Remember, in any mmporpg your first character should be a buff character, a cleric, healer, enchanter, druid, shaman, mage, whatever the buff class you like the best (but preferably something with a reasonable heal and a 'ress' or in ac2's case-- vitae reduction.) After you get your first character to max level you can sell power level time on ebay or you can power level yourself to get your 'real' character to the level you want or whatever.
Actually, anyone who is seriously going to play will have several accounts anyways, it's hard to power level yourself with a single account. So this basically does... nothing except screw the people who have less money and let the people who have more money irl have more stuff.
> It might be unethical, but these days, it seems > that more and more so called "professionals" > were sick the day they taught ethics in school.
No, not really, but a single ethics course doesn't do a tremendous ammount for someone who is unethical, hell 2000 ethics courses aren't going to do it either if they're unethical. One thing is interesting, I've taken several ethics classes... the older ones were much less fluff and much more ethics, newer ones are there simply because they have to have the course to be reputable.
... i'm glad i can just disable unrequested popups and block most of the major ad sites.
I think i'd go insane if i had to deal with anymore bs advertising. Almost any number of clicks a site gets are totally accidental, I really don't believe people enjoy or buy anything from popups.
That is so true, when I was in school I got copies of Office Pro, 98SE, NT3.51, Photoshop, etc at STUDENT PRICES (generally $25-100) and I was broke as hell, and I still bought them... I could have easily pirated them, but I wanted legal copies and they were reasonably priced, now I see the price on office xp pro and go 'piss on that, they're out of their mind.' Photoshop isn't TO bad, I just keep getting the upgrade:).
If more software/music publishers priced their software more reasonably, they would get many more sales, in this day and age of increasingly cheap hardware... why should I pay almost as much for 2-3 software programs as I paid for my entire top of the line computer (XP Pro, Office XP Pro, Photoshop.)?
You also missed the major exception for "For the religious right, about how there are no aliens, and if there are, they are the work of Satan."
- Fringe Exception: There are aliens! The bible tells us so... the flaming wheel in a wheel!
Also the though occurs: Heaven's Gate. Whee. Wonder how many suicides confirming aliens would result in...
I don't know, I think our longest uptime was a bit over 3 years and was tied between a Linux machine and a Sol7 machine. What finally ended both was the failure of power, ups backups (after about 60 minutes), and generators. The chance of all three failing the way they did absolutely was unpredictable. In the unix world most patches you end up making are to daemons (webservers, database servers, custom daemons, etc)... NOT to the kernel. Windows has many unix features in its kernel space... and they CAN'T be removed entirely or restarted independantly.
In a true mission critical enviroment you don't have a single machine, you have several load balancing redundant machines to take over if there is a problem with the primary machine. Windows may achieve the same uptime as some unix enterprise solutions, but not in any functional enviroment. Sure, I can sit a Sol7 machine on a shelf and a windows machine on the shelf and provided I've managed to patch all the memory leaks, both are going to run until the cows come home or the hardware fails (although it wasn't a tremendously long time ago that nt had a memory leak at the login screen...) even with load generators a well designed, fresh installed computer will run indefinetly. I can also do that with linux. Hell, I can probally do that with windows98.
When it really comes down to it, any mission critical system you are willing to spend an appropriate ammount of time designing will be up to the task required for it be it 99.99999% uptime or 100% uptime. Operating system is largely illrelevent, and in the end you *really* can't compare windows 2000 or linux to some of the older enterprise systems... they've been running for 15 years now (some longer) and will continue running for another 15 years unless someone manually shuts them down. Windows 2000 and linux don't yet have the lifespan to compare to that kind of reliability.
A good unix admin has spent at LEAST 3-5 years LEARNING his trade. Thus commands a reasonable income.
A good windows admin has spent at LEAST 30-45 seconds learning that rebooting will fix 99% of windows problems in a manor no one will know the diff between that and a real fix.
See? Windows IS easier to admin.
Honestly however, I worked at an isp where we had half a dozen windows 2000 and about 3 dozen unix (freebsd, slackware, sol7, and irix) machines. I spent ~2-3 hours a day working on the windows machines to keep them in tiptop shape while the most I ever did for the unix machines after the initial setup was occasionally add a service the automatic setup service we wrote for our customers couldn't handle or replace a raid drive when it died.
Unix works as well as the hardware it runs on, end of story. It's very easy to automate. It's almost impos to kill without manual deletion of everything or hardware failure.
Windows is iffy. A bad patch will terminate windows in a very perm, unrecoverable way. The registry is a trashheap. There is no good way to automate tasks in windows with out a macro recorder, and god forbid someone leave a window up.
A good admin of any variety is a pricey beast. Most people think just because someone has a bunch of capitalized letters infront of their name with the word 'microsoft' attached to one of them that the person is qualified to run their network... which is just plain stupid.
Interesting thought, that doesn't apply to this project because realistically they are modifiying existing life not creating new life... but anyways, if we do finally create life from scratch, does that make the scientist in charge a god?
> This is interesting research, but we have to be > wary. The Frankenstein effect (as postulated by > Bains et al.) could cause the researchers to > overestimate their ability to control their > creation, leading to the extinction of > humanity.
> and harsh penalties to prevent anything > untoward from happening.
uhm... isn't the extinction of humanity a pretty harsh penalty? I think if someone creates something that destroys the entire human race... well, lets not punish them, I think they are already punished enough.
Ability to read has nothing to do with ability to correctly punctuate a sentance or spell. I was reading at a college level in junior high, I personally read about 250-350 pages an hour with excellent comprehension. However, I can't spell, and my gramatical style is brutal. A writer I am not, a reader I am.
Yes, kind to THOSE who deserve it. Not kind to random corporations who only care about money. Helping something that is not rational, no caring, and has no feelings at all... Shrug. Get real, if you want to help someone who doesn't deserve the help donate money to a random politician... 9/10 times you'll get one.
oh yah and if you wanna know worst case visit http://www.surgicaleyes.com/ and read the message board... they're some scary crap, although it's fairly rare... if I were a good can. I would go along with it, but I wasn't ~ although I was still eligible ~ so I decided against it...
... that the ablative zone is larger than your pupil when it is dialated to the maximum or you will get odd light based artifacts when the area around you is dark.
at the isp i worked for we logged who had what ip for a year and then archived those logs to dvd... was really for spam prevention but at times we had to access the logs to catch someone who was doing something illegal (we required a court order and ignored stuff like this.)
... from pricewatch.com generally buy from 2 vendors on there that offer the lowest prices across the board (for mb, 2xhd, 2xcd-r/dvd, mem, proc, kb, mouse, speakers, sound, video.)
... the list is: 1) I have to wait for a userid/password or something similar (I'll go download another eval somewhere else that does the same function - very little software is unique or required to be only from one company these days.) 2) Spyware. 3) Long forms to fill out, see #1. 4) Having to put my email address in when i want to download the software. 5) Having the site redirect me to fileplanet.
Actually at the previous isp we did indexing services for our clients, the webmaster in charge of it found sending the yahoo peeps some 'stuff' (hats, letter openers, tshirts - all with the company logo of course) got us results in less than two weeks... submitting normally... next to never. *shrug*
> 1) Prevent farming by allowing a virtual
> character to hold only a limited number of
> items.
Multiple accounts. Mules. etc. This solves nothing but making it more tedious... there was a guy in my old guild who had 7 computers in his room and 5 at his desk. He frequently played 3-4 characters at a time... had a few million plat in eq. Crazy.
> 2) Prevent trading by not allowing virtual
> characters to exchange items. If the characters
> can't exchange items, there is a lot less
> incentive for players to exchange money.
In this case dont bother putting an economy in the game. If you cant trade items/buy items from other players...? Money only has value because you can use it to trade for items or buy things from vendors (which in almost everygame are crap compared to player crafted/looted). If the only thing it is worth is buying vendor based items... it wouldn't have value period. Players would find other items to trade in provided there was a way (Ala, asheron's call - SIKS, Sings, Motes, Shards).
Neither of these solutions are praticularly good or realisticly useable when you wish to maintain a long term player base.
Slashdot Mirror
Remember, in any mmporpg your first character should be a buff character, a cleric, healer, enchanter, druid, shaman, mage, whatever the buff class you like the best (but preferably something with a reasonable heal and a 'ress' or in ac2's case-- vitae reduction.) After you get your first character to max level you can sell power level time on ebay or you can power level yourself to get your 'real' character to the level you want or whatever.
Actually, anyone who is seriously going to play will have several accounts anyways, it's hard to power level yourself with a single account. So this basically does... nothing except screw the people who have less money and let the people who have more money irl have more stuff.
> It might be unethical, but these days, it seems
> that more and more so called "professionals"
> were sick the day they taught ethics in school.
No, not really, but a single ethics course doesn't do a tremendous ammount for someone who is unethical, hell 2000 ethics courses aren't going to do it either if they're unethical. One thing is interesting, I've taken several ethics classes... the older ones were much less fluff and much more ethics, newer ones are there simply because they have to have the course to be reputable.
Shrug, Changing times neh?
... i'm glad i can just disable unrequested popups and block most of the major ad sites.
I think i'd go insane if i had to deal with anymore bs advertising. Almost any number of clicks a site gets are totally accidental, I really don't believe people enjoy or buy anything from popups.
That is so true, when I was in school I got copies of Office Pro, 98SE, NT3.51, Photoshop, etc at STUDENT PRICES (generally $25-100) and I was broke as hell, and I still bought them... I could have easily pirated them, but I wanted legal copies and they were reasonably priced, now I see the price on office xp pro and go 'piss on that, they're out of their mind.' Photoshop isn't TO bad, I just keep getting the upgrade :).
If more software/music publishers priced their software more reasonably, they would get many more sales, in this day and age of increasingly cheap hardware... why should I pay almost as much for 2-3 software programs as I paid for my entire top of the line computer (XP Pro, Office XP Pro, Photoshop.)?
Yes? I can't even hope to screw up some of the stuff as much as my congressman.
Yah, don't I know it. Prior to 5 years ago I had never seen an atm that crashed... now i see them on a weekly basis. Microsoft, gotta love it.
You also missed the major exception for "For the religious right, about how there are no aliens, and if there are, they are the work of Satan."
- Fringe Exception: There are aliens! The bible tells us so... the flaming wheel in a wheel!
Also the though occurs: Heaven's Gate. Whee. Wonder how many suicides confirming aliens would result in...
I don't know, I think our longest uptime was a bit over 3 years and was tied between a Linux machine and a Sol7 machine. What finally ended both was the failure of power, ups backups (after about 60 minutes), and generators. The chance of all three failing the way they did absolutely was unpredictable. In the unix world most patches you end up making are to daemons (webservers, database servers, custom daemons, etc)... NOT to the kernel. Windows has many unix features in its kernel space... and they CAN'T be removed entirely or restarted independantly.
In a true mission critical enviroment you don't have a single machine, you have several load balancing redundant machines to take over if there is a problem with the primary machine.
Windows may achieve the same uptime as some unix enterprise solutions, but not in any functional enviroment. Sure, I can sit a Sol7 machine on a shelf and a windows machine on the shelf and provided I've managed to patch all the memory leaks, both are going to run until the cows come home or the hardware fails (although it wasn't a tremendously long time ago that nt had a memory leak at the login screen...) even with load generators a well designed, fresh installed computer will run indefinetly. I can also do that with linux. Hell, I can probally do that with windows98.
When it really comes down to it, any mission critical system you are willing to spend an appropriate ammount of time designing will be up to the task required for it be it 99.99999% uptime or 100% uptime. Operating system is largely illrelevent, and in the end you *really* can't compare windows 2000 or linux to some of the older enterprise systems... they've been running for 15 years now (some longer) and will continue running for another 15 years unless someone manually shuts them down. Windows 2000 and linux don't yet have the lifespan to compare to that kind of reliability.
... windows offers a better tco than linux.
A good unix admin has spent at LEAST 3-5 years LEARNING his trade. Thus commands a reasonable income.
A good windows admin has spent at LEAST 30-45 seconds learning that rebooting will fix 99% of windows problems in a manor no one will know the diff between that and a real fix.
See? Windows IS easier to admin.
Honestly however, I worked at an isp where we had half a dozen windows 2000 and about 3 dozen unix (freebsd, slackware, sol7, and irix) machines. I spent ~2-3 hours a day working on the windows machines to keep them in tiptop shape while the most I ever did for the unix machines after the initial setup was occasionally add a service the automatic setup service we wrote for our customers couldn't handle or replace a raid drive when it died.
Unix works as well as the hardware it runs on, end of story. It's very easy to automate. It's almost impos to kill without manual deletion of everything or hardware failure.
Windows is iffy. A bad patch will terminate windows in a very perm, unrecoverable way. The registry is a trashheap. There is no good way to automate tasks in windows with out a macro recorder, and god forbid someone leave a window up.
A good admin of any variety is a pricey beast. Most people think just because someone has a bunch of capitalized letters infront of their name with the word 'microsoft' attached to one of them that the person is qualified to run their network... which is just plain stupid.
Wonder if there is a way to hotkey turning javascript off and on...?
Interesting thought, that doesn't apply to this project because realistically they are modifiying existing life not creating new life... but anyways, if we do finally create life from scratch, does that make the scientist in charge a god?
> This is interesting research, but we have to be
> wary. The Frankenstein effect (as postulated by
> Bains et al.) could cause the researchers to
> overestimate their ability to control their
> creation, leading to the extinction of
> humanity.
> and harsh penalties to prevent anything
> untoward from happening.
uhm... isn't the extinction of humanity a pretty harsh penalty? I think if someone creates something that destroys the entire human race... well, lets not punish them, I think they are already punished enough.
Well it is a possibility... that would be a single cell organism in alot of cases...
Ability to read has nothing to do with ability to correctly punctuate a sentance or spell. I was reading at a college level in junior high, I personally read about 250-350 pages an hour with excellent comprehension. However, I can't spell, and my gramatical style is brutal. A writer I am not, a reader I am.
Yes, kind to THOSE who deserve it. Not kind to random corporations who only care about money. Helping something that is not rational, no caring, and has no feelings at all... Shrug. Get real, if you want to help someone who doesn't deserve the help donate money to a random politician... 9/10 times you'll get one.
oh yah and if you wanna know worst case visit http://www.surgicaleyes.com/ and read the message board... they're some scary crap, although it's fairly rare... if I were a good can. I would go along with it, but I wasn't ~ although I was still eligible ~ so I decided against it...
... that the ablative zone is larger than your pupil when it is dialated to the maximum or you will get odd light based artifacts when the area around you is dark.
at the isp i worked for we logged who had what ip for a year and then archived those logs to dvd... was really for spam prevention but at times we had to access the logs to catch someone who was doing something illegal (we required a court order and ignored stuff like this.)
when you say you hope he makes it... do you mean you hope he gets his darwin award he was prenominated for or you hope he rides his rocket? ;)
... from pricewatch.com generally buy from 2 vendors on there that offer the lowest prices across the board (for mb, 2xhd, 2xcd-r/dvd, mem, proc, kb, mouse, speakers, sound, video.)
... is A Talmudic scholar and what does it consist of?
... the list is:
1) I have to wait for a userid/password or something similar (I'll go download another eval somewhere else that does the same function - very little software is unique or required to be only from one company these days.)
2) Spyware.
3) Long forms to fill out, see #1.
4) Having to put my email address in when i want to download the software.
5) Having the site redirect me to fileplanet.
Actually at the previous isp we did indexing services for our clients, the webmaster in charge of it found sending the yahoo peeps some 'stuff' (hats, letter openers, tshirts - all with the company logo of course) got us results in less than two weeks... submitting normally... next to never. *shrug*
> 1) Prevent farming by allowing a virtual
> character to hold only a limited number of
> items.
Multiple accounts. Mules. etc. This solves nothing but making it more tedious... there was a guy in my old guild who had 7 computers in his room and 5 at his desk. He frequently played 3-4 characters at a time... had a few million plat in eq. Crazy.
> 2) Prevent trading by not allowing virtual
> characters to exchange items. If the characters
> can't exchange items, there is a lot less
> incentive for players to exchange money.
In this case dont bother putting an economy in the game. If you cant trade items/buy items from other players...? Money only has value because you can use it to trade for items or buy things from vendors (which in almost everygame are crap compared to player crafted/looted). If the only thing it is worth is buying vendor based items... it wouldn't have value period. Players would find other items to trade in provided there was a way (Ala, asheron's call - SIKS, Sings, Motes, Shards).
Neither of these solutions are praticularly good or realisticly useable when you wish to maintain a long term player base.