Some games I can buy and download. That's the entire point of distribution systems like Steam.
Seriously, though, I probably would have bought Spore if it hadn't been for the DRM. I'll never (knowingly) install games that use SecureRom and shit like it.
I don't know how IANA works... do they assign the registries/8 blocks or do they go all the way down to the/24? Since each registry represents an entire continent, this kind of thing is important.
"Bittorrent clients apparently don't prioritize other users on the same ISP or at least in the same country. Why is that? Is it difficult to manage?" The reason BitTorrent doesn't prioritize other users on the same ISP or the same country is that it doesn't know which ones are part of the same ISP or the same country. For ISPs, since the introduction of CIDR addresses, ISPs can have multiple blocks of IPs. Can you honestly tell me what all of, say, Comcast's IP blocks are with any degree of certainty?
For countries, you either need to know which IP blocks IANA has allocated to which IP registry or use a geolocation library.
MaxMind's GeoIP seems to be the de facto geolocation library, but they charge money for the "good" version. There is a free version now, but it has some annoying requirements, such as having to include "This product includes GeoLite data created by MaxMind, available from http://maxmind.com/" in all advertising materials and documentation. It also only has a 99.5% accuracy as claimed by its creators, which means the the accuracy is probably considerably lower than they claim. Even if it were 99.5%, that means it's wrong for 1 out of every 200 people.
A problem to watch out for is that if you add your own research to Wikipedia (even with all the proper citations), you'll get slapped by some self-important wikipedian because it is apparently wrong and evil to have the person directly responsible for the research itself to be included in the creation of encyclopedia content about said research.
Of course, they're just following WP:COI (the Conflict of Interest guideline) to its extreme. Of course, depending on the sources, WP:SOURCES (a policy) could also be invoked. On Wikipedia, you're required to cite independent sources in addition to any research when reporting about said research.
Having said all that, I rarely edit articles on Wikipedia any more, as the constants fighting over how articles should look and which Admins are favoring which positions (instead of being neutral) gets really old, really quickly.
The Home/Pro versions of XP have a historical reasoning, though.
XP Home replaced Windows 98/ME. XP Professional replaced Windows NT4 Workstation/Windows 2000 Professional.
Now, you could argue that XP should have combined these into one. I agree. However, I wouldn't have though too much of it if they were kept separate versions going into Vista.
Instead, Vista subdivided each of these markets in half: XP Home to Vista Home Basic and Vista Home Premium XP Professional to Vista Business and Vista Enterprise; although Enterprise didn't come until later and is the only version not to be on the same install media as the others.
Then there's Vista Ultimate for people who are naive enough to pay more to have the features of Vista Home Premium and Vista Business plus a few (IMO) useless extras.
I consider renaming files in my Program Files directory to be a non-standard activity, and thus subject to security policy.
You can't seriously be suggesting that Grandma, unless she knows a lot about computers, is renaming files in a directory that programs don't have write access. If she is, I expect UAC warnings to pop up, as she shouldn't be touching anything there. Under Vista, when UAC is on, any attempts by programs to write to a new file in C:\Program Files\ gets shunted to %USERPROFILE%\VirtualStore\Program Files\ .
If it weren't for the used game business, my aunt and uncle, both retired, probably wouldn't play video games.
As it is, they now have 3 PS2s (2 for home, 1 for when they head to Florida for the winter) and 1 Gamecube (which I gave to them when I purchased a Wii).
They buy a lot of used games. My cousins buy them new games for various holidays and birthdays, but whenever they buy games for themselves, it's always used.
In all truthiness, I haven't ever worked on an open source project. If I did, it'd most likely attribute me by my first initial and last name, which is how my non-work email signatures are set up.
I don't know about everything else, but Fear needed to be nerfed. Prior to this, you could Fear-DoT lock other players on PvP servers... granted, I haven't played regularly for over a year (or at all for six months), but that's what it was like in 2007.
Vista is especially full of this crap. If you don't believe me, google VirtualStore, where, as part of the UAC system, it redirects attempts to write to Program Files to part of your user profile directory... and when programs try to read from Program Files, the OS checks both the real location and the VirtualStore for files.
I'm interested in benchmarks to see exactly how much this costs performance-wise.
That just means Blizzard needs to man up and do away with shards.
They could stand to reduce the number of shards, but eliminating them is quite impossible with WoW's player-base size... that is, if you want to be able to do anything in capitol cities without your video card exploding.
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Some games I can buy and download. That's the entire point of distribution systems like Steam.
Seriously, though, I probably would have bought Spore if it hadn't been for the DRM. I'll never (knowingly) install games that use SecureRom and shit like it.
Of course, the 90% piracy rate (on World of Goo, as I recall) is a complete ass-pull without any statistics cited to back it up.
By any chance, were you forced to use Lotus products?
*shudder*
I don't know how IANA works... do they assign the registries /8 blocks or do they go all the way down to the /24? Since each registry represents an entire continent, this kind of thing is important.
That doesn't work well with networks split with CIDR. For example, the 24.x.y.z block is in the Class A address range, but it's not a class A block.
"Bittorrent clients apparently don't prioritize other users on the same ISP or at least in the same country. Why is that? Is it difficult to manage?"
The reason BitTorrent doesn't prioritize other users on the same ISP or the same country is that it doesn't know which ones are part of the same ISP or the same country. For ISPs, since the introduction of CIDR addresses, ISPs can have multiple blocks of IPs. Can you honestly tell me what all of, say, Comcast's IP blocks are with any degree of certainty?
For countries, you either need to know which IP blocks IANA has allocated to which IP registry or use a geolocation library.
MaxMind's GeoIP seems to be the de facto geolocation library, but they charge money for the "good" version. There is a free version now, but it has some annoying requirements, such as having to include "This product includes GeoLite data created by MaxMind, available from http://maxmind.com/" in all advertising materials and documentation. It also only has a 99.5% accuracy as claimed by its creators, which means the the accuracy is probably considerably lower than they claim. Even if it were 99.5%, that means it's wrong for 1 out of every 200 people.
Lets see.... if a centimeter is .01 meters, does that mean a centimillionaire is someone with $10,000?
Wow, that would be pretty cheap!
Wait, maybe they meant hectomillionaires or kilomillionaires.
Of course, they're just following WP:COI (the Conflict of Interest guideline) to its extreme. Of course, depending on the sources, WP:SOURCES (a policy) could also be invoked. On Wikipedia, you're required to cite independent sources in addition to any research when reporting about said research.
Having said all that, I rarely edit articles on Wikipedia any more, as the constants fighting over how articles should look and which Admins are favoring which positions (instead of being neutral) gets really old, really quickly.
Now I picture one of those TV Court rooms with Judge Judy or the like yelling at the Microsoft person.
The Home/Pro versions of XP have a historical reasoning, though.
XP Home replaced Windows 98/ME.
XP Professional replaced Windows NT4 Workstation/Windows 2000 Professional.
Now, you could argue that XP should have combined these into one. I agree. However, I wouldn't have though too much of it if they were kept separate versions going into Vista.
Instead, Vista subdivided each of these markets in half:
XP Home to Vista Home Basic and Vista Home Premium
XP Professional to Vista Business and Vista Enterprise; although Enterprise didn't come until later and is the only version not to be on the same install media as the others.
Then there's Vista Ultimate for people who are naive enough to pay more to have the features of Vista Home Premium and Vista Business plus a few (IMO) useless extras.
You're right, the W3C is a coalition of companies with a vested interest in making web pages render similarly on different browsers.
Oh wait, there's one other company that's a member. I don't remember the name, but it was something like Macrohard.
Note: I am not the grandparent's poster.
I consider renaming files in my Program Files directory to be a non-standard activity, and thus subject to security policy.
You can't seriously be suggesting that Grandma, unless she knows a lot about computers, is renaming files in a directory that programs don't have write access. If she is, I expect UAC warnings to pop up, as she shouldn't be touching anything there. Under Vista, when UAC is on, any attempts by programs to write to a new file in C:\Program Files\ gets shunted to %USERPROFILE%\VirtualStore\Program Files\ .
Wait, did Microsoft just admit that ActiveX is one of the largest security holes ever?
My aunt was born in mid-April and my uncle in late-September... it's not optimal, but it still segments things into 3 parts for them.
They also tend to like most of the same types of games... 3D platformers like Ratchet & Clank mainly.
If it weren't for the used game business, my aunt and uncle, both retired, probably wouldn't play video games.
As it is, they now have 3 PS2s (2 for home, 1 for when they head to Florida for the winter) and 1 Gamecube (which I gave to them when I purchased a Wii).
They buy a lot of used games. My cousins buy them new games for various holidays and birthdays, but whenever they buy games for themselves, it's always used.
Everyone has heard of John Wayne Smythe!
In all truthiness, I haven't ever worked on an open source project. If I did, it'd most likely attribute me by my first initial and last name, which is how my non-work email signatures are set up.
So, in other words, you consider Mac OSX 10.5 (Leopard) to be Unix-ish, but not any other Mac OSX version (10.0.x - 10.4.x and 10.6 alpha)?
I'm curious as to when you came up with this definition: before or after October 26, 2007?
I don't know about everything else, but Fear needed to be nerfed. Prior to this, you could Fear-DoT lock other players on PvP servers... granted, I haven't played regularly for over a year (or at all for six months), but that's what it was like in 2007.
Of course he's a Microsoft Shill... he used to be a Program Manager at Microsoft.
Vista is especially full of this crap. If you don't believe me, google VirtualStore, where, as part of the UAC system, it redirects attempts to write to Program Files to part of your user profile directory... and when programs try to read from Program Files, the OS checks both the real location and the VirtualStore for files.
I'm interested in benchmarks to see exactly how much this costs performance-wise.
ME is largely a relaunch of 98 that added a bunch of stuff that made it even more crash-prone, such as System Restore.
Windows XP is largely a relaunch of Windows 2000 with a new GUI on it.
Side note: Blizzard hosts World of Warcraft's servers at AT&T. I'm not sure about the website, though.
Sort of like... SOE's Station Access?
They could stand to reduce the number of shards, but eliminating them is quite impossible with WoW's player-base size... that is, if you want to be able to do anything in capitol cities without your video card exploding.