Some reserve units are actually pretty experienced and can beat Opfor. They are the minority.
It depends on the historical timeframe. In the mid to late 1970s 30-something year old AF Reservists flying "inferior" aircraft often beat 20-something year old AF Regulars. Nothing like a couple thousand more flight hours and a combat tour to hone ones skills.;-)
Today, with the rate that Reserve and Guard units are mobilized and deployed overseas I'd expect that we'd be seeing another convergence of capabilities in Infantry units.
If I remember correctly, the last bit about U.S. special ops troops picking up AKs in Afghanistan had more to do with the lack of NATO 5.56 rounds for their weapons.
Actually it may have more to do with tactics. Special Ops often does not want a toe-to-toe fight. One tactic upon contact is to open up with only the enemy's distinctively sounding weaponry. Maybe use some of his distinctively colored tracer rounds as well. Hopefully there will be a slight amount of confusion over a possibly friendly fire incident, this can facilitate breaking contact and leaving the vicinity.
Of course in Afghanistan with all it's tribal warfare you would have to hope they were not expecting contact with local rivals. Also, a jihadist may not care about friendly fire. The dead died carrying arms in the service of God and are now in paradise, and since it happened it was obviously God's will, no harm done.
Reengineering them to use AK47 rounds?
As I recall, AK47 uses 7.62 mm rounds which would fit rather bad in the US 5.56 mm weapons?
AK's went 5.??mm in the 70s, still not compatible with the NATO 5.56mm. If you see a muddy redish brown colored magazine it is probably 5.??mm. 7.62s were still made for a while for export. I'm referring to the Soviet Union, I have not idea what China did.
It's likely that 50 years ago (during the cold war) there weren't many Soviet admirals walzting around the Nautilus. So we can assume he was doing this to fellow officers only.
Junior officers would be more accurate.
That said, what an ass.
Not really. Virtually all first generation "nuclear Navy" officers were personally selected by Rickover. His interviews were grueling, but he recognized how high the stakes were. Ignore all the normal Naval hazards where an officer has to make on-the-spot decisions with incomplete information. Now let increase the hazards by an order of magnitude or two since we will be dealing with a submarine force. Now lets up the cost of inadequate maintenance or training, human error, mechanical error, etc since a "bad day at the office" may result in a radiation leak rather than an oil slick. Creating physical and psychological stress during an interview or test is an important tool. It is also pretty standard training. It is not all that different from testing a crewman's ability to find and fix a leaky pipe by flooding the room to chest level with cold water, turning out the light, and have high pressure water spraying from various directions.
In other words, can you please do a study confirming (to my employer, of course) that this 135 degree reclined position does not adversely affect my the bloodflow to the brain, attention span, ability to perform complex mental tasks, etc?
F-16 fighter seats are in a permanent reclining position. I think the Air Force is happy with the performance in the listed categories.
Picture yourself a developer. You release a game to rave reviews. Consumer response starts coming in. Emails about how great you are. Bug Reports. and 15 thousand emails complaining that the game is buggy as hell under wine so we won't buy it.
I think things get unrealistic at this point. While I can believe 15,000 try something under Wine, I think if problems arise they will largely do what they currently do: dual boot. I'd say the purists who will abstain are probably well under 2,000. One hears "the only reason I have Win32 on my box is for games" far far more often than "I only play native Linux games".
Now your decision to be win32 only on the next game is colored by 15 thousand potential customers.
You have 3 choices.
1. Ignore those hippy treehugging free software running geeks.
2. Code your Game to run under Wine
3. Go cross platform.
Option 2 and 3 equates to 15 thousand more sales and 1 more working linux game. I'm fine with 2 but prefer 3.
There is a 4th choice. Let the Wine devs fix Wine. If the game is as popular as you stated then this will most likely occur. The bugs are more likely to be in Wine than the game.
"There is no contradiction there, Linux users buy and run Win32 games and that undermines the need for native Linux ports. The Linux Market is *not* the number of Linux users that would buy a native Linux port, it is only those who would never buy a Win32 version and emulate or dual boot."
Ahh, but therein lies the rub. Personally I buy only when I know it will run. If it's native linux I Buy it (Quake4,Doom3,UT2k4, etc). If the torrent works emuklated I will pick up a retail copy . So the market is the number of "Working" Games. More Linux native ports = more working games = more sales.
I do not dual boot. I wine what I can and live without the rest.
No, the market is not the number of "working games". If you emulate the Win32 game then the developer does not need to do a Linux port. If they come out with a Linux version of their next game they will merely move you from the Win32 to the Linux column. There is no new money in doing so, so how will they pay their Linux specific development and more importantly their Linux specific QA and support? Preferring native, buying Win32 as a last resort, is part of the problem. The developer knows they will get you as a paying customer regardless of whether they do Linux or not. The Linux market is only those who will *never* buy the Win32 version.
There is no game market for linux... Linux users buy GAMES.
There is no contradiction there, Linux users buy and run Win32 games and that undermines the need for native Linux ports. The Linux Market is *not* the number of Linux users that would buy a native Linux port, it is only those who would never buy a Win32 version and emulate or dual boot. The Win32 buyers are already customers of the developers, there is no new money by transferring a person from the Win32 sale column to the Linux sale column. It is cannibalization of the existing market. The only new money that would support Linux development and *more importantly* QA and Support comes from those who only run native Linux ports and never dual boot or emulate Win32 games.
The real reason we have this problem can be summed up in two words : DirectX.
Not really, several Mac developers have successfully translated DirectDraw, DirectSound, and Direct3D calls to Mac sound and graphics calls. The one area where you are correct is with respect to networking, DirectPlay. One Mac dev got DirectPlay calls translated but IIRC it was a hurculean effort. It any case many Win32 devs shun DirectPlay for various reasons.
The article author wrote "only Microsoft has access to most of its source code". That is terribly uninformed. For many years MS has allowed academic researchers access to Windows source code, this includes students. You had to apply, MS had to like your research topic, and you had to sign an NDA, but the terms were pretty fair and did not interfere with publishing your research. I knew someone who worked on such a research project as a student.
But you don't cost anybody anything. The people involved have already made the decision to share. If you are willing to wait for a random person to implement a feature you need, then your need obviously is not all that great. Thinking you have gotten one over on them is dumb at best. It's not a zero sum game.
The needs are relative not absolute. My need may be great but if someone else has an even greater need I can leverage this fact, conserve my finite resources, and expend them only on features that are unique to me. Being a good citizen and sharing the burden on shared features reduces the number of unique features that I can afford.
But with FOSS, I (the end user) can email the coder and offer to pay him/her to finish a feature I'd like or do some other boring job. And that is one of the great things about FOSS. Once I pay for it, everyone benefits from it (including me).
However progress will be slow because most of us will wait for someone else to pay for the changes we want. Most people will freeload if given the opportunity, Econ 101. Since you are reading this right now, I will thank you in advance for your future gifts to the community.;-)
Sadly, that screen is like the EULA - people just click and go... That sucker should pop up it's own window for something so important, one would think.
The scan is automatic so click-and-go does not subvert it, and I think it does pop up a window *if* something is found. If nothing is found it remains silent, as it should, so you can get to the game as quickly as you can.
Victoria's Secret model w/ Math Degree ...
on
Top Ten Geek Girls
·
· Score: 1
Having filler like Lisa Simpson is bad enough, but Paris Hilton?
If they had to have a hottie couldn't they have used one of the Victoria's Secret models, IIRC one of them has a degree in mathematics.
"We have been testing our security software with Cedega. Cedega was used and tested before the security procedures and during the security procedures. From this testing we have yielded no hits, meaning Cedega, by itself, does not incur an account suspension. We have accounts of several Cedega users who have been playing normally during the time that these processes are running. Again, these people are not being suspended simply because of using Cedega or Linux. We are in contact with the people at Cedega and following up with them regarding individual accounts. To answer the OP's question, no it is not against the ToS to use Linux or Cedega. We continue to monitor the situation to prevent cases of false positives and to rectify them if they do occur."
I hate bots in WoW as much as anyone, but Blizzard needs to WARN people that a 3rd party program is running on their system. WARN them. Every time it's detected.
I believe Blizzard's WoW launcher does so to a degree:
"Automatic Trojan/Cheat-Program Scan"
"If a Trojan or third-party World of Warcraft cheat program is detected on the system on which the Blizzard Launcher is running, a message will appear with additional helpful information. Trojans are hidden programs designed for a number of malicious purposes, such as spreading computer viruses and stealing World of Warcraft account and password information. The Blizzard Launcher is intended as an additional level of security against these programs, but we strongly recommend that players also install dedicated anti-virus software on their computers."
"Third-party cheat programs are designed to give players an unfair advantage in World of Warcraft. The scan that the Blizzard Launcher performs is provided solely for your protection and to give you an opportunity to remove any detected cheat program before you play World of Warcraft. It does not report any information back to Blizzard. If you choose to bypass the Blizzard Launcher (see below) and run World of Warcraft without removing any cheat program it might have identified for you, you risk having your World of Warcraft account closed if the cheat is detected while you're in game, regardless of who was responsible for installing it."
"We've often found that players whose account information had been compromised by a Trojan program or whose World of Warcraft accounts were banned for using a third-party cheat program while playing were unaware that these programs existed on the computer they used to play the game. This scan will be particularly helpful to those players who share computer access with multiple users, as is the case in Internet gaming cafes and single-computer households."
No anti-cheating effort will be 100% error free 100% of the time. I think judgement should be made on how often errors occur and how a company handles reports of errors. The statements before and after indicate a pretty decent handling of the situation. Especially for an unsupported OS. Apparently not all Cedega users were banned, the problem must have been intermittent. This is consistent with what many Cedega users were saying, that they have been playing and everything was fine.
So, they test in an unsupported environment and promptly investigate problems and address them. IMHO Blizzard is showing Linux some respect, as they did many years ago for Macintosh when most people laughed at it. Hopefully history will repeat itself.
What they said before the investigation when the report of problem first came in:
"We have been testing our security software with Cedega. Cedega was used and tested before the security procedures and during the security procedures. From this testing we have yielded no hits, meaning Cedega, by itself, does not incur an account suspension. We have accounts of several Cedega users who have been playing normally during the time that these processes are running. Again, these people are not being suspended simply because of using Cedega or Linux. We are in contact with the people at Cedega and following up with them regarding individual accounts. To answer the OP's question, no it is not against the ToS to use Linux or Cedega. We continue to monitor the situation to prevent cases of false positives and to rectify them if they do occur."
As you know, Blizzard Entertainment traditionally makes a serious commitment to protect the World of Warcraft community from players who gain unfair advantage through hacks and exploits. Last week, our administrators implemented bans on a large number of accounts that were identified acting against the terms and the spirit of the game.
However, it has since come to our attention that a very small percentage of those accounts should not have been banned. This case of mistaken identity seems to be isolated to users of an unsupported, Linux-based Windows emulator called Cedega.
Once this pattern was brought to Blizzard's attention, our staff worked directly in conjunction with the Cedega development team in a rigorous and thorough review of the situation. We have since determined that your account was one of those accidentally flagged, and as such we are immediately reinstating your account to fully playable status.
Blizzard Entertainment deeply regrets the error, as we understand that this brief account closure presented you with an inconvenient and highly frustrating experience. We remain firmly committed to enforcing our regulations and suspensions for those exploiting our game, in the interest of ensuring that our legitimate customers have the best possible play experience. In this case, however, we regretfully caught a handful of innocent customers in the process, and for that we offer you our genuine apology.
In consideration of our error, we are applying a credit of two weeks play time
onto your account, in addition to crediting back the time that your account was locked. This comes to a total of twenty (2O) days credit, which should be visible on your account within the end of the week.
If you have any other questions or concerns regarding this account, please do not hesitate to let us know. We appreciate your extraordinary patience in this matter and hope you will continue to enjoy your time in World of Warcraft.
Regards,
World of Warcraft Support Team
Blizzard Entertainment"
"We have been testing our security software with Cedega. Cedega was used and tested before the security procedures and during the security procedures. From this testing we have yielded no hits, meaning Cedega, by itself, does not incur an account suspension.
We have accounts of several Cedega users who have been playing normally during the time that these processes are running. Again, these people are not being suspended simply because of using Cedega or Linux.
We are in contact with the people at Cedega and following up with them regarding individual accounts.
To answer the OP's question, no it is not against the ToS to use Linux or Cedega. We continue to monitor the situation to prevent cases of false positives and to rectify them if they do occur."
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topi cId=47009071&sid=1&pageNo=3
Followed by drug development plummeting because the universities quit doing the research studies the drug companies used.
No, Universities would lose Doctors and researchers to private enterprise. The research will be done by someone, private labs will displace the universities as they will be more cost effective under the proposed system, unlike under the current system.
As others have pointed out, and as elected officials demonstrate on a nearly daily basis, nice sentiments sometimes make poor policy due to unintended consequences. This proposal is ripe for the latter.
"People could choose Macintosh or Linux, but they choose to use Windows instead."
I don't think people so much "choose" Windows so much as it has become the default choice for people who don't know what they want.
I think they know what they want, they want a computer. They want the web, email, to type a letter to grandma, etc. I would say that these people have chosen to go with the "default" platform for convenience, network effect, software availability, etc. To many people Windows, Mac, and Linux are equivalent, the solve the basic needs mentioned above, so convenience and price become the deciding factors.
"It is not a monopoly in the sense that people have no choice. People could choose Macintosh or Linux, but they choose to use Windows instead. My point stands."
Well it is obvious that your understanding of the market exceeds even that of federal judges who have studied it for years. No one can doubt your logic.
The word "monopoly" can be used in many distinctly different situations. While Microsoft may have been found to be engaging in monopolistic business practices, that is different than "a monopoly in the sense that people have no choice". Again, you are free to run Linux or Macintosh. Monopoly in the sense that "people have no choice" would be something like the historical situation where you could buy oil from Standard Oil or you could not buy oil. Again, a distinctly different situation that the one with Windows.
"Consider how packaging (Windows) triumphs over design (Linux) in many markets."
Those "many markets" are the ones where Microsoft has a monopoly (desktop).
It is not a monopoly in the sense that people have no choice. People could choose Macintosh or Linux, but they choose to use Windows instead. My point stands.
"However, regardless of how brilliant your spec/design is if it does not get "sold" to the client it is useless. If color schemes and logos make the sale more likely then please let management work on that."
If the sale hinges on the colour scheme and logos, then save everyone some stress and take the client out for drinks and hire a hooker for him. Yes I know it does everything we want and it's within our price range... but I'm not really comfortable with that shade of blue.
You are conveniently ignoring competition. The competition may have something that is equivalent with respect to functionality and price. A better presentation will often make the difference.
"Another way to look at it, business is a pretty Darwinian process. If color schemes, logos, slogans, etc. were complete crap they would not be used so heavily."
In my experience, it is not "Darwinian" at all.
The point above proves otherwise. Two equivalent product, the one with the stronger presentation wins, presentation skills therefore have value.
It's all about who you know, where you are and what the economy is like at that time. Which is why when the economy turns down, so many companies fail. Anyone can captain the ship in calm weather.
That is a bit tangential, but you are essentially saying that in calm weather companies with poor presentations can still find customers. In stormier times every advantage is necessary, since presentations skills have value they are even more necessary.
"We are often quite ill-informed with respect to business."
At times that is correct. But it is the exception, not the rule.
"While PHB decisions absolutely do exist, we engineers falsely label some rational decisions as PHB due to our ignorance of issues outside of engineering."
Again, at times that is correct. But it is the exception, not the rule.
I beg to differ. Business, marketing, strategy, etc. are highly specialized skills and engineers generaly do not develop those skills. They are quite busy enough developing the skill necessary for engineering.
Which is the reason you'll see management books written about cheese while others are written about fish.
And we'll see some engineers designing products for cheese and some for fish.
"Learn from the mistake of the people of the "A" Ark.;-)"
I think you have your arks wrong.
I don't think so, those on the B Ark survived, those on the "A" Ark died.
Weeks 2-12: Go through iterations of determining specifics. Submit statements of work. Get ignored. Call. Get put off. Managers argue about whether background should have corporate logo, or whether it should be a neutral color. Finally get signed documents at end of 12th week.
As a young engineer I thought such things were complete crap too. However, regardless of how brilliant your spec/design is if it does not get "sold" to the client it is useless. If color schemes and logos make the sale more likely then please let management work on that. If you think they should not be telling you how to design or implement things then you should not presume to tell them how to "sell" something. Another way to look at it, business is a pretty Darwinian process. If color schemes, logos, slogans, etc. were complete crap they would not be used so heavily. Consider how packaging (Windows) triumphs over design (Linux) in many markets.
Week 17 1/2: Managers complain that five items not on statement of work were not addressed. When you mention it was not on the specs, they reply "well, it is kinda obvious, you should have realized"
Part b. Management complains that five items not on the statement were addressed. When you mention that once the project got underway the need became obvious, they reply "it is not in the spec".
I've had buddies who literally had this conversation, and management understood/agreed there would be a problem if the issue was not addressed. Management's rationale was that the omission would lead to follow-up contracts to make revisions, that the cost of this client error was coming out of the developer's pocket when it should come out of the client's pocket. I've also been told that in some defense related projects both parties understand and agree there is an omission/problem, but correcting the spec and redoing the approval process would cost more and take longer than revising/repairing/upgrading the initial delivery of equipment built to spec.
The point that I am trying to make is that we engineers are not the all knowing genius' we like to think we are. We are often quite ill-informed with respect to business. While PHB decisions absolutely do exist, we engineers falsely label some rational decisions as PHB due to our ignorance of issues outside of engineering. Learn from the mistake of the people of the "A" Ark.;-)
I can't wait for Apple's contract to come up, and for Steve Jobs, still owning a good 85-90% market share, to bitch-slap these new Zune-happy CEO's to the ground like the little greedy trolls they are.
Apple's current market share won't last, we are at a very early stage in the development of the digital music player market. I'd say we have barely progressed beyond the early adopter stage, the bulk of the potential market has not committed. I'd say Apple's current iPod position is not unlike their Apple II computer position when the personal computer market was at a very early stage before the bulk of the population entered the market. Personally I think Apple has learned from past mistakes and won't become a niche player again, but I do expect them to be one of several major players. Microsoft's positioning also fits in pretty well with basic theory of how a market evolves, I would say they are positioning themselves for digital music players becoming commodity items.
Since I expect responses regarding the lock-in myth I'll address that now. iPods are predominantly used to play music that is completely portable, MP3s and non-DRM'd AACs. iTunes rips to non-DRM'd AACs or MP3s. The only non-portable music files are the purchases from Apple's iTune Music Store (iTMS). iTMS purchases are easily replaced given file sharing, add to this the fact that the psychological barrier to downloading is far lower given that a person "paid for that song" in their mind. Even if that were not the case the music market has a history of abandoning their current investments when moving from one format to another. However this format transition is even easier to make, iTunes and whatever comes next can happily coexist on your computer.
I can't wait for Apple's contract to come up, and for Steve Jobs, still owning a good 85-90% market share, to bitch-slap these new Zune-happy CEO's to the ground like the little greedy trolls they are.
Apple's current marketshare won't last, we are at a very early stage in the development of the digital music player market. I'd say we have barely progressed beyond the early adopter stage, the bulk of the potential market has not committed. I'd say Apple's current iPod position is not unlike their Apple II computer position when the personal computer market was at a very early stage before the bulk of the population entered the market. Personally I think Apple has learned from past mistakes and won't become a niche player again, but I do expect them to be one of several major players. Microsoft's positioning also fits in pretty well with basic theory of how a market evolves, I would say they are positioning themselves for digital music players becoming commodity items.
Since I expect responses regarding the lock-in myth I'll address that now. iPods are predominantly used to play music that is completely portable, MP3s and non-DRM'd AACs. iTunes rips to non-DRM'd AACs or MP3s. The only non-portable music files are the purchases from Apple's iTune Music Store (iTMS). iTMS purchases are easily replaced given file sharing, add to this the fact that the psychological barrier to downloading is far lower given that a person "paid for that song" in their mind. Even if that were not the case the music market has a history of abandoning their current investments when moving from one format to another. However this format transition is even easier to make, iTunes and whatever comes next can happily coexist on your computer.
Slashdot Mirror
Some reserve units are actually pretty experienced and can beat Opfor. They are the minority.
;-)
It depends on the historical timeframe. In the mid to late 1970s 30-something year old AF Reservists flying "inferior" aircraft often beat 20-something year old AF Regulars. Nothing like a couple thousand more flight hours and a combat tour to hone ones skills.
Today, with the rate that Reserve and Guard units are mobilized and deployed overseas I'd expect that we'd be seeing another convergence of capabilities in Infantry units.
If I remember correctly, the last bit about U.S. special ops troops picking up AKs in Afghanistan had more to do with the lack of NATO 5.56 rounds for their weapons.
Actually it may have more to do with tactics. Special Ops often does not want a toe-to-toe fight. One tactic upon contact is to open up with only the enemy's distinctively sounding weaponry. Maybe use some of his distinctively colored tracer rounds as well. Hopefully there will be a slight amount of confusion over a possibly friendly fire incident, this can facilitate breaking contact and leaving the vicinity.
Of course in Afghanistan with all it's tribal warfare you would have to hope they were not expecting contact with local rivals. Also, a jihadist may not care about friendly fire. The dead died carrying arms in the service of God and are now in paradise, and since it happened it was obviously God's will, no harm done.
Reengineering them to use AK47 rounds? As I recall, AK47 uses 7.62 mm rounds which would fit rather bad in the US 5.56 mm weapons?
AK's went 5.??mm in the 70s, still not compatible with the NATO 5.56mm. If you see a muddy redish brown colored magazine it is probably 5.??mm. 7.62s were still made for a while for export. I'm referring to the Soviet Union, I have not idea what China did.
It's likely that 50 years ago (during the cold war) there weren't many Soviet admirals walzting around the Nautilus. So we can assume he was doing this to fellow officers only.
Junior officers would be more accurate.
That said, what an ass.
Not really. Virtually all first generation "nuclear Navy" officers were personally selected by Rickover. His interviews were grueling, but he recognized how high the stakes were. Ignore all the normal Naval hazards where an officer has to make on-the-spot decisions with incomplete information. Now let increase the hazards by an order of magnitude or two since we will be dealing with a submarine force. Now lets up the cost of inadequate maintenance or training, human error, mechanical error, etc since a "bad day at the office" may result in a radiation leak rather than an oil slick. Creating physical and psychological stress during an interview or test is an important tool. It is also pretty standard training. It is not all that different from testing a crewman's ability to find and fix a leaky pipe by flooding the room to chest level with cold water, turning out the light, and have high pressure water spraying from various directions.
In other words, can you please do a study confirming (to my employer, of course) that this 135 degree reclined position does not adversely affect my the bloodflow to the brain, attention span, ability to perform complex mental tasks, etc?
F-16 fighter seats are in a permanent reclining position. I think the Air Force is happy with the performance in the listed categories.
Picture yourself a developer. You release a game to rave reviews. Consumer response starts coming in. Emails about how great you are. Bug Reports. and 15 thousand emails complaining that the game is buggy as hell under wine so we won't buy it.
I think things get unrealistic at this point. While I can believe 15,000 try something under Wine, I think if problems arise they will largely do what they currently do: dual boot. I'd say the purists who will abstain are probably well under 2,000. One hears "the only reason I have Win32 on my box is for games" far far more often than "I only play native Linux games".
Now your decision to be win32 only on the next game is colored by 15 thousand potential customers.
You have 3 choices.
1. Ignore those hippy treehugging free software running geeks.
2. Code your Game to run under Wine
3. Go cross platform.
Option 2 and 3 equates to 15 thousand more sales and 1 more working linux game. I'm fine with 2 but prefer 3.
There is a 4th choice. Let the Wine devs fix Wine. If the game is as popular as you stated then this will most likely occur. The bugs are more likely to be in Wine than the game.
"There is no contradiction there, Linux users buy and run Win32 games and that undermines the need for native Linux ports. The Linux Market is *not* the number of Linux users that would buy a native Linux port, it is only those who would never buy a Win32 version and emulate or dual boot."
Ahh, but therein lies the rub. Personally I buy only when I know it will run. If it's native linux I Buy it (Quake4,Doom3,UT2k4, etc). If the torrent works emuklated I will pick up a retail copy . So the market is the number of "Working" Games. More Linux native ports = more working games = more sales.
I do not dual boot. I wine what I can and live without the rest.
No, the market is not the number of "working games". If you emulate the Win32 game then the developer does not need to do a Linux port. If they come out with a Linux version of their next game they will merely move you from the Win32 to the Linux column. There is no new money in doing so, so how will they pay their Linux specific development and more importantly their Linux specific QA and support? Preferring native, buying Win32 as a last resort, is part of the problem. The developer knows they will get you as a paying customer regardless of whether they do Linux or not. The Linux market is only those who will *never* buy the Win32 version.
There is no game market for linux ... Linux users buy GAMES.
There is no contradiction there, Linux users buy and run Win32 games and that undermines the need for native Linux ports. The Linux Market is *not* the number of Linux users that would buy a native Linux port, it is only those who would never buy a Win32 version and emulate or dual boot. The Win32 buyers are already customers of the developers, there is no new money by transferring a person from the Win32 sale column to the Linux sale column. It is cannibalization of the existing market. The only new money that would support Linux development and *more importantly* QA and Support comes from those who only run native Linux ports and never dual boot or emulate Win32 games.
The real reason we have this problem can be summed up in two words : DirectX.
Not really, several Mac developers have successfully translated DirectDraw, DirectSound, and Direct3D calls to Mac sound and graphics calls. The one area where you are correct is with respect to networking, DirectPlay. One Mac dev got DirectPlay calls translated but IIRC it was a hurculean effort. It any case many Win32 devs shun DirectPlay for various reasons.
The article author wrote "only Microsoft has access to most of its source code". That is terribly uninformed. For many years MS has allowed academic researchers access to Windows source code, this includes students. You had to apply, MS had to like your research topic, and you had to sign an NDA, but the terms were pretty fair and did not interfere with publishing your research. I knew someone who worked on such a research project as a student.
But you don't cost anybody anything. The people involved have already made the decision to share. If you are willing to wait for a random person to implement a feature you need, then your need obviously is not all that great. Thinking you have gotten one over on them is dumb at best. It's not a zero sum game.
The needs are relative not absolute. My need may be great but if someone else has an even greater need I can leverage this fact, conserve my finite resources, and expend them only on features that are unique to me. Being a good citizen and sharing the burden on shared features reduces the number of unique features that I can afford.
But with FOSS, I (the end user) can email the coder and offer to pay him/her to finish a feature I'd like or do some other boring job. And that is one of the great things about FOSS. Once I pay for it, everyone benefits from it (including me).
;-)
However progress will be slow because most of us will wait for someone else to pay for the changes we want. Most people will freeload if given the opportunity, Econ 101. Since you are reading this right now, I will thank you in advance for your future gifts to the community.
Every Time You Vote Against Net Neutrality, Your ISP Kills a Night Elf
As a member of The Horde I will have to vote against net neutrality then.
Sadly, that screen is like the EULA - people just click and go ... That sucker should pop up it's own window for something so important, one would think.
The scan is automatic so click-and-go does not subvert it, and I think it does pop up a window *if* something is found. If nothing is found it remains silent, as it should, so you can get to the game as quickly as you can.
Having filler like Lisa Simpson is bad enough, but Paris Hilton?
If they had to have a hottie couldn't they have used one of the Victoria's Secret models, IIRC one of them has a degree in mathematics.
TOS = Terms of Service.
i cId=47009071&sid=1&pageNo=3
"We have been testing our security software with Cedega. Cedega was used and tested before the security procedures and during the security procedures. From this testing we have yielded no hits, meaning Cedega, by itself, does not incur an account suspension. We have accounts of several Cedega users who have been playing normally during the time that these processes are running. Again, these people are not being suspended simply because of using Cedega or Linux. We are in contact with the people at Cedega and following up with them regarding individual accounts. To answer the OP's question, no it is not against the ToS to use Linux or Cedega. We continue to monitor the situation to prevent cases of false positives and to rectify them if they do occur."
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?top
I hate bots in WoW as much as anyone, but Blizzard needs to WARN people that a 3rd party program is running on their system. WARN them. Every time it's detected.
I believe Blizzard's WoW launcher does so to a degree:
"Automatic Trojan/Cheat-Program Scan"
"If a Trojan or third-party World of Warcraft cheat program is detected on the system on which the Blizzard Launcher is running, a message will appear with additional helpful information. Trojans are hidden programs designed for a number of malicious purposes, such as spreading computer viruses and stealing World of Warcraft account and password information. The Blizzard Launcher is intended as an additional level of security against these programs, but we strongly recommend that players also install dedicated anti-virus software on their computers."
"Third-party cheat programs are designed to give players an unfair advantage in World of Warcraft. The scan that the Blizzard Launcher performs is provided solely for your protection and to give you an opportunity to remove any detected cheat program before you play World of Warcraft. It does not report any information back to Blizzard. If you choose to bypass the Blizzard Launcher (see below) and run World of Warcraft without removing any cheat program it might have identified for you, you risk having your World of Warcraft account closed if the cheat is detected while you're in game, regardless of who was responsible for installing it."
"We've often found that players whose account information had been compromised by a Trojan program or whose World of Warcraft accounts were banned for using a third-party cheat program while playing were unaware that these programs existed on the computer they used to play the game. This scan will be particularly helpful to those players who share computer access with multiple users, as is the case in Internet gaming cafes and single-computer households."
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/misc/launcher.html
No anti-cheating effort will be 100% error free 100% of the time. I think judgement should be made on how often errors occur and how a company handles reports of errors. The statements before and after indicate a pretty decent handling of the situation. Especially for an unsupported OS. Apparently not all Cedega users were banned, the problem must have been intermittent. This is consistent with what many Cedega users were saying, that they have been playing and everything was fine.
i cId=47009071&sid=1&pageNo=3
n bans_linux_world_of_warcraft_players
So, they test in an unsupported environment and promptly investigate problems and address them. IMHO Blizzard is showing Linux some respect, as they did many years ago for Macintosh when most people laughed at it. Hopefully history will repeat itself.
What they said before the investigation when the report of problem first came in:
"We have been testing our security software with Cedega. Cedega was used and tested before the security procedures and during the security procedures. From this testing we have yielded no hits, meaning Cedega, by itself, does not incur an account suspension. We have accounts of several Cedega users who have been playing normally during the time that these processes are running. Again, these people are not being suspended simply because of using Cedega or Linux. We are in contact with the people at Cedega and following up with them regarding individual accounts. To answer the OP's question, no it is not against the ToS to use Linux or Cedega. We continue to monitor the situation to prevent cases of false positives and to rectify them if they do occur."
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?top
What they said after investigating:
"Greetings,
As you know, Blizzard Entertainment traditionally makes a serious commitment to protect the World of Warcraft community from players who gain unfair advantage through hacks and exploits. Last week, our administrators implemented bans on a large number of accounts that were identified acting against the terms and the spirit of the game.
However, it has since come to our attention that a very small percentage of those accounts should not have been banned. This case of mistaken identity seems to be isolated to users of an unsupported, Linux-based Windows emulator called Cedega.
Once this pattern was brought to Blizzard's attention, our staff worked directly in conjunction with the Cedega development team in a rigorous and thorough review of the situation. We have since determined that your account was one of those accidentally flagged, and as such we are immediately reinstating your account to fully playable status.
Blizzard Entertainment deeply regrets the error, as we understand that this brief account closure presented you with an inconvenient and highly frustrating experience. We remain firmly committed to enforcing our regulations and suspensions for those exploiting our game, in the interest of ensuring that our legitimate customers have the best possible play experience. In this case, however, we regretfully caught a handful of innocent customers in the process, and for that we offer you our genuine apology.
In consideration of our error, we are applying a credit of two weeks play time onto your account, in addition to crediting back the time that your account was locked. This comes to a total of twenty (2O) days credit, which should be visible on your account within the end of the week.
If you have any other questions or concerns regarding this account, please do not hesitate to let us know. We appreciate your extraordinary patience in this matter and hope you will continue to enjoy your time in World of Warcraft.
Regards,
World of Warcraft Support Team
Blizzard Entertainment"
http://www.linuxlookup.com/2006/nov/22/blizzard_u
"We have been testing our security software with Cedega. Cedega was used and tested before the security procedures and during the security procedures. From this testing we have yielded no hits, meaning Cedega, by itself, does not incur an account suspension. We have accounts of several Cedega users who have been playing normally during the time that these processes are running. Again, these people are not being suspended simply because of using Cedega or Linux. We are in contact with the people at Cedega and following up with them regarding individual accounts. To answer the OP's question, no it is not against the ToS to use Linux or Cedega. We continue to monitor the situation to prevent cases of false positives and to rectify them if they do occur." http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topi cId=47009071&sid=1&pageNo=3
Followed by drug development plummeting because the universities quit doing the research studies the drug companies used.
No, Universities would lose Doctors and researchers to private enterprise. The research will be done by someone, private labs will displace the universities as they will be more cost effective under the proposed system, unlike under the current system.
As others have pointed out, and as elected officials demonstrate on a nearly daily basis, nice sentiments sometimes make poor policy due to unintended consequences. This proposal is ripe for the latter.
"People could choose Macintosh or Linux, but they choose to use Windows instead."
I don't think people so much "choose" Windows so much as it has become the default choice for people who don't know what they want.
I think they know what they want, they want a computer. They want the web, email, to type a letter to grandma, etc. I would say that these people have chosen to go with the "default" platform for convenience, network effect, software availability, etc. To many people Windows, Mac, and Linux are equivalent, the solve the basic needs mentioned above, so convenience and price become the deciding factors.
"It is not a monopoly in the sense that people have no choice. People could choose Macintosh or Linux, but they choose to use Windows instead. My point stands."
Well it is obvious that your understanding of the market exceeds even that of federal judges who have studied it for years. No one can doubt your logic.
The word "monopoly" can be used in many distinctly different situations. While Microsoft may have been found to be engaging in monopolistic business practices, that is different than "a monopoly in the sense that people have no choice". Again, you are free to run Linux or Macintosh. Monopoly in the sense that "people have no choice" would be something like the historical situation where you could buy oil from Standard Oil or you could not buy oil. Again, a distinctly different situation that the one with Windows.
"Consider how packaging (Windows) triumphs over design (Linux) in many markets."
... but I'm not really comfortable with that shade of blue.
;-)"
Those "many markets" are the ones where Microsoft has a monopoly (desktop).
It is not a monopoly in the sense that people have no choice. People could choose Macintosh or Linux, but they choose to use Windows instead. My point stands.
"However, regardless of how brilliant your spec/design is if it does not get "sold" to the client it is useless. If color schemes and logos make the sale more likely then please let management work on that."
If the sale hinges on the colour scheme and logos, then save everyone some stress and take the client out for drinks and hire a hooker for him. Yes I know it does everything we want and it's within our price range
You are conveniently ignoring competition. The competition may have something that is equivalent with respect to functionality and price. A better presentation will often make the difference.
"Another way to look at it, business is a pretty Darwinian process. If color schemes, logos, slogans, etc. were complete crap they would not be used so heavily." In my experience, it is not "Darwinian" at all.
The point above proves otherwise. Two equivalent product, the one with the stronger presentation wins, presentation skills therefore have value.
It's all about who you know, where you are and what the economy is like at that time. Which is why when the economy turns down, so many companies fail. Anyone can captain the ship in calm weather.
That is a bit tangential, but you are essentially saying that in calm weather companies with poor presentations can still find customers. In stormier times every advantage is necessary, since presentations skills have value they are even more necessary.
"We are often quite ill-informed with respect to business."
At times that is correct. But it is the exception, not the rule.
"While PHB decisions absolutely do exist, we engineers falsely label some rational decisions as PHB due to our ignorance of issues outside of engineering."
Again, at times that is correct. But it is the exception, not the rule.
I beg to differ. Business, marketing, strategy, etc. are highly specialized skills and engineers generaly do not develop those skills. They are quite busy enough developing the skill necessary for engineering.
Which is the reason you'll see management books written about cheese while others are written about fish.
And we'll see some engineers designing products for cheese and some for fish.
"Learn from the mistake of the people of the "A" Ark.
I think you have your arks wrong.
I don't think so, those on the B Ark survived, those on the "A" Ark died.
Weeks 2-12: Go through iterations of determining specifics. Submit statements of work. Get ignored. Call. Get put off. Managers argue about whether background should have corporate logo, or whether it should be a neutral color. Finally get signed documents at end of 12th week.
;-)
As a young engineer I thought such things were complete crap too. However, regardless of how brilliant your spec/design is if it does not get "sold" to the client it is useless. If color schemes and logos make the sale more likely then please let management work on that. If you think they should not be telling you how to design or implement things then you should not presume to tell them how to "sell" something. Another way to look at it, business is a pretty Darwinian process. If color schemes, logos, slogans, etc. were complete crap they would not be used so heavily. Consider how packaging (Windows) triumphs over design (Linux) in many markets.
Week 17 1/2: Managers complain that five items not on statement of work were not addressed. When you mention it was not on the specs, they reply "well, it is kinda obvious, you should have realized"
Part b. Management complains that five items not on the statement were addressed. When you mention that once the project got underway the need became obvious, they reply "it is not in the spec".
I've had buddies who literally had this conversation, and management understood/agreed there would be a problem if the issue was not addressed. Management's rationale was that the omission would lead to follow-up contracts to make revisions, that the cost of this client error was coming out of the developer's pocket when it should come out of the client's pocket. I've also been told that in some defense related projects both parties understand and agree there is an omission/problem, but correcting the spec and redoing the approval process would cost more and take longer than revising/repairing/upgrading the initial delivery of equipment built to spec.
The point that I am trying to make is that we engineers are not the all knowing genius' we like to think we are. We are often quite ill-informed with respect to business. While PHB decisions absolutely do exist, we engineers falsely label some rational decisions as PHB due to our ignorance of issues outside of engineering. Learn from the mistake of the people of the "A" Ark.
I can't wait for Apple's contract to come up, and for Steve Jobs, still owning a good 85-90% market share, to bitch-slap these new Zune-happy CEO's to the ground like the little greedy trolls they are.
Apple's current market share won't last, we are at a very early stage in the development of the digital music player market. I'd say we have barely progressed beyond the early adopter stage, the bulk of the potential market has not committed. I'd say Apple's current iPod position is not unlike their Apple II computer position when the personal computer market was at a very early stage before the bulk of the population entered the market. Personally I think Apple has learned from past mistakes and won't become a niche player again, but I do expect them to be one of several major players. Microsoft's positioning also fits in pretty well with basic theory of how a market evolves, I would say they are positioning themselves for digital music players becoming commodity items.
Since I expect responses regarding the lock-in myth I'll address that now. iPods are predominantly used to play music that is completely portable, MP3s and non-DRM'd AACs. iTunes rips to non-DRM'd AACs or MP3s. The only non-portable music files are the purchases from Apple's iTune Music Store (iTMS). iTMS purchases are easily replaced given file sharing, add to this the fact that the psychological barrier to downloading is far lower given that a person "paid for that song" in their mind. Even if that were not the case the music market has a history of abandoning their current investments when moving from one format to another. However this format transition is even easier to make, iTunes and whatever comes next can happily coexist on your computer.
I can't wait for Apple's contract to come up, and for Steve Jobs, still owning a good 85-90% market share, to bitch-slap these new Zune-happy CEO's to the ground like the little greedy trolls they are.
Apple's current marketshare won't last, we are at a very early stage in the development of the digital music player market. I'd say we have barely progressed beyond the early adopter stage, the bulk of the potential market has not committed. I'd say Apple's current iPod position is not unlike their Apple II computer position when the personal computer market was at a very early stage before the bulk of the population entered the market. Personally I think Apple has learned from past mistakes and won't become a niche player again, but I do expect them to be one of several major players. Microsoft's positioning also fits in pretty well with basic theory of how a market evolves, I would say they are positioning themselves for digital music players becoming commodity items.
Since I expect responses regarding the lock-in myth I'll address that now. iPods are predominantly used to play music that is completely portable, MP3s and non-DRM'd AACs. iTunes rips to non-DRM'd AACs or MP3s. The only non-portable music files are the purchases from Apple's iTune Music Store (iTMS). iTMS purchases are easily replaced given file sharing, add to this the fact that the psychological barrier to downloading is far lower given that a person "paid for that song" in their mind. Even if that were not the case the music market has a history of abandoning their current investments when moving from one format to another. However this format transition is even easier to make, iTunes and whatever comes next can happily coexist on your computer.