I had a similar experience when my former ISP decided that they could stop spam by blocking TCP port 25 on all of their customers. Since it never occured to them to actually _notify_ anybody of this, the first thing I noticed was that I was no longer receiving any mail.
I went through all the proper steps to confirm that they were indeed silently filtering all inbound SMTP traffic and then called their helpdesk to ask what was going on and when they were going to stop doing it. The first person I reached listened to my story, thought for a moment, and then suggested that if my port wasn't working then maybe I should take my computer to a shop to get the port fixed.
Then he hung up on me.
Later that day I finally reached Someone With Clue who confirmed that something was indeed happening, but he had no idea why because nobody had told him about it either.
But then how would the publishers of each game be able to brag about how many subscribers they have?
More to the point, what numbers would they be able to bring to advertisers to show them how many players their products will be exposed to?
And even more importantly, without hard numbers for each individual game, how will the message-board weenies ever be able to measure the size of their enis by the games they play? You're talking about a total meltdown of the entire social structure of the Internet here.
His attitude towards posting to IP is quite often "This looks interesting but I haven't done anything to verify the source so make of it what you will", but don't confuse him with some clueless hack who likes to write about tech news and is hoping to get bought out by Andover.com.
Then you pick up the phone and ask someone from Microsoft's call centre to make your computer work again.
If you have all the proper supporting documentation, like the little holographic sticker with your license key on it and a note saying "Whatever you do don't ever lose this! It's important! We mean it!" at the bottom then everything should go well.
"Why should the "upstream" or "bigger" distro supplier be obligated to distribute source code for YOUR particular distribution?"
Because when they distributed that code to you, they were bound by the same GPL as you are. They are obligated to provide you with the source code should you or any third party ask for it, just like you are.
"No probs [...] The problem is that for this scheme to be usefull the clients must have means of getting reservations from the AP. Tough luck - no such clients out there."
I think we have to have a talk about what the phrase "No problems" really means.
You were only rejected every second time? Consider yourself lucky.
Imagine for the moment that the secure building you work in decided to switch from boring old card-keys to a high-tech, infallible biometric identification system which scanned your fingerprint on every door.
A couple days of that should give you a very good idea of just how reliable fingerprints are. If the scanners have trouble reading your magnetic strip then you just ask for a new one. If they can't read your fingerprints then you spend a lot of time on the phone listening to helpful suggestions like "Well, have you tried washing your hands?"
No, I'm thinking of Electronic Arts. They company that shipped games in tiny album covers. The company that put their programmers' photos and biographies on the back of every game when the industry standard was to pretend that they didn't exist. The company that ran full page magazine ads featuring developers like Bill Budge and Dan Bunten and giving them full credit for their games.
I sometimes wonder if anyone at EA remembers why the company was founded. It had a lot more to do with giving programmers respect (and treating them like rock stars) than with making money.
"But if some of the goals weren't so "time sinky" in nature, I bet everybody would just play the game."
And then, after they breezed through every possible quest and goal in the game in under a week, would get bored and go back to whining about how much the game sucks because there's nothing left to do and the economy has been ruined by a flood of cheap goods.
Worse yet, if they have two brain cells to rub together they just might stop playing and take their money somewhere else. That doesn't exactly support Blizzard's business model now, does it?
Slashdot Mirror
whichever page you
put them on
Well, you can
Absolutely. If you pronounce it "pWnz0r3d", then you should spell it that way too.
I had a similar experience when my former ISP decided that they could stop spam by blocking TCP port 25 on all of their customers. Since it never occured to them to actually _notify_ anybody of this, the first thing I noticed was that I was no longer receiving any mail.
I went through all the proper steps to confirm that they were indeed silently filtering all inbound SMTP traffic and then called their helpdesk to ask what was going on and when they were going to stop doing it. The first person I reached listened to my story, thought for a moment, and then suggested that if my port wasn't working then maybe I should take my computer to a shop to get the port fixed.
Then he hung up on me.
Later that day I finally reached Someone With Clue who confirmed that something was indeed happening, but he had no idea why because nobody had told him about it either.
By the next day I had a new ISP.
"Truly an American icon."
I think there's an extra 'I' somewhere in that statement.
Some days I am amazed at just what can get moderated "Informative" around here.
* Upper eschelons (the suits)
echelons, from a French word meaning a rung on a ladder.
* Callatoral damage (software A that affects software B)
collateral, from a Latin phrase meaning "both sides".
* Debri (garbage collection not working right)
debris, from a French word meaning something that has broken apart.
* Fallout (when bleep happens and the blame game starts)
No, that's when bleep happens, Ron Perlman says something about how war never changes, and then one of the greatest games of all time starts.
Please don't tease the Americans. It's not his fault he doesn't know any better.
Once the terrorists gain access to the scores from Wimbledon then it's all over for the free world. They could use our own tennis scores against us.
They had better be using the strongest encryption available for this kind of thing.
But then how would the publishers of each game be able to brag about how many subscribers they have?
More to the point, what numbers would they be able to bring to advertisers to show them how many players their products will be exposed to?
And even more importantly, without hard numbers for each individual game, how will the message-board weenies ever be able to measure the size of their enis by the games they play? You're talking about a total meltdown of the entire social structure of the Internet here.
You may want to find out just who writes Interesting People before blowing him off as just another blogger.
His attitude towards posting to IP is quite often "This looks interesting but I haven't done anything to verify the source so make of it what you will", but don't confuse him with some clueless hack who likes to write about tech news and is hoping to get bought out by Andover.com.
We've got MOTHER FUCKING bullshit on this MOTHER FUCKING plane!
"Frogs allowing themselves to be boiled is an Urban Legend."
It's just misquoted. Frogs will allow themselves to be boiled if:
1) They are lobsters, not frogs, and
2) You keep the lid tightly on the top of the pot.
If you have all the proper supporting documentation, like the little holographic sticker with your license key on it and a note saying "Whatever you do don't ever lose this! It's important! We mean it!" at the bottom then everything should go well.
"In a sane world, the Internet's HTTPS:HTTP ratio would be skyrocketing. Does anyone have trend graphs?"
I'm sure that someone at Sympatico does.
"In about 10 months of running monitoring 24/7 on our UPS, I've never seen a major "power event" (outage, surge, something else big)"
If William of Ockham were here he would point out the obvious conclusion: The monitoring on your UPS doesn't work.
"Why should the "upstream" or "bigger" distro supplier be obligated to distribute source code for YOUR particular distribution?"
Because when they distributed that code to you, they were bound by the same GPL as you are. They are obligated to provide you with the source code should you or any third party ask for it, just like you are.
Why is it so hard to read the GPL?
So it's a perfect match with Second Life.
"No probs [...] The problem is that for this scheme to be usefull the clients must have means of getting reservations from the AP. Tough luck - no such clients out there."
I think we have to have a talk about what the phrase "No problems" really means.
You were only rejected every second time? Consider yourself lucky.
Imagine for the moment that the secure building you work in decided to switch from boring old card-keys to a high-tech, infallible biometric identification system which scanned your fingerprint on every door.
A couple days of that should give you a very good idea of just how reliable fingerprints are. If the scanners have trouble reading your magnetic strip then you just ask for a new one. If they can't read your fingerprints then you spend a lot of time on the phone listening to helpful suggestions like "Well, have you tried washing your hands?"
No, I'm thinking of Electronic Arts. They company that shipped games in tiny album covers. The company that put their programmers' photos and biographies on the back of every game when the industry standard was to pretend that they didn't exist. The company that ran full page magazine ads featuring developers like Bill Budge and Dan Bunten and giving them full credit for their games.
That EA.
That also explains why none of the demons ever wore pants.
I sometimes wonder if anyone at EA remembers why the company was founded. It had a lot more to do with giving programmers respect (and treating them like rock stars) than with making money.
"But if some of the goals weren't so "time sinky" in nature, I bet everybody would just play the game."
And then, after they breezed through every possible quest and goal in the game in under a week, would get bored and go back to whining about how much the game sucks because there's nothing left to do and the economy has been ruined by a flood of cheap goods.
Worse yet, if they have two brain cells to rub together they just might stop playing and take their money somewhere else. That doesn't exactly support Blizzard's business model now, does it?