I don't like MMOs and never will. The very fact that I have to pay to play the games keeps me from caring. Actually, for a large online multiplayer game, a monthly fee is pretty important. Forget the server maintenance argument....
You want to pay because it gives the devs a reason to keep working on the game. New zones; new monsters; new weapons; new game mechanics; game balances; and anti-cheat/hack mechanics.
Sure, some game devs keep releasing stuff (I'm looking at YOU, Valve!), but some folks need some financial motivation to keep enough devs on the game. Blizzard, for example, has added a bunch of new stuff to WoW in the year I've been playing. Thats way more bug fixes and content (by several log units!) than I've seen from EA on BF2/BF2142.
Personally I'd rather have a MMO model where the game costs US$0.00 and depends on the monthly fee for income. That provides incentive for the devs to get working content out there for players at release (otherwise you only get one month of fees form the disgusted players who drop!), as well as keep working on new stuff to keep them longer. It also lowers the barrier to entry so it provides more players, which is always important in a MMO.
I know some headhunters whom I trust and would certainly listen to about every opportunity.
But then you have the other 97%. Like the one who asked me to submit a Word copy of my updated resume in application for a one week position managing Juniper Networks stuff.
My qualifications for this prestigious position ? I'm a programmer, and I did juniper (the tree) DNA extractions for a MS project in college.
I'd agree. not only did I type up school papers on it for years & years, but it had the most enjoyable games. I still love the various Epyx olympic games (Winter games FTW!!!) using a crufty old atari joystick & a squeeky Epyx-stick...
... I'd set up a honeypot limewire/kazaa/torrent/whatever and firewall access such that only the RIAA/MPAA 7 their tools can access it. And then populate the shared directories with files like: BRITNEY_SPEARS_OOPS.MP3 METALICA_ONE.MP3 etc.
Of course the MP3's would just be actual MP3 audio of my kids singing some random song.
While I don't actually WANT to be sued, I would like to see them explain to a judge why they think they own the rights to my kids singing "The RIAA is a bunch of floppity-floofy heads!".
I frequent slashdot (I've been here since 2000) and love sports and have played them all my life. I played football in HS and ran XC and ended up getting a science degree and am now working on my PhD.
I was a NCAA wrestler in college, and currently play hockey with a bunch of Microsoft developers. My undergad is in Genetics, one masters is in Biology, and the other MS is in Computer Science. I'm all schooled out now, but once the kids are grown I may want to go back for further schoolin' in AI.
So I think this qualifies me to comment:
I don't like sci-fi.
FAIL. Whatever your other successes, not liking sci-fi means I have to remove your Nerd Club membership card.
As I understand it, it isn't that they PREVENT or BLOCK alternative desktop search. You can still install Google Desktop Search or Yahoo! Search or whatever search you want. You can use it at will, even. But what they don't let you do is REPLACE the desktop search built into Vista. Their claim (and I have no reason to doubt them) is that there are other pieces of the system which depend on services provided by desktop search. Additionally they did make concessions to Google re: desktop search even tho those were not required by the terms of the settlement.
Microsoft has done enough to earn a good skewering, but desktop search is not one of them. So install & use the one you want. And let this issue go.
See... if Bush invades Sweden he'd bring more Freedom. Like, the Freedom to have more guns. So you could defend yourself against the Enemies of Freedom. Enemies like Bush. Its just a vicious circle.
Now if we colonized Sweden we'd dramatically increase our odds of getting another medal in Olympic hockey. Hmmmm.... On the plus side, I understand Yankee taxes are lower than Swedish taxes. The downside is you'd get Michel Moore coming over and making movies all the time.
As I understand it, the anti-trust settlement doesn't address MS market position directly; it address the usage by MS of its position in order to hinder competition. I don't think anybody would mind if MS made a great product that dominated the competition because it was a superior product. But when they make a mediocre product and actively seek to prevent competition, well... thats another case.
As for international interest in this Sweden thing, yeah... I think its a good point. A 'Win' by MS in Sweden would have been very beneficial for MS here in the US, esp./ as they try to position Office vs Open Office. I wouldn't be surprised if the US judge discusses it with them at their next settlement meeting. However I believe only OS items are covered by the anti-trust settlement. If I where MS I'd maybe worry that some other folks (google, DOJ, states, etc.) might want to revisit the antitrust lawsuit based on this behavior.
If Sweden had oil then maybe Bush would try to liberate its citizens and *FINALLY* bring democracy to those poor, oppressed people. Along with US laws. And Haliburton & Blackwater Security, of course.
Every person I know who has a generic cable-company-provided DVR says it sucks balls. They tell me it freezes, its slow, it crashes, it loses shows, it fails to record.... every damn one of them has reported this. They brag about how they saved a whole $7 off my monthly fee while asking me to burn a copy of the latest BSG because their DVR barfed. Good for them!
I ran into the VM2 a couple years ago, and bought one for home & one for work. I also game a lot, so how the mouse behaved in a gaming situation was important.
I can't use a regular mouse without my hand starting to hurt immediately. With the VM2 & 3 I can use it for a long time without pain. Its a very nice design.
But a weird design.... it takes a day or so to get used to it. But once you do.... you will see another unexpected benefit.. other people will be afraid of your mouse & will stop using your computer! At work I keep a second normal mouse plugged in just in case someone has to come over & use it. But the VM freaks them out enough that most people just stay away...
Both VM2 & 3 have 3 main mouse buttons: left-click, dbl-click, right-click. I hate the dbl-click button, so I always set the middle button to right-click & disable the 3rd button altogether.
The VM2 had a problme where sometimes it would jump around the screen. The VM3 eliminated that issue; its very stable now.
I have no problem with gaming using either mouse. I attribute my low scores to my general suckiness at gaming, not to the hardware.
In short, I'd recommend it to anyone with RSI issues.
I agree. I think they should not only write it off, but should offer the schools a new set of Linux-powered open-standards systems for free, to replace whatever system they have now that managed to lose track of $5M in hardware. And then advertise the hell out their corporate generosity.
The White Lion version is the one that still gets airplay, and its the one I heard first and still like the best. I've got the Golden Earing CD with the Radar Love track, and I tell you.... I'd rather hear the White Lions. Why? The radio station I used to rock out to played White Lion's "Radar Love" followed by White Zombies "Thunderkiss 65" as a combo.
I also have a Lifedrive. Its great, as long as you don't need anything accomplished fast. Which, admittedly, I don't. I love the LD exterior; I wish the hard drive had been a flashdrive instead.
The biggest flaw with the Palm Lifedrive was the software.... even after its second patch which actually did a good job of fixing the horrible crashing issues (now they are just annoying) I found several bugs in the core PDA applications. No matter what else a PDA can do, it has GOT to do the core applets without error! Contacts, tasks, date planner... not terribly hard, but hellfire 7 brimstone if they fsck'em up!
1) A Palm should do the the Mini Apps right, all the time, every time. In the default Contacts app on the Lifedrive, when looking at a contacts, you can't use the navigation buttons to move forward/back in the contact list. Try it a few times and watch it fail to move to the next contact. Then go back to the list, and notice that it HAS updated the pointer to the current contact! So, it does move to the previous/next contact.... it just fails to display them correctly. In fact, if you watch closely you can see the contact detail page flash as it tries & fails to update the screen. I notified Palm about this, because it is a clearly deviant behavior from their previous models (I had a Pilot 5000, Palm VII, and Zire 71 prior to the Lifedrive... so I had some history.....). The Palm reps told me: no Palm device ever let you do this (false); this is how the new Palms do it (false; checked on a Zire 21); it is how the Lifedrive does it now (sadly, true); that they don't see it as a bug (sad); and that it is by design (sad). If a Palm device can't do the simple PDA apps correctly then its a failure. Palm apparently thought it was by design.
2) The Palm Desktop has always been ugly. Has the look & feel of Win3.1. In the latest version, at some point it would start deciding that new tasks were all due by 12/31/2031. If you assigned a date then you were ok; if you forgot... well, dec. 31, 2031 might end up being a pretty packed day. Luckily Palm had an answer for this one: the rep told me it was by design because no date was provided, so it assigned the furthest date possible. I asked him who actually thought this was useful behavior? He had no answer, other than it was by design. Some folks didn't have this issue; for other it would suddenly strike & never go away...
3) Bonus points for being sloppy. The LD has a WiFi adapter. If you are WiFi connected, and then stop surfing porn on the tiny screen and play solitaire, you can tell when the device disconnects from the Intarwebs after a period of inactivity because your Solitaire game will suddenly start a new game. Luckily you can just hit the 'undo' key in Solitaire to revert. But still.... two patches & no fix? Sloppy.
I love my Lifedrive, but lack of attention to detail made me decide that its the last Palm device I'll buy. Palm OS5 is whimpering? Must be by design.
While I agree that Google should do this, and I think most people would agree, I do find it interesting that Slashers think its OK for Google to use an Opt-Out strategy whereas spammers are pilloried for trying the same thing. Both involve someone offering you a service which you didn't request, and you (not them) have to do something to make it stop.
You should let it go. Give in the Video Game Overlords -- your life will be happier and safer if you just let Steam manage things for you!
I didn't think Steam was a good idea, and my stomach churned when I realized I would have to use Steam to play HL2.
Yeah, well, I got over it. I love Steam. I want to marry Steam. I want to have Steams red-headed, frecklefaced, low-attention-span, high-activity children!
The benefits: no CD-based copy-protection. No scratched CDs that will no longer play. Faster & automatic updates.
The negatives: once my ISP went down, and Steam didn't want to enter offline mode. I was not happy. But it turned out to be a user error. Steam should make it easier & more obvious to enter offline mode.
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You want to pay because it gives the devs a reason to keep working on the game. New zones; new monsters; new weapons; new game mechanics; game balances; and anti-cheat/hack mechanics.
Sure, some game devs keep releasing stuff (I'm looking at YOU, Valve!), but some folks need some financial motivation to keep enough devs on the game. Blizzard, for example, has added a bunch of new stuff to WoW in the year I've been playing. Thats way more bug fixes and content (by several log units!) than I've seen from EA on BF2/BF2142.
Personally I'd rather have a MMO model where the game costs US$0.00 and depends on the monthly fee for income. That provides incentive for the devs to get working content out there for players at release (otherwise you only get one month of fees form the disgusted players who drop!), as well as keep working on new stuff to keep them longer. It also lowers the barrier to entry so it provides more players, which is always important in a MMO.
Many of the 103M ps2 owners probably own another console and would buy that version instead.
But quite a few wouldn't, so it would be kinda lame to ignore them.
I have a PC & a PS2, but I'd rather buy it for my Wii.
I'd be all over this like a bully taking candy from a baby.
Background on the tag:
http://www.itprotips.com/memes/slashdot/OMGPOWNIES
These guys have a good summary of stuff to do to protect you & your network from 4/1 shenanigans.
http://www.itprotips.com/defence/NoPrankZone/
I know some headhunters whom I trust and would certainly listen to about every opportunity.
But then you have the other 97%. Like the one who asked me to submit a Word copy of my updated resume in application for a one week position managing Juniper Networks stuff.
My qualifications for this prestigious position ? I'm a programmer, and I did juniper (the tree) DNA extractions for a MS project in college.
I'd agree. not only did I type up school papers on it for years & years, but it had the most enjoyable games. I still love the various Epyx olympic games (Winter games FTW!!!) using a crufty old atari joystick & a squeeky Epyx-stick...
installs Visual Asisst http://www.wholetomato.com/
Yep. Works great now.
(No, I don't work there. Just been a long-time customer.)
I warned you I was too lazy.....
... I'd set up a honeypot limewire/kazaa/torrent/whatever and firewall access such that only the RIAA/MPAA 7 their tools can access it. And then populate the shared directories with files like:
BRITNEY_SPEARS_OOPS.MP3
METALICA_ONE.MP3
etc.
Of course the MP3's would just be actual MP3 audio of my kids singing some random song.
While I don't actually WANT to be sued, I would like to see them explain to a judge why they think they own the rights to my kids singing "The RIAA is a bunch of floppity-floofy heads!".
If only I wasn't so lazy...
I was a NCAA wrestler in college, and currently play hockey with a bunch of Microsoft developers. My undergad is in Genetics, one masters is in Biology, and the other MS is in Computer Science. I'm all schooled out now, but once the kids are grown I may want to go back for further schoolin' in AI.
So I think this qualifies me to comment:
FAIL.
Whatever your other successes, not liking sci-fi means I have to remove your Nerd Club membership card.
Build a Man a Fire, and he is Warm for a Day
Set a Man on Fire, and he is Warm for the Rest of His Life
As I understand it, it isn't that they PREVENT or BLOCK alternative desktop search. You can still install Google Desktop Search or Yahoo! Search or whatever search you want. You can use it at will, even. But what they don't let you do is REPLACE the desktop search built into Vista. Their claim (and I have no reason to doubt them) is that there are other pieces of the system which depend on services provided by desktop search. Additionally they did make concessions to Google re: desktop search even tho those were not required by the terms of the settlement.
Microsoft has done enough to earn a good skewering, but desktop search is not one of them. So install & use the one you want. And let this issue go.
See... if Bush invades Sweden he'd bring more Freedom. Like, the Freedom to have more guns. So you could defend yourself against the Enemies of Freedom. Enemies like Bush. Its just a vicious circle.
Now if we colonized Sweden we'd dramatically increase our odds of getting another medal in Olympic hockey. Hmmmm.... On the plus side, I understand Yankee taxes are lower than Swedish taxes. The downside is you'd get Michel Moore coming over and making movies all the time.
As I understand it, the anti-trust settlement doesn't address MS market position directly; it address the usage by MS of its position in order to hinder competition. I don't think anybody would mind if MS made a great product that dominated the competition because it was a superior product. But when they make a mediocre product and actively seek to prevent competition, well... thats another case.
As for international interest in this Sweden thing, yeah... I think its a good point. A 'Win' by MS in Sweden would have been very beneficial for MS here in the US, esp./ as they try to position Office vs Open Office. I wouldn't be surprised if the US judge discusses it with them at their next settlement meeting. However I believe only OS items are covered by the anti-trust settlement. If I where MS I'd maybe worry that some other folks (google, DOJ, states, etc.) might want to revisit the antitrust lawsuit based on this behavior.
If Sweden had oil then maybe Bush would try to liberate its citizens and *FINALLY* bring democracy to those poor, oppressed people. Along with US laws. And Haliburton & Blackwater Security, of course.
Every person I know who has a generic cable-company-provided DVR says it sucks balls. They tell me it freezes, its slow, it crashes, it loses shows, it fails to record.... every damn one of them has reported this. They brag about how they saved a whole $7 off my monthly fee while asking me to burn a copy of the latest BSG because their DVR barfed. Good for them!
I ran into the VM2 a couple years ago, and bought one for home & one for work. I also game a lot, so how the mouse behaved in a gaming situation was important.
I can't use a regular mouse without my hand starting to hurt immediately. With the VM2 & 3 I can use it for a long time without pain. Its a very nice design.
But a weird design.... it takes a day or so to get used to it. But once you do.... you will see another unexpected benefit.. other people will be afraid of your mouse & will stop using your computer! At work I keep a second normal mouse plugged in just in case someone has to come over & use it. But the VM freaks them out enough that most people just stay away...
Both VM2 & 3 have 3 main mouse buttons: left-click, dbl-click, right-click. I hate the dbl-click button, so I always set the middle button to right-click & disable the 3rd button altogether.
The VM2 had a problme where sometimes it would jump around the screen. The VM3 eliminated that issue; its very stable now.
I have no problem with gaming using either mouse. I attribute my low scores to my general suckiness at gaming, not to the hardware.
In short, I'd recommend it to anyone with RSI issues.
I agree. I think they should not only write it off, but should offer the schools a new set of Linux-powered open-standards systems for free, to replace whatever system they have now that managed to lose track of $5M in hardware. And then advertise the hell out their corporate generosity.
The White Lion version is the one that still gets airplay, and its the one I heard first and still like the best. I've got the Golden Earing CD with the Radar Love track, and I tell you.... I'd rather hear the White Lions. Why? The radio station I used to rock out to played White Lion's "Radar Love" followed by White Zombies "Thunderkiss 65" as a combo.
Nethack ?
I also have a Lifedrive. Its great, as long as you don't need anything accomplished fast. Which, admittedly, I don't. I love the LD exterior; I wish the hard drive had been a flashdrive instead.
The biggest flaw with the Palm Lifedrive was the software.... even after its second patch which actually did a good job of fixing the horrible crashing issues (now they are just annoying) I found several bugs in the core PDA applications. No matter what else a PDA can do, it has GOT to do the core applets without error! Contacts, tasks, date planner... not terribly hard, but hellfire 7 brimstone if they fsck'em up!
1) A Palm should do the the Mini Apps right, all the time, every time. In the default Contacts app on the Lifedrive, when looking at a contacts, you can't use the navigation buttons to move forward/back in the contact list. Try it a few times and watch it fail to move to the next contact. Then go back to the list, and notice that it HAS updated the pointer to the current contact! So, it does move to the previous/next contact.... it just fails to display them correctly. In fact, if you watch closely you can see the contact detail page flash as it tries & fails to update the screen. I notified Palm about this, because it is a clearly deviant behavior from their previous models (I had a Pilot 5000, Palm VII, and Zire 71 prior to the Lifedrive... so I had some history.....). The Palm reps told me: no Palm device ever let you do this (false); this is how the new Palms do it (false; checked on a Zire 21); it is how the Lifedrive does it now (sadly, true); that they don't see it as a bug (sad); and that it is by design (sad). If a Palm device can't do the simple PDA apps correctly then its a failure. Palm apparently thought it was by design.
2) The Palm Desktop has always been ugly. Has the look & feel of Win3.1. In the latest version, at some point it would start deciding that new tasks were all due by 12/31/2031. If you assigned a date then you were ok; if you forgot... well, dec. 31, 2031 might end up being a pretty packed day. Luckily Palm had an answer for this one: the rep told me it was by design because no date was provided, so it assigned the furthest date possible. I asked him who actually thought this was useful behavior? He had no answer, other than it was by design. Some folks didn't have this issue; for other it would suddenly strike & never go away...
3) Bonus points for being sloppy. The LD has a WiFi adapter. If you are WiFi connected, and then stop surfing porn on the tiny screen and play solitaire, you can tell when the device disconnects from the Intarwebs after a period of inactivity because your Solitaire game will suddenly start a new game. Luckily you can just hit the 'undo' key in Solitaire to revert. But still.... two patches & no fix? Sloppy.
I love my Lifedrive, but lack of attention to detail made me decide that its the last Palm device I'll buy. Palm OS5 is whimpering? Must be by design.
While I agree that Google should do this, and I think most people would agree, I do find it interesting that Slashers think its OK for Google to use an Opt-Out strategy whereas spammers are pilloried for trying the same thing. Both involve someone offering you a service which you didn't request, and you (not them) have to do something to make it stop.
You should let it go. Give in the Video Game Overlords -- your life will be happier and safer if you just let Steam manage things for you!
I didn't think Steam was a good idea, and my stomach churned when I realized I would have to use Steam to play HL2.
Yeah, well, I got over it. I love Steam. I want to marry Steam. I want to have Steams red-headed, frecklefaced, low-attention-span, high-activity children!
The benefits: no CD-based copy-protection. No scratched CDs that will no longer play. Faster & automatic updates.
The negatives: once my ISP went down, and Steam didn't want to enter offline mode. I was not happy. But it turned out to be a user error. Steam should make it easier & more obvious to enter offline mode.