Having watched small town politics for a while, I think many people get elected filled with idealism and then quickly get disillusioned by how petty and nasty the politics can get. Imagine being put under a microscope where saying hello to a couple fellow board members at the only grocery store in town can become an illegal non-public session?
I'm not saying that local government is pure as driven snow. There's certainly plenty of sweetheart deals and backroom stuff. But from what I've seen, being in local government means taking abuse on a level that's pretty the same thing as that kid in 7th grade who was lucky if he only got beat up once in a day.
Wow... I knew where this was headed, and yet I still couldn't believe it. An open source program that has absolutely nothing to do with Microsoft crashes, and guess what, it's all MS's fault.
There's plenty of legitimate gripes with Microsoft. Blame them for a secretive culture, monopolistic practices, failure to follow standards, bugs, etc etc etc. But don't blame them for the failings of FOSS software. Next thing you know, MS will be the reason GNU/Hurd hasn't taken over.
Just like building atomic bombs "is not hard". After all, poor countries like North Korea and Pakistan can do it.
BUT building the FIRST atomic bomb took an enormous effort by the richest country on the planet. If my military has a technological advantage, I'd like to hang on to that advantage for as long as is possible.
Ugobe was a heavyweight company poised for explosive growth and burdened with all the associated expenses and overhead that implies, so they needed a huge explosion in sales. Derek still believes Ugobe would have survived and done well if they could have raised their last round of funds.
I was reminded of a.com that I worked for during the boom years that had a nice product that would support a small company. But of course, you couldn't get rich creating a small company, so instead they projected a sales curve that started out low and rose exponentially, and thus they could remain "on track" for that "explosion in sales". Ugobe sounds like deja vu all over again...
If you had your computer with a 500w power supply on 12 hours a day, 365 days a year, you are burning about 8 giga-joules (figuring 1 watt = 1 joule/sec, 3600 secs/hr * 500 w = 1.8 million joules / hr, multiple by an random guesstimated average usage of 12 hours/day and 365 days a year), or about 1/7th of the Toyota Land Cruiser (according to the article).
And that doesn't factor in the energy to produce it, the energy to connect it to the Internet, the fact that if you are reading Slashdot you probably have a couple of computers, you may be using them more than 12 hours in a day, etc.
Or to put it another way, these researchers, who don't have a pet, probably run computers that use as much energy as a pet. Like most people, these researchers find it easy to dispense with things that they don't personally care about.
The only problem with all your arguments is that the Windows 7 RC has been out for a long time, it's been run extensively by experienced people, and all of the reports have been that it's pretty damn good. After Vista no amount of M$ PR would convince people if Windows 7 was steaming pile. Yeah, it's an evolution of Vista, just like each release of a linux distro is an evolution of the previous release, not a fresh start. MS has never claimed otherwise.
Mostly it sounded like Dvorak was annoyed that he wasn't being treated like the big cheese that he thinks he is: "I haven't received a single personal note from a Microsoft PR person for roughly four years."
Amazing how people who cheat always manage to come up with lengthy posts justifying it. As to how it ruins the game for other people, guess what, trying to find a resource when there's gold farmer bots hitting resources 24x7 is a pain. Having people buy gold means that if I play within the rules of the game, I can't afford to buy in game items. Having people buy characters on EBay means that I end up grouping with someone who doesn't know how to play. I can come up with more examples, but basically yeah, cheating screws over other players. If you respect other players, don't cheat. If you feel like cheating, use cheat codes in a single player game, where it really can't affect anyone else.
Look, if you find the game boring, then there's a really simple solution: don't play it. Really smart people don't play games they don't enjoy.
Flu innoculation advertisements: warn you of a serious health threat that kills a lot of people every year. Not paying attention leads to evolution in action.
Terror alerts: announced by the government to the entire country. Might be political, might reflect real intelligence.
Getting threatening messages and phone calls over a series of days aimed at you personally: stalking.
You might think it's a bad thing, yet that's looking at it from the WoW perspective were 'everyone is a hero'. In EVE there are only a few real hero's, yet those that are well known have done something of true significance in the game. It's not just a fake hero feeling from playing a game that was designed to make everyone achieve the same thing.
I question the meaning of being a "hero" in a video game. Are we talking about the rare gamer who has faster reflexes and a deep understanding of how to counter every move his opponent makes? Or is it just Cartman sitting in his basement spending 24x7 killing boars?
The strength of WoW is that I can go in to the game, play for a bit, have some fun, feel a sense of accomplishment, and leave. If I want to feel like a grunt supporting some massive guild or corporation, all I have to go is go in to work, where my status is abundantly clear.
What Blizzard understands and has mastered is that games need to be fun. WoW, unlike a lot of MMOs, is not necessarily an alternate life. You don't have to live in the game to enjoy the game. Blizzard makes the game fun, regardless of how you like to play: pvp, pve, exploring, crafting, alts, endgame, social experience, whatever.
Regardless of how you feel about "free" software or open source or Microsoft, Stallman's article is very definition of FUD. He speculates about what Codeplex might do, then attacks them as though they had already done it.
Oh, Rush is not mr. nice guy. I loved when they try to dial the gate the first time, it doesn't work, and Rush looks at the kid and says "let's see what's wrong with YOUR equations". The classic "I'm a guru, this must be someone else's fault" response.
BUT I still feel that he's going to be more complex than "I want to be nasty and hurt people because that's how the writers write me" kind of character. I've got my doubts, because it does look like they are trying to do Lost-In-Battlestar-Gate, and I can't see how it's going to work. But I certainly wish them luck. The original series really ran on thoughtful writing and wonderful chemistry between the characters, and I'd love to seem the create a successful followup (Atlantis was just awful).
Open source software isn't always an alternative. I worked for a company that did software for the print industry, and there simply wasn't an open-source competitor. It's not like all you need are the basics. We supplied software that knew how to estimate print jobs, schedule the shop, manage inventory, handle shipping, all closely integrated.
Yeah, there were companies who said "no thanks, we'll roll our own". Perhaps they used open source. Didn't matter, because usually they showed up at our doorstep, a few years later, after discovering that having open source disconnected systems here and there throughout their company, written by someone who then decided to move on, really wasn't the way to go.
Rush seems like a much more interesting and complex character than Baltar. He clearly has an agenda that doesn't involve money or the nearest attractive woman. I'm suspecting based on the photo that it's some sort of "beloved died and can only be ressurrected by Ancient technology" thing. But in any event, when the MIT kid asked him if he wasn't even bothered by people dying, Rush didn't sound like the typical "I'm evil for the sake of evil" bad guy.
And for those folks who think BSG had a better story arc than SG, no way. I think the world of BSG, it was really well done, but a while back by happenstance I saw an ad for the SG original series for about $140 on DVD, bought it, have been watching it ever since, and love it. The story arcs are just brilliant.
Yeah, it's too bad that the USA has fallen so far behind, now with Russian rovers exploring Mars, Chinese spacecraft making the first detailed inspection of Mercury, the Brazilians having sending a probe to Pluto.../sarcasm
When I loaded Debian Linux onto one of my machines, it crapped out pretty hard. That doesn't mean that every machine that runs Debian crashes 3 or 4 times a day. Machines do have problems and crash. What I take issue with is the claim that crashing several times a day is the norm for Windows. I've worked with Windows for many years, in companies from about 50 to several thousand employees, and I can guarantee you that I'm not surrounded by constant cries of "my machine crapped out again".
DK nerfs???? I started a DK a month or two ago to play with some friends and after leveling a priest and a hunter to 80 and a rogue to 70, the DK was so overpowered it was ridiculous. If the DK is nerfed now, it must have been insanely powerful before. If "DK nerfs" are why you are quitting, you just need a game with an "I win" button.
And, I must admit you were able to get remarkable performance from your Windows installations; most people need to reboot several times a day
Utter nonsense. If you are going to criticize Windows & MS, there are plenty of real issues, don't toss out crap like this. I run Windows at work for software development and at home for gaming, and I push both machines pretty hard. I can't recall ANY time in the 10 years (including a few years running Win/ME) when I had to reboot "several times a day". I don't know ANYONE at work who needs to do that. At work I generally just power my desktop down on the weekend. I have a Windows XP production machine that's been running for months without a reboot.
The problem with saying "Windows is incredibly unstable" is that anyone who actually uses Windows knows that's crap, so they assume that anything positive that you say about Linux is also crap. You aren't doing your cause any good with such talk.
Blizzard has 2500+ people working POORLY in customer support related jobs. They make decisions based on hearsay and ban without even doing a thorough investigation into the matters at hand. It's beginning to cost them in playerbase.
The few times I've had to contact GMs, the experience has been uniformly positive. And I know of a number of people who were hacked and had their stuff ripped off. Each of them got their gear back in a few days. I don't know of anyone leaving the game due to customer service. I played Everquest for years, and WoW CS is head and shoulders above SoE.
Now take that above and toss nerfs into the mix. Not just item nerfs or class nerfs, but CONTENT nerfs. Making "epic" raid encounters so trivial that almost any casual guild with all green gear and ventrilo can take out most of the upper-tier content.
I used to be upset about reducing the difficulty of content. However, it's actually a really good move on Blizzard's part. Unless they do stuff like that, the game becomes a filter where fewer and fewer players get to see the content. Once the hard core "uber" players have seen some content, what's the problem with easing the encounters so other players can see it?
I mostly did PvP with my rogue and not to float my own boat, but I was good at it. Then some warlock made a video that showed his poor class playing ability and how rogues were somehow so uber they needed to be nerfed to Hell and back. It got to the point where every PvP nerf they gave me hurt me in PvE high-end raiding content. Even with tier 7+ gear it was hard to do what a rogue SHOULD do - damage things better than the tank at least.
So they nerfed your class and then you got pissed off and decided to stop playing. Well, guess what, every MMO is going to need rebalancing, and that may include nerfs. I was seriously annoyed when they nerfed fear ward on my priest, but that's just the way it goes.
Yes, I am bitter toward WoW and Blizzard. In fact, I hope WoW dies a horribly, slow burning death
It's a game, it's not worth getting that pissed off about. Play a different game. Go outside and see the ball of yellow light in the sky.
Ok, there are two sets of facts that are not mutually incompatible. Yes, there has been dramatic climate change throughout Earth's history, virtually all of which has not been man-made. And yes, clearly human activity has influenced the Earth's climate in the past few hundred years. Just because one exists, that does not preclude the other.
Well, a week ago Republicanz were freaking out because Obama was telling kids to stay in school, where they'll learn that "evil"-lution stuff. That takes some kind of prize, but not a good one.
Apparently this guy is. The school is probably trying to make sure that the kids interrupt their twinkie eating long enough to get their heart rates going, and this guy starts hearing black helicopters.
They certainly aren't the first nor will they be the last MMO maker to say that rebalancing (which is what nerfing / augmenting is) is going to occur during the lifetime of a game. And they also aren't the first to allow people to change their skills when rebalancing occurs. WoW routinely refunds all of your talent points and gives you a free respec when they do a major change to a character class.
Maybe I should bold what I was replying to, since you seem to have a short attention span: Most people use calculators these days. In case you're wondering who said it, it was you. The assumption that you're making that simply using a calculator allows one to dispense with learning how to do basic math is incorrect.
Slashdot Mirror
Having watched small town politics for a while, I think many people get elected filled with idealism and then quickly get disillusioned by how petty and nasty the politics can get. Imagine being put under a microscope where saying hello to a couple fellow board members at the only grocery store in town can become an illegal non-public session?
I'm not saying that local government is pure as driven snow. There's certainly plenty of sweetheart deals and backroom stuff. But from what I've seen, being in local government means taking abuse on a level that's pretty the same thing as that kid in 7th grade who was lucky if he only got beat up once in a day.
Wow... I knew where this was headed, and yet I still couldn't believe it. An open source program that has absolutely nothing to do with Microsoft crashes, and guess what, it's all MS's fault.
There's plenty of legitimate gripes with Microsoft. Blame them for a secretive culture, monopolistic practices, failure to follow standards, bugs, etc etc etc. But don't blame them for the failings of FOSS software. Next thing you know, MS will be the reason GNU/Hurd hasn't taken over.
Just like building atomic bombs "is not hard". After all, poor countries like North Korea and Pakistan can do it.
BUT building the FIRST atomic bomb took an enormous effort by the richest country on the planet. If my military has a technological advantage, I'd like to hang on to that advantage for as long as is possible.
When I read
Ugobe was a heavyweight company poised for explosive growth and burdened with all the associated expenses and overhead that implies, so they needed a huge explosion in sales. Derek still believes Ugobe would have survived and done well if they could have raised their last round of funds.
I was reminded of a .com that I worked for during the boom years that had a nice product that would support a small company. But of course, you couldn't get rich creating a small company, so instead they projected a sales curve that started out low and rose exponentially, and thus they could remain "on track" for that "explosion in sales". Ugobe sounds like deja vu all over again...
If you had your computer with a 500w power supply on 12 hours a day, 365 days a year, you are burning about 8 giga-joules (figuring 1 watt = 1 joule/sec, 3600 secs/hr * 500 w = 1.8 million joules / hr, multiple by an random guesstimated average usage of 12 hours/day and 365 days a year), or about 1/7th of the Toyota Land Cruiser (according to the article).
And that doesn't factor in the energy to produce it, the energy to connect it to the Internet, the fact that if you are reading Slashdot you probably have a couple of computers, you may be using them more than 12 hours in a day, etc.
Or to put it another way, these researchers, who don't have a pet, probably run computers that use as much energy as a pet. Like most people, these researchers find it easy to dispense with things that they don't personally care about.
The only problem with all your arguments is that the Windows 7 RC has been out for a long time, it's been run extensively by experienced people, and all of the reports have been that it's pretty damn good. After Vista no amount of M$ PR would convince people if Windows 7 was steaming pile. Yeah, it's an evolution of Vista, just like each release of a linux distro is an evolution of the previous release, not a fresh start. MS has never claimed otherwise.
Mostly it sounded like Dvorak was annoyed that he wasn't being treated like the big cheese that he thinks he is:
"I haven't received a single personal note from a Microsoft PR person for roughly four years."
Amazing how people who cheat always manage to come up with lengthy posts justifying it. As to how it ruins the game for other people, guess what, trying to find a resource when there's gold farmer bots hitting resources 24x7 is a pain. Having people buy gold means that if I play within the rules of the game, I can't afford to buy in game items. Having people buy characters on EBay means that I end up grouping with someone who doesn't know how to play. I can come up with more examples, but basically yeah, cheating screws over other players. If you respect other players, don't cheat. If you feel like cheating, use cheat codes in a single player game, where it really can't affect anyone else.
Look, if you find the game boring, then there's a really simple solution: don't play it. Really smart people don't play games they don't enjoy.
Ok, let's break it down a little:
Flu innoculation advertisements: warn you of a serious health threat that kills a lot of people every year. Not paying attention leads to evolution in action.
Terror alerts: announced by the government to the entire country. Might be political, might reflect real intelligence.
Getting threatening messages and phone calls over a series of days aimed at you personally: stalking.
Got it?
You might think it's a bad thing, yet that's looking at it from the WoW perspective were 'everyone is a hero'. In EVE there are only a few real hero's, yet those that are well known have done something of true significance in the game. It's not just a fake hero feeling from playing a game that was designed to make everyone achieve the same thing.
I question the meaning of being a "hero" in a video game. Are we talking about the rare gamer who has faster reflexes and a deep understanding of how to counter every move his opponent makes? Or is it just Cartman sitting in his basement spending 24x7 killing boars?
The strength of WoW is that I can go in to the game, play for a bit, have some fun, feel a sense of accomplishment, and leave. If I want to feel like a grunt supporting some massive guild or corporation, all I have to go is go in to work, where my status is abundantly clear.
What Blizzard understands and has mastered is that games need to be fun. WoW, unlike a lot of MMOs, is not necessarily an alternate life. You don't have to live in the game to enjoy the game. Blizzard makes the game fun, regardless of how you like to play: pvp, pve, exploring, crafting, alts, endgame, social experience, whatever.
I don't know how to break this to you, but patents were also invented before Microsoft.
Regardless of how you feel about "free" software or open source or Microsoft, Stallman's article is very definition of FUD. He speculates about what Codeplex might do, then attacks them as though they had already done it.
Oh, Rush is not mr. nice guy. I loved when they try to dial the gate the first time, it doesn't work, and Rush looks at the kid and says "let's see what's wrong with YOUR equations". The classic "I'm a guru, this must be someone else's fault" response.
BUT I still feel that he's going to be more complex than "I want to be nasty and hurt people because that's how the writers write me" kind of character. I've got my doubts, because it does look like they are trying to do Lost-In-Battlestar-Gate, and I can't see how it's going to work. But I certainly wish them luck. The original series really ran on thoughtful writing and wonderful chemistry between the characters, and I'd love to seem the create a successful followup (Atlantis was just awful).
Open source software isn't always an alternative. I worked for a company that did software for the print industry, and there simply wasn't an open-source competitor. It's not like all you need are the basics. We supplied software that knew how to estimate print jobs, schedule the shop, manage inventory, handle shipping, all closely integrated.
Yeah, there were companies who said "no thanks, we'll roll our own". Perhaps they used open source. Didn't matter, because usually they showed up at our doorstep, a few years later, after discovering that having open source disconnected systems here and there throughout their company, written by someone who then decided to move on, really wasn't the way to go.
Rush seems like a much more interesting and complex character than Baltar. He clearly has an agenda that doesn't involve money or the nearest attractive woman. I'm suspecting based on the photo that it's some sort of "beloved died and can only be ressurrected by Ancient technology" thing. But in any event, when the MIT kid asked him if he wasn't even bothered by people dying, Rush didn't sound like the typical "I'm evil for the sake of evil" bad guy.
And for those folks who think BSG had a better story arc than SG, no way. I think the world of BSG, it was really well done, but a while back by happenstance I saw an ad for the SG original series for about $140 on DVD, bought it, have been watching it ever since, and love it. The story arcs are just brilliant.
Yeah, it's too bad that the USA has fallen so far behind, now with Russian rovers exploring Mars, Chinese spacecraft making the first detailed inspection of Mercury, the Brazilians having sending a probe to Pluto... /sarcasm
When I loaded Debian Linux onto one of my machines, it crapped out pretty hard. That doesn't mean that every machine that runs Debian crashes 3 or 4 times a day. Machines do have problems and crash. What I take issue with is the claim that crashing several times a day is the norm for Windows. I've worked with Windows for many years, in companies from about 50 to several thousand employees, and I can guarantee you that I'm not surrounded by constant cries of "my machine crapped out again".
DK nerfs???? I started a DK a month or two ago to play with some friends and after leveling a priest and a hunter to 80 and a rogue to 70, the DK was so overpowered it was ridiculous. If the DK is nerfed now, it must have been insanely powerful before. If "DK nerfs" are why you are quitting, you just need a game with an "I win" button.
And, I must admit you were able to get remarkable performance from your Windows installations; most people need to reboot several times a day
Utter nonsense. If you are going to criticize Windows & MS, there are plenty of real issues, don't toss out crap like this. I run Windows at work for software development and at home for gaming, and I push both machines pretty hard. I can't recall ANY time in the 10 years (including a few years running Win/ME) when I had to reboot "several times a day". I don't know ANYONE at work who needs to do that. At work I generally just power my desktop down on the weekend. I have a Windows XP production machine that's been running for months without a reboot.
The problem with saying "Windows is incredibly unstable" is that anyone who actually uses Windows knows that's crap, so they assume that anything positive that you say about Linux is also crap. You aren't doing your cause any good with such talk.
Blizzard has 2500+ people working POORLY in customer support related jobs. They make decisions based on hearsay and ban without even doing a thorough investigation into the matters at hand. It's beginning to cost them in playerbase.
The few times I've had to contact GMs, the experience has been uniformly positive. And I know of a number of people who were hacked and had their stuff ripped off. Each of them got their gear back in a few days. I don't know of anyone leaving the game due to customer service. I played Everquest for years, and WoW CS is head and shoulders above SoE.
Now take that above and toss nerfs into the mix. Not just item nerfs or class nerfs, but CONTENT nerfs. Making "epic" raid encounters so trivial that almost any casual guild with all green gear and ventrilo can take out most of the upper-tier content.
I used to be upset about reducing the difficulty of content. However, it's actually a really good move on Blizzard's part. Unless they do stuff like that, the game becomes a filter where fewer and fewer players get to see the content. Once the hard core "uber" players have seen some content, what's the problem with easing the encounters so other players can see it?
I mostly did PvP with my rogue and not to float my own boat, but I was good at it. Then some warlock made a video that showed his poor class playing ability and how rogues were somehow so uber they needed to be nerfed to Hell and back. It got to the point where every PvP nerf they gave me hurt me in PvE high-end raiding content. Even with tier 7+ gear it was hard to do what a rogue SHOULD do - damage things better than the tank at least.
So they nerfed your class and then you got pissed off and decided to stop playing. Well, guess what, every MMO is going to need rebalancing, and that may include nerfs. I was seriously annoyed when they nerfed fear ward on my priest, but that's just the way it goes.
Yes, I am bitter toward WoW and Blizzard. In fact, I hope WoW dies a horribly, slow burning death
It's a game, it's not worth getting that pissed off about. Play a different game. Go outside and see the ball of yellow light in the sky.
Ok, there are two sets of facts that are not mutually incompatible. Yes, there has been dramatic climate change throughout Earth's history, virtually all of which has not been man-made. And yes, clearly human activity has influenced the Earth's climate in the past few hundred years. Just because one exists, that does not preclude the other.
Well, a week ago Republicanz were freaking out because Obama was telling kids to stay in school, where they'll learn that "evil"-lution stuff. That takes some kind of prize, but not a good one.
Apparently this guy is. The school is probably trying to make sure that the kids interrupt their twinkie eating long enough to get their heart rates going, and this guy starts hearing black helicopters.
They certainly aren't the first nor will they be the last MMO maker to say that rebalancing (which is what nerfing / augmenting is) is going to occur during the lifetime of a game. And they also aren't the first to allow people to change their skills when rebalancing occurs. WoW routinely refunds all of your talent points and gives you a free respec when they do a major change to a character class.
Maybe I should bold what I was replying to, since you seem to have a short attention span: Most people use calculators these days. In case you're wondering who said it, it was you. The assumption that you're making that simply using a calculator allows one to dispense with learning how to do basic math is incorrect.