For me the reason I don't have HDTV is a simple one.
It is the fact that I have to pay extra to actually receive the programming. I live too far from a broadcast tower to use an over the air receiver and anyone that has looked at the options given by most signal providers will see ripoff stamped all over the prices charged.
Everyone knows about the tags that set off the ICS or whatever they are calling it these days. Those are completely useless since they have old ladies manning the front doors who can't stop anyone. Here in my town they just installed RFID but have yet to get any RFID merchandise. They do have some nifty tricks like laser designators that signal the cameras to follow targetted people. They can use them to track up to six "targets" at once.
Oh, btw the wal-mart in Bryant, AR does not prosecute ANY shoplifting because of complaints by the county court about all the work they were having to do. This includes the guy that I observed getting caught FIVE, YES FIVE times inside of two hours trying to steal a 1500 dollar lcd tv. He was never charged, police never called. He was only told not to come back.
Speaking as someone who has extensive experience with Turbine's other MMORPGs. To qualify I played Asheron's Call 2 for about a year and Asheron's Call from beta until the release of WoW... Even when Turbine has a decent game at release they WILL screw it up in future patches. They will cater to the power gamers and the cheaters more than any group of folks you have ever seen. The stuff that was going on in AC1 was absolutely ridiculous by the time I quit and it has gotten worse since them. Inflation of item power, new character abilities that only the hardcore player could ever hope to access. "Pink" PvP so that the hardcore players could PvP without having to fear losing any of their grotesquely overpowered items that they either crafted or looted.
Wow, you got the concept of JIT right but completely missed the implementation. JIT is an inventory process like you describe but when you are doing a major launch of a product you need a lot of that product on the shelves at the beginning. The buffer that Sony needs for that initial shock of the launch is going to be rather large and it is worrisome that they have not started building that buffer yet.
I don't have time to look up the post from the forums. But a while back one of the CM's let slip that Blizzard does not manage the WoW datacenter. They actually have contracted every bit of that out to a third party. I sincerely think this is a core part of the problem with connectivity. Of course Blizzard has a time lag between something going wrong and them finding out about it. First a tech at the third-party has to notice it. Then they forward to their superiors and so forth and so on until eventually someone at Blizzard might find out something went wrong. It also doesn't surprise me that the third party providing datacenter hosting is not multi-homed (isn't that the correct term?).
I think the largest lesson to learn here is that you shouldn't contract out the entire core aspect of your business model.
This is one reason I dropped from CS with only a year of school left. I graduate in the fall now with honors and dual BBAs in Finance and Economics. I will most likely pursue a MBA once I am finished. Most of my old friends from my Computer Science days poopoo my decision to go to a business major and can only talk about how much easier it is. I don't know about the other majors but at my university you have to have a very strong background in mathematics (specifically algebra/statistics/calculus) to make decent grades in the coursework. Heck, if you want an advanced degree in economics or finance most reputable programs require you take Calculus II and Linear Algebra before admittance. Some PhD programs also suggest a strong aquaintance with continuous time math.
As others have said the settings were often very inventive but the actual underlying game system was just horrible. I was a big fan of Heroes Unlimited and Nightbane myself. Really enjoyed both especially Nightbane. I guess it doesn't matter to me right now though since I don't even have a gaming group since moving.
Well, I wouldn't be too worried about Japan since they are a very small market especially compared to Europe and the United States. I know that the local Japanophiles would want you to believe they are the end all be all but unfortunately they aren't especially from the consumer side.
"Is anyone even surprised that this kind of stuff would come from Japan? That whole country is like Bizarro world. They do everything we do, just in a really strange way. It reminds me of that scene in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" where they go near Toontown, and you can see clouds of smoke and yelling and fighting and all sorts of haywire shit happening above the horizon to signify the complete and total lunacy of the place. Japan is just like that. The whole world continuously scratches its head at the far east, then sits back and watches to see what wacky thing the Japanese will do next. I mean, I'm sure the culture is swell once you get past all the incest and pedophilia and giant robots and all, but after that--huh? Japan is super crazy place, 100 PERCENT! Note: there's actually two forms of Jpop. The faster kind which gives the hardiest Dance Dance Revolution masters a run for their money, which is indistinguishable from Eurobeat, and the more bubblegum kind, called Shibuya-kei. You can tell which is which."
I would think it is a fairly free market. I've discussed this whole idea with my professors as I come closer to finishing my economics degree. We came to the conclusion that it is incredibly hard to apply any kind of economics theory to something like WoW on a consistent basis.
It works fine and all. Of course I put a dvdburner in and now everytime I startup the bios whines about the cdrom that dell sold me not being present. Oh well. Other than that it is rock solid most of the time. When I first bought it I had to completely reformat and install from scratch because the crap software that came preinstalled conflicted with my printer driver somehow and caused BSOD before startup finished.
This is a problem for me. I agree with conservative theory and am fed up with the Republican pandering for votes. However I don't neccessarily agree with what the Democrats do which leave me voting for third-party candidates with a slim chance to do anything. I still vote for them though because they stand for what I stand for.
Absolutely correct! You are the first person I have heard in a long time get this right. My fiancee has a MS in Psychology (her area of emphasis is Testing and Measurement so yes she knows her shit). There are so many different ways of measuring "IQ" and so many things it can mean that unless you know the specific test taken the number means absolutely nothing. I could take a WISC and then tell you about my absurdly high IQ. Of course I don't tell you that the test in question is meant for children.
I was majorly addicted not just to mmorpg but to games as a whole. This period lasted for several years of my life during which I ignored my school responsibilities (I was in college). I also managed to lose a decent job at this time. Thankfully my girlfriend helped me. We started dating before the addiction started. During the addiction nothing mattered and finally she told me that if I didn't straighten up she was gone. I loved her enough that I managed to control my addiction and while I still play a good bit I still leave time for school, gf, friends, etc. I have also recovered in school and after this semester will be 12 hours from graduating with a dual major in both Finance and Economics.
It takes different things for different people. Lots of things were tried on me but the feelings I had for my girlfriend (now fiance we are getting married this summer) are what won the day for me.
I'm not as sure about now. But the mowers you buy for 100 bucks are so are disposable. They rarely last more than one year and the never really do a good job. As a comparison you can look at my familys 23 year old snapper mower that still starts up great every year and still does a great job mowing our yard.
I had a similar experience. Except instead of relying on others I applied pressure to my finger and drove to the hospital. In fact I've never taken an ambulance to the hospital for anything even when I broke my shin. I hopped to my truck, jumped in and drove to the hospital and hopped into the emergency room.
How about the constant denying of the holocaust. The exhortation by islamic leaders to kill all jews? The muslim world is chock full of examples of hate towards those different then themselves. You don't see jews becoming suicide bombers because of it and you don't see christians holding riots. The reason is because we are civilized while evidently the majority of the islamic world is stuck about 1000 or so years ago.
The reason Sheehan was the only one arrested is the other lady (who was a congressman's wife btw) agreed to remove the shirt immediately while Sheehan refused and began to cause a scene. Both of these women were breaking the rules of the event and they were both asked to comply. One of them did, one of them didn't. That got the one that didn't arrested. It isn't some vast conspiracy it is simply a crazy old woman that is doing everything she can to get attention so the spotlight doesn't shift too far off of her.
As someone who was following the "action" so to speak on that article I can tell you that it wasn't locked because of gov't employees editing the data to make bush look good which is what the summary implies. The Bush43 article was locked because of all the loony lefties that kept vandalizing it and putting incredibly ridiculous statements in it.
I agree with you but I would also like to point out that this type of thing has been happening since Christmas with no end in sight. Every single day as we approach afternoon/evening on my server we start having authentication issues, loot lag, general lag, etc etc.
And I know a lot more (even if you normalize for population size) whites who like to use their privilege to not have to be afraid of the police, to not get followed around in stores, to get into college because of Daddy's large gift or legacy status, so on and so forth.
Just want to point out the full story...
Which is bullshit because I'm white, middle class and guess what if I fuck up the cops still come down on me hard, I DO get followed around in most stores I shop at especially when I goto the store down the street that is owned and operated by blacks and carries suits and such. I go there because my dad likes their hats btw. I did NOT get into college because of my parents and have recieved absolutely zero help from them.
All you are doing is making the whole situation worse by responding to stereotypes with more stereotypes of your own.
Or maybe the dissertations and research papers are so long because we have become so cumbersome in how the academic world attempts to relate ideas. As a matter of fact I know this is true from personal experience. Read a modern research paper and then read an older one. The modern one is so full of unneccessary information that is just there to basically make it look thicker that it is horrible to read where the older paper will get right to the point and make said point.
I was thinking the same thing in regards to WoW and the new DND game. I got in on the public stress test and I must say that WoW has nothing to feel. While the character creation, progression, and enemies are very dndish. The game as a whole completely failed to be enjoyable for me. This comes from someone who is a huge DND fan by the way. The UI sucks completely, the quests are pretty retarded, the functions for finding a party are an abortion, zoning is incredibly annoying and constant. Also one of the biggest problems I had with it was I felt like I was playing Guild Wars but I was going to have to pay a monthly fee.
I played it on a friend's account for awhile. I must say that I came away inredibly happy I didn't shell out money for the game. I really have nothing positive to say about it. For me it definitely ranks as one of the most horrible computer games I've ever played (and this is since the mid 80's).
You know, this is a good point I've never given much thought to. What must things be like in Korea, Japan, and China (especially Korea and China) to drive the people that live there to become so obsessive over video games. Sure you hear the occasional story about this sort of thing happening elsewhere but the vast majority take place in Korea and China with a lesser occurance in Japan. Just think about it.
Slashdot Mirror
For me the reason I don't have HDTV is a simple one.
It is the fact that I have to pay extra to actually receive the programming. I live too far from a broadcast tower to use an over the air receiver and anyone that has looked at the options given by most signal providers will see ripoff stamped all over the prices charged.
Everyone knows about the tags that set off the ICS or whatever they are calling it these days. Those are completely useless since they have old ladies manning the front doors who can't stop anyone. Here in my town they just installed RFID but have yet to get any RFID merchandise. They do have some nifty tricks like laser designators that signal the cameras to follow targetted people. They can use them to track up to six "targets" at once.
Oh, btw the wal-mart in Bryant, AR does not prosecute ANY shoplifting because of complaints by the county court about all the work they were having to do. This includes the guy that I observed getting caught FIVE, YES FIVE times inside of two hours trying to steal a 1500 dollar lcd tv. He was never charged, police never called. He was only told not to come back.
Speaking as someone who has extensive experience with Turbine's other MMORPGs. To qualify I played Asheron's Call 2 for about a year and Asheron's Call from beta until the release of WoW...
Even when Turbine has a decent game at release they WILL screw it up in future patches. They will cater to the power gamers and the cheaters more than any group of folks you have ever seen. The stuff that was going on in AC1 was absolutely ridiculous by the time I quit and it has gotten worse since them. Inflation of item power, new character abilities that only the hardcore player could ever hope to access. "Pink" PvP so that the hardcore players could PvP without having to fear losing any of their grotesquely overpowered items that they either crafted or looted.
Wow, you got the concept of JIT right but completely missed the implementation. JIT is an inventory process like you describe but when you are doing a major launch of a product you need a lot of that product on the shelves at the beginning. The buffer that Sony needs for that initial shock of the launch is going to be rather large and it is worrisome that they have not started building that buffer yet.
I don't have time to look up the post from the forums. But a while back one of the CM's let slip that Blizzard does not manage the WoW datacenter. They actually have contracted every bit of that out to a third party. I sincerely think this is a core part of the problem with connectivity. Of course Blizzard has a time lag between something going wrong and them finding out about it. First a tech at the third-party has to notice it. Then they forward to their superiors and so forth and so on until eventually someone at Blizzard might find out something went wrong. It also doesn't surprise me that the third party providing datacenter hosting is not multi-homed (isn't that the correct term?).
I think the largest lesson to learn here is that you shouldn't contract out the entire core aspect of your business model.
This is one reason I dropped from CS with only a year of school left. I graduate in the fall now with honors and dual BBAs in Finance and Economics. I will most likely pursue a MBA once I am finished. Most of my old friends from my Computer Science days poopoo my decision to go to a business major and can only talk about how much easier it is. I don't know about the other majors but at my university you have to have a very strong background in mathematics (specifically algebra/statistics/calculus) to make decent grades in the coursework. Heck, if you want an advanced degree in economics or finance most reputable programs require you take Calculus II and Linear Algebra before admittance. Some PhD programs also suggest a strong aquaintance with continuous time math.
As others have said the settings were often very inventive but the actual underlying game system was just horrible. I was a big fan of Heroes Unlimited and Nightbane myself. Really enjoyed both especially Nightbane. I guess it doesn't matter to me right now though since I don't even have a gaming group since moving.
Well, I wouldn't be too worried about Japan since they are a very small market especially compared to Europe and the United States. I know that the local Japanophiles would want you to believe they are the end all be all but unfortunately they aren't especially from the consumer side.
Shamelessly copied from http://www.di.fm/edmguide/ when he is describing JPop.
"Is anyone even surprised that this kind of stuff would come from Japan? That whole country is like Bizarro world. They do everything we do, just in a really strange way. It reminds me of that scene in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" where they go near Toontown, and you can see clouds of smoke and yelling and fighting and all sorts of haywire shit happening above the horizon to signify the complete and total lunacy of the place. Japan is just like that. The whole world continuously scratches its head at the far east, then sits back and watches to see what wacky thing the Japanese will do next. I mean, I'm sure the culture is swell once you get past all the incest and pedophilia and giant robots and all, but after that--huh? Japan is super crazy place, 100 PERCENT! Note: there's actually two forms of Jpop. The faster kind which gives the hardiest Dance Dance Revolution masters a run for their money, which is indistinguishable from Eurobeat, and the more bubblegum kind, called Shibuya-kei. You can tell which is which."
I would think it is a fairly free market. I've discussed this whole idea with my professors as I come closer to finishing my economics degree. We came to the conclusion that it is incredibly hard to apply any kind of economics theory to something like WoW on a consistent basis.
It works fine and all. Of course I put a dvdburner in and now everytime I startup the bios whines about the cdrom that dell sold me not being present. Oh well. Other than that it is rock solid most of the time. When I first bought it I had to completely reformat and install from scratch because the crap software that came preinstalled conflicted with my printer driver somehow and caused BSOD before startup finished.
yay
My next computer is an Apple.
This is a problem for me. I agree with conservative theory and am fed up with the Republican pandering for votes. However I don't neccessarily agree with what the Democrats do which leave me voting for third-party candidates with a slim chance to do anything. I still vote for them though because they stand for what I stand for.
Absolutely correct! You are the first person I have heard in a long time get this right. My fiancee has a MS in Psychology (her area of emphasis is Testing and Measurement so yes she knows her shit). There are so many different ways of measuring "IQ" and so many things it can mean that unless you know the specific test taken the number means absolutely nothing. I could take a WISC and then tell you about my absurdly high IQ. Of course I don't tell you that the test in question is meant for children.
I was majorly addicted not just to mmorpg but to games as a whole. This period lasted for several years of my life during which I ignored my school responsibilities (I was in college). I also managed to lose a decent job at this time. Thankfully my girlfriend helped me. We started dating before the addiction started. During the addiction nothing mattered and finally she told me that if I didn't straighten up she was gone. I loved her enough that I managed to control my addiction and while I still play a good bit I still leave time for school, gf, friends, etc. I have also recovered in school and after this semester will be 12 hours from graduating with a dual major in both Finance and Economics.
It takes different things for different people. Lots of things were tried on me but the feelings I had for my girlfriend (now fiance we are getting married this summer) are what won the day for me.
I'm not as sure about now. But the mowers you buy for 100 bucks are so are disposable. They rarely last more than one year and the never really do a good job. As a comparison you can look at my familys 23 year old snapper mower that still starts up great every year and still does a great job mowing our yard.
I had a similar experience. Except instead of relying on others I applied pressure to my finger and drove to the hospital. In fact I've never taken an ambulance to the hospital for anything even when I broke my shin. I hopped to my truck, jumped in and drove to the hospital and hopped into the emergency room.
How about the constant denying of the holocaust. The exhortation by islamic leaders to kill all jews? The muslim world is chock full of examples of hate towards those different then themselves. You don't see jews becoming suicide bombers because of it and you don't see christians holding riots. The reason is because we are civilized while evidently the majority of the islamic world is stuck about 1000 or so years ago.
The reason Sheehan was the only one arrested is the other lady (who was a congressman's wife btw) agreed to remove the shirt immediately while Sheehan refused and began to cause a scene. Both of these women were breaking the rules of the event and they were both asked to comply. One of them did, one of them didn't. That got the one that didn't arrested. It isn't some vast conspiracy it is simply a crazy old woman that is doing everything she can to get attention so the spotlight doesn't shift too far off of her.
As someone who was following the "action" so to speak on that article I can tell you that it wasn't locked because of gov't employees editing the data to make bush look good which is what the summary implies. The Bush43 article was locked because of all the loony lefties that kept vandalizing it and putting incredibly ridiculous statements in it.
I agree with you but I would also like to point out that this type of thing has been happening since Christmas with no end in sight. Every single day as we approach afternoon/evening on my server we start having authentication issues, loot lag, general lag, etc etc.
Which is bullshit because I'm white, middle class and guess what if I fuck up the cops still come down on me hard, I DO get followed around in most stores I shop at especially when I goto the store down the street that is owned and operated by blacks and carries suits and such. I go there because my dad likes their hats btw. I did NOT get into college because of my parents and have recieved absolutely zero help from them. All you are doing is making the whole situation worse by responding to stereotypes with more stereotypes of your own.
Or maybe the dissertations and research papers are so long because we have become so cumbersome in how the academic world attempts to relate ideas. As a matter of fact I know this is true from personal experience. Read a modern research paper and then read an older one. The modern one is so full of unneccessary information that is just there to basically make it look thicker that it is horrible to read where the older paper will get right to the point and make said point.
I was thinking the same thing in regards to WoW and the new DND game. I got in on the public stress test and I must say that WoW has nothing to feel. While the character creation, progression, and enemies are very dndish. The game as a whole completely failed to be enjoyable for me. This comes from someone who is a huge DND fan by the way. The UI sucks completely, the quests are pretty retarded, the functions for finding a party are an abortion, zoning is incredibly annoying and constant. Also one of the biggest problems I had with it was I felt like I was playing Guild Wars but I was going to have to pay a monthly fee.
I played it on a friend's account for awhile. I must say that I came away inredibly happy I didn't shell out money for the game. I really have nothing positive to say about it. For me it definitely ranks as one of the most horrible computer games I've ever played (and this is since the mid 80's).
You know, this is a good point I've never given much thought to. What must things be like in Korea, Japan, and China (especially Korea and China) to drive the people that live there to become so obsessive over video games. Sure you hear the occasional story about this sort of thing happening elsewhere but the vast majority take place in Korea and China with a lesser occurance in Japan. Just think about it.