"Oh no, that won't work because (insert bullshit techno babble about TCP/IP, IPSec, pointers)."
I call bullshit on them and prove it.
I believe that black people are discriminated against at many different levels, but what you are describing is not racism - it is standard techie interaction. Overcoming the "face saving reflex" is always a necessary part of almost any interaction with a large percentage of technology workers.
Ever increasing hardware requirements. Simple as that.
I bought a couple games based on the required and suggested hardware levels and discovered something shocking. They lied. I'm sticking with the last generation of games (hl2, WC3, civ3, aoe2, wow) because they are fun and run acceptably on my hardware. I don't care how incredible AoE3, Civ4, F.E.A.R, etc are - I have to turn all the graphics and effects down to almost nothing to get acceptable framerates.
This probably also explains how consoles are picking up. People are just plain tired of the upgrade treadmill for PC games. If the graphics and effects levels degraded acceptably it would be one thing, but the vast majority of games do not, these games are designed around graphics and effects that run very poorly with the 'suggested' hardware from the box.
The fact is that what you view as fair and balanced is viewed by others as ridiculously partisan. What they view as a fair and balanced view you probably view as ridiculously partisan.
Genuine political discussion on the internet is impossible, chanting slogans, preaching to the choir and insulting your enemies is about it.
BTW how is it that conservatives still have a persecution complex? I don't really understand it myself, they have pretty much owned the political arena in the US for about 25 years now.
Wow, way to miss the point - those neo-con blinders sure must help make the world a simpler place for you.
I wasn't questioning whether the story is true or false - it sounds fishy to me and at the very least was probably staged for effect or exaggerated in some way. But if the story is true I expect that the same standards of critical thought and examination to be paid to the right wing attacks that will be made on the professor and the student.
The problem with the right wing is the same problem that long plagued the left wing, they are very good at finding logical flaws and incongruities in the propaganda of their opponents - and very good at ignoring the same in their own propaganda.
Yep I only buy used CDs or tracks from non-RIAA labels. I got burned by a couple of "rich content" and "protected" discs. The release of that horrible Sony thing only validated my decision to stay away from companies that treat their customers like thieves.
The IP brigade seems to forget that property rights are only a small part of how free markets work.
I dunno, I really think I'd like a little more info. More than just the say-so of some professor dude, who may or may not have a vested interest in telling tales.
I agree with you, but please apply the same standard of critical thinking to the character attacks launched at the professor and student.
Woohoo for fanboy journalism. People seem to think Torvalds is out there and crazy - but he isn't invading other working groups or mailing lists and jamming his opinion down other people's throats. Sometimes he comes across as cranky or opinionated - but, Slashdot fanboyism aside, he is just an engineer - and surprisingly engineers are often cranky, opinionated, and sometimes even wrong.
Their definition of working hard and ours are different. Many business people seriously believe that programming and engineering are the mental equivalent of ditch digging and it shows in their attitude. The reverse is of course true, we often view time spent doing third grade level math with a spread sheet and yelling at people on the phone or in meeting rooms to be wasted and hardly "hard work" - but rather some sort of paid temper tantrum performed by halfwits.
Both viewpoints are drastic oversimplifications and neither is very accurate, but all things considered I like the engineering standpoint over the businessman standpoint.
This is issue has zero to do with "confiscatory government policy" (hyperbolic flamebait if I've ever heard it). The issue under discussion is whether or not tools that generate non-public formats are suitable for public documents that need to exist for a very long time.
There was a fair amount to like about half-life 2, but much of it's success was a marketing success. There was little, other than raw technological prowess, that was better about hl2 than the first (and steam is still as obnoxious and inconvenient as I knew it was gonna be).
Almost 100% of the time, when someone claims each Madden game is nothing but a roster update, they haven't played any of the Madden games.
I played the games from the genesis to the ps2, and there were continual changes - but there were several years that contained very little more than a roster update. I haven't played a Madden game in about 3 years, lost interest in tv sports mostly and the games were not good enough to enjoy for themselves.
These people are callow and have the need to insult others who they perceive to be less intelligent.
Yours are the only insults I see around here. I stated my opinion "not fun, very slow change" without an insult.
I'm asking, as that's the exact equivalent on how you want to treat lawyers.
In case the leper reference didn't clue you, I was more than half joking. Like many people I distrust lawyers because they wield power in an arena I don't really understand, power that often seems to be used in an arbitrary and underhanded way. That can hardly be said of computer experts. The details of what we do may be mysterious to others, but when it comes down to it we are just technicians or applied mathematicians.
I'd go so far as to call the changes and pace of release of the changes reckless.
Since companies are pretty closed mouth about actual numbers it is hard to tell how this has actually affected subscriptions. My guess is that there are a lot of people re-activating accounts for 1 month to see what the noise is about, but that everyone interested in anything other than combat has probably cancelled at this point. I don't think you can sell someone a subscription to one game and expect them to be happy about paying for a completely different one.
In a few years when all the NDAs and employment agreements are no longer in effect I expect there will be some "tell all" books from people inside this train wreck of a game. Should be an interesting read:)
Amazon already screwed up by even talking to this jackal. The second he contacted them they should have sent their own lawyers into attack mode and prepared for the inevitible lawsuit.
Seriously, lawyers should be treated like lepers - required to scream out a warning to anyone they come in contact with for any reason. "Lawyer, outcast, unclean! Beware lest I sue ye". Amazon attempted to treat this scum like a rational human being and he will use those efforts against them.
Ofcourse this is usually a programmer problem more than anything
I'd say it is entirely a programmer problem. C++ programmers who write C programs (for whatever reason) tend to organize things just as they would a C++ program.
it's pretty hard to allege because you WILLINGLY run the CD
Just like you willingly ran an executable containing a virus? I don't buy it. Basically that argument comes down to a rootkit being okay for Sony because they are the good guys and not okay for anyone else because they are criminals/terrorists/anarchists.
The problem with the game has always been lack of vision and lack of content.
The game was growing and huge with the current "confusing" classless system - several things killed the game. Jedi, lack of content, melee, constant rebalancing and nerfs.
Everything about jedi was bad, the hologrind that wrecked guilds and destroyed pvp, was frustrating for the winners (permadeath with the current state of networks = rotten idea), frustrating for the losers (want to take a bh mission on a jedi - bring 20 buddies with you), and fixed and patched in ways that just made it worse (force sensitive grinding).
The game never had much content, the idea was that players would generate their own content - and in many ways that worked. The game had more non-combat to it than any MMO I have ever played and it worked. The problem was that they never put any work into making the missions fun or interesting, and the missions where the first exposure of many players to the game. Cities and player owned bases were an excellent idea and actually a lot of fun, but they could not stand alone in such a poorly managed game.
Melee. Melee took over the game completely and destroyed a huge part of the star wars feel. The combination of short range and specialized damage types made melee the ruler of all combat.
The constant nerfs and balance problems frustrated players, wasted time and ultimately lost them subscriptions. Deciding you want to change your playstyle is one thing, being forced to because they changed the rules again was not at all fun.
I won't be going back, I didn't play EQ2 because I don't trust SOE and I won't go back to SWG because I don't trust SOE. I think they had a potentially great game and threw it away and I don't think dumbing it down and making it twitch is going to make it any better.
If you have embeded passwords or hostnames in the app then there is nothing you can realistically do to protect that info.
If you are trying to keep thieving students from stealing your code and calling their own then copyright is probably a better answer.
We don't even know what the code does, is it possible to host it on a protected machine and run it via cgi or any other rmi?
People are rude to service people. Work fast food, work as a janitor, work as... whatever - if you are a service person then people are rude to you.
I personally used to get off on people yelling at me over the phone, whoever said "kill em with kindness" had it exactly right. Be competent and honest and unless the person on the other end is a pschopath they cannot help but respond to that and people who were losing it will often apologize.
All that said - I'm glad I don't have to work service or support any more.
The feds have had CALEA ready to spring on ISPs for a long time, this would pretty much kill smaller ISPs and probably result in rate hikes for the big guys. Title 3 warrants right now require a judge and very specific procedures (3 teams to handle raw, intermediate, final - kinda like a clean room reverse engineering job), CALEA requires none of this - requires no intervention or knowledge by the operators of the system to activate - the cops can go fishing and obtain a warrant later.
I personally don't believe that it is technologically and economically possible to fully comply with CALEA, but who knows.
The Chinese are refreshingly honest and up-front about it.
I don't think there is anything commendable about that. "Because I say so" and "because I'm stronger than you" have always been the ultimate principle behind governments.
I don't disagree that it is possible, I just think it is unlikely. Even with a congress, executive and judiciary all friendly to the idea it would take 10 years to reverse the current situation. It's not a simple matter of "make it so", copyright extremism is well entrenched and getting more so every day.
Slashdot Mirror
I call bullshit on them and prove it.
I believe that black people are discriminated against at many different levels, but what you are describing is not racism - it is standard techie interaction. Overcoming the "face saving reflex" is always a necessary part of almost any interaction with a large percentage of technology workers.
I bought a couple games based on the required and suggested hardware levels and discovered something shocking. They lied. I'm sticking with the last generation of games (hl2, WC3, civ3, aoe2, wow) because they are fun and run acceptably on my hardware. I don't care how incredible AoE3, Civ4, F.E.A.R, etc are - I have to turn all the graphics and effects down to almost nothing to get acceptable framerates.
This probably also explains how consoles are picking up. People are just plain tired of the upgrade treadmill for PC games. If the graphics and effects levels degraded acceptably it would be one thing, but the vast majority of games do not, these games are designed around graphics and effects that run very poorly with the 'suggested' hardware from the box.
I wasn't trying to be objective or fair, I dislike Bush and the new Republican movement. Hardly ironic.
Genuine political discussion on the internet is impossible, chanting slogans, preaching to the choir and insulting your enemies is about it.
BTW how is it that conservatives still have a persecution complex? I don't really understand it myself, they have pretty much owned the political arena in the US for about 25 years now.
I wasn't questioning whether the story is true or false - it sounds fishy to me and at the very least was probably staged for effect or exaggerated in some way. But if the story is true I expect that the same standards of critical thought and examination to be paid to the right wing attacks that will be made on the professor and the student.
The problem with the right wing is the same problem that long plagued the left wing, they are very good at finding logical flaws and incongruities in the propaganda of their opponents - and very good at ignoring the same in their own propaganda.
Yep I only buy used CDs or tracks from non-RIAA labels. I got burned by a couple of "rich content" and "protected" discs. The release of that horrible Sony thing only validated my decision to stay away from companies that treat their customers like thieves. The IP brigade seems to forget that property rights are only a small part of how free markets work.
I agree with you, but please apply the same standard of critical thinking to the character attacks launched at the professor and student.
Woohoo for fanboy journalism. People seem to think Torvalds is out there and crazy - but he isn't invading other working groups or mailing lists and jamming his opinion down other people's throats. Sometimes he comes across as cranky or opinionated - but, Slashdot fanboyism aside, he is just an engineer - and surprisingly engineers are often cranky, opinionated, and sometimes even wrong.
Both viewpoints are drastic oversimplifications and neither is very accurate, but all things considered I like the engineering standpoint over the businessman standpoint.
Spin control and lots of it.
Okay, I'm out of ideas.
This is issue has zero to do with "confiscatory government policy" (hyperbolic flamebait if I've ever heard it). The issue under discussion is whether or not tools that generate non-public formats are suitable for public documents that need to exist for a very long time.
There was a fair amount to like about half-life 2, but much of it's success was a marketing success. There was little, other than raw technological prowess, that was better about hl2 than the first (and steam is still as obnoxious and inconvenient as I knew it was gonna be).
I played the games from the genesis to the ps2, and there were continual changes - but there were several years that contained very little more than a roster update. I haven't played a Madden game in about 3 years, lost interest in tv sports mostly and the games were not good enough to enjoy for themselves.
These people are callow and have the need to insult others who they perceive to be less intelligent.
Yours are the only insults I see around here. I stated my opinion "not fun, very slow change" without an insult.
In case the leper reference didn't clue you, I was more than half joking. Like many people I distrust lawyers because they wield power in an arena I don't really understand, power that often seems to be used in an arbitrary and underhanded way. That can hardly be said of computer experts. The details of what we do may be mysterious to others, but when it comes down to it we are just technicians or applied mathematicians.
Since companies are pretty closed mouth about actual numbers it is hard to tell how this has actually affected subscriptions. My guess is that there are a lot of people re-activating accounts for 1 month to see what the noise is about, but that everyone interested in anything other than combat has probably cancelled at this point. I don't think you can sell someone a subscription to one game and expect them to be happy about paying for a completely different one.
In a few years when all the NDAs and employment agreements are no longer in effect I expect there will be some "tell all" books from people inside this train wreck of a game. Should be an interesting read :)
Seriously, lawyers should be treated like lepers - required to scream out a warning to anyone they come in contact with for any reason. "Lawyer, outcast, unclean! Beware lest I sue ye". Amazon attempted to treat this scum like a rational human being and he will use those efforts against them.
I'd say it is entirely a programmer problem. C++ programmers who write C programs (for whatever reason) tend to organize things just as they would a C++ program.
Just like you willingly ran an executable containing a virus? I don't buy it. Basically that argument comes down to a rootkit being okay for Sony because they are the good guys and not okay for anyone else because they are criminals/terrorists/anarchists.
The game was growing and huge with the current "confusing" classless system - several things killed the game. Jedi, lack of content, melee, constant rebalancing and nerfs.
Everything about jedi was bad, the hologrind that wrecked guilds and destroyed pvp, was frustrating for the winners (permadeath with the current state of networks = rotten idea), frustrating for the losers (want to take a bh mission on a jedi - bring 20 buddies with you), and fixed and patched in ways that just made it worse (force sensitive grinding).
The game never had much content, the idea was that players would generate their own content - and in many ways that worked. The game had more non-combat to it than any MMO I have ever played and it worked. The problem was that they never put any work into making the missions fun or interesting, and the missions where the first exposure of many players to the game. Cities and player owned bases were an excellent idea and actually a lot of fun, but they could not stand alone in such a poorly managed game.
Melee. Melee took over the game completely and destroyed a huge part of the star wars feel. The combination of short range and specialized damage types made melee the ruler of all combat.
The constant nerfs and balance problems frustrated players, wasted time and ultimately lost them subscriptions. Deciding you want to change your playstyle is one thing, being forced to because they changed the rules again was not at all fun.
I won't be going back, I didn't play EQ2 because I don't trust SOE and I won't go back to SWG because I don't trust SOE. I think they had a potentially great game and threw it away and I don't think dumbing it down and making it twitch is going to make it any better.
If you have embeded passwords or hostnames in the app then there is nothing you can realistically do to protect that info. If you are trying to keep thieving students from stealing your code and calling their own then copyright is probably a better answer. We don't even know what the code does, is it possible to host it on a protected machine and run it via cgi or any other rmi?
I personally used to get off on people yelling at me over the phone, whoever said "kill em with kindness" had it exactly right. Be competent and honest and unless the person on the other end is a pschopath they cannot help but respond to that and people who were losing it will often apologize.
All that said - I'm glad I don't have to work service or support any more.
At least until that bleach blonde harridan coulter manages to re-write history and he becomes a visionary hero of the American people again.
The feds have had CALEA ready to spring on ISPs for a long time, this would pretty much kill smaller ISPs and probably result in rate hikes for the big guys. Title 3 warrants right now require a judge and very specific procedures (3 teams to handle raw, intermediate, final - kinda like a clean room reverse engineering job), CALEA requires none of this - requires no intervention or knowledge by the operators of the system to activate - the cops can go fishing and obtain a warrant later. I personally don't believe that it is technologically and economically possible to fully comply with CALEA, but who knows.
I don't think there is anything commendable about that. "Because I say so" and "because I'm stronger than you" have always been the ultimate principle behind governments.
I don't disagree that it is possible, I just think it is unlikely. Even with a congress, executive and judiciary all friendly to the idea it would take 10 years to reverse the current situation. It's not a simple matter of "make it so", copyright extremism is well entrenched and getting more so every day.