This is the exact reason people won't switch. Day 1 the user was using Slackware. At the end of his thread someone replied to use Chainsaw Linux.
The OP apparently knows enough about computers to get the job done. Heck I know enough about computers to get the job done.
The problem is, most of america doesn't know enough about computers to get the job done. Put down any copy of linux infront of most the population and you are gonna get frustration. People will switch back.
Example, my dad, who is very computer literate and knows his stuff pretty well. I was telling him once, when I got caught up in Linux hype, how good linux was and blah blah blah. He looked at me and said, "Linux is an outdated and inefficient operating system, why would you wanna use that?" After two hours of talk he still had the same opinion.
People don't wanna switch to something that kinda looks like windows and kinda feels like windows. They want Windows because it is what they know. You don't make money off the geeks, you make it off the masses.
is this proof that sometimes the ends justify the means? Let's see if the Linux community can match his generosity.
This isn't a big swinging dick contest on who can match who. These people need help. Hell if the Linuz community donated 100,000 dollars people would be still be happy because you had compassion.
I just can't bow down to the idea that gene's encode my memories. Personally I believe it is a matter of importance.
For instance, one can forget ones fiance's birthday or the day you got engaged or little things like Valentine's day, while remembering the gram molecular weight of ethanol or the exact number of Tribbles sat on by James T. Kirk.... so I'm not sure that evolution has strictly wired us for efficiency.
You sound like a guy and lets face it. Be dead honest, do you really care about the day you got engaged or Valentines day? I sure as heck don't. Only reason I remember the day I got engaged is due the fact that it is the day my parents got married. No real guy cares about that lovey dovey engagement crap.
However, Tribbles and ethanol obviously carry a significant importance to you that you wanna remember it.
I took computer programming a few times and honestly I can barely remember how to write an If/than/else loop. Ask me a question about EQ and dammit I will recite the whole story line.
I personally think that some of us feel slightly embaressed for remembering trivial things like tribbles and ogres. However it is what you are into and what makes you happy.
To me memories that last a life time that you can remember every detail to are the ones that impacted, what Freud would call, our ID personality type the most.
I got in a car wreck a year ago, nasty accident. I can remember every single detail as clear as it happened. However, I can barely piece together the day I asked my fiance to marry me. Is it the fact that I don't love her? Oh god no. It is the fact that while one was a life changing event. The other was a severe life threatening event that scarred my ID to no end. ID is about what you want and need right then and there. What I wanted was survival.
Personally, I don't believe in the existence of a parallel universe. No hardcore scientific evidence has ever been displayed to prove they are really there. They are mere thought and idea's. No different than the idea and thought that radiation could mutate you into a super human.
This is it my friends. Our one universe as far as I am concerned.
Besides, do you know how much energy it is gonna take to expand a wormhole large enough to allow a whole civilization to pass through? Holy crap! The energy our sun produces in a life time sounds about right.
I live in Seattle and am an avid listener to BJ Shae, a radio talkshow host. He heard about Jeff's stint yet again and decided to have a phone interview with him.
Turns out, he wasn't the only one. Infact a rival radio show actually went down to see Jeff and talk with him about the camp. Jeff wasn't there. In his place was a dummy in a sleeping bag. The rival radio show waited for over 30min before giving up.
Jeff admitted to the need to take a bathroom break at a nearby cafe but, that doesn't explain the 30min of absence. He was unable to comment any further.
granted this is old news but...
Now you are adding severe one ups on the machines in order to be superior. A team of millipedes with all their legs for mobility and speed to far outweigh human performance. Just like I stated with Deep Blue. Only way the machine could win is to calculate billions of moves ahead.
I have read a few threads on here commenting on how no one cares anymore. Common people that is. Well, what Nasa does anymore isn't as awe inspiring since there is no competition. No cold war. No race to space. That and the steps taken into the space frontier today are less impressive. We landed a probe that sent back some really nice pictures and some audio. Over 30 years ago we landed a guy on the moon. A man was actually there walking around.
I think people are less than impressed because the achievment is less than impressive. Nothing was risked, no one put their life on the line. You get greater press coverage from something awe inspiring. While this even maybe inspiring to scientists and space dreamers, to the ordinary working man and woman, they honestly could care less. There are more important things going on in their life other than some pictures from a probe.
While I found the visuals of Saturn stunning, the sounds were yawn worthy. The descent into Titan sounded like... wind. Not an alein sound to me. It just sounded like heavy wind. Wow.
I think people will be impressed when the steps we take into space actually yield something of importance. In the past years it has been varying experiments at the cost of billions that don't benefit the American people in anyway. Most americans don't like their precious tax dollars wasted on such fleeting efforts.
Perhaps if the science in space we have now was put towards something more useful. Perhaps mining operations on the moon. Something that would benefit the country as a whole.
As it stands now, in my opinion, Nasa is a waste of funds.
Is that if someone who claims Evolution to be theory is automatically labeled a religeous nut. Doesn't matter who you are, the label comes and bears itself upon you like a scarlet letter.
The problem I have with the verdict is that the religeous nut side was immediately thought of and branded in the open.
I read the sticker and found it acceptable as it doesn't push religion and it isn't suggesting evolution is factual. However, it allows students to have that open mind. To the point where they can decide, "Hey, maybe evolution wasn't the ticket after all. Maybe creationism is wrong as well. I wonder what other avenue could be available to describe all this?"
When you don't label something as theory from the start, (Especially something that is for all intentional purposes theory) you begin to institutionalize the students, leaders, thinkers and scientists of tomorrow.
I guess I should also point out that it is also unconstitutional what the judge did. Teaching from a book that states evolution as fact to those who choose to have religion violates Amendment Numero Uno. I think the best solution is to have a waiver signed for all students. Those you are the "religeous nuts" can talk to their children before hand or even go to the extreme and not let them take the course. Those who belive the evolution route can sleep securely at night knowing that their kids aren't getting "perverted" by the idea that religion might be true.
Under every avenue that would probably be the best as it would protect the best intrests of all parents and children with the varying belief structures.
Personally I don't believe it to be possible with the agility of humans. Sure a robot can probably kick harder and see 360 degrees around itself, but the footwork of defensive and offensive players in soccer is impressive to no end.
However what I do find amusing is the little advantages they give machines to edge out over humans. Take the Kasparov vs. Deep Blue competition. The experienced chess player can see about 12 moves ahead. While Deep Blue was calculating billions of possible moves in seconds. Kasparov gave that machine a huge run for its money and beat it a few times if I recall correctly.
Now these machines require 360 degrees of viewing, the added edge. I am also sure that they will kick the ball with amazing force that would make even the most stout soccer player wanna dodge the ball.
Seems to me that the only way robots/AI has been able to best humans is by having distinct huge advantages in critical area's.
Then again, when this fateful soccer tournament happens... no one in america will no since no one in america watches soccer.
Not really worth noting that when EQ2 was released, many people yawned. As for the most popular one for some time... you mean three weeks. Because three weeks later WoW was released and EQ2 flopped.
Maybe our understanding of time is less than that of the mighty Claus.
Perhaps the merry ol' Saint Nick can expand time in front of him and compress it behind him so that while he moves at extrordinary speeds due to our relative time frame. He will see us in near stationary movement.
THEREFORE, the number 4 proves that Santa can do it in about 1 hour in relation to our relative time frame.
When you are stealing from a bank you are basically stealing insured money that is easily restored through the FDIC. You walk in, you steal it and the bank who lost money has it restored through the insurance they pay. Basically you are stealing from an insurance company not the people or the bank.
When stealing fcredit cards from any corporation that has a large customer base you are directly stealing from that company on a much larger scale than you like to think.
See, the credit card transactions can be rivaled and made obsolete due to the Theft Protection programs credit cards companies use as a built in customer service option.
The company risks losing thousands if not millions of dollars due to lack of trust in their system by consumers. People don't lose the money but they don't trust the company with their credit card and will take their business elsewhere to a rival competitor. So now the company is hurt on a much broader scale from this one hacker.
So really, the punishment does fit the crime due to the scale of what would and could have happened to the company if he had been successful. I am sure Lowe's lost percentage of their customers due to the attempt. Granted nothing was aquired people now don't feel safe. So even though this hacker didn't aquire and numbers, Lowe's now took a loss on money coming in due to the lack of trust because of this one hacker.
So in reality, this hacker stole money already, even though he never received said money he cost Lowe's X amount of dollars from a loss in customers.
Take Apple for example. They used the Mach 3 Kernel which if I am not mistaken is Open to the public. I even remember them offering it to download and such. However, what is important is what they kept in house. The whole rest of the OS pretty much. Sure the Kernel is available but the good stuff is all closed. I am not saying you can't make money off OpenSource. What I am saying is that if you really wanna make money off OpenSource you gotta keep half in the Open and half to yourself.
Being the most popular always came with negativity. Honestly, why would anyone care about writing virii, worms and other means of computer assault on Linux. It fills an extremely small gap in the number of consumer desktops used worldwide. It is more fun to hash the Big Redmond Giant.
You don't make something opensource if you wanna make money. That is a straight up fact. Have there been successes? Oh yeah, there have been plenty. If you wanna make the big bucks you keep it in house so no one can profit off your work. However, your company can't make money if you are continuously working on a product and not selling it. So does Microsoft release buggy code? Yeah.
It is a matter of money. Bill Gates didn't start Microsoft because he wanted to touch lives, he made the company to make money. That is the general reason anyone starts a company. Dollar signs.
So you have deadlines. A good example is the rush developement and release of EQ2. Hell you can even compare it to any EQ expansion. Full of bugs, exploits, instability, etc. Why? Money. You don't make money programming to make it perfect. You make money by having a product good enough that people will use it. Why else has EQ maintained a stable subscription base over five years. Granted there have been jumps in either direction but it has been stable enough to open more servers.
Expansions like Gates of Discord, Luclin, Omens of War and Planes of Power all had more than their fair share of bugs. Money is the underlying issue. The expansions were good enough to release but not solid.
The same can be said for Microsoft. Windows is good enough but can always be fixed through patches. If they are gonna keep it in house forever, then they will never make money.
Will we one day be able to teleport things, at least in the sence of destroying you in an incredibly painful way, after taking a quick scan of your makeup and reassemble your scan elsewhere (the scan of course being 2 seconds earlier than the pain of being destroyed, and hence, no memory would remain of said pain. Yay)? Probably. I don't think anyone is really arguing that that isn't possible.
Will we be able to move ourselves to Mars using nothing but the desire to be there? No. Never. Not anytime in the next million years. There is no maybe about it. No, No we will not.
Why not? Why does it have to be painful? Why are we limiting ourselves to a 3 dimensional thinking when there is a possibility that it can be done.
There really is no evidence supporting the idea that it can or cannot be done. You can bring relativity into this all you want but you can't support fact with theory. Show me absolute hard evidence that it can't be done.
People have believed flight was possible for ages.
This is the history I talk about. People believed it to be so. It was a lack of science that kept this dream from becoming reality. People believed that it was possible but no one had any clue how to pull it off. Same for teleportation. Some believe it to be so yet lack the science to pull it off. To say it is impossible is to say flight is impossible. Nothing is impossible with out limited knowledge of the universe.
the way this goes is that conservation of energy (and mass, which is energy in relativity) must be a local phenomena, because if it is non-local, then two different observers will see things differently, one sees that mass a disappears and mass b appears simultaneously at a different spot, another observer moving in a different relative frame will NOT see these as simultaneous, thereby violating conservation of energy since mass b will appear first, then mass a disappear.
The way I figure it for teleportation... all our current thinking is three dimensional. We rely on what we know to define what can and can't happen yet history proves this is wrong. I personally think teleportation can and one day will work. Even over large distances. It is a matter of redefining what we know and what we think we know.
Since everything in science is really theory, we shouldn't close the door on a potential scientific break through.
Now with what was mentioned above with the way it was explained. If I am to teleport from point A to point B, I will remain Mass A regardless. Observer A will see me disappear and reappear at point B. Same for Observer B. I disappear here and reappear there. Simple really.
The general theme from the story I received was a MUD programmer who is bitter about the evolution of MMO's. I would even go so far as to say he is bitter about his lack of participation in this new market. That is merely an opinion but the feel of what he wrote is less of an observation and more of a rant.
Games progress to meet gamer demand. If this was not the case, Wolfenstein 3D would still be the hottest FPS to date. However when it comes to MMO's you need a story line to justify the world you are in.
It is a matter of who your target audience is. On my old server for EQ, only one member of our whole guild roleplayed. The rest of us enjoyed the social setting and general challenge of upper end targets and the strategies you had to employ. I wouldn't say the games are designed by newbies but they are designed to have large target audiences. No matter how you look at it, the company who invests 2 or 3 years of developement needs to make money in the end. To do that you need a game that is both appealing to a vast market of individuals and you need the game to have a long progression curve.
On his death idea or suggestion, that would be a game killer. Especially one you wish to make money off of. Lets use EQ as an example. That game in its prime took weeks if not a couple months to be a mid level toon. If you added a permanent death aspect to the game then you would have to drastically change the leveling speed in which players progressed.
High end raiding would never have been an employable aspect. Same can be said for soloing, quad kiting, swarm kiting, AE kiting, fear kiting and AE Nuke Groups. Many of the fun aspects that made EQ enjoyable from a solo, group and raid standpoint would be eliminated completely. What would be the point in playing since at some point, all your hard work is going to be erased due to an accidental death.
The death model may fit a fast paced MUD but for a game as large and as vast as EQ, it will not work.
I will give him credit when it comes to the story. MUD's pretty much own that hands down since pretty much the whole game relies on description and mental depth. You cannot argue that the Kunark and Velious expansions didn't have a story that was vast. Both employed an impressive model of lore. It was Luclin and beyond that basically sucked when it came to how far the rabbit hole would take you.
I would like to know why this post was marked up as flamebait. The poster had legitimate points in regards to their support for the patriot act. Correct me if I am wrong but the lead terrorist we are after is infact Muslim and he is the one who lead the attacks on the WTC.
Cassius Clay, Ali himself said he was ashamed of the Muslim attitude in regards to what their religion preaches and what they did spedifically. It goes against everything that the Muslim religion is about.
So tell me, how is this post flamebait. You can mark me up too because the severe left winged moderators are clearly blind.
Kerry does not want to embed discrimination into our Constitution. I am not gay, but I believe in equality and justice for all. How can one expect a fair treatment while the others are being denied civil liberties? Think about it, would straight men beat their wives if the concept of heterosexual marriage was perfect? If you want to protect marriage, do me a favor: push for women's rights and stand against family violence.
I am all for gay's to have the right to marry. However your comparison of men beating wives and heterosexual marriage is speculation. Men who beat their wives do so for a number of reasons and generally it is a reflection of abuse they received in their childhood years. Is it right? No! But to make the generalization that Bush is all for men kicking the crap outta their wives is just foolish.
I support women's right to choose.
I am all for peoples ideas on abortion and what is right and wrong. I am Pro-Life but my ideas stem from my religion and I am not about to enforce that on anyone. So abortion needs to stay. However I am all for restrictions on abortion until a man's right to choose is in place. By that I mean an unmarried mans right to deny all legal parental privlidges to an unborn child that he does not want. Which would include child support. When that is in place, I am for any and nearly all abortion restrictions to be lifted. I 100% sure that the number of abortions will increase throughout the nation if a law like that is put in place. And the number of bastard children born into broken relationships outta spite will be floored.
During the debates Mr. Bush did not have enough guts to admit three things that he screwed. Let me help him out: "No Child Left Behind," Iraq, tax cuts for the rich.
Speculation again. He didn't lack guts. He said that all his decisions were thoughtout and he supports those decisions to this day, Iraq especially. You say they were screwups, he believes they were right. So really it is a difference of opinion.
If you think that Kerry is a "flip-flopper," think how many times...
Mr. Kerry's primary example of his flip-flopping is his accusations that troops don't have the armor or equipment in the war but he is the one who voted against the billion dollar military fund, whatever it was called. You can't say troops need armor but support your decision to vote against the funds that would have given them the armor. That is all I have to say about that.
Kerry is intelligent, Bush is not. Do me a favor, compare Kerry and Bush rallies, speeches, etc. You will see a difference. Our current president speaks like a fucking second grader with "internets," "budget men" and "group of folks."
This arguement holds as much water as a cheap ass paper towel. You cannot compare how one speaks to how intelligent they are. Tom Leykis had a discussion about this today about this exact topic. Bush is from the south where generally they talk simpler. "Group of folks" is a southern phrase and not comparable to how intelligent he is. Hell up in Maine they still use the word "wicked" to describe many things and over here in Washington "Mass Cool" was a typical term used by many people. So the man can't give speeches very well. How about that Stephen Hawking? Fuck the guy when I have seen him attempt to talk sounds like a mentally-handicapped individual yet he is regarded as one of the smartest men in the world. Think about it.
48 Nobel prize winners support Kerry.
This means nothing. The many Nobel Prizes do not mean a person is intelligent or have any knowledge of politics. There was a woman who won the Nobel Prize for Peace for her act to remove landmines from all warfare. Clinton didn't sign it and thank (God, Allah, Darwin) he didn't. Since those little devices save our troops asses. If we can bring one extra troop home at the millions of dollars of costs it takes to deploy those, then it is worth it.
So no, he may not have done anything for Massachusetts specifically, but I'd say he has done well for the country, and that's what I would expect from the President as well.
As a senator his job is to do things for the state. It would be the same to have an elceted Governor do nothing for Massachusetts but concentrated on National matters.
I have gathered from the original poster that he is upset with Kerry doing barely lifting a finger for his state and instead using it as political leverage.
It isn't the responsibility of Apple to port games to their systems. It is the responsibility of the gaming creating companies to make games for Mac's. However, is it profitable?
You are asking the game companies in question to do extra work to pick up a few extra thousand gamers. Is the profit margin that great in the Mac side of the gaming demographic?
One of the best things you can do to get gaming companies to make more Mac games is to register every game available to an Apple machine. By registering every single game you will drive companies to make more games for Mac users. My brother, an avid Apple follower, has used this practice for years with every product available for his machines that he has bought.
It is a matter of money in the end and if the demographic among Mac users isn't great enough to equal a large enough profit margin, then why bother?
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This is the exact reason people won't switch. Day 1 the user was using Slackware. At the end of his thread someone replied to use Chainsaw Linux.
The OP apparently knows enough about computers to get the job done. Heck I know enough about computers to get the job done.
The problem is, most of america doesn't know enough about computers to get the job done. Put down any copy of linux infront of most the population and you are gonna get frustration. People will switch back.
Example, my dad, who is very computer literate and knows his stuff pretty well. I was telling him once, when I got caught up in Linux hype, how good linux was and blah blah blah. He looked at me and said, "Linux is an outdated and inefficient operating system, why would you wanna use that?" After two hours of talk he still had the same opinion.
People don't wanna switch to something that kinda looks like windows and kinda feels like windows. They want Windows because it is what they know. You don't make money off the geeks, you make it off the masses.
is this proof that sometimes the ends justify the means? Let's see if the Linux community can match his generosity. This isn't a big swinging dick contest on who can match who. These people need help. Hell if the Linuz community donated 100,000 dollars people would be still be happy because you had compassion.
I just can't bow down to the idea that gene's encode my memories. Personally I believe it is a matter of importance.
For instance, one can forget ones fiance's birthday or the day you got engaged or little things like Valentine's day, while remembering the gram molecular weight of ethanol or the exact number of Tribbles sat on by James T. Kirk.... so I'm not sure that evolution has strictly wired us for efficiency.
You sound like a guy and lets face it. Be dead honest, do you really care about the day you got engaged or Valentines day? I sure as heck don't. Only reason I remember the day I got engaged is due the fact that it is the day my parents got married. No real guy cares about that lovey dovey engagement crap.
However, Tribbles and ethanol obviously carry a significant importance to you that you wanna remember it.
I took computer programming a few times and honestly I can barely remember how to write an If/than/else loop. Ask me a question about EQ and dammit I will recite the whole story line.
I personally think that some of us feel slightly embaressed for remembering trivial things like tribbles and ogres. However it is what you are into and what makes you happy.
To me memories that last a life time that you can remember every detail to are the ones that impacted, what Freud would call, our ID personality type the most.
I got in a car wreck a year ago, nasty accident. I can remember every single detail as clear as it happened. However, I can barely piece together the day I asked my fiance to marry me. Is it the fact that I don't love her? Oh god no. It is the fact that while one was a life changing event. The other was a severe life threatening event that scarred my ID to no end. ID is about what you want and need right then and there. What I wanted was survival.
I don't believe in i, but I do believe in you.
Oops....
Personally, I don't believe in the existence of a parallel universe. No hardcore scientific evidence has ever been displayed to prove they are really there. They are mere thought and idea's. No different than the idea and thought that radiation could mutate you into a super human.
This is it my friends. Our one universe as far as I am concerned.
Besides, do you know how much energy it is gonna take to expand a wormhole large enough to allow a whole civilization to pass through? Holy crap! The energy our sun produces in a life time sounds about right.
I live in Seattle and am an avid listener to BJ Shae, a radio talkshow host. He heard about Jeff's stint yet again and decided to have a phone interview with him.
Turns out, he wasn't the only one. Infact a rival radio show actually went down to see Jeff and talk with him about the camp. Jeff wasn't there. In his place was a dummy in a sleeping bag. The rival radio show waited for over 30min before giving up.
Jeff admitted to the need to take a bathroom break at a nearby cafe but, that doesn't explain the 30min of absence. He was unable to comment any further.
Just thought I would let you all know.
granted this is old news but... Now you are adding severe one ups on the machines in order to be superior. A team of millipedes with all their legs for mobility and speed to far outweigh human performance. Just like I stated with Deep Blue. Only way the machine could win is to calculate billions of moves ahead.
I have read a few threads on here commenting on how no one cares anymore. Common people that is. Well, what Nasa does anymore isn't as awe inspiring since there is no competition. No cold war. No race to space. That and the steps taken into the space frontier today are less impressive. We landed a probe that sent back some really nice pictures and some audio. Over 30 years ago we landed a guy on the moon. A man was actually there walking around.
I think people are less than impressed because the achievment is less than impressive. Nothing was risked, no one put their life on the line. You get greater press coverage from something awe inspiring. While this even maybe inspiring to scientists and space dreamers, to the ordinary working man and woman, they honestly could care less. There are more important things going on in their life other than some pictures from a probe. While I found the visuals of Saturn stunning, the sounds were yawn worthy. The descent into Titan sounded like... wind. Not an alein sound to me. It just sounded like heavy wind. Wow.
I think people will be impressed when the steps we take into space actually yield something of importance. In the past years it has been varying experiments at the cost of billions that don't benefit the American people in anyway. Most americans don't like their precious tax dollars wasted on such fleeting efforts.
Perhaps if the science in space we have now was put towards something more useful. Perhaps mining operations on the moon. Something that would benefit the country as a whole.
As it stands now, in my opinion, Nasa is a waste of funds.
Is that if someone who claims Evolution to be theory is automatically labeled a religeous nut. Doesn't matter who you are, the label comes and bears itself upon you like a scarlet letter.
The problem I have with the verdict is that the religeous nut side was immediately thought of and branded in the open.
I read the sticker and found it acceptable as it doesn't push religion and it isn't suggesting evolution is factual. However, it allows students to have that open mind. To the point where they can decide, "Hey, maybe evolution wasn't the ticket after all. Maybe creationism is wrong as well. I wonder what other avenue could be available to describe all this?"
When you don't label something as theory from the start, (Especially something that is for all intentional purposes theory) you begin to institutionalize the students, leaders, thinkers and scientists of tomorrow.
I guess I should also point out that it is also unconstitutional what the judge did. Teaching from a book that states evolution as fact to those who choose to have religion violates Amendment Numero Uno. I think the best solution is to have a waiver signed for all students. Those you are the "religeous nuts" can talk to their children before hand or even go to the extreme and not let them take the course. Those who belive the evolution route can sleep securely at night knowing that their kids aren't getting "perverted" by the idea that religion might be true.
Under every avenue that would probably be the best as it would protect the best intrests of all parents and children with the varying belief structures.
Personally I don't believe it to be possible with the agility of humans. Sure a robot can probably kick harder and see 360 degrees around itself, but the footwork of defensive and offensive players in soccer is impressive to no end.
However what I do find amusing is the little advantages they give machines to edge out over humans. Take the Kasparov vs. Deep Blue competition. The experienced chess player can see about 12 moves ahead. While Deep Blue was calculating billions of possible moves in seconds. Kasparov gave that machine a huge run for its money and beat it a few times if I recall correctly.
Now these machines require 360 degrees of viewing, the added edge. I am also sure that they will kick the ball with amazing force that would make even the most stout soccer player wanna dodge the ball.
Seems to me that the only way robots/AI has been able to best humans is by having distinct huge advantages in critical area's.
Then again, when this fateful soccer tournament happens... no one in america will no since no one in america watches soccer.
Not really worth noting that when EQ2 was released, many people yawned. As for the most popular one for some time... you mean three weeks. Because three weeks later WoW was released and EQ2 flopped.
Well I guess you can't call it a Law anymore if we are hitting this road block.
Moore's Idea? Moore's Philosophy?
Maybe our understanding of time is less than that of the mighty Claus. Perhaps the merry ol' Saint Nick can expand time in front of him and compress it behind him so that while he moves at extrordinary speeds due to our relative time frame. He will see us in near stationary movement. THEREFORE, the number 4 proves that Santa can do it in about 1 hour in relation to our relative time frame.
When you are stealing from a bank you are basically stealing insured money that is easily restored through the FDIC. You walk in, you steal it and the bank who lost money has it restored through the insurance they pay. Basically you are stealing from an insurance company not the people or the bank.
When stealing fcredit cards from any corporation that has a large customer base you are directly stealing from that company on a much larger scale than you like to think.
See, the credit card transactions can be rivaled and made obsolete due to the Theft Protection programs credit cards companies use as a built in customer service option.
The company risks losing thousands if not millions of dollars due to lack of trust in their system by consumers. People don't lose the money but they don't trust the company with their credit card and will take their business elsewhere to a rival competitor. So now the company is hurt on a much broader scale from this one hacker.
So really, the punishment does fit the crime due to the scale of what would and could have happened to the company if he had been successful. I am sure Lowe's lost percentage of their customers due to the attempt. Granted nothing was aquired people now don't feel safe. So even though this hacker didn't aquire and numbers, Lowe's now took a loss on money coming in due to the lack of trust because of this one hacker.
So in reality, this hacker stole money already, even though he never received said money he cost Lowe's X amount of dollars from a loss in customers.
Take Apple for example. They used the Mach 3 Kernel which if I am not mistaken is Open to the public. I even remember them offering it to download and such. However, what is important is what they kept in house. The whole rest of the OS pretty much. Sure the Kernel is available but the good stuff is all closed. I am not saying you can't make money off OpenSource. What I am saying is that if you really wanna make money off OpenSource you gotta keep half in the Open and half to yourself.
Being the most popular always came with negativity. Honestly, why would anyone care about writing virii, worms and other means of computer assault on Linux. It fills an extremely small gap in the number of consumer desktops used worldwide. It is more fun to hash the Big Redmond Giant.
You don't make something opensource if you wanna make money. That is a straight up fact. Have there been successes? Oh yeah, there have been plenty. If you wanna make the big bucks you keep it in house so no one can profit off your work. However, your company can't make money if you are continuously working on a product and not selling it. So does Microsoft release buggy code? Yeah.
It is a matter of money. Bill Gates didn't start Microsoft because he wanted to touch lives, he made the company to make money. That is the general reason anyone starts a company. Dollar signs.
So you have deadlines. A good example is the rush developement and release of EQ2. Hell you can even compare it to any EQ expansion. Full of bugs, exploits, instability, etc. Why? Money. You don't make money programming to make it perfect. You make money by having a product good enough that people will use it. Why else has EQ maintained a stable subscription base over five years. Granted there have been jumps in either direction but it has been stable enough to open more servers.
Expansions like Gates of Discord, Luclin, Omens of War and Planes of Power all had more than their fair share of bugs. Money is the underlying issue. The expansions were good enough to release but not solid.
The same can be said for Microsoft. Windows is good enough but can always be fixed through patches. If they are gonna keep it in house forever, then they will never make money.
Will we one day be able to teleport things, at least in the sence of destroying you in an incredibly painful way, after taking a quick scan of your makeup and reassemble your scan elsewhere (the scan of course being 2 seconds earlier than the pain of being destroyed, and hence, no memory would remain of said pain. Yay)? Probably. I don't think anyone is really arguing that that isn't possible.
Will we be able to move ourselves to Mars using nothing but the desire to be there? No. Never. Not anytime in the next million years. There is no maybe about it. No, No we will not.
Why not? Why does it have to be painful? Why are we limiting ourselves to a 3 dimensional thinking when there is a possibility that it can be done.
There really is no evidence supporting the idea that it can or cannot be done. You can bring relativity into this all you want but you can't support fact with theory. Show me absolute hard evidence that it can't be done.
People have believed flight was possible for ages.
This is the history I talk about. People believed it to be so. It was a lack of science that kept this dream from becoming reality. People believed that it was possible but no one had any clue how to pull it off. Same for teleportation. Some believe it to be so yet lack the science to pull it off. To say it is impossible is to say flight is impossible. Nothing is impossible with out limited knowledge of the universe.
the way this goes is that conservation of energy (and mass, which is energy in relativity) must be a local phenomena, because if it is non-local, then two different observers will see things differently, one sees that mass a disappears and mass b appears simultaneously at a different spot, another observer moving in a different relative frame will NOT see these as simultaneous, thereby violating conservation of energy since mass b will appear first, then mass a disappear.
The way I figure it for teleportation... all our current thinking is three dimensional. We rely on what we know to define what can and can't happen yet history proves this is wrong. I personally think teleportation can and one day will work. Even over large distances. It is a matter of redefining what we know and what we think we know.
Since everything in science is really theory, we shouldn't close the door on a potential scientific break through.
Now with what was mentioned above with the way it was explained. If I am to teleport from point A to point B, I will remain Mass A regardless. Observer A will see me disappear and reappear at point B. Same for Observer B. I disappear here and reappear there. Simple really.
The general theme from the story I received was a MUD programmer who is bitter about the evolution of MMO's. I would even go so far as to say he is bitter about his lack of participation in this new market. That is merely an opinion but the feel of what he wrote is less of an observation and more of a rant.
Games progress to meet gamer demand. If this was not the case, Wolfenstein 3D would still be the hottest FPS to date. However when it comes to MMO's you need a story line to justify the world you are in.
It is a matter of who your target audience is. On my old server for EQ, only one member of our whole guild roleplayed. The rest of us enjoyed the social setting and general challenge of upper end targets and the strategies you had to employ. I wouldn't say the games are designed by newbies but they are designed to have large target audiences. No matter how you look at it, the company who invests 2 or 3 years of developement needs to make money in the end. To do that you need a game that is both appealing to a vast market of individuals and you need the game to have a long progression curve.
On his death idea or suggestion, that would be a game killer. Especially one you wish to make money off of. Lets use EQ as an example. That game in its prime took weeks if not a couple months to be a mid level toon. If you added a permanent death aspect to the game then you would have to drastically change the leveling speed in which players progressed.
High end raiding would never have been an employable aspect. Same can be said for soloing, quad kiting, swarm kiting, AE kiting, fear kiting and AE Nuke Groups. Many of the fun aspects that made EQ enjoyable from a solo, group and raid standpoint would be eliminated completely. What would be the point in playing since at some point, all your hard work is going to be erased due to an accidental death.
The death model may fit a fast paced MUD but for a game as large and as vast as EQ, it will not work.
I will give him credit when it comes to the story. MUD's pretty much own that hands down since pretty much the whole game relies on description and mental depth. You cannot argue that the Kunark and Velious expansions didn't have a story that was vast. Both employed an impressive model of lore. It was Luclin and beyond that basically sucked when it came to how far the rabbit hole would take you.
I would like to know why this post was marked up as flamebait. The poster had legitimate points in regards to their support for the patriot act. Correct me if I am wrong but the lead terrorist we are after is infact Muslim and he is the one who lead the attacks on the WTC.
Cassius Clay, Ali himself said he was ashamed of the Muslim attitude in regards to what their religion preaches and what they did spedifically. It goes against everything that the Muslim religion is about.
So tell me, how is this post flamebait. You can mark me up too because the severe left winged moderators are clearly blind.
We already found out thirty some years ago that the moon infact, was not made of cheese. Why go back?!
Kerry does not want to embed discrimination into our Constitution. I am not gay, but I believe in equality and justice for all. How can one expect a fair treatment while the others are being denied civil liberties? Think about it, would straight men beat their wives if the concept of heterosexual marriage was perfect? If you want to protect marriage, do me a favor: push for women's rights and stand against family violence.
I am all for gay's to have the right to marry. However your comparison of men beating wives and heterosexual marriage is speculation. Men who beat their wives do so for a number of reasons and generally it is a reflection of abuse they received in their childhood years. Is it right? No! But to make the generalization that Bush is all for men kicking the crap outta their wives is just foolish.
I support women's right to choose.
I am all for peoples ideas on abortion and what is right and wrong. I am Pro-Life but my ideas stem from my religion and I am not about to enforce that on anyone. So abortion needs to stay. However I am all for restrictions on abortion until a man's right to choose is in place. By that I mean an unmarried mans right to deny all legal parental privlidges to an unborn child that he does not want. Which would include child support. When that is in place, I am for any and nearly all abortion restrictions to be lifted. I 100% sure that the number of abortions will increase throughout the nation if a law like that is put in place. And the number of bastard children born into broken relationships outta spite will be floored.
During the debates Mr. Bush did not have enough guts to admit three things that he screwed. Let me help him out: "No Child Left Behind," Iraq, tax cuts for the rich.
Speculation again. He didn't lack guts. He said that all his decisions were thoughtout and he supports those decisions to this day, Iraq especially. You say they were screwups, he believes they were right. So really it is a difference of opinion.
If you think that Kerry is a "flip-flopper," think how many times...
Mr. Kerry's primary example of his flip-flopping is his accusations that troops don't have the armor or equipment in the war but he is the one who voted against the billion dollar military fund, whatever it was called. You can't say troops need armor but support your decision to vote against the funds that would have given them the armor. That is all I have to say about that.
Kerry is intelligent, Bush is not. Do me a favor, compare Kerry and Bush rallies, speeches, etc. You will see a difference. Our current president speaks like a fucking second grader with "internets," "budget men" and "group of folks."
This arguement holds as much water as a cheap ass paper towel. You cannot compare how one speaks to how intelligent they are. Tom Leykis had a discussion about this today about this exact topic. Bush is from the south where generally they talk simpler. "Group of folks" is a southern phrase and not comparable to how intelligent he is. Hell up in Maine they still use the word "wicked" to describe many things and over here in Washington "Mass Cool" was a typical term used by many people. So the man can't give speeches very well. How about that Stephen Hawking? Fuck the guy when I have seen him attempt to talk sounds like a mentally-handicapped individual yet he is regarded as one of the smartest men in the world. Think about it.
48 Nobel prize winners support Kerry.
This means nothing. The many Nobel Prizes do not mean a person is intelligent or have any knowledge of politics. There was a woman who won the Nobel Prize for Peace for her act to remove landmines from all warfare. Clinton didn't sign it and thank (God, Allah, Darwin) he didn't. Since those little devices save our troops asses. If we can bring one extra troop home at the millions of dollars of costs it takes to deploy those, then it is worth it.
So no, he may not have done anything for Massachusetts specifically, but I'd say he has done well for the country, and that's what I would expect from the President as well.
As a senator his job is to do things for the state. It would be the same to have an elceted Governor do nothing for Massachusetts but concentrated on National matters.
I have gathered from the original poster that he is upset with Kerry doing barely lifting a finger for his state and instead using it as political leverage.
It isn't the responsibility of Apple to port games to their systems. It is the responsibility of the gaming creating companies to make games for Mac's. However, is it profitable?
You are asking the game companies in question to do extra work to pick up a few extra thousand gamers. Is the profit margin that great in the Mac side of the gaming demographic?
One of the best things you can do to get gaming companies to make more Mac games is to register every game available to an Apple machine. By registering every single game you will drive companies to make more games for Mac users. My brother, an avid Apple follower, has used this practice for years with every product available for his machines that he has bought.
It is a matter of money in the end and if the demographic among Mac users isn't great enough to equal a large enough profit margin, then why bother?