Instead of everyone focusing on SuprNova, people have found new places that they otherwise never would have bothered with. There are a number of smaller quality sites out there now. Most of them seem to be hosted in Sweden, Netherlands, Brazil, Russia and elsewhere.
IANAL (Surprise, surprise, surprise!), but I'd think the judge would be rather upset if one of the parties could have taken simple, reasonable, steps, that would have a good chance of the suit being dropped before hogging the court's time. Faxing a death certificate looks like a simple, reasonable, step. (Personally, I'dve sent a notarized copy by registered mail as well).
Personally, I'd have told the RIAA to fuck off. They're a private company. Who are they to demand legal proof that someone is dead - outside of court? They're the plaintifs and it is their duty to prove that they're suing the right person for the right reasons.
Anyway, what are they going to do, start suing her family because she (being dead) doesn't respond?
Yeah, I can see how the driving physics are really accurate, what with most cars in real life being driven with a tiny toothpick size analog stick.
My brother has a PS2. I was thinking about buying GT4 and having him bring his box over, but I just don't think I could get into a game that has PS2-quality graphics, is played with a silly console controller and I definitely can't get around the "indestructable cars".
I mean, really - do you need to market your cars as "indestructable at 300mph"? That's pretty lame.
If you don't want your network to be the source of trouble, do your bit by helping out your users. You clearly can't dictate their operating system of choice, but you CAN filter out emails that are clearly malicious.
So if you don't believe that ISPs should discard mail containing *.CPL and *.PIF attachments, I guess you also don't believe they should bother filtering out any spam whatsoever, either.
Your "hey, it's microsoft's problem, not mine!" attitude is ridiculous. They may be the underlying culprit, but when your network is gettin bogged down in crap, pointing the finger hardly helps.
Are you saying that major ISPs don't require authentication to relay mail?! I have Comcast, but I've never used their servers (I run my own externally). What do they do then, just base whether or not to relay based on whether or not you're in their IP blocks?
That's ludicrous. POP-BEFORE-SMTP or SMTP AUTH are extremely simple to setup without any additional complexity on the user's end. If the ISPs are not protecting their mailservers, then I would suggest this is THEIR problem - not the end-user.
What kind of crappy ISP delivers messages containing *.SCR, *.CPL, *.COM, *.PIF, *.BAT and so forth to their customers?!
And yes, Joe User tends to ignore popups, because a lot of the "professionals" are idiots. We have a radio program in Portland on the weekends hosted by some "long time computer experts". Every time the topic of "how to prevent popups" comes up, the host insists that your web browser has NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. Popups are entirely a problem with your machine being infected and you need to install a good virus scanner to avoid them.
People have called up and said "no, I think they're talking about web popups that you get when you visit a website without a popup blocker". Rather than suggesting people use Firefox or something, he actually says "If you're getting popups, it is because you've done something wrong and aren't protecting your PC". He refuses to acknowledge (and has for many months) that if you visit a website without some form of popup blocker, you'll often encounter popups BECAUSE THE WEBSITE IS SENDING THEM.
I mean... it baffles me that people like this are being treated like expert professionals and they're misleading thousands of people in the process of pumping up their own misguided ego.
Race, class and faction are beside the point. The core of it is gameplay and at the moment, there isn't any. I mean, there is - but not on the PvP level. There's plenty of PvE. You get money, experience, quest logs to run through storylines. But when it comes to PvP... there's no payoff. No point. No incentive.
Even getting killed isn't much of a deal. I can get killed and be right back where I was in 45 seconds. No loss of experience, gold or equipment damage. And if I kill someone, they can be back equally as fast to face me down and be whacked over again.
I'd at least like to know that I'm getting my ass handed to me by a dozen horde for a reason, rather than their sheer boredom.
Anyway, it's the best MMORPG I've played to this point. It kept my interest the longest. But I'm probably going to move on and hope that something remarkable hits the shelves in the next few years.
PvE is pointless. A lot of people want to play PvP. They just want to have a risk/reward/penalty system for it. There should be something to be gained by attacking someone and something to be lost by dying. As the game is (and has been), you can kill someone thirty levels below you and face absolutely no consequence. Likewise, you can kill someone ten levels above you and reap no reward. Further, there is no land or property or strategic positions to be gained by defeating anyone, including NPCs.
PvP without incentive isn't PvP. There should be more of a reason to engage in PvP than just "I'm in a bad mood" or the incidental "I better attack them before they attack me" while you're meandering down a road.
I know that they're working on battlegrounds, but that doesn't change anything for the rest of the game. There should always be something to gain or lose in battle. In WOW, you don't even acquire weapon, XP or monetary damage.
For the first month, WOW struck me as very unique and unlikely to suffer any serious boredom like most other MMORPGs. But then I noticed that it started to fall into a serious rut, due to the lack of PvP incentives. Not even a wanted list like in ShadowBane (so you could keep track of who killed you and maintain a vendetta against them).
Personally, I stopped playing a couple weeks ago. I'm not sure if I'm going to cancel or not like the parent poster. I'm not so much for graphics right now and am just keeping an eye out for a game that has really involved character generation, great gameplay and lots of adventure. Hell, I might even settle for a good MUD.:)
I don't use this company as I host my own email server (and always have). However, I have heard a few good comments about them and they serve email needs of all levels - from individuals and small businesses to corporations and community groups. Webmail, POP, IMAP, etc.
I can't reccommend them, since I've never had any experience, but I would suggest you check their site out and see if it sounds suitable for your needs:
Don't you mean "Netscape released the first test, or "Developer Preview" version of its new browser"...
As to why they don't just use Firefox directly? Because owning the user's homepage is money and power. People hear the name "Netscape" which has a long history prior to AOL cannibalising it and they decide to download it rather than this new "firefox thing".
So, by using that name and that slightly customized/modified browser, they draw a larger group of users. And a lot of those users never get around to (or don't know how to) changing their homepage.
My vote is for Debian, too. Out of personal experience and preference. But I would also nominate Slackware.
Outside of those two distros, I've only used RedHat and Caldera. Hope that puts things in scope. As far as UNIX, I've used pretty much everything out there. Still prefer Debian.;)
Whining a whole lot about your "videogamer image" doesn't exactly do much to help tear down videogamer stereotypes.
Get a pair of balls. Quit crying. Play your games or don't play them. Either way, stop worrying so much about what the hell everyone things of you. You're not the team captain of the football team and you're never going to be treated with that reverance. So grow up.
Keeping your first customer is just fine if they're making business for you. You can lose money on a person directly, but rake it in by the business they throw at you elsewhere.
Also, you don't have to be an hourly-billing nazi. You can go the extra mile for a customer without charging them - as the whim guides you. You just have to know how to make it clear that it's exactly that - something extra you are doing beyond the call of duty and that you normally _WOULD_ and _WILL_ charge for it.
You don't have to be anal about it nor do you have to let your customers walk all over you. There's a rewarding middle-ground.
And this customer-service advice goes for the entire tech industry - from frontline engineers on the telephone providing first tier support, right up to the QA, developer and product engineer guys. Without your customers, you're nothing. You are making your product for them. You live and die by your reputation with them. Stop treating them like a nuisance or an ATM machine and you'll have loyal customers.
No; the store will usually keep a record of everything that you bought. The purpose is marketing, after all. The more information they have that can be linked to you, the better they can product targetted ads that will encourage you to buy.
This is not entirely accurate.
They aren't trying to figure out how to cater to you based on your purchases. They are using your purchases and history of shopping to eliminate the useless customers and focus on the important 20% who make the store profitable. If you only show up during sales and buy mostly sales items and use coupons, they view you as the enemy. In fact, they would rather you just stay out of their store altogether if they could prevent you from shopping their. They do not make money off of you.
Just wait until they have RFID tags in your bank card so that the bank manager and tellers can know if you're an important customer or not the moment you walk past the scanners in the door frames. Have a lot of money in the bank and do a lot of profitable business for them? Instant service. Average joe? Go wait in line. Even if we give you crappy service, you're no threat to us.
Currently, you have to treat each person as a valued customer because you can't necessarily tell who is and isn't Mr. Moneybags when they are in line. Tomorrow, they will.
My grandfather died four years ago. Everyone in our family still uses his name and phone number to buy groceries. He has to be the most well-fed 91 year old in the world.
What sucks is that, if you order groceries online, you pay for that convenience by having an absolute tie between the customer and the products.
. . . You have to present your photo identification to buy groceries?!
And yeah, I know people say "but you don't have to - it's just if you want the discount!". But I don't call "pay $15 for a pound of cheese or give up your privacy and buy it for $10" to be much of an option.
I have to say, I would rather starve than present my papers to the cashier just to buy tampons, beer, baby-oil and spaghetti sauce.
It could have been anyone. You don't need your card to buy something under your name. Haven't you ever bought groceries before?
You just go through the line and they say "do you have a Safeway Club Card?".
You say, "I don't have it with me".
The cashier will say "What's your last name and four digits of your telephone number?".
Give them a last name and a telephone number. Voila. In other words, you could get all of the information necessary to frame the other person on the basis of a club card purchase, by looking in a telephone book. Any half assed lawyer would know that and have the trial and charges dismissed in a heartbeat.
You wouldn't feel wronged that a private company's database of every purchse you've made with them (which is used to help them decide which customers are good and which are bad - so they don't focus on the cheapskates who only show up for discount products) was handed over to the police and then some random purchase made on your card was used against you to not only make you a suspect, but CHARGE you?
Remember, he was CHARGED. You would hope the police would have figured it out before CHARGING him.
Do you know what it takes to have a purchase show up on your database with Safeway? All it takes is someone coming into the store and telling the cashier what your name is and your phone number (often just the last four digits).
If I wanted to burn your house down, but make sure you got the blame for it, I could just go into safeway and give them YOUR name and YOUR phone number, buy the equipment, set fire to your house and YOU would hang for it.
His house was set on fire. He was charged with and arrested for arson.
What part of this story is "happy"?
The only thing that stood between him and serious prison time (not to mention probably losing all of his friends, family and destroying his career and reputation) was that the criminal who was responsible came forward. Do you know how rare that is? His "fortune" here was like falling off a 110 story building and having a huge gust of wind on a still day scoop you to safety at the very last second.
Let's not even entertain the possibility that someone could have died in the fire. If that were the case, I bet nobody would have stepped forward and this guy would have taken the fall - all so Safeway could target their demographics better. More, he probably would have been sentenced to life in prison at the least and everyone would be cheering for his execution. Because, of course, he's guilty if he has been convited, so he should fry!
'It's not a healthy thing to lock yourself in a room and create your own reality.'
Yeah, there's all of those unhealthy millionaires like Douglas Adams, Stephen King, the Wachowski brothers, Stan Lee, locking themselves into a room alone to create their own realities. How evil!
Slashdot Mirror
Instead of everyone focusing on SuprNova, people have found new places that they otherwise never would have bothered with. There are a number of smaller quality sites out there now. Most of them seem to be hosted in Sweden, Netherlands, Brazil, Russia and elsewhere.
IANAL (Surprise, surprise, surprise!), but I'd think the judge would be rather upset if one of the parties could have taken simple, reasonable, steps, that would have a good chance of the suit being dropped before hogging the court's time. Faxing a death certificate looks like a simple, reasonable, step. (Personally, I'dve sent a notarized copy by registered mail as well).
Personally, I'd have told the RIAA to fuck off. They're a private company. Who are they to demand legal proof that someone is dead - outside of court? They're the plaintifs and it is their duty to prove that they're suing the right person for the right reasons.
Anyway, what are they going to do, start suing her family because she (being dead) doesn't respond?
Yeah, I can see how the driving physics are really accurate, what with most cars in real life being driven with a tiny toothpick size analog stick.
My brother has a PS2. I was thinking about buying GT4 and having him bring his box over, but I just don't think I could get into a game that has PS2-quality graphics, is played with a silly console controller and I definitely can't get around the "indestructable cars".
I mean, really - do you need to market your cars as "indestructable at 300mph"? That's pretty lame.
You've got a really crappy attitude.
If you don't want your network to be the source of trouble, do your bit by helping out your users. You clearly can't dictate their operating system of choice, but you CAN filter out emails that are clearly malicious.
So if you don't believe that ISPs should discard mail containing *.CPL and *.PIF attachments, I guess you also don't believe they should bother filtering out any spam whatsoever, either.
Your "hey, it's microsoft's problem, not mine!" attitude is ridiculous. They may be the underlying culprit, but when your network is gettin bogged down in crap, pointing the finger hardly helps.
Are you saying that major ISPs don't require authentication to relay mail?! I have Comcast, but I've never used their servers (I run my own externally). What do they do then, just base whether or not to relay based on whether or not you're in their IP blocks?
That's ludicrous. POP-BEFORE-SMTP or SMTP AUTH are extremely simple to setup without any additional complexity on the user's end. If the ISPs are not protecting their mailservers, then I would suggest this is THEIR problem - not the end-user.
What kind of crappy ISP delivers messages containing *.SCR, *.CPL, *.COM, *.PIF, *.BAT and so forth to their customers?!
And yes, Joe User tends to ignore popups, because a lot of the "professionals" are idiots. We have a radio program in Portland on the weekends hosted by some "long time computer experts". Every time the topic of "how to prevent popups" comes up, the host insists that your web browser has NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. Popups are entirely a problem with your machine being infected and you need to install a good virus scanner to avoid them.
People have called up and said "no, I think they're talking about web popups that you get when you visit a website without a popup blocker". Rather than suggesting people use Firefox or something, he actually says "If you're getting popups, it is because you've done something wrong and aren't protecting your PC". He refuses to acknowledge (and has for many months) that if you visit a website without some form of popup blocker, you'll often encounter popups BECAUSE THE WEBSITE IS SENDING THEM.
I mean... it baffles me that people like this are being treated like expert professionals and they're misleading thousands of people in the process of pumping up their own misguided ego.
Human Paladin, in fact.
Race, class and faction are beside the point. The core of it is gameplay and at the moment, there isn't any. I mean, there is - but not on the PvP level. There's plenty of PvE. You get money, experience, quest logs to run through storylines. But when it comes to PvP... there's no payoff. No point. No incentive.
Even getting killed isn't much of a deal. I can get killed and be right back where I was in 45 seconds. No loss of experience, gold or equipment damage. And if I kill someone, they can be back equally as fast to face me down and be whacked over again.
I'd at least like to know that I'm getting my ass handed to me by a dozen horde for a reason, rather than their sheer boredom.
Anyway, it's the best MMORPG I've played to this point. It kept my interest the longest. But I'm probably going to move on and hope that something remarkable hits the shelves in the next few years.
PvE is pointless. A lot of people want to play PvP. They just want to have a risk/reward/penalty system for it. There should be something to be gained by attacking someone and something to be lost by dying. As the game is (and has been), you can kill someone thirty levels below you and face absolutely no consequence. Likewise, you can kill someone ten levels above you and reap no reward. Further, there is no land or property or strategic positions to be gained by defeating anyone, including NPCs.
:)
PvP without incentive isn't PvP. There should be more of a reason to engage in PvP than just "I'm in a bad mood" or the incidental "I better attack them before they attack me" while you're meandering down a road.
I know that they're working on battlegrounds, but that doesn't change anything for the rest of the game. There should always be something to gain or lose in battle. In WOW, you don't even acquire weapon, XP or monetary damage.
For the first month, WOW struck me as very unique and unlikely to suffer any serious boredom like most other MMORPGs. But then I noticed that it started to fall into a serious rut, due to the lack of PvP incentives. Not even a wanted list like in ShadowBane (so you could keep track of who killed you and maintain a vendetta against them).
Personally, I stopped playing a couple weeks ago. I'm not sure if I'm going to cancel or not like the parent poster. I'm not so much for graphics right now and am just keeping an eye out for a game that has really involved character generation, great gameplay and lots of adventure. Hell, I might even settle for a good MUD.
I don't use this company as I host my own email server (and always have). However, I have heard a few good comments about them and they serve email needs of all levels - from individuals and small businesses to corporations and community groups. Webmail, POP, IMAP, etc.
I can't reccommend them, since I've never had any experience, but I would suggest you check their site out and see if it sounds suitable for your needs:
http://www.everyone.net
Uh. They aren't still around. AOL just owns the trademark and maybe a couple old-school (pre-1999) developers.
Don't you mean "Netscape released the first test, or "Developer Preview" version of its new browser"...
As to why they don't just use Firefox directly? Because owning the user's homepage is money and power. People hear the name "Netscape" which has a long history prior to AOL cannibalising it and they decide to download it rather than this new "firefox thing".
So, by using that name and that slightly customized/modified browser, they draw a larger group of users. And a lot of those users never get around to (or don't know how to) changing their homepage.
My vote is for Debian, too. Out of personal experience and preference. But I would also nominate Slackware.
;)
Outside of those two distros, I've only used RedHat and Caldera. Hope that puts things in scope. As far as UNIX, I've used pretty much everything out there. Still prefer Debian.
Whining a whole lot about your "videogamer image" doesn't exactly do much to help tear down videogamer stereotypes.
Get a pair of balls. Quit crying. Play your games or don't play them. Either way, stop worrying so much about what the hell everyone things of you. You're not the team captain of the football team and you're never going to be treated with that reverance. So grow up.
I'm not a rocket scientist, so let me make sure I have this right:
1) Build space station.
2) Send astronauts to space station.
3) A few years later, start brainstorming a rescue plan.
Keeping your first customer is just fine if they're making business for you. You can lose money on a person directly, but rake it in by the business they throw at you elsewhere.
Also, you don't have to be an hourly-billing nazi. You can go the extra mile for a customer without charging them - as the whim guides you. You just have to know how to make it clear that it's exactly that - something extra you are doing beyond the call of duty and that you normally _WOULD_ and _WILL_ charge for it.
You don't have to be anal about it nor do you have to let your customers walk all over you. There's a rewarding middle-ground.
And this customer-service advice goes for the entire tech industry - from frontline engineers on the telephone providing first tier support, right up to the QA, developer and product engineer guys. Without your customers, you're nothing. You are making your product for them. You live and die by your reputation with them. Stop treating them like a nuisance or an ATM machine and you'll have loyal customers.
* Left | Right click.
* Click | Apple Command Key + Click
How is the second significantly easier? Or easier at all for that matter.
That was the point, sir! :P
No; the store will usually keep a record of everything that you bought. The purpose is marketing, after all. The more information they have that can be linked to you, the better they can product targetted ads that will encourage you to buy.
This is not entirely accurate.
They aren't trying to figure out how to cater to you based on your purchases. They are using your purchases and history of shopping to eliminate the useless customers and focus on the important 20% who make the store profitable. If you only show up during sales and buy mostly sales items and use coupons, they view you as the enemy. In fact, they would rather you just stay out of their store altogether if they could prevent you from shopping their. They do not make money off of you.
Just wait until they have RFID tags in your bank card so that the bank manager and tellers can know if you're an important customer or not the moment you walk past the scanners in the door frames. Have a lot of money in the bank and do a lot of profitable business for them? Instant service. Average joe? Go wait in line. Even if we give you crappy service, you're no threat to us.
Currently, you have to treat each person as a valued customer because you can't necessarily tell who is and isn't Mr. Moneybags when they are in line. Tomorrow, they will.
My grandfather died four years ago. Everyone in our family still uses his name and phone number to buy groceries. He has to be the most well-fed 91 year old in the world.
What sucks is that, if you order groceries online, you pay for that convenience by having an absolute tie between the customer and the products.
. . . You have to present your photo identification to buy groceries?!
And yeah, I know people say "but you don't have to - it's just if you want the discount!". But I don't call "pay $15 for a pound of cheese or give up your privacy and buy it for $10" to be much of an option.
I have to say, I would rather starve than present my papers to the cashier just to buy tampons, beer, baby-oil and spaghetti sauce.
Don't know how aanybody who still refers to "stones" as a measurement of weight can be so upset about the imperial system.
It could have been anyone. You don't need your card to buy something under your name. Haven't you ever bought groceries before?
You just go through the line and they say "do you have a Safeway Club Card?".
You say, "I don't have it with me".
The cashier will say "What's your last name and four digits of your telephone number?".
Give them a last name and a telephone number. Voila. In other words, you could get all of the information necessary to frame the other person on the basis of a club card purchase, by looking in a telephone book. Any half assed lawyer would know that and have the trial and charges dismissed in a heartbeat.
You wouldn't feel wronged that a private company's database of every purchse you've made with them (which is used to help them decide which customers are good and which are bad - so they don't focus on the cheapskates who only show up for discount products) was handed over to the police and then some random purchase made on your card was used against you to not only make you a suspect, but CHARGE you?
Remember, he was CHARGED. You would hope the police would have figured it out before CHARGING him.
Do you know what it takes to have a purchase show up on your database with Safeway? All it takes is someone coming into the store and telling the cashier what your name is and your phone number (often just the last four digits).
If I wanted to burn your house down, but make sure you got the blame for it, I could just go into safeway and give them YOUR name and YOUR phone number, buy the equipment, set fire to your house and YOU would hang for it.
His house was set on fire.
He was charged with and arrested for arson.
What part of this story is "happy"?
The only thing that stood between him and serious prison time (not to mention probably losing all of his friends, family and destroying his career and reputation) was that the criminal who was responsible came forward. Do you know how rare that is? His "fortune" here was like falling off a 110 story building and having a huge gust of wind on a still day scoop you to safety at the very last second.
Let's not even entertain the possibility that someone could have died in the fire. If that were the case, I bet nobody would have stepped forward and this guy would have taken the fall - all so Safeway could target their demographics better. More, he probably would have been sentenced to life in prison at the least and everyone would be cheering for his execution. Because, of course, he's guilty if he has been convited, so he should fry!
This was a stomach-churning close-call.
'It's not a healthy thing to lock yourself in a room and create your own reality.'
Yeah, there's all of those unhealthy millionaires like Douglas Adams, Stephen King, the Wachowski brothers, Stan Lee, locking themselves into a room alone to create their own realities. How evil!