Any new commercial service/application/video game is in beta version since some years...
Companies just have to market the "new features" to sell their products and then will use the cash to fix some of the most obvious bugs, or use the crowd to test their products instead of paying beta testers.
Best part:
Google has attempted to play down the relationship with Orkut, although each page is branded "in affiliation with Google." The Privacy Policy notes "We may share information that you submit and any non-personally identifiable information we collect with Google, Inc. and agents of orkut in accordance to the terms and conditions of this Privacy Policy," according an FAQ on the site. Fix that recursion!
It's all about what do you need...
Some people want to enjoy the best experience when they play. For myself, I will never downgrade the speakers or the sound card to get the latest graphic card, because most of the time when I am stuck at home I don't play but listen to music or watch DVDs
I agree that it is not really for the kids. But I think that this decision was done because such a move can be only popular in the circle of school employees and the government education department employees.
I do not know how the US system works, that was why I gave a random number of years.
Um I would like to take the test not for a company but just for myself as a particular. =)
I think it would be a great addition to the range of your services to offer some cheap web printed report for particulars at low price like on Emode as you already have all the tools for it.
I runned a cybercafe myself for 2 years and quitted because it took too much of my time. It was in Europe so maybe the data will not be accurate in the US. It may go beyond the scope of your question but many issues in the success of such a place comes from marketing and such.
I suggest that you advertise some around the schools/universities (schools will give you more casual customers because they will not have probably already a computer)
I will divide the games market in 3 categories:
Action games: they work really good, it will attract many customers mostly during the day and week-ends, this category is the only one which will attract young children
Examples: Counter-Strike (the HL mod), UT2K3, Quake 3, and many others.
Strategy games: they will attract less people but these customers will probably return if they were satisfied, and the games requirements are quite low.
Examples: SC/BW, Warcraft 3, Cossacks, Rise of Nations, Age of Mythology,...
MMORPG: although you may not think to these games, if you can attract some people relatively well known in the games, it can attract more customers, they will probably fill the holes in the hours where you do not have many clients, because they usually play late. Most of these customes will come with their own game and cdkey.
Examples: Asheron's Call 2, Planetside, StarWars Galaxies, FF Online, Everquest and many others.
How to improve efficiency
You can get top comps, in order to get the customers who always want top-notch comps with fastest hardware, but it will cost you really much more. I think the best solution is to find a rent contract where it is specified that equipment can be replaced each year. I dunno if you can get this kind of rent service in the US but here it saved our business. Hardware changes very fast.
Creating a community is really important. Customers will probably return if they find nice people to hang with in your cybercafe. So you may want to hire someone who has some charisma in your cybercafe. You may organize some events, weekly contests (best fraggers in the cybercafe get X free hours or anything else)
For the payment system, we used shiva, and it had many backdoors, security issues. So you should watch out for people who will try to get some free hours.
Keyboards, headphones, and mice will not last long, so buy cheap keyboards, headphones and mice. Get a decent quality but not the very expensive ones. After 1 month, you will see that many disappear, and have been stolen.
You may want to install a shared printer ro a printing service on the comp which will host permanent servers. Forums too may be a good addition, although it may be better to host them outside of your network so it will not decrease pings for customers playing on the net.
Theory: All the professors will use these date sentively and help the students to achieve a higher level
Practice: Most of the teachers won't change anything in their habit. They will not judge students from the data, they will lose some of the contact with the students because the 'database' can do everything.
They will begin to have an opinion on students from the data.
When you will have to enter an university, the advisors can access now all of your 15 past years. He will ask you why this day, you did not get a good grade, or why you did not attended to this course this very particular day.
Cops will access the data to see if they need to know the probability of each suspect to be the perfect match.
Then journalists could publish some data about popular people (bad or good) if they have a contact.
None of this will happen, because everybody respect the other's privacy. Oh wait... they do not ?
"With a new computer database available at every campus this fall, teachers can keep a virtual eye on every student...
.. educators can look up a student's attendance, discipline, immigration status, grades, and test scores at one source and use that information to predict dropouts....
.. "All students will know someone is watching them, tracking them, and is interested in their success," school board member Laurie Bricker said at a press conference today.' Hooray for surveillance in the HISD."
Ok now I feel safer, I thought it was something against privacy but it seems like something... um really... um interesting... for our children.
I have a name for it: "Trusted Education®".
Professor: Hello my dears, starting from today, we got a new tool called `Trusted Education®'.
Students: What is it ?
Professor: We will track you down until you will all get the required level to enter Standford. That is why we call it trusted.
Students: But this is not right ! We have rights !
Professor: But this is for you, you will probably thank me later, if you do not suicide before getting a job in a big company. *Maybe I was too direct*.
Students: So why is this called `Trusted Education®'? I don't see why I should trust it at all!
Professor: It's almost an in-joke. In the US Department of Defense, a `trusted system or component' is defined as `one which can break the security policy'. This might seem counter-intuitive at first, but just stop to think about it. The mail guard or firewall that stands between a Secret and a Top Secret system can - if it fails - break the security policy that mail should only ever flow from Secret to Top Secret, but never in the other direction. It is therefore trusted to enforce the information flow policy.
(this part is from Trusted Computing Frequently Asked Questions)
Student: So a `Trusted Education®' is one that can break into my personal details?
I think he was speaking about people who has the same ISP and live really near, so the traffic do not goes outside from the ISP and stays in the local loop.
When I lived in NYC, I was playing CS on servers which were not in LAN and I got pings of about 40ms for the nearest server. And for the '160ms', I would never play with more than 90ms, apart for games where ping does not alter the gameplay
Slashdot Mirror
Any new commercial service/application/video game is in beta version since some years ...
Companies just have to market the "new features" to sell their products and then will use the cash to fix some of the most obvious bugs, or use the crowd to test their products instead of paying beta testers.
Then join the invite only channels ...
Oh wait !!! Nobody is gonna invite us !
Article from "The Register"
Best part:
Google has attempted to play down the relationship with Orkut, although each page is branded "in affiliation with Google." The Privacy Policy notes "We may share information that you submit and any non-personally identifiable information we collect with Google, Inc. and agents of orkut in accordance to the terms and conditions of this Privacy Policy," according an FAQ on the site. Fix that recursion!
Honestly, BOB's desktop is the funniest thing I have seen this month.
Obviously, you are not from the UK
Bill Gates is a hero out there
Maybe that is where the hidden weapons in Iraq are ...
... or on Tony Blair's desktop
... it is called Kazaa =)
It's all about what do you need ...
Some people want to enjoy the best experience when they play. For myself, I will never downgrade the speakers or the sound card to get the latest graphic card, because most of the time when I am stuck at home I don't play but listen to music or watch DVDs
Soldier 1: SHOOT! SHOOT! Damn piece of crap!
Robot: *bzzz* *System Slashdotted, rebooting in 35 seconds*
1. Bushwar/guerilla warfare,
2. The Empire Strikes Back:
3. Police operations: ...likely, this is the most delicate form of aggression.
Was it some kind of sarcasm :?
Was the error in the link to drupal.org made on purpose ?
Maybe they didn't want to slashdot this website before that some of us could discover this CMS :?
I guess that this will change how the weather derivatives options are priced.
I already used this system for more than 1 year
So it means that I'll need to buy a new comp to run Longhorn at a decent speed ?
Multikill ...
*Carmack dancing*
I agree that it is not really for the kids. But I think that this decision was done because such a move can be only popular in the circle of school employees and the government education department employees.
I do not know how the US system works, that was why I gave a random number of years.
I think it would be a great addition to the range of your services to offer some cheap web printed report for particulars at low price like on Emode as you already have all the tools for it.
I runned a cybercafe myself for 2 years and quitted because it took too much of my time. It was in Europe so maybe the data will not be accurate in the US. It may go beyond the scope of your question but many issues in the success of such a place comes from marketing and such.
I suggest that you advertise some around the schools/universities (schools will give you more casual customers because they will not have probably already a computer)
I will divide the games market in 3 categories:
Action games: they work really good, it will attract many customers mostly during the day and week-ends, this category is the only one which will attract young children
Examples: Counter-Strike (the HL mod), UT2K3, Quake 3, and many others.
Strategy games: they will attract less people but these customers will probably return if they were satisfied, and the games requirements are quite low. ...
Examples: SC/BW, Warcraft 3, Cossacks, Rise of Nations, Age of Mythology,
MMORPG: although you may not think to these games, if you can attract some people relatively well known in the games, it can attract more customers, they will probably fill the holes in the hours where you do not have many clients, because they usually play late. Most of these customes will come with their own game and cdkey.
Examples: Asheron's Call 2, Planetside, StarWars Galaxies, FF Online, Everquest and many others.
How to improve efficiency
You can get top comps, in order to get the customers who always want top-notch comps with fastest hardware, but it will cost you really much more. I think the best solution is to find a rent contract where it is specified that equipment can be replaced each year. I dunno if you can get this kind of rent service in the US but here it saved our business. Hardware changes very fast.
Creating a community is really important. Customers will probably return if they find nice people to hang with in your cybercafe. So you may want to hire someone who has some charisma in your cybercafe. You may organize some events, weekly contests (best fraggers in the cybercafe get X free hours or anything else)
For the payment system, we used shiva, and it had many backdoors, security issues. So you should watch out for people who will try to get some free hours.
Keyboards, headphones, and mice will not last long, so buy cheap keyboards, headphones and mice. Get a decent quality but not the very expensive ones. After 1 month, you will see that many disappear, and have been stolen.
You may want to install a shared printer ro a printing service on the comp which will host permanent servers. Forums too may be a good addition, although it may be better to host them outside of your network so it will not decrease pings for customers playing on the net.
a Subscriber Registration Fee,
an Annual Subscription Renewal Fee, and
usage charges.
:D, I am just searching a service for particulars =)
Theory: All the professors will use these date sentively and help the students to achieve a higher level
Practice: Most of the teachers won't change anything in their habit. They will not judge students from the data, they will lose some of the contact with the students because the 'database' can do everything.
They will begin to have an opinion on students from the data.
When you will have to enter an university, the advisors can access now all of your 15 past years. He will ask you why this day, you did not get a good grade, or why you did not attended to this course this very particular day.
Cops will access the data to see if they need to know the probability of each suspect to be the perfect match.
Then journalists could publish some data about popular people (bad or good) if they have a contact.
None of this will happen, because everybody respect the other's privacy. Oh wait ... they do not ?
You do not take in account values and morals which are issued partially from culture, that is why you came to this conclusion.
Do not get me wrong, but I think that moral ethics come essentially from the culture you are issued from.
The features presented on your website seem impressive, but I feel somewhat scared when I see such tools.
Is there any website for particulars to judge their personal abilities ?
Ok now I feel safer, I thought it was something against privacy but it seems like something ... um really ... um interesting ... for our children.
I have a name for it: "Trusted Education®".
Professor: Hello my dears, starting from today, we got a new tool called `Trusted Education®'.
Students: What is it ?
Professor: We will track you down until you will all get the required level to enter Standford. That is why we call it trusted.
Students: But this is not right ! We have rights !
Professor: But this is for you, you will probably thank me later, if you do not suicide before getting a job in a big company. *Maybe I was too direct*.
Students: So why is this called `Trusted Education®'? I don't see why I should trust it at all!
Professor: It's almost an in-joke. In the US Department of Defense, a `trusted system or component' is defined as `one which can break the security policy'. This might seem counter-intuitive at first, but just stop to think about it. The mail guard or firewall that stands between a Secret and a Top Secret system can - if it fails - break the security policy that mail should only ever flow from Secret to Top Secret, but never in the other direction. It is therefore trusted to enforce the information flow policy.
(this part is from Trusted Computing Frequently Asked Questions)
Student: So a `Trusted Education®' is one that can break into my personal details?
Professor: Now you've got it.
We took the path of nuclear plant robots =)
I think he was speaking about people who has the same ISP and live really near, so the traffic do not goes outside from the ISP and stays in the local loop.
When I lived in NYC, I was playing CS on servers which were not in LAN and I got pings of about 40ms for the nearest server. And for the '160ms', I would never play with more than 90ms, apart for games where ping does not alter the gameplay