LOTRO had quite a bit of hype behind it on launch, but never really took off (wasn't sufficiently different from WoW to make an impact...)
What makes you say LOTRO didn't really take off? Multiple expansions later, it's still a very cool game with tons of players (though Turbine doesn't release subscriber numbers). If you mean that it isn't as popular as WoW, I'm sure you're right. But with 11 active servers (including decent European presence) and a 4 year run so far, I'd argue that it definitely "took off".
Don't get too excited about those names - broad names for patents like that are commonplace and typically have no deep meaning. It's the "claims" section of the patent that really matters.
Lots of patent titles look like "Cellular Handset with a Keypad" or "Computer System with Removable Media", without any broad claims at all. Just an odd naming convention.:)
...to think that you could know so much about a human based solely on where she works. MSFT has 60k employees worldwide. You're saying they've all sold their souls and aren't worthy of your no doubt impressive company?
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt by saying that it is you who are incredibly arrogant, whereas I feel most would say you're inexcusably callow.
"This is anathema to the cell networks, who have no intention of allowing voice over IP. For them, data is a means to squeeze more revenue from reluctant customers, not a means to let customers get voice services for less money."
While this is still somewhat true today, all carriers are moving to unlimited plans in-network, and practically unlimited plans otherwise (national tarrifs aside). Data traffic is already covered by bucket or unlimited plans, so I'm not really sure the operators are that worried.
The real incremental revenue source for carriers today is transactional stuff - like $3 "truetones".
In the spirit of the article, it could also be that the North Koreans have extensively hacked/zombied tons of South Korean computers, and now that you foolishly gave them a vector for your capitalist pig-dog computer they pointed the zombies at you.:)
Unlikely, I grant, but South Korea's probably a great target for North Korean hackers: natural enemy state, plus South Korea has the world's greatest penetration on home broadband access.
"...PHBs...won't seek any training from their own IT staff because that would be an admission of 'weakness'"..."
This story is a load of crap. "Training" from IT staff? In what exactly? Like how to use Excel? I've never worked for any company where IT staff teach detailed computer skills (beyond those specific to their network/desktop environment), nor would I consider the IT people I've worked with - who are very good at their actual jobs - to be great teachers.
If a bunch of managers are taking computer classes on their own time, this is a great thing. To assume this means they're afraid to "admit weakness" is just asinine.
I have seen companies offer courses taught by outsiders (in stuff like 'Using Lotus Notes'), and those kind of classes are very well attended by managers.
"...they will someday learn that fluid integration of third party code without user approval is a bad idea?"
I've seen lots of other inaccurate posts to this effect, but I'll pick on yours. In order to use ActiveX controls, they must first be installed by the user (or come preinstalled w/ the browser or OS). Once they're installed, it would be kind of stupid to ask each time if they want to use them. It's like trying to launch Word and getting a dialog like this:
"Holy crap, you're about to launch an application! Applications have object code, which might do bad things. Are you sure [yes/no]?"
For those of you still confused, here's the deal: IE does not install stuff for you without your approval.
So what matters more to you? How much actual dough (read: "resources") a country contributes to the world in the form of foreign aid, or how much as a percentage of national income?
Rhetorical question, of course. You're so fucking dumb you think that Uganda contributes more to the world than the U.S. does.
In my experience the USA has the same problem at times.
Arrogance maybe, but I think you'd be hard pressed to say that the U.S. is isolationist. The difference between the U.S. "thinking it's at the center of the earth" and China beliving in Chinese cultural supremecy is that the U.S. has no problems with co-opting other cultures' ideas, technology, entertainment, and what have you.
The Chinese way is much different, and much more odious to me. I feel that the Chinese are akin to the French, in terms of xenophobia. When you see the U.S. passing laws about how many foreign words per hour may be broadcast, then I might agree the U.S. has a problem...
Oh for heaven's sake. If he had "18 different things" in mind for the browser, well, he certainly had the opportunity to put them in.
Ironically, the last true innovation in browsing, IMO, was created by Microsoft: the Trident object model coupled with client-side script. Or possibly an object wrapper for the browser so you could embed IE in your executables.
You know you're hurting when Microsoft is out-innovating you in your own backyard. Sing us another sad song, Marc. Only this time, make it about the opportunity you squandered.
Much of what you said would right, if only your facts weren't backwards.
MS losing in Handhelds? Versus what? Palm (with an ever shrinking user base and no new interesting features in years)? Or do you mean all of those Linux PDAs (I wish)..NET losing to Java? I really don't see a lot of new Java based web services being rolled out. But I see *tons* of.NET ones.
MS SQL Server is growing faster than it's competitors. Claiming that MySQL and PostgreSQL are gaining over SQL Server is just wishful thinking.
I think that your idea that MS is losing ground is wishful thinking. The reality is that MS is doing just fine, thanks to a continued lack of decent competition on the above.
I'm surprised you didn't mention web servers and file servers, where Linux has the clear edge over MS.
Don't use Windows for mission critical applications where money changes hanges. Although these articles only mention it in passing, either in an attempt to remove technical "jargon" or due to a wish to defer to MSFT, it does mention that these guys exploited vulns in NT
Boy, are you ever right on this one! Thank god non-MS operating systems are completely secure...
"...looks kind of cool but only uses flash memory, so no storage"
Um, so what is flash memory if not storage? The site is currently Slashdotted, so I can't read the review, but flash memory is useful only as storage (excepting flash ICs that support execute-in-place).
Operator overloading is just syntactic sugar, it has nothing to do with object-oriented development. There are a number of non-OO languages that implement this feature. I dislike most uses of operator overloading anyways. Sure, it may "look cleaner" for the above trivial examples, but with multiple overloads and implicit casts, it can be difficult to figure out which function ends up being called. Better to keep things as explicit as you can.
The definitive benefit of object oriented languages is caller-reuse as implemented through polymorphism. In procedural programming, I can reuse called code (a.k.a. functions), but in OO programing I can reuse *caller* code. The shapes example is great to illustrate this: if squares and circles both inheret from a base shape, who implements a "draw" function, I can easily add triangles later, pass them around as references to the base class "shape", and any code that asks a shape to draw it self remains untouched, whereas in procedural programming I have to touch each instance of code that has to do with drawing, and account for the newly added triangle case.
You imply that digital data has no intrinsic worth, and therefore can't be stolen. What century are you living in? Future generations will view your analogy as hopelessly anachronistic, something like stories your grandpa tells today about one-room schoolhouses.
And as for the substance of your analogy - "a guy takes nude pix of his wife and puts them up in his window with a sign saying don't look at these" - how does this utterly absurd statement clear things up for you better than the "if you leave your front door unlocked" one? Do you even know what your point is?
You own personal transponder
on
GPS Meets PCS
·
· Score: 2
To be clear, you don't need GPS technology to track people down using their cell phones. The feds have plenty of ability to do this already. With the help of the FCC and three trucks (or possibly with no trucks and good access to the cell towers), you can be tracked down with great accuracy. That's because your cell phone communicates with a base every few minutes - more often if you're traveling.
Also, though it's not as good as triangulation, tracking you down to a within a relatively small radius is even easier, since your phone is only communicating with one base station at a time.
I imagine that most modern pagers (the ones with a transmitter so you never miss pages) could be used like this too.
Spooky, huh? I've always wondered why E911/GPS couldn't just be implemented by upgrading the cell switches to do auto-triangulation. This gets rid of any GPS antenna issues.
Ha ha - you're outraged about your school blocking ping packets, but you have to ask others to suggest "academic" reasons for why you should be able to?
Has it occurred to you that if you can't think of an academic reason for your school to allow ping packets through that there is none? If you want unrestricted net access, there are plenty of ways to get it.
Excellent point! The Internet is global, so clearly people posting on Slashdot should only talk about issues which affect people in all countries. Obviously, since nobody in Europe's ever heard of Star Trek (an American television show, for those of you wondering), we should never talk about that again. Unfortunately, nobody in the Congo cares about privacy issues on the Internet, so I guess we can't talk about that either. Heck, I guess this is the end of Slashdot.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, Knuth's "The Art of Computer Programming" reads much better in the original Klingon.
LOTRO had quite a bit of hype behind it on launch, but never really took off (wasn't sufficiently different from WoW to make an impact ...)
What makes you say LOTRO didn't really take off? Multiple expansions later, it's still a very cool game with tons of players (though Turbine doesn't release subscriber numbers). If you mean that it isn't as popular as WoW, I'm sure you're right. But with 11 active servers (including decent European presence) and a 4 year run so far, I'd argue that it definitely "took off".
Eve Online has this trait - you are partly your "character", and partly the ship you happen to be flying.
Don't get too excited about those names - broad names for patents like that are commonplace and typically have no deep meaning. It's the "claims" section of the patent that really matters.
Lots of patent titles look like "Cellular Handset with a Keypad" or "Computer System with Removable Media", without any broad claims at all. Just an odd naming convention. :)
...to think that you could know so much about a human based solely on where she works. MSFT has 60k employees worldwide. You're saying they've all sold their souls and aren't worthy of your no doubt impressive company?
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt by saying that it is you who are incredibly arrogant, whereas I feel most would say you're inexcusably callow.
"This is anathema to the cell networks, who have no intention of allowing voice over IP. For them, data is a means to squeeze more revenue from reluctant customers, not a means to let customers get voice services for less money."
While this is still somewhat true today, all carriers are moving to unlimited plans in-network, and practically unlimited plans otherwise (national tarrifs aside). Data traffic is already covered by bucket or unlimited plans, so I'm not really sure the operators are that worried.
The real incremental revenue source for carriers today is transactional stuff - like $3 "truetones".
In the spirit of the article, it could also be that the North Koreans have extensively hacked/zombied tons of South Korean computers, and now that you foolishly gave them a vector for your capitalist pig-dog computer they pointed the zombies at you. :)
Unlikely, I grant, but South Korea's probably a great target for North Korean hackers: natural enemy state, plus South Korea has the world's greatest penetration on home broadband access.
"...PHBs...won't seek any training from their own IT staff because that would be an admission of 'weakness'"..."
This story is a load of crap. "Training" from IT staff? In what exactly? Like how to use Excel? I've never worked for any company where IT staff teach detailed computer skills (beyond those specific to their network/desktop environment), nor would I consider the IT people I've worked with - who are very good at their actual jobs - to be great teachers.
If a bunch of managers are taking computer classes on their own time, this is a great thing. To assume this means they're afraid to "admit weakness" is just asinine.
I have seen companies offer courses taught by outsiders (in stuff like 'Using Lotus Notes'), and those kind of classes are very well attended by managers.
"...they will someday learn that fluid integration of third party code without user approval is a bad idea?"
I've seen lots of other inaccurate posts to this effect, but I'll pick on yours. In order to use ActiveX controls, they must first be installed by the user (or come preinstalled w/ the browser or OS). Once they're installed, it would be kind of stupid to ask each time if they want to use them. It's like trying to launch Word and getting a dialog like this:
"Holy crap, you're about to launch an application! Applications have object code, which might do bad things. Are you sure [yes/no]?"
For those of you still confused, here's the deal: IE does not install stuff for you without your approval.
It seems a bit too irrational, and ill prepared.
:)
Ah, you must be new to Mr. Raymond's writings. Don't worry, you get used to it.
So what matters more to you? How much actual dough (read: "resources") a country contributes to the world in the form of foreign aid, or how much as a percentage of national income?
Rhetorical question, of course. You're so fucking dumb you think that Uganda contributes more to the world than the U.S. does.
In my experience the USA has the same problem at times.
Arrogance maybe, but I think you'd be hard pressed to say that the U.S. is isolationist. The difference between the U.S. "thinking it's at the center of the earth" and China beliving in Chinese cultural supremecy is that the U.S. has no problems with co-opting other cultures' ideas, technology, entertainment, and what have you.
The Chinese way is much different, and much more odious to me. I feel that the Chinese are akin to the French, in terms of xenophobia. When you see the U.S. passing laws about how many foreign words per hour may be broadcast, then I might agree the U.S. has a problem...
Oh for heaven's sake. If he had "18 different things" in mind for the browser, well, he certainly had the opportunity to put them in.
Ironically, the last true innovation in browsing, IMO, was created by Microsoft: the Trident object model coupled with client-side script. Or possibly an object wrapper for the browser so you could embed IE in your executables.
You know you're hurting when Microsoft is out-innovating you in your own backyard. Sing us another sad song, Marc. Only this time, make it about the opportunity you squandered.
Like China.
Much of what you said would right, if only your facts weren't backwards.
.NET losing to Java? I really don't see a lot of new Java based web services being rolled out. But I see *tons* of .NET ones.
MS losing in Handhelds? Versus what? Palm (with an ever shrinking user base and no new interesting features in years)? Or do you mean all of those Linux PDAs (I wish).
MS SQL Server is growing faster than it's competitors. Claiming that MySQL and PostgreSQL are gaining over SQL Server is just wishful thinking.
I think that your idea that MS is losing ground is wishful thinking. The reality is that MS is doing just fine, thanks to a continued lack of decent competition on the above.
I'm surprised you didn't mention web servers and file servers, where Linux has the clear edge over MS.
Don't use Windows for mission critical applications where money changes hanges. Although these articles only mention it in passing, either in an attempt to remove technical "jargon" or due to a wish to defer to MSFT, it does mention that these guys exploited vulns in NT
Boy, are you ever right on this one! Thank god non-MS operating systems are completely secure...
Right, exactly. And Microsoft is the victim in the previous example.
When you rip off my copyrighted work, I sure get upset. I have a hard time being mad as MS for feeling the same way.
Are American prisons really so spacious that you need to fill them up petty, almost victimless crimes like these?
Hmm. I'm not saying anything, but a lot of people wanted Enron execs jailed for similarly 'victimless' crimes. It's all a matter of degree, isn't it?
Aaah, but why haven't they? I think the answer is pretty clear... :)
"...looks kind of cool but only uses flash memory, so no storage"
Um, so what is flash memory if not storage? The site is currently Slashdotted, so I can't read the review, but flash memory is useful only as storage (excepting flash ICs that support execute-in-place).
Do you mean that it doesn't have very much flash?
Operator overloading is just syntactic sugar, it has nothing to do with object-oriented development. There are a number of non-OO languages that implement this feature. I dislike most uses of operator overloading anyways. Sure, it may "look cleaner" for the above trivial examples, but with multiple overloads and implicit casts, it can be difficult to figure out which function ends up being called. Better to keep things as explicit as you can.
The definitive benefit of object oriented languages is caller-reuse as implemented through polymorphism. In procedural programming, I can reuse called code (a.k.a. functions), but in OO programing I can reuse *caller* code. The shapes example is great to illustrate this: if squares and circles both inheret from a base shape, who implements a "draw" function, I can easily add triangles later, pass them around as references to the base class "shape", and any code that asks a shape to draw it self remains untouched, whereas in procedural programming I have to touch each instance of code that has to do with drawing, and account for the newly added triangle case.
Your new metaphor vapid on so many levels.
You imply that digital data has no intrinsic worth, and therefore can't be stolen. What century are you living in? Future generations will view your analogy as hopelessly anachronistic, something like stories your grandpa tells today about one-room schoolhouses.
And as for the substance of your analogy - "a guy takes nude pix of his wife and puts them up in his window with a sign saying don't look at these" - how does this utterly absurd statement clear things up for you better than the "if you leave your front door unlocked" one? Do you even know what your point is?
To be clear, you don't need GPS technology to track people down using their cell phones. The feds have plenty of ability to do this already. With the help of the FCC and three trucks (or possibly with no trucks and good access to the cell towers), you can be tracked down with great accuracy. That's because your cell phone communicates with a base every few minutes - more often if you're traveling.
Also, though it's not as good as triangulation, tracking you down to a within a relatively small radius is even easier, since your phone is only communicating with one base station at a time.
I imagine that most modern pagers (the ones with a transmitter so you never miss pages) could be used like this too.
Spooky, huh? I've always wondered why E911/GPS couldn't just be implemented by upgrading the cell switches to do auto-triangulation. This gets rid of any GPS antenna issues.
Ha ha - you're outraged about your school blocking ping packets, but you have to ask others to suggest "academic" reasons for why you should be able to?
Has it occurred to you that if you can't think of an academic reason for your school to allow ping packets through that there is none? If you want unrestricted net access, there are plenty of ways to get it.
Excellent point! The Internet is global, so clearly people posting on Slashdot should only talk about issues which affect people in all countries. Obviously, since nobody in Europe's ever heard of Star Trek (an American television show, for those of you wondering), we should never talk about that again. Unfortunately, nobody in the Congo cares about privacy issues on the Internet, so I guess we can't talk about that either. Heck, I guess this is the end of Slashdot.