By knowing what has failed in the past we can avoid those traps in the future and by knowing what has worked we can have a firm foundation upon which to improve.
Except we know Saturn V failed as an economical method of launching things into space... yet NASA are building a modern version with the same problems (too big, not reusable, no customer other than NASA, too low a flight rate, etc, etc).
You think they wouldn't have sold as many copies of XP as they have Windows 7 if they hadn't bothered to release a new version of Windows?
It's not people go out to the store and say 'oh, a new versions of Windows, I'll have that', they buy PCs and use whatever version of Windows comes with them. They would still be buying Windows 98 if XP hadn't come along.
If OEMs can't bundle crapware to offset the price of Windows, either Windows systems cost more or Microsoft will have to cut the cost of Windows to the OEMs.
But anyone with two clues to rub together should have known that Facebook was vastly overpriced.
They call this 'due dilligence' and you're supposed to do it before buying shares in a company, rather than believing whatever nonsense the company tells you.
And Facebook has the actual, real money. So if he pays himself millions a year until the company goes bust or gets bought out, he'll still be very rich.
I'm not sure how long ADS has been around (decades?) but it's never been encrypted. I'm surprised they've taken so long to notice.
I don't see it happening any time soon either, because end-to-end key management would be a nightmare. Airlines hate updating their avionics because it takes the plane out of service for days of reconfiguration and testing.
And what do you do if the aircraft doesn't have the right key for the ATC center they need to communicate with?
There was actually a -- not very serious -- proposal to turn Concorde into a Mach-2 nuclear bomber carrying stand-off missiles. Given it could outrun many fighters of its day, that might not have been such a bad idea.
Had the US government not banned supersonic flight over land, those development costs would have been spread over a much larger number of aircraft and been repaid. Many airlines had expressed interest in buying Concordes before then.
If IPSEC wasn't one of the worst designed-by-committee-throw-in-the-kitchen-sink monstrosities ever produced, it would be more widely adopted.
Just getting two of my Linux boxes to talk IPSEC to each other took a couple of days, because there are about a bazillion different combinations of parameters and if any of them are wrong it doesn't work and doesn't provide any easy means of figuring out why it doesn't work.
It's also a 'security' protocol which allows you to send unencrypted data, so even if you do use it you can't readily prove that you have a secure connection unless you monitor the traffic.
That's what I thought: 'all you GW1 players who complained you can't jump... the joke's on you now, because you'll have to jump to reach a lot of the obscure locations in the game':).
Which is a good thing; play is based more on skill than completing timesinks, but the people who do complete the timesinks still get something to show for it.
In GW1, one of the main reasons I played through the expansions was to get new outfits for a couple of my characters, with exactly the same stats as the outfits they had.
Exactly; that's why the most successful MMO guilds are usually careful about recruiting and quick to kick out the dipsticks who get through. It's the only way to reliably beat the odds.
I played the beta for about forty hours at the weekend and I'm likely to take the first headstart day off work so I can start early on the real game.
It was over-hyped by some fanboys, but it's damn good fun with very little grinding, no monthly fee, and no 'uber' gear to make some players vastly superior to others.
Raiding in most MMOs comes down to finding about fifty people to follow you, of whom not one is a complete dipstick. If you can do that, the rest is easy.
They're making a mistake not trying to beat ArenaNet to market, IMO.
Two different markets, really. Hardcore grinders won't like GW2, and GW2 players who hate grinding and don't want to pay to play every month won't like WoW.
The level-cap was quite a challenge in Everquest. Which is also _the_ hardcore PvE MMO
Not any more; Everquest has been WoW-ised to death in a vain attempt to bring in new players. The closest you'll get to hardcore is the progression server using an approximation to the original rule set.
I was getting pretty excited about GW2 until I have been reading their thoughts on it and now my hopes are fading away.
Despite its flaws, Guild Wars 2 is the best MMO I've ever played. If people expect it to be like WoW, I'd guess they'll be disappointed, but an MMO with no monthly fee and no grind to keep people paying that monthly fee is hard to beat.
And yes, the end game is largely about getting the coolest outfit. But that's the end game of every successful MMOG on the planet.
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By knowing what has failed in the past we can avoid those traps in the future and by knowing what has worked we can have a firm foundation upon which to improve.
Except we know Saturn V failed as an economical method of launching things into space... yet NASA are building a modern version with the same problems (too big, not reusable, no customer other than NASA, too low a flight rate, etc, etc).
You think they wouldn't have sold as many copies of XP as they have Windows 7 if they hadn't bothered to release a new version of Windows?
It's not people go out to the store and say 'oh, a new versions of Windows, I'll have that', they buy PCs and use whatever version of Windows comes with them. They would still be buying Windows 98 if XP hadn't come along.
If OEMs can't bundle crapware to offset the price of Windows, either Windows systems cost more or Microsoft will have to cut the cost of Windows to the OEMs.
It's not like the OEMs have anywhere else to go, with any significant product sales that compare to Windows based sales.
True. Windows tablet sales are massively outpacing Android sales.
Until they buy Office and say "Why the fuck won't this just work?"
How many consumers buy Office? And why would they when LibreOffice comes with their Linux install?
But anyone with two clues to rub together should have known that Facebook was vastly overpriced.
They call this 'due dilligence' and you're supposed to do it before buying shares in a company, rather than believing whatever nonsense the company tells you.
And Facebook has the actual, real money. So if he pays himself millions a year until the company goes bust or gets bought out, he'll still be very rich.
I'm not sure how long ADS has been around (decades?) but it's never been encrypted. I'm surprised they've taken so long to notice.
I don't see it happening any time soon either, because end-to-end key management would be a nightmare. Airlines hate updating their avionics because it takes the plane out of service for days of reconfiguration and testing.
And what do you do if the aircraft doesn't have the right key for the ATC center they need to communicate with?
Why don't they just decode the location messages from the avionics? There are several web sites already doing that.
There was actually a -- not very serious -- proposal to turn Concorde into a Mach-2 nuclear bomber carrying stand-off missiles. Given it could outrun many fighters of its day, that might not have been such a bad idea.
Can you get that in business class?
I do when I fly on business trips. Though trains don't go across the ocean, so it's not a perfect comparison.
Had the US government not banned supersonic flight over land, those development costs would have been spread over a much larger number of aircraft and been repaid. Many airlines had expressed interest in buying Concordes before then.
Yeah, if you want to travel cattle class - which is probably as good as business or (nearly) first class on an airplane.
So on a 'cattle class' train you get a seat that folds down into a bed, TV built in, free champagne, etc?
I should travel by train more often.
I worked with i860s years ago. They weren't bad for graphics, but the guys who had to do general-purpose work on the i860 workstations hated them.
Except the one who was promoted to i860 from the Clipper machine. I don't know why he always got the worst jobs.
If IPSEC wasn't one of the worst designed-by-committee-throw-in-the-kitchen-sink monstrosities ever produced, it would be more widely adopted.
Just getting two of my Linux boxes to talk IPSEC to each other took a couple of days, because there are about a bazillion different combinations of parameters and if any of them are wrong it doesn't work and doesn't provide any easy means of figuring out why it doesn't work.
It's also a 'security' protocol which allows you to send unencrypted data, so even if you do use it you can't readily prove that you have a secure connection unless you monitor the traffic.
There's a reason why we use SSL and SSH instead.
That's because in GW1, you couldn't jump! :p
That's what I thought: 'all you GW1 players who complained you can't jump... the joke's on you now, because you'll have to jump to reach a lot of the obscure locations in the game' :).
Which is a good thing; play is based more on skill than completing timesinks, but the people who do complete the timesinks still get something to show for it.
In GW1, one of the main reasons I played through the expansions was to get new outfits for a couple of my characters, with exactly the same stats as the outfits they had.
Exactly; that's why the most successful MMO guilds are usually careful about recruiting and quick to kick out the dipsticks who get through. It's the only way to reliably beat the odds.
I played the beta for about forty hours at the weekend and I'm likely to take the first headstart day off work so I can start early on the real game.
It was over-hyped by some fanboys, but it's damn good fun with very little grinding, no monthly fee, and no 'uber' gear to make some players vastly superior to others.
Raiding in most MMOs comes down to finding about fifty people to follow you, of whom not one is a complete dipstick. If you can do that, the rest is easy.
They're making a mistake not trying to beat ArenaNet to market, IMO.
Two different markets, really. Hardcore grinders won't like GW2, and GW2 players who hate grinding and don't want to pay to play every month won't like WoW.
The level-cap was quite a challenge in Everquest. Which is also _the_ hardcore PvE MMO
Not any more; Everquest has been WoW-ised to death in a vain attempt to bring in new players. The closest you'll get to hardcore is the progression server using an approximation to the original rule set.
Nerds don't play WoW. The game is eight years old and is long past its prime (and even looks it).
Wow graphics were dated on day one. That didn't stop millions of people playing it.
I was getting pretty excited about GW2 until I have been reading their thoughts on it and now my hopes are fading away.
Despite its flaws, Guild Wars 2 is the best MMO I've ever played. If people expect it to be like WoW, I'd guess they'll be disappointed, but an MMO with no monthly fee and no grind to keep people paying that monthly fee is hard to beat.
And yes, the end game is largely about getting the coolest outfit. But that's the end game of every successful MMOG on the planet.
Or shooting your dog, then shooting your wife in the head with a sniper rifle. Ruby Ridge was almost a generation ago now.