The problem with early WoW patch distro was that the client/tracker system was still partially broken, and unable to handle the types of numbers that were connecting. They rushed out a couple of emergency fixes for it, and since then have made vast improvements to the software. Speaking for myself, I've only had issues with one patch since launch, and that was one of the first patches that they released.
Nope, there actually is no issue with Blizzards updater. Everyone likes to bash it because it was developed in house, and during the beta test phase there actually was an issue, which was fixed well before launch. For whatever reason though, people still like to harp on it and bash blizzard, however I suspect that's mainly because they're paying for an MMO, in which patches have been historically distributed directly. However, WoW is currently the fastest growing MMO, having hit 2 million suscribers, and with no sign of slowing down. That kind of userbase makes a traditional patching system difficult at best, and impossible at worst. I think they've done an outstanding job, especially now that patch sizes have dropped considerably.
Ah, yet another person who doesn't understand the issue with Blizzard's BT updater. Well, either that or a troll. Anyway, on with it.
The problem with the Blizzard updater is the same thing with BT itself. When your seeder:leecher ratio is less than ideal, your download rates will suffer. This places a heavier expectation of the client/tracker to force peers into uploading more, which saturates the clients pipe. Blizzard has done some stuff to alleviate this, such as always having seeds, and one of the more recent version allows you to patch/play the game while leaving the updater running in the background. Personally, I think it would be better if the patcher was an integral part of the game itself, and would exit to patch, but upon reloading the game a portion of the upstream is dedicated to distributing the patch. They're about there now, but it's still not enforced.
If the wireless network in question was secure, I could agree with what you're saying. However, it was not, and as such it took no real work on part of the person using the access point. Putting in a splitter to steal cable, or electric or water takes actual effort, whereas in this case, anyone with a PC and a WiFi card could utilize the open access point.
Ultimately, the fact that it was an open wireless connection is anything but moot, and is the heart of the issue at hand. While actually cracking WiFi is something that should be dealt with as a computer crime, accusing someone of 'hacking' an open WiFi connection who may or may not have any idea of what they are doing is ridiculous. To me, this is just another case of people pushing off personal responsibility onto others, and has gotten absolutely ridiculous. The fact that the mass media paints issues in such a light as to make victims of fools is also quite absurd.
Something else I noticed all throughout the article was the complete, total ignorance that both the author and the individual whose network was utilized demonstrated. The author painted the image of morons who are too stupid to take basic measures to secure their network as being innocent victims of brutal, vicious attacks by horrible, horrible hackers that wish to use the network in total anonymity. They convieniently left out the fact that all routers I've ever seen keep access logs of MAC address that receive IPs.
Ultimately, I see this as yet another piece of crap journalism, with nothing but far ranging accusations with little to no facts to back up any of the statements made.
While being a horde player, I have little/no experience with a pally, saying that priests & druids have a hard time soloing is crazy. Shadow spec priests are just as capable of grinding mobs as a mage, and possibly more so if you consider heals. Droods are just as good for it, and I've seen some of them go 1-60 in amounts of time that will rival a rogue.
Droods aren't really a fill out class unless you play Alliance, in which case you tend to get shunted aside in favor of the Paladin. Horde side their HoTs are better to have around than a Shaman, not to mention the wonderful GoTW2 buff.
As for 5mans.. those tend to be almost universally Warrior, Mage, Priest, Rogue, Warlock. Warrior is usually arms/fury spec with a dash of prot, mage ice/arcane, priest holy/disc, rogue with imp. sap and whatever else and the lock will go with whatever.. they're really only there to soulstone the priest anyway. A shaman can fill the role of the warlock horde side, provided they have imp reincarnation.
In my experiences @ 60, there's really not much that you'll 5 man anyway unless it's DM, which as you know is 5 man only. Scholo and Strath are both raided, seeing as there's no real point in 5 manning them, despite there being some outstanding gear to be had from the quests there.
Have you even played WoW? You can solo from 1-60, with any class you want. Mage, priest, warrior, rogue, doesn't matter. Saying that you can only go for 20 levels is nothing but BS, pure and simple.
Actually, they don't charge by the hour. Internet cafes over there charge for terminal usage by the hour, however the monthly fee is still there on top of that.
As for pay-by-hour being reasonable, it doesn't take much to get up to $15 for most folks, and lets be honest; $15 a month for a game you spend 20 hours playing isn't that bad. After all, how much did you pay at the movie theater last time you went?
If it gets to be that bad, then you deal with that situation. However, we're not dicussing lugging around the contents of her room; we're talking about a 5-7 pound laptop computer that could quite easily be stowed in a backpack and carried around with ease.
Saying that I'm implying you need to 'live like a sherpa' is absolute crap; I'm not saying that at all. The same goes for locking oneself in their room.
Getting back to the subject at hand, having dealt with moronic, irresponsible college roomates, there are times when you simply need to buck up and keep a few of your more expensive electronic items, such as laptop, iPod or other such device, digital camera, etc on you while you deal with the irresponsible roomate by going to your RA or someone of that nature to get the problem dealt with. That's also a part of being responsible, by the way, since it seems to have not occured to you.
Ultimately, the point the AC was making, which I agree wholeheartedly on, is that having an upstanding responsible person to look after you is a luxury, and in a college environment, seems to be a great rarity. It's not something you count on, and certainly not a viable backup plan to being truly responsible and making a personal effort to secure your own valuables.
Multiple layers of security is all well and good, but calling him a troll and an idiot for pointing out a major problem with your statement is downright moronic. If you have an idiotic, slacker roomate, then you need to be able/willing to go the extra mile to make sure that you're covered in the event the idiot, slacker roomate leaves the room unlocked, or door open, or what have you. As the AC pointed out, and rightfully so, part of being a functioning, responsible adult is taking less than optimal conditions into account.
Ah, but that was fixed very recently. Now, you can leave WOWPatcher running in the background while you install the patch, and play the game. I've done it a couple times, and it doesn't affect gameplay in any noticeable way.
While I think you're right with otaku stigma, I didn't see a great deal of bad reviews. As for your other two, the only people I've heard that from think that FF7 is the greatest FF game of all time, and prattle on about how FF:TSW didn't have any of the same kind of stuff that it did, like magic, etc. To me, FF:TSW was very much with FF, as magic really isn't a necessity for the series. If you think that the story was mediocre, go back and look at the story for FF7, or FF8; I'm sure you'll find that if you strip away all the gameplay, then it'll be just as bad.
He wasn't fired. He (claims he) was pressurised into resigning. I ain't making any judgement or saying anything else until I've heard an account of events from someone less close to the controversy.
I dunno, but I'd guess anyone who can't spell pressured doesn't have much experience working in a university either, and seeing as you claim to be a PostDoc teaching fellow later on in this thread, I'm gonna throw the BS flag at you too.
Ultimately, the college had no grounds to fire him; instead they promised to make his life a living hell if he didn't. It's not the first time in the history of the world it's happened, and I highly doubt that it will be the last. I've seen this sort of thing happen to professors of mine; I know others who have talked about the same thing happening. It's not as unrealistic as you make it out to be.
Oh, by the way, before you go taking people apart for simple misspellings, I'd suggest making sure that you yourself are as perfect as you expect from others. Otherwise, realize that, as others have mentioned, this is an international forum, not everyone here speaks english as a primary language. Don't forget that there isn't a spellcheck in the slashcode, and that sometimes you make a spelling error and don't pick it up, even if you proofread all your posts before submitting them.
When I saw this, it reminded me of a very old joke I saw once.. and compelled me to post it here.
Top 12 Things A Klingon Programmer Would Say
12. Specifications are for the weak and timid!
11. This machine is a piece of GAGH! I need dual processors if I am to do battle with this code!
10. You cannot really appreciate Dilbert unless you've read it in the original Klingon.
9. Indentation?! -- I will show you how to indent when I indent your skull!
8. What is this talk of 'release'? Klingons do not make software 'releases'. Our software 'escapes' leaving a bloody trail of designers and quality assurance people in its wake.
7. Klingon function calls do not have 'parameters' -- they have 'arguments' -- and they ALWAYS WIN THEM.
6. Debugging? Klingons do not debug. Our software does not coddle the weak.
5. I have challenged the entire quality assurance team to a Bat-Leth contest. They will not concern us again.
4. A TRUE Klingon Warrior does not comment his code!
3. By filing this SCR you have challenged the honor of my family. Prepare to die!
2. You question the worthiness of my code? I should kill you where you stand!
1. Our users will know fear and cower before our software. Ship it! Ship it, and let them flee like the dogs they are!
Seeing as how old school programmers think like klingon programmers, I believe that it can be reasonably assumed that all old programmers are klingon.
This is a case of Dvorak advocating for irresponsible journalism. What O'Gara did was utterly unacceptable; revealing that kind of personal information in that manner is blatant invasion of privacy.
As to your use of advocating Windows over Linux being trolling, but Linux over Windows being OK, I think that it can be taken both ways. If you advocate windows over linux using a bunch of FUD in the manner that MS does, then yes, I'd say that's blatant trolling.
Ultimately, I think it comes down to something a lot simpler and with a much narrower scope than what you're looking at. While both Dvorak and O'gara are certainly allowed their opinions of anything and anyone, being a journalist and a member of that community puts a higher standard on them; to be fair and impartial and willing to look at things from every angle, which is something that neither of them seems to have grasped or barring that, they seem to ignore.
I see where you're coming from, but I still disagree. The way I recall the comic, they were mocking American Greetings, much in the way that the PoliSci student was mocking Wal-Mart, yet using the style of American McGee. So, going by your own analysis of this matter, if anyone has reason to gripe, it's American McGee, and he didn't say a word.
Now, when you look at it like that, they're still not operating within Sec 107, but with regards to American McGee, not American Greetings, who like the 'I Love New York' campaign, was left without a leg to stand on.
The song "I Love Sodom," as well as the sketch of which it was a part, was clearly an attempt by the writers and cast of SNL to satirize the way in which New York City has attempted to improve its somewhat tarnished image through the use of a slick advertising campaign. As such, the defendant's copying of the song "I Love New York" seems to come within the definition of parody. The plaintiff, however, relying upon MCA, Inc. v. Wilson, 425 F.Supp. 443 (S.D.N.Y.1976), and Walt Disney Productions v. Mature Pictures Corp., 389 F.Supp. 1397 (S.D.N.Y.1975), contends that, while the sketch may have parodied New York City and its problems, it had nothing to do with, and did not parody, either New York State and its "I Love New York" advertising campaign or the song "I Love New York" itself. As a result, the plaintiff asserts that the copying of its song constituted an infringement upon it and not a fair use.
Satire, while not parody in and of itself, is a legitimate form of parody, albeit on a much narrower scope than that which you describe. However, that narrow scope dose not exclude satire from being parody.
Go back through their archives, they pulled that due to legal pressure and their inability to protect themselves at that point in time. It was protected by section 107, however if you don't have the resources to pursue a defense, then your best other option is to simply capitulate, which is the case here.
IMO, they were parodying an American Greetings character in the style of American McGee, and see nothing wrong with that. American Greetings simply didn't like the idea of their character appearing in such a manner.
Ultimately, it's the exact same thing that is happening here; an entity is being parodied in a way that the copyright owner does not want to see them portrayed, and is using their legal mass to put it down.
I stopped supporting American Greetings after that incident, and I'll stop supporting Wal-Mart after this one.
My 2 cents.
Well, I personally never really look at the sub menus, so stuff that's tucked out of the way like that really don't concern me. The post I was replying to indicated that it was up there for all to see, as though you were just racking up points. Having to go into a submenu of a pause menu kinda makes it less important.
Not to defend the GTA games, because they ARE disgusting. Let's face it...the gameplay rewards sadistic behavior. The more cops you run over, the more points you get. The game may have given this guy ideas, but realistically, he was probably open to criminal behavior anyway. If he's an adult, it's his responsibility.
I've played GTA. I've played all of them, actually. You really don't have a specific 'score' that I've seen. You accumlate money from doing missions. While I won't argue that some of the acts are morally wrong, it's just a game. As for killing cops, the only thing that gets you is 'stars'. The more 'stars' you get, the heavier the equipement they call in gets. Eventually, you'll have entire ANG brigades chasing you down with M60 machine guns and APCs. Not a whole lot of fun, that. Saying that the game doesn't punish you for killing cops is ludicrous and completely misinformed. IIRC, all the missions where you actually have to kill cops, they're usually quite crooked and deserving of death, IMO.
I think you have a misguided notion of what personal responsibility truly is. Personal responsibility is being accountable for your own actions; not trying to put them off on someone else, as is the case in the situations you cited. Those are a wonderful example of personal irresponsibility and lack of integrity. IMO, the grandparent poster makes an excellent point about gun owners; for the most part, I believe that they are quite accountable for themselves.
The only thing I found to be simple about the firewall is disabling it. I was unable to manually configure it to allow any program to run through it; it was pretty much an all or none proposition.
As to the popup blocker, I had issues with it blocking everything that tried to open a new browser window, and had several issues with it forgetting what I'd said to always allow to popup windows.
I suppose it's entirely possible that they've since corrected those issues, I refused to install it at home after being forced into the beta for work.
Slashdot Mirror
The problem with early WoW patch distro was that the client/tracker system was still partially broken, and unable to handle the types of numbers that were connecting. They rushed out a couple of emergency fixes for it, and since then have made vast improvements to the software. Speaking for myself, I've only had issues with one patch since launch, and that was one of the first patches that they released.
Nope, there actually is no issue with Blizzards updater. Everyone likes to bash it because it was developed in house, and during the beta test phase there actually was an issue, which was fixed well before launch. For whatever reason though, people still like to harp on it and bash blizzard, however I suspect that's mainly because they're paying for an MMO, in which patches have been historically distributed directly. However, WoW is currently the fastest growing MMO, having hit 2 million suscribers, and with no sign of slowing down. That kind of userbase makes a traditional patching system difficult at best, and impossible at worst. I think they've done an outstanding job, especially now that patch sizes have dropped considerably.
The problem with the Blizzard updater is the same thing with BT itself. When your seeder:leecher ratio is less than ideal, your download rates will suffer. This places a heavier expectation of the client/tracker to force peers into uploading more, which saturates the clients pipe. Blizzard has done some stuff to alleviate this, such as always having seeds, and one of the more recent version allows you to patch/play the game while leaving the updater running in the background. Personally, I think it would be better if the patcher was an integral part of the game itself, and would exit to patch, but upon reloading the game a portion of the upstream is dedicated to distributing the patch. They're about there now, but it's still not enforced.
Ultimately, the fact that it was an open wireless connection is anything but moot, and is the heart of the issue at hand. While actually cracking WiFi is something that should be dealt with as a computer crime, accusing someone of 'hacking' an open WiFi connection who may or may not have any idea of what they are doing is ridiculous. To me, this is just another case of people pushing off personal responsibility onto others, and has gotten absolutely ridiculous. The fact that the mass media paints issues in such a light as to make victims of fools is also quite absurd.
Something else I noticed all throughout the article was the complete, total ignorance that both the author and the individual whose network was utilized demonstrated. The author painted the image of morons who are too stupid to take basic measures to secure their network as being innocent victims of brutal, vicious attacks by horrible, horrible hackers that wish to use the network in total anonymity. They convieniently left out the fact that all routers I've ever seen keep access logs of MAC address that receive IPs.
Ultimately, I see this as yet another piece of crap journalism, with nothing but far ranging accusations with little to no facts to back up any of the statements made.
I've ran LBRS with that setup quite successfully, although I prefer to have a rogue in place of one of the mages for instant DPS without needing mana.
While being a horde player, I have little/no experience with a pally, saying that priests & druids have a hard time soloing is crazy. Shadow spec priests are just as capable of grinding mobs as a mage, and possibly more so if you consider heals. Droods are just as good for it, and I've seen some of them go 1-60 in amounts of time that will rival a rogue.
As for 5mans.. those tend to be almost universally Warrior, Mage, Priest, Rogue, Warlock. Warrior is usually arms/fury spec with a dash of prot, mage ice/arcane, priest holy/disc, rogue with imp. sap and whatever else and the lock will go with whatever.. they're really only there to soulstone the priest anyway. A shaman can fill the role of the warlock horde side, provided they have imp reincarnation.
In my experiences @ 60, there's really not much that you'll 5 man anyway unless it's DM, which as you know is 5 man only. Scholo and Strath are both raided, seeing as there's no real point in 5 manning them, despite there being some outstanding gear to be had from the quests there.
I find it highly accurate. I'm a programmer, and yes, I drive a porsche.
Have you even played WoW? You can solo from 1-60, with any class you want. Mage, priest, warrior, rogue, doesn't matter. Saying that you can only go for 20 levels is nothing but BS, pure and simple.
As for pay-by-hour being reasonable, it doesn't take much to get up to $15 for most folks, and lets be honest; $15 a month for a game you spend 20 hours playing isn't that bad. After all, how much did you pay at the movie theater last time you went?
Saying that I'm implying you need to 'live like a sherpa' is absolute crap; I'm not saying that at all. The same goes for locking oneself in their room.
Getting back to the subject at hand, having dealt with moronic, irresponsible college roomates, there are times when you simply need to buck up and keep a few of your more expensive electronic items, such as laptop, iPod or other such device, digital camera, etc on you while you deal with the irresponsible roomate by going to your RA or someone of that nature to get the problem dealt with. That's also a part of being responsible, by the way, since it seems to have not occured to you.
Ultimately, the point the AC was making, which I agree wholeheartedly on, is that having an upstanding responsible person to look after you is a luxury, and in a college environment, seems to be a great rarity. It's not something you count on, and certainly not a viable backup plan to being truly responsible and making a personal effort to secure your own valuables.
Multiple layers of security is all well and good, but calling him a troll and an idiot for pointing out a major problem with your statement is downright moronic. If you have an idiotic, slacker roomate, then you need to be able/willing to go the extra mile to make sure that you're covered in the event the idiot, slacker roomate leaves the room unlocked, or door open, or what have you. As the AC pointed out, and rightfully so, part of being a functioning, responsible adult is taking less than optimal conditions into account.
Ah, but that was fixed very recently. Now, you can leave WOWPatcher running in the background while you install the patch, and play the game. I've done it a couple times, and it doesn't affect gameplay in any noticeable way.
While I think you're right with otaku stigma, I didn't see a great deal of bad reviews. As for your other two, the only people I've heard that from think that FF7 is the greatest FF game of all time, and prattle on about how FF:TSW didn't have any of the same kind of stuff that it did, like magic, etc. To me, FF:TSW was very much with FF, as magic really isn't a necessity for the series. If you think that the story was mediocre, go back and look at the story for FF7, or FF8; I'm sure you'll find that if you strip away all the gameplay, then it'll be just as bad.
Ultimately, the college had no grounds to fire him; instead they promised to make his life a living hell if he didn't. It's not the first time in the history of the world it's happened, and I highly doubt that it will be the last. I've seen this sort of thing happen to professors of mine; I know others who have talked about the same thing happening. It's not as unrealistic as you make it out to be.
Oh, by the way, before you go taking people apart for simple misspellings, I'd suggest making sure that you yourself are as perfect as you expect from others. Otherwise, realize that, as others have mentioned, this is an international forum, not everyone here speaks english as a primary language. Don't forget that there isn't a spellcheck in the slashcode, and that sometimes you make a spelling error and don't pick it up, even if you proofread all your posts before submitting them.
Cheers.
When I saw this, it reminded me of a very old joke I saw once.. and compelled me to post it here.
Top 12 Things A Klingon Programmer Would Say
12. Specifications are for the weak and timid!
11. This machine is a piece of GAGH! I need dual processors if I am to do battle with this code!
10. You cannot really appreciate Dilbert unless you've read it in the original Klingon.
9. Indentation?! -- I will show you how to indent when I indent your skull!
8. What is this talk of 'release'? Klingons do not make software 'releases'. Our software 'escapes' leaving a bloody trail of designers and quality assurance people in its wake.
7. Klingon function calls do not have 'parameters' -- they have 'arguments' -- and they ALWAYS WIN THEM.
6. Debugging? Klingons do not debug. Our software does not coddle the weak.
5. I have challenged the entire quality assurance team to a Bat-Leth contest. They will not concern us again.
4. A TRUE Klingon Warrior does not comment his code!
3. By filing this SCR you have challenged the honor of my family. Prepare to die!
2. You question the worthiness of my code? I should kill you where you stand!
1. Our users will know fear and cower before our software. Ship it! Ship it, and let them flee like the dogs they are!
Seeing as how old school programmers think like klingon programmers, I believe that it can be reasonably assumed that all old programmers are klingon.
As to your use of advocating Windows over Linux being trolling, but Linux over Windows being OK, I think that it can be taken both ways. If you advocate windows over linux using a bunch of FUD in the manner that MS does, then yes, I'd say that's blatant trolling.
Ultimately, I think it comes down to something a lot simpler and with a much narrower scope than what you're looking at. While both Dvorak and O'gara are certainly allowed their opinions of anything and anyone, being a journalist and a member of that community puts a higher standard on them; to be fair and impartial and willing to look at things from every angle, which is something that neither of them seems to have grasped or barring that, they seem to ignore.
Now, when you look at it like that, they're still not operating within Sec 107, but with regards to American McGee, not American Greetings, who like the 'I Love New York' campaign, was left without a leg to stand on.
excerpted from this case:
The song "I Love Sodom," as well as the sketch of which it was a part, was clearly an attempt by the writers and cast of SNL to satirize the way in which New York City has attempted to improve its somewhat tarnished image through the use of a slick advertising campaign. As such, the defendant's copying of the song "I Love New York" seems to come within the definition of parody. The plaintiff, however, relying upon MCA, Inc. v. Wilson, 425 F.Supp. 443 (S.D.N.Y.1976), and Walt Disney Productions v. Mature Pictures Corp., 389 F.Supp. 1397 (S.D.N.Y.1975), contends that, while the sketch may have parodied New York City and its problems, it had nothing to do with, and did not parody, either New York State and its "I Love New York" advertising campaign or the song "I Love New York" itself. As a result, the plaintiff asserts that the copying of its song constituted an infringement upon it and not a fair use.
Satire, while not parody in and of itself, is a legitimate form of parody, albeit on a much narrower scope than that which you describe. However, that narrow scope dose not exclude satire from being parody.
Cheers.
Yep, I'm a dork.
Go back through their archives, they pulled that due to legal pressure and their inability to protect themselves at that point in time. It was protected by section 107, however if you don't have the resources to pursue a defense, then your best other option is to simply capitulate, which is the case here. IMO, they were parodying an American Greetings character in the style of American McGee, and see nothing wrong with that. American Greetings simply didn't like the idea of their character appearing in such a manner. Ultimately, it's the exact same thing that is happening here; an entity is being parodied in a way that the copyright owner does not want to see them portrayed, and is using their legal mass to put it down. I stopped supporting American Greetings after that incident, and I'll stop supporting Wal-Mart after this one. My 2 cents.
Well, I personally never really look at the sub menus, so stuff that's tucked out of the way like that really don't concern me. The post I was replying to indicated that it was up there for all to see, as though you were just racking up points. Having to go into a submenu of a pause menu kinda makes it less important.
Not to defend the GTA games, because they ARE disgusting. Let's face it...the gameplay rewards sadistic behavior. The more cops you run over, the more points you get. The game may have given this guy ideas, but realistically, he was probably open to criminal behavior anyway. If he's an adult, it's his responsibility.
I've played GTA. I've played all of them, actually. You really don't have a specific 'score' that I've seen. You accumlate money from doing missions. While I won't argue that some of the acts are morally wrong, it's just a game. As for killing cops, the only thing that gets you is 'stars'. The more 'stars' you get, the heavier the equipement they call in gets. Eventually, you'll have entire ANG brigades chasing you down with M60 machine guns and APCs. Not a whole lot of fun, that. Saying that the game doesn't punish you for killing cops is ludicrous and completely misinformed. IIRC, all the missions where you actually have to kill cops, they're usually quite crooked and deserving of death, IMO.
I think you have a misguided notion of what personal responsibility truly is. Personal responsibility is being accountable for your own actions; not trying to put them off on someone else, as is the case in the situations you cited. Those are a wonderful example of personal irresponsibility and lack of integrity. IMO, the grandparent poster makes an excellent point about gun owners; for the most part, I believe that they are quite accountable for themselves.
As to the popup blocker, I had issues with it blocking everything that tried to open a new browser window, and had several issues with it forgetting what I'd said to always allow to popup windows.
I suppose it's entirely possible that they've since corrected those issues, I refused to install it at home after being forced into the beta for work.