You can chat all you want about Gnome vs KDE and which one is bloating--trust me, that is not something I'm ever going to take a position on. I value my life too much.
If you value your life, why spend time on Slashdot?;-)
Would it solve the problem (or, I guess I should say, remove the symptoms... for a while, at least) to do a full backup, format the SSD, and restore?
I think it would alleviate the problems for a while, provided you do a low-level reformat on the SSD. The unused blocks would be marked as unused by the SSD until each of them had been overwritten once. (Which unfortunately happens pretty quickly, because of the wear level balancing.)
I haven't played SWG for more than a few hours, but I've played Everquest 2 for years, and recognise many of the issues you talk about. Like extremely slow bug fixes, and screwing up the game when removing exploits. I can also add abyssmal communication with their customers - servers could go down unexpectedly, and the SoE staff wouldn't deign to comment it on the web site.
Fortunately, many of the issues have slowly improved during the last two years.
"[...]but whatever you do, please DON'T DOWNLOAD THEM! Unless of course you are a developer or take great pleasure in incomplete, unpredictable, and potentially crashing software."
The publishers, as a whole, don't 'lose' money. They don't even make less than before. They are complaining because their profit has not increased as much as it could have.
GameStop doesn't make $55 out of selling a used game. First, they pay the seller $30, then they have to pay rent, staff and other expenses. If people are ok with selling their used games for $30 and buying them for $55, then GameStop is as entitled to their profit as any other dirty capitalist in the market.
The publisher doesn't get $60 profit from each game either, of course, but they probably have a significantly higher margin per sold game than GameStop does. Comparing the $55 for a used game with the $60 for a new one is comparing apples and oranges.
It's not like all the publishers will go out of business and nobody will make games anymore. The games market has grown incredibly the last decade, and at worst, some of the publishers will have to close or fire staff (if any). There'll still be many, many publishers out there fighting eachother to sell their newest games to you.
If the used games market really hurts sales as much as the publishers claim, then why don't they offer their games for rental only? It's their own choice to sell them.
The reason, most likely, is that the used games market doesn't hurt new games sales significantly, or at all. The publishers just want a bigger slice of the pie.
Really? Then I envy you. I strive for writing correct code the first time, but never succeed if the program is more than 20 lines or so. At the very least, I make some syntactical errors.
A good debate is like driving your car on a paved road with roadsigns, traffic lights and well-defined traffic rules that people follow most of the time.
A bad debate is like driving your car in the middle of a huge, chaotic intersection where people are desperately trying to get somewhere but are stopped by everyone else trying to get somewhere, honking at each other and calling each other names.
Good argument. I'd mod it +1 (Interesting) if I had mod points.
I agree with your argument if we picture the philosopher-king as some kind of benevolent dictator. However, in a modern society, power is spread out between a lot of people: politicians, bureaucrats, legal professionals, CEOs of major corporations, political advisors, and so on. It wouldn't be too far-fetched to appoint philosophers as advisors, thus giving them power they don't really want, but motivating them with money, fame and/or simply being listened to.
Still, the question remains of who would propose this idea. As you say, if philosophers proposed it, it would mean they were not suited.
The only way to be unbiased in your writing is if you are sincerely trying to discover the truth.
No... the important thing to realise is that we're always biased, even if we're completely honest to ourselves and others. Limitations in our knowledge give us a particular perspective. For example, we may know several of the good arguments for one viewpoint, but have heard few of the good arguments for the other.
We are also biased by things we take for granted because we have never even thought to question them, despite our sincerity.
Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. Most good ideas never go anywhere anyway, because nobody puts any work in them. It's the work that makes a good idea great.
We have a similar system in Sweden. If the public prosecutor decides not to pursue a case (for example, due to weak evidence), a private person can decide to prosecute anyway, if they are willing to pay out of their own pockets. It's called, loosely translated, "public prosecution" and "private prosecution", respectively. Both public and private prosecution apply criminal law, and If the private prosecution succeeds, the accused is convicted in just the same way as he would be in the case of a public prosecution: he/she can get fined or jailed, for example.
Private prosecution should not be confused with an ordinary civil case, where criminal law is not applied, and the purpose usually is to award damages.
Yes, but it isn't by far as bad as the american one. It only outlaws circumvention of "pure" copy protections; it's still legal to circument protections that prevent you from playing content on, say, Linux or your favourite MP3 player.
The Swedish counterpart to the DMCA doesn't allow the courts to issue shutdown orders, either. Pirate Bay went down temporarily because their computers were seized as evidence, but it went up again very quickly.
Claiming copyright on a specification is insane - you can claim copyright on the specific text you have written to describe the specification, but not the specification itself. Specifications may be covered by patents.
Being in a prison is never a good experience, but Swedish prisons are far more humane and less dangerous than American ones. The attitude to criminals is very different here.
Slashdot Mirror
You can chat all you want about Gnome vs KDE and which one is bloating--trust me, that is not something I'm ever going to take a position on. I value my life too much.
If you value your life, why spend time on Slashdot? ;-)
Would it solve the problem (or, I guess I should say, remove the symptoms... for a while, at least) to do a full backup, format the SSD, and restore?
I think it would alleviate the problems for a while, provided you do a low-level reformat on the SSD. The unused blocks would be marked as unused by the SSD until each of them had been overwritten once. (Which unfortunately happens pretty quickly, because of the wear level balancing.)
Sounds like an untapped monopoly, just ripe for squeezing handouts from every 8-12 months by the EU!
What, are you opposed to foreign aid?
Opinions can't be wrong, but they can be stupid ;-)
(No offense to any of the previous posters)
I haven't played SWG for more than a few hours, but I've played Everquest 2 for years, and recognise many of the issues you talk about. Like extremely slow bug fixes, and screwing up the game when removing exploits. I can also add abyssmal communication with their customers - servers could go down unexpectedly, and the SoE staff wouldn't deign to comment it on the web site. Fortunately, many of the issues have slowly improved during the last two years.
What kind of weed are you smoking there ?
He's on the closed beta testing program for Microsoft Linux.
Wow! I hear that's good stuff!
Good point, wish I had mod points.
"I came up with lots of ideas like this in college...I also smoked a lot of weed in college."
Wow. And they say smoking weed is bad for you.
Unfortunately, the lack of knowledge seems to prevent people from seeing their own lack of knowledge (the Dunning-Kruger effect).
Can you train them to find bugs too?!
"[...]but whatever you do, please DON'T DOWNLOAD THEM! Unless of course you are a developer or take great pleasure in incomplete, unpredictable, and potentially crashing software."
Of course I do. I used Windows 95 for years!
The reason, most likely, is that the used games market doesn't hurt new games sales significantly, or at all. The publishers just want a bigger slice of the pie.
Really? Then I envy you. I strive for writing correct code the first time, but never succeed if the program is more than 20 lines or so. At the very least, I make some syntactical errors.
A good debate is like driving your car on a paved road with roadsigns, traffic lights and well-defined traffic rules that people follow most of the time.
A bad debate is like driving your car in the middle of a huge, chaotic intersection where people are desperately trying to get somewhere but are stopped by everyone else trying to get somewhere, honking at each other and calling each other names.
Good argument. I'd mod it +1 (Interesting) if I had mod points.
I agree with your argument if we picture the philosopher-king as some kind of benevolent dictator. However, in a modern society, power is spread out between a lot of people: politicians, bureaucrats, legal professionals, CEOs of major corporations, political advisors, and so on. It wouldn't be too far-fetched to appoint philosophers as advisors, thus giving them power they don't really want, but motivating them with money, fame and/or simply being listened to.
Still, the question remains of who would propose this idea. As you say, if philosophers proposed it, it would mean they were not suited.
The only way to be unbiased in your writing is if you are sincerely trying to discover the truth.
No... the important thing to realise is that we're always biased, even if we're completely honest to ourselves and others. Limitations in our knowledge give us a particular perspective. For example, we may know several of the good arguments for one viewpoint, but have heard few of the good arguments for the other.
We are also biased by things we take for granted because we have never even thought to question them, despite our sincerity.
Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. Most good ideas never go anywhere anyway, because nobody puts any work in them. It's the work that makes a good idea great.
Somebody mod this guy up!
Oh no! I can't take any more irony!
"Ground-breaking"? You crack me up ;-)
No, they tell the truth. They don't lobby for specific interests; they lobby for anyone who has money.
We have a similar system in Sweden. If the public prosecutor decides not to pursue a case (for example, due to weak evidence), a private person can decide to prosecute anyway, if they are willing to pay out of their own pockets. It's called, loosely translated, "public prosecution" and "private prosecution", respectively. Both public and private prosecution apply criminal law, and If the private prosecution succeeds, the accused is convicted in just the same way as he would be in the case of a public prosecution: he/she can get fined or jailed, for example. Private prosecution should not be confused with an ordinary civil case, where criminal law is not applied, and the purpose usually is to award damages.
I live in Sweden. No health spas on the public health insurance here. But MDs do prescribe time off work, courtesy of the social security system.
Yes, but it isn't by far as bad as the american one. It only outlaws circumvention of "pure" copy protections; it's still legal to circument protections that prevent you from playing content on, say, Linux or your favourite MP3 player.
The Swedish counterpart to the DMCA doesn't allow the courts to issue shutdown orders, either. Pirate Bay went down temporarily because their computers were seized as evidence, but it went up again very quickly.
Claiming copyright on a specification is insane - you can claim copyright on the specific text you have written to describe the specification, but not the specification itself. Specifications may be covered by patents.
Being in a prison is never a good experience, but Swedish prisons are far more humane and less dangerous than American ones. The attitude to criminals is very different here.