for anyone still playing SWG. Masochists really deserve what they get. It was clear literally years ago what SOE's strategy was. Its still carrying bugs from Beta, presumably because they are understaffed or underresourced or something, but they keep pumping those (purchasable) expansion packs out somehow. People waited for over a year for the promised combat fix/rebalance/revamp or whatever it ended up being called. And even then, its rubbish and not much better than the original system. From friends who foolishly stayed on I have heard some interesting stories. In particular, their CSRs have notably become steadily ruder, more isolated from management (they seem to know nothing more than the players 9 times out 10) and somewhat less able as time has gone by. Not surprised really, on a personal level it must be a nightmare to play the role of a steward on the deck of a virtual Titanic. Nerves are well and truly frayed in that quarter.
SWG has long since transcended gaming; I hear they are up for a Tony award under the heading "Longest running farce".
This is honestly not meant to be flame bait, if you're having a fine old time thats cool for you. But don't complain, SOE know for an absolute fact at this point their player base are essentially mugs who will put up with any old nonsense. If that wasn't true you'd have cancelled your account years ago.
Really, the writing is not so much on the wall about that game as carved into your eyeballs at this point.
Agreed. I can't read the actual article, but I'm put strongly in mind of the so-called "attentional blink"; it would seem reasonable to relate the two phenomena. The presence of Marvin Chun (who has published on the subject before; Chun & Potter, 1995, being pretty well known) lends weight to my suspicions.
Your firm must be big enough to have an accountant, if so, time table a long meeting with him/her/it and thrash it out with them. You might as well, it'll only end up on their desk again anyway. Come up with a range of options that meet the requirements and the account will help you put figures on things, including your assessment of the liabilities in el cheapo solutions. Personally, I've had a good success level and good experiences with turning the "gatekeepers" into collaborators that way.
If a customer wants to buy silver wrought by an unlicensed maker outside any guild, why should anyone have the right to interfere?
Nobody. But if you want to form an organisation that expects (and audits) the quality of its members, who is to interfere with general public using than as an indication of the likely quality of the services its members offer? If they want to. They can still hire the kid from the video shop if they want. You need to get over this "OMG Government" thinking. It would have nothing to do with them.
The question is, was DaVinci any good at painting houses? And if he said he was, should we hire him to paint our house if he's going to spend all day jacking off and drawing pictures of helicopters? He can be an artist on his own time, if he's hired to paint my house he can get up the fucking ladder and have the job finished when he promised it.
Fine. Don't listen to a well-intentioned observation, continue to be the only "engineering" discipline that routinely fails to implement solutions to time and on budget. I must say its interesting, on Slashdot programmers are geniuses and artistes. In real life they are people who make make a hell of a lot of excuses. Funny huh. I'll let you get back to your Joel-sponsored circle-jerk.
Well then, perhaps you've identified the fundamental problem for me then. Its amateur hour all round. Have a cigar! Actually, its not for governments to regulate (not sure where that idea comes from), its for professions to regulate themselves. I'm not sure what it would be in the US but in the UK it would be incorporating to gain a Royal Charter or similar. Or just following the medieval model and forming a trade association or guild; if plumbers and joiners can do it, why won't software engineers?
Lots of tasks are complicated and complex. Electrical engineering (for example) could hardly be said to be straightforward. Indeed, thats why its called "Engineering"; it as about process as much as doing things with electricity. There is a reason why architects and structural/civil engineers don't put up buildings that fall back down again immediately after. Not every architect/struct./civ. engineer is made incredibly experienced either, but somehow they don't construct tottering powers of shit and then shrug. I think CE has to ask itself why it isn't delivering consistent levels of quality. Its a fundamental question and shouldn't be ducked through handwaving.
I'm not buying. Well, if it is true then it really it speaks to the failure of software engineering as a whole. I hire any other sort of engineer, I expect a certain level of competence and a job done to agreed standards. Not all engineers are created equal of course but the point still standards. This strikes me as revelling in a a form of failure quite frankly, there simply shouldn't be such a wide variation of outcome within the application of an engineering discipline.
This game sounds somewhat like it was inpsired by the old ZX Spectrum titles "Skooldaze" and the sequel "Bak to skool" both of which were very innovative and excellent fun. Very popular (in the UK at least) and pretty regularly in people's Top 10 and Top 5 picks of retrogames. Not surprised these ideas are being revisisted, whatever else happens in families and work, school is the universal experience after all.
that you think it is is kind of proves my point.
Nothing encourages aggression and violence in the under 18s more than joining the army. High school football has nothing on it.
I teach in an engineering department in a fairly good european university. We had a meeting recently where the senior members of the department discussed project work and instructions to students. Their concern was that a pattern was emerging along these lines...
Domestic students would or would not do what they were told by the deadline. They may or may not introduce some ideas of their own in doing this.
European students would tend to deliver but had a tendency to deliver what they wanted deliver rather than what was discussed, this would vary a bit as to whether it was a good thing (innovative, neat ideas, rejecting what on balance became bad advice) or a bad thing (willfully ignoring good advice) depending.
Japanese students tend never to say no, but would sometimes reappear at an advanced point in the project and confess they were stuck. Sometimes this would be a bit too late to do much about it. They'd normally get by though, just on the basis that up until that point they'd have had a damn good go at attacking the problem and there was often on close examination some stuff there that could be re-worked or otherwise given prominence to attract the credit it deserved.
Chinese students, basically, would never so no and always deliver exactly what was requested, even if they staggered in looking like death warmed up.
The bulk of the meeting was discussing how we could get our overseas students to loosen up a little and be more proactive. Its a fine balance obviously recognising the needs of individuals but not being discriminatory. But as one Prof quipped, we could probably kill a Chinese student by giving them an insoluable problem to work on whereas a domestic student would probably turn up and call us names (rightly). Be careful with the off-hand suggestions was the message, be clear about what the goals are and what are side issues. This should help all the above in different ways.
Does this translate into anything nationally? Not sure, but it might be relevant if it says something universal about mentality. Chinese engineers certainly have the work ethic, put it that way.
Its not like when games finally arrive here they have necessarily corrected the Websterian spelling mistakes and done anything with the grating accent. I'd pay extra to get that sorted for sure.
Worse still, I got Act of War as a present (its a turkey btw, don't buy it). It features cut scenes with an apparently "British" dude. Christ, there are 80 million of us who speak in our native accent all the time but Atari got some bad American actor to try his hand and then got a scriptwriter who apparently thinks Britons use American vernacular all the time. Its not merely grating, it makes your toes curl.
250k isn't that much. Apply with an academic to a funding council/EU Framework 6 (hint: section 4)/etc etc or something. Or get the money out of Lockheed Martin (they could do with some PR) or Microsoft etc. This isn't really the sort of thing that requires a public appeal IMHO, its a 250k tax write-off for someone who'll be glad of the opportunity.
Yes, I've read Homage to Catalonia as well. He was disillusioned with the particulars of how that worked out (esp. lack of leadership and unity) and having to flee to France. However as to what he thought...?
"One had been in a community where hope was more normal than apathy or cynicism, where the word 'comrade' stood for comradeship and not, as in most countries, for humbug. One had breathed the air of equality."
I think you are overstating the case basically. He felt that way despite his bad experiences.
What you somewhat fail to see is that its possible to have political belief about the best way in which man can live within society and also be a contemporary critic. Thus, there are plenty of people today who believe in economic liberalism and capitalism who can still find it in their hearts to dislike, say, America or the UK for how those approaches are manifest. The Left wing is essentially conflated with Communism these days but there are (and it used to be more clear) that there were a range of ways in which society could be changed that might have different results (whether you or I believe that to be the case is immaterial, we are talking about George Orwell here; the semi-autonomous trading collectives would be just one alternative scheme and indeed were what the term "communism" was initially supposed to mean).
In the case of Orwell he was of course concerned about Soviet Russia (and indeed, shopped around 70-odd sympathisers to the security forces at the time of writing it). But to re-reiterate, what frightened him wasn't that they were "left wing" (the unthinking fear of which is a uniquely American prediliction anyway) so it would be unlikely for him to share that) what frightened him was the authoritarianism.
Nice try. Orwell was not afraid of the Left. I know this because George Orwell himself wrote that he was not afraid of the Left in his essay "My country, Left or Right". Sheesh, and you bring up insufficient research?
Listen "Dad", theres no need to stare at tea leaves or chicken entrails or "research" your own interpretation, he wrote a regular column about what he thought and felt and also discusses the book he was working on (that was to be 1984) during and just after the war. Seldom has any author been more pelucid with regard to his political beliefs. Google around for "As I please", it should be available somewhere.
How many more times...?
Orwell was not afraid of the Left. You are talking about a man who fought as a volunteer in the Spanish civil war. He was always however afraid of authoritarianism resulting in totalitarianism. Liberalism and authoritarianism are orthognal dimensions to Left and Right, you can choose one from each category. 1984 is a vision of an authoritarian future, not a Left wing one per se (I fail to see where the semi-autonomous trading collectives are mentioned for example).
The physical fitness of Americans has never been worse. Visitors to America always notice this even if they are too polite to actually bring it up in conversation. Physical Education is a good thing, but like many other professions, they don't always get to do the job they are trained for and want to do. The job should be about helping people get into the right habits and learn how to exercise and take pleasure in it. Unfortunately the stresses manifest themselves in terms of pushing people towards raising the performance of the elite ahteletes in a school. Thats a problem with schools you need to deal with, not a problem with Phys Ed. itself, although I guess most Slashdotters are too embittered to be able to consider that perspective.
1. To reduce to an infantile state or condition: "It creates a crisis that infantilizes themcauses grown men to squabble like kids about trivial things" (New Yorker).
2. To treat or condescend to as if still a young child: "The Victorian physician infantilized his patient" (Judith Moore).
I think its a new slang word thats found its way in but yeah apparently its a real word. It described what I meant anyway.
Well look, I'm from England not America, the term "college" is pretty interchangable where I work put it that way. The University where I teach is an educational institution, you want socialisation goto the pub or something. Certainly some facilities are offered but not where they conflict with the mission of the institution. Its a different mentality in the States clearly, I just don't recognise the mind set. Internet access is provided for work purposes, its a disciplinary offense to use it for anything else, thats the long and short of it.
I just don't get this constant infantilisation of students in American colleges. Their students are adults, why should they be provided with music and video to stop them from stealing it (read: violate copyright etc etc, lets not start with that old chestnut)? Competent adults should surely be responsible for their own actions. How on earth has this landed on the plate of the institution anyway? If its a question of bandwidth usage that can be easily and almost immediately curbed without apology.
In my view institutions of higher education are just that, not glorified baby sitting services for adolescents. Things like introducing this service are a complete waste of the time of university employees and don't exactly help these kids grow up and take to the responsibility of being the adults they are.
where Natalee Holloway is more important than a war and being a traitor against the state by ratting on a CIA agent is less important than a video game that wasn't on sale to children anyway.
C.P. Snow wrote about the great divide between the 'two cultures'.
Representative quote nicked from wikipedia entry although he wrote quite a bit more than soundbites on the matter:
"A good many times I have been present at gatherings of people who, by the standards of the traditional culture, are thought highly educated and who have with considerable gusto been expressing their incredulity at the illiteracy of scientists. Once or twice I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The response was cold: it was also negative. Yet I was asking something which is about the scientific equivalent of: 'Have you read a work of Shakespeare's?'
I now believe that if I had asked an even simpler question -- such as, What do you mean by mass, or acceleration, which is the scientific equivalent of saying, 'Can you read?' -- not more than one in ten of the highly educated would have felt that I was speaking the same language. So the great edifice of modern physics goes up, and the majority of the cleverest people in the western world have about as much insight into it as their neolithic ancestors would have had."
I think he had a point then and its unfortunate he still has one now. The divide must be bridged on both sides. My understanding is the course was in the general spirit of bringing two sides of an issue, located on different sides, together. It seems stunning short sighted of people not to understand that.
Slashdot Mirror
for anyone still playing SWG. Masochists really deserve what they get. It was clear literally years ago what SOE's strategy was. Its still carrying bugs from Beta, presumably because they are understaffed or underresourced or something, but they keep pumping those (purchasable) expansion packs out somehow. People waited for over a year for the promised combat fix/rebalance/revamp or whatever it ended up being called. And even then, its rubbish and not much better than the original system. From friends who foolishly stayed on I have heard some interesting stories. In particular, their CSRs have notably become steadily ruder, more isolated from management (they seem to know nothing more than the players 9 times out 10) and somewhat less able as time has gone by. Not surprised really, on a personal level it must be a nightmare to play the role of a steward on the deck of a virtual Titanic. Nerves are well and truly frayed in that quarter.
SWG has long since transcended gaming; I hear they are up for a Tony award under the heading "Longest running farce".
This is honestly not meant to be flame bait, if you're having a fine old time thats cool for you. But don't complain, SOE know for an absolute fact at this point their player base are essentially mugs who will put up with any old nonsense. If that wasn't true you'd have cancelled your account years ago.
Really, the writing is not so much on the wall about that game as carved into your eyeballs at this point.
Agreed. I can't read the actual article, but I'm put strongly in mind of the so-called "attentional blink"; it would seem reasonable to relate the two phenomena. The presence of Marvin Chun (who has published on the subject before; Chun & Potter, 1995, being pretty well known) lends weight to my suspicions.
YHBT. YHL. HAND. And since when did people get modded up "insightful" for biting? My, how standards have slipped.
Your firm must be big enough to have an accountant, if so, time table a long meeting with him/her/it and thrash it out with them. You might as well, it'll only end up on their desk again anyway. Come up with a range of options that meet the requirements and the account will help you put figures on things, including your assessment of the liabilities in el cheapo solutions. Personally, I've had a good success level and good experiences with turning the "gatekeepers" into collaborators that way.
If a customer wants to buy silver wrought by an unlicensed maker outside any guild, why should anyone have the right to interfere?
Nobody. But if you want to form an organisation that expects (and audits) the quality of its members, who is to interfere with general public using than as an indication of the likely quality of the services its members offer? If they want to. They can still hire the kid from the video shop if they want. You need to get over this "OMG Government" thinking. It would have nothing to do with them.
The question is, was DaVinci any good at painting houses? And if he said he was, should we hire him to paint our house if he's going to spend all day jacking off and drawing pictures of helicopters? He can be an artist on his own time, if he's hired to paint my house he can get up the fucking ladder and have the job finished when he promised it.
Fine. Don't listen to a well-intentioned observation, continue to be the only "engineering" discipline that routinely fails to implement solutions to time and on budget. I must say its interesting, on Slashdot programmers are geniuses and artistes. In real life they are people who make make a hell of a lot of excuses. Funny huh. I'll let you get back to your Joel-sponsored circle-jerk.
Well then, perhaps you've identified the fundamental problem for me then. Its amateur hour all round. Have a cigar! Actually, its not for governments to regulate (not sure where that idea comes from), its for professions to regulate themselves. I'm not sure what it would be in the US but in the UK it would be incorporating to gain a Royal Charter or similar. Or just following the medieval model and forming a trade association or guild; if plumbers and joiners can do it, why won't software engineers?
Lots of tasks are complicated and complex. Electrical engineering (for example) could hardly be said to be straightforward. Indeed, thats why its called "Engineering"; it as about process as much as doing things with electricity. There is a reason why architects and structural/civil engineers don't put up buildings that fall back down again immediately after. Not every architect/struct./civ. engineer is made incredibly experienced either, but somehow they don't construct tottering powers of shit and then shrug. I think CE has to ask itself why it isn't delivering consistent levels of quality. Its a fundamental question and shouldn't be ducked through handwaving.
I'm not buying. Well, if it is true then it really it speaks to the failure of software engineering as a whole. I hire any other sort of engineer, I expect a certain level of competence and a job done to agreed standards. Not all engineers are created equal of course but the point still standards. This strikes me as revelling in a a form of failure quite frankly, there simply shouldn't be such a wide variation of outcome within the application of an engineering discipline.
This game sounds somewhat like it was inpsired by the old ZX Spectrum titles "Skooldaze" and the sequel "Bak to skool" both of which were very innovative and excellent fun. Very popular (in the UK at least) and pretty regularly in people's Top 10 and Top 5 picks of retrogames. Not surprised these ideas are being revisisted, whatever else happens in families and work, school is the universal experience after all.
that you think it is is kind of proves my point. Nothing encourages aggression and violence in the under 18s more than joining the army. High school football has nothing on it.
LOL. Take about taking your eyes off the ball.
Given you can be recruited and in Iraq, dying for oil, at 17 its a complete joke. Only in America.
I teach in an engineering department in a fairly good european university.
We had a meeting recently where the senior members of the department discussed project work and instructions to students. Their concern was that a pattern was emerging along these lines...
Domestic students would or would not do what they were told by the deadline. They may or may not introduce some ideas of their own in doing this.
European students would tend to deliver but had a tendency to deliver what they wanted deliver rather than what was discussed, this would vary a bit as to whether it was a good thing (innovative, neat ideas, rejecting what on balance became bad advice) or a bad thing (willfully ignoring good advice) depending.
Japanese students tend never to say no, but would sometimes reappear at an advanced point in the project and confess they were stuck. Sometimes this would be a bit too late to do much about it. They'd normally get by though, just on the basis that up until that point they'd have had a damn good go at attacking the problem and there was often on close examination some stuff there that could be re-worked or otherwise given prominence to attract the credit it deserved.
Chinese students, basically, would never so no and always deliver exactly what was requested, even if they staggered in looking like death warmed up.
The bulk of the meeting was discussing how we could get our overseas students to loosen up a little and be more proactive. Its a fine balance obviously recognising the needs of individuals but not being discriminatory. But as one Prof quipped, we could probably kill a Chinese student by giving them an insoluable problem to work on whereas a domestic student would probably turn up and call us names (rightly). Be careful with the off-hand suggestions was the message, be clear about what the goals are and what are side issues. This should help all the above in different ways.
Does this translate into anything nationally? Not sure, but it might be relevant if it says something universal about mentality. Chinese engineers certainly have the work ethic, put it that way.
Its not like when games finally arrive here they have necessarily corrected the Websterian spelling mistakes and done anything with the grating accent. I'd pay extra to get that sorted for sure.
Worse still, I got Act of War as a present (its a turkey btw, don't buy it). It features cut scenes with an apparently "British" dude. Christ, there are 80 million of us who speak in our native accent all the time but Atari got some bad American actor to try his hand and then got a scriptwriter who apparently thinks Britons use American vernacular all the time. Its not merely grating, it makes your toes curl.
250k isn't that much. Apply with an academic to a funding council/EU Framework 6 (hint: section 4)/etc etc or something. Or get the money out of Lockheed Martin (they could do with some PR) or Microsoft etc. This isn't really the sort of thing that requires a public appeal IMHO, its a 250k tax write-off for someone who'll be glad of the opportunity.
Perhaps I'm missing something special about this?
Yes, I've read Homage to Catalonia as well. He was disillusioned with the particulars of how that worked out (esp. lack of leadership and unity) and having to flee to France. However as to what he thought...?
"One had been in a community where hope was more normal than apathy or cynicism, where the word 'comrade' stood for comradeship and not, as in most countries, for humbug. One had breathed the air of equality."
I think you are overstating the case basically. He felt that way despite his bad experiences.
What you somewhat fail to see is that its possible to have political belief about the best way in which man can live within society and also be a contemporary critic. Thus, there are plenty of people today who believe in economic liberalism and capitalism who can still find it in their hearts to dislike, say, America or the UK for how those approaches are manifest. The Left wing is essentially conflated with Communism these days but there are (and it used to be more clear) that there were a range of ways in which society could be changed that might have different results (whether you or I believe that to be the case is immaterial, we are talking about George Orwell here; the semi-autonomous trading collectives would be just one alternative scheme and indeed were what the term "communism" was initially supposed to mean).
In the case of Orwell he was of course concerned about Soviet Russia (and indeed, shopped around 70-odd sympathisers to the security forces at the time of writing it). But to re-reiterate, what frightened him wasn't that they were "left wing" (the unthinking fear of which is a uniquely American prediliction anyway) so it would be unlikely for him to share that) what frightened him was the authoritarianism.
Nice try. Orwell was not afraid of the Left. I know this because George Orwell himself wrote that he was not afraid of the Left in his essay "My country, Left or Right". Sheesh, and you bring up insufficient research?
Listen "Dad", theres no need to stare at tea leaves or chicken entrails or "research" your own interpretation, he wrote a regular column about what he thought and felt and also discusses the book he was working on (that was to be 1984) during and just after the war. Seldom has any author been more pelucid with regard to his political beliefs. Google around for "As I please", it should be available somewhere.
How many more times...? Orwell was not afraid of the Left. You are talking about a man who fought as a volunteer in the Spanish civil war. He was always however afraid of authoritarianism resulting in totalitarianism. Liberalism and authoritarianism are orthognal dimensions to Left and Right, you can choose one from each category. 1984 is a vision of an authoritarian future, not a Left wing one per se (I fail to see where the semi-autonomous trading collectives are mentioned for example).
The physical fitness of Americans has never been worse. Visitors to America always notice this even if they are too polite to actually bring it up in conversation. Physical Education is a good thing, but like many other professions, they don't always get to do the job they are trained for and want to do. The job should be about helping people get into the right habits and learn how to exercise and take pleasure in it. Unfortunately the stresses manifest themselves in terms of pushing people towards raising the performance of the elite ahteletes in a school. Thats a problem with schools you need to deal with, not a problem with Phys Ed. itself, although I guess most Slashdotters are too embittered to be able to consider that perspective.
infantilize infantilization" (nfn-tl-z, n-fn-)
tr.v. infantilized, infantilizing, infantilizes
1. To reduce to an infantile state or condition: "It creates a crisis that infantilizes themcauses grown men to squabble like kids about trivial things" (New Yorker).
2. To treat or condescend to as if still a young child: "The Victorian physician infantilized his patient" (Judith Moore).
I think its a new slang word thats found its way in but yeah apparently its a real word. It described what I meant anyway.
Well look, I'm from England not America, the term "college" is pretty interchangable where I work put it that way. The University where I teach is an educational institution, you want socialisation goto the pub or something. Certainly some facilities are offered but not where they conflict with the mission of the institution. Its a different mentality in the States clearly, I just don't recognise the mind set. Internet access is provided for work purposes, its a disciplinary offense to use it for anything else, thats the long and short of it.
I just don't get this constant infantilisation of students in American colleges. Their students are adults, why should they be provided with music and video to stop them from stealing it (read: violate copyright etc etc, lets not start with that old chestnut)? Competent adults should surely be responsible for their own actions. How on earth has this landed on the plate of the institution anyway? If its a question of bandwidth usage that can be easily and almost immediately curbed without apology.
In my view institutions of higher education are just that, not glorified baby sitting services for adolescents. Things like introducing this service are a complete waste of the time of university employees and don't exactly help these kids grow up and take to the responsibility of being the adults they are.
where Natalee Holloway is more important than a war and being a traitor against the state by ratting on a CIA agent is less important than a video game that wasn't on sale to children anyway.
The founding fathers would be deeply ashamed.
C.P. Snow wrote about the great divide between the 'two cultures'.
Representative quote nicked from wikipedia entry although he wrote quite a bit more than soundbites on the matter:
"A good many times I have been present at gatherings of people who, by the standards of the traditional culture, are thought highly educated and who have with considerable gusto been expressing their incredulity at the illiteracy of scientists. Once or twice I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The response was cold: it was also negative. Yet I was asking something which is about the scientific equivalent of: 'Have you read a work of Shakespeare's?'
I now believe that if I had asked an even simpler question -- such as, What do you mean by mass, or acceleration, which is the scientific equivalent of saying, 'Can you read?' -- not more than one in ten of the highly educated would have felt that I was speaking the same language. So the great edifice of modern physics goes up, and the majority of the cleverest people in the western world have about as much insight into it as their neolithic ancestors would have had."
I think he had a point then and its unfortunate he still has one now. The divide must be bridged on both sides. My understanding is the course was in the general spirit of bringing two sides of an issue, located on different sides, together. It seems stunning short sighted of people not to understand that.