If TR were to actually be holding true to its original promises of a uniquely RTS-styled territorial diplomacy based MMO, I think they'd have a great niche to fit into and could well succeed......with some competition from EVE Online. Which has RTS-styled conquest of territory in space and diplomacy between players as a by-product. But there are enough players who miss running around in their avatars (Eve only shows the ship and a small portrait in the chat window) that there might be room for a second RTS-styled MMORPG. At least until CCP gets its "ambulation project" into the game;-)
It is a bit like Homeworld with one player commanding each ship, and players have to work together as fleet. Also, each ship has something it does not well and that can become it's Achilles' heel. So fleet commanders can try and outsmart each other (yes, there is PvP).
Another one I might like is a Shooter-MMORPG that actually requires some Counterstrike-like skills. Maybe I'll have to try Planetside some day;-)
Then the techies will increasingly migrate off Windows while the user-only types stay with Windows for now. Result: Third party/hobbyist software development will grow thinner on Windows (except fully commercial projects) and richer on Linux/BSD/whatever.
I'm pretty sure Microsoft won't be happy with that, because having the greater variety in software has so far been an advantage for Microsoft. There is a reason why Ballmer tends do dance around shouting "DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS";-)
Actually, I'm in another branch of software development.
But our managers have a tendency to set deadlines early and then stick to them. When unexpected problems creep up along the way, developers are expected to make up for them by working harder...
One other thing that people forget is that frequently the problems that crop up that programmers and IT folks have to fix are problems that may not have occurred had the work force been better rested. Near the end of a particular development cycle, we were working 12 to 14 hour shifts 6 or 7 days a week, alternating between folks during the day and folks at night. Near gold, it was basically a team would come in and have to fix the bug caused by the folks the earlier 12 hour shift caused fixing another bug. Everyone was so overworked that nobody could make rational steps towards fixing things properly. Seemed to me that we could have finished off earlier were we not pressed into 'work every hour you're awake' mode for the last 4 weeks. You end up causing problems that you then have to stay up even more hours to fix.
Zafran, after his altercation with the Coop, does not feel much sympathy for the store. "If they want to get their revenue up they should slash their prices," Zafran said. "I think if anything, this policy will have the reverse effect because if students aren't allowed to comparison-shop, students will just get all their books online," he said.
I think he is right. Besides, students could do it the other way round:
look up the prices online, print them out and then compare to what they see in the store;-)
...and Microsoft is not going to let Vista fail. This time next year, Vista will have 25% of the market. In another year, it'll have 75%. Just like XP did, and MS-Win2k before that.
Only that Vista vs. XP seems to be more like Windows Me vs. 98. I guess Microsoft can still push Vista to high market share if they actually stop selling XP as announced.
But I strongly suspect that the remaining 25% would finally run off to Apple and Linux. Which would help those out of "niche" status and make them much more viable alternatives (OK, OK, they ARE viable now;-). Thus, Microsoft might win the battle but lose the war.
Slow, scalable algorithms are used rather than lean but limited ones.
If this is true it is actually a good idea. Today's personal computers have a lot in common with high end machines from 10 years ago. Multiple processors? Check. Gigabytes of RAM? Check. Harddisks with hundreds of Gigabytes? Check.
And I guess the trend will continue, so what belongs in the big iron of today will be fine for tomorrow's personal computers.
Microsoft's a mess, and honestly, I do believe the EU lawsuit is a fiasco and not what we needed. What good is it they fined them nearly a billion. Will this help us somehow.
I honestly would rather prefer they sued them for delivering unstable, incompatible, and a resource hog of an OS, and maybe even sue the hardware vendors for not consistently offering XP as an option across the range (wee see some half hearted attempts here and there, such as Dell offering XP to businesses, and not to consumers).
Offering a lousy product is not illegal. So Microsoft has nothing to fear from courts about that. But maybe from the market. If they actually discontinue sales of XP in early 2008 as announced, I guess we will finally see a significant number of people moving off Windows;-)
For the first time after several years of closed source only drivers, ATI has released at least some hardware documentation. That makes their promise of eventually releasing full documentation halfway credible.
Of course, they still can reconsider before the full documentation is out. But at the moment, they have somewhat more credibility with the Open Source community than NVidia.
Maybe. Another possible consequence would be to consider Windows un-trustworthy and look for alternatives.
In this case, I think having Windows Update installed but set to not update was a reasonable policy. Until you learn about Microsoft patching your computer anyway. At that point, the IT department should think about countermeasures. Offhand, I can think of two options: 1) Blocking known IP addresses of Microsoft upgrade servers. A band-aid rather than a reliable solution, but it should be relatively easy to implement. 2) Replacing Windows with some variety of Linux/BSD/Unix. Rather drastic but will definitely solve the Microsoft problem;-)
Because it would imply that someone else has already found out how to subvert WGA for his own purposes. Instead of forced upgrades by M$, Malware from who-knows-where.
Uh, yeah, but what does a copy of OpenOffice from 2000 look like? Here the free downloads of OpenOffice make a difference. I can keep my installation up to date with little effort and for no money beyond what my internet connection costs. MS Office will cost a few hundred Euros to get the latest version.
Maybe you have money to burn but still like Open Office better ?;-)
Personally, I'm somewhere in between, know MS office from work and dislike it for its lack of reliability. Sudden crashes or changes in formatting are not uncommon. Admittedly it is an older version (Office 2000), but as it is far from being the first Word release, I doubt if these bugs are fixed by now. Microsoft had time enough before launching Office 2000 and didn't get it right. Which leaves me in the Open Office camp for my private use...
As GP said, the OO Writer was actually more familiar to their users than MS Office 2007. Which shows that introducing something new and different can backfire even on a near-monopolist that supposedly controls the market.
The fact that Microsoft has spread FUD about re-training costs for Linux in the past makes it only more funny:-)
My main char (allrounder with some bias towards industry) is about 9 months old and -a fairly good Drake pilot -pretty good at producing standard stuff aka Tech 1 -has recently acquired the skills to invent and build some Tech II items, where profits are much higher:-)
I consider myself a semi-casual player, and while I make not as much ISK as our hardcore mission runners, it is sufficient to buy the toys I want to play with. So when the Linux version comes out, I guess it is worth a try.
I had also become a Legendary Grandmaster armourcrafter, which took twice as much time as leveling two characters. At first the rule and game changes looked like they were designed for better balance, but then they started to get silly and frustrating. Then there was the cheating: I worked with a guy who got up to the same crafting level as me in a week, by using an auto-crafting program, which were explicitly forbidden. I complained to the powers that be, and got no response. I appealed to the in-game support folks, and got ignored, even when he was USING THE PROGRAM AT THAT MOMENT--they simply refused to check into it.
I think that is a design flaw even more than a problem with sloppy support: Repetitive stuff like crafting should be automated, and instead the crafting ressources should be the bottleneck. The EVE model is pretty good there: It takes you hours to mine the ore (and there I'm in favor of allowing macros too, but let the occasional powerful mob spawn that will kill an unattended mining ship;-) but then you can put a batch of 100 items to produce in the factory and it will run unattended.
Another solution might be turning crafting into a puzzle game where you have to put raw materials together in the best way. Just don't make it a case of stupid button mashing...
I've played in the beta, and AA had a few nice aspects that almost made me buy it.
The good things were -halfway decent driving physics (albeit not perfect) -innovative and interesting crafting system -nice graphics
and the bad: -Absolutely no death penalty, making combat somewhat meaningless -got quite repetitive after level 20 -combat way too dependent on level: a mob 5 levels below you could hardly hurt you and vice versa... In the end it was fun for three months of beta but by the release time I had grown somewhat tired of it. Now playing EVE which is still fun after 8 months:-)
So they get a bunch of thirteen year old kids as new bloggers. This far, I can follow you.
But will it keep Livejournal a website that is worthwhile to read? I doubt that. The advertisers may be the paying customers, but they will pay only as long as there is actually an audience. As one guy put it in a similar discussion, the userbase is the product that gets sold to the advertiser. No product, no income.
So LJ has to ask itself if it can do without the bloggers it has now. Because if the infinite line of thirteen year old kids cannot keep the readers interested, they'll have a problem;-)
I mean, what incentive to the employees now have to do the right things? Well, if there's going to be blame, you're literally on your own, and always have been. If there's a success, it's definitely not your success.
I call that an incentive to refuse doing unethical stuff:-)
Because the employees now know that M$ will not stand behind them if they do the company's dirty work and get caught. Even if (presumably) management told them to do it.
On the other hand, maybe the "single employee on his own initiative" was actually a manager himself who considers this business methods normal. Then by all means fire him and good riddance...
If we believe Liz Marcs (the user mentioned in TFA) there is already a significant number of users leaving for Wordpress. I have not verified this but it sounds credible. We'll see if that has an effect on the policies of LJ;-)
Sounds good if you a) have realistic project plans. b) don't pull people off their projects randomly to (hopefully) save other projects that seem to be failing.
In other words, if your employees actually have a good chance of succeding with their projects if they have the skills and put in the effort. Unfortunately, project planning at my current employer is inadequate for that, so your method might not work for us.
Most of us manage to run Windows on the net confidently. If you prefer OS X or Linux that's fine, but don't act like security is the reason you're not on Windows and that you have to keep it separate from the net
Depends on how much is at stake. Personally, I use Windows for normal surfing, but for online banking I reboot into Linux. If the latter is not available, I prefer to do my banking stuff the old-fashioned way with paper documents.
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If TR were to actually be holding true to its original promises of a uniquely RTS-styled territorial diplomacy based MMO, I think they'd have a great niche to fit into and could well succeed... ...with some competition from EVE Online. Which has RTS-styled conquest of territory in space and diplomacy between players as a by-product. ;-)
But there are enough players who miss running around in their avatars (Eve only shows the ship and a small portrait in the chat window) that there might be room for a second RTS-styled MMORPG. At least until CCP gets its "ambulation project" into the game
Try EVE Online, if you are into strategy.
;-)
It is a bit like Homeworld with one player commanding each ship, and players have to work together as fleet. Also, each ship has something it does not well and that can become it's Achilles' heel. So fleet commanders can try and outsmart each other (yes, there is PvP).
Another one I might like is a Shooter-MMORPG that actually requires some Counterstrike-like skills. Maybe I'll have to try Planetside some day
Then the techies will increasingly migrate off Windows while the user-only types stay with Windows for now. Result:
;-)
Third party/hobbyist software development will grow thinner on Windows (except fully commercial projects) and richer on Linux/BSD/whatever.
I'm pretty sure Microsoft won't be happy with that, because having the greater variety in software has so far been an advantage for Microsoft. There is a reason why Ballmer tends do dance around shouting "DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS"
Actually, I'm in another branch of software development.
But our managers have a tendency to set deadlines early and then stick to them. When unexpected problems creep up along the way, developers are expected to make up for them by working harder...
That is confirmed by lots of studies. A nice summary can be found at http://www.igda.org/articles/erobinson_crunch.php.
But most managers have obviously never heard of that...
look up the prices online, print them out and then compare to what they see in the store
...and Microsoft is not going to let Vista fail. This time next year, Vista will have 25% of the market. In another year, it'll have 75%. Just like XP did, and MS-Win2k before that.
;-). Thus, Microsoft might win the battle but lose the war.
Only that Vista vs. XP seems to be more like Windows Me vs. 98. I guess Microsoft can still push Vista to high market share if they actually stop selling XP as announced.
But I strongly suspect that the remaining 25% would finally run off to Apple and Linux. Which would help those out of "niche" status and make them much more viable alternatives (OK, OK, they ARE viable now
For instance, users in a corporate environment where setups are exactly defined and IT can check out in advance what works.
/. crowd: forget it, the whitelist wil annoy you more that it helps ;-)
For a private user with a mostly static set of application, it should still work but expect the occasional blocked program.
For developers and the rest of the
Slow, scalable algorithms are used rather than lean but limited ones.
If this is true it is actually a good idea. Today's personal computers have a lot in common with high end machines from 10 years ago.
Multiple processors? Check.
Gigabytes of RAM? Check.
Harddisks with hundreds of Gigabytes? Check.
And I guess the trend will continue, so what belongs in the big iron of today will be fine for tomorrow's personal computers.
Offering a lousy product is not illegal. So Microsoft has nothing to fear from courts about that. But maybe from the market. If they actually discontinue sales of XP in early 2008 as announced, I guess we will finally see a significant number of people moving off Windows
For the first time after several years of closed source only drivers, ATI has released at least some hardware documentation. That makes their promise of eventually releasing full documentation halfway credible.
Of course, they still can reconsider before the full documentation is out. But at the moment, they have somewhat more credibility with the Open Source community than NVidia.
Maybe. Another possible consequence would be to consider Windows un-trustworthy and look for alternatives.
;-)
In this case, I think having Windows Update installed but set to not update was a reasonable policy. Until you learn about Microsoft patching your computer anyway. At that point, the IT department should think about countermeasures. Offhand, I can think of two options:
1) Blocking known IP addresses of Microsoft upgrade servers. A band-aid rather than a reliable solution, but it should be relatively easy to implement.
2) Replacing Windows with some variety of Linux/BSD/Unix. Rather drastic but will definitely solve the Microsoft problem
Because it would imply that someone else has already found out how to subvert WGA for his own purposes.
Instead of forced upgrades by M$, Malware from who-knows-where.
Uh, yeah, but what does a copy of OpenOffice from 2000 look like?
Here the free downloads of OpenOffice make a difference. I can keep my installation up to date with little effort and for no money beyond what my internet connection costs. MS Office will cost a few hundred Euros to get the latest version.
Maybe you have money to burn but still like Open Office better ? ;-)
Personally, I'm somewhere in between, know MS office from work and dislike it for its lack of reliability. Sudden crashes or changes in formatting are not uncommon.
Admittedly it is an older version (Office 2000), but as it is far from being the first Word release, I doubt if these bugs are fixed by now. Microsoft had time enough before launching Office 2000 and didn't get it right.
Which leaves me in the Open Office camp for my private use...
As GP said, the OO Writer was actually more familiar to their users than MS Office 2007. Which shows that introducing something new and different can backfire even on a near-monopolist that supposedly controls the market.
:-)
The fact that Microsoft has spread FUD about re-training costs for Linux in the past makes it only more funny
Here's a data point for you:
:-)
My main char (allrounder with some bias towards industry) is about 9 months old and
-a fairly good Drake pilot
-pretty good at producing standard stuff aka Tech 1
-has recently acquired the skills to invent and build some Tech II items, where profits are much higher
I consider myself a semi-casual player, and while I make not as much ISK as our hardcore mission runners, it is sufficient to buy the toys I want to play with.
So when the Linux version comes out, I guess it is worth a try.
Then I hope you have not paid much money for your services, if they can be made subject to an inacceptable policy change anytime.
And considering the agreement, just letting it pass them by might give legal problems later on when the user says he was not aware of it.
I think that is a design flaw even more than a problem with sloppy support:
Repetitive stuff like crafting should be automated, and instead the crafting ressources should be the bottleneck. The EVE model is pretty good there:
It takes you hours to mine the ore (and there I'm in favor of allowing macros too, but let the occasional powerful mob spawn that will kill an unattended mining ship
Another solution might be turning crafting into a puzzle game where you have to put raw materials together in the best way. Just don't make it a case of stupid button mashing...
I've played in the beta, and AA had a few nice aspects that almost made me buy it.
:-)
The good things were
-halfway decent driving physics (albeit not perfect)
-innovative and interesting crafting system
-nice graphics
and the bad:
-Absolutely no death penalty, making combat somewhat meaningless
-got quite repetitive after level 20
-combat way too dependent on level: a mob 5 levels below you could hardly hurt you and vice versa...
In the end it was fun for three months of beta but by the release time I had grown somewhat tired of it. Now playing EVE which is still fun after 8 months
So they get a bunch of thirteen year old kids as new bloggers. This far, I can follow you.
;-)
But will it keep Livejournal a website that is worthwhile to read? I doubt that. The advertisers may be the paying customers, but they will pay only as long as there is actually an audience. As one guy put it in a similar discussion, the userbase is the product that gets sold to the advertiser. No product, no income.
So LJ has to ask itself if it can do without the bloggers it has now. Because if the infinite line of thirteen year old kids cannot keep the readers interested, they'll have a problem
I call that an incentive to refuse doing unethical stuff
Because the employees now know that M$ will not stand behind them if they do the company's dirty work and get caught. Even if (presumably) management told them to do it.
On the other hand, maybe the "single employee on his own initiative" was actually a manager himself who considers this business methods normal. Then by all means fire him and good riddance...
If we believe Liz Marcs (the user mentioned in TFA) there is already a significant number of users leaving for Wordpress. I have not verified this but it sounds credible. ;-)
We'll see if that has an effect on the policies of LJ
Sounds good if you
a) have realistic project plans.
b) don't pull people off their projects randomly to (hopefully) save other projects that seem to be failing.
In other words, if your employees actually have a good chance of succeding with their projects if they have the skills and put in the effort. Unfortunately, project planning at my current employer is inadequate for that, so your method might not work for us.
Depends on how much is at stake.
Personally, I use Windows for normal surfing, but for online banking I reboot into Linux. If the latter is not available, I prefer to do my banking stuff the old-fashioned way with paper documents.