A project I worked on, that shall rename nameless to protect the guilty, was actually audited to discover the reason why it came in late and over budget.
Progammers (me and 5 other people) were found to have complied with the requirements and the software worked. We were not to blame. A bad customer (an internal customer who had not undertaken web development before, you guessed it a Marketing department trying to cash in on the dot-com boom!) was found to be the culprit with ever changing requirements and the inability to register trademarks requiring massive changes to the style of the site, once all the dynamic content programming had been done of course, in a time were there were not as many options as there is nowadays for dynamic content generation.
"...Microsoft has promised integrated pop-up blocking in a forthcoming version (which must irritate the folks who run the MSN Web site, a notorious pop-up villain)."
The date at the top of the article says October, but the article reads pre XP-SP2, going by what is stated about IE. Perhaps he is referring to other Windows versions, but really what do I care. I run Mozilla on XP-SP2:)
Yeah Halo PC wasn't a great port at all. I still had great fun playing it, and competing in the Australia Halo PC Tourney, but it ran like a dog.
I moonlighted between Unreal 2:XMP towards the end of my Halo PC Online gaming and that highlighted how bad the problem really was. I played XBOX Halo before that and that was really great, it just "felt" better than its PC cousin. O2 is on pre-order and XBOX Live is cranking so I'm just hanging out for it to come.
BTW Unreal 2:XMP was a very underrated mod which I wish its popularity lasted longer. The UT2k4 demo killed it:(
Hmmm a good point. I've never seen an unencumbered DVD-ROM/BURNER, perhaps some other good hearted Slashdot readers can point out some that don't have any region locking.
Of course I would not suggest any measures that may violate the DCMA...
Well I'm from Australia too and I've never had a problem getting region free DVD players in Australia. Everyone seems to offer them. Just do some hunting, perhaps at a specialist store and I'm sure you will find a good player unencumbered by and anti-competitive practice. The ACCC doesn't seem to mind region free players existing;)
The UK however I don't have a clue about. However if you can get a DVD player through customs send one home and change its power plug:)
It makes sound business sense to me. The consumers that suffer from copy control mechanisms are the honest consumers that want to play by the rules. Those that want to illegally copy music without proper compensation (again I'm not going to go into the whole artists getting ripped off argument) will find a way around the mechanisms that exist to get what they want for free.
Keep your customers happy so you don't alienate them and make them go to the dark illegal copying side, then combat the problem of those that are ripping you off.
The key to good online gaming is to find a good group of people to play games with. Sometimes it takes a bit of work, but I've found that the reward exceeds the effort. I find it most enjoyable having a friendly "rival" to play with/against.
I have left various online games permenantly in disgust over truly dispicable actions by other people or the communities that these games have. Every now and then I have a break from online gaming to recharge my batteries or I switch between XBOX Live and PC Online gaming.
But with the impending release of Halo 2 for XBOX nothing is going to be stopping from enjoying its online multiplayer to its full extent.:)
Microsoft is a business. If they put licensing fees up, then the customer has every option of not purchasing these licenses and move to another platform. I'm sure governments are big customers and when one of them chooses to leave that such a leaving is "felt".
Microsoft can punish its customers, all it wants but at the end of the day alot of Microsofts money comes from customers and MS needs to keep them on its side. Microsoft has made concessions in the past to keep customers and attract new business and I'm sure it will do so in the future to keep itself relevant.
That was really dissapointing, I mean damn, they brought back the almighty Cyberdemon, one of the most famous icons of gaming, yet only 3 hits kill him. You've turned the Cyberdemon into a wimp, id software! A WIMP!! SHAME ON YOU!
I don't know what difficulty level you played it on, but it took 6 Soul Cube attacks to kill Cyberdemon when I fought against him;)
But I agree, the end boss was quite disappointing as he was easy to defeat. By the time you get there you have a stack of rockets to use against the little minions to power up the Soul Cube, and if you are smart your Soul Cube is ready to go as soon as you enter the boss area. Just keep running from Cyberdemon around the edge of the portal and your set.
I got enjoyment from D3 by playing the game, not the bosses:)
I have to agree that when you go from a cheap pair of sunglasses to Oakleys, you can most definately tell the amazing difference in quality. Oh yes they are expensive but I most certainly will not be going back to another type of sunglass.
The difference in quality isn't all that easy to tell inside a store, but when you step outside into sunlight, then you will literally see the difference.
I'm not an Oakley zealot but it's my opinion that they make very good sunglasses.
I've held off buying the 2 disc editions of LOTR and not yet even seen ROTK, because I wanted to see the extended version.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of the LOTR movies and have the previous 2 extended editions. However I did think that the theatrical release of ROTK did suffer a little from its editing. Now I have read the books and know what things have been missing from the movies and such, but I thought that there were a number of instances in ROTK where it was bloody obvious that a scene was missing and that did (at least to me) seem to interrupt the flow of the movie just a little.
It's great to see an extended editiong offering some great additions that improve the quality of the movie as a whole, as so many DVD's don't offer many feature at all. The commentaries so far have been good as well and I enjoy listening to them.
This reminds me of a documentary I saw about various RL viruses and such that could be made to completely harmless, as long as we stopped attacking them with drugs and different treatments.
There was an example about all the big cats species around the world (except for 1) that all had a virus that appeared to be completely harmless to them. Also there was an example of what I vaguely remember as a cholera outbreak that the more it was attacked with drugs the more virulent and damaging it became.
The point of the documentary was that instead of using bigger and badder drugs to attack these nasties (which could lead to them becoming more nasty since they have to adapt so that they can survive) that another way that they could be effectivly treated was to guide their evolution to a place where they can exist within us but do no harm.
However i'm not comparing this to computer viruses:)
Well we should begin the countdown to when the source code will be leaked once its made available to all those governments. I'm sure it will be well and truely checked for security flaws that way.
I was sure that we had freed ourselves from the notion that virus's are only contained in executables or on the boot sectors of disks long ago. Winamp showed us that you could be infected by a mp3, Outlook showed us you could be infected by mail, IE showed us that not all websites were safe.
I'm not having a go at anybody. Bugs in programming, or poor design can make even the most innocous of tasks a risk. Nowadays its more of a matter of knowing what risks there are in using certain software and keeping yourself informed of the exploits that exist and how to fix them.
I can agree on many of your points but not on the issue that its ok for someone to copy a copyrighted work if they cannot afford it but those that copy and can afford it are the real people doing the harm.
The harm being done by copying is the collective responsibility of everyone doing the copying. Whether its through the downloading of copyrighted works or buying cheap copies form Asia. If someone does not have the money to purchase or rent the work, then that doesn't give them rights over other people to just take it and do with it as they please.
If copyright infringement is not stealing, then what is it? There has been no fair compensation over your use of the work. I am not arguing for a minute as to whether movie studios or the RIAA's members are "fair" in the way they compensate the people that produce the work. I'm talking about the relationship of a person to a copyrighted work.
I buy my games, I buy my movies, I buy my music, I go to the cinema (I don't buy their overpriced food), and there are countless people around me, that I see getting what I am purchasing for free, making a mockery of what I do. When I vote for what I do or do not like in culture, I vote with my dollar. Of course there is going to be a knee-jerk reaction by copyright holders to the protection of copyrighted works, it is their livlihood after all, nomatter what corruption may or may not be going on to product it.
Those that take copyrighted works for themselves lend weight to whatever unreasonable arguments that are put forth for the protection of copyright works and the media its distributed on, regardless of whether those people copying intend to or not.
I think that if we truly wan't to address these restrictions to our fair use rights, we must first free ourself of the notion that taking copyrighted works without the permission of the copyright holder is not wrong. It is wrong. Only then will have a moral high ground to stand upon.
When I read the first two comments for this article I decided to do a search for "hein", wouldn't you know it his name popped up quite quickly.
Starship Troopers is one of my all time favourite books and I found the concept of a "Fair Witness" in "Stanger in a Strange Land" very interesting, even though I didn't enjoy the book all that much.
And why a lot of people will never consider using Paypal at all. What next?
What's next is that a services hole will appear in the market and some enterprising person will create a service to fill it and thrive.
Meanwhile those reponsible for creating the hole will flounder and try to find ways to remain relevant while disenchanted customers go to their competitors. Soon website won't offer paypal payment options at all because no one wants to use them and they will go out of business...
# Strong familiarity with PC development using C++.
# Familiarity with Linux programming.
At a rough guess I would say that this translates into a Windows client front-end (perhaps linux as well but less likely) and a Linux server backend (more than likely) for its stability and reliability.
Slashdot Mirror
Progammers (me and 5 other people) were found to have complied with the requirements and the software worked. We were not to blame. A bad customer (an internal customer who had not undertaken web development before, you guessed it a Marketing department trying to cash in on the dot-com boom!) was found to be the culprit with ever changing requirements and the inability to register trademarks requiring massive changes to the style of the site, once all the dynamic content programming had been done of course, in a time were there were not as many options as there is nowadays for dynamic content generation.
The date at the top of the article says October, but the article reads pre XP-SP2, going by what is stated about IE. Perhaps he is referring to other Windows versions, but really what do I care. I run Mozilla on XP-SP2 :)
I moonlighted between Unreal 2:XMP towards the end of my Halo PC Online gaming and that highlighted how bad the problem really was. I played XBOX Halo before that and that was really great, it just "felt" better than its PC cousin. O2 is on pre-order and XBOX Live is cranking so I'm just hanging out for it to come.
BTW Unreal 2:XMP was a very underrated mod which I wish its popularity lasted longer. The UT2k4 demo killed it :(
What operating system does most of this stealing happen on?
Oh my!
I aint going to shed any tears over that loss... Having worked with HPUX, I was quite relieved that we moved to Solaris, at the time that is.
Of course I would not suggest any measures that may violate the DCMA...
The UK however I don't have a clue about. However if you can get a DVD player through customs send one home and change its power plug :)
Keep your customers happy so you don't alienate them and make them go to the dark illegal copying side, then combat the problem of those that are ripping you off.
I have left various online games permenantly in disgust over truly dispicable actions by other people or the communities that these games have. Every now and then I have a break from online gaming to recharge my batteries or I switch between XBOX Live and PC Online gaming.
But with the impending release of Halo 2 for XBOX nothing is going to be stopping from enjoying its online multiplayer to its full extent. :)
Microsoft can punish its customers, all it wants but at the end of the day alot of Microsofts money comes from customers and MS needs to keep them on its side. Microsoft has made concessions in the past to keep customers and attract new business and I'm sure it will do so in the future to keep itself relevant.
I don't know what difficulty level you played it on, but it took 6 Soul Cube attacks to kill Cyberdemon when I fought against him ;)
But I agree, the end boss was quite disappointing as he was easy to defeat. By the time you get there you have a stack of rockets to use against the little minions to power up the Soul Cube, and if you are smart your Soul Cube is ready to go as soon as you enter the boss area. Just keep running from Cyberdemon around the edge of the portal and your set.
I got enjoyment from D3 by playing the game, not the bosses :)
I think that they are thinking to hinder piracy.
The difference in quality isn't all that easy to tell inside a store, but when you step outside into sunlight, then you will literally see the difference.
I'm not an Oakley zealot but it's my opinion that they make very good sunglasses.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of the LOTR movies and have the previous 2 extended editions. However I did think that the theatrical release of ROTK did suffer a little from its editing. Now I have read the books and know what things have been missing from the movies and such, but I thought that there were a number of instances in ROTK where it was bloody obvious that a scene was missing and that did (at least to me) seem to interrupt the flow of the movie just a little.
It's great to see an extended editiong offering some great additions that improve the quality of the movie as a whole, as so many DVD's don't offer many feature at all. The commentaries so far have been good as well and I enjoy listening to them.
As these hapless victims could attest. You sir would be right.
There was an example about all the big cats species around the world (except for 1) that all had a virus that appeared to be completely harmless to them. Also there was an example of what I vaguely remember as a cholera outbreak that the more it was attacked with drugs the more virulent and damaging it became.
The point of the documentary was that instead of using bigger and badder drugs to attack these nasties (which could lead to them becoming more nasty since they have to adapt so that they can survive) that another way that they could be effectivly treated was to guide their evolution to a place where they can exist within us but do no harm.
However i'm not comparing this to computer viruses :)
I only have room in my life for one megahit at a time... :)
I'll start with... 10.
I'm not having a go at anybody. Bugs in programming, or poor design can make even the most innocous of tasks a risk. Nowadays its more of a matter of knowing what risks there are in using certain software and keeping yourself informed of the exploits that exist and how to fix them.
Uh oh... its butterfly wings again...
The harm being done by copying is the collective responsibility of everyone doing the copying. Whether its through the downloading of copyrighted works or buying cheap copies form Asia. If someone does not have the money to purchase or rent the work, then that doesn't give them rights over other people to just take it and do with it as they please.
If copyright infringement is not stealing, then what is it? There has been no fair compensation over your use of the work. I am not arguing for a minute as to whether movie studios or the RIAA's members are "fair" in the way they compensate the people that produce the work. I'm talking about the relationship of a person to a copyrighted work.
I buy my games, I buy my movies, I buy my music, I go to the cinema (I don't buy their overpriced food), and there are countless people around me, that I see getting what I am purchasing for free, making a mockery of what I do. When I vote for what I do or do not like in culture, I vote with my dollar. Of course there is going to be a knee-jerk reaction by copyright holders to the protection of copyrighted works, it is their livlihood after all, nomatter what corruption may or may not be going on to product it.
Those that take copyrighted works for themselves lend weight to whatever unreasonable arguments that are put forth for the protection of copyright works and the media its distributed on, regardless of whether those people copying intend to or not.
I think that if we truly wan't to address these restrictions to our fair use rights, we must first free ourself of the notion that taking copyrighted works without the permission of the copyright holder is not wrong. It is wrong. Only then will have a moral high ground to stand upon.
Starship Troopers is one of my all time favourite books and I found the concept of a "Fair Witness" in "Stanger in a Strange Land" very interesting, even though I didn't enjoy the book all that much.
What's next is that a services hole will appear in the market and some enterprising person will create a service to fill it and thrive.
Meanwhile those reponsible for creating the hole will flounder and try to find ways to remain relevant while disenchanted customers go to their competitors. Soon website won't offer paypal payment options at all because no one wants to use them and they will go out of business...
And thus ends my flight of fancy....
So they can weasel more money out of you of course! Never look for a conspiracy when greed will do :)
# Familiarity with Linux programming.
At a rough guess I would say that this translates into a Windows client front-end (perhaps linux as well but less likely) and a Linux server backend (more than likely) for its stability and reliability.