Firstly, I think the author has a good point. Earlier MMO's all had elements of roleplaying in them, aswell as specific codes of conduct. The RP'ers could live peacefully on normal servers, and their opinions were generally respected.
The massive influx of new players into MMORPGs have changed this though. Indictative of the whole problem is the whole cultureclash between veterans and newcomers concerning grouping problem. Old-timers find invites to groups without being asked first extremely offensive and are thus often constantly annoyed in WoW. Personally, I just view them as "we're grouped now because we're in the same area and we'll ungroup as soon as we're not" and don't mind them at all.
RP'ers are, naturally, fairly "extreme" in what they'll accept of player-behaviour. As far as WOW goes atleast, their servers are also filled with nitwits, although the in far less numbers. However, only one asshole is needed to break the immersion, and there are a whole lot of assholes out there. Thus, I think ultimatly the entire RP'ing branch of MMO's are going to be relegated to their own games.
Oh. and while we're on the subject, to the people here mentioning single-player games: There are very, very few single-player games requiring any sort of being in-character and offering any kind of immerson. Just because something is fantasy doesn't make it actualy roleplaying! Roleplaying requires a modicrum of immersion and character choice beyond Good/Evil. As such, the only games I've played which I'm willing to classify as RPG's, atleast to some extent, are Vampire: Bloodlines and Planescape: Torment.
Tax credits and other incentives are also a major reason you end up with a bureaucrazy beyond measure.
Those regulations, while well-meant, all add up. More paper pushers have to be hired in order to keep up, and business' good at gaming the system will gain even more advantages.
Slashcode
Slashdot doesn't support edits, so it is impossible to actually UPDATE posts. Writing UPDATE in the middle of a post which is posted just once, is thus moderatly stupid.
Getting Attetion It's a nice way to make something sound more dramatic though, and that's really one thing that has been missing here. I just wish they would enable the blink tag and colors too. That would really make my day.
? I mean, yes, I read the article, but wouldn't it make more sense to just sue the person, not try and make up random claims?
(haven't RTFA)
NDA's are not as you'd think just personal two-sided contracts. They are also protected by trade secret laws. This means that information given by someone under an NDA is not yours to use, regardless of why he told you. In a word, that knowledge has the evilbit set to true, and you have to pretend you'd never heard of it. Once you're aware that certain knowledge/information is under NDA (ie, given unlawfully, though not received unlawfully), it is illegal to use it. Google certainly knew he was a former Microsoft employee, and google certainly knew he most likely was under NDA. Google have thus willfully used knowledge covered under trade secret laws, due to him violating his NDA, thus aquiring knowledge they are not entitled too.
Brewster, Jennings was a great CIA asset, with close ties to ARAMCO and other major oil companies and ministries.
Which leads me to wonder, how can any critical foreign company take the liability of hiring the services of an American company? You preach free trade, but leverage your own companies for your own information gathering purposes. Any foreign company doing the same to you would be extremely quickly denounced as evil, yet I do not see anyone here taking issue to it.
Wasn't this suppose to be the "WORLD Wide Web"?
I think someone lost sight of what they were doing...
Yeah, but the question is; who lost sight?.. and the answer will most likely depend on where you live.
Either way, given the US's history on using government resources to spy on regular industry (Echelon Airbus etc) and general political climate, having any sort of essential infrastructure under sovereing US control scares the shit out of me. This is one place where the the world needs to take a proactive stance, utilize our common synergies and come up with a global market-leading solution. Nothign short of it will do!
That is that everyone in the country should pitch in 1 or two dollars a year to a fund which hires big guys named Guido and Luigi to fly around the world find these virus writers and spammers and well..............I think you get the picture. That would be so much better than jail time.
Lock all the managers, producers, studio owners etc in a dungeon, take their phones away from them, close the exit with a concrete wall, and don't let them contact the outside world until the project is ready.
Up to the 'until the project is ready'-part I was sooo agreeing with you.
For example, for instant Google searches, Firefox allows you to create Keyword Searches in which you can just type in, in my case, "g " in the URL bar. Or for Wikipedia it is "w ".
*sigh*
Make a wild guess which browser had this feature first.
(punishment for not invading Iraq and taking the alternative of long-term sanctions)?
Repeat a lie enough, and people will believe it:/
There is no connection between 9/11 and Iraq!*
*Not entirely true, AFAIK the posting
of troops in Saudi-Arabia during first gulf war, and the subsequental refusal to leave was what Bin Laden claimed was his motivation.
Their crime was to help get rid of the Taliban
You make it sound like bombing a country back to the stone-age, and then leaving it to rot was a good thing?
You'd have to be pretty naive to think all of those countries are being attacked over Iraq.
Yes, but more and more some Muslims view this as a clash of cultures, and draw parallells back to the crusades. Agression on one front is going to hurt the others, as it rises the general tension.
Terje Christensen, a biophysicist from the Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority, near Oslo, said her research showed that sunscreens should be treated with caution, and used only when it was impractical to stay indoors or to shield the skin from the sun with clothes.
I tracked down a picture of her. Take a look!
PICTURE
E.g. suppose I work for a AIDS activist organization, doing some programming. But I'm on record as saying, "AIDS is God's way of punishing sodomites." If that got around, I figure I'd be out of some work.
If you were reasonably discrete about your opinions (ie; not actively spreading discord) I don't think you should be fired.
People should be judged by their actions; the rest is just crap.
People from poor neighbourhoods are more likely to be secret junkies.
Blacks are more likely to have a criminal backgroun.
Nature Activist are more likely to be missing from work due to be jailed.
People with dieing parents are more likely to be called on hospital visits.
Sys admins who don't believe in copyrights are more likely to.. erm.. sabotage their own company?
It's amazing how stories like this crop up so often in the US, and how no-one seems to draw what seems (for me atleast) to be the evident conclusion.
The company gets away with this behaviour because it's damn more powerfull than it's (ex)-employees. However, a company is nothing without its employees. Any sort of collective defence against this sort of behaviour is going to hurt the company like hell. I mean, ever heard of actually sticking up for eachother?
If you're too afraid of unions etc, just call it something else. Bottom line is that it's in the other workers self-interest to insure nothing like this happens ever again.
Individualism is all fine and all, but it kinda breaks down when a much larger individual comes along wanting to use you as a doormat.
Slashdot Mirror
The massive influx of new players into MMORPGs have changed this though. Indictative of the whole problem is the whole cultureclash between veterans and newcomers concerning grouping problem. Old-timers find invites to groups without being asked first extremely offensive and are thus often constantly annoyed in WoW. Personally, I just view them as "we're grouped now because we're in the same area and we'll ungroup as soon as we're not" and don't mind them at all.
RP'ers are, naturally, fairly "extreme" in what they'll accept of player-behaviour. As far as WOW goes atleast, their servers are also filled with nitwits, although the in far less numbers. However, only one asshole is needed to break the immersion, and there are a whole lot of assholes out there. Thus, I think ultimatly the entire RP'ing branch of MMO's are going to be relegated to their own games.
Oh. and while we're on the subject, to the people here mentioning single-player games:
There are very, very few single-player games requiring any sort of being in-character and offering any kind of immerson. Just because something is fantasy doesn't make it actualy roleplaying! Roleplaying requires a modicrum of immersion and character choice beyond Good/Evil. As such, the only games I've played which I'm willing to classify as RPG's, atleast to some extent, are Vampire: Bloodlines and Planescape: Torment.
Some nutters kill quite alot of innocent people
Some nutters retaliate by killing even more innocent people.
It's a shitty world.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Slashcode
Slashdot doesn't support edits, so it is impossible to actually UPDATE posts. Writing UPDATE in the middle of a post which is posted just once, is thus moderatly stupid.
Getting Attetion
It's a nice way to make something sound more dramatic though, and that's really one thing that has been missing here. I just wish they would enable the blink tag and colors too. That would really make my day.
(haven't RTFA)
NDA's are not as you'd think just personal two-sided contracts. They are also protected by trade secret laws. This means that information given by someone under an NDA is not yours to use, regardless of why he told you. In a word, that knowledge has the evilbit set to true, and you have to pretend you'd never heard of it. Once you're aware that certain knowledge/information is under NDA (ie, given unlawfully, though not received unlawfully), it is illegal to use it. Google certainly knew he was a former Microsoft employee, and google certainly knew he most likely was under NDA. Google have thus willfully used knowledge covered under trade secret laws, due to him violating his NDA, thus aquiring knowledge they are not entitled too.
Oh, I think the law sucks too :)
Which leads me to wonder, how can any critical foreign company take the liability of hiring the services of an American company? You preach free trade, but leverage your own companies for your own information gathering purposes. Any foreign company doing the same to you would be extremely quickly denounced as evil, yet I do not see anyone here taking issue to it.
There's plenty of GPS-equipment that run on batteries though. If he's going to be trecking through Africa, that is most likely his best bet anyways.
Besides, you guys elected Reagan!
---
You're hiding MP3's!
No, I am not. Come see.
You're hiding MP3's! We just can't find them!
Erm?
I'll shoot you! Botswana, Korea and Cayman Islands will agree! That is almost everybody! *BANG*
*silence*
Oh, no mp3's here.. but that guy sure was evil. It was for the better!
hmm.. I wonder if he had any evil neighbours...
---
I don't how the story ends yet though, when this story dupes in a few years I'll complete it.
Might be a good idea even, it isn't like we could do any worse (disregarding a certain leader in the 1930's).
If I get any results at all, they're all old.
Example. Check any unnamed popular swedish torrentsite will get you plenty of results for same band (which I heartily recommend btw).
Yeah, but the question is; who lost sight? .. and the answer will most likely depend on where you live.
Either way, given the US's history on using government resources to spy on regular industry (Echelon Airbus etc) and general political climate, having any sort of essential infrastructure under sovereing US control scares the shit out of me. This is one place where the the world needs to take a proactive stance, utilize our common synergies and come up with a global market-leading solution. Nothign short of it will do!
And teach them Python?
Up to the 'until the project is ready'-part I was sooo agreeing with you.
*sigh*
Make a wild guess which browser had this feature first.
Food, infrastructure and general living conditions. No.
Morocco is oocupying large parts of Western Sahara. The people living there are muslims.
Repeat a lie enough, and people will believe it :/
There is no connection between 9/11 and Iraq!*
*Not entirely true, AFAIK the posting of troops in Saudi-Arabia during first gulf war, and the subsequental refusal to leave was what Bin Laden claimed was his motivation.
Their crime was to help get rid of the Taliban
You make it sound like bombing a country back to the stone-age, and then leaving it to rot was a good thing?
You'd have to be pretty naive to think all of those countries are being attacked over Iraq.
Yes, but more and more some Muslims view this as a clash of cultures, and draw parallells back to the crusades. Agression on one front is going to hurt the others, as it rises the general tension.
Are we still not going to get user-accounts that are workable?
I tracked down a picture of her. Take a look! PICTURE
Names are difficult, eh?
If you were reasonably discrete about your opinions (ie; not actively spreading discord) I don't think you should be fired.
People should be judged by their actions; the rest is just crap.
People from poor neighbourhoods are more likely to be secret junkies.
Blacks are more likely to have a criminal backgroun.
Nature Activist are more likely to be missing from work due to be jailed.
People with dieing parents are more likely to be called on hospital visits.
Sys admins who don't believe in copyrights are more likely to.. erm.. sabotage their own company?
http://edition.cnn.com/ International headline: 'NASA probe collides with comet'
So CNN has an official policy of only providing cheesy headlines to Americans? That's a policy I can live with though.
Was anybody else wondering why swedish furniture companies were giving out awards when they first read the headline?
The company gets away with this behaviour because it's damn more powerfull than it's (ex)-employees. However, a company is nothing without its employees. Any sort of collective defence against this sort of behaviour is going to hurt the company like hell. I mean, ever heard of actually sticking up for eachother?
If you're too afraid of unions etc, just call it something else. Bottom line is that it's in the other workers self-interest to insure nothing like this happens ever again.
Individualism is all fine and all, but it kinda breaks down when a much larger individual comes along wanting to use you as a doormat.