Took vacation and bought World Of Warcraft the day it came out, and I've never looked back.
Classes are mostly balanced and varied, crafting does not gimp your combat abilities and vice-versa, and leveling fits very nicely with interesting quest lines.
Crafting was fun in SWG, at least as a Doctor. Analyzing material stats, balancing all the different variables, judging resource quality. I even did some web dev to make it easier for myself and other doctors (http://swg.dailybuzz.net/). But getting to be a top tier crafter SUCKED big time. Literally sitting there pushing a button every few seconds to make a macro repeatedly craft throw-away items to earn XP just so I could make desirable medicines? There were two parts to SWG - grinding or being a master crafter. Once you attained master, it got kind of fun. Until then, you were completely useless.
In WoW, you do sometimes have to make things repeatedly, but they're not useless. There's always someone who'll accept or buy a leather armor kit to enhance their items. Any item that's hard for you to make is valued by others at your level, so you get a worthwhile price for your wares. And any lower stuff that you do need to grind doesn't cost much or take much time and lower levels kiss your feet when you donate it to them. By the time you've made 20-30 of one item, it no longer gives experience, and by then you can train up newer and better items to craft. Compare that to making literally thousands upon thousands of the same damn Advanced Biological Effect Controller so you can get to be a better medicine crafter and healer in SWG.
Gathering materials in SWG meant buying harvesting machines, locating a good resource spot once in a blue moon, and paying to leave the machine there for a week. Gathering materials in SWG is directly linked to gameplay - appropriately leveled enemies drop materials that a player would need to craft items that would help those at around his level. Or randomly spawned herbs and minerals would appear in areas where appropriately leveled players could utilize them, and they'd be in the area questing or killing anyhow.
Just can't get over how much more *fun* WoW is compared to SWG. Blizzard really got it right.
The EFF should emphasize that their problem is not with a witness reporting suspicions to the authorities, but with the authorities not consulting a judge and obtaining a warrant before conducting a search.
When a technician, or anyone, notices something he suspects is illegal, then he should report it to the police. But the police still need a warrant to search the person's personal property. Otherwise, it would not be admissible as evidence should the un-warranted investigation come to trial.
Here, it's easy:
Policeman: Judge, a technician at Gateway has reported that a computer he is servicing contains files that may constitute child pornography. We request a warrant to search this computer to verify the technician's claim, and begin an investigation if deemed necessary.
Judge: Granted; go right ahead. See the clerk for the warrant papers.
Ditto... (new) 4400+ and (year old) 6800GT. I'm obviously tempted by the new 7800 models, but I only got this thing last year! Who knows what will be out by next summer?
"The final straw was last weekend, when I caught a Law and Order Criminal Intent (I think) episode- where a young man was drugging young women and doing things to them. One victim had her..."
I can't believe this sick crap is considerd to be top-rated, good prime-time television, but one second of janet jackson's blurry patially-revealed nipple brings on an enormous fcc fine.
Rebuttal: Article 36, Section 19. One panda may not make sexual comments about another panda's appearance. If said panda... The first party of the first panda may sue the second party panda unless that panda was said panda unformentioned panda.
You have to quote the entire question if you want to get the survey's true meaning:
Would you favor or oppose requiring all Americans to carry a national ID card
as a means of preventing terrorist attacks in the USA? 66% favor / 33% oppose
Who says this would help against terrorism? All this survey proves is that people are scared of terrorism. Duh.
You'd get very different responses if the question were phrased:
Would you favor or oppose requiring all Americans to carry a national ID card
as a means of increasing government interference and control of your private life?
Also how would a paper receipt stop any rigging of the votes? The paper is worthless for accountablity once the voter has it in thier hands.
The paper doesn't ever reach their hands. They see it through a window, so they can confirm that their exact vote was recorded in an unalterable way (unlike an insecure ms access database which can be changed without a trace).
If there's any question, or for a spot check, the paper votes can be counted and compared to what the access database said. If the numbers aren't exactly the same, you know the access database was changed.
That is MUCH more secure than only storing the vote history in an access database alone.
The more you send them free food, the more you damage their agriculture industry. The more you send them clothes, the more jobs you take from their tailors and textile workers. They don't need handouts, they need real economic reform, and education has to be at the center of that. The world doesn't need welfare nations.
The more you send them medicine, the more you damage their pharmaceutical industry?
Tough love doesn't help anyone during a famine or epidemic. It just gives people like you an excuse to be selfish.
"Quick question: Why isn't this already a national requirement? What reasonable explanation is there for such a glaring lack of security in the most fundamental of governmental institutions?"
They'll tell you it's too expensive to have printers on all the voting machines. (Even though Diebold is the same company that somehow figured out a way to give you a receipt for every transaction you make at an ATM.)
The real reason is that paper receipts make it too hard to rig the election.
"A hotspot connected in its default configuration, which may happen to give DHCP leases, is no evidence of any human permission to access the network."
Sure it is... especially when that undiscriminating broadcast signal spreads into a public area like the sidewalk. The owner took all the effort to acquire and install a wireless router powerful enough to reach the sidewalk, and intentionally left it in a mode where anyone could use it. Also, when connecting to his network, he makes no notice about it requiring access.
And if the default behavior of the wireless router combined with the clueless owner not securing his network is protected by the law, what about the default behavior of a Windows XP wifi client and an equally clueless user?
My friend's cousin just got a laptop with a wireless card as a gift. She turned it on, and found that she got high speed wireless internet when she was in her room. Now you and I know that windows has simply connected her laptop to a neighbor's unsecured wireless network. But when my friend asked her about it, she said, "I don't need broadband, it's wireless." She just innocently believes that wireless card = wireless internet; nothing else to it. So who's to blame here? Her default configuration connected to a network. The network's default configuration connected to her computer. Neither user had any idea what they were doing. So how can you blame the client in this case?
I know I'm sort of playing Devil's advocate here, but the law is just too broad, and many valid arguments can be made from either side. I realize that there's something wrong with sitting outside someone's house all day and leeching their bandwidth and potentially doing illegal stuff using their IP address, but I also believe there's something wrong (entrapment?) with broadcasting a signal from your home into public space and then suing anyone who happens to accidentily connect.
"The wireless network would have been advertising its presense. This is a useful feature. But it wasn't "inviting anyone" any more than a door knob does."
Actually, it was more like a plate of cookies outside a neighbor's house on the public sidewalk, with a sign saying "Free cookies". Your doorknob example means they have to trespass on their property, open their door, and presumably enter their home.
I know what this guy did was creepy and dumb, but making what he did illegal makes lots of much much lesser actions illegal, too. The law should have something about knowingly, repeatedly, or whatever to distinguish between this guy's type of infraction and someone walking by using a wireless PDA and accidentily connecting.
>Technically, IE7's use of tabs is correct, as all the menu options, toolbars, and address bar all act on the current tab, they should all be included *within* the tab. That's well-established in UI design for years and years.
You're right that tab-specific functions should be displayed as part of the given tab. But IE7 doesn't do that.
The Back and Forward buttons, the Address Bar, and the Search box always act on a single tab. So why are they all displayed independently of the tab? That's wrong and unintuitive.
The File/Edit/View/Favorites/Tools/Help menu are all displayed as within a single tab, but some of the functions (Tools and Help) are just for acting on IE in general, not a specific tab. So that's partially wrong and unintuitive, too.
In addition, people rarely use the File/Edit/View/Favorites/Tools/Help menu choices when browsing web pages. The back and forward buttons and the address bar are the main things that are used by surfers, so why aren't those things dislayed within the tab?
>I would probably argue for a hybrid approach, with the menu bar at top, *then* the tab bar, then the toolbars and address bar underneath the tab bar. It's not as technically correct as what IE7 does, but it would be a lot easier for people to get used to.
Actually, IE7 is NOT technically correct, the way I see it. To be perfect, any function that acts on the current active tab (Fwd/Back, Address, File->Save, Edit->Select All, etc.) would be displayed within the current tab structure, and any function that acts on IE in general (Tools, Help, File->Exit) should be displayed nidependent of the tab structure.
1. How to work with other people
2. How to get along with people you may not like
3. Discipline and focus, with regard to achieving a goal
4. Planning and stragety
5. Competitiveness, which certainly can help later in life if applied correctly
Very true...
As for the "football encourages aggression": on every high school football team, there are respectable scholar-athletes who are both kind to others and good players, and there are dumb jock bullies who treat others like garbage. This is no different than the rest of life. Football itself isn't what creates aggressive bullies; biger-than average kids who were never taught to respect others by their parents or coaches are the real problem.
"W's secret? A bunch of bible thumpers who vote for whoever Jesus tells them to."
W's real secret: have the republican-controlled state election board in ohio make it very hard for people in democratic leaning districts to cast their vote, by providing insufficient and unreliable voting machines to their districts.
8 hour lines, anyone? In my well-off neighborhood, I only had to wait about 5 minutes.
If you're referring to how it takes a sample set of points on your fingerprint, and not your whole fingerprint, then know that that's how every fingerprint-authentication system works, not just Disney's.
If Disney sells you a five-day ticket and has the technical means to prevent someone else from using it, then that means that you can't use only two days (let's say you got bored and decided to go somewhere else), then sell the remaining three days on the ticket to someone else.
Yeah, but fingerprints? I know you were just describing why they'd want to make sure people don't resell partial tickets, but...
Wouldn't a valid ID that matches the one you showed when you bought the ticket be just as effective?
Buy a ticket, they scan your driver's license. When you try to re-enter, you have to show the exact same license (and it has to look like you too) or they won't let you in. For kids without an ID, they could take their photo and print it right on the ticket itself, never storing the photo in any system.
Is there a privacy policy? Do they delete the biometric data as soon as your ticket expires?
I did wind up joining the military, like my father, and grandfather, and even a great-aunt. However, I did it entirely of my own volition, with nothing but support from my parents; not them breathing down my neck.
That's great; and I'm glad you were lucky enough to have a supportive family. But as you must know, it's not always the case.
I expect it's very hard to find the right balance of guiding your kids sensibly and letting them learn by finding their own way.
You can't force someone into the military (except for military school for minors, but that's not really the military). But you can't deny the social pressures parents can exert on their children to either join or not join the military once they are old enough.
"My father joined, his father joined, and I joined. You join too, or you're out of this family" is a compelling reason to go for many kids.
But this altenate code path can run on any x86 chip. Isn't that what compatibility is useful for?
The original code path can run on any x86 chip! Why was an alternate code path even created? Now, if the check said "if thiscpu_mmx_enabled == true, then use fast mmx path, else use slow non-mmx path" then it'd be a legitimate optimization with built in compatibility.
But the compiler doesn't care whether a chip is capable or not, it just cares that it's Intel or not.
Slashdot Mirror
gah...
replace: "Gathering materials in SWG is directly linked to gameplay"
with: "Gathering materials in WoW is directly linked to gameplay"
Took vacation and bought World Of Warcraft the day it came out, and I've never looked back.
Classes are mostly balanced and varied, crafting does not gimp your combat abilities and vice-versa, and leveling fits very nicely with interesting quest lines.
Crafting was fun in SWG, at least as a Doctor. Analyzing material stats, balancing all the different variables, judging resource quality. I even did some web dev to make it easier for myself and other doctors (http://swg.dailybuzz.net/). But getting to be a top tier crafter SUCKED big time. Literally sitting there pushing a button every few seconds to make a macro repeatedly craft throw-away items to earn XP just so I could make desirable medicines? There were two parts to SWG - grinding or being a master crafter. Once you attained master, it got kind of fun. Until then, you were completely useless.
In WoW, you do sometimes have to make things repeatedly, but they're not useless. There's always someone who'll accept or buy a leather armor kit to enhance their items. Any item that's hard for you to make is valued by others at your level, so you get a worthwhile price for your wares. And any lower stuff that you do need to grind doesn't cost much or take much time and lower levels kiss your feet when you donate it to them. By the time you've made 20-30 of one item, it no longer gives experience, and by then you can train up newer and better items to craft. Compare that to making literally thousands upon thousands of the same damn Advanced Biological Effect Controller so you can get to be a better medicine crafter and healer in SWG.
Gathering materials in SWG meant buying harvesting machines, locating a good resource spot once in a blue moon, and paying to leave the machine there for a week. Gathering materials in SWG is directly linked to gameplay - appropriately leveled enemies drop materials that a player would need to craft items that would help those at around his level. Or randomly spawned herbs and minerals would appear in areas where appropriately leveled players could utilize them, and they'd be in the area questing or killing anyhow.
Just can't get over how much more *fun* WoW is compared to SWG. Blizzard really got it right.
The EFF should emphasize that their problem is not with a witness reporting suspicions to the authorities, but with the authorities not consulting a judge and obtaining a warrant before conducting a search.
When a technician, or anyone, notices something he suspects is illegal, then he should report it to the police. But the police still need a warrant to search the person's personal property. Otherwise, it would not be admissible as evidence should the un-warranted investigation come to trial.
Here, it's easy:
Policeman: Judge, a technician at Gateway has reported that a computer he is servicing contains files that may constitute child pornography. We request a warrant to search this computer to verify the technician's claim, and begin an investigation if deemed necessary.
Judge: Granted; go right ahead. See the clerk for the warrant papers.
See how easy that was?
Ditto... (new) 4400+ and (year old) 6800GT. I'm obviously tempted by the new 7800 models, but I only got this thing last year! Who knows what will be out by next summer?
"The final straw was last weekend, when I caught a Law and Order Criminal Intent (I think) episode- where a young man was drugging young women and doing things to them. One victim had her..."
I can't believe this sick crap is considerd to be top-rated, good prime-time television, but one second of janet jackson's blurry patially-revealed nipple brings on an enormous fcc fine.
http://www.kidscanprogram.com/
s oftware.html
http://el.media.mit.edu/logo-foundation/products/
http://www.qbasic.com/tutorial.shtml
http://www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?id=3261
Rebuttal: Article 36, Section 19. One panda may not make sexual comments about another panda's appearance. If said panda... The first party of the first panda may sue the second party panda unless that panda was said panda unformentioned panda.
Who says this would help against terrorism? All this survey proves is that people are scared of terrorism. Duh.
You'd get very different responses if the question were phrased:
Also how would a paper receipt stop any rigging of the votes? The paper is worthless for accountablity once the voter has it in thier hands.
The paper doesn't ever reach their hands. They see it through a window, so they can confirm that their exact vote was recorded in an unalterable way (unlike an insecure ms access database which can be changed without a trace).
If there's any question, or for a spot check, the paper votes can be counted and compared to what the access database said. If the numbers aren't exactly the same, you know the access database was changed.
That is MUCH more secure than only storing the vote history in an access database alone.
Not pay them = only already rich people can afford to be in office.
This apache module actually exists and was mentioned on slashdot :)
The more you send them free food, the more you damage their agriculture industry.
The more you send them clothes, the more jobs you take from their tailors and textile workers.
They don't need handouts, they need real economic reform, and education has to be at the center of that.
The world doesn't need welfare nations.
The more you send them medicine, the more you damage their pharmaceutical industry?
Tough love doesn't help anyone during a famine or epidemic. It just gives people like you an excuse to be selfish.
"Quick question: Why isn't this already a national requirement? What reasonable explanation is there for such a glaring lack of security in the most fundamental of governmental institutions?"
They'll tell you it's too expensive to have printers on all the voting machines. (Even though Diebold is the same company that somehow figured out a way to give you a receipt for every transaction you make at an ATM.)
The real reason is that paper receipts make it too hard to rig the election.
"A hotspot connected in its default configuration, which may happen to give DHCP leases, is no evidence of any human permission to access the network."
Sure it is... especially when that undiscriminating broadcast signal spreads into a public area like the sidewalk. The owner took all the effort to acquire and install a wireless router powerful enough to reach the sidewalk, and intentionally left it in a mode where anyone could use it. Also, when connecting to his network, he makes no notice about it requiring access.
And if the default behavior of the wireless router combined with the clueless owner not securing his network is protected by the law, what about the default behavior of a Windows XP wifi client and an equally clueless user?
My friend's cousin just got a laptop with a wireless card as a gift. She turned it on, and found that she got high speed wireless internet when she was in her room. Now you and I know that windows has simply connected her laptop to a neighbor's unsecured wireless network. But when my friend asked her about it, she said, "I don't need broadband, it's wireless." She just innocently believes that wireless card = wireless internet; nothing else to it. So who's to blame here? Her default configuration connected to a network. The network's default configuration connected to her computer. Neither user had any idea what they were doing. So how can you blame the client in this case?
I know I'm sort of playing Devil's advocate here, but the law is just too broad, and many valid arguments can be made from either side. I realize that there's something wrong with sitting outside someone's house all day and leeching their bandwidth and potentially doing illegal stuff using their IP address, but I also believe there's something wrong (entrapment?) with broadcasting a signal from your home into public space and then suing anyone who happens to accidentily connect.
"The wireless network would have been advertising its presense. This is a useful feature. But it wasn't "inviting anyone" any more than a door knob does."
Actually, it was more like a plate of cookies outside a neighbor's house on the public sidewalk, with a sign saying "Free cookies". Your doorknob example means they have to trespass on their property, open their door, and presumably enter their home.
I know what this guy did was creepy and dumb, but making what he did illegal makes lots of much much lesser actions illegal, too. The law should have something about knowingly, repeatedly, or whatever to distinguish between this guy's type of infraction and someone walking by using a wireless PDA and accidentily connecting.
>Technically, IE7's use of tabs is correct, as all the menu options, toolbars, and address bar all act on the current tab, they should all be included *within* the tab. That's well-established in UI design for years and years.
You're right that tab-specific functions should be displayed as part of the given tab. But IE7 doesn't do that.
The Back and Forward buttons, the Address Bar, and the Search box always act on a single tab. So why are they all displayed independently of the tab? That's wrong and unintuitive.
The File/Edit/View/Favorites/Tools/Help menu are all displayed as within a single tab, but some of the functions (Tools and Help) are just for acting on IE in general, not a specific tab. So that's partially wrong and unintuitive, too.
In addition, people rarely use the File/Edit/View/Favorites/Tools/Help menu choices when browsing web pages. The back and forward buttons and the address bar are the main things that are used by surfers, so why aren't those things dislayed within the tab?
>I would probably argue for a hybrid approach, with the menu bar at top, *then* the tab bar, then the toolbars and address bar underneath the tab bar. It's not as technically correct as what IE7 does, but it would be a lot easier for people to get used to.
Actually, IE7 is NOT technically correct, the way I see it. To be perfect, any function that acts on the current active tab (Fwd/Back, Address, File->Save, Edit->Select All, etc.) would be displayed within the current tab structure, and any function that acts on IE in general (Tools, Help, File->Exit) should be displayed nidependent of the tab structure.
Some of the good things football teaches are
1. How to work with other people
2. How to get along with people you may not like
3. Discipline and focus, with regard to achieving a goal
4. Planning and stragety
5. Competitiveness, which certainly can help later in life if applied correctly
Very true...
As for the "football encourages aggression": on every high school football team, there are respectable scholar-athletes who are both kind to others and good players, and there are dumb jock bullies who treat others like garbage. This is no different than the rest of life. Football itself isn't what creates aggressive bullies; biger-than average kids who were never taught to respect others by their parents or coaches are the real problem.
"W's secret? A bunch of bible thumpers who vote for whoever Jesus tells them to."
W's real secret: have the republican-controlled state election board in ohio make it very hard for people in democratic leaning districts to cast their vote, by providing insufficient and unreliable voting machines to their districts.
8 hour lines, anyone? In my well-off neighborhood, I only had to wait about 5 minutes.
> They're not taking fingerprints.
Huh?
If you're referring to how it takes a sample set of points on your fingerprint, and not your whole fingerprint, then know that that's how every fingerprint-authentication system works, not just Disney's.
If Disney sells you a five-day ticket and has the technical means to prevent someone else from using it, then that means that you can't use only two days (let's say you got bored and decided to go somewhere else), then sell the remaining three days on the ticket to someone else.
Yeah, but fingerprints? I know you were just describing why they'd want to make sure people don't resell partial tickets, but...
Wouldn't a valid ID that matches the one you showed when you bought the ticket be just as effective?
Buy a ticket, they scan your driver's license. When you try to re-enter, you have to show the exact same license (and it has to look like you too) or they won't let you in. For kids without an ID, they could take their photo and print it right on the ticket itself, never storing the photo in any system.
Is there a privacy policy? Do they delete the biometric data as soon as your ticket expires?
I did wind up joining the military, like my father, and grandfather, and even a great-aunt. However, I did it entirely of my own volition, with nothing but support from my parents; not them breathing down my neck.
That's great; and I'm glad you were lucky enough to have a supportive family. But as you must know, it's not always the case.
I expect it's very hard to find the right balance of guiding your kids sensibly and letting them learn by finding their own way.
worked for me too...
[ ] This is a good idea
[ ] This is a kludge
[ ] I didn't read TFA, but I like clicking boxes anyway
[X] CowboyNeal
Well, then why do they make compiled code work at all on AMD chips?
I agree with the poster above, though; he should have used a generic compiler (which he eventually did).
You can't force someone into the military (except for military school for minors, but that's not really the military). But you can't deny the social pressures parents can exert on their children to either join or not join the military once they are old enough.
"My father joined, his father joined, and I joined. You join too, or you're out of this family" is a compelling reason to go for many kids.
But this altenate code path can run on any x86 chip. Isn't that what compatibility is useful for?
The original code path can run on any x86 chip! Why was an alternate code path even created? Now, if the check said "if thiscpu_mmx_enabled == true, then use fast mmx path, else use slow non-mmx path" then it'd be a legitimate optimization with built in compatibility.
But the compiler doesn't care whether a chip is capable or not, it just cares that it's Intel or not.