Some socially mal-adjusted gamer logs into a beta 'game' and talks about how it's 1) not complete, and 2) not fun chatting with people.
Forget the fact that the very first sentance uses a Hitler reference. He's certainly not the right person to write a review about There, or anything else for that matter.
For those who might actually be interested in what There is, it's a half-finished (if that) online community (metaverse? maybe). There are both social and gaming aspects, so it's not completely either one. If you don't like to interact with other people, you won't have fun. If all you like to do is play FPS or PRG games, it's not for you.
There is a place to meet people. It's a place to interact, through social, game, or contest activities. You can start or join clubs, race vehicles, hold classes, participate in trivia and quest contest. You can modify your 'avatar' appearance, and buy clothes designed by other players. Even the vehicles can be skinned and even modeled in some cases.
Even if you are not a social person, there is plenty to keep you busy for at least a few hours a week, and There plans to add more content over time. There will be yahoo-esque games such as cards planned in the near future.
I am not at all the target There member (I'm more of an RPG gamer), but I've still been playing since early in the beta, and I've yet to get bored. Any 'game' that can hold my attention for mroe than 9 months, especially one that's still in development, seems like a pretty well-made experiment.
If you don't like something you buy, you can return it for a full refund within limited timeframes (currently 10 minutes, with lesser refunds as time goes on).
You can also sell or auction anything you buy. Usually for less than you paid, but not always.
And, to answer an earlier question...you can develop and sell (for a startup price, and a per-item 'manufacture' cost) what you developed. They have both skinning and modeling options for many items. Quite a few people are realizing good profits from this.
Also, there are people who broker in-world currency. They buy extra currency from playres at a discount, and sell it to others at a rate slightly lower than you can purchase currency from There. I don't know that anyone is actually profiting this way, either as a player or a broker, but it's certainly a possibility.
And, to answer yet another post, it's quite a bit more than a chat / IRC program, as there are activities set up in-world such as scavenger hunts, quests, races, and other contests. Some are sponsered by There, and others are run and financed completely by players.
I have been beta testing There since April, and they're just now starting to accept paid subscriptions. And yes, while they're ramping up, the world isn't open nearly 24/7. Support is active 5PM-11PM Wednesdays through Saturdays, and the world itself is open 11AM-3AM those days. They plan on expanding the hours as the world matures.
It's an interesting place. I'm not into chatters or IRC, so it's odd that I've developed a liking for the place. But then again, I'm an old MUD'er so I'm used to the idea of a semi-game, semi-chat environment.
How will this be enforced? If I buy something from Dealware, and the company ships it to me...how would California collect the tax? How would they even know?
Is every vendor going to have to start keeping tax records for every state they do business with?
And if Vendor X in Delaware decides to tell California 'screw you' - what can California do? (realistically I mean). Issue a warrant? File a civil suit?
Simple mistake, sure. Barely a trickle of wasted bandwidth, hard to even believe it matters...
Bah.
This is one 'simple mistake' by one company that namaged to send a constant "250,000 packets-per-second (and over 150 megabits-per-second)".
Now I know Netgear is a pretty big outfit, but there are LOTS of companies like that out there, and these little mistakes can add up. How much network traffic could be avoided with proper programming?
Also, this kind of makes me think about the useless network activity my XP box (bleh) tries to send out. Multiply that by millions and millions, and you get a number a whole lot bigger than the one above.
If you notice the door open, you quietly tell the bank manager.
What this guy did after telling the manager was, in effect, to put up a big sign explaining that the bank doors were always accidentally left open at night and oh, by the way, the cash is in the safe at the rear left of the bank, which is may also unlocked if you 'd like to look. He then contacted all the bank's customers to tell them where to find the sign explaining all this. And, the sign was actually put up right along a rather large superhighway where anyone who was driving by could see it.
Even more interesting, one of the players (and this is still in BETA mind you) has created an in-world 'credit union' where you can offload your spare in-world money for real-world cash. He then re-sells the in-world money to players at a discount from what the serve sells you the money for.
The big difference in this situation is...There.com knows about it, and doesn't seem to have a problem. I'm not sure they go quite as far as endorsing it, but it's certainly tolerated.
The web pages you are watching are served by a web server running under the Contiki operating system on an an Ethernut embedded Ethernet board, which consists of a 14 MHz AVR Atmega128 microcontroller with 32 kilobytes of RAM and 128 kilobytes of flash ROM, and a RealTek RTL8019AS Ethernet chip.
I'll be seriously impressed if this thing survives the morning
What does immigration status have to do with dropping out? Good question. Why not study it to find out?
If you find out that 90% of a certain status are dropping out, you know where to fucus your attention. But, until you KNOW _if_ there's a correlation, there's no reason not to include the data.
As far as what business of the school's it is, that's a good flamebait subject, but more to the point...if it affects the school's ability to accomplish its task (education), then it certainly IS their business. And again, you can't say until you study it...
You're also assuming that the people who get the crashes actually SEND the error report...I crash multiple times daily, and have stopped bothering to send the reports at all (mostly because it's the same app that usually crashes...Internet Explorer)
As I've seen on more than one game (Diablo 2 comes to mind as the best/worst example), when items become worth big $$ IRL, there always comes a huge problem with cheating. People finding ways to make hacked items to sell, or ways to raise the odds that THEY will get all the best stuff (sometimes at the expense of other players).
There have been weeks when game servers are virtually unplayable when some new hack comes out, and the script kiddies are rushing in to get the latest uber item and sell a few hundred on Ebay before the bottom of the market drops out.
Now, if you're not a gamer (and if not, why are you even reading this?:P ), none of this will matter to you. But...if you're one of the people who use the game as recreation, let alone one of the people who is giving up a large chunk of life for the game, this just plain sucks. Either way, the company takes a popularity hit, and loses players (and thus future customers).
Re:As a handyman, you only need two tools.
on
Duct Tape Goes Minature
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Actually, you forgot one...if it moves, and you don't want it to...WD-40 can make a pretty decent bug spray for small applications (most flying beasties get bogged down pretty well with a little lubing).
This has been going on for a while, it shouldn't surprise anyone. Manufacturers are getting cheaper (not all their own faults, but it's a fact of life for most consumer grade items). The make crap and hope to keep selling it, because other manufacturers are finding cheaper ways to produce the same goods (usuallt with offshore labor, but not always).
So...in the end, they produce crap and try to make up profits elsewhere. In the printer business, that's either paper or ink. And not a lot of printer manufacturers are selling much expensive paper. And, they're not liekly to beat the paper industry at inexpensive paper either.
Me, I cut printer costs by saving everything on $0.50/GB hard drives instead of printing, always cheaper in the end.
There's one proven way to minimize ADHD
on
Working with ADHD?
·
· Score: 0, Troll
There's a great new (somewhat experimental) drug that's being used to treat ADHD. I've been using it for a few weeks now and
Self-awareness is a mechanism that developed through our brain's ability to rationalize. There is a strong biological tendancy for our brain to attempt (usually quite successfully) to make is 'believe' that whatever we're seeing (feeling, etc.) makes perfect sense and can be explained rationally. It's widely believed that this lead to self-awareness through the simple rationalization that...
The article may not have been about protecting the students, but the comment was about the parent post:
"It's amazing people can sleep at night when they pull off shit like this - to endanger the financial status of students for the sake of saving public face."
Soooo.....you think telling people HOW to exploit the students will endanger them less than simply not talking about it at all?
Think about it...if you dropped your CC somewhere, and I picked it up, would it be worse for you if I kept quiet about it, or if I distributed the information on it to anyone who would listen? Sure, having all those people charging you up into backruptcy would motivate you to fix things, but I think I'd understand if you'd rather I just TELL you that you lost it and leave it at that.
I agree that C&D might be a little over the top, but for pete's sake, it's not hurting the students any more than the status quo would. Argue it from another point of view and you'll make more sense.
This goes along with the comments in previous posts about volume discounts, as well as the parent post.
I was fortunate to take advantage of a Dell offer recently with the purchase of a new system...I got their 18.1" model for $370 (thanks to a $200 discount with system purchase).
I'm sure part of that is offset by the profit on the system, but still...one heck of a deal. And the thing is GORGEOUS, even compared to my 19" Trinitron.
Not my kind of music, but if you like it...this is they way we've been hoping thigs would start to go. If there's anyplace on their site where you can donate a couple bucks to help support the band, it would be a good idea.
We DO want to encourage this kind of thing, and the only way to do that is if they can make a little profit from it.
Slashdot Mirror
Some socially mal-adjusted gamer logs into a beta 'game' and talks about how it's 1) not complete, and 2) not fun chatting with people.
Forget the fact that the very first sentance uses a Hitler reference. He's certainly not the right person to write a review about There, or anything else for that matter.
For those who might actually be interested in what There is, it's a half-finished (if that) online community (metaverse? maybe). There are both social and gaming aspects, so it's not completely either one. If you don't like to interact with other people, you won't have fun. If all you like to do is play FPS or PRG games, it's not for you.
There is a place to meet people. It's a place to interact, through social, game, or contest activities. You can start or join clubs, race vehicles, hold classes, participate in trivia and quest contest. You can modify your 'avatar' appearance, and buy clothes designed by other players. Even the vehicles can be skinned and even modeled in some cases.
Even if you are not a social person, there is plenty to keep you busy for at least a few hours a week, and There plans to add more content over time. There will be yahoo-esque games such as cards planned in the near future.
I am not at all the target There member (I'm more of an RPG gamer), but I've still been playing since early in the beta, and I've yet to get bored. Any 'game' that can hold my attention for mroe than 9 months, especially one that's still in development, seems like a pretty well-made experiment.
If you don't like something you buy, you can return it for a full refund within limited timeframes (currently 10 minutes, with lesser refunds as time goes on).
You can also sell or auction anything you buy. Usually for less than you paid, but not always.
And, to answer an earlier question...you can develop and sell (for a startup price, and a per-item 'manufacture' cost) what you developed. They have both skinning and modeling options for many items. Quite a few people are realizing good profits from this.
Also, there are people who broker in-world currency. They buy extra currency from playres at a discount, and sell it to others at a rate slightly lower than you can purchase currency from There. I don't know that anyone is actually profiting this way, either as a player or a broker, but it's certainly a possibility.
And, to answer yet another post, it's quite a bit more than a chat / IRC program, as there are activities set up in-world such as scavenger hunts, quests, races, and other contests. Some are sponsered by There, and others are run and financed completely by players.
I have been beta testing There since April, and they're just now starting to accept paid subscriptions. And yes, while they're ramping up, the world isn't open nearly 24/7. Support is active 5PM-11PM Wednesdays through Saturdays, and the world itself is open 11AM-3AM those days. They plan on expanding the hours as the world matures.
It's an interesting place. I'm not into chatters or IRC, so it's odd that I've developed a liking for the place. But then again, I'm an old MUD'er so I'm used to the idea of a semi-game, semi-chat environment.
<BLOCKQUOTE>'The Internet is too important for amateurs'</BLOCKQUOTE>
Umm...well YEAH it is. Too good for us to allow Billy to take it over too.
*insert AOL wisecrack here*
How will this be enforced? If I buy something from Dealware, and the company ships it to me...how would California collect the tax? How would they even know?
Is every vendor going to have to start keeping tax records for every state they do business with?
And if Vendor X in Delaware decides to tell California 'screw you' - what can California do? (realistically I mean). Issue a warrant? File a civil suit?
MIT, Stanford, Berkeley...
MIT, Stanford, Berkeley...
MIT, Stanford, Berkeley...
What exactly is this an ad for anyway? Oh yeah, US News' 'Premium Online Edition'
Nothing to see here....
Simple mistake, sure. Barely a trickle of wasted bandwidth, hard to even believe it matters...
Bah.
This is one 'simple mistake' by one company that namaged to send a constant "250,000 packets-per-second (and over 150 megabits-per-second)".
Now I know Netgear is a pretty big outfit, but there are LOTS of companies like that out there, and these little mistakes can add up. How much network traffic could be avoided with proper programming?
Also, this kind of makes me think about the useless network activity my XP box (bleh) tries to send out. Multiply that by millions and millions, and you get a number a whole lot bigger than the one above.
Who pays for all that wasted bandwidth?
Bah.
If you notice the door open, you quietly tell the bank manager.
What this guy did after telling the manager was, in effect, to put up a big sign explaining that the bank doors were always accidentally left open at night and oh, by the way, the cash is in the safe at the rear left of the bank, which is may also unlocked if you 'd like to look. He then contacted all the bank's customers to tell them where to find the sign explaining all this. And, the sign was actually put up right along a rather large superhighway where anyone who was driving by could see it.
Not quite the same thing...
Even more interesting, one of the players (and this is still in BETA mind you) has created an in-world 'credit union' where you can offload your spare in-world money for real-world cash. He then re-sells the in-world money to players at a discount from what the serve sells you the money for.
The big difference in this situation is...There.com knows about it, and doesn't seem to have a problem. I'm not sure they go quite as far as endorsing it, but it's certainly tolerated.
What does immigration status have to do with dropping out? Good question. Why not study it to find out?
If you find out that 90% of a certain status are dropping out, you know where to fucus your attention. But, until you KNOW _if_ there's a correlation, there's no reason not to include the data.
As far as what business of the school's it is, that's a good flamebait subject, but more to the point...if it affects the school's ability to accomplish its task (education), then it certainly IS their business. And again, you can't say until you study it...
You're also assuming that the people who get the crashes actually SEND the error report...I crash multiple times daily, and have stopped bothering to send the reports at all (mostly because it's the same app that usually crashes...Internet Explorer)
As I've seen on more than one game (Diablo 2 comes to mind as the best/worst example), when items become worth big $$ IRL, there always comes a huge problem with cheating. People finding ways to make hacked items to sell, or ways to raise the odds that THEY will get all the best stuff (sometimes at the expense of other players).
:P ), none of this will matter to you. But...if you're one of the people who use the game as recreation, let alone one of the people who is giving up a large chunk of life for the game, this just plain sucks. Either way, the company takes a popularity hit, and loses players (and thus future customers).
There have been weeks when game servers are virtually unplayable when some new hack comes out, and the script kiddies are rushing in to get the latest uber item and sell a few hundred on Ebay before the bottom of the market drops out.
Now, if you're not a gamer (and if not, why are you even reading this?
Actually, you forgot one...if it moves, and you don't want it to...WD-40 can make a pretty decent bug spray for small applications (most flying beasties get bogged down pretty well with a little lubing).
This has been going on for a while, it shouldn't surprise anyone. Manufacturers are getting cheaper (not all their own faults, but it's a fact of life for most consumer grade items). The make crap and hope to keep selling it, because other manufacturers are finding cheaper ways to produce the same goods (usuallt with offshore labor, but not always).
So...in the end, they produce crap and try to make up profits elsewhere. In the printer business, that's either paper or ink. And not a lot of printer manufacturers are selling much expensive paper. And, they're not liekly to beat the paper industry at inexpensive paper either.
Me, I cut printer costs by saving everything on $0.50/GB hard drives instead of printing, always cheaper in the end.
There's a great new (somewhat experimental) drug that's being used to treat ADHD. I've been using it for a few weeks now and
OH LOOK - BUNNIES!
Well, you might be able to use it to impress someone by claiming that you don't watch television because [insert macho claim here].
Now, explaining why you have a 30"+ mirror in front of the couch in the living room might be a little more touchy...
Cool...
Though, it's too bad that filing for bankruptcy doesn't mean that the frivolous lawsuits will end.
I don't think we've heard the last of Mr. Novak somehow.
Self-awareness is a mechanism that developed through our brain's ability to rationalize. There is a strong biological tendancy for our brain to attempt (usually quite successfully) to make is 'believe' that whatever we're seeing (feeling, etc.) makes perfect sense and can be explained rationally. It's widely believed that this lead to self-awareness through the simple rationalization that...
Oh, I'm sorry, was that rhetorical?
Yeah, but does it run Li... ...oh, never mind....
About 2 weeks after anyone with a good *nix background finds some reason to buy one.
In other words...6 months?
IMAP...yeah, ok. HTTP...cool. IM...sure, why not. PDA functionality...interesting.
POLYPHONIC RING TONES!!!! All right, I'm there baby!
The article may not have been about protecting the students, but the comment was about the parent post:
:-)
"It's amazing people can sleep at night when they pull off shit like this - to endanger the financial status of students for the sake of saving public face."
RTFP (Read The Fsking Parent?)
Soooo.....you think telling people HOW to exploit the students will endanger them less than simply not talking about it at all?
Think about it...if you dropped your CC somewhere, and I picked it up, would it be worse for you if I kept quiet about it, or if I distributed the information on it to anyone who would listen?
Sure, having all those people charging you up into backruptcy would motivate you to fix things, but I think I'd understand if you'd rather I just TELL you that you lost it and leave it at that.
I agree that C&D might be a little over the top, but for pete's sake, it's not hurting the students any more than the status quo would. Argue it from another point of view and you'll make more sense.
This goes along with the comments in previous posts about volume discounts, as well as the parent post.
I was fortunate to take advantage of a Dell offer recently with the purchase of a new system...I got their 18.1" model for $370 (thanks to a $200 discount with system purchase).
I'm sure part of that is offset by the profit on the system, but still...one heck of a deal. And the thing is GORGEOUS, even compared to my 19" Trinitron.
Not my kind of music, but if you like it...this is they way we've been hoping thigs would start to go. If there's anyplace on their site where you can donate a couple bucks to help support the band, it would be a good idea.
We DO want to encourage this kind of thing, and the only way to do that is if they can make a little profit from it.