Actually 2-3 hours a day can be casual, considering that there are people who do 3+ UBRS runs a day (if they can get into them), which generally take 2-3 hours each. Okay, a speed run through UBRS can be done in a little over an hour, but that's not the point.
There are people who spend 8 or more hours a day playing WoW. They are the hardcore players. Me? I spend maybe 3-4 hours a day when I can, and it might be split across three characters. (Mostly because I'm trying to level up some characters that can actually get into groups. For some odd reason (sarcasm intended), rogues are insanely popular...)
Oh, and for the record, full time job of 40+ hours a week, I sleep the normal amount of time for an adult (maybe slightly less), but I really don't have other responsibilities. I could play for 5-6 hours a day, but I don't.
Hell, at pretty much any bar near a U.S.-based military base, if you have a military I.D., they will serve you, even if you are 17-20. They don't want to lose their primary source of income (base personnel), and if one of those 17-20 year-olds does do something amazingly stupid while drunk, there is a far greater authority then the police to worry about... your seargant.
I would have thought, based on everything that's happened in Florida in the last five years, that it was obvious there was something wrong with the state law. (Not that Florida is alone in this. South Carolina has some amazingly stupid laws on the books.)
Right, because everyone who uses a Slashdot ID is so full of wisdom and enlightenment 100% of the time. Wait, just me? Not the rest of you? My bad.
I know what you mean about the ring-tone though. Took one of my co-workers about two hours of searching before he gave us and used some professional recording equipment to make his own phone-ring mp3.
Okay, let's continue using the "cookie jar" analogy here.
Case 1: You have a cookie jar inside your house. All the doors are locked, the windows are barred. Someone breaks in and eats your cookies. They are guilty of breaking and entering and theft.
Case 2: You have a cookie jar inside your house. None of the doors are locked, and in fact one is wide open. Someone enters your house and eats your cookies. They are not guilty of breaking and entering (but probably illegal entry) and theft.
Case 3: You have a cookie jar on the sidewalk in front of your house. There is nothing on the cookie jar saying that it is or isn't for public consumption. Someone eats the cookies. Are they guilty of theft? Yes. They are. However, you took no efforts to secure your cookie jar, so how are you shocked that someone chowed down on your double-stuff Oreos?
This law is a very silly law. It can be inadvertantly broken by even the most well-meaning citizen, and from what has been said, most of these wireless networks seem to have been set-up by ham-fisted monkeys.
Well, if you take a look at it's performance over the last couple of years, you'll see that it started a fall near the end of 2003 and has never recovered from that. It has traded below $5 a share for pretty much the last calendar year.
The reason investors don't walk away is because at this point, there probably aren't any more. It's people who are stuck with the stock and can't find anyone to sell it to, or people who are hoping for the litigation version of Powerball to kick in.
No way - the DEA and ONDCP have proved it conclusively. Don't you know that 99% of herion addicts have used marijuana?
So? I'm willing to bet that 99% of heroin users have also used a flush toilet. Doesn't mean that flush toilets lead to heroin use.
Causation. Learn it.
Did the marijuana use inevitably lead to heroin use? Okay, I don't know either. But while marijuana has long been touted as a gateway drug, if this were actually the case, then we should have a lot more people who get fucked up on a daily basis.
Personally, I think alcohol abuse is much more of a problem then marijuana, but after the U.S. Government botched Prohibition, I don't think we're going to return to that....
Ballmer admits strategy to "catch" Google consists of writing the word Google on a baseball, throwing it up into the air and catching it. When faced with the possibility of missing, or a complete lack of physical coordination, Ballmer advised that in the event of such limited cases, a patch would be available to correct the problem.
I think what the point is that 35% of music listeners use legal downloading services, 40% use illegal downloading services, and 25% use no downloading services at all.
Of course, I have to wonder how accurate these statistics are, considering that some people are going to lie when asked if they use illegal downloading services. Also, some people, no doubt, illegally download and also use legal downloading services.
How true. Because, you know, it only take a minute to download a WinAMP plugin to play iTunes. So, wow, I don't have to buy an iPod now. Amazing. Yup, that's really monopolizing that online music industry there.
And Microsoft doesn't have _any_ history of monopolistic behavior, and Lord knows they've _never_ done anything that would be bothersome or annoying to their customers. Nope, nope.
Clearly, Apple is in the wrong here. But let's be sure. Better wait for the report from Netcraft confirming it.
The thing is, how often do college students (and their parents) see things about budget shortfalls leading to tuition increases? In your example, it's something like 7.7% of the operating budget comes from tuition, but if for some reason, the university decides to splurge on something, or god forbid, they underestimated the price of gold plating the dean's parking space, it's automatically tuition that goes up. It never seems to be "Hrm, let's carefully examine the other costs we have and see if we can reduce anything."
Of course, I'm biased. I went to a University, that in the time of a budget crunch, decided to go ahead and further worsen the parking problem by paying large whacks of cash to turn three parking lots into parks. (Of course, they also decided to merge Engineering, Computer Science and Liberal Arts into one giant college, but hey, the unofficial motto of the University is "We don't care, and it shows.")
Actually, in July of 2004, DeBeers pled guilty to anti-trust violations for conspiring to fix prices for industrial diamonds and paid a whopping 10 million dollar fine. (Considering that the U.S. diamond market is about 500 million, it wasn't much of a fine.)
They are now allowed to trade directly in the U.S. diamond market.
Blasters have to be more random. I mean, look at the sheer number of stormtroopers in the original trilogy who can't hit the broadside of a Star Destroyer. It's only when they use volume of fire (or get a really lucky shot) that they actually manage to wound or kill anyone.
Let's face a few facts here. There will always be companies that want to use closed-source proprietary software for any number of reasons, including, but not limited to: management paranoia, cost effectiveness, non-standard applications, corporate compliance, security concerns, and last, but not least, stupidity.
Let me know when the human race has eliminated that last one. It should happen slightly after the sun goes cold.
I'd heard worse career advice. Usually from guidance counselers.
Doesn't it seem odd to accept career advice from someone whose job is to give career advice to high school students? Of course, at my high school, one of my friends told the guidance counseler that he wanted to be a beach philosopher. (You know, sit on the beach, play bongo drums, occassional say pot-inspired wisdom. Not a bad job if you can get it.)
Besides, there are worse reasons to go into space. And for those, we have President Bush.
Strange... I drink two to four sodas a day, and we're talking bottles, not cans, so it's generally a minimum of 250 or more calories per soda. My normal lunch/dinner is a sub sandwich or burgers, fries, and more soda.
Sure, I walk to work every day, but it's less then five blocks. Other then that, I get almost no exercise.
I have gained maybe 15 pounds in the last five years. So either I've tapped into the secret weight-loss plan through playing MMORPGs and watching movies, cartoons and pro-wrestling on TV, and reading sci-fi novels, or there is something wrong with your calculations.
Right, because based on the number of Slashdot references to the movie "Office Space", no regular or even occassional poster would ever listen to rap music.
I'd continue, but words do not exist to express my contempt. That, and spittle does not work well over a digital medium.
Try an experiment. Log on to one of the higher populated servers on World of Warcraft, make your way to Ironforge (the Dwarven capital) during the busiest part of the day, and watch the pretty slideshow as your computer slows down. I have yet to see a computer that deals with handling several hundred players in a small area very well.
On most computers, the server lag from WoW turns the game into a slideshow for a while, which does some lovely things to client-side resources as well.
1) Until SP2, I would not have called the situation working just fine. Since then, the problems have been practically non-existant.
2) It is not a new computer. It is a minimum of three years old, probably more like four, and I've had to reformat the hard drive and reinstall XP once because of problem with XP. I mean, we're talking a 1.7 GHz computer that could still probably use another RAM upgrade. It wasn't built to be a high-end gaming machine, even when it was new.
3) The point where it froze up after the installation of SP2 was when I was trying to access the thottbot database on WoW, which while extensive, is not known for being friendly to system resources. It's also only frozen the one time since I installed SP2, as I mentioned, and since then, I've uninstalled a lot of programs and utilities that I don't use any more (not really sure why I installed some of them to begin with), and it's worked just fine.
4) I can't stand using OS X. Don't know why. Probably has something to do with my absolute dislike of using the Mac at work (which is probably not a good example of a good Mac, as no one has done any updates of any kind on it in months).
Slashdot Mirror
Actually 2-3 hours a day can be casual, considering that there are people who do 3+ UBRS runs a day (if they can get into them), which generally take 2-3 hours each. Okay, a speed run through UBRS can be done in a little over an hour, but that's not the point.
There are people who spend 8 or more hours a day playing WoW. They are the hardcore players. Me? I spend maybe 3-4 hours a day when I can, and it might be split across three characters. (Mostly because I'm trying to level up some characters that can actually get into groups. For some odd reason (sarcasm intended), rogues are insanely popular...)
Oh, and for the record, full time job of 40+ hours a week, I sleep the normal amount of time for an adult (maybe slightly less), but I really don't have other responsibilities. I could play for 5-6 hours a day, but I don't.
Kierthos
Hell, at pretty much any bar near a U.S.-based military base, if you have a military I.D., they will serve you, even if you are 17-20. They don't want to lose their primary source of income (base personnel), and if one of those 17-20 year-olds does do something amazingly stupid while drunk, there is a far greater authority then the police to worry about... your seargant.
Kierthos
And the response from the RIAA:
"FUCK!"
Kierthos
I would have thought, based on everything that's happened in Florida in the last five years, that it was obvious there was something wrong with the state law. (Not that Florida is alone in this. South Carolina has some amazingly stupid laws on the books.)
Kierthos
Right, because everyone who uses a Slashdot ID is so full of wisdom and enlightenment 100% of the time. Wait, just me? Not the rest of you? My bad.
I know what you mean about the ring-tone though. Took one of my co-workers about two hours of searching before he gave us and used some professional recording equipment to make his own phone-ring mp3.
Kierthos
Okay, let's continue using the "cookie jar" analogy here.
Case 1: You have a cookie jar inside your house. All the doors are locked, the windows are barred. Someone breaks in and eats your cookies. They are guilty of breaking and entering and theft.
Case 2: You have a cookie jar inside your house. None of the doors are locked, and in fact one is wide open. Someone enters your house and eats your cookies. They are not guilty of breaking and entering (but probably illegal entry) and theft.
Case 3: You have a cookie jar on the sidewalk in front of your house. There is nothing on the cookie jar saying that it is or isn't for public consumption. Someone eats the cookies. Are they guilty of theft? Yes. They are. However, you took no efforts to secure your cookie jar, so how are you shocked that someone chowed down on your double-stuff Oreos?
This law is a very silly law. It can be inadvertantly broken by even the most well-meaning citizen, and from what has been said, most of these wireless networks seem to have been set-up by ham-fisted monkeys.
Kierthos
Yes, and originally it said "Bad news all around". They updated it. Because it was, you know, confusing and shit.
Kierthos
Well, if you take a look at it's performance over the last couple of years, you'll see that it started a fall near the end of 2003 and has never recovered from that. It has traded below $5 a share for pretty much the last calendar year.
The reason investors don't walk away is because at this point, there probably aren't any more. It's people who are stuck with the stock and can't find anyone to sell it to, or people who are hoping for the litigation version of Powerball to kick in.
Kierthos
No way - the DEA and ONDCP have proved it conclusively. Don't you know that 99% of herion addicts have used marijuana?
So? I'm willing to bet that 99% of heroin users have also used a flush toilet. Doesn't mean that flush toilets lead to heroin use.
Causation. Learn it.
Did the marijuana use inevitably lead to heroin use? Okay, I don't know either. But while marijuana has long been touted as a gateway drug, if this were actually the case, then we should have a lot more people who get fucked up on a daily basis.
Personally, I think alcohol abuse is much more of a problem then marijuana, but after the U.S. Government botched Prohibition, I don't think we're going to return to that....
Kierthos
Ballmer admits strategy to "catch" Google consists of writing the word Google on a baseball, throwing it up into the air and catching it. When faced with the possibility of missing, or a complete lack of physical coordination, Ballmer advised that in the event of such limited cases, a patch would be available to correct the problem.
Kierthos
I think what the point is that 35% of music listeners use legal downloading services, 40% use illegal downloading services, and 25% use no downloading services at all.
Of course, I have to wonder how accurate these statistics are, considering that some people are going to lie when asked if they use illegal downloading services. Also, some people, no doubt, illegally download and also use legal downloading services.
Kierthos
How true. Because, you know, it only take a minute to download a WinAMP plugin to play iTunes. So, wow, I don't have to buy an iPod now. Amazing. Yup, that's really monopolizing that online music industry there.
And Microsoft doesn't have _any_ history of monopolistic behavior, and Lord knows they've _never_ done anything that would be bothersome or annoying to their customers. Nope, nope.
Clearly, Apple is in the wrong here. But let's be sure. Better wait for the report from Netcraft confirming it.
Kierthos
The thing is, how often do college students (and their parents) see things about budget shortfalls leading to tuition increases? In your example, it's something like 7.7% of the operating budget comes from tuition, but if for some reason, the university decides to splurge on something, or god forbid, they underestimated the price of gold plating the dean's parking space, it's automatically tuition that goes up. It never seems to be "Hrm, let's carefully examine the other costs we have and see if we can reduce anything."
Of course, I'm biased. I went to a University, that in the time of a budget crunch, decided to go ahead and further worsen the parking problem by paying large whacks of cash to turn three parking lots into parks. (Of course, they also decided to merge Engineering, Computer Science and Liberal Arts into one giant college, but hey, the unofficial motto of the University is "We don't care, and it shows.")
Kierthos
Yes, but where were you right before FedEx decided to buy Kinko's?
Kierthos
Well, when a mommy tractor and a daddy tractor love each other very much....
Oh, wait... the first tractor? God made it.
Kierthos
Actually, in July of 2004, DeBeers pled guilty to anti-trust violations for conspiring to fix prices for industrial diamonds and paid a whopping 10 million dollar fine. (Considering that the U.S. diamond market is about 500 million, it wasn't much of a fine.)
They are now allowed to trade directly in the U.S. diamond market.
Kierthos
So that will take care of the laptops running Windows.... what will be used to power the iBooks?
Kierthos
Why wouldn't they have? It's one of the best early Van Halen albums.
Kierthos
Blasters have to be more random. I mean, look at the sheer number of stormtroopers in the original trilogy who can't hit the broadside of a Star Destroyer. It's only when they use volume of fire (or get a really lucky shot) that they actually manage to wound or kill anyone.
Kierthos
Like that's going to happen.
Let's face a few facts here. There will always be companies that want to use closed-source proprietary software for any number of reasons, including, but not limited to: management paranoia, cost effectiveness, non-standard applications, corporate compliance, security concerns, and last, but not least, stupidity.
Let me know when the human race has eliminated that last one. It should happen slightly after the sun goes cold.
Kierthos
I'd heard worse career advice. Usually from guidance counselers.
Doesn't it seem odd to accept career advice from someone whose job is to give career advice to high school students? Of course, at my high school, one of my friends told the guidance counseler that he wanted to be a beach philosopher. (You know, sit on the beach, play bongo drums, occassional say pot-inspired wisdom. Not a bad job if you can get it.)
Besides, there are worse reasons to go into space. And for those, we have President Bush.
Kierthos
Strange... I drink two to four sodas a day, and we're talking bottles, not cans, so it's generally a minimum of 250 or more calories per soda. My normal lunch/dinner is a sub sandwich or burgers, fries, and more soda.
Sure, I walk to work every day, but it's less then five blocks. Other then that, I get almost no exercise.
I have gained maybe 15 pounds in the last five years. So either I've tapped into the secret weight-loss plan through playing MMORPGs and watching movies, cartoons and pro-wrestling on TV, and reading sci-fi novels, or there is something wrong with your calculations.
Kierthos
Right, because based on the number of Slashdot references to the movie "Office Space", no regular or even occassional poster would ever listen to rap music.
I'd continue, but words do not exist to express my contempt. That, and spittle does not work well over a digital medium.
Kierthos
Try an experiment. Log on to one of the higher populated servers on World of Warcraft, make your way to Ironforge (the Dwarven capital) during the busiest part of the day, and watch the pretty slideshow as your computer slows down. I have yet to see a computer that deals with handling several hundred players in a small area very well.
On most computers, the server lag from WoW turns the game into a slideshow for a while, which does some lovely things to client-side resources as well.
Kierthos
1) Until SP2, I would not have called the situation working just fine. Since then, the problems have been practically non-existant.
2) It is not a new computer. It is a minimum of three years old, probably more like four, and I've had to reformat the hard drive and reinstall XP once because of problem with XP. I mean, we're talking a 1.7 GHz computer that could still probably use another RAM upgrade. It wasn't built to be a high-end gaming machine, even when it was new.
3) The point where it froze up after the installation of SP2 was when I was trying to access the thottbot database on WoW, which while extensive, is not known for being friendly to system resources. It's also only frozen the one time since I installed SP2, as I mentioned, and since then, I've uninstalled a lot of programs and utilities that I don't use any more (not really sure why I installed some of them to begin with), and it's worked just fine.
4) I can't stand using OS X. Don't know why. Probably has something to do with my absolute dislike of using the Mac at work (which is probably not a good example of a good Mac, as no one has done any updates of any kind on it in months).
Kierthos