The way it's described here just makes it far too complex to manage. Any savings made by this might not look too good if the expenses are higher. I can just smell the amount of useless lawsuits this would raise.
Now, I don't want to blame the writer completely. Somebody had to take the first step and I do feel that people should have responsibilites. However, I'd start this with warnings instead of fines. Some strict way to report that the user is causing harm to the network and if that continues, the users agreement with the ISP can be discontinued.
I don't know the case currently - can an ISP get sued for disconnecting a user who's flooding with viruses and worms? If so, I believe that's a good place to start, let the ISP's react to problems. If a user just won't react to some reports, then it's byebye.
No, this isn't problem-free either, but whatever the solution is, it should be taken step by step and using encouragement instead of fear as the main tool. Tax reductions for purchasing antivirus software? Free instruction videos for using Windows Update? Firewalls for consumer internet connections that are set to strict levels by default(some ISP's do that here, works great).
We're looking at changes to the copyright laws here in Finland and in many other EU countries as well. They have a lot of quotes from bad experiences learned with RIAA in USA as well as views on DMCA effects. I don't really believe this story changes the official side, but when you're trying to make people learn about the harms behind the acts of the music industry, this is a great headline story.
I hate politicians who only speak what people want to hear but let's face it - that works. And right now it's not even a lie.
And looking at this from another point of view, what possible good can their actions do? $2000 is barely enough for a couple new golf balls for the execs. If they had played kindly, they could've gotten a huge load of sympathy votes for them and only miss one afternoon at the country club.
I don't believe my acts here can hurt the RIAA except maybe a tiny bit, mostly because I don't personally enjoy music made in the USA(no offense intended, just personal taste). However, that chance of a tiny bit is all I need. I already decided to never buy copy protected CD's. Looks like the rest of all audio CD's are off limits now as well.
It seems he's also trying to make himself look like a really good guy.
Further, the SCO Group is open to ideas of working with the Open Source community to monetize software technology and its underlying intellectual property for all contributors, not just SCO.
Somehow, I'm having a bit of a hard time seeing Linus Torvalds and Alan Cox in a big press event, shaking hands, celebrating the joyous awakening of Open Source powered by SCO.
I mean really, who does he think he's fooling?
The other problem with the integrated video chip here is a missing S-Video output. Doesn't feel very useful having to put an external VGA-PAL(or NTSC) converter to use this with a TV. It feels equally as useful to buy a PCI VGA card with a TV output for only this reason.
First of all, I've been using some Promise integrated controllers. Imo, Linux support is "okay" but not too good. I could, after some digging, find a driver I could compile for 2.4 series kernels, but documentation was lousy and the driver has been a bit unstable at times. Nothing major, but imo, too much. As it's just an unknown device to lspci, I can't remember the exact chip model, but it's on the new MSI 865PE motherboards.
We've also been using some of these, a bit more expensive Adaptec RAID 2400 controllers. For these, I'd say "stable mainstream" is the right term. Performance is good but not excellent, support is good and compatibility good. No surprises either way and to me, that's good for a hardware device that needs to be trustworthy.
Highpoints, I've only had experience with their older (up to DMA100) controllers and some integrated ones. No good experiences with any one of these, Windows or Linux. Too commonly, when one drive fails, the whole RAID fails. Performance is lousy. I hope it's just one persons bad experiences, but there sure are a LOT of these bad experiences for me.
The mentioning of americans(sure, this applies elsewhere too but not in such a scale) brought back something else that's considered a level of individual freedom and something that's been rising to huge amounts. AND something that also has a huge amount of unncessary crap in the middle of it.
That is, traffic. Cars. How many are really needed, how many times could better public transport compensate? How much safer would it be if so many of those major lawbreakers(drunk drivers come to mind) could be taken out?
Instead, they just build more and more highways, larger than the previous ones. Not because they'd be needed if some thought would be put to it, but because everyone wants their own car and their own freedom to go where ever, when ever.
Pretty much most of the good tips I've already seen here. It sounds cliche, but remember Scotty from Star Trek? Don't be 100% honest about schedule estimates. You don't know when something will go wrong, you don't know when you have to do some other small job in the middle of a larger project. With any luck, you might SOMETIMES even go under your scheduled time estimate and be the miracle worker of the day.
I had a colleague at my previous workplace, an older female programmer(rare enough, but obviously the best programmer in the house). She always remembered to keep saying "work won't get finished by doing it". The point was that no matter how long days and weeks you work, there will ALWAYS be more work to be done in the IT field(probably elsewhere too?).
This leads to priorising and more than anything else, respecting what you do. You have to realize that in the long run, jobs come and go, but there's only one you.
Personally, I also find it important to being in good communications contact with the boss. Being able to just stop and talk, cell phones turned off, and discuss ideas as well as the current work situation.
Oh, and the old saying I mentioned above... it also means that no matter how many people there are, ALL work never gets done. Obviously, sometimes you need more staff, but there's usually a good way to compromise. Some things are priorities, some things aren't. Some things are worth spending a few days on, some things aren't.
As for the last tips, flexible work hours do miracles for work productivity. I've seen it myself and in my current staff. Good eating habits at work can also do wonders (don't worry, you can party at weekends;).
Just as a clarification, even as I'm a server admin for GamesNET, my opinion is just my own personal viewpoint and doesn't reflect anything official or any other staff members' opinions.
Imo, and what seems to be a general mood as well, this is just another great show of what a justice system becomes when it works with money and money alone. Charging IRC users for using it? Get real, even ICQ or AIM aren't charging users yet and they're the ones that are perhaps closest to it.
However, as strange as it sounds, sometimes people and companies do emerge, willing to "buy out" some IRC networks. I remember this happening once way back at QuakeNet. But an IRC network is its people, its staff, and all of them are from all around the world, bringing their part to it. You can't just sell something like that as a whole. An IRC network in the top twenties is commonly supported by a huge amount of companies hosting servers and services, from USA to Australia and back.
I did once claim that there is potential for some market value in IRC networks and the network administration should not look lightly on companies willing to host servers that are usually just DDoS magnets. But this is more like having company logos available on a web based client and such.
Some ideas that just can't work right now include: - charging IRC users for using the service. Users can just switch to the next network, plus the service has been free since its founding. Besides, no IRC network is THAT superior - selling advertisement space based on things such as private messages spammed regularly to all users. This does have a certain idea, but it's way too easy to block out and quite irritating.
The latter might reveal a potential idea though, giving users the possibility to take part in for example surveys or perhaps having access to some stores and services via IRC might work, so long as these are things a user can voluntarily choose to do or not to do. If such services are designed carefully, they might attract users.
I suppose someone might feel that there's some potential in charging for the use of network services, but this seems a bit hazy as well. The fact is, as long as you can get equal or better service for free elsewhere, you'll rather go elsewhere than pay.
I've had the pleasure of working with many great IRC Networks over the years. It's taken time, effort and money from my pocket. Then again, having motorcycles as a hobby does pretty much the same. Most people don't do it to one day suddenly get rich, they do it because it's FUN and while at it, they learn many useful things which can be helpful with work or other hobbies.
To me, this is just simply sad and as a non-US-citizen, to me it looks like a waste of the justice system's resources.
Some areas in Europe have had it. This is coming to Finland this summer.
When the law was designed some two years ago, they gave plenty of time for the cell phone operators to make plans on how this should work. All should be ready for the summer, they say. It might help the competition, but I do agree it has problems.
Here's one: Making a call within the same operator can be half the price of calling to another operator. One operator has one area code, so you know how much the call will cost you. Now when any area code can be any operator, you don't know how much you're paying.
The phone companies claim to have "a good plan" for this, but seeing they haven't provided any details so far, I'm skeptical.
I've actually got an old DeskJet, the first model. Works without any problems. Recently, I also sold off a pile of old HP's, models including Deskjet Plus, Deskjet 500C, 550C and such. I got about 20 of these printers all in all, all had been in office use for this whole time and they all worked. Two or three had problems feeding paper but it almost brought a tear to my eye to part with them for just a few euros each.
I'm planning to store the DeskJet somewhere safe along with my XT. One day, when I can go and buy a disposable $5 printer from the grocery store, I'll dig it up and remember why I miss the times of Turbo Pascal and Space Quest III...
I see this as +1% instead of -0.1%. From a reseller point of view, this makes life safer. Can't overclock, can't break.
Unfortunately also, a large percentage of overclocking websites are using expressions such as "just go buy an x megahertz cpu and clock it to 1,5x mhz". Which causes people to find some excuse (or use a return policy of the shop) to return cpu's that don't overclock. Because, to these users affected by irresponsible websites or other lousy information sources, overclocking is a standard procedure that you're almost SUPPOSED to do(yes, these kinds of people really do exist).
Okay, so this thing could be fixed by putting a load of sites into good shape and checking some attitudes, but as that'll never happen, I'm happy with Intel on this one. In fact, I think this'll make selling at a lower margin a lot easier. The less pain a reseller has in a simple sale, the less the reseller has to gain from it to cover costs.
What AMD does is their business and I'm sure they'll do their thinking independently. Anyway, doesn't look likely we'll sell any AMD stuff for a while yet. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy good competition, but imo, AMD totally lacks quality. I really hope it improves, AMD has an attitude much closer to users. They have to really WORK for their position, Intel's life is "too safe".
I tried it myself, and found that MoO3 does offer two Great Ways of Gameplay(tm).
a. conquer the universe -wizard, where everything is on automatic and you just watch the game end happily. Kinda like wing commander 4 without the actors and the plot b. and you thought rewriting the linux kernel was complicated -mode, where you get to choose everything, such as when each of your citizens ia allowed to pick their nose, assuming they have one
A router might just as well be your common linux/bsd box as well. In many cases, sshd is run to make administration easier and in some cases, it just might not be secure enough. Easily avoidable problem, but then again, so was Nimda...
In Finland, the law allows one to make personal copies of media for personal and family use. As I understand, this law exists in quite a few countries. The problem and debate seems to be "methods used to circumvent copy protection" such as this.
Still, highly intelligent thinking on the part of lawmakers. Their new proposal would allow personal copies, without allowing the methods required to make such copies. Fortunately EFFI is making a noise of it.
There's a very good chance NOW to make a noise about methods that can be used to circumvent copy protection for personal use, such as modchips. In countries where there's still debate, it seems like a healthy time to speak for this matter.
Another good idea is to check the opinions of local consumer agencies. Over here, they're favoring the customer, especially now that copy protected almost-cd's are sold more and more.
So - here's your free mansion on this nice looking island. Problem is, crossing the bridge will put you to jail and swimming with sharks is none too fun.
As I understand it, patching GameSpy alone won't help - you don't use GameSpy to flood the servers, but a nasty program to send spoofed UDP packets.
Which means patching all servers. As I see it, many gaming providers have a LOT of games running that are vulnerable. And as working for a games service provider myself, I think games go into three categories: * too old to expect manufacturer/distributer support, but still played - sometimes 3rd party help available(fe. quakeworld, quake 2) * new or at least still selling enough to interest, and the manufacturer/distributor actually cares about technology(fe. quake 3, half-life) * new enough, but the manufacturer/distributer hasn't yet really understood why they should support people and companies running servers for them(fe. games from companies such as EA)
True, thanks to ISP's, this isn't a huge problem and I think its also reasonable to thank GameSpy in advance, I'm sure they'll make fixing this reasonably easy by doing their homework well. But still, this has a potential of making nasty stuff hit the fan.
Unfortunately, looking at the way many ISP's see online gaming, they might not give a damn about tuning their routers until they get a ton of packets stuffed in their cables.
here's hoping that GameSpy can work quickly on this...
quote: This is the __first__ complete Linux distribution for the Microsoft Xbox.
Notice the emphasis? I think it's worthwhile information to know who managed to be the first.
Besides - a distribution means simplicity. Simplicity means more people trying this. And from that on, the snowball hopefully starts rolling down. Thus, the big box with x and Linux will be something interesting to try for more than just level 9 and above ubergeeks.
A very old topic comes to mind. Back in the times of Windows 3.0, it was the huge amount of pirated copies that made it spread VERY widely all over the world. It was clearly established that this piracy did a huge boost on popularity, and thus a similar boost on sales numbers.
Any software pirates around? Remember why you have to feel guilty: if YOU hadn't made windows such a success, the world might be a better place. Shame on you!
Iolaire-chan, I thought we agreed over there that we'd talk about such substances as "bananas".
Sure, this news isn't fact, but then again how many users still think of irc usage and networks as just "being on mirc"... this is close enough for me;)
I thought Austin Powers was stupid until I watched it with my cousin. Turns out the movie wasn't stupid at all, it was just that I went at it with the wrong attitude.
Right attitude, and right audience... a scary memory of me once trying to show Star Trek to my dad wakes in my mind. I don't think I've ever begged the universe for forgiveness quite as much...
In the end, they're making what people enjoy. The fact that a load of people are watching Star Trek means that those people like what they're seeing. It is a business, yes, but it's a business that has no chance if people don't enjoy what they see. If everything star trek totally sucked, would it really have fans? Or any viewers for that matter.
In my opinion, the original poster could have controlled his/her personal opinions a bit more. I like some time paradox episodes, but then I can name some types of episodes I don't like. Everyone has their favorites. But in the end, all of those episodes are needed. And I do think character is one thing, which was very nicely described above.
Gene's vision still shows nicely as well. They can tell things on Star Trek in metaphores that they can't say directly. I don't think it's about showing a realistic future, but about showing us what we might be able to gain if we lived differently.
It's entertainment. And everything Star Trek is a series, not just a pile of episodes and movies. Whether it's the best scifi or the lousiest isn't important, if you enjoy watching it.
It seems even here around EU that they're using 9/11 as an excuse to alter something as far fetched as copyright laws.
And how do they do this? By claiming that money from production of pirated cd's and dvd's benefits international terrorism. That might be but I fail to see how true their claims can be that trading media files off the Internet can support terrorism...
I don't mind people selling pirated cd's to get a painful kick in the rear end, but the nice professional people seem to agree that importing audio/video media from outside Europe is also piracy, even if they're very legitimate products(region code breaking is evil etc.). And all forms of piracy, including this can support terrorism. I somehow have a hard time believing that importing a region 1 dvd to europe causes any financial gain to any terrorists. But hey, those politicians do this to protect us, let's not question them at such a difficult time.
Bottom line: whenever the lawmakers say "to fight terrorism", they can do pretty much anything, even when it has absolutely nothing to do with the matter.
Slashdot Mirror
Nerds are good people. We really do care about nature, even though we only see it via opengl.
The way it's described here just makes it far too complex to manage. Any savings made by this might not look too good if the expenses are higher. I can just smell the amount of useless lawsuits this would raise.
Now, I don't want to blame the writer completely. Somebody had to take the first step and I do feel that people should have responsibilites. However, I'd start this with warnings instead of fines. Some strict way to report that the user is causing harm to the network and if that continues, the users agreement with the ISP can be discontinued.
I don't know the case currently - can an ISP get sued for disconnecting a user who's flooding with viruses and worms? If so, I believe that's a good place to start, let the ISP's react to problems. If a user just won't react to some reports, then it's byebye.
No, this isn't problem-free either, but whatever the solution is, it should be taken step by step and using encouragement instead of fear as the main tool. Tax reductions for purchasing antivirus software? Free instruction videos for using Windows Update? Firewalls for consumer internet connections that are set to strict levels by default(some ISP's do that here, works great).
Great. Let's make a new system. Let's put a 386 to serve it on the web.
The operation timed out when attempting to contact sitefinder.verisign.com.
Need I say more?
Yesterday, actually. Don't tell me I have to admin windows boxes sober...
Okay, it was a DVD.
We're looking at changes to the copyright laws here in Finland and in many other EU countries as well. They have a lot of quotes from bad experiences learned with RIAA in USA as well as views on DMCA effects. I don't really believe this story changes the official side, but when you're trying to make people learn about the harms behind the acts of the music industry, this is a great headline story.
I hate politicians who only speak what people want to hear but let's face it - that works. And right now it's not even a lie.
And looking at this from another point of view, what possible good can their actions do? $2000 is barely enough for a couple new golf balls for the execs. If they had played kindly, they could've gotten a huge load of sympathy votes for them and only miss one afternoon at the country club.
I don't believe my acts here can hurt the RIAA except maybe a tiny bit, mostly because I don't personally enjoy music made in the USA(no offense intended, just personal taste). However, that chance of a tiny bit is all I need. I already decided to never buy copy protected CD's. Looks like the rest of all audio CD's are off limits now as well.
Somehow, I'm having a bit of a hard time seeing Linus Torvalds and Alan Cox in a big press event, shaking hands, celebrating the joyous awakening of Open Source powered by SCO. I mean really, who does he think he's fooling?
What next? Pets and plants?
4 .s tm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/309285
The other problem with the integrated video chip here is a missing S-Video output. Doesn't feel very useful having to put an external VGA-PAL(or NTSC) converter to use this with a TV. It feels equally as useful to buy a PCI VGA card with a TV output for only this reason.
First of all, I've been using some Promise integrated controllers. Imo, Linux support is "okay" but not too good. I could, after some digging, find a driver I could compile for 2.4 series kernels, but documentation was lousy and the driver has been a bit unstable at times. Nothing major, but imo, too much. As it's just an unknown device to lspci, I can't remember the exact chip model, but it's on the new MSI 865PE motherboards.
We've also been using some of these, a bit more expensive Adaptec RAID 2400 controllers. For these, I'd say "stable mainstream" is the right term. Performance is good but not excellent, support is good and compatibility good. No surprises either way and to me, that's good for a hardware device that needs to be trustworthy.
Highpoints, I've only had experience with their older (up to DMA100) controllers and some integrated ones. No good experiences with any one of these, Windows or Linux. Too commonly, when one drive fails, the whole RAID fails. Performance is lousy. I hope it's just one persons bad experiences, but there sure are a LOT of these bad experiences for me.
The mentioning of americans(sure, this applies elsewhere too but not in such a scale) brought back something else that's considered a level of individual freedom and something that's been rising to huge amounts. AND something that also has a huge amount of unncessary crap in the middle of it.
That is, traffic. Cars. How many are really needed, how many times could better public transport compensate? How much safer would it be if so many of those major lawbreakers(drunk drivers come to mind) could be taken out?
Instead, they just build more and more highways, larger than the previous ones. Not because they'd be needed if some thought would be put to it, but because everyone wants their own car and their own freedom to go where ever, when ever.
Pretty much most of the good tips I've already seen here. It sounds cliche, but remember Scotty from Star Trek? Don't be 100% honest about schedule estimates. You don't know when something will go wrong, you don't know when you have to do some other small job in the middle of a larger project. With any luck, you might SOMETIMES even go under your scheduled time estimate and be the miracle worker of the day.
;).
I had a colleague at my previous workplace, an older female programmer(rare enough, but obviously the best programmer in the house). She always remembered to keep saying "work won't get finished by doing it". The point was that no matter how long days and weeks you work, there will ALWAYS be more work to be done in the IT field(probably elsewhere too?).
This leads to priorising and more than anything else, respecting what you do. You have to realize that in the long run, jobs come and go, but there's only one you.
Personally, I also find it important to being in good communications contact with the boss. Being able to just stop and talk, cell phones turned off, and discuss ideas as well as the current work situation.
Oh, and the old saying I mentioned above... it also means that no matter how many people there are, ALL work never gets done. Obviously, sometimes you need more staff, but there's usually a good way to compromise. Some things are priorities, some things aren't. Some things are worth spending a few days on, some things aren't.
As for the last tips, flexible work hours do miracles for work productivity. I've seen it myself and in my current staff. Good eating habits at work can also do wonders (don't worry, you can party at weekends
Just as a clarification, even as I'm a server admin for GamesNET, my opinion is just my own personal viewpoint and doesn't reflect anything official or any other staff members' opinions.
Imo, and what seems to be a general mood as well, this is just another great show of what a justice system becomes when it works with money and money alone. Charging IRC users for using it? Get real, even ICQ or AIM aren't charging users yet and they're the ones that are perhaps closest to it.
However, as strange as it sounds, sometimes people and companies do emerge, willing to "buy out" some IRC networks. I remember this happening once way back at QuakeNet. But an IRC network is its people, its staff, and all of them are from all around the world, bringing their part to it. You can't just sell something like that as a whole. An IRC network in the top twenties is commonly supported by a huge amount of companies hosting servers and services, from USA to Australia and back.
I did once claim that there is potential for some market value in IRC networks and the network administration should not look lightly on companies willing to host servers that are usually just DDoS magnets. But this is more like having company logos available on a web based client and such.
Some ideas that just can't work right now include:
- charging IRC users for using the service. Users can just switch to the next network, plus the service has been free since its founding. Besides, no IRC network is THAT superior
- selling advertisement space based on things such as private messages spammed regularly to all users. This does have a certain idea, but it's way too easy to block out and quite irritating.
The latter might reveal a potential idea though, giving users the possibility to take part in for example surveys or perhaps having access to some stores and services via IRC might work, so long as these are things a user can voluntarily choose to do or not to do. If such services are designed carefully, they might attract users.
I suppose someone might feel that there's some potential in charging for the use of network services, but this seems a bit hazy as well. The fact is, as long as you can get equal or better service for free elsewhere, you'll rather go elsewhere than pay.
I've had the pleasure of working with many great IRC Networks over the years. It's taken time, effort and money from my pocket. Then again, having motorcycles as a hobby does pretty much the same. Most people don't do it to one day suddenly get rich, they do it because it's FUN and while at it, they learn many useful things which can be helpful with work or other hobbies.
To me, this is just simply sad and as a non-US-citizen, to me it looks like a waste of the justice system's resources.
Some areas in Europe have had it. This is coming to Finland this summer.
When the law was designed some two years ago, they gave plenty of time for the cell phone operators to make plans on how this should work. All should be ready for the summer, they say. It might help the competition, but I do agree it has problems.
Here's one: Making a call within the same operator can be half the price of calling to another operator. One operator has one area code, so you know how much the call will cost you. Now when any area code can be any operator, you don't know how much you're paying.
The phone companies claim to have "a good plan" for this, but seeing they haven't provided any details so far, I'm skeptical.
I've actually got an old DeskJet, the first model. Works without any problems. Recently, I also sold off a pile of old HP's, models including Deskjet Plus, Deskjet 500C, 550C and such. I got about 20 of these printers all in all, all had been in office use for this whole time and they all worked. Two or three had problems feeding paper but it almost brought a tear to my eye to part with them for just a few euros each.
I'm planning to store the DeskJet somewhere safe along with my XT. One day, when I can go and buy a disposable $5 printer from the grocery store, I'll dig it up and remember why I miss the times of Turbo Pascal and Space Quest III...
I see this as +1% instead of -0.1%. From a reseller point of view, this makes life safer. Can't overclock, can't break.
Unfortunately also, a large percentage of overclocking websites are using expressions such as "just go buy an x megahertz cpu and clock it to 1,5x mhz". Which causes people to find some excuse (or use a return policy of the shop) to return cpu's that don't overclock. Because, to these users affected by irresponsible websites or other lousy information sources, overclocking is a standard procedure that you're almost SUPPOSED to do(yes, these kinds of people really do exist).
Okay, so this thing could be fixed by putting a load of sites into good shape and checking some attitudes, but as that'll never happen, I'm happy with Intel on this one. In fact, I think this'll make selling at a lower margin a lot easier. The less pain a reseller has in a simple sale, the less the reseller has to gain from it to cover costs.
What AMD does is their business and I'm sure they'll do their thinking independently. Anyway, doesn't look likely we'll sell any AMD stuff for a while yet. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy good competition, but imo, AMD totally lacks quality. I really hope it improves, AMD has an attitude much closer to users. They have to really WORK for their position, Intel's life is "too safe".
I tried it myself, and found that MoO3 does offer two Great Ways of Gameplay(tm).
a. conquer the universe -wizard, where everything is on automatic and you just watch the game end happily. Kinda like wing commander 4 without the actors and the plot
b. and you thought rewriting the linux kernel was complicated -mode, where you get to choose everything, such as when each of your citizens ia allowed to pick their nose, assuming they have one
Here's to a hopefully better alternative
A router might just as well be your common linux/bsd box as well. In many cases, sshd is run to make administration easier and in some cases, it just might not be secure enough. Easily avoidable problem, but then again, so was Nimda...
In Finland, the law allows one to make personal copies of media for personal and family use. As I understand, this law exists in quite a few countries. The problem and debate seems to be "methods used to circumvent copy protection" such as this.
Still, highly intelligent thinking on the part of lawmakers. Their new proposal would allow personal copies, without allowing the methods required to make such copies. Fortunately EFFI is making a noise of it.
There's a very good chance NOW to make a noise about methods that can be used to circumvent copy protection for personal use, such as modchips. In countries where there's still debate, it seems like a healthy time to speak for this matter.
Another good idea is to check the opinions of local consumer agencies. Over here, they're favoring the customer, especially now that copy protected almost-cd's are sold more and more.
So - here's your free mansion on this nice looking island. Problem is, crossing the bridge will put you to jail and swimming with sharks is none too fun.
As I understand it, patching GameSpy alone won't help - you don't use GameSpy to flood the servers, but a nasty program to send spoofed UDP packets.
Which means patching all servers. As I see it, many gaming providers have a LOT of games running that are vulnerable. And as working for a games service provider myself, I think games go into three categories:
* too old to expect manufacturer/distributer support, but still played - sometimes 3rd party help available(fe. quakeworld, quake 2)
* new or at least still selling enough to interest, and the manufacturer/distributor actually cares about technology(fe. quake 3, half-life)
* new enough, but the manufacturer/distributer hasn't yet really understood why they should support people and companies running servers for them(fe. games from companies such as EA)
True, thanks to ISP's, this isn't a huge problem and I think its also reasonable to thank GameSpy in advance, I'm sure they'll make fixing this reasonably easy by doing their homework well. But still, this has a potential of making nasty stuff hit the fan.
Unfortunately, looking at the way many ISP's see online gaming, they might not give a damn about tuning their routers until they get a ton of packets stuffed in their cables.
here's hoping that GameSpy can work quickly on this...
quote:
This is the __first__ complete Linux distribution for the Microsoft Xbox.
Notice the emphasis? I think it's worthwhile information to know who managed to be the first.
Besides - a distribution means simplicity. Simplicity means more people trying this. And from that on, the snowball hopefully starts rolling down. Thus, the big box with x and Linux will be something interesting to try for more than just level 9 and above ubergeeks.
A very old topic comes to mind. Back in the times of Windows 3.0, it was the huge amount of pirated copies that made it spread VERY widely all over the world. It was clearly established that this piracy did a huge boost on popularity, and thus a similar boost on sales numbers.
Any software pirates around? Remember why you have to feel guilty: if YOU hadn't made windows such a success, the world might be a better place. Shame on you!
Iolaire-chan, I thought we agreed over there that we'd talk about such substances as "bananas".
;)
Sure, this news isn't fact, but then again how many users still think of irc usage and networks as just "being on mirc"... this is close enough for me
I thought Austin Powers was stupid until I watched it with my cousin. Turns out the movie wasn't stupid at all, it was just that I went at it with the wrong attitude.
Right attitude, and right audience... a scary memory of me once trying to show Star Trek to my dad wakes in my mind. I don't think I've ever begged the universe for forgiveness quite as much...
In the end, they're making what people enjoy. The fact that a load of people are watching Star Trek means that those people like what they're seeing. It is a business, yes, but it's a business that has no chance if people don't enjoy what they see. If everything star trek totally sucked, would it really have fans? Or any viewers for that matter.
In my opinion, the original poster could have controlled his/her personal opinions a bit more. I like some time paradox episodes, but then I can name some types of episodes I don't like. Everyone has their favorites. But in the end, all of those episodes are needed. And I do think character is one thing, which was very nicely described above.
Gene's vision still shows nicely as well. They can tell things on Star Trek in metaphores that they can't say directly. I don't think it's about showing a realistic future, but about showing us what we might be able to gain if we lived differently.
It's entertainment. And everything Star Trek is a series, not just a pile of episodes and movies. Whether it's the best scifi or the lousiest isn't important, if you enjoy watching it.
It seems even here around EU that they're using 9/11 as an excuse to alter something as far fetched as copyright laws.
And how do they do this? By claiming that money from production of pirated cd's and dvd's benefits international terrorism. That might be but I fail to see how true their claims can be that trading media files off the Internet can support terrorism...
I don't mind people selling pirated cd's to get a painful kick in the rear end, but the nice professional people seem to agree that importing audio/video media from outside Europe is also piracy, even if they're very legitimate products(region code breaking is evil etc.). And all forms of piracy, including this can support terrorism. I somehow have a hard time believing that importing a region 1 dvd to europe causes any financial gain to any terrorists. But hey, those politicians do this to protect us, let's not question them at such a difficult time.
Bottom line: whenever the lawmakers say "to fight terrorism", they can do pretty much anything, even when it has absolutely nothing to do with the matter.