So in the conclusion, the author writes that since Google displayed more results, based on their random test data, it was the superior search engine? That seems so wrong somehow...
Wouldn't a better search engine return less, but more appropriate results? I mean, how many of us have found the information we were actually looking for on page ten or twelve of a search. And, isn't less more, but better? %insert Linux geek laughs here%
One would think that volume of results would not a better search engine make, although it may indicate a larger engine index size; an expicit statement to that effect seems to be missing from the NCSA report.
We Americans have always had to contend with the fact that our country is friggin' HUGE. Korea and Sweden by comparison are quite small. To get the Power and Phone infrastructure we implemented regulated monopolies. Would we do that for broadband? Probably not with the current state of the politicos on privatization and such. Companies are no longer interested in last mile as it is not profitable. So nationwide 100Mb, probably not for some time.
In America, cars are your right as a citizen. The car and American citizens have always gone hand in hand, well at least since 1922. If automakers started filing DMCA suits against third party product makers several bad things would happen.
First, why would companies to make aftermarket parts continue when one of their products is being attacked by the automaker that the parts are produced for. The large car manufacturers have actually been trying to encourage aftermarket modifications of their cars since market studies indicate that the slide in their market share in America is the lack of "tuner" interest. More aftermarket parts allows the large auto manufacturers to appeal to this rather large audience.
Second, the auto industry is pretty heavily regulated. You think that they want to get into a hub-bub that's already a hot topic with digital rights and liberty organizations? It's my opionion that if they were to lay down some DMCA suits that Congress would take a closer look at the DMCA and ammend the hell out of it. Our problems with the DMCA don't mean diddly to Congress, however, if the shop where there car is worked on complains that Ford or GM are making it so equipment is unavailable, it would perk their interest.
The reason that Red Hat sued SCO was because SCO was making, as of yet, unfounded claims to customers that Red Hat was infringing on their IP for UNIX. Red Hat's suit is more about keeping SCO from saying derogatory things about The Hat than getting a hefty settlement from SCO for damages. Besides, what would Red Hat do with $6 bln? Probably buy a kickass RV, no wait, they did that already...
Sounds not unlike a certain 70s novel I read once. Maybe the survivors of said flu can battle out the final war of good vs. evil!
Post apocalyptic society here I come!
-Runz
Ok rwxJava, marketdroid for Sci Fi Channel. Yes I think it was a pretty good movie, nay on mini-series, too short, not enough plot resolution. I would watch a series if Sci Fi was to contract a production company to produce one. Don't hurt anyone driving on 75/85 on your way home.
I find it interesting that people compare Red Hat to Microsoft and Sun. You all do realize that Red Hat has fewer than 600 direct employees world wide right? And that figure includes everyone from the receptionist in Raleigh to the sales force, to the CEO. So it's a matter of scale.
Red Hat, like most corporations, needs to allocate their resources as optimally as possible, but since it is such a small company, this distribution of resources is even more critical. If 6 employees at IBM say support OS2, no one would even notice, but at a company like Red Hat that's 1% of their corporation working on a product that they have end of lifed!
I know it's easy to point the finger and yell corporate sellout at the folks from Red Hat, but really, they work very hard on their distro, and have for years. I certainly don't begrudge them trying to make some revenue off some of the many, many, many businesses that have been building their products on top of Red Hat Linux. If you're hacked off because you use Red Hat Linux at home, switch off to Fedora Linux. The core of the OS is still maintained by the Red Hat development posse, plus there are currently several automatic update services that were free for Red Hat Linux, I would expect them to move over to offering Fedora Linux updates.
So let me get this straight, we know have a virus that will kill animal life, but not humans. We have now engineered a way to kill off most of our food chain? I really fail to see why someone would want to do this.
The browser wars are over. What web browser you use no longer determines the operating system you employ. The point of the anit-trust suit was lost by the fact that by the trial came before a judge the technology in question was already out dated and the point of the suit moot.
If the government officials want to do something worth while, why don't they explore how M$'s changes to the CIFS licensing agreement are in violation of their agreement, since they make it difficult for non-windows machines (aka Samba) to interact with Window's network resources.
Or better yet, why don't the government officials fire themselves and put my tax dollars to better use, like education, roads, or even buying cheese.
If Linksys is implementing a bunch of extra functionality through kernel modules, they would not have to release that source because of the GPL. A module developer can cover the module under any license that they see fit.
However, if Linksys is using an existing GPL'd module that they have tweaked, then they would be in violation of the GPL. My thinking is that they are employing the former rather than the latter.
Basically earlier this year Red Hat announced a fork in their product line. They now have Red Hat Linux (the open source distro still freely available) and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). The current version of RHEL is 2.1 which is based on Red Hat Linux 7.2, but there is currently a public beta that people can register to try for the next version of RHEL.
RHEL comes in several flavors, WS (workstation), ES (Enterprise Server), and AS (the old Advanced Server). RHEL software will be maintained for up to 5 years from it's release and telephone and other support options are available for it. I don't remember the cost per box, it varies based on the product you buy but you can find the most current pricing at Red Hat Ordering Site . Notice that RHEL ES is $350, this includes a 1 year Red Hat Network subscription to get your updates.
Now the weird thing is the license. Basically Red Hat only distributes open source software, we all know what that means, but the Enterprise line of products come with a license agreement that is written to cover the product, not the individual pieces of software. Every RHEL box that you have installed MUST be paid for. If you install 2 boxes off the same set of software with out purchasing a RHEL license, it invalidates all RHEL licenses at your site. However, I know that there are dispensations made for development vs. production machines. A Red Hat salesperson explained it to me once, but the knowlege has been displaced by something more important.
All the while the Red Hat Linux product line will also be freely available. The difference between the two is basically support and lifecycle. The Red Hat Linux product is not supported outside of the software being maintained for up to one year after it's initial release. The Red Hat Linux product will continue it's 4-6 month release cycle while the Red Hat Enterprise Linux product is every 12 to 18 months.
Someone in an earlier thread made the comment that now the Red Hat Linux (free) product would now be an unstable platform, that Red Hat was now making every product a major release. Yes every product is not versioned as a major release, 8, 9, 10, etc. However, the beta for 9 was actually called 8.0.xx and the beta for 10 is called 9.xx which leads one to believe that in the early stages of Red Hat Linux 9 that it was actually going to be called 8.1!!! Perhaps there was some versioning decision made in the marketing/management ranks over there. Either way, outside of a little gcc kruft which was not Red Hat's fault, Red Hat Linux 9 has been rock solid for me, and I should continue to expect a STABLE product coming from them in this area. New features will be made in the Red Hat Linux platform first, then they will be pulled into the RHEL product as it evolves.
Anyway, that's my understanding of how it works after talking with a bunch of people over at RH.
Unfortunatly there are many, many misconceptions when it comes to the GPL. One of the previous comments stated that Tivo used Linux but had not released their source code. The reason is that they don't have to! I would be surprised if Linksys would be required to release their source code under the GPL.
The misconception that I see the most is that because a product runs on top of Linux, or uses the Linux kernel then the product is also GPL'd, not so. If the product has changed the sourcecode for Linux, those changes are covered under the GPL. This is why companies like Tivo are not required to release their source. The Tivo software was written without using any existing GPL'd code as it's base, therefore it can be covered under any licensing agreement the author sees fit.
As for Linksys, I'm willing to wager that they implemented all of their code as kernel modules. So if ask for the source code under the name of the GPL, all they are obligated to give you is the source code for the Linux kernel, sin any kernel modules they've written themselves. Kernel modules can be licensed any way the author sees fit.
How much money are you planning on spending? If you want really excellent training, it's going to cost a fair amount of money. Usually around $1500-$2500 ish a week. And you have to decide what you want training in. If you're interested in Solaris, Sun offers a bunch of classes in several New York facilities. Here's a link to their training site: Sun Solaris Training
The couple of classes I've had from Sun have been quite good. Some hands on on equipment that I don't own myself at clean facilities with knowlegable instructors. If you want Linux training, probably the easiest/best place to get it is from Red Hat. They also have a site in NYC, in the financial district, and they provide lunch every day (very cool). Their classes also have hands on labs, but the equipment isn't anything that you wouldn't have at your own house. They teach their classes on PCs. Red Hat's site is Red Hat Leaning Services
Going to the product manufacturer is usually the best way to get top notch training, I'm just using Sun and Red Hat as examples, they have been the ones that I was most happy with. They, product manufacturers, hire instructors who are familiar with the product and who can answer a fair amount (maybe even all) of your questions. And unlike CBT, can provide alternative explanations when the one they use just doesn't get through to you.
The big problem with going to these classes is that, while good, they can be prohibitively expensive. If this is a limiting factor for you, then someone above suggested Community College. I think that this was an excellent suggestion. They are far less expensive, but it's been my experience that the instruction is not always as good.
The only person at home who uses my home phone line is Tivo, everything else goes through the network connection or cell. So when a friend told me about some easy hardware mods, one of them is plug 'n go, I had to buy one. Check out 9th tee . They have a whole bunch of hardware upgrades for the Tivo including a wireless 802.11b ethernet card based on the prism chipset.
Unfortunately a 1.1 Million dollar operating loss per quarter for a start-up is not survivable. Eventually their executives will not be able to convince the VC people that this is a viable technology if they continue to lose money. I think it's great that their revenues are up 600%, I happen to own a Tivo, but until they're break even they still have more work to do.
Furthermore, when looking at that 600% number, you also have to take into account that Tivo had a product launch, Tivo 2, and how much of that increase is from existing Tivo owners upgrading to the new Tivo 2?
Also, there is some evidence that Tivo is changing it's buisiness model. With the launch of Tivo 2, they no longer offer lifetime service contracts, now they are all monthly. This is an attempt to garner a stable monthly revenue stream.
Personally I hope they make it, I love my Tivo and think it's a great device. I like that you can hack it up, and that they encourage you to do so. Unfortunately, I don't believe that they have proved their business model to be a viable one, yet.
Unfortunately NASA missions cost Money, LOTS of it. And recently Congress has seen fit to cut their budget. Even the once untouchable International Space Station budget has seen significant cuts. I don't think it's neccessarily that it's NASA wanting to not take risks, but more that they don't have the funding to properly take on a manned exploritory flight.
Well, I guess they really could, I mean do Astronaughts really need suits, seat belts, and for that matter seats, food, happy O-ring seals, etc? They could always get off a mission to Mars Rocket Man style!
Call me crazy, but I seem to think that it's Google's perogative to rank their search results any way they seem fit. They find the data, store the data, organize the data, why are they not allowed to display the data anyway they see fit? After all, the search engine market will decide which engine reigns supreme, remember altavista?
All this service from OSI is really doing is allowing people to not spend hours upon hours unattendedly macroing, also known as the sea trance Arrr.
With the introduction of the Publish 16 patch to the UO servers, gaining skills is a fair bit slower and based on actual game time; the old power hour is gone. For example, I have a character that has 98% Lumberjacking skill and it will take me another 20 hours of gameplay to get that skill to 100%! That is a bit excessive considering that there are another 6 skills on this character that also can be raised to 100% status. For a newbie getting a skill from 10% to 100% would be a rediculous investment of time. To go from 85% in a skill or 70% in a skill, like the characters being offered for sale by OSI, to Grand Master (100%) will still take a significant investment of time.
Besides, A lot of the characters that OSI is offering are set up to be mules or PvM players, not PvP characters. They will still take a lot of work to hone their PvP skills.
I too was concerned about the fact that you couldn't download Advanced Server's ISOs, but lets face it, Red Hat is a corporate entity who's main goal is to, uh, make money. Quite honestly; people in our community (myself included) are cheap bastards, but if we insist on everything, every product, every service, for free then how are the vendors who supply said products supposed to persist?
Software like Advanced Server is a bit more complex than the base Red Hat distro, and EVERY piece of it is GPL'ed code. Now, you can get every piece of it from somewhere (Red Hat did) but does that entitle us to all of the work that Red Hat has done to make all of the components work together for free? I mean, Red Hat already gives us a very fully featured base distro, are we entitled to all of Red Hat's development efforts? I think not. I mean if you're really interested is making your own Advanced Server release and giving it away for free, download the stuff, glue it together yourself, and give it away.
On second thought, Red Hat not offering Advanced Server ISOs is not such a bad thing. They should be entitled to reap the benefits of their development efforts.
I'm sorry, I didn't realize that UO, EQ, or any of the others were classified as FPS, sorry I don't know what I'm talking about.
For those of you who actually care about Linux (NATIVE) clients for stuff:
Turns out that Sony and Origin among others actually store their MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) data on Solaris or Linux machines, but don't actually make a client that runs on Unix or Linux. When I asked some people over at Origin about it, I was told that there is not enough demand for Linux games, so apparently we're not being vocal enough as a community. I've seen some banter going back and forth on the href="http://starwarsgalaxies.station.sony.com/dig est/forums.jsp>
Star Wars Galaxies discussion groups about it, but not to the volume that I would expect for Lucas Arts to actually take our community seriously.
I think it's time we started bugging game companies to make clients for us. Call them, post to their discussion groups, make youself be heard!
I thought I bought a $200 graphics card to run eXcell!
Seriously though, I think that this is one of the big issues keeping Linux from multiplying rapidly on the desktop or at home. I mean it's great that Linux can interoperate with disk shares and do all the backend net service stuff like DNS, LDAP, etc. But that doesn't make my friends want to migrate to it. Where are our games? NWN has clued in, now if only Star Wars Galaxies, UO, DAOC, and EverQuest would figure it out!
Not to hate on Moby, I actually bought "18", but I saw an interview with him on Delta Inflight. I wish I could have a swanky loft in Manhattan, get up when I wanted and roll into my very own state of the art recording studio. How many people world wide burn Moby's, and others, CDs and distribute them to their friends, therefore cutting down on the number of albums sold? I think it's neglegable. Instead of harassing and blaming the common geek Moby, perhaps you and your record label should concentrate on the guys outside your apartment building right now in Manhattan that are selling bootlegged cds pressed with cover art and all! Perhaps you and your record label should instead persue some action against the people who bootleg your music en mass rather than complaining about the person who tears off 2 for his/her friends.
Just an idea, but what the hell do I know, I'm just a geek.
Slashdot Mirror
So in the conclusion, the author writes that since Google displayed more results, based on their random test data, it was the superior search engine? That seems so wrong somehow...
Wouldn't a better search engine return less, but more appropriate results? I mean, how many of us have found the information we were actually looking for on page ten or twelve of a search. And, isn't less more, but better? %insert Linux geek laughs here%
One would think that volume of results would not a better search engine make, although it may indicate a larger engine index size; an expicit statement to that effect seems to be missing from the NCSA report.
-Runz
Who'd have thunk that Linux would be promoted by rich filthy whores, instead of filthy rich nerds? Nice one /.
-Runz
We Americans have always had to contend with the fact that our country is friggin' HUGE. Korea and Sweden by comparison are quite small. To get the Power and Phone infrastructure we implemented regulated monopolies. Would we do that for broadband? Probably not with the current state of the politicos on privatization and such. Companies are no longer interested in last mile as it is not profitable. So nationwide 100Mb, probably not for some time.
-Runz
In America, cars are your right as a citizen. The car and American citizens have always gone hand in hand, well at least since 1922. If automakers started filing DMCA suits against third party product makers several bad things would happen.
First, why would companies to make aftermarket parts continue when one of their products is being attacked by the automaker that the parts are produced for. The large car manufacturers have actually been trying to encourage aftermarket modifications of their cars since market studies indicate that the slide in their market share in America is the lack of "tuner" interest. More aftermarket parts allows the large auto manufacturers to appeal to this rather large audience.
Second, the auto industry is pretty heavily regulated. You think that they want to get into a hub-bub that's already a hot topic with digital rights and liberty organizations? It's my opionion that if they were to lay down some DMCA suits that Congress would take a closer look at the DMCA and ammend the hell out of it. Our problems with the DMCA don't mean diddly to Congress, however, if the shop where there car is worked on complains that Ford or GM are making it so equipment is unavailable, it would perk their interest.
-Runz
The reason that Red Hat sued SCO was because SCO was making, as of yet, unfounded claims to customers that Red Hat was infringing on their IP for UNIX. Red Hat's suit is more about keeping SCO from saying derogatory things about The Hat than getting a hefty settlement from SCO for damages. Besides, what would Red Hat do with $6 bln? Probably buy a kickass RV, no wait, they did that already...
-Runz
Sounds not unlike a certain 70s novel I read once. Maybe the survivors of said flu can battle out the final war of good vs. evil! Post apocalyptic society here I come! -Runz
Ok rwxJava, marketdroid for Sci Fi Channel. Yes I think it was a pretty good movie, nay on mini-series, too short, not enough plot resolution. I would watch a series if Sci Fi was to contract a production company to produce one. Don't hurt anyone driving on 75/85 on your way home.
-Runz
I find it interesting that people compare Red Hat to Microsoft and Sun. You all do realize that Red Hat has fewer than 600 direct employees world wide right? And that figure includes everyone from the receptionist in Raleigh to the sales force, to the CEO. So it's a matter of scale.
Red Hat, like most corporations, needs to allocate their resources as optimally as possible, but since it is such a small company, this distribution of resources is even more critical. If 6 employees at IBM say support OS2, no one would even notice, but at a company like Red Hat that's 1% of their corporation working on a product that they have end of lifed!
I know it's easy to point the finger and yell corporate sellout at the folks from Red Hat, but really, they work very hard on their distro, and have for years. I certainly don't begrudge them trying to make some revenue off some of the many, many, many businesses that have been building their products on top of Red Hat Linux. If you're hacked off because you use Red Hat Linux at home, switch off to Fedora Linux. The core of the OS is still maintained by the Red Hat development posse, plus there are currently several automatic update services that were free for Red Hat Linux, I would expect them to move over to offering Fedora Linux updates.
-Runz
So let me get this straight, we know have a virus that will kill animal life, but not humans. We have now engineered a way to kill off most of our food chain? I really fail to see why someone would want to do this.
Go Science!
-Runz
The browser wars are over. What web browser you use no longer determines the operating system you employ. The point of the anit-trust suit was lost by the fact that by the trial came before a judge the technology in question was already out dated and the point of the suit moot.
If the government officials want to do something worth while, why don't they explore how M$'s changes to the CIFS licensing agreement are in violation of their agreement, since they make it difficult for non-windows machines (aka Samba) to interact with Window's network resources.
Or better yet, why don't the government officials fire themselves and put my tax dollars to better use, like education, roads, or even buying cheese.
-Runz
If Linksys is implementing a bunch of extra functionality through kernel modules, they would not have to release that source because of the GPL. A module developer can cover the module under any license that they see fit.
However, if Linksys is using an existing GPL'd module that they have tweaked, then they would be in violation of the GPL. My thinking is that they are employing the former rather than the latter.
-Runz
Return to Castle Wolfenstein Multiplayer, really freaking fast! -Runz
Basically earlier this year Red Hat announced a fork in their product line. They now have Red Hat Linux (the open source distro still freely available) and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). The current version of RHEL is 2.1 which is based on Red Hat Linux 7.2, but there is currently a public beta that people can register to try for the next version of RHEL.
RHEL comes in several flavors, WS (workstation), ES (Enterprise Server), and AS (the old Advanced Server). RHEL software will be maintained for up to 5 years from it's release and telephone and other support options are available for it. I don't remember the cost per box, it varies based on the product you buy but you can find the most current pricing at Red Hat Ordering Site . Notice that RHEL ES is $350, this includes a 1 year Red Hat Network subscription to get your updates.
Now the weird thing is the license. Basically Red Hat only distributes open source software, we all know what that means, but the Enterprise line of products come with a license agreement that is written to cover the product, not the individual pieces of software. Every RHEL box that you have installed MUST be paid for. If you install 2 boxes off the same set of software with out purchasing a RHEL license, it invalidates all RHEL licenses at your site. However, I know that there are dispensations made for development vs. production machines. A Red Hat salesperson explained it to me once, but the knowlege has been displaced by something more important.
All the while the Red Hat Linux product line will also be freely available. The difference between the two is basically support and lifecycle. The Red Hat Linux product is not supported outside of the software being maintained for up to one year after it's initial release. The Red Hat Linux product will continue it's 4-6 month release cycle while the Red Hat Enterprise Linux product is every 12 to 18 months.
Someone in an earlier thread made the comment that now the Red Hat Linux (free) product would now be an unstable platform, that Red Hat was now making every product a major release. Yes every product is not versioned as a major release, 8, 9, 10, etc. However, the beta for 9 was actually called 8.0.xx and the beta for 10 is called 9.xx which leads one to believe that in the early stages of Red Hat Linux 9 that it was actually going to be called 8.1!!! Perhaps there was some versioning decision made in the marketing/management ranks over there. Either way, outside of a little gcc kruft which was not Red Hat's fault, Red Hat Linux 9 has been rock solid for me, and I should continue to expect a STABLE product coming from them in this area. New features will be made in the Red Hat Linux platform first, then they will be pulled into the RHEL product as it evolves.
Anyway, that's my understanding of how it works after talking with a bunch of people over at RH.
--Runz
Unfortunatly there are many, many misconceptions when it comes to the GPL. One of the previous comments stated that Tivo used Linux but had not released their source code. The reason is that they don't have to! I would be surprised if Linksys would be required to release their source code under the GPL.
The misconception that I see the most is that because a product runs on top of Linux, or uses the Linux kernel then the product is also GPL'd, not so. If the product has changed the sourcecode for Linux, those changes are covered under the GPL. This is why companies like Tivo are not required to release their source. The Tivo software was written without using any existing GPL'd code as it's base, therefore it can be covered under any licensing agreement the author sees fit.
As for Linksys, I'm willing to wager that they implemented all of their code as kernel modules. So if ask for the source code under the name of the GPL, all they are obligated to give you is the source code for the Linux kernel, sin any kernel modules they've written themselves. Kernel modules can be licensed any way the author sees fit.
-Runz
How much money are you planning on spending? If you want really excellent training, it's going to cost a fair amount of money. Usually around $1500-$2500 ish a week. And you have to decide what you want training in. If you're interested in Solaris, Sun offers a bunch of classes in several New York facilities. Here's a link to their training site: Sun Solaris Training
The couple of classes I've had from Sun have been quite good. Some hands on on equipment that I don't own myself at clean facilities with knowlegable instructors. If you want Linux training, probably the easiest/best place to get it is from Red Hat. They also have a site in NYC, in the financial district, and they provide lunch every day (very cool). Their classes also have hands on labs, but the equipment isn't anything that you wouldn't have at your own house. They teach their classes on PCs. Red Hat's site is Red Hat Leaning Services
Going to the product manufacturer is usually the best way to get top notch training, I'm just using Sun and Red Hat as examples, they have been the ones that I was most happy with. They, product manufacturers, hire instructors who are familiar with the product and who can answer a fair amount (maybe even all) of your questions. And unlike CBT, can provide alternative explanations when the one they use just doesn't get through to you.
The big problem with going to these classes is that, while good, they can be prohibitively expensive. If this is a limiting factor for you, then someone above suggested Community College. I think that this was an excellent suggestion. They are far less expensive, but it's been my experience that the instruction is not always as good.
-Runz
The only person at home who uses my home phone line is Tivo, everything else goes through the network connection or cell. So when a friend told me about some easy hardware mods, one of them is plug 'n go, I had to buy one. Check out 9th tee . They have a whole bunch of hardware upgrades for the Tivo including a wireless 802.11b ethernet card based on the prism chipset.
The ISA ethernet card is plug 'n go if you're using Tivo software 3.0.x or later and have a first gen Tivo. The 802.11b wireless card is not quite as easy to install, but 9th tee has links to instructions.
-Runz
Unfortunately a 1.1 Million dollar operating loss per quarter for a start-up is not survivable. Eventually their executives will not be able to convince the VC people that this is a viable technology if they continue to lose money. I think it's great that their revenues are up 600%, I happen to own a Tivo, but until they're break even they still have more work to do.
Furthermore, when looking at that 600% number, you also have to take into account that Tivo had a product launch, Tivo 2, and how much of that increase is from existing Tivo owners upgrading to the new Tivo 2?
Also, there is some evidence that Tivo is changing it's buisiness model. With the launch of Tivo 2, they no longer offer lifetime service contracts, now they are all monthly. This is an attempt to garner a stable monthly revenue stream.
Personally I hope they make it, I love my Tivo and think it's a great device. I like that you can hack it up, and that they encourage you to do so. Unfortunately, I don't believe that they have proved their business model to be a viable one, yet.
-Runz
Unfortunately NASA missions cost Money, LOTS of it. And recently Congress has seen fit to cut their budget. Even the once untouchable International Space Station budget has seen significant cuts. I don't think it's neccessarily that it's NASA wanting to not take risks, but more that they don't have the funding to properly take on a manned exploritory flight.
Well, I guess they really could, I mean do Astronaughts really need suits, seat belts, and for that matter seats, food, happy O-ring seals, etc? They could always get off a mission to Mars Rocket Man style!
-Runz
Call me crazy, but I seem to think that it's Google's perogative to rank their search results any way they seem fit. They find the data, store the data, organize the data, why are they not allowed to display the data anyway they see fit? After all, the search engine market will decide which engine reigns supreme, remember altavista?
-Runz
All this service from OSI is really doing is allowing people to not spend hours upon hours unattendedly macroing, also known as the sea trance Arrr.
With the introduction of the Publish 16 patch to the UO servers, gaining skills is a fair bit slower and based on actual game time; the old power hour is gone. For example, I have a character that has 98% Lumberjacking skill and it will take me another 20 hours of gameplay to get that skill to 100%! That is a bit excessive considering that there are another 6 skills on this character that also can be raised to 100% status. For a newbie getting a skill from 10% to 100% would be a rediculous investment of time. To go from 85% in a skill or 70% in a skill, like the characters being offered for sale by OSI, to Grand Master (100%) will still take a significant investment of time.
Besides, A lot of the characters that OSI is offering are set up to be mules or PvM players, not PvP characters. They will still take a lot of work to hone their PvP skills.
-Runz
I disagree.
I too was concerned about the fact that you couldn't download Advanced Server's ISOs, but lets face it, Red Hat is a corporate entity who's main goal is to, uh, make money. Quite honestly; people in our community (myself included) are cheap bastards, but if we insist on everything, every product, every service, for free then how are the vendors who supply said products supposed to persist?
Software like Advanced Server is a bit more complex than the base Red Hat distro, and EVERY piece of it is GPL'ed code. Now, you can get every piece of it from somewhere (Red Hat did) but does that entitle us to all of the work that Red Hat has done to make all of the components work together for free? I mean, Red Hat already gives us a very fully featured base distro, are we entitled to all of Red Hat's development efforts? I think not. I mean if you're really interested is making your own Advanced Server release and giving it away for free, download the stuff, glue it together yourself, and give it away.
On second thought, Red Hat not offering Advanced Server ISOs is not such a bad thing. They should be entitled to reap the benefits of their development efforts.
-Runz
I'm sorry, I didn't realize that UO, EQ, or any of the others were classified as FPS, sorry I don't know what I'm talking about.
g est/forums.jsp>
Star Wars Galaxies discussion groups about it, but not to the volume that I would expect for Lucas Arts to actually take our community seriously.
For those of you who actually care about Linux (NATIVE) clients for stuff:
Turns out that Sony and Origin among others actually store their MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) data on Solaris or Linux machines, but don't actually make a client that runs on Unix or Linux. When I asked some people over at Origin about it, I was told that there is not enough demand for Linux games, so apparently we're not being vocal enough as a community. I've seen some banter going back and forth on the href="http://starwarsgalaxies.station.sony.com/di
I think it's time we started bugging game companies to make clients for us. Call them, post to their discussion groups, make youself be heard!
-Runz
I thought I bought a $200 graphics card to run eXcell!
Seriously though, I think that this is one of the big issues keeping Linux from multiplying rapidly on the desktop or at home. I mean it's great that Linux can interoperate with disk shares and do all the backend net service stuff like DNS, LDAP, etc. But that doesn't make my friends want to migrate to it. Where are our games? NWN has clued in, now if only Star Wars Galaxies, UO, DAOC, and EverQuest would figure it out!
-Runz
Red Snapper, very tasty. Also good for wireless lan, a little stinky though. Mmmm wireless smellovision!
-Runz
Not to hate on Moby, I actually bought "18", but I saw an interview with him on Delta Inflight. I wish I could have a swanky loft in Manhattan, get up when I wanted and roll into my very own state of the art recording studio. How many people world wide burn Moby's, and others, CDs and distribute them to their friends, therefore cutting down on the number of albums sold? I think it's neglegable. Instead of harassing and blaming the common geek Moby, perhaps you and your record label should concentrate on the guys outside your apartment building right now in Manhattan that are selling bootlegged cds pressed with cover art and all! Perhaps you and your record label should instead persue some action against the people who bootleg your music en mass rather than complaining about the person who tears off 2 for his/her friends.
Just an idea, but what the hell do I know, I'm just a geek.
-Runz