And I have a lot of hope for this one, since a good chunk of it will deal with American history which many of the developers probably know a bit more about than Roman, Japanese, or medieval European history.
Creative Assembly is based in the UK; their developers probably know more about Roman & European history than they do American.;-)
I used to use Hymn to make copies of my legally purchased iTunes songs. It was only because I *could* make m4a files out of iTunes downloads that I purchased music from Apple in the first place.
Now that Amazon is in the mp3 business I've been buying all my music from them. I've bought more music from Amazon in the last two months than I did in the last year from iTMS. iTunes was great when there was no other legal way to get a large selection of artists. That's changed now.
Virtualization can be really useful to make sure you're making use of all available resources.
Consider a development environment. You might have ten developers, each with their own server. For most of the time, most of the capabilities of those development boxes are being unused, but they're still taking up space and power in your datacenter.
If you could virtualize those 10 dev boxes down to two or three bigger boxes, you could: - save on space and power in your data center - ensure you're using your available resources more efficiently (the cpus and RAM aren't idle most of the time; they're actually being used) - makes it easier to 'add another box' to the mix if you get a new hire. Setting up a new dedicated (virtual) development server takes a matter of minutes, and can all be done in software for no additional cost. This is especially true if you keep all your server images and data on a shared network storage device (or hook the host OS box up to a SAN).
There's the increased risk of downtime from hardware failures, but buy the right boxes for the host OS and that's not a problem.
Dell's solution, if it works, would be really neat. It would probably simplify the act of virtualization even more, and means *none* of the host CPU or RAM is taken up running the VM server. It's all available for guest OS use.
But it's my cultural heritage! Why won't you let me celebrate it?
This all started because apparently I'm not allowed to criticize the Inuit whale hunts because it's their cultural tradition, and since I'm not Inuit I have no standing to criticize.
I don't mind if the Inuit want to go out and club a few thousand seals. Hell, those seals are almost as responsible for depleting haddock stocks as factory fishing - give me a club and I'll join in. Although I'd prefer a gun - my arm get would tired.
I do mind when they're hunting endangered creatures. Really old, high-animal-intelligence creatures with complex language and societies of their own. That's where I draw the line. Go nuts with the caribou and seals, guys, but lay off the whales. Yes, even if it's "sustainable", yes, even if it's your heritage, yes, even if the Japanese also do it: to quote my mother, "I don't care what other boys do, you're my son and I say no".
If you're going to tell me that killing a whale is inherently wrong, then you should be railing against the recently adopted Western cultural tradition of polluting and habitat destroying industry.
Most likely the media is just incompletely reporting the situation due to the usual combination of time constraints and journalistic imperfection. No conspiracy, but we're just not getting the precise details of who/what/why.
I can also easily believe that they didn't think to disconnect vital systems before plugging stuff in. This kind of cross-national project management is tricky at the best of times. Doubly so when you have an American project impacting on Russian hardware.
I draw the line at cultural heritage when it causes clear harm.
Oktoberfest doesn't endanger whales. Neither do your Haiku, no matter how bad they are.
My cultural heritage is getting in a long boat, sacking Abbeys and raping villagers - but I don't practice that, mostly because I get seasick. But if I did, would you mind if I skipped out on using the iron axe and just used a gun? And probably a life-preserver. And an outboard motor. I don't like rowing - gives me blisters.
My point is that you seem to be espousing the idea that the indigenous cultures of North America are necessarily tied to ancient technology they invented themselves,
Seriously, though - my point is that if the only bit of their cultural celebration that is authentic is that at the end of the day, there's one less member of an endangered species alive, then perhaps they should reconsider how vital that particular celebration is to their sense of identity.
You've... never even seen a picture of northern alaska, have you?
Plenty of people live in Northern Alaska who don't depend on whales for survival. In fact, the ten Inuit villages that hunt whales don't need to do so for survival either - whale hunting is a seasonal thing, and whale meat is but one small part of their diet (Caribou and seal, for example, are also hunted. Neither of those are 150-year old endangered creatures with a complex language). And there are many other Inuit communities that do not eat whale. They survive just fine, although they'd have a better quality of life further south.
Just because something is sustainable doesn't mean that it's right. Baby farming would be sustainable, too, if you did it at below the replacement rate.
And of course, babies are different than whales. For a start, they're not endangered.
I was refuting an argument of moral relativism. That distinction (Women vs. whales) is immaterial to the issue. It's even arguable that Honor Killing is more justifiable, because the women in those cultures are intelligent and should know that certain behaviors are likely to get them killed, and therefore are completely avoidable.
My point, however, which I shall repeat, is that some behaviors are just wrong, like honor killing or whale hunting, and even though I am not a member of either culture I am perfectly justified in criticizing these behaviors and seeking to change them.
I suspect they had six machines on the same circuit (probably all in one of the Russian modules). One or more of those machines controlled the thrusters. They all got fried. The Russian control software probably works fine on any one of those six Russian computers... all of which got fried.;-)
They didn't all die because there's very few disasters on the ISS that would produce near-instantaneous calamity. This particular one means no thrusters, which isn't usually a problem ( gyros work for minor correction ) - it's only bad because if it's not fixed in time for the Shuttle's departure, the shuttle's undocking will disrupt the ISS's position beyond the gyros ability to compensate.
Let me be blunt: You do not get to decide what represents a faithful continuation of Eskimo heritage.
Then let me be blunt.
Honor Killing. It's a continuation of Islamic Culture and ancient traditions that's been practiced for hundreds of years. Should we allow it to continue? How about if they're only allowed to kill with traditional weapons? Stoning, perhaps? Or using a scimitar? Maybe if we limit each extended family to no more than 5 honor killings a year? That's clearly a sustainable rate.
Moral relativism is a terrible thing. It is never wrong to say "we can do better than this".
It's traditional in certain cultures to stone a wife to death if her husband commits adultery. Women are routinely murdered for holding hands with non-family members: heck, there was a case in the UK recently. It's called "Honor Killing", and it's a part of some Muslim cultures.
So yes, I have no problem with saying that some cultural behaviors are less desireable than others. And some cultural behaviors are just plain wrong. Should honor killing be allowed just because it's part of muslim culture? How about if we limit it to ten extended families, and say they can only kill 50 people a year? I'm sure that's sustainable.
Actually, no they can't. You're talking about a people that, for the most part, live below the poverty line and in a climate where agriculture is radically limited at best.
My ancestors were like that. We got better. So yes, they can. Most of them have. It's only a small minority of Inuit communities that hunt whale - and for at least one (the Canadian community in Nunavut) they did just fine not hunting whales from 1930 through 2001. See: http://www.canoe.ca/AllAboutCanoesNewsMar00/20_wha le.html
So yes. They don't need to eat whales to survive any more.
"We have no moral high ground to say that they should stop feeding their children because we over-hunted the whales,"...yes, we do. They don't need to eat whales to survive any more. No more than I need to eat simple bread, a bit of mutton once a week and dried fruits to survive like my ancestors did. My culture has moved away from subsistence farming on marginal land. Theirs can, too: especially when they're hunting endangered species.
Consider a tribe of cannibals. Should we allow them to continue raiding nearby villages because that's their traditional way of feeding their communities? Do we have the moral high ground then?
So basically they fried the power supplies on a bunch of computers. Doesn't matter how 'clean' the voltage is, if there's simply more than the power supplies can take. Sounds like they're hosed unless they can install the software on other hardware and get it working.
Don't these folks have UPS or surge protectors?:-)
Unless one of their cultural traditions is "technological statism" then I don't see the problem. They didn't "man up and move on" when they invented a better harpoon; it was considered the natural continuation of the same heritage. Because there's a lot more to the underlying cultural heritage than a specific hunting technique.
Their particular heritage did not invent the explosive harpoon or the outboard motor. That's like saying that Native American culture involved hunting buffalo with a Henry Rifle. So that's where I'd draw the line - once you start using stuff other cultures invented, you're going for convenience, not heritage. If your main purpose is protecting and remembering your specific heritage, then it should not be tainted by outside influences. Traditional eskimo canoes were not powered by Honda outboards.
Note I'm making a difference between "We want to remember our heritage" and "Our community needs to hunt whales to survive". I applaud the first goal ( so long as they don't take shortcuts in those remembrances ) and say to the second, "Move on. Your current community is not worth the loss of the whales." It's exactly the same reasoning I use to decry Japanese whaling. It is not vital to Scientific Progress that they serve whale meat in restaurants.
If they're allowed substitutions (arguing that it's the symbolism of the ritual, not the actual implementation, that's important), can they substitute the live whale for something else? After all, they've substituted the canoes for modern boats, and the bone spears for explosive harpoons, and the chainsaws for bone knives...
"modern preserving technology to protect their drink" - Dude, it's wine. Communion wine, to boot. It doesn't need modern preserving technology.;-)
The speartip recovered from the 1890s was an explosive harpoon too.;) There's pretty much no 'humane' way of killing a whale - they're too big to kill quick unless you blow them up with a depth charge. The basic method of modern whale hunting hasn't changed in over 100 years. You harpoon 'em with something big and explosive, then let them drag themselves to exhaustion and death. It usually takes a few hours. That's one of the reasons why whale hunting is in a special category all by itself.
I should point out - their 'heritage' now apparently includes rocket-propelled harpoons and chainsaws.
If they want to preserve their ancient ways, fine. Hunt whales from small canoes with bone spears. But don't use a chainsaw and claim you're 'preserving your heritage'. Heritage is not a buffet. Either do it as your ancestors did to keep in touch with your past, or man up and move on.
I don't know if it's a mindset thing, or if there's a deeper mystery I'm just not seeing here, but it seems to me that the one thing the player has to offer the world is their time (and, with that time, a monthly credit charge;-) ) - and they should be rewarded for spending their time in-world, no matter what they're doing. CoH, WoW and LOTRO do give out tiny amounts of XP / goodies for non-combat activities (mostly one-off dings for discovering places on the map) but they're superficial extras to the overall game - they don't let you impact the core game in any significant way.
Yeah, and I liked it too - there's nothing wrong with having supporting characters. Conan wasn't a Master Swordsmith. You never saw Gimli dash off to mine some Barrow Iron. Superman never stopped to harvest power crystals.;)
There *should* be nothing wrong with having specialist, PC tradespeople... and not requiring them to be high level fighters to be good at their trade. I guess someone, somewhere decided that it helps player retention rates if you force people to level their crafting characters, too.
Crafted items can never sell to a vendor for more than the sum of their components. If this was the case people would just plan up shop next to a vendor and setup a macro to keep buying the components and then selling off the finished products to the vendor and then keep adding new gold to the economy. Overtime gold would become worthless and the economy would fail.
There are ways to do this right - it's how 'real' economies work, after all - they're just much, much harder than making sure the finished good is worth less than the component parts.;-)
MMO economies already have massive inflation (in the classic sense - the money supply is constantly increasing), right from Day 0, since wealth is created ab initio every time you kill a mob and sell the drops as vendor trash. If you allow the creation of wealth from mob drops, why not from crafting outcomes? The simple reason is because developers use Crafting as a money sink, to try to suck up some of that money created from mob drops and vendor trash sales. So any crafting system that breaks the 'sum of components' rule must touch on more than just the crafting system. And since the crafting system is usually done in a (relative) vacuum from other development tasks... well, that makes it really hard to do.
I *think* (never played, but heard from others) that SWG addressed this before the Reset.
Dude, have you played LOTRO online? "Inspired by WoW" would be a polite way of putting the similarities.:-)
It's clear that Turbine learned much from both the failure of AC2 and from the success of WoW... in that they've copied wholesale many of the 'good bits' of WoW. It seems the game might be described as 'WoW 2.0' or 'WoW: Tolkien Total Conversion Mod'. I mean that in a good way, of course: LOTRO's great fun. But it's clearly standing on the shoulders of WoW.
It seems that it's part of the 'MMO Design 101' that if you have Crafting, you must tie crafting to level advancement. I suspect out of some misplaced desire to keep people on the leveling treadmill out of a belief that only the level treadmill keeps people paying their monthly subscriptions.
I'd love for crafting to be divorced from level advancement, and for crafted goods to be worth more to vendors than the sum of their components - but that, too, seems to be a requirement of MMO Design 101.
Slashdot Mirror
And I have a lot of hope for this one, since a good chunk of it will deal with American history which many of the developers probably know a bit more about than Roman, Japanese, or medieval European history.
Creative Assembly is based in the UK; their developers probably know more about Roman & European history than they do American. ;-)
I used to use Hymn to make copies of my legally purchased iTunes songs. It was only because I *could* make m4a files out of iTunes downloads that I purchased music from Apple in the first place.
Now that Amazon is in the mp3 business I've been buying all my music from them. I've bought more music from Amazon in the last two months than I did in the last year from iTMS. iTunes was great when there was no other legal way to get a large selection of artists. That's changed now.
Virtualization can be really useful to make sure you're making use of all available resources.
Consider a development environment. You might have ten developers, each with their own server. For most of the time, most of the capabilities of those development boxes are being unused, but they're still taking up space and power in your datacenter.
If you could virtualize those 10 dev boxes down to two or three bigger boxes, you could:
- save on space and power in your data center
- ensure you're using your available resources more efficiently (the cpus and RAM aren't idle most of the time; they're actually being used)
- makes it easier to 'add another box' to the mix if you get a new hire. Setting up a new dedicated (virtual) development server takes a matter of minutes, and can all be done in software for no additional cost. This is especially true if you keep all your server images and data on a shared network storage device (or hook the host OS box up to a SAN).
There's the increased risk of downtime from hardware failures, but buy the right boxes for the host OS and that's not a problem.
Dell's solution, if it works, would be really neat. It would probably simplify the act of virtualization even more, and means *none* of the host CPU or RAM is taken up running the VM server. It's all available for guest OS use.
But it's my cultural heritage! Why won't you let me celebrate it?
This all started because apparently I'm not allowed to criticize the Inuit whale hunts because it's their cultural tradition, and since I'm not Inuit I have no standing to criticize.
I don't mind if the Inuit want to go out and club a few thousand seals. Hell, those seals are almost as responsible for depleting haddock stocks as factory fishing - give me a club and I'll join in. Although I'd prefer a gun - my arm get would tired.
I do mind when they're hunting endangered creatures. Really old, high-animal-intelligence creatures with complex language and societies of their own. That's where I draw the line. Go nuts with the caribou and seals, guys, but lay off the whales. Yes, even if it's "sustainable", yes, even if it's your heritage, yes, even if the Japanese also do it: to quote my mother, "I don't care what other boys do, you're my son and I say no".
I see nothing irrational with that position.
Fair enough. We have attained equilibrium!
If you're going to tell me that killing a whale is inherently wrong, then you should be railing against the recently adopted Western cultural tradition of polluting and habitat destroying industry.
I am, and I do.
Most likely the media is just incompletely reporting the situation due to the usual combination of time constraints and journalistic imperfection. No conspiracy, but we're just not getting the precise details of who/what/why.
I can also easily believe that they didn't think to disconnect vital systems before plugging stuff in. This kind of cross-national project management is tricky at the best of times. Doubly so when you have an American project impacting on Russian hardware.
I draw the line at cultural heritage when it causes clear harm.
Oktoberfest doesn't endanger whales. Neither do your Haiku, no matter how bad they are.
My cultural heritage is getting in a long boat, sacking Abbeys and raping villagers - but I don't practice that, mostly because I get seasick. But if I did, would you mind if I skipped out on using the iron axe and just used a gun? And probably a life-preserver. And an outboard motor. I don't like rowing - gives me blisters.
My point is that you seem to be espousing the idea that the indigenous cultures of North America are necessarily tied to ancient technology they invented themselves,
Seriously, though - my point is that if the only bit of their cultural celebration that is authentic is that at the end of the day, there's one less member of an endangered species alive, then perhaps they should reconsider how vital that particular celebration is to their sense of identity.
You've... never even seen a picture of northern alaska, have you?
Plenty of people live in Northern Alaska who don't depend on whales for survival. In fact, the ten Inuit villages that hunt whales don't need to do so for survival either - whale hunting is a seasonal thing, and whale meat is but one small part of their diet (Caribou and seal, for example, are also hunted. Neither of those are 150-year old endangered creatures with a complex language). And there are many other Inuit communities that do not eat whale. They survive just fine, although they'd have a better quality of life further south.
Just because something is sustainable doesn't mean that it's right. Baby farming would be sustainable, too, if you did it at below the replacement rate.
And of course, babies are different than whales. For a start, they're not endangered.
I was refuting an argument of moral relativism. That distinction (Women vs. whales) is immaterial to the issue. It's even arguable that Honor Killing is more justifiable, because the women in those cultures are intelligent and should know that certain behaviors are likely to get them killed, and therefore are completely avoidable.
My point, however, which I shall repeat, is that some behaviors are just wrong, like honor killing or whale hunting, and even though I am not a member of either culture I am perfectly justified in criticizing these behaviors and seeking to change them.
I suspect they had six machines on the same circuit (probably all in one of the Russian modules). One or more of those machines controlled the thrusters. They all got fried. The Russian control software probably works fine on any one of those six Russian computers ... all of which got fried. ;-)
They didn't all die because there's very few disasters on the ISS that would produce near-instantaneous calamity. This particular one means no thrusters, which isn't usually a problem ( gyros work for minor correction ) - it's only bad because if it's not fixed in time for the Shuttle's departure, the shuttle's undocking will disrupt the ISS's position beyond the gyros ability to compensate.
Let me be blunt: You do not get to decide what represents a faithful continuation of Eskimo heritage.
Then let me be blunt.
Honor Killing. It's a continuation of Islamic Culture and ancient traditions that's been practiced for hundreds of years. Should we allow it to continue? How about if they're only allowed to kill with traditional weapons? Stoning, perhaps? Or using a scimitar? Maybe if we limit each extended family to no more than 5 honor killings a year? That's clearly a sustainable rate.
Moral relativism is a terrible thing. It is never wrong to say "we can do better than this".
OK, how about a real-world example.
It's traditional in certain cultures to stone a wife to death if her husband commits adultery. Women are routinely murdered for holding hands with non-family members: heck, there was a case in the UK recently. It's called "Honor Killing", and it's a part of some Muslim cultures.
So yes, I have no problem with saying that some cultural behaviors are less desireable than others. And some cultural behaviors are just plain wrong. Should honor killing be allowed just because it's part of muslim culture? How about if we limit it to ten extended families, and say they can only kill 50 people a year? I'm sure that's sustainable.
Actually, no they can't. You're talking about a people that, for the most part, live below the poverty line and in a climate where agriculture is radically limited at best.
a le.html
My ancestors were like that. We got better. So yes, they can. Most of them have. It's only a small minority of Inuit communities that hunt whale - and for at least one (the Canadian community in Nunavut) they did just fine not hunting whales from 1930 through 2001. See: http://www.canoe.ca/AllAboutCanoesNewsMar00/20_wh
So yes. They don't need to eat whales to survive any more.
"We have no moral high ground to say that they should stop feeding their children because we over-hunted the whales," ...yes, we do. They don't need to eat whales to survive any more. No more than I need to eat simple bread, a bit of mutton once a week and dried fruits to survive like my ancestors did. My culture has moved away from subsistence farming on marginal land. Theirs can, too: especially when they're hunting endangered species.
Consider a tribe of cannibals. Should we allow them to continue raiding nearby villages because that's their traditional way of feeding their communities? Do we have the moral high ground then?
So basically they fried the power supplies on a bunch of computers. Doesn't matter how 'clean' the voltage is, if there's simply more than the power supplies can take. Sounds like they're hosed unless they can install the software on other hardware and get it working.
:-)
Don't these folks have UPS or surge protectors?
Unless one of their cultural traditions is "technological statism" then I don't see the problem. They didn't "man up and move on" when they invented a better harpoon; it was considered the natural continuation of the same heritage. Because there's a lot more to the underlying cultural heritage than a specific hunting technique.
Their particular heritage did not invent the explosive harpoon or the outboard motor. That's like saying that Native American culture involved hunting buffalo with a Henry Rifle. So that's where I'd draw the line - once you start using stuff other cultures invented, you're going for convenience, not heritage. If your main purpose is protecting and remembering your specific heritage, then it should not be tainted by outside influences. Traditional eskimo canoes were not powered by Honda outboards.
Note I'm making a difference between "We want to remember our heritage" and "Our community needs to hunt whales to survive". I applaud the first goal ( so long as they don't take shortcuts in those remembrances ) and say to the second, "Move on. Your current community is not worth the loss of the whales." It's exactly the same reasoning I use to decry Japanese whaling. It is not vital to Scientific Progress that they serve whale meat in restaurants.
If they're allowed substitutions (arguing that it's the symbolism of the ritual, not the actual implementation, that's important), can they substitute the live whale for something else? After all, they've substituted the canoes for modern boats, and the bone spears for explosive harpoons, and the chainsaws for bone knives...
;-)
"modern preserving technology to protect their drink" - Dude, it's wine. Communion wine, to boot. It doesn't need modern preserving technology.
The speartip recovered from the 1890s was an explosive harpoon too. ;) There's pretty much no 'humane' way of killing a whale - they're too big to kill quick unless you blow them up with a depth charge. The basic method of modern whale hunting hasn't changed in over 100 years. You harpoon 'em with something big and explosive, then let them drag themselves to exhaustion and death. It usually takes a few hours. That's one of the reasons why whale hunting is in a special category all by itself.
I should point out - their 'heritage' now apparently includes rocket-propelled harpoons and chainsaws.
If they want to preserve their ancient ways, fine. Hunt whales from small canoes with bone spears. But don't use a chainsaw and claim you're 'preserving your heritage'. Heritage is not a buffet. Either do it as your ancestors did to keep in touch with your past, or man up and move on.
It does indeed!
;-) ) - and they should be rewarded for spending their time in-world, no matter what they're doing. CoH, WoW and LOTRO do give out tiny amounts of XP / goodies for non-combat activities (mostly one-off dings for discovering places on the map) but they're superficial extras to the overall game - they don't let you impact the core game in any significant way.
I don't know if it's a mindset thing, or if there's a deeper mystery I'm just not seeing here, but it seems to me that the one thing the player has to offer the world is their time (and, with that time, a monthly credit charge
Yeah, and I liked it too - there's nothing wrong with having supporting characters. Conan wasn't a Master Swordsmith. You never saw Gimli dash off to mine some Barrow Iron. Superman never stopped to harvest power crystals. ;)
There *should* be nothing wrong with having specialist, PC tradespeople... and not requiring them to be high level fighters to be good at their trade. I guess someone, somewhere decided that it helps player retention rates if you force people to level their crafting characters, too.
Yes, I know. You said it yourself, though : ten years ago. And they were both 'first to market' MMOs.
So, what has changed? Is the current 'state of the art' a step backwards?
Crafted items can never sell to a vendor for more than the sum of their components. If this was the case people would just plan up shop next to a vendor and setup a macro to keep buying the components and then selling off the finished products to the vendor and then keep adding new gold to the economy. Overtime gold would become worthless and the economy would fail.
;-)
There are ways to do this right - it's how 'real' economies work, after all - they're just much, much harder than making sure the finished good is worth less than the component parts.
MMO economies already have massive inflation (in the classic sense - the money supply is constantly increasing), right from Day 0, since wealth is created ab initio every time you kill a mob and sell the drops as vendor trash. If you allow the creation of wealth from mob drops, why not from crafting outcomes? The simple reason is because developers use Crafting as a money sink, to try to suck up some of that money created from mob drops and vendor trash sales. So any crafting system that breaks the 'sum of components' rule must touch on more than just the crafting system. And since the crafting system is usually done in a (relative) vacuum from other development tasks... well, that makes it really hard to do.
I *think* (never played, but heard from others) that SWG addressed this before the Reset.
Dude, have you played LOTRO online? "Inspired by WoW" would be a polite way of putting the similarities. :-)
... in that they've copied wholesale many of the 'good bits' of WoW. It seems the game might be described as 'WoW 2.0' or 'WoW: Tolkien Total Conversion Mod'. I mean that in a good way, of course: LOTRO's great fun. But it's clearly standing on the shoulders of WoW.
It's clear that Turbine learned much from both the failure of AC2 and from the success of WoW
It seems that it's part of the 'MMO Design 101' that if you have Crafting, you must tie crafting to level advancement. I suspect out of some misplaced desire to keep people on the leveling treadmill out of a belief that only the level treadmill keeps people paying their monthly subscriptions.
I'd love for crafting to be divorced from level advancement, and for crafted goods to be worth more to vendors than the sum of their components - but that, too, seems to be a requirement of MMO Design 101.