel and intent fashioned before 9/11. 9/11 just made it that much easier.
... but FAR FAR more with far more popular support because we invaded, not because of 9/11.
Bogus.
Yes, once 9/11 happened there were people all OVER the Muslim world that were radical and embraced the death and destruction.
That doesn't mean they were guilty of committing the act.
Think about this: if we had been able to prevent 9/11 that mural wouldn't have existed
Does having a Nazi swastika in a militia HQ of some radical fascist group at some point after WWII mean that the people there are Nazis and committed murders during the Holocaust? No, the "neo" in "neo-Nazi" is added for a reason. Are they twisted and possibly evil jerks? Yes. Do they represent everyone in their culture or mean that they are guilty of war crimes? No.
Do I think there are Al-Qaeda in Iraq? Sure