It always boggled me why people stopped using it.
In my experience it was the best im arround.
For the less demanding user it was simple to set up and easy to use but there also were tons of features for the "poweruser". I really loved that client.
Now everyone and his dog are using msn messenger (at least here in europe) and thus I was basicly was forced to make that move. But for me msn doesnt even come close to icq.
Exactly,
A While ago I read an article that a compromised WoW account is worth more on the market then a stolen cc number. Thus WoW accounts make a excellent target for trojans and keyloggers.
Even if you're a casual player you most likely have invested 100's of hours in your character/account.
The treat of losing this because you have a stupid 8 year old nephew or you just weren't' paying attention with a download is very real. So 6 bucks for some extra protection is well spent money imo
So just that I understand this correctly. A university gets acces to such a badass piece of hardware which seems to me as a pretty expensive toy and basicly you're wondering what the fuck to do with it?
This seems like a pretty big waste of money to me. I'm sure there are lot's of other uni's and research groups who'd die for such a machine and would make sure that thing would be working it's ass of 24/7 for the couple of years at least.
They'll buy it instantly.
Just not under the flag and name of Disney. Some anonymous side company will buy em and only a handful of people will know who the real owner is.
If you forbid someone something and grant them acces to it 9 out of 10 people *will* take a look. Combine that with the powertrip most people get when put in a control position it get's to good to bet let alone.
For those reasons alone I never trust any sysadmin anywhere, period.
At work or anywhere else I simply asume some admin will read my email on a bored day and I simply asume he will browse through my files the other day.
The end of the line instances aren't just there to accommodate the 5% of players that actually can have a shot in there.
It's also implemented to still have a carrot ready for the raiders that have a lower pace.
Everything in WoW is build around the philosophy that no matter what you do, how hard you try, how much time you invest. There is always some reward or instance just out of reach for you.
They will give you the idea that if you just try a tad harder you might reach it. That is, until a new patch with more/newer/harder content is released.
With many guilds now in BT and MH there was a need for a even harder instance so that players would continue coughing up money so they might get there someday.
The bottom line of playing WoW is that you're always chasing a carrot on a stick (no pun intended) and when you think you've finnaly got the damn carrot Blizzard makes sure you don't.
The thing is that average joe doesn't understand, wants to understand or tries to understand what all those numbers mean that are listed under "recommended system req"
My girlfriend is a avid gamer, not even totally computer illiterate. But she wouldn't know the difference between a geforce 4 and a 8800GT. She just knows she needs new stuff when the games go choppy, but she wouldnt know what "stuff" she would need.
The big crowd just wants to know if "their computer" is able to run that game, not going through all the fuss of figuring out what component is how fast and what version it is.
I had a good example today. I spend about 2 weeks of reading reviews, browsing through a variety of (webshops) to put together a very decent gaming system for a reasonable price (the budget was about 700 euros).
When I told my friend he said I was insane because I could buy a ready to go pc for less then 400 euros too.
He's the kind of guy that needs a sticker to tell him if he can play a game or not. And with him there is the big majority of people.
Oh and the Die Hard movies too because they can be training tools for terrorists. If that means Bruce Willis would get a life sentence and never make a movie again, there might be something positive about all this madness.
I still pay for music. If I like a album, I'll go out and buy it *if* it has a reasonable price.
No mp3 or iTunes song can replace the feeling of popping a brand new cd into your player while you ponder through the pages of the booklet and watching your cd collection grow each time. It's a bit like eating in a good restaurant vs a snack in mcDonalds
However, the days are over that I'll go into a shop and blindly pay 35 euro's for a cd.
The way I see it is that artists and recordlabels just have to give me a fair price. I as a customer give them a choice. A: I can download it for free. B: give me a reasonable price and I'll buy it.
For me personally, there is a small C too. Some bands have given me so much joy in the past that I'll just buy their next album, no matter what. Metallica being one of them;-)
Yeah, I know currently they have this "do no evil" motto, which can be modified in the non too distant future I'm pretty sure that everyone knows in the back of their head that the 'do no evil' thing *is* going to change someday. Yet we all use it on a daily basis and about half of the worlds population (ok, that pushing it I know) is dumping basically their life in google's databases.
Google's power grows day by day, month by month, year after year. That power *will* be abused someday. It's there, just waiting for it to happen. Power corrupts, that's pretty much a historically proven fact.
By the time Skynet had become self aware it had spread into millions of computer servers across the planet. Ordinary computers in office buildings, dorm rooms, everywhere. It was software and cyberspace. There was no system core. It could not be shut down.
Replace skynet with google and wait a few more years.
From what I've seen by cruising through the city the Chinese are building skyscrapers by the hundreds. (at least for a Dutchy they look like skyscrapers;-))
No matter in what part of town I was, all I could see was construction site after construction site of huge apartment buildings being erected. It was pretty mind boggling to see. I have no idea if those homes would be enough to house 1.5 million people but I am pretty sure they can relocate a *very* large portion of the evicted people.
From what I gather from the article is that the film crew just pulled up to a military base and asked if they could shoot some film/pictures in there.
It sounds to me that the guys that were filming just wanted a challenge, see how far they can get waving a "google-film-crew" badge. Or just try for giggles, who knows.
Anyway, it seems to me the military is the erroneous party involved here, if you just let a citizen drive up your base and let them film, something is definatly wrong with your security
If only other developers would spend about 10% of Blizzards amount of support to their games I'd be spending a shitload more money on purchasing new games.
WCIII is almost 6 years old now, and still Blizzard looks for ways to improve the experience.
This dedication to strive for perfection is the sole reason I have every single game they released sitting on my shelf.
Alternatively, this is also the reason I have only one EA game sitting on that same shelf. I got fooled once, won't happen twice.
You could argue that this patch is long overdue, but the fact that they even spend some resources on it is something to be hailed.
I think we can all agree here that this isn't a coincidence anymore.
But I just can't stop thinking why anyone would do this and wich value it would have.
Strategic value in preparation for war?
It seems to me that if you want to disrupt communication you'd focus on internal lines, not the external ones. Even if you'd cut of Iran completely their internal networks will still function.
Destroy all communication seems a bit far fetched, you'd need to do a lot more then this and a lot faster. There are still a lot of landlines left not to mention satelites, ground phone lines, hell even a pigeon can still do a lot of comm.
Terrorist attack?
If it is they picked the wrong continent (you should have googled a bit more Osama!). Besides, also for terrorist organisations the net is of great value for communication and coordination. It seems a bit silly to cut of your own recources.
Islamic Extremists?
The internet is the root of all evil and must be removed from our Sacred Land? If you have the money, skill and organisation to pull this of you also have the brains to realise that the cables will be restored in 1 or 2 weeks. The effort vs effect ratio is horrible, so that's a very unlikely scenario.
Cutting and tapping the lines?
For each line that get's cut you'd need a second physical line next to it to start tapping it. Apart from the fact that such a operation will get noticed it seems to me that there are other cheaper and more stealth methods to achieve this.
The only reason I can think of is that it's just a test.
Just a test/excersise from someone to see what the effects are when such a disruption happens.
What are the effects on the population, how will they react? Same with world news and governemts, how much exposure and repsonse does such a event get?
Does it impact the economy, and by how much?
How much effort, time and money does it cost to cut of a certain region?
How much time does it take to restore it.
How resilient will they be and find alternative methods and routes?
And so on. There would be much to be learned from from such a operation. A cyberwar simulation, but then taken to the next level
If you've done nothing wrong,you have nothing to fear. Just so long as they don't redifine what's wrong, with retro-active effect This argument is so old and dull.
That still doesn't have to mean everyone has to know everything about me. My life is my business and no one elses. Other then that, since when do humans make no mistakes and mix ups?
Besides, if you really don't have anything to hide I pity you for your very boring life.
For a short stay it's just a humorous thought at most, most sane humans can cope with a few sexless months.(though sex in space seems like a lot of fun;p)
But I wonder what NASA is planning to do on longer spaceflights, say 2 to 5 years orso.
If we ever get to the point of far distance human exploring, human interaction including the sexual kind is something that needs to be carefully thought of. I assume they'd want a mixed group of males and females to keep some kind of balance.
It would be inevitable that at least some of them would get a desire for sex during such a long stay. Even if it's just to get some stress relief. One could argue that you should let nature take it's course just as we do in our every day life, but the situation there would be kind of different.
For example, say if you'd have 5 man and 5 woman. And by chance NASA picked 5 stonecoldfreezing woman who'd have no problems with a few years of celibacy and a few of the guys have a bit above average of testosterone... I can imagine some disasterous situations.
Anyone have any idea how these kind of social interaction problems are being dealt with at NASA?
I'm actually surprised this happened only just now.
The RIAA must be one of the most hated computer related organizations on the planet.
I'm pretty sure a lot of people have attempted to hack the RIAA in one way or another. I mean c'mon, if you're into the "black-hat" thing and you're looking for a new target wouldn't the RIAA be a very obvious and satisfying target?
'I took the RIAA' down!, now that would be one hell of a e-peen enlarger.
Though the method used now was really really sloppy on their side. I can imagine their internal IT team must deal with a lot of attack attempts, so this being the first time, doesn't that make the RIAA pretty much bulletproof?
I've often wondered what would happen if it somehow get's out to the public that we have received a signal from a alien origin.
If, big if, we can somehow manage to prove without any doubt that some other species in space has sent a signal or message. I think it would/could be very beneficial to the human race.
It could raise the awareness that the individual human is a almost meaningless small part of the universe, it would raise global thinking and consciousness. No more this is my land but this is our world instead. Religions could be tossed away, or at least all the "holy" texts would have to be rewritten thoroughly, God created 'our race'... history!, God created mankind and those other guys out there.
The two biggest reasons for humans to wage war on each other would be almost assimilated.
Of course, this would never happen, religious and political leaders would go mental since that would be the biggest threat to their power ever. Instead they would try to frighten us, OBL was a pussy, Zergia from planet666 is the new enemy.
Slashdot Mirror
It always boggled me why people stopped using it. In my experience it was the best im arround. For the less demanding user it was simple to set up and easy to use but there also were tons of features for the "poweruser". I really loved that client.
Now everyone and his dog are using msn messenger (at least here in europe) and thus I was basicly was forced to make that move. But for me msn doesnt even come close to icq.
No, he's winning because it WORKS.
I bet they aren't using Vista then ;-)
Exactly,
A While ago I read an article that a compromised WoW account is worth more on the market then a stolen cc number. Thus WoW accounts make a excellent target for trojans and keyloggers.
Even if you're a casual player you most likely have invested 100's of hours in your character/account.
The treat of losing this because you have a stupid 8 year old nephew or you just weren't' paying attention with a download is very real. So 6 bucks for some extra protection is well spent money imo
Darwin, is that you?
So at times when there's no stuff to crunch
So just that I understand this correctly. A university gets acces to such a badass piece of hardware which seems to me as a pretty expensive toy and basicly you're wondering what the fuck to do with it?
This seems like a pretty big waste of money to me. I'm sure there are lot's of other uni's and research groups who'd die for such a machine and would make sure that thing would be working it's ass of 24/7 for the couple of years at least.
Assuming that only 10% of all /.ers RTFA, that means that the site can support only 1 simultaneous user.
10%?You're the optimistic kinda guy aren't you?
They'll buy it instantly.
Just not under the flag and name of Disney. Some anonymous side company will buy em and only a handful of people will know who the real owner is.
Humans are curious by nature.
If you forbid someone something and grant them acces to it 9 out of 10 people *will* take a look. Combine that with the powertrip most people get when put in a control position it get's to good to bet let alone.
For those reasons alone I never trust any sysadmin anywhere, period.
At work or anywhere else I simply asume some admin will read my email on a bored day and I simply asume he will browse through my files the other day.
The end of the line instances aren't just there to accommodate the 5% of players that actually can have a shot in there.
It's also implemented to still have a carrot ready for the raiders that have a lower pace.
Everything in WoW is build around the philosophy that no matter what you do, how hard you try, how much time you invest. There is always some reward or instance just out of reach for you.
They will give you the idea that if you just try a tad harder you might reach it. That is, until a new patch with more/newer/harder content is released.
With many guilds now in BT and MH there was a need for a even harder instance so that players would continue coughing up money so they might get there someday.
The bottom line of playing WoW is that you're always chasing a carrot on a stick (no pun intended) and when you think you've finnaly got the damn carrot Blizzard makes sure you don't.
The thing is that average joe doesn't understand, wants to understand or tries to understand what all those numbers mean that are listed under "recommended system req"
My girlfriend is a avid gamer, not even totally computer illiterate. But she wouldn't know the difference between a geforce 4 and a 8800GT. She just knows she needs new stuff when the games go choppy, but she wouldnt know what "stuff" she would need.
The big crowd just wants to know if "their computer" is able to run that game, not going through all the fuss of figuring out what component is how fast and what version it is.
I had a good example today. I spend about 2 weeks of reading reviews, browsing through a variety of (webshops) to put together a very decent gaming system for a reasonable price (the budget was about 700 euros).
When I told my friend he said I was insane because I could buy a ready to go pc for less then 400 euros too.
He's the kind of guy that needs a sticker to tell him if he can play a game or not. And with him there is the big majority of people.
I still pay for music. If I like a album, I'll go out and buy it *if* it has a reasonable price.
;-)
No mp3 or iTunes song can replace the feeling of popping a brand new cd into your player while you ponder through the pages of the booklet and watching your cd collection grow each time. It's a bit like eating in a good restaurant vs a snack in mcDonalds
However, the days are over that I'll go into a shop and blindly pay 35 euro's for a cd.
The way I see it is that artists and recordlabels just have to give me a fair price. I as a customer give them a choice. A: I can download it for free. B: give me a reasonable price and I'll buy it.
For me personally, there is a small C too. Some bands have given me so much joy in the past that I'll just buy their next album, no matter what. Metallica being one of them
Google's power grows day by day, month by month, year after year. That power *will* be abused someday. It's there, just waiting for it to happen. Power corrupts, that's pretty much a historically proven fact.
By the time Skynet had become self aware it had spread into millions of computer servers across the planet. Ordinary computers in office buildings, dorm rooms, everywhere. It was software and cyberspace. There was no system core. It could not be shut down.
Replace skynet with google and wait a few more years.
I've been in Beijing about 5 months ago.
;-))
From what I've seen by cruising through the city the Chinese are building skyscrapers by the hundreds. (at least for a Dutchy they look like skyscrapers
No matter in what part of town I was, all I could see was construction site after construction site of huge apartment buildings being erected. It was pretty mind boggling to see. I have no idea if those homes would be enough to house 1.5 million people but I am pretty sure they can relocate a *very* large portion of the evicted people.
Cellphone small but noticeable difference.
From what I gather from the article is that the film crew just pulled up to a military base and asked if they could shoot some film/pictures in there.
It sounds to me that the guys that were filming just wanted a challenge, see how far they can get waving a "google-film-crew" badge. Or just try for giggles, who knows.
Anyway, it seems to me the military is the erroneous party involved here, if you just let a citizen drive up your base and let them film, something is definatly wrong with your security
If only other developers would spend about 10% of Blizzards amount of support to their games I'd be spending a shitload more money on purchasing new games.
WCIII is almost 6 years old now, and still Blizzard looks for ways to improve the experience.
This dedication to strive for perfection is the sole reason I have every single game they released sitting on my shelf.
Alternatively, this is also the reason I have only one EA game sitting on that same shelf. I got fooled once, won't happen twice.
You could argue that this patch is long overdue, but the fact that they even spend some resources on it is something to be hailed.
I think we can all agree here that this isn't a coincidence anymore.
But I just can't stop thinking why anyone would do this and wich value it would have.
Strategic value in preparation for war?
It seems to me that if you want to disrupt communication you'd focus on internal lines, not the external ones. Even if you'd cut of Iran completely their internal networks will still function. Destroy all communication seems a bit far fetched, you'd need to do a lot more then this and a lot faster. There are still a lot of landlines left not to mention satelites, ground phone lines, hell even a pigeon can still do a lot of comm.
Terrorist attack?
If it is they picked the wrong continent (you should have googled a bit more Osama!). Besides, also for terrorist organisations the net is of great value for communication and coordination. It seems a bit silly to cut of your own recources.
Islamic Extremists?
The internet is the root of all evil and must be removed from our Sacred Land? If you have the money, skill and organisation to pull this of you also have the brains to realise that the cables will be restored in 1 or 2 weeks. The effort vs effect ratio is horrible, so that's a very unlikely scenario.
Cutting and tapping the lines?
For each line that get's cut you'd need a second physical line next to it to start tapping it. Apart from the fact that such a operation will get noticed it seems to me that there are other cheaper and more stealth methods to achieve this.
The only reason I can think of is that it's just a test.
Just a test/excersise from someone to see what the effects are when such a disruption happens.
What are the effects on the population, how will they react? Same with world news and governemts, how much exposure and repsonse does such a event get?
Does it impact the economy, and by how much?
How much effort, time and money does it cost to cut of a certain region?
How much time does it take to restore it.
How resilient will they be and find alternative methods and routes? And so on. There would be much to be learned from from such a operation. A cyberwar simulation, but then taken to the next level
I'm placing my bets on this one.......
That still doesn't have to mean everyone has to know everything about me. My life is my business and no one elses. Other then that, since when do humans make no mistakes and mix ups?
Besides, if you really don't have anything to hide I pity you for your very boring life.
For a short stay it's just a humorous thought at most, most sane humans can cope with a few sexless months.(though sex in space seems like a lot of fun ;p)
But I wonder what NASA is planning to do on longer spaceflights, say 2 to 5 years orso.
If we ever get to the point of far distance human exploring, human interaction including the sexual kind is something that needs to be carefully thought of. I assume they'd want a mixed group of males and females to keep some kind of balance.
It would be inevitable that at least some of them would get a desire for sex during such a long stay. Even if it's just to get some stress relief. One could argue that you should let nature take it's course just as we do in our every day life, but the situation there would be kind of different.
For example, say if you'd have 5 man and 5 woman. And by chance NASA picked 5 stonecoldfreezing woman who'd have no problems with a few years of celibacy and a few of the guys have a bit above average of testosterone... I can imagine some disasterous situations.
Anyone have any idea how these kind of social interaction problems are being dealt with at NASA?
So men are now downgraded to just a lustobject?
Ofcourse that's very sad and tragic. But I can live with it.
Looks like the Chinese cleared up a bit more then just rain.
I'm actually surprised this happened only just now.
:)
The RIAA must be one of the most hated computer related organizations on the planet.
I'm pretty sure a lot of people have attempted to hack the RIAA in one way or another. I mean c'mon, if you're into the "black-hat" thing and you're looking for a new target wouldn't the RIAA be a very obvious and satisfying target?
'I took the RIAA' down!, now that would be one hell of a e-peen enlarger.
Though the method used now was really really sloppy on their side. I can imagine their internal IT team must deal with a lot of attack attempts, so this being the first time, doesn't that make the RIAA pretty much bulletproof?
That being said...
HA!
I've often wondered what would happen if it somehow get's out to the public that we have received a signal from a alien origin.
If, big if, we can somehow manage to prove without any doubt that some other species in space has sent a signal or message. I think it would/could be very beneficial to the human race.
It could raise the awareness that the individual human is a almost meaningless small part of the universe, it would raise global thinking and consciousness. No more this is my land but this is our world instead. Religions could be tossed away, or at least all the "holy" texts would have to be rewritten thoroughly, God created 'our race'... history!, God created mankind and those other guys out there.
The two biggest reasons for humans to wage war on each other would be almost assimilated.
Of course, this would never happen, religious and political leaders would go mental since that would be the biggest threat to their power ever. Instead they would try to frighten us, OBL was a pussy, Zergia from planet666 is the new enemy.
But hey, a man can still have his dreams right?
You were going strong until CNN's brainwashing kicked in.