I suggest you don't abandon traditional RPG's for the temporary money-pot that is MMOs. Competition is already high, and chances are that it will be moreso in the future. Many people are already signed up for their favorite MMO, and with monthly subscriptions and the necessity of putting in time chances are they won't sign up for too many different ones.
In the meantime, the rest of us are waiting for some decent new RPG's. FFX-2 was a joke, and I haven't see much else. Maybe you can make some cash on those who are hungering for a real RPG, and even perhaps snatch up those who have been introduced to the concept by existing MMOs.
Only my personal opinion, but when I've thought about it I came down to this reasoning:
a) Many people are shy about their porn habits or fetishes. Hence the porn gets hidden in behind your socks in the top drawer
b) Previously, when acquiring porn, you either had to rent it (videos) or buy it from the store. This meant looking a clerk straight in the eye and having him/her know all your dirty little secrets.
or, you could order it by mail. Which generally meant first you had to buy the magazine with the order form, 'cause they didn't generally come in National Geographic. Subsequently, if your porn didn't get stolen by the mailman (yes, I know many people for whom several of the monthly subscription mags just didn't make it to the doorstep) - then often enough people at least could see it when it arrived and again, they knew
c) For many it's easier to hide your browser history etc from the significant other than it is to hide the stash in the sock drawer. Wives have homing beacons built in for this stuff!
d) Fast and convenient. Magazine subscriptions take time to arrive, or you have to leave the house. If you're in the mood then the internet readily provides most content on a quick basis.
And these are character graphics. Chances are they were generated from a set of various choices... so perhaps those particular characters just look cruddy because the eyes/hair or something similar look bad together?
I'm going on the assumption that you're going to have better machines in the house and not using this one for games, etc. The less powerful (but still more than enough for a VNC client) Epia mobos shouldn't need a fan, and if you want you could get a DC power adaptor and laptop brick to save on the cost of a PSU (no fan on the DC adaptor). Depending on what you install the mobo should also be able to handle some video streams, etc
So far in $CAD that's about:
$50-60: DC PSU
$15+: 12V 3a, Laptop power brick
$150 or so: Epia (motherboard, CPU, video, LAN, sound etc included)
under $100: Wireless NIC
under $100: small hard-drive
under $100: RAM
If you know a little about linux (or know somebody who can help you) then you could get rid of the hard-drive by running something that boots from a USB stick or perhaps an MMC card (some epias support MMC boot devices, and I've heard of adaptors to plug them into a hard-drive jack)
Obviously you could save by scavenging the RAM, drives, etc from other machines as well, so the only cost of "new" items would be the epia, DC PSU, and power brick. No fans means dust is much less of a problem too.
I had a similar issue at work. Happily, setting ffox up with the IE icon left many who didn't realize that a change had been made (they've just assumed it's an upgrade)
While the WYSIWYG addicted dreamweaver users can be annoying, the program itself generates code that is usually good enough to satisfy (at least in comparison to other products).
But personally, I'd rather have DW than a text-editor in many cases? Not because I lack the skills at HTML, but because I lack the time. I'd rather have something that allows me to generate my page quickly with a good concept of what it should end up looking like than spend 1.5x the time coding it by HTML.
I have a friend in Iran that I've talked to for years, and I'm afraid that this might mean I can no longer do so. Does that mean it's not my problem?
The whole "too far away, too different, why do anyth ing about it" response is a crock of shit. Guess what, what happens halfway across the world is still happening on your world. Whether or not it greatly affects you much of this still remains a tragedy to the human race.
I think what you might say is that "the issue would be most properly dealt with by Iranians." That much would be true, as there are little other ways to directly and effectively deal with the problem without causing a greater problem (see: Iraq).
Maybe if the rest of the world gave more support to this though, gradual change could occur more smoothly/swiftly. But the truth is, most of the world doesn't know what happens, and most of the world doesn't want to because they believe as you say "not our problem."
It's pretty easy to ignore an issue until it becomes "our problem," but perhaps if we paid a little more attention to those "not our problems" then the world might be a little better for everyone?
I'm sure the fact that Israel is a large supplier of oil products wouldn't at all be an influencial factor with the US interests in keeping them happy...
I remember this issue with drives quite a long time ago. It was either Maxtor or WD (possibly both) and they shipped the drives with boot-loader software allowing one to access the full capacity of the drive.
Around here on the coast (Vancouver) several issues have been raised with the police abusing their power in regards to picture takers.
The first case I heard of was actually a student (journalism I believe) who was arrested for "obstructing justice" and had her camera confiscated - even though she was taking pictures from across the street and was in no way obstructing the officer.
The second case was similar but - da da dum - they nabbed a lawyer instead... hopefully that will end up biting them in the ass.
The point being though, is that even if the cameras came back chances are that any incriminating pictures did not. Now if the camera had transmitted the picture via wireless to a remote/hidden person/location it might have worked out a little better for the camerapersons.
I've tried to explain this to a lot of people. It's hard to explain the whole aperature size thing, but usually I manage to simplify it to two points:
Digital zoom sucks, you want at least 3x optical, preferable at least 4-5x
Megapixel is useless with a teeny barrel or crappy lense in most cases. Smaller lense/barrel == less light. Light makes pictures. Therefore more megapixel with less light == larger but grainier picture.
Hmmm. Around here flushing twice is often a courtesy. Flushing ones can still leaving a surprise for the next customer that's generally not good for the location's reputation... and the guys that don't flush at all well...
I don't know about the majority, but I don't go to a restaurant to be entertained. Hospitality is a part of this, but entertainment? I don't expect my waiter to jump up and start dancing on a table with a tophat.
I'd qualify restaurants more as a convenience: For when one doesn't feel like cooking, can't (on the road with no stove, etc), or is incapable of cooking the level/type of food provided.
Maybe it's different in the USA. Most restaurants don't offer video games (fast food esp Macondalds etc which caters to kids does). Many do have music, but mostly it's pubs that have TV. Electricity... well I'm this can be expected of almost any indoor venue nowadays. It's not a convenience it's a requirement.
And yes, that laptop plug is an extra that costs. In a place like Starbucks you're not just paying $5.50 for a latte, you're also getting the option of seating space and other amenitites.
Maybe what we need are user-level and administrator level plugins?
Some plugins would be a useful thing for all users (such as perhaps a proxy chooser, which in XP I use for our laptop users), but others could be damn annoying if applied to everyone.
A "please enter the root password" (or select admin user/password for XP) for global-level plugins would work nicely... and a ~/.mozilla/firefox/userplugins for the non-global ones...
I don't know any bootCD's that start on a 2.6 kernel though. This was actually a reference to the original debian disks... wherein once you've started the installer you can check/proc/pci
On a sidenow, I believe you can still use/proc/pci with 2.6 as well, if you enable it as a legacy options. lspci is better in terms of the output format though.
On the issue of spoofing... if a patch were to use the initial vulnerability as the way in, then only "infected" or "vulnerable" machines being spoofed would be bothered by a misplaced patching attempt. In that case, they're still just waiting to be infected by the real virus - and if the virus were spoofing said IP then why wouldn't it have already infected.
The issue of hosing machines is definately a delicate on though. Perhaps what's needed is a standards body to designate "official" patches that could be used in such a situation. One idea though... if your infected machine is attacking mine - aren't you more liable for its actions in disruption my machines/bandwidth? Sueing would be a bad idea then, unless it came down to the old "who lost more money." In that case it migh still not work as who knows how many other machines an infected box may attack.
I've been thinking about this. Ever notice that when you insert an ethernet cable, you'll get a notice like "Link changed, 100MBps Full duplex" or something similar.
I wonder if there is something one could set somewhere to check if the cable is plugged, then go for DHCP.
We got the family 486, but my old man wouldn't install games I borrowed from a friend. So I went along and learned how to access the floppy, change directories, run the installer, etc etc.
Then the computer started running oddly... so I quickly learned how to use "deltree" (fortunately properly, so I didn't deltree C:\*.* or anything bad). Turns out the games weren't the culprit... but it's amazing how such things promote fast learning.
This ignores the concept of likelyhood though. There aren't many criminals that go around jiggling doorknobs (yes, I'm sure it happens, but not that frequently). On the other hand, the worm propogates itself in a way that makes the likelyhood of infection high (new infected machine=new virus source).
A burglar doesn't spawn new burglars every time he/she enters a house.
To make the analogy closer, it might be something more like - I noticed you had a bad lock on your door, or the door is just unlocked, or the key visibly poking out from a potted plant. I lock up the door nicely, and leave you a note.
To add to the analogy, a recent breakout has occured in the nearby prison. Prisoners have escaped, and are subsequently letting prisoners out of other prisons. So suddenly, the likelyhood of your house being broken into by criminals (akin to virus infection) is high, and increasing.>br?
Having somebody lock your doors and pop you a note under the door is probably an irritation, but better than coming home to a burgled home.
How about already infected machines? I know that one patch-worm generated so much traffic getting fixes that it was as bad as the original worm... but how about something that works on an "if-you-attack-me" basis. Years later, I still have countless hits on my webserver from infected MS machines trying to exploit nonexistant flaws (non-MS server).
So really, if I return the volley with something that directs the machine to patch/removal-tool itself, chances are that it's consuming less bandwidth than the virus, and I'm not actively seeking out infected machines myself just responding to an attack against my own.
Agreed. A lot of people glorify their homeland/hometown/etc just the way people often glorify "the good ol' days." They tend to forget about all the bad things too.
My GF is Shanghai and while here in Canada lives in a smaller city. She tends to wander into a "this small town sucks mode" and forgets about the downsides of her hometown too. Right now she's back home for awhile but suffering from terrible allergies due to pollution etc. I can see that there's probably a lot of exciting things in Shanghai, but as with your example of Toronto there are downsides as well (probably similar downsides).
It also has something to say about his respect for his significant other. It's not just about watching a baby "squirt" out, it's about watching the grand opening of what should be a new chapter in your life - and sharing that with your significant other.
Slashdot Mirror
I suggest you don't abandon traditional RPG's for the temporary money-pot that is MMOs. Competition is already high, and chances are that it will be moreso in the future. Many people are already signed up for their favorite MMO, and with monthly subscriptions and the necessity of putting in time chances are they won't sign up for too many different ones.
In the meantime, the rest of us are waiting for some decent new RPG's. FFX-2 was a joke, and I haven't see much else. Maybe you can make some cash on those who are hungering for a real RPG, and even perhaps snatch up those who have been introduced to the concept by existing MMOs.
Only my personal opinion, but when I've thought about it I came down to this reasoning:
a) Many people are shy about their porn habits or fetishes. Hence the porn gets hidden in behind your socks in the top drawer
b) Previously, when acquiring porn, you either had to rent it (videos) or buy it from the store. This meant looking a clerk straight in the eye and having him/her know all your dirty little secrets.
or, you could order it by mail. Which generally meant first you had to buy the magazine with the order form, 'cause they didn't generally come in National Geographic. Subsequently, if your porn didn't get stolen by the mailman (yes, I know many people for whom several of the monthly subscription mags just didn't make it to the doorstep) - then often enough people at least could see it when it arrived and again, they knew
c) For many it's easier to hide your browser history etc from the significant other than it is to hide the stash in the sock drawer. Wives have homing beacons built in for this stuff!
d) Fast and convenient. Magazine subscriptions take time to arrive, or you have to leave the house. If you're in the mood then the internet readily provides most content on a quick basis.
Yes, not good for a still. But when things are moving in the game how do it look?
And these are character graphics. Chances are they were generated from a set of various choices... so perhaps those particular characters just look cruddy because the eyes/hair or something similar look bad together?
This one isn't too bad, except for the hands:
How about a cheap Epia with wireless?
I'm going on the assumption that you're going to have better machines in the house and not using this one for games, etc. The less powerful (but still more than enough for a VNC client) Epia mobos shouldn't need a fan, and if you want you could get a DC power adaptor and laptop brick to save on the cost of a PSU (no fan on the DC adaptor). Depending on what you install the mobo should also be able to handle some video streams, etc
So far in $CAD that's about:
$50-60: DC PSU $15+: 12V 3a, Laptop power brick
$150 or so: Epia (motherboard, CPU, video, LAN, sound etc included)
under $100: Wireless NIC
under $100: small hard-drive
under $100: RAM
If you know a little about linux (or know somebody who can help you) then you could get rid of the hard-drive by running something that boots from a USB stick or perhaps an MMC card (some epias support MMC boot devices, and I've heard of adaptors to plug them into a hard-drive jack)
Obviously you could save by scavenging the RAM, drives, etc from other machines as well, so the only cost of "new" items would be the epia, DC PSU, and power brick. No fans means dust is much less of a problem too.
I had a similar issue at work. Happily, setting ffox up with the IE icon left many who didn't realize that a change had been made (they've just assumed it's an upgrade)
While the WYSIWYG addicted dreamweaver users can be annoying, the program itself generates code that is usually good enough to satisfy (at least in comparison to other products).
But personally, I'd rather have DW than a text-editor in many cases? Not because I lack the skills at HTML, but because I lack the time. I'd rather have something that allows me to generate my page quickly with a good concept of what it should end up looking like than spend 1.5x the time coding it by HTML.
I have a friend in Iran that I've talked to for years, and I'm afraid that this might mean I can no longer do so. Does that mean it's not my problem?
The whole "too far away, too different, why do anyth ing about it" response is a crock of shit. Guess what, what happens halfway across the world is still happening on your world. Whether or not it greatly affects you much of this still remains a tragedy to the human race.
I think what you might say is that "the issue would be most properly dealt with by Iranians." That much would be true, as there are little other ways to directly and effectively deal with the problem without causing a greater problem (see: Iraq).
Maybe if the rest of the world gave more support to this though, gradual change could occur more smoothly/swiftly. But the truth is, most of the world doesn't know what happens, and most of the world doesn't want to because they believe as you say "not our problem."
It's pretty easy to ignore an issue until it becomes "our problem," but perhaps if we paid a little more attention to those "not our problems" then the world might be a little better for everyone?
I'm sure the fact that Israel is a large supplier of oil products wouldn't at all be an influencial factor with the US interests in keeping them happy...
I remember this issue with drives quite a long time ago. It was either Maxtor or WD (possibly both) and they shipped the drives with boot-loader software allowing one to access the full capacity of the drive.
Around here on the coast (Vancouver) several issues have been raised with the police abusing their power in regards to picture takers.
The first case I heard of was actually a student (journalism I believe) who was arrested for "obstructing justice" and had her camera confiscated - even though she was taking pictures from across the street and was in no way obstructing the officer.
The second case was similar but - da da dum - they nabbed a lawyer instead... hopefully that will end up biting them in the ass.
The point being though, is that even if the cameras came back chances are that any incriminating pictures did not. Now if the camera had transmitted the picture via wireless to a remote/hidden person/location it might have worked out a little better for the camerapersons.
I've tried to explain this to a lot of people. It's hard to explain the whole aperature size thing, but usually I manage to simplify it to two points:
Digital zoom sucks, you want at least 3x optical, preferable at least 4-5x
Megapixel is useless with a teeny barrel or crappy lense in most cases. Smaller lense/barrel == less light. Light makes pictures. Therefore more megapixel with less light == larger but grainier picture.
Hmmm. Around here flushing twice is often a courtesy. Flushing ones can still leaving a surprise for the next customer that's generally not good for the location's reputation... and the guys that don't flush at all well...
I don't know about the majority, but I don't go to a restaurant to be entertained. Hospitality is a part of this, but entertainment? I don't expect my waiter to jump up and start dancing on a table with a tophat.
I'd qualify restaurants more as a convenience: For when one doesn't feel like cooking, can't (on the road with no stove, etc), or is incapable of cooking the level/type of food provided.
Maybe it's different in the USA. Most restaurants don't offer video games (fast food esp Macondalds etc which caters to kids does). Many do have music, but mostly it's pubs that have TV. Electricity... well I'm this can be expected of almost any indoor venue nowadays. It's not a convenience it's a requirement.
And yes, that laptop plug is an extra that costs. In a place like Starbucks you're not just paying $5.50 for a latte, you're also getting the option of seating space and other amenitites.
Maybe what we need are user-level and administrator level plugins?
Some plugins would be a useful thing for all users (such as perhaps a proxy chooser, which in XP I use for our laptop users), but others could be damn annoying if applied to everyone.
A "please enter the root password" (or select admin user/password for XP) for global-level plugins would work nicely... and a ~/.mozilla/firefox/userplugins for the non-global ones...
I don't know any bootCD's that start on a 2.6 kernel though. This was actually a reference to the original debian disks... wherein once you've started the installer you can check /proc/pci
/proc/pci with 2.6 as well, if you enable it as a legacy options. lspci is better in terms of the output format though.
On a sidenow, I believe you can still use
On the issue of spoofing... if a patch were to use the initial vulnerability as the way in, then only "infected" or "vulnerable" machines being spoofed would be bothered by a misplaced patching attempt. In that case, they're still just waiting to be infected by the real virus - and if the virus were spoofing said IP then why wouldn't it have already infected.
The issue of hosing machines is definately a delicate on though. Perhaps what's needed is a standards body to designate "official" patches that could be used in such a situation. One idea though... if your infected machine is attacking mine - aren't you more liable for its actions in disruption my machines/bandwidth? Sueing would be a bad idea then, unless it came down to the old "who lost more money." In that case it migh still not work as who knows how many other machines an infected box may attack.
I've been thinking about this. Ever notice that when you insert an ethernet cable, you'll get a notice like "Link changed, 100MBps Full duplex" or something similar.
I wonder if there is something one could set somewhere to check if the cable is plugged, then go for DHCP.
(after you've chosen a boot often such as "vanilla" or "bf24" and then selected a language)
/proc/pci
ALT+F2
cat
voila! Hardware devices (well, PCI/AGP anyhow).
We got the family 486, but my old man wouldn't install games I borrowed from a friend. So I went along and learned how to access the floppy, change directories, run the installer, etc etc.
Then the computer started running oddly... so I quickly learned how to use "deltree" (fortunately properly, so I didn't deltree C:\*.* or anything bad). Turns out the games weren't the culprit... but it's amazing how such things promote fast learning.
This ignores the concept of likelyhood though. There aren't many criminals that go around jiggling doorknobs (yes, I'm sure it happens, but not that frequently). On the other hand, the worm propogates itself in a way that makes the likelyhood of infection high (new infected machine=new virus source).
A burglar doesn't spawn new burglars every time he/she enters a house.
To make the analogy closer, it might be something more like - I noticed you had a bad lock on your door, or the door is just unlocked, or the key visibly poking out from a potted plant. I lock up the door nicely, and leave you a note.
To add to the analogy, a recent breakout has occured in the nearby prison. Prisoners have escaped, and are subsequently letting prisoners out of other prisons. So suddenly, the likelyhood of your house being broken into by criminals (akin to virus infection) is high, and increasing.>br?
Having somebody lock your doors and pop you a note under the door is probably an irritation, but better than coming home to a burgled home.
How about already infected machines? I know that one patch-worm generated so much traffic getting fixes that it was as bad as the original worm... but how about something that works on an "if-you-attack-me" basis. Years later, I still have countless hits on my webserver from infected MS machines trying to exploit nonexistant flaws (non-MS server).
So really, if I return the volley with something that directs the machine to patch/removal-tool itself, chances are that it's consuming less bandwidth than the virus, and I'm not actively seeking out infected machines myself just responding to an attack against my own.
If you mom is running PHPbb... I think you're ahead of the game already! :-)
Agreed. A lot of people glorify their homeland/hometown/etc just the way people often glorify "the good ol' days." They tend to forget about all the bad things too.
My GF is Shanghai and while here in Canada lives in a smaller city. She tends to wander into a "this small town sucks mode" and forgets about the downsides of her hometown too. Right now she's back home for awhile but suffering from terrible allergies due to pollution etc. I can see that there's probably a lot of exciting things in Shanghai, but as with your example of Toronto there are downsides as well (probably similar downsides).
It also has something to say about his respect for his significant other. It's not just about watching a baby "squirt" out, it's about watching the grand opening of what should be a new chapter in your life - and sharing that with your significant other.