Why not the EU or any other number of countries that don't have despotic governments?
Countries depend on the internet for a number of things, and it's only natural and sensible that they don't want to trust their vital infrastructures to Verisign or the US. Mentioning China and Iran seems like a lame attempt at scaremongering. "Imagine, the internet in the hands of China! Oh noes!"
I don't agree. I've seen a lot of really bad players that somehow make it to the higher levels with not even a basic understanding of their roles. Like warriors that can't and won't hold aggro, mages that think they're tanks, priests that think their job is to nuke, etc.
Sure, someone's lazy ass can buy gold off ebay and get all this good gear, or contract power levelling services or whatever. But the fact is that these people won't deserve their gear, and it will be readily apparent when they play. All the time you spend gathering your money and XP is not just empty time. You spend that time gathering experience and insight in to the game itself. When I run into a warrior with very good gear and he has no clue how to properly tank, it's painfully obvious where he/she got his stuff.
People who worked for their gear know how to play the game.
Granted, the concept is fairly obvious, just like samurais in space, ninjas in space, pirates in space or whatever. But the concept is not the whole point. If they had put the same characters, with the same dialog and same character development in a completely different setting, it still would have been as good. It's the writing that I find top notch, which is what the original Star Wars had which the prequel trilogy doesn't.
Sure, EpIII ended the series with a modicum of dignity that was absent from I and II, but with Serenity coming out tonight, I'm disinclined to get excited about Star Wars anymore.
Joss Whedon is my master now.
I don't really care for Buffy or Angel, but Firefly is one of the very best sci-fi shows ever.
Imagine a show where the protagonist is Han Solo, and he offs Greedo by shooting first IN EVERY EPISODE!!!
> I'm getting very tired of all the hardware manufacturers designing their products "for gaming".
Yeah, because there's a great, untapped market of joyless, condescending bastards. Seriously, I'm a 27 year old professional with disposable income, and I'm glad I can get good gaming gear for the PC, because I despise console gaming. And I know I'm not alone in this. High school kids can't really afford expensive video cards and stuff like that.
It's not like there isn't serious non-gaming gear out there. You'd think that someone who does "real work" would know where to find it.
Costa Rica has no army, just a police force and border guard.
There is no death penalty. Drunk drivers don't get shot, just gang-raped in jail by other inmates.
There is one telco, called ICE, and it's a state monopoly.
Said telco offers excellent local phone service and cheap cellular lines, but incredibly crappy internet access. At least they have DSL and cable, but all my dad can get is 512k down, 128k up.
So what's happening is that there is a constitutionally mandated monopoly on telecommunications. What's happening that a bunch of old farts, the kind that have no fucking clue and are holding the country back, are figuring that VoiP would technically be in violation of said monopoly.
To be honest, it's amazing that there is such a big software industry in Costa Rica, considering that internet access is so crappy and regulated. A lot of people are trying to challenge the ICE monopoly, but it's hard going against the old guard. That's what Costa Rican nerds have to put up with.
Not only because privacy concerns, but the technology itself. Standards are loosely defined and conflicting, equipment is expensive and not really that accurate. In my workplace, we're kinda being pushed to move in that direction, and after learning more about it, we want to put it off as long as possible. If we're going to be scanning barcodes frequently anyway because RFID is not realiable enough, then it's not worth it.
It's a problem when unproven technology is used to make important decisions, policy, disciplinary or otherwise, just because a bunch of suits, beancounters or bureaucrats think that technology is infalible. Same problem with electronic voting.
What we do where I work, and it works well, is to use off-the-shelf products wherever possible. We do make sure that the stuff we get has some level of openness, so that we can build custom stuff around it and customize to fit what we do. An ERP, for instance, can't account for all your business processes. Chances are your company has something unique about it that can't be accounted for with off-the-shelf software. Hopefully you can account for that by building custom stuff.
There's already a big IT industry in Costa Rica. Pretty much all my cousins are programmers, and earn decent money. And it's not just writing boring database apps, they write custom programming languages and stuff like that.
The biggest obstacle to IT growth, however, is that there is only one big state-owned ISP, and it sucks farts out of dead chickens. My parents pay like 40 bucks for 512k down cable modem. But at least there's cable.
Yes, because it will be easier to sell a project to your boss:
"Hey, it has XML!!"
This will trigger memories from a IT management journal that your PHB read but didn't understand and will become enthused at the prospect of your product being even more buzzword compliant.
After getting heavily into Half Life 2, I started strafing around corners, wondering if there were headcrabs behind trash cans and cardboard boxes, and basically looking for objects that I could pick up and throw at people if I needed to!
Slashdot Mirror
Of course, it doesn't *have* to be today. I'm doing it today purely by choice. I'm in control. Yeah. In control. Only 15k xp to go.
Yeah, I just bought a Sony CD!
Why not the EU or any other number of countries that don't have despotic governments? Countries depend on the internet for a number of things, and it's only natural and sensible that they don't want to trust their vital infrastructures to Verisign or the US. Mentioning China and Iran seems like a lame attempt at scaremongering. "Imagine, the internet in the hands of China! Oh noes!"
I don't agree. I've seen a lot of really bad players that somehow make it to the higher levels with not even a basic understanding of their roles. Like warriors that can't and won't hold aggro, mages that think they're tanks, priests that think their job is to nuke, etc.
Sure, someone's lazy ass can buy gold off ebay and get all this good gear, or contract power levelling services or whatever. But the fact is that these people won't deserve their gear, and it will be readily apparent when they play. All the time you spend gathering your money and XP is not just empty time. You spend that time gathering experience and insight in to the game itself. When I run into a warrior with very good gear and he has no clue how to properly tank, it's painfully obvious where he/she got his stuff. People who worked for their gear know how to play the game.
I could buy Doctor Who episodes on iTunes... BBC, are you listening?
I have thoughts about this, but I'll post them when I get my hunter to level 51...
The names and pictures aren't so bad if you aren't racist and/or homophobic.
Granted, the concept is fairly obvious, just like samurais in space, ninjas in space, pirates in space or whatever. But the concept is not the whole point. If they had put the same characters, with the same dialog and same character development in a completely different setting, it still would have been as good. It's the writing that I find top notch, which is what the original Star Wars had which the prequel trilogy doesn't.
Sure, EpIII ended the series with a modicum of dignity that was absent from I and II, but with Serenity coming out tonight, I'm disinclined to get excited about Star Wars anymore. Joss Whedon is my master now.
"the amount of time it takes to decrypt even the newest encryption methods is relatively trivial"
Uh, no.
Please drink more coffee.
Regards from Costa Rica.
I don't really care for Buffy or Angel, but Firefly is one of the very best sci-fi shows ever. Imagine a show where the protagonist is Han Solo, and he offs Greedo by shooting first IN EVERY EPISODE!!!
> I'm getting very tired of all the hardware manufacturers designing their products "for gaming". Yeah, because there's a great, untapped market of joyless, condescending bastards. Seriously, I'm a 27 year old professional with disposable income, and I'm glad I can get good gaming gear for the PC, because I despise console gaming. And I know I'm not alone in this. High school kids can't really afford expensive video cards and stuff like that. It's not like there isn't serious non-gaming gear out there. You'd think that someone who does "real work" would know where to find it.
You don't have to be a genius to know that 2Ghz + 2Ghz != 4Ghz. Ever.
PUH leeeese! Asking people to stop having sex is like.. asking people to stop having sex!
Any word on which 15 year old socially inept angst-ridden teenage son of one of the creators will be chosen to pilot it?
So what's happening is that there is a constitutionally mandated monopoly on telecommunications. What's happening that a bunch of old farts, the kind that have no fucking clue and are holding the country back, are figuring that VoiP would technically be in violation of said monopoly.
To be honest, it's amazing that there is such a big software industry in Costa Rica, considering that internet access is so crappy and regulated. A lot of people are trying to challenge the ICE monopoly, but it's hard going against the old guard. That's what Costa Rican nerds have to put up with.
Not only because privacy concerns, but the technology itself. Standards are loosely defined and conflicting, equipment is expensive and not really that accurate. In my workplace, we're kinda being pushed to move in that direction, and after learning more about it, we want to put it off as long as possible. If we're going to be scanning barcodes frequently anyway because RFID is not realiable enough, then it's not worth it.
It's a problem when unproven technology is used to make important decisions, policy, disciplinary or otherwise, just because a bunch of suits, beancounters or bureaucrats think that technology is infalible. Same problem with electronic voting.
Well, I have a Treo 650 and it's great because I can post on Slashdot while I drive and it's actually quite safe bec[NO CARRIER]
What we do where I work, and it works well, is to use off-the-shelf products wherever possible. We do make sure that the stuff we get has some level of openness, so that we can build custom stuff around it and customize to fit what we do. An ERP, for instance, can't account for all your business processes. Chances are your company has something unique about it that can't be accounted for with off-the-shelf software. Hopefully you can account for that by building custom stuff.
There's already a big IT industry in Costa Rica. Pretty much all my cousins are programmers, and earn decent money. And it's not just writing boring database apps, they write custom programming languages and stuff like that.
The biggest obstacle to IT growth, however, is that there is only one big state-owned ISP, and it sucks farts out of dead chickens. My parents pay like 40 bucks for 512k down cable modem. But at least there's cable.
Yes, because it will be easier to sell a project to your boss:
"Hey, it has XML!!"
This will trigger memories from a IT management journal that your PHB read but didn't understand and will become enthused at the prospect of your product being even more buzzword compliant.
After getting heavily into Half Life 2, I started strafing around corners, wondering if there were headcrabs behind trash cans and cardboard boxes, and basically looking for objects that I could pick up and throw at people if I needed to!