I can understand where you are coming from... but let me use another example to explain the outrage that some UO players would be feeling:
Imagine you lined up to buy tickets to your favourite band. You have been in the line for an hour waiting patiently and you are near the front of the queue now. All of sudden, the concert promoter says that for people willing to pay an extra $X bucks, they can jump to the head of the queue... how would you feel then? Come on, surely you can't be upset... it's only a concert, a form of entertainment.....
Not a perfect analogy I admit, but perhaps you might understand why some people would be getting upset about it.
As someone who once played UO for 5+ hours a day for 3 months (and then sold my character), I think the whole idea is terrible. But not because it means people can't sell their characters for inflated prices, but because it destroys the very thing that makes UO such a powerful game.
In any game, people need to strive towards a goal for the game to be interesting. Getting a balance between striving for a goal which is impossible and a goal which is too easy is the essence of game design. Sure pre-fab characters are okay... if they are beginner characters. But looking at the UO page, the pre-fab characters aren't beginners - they have stats in the 80s... it takes weeks to get to that level through normal play. Why is this bad? Well because the game becomes to easy... and why is this bad? Well if you think that Pking is a problem now, imagine how bad it will be when anyone can instantly get an advanced character to play... and not worry about putting in the time or effort to get a character to that level. Which leads to my second point.
Community. It is UOs primary strength. Any policy which destroys the community, destroys the game. Pre-fab characters will only encourage an 'easy comes, easy goes' attitude to people's characters. They won't have any attachment to them nor care about the consequences of their actions. Basically, it encourages anti-social behaviour online which will destroy the community.
Star Wars Ep II was simply not as good a movie as Spider Man. Yeah yeah, maybe Katz has a point with his intellectual discussion on why Spiderman is doing better in the box office, but I think it's simply that Spiderman is better.
I love Star Wars as much as the next person, but what was with:
the really bad wooden acting - I had no problem with the acting in Ep1, but Ep2 really sucked
the really corny lines - I mean how many cliches could they pull out for the romance scenes?!?
everything looked 2D. Take one CG background and shoot the actors standing in front of it giving dialogue. It looked so fake.
cliched camera shots - that big climatic battle when the camera zooms up to the troop carriers - like watching some b-grade Vietnam war movie...
I could go on and on but I think you get the point. If I could delete Jar Jar Bink from Ep1, I would quite confidently say that Ep1 was a better movie than Ep2, and neither compares to Spiderman.
I get the point you are making, but think there is a fundamental difference. The sanding pad will damage your CDROM, but it never intentionally was designed to do that. And the destructive nature of the sanding pad on the CDROM is a core part of it's functionality.
These new CDs however are intentionally being created to destroy property and this destructive feature is not part of their core functionality. I'm not a lawyer, but I would hope that this distinction is enough for lawsuits to proceed...
This is not to say that the solutions that have been suggested aren't worthwhile or effective from a technical standpoint.
But from a political view, using any of the suggestions will not be good if you are found out. Yes, you can go on about how as the sysadmin, you should have full rights over the network and IT facilities, but that is not how staff will view your position.
To them, you will be seen as implementing your own personal adgenda without consultation with staff or admin. That is not a good impression for people to have of you. So don't lie, don't secretly throttle bandwidth, don't secretly block the ports. Get admin onside first, then do those things.
Frankly, anyone who says that you should be scretly throttling the P2P ports is giving you bad advice. You are paid to give a service to the school - which is to provide IT services.
Part of that, as you have capably done, is identifying areas that need improvement or fixing (such as the P2P problem you mentioned). Your position doesn't entitle you to be judge jury and executioner though!
If illegal downloads are a problem, then you need to talk to the head of the school. You need to explain the legal and financial risk of allowing these downloads to continue. You need to highlight the the financial and bandwidth cost that the downloads are incurring etc etc. If the head of the school says, 'Yes, we agree. Do something to fix it' Well you just got your policy and you have carte blanche to fix it - ie block ports or whatever.
If the head of the school says, 'No, I don't want you to do anything'. Then don't. It's not your problem anymore. The head of the school has just accepted responsibility for any related issues that will occur from this continued use of P2P.
You shouldn't be doing underhand sneaky tech tricks to get the results you want on a problem that is more political in nature than technical. Doing so will mean you get out of your depth and fired.
yes - but in the article (you did read the article right?:-), it mentions that DVDs were introduced only for the movie industry to get more money from a saturated VHS market.
And then when DVD sales rocketed, it took the movie industry by surprise.
So my point is that the movie industry still hasn't figured out that giving consumers what they want increases sales.
If everyone who has a webpage creates a link to xenu.net then won't that boost Xenu.com's ranking on Google? Then if someone searches for Scientology Xenu would appear first....
Typical of a commerce student to write screenful after screenful of text without getting to the point!
Let's put it simply: The best manager is someone who understands people, who understands the business, and who understands what happens in the business.
That's it - no other description or explanation required.
Now for the record.... many (most?) commerce grads make very poor managers especially in the tech industry. Being non-technical they have little appreciation for what really drives tech people (no, reading case studies does not count) and hence they have no real clue how to handle or motivate techies.
Worst, having read all these wonderful case studies, these commerce grads think they know how to handle tech people and just come across as these pompous arrogant know-it-alls... which we all know as the PHB.
That's why you should get your own domain and host a website will a business that offers you unlimited email aliases.
Then all you do is create email aliases to your hearts content. I create a unique email address for any mailing list/website I sign up for so I instantly know when a mailing list/website has sold my email addy to someone else and I can shut it down straight away.
Okay... but that's my point. How are people in KY going to know about you? I for one never buy a CD where I have only heard one of two tracks on it (the exception being artists that I am already familiar with).
So which would you prefer? No piracy and 10 legitimate sales or 100 pirate copies and 15 legitimate sales?
So if you have no distribution in CA, what do you care? You weren't going to make any sales there anyway.
But, what happens if someone in CA happens to visit KY and sees your CD in a store in KY? If they liked your music, they may just very well buy your CD. That would *never* happen if it wasn't distributed far and wide.
I firmly believe that artists should be paid for their work and I do agree with you in principle that it is wrong for people to enjoy the fruits of your labor for free. But I also do know that as a result of mp3s and file sharing, my purchases of CDs has jumped by a factor of 3.
So I don't wholly subscribe to the argument that filesharing and mp3s is complete theft from artists or is detrimental to the future of the music industry.
And how do you think people are ever going to hear your music?
As an independent musician, you are unlikely to get radio time nor can you afford big promotions. With CDs as expensive as they are, people don't buy CDs to gamble that the music on it will be good. If people can't hear your music, you make zero sales.
So the more your music is distributed via mp3s, the better it will be for you. The more people who know your music, the more poeople will buy your CDs.
Those who have mp3s of your music and don't have CDs probably wouldn't have bought them in the first place and therefore constitutes no loss of income to you. Those that have bought your CDs do so because they have heard your music... and if your music had not been distributed far and wide, they would never have heard it, and you would never have got your CD sales.
it autodetects network segments in less than 5 minutes, and sets up DHCP, DNS, FTP, Email, file sharing, firewall, NAT, internet access, dial-up, etc. almost automagically
This is the sort of system they would have used in Independence Day 4 to autoconnect to the alien network and upload that virus. None of that stupid Apple crap...
So if we are drawing a picture, you are saying that there is no point in using crayons, pencils, pens, paints, collages etc etc and that we should just the one great medium whatever that may be?!?!?!?!
If some day GNOME, GCC, GNU Emacs, and all of GNU are obsolete and forgotten, but computer users generally are free to share and change the software they use, these programs will have done their job well.
This is all well and good.
If, on the other hand, GNOME and the rest of the GNU system are widely used, but mainly in combination with proprietary software, they will have succeeded only part-way, and a big task will remain ahead of us.
What happened to choosing the best software that does the task that I require it to do? If the goal is for users to be 'free to share and change the software they use', then that should also include the freedom to mix and match software (be it proprietry or open source) to meet their requirements.
What Stallman is trying to do is ram his ideology (good aspects notwithstanding) down everyones throat in much the same way that Microsoft tries to ram their ideology down our throats.
Ultimately, what is best for the users is what the users want. And generally if you provide what the users want, you won't need to force them to do what you want them to do. So Stallman, the fact that you feel you need to physically intervene to stop 'Gnome' going off in the wrong direction, is actually the first sign that you are heading down the wrong path.
Slashdot Mirror
I can understand where you are coming from ... but let me use another example to explain the outrage that some UO players would be feeling:
... how would you feel then? Come on, surely you can't be upset ... it's only a concert, a form of entertainment .....
Imagine you lined up to buy tickets to your favourite band. You have been in the line for an hour waiting patiently and you are near the front of the queue now. All of sudden, the concert promoter says that for people willing to pay an extra $X bucks, they can jump to the head of the queue
Not a perfect analogy I admit, but perhaps you might understand why some people would be getting upset about it.
As someone who once played UO for 5+ hours a day for 3 months (and then sold my character), I think the whole idea is terrible. But not because it means people can't sell their characters for inflated prices, but because it destroys the very thing that makes UO such a powerful game.
... if they are beginner characters. But looking at the UO page, the pre-fab characters aren't beginners - they have stats in the 80s ... it takes weeks to get to that level through normal play. Why is this bad? Well because the game becomes to easy ... and why is this bad? Well if you think that Pking is a problem now, imagine how bad it will be when anyone can instantly get an advanced character to play ... and not worry about putting in the time or effort to get a character to that level. Which leads to my second point.
In any game, people need to strive towards a goal for the game to be interesting. Getting a balance between striving for a goal which is impossible and a goal which is too easy is the essence of game design. Sure pre-fab characters are okay
Community. It is UOs primary strength. Any policy which destroys the community, destroys the game. Pre-fab characters will only encourage an 'easy comes, easy goes' attitude to people's characters. They won't have any attachment to them nor care about the consequences of their actions. Basically, it encourages anti-social behaviour online which will destroy the community.
The FTC encourages consumers to forward any spam they receive to the e-mail address uce@ftc.gov
Is it just me or does this sound just like one of those 'for every email that you forward, will donate $1 to ' emails.
I love Star Wars as much as the next person, but what was with:
the really bad wooden acting - I had no problem with the acting in Ep1, but Ep2 really sucked
the really corny lines - I mean how many cliches could they pull out for the romance scenes?!?
everything looked 2D. Take one CG background and shoot the actors standing in front of it giving dialogue. It looked so fake.
cliched camera shots - that big climatic battle when the camera zooms up to the troop carriers - like watching some b-grade Vietnam war movie ...
I could go on and on but I think you get the point. If I could delete Jar Jar Bink from Ep1, I would quite confidently say that Ep1 was a better movie than Ep2, and neither compares to Spiderman.
Make A PC Out Of A G4 Case
The above URL is for instructions on how to make PC using a G4 case.
I get the point you are making, but think there is a fundamental difference. The sanding pad will damage your CDROM, but it never intentionally was designed to do that. And the destructive nature of the sanding pad on the CDROM is a core part of it's functionality.
...
These new CDs however are intentionally being created to destroy property and this destructive feature is not part of their core functionality. I'm not a lawyer, but I would hope that this distinction is enough for lawsuits to proceed
This is not to say that the solutions that have been suggested aren't worthwhile or effective from a technical standpoint.
But from a political view, using any of the suggestions will not be good if you are found out. Yes, you can go on about how as the sysadmin, you should have full rights over the network and IT facilities, but that is not how staff will view your position.
To them, you will be seen as implementing your own personal adgenda without consultation with staff or admin. That is not a good impression for people to have of you. So don't lie, don't secretly throttle bandwidth, don't secretly block the ports. Get admin onside first, then do those things.
Frankly, anyone who says that you should be scretly throttling the P2P ports is giving you bad advice. You are paid to give a service to the school - which is to provide IT services.
Part of that, as you have capably done, is identifying areas that need improvement or fixing (such as the P2P problem you mentioned). Your position doesn't entitle you to be judge jury and executioner though!
If illegal downloads are a problem, then you need to talk to the head of the school. You need to explain the legal and financial risk of allowing these downloads to continue. You need to highlight the the financial and bandwidth cost that the downloads are incurring etc etc. If the head of the school says, 'Yes, we agree. Do something to fix it' Well you just got your policy and you have carte blanche to fix it - ie block ports or whatever.
If the head of the school says, 'No, I don't want you to do anything'. Then don't. It's not your problem anymore. The head of the school has just accepted responsibility for any related issues that will occur from this continued use of P2P.
You shouldn't be doing underhand sneaky tech tricks to get the results you want on a problem that is more political in nature than technical. Doing so will mean you get out of your depth and fired.
Ahh - yes - good point.
...
Tis too early in the morning
Okay ... this comment is off-topic, but I think it would be hillariously funny is CmdrTaco's post got downvoted to -1 as a troll.
IBM doesn't need to merge with Sun to be bigger than MS - they already are.
... there is simply no comparison.
They earn more money than MS, they have more employees, located in more countries, sell more products
yes - but in the article (you did read the article right? :-), it mentions that DVDs were introduced only for the movie industry to get more money from a saturated VHS market.
And then when DVD sales rocketed, it took the movie industry by surprise.
So my point is that the movie industry still hasn't figured out that giving consumers what they want increases sales.
If you run a business and you provide what the customers are asking for, your sales go up and so does your profit!!
Wow - what a concept!!
To bad the movie and music industry still don't understand this.
Well said!!
is it possible?
....
If everyone who has a webpage creates a link to xenu.net then won't that boost Xenu.com's ranking on Google? Then if someone searches for Scientology Xenu would appear first
When playing Civ 3 starting out in North America, every friggin country discovers me before I discover them ... damn them.
< turn sarcastic voice on :-) >
.... many (most?) commerce grads make very poor managers especially in the tech industry. Being non-technical they have little appreciation for what really drives tech people (no, reading case studies does not count) and hence they have no real clue how to handle or motivate techies.
... which we all know as the PHB.
Typical of a commerce student to write screenful after screenful of text without getting to the point!
Let's put it simply: The best manager is someone who understands people, who understands the business, and who understands what happens in the business.
That's it - no other description or explanation required.
Now for the record
Worst, having read all these wonderful case studies, these commerce grads think they know how to handle tech people and just come across as these pompous arrogant know-it-alls
That's why you should get your own domain and host a website will a business that offers you unlimited email aliases.
Then all you do is create email aliases to your hearts content. I create a unique email address for any mailing list/website I sign up for so I instantly know when a mailing list/website has sold my email addy to someone else and I can shut it down straight away.
Okay ... but that's my point. How are people in KY going to know about you? I for one never buy a CD where I have only heard one of two tracks on it (the exception being artists that I am already familiar with).
So which would you prefer? No piracy and 10 legitimate sales or 100 pirate copies and 15 legitimate sales?
So if you have no distribution in CA, what do you care? You weren't going to make any sales there anyway.
But, what happens if someone in CA happens to visit KY and sees your CD in a store in KY? If they liked your music, they may just very well buy your CD. That would *never* happen if it wasn't distributed far and wide.
I firmly believe that artists should be paid for their work and I do agree with you in principle that it is wrong for people to enjoy the fruits of your labor for free. But I also do know that as a result of mp3s and file sharing, my purchases of CDs has jumped by a factor of 3.
So I don't wholly subscribe to the argument that filesharing and mp3s is complete theft from artists or is detrimental to the future of the music industry.
As an independent musician, you are unlikely to get radio time nor can you afford big promotions. With CDs as expensive as they are, people don't buy CDs to gamble that the music on it will be good. If people can't hear your music, you make zero sales.
So the more your music is distributed via mp3s, the better it will be for you. The more people who know your music, the more poeople will buy your CDs.
Those who have mp3s of your music and don't have CDs probably wouldn't have bought them in the first place and therefore constitutes no loss of income to you. Those that have bought your CDs do so because they have heard your music
it autodetects network segments in less than 5 minutes, and sets up DHCP, DNS, FTP, Email, file sharing, firewall, NAT, internet access, dial-up, etc. almost automagically
...
This is the sort of system they would have used in Independence Day 4 to autoconnect to the alien network and upload that virus. None of that stupid Apple crap
So if we are drawing a picture, you are saying that there is no point in using crayons, pencils, pens, paints, collages etc etc and that we should just the one great medium whatever that may be?!?!?!?!
Apparently it's a Tolkien Ring network - yuk yuk.
It seems to me that Stallman contradicts himself:
If some day GNOME, GCC, GNU Emacs, and all of GNU are obsolete and forgotten, but computer users generally are free to share and change the software they use, these programs will have done their job well.
This is all well and good.
If, on the other hand, GNOME and the rest of the GNU system are widely used, but mainly in combination with proprietary software, they will have succeeded only part-way, and a big task will remain ahead of us.
What happened to choosing the best software that does the task that I require it to do? If the goal is for users to be 'free to share and change the software they use', then that should also include the freedom to mix and match software (be it proprietry or open source) to meet their requirements.
What Stallman is trying to do is ram his ideology (good aspects notwithstanding) down everyones throat in much the same way that Microsoft tries to ram their ideology down our throats.
Ultimately, what is best for the users is what the users want. And generally if you provide what the users want, you won't need to force them to do what you want them to do. So Stallman, the fact that you feel you need to physically intervene to stop 'Gnome' going off in the wrong direction, is actually the first sign that you are heading down the wrong path.