Evil is still evil regardless of the level - the motivations behind the actions are the same. Don't confuse the motivation for the action itself. When you steal a cookie from your coworker, or trip a person on a crowded bus - what adjective would you use to describe the motivation behind it? If not evil, then what word do you propose I use? Are you a sociopath, without any empathy for the people around you?
So a psychotic killer like Stalin or Saddam is evil, just as a Monopoly in the early 20th century that gained riches by ripping off factory workers who could barely make a living off of the spare change they got paid per day - and suffered in great numbers. While killing is 'worse' than economic enslavement - both result in injustice and suffering at someone's hands.
Microsoft is evil because of its predatory business practices - they lie, cheat and steal to accomplish their ends. This has been proven in a court of law - if not through various well documented stories from customers and vendors and internal memos. Just because they are successful at hiding behind a bevy of lawyers doesn't make it right.
I don't know about the rest of you, but if I acted like Microsoft as an individual I would be shunned by my family and probably brought up on civil - if not criminal - charges. Too many people hide behind corporations to do things that any reasonable person would find objectionable if not illegal. A gross example of this is the Enron scandal - but my question is, why did it take something so heinous to incur criminal proceedings? Why do we let other things 'slide' for corporations, that we would not for individuals? Both are a 'person' in the eyes of the law, and this double standard is hypocritical.
A corporation is a public trust - it should not be used to hide immoral acts or shield the consequences of those acts from the primary owners. Unfortunately, too many companies think that way, and rather than acting in the public interest - which their great economic power makes it imperative that they do - they only focus on using their power enriching the primary shareholders at all cost. The biggest flaw of this system is that it depends on the board of directors doing the right thing - in opposition to making money; the lure of money is too great - and thus the moral issues get set aside many times.
Sadly, it invariably falls on those on the outside - the so-called 'consumers' and watchdog groups (both of which are weak compared to the lobbying and legal power of a corporation) - to force corporations to do the right thing.
This is the primary reason that open source is so appealing. It elimenates the dependence on the corporate product 'lock-in'. It elimenates the need of watchdogs because it is decentralized - everyone can have an equal voice - and as a result has more options about embracing a particular application or not. Everyone is a watchdog and everyone is (can be) a producer.
Of course, this threatens the income of thousands of corporations - and it is about time. We should not be rewarding corporations who lie, cheat and steal from us. We should not simply 'take' it because they are the only game in town - because now, they are not the only game in town (as much as they will try to embrace, extend, and put forward proprietary non-interoperable standards that only serve to hook us and lock us into their products). Those days are over - unless, of course, the government steps in and mandates what software we use. Of course, if that happens, then I think we have other more pressing problems than corporate corruption to deal with...
The following statements in your post are contradictory:
"management has the 'microsoft, oooh shiny' mentality"
"management do not trust linux anywhere near as much as they trust Sun. (Too much eye candy)"
Are you comparing and contrasting DSD management vs. NSA management, or management in general?
I find it hard to believe anyone in the extremely high tech world of NSA signals intelligence analysis would have a 'microsoft, oooh shiny' mentality, when they have a plethora of super computers in the basement.
I have been using virtual desktops for years on CDE, KDE, Gnome, and various other lesser known window managers.
This is nothing new. The hubris of Microsoft to patent this is astounding - or maybe not.
Its like the Dilbert cartoon where he is designing a product with no user interface that is being targeted to people too shy to return the product...and he then asks Dogbert why he feels like he should be brought up on criminal charges for doing his job.
I would bet she used her trim tabs to fly it back if all the hydrolics were shot; no hydrolics = no stick and rudder control.
Civilian (as well as military) aircraft have dual systems for everything. If you lose your gyro compass, you have your good old magnetic compass. If you lose your hydrolics, you have mechanical trim systems that you can compensate with. If you lose your vacuum based instruments, you can depend on the electro-mechanical instruments. If you run out of Gas, you have a reserve setting. If you lose your GPS, you can depend on your radio direction finding systems. If you lose your Radio, you can squawk a code on the transponder to communicate your lack of voice-coms and the tower will communicate with you using light signals.
There are some things on an aircraft you can't afford to lose: Seperation of the wing; seperation of the tail; engine failure (though less of a problem with a fixed wing aircraft, as you can glide to a landing point - with the exception of high performance jet aircraft - which glide like a brick when engine power is lost in most cases)
Sounds like its time to cut up the credit cards, and move all my vast reserves of cash into gold bullion... (you never know, they might put RFIDs into money so they can track your purchases).
Anything that can have data attached to it is suspect in this climate...
...a Microsoft spokesman was quick to deny that they'd be so bold as to patent XML itself
Yeah, riiiight...
The more I hear this kind of cr*p, the more I want to burn every Microsoft and (insert any other brain dead greedy company you care to think of here) CD and product I own - and go 100% open source/self-built applications. Unfortunately, that would probably create a noxious cloud that would attack the lining of my lungs, causing even more damage to me...
They can't sue you if you build it yourself for your own use - no matter what patents or copyrights it may enjoy. Power to the people - baby - YEAH!
Now, who could that be at my door.... (sounds of scuffle ensue)
The diff command and MP5 checksums of a clean repository will be sufficient to validate if something was tampered with or not.
Since open source repositories have multiple mirrors all over the world, not to mention hundreds (or thousands, even millions in the case of certain projects) individuals who keep copies of the source - it is less likely that tampering would go unnoticed in Open Source for any significant period of time.
Whereas, closed source shops - while having multiple branches of code in the repository - have only one master repository and backups. That is it. If the main repository gets hacked - or a module 'legitimately' modified by an disgruntled employee, there is no guarantee the company will be able to:
A) Detect the problem to begin with - the dogs will be eating the binary dog food, after all, and won't know if the release they got from the company is good or not. There is little motivation to put resources toward reviewing the code - certainly not at the level that the OS community can muster.
B) Fix the problem - a company can sit on a problem for months or years because they are motivated to only apply resources to things that will increase revenue. Not so with OS - anyone can submit a patch to a software team to correct problems - so the combination of the number of eyeballs looking for problems, and the low cost of fixing problems wins hands down.
It boggles the mind to see these folks on the one hand invoking the U.S. Constitution, the idea of justice, mom, apple pie and the American flag, all the while taking a big dump all over it.
I think a deeper question we have to ask is why are these civil cases being brought to the courts now?
To an outsider this is troubling. In the past common sense seemed to rule. Now, it seems businesses are more concerned with controlling any implementation - as opposed to competing in an open market - that includes open source.
Just as the automobile industry went through changes in the 1970s due to changing realities (cheap foreign cars, and rising fuel costs), the incumbent technology companies are starting to realise the new reality that the internet and open source/free software and cheap computers are creating.
This all makes me want to go to my garage and fire up the soldering iron and get to work building my own devices - because the businesses will be too busy litigating to actually create new technology - and what little arrives in the stores will be so encumbered by criss-crossing royalty payments as to be priced out of range of normal people.
I see an Engineer in the future designing a new product, "well, we could add this 'play' button - but that would infringe on the Microsoft patent #23897847; of course, we own the 'fast forward' feature - in addition to the 'stop' feature, so we are good there. Does anyone know what Cisco is charging for the 'device for routing TCP packets across a network' feature - patent #40987272?..."
When I upgraded my bios on one of my Intel motherboards, it took about 7 minutes - and the system provided no feedback whatsoever that it was working or not. I planned on pulling the plug at the 15 minute mark if it didn't come back...then investigate how to flash a new bios without an operating bios...not fun. Needless to say I was on pins and needles.
I can only imagine how these engineers felt when the system came back online...
It is not an issue of not wanting to do a good job. It is an issue of not being able to do a good job...either through lack of skill, lack of responsibility and ownership of the code, or lack of the intestinal fortitude to fight the good fight when management decides to do the slimy thing.
I have no sympathy for the developers at Microsoft.
Not necessarily. If you get involved with heavily team oriented games like PlanetSide or WWIIonline, then skill is less of an issue than working closely together as a team...the sum of the parts is greater than the whole.
The game has changed 100% - it is nothing like when it was as initially released. - we are currently at version 1.11 - soon to be 1.12 - and it is an awesome battlefield simulation - so good, in fact, that the Pentagon is investigating using the game engine for training and strategic gameing real life senarios...
I started playing November 2001; I agree that the game was not complete when it was first released. However, in fairness to the developers, the producers (read -- financial backers) forced the game out the door before it was ready. It is now where it should have been in 2001; I would urge you to give it a try before you pull out old garbage on a game that really doesn't exist in that form today.
You can go to the website and download the game, as well as order a game key to get started. Additionally, if you don't want to fork over your hard earned money, periodically they have trial memberships for X amount of time for free.
Don't knock it, until you try the latest revision. Additionally, if you are 10 years old, or have a short attention span, don't bother.
I feel I must point out to you that there is no 'assembly line' in software development (although that phrase could be applied loosely to copying the application to CD and distribution of same).
World War II Online is the best battlefield simulation - bar none. It is also a FPS - in that you can only view the environment from the first person perspective, whether you are an infantryman, a tank, a ship or a plane. However, it is not for people with short attention spans, or folks who want instant action. It more than makes up for this with the following capabilities:
1. Massive Map. The map is of Western Europe; you could spawn into Holland, and walk all the way to Switzerland if you wanted to (1/4 scale - with accurate elevations and terrain features that nearly match the real map of Europe) - this would take you days, if not weeks to do this. There is no 'zoning' between smaller areas like in other online games - and the map is humongous compared to any FPS currently on the market. You don't have to worry about running into a wall when you are trying to maneuver - and battles don't end up being 'frontal assaults through a bottleneck' - with interesting results and possibilities for offense and defense.
2. Visual Distance. The edge of the 'fog' curtain at the edge of your vision is 6 or more kilometers away. You can see men with your avatar's naked eye out to 2 Kilometers, ground vehicles out to 3 kilometers, and much larger vehicles, such as ships out to the edge of the fog (6km or more). Optics, such as binoculars or telescopic weapon sites allow you to see further for each type. Tank battles typically occur between 500 and 2000 meters.
3. Damage System. The damage system is very realistic - going so far as to break up different parts of your infantry avatar (head, torso, extremities) - and apply damage based on the physics of the weapon that is impacting the 'part' of the body or vehicle (or both).
4. Combined Arms. The game includes Air, Land and Sea forces that all operate on the same battlefield; while there are a few games that do this (such as Battlefield 1942) - none have the same feeling or realism that engagements in WWIIonline have. Whereas in an infantry based FPS (like Socom, or the Rainbow 6 series) - you can pretty much ignore the other components, in WWIIonline you must work together with other branches to succeed. Calling in an airstrike on an enemy position, or doing an amphibious assault (river patrol, destroyer and transport ships currently modeled), or flying as a pilot, or being a ship commander, or a tanker, or an infantryman (sappers, riflemen, light machine gunners, and soon rifle grenade equipped infantry - plus smoke and frag grenades - as well as knife) and all working together move the map.
5. No Gankers. You can not kill your own side. That being said, that does take away from the realism a bit - but more than makes up for it in the playability department - unlike other games where griefers use team killing to get the choice equipment, or just disrupt the gameplay.
6. Night and Day. Currently the system has a fast clock that has a 'day' that lasts 6 hours (don't quote me on that), and a night that lasts half that time (3 hours?). There are clouds - but currently no weather effects - but that is planned for future development.
The game begins with a 'map reset' - where the starting 'frontline' positions are set to the defaults. The game commences immediately and the map runs 24 hours a day 7 days a week until a winner is declared. The winner is the side that captures the vast majority of the enemy's towns (large towns/cities count more than small towns - but are also harder to take). Maps last anywhere from a week to several months. After a winner is declared automatically, the map is reset and the war begins again.
The equipment is based on WWII types, with a more historic approach than other games (such as BF1942) that start off with the Tiger tank (for example). Instead you will learn to use the PZII, PZ38, PZIII, Sd232 on the Axis side, and the Sumoa, Char 1B, Renault, and Panhard on the French, and Matilda, A13, and Vickers on the British (they
In the plains states, thunderstorms can deposit hail many miles away from a thunderhead. It can be a bright sunny day - and hail falling from the sky.
Pilots, many times, don't have a choice about flying through certain weather conditions that occur unexpectedly - particularly if they are under instrument flight rules. While the FAA is very good about routing around storms, there is always that opportunity for a mistake, or micro-weather activity in a confined area.
How about the dumbasses on the other end of the phone? Case in point:
Bought an HP package deal - Celeron 2.7 GHZ machine. The power kept going out on it. I called technical support - they sent me through 15 different tests and then finally agreed with me that it was the power supply. They send me a box to ship it to California to do the work. "Be sure to note what is wrong with it on the supplied sheet", they say.
I get the box, load the pc, and put "Power supply bad; please replace power supply".
4 weeks go by, and the computer returns. First off, it won't boot the OS - can't find the boot device. Secondly, the slip that comes back with the machine lists all the work that was done on the machine: the OS was reimaged on the HD, the system was put through a battery of tests, and some video memory was replaced...nothing dealing with the power supply. So, I call technical support and explain the problem...they go through a number of tests with me on the phone - then they want me to connect the machine to my telephone line..."hell no", I say, "you're not getting inside of my network". Okay, they say, ship it back to us and we will reload the OS.
At this point I was getting steamed (the only reason I bought this deal was for the supposed benefit of the warranty service). So, after calming down I tell them, "send me an OEM OS cd, and I will reload the OS myself" (the CD was not part of the package from the retailer). "Yes sir - we'll have one sent right out".
Two weeks later, and still no disk. I give up - so I pop open the case and what do I find? The IDE connector for the HD is canted at a 30 degree angle - half the conductors are not in contact with the plug on the motherboard. I plug it in - and it boots right up. Over the weekend the power supply goes out 3 times.
I pop the case again, and remove the power supply - and replace it with one I was going to use in another machine (350 watt). I check the rating on the HP power supply: 250 Watts. The 350 watt power supply has been humming along happily for 3 weeks now...I inform my wife that we will never buy a computer from a retailer again - I don't care how much she wants the 'security' of customer service (it is easier for me to build my own machines and provide technical support on them than to deal with the so-called 'time savings' of dealing with a warranty; my time is money, and the retail warranty cost me more in my time than just fixing the damn thing cost me in parts and time put together).
Slashdot Mirror
So it is just like in the private sector... :)
:(
I guess IT everywhere is just going to continue to rise to the level of mediocrity. So sad...
Evil is still evil regardless of the level - the motivations behind the actions are the same. Don't confuse the motivation for the action itself. When you steal a cookie from your coworker, or trip a person on a crowded bus - what adjective would you use to describe the motivation behind it? If not evil, then what word do you propose I use? Are you a sociopath, without any empathy for the people around you?
So a psychotic killer like Stalin or Saddam is evil, just as a Monopoly in the early 20th century that gained riches by ripping off factory workers who could barely make a living off of the spare change they got paid per day - and suffered in great numbers. While killing is 'worse' than economic enslavement - both result in injustice and suffering at someone's hands.
Microsoft is evil because of its predatory business practices - they lie, cheat and steal to accomplish their ends. This has been proven in a court of law - if not through various well documented stories from customers and vendors and internal memos. Just because they are successful at hiding behind a bevy of lawyers doesn't make it right.
I don't know about the rest of you, but if I acted like Microsoft as an individual I would be shunned by my family and probably brought up on civil - if not criminal - charges. Too many people hide behind corporations to do things that any reasonable person would find objectionable if not illegal. A gross example of this is the Enron scandal - but my question is, why did it take something so heinous to incur criminal proceedings? Why do we let other things 'slide' for corporations, that we would not for individuals? Both are a 'person' in the eyes of the law, and this double standard is hypocritical.
A corporation is a public trust - it should not be used to hide immoral acts or shield the consequences of those acts from the primary owners. Unfortunately, too many companies think that way, and rather than acting in the public interest - which their great economic power makes it imperative that they do - they only focus on using their power enriching the primary shareholders at all cost. The biggest flaw of this system is that it depends on the board of directors doing the right thing - in opposition to making money; the lure of money is too great - and thus the moral issues get set aside many times.
Sadly, it invariably falls on those on the outside - the so-called 'consumers' and watchdog groups (both of which are weak compared to the lobbying and legal power of a corporation) - to force corporations to do the right thing.
This is the primary reason that open source is so appealing. It elimenates the dependence on the corporate product 'lock-in'. It elimenates the need of watchdogs because it is decentralized - everyone can have an equal voice - and as a result has more options about embracing a particular application or not. Everyone is a watchdog and everyone is (can be) a producer.
Of course, this threatens the income of thousands of corporations - and it is about time. We should not be rewarding corporations who lie, cheat and steal from us. We should not simply 'take' it because they are the only game in town - because now, they are not the only game in town (as much as they will try to embrace, extend, and put forward proprietary non-interoperable standards that only serve to hook us and lock us into their products). Those days are over - unless, of course, the government steps in and mandates what software we use. Of course, if that happens, then I think we have other more pressing problems than corporate corruption to deal with...
With all of the microbrews floating around out there - why would anyone choose to drink Budweiser?
Here is how to properly use a debit card:
A) Go to your ATM machine, and insert said card.
B) Withdraw a preset amount to get you through the next pay period.
C) Pay Cash everywhere.
D) When you run out of cash - either suck it up, or dip into your savings to buy that 12 pack of BUD you have been craving...
drsmithy, commenting on the intellectual capacity of Linus vs. Bill, wrote:
Undoubtedly. Applied in different ways, however.
Yeah - one good, and one evil.
The following statements in your post are contradictory:
"management has the 'microsoft, oooh shiny' mentality"
"management do not trust linux anywhere near as much as they trust Sun. (Too much eye candy)"
Are you comparing and contrasting DSD management vs. NSA management, or management in general?
I find it hard to believe anyone in the extremely high tech world of NSA signals intelligence analysis would have a 'microsoft, oooh shiny' mentality, when they have a plethora of super computers in the basement.
P.S. - where can I deliver that diet coke?...
DRM embedded in a chip? Isn't that just the Clipper chip reborn?
I have been using virtual desktops for years on CDE, KDE, Gnome, and various other lesser known window managers.
This is nothing new. The hubris of Microsoft to patent this is astounding - or maybe not.
Its like the Dilbert cartoon where he is designing a product with no user interface that is being targeted to people too shy to return the product...and he then asks Dogbert why he feels like he should be brought up on criminal charges for doing his job.
I would bet she used her trim tabs to fly it back if all the hydrolics were shot; no hydrolics = no stick and rudder control.
Civilian (as well as military) aircraft have dual systems for everything. If you lose your gyro compass, you have your good old magnetic compass. If you lose your hydrolics, you have mechanical trim systems that you can compensate with. If you lose your vacuum based instruments, you can depend on the electro-mechanical instruments. If you run out of Gas, you have a reserve setting. If you lose your GPS, you can depend on your radio direction finding systems. If you lose your Radio, you can squawk a code on the transponder to communicate your lack of voice-coms and the tower will communicate with you using light signals.
There are some things on an aircraft you can't afford to lose:
Seperation of the wing; seperation of the tail; engine failure (though less of a problem with a fixed wing aircraft, as you can glide to a landing point - with the exception of high performance jet aircraft - which glide like a brick when engine power is lost in most cases)
Sounds like its time to cut up the credit cards, and move all my vast reserves of cash into gold bullion... (you never know, they might put RFIDs into money so they can track your purchases).
Anything that can have data attached to it is suspect in this climate...
...a Microsoft spokesman was quick to deny that they'd be so bold as to patent XML itself
Yeah, riiiight...
The more I hear this kind of cr*p, the more I want to burn every Microsoft and (insert any other brain dead greedy company you care to think of here) CD and product I own - and go 100% open source/self-built applications. Unfortunately, that would probably create a noxious cloud that would attack the lining of my lungs, causing even more damage to me...
They can't sue you if you build it yourself for your own use - no matter what patents or copyrights it may enjoy. Power to the people - baby - YEAH!
Now, who could that be at my door.... (sounds of scuffle ensue)
The diff command and MP5 checksums of a clean repository will be sufficient to validate if something was tampered with or not.
Since open source repositories have multiple mirrors all over the world, not to mention hundreds (or thousands, even millions in the case of certain projects) individuals who keep copies of the source - it is less likely that tampering would go unnoticed in Open Source for any significant period of time.
Whereas, closed source shops - while having multiple branches of code in the repository - have only one master repository and backups. That is it. If the main repository gets hacked - or a module 'legitimately' modified by an disgruntled employee, there is no guarantee the company will be able to:
A) Detect the problem to begin with - the dogs will be eating the binary dog food, after all, and won't know if the release they got from the company is good or not. There is little motivation to put resources toward reviewing the code - certainly not at the level that the OS community can muster.
B) Fix the problem - a company can sit on a problem for months or years because they are motivated to only apply resources to things that will increase revenue. Not so with OS - anyone can submit a patch to a software team to correct problems - so the combination of the number of eyeballs looking for problems, and the low cost of fixing problems wins hands down.
It boggles the mind to see these folks on the one hand invoking the U.S. Constitution, the idea of justice, mom, apple pie and the American flag, all the while taking a big dump all over it.
Sic Semper Tyranis.
I think a deeper question we have to ask is why are these civil cases being brought to the courts now?
To an outsider this is troubling. In the past common sense seemed to rule. Now, it seems businesses are more concerned with controlling any implementation - as opposed to competing in an open market - that includes open source.
Just as the automobile industry went through changes in the 1970s due to changing realities (cheap foreign cars, and rising fuel costs), the incumbent technology companies are starting to realise the new reality that the internet and open source/free software and cheap computers are creating.
This all makes me want to go to my garage and fire up the soldering iron and get to work building my own devices - because the businesses will be too busy litigating to actually create new technology - and what little arrives in the stores will be so encumbered by criss-crossing royalty payments as to be priced out of range of normal people.
I see an Engineer in the future designing a new product, "well, we could add this 'play' button - but that would infringe on the Microsoft patent #23897847; of course, we own the 'fast forward' feature - in addition to the 'stop' feature, so we are good there. Does anyone know what Cisco is charging for the 'device for routing TCP packets across a network' feature - patent #40987272?..."
Invention is dead.
When I upgraded my bios on one of my Intel motherboards, it took about 7 minutes - and the system provided no feedback whatsoever that it was working or not. I planned on pulling the plug at the 15 minute mark if it didn't come back...then investigate how to flash a new bios without an operating bios...not fun. Needless to say I was on pins and needles.
I can only imagine how these engineers felt when the system came back online...
I want to know when they are going to put out a Speed Racer laptop...
It is not an issue of not wanting to do a good job. It is an issue of not being able to do a good job...either through lack of skill, lack of responsibility and ownership of the code, or lack of the intestinal fortitude to fight the good fight when management decides to do the slimy thing.
I have no sympathy for the developers at Microsoft.
Not necessarily. If you get involved with heavily team oriented games like PlanetSide or WWIIonline, then skill is less of an issue than working closely together as a team...the sum of the parts is greater than the whole.
Of the SciFi genre - I would say Planetside is on a par with WWIIonline - very 'realistic' and immersive on all levels.
If you just want to get in an blast away - choose Quake et al.
If you are more interested in an immersive battlefield simulation give PlanetSide or WWIIonline a try - these are my top two picks.
The game has changed 100% - it is nothing like when it was as initially released. - we are currently at version 1.11 - soon to be 1.12 - and it is an awesome battlefield simulation - so good, in fact, that the Pentagon is investigating using the game engine for training and strategic gameing real life senarios...
I started playing November 2001; I agree that the game was not complete when it was first released. However, in fairness to the developers, the producers (read -- financial backers) forced the game out the door before it was ready. It is now where it should have been in 2001; I would urge you to give it a try before you pull out old garbage on a game that really doesn't exist in that form today.
You can go to the website and download the game, as well as order a game key to get started. Additionally, if you don't want to fork over your hard earned money, periodically they have trial memberships for X amount of time for free.
Don't knock it, until you try the latest revision. Additionally, if you are 10 years old, or have a short attention span, don't bother.
I feel I must point out to you that there is no 'assembly line' in software development (although that phrase could be applied loosely to copying the application to CD and distribution of same).
World War II Online is the best battlefield simulation - bar none. It is also a FPS - in that you can only view the environment from the first person perspective, whether you are an infantryman, a tank, a ship or a plane. However, it is not for people with short attention spans, or folks who want instant action. It more than makes up for this with the following capabilities:
1. Massive Map. The map is of Western Europe; you could spawn into Holland, and walk all the way to Switzerland if you wanted to (1/4 scale - with accurate elevations and terrain features that nearly match the real map of Europe) - this would take you days, if not weeks to do this. There is no 'zoning' between smaller areas like in other online games - and the map is humongous compared to any FPS currently on the market. You don't have to worry about running into a wall when you are trying to maneuver - and battles don't end up being 'frontal assaults through a bottleneck' - with interesting results and possibilities for offense and defense.
2. Visual Distance. The edge of the 'fog' curtain at the edge of your vision is 6 or more kilometers away. You can see men with your avatar's naked eye out to 2 Kilometers, ground vehicles out to 3 kilometers, and much larger vehicles, such as ships out to the edge of the fog (6km or more). Optics, such as binoculars or telescopic weapon sites allow you to see further for each type. Tank battles typically occur between 500 and 2000 meters.
3. Damage System. The damage system is very realistic - going so far as to break up different parts of your infantry avatar (head, torso, extremities) - and apply damage based on the physics of the weapon that is impacting the 'part' of the body or vehicle (or both).
4. Combined Arms. The game includes Air, Land and Sea forces that all operate on the same battlefield; while there are a few games that do this (such as Battlefield 1942) - none have the same feeling or realism that engagements in WWIIonline have. Whereas in an infantry based FPS (like Socom, or the Rainbow 6 series) - you can pretty much ignore the other components, in WWIIonline you must work together with other branches to succeed. Calling in an airstrike on an enemy position, or doing an amphibious assault (river patrol, destroyer and transport ships currently modeled), or flying as a pilot, or being a ship commander, or a tanker, or an infantryman (sappers, riflemen, light machine gunners, and soon rifle grenade equipped infantry - plus smoke and frag grenades - as well as knife) and all working together move the map.
5. No Gankers. You can not kill your own side. That being said, that does take away from the realism a bit - but more than makes up for it in the playability department - unlike other games where griefers use team killing to get the choice equipment, or just disrupt the gameplay.
6. Night and Day. Currently the system has a fast clock that has a 'day' that lasts 6 hours (don't quote me on that), and a night that lasts half that time (3 hours?). There are clouds - but currently no weather effects - but that is planned for future development.
The game begins with a 'map reset' - where the starting 'frontline' positions are set to the defaults. The game commences immediately and the map runs 24 hours a day 7 days a week until a winner is declared. The winner is the side that captures the vast majority of the enemy's towns (large towns/cities count more than small towns - but are also harder to take). Maps last anywhere from a week to several months. After a winner is declared automatically, the map is reset and the war begins again.
The equipment is based on WWII types, with a more historic approach than other games (such as BF1942) that start off with the Tiger tank (for example). Instead you will learn to use the PZII, PZ38, PZIII, Sd232 on the Axis side, and the Sumoa, Char 1B, Renault, and Panhard on the French, and Matilda, A13, and Vickers on the British (they
In the plains states, thunderstorms can deposit hail many miles away from a thunderhead. It can be a bright sunny day - and hail falling from the sky.
Pilots, many times, don't have a choice about flying through certain weather conditions that occur unexpectedly - particularly if they are under instrument flight rules. While the FAA is very good about routing around storms, there is always that opportunity for a mistake, or micro-weather activity in a confined area.
I wonder what this will do to low flying aircraft...
How about the dumbasses on the other end of the phone? Case in point:
Bought an HP package deal - Celeron 2.7 GHZ machine. The power kept going out on it. I called technical support - they sent me through 15 different tests and then finally agreed with me that it was the power supply. They send me a box to ship it to California to do the work. "Be sure to note what is wrong with it on the supplied sheet", they say.
I get the box, load the pc, and put "Power supply bad; please replace power supply".
4 weeks go by, and the computer returns. First off, it won't boot the OS - can't find the boot device. Secondly, the slip that comes back with the machine lists all the work that was done on the machine: the OS was reimaged on the HD, the system was put through a battery of tests, and some video memory was replaced...nothing dealing with the power supply. So, I call technical support and explain the problem...they go through a number of tests with me on the phone - then they want me to connect the machine to my telephone line..."hell no", I say, "you're not getting inside of my network". Okay, they say, ship it back to us and we will reload the OS.
At this point I was getting steamed (the only reason I bought this deal was for the supposed benefit of the warranty service). So, after calming down I tell them, "send me an OEM OS cd, and I will reload the OS myself" (the CD was not part of the package from the retailer). "Yes sir - we'll have one sent right out".
Two weeks later, and still no disk. I give up - so I pop open the case and what do I find? The IDE connector for the HD is canted at a 30 degree angle - half the conductors are not in contact with the plug on the motherboard. I plug it in - and it boots right up. Over the weekend the power supply goes out 3 times.
I pop the case again, and remove the power supply - and replace it with one I was going to use in another machine (350 watt). I check the rating on the HP power supply: 250 Watts. The 350 watt power supply has been humming along happily for 3 weeks now...I inform my wife that we will never buy a computer from a retailer again - I don't care how much she wants the 'security' of customer service (it is easier for me to build my own machines and provide technical support on them than to deal with the so-called 'time savings' of dealing with a warranty; my time is money, and the retail warranty cost me more in my time than just fixing the damn thing cost me in parts and time put together).