***"Society" doesn't have any say in whether those things are wrong either. If something is wrong it remains wrong regardless of the majority opinion***
No, actually it's the reverse. Right and wrong are meaningless without a society. There is no right or wrong when you are all by yourself.
Please understand that I curse all the time in real-life, play on PvP servers without problem (e.g. shadowbane), and so on.
That said, they really should ban people who curse in public chat (no, guild chat is not "public"). Someone who gets banned a few times for cursing ends up with a perma-ban.
Again, I curse in real-life. But I see no positive reason to allow cursing in general chat channels.
They went from "these fragments come from one bullet" to "these fragments come from one or more bullets" based on *statistics* derived from firing similar bullets.
But please, by all means, let's state "case closed" and put forth all sorts of fun conspiracy theories. The evidence is certainly overwhelming now...
I think it would be the reverse for me. The treadmills would be a form of "white noise" that would hopefully drown-out the little phone conversations that go on around me. Those conversations are the distracting things, to me.
Personally, I prefer being in a tight space when I read or code. I like taking a walk when I do design work. So I guess I fit the article.
Anyways, it may (- see that, "may") be a good idea to give computer people a tighter workspace, and compensate by having a larger open area where they can relax and think big.
Just to control all the spam emails. I would love to see all email include a field for a national id. The field is optional, but of course my mail reader would filter on that. Any fraudulent use of an ID would be a federal crime and subject to severe penalties (meaning hard jail time for a large number of uses and no mitigating circumstances).
What about other countries? They can setup there own plans, or not. Of course, my mail reader will be set to reject their emails.
I don't care what famous name said what. When you look at the great leaders in history, all of them were very detail oriented and could help out with the small things in a pinch. For example, Patton (and his generals) did direct traffic, etc.
If you are a great leader, you do what you need to do to get the job done, and once in awhile that's a matter of low-level work rather than high-level thinking.
Not just KOTOR (thought that would have been fine). They simply could have set it "10 years later" after the return of jedi. You have lots of freedom to write your own story, you have many of the main characters to draw upon, and you don't have to pigeonhole the imperials as "evil" and the rebels as "good" anymore.
What exactly is a centrist? The left has fought a successful campaign over the last 30 years or so to move the center to the left. What was once moderate right is now considered far right. What was moderate left is now considered centrist. What was far left is now left, and what was once considered bug-fuck insane is now simply far left.
30 years ago universal health care was a silly, irresponsible pipe-dream that no reasonable, budget-conscious official would even discuss. It made no sense; it was "bug-fuck insane". Now it is considered "far left", even though it is still a horribly irresponsible pipe-dream.
I'm not saying it's a bad game, but the gushing I'm hearing really seems at odds with what I saw. The middle earth terrain is fantastic - the shire, the old forest, etc, all look great. I spent hours running around looking.
The problem is "then what". There is very little that differentiates this game from any other game out there. Elves are not Tolkien's elves, they're the same generic elves from other games. Everybody says "no fireballs", but my first level loremaster was tossing fire. Then there's the countryside full of evil boars, bears, etc. The bottom line is that this is ye olde fantasy game on a really nice map of northern middle earth.
The one thing they did that seems different was add a neat trait system, which functions in the same role as WoW's talents. In this system you earn your traits by doing things, and then pick a small number of those traits to further differentiate your character. So find all 7 flowers in the old forest, get a trait. Go kill 60 barrow wights, finish all the breeland quests, etc, and you get traits. Some of these traits stack, too, so you might get "wisdom" from two different sources and have "wisdom +2". This trait system gives you little challenges while you are going about levelling.
When I left the beta, the system was in partially in-place but the traits weren't that effective. I read that they've filled it out and made the effects more pronounced.
But is a trait system that much of a reason to buy and play a game? I'm still disappointed that they didn't follow DAoC's RvR model, and I don't like the various little betrayals of Tolkien's world, so I'll pass.
Maybe som Palestinian group can make a similar map over, what Israel did to many Palestinian villages from 1947 until today. That would start up a *real* debate, and hopefully we can end the bloodshed there, that once raged Scandinavia.
--------------...and then maybe some Jewish group will make up there map of 60 years of violence. Then people will debate whose map started it all, and we'll just end up continuing the feud in another venue.
The issue in Palestine/Israel is amazingly simple in many ways, if you stop worrying about who did what to whom in response to...whatever. There are two peoples living side-by-side right now. Only blood will move them. On a small scale this is acceptable and unavoidable, e.g. Israel gives up a mile of territory to clean up the border, and has to forcibly remove some settlers for the greater good.
The question is how to get there. The answer is that Palestine recognizes Israel as a nation. As soon as they do this, they "win". Israel at that point has to negotiate, has to give up territory (and they have shown a number of times they will do this for peace), and it's simply a matter of time at that point.
Maybe it will take a generation, I don't know. But once the Palestinians commit whole-heartedly to a peace process, they can't lose. Then we can let future generations make a map.
When the US protests the WTO's rulings on environmental issues (clean air, dolphin netting), nobody here will come to the US's defense.
Because the US is invariably on the wrong side of these issues.
Wrong side? The US passed pro-dolphin laws regarding the netting of tuna. Mexico did not have such laws, and thus their tuna was cheaper. America restricted the importation of mexican tuna as a result. Then mexico applies to the WTO, and we're back to killing dophins again for the sake of business.
It's amusing to me. When the US protests the WTO's rulings on environmental issues (clean air, dolphin netting), nobody here will come to the US's defense. But when the WTO says the US is being naughty about the nasty business of gambling, everybody comes out to post.
I am not going to say the US is perfect by any stretch, but the bias on this site is practically a living thing.
-Jeff
P.S. Note - I bet in office pools, very occasionally play poker, etc. But organized gambling is nothing more than a way to fleece money from mathematically-challenged poor people, or people with a compulsive disorder. It's a very ugly business.
Having read the article (omg, ban him from slashdot!), I will give Dvorak this: the cell phone market is nothing like the mp3 market that Apple helped to create. The situations are very different, so you can't expect a success like the ipod. Of course, you almost never get successes like the ipod in business, so that really isn't saying much.
-Jeff
P.S. The rest of what he said regarding fashion, etc, I have no idea. Personally I think price tag, batteries, memory, calling plan, and the 3G aspect will tell the tale more than fashion. So JD and I may come to the same conclusion, but from completely different logic chains.
The capacity is a HUGE issue for the retarded (meant in the true sense of the word) iPhone. For my 320x240 iPod, I tend to rip movies at around the 400MB point (granted I go slightly over 320 wide so I can either zoom in on the center at 1:1 or zoom out and letterbox on a square screen). 4GB for the great new "widescreen movie capable" iPhone lets me put maybe 7-8 movies on there so long as I put no music on and minimal extra apps. That's barely enough for an intercontinental flight and back and now my iPhone's useless for music. Sure there's an 8GB version... giving maybe that small set of movies and a very limited music library. I went through the exact same logic as well. But you forgot one more issue - since you can't swap batteries, you may not even make it all the way through the intercontinental flight, and the phone will be out of power when you land.
So we are clear - I'm an old-school c programmer, a SQL programmer, an oracle DBA (I've used many RDBMS packages), RHCE, and generally unix-savvy. Not boasting, because anybody who posts here has this and more, but just indicating my bonafides. Also, I now refuse to become a manager. I will be a team lead, take charge in a crisis, substitute for mgmt in a pinch, but I will not accept a post as a manger. My few-year stint as a manager was not fun: I want to keep my hands dirty.
In the military, I would be a sergeant.
It's not a question of my "entrenched" view. It's a very, very educated view working at a large number of clients in many business, including a number of wall-street businesses. I've done the 70-hour a week thing. I've worked with the so-called geniuses who said that they couldn't get up early (and they didn't have WoW as an excuse either). I've seen how much the night owls produce.
It's not worth it, in every case. I'm not saying that the night-owl, anti-social types can't produce; I'm saying that for the same money you can always find someone else who can produce in the same ballpark, plus be available for team meetings, work with other people, appear in front of the client, etc.
You are like a designated hitter looking for a job in the National League. We got lots of hitters, but can you field too?
I'm a big believer in flexibility in the IT field. Relaxed dress codes, flexible hours, etc. However, your point of view seems hopelessly self-centered and extreme.
"Results" is simply the start. I need people who are an active member of a team, who promote a friendly, helpful atmosphere. You should shower, come to work on time, keep abreast of situations, and be available.
To put it another way, for every self-centered,"results" person, I can find someone who produces results and shows up to work on time without excuses, and is good asset to the whole team.
http://www.gamersinfo.net/index.php?art/id:1598
In addition they are looking at introducing several new clients in the upcoming months including a Linux Client (in around 3 weeks) and a Mac client sometime this summer. The Linux client is mainly being targeted at Eastern Europe where they may be running on older hardware with Linux while the Mac Client has been a joint project with Transgaming. -Jeff
The group that did this now has the enmity of all other hard-core players in the eve universe. I'm not saying that what happened, and how it happened, were "right", but BoB is certainly not in a good position politically right now.
"Instead of just letting a company have their way with electronic voting, they really should have done research into the best voting method."
Whoever marked you as "insightful" should be shot.
Who is "they"? That's the real question.
The answer is that "they" is really "us"; that is, the electorate. We keep putting the same idiots into government who pull crap like this rather than voting them out of office. Instead of priorities based on news-media sales, people should be using their brains and voting in people who are competent at governing.
You can "prove" innocence in the same manner that you "prove" guilt. One quick example: if I am suspected of a murder, and I show that I was on vacation 1000 miles away at the time (with appropriate witness testimony, random credit card bills, phone records, etc), that's pretty much "proof".
These types of threads sicken me. This is nothing more than a virtual lynch mob. People start with allegations, and then spin them into outrageous scenarios, and then get angry at people based on these flights of fancy.
Certainly, it is entirely possible that there is a thread of truth in all of this. Heck, maybe the darkest parts are true. But getting angry over allegations is simply wrong.
My fantasy scenario: we find out the truth, and then every person who spoke out-of-turn or simply lied must issue an apology to the community. That would be humorous.
"Prettiest space game ever - and also the worst and most boring space game ever...Everyone could do whatever they wanted, but all the big established guys had the power, and crushed the little folks."
Obviously your opinion, but very highly skewed, I was a casual player, darting in and out of the game (allowing my account to lapse in between), and never even joined corp. Obviously I could not fight a megacorp in their area, but there were huge areas of space to explore, goods to buy and sell (I did both), and so on.
Sure, if you wanted to mine the best minerals, or hunt the best areas of space, you needed a corp. But if you played in your means (you are just one person), it's not like anybody could really stop you.
Now, more specifically:
"crap like major newbie areas linked by unpatrolled space, that was near constantly gate-camped by people playing "pirate" in HUGE ships"
Of course, you could use the map to determine areas where there had been kills the last 24 hours and 1 hour (with the star glowing based on how many kills there had been) to get around the worst of it. Also, you could chart these areas in newbie frigates, bookmark map-points, and then jump around to those points so fast that it was practically impossible for someone to stop you. Yes, you had to plan and think, you couldn't just bull your way through it. But it could be done, and by a single player.
For the record, when I wanted to try trading, I jumped around in my big trader (Amarr bestower, I think), and never once saw a pirate in all the lawless areas I went through.
"Let's not even start talking about the economy. Man was that thing hosed."
Sorry, but that is nonsense. I as a few-month old player dabbled in production of newbie ammunition and made money because I found a few systems where new players were hunting and nobody else was selling.
There is plenty of opportunity for buying and selling and market play in the game. If you are determined to compete with the big boys, then yes you will lose. But there are so many niches you have to willfully try to fail. Just pick something small, look around, plan.
"advancement was near hopeless"
This is bald-faced lie. To advance a skill you simply pick it as your current skill to train, and you advance in that skill. No force in the game can stop that. It takes very little money to buy a huge number of skills, so for most intents and purposes any single player can advance as far as they want.
Again, you don't need to go into dangerous areas to advance. You do not gain XP for bopping rats (pirates). You simply train a skill, and it happens whether or not you are online. Nothing on earth beyond a server failure can stop you.
I know that this discussion is dead, but if someone reads this please tell me: why would I buy vista to dual-boot my mac (or run in a VM)?
Any program that I want to run will run fine in XP, and XP is easier on the hardware. I see absolutely no point to purchasing Vista right now for the purpose of dual-booting/VMing a Mac. It just makes no sense.
Slashdot Mirror
***"Society" doesn't have any say in whether those things are wrong either. If something is wrong it remains wrong regardless of the majority opinion***
No, actually it's the reverse. Right and wrong are meaningless without a society. There is no right or wrong when you are all by yourself.
-Jeff
Please understand that I curse all the time in real-life, play on PvP servers without problem (e.g. shadowbane), and so on.
That said, they really should ban people who curse in public chat (no, guild chat is not "public"). Someone who gets banned a few times for cursing ends up with a perma-ban.
Again, I curse in real-life. But I see no positive reason to allow cursing in general chat channels.
-Jeff
They went from "these fragments come from one bullet" to "these fragments come from one or more bullets" based on *statistics* derived from firing similar bullets.
But please, by all means, let's state "case closed" and put forth all sorts of fun conspiracy theories. The evidence is certainly overwhelming now...
-Jeff
I think it would be the reverse for me. The treadmills would be a form of "white noise" that would hopefully drown-out the little phone conversations that go on around me. Those conversations are the distracting things, to me.
-Jeff
Personally, I prefer being in a tight space when I read or code. I like taking a walk when I do design work. So I guess I fit the article.
Anyways, it may (- see that, "may") be a good idea to give computer people a tighter workspace, and compensate by having a larger open area where they can relax and think big.
-Jeff
Just to control all the spam emails. I would love to see all email include a field for a national id. The field is optional, but of course my mail reader would filter on that. Any fraudulent use of an ID would be a federal crime and subject to severe penalties (meaning hard jail time for a large number of uses and no mitigating circumstances).
What about other countries? They can setup there own plans, or not. Of course, my mail reader will be set to reject their emails.
-Jeff
I don't care what famous name said what. When you look at the great leaders in history, all of them were very detail oriented and could help out with the small things in a pinch. For example, Patton (and his generals) did direct traffic, etc.
If you are a great leader, you do what you need to do to get the job done, and once in awhile that's a matter of low-level work rather than high-level thinking.
-Jeff
Not just KOTOR (thought that would have been fine). They simply could have set it "10 years later" after the return of jedi. You have lots of freedom to write your own story, you have many of the main characters to draw upon, and you don't have to pigeonhole the imperials as "evil" and the rebels as "good" anymore.
-Jeff
(my version)
What exactly is a centrist? The left has fought a successful campaign over the last 30 years or so to move the center to the left. What was once moderate right is now considered far right. What was moderate left is now considered centrist. What was far left is now left, and what was once considered bug-fuck insane is now simply far left.
30 years ago universal health care was a silly, irresponsible pipe-dream that no reasonable, budget-conscious official would even discuss. It made no sense; it was "bug-fuck insane". Now it is considered "far left", even though it is still a horribly irresponsible pipe-dream.
-Jeff
I'm not saying it's a bad game, but the gushing I'm hearing really seems at odds with what I saw. The middle earth terrain is fantastic - the shire, the old forest, etc, all look great. I spent hours running around looking.
The problem is "then what". There is very little that differentiates this game from any other game out there. Elves are not Tolkien's elves, they're the same generic elves from other games. Everybody says "no fireballs", but my first level loremaster was tossing fire. Then there's the countryside full of evil boars, bears, etc. The bottom line is that this is ye olde fantasy game on a really nice map of northern middle earth.
The one thing they did that seems different was add a neat trait system, which functions in the same role as WoW's talents. In this system you earn your traits by doing things, and then pick a small number of those traits to further differentiate your character. So find all 7 flowers in the old forest, get a trait. Go kill 60 barrow wights, finish all the breeland quests, etc, and you get traits. Some of these traits stack, too, so you might get "wisdom" from two different sources and have "wisdom +2". This trait system gives you little challenges while you are going about levelling.
When I left the beta, the system was in partially in-place but the traits weren't that effective. I read that they've filled it out and made the effects more pronounced.
But is a trait system that much of a reason to buy and play a game? I'm still disappointed that they didn't follow DAoC's RvR model, and I don't like the various little betrayals of Tolkien's world, so I'll pass.
-Jeff
You are a fool. They will ask blizzard who you are.
Feel free to follow the logic train...you won't be allowed to play anonymously if they tax.
-Jeff
Maybe som Palestinian group can make a similar map over, what Israel did to many Palestinian villages from 1947 until today. That would start up a *real* debate, and hopefully we can end the bloodshed there, that once raged Scandinavia.
...and then maybe some Jewish group will make up there map of 60 years of violence. Then people will debate whose map started it all, and we'll just end up continuing the feud in another venue.
--------------
The issue in Palestine/Israel is amazingly simple in many ways, if you stop worrying about who did what to whom in response to...whatever. There are two peoples living side-by-side right now. Only blood will move them. On a small scale this is acceptable and unavoidable, e.g. Israel gives up a mile of territory to clean up the border, and has to forcibly remove some settlers for the greater good.
The question is how to get there. The answer is that Palestine recognizes Israel as a nation. As soon as they do this, they "win". Israel at that point has to negotiate, has to give up territory (and they have shown a number of times they will do this for peace), and it's simply a matter of time at that point.
Maybe it will take a generation, I don't know. But once the Palestinians commit whole-heartedly to a peace process, they can't lose. Then we can let future generations make a map.
-Jeff
Wrong side? The US passed pro-dolphin laws regarding the netting of tuna. Mexico did not have such laws, and thus their tuna was cheaper. America restricted the importation of mexican tuna as a result. Then mexico applies to the WTO, and we're back to killing dophins again for the sake of business.
-Jeff
It's amusing to me. When the US protests the WTO's rulings on environmental issues (clean air, dolphin netting), nobody here will come to the US's defense. But when the WTO says the US is being naughty about the nasty business of gambling, everybody comes out to post.
I am not going to say the US is perfect by any stretch, but the bias on this site is practically a living thing.
-Jeff
P.S. Note - I bet in office pools, very occasionally play poker, etc. But organized gambling is nothing more than a way to fleece money from mathematically-challenged poor people, or people with a compulsive disorder. It's a very ugly business.
Having read the article (omg, ban him from slashdot!), I will give Dvorak this: the cell phone market is nothing like the mp3 market that Apple helped to create. The situations are very different, so you can't expect a success like the ipod. Of course, you almost never get successes like the ipod in business, so that really isn't saying much.
-Jeff
P.S. The rest of what he said regarding fashion, etc, I have no idea. Personally I think price tag, batteries, memory, calling plan, and the 3G aspect will tell the tale more than fashion. So JD and I may come to the same conclusion, but from completely different logic chains.
Slim capacity + closed battery = hard sell.
-Jeff
So we are clear - I'm an old-school c programmer, a SQL programmer, an oracle DBA (I've used many RDBMS packages), RHCE, and generally unix-savvy. Not boasting, because anybody who posts here has this and more, but just indicating my bonafides. Also, I now refuse to become a manager. I will be a team lead, take charge in a crisis, substitute for mgmt in a pinch, but I will not accept a post as a manger. My few-year stint as a manager was not fun: I want to keep my hands dirty.
In the military, I would be a sergeant.
It's not a question of my "entrenched" view. It's a very, very educated view working at a large number of clients in many business, including a number of wall-street businesses. I've done the 70-hour a week thing. I've worked with the so-called geniuses who said that they couldn't get up early (and they didn't have WoW as an excuse either). I've seen how much the night owls produce.
It's not worth it, in every case. I'm not saying that the night-owl, anti-social types can't produce; I'm saying that for the same money you can always find someone else who can produce in the same ballpark, plus be available for team meetings, work with other people, appear in front of the client, etc.
You are like a designated hitter looking for a job in the National League. We got lots of hitters, but can you field too?
-Jeff
I'm a big believer in flexibility in the IT field. Relaxed dress codes, flexible hours, etc. However, your point of view seems hopelessly self-centered and extreme.
"Results" is simply the start. I need people who are an active member of a team, who promote a friendly, helpful atmosphere. You should shower, come to work on time, keep abreast of situations, and be available.
To put it another way, for every self-centered,"results" person, I can find someone who produces results and shows up to work on time without excuses, and is good asset to the whole team.
-Jeff
http://www.gamersinfo.net/index.php?art/id:1598 In addition they are looking at introducing several new clients in the upcoming months including a Linux Client (in around 3 weeks) and a Mac client sometime this summer. The Linux client is mainly being targeted at Eastern Europe where they may be running on older hardware with Linux while the Mac Client has been a joint project with Transgaming. -Jeff
The group that did this now has the enmity of all other hard-core players in the eve universe. I'm not saying that what happened, and how it happened, were "right", but BoB is certainly not in a good position politically right now.
-Jeff
"Instead of just letting a company have their way with electronic voting, they really should have done research into the best voting method."
Whoever marked you as "insightful" should be shot.
Who is "they"? That's the real question.
The answer is that "they" is really "us"; that is, the electorate. We keep putting the same idiots into government who pull crap like this rather than voting them out of office. Instead of priorities based on news-media sales, people should be using their brains and voting in people who are competent at governing.
-Jeff
You can "prove" innocence in the same manner that you "prove" guilt. One quick example: if I am suspected of a murder, and I show that I was on vacation 1000 miles away at the time (with appropriate witness testimony, random credit card bills, phone records, etc), that's pretty much "proof".
:-)
Except in a soap opera, of course.
-Jeff
These types of threads sicken me. This is nothing more than a virtual lynch mob. People start with allegations, and then spin them into outrageous scenarios, and then get angry at people based on these flights of fancy.
Certainly, it is entirely possible that there is a thread of truth in all of this. Heck, maybe the darkest parts are true. But getting angry over allegations is simply wrong.
My fantasy scenario: we find out the truth, and then every person who spoke out-of-turn or simply lied must issue an apology to the community. That would be humorous.
-Jeff
"Prettiest space game ever - and also the worst and most boring space game ever...Everyone could do whatever they wanted, but all the big established guys had the power, and crushed the little folks."
Obviously your opinion, but very highly skewed, I was a casual player, darting in and out of the game (allowing my account to lapse in between), and never even joined corp. Obviously I could not fight a megacorp in their area, but there were huge areas of space to explore, goods to buy and sell (I did both), and so on.
Sure, if you wanted to mine the best minerals, or hunt the best areas of space, you needed a corp. But if you played in your means (you are just one person), it's not like anybody could really stop you.
Now, more specifically:
"crap like major newbie areas linked by unpatrolled space, that was near constantly gate-camped by people playing "pirate" in HUGE ships"
Of course, you could use the map to determine areas where there had been kills the last 24 hours and 1 hour (with the star glowing based on how many kills there had been) to get around the worst of it. Also, you could chart these areas in newbie frigates, bookmark map-points, and then jump around to those points so fast that it was practically impossible for someone to stop you. Yes, you had to plan and think, you couldn't just bull your way through it. But it could be done, and by a single player.
For the record, when I wanted to try trading, I jumped around in my big trader (Amarr bestower, I think), and never once saw a pirate in all the lawless areas I went through.
"Let's not even start talking about the economy. Man was that thing hosed."
Sorry, but that is nonsense. I as a few-month old player dabbled in production of newbie ammunition and made money because I found a few systems where new players were hunting and nobody else was selling.
There is plenty of opportunity for buying and selling and market play in the game. If you are determined to compete with the big boys, then yes you will lose. But there are so many niches you have to willfully try to fail. Just pick something small, look around, plan.
"advancement was near hopeless"
This is bald-faced lie. To advance a skill you simply pick it as your current skill to train, and you advance in that skill. No force in the game can stop that. It takes very little money to buy a huge number of skills, so for most intents and purposes any single player can advance as far as they want.
Again, you don't need to go into dangerous areas to advance. You do not gain XP for bopping rats (pirates). You simply train a skill, and it happens whether or not you are online. Nothing on earth beyond a server failure can stop you.
-Jeff
I know that this discussion is dead, but if someone reads this please tell me: why would I buy vista to dual-boot my mac (or run in a VM)?
Any program that I want to run will run fine in XP, and XP is easier on the hardware. I see absolutely no point to purchasing Vista right now for the purpose of dual-booting/VMing a Mac. It just makes no sense.
-Jeff