Re:How to handle something you don't like
on
World of Queuecraft
·
· Score: 1
I finally stopped playing as well. Though honestly, I'd barely gotten started playing, but as a casual player (by necessity...sigh...), I could never count on being able to get into the game when I did find time to play. I had other issues with the game's aesthetics, but the queuing issues did not help keep me. I may take another look in 3 to 6 months, but for now I've returned to Final Fantasy XI where queuing hasn't been an issue (FFXI has other issues!).
Blame it on those pesky CDs! As long as people have the notion that music is something that they can buy and own, subscription services like Napster cannot succeed in the face of iTunes. Where oh where would people get the idea that they can own music? Why it's the fact that you can go to a real music store and buy real physical media that you only pay for once. As long as such physical media is available, this idea of owning music won't go away. So if Napster wants to succeed, don't blame Microsoft, instead convince RIAA to stop allowing the sale of CDs in stores. But given that the music publishers still make a lot of money perpetuating the notion of music ownership by selling CDs, I think Napster may be in for a long wait.
Sorry to rain on the parade, but there ain't no such thing as a free lunch. I'm sorry that AOL's (and others) plans to impose email charges on bulk mailers is going to raise the costs of some respectable charities and other nonprofits. But, the last time I bothered to check, sending bulk mail via the postal service was not free. So why should sending bulk mail over the internet be any different?
We've all become spoiled with free email on the internet, but when you think about it, there's no more right to free email than there is to free postal service. And as we have all seen, free email is probably the primary culprit in the rise of spam and many of its associated ills. So it is likely that anything that imposes additional costs on spamming will have some reducing effect on the overall volume of email. No, it won't kill all spam, but it will likely be enough of a barrier to some portion of small time operators and n00b phishers. And the bulk mail that one does get will have a greater probability of being from a legitimate source.
Free email isn't likely to disappear anytime soon. It is still a good marketing tool for those that provide it and a gateway to their other premium services. But I hope that the days of being able to send thousands and thousands of emails at no cost are coming to an end.
Blogs aren't likely to go away anytime soon, only the hype will die down. All of the talk about blogging replacing traditional (ie commercial) journalism and people trying to make money doing it will thankfully go away. Indeed, I would guess that many people will continue to blog and then the next big thing will come along and the hype machines will glom onto that.
Actually, Bill Gates backed off on the Halo 3 threat saying instead that Halo 3 would come out when Bungie was ready to release it. But if the PS3 delays become long enough, then Halo 3 might just come back into play as far as launch competition is concerned.
Alas poor Radio Shack, I knew thee well... I used to spend hours in the Radio Shack after school programming on the TRS-80 floor model (damn! i'm old!) and looking back, it was pretty cool of them to let me do that. So most of my Radio Shack memories are good ones, but as others have already said, RS doesn't really seem to have a place in today's market. I would hope that perhaps they would go back to their roots and court the hobbyist once more. They wouldn't need nearly as many stores to do that. But I don't think that is likely to happen and in this world of the Patriot Act and DMCA, it is unlikely they'd be able to carry the sort of things the hobbyist market is interested in.
As for the CEO's education, the real issue there is the fact that he lied and more importantly to Radio Shack, he f'd up! It may not be all of his fault, but as the CEO you get to take the blame. Honestly, I'm actually surprised that RS is still in business at all. If you have a car, there's no good reason to go there at all since the selection is relatively limited and the prices are not competitive with Best Buy, Circuit City, and internet sources. And these days you can buy cell phones and plans pretty much anywhere.
They can also blame TiVo, which allows one to copy recorded programs to a networked PC where one can use programs like PSP Video 9 to convert and transfer shows to the PSP memory stick. I think that as memory stick capacity increases, this will become more common.
As usual, this is the sort of measure that can only result in catching small timers, novices, and people who are probably innocent of any crimes. The smart crooks will just use something that does not have backdoors in it, if they are not already. I cannot believe that there aren't people in the U.K. government who don't realize this already, therefore I can only surmise that being able to catch small fish _is_ their primary interest. I suppose if enough small fish are caught, then it can distract the public from larger, more difficult problems that remain unsolved. Not only that, it will inspire fear that will help keep the masses in line as more of their freedoms are taken away.
It saddens me to see the U.K. in particular continue down a path of increased surveilance of its citizens with the U.S. not too far behind. Given this, it is rather hypocritical to criticize the Chinese government. At least the people in China know they have an authoritarian government and don't suffer under the illusions of people in the U.S. and U.K. as we slide down the slope towards fascism.
Indeed, the U.S. government mired in the mess of Iraq, North Korea, and the developing mess with Iran, is quite beholden to the Chinese government and not really in a position to make too many demands. But in addition to this, it has been U.S. corporations in their blind pursuit of profits at any cost who have enabled China to get the billions that they are now using to build up their military and wield more influence in the U.S. and elsewhere. It is no secret that a low paid and tightly controlled populace can translate into big profits. Ironically, as Chinese industry and technology develops through their own innovation and lessons learned from foreign companies, Chinese industries have a good chance of beating their teachers at their own game.
Stupid Rabbit! Tricks are for kids! I mean really, this is a stupid move for Intel. Do they really think that most computer users know or care who makes the cpu in the box? This will just end up being a headache for users and Skype as people complain when they run into this stupid artificial limitation. And the people who actually know and care who makes the cpu will be annoyed by Intel's heavy handed tactics and Skype's shortsightedness. This is just lose lose all around. When will tech companies realize that most consumers don't care about the branding of things that they fundamentally do not understand. People know the difference between Fords and Toyotas, but don't care one bit about the companies that make the crankshaft cams.
This was my first computer as well. I hooked it up to a huge BW TV I had salvaged from someone's garbage and later I bought the 16K (yes K) RAM expansion pack. This pack was precariously connected to the back of the computer and it seemed that any movement of the thing resulted in a system crash. I eventually had to solder the RAM pack to the expansion slot connector to achieve any stability.
Later, I constructed a fullsize keyboard for it using salvaged key from a typewriter and crude switches I built using aluminum from cut up beer cans. It was a frightful sight, but it did work! By this time it was off to college where I began to use "real" computers like DECs and later Macs. I still remember my Timex Sinclair very fondly though, and I haven't had the pleasure of having such a big "monitor" (32") since then!
The bundling with DVDs is nice, but I'd like some more games too. UMD is not likely to become a very popular movie format unless it is licensed for other platforms. I like the idea of watching movies on my PSP under certain conditions, but as memory stick capacity increases along with broadband availability, distributing video on little discs makes less and less sense except as an ineffective anti-piracy measure.
Granted, mergers and buyouts almost always mean big layoffs, but this is just another story that will scare people (in the U.S. at least) away from the tech professions. Next I suppose Ellison will make some speech about how it is so hard to find qualified workers in the U.S. because the public education system is so bad.
Given the large userbase of AOL and Yahoo!, this should be a good test of just how much "stink", people are willing to put up with. In my experience with their premium service, Yahoo! does a pretty good job of keeping spam out of my inbox. Typically, I'll get maybe two a day that escape filtering. If that number were to triple or quadruple, I might begin to think about another service. So legitimizing some spam this way, definitely carries a risk of customer loss.
Also interesting is the likelihood that the filtering efforts of AOL and Yahoo! are effective enough that mass mailers would be willing to pay fees to get around it. It makes one wonder if there is some suppressed technology that would effectively kill all spam, but The Man is keeping it under wraps, like the 100 mile/gallon carburetor of decades past. Very effective filtering may be what makes it possible for AOL and Yahoo! to get a bigger piece of the spam dollar than they probably already do.
Unfortunately for him, Powell was a better soldier than a politician. And worse, I don't think he realized until too late that ultimately he was just a token as far as Bush and company were concerned. So lacking in moral fiber, maybe not. I suspect that the current Secretary of State will be quicker on the uptake on this matter and may have much stronger personal leverage on the President, if some of the rumors are true... Unfortunately, it seems that Rice is about as hawkish as Cheney and Rumsfield, so I doubt she'll be leading the charge to get out of Iraq. Finally, I think we'll be seeing her make a run for President before we ever see Powell do so.
Far from a funny, I think you are absolutely right. Once this patent issue became something real for those in power, you can bet that calls were made. In the end, if the rejections all stand, perhaps this will be a warning to those playing the patent and sue strategy not to overplay their hands.
If Sony keeps blowing this much hot air, my heating bills should start to drop! Enough already. I know they need to stay in the news, but I'd rather that they concentrate on releasing a console that has some kick a** games. And of course they know they won't be able to steal the online crown from Live on the first try. Setting up an online service ain't like dustin crops, Sony!
The real problem here is that making the act of placing copyrighted material in a shared folder a crime is just another way to ensnare more technically naive people. Most computer users really don't understand the difference between a shared folder and one that is not, to say nothing of all the different ways that said sharing can be configured. This gets even more complicated when one considers all of the compromised PCs out there doing things their owners have no clue about. Making the lack of understanding of how your machine is set up a crime, will only bring more grandma's, kids, and average Joes into court. And, as usual, the professional pirates will continue to make money.
This is just a continuation of the let's ban/restrict "violent" video games political bandwagon. Once these laws have been proposed and struck down in all 50 states and D.C., then things should cool off. Even the stupidest politician must know by now that they can score points with this without the threat that any of these laws will withstand constitutional muster. It's a great way to get yourself in the news on the right side of what is "decent and pure".
With all of the bad press, I can only guess that someone owes someone else a favor for which $5M is a small price. I can't imagine what, since I don't run with that kind of crowd, but nothing else makes any sense. If they can get the lapboard to work with the game consoles for FPS games like SOCOM and Halo, then they might make a little money or at least save some face.
I'm sure the more creative types will find a way around the booth babe restrictions. There are plenty of ways to be sexy without showing a lot of skin or behaving in obviously lewd manners. But if E3 is hoping to somehow clean up the image of the games industry by "cleaning" up the trade show, forget it! As long as violent games like the GTA series and others grab the spotlight, what happens at the trade show really doesn't matter. And it certainly doesn't matter how people are dressed. I mean really, if the adult film industry held high class swanky industry events where everyone was impeccably dressed and behaved with the highest manners, would that gain adult films any more respect than they get now? I doubt it. Window dressing is nice, but ultimately it's the product that matters the most.
I would say that in general it makes sense for the employer to provide or reimburse for training. Many companies do this, but if resources are scarce such as at an academic institution, you're usually on your own. I tend to see myself as more of a craftsman, spending my own money for training and tools that I intend to take with me to the next job. I just see it as the cost of doing business and remaining marketable for future work.
Well I'm certainly glad to hear that there is another plant making Xbox 360s. I usually wait a few months before buying next gen hardware, but even for me the prospect of having a difficult time finding a 360 was becoming annoying. The other news of some, rather morbid, interest is the fate of Gizmondo. This just seems to be a device that's all dressed up with no place to go. The GPS capability certainly has interesting possibilities, especially with the added risk of mortality in this time of heightened security. But with the handheld market already crowded by the likes of Nintendo and Sony, there's little room for anyone else unless they are able to bleed some serious cash.
Indeed! BSG was the reason I finally knuckled under and went digital with Comcast in Chicago, and now Dr. Who will give me another good reason to watch SciFi. I really believe that once they knew they had a hit in Battlestar Galactica, they'd (Comcast and SciFi) milk it to up the digital numbers.
Slashdot Mirror
I finally stopped playing as well. Though honestly, I'd barely gotten started playing, but as a casual player (by necessity...sigh...), I could never count on being able to get into the game when I did find time to play. I had other issues with the game's aesthetics, but the queuing issues did not help keep me. I may take another look in 3 to 6 months, but for now I've returned to Final Fantasy XI where queuing hasn't been an issue (FFXI has other issues!).
Blame it on those pesky CDs! As long as people have the notion that music is something that they can buy and own, subscription services like Napster cannot succeed in the face of iTunes. Where oh where would people get the idea that they can own music? Why it's the fact that you can go to a real music store and buy real physical media that you only pay for once. As long as such physical media is available, this idea of owning music won't go away. So if Napster wants to succeed, don't blame Microsoft, instead convince RIAA to stop allowing the sale of CDs in stores. But given that the music publishers still make a lot of money perpetuating the notion of music ownership by selling CDs, I think Napster may be in for a long wait.
Sorry to rain on the parade, but there ain't no such thing as a free lunch. I'm sorry that AOL's (and others) plans to impose email charges on bulk mailers is going to raise the costs of some respectable charities and other nonprofits. But, the last time I bothered to check, sending bulk mail via the postal service was not free. So why should sending bulk mail over the internet be any different?
We've all become spoiled with free email on the internet, but when you think about it, there's no more right to free email than there is to free postal service. And as we have all seen, free email is probably the primary culprit in the rise of spam and many of its associated ills. So it is likely that anything that imposes additional costs on spamming will have some reducing effect on the overall volume of email. No, it won't kill all spam, but it will likely be enough of a barrier to some portion of small time operators and n00b phishers. And the bulk mail that one does get will have a greater probability of being from a legitimate source.
Free email isn't likely to disappear anytime soon. It is still a good marketing tool for those that provide it and a gateway to their other premium services. But I hope that the days of being able to send thousands and thousands of emails at no cost are coming to an end.
Blogs aren't likely to go away anytime soon, only the hype will die down. All of the talk about blogging replacing traditional (ie commercial) journalism and people trying to make money doing it will thankfully go away. Indeed, I would guess that many people will continue to blog and then the next big thing will come along and the hype machines will glom onto that.
Actually, Bill Gates backed off on the Halo 3 threat saying instead that Halo 3 would come out when Bungie was ready to release it. But if the PS3 delays become long enough, then Halo 3 might just come back into play as far as launch competition is concerned.
Alas poor Radio Shack, I knew thee well... I used to spend hours in the Radio Shack after school programming on the TRS-80 floor model (damn! i'm old!) and looking back, it was pretty cool of them to let me do that. So most of my Radio Shack memories are good ones, but as others have already said, RS doesn't really seem to have a place in today's market. I would hope that perhaps they would go back to their roots and court the hobbyist once more. They wouldn't need nearly as many stores to do that. But I don't think that is likely to happen and in this world of the Patriot Act and DMCA, it is unlikely they'd be able to carry the sort of things the hobbyist market is interested in.
As for the CEO's education, the real issue there is the fact that he lied and more importantly to Radio Shack, he f'd up! It may not be all of his fault, but as the CEO you get to take the blame. Honestly, I'm actually surprised that RS is still in business at all. If you have a car, there's no good reason to go there at all since the selection is relatively limited and the prices are not competitive with Best Buy, Circuit City, and internet sources. And these days you can buy cell phones and plans pretty much anywhere.
Anyway, good luck to them.
They can also blame TiVo, which allows one to copy recorded programs to a networked PC where one can use programs like PSP Video 9 to convert and transfer shows to the PSP memory stick. I think that as memory stick capacity increases, this will become more common.
Heh! Given the popularity of the DS with women, an Oprah branded browser could be a good thing! Oprah branded Opera browser...Hmmmm....
As usual, this is the sort of measure that can only result in catching small timers, novices, and people who are probably innocent of any crimes. The smart crooks will just use something that does not have backdoors in it, if they are not already. I cannot believe that there aren't people in the U.K. government who don't realize this already, therefore I can only surmise that being able to catch small fish _is_ their primary interest. I suppose if enough small fish are caught, then it can distract the public from larger, more difficult problems that remain unsolved. Not only that, it will inspire fear that will help keep the masses in line as more of their freedoms are taken away.
It saddens me to see the U.K. in particular continue down a path of increased surveilance of its citizens with the U.S. not too far behind. Given this, it is rather hypocritical to criticize the Chinese government. At least the people in China know they have an authoritarian government and don't suffer under the illusions of people in the U.S. and U.K. as we slide down the slope towards fascism.
Indeed, the U.S. government mired in the mess of Iraq, North Korea, and the developing mess with Iran, is quite beholden to the Chinese government and not really in a position to make too many demands. But in addition to this, it has been U.S. corporations in their blind pursuit of profits at any cost who have enabled China to get the billions that they are now using to build up their military and wield more influence in the U.S. and elsewhere. It is no secret that a low paid and tightly controlled populace can translate into big profits. Ironically, as Chinese industry and technology develops through their own innovation and lessons learned from foreign companies, Chinese industries have a good chance of beating their teachers at their own game.
Stupid Rabbit! Tricks are for kids! I mean really, this is a stupid move for Intel. Do they really think that most computer users know or care who makes the cpu in the box? This will just end up being a headache for users and Skype as people complain when they run into this stupid artificial limitation. And the people who actually know and care who makes the cpu will be annoyed by Intel's heavy handed tactics and Skype's shortsightedness. This is just lose lose all around. When will tech companies realize that most consumers don't care about the branding of things that they fundamentally do not understand. People know the difference between Fords and Toyotas, but don't care one bit about the companies that make the crankshaft cams.
This was my first computer as well. I hooked it up to a huge BW TV I had salvaged from someone's garbage and later I bought the 16K (yes K) RAM expansion pack. This pack was precariously connected to the back of the computer and it seemed that any movement of the thing resulted in a system crash. I eventually had to solder the RAM pack to the expansion slot connector to achieve any stability.
Later, I constructed a fullsize keyboard for it using salvaged key from a typewriter and crude switches I built using aluminum from cut up beer cans. It was a frightful sight, but it did work! By this time it was off to college where I began to use "real" computers like DECs and later Macs. I still remember my Timex Sinclair very fondly though, and I haven't had the pleasure of having such a big "monitor" (32") since then!
The bundling with DVDs is nice, but I'd like some more games too. UMD is not likely to become a very popular movie format unless it is licensed for other platforms. I like the idea of watching movies on my PSP under certain conditions, but as memory stick capacity increases along with broadband availability, distributing video on little discs makes less and less sense except as an ineffective anti-piracy measure.
Granted, mergers and buyouts almost always mean big layoffs, but this is just another story that will scare people (in the U.S. at least) away from the tech professions. Next I suppose Ellison will make some speech about how it is so hard to find qualified workers in the U.S. because the public education system is so bad.
Given the large userbase of AOL and Yahoo!, this should be a good test of just how much "stink", people are willing to put up with. In my experience with their premium service, Yahoo! does a pretty good job of keeping spam out of my inbox. Typically, I'll get maybe two a day that escape filtering. If that number were to triple or quadruple, I might begin to think about another service. So legitimizing some spam this way, definitely carries a risk of customer loss.
Also interesting is the likelihood that the filtering efforts of AOL and Yahoo! are effective enough that mass mailers would be willing to pay fees to get around it. It makes one wonder if there is some suppressed technology that would effectively kill all spam, but The Man is keeping it under wraps, like the 100 mile/gallon carburetor of decades past. Very effective filtering may be what makes it possible for AOL and Yahoo! to get a bigger piece of the spam dollar than they probably already do.
Unfortunately for him, Powell was a better soldier than a politician. And worse, I don't think he realized until too late that ultimately he was just a token as far as Bush and company were concerned. So lacking in moral fiber, maybe not. I suspect that the current Secretary of State will be quicker on the uptake on this matter and may have much stronger personal leverage on the President, if some of the rumors are true... Unfortunately, it seems that Rice is about as hawkish as Cheney and Rumsfield, so I doubt she'll be leading the charge to get out of Iraq. Finally, I think we'll be seeing her make a run for President before we ever see Powell do so.
Far from a funny, I think you are absolutely right. Once this patent issue became something real for those in power, you can bet that calls were made. In the end, if the rejections all stand, perhaps this will be a warning to those playing the patent and sue strategy not to overplay their hands.
If Sony keeps blowing this much hot air, my heating bills should start to drop! Enough already. I know they need to stay in the news, but I'd rather that they concentrate on releasing a console that has some kick a** games. And of course they know they won't be able to steal the online crown from Live on the first try. Setting up an online service ain't like dustin crops, Sony!
The real problem here is that making the act of placing copyrighted material in a shared folder a crime is just another way to ensnare more technically naive people. Most computer users really don't understand the difference between a shared folder and one that is not, to say nothing of all the different ways that said sharing can be configured. This gets even more complicated when one considers all of the compromised PCs out there doing things their owners have no clue about. Making the lack of understanding of how your machine is set up a crime, will only bring more grandma's, kids, and average Joes into court. And, as usual, the professional pirates will continue to make money.
This is just a continuation of the let's ban/restrict "violent" video games political bandwagon. Once these laws have been proposed and struck down in all 50 states and D.C., then things should cool off. Even the stupidest politician must know by now that they can score points with this without the threat that any of these laws will withstand constitutional muster. It's a great way to get yourself in the news on the right side of what is "decent and pure".
With all of the bad press, I can only guess that someone owes someone else a favor for which $5M is a small price. I can't imagine what, since I don't run with that kind of crowd, but nothing else makes any sense. If they can get the lapboard to work with the game consoles for FPS games like SOCOM and Halo, then they might make a little money or at least save some face.
Oh yeah, almost forgot... Suckers!!!!!!
Sorry, I really couldn't resist that one.
I'm sure the more creative types will find a way around the booth babe restrictions. There are plenty of ways to be sexy without showing a lot of skin or behaving in obviously lewd manners. But if E3 is hoping to somehow clean up the image of the games industry by "cleaning" up the trade show, forget it! As long as violent games like the GTA series and others grab the spotlight, what happens at the trade show really doesn't matter. And it certainly doesn't matter how people are dressed. I mean really, if the adult film industry held high class swanky industry events where everyone was impeccably dressed and behaved with the highest manners, would that gain adult films any more respect than they get now? I doubt it. Window dressing is nice, but ultimately it's the product that matters the most.
I would say that in general it makes sense for the employer to provide or reimburse for training. Many companies do this, but if resources are scarce such as at an academic institution, you're usually on your own. I tend to see myself as more of a craftsman, spending my own money for training and tools that I intend to take with me to the next job. I just see it as the cost of doing business and remaining marketable for future work.
Well I'm certainly glad to hear that there is another plant making Xbox 360s. I usually wait a few months before buying next gen hardware, but even for me the prospect of having a difficult time finding a 360 was becoming annoying. The other news of some, rather morbid, interest is the fate of Gizmondo. This just seems to be a device that's all dressed up with no place to go. The GPS capability certainly has interesting possibilities, especially with the added risk of mortality in this time of heightened security. But with the handheld market already crowded by the likes of Nintendo and Sony, there's little room for anyone else unless they are able to bleed some serious cash.
Indeed! BSG was the reason I finally knuckled under and went digital with Comcast in Chicago, and now Dr. Who will give me another good reason to watch SciFi. I really believe that once they knew they had a hit in Battlestar Galactica, they'd (Comcast and SciFi) milk it to up the digital numbers.