I'm guessing at least part of the infatuation is that player's want it.
I play a fair amount of Diablo2 these days, and while not a MMO in the classic sense, it shares many of the traits.
In it, you have the choice of playing "hardcore" (die and you're gone period) or "softcore" (die and you lose xps & cash, all your items are with your body and need to be recovered, etc).
LOTS of players, myself included, choose to play hardcore. It's the extra rush of knowing the death is indeed permanent.
I would think that CoH and any other MMO would do well to cater to both mindsets.
Actually, that's a good point. You DO see that - in fact I see it every day with our current development manager. He's a great guy, knows his stuff, has a real hard time being a hard a$$.
So, his boss will go to him with an unreasonable request, one I know he can't possibly execute in the time frame given without altering every other project's deliverable date (I play at being a Project Manager here, so I know the other dates) and he won't dig in his heels right away.
That does contribute to the problem - in that he's feeding bad information up the food chain.
This isn't "developers" making the promises, it's "business executives". It's not news, it's been that way throughout the software industry for... well, forever.
Developers, and by extension QA people and Production Support people live under the mantra that "just one more tweak and it'll be perfect". And that's "A Good Thing".
Marketing & Business types live under the mantra "opportunity cost & time to market". That, surprisingly enough, is also "A Good Thing" since money coming in allows developers the opportunity to write.
Those conflicting forces, when balanced with common sense and proper risk management, lead to the proper compromise of quality vs. timeliness.
The issue becomes bad, when "but we made a promise to our customers/shareholders and we can't lose face" becomes the over-riding concern and "but the software doesn't actually work yet" gets lost in the shuffle.
Too many companies in these days of "what have you done for me lately" quarterly profit/loss statement-driven management have lost the ability to think long term.
This seems consistant to me with some relatively recent decisions around EULA-type contracts (too lazy to go look them up, going from memory here) that were decided basically along the same lines...
It's long, it's boring, it's indecipherable, and it's clickable without reading. There is in fact no implied consent to the terms of the contract.
Actually, I didn't use the term "right" applied to television, that card was first played in this discussion by those arguing "I have a right to inflict my desire for silence on other people"
Not in so many words of course, but that's their basic arguement -- "I'm more important than you"
And the person who wants to be distracted by the TV to avoid thinking about his miserable life on the road, never seeing his family? When he arrives at said gate, and the TV is off, and he has no mechanism to turn it back on?
Explain to me how his life is better again, please, I'm missing it.
Oh wait, you don't care about him because your right to not have the TV on [which you admit is at some other gate that you're not even using] is somehow more important than his right to have it on?
sociopath? No, that's not it. malaprope? No, that's not it either. What would be the appropriate word for someone who so obviously scorns and disdains their fellow man?....
That's the part of the arguement I don't understand from all the people who are arguing the "this is a great idea!" side of the debate.
Somehow their right to turn the TV off trumps my right to watch. Not on your life.
Now, their right to "not watch"? That's different. They can exercise that right to their heart's content - as long as it doesn't interfere with mine. They can leave. They can close their eyes. They can turn their head. Any number of things... but no, their arguements all boil down to something like "you can't tell me what to watch but I can tell you what you can't watch"... as they hold their breath until they turn blue in the face and fall on the floor kicking and pounding their tiny little fists.
Sheesh. You're at a gym and you're complaining about walking all the way across the room to turn the damn thing off?
Ask someone (who works in said gym) to turn it off for you - they have the resonsibility for balancing the needs of the "want to watchers" against the needs of the "don't want to watchers", not you.
Does you're "use responsibly" mantra include asking anyone else in the area whether they might actually want to watch, or would you just turn it off and leave it to them to turn it back on again.
Lessee, I'm exposed to second hand smoke - my choices to protect myself are to "leave the location" or "stop breathing".
I'm exposed to a public TV - my choices are "leave the location" or "turn my head away".
yeah, I can totally see how they have the same impact...
The right to putting out an abandoned smoldering cigarette (no arguement there) that's at your table or "in your space" cannot be equated with surrepticiously (bad spellers inc.) turning off a public TV.
With the cigarette, you can be sure that you know the potential impact of your actions - it's abandoned, no one will care. Concerning the TV, will you exercise the same degree of compassion? Will you ask if anyone minds? No, you'll use the device to turn it off, and to hell with anyone who might have been watching.
Even if you only used the device in a location where no one else was present (your abandoned laundreymat for example) will you remember to turn it back on when you leave? Or will you more likely leave it off, thus depriving the next person who comes along who might have WANTED some mind-numbing TV to take the edge off the mind-numbing tedium of hanging around waiting for their clothes to dry?
The product website is back up, spent a few minutes purusing it. No place to put up comments directly, and no "contact us" type email address.
The arrogance (or perhaps I should put it down to sheer stupidity instead as per the axiom) of these people is amazing. All the links to anti-TV establishments (many of whom must be glued to the tube since their website are staler than week old cold pizza) full of rants (but no ability to engage in discourse) about "TV is bad, and we know what's good for you".
It's my brain, and someone else's property - you have no rights to either, so leave the TV alone.
Presumably, the owner of the TV has assumed (or been requested) to provide a service by having a TV there. Customer's therefore expect said service to be provided, and would be well within their "range of expected/understood reactions" to beat the tar out of some elitist snob who saw fit to deprive them of their enjoyment of said service.
To the poster who claimed "don't blame the tool, punish the abuser" --- I would liken this to hacking facilitation tools. It's sole purpose is to be abused by inflicting someone's narrow views (in secret so they don't have to face scrutiny for their actions) on another group.
And the spurious claim regarding "when I'm alone in the airport I'd love to be able to turn off the TV without disturbing the staff"? You think the staff won't react to the TV going off without explanation? You've just interupted their productivity while they come and investigate why the TV went off in the first place. Or interupted their productivity when someone else comes along to ask them to have it turned on. Sorry, I'm not buying.
It's a tool who sole purpose is abuse, and to try and cloak it with a veneer of goodness and light is misguided or disingenius.
Likening public area TV to second-hand smoke? C'mon people....
Couple of nights ago I installed XP SP2 via the Windows Updater. It starts nagging me about not having Virus Scanner that it recognizes, and suggests several free alternative (commercial products that are offering lengthy free trials).
Fine I says, I'll take one. Download it. And Windows bitches that it doesn't recognize the author of the.exe file and do I trust it?
wtf?
You people can't get it together enough to sign a download that you know is getting presented via the Windows Nag Control box?
The Canadian company I work for now has been doing this redirection thing (in the same industry as the original patent holder LodgeNet) for 7 years.
I believe that we went through the "proof of prior art" business with the Nomadix patent already this year, it appears we'll have to do it again.
The problem of course is that it's expensive and onerous to file with the USPTO, so we've limited ourselves to "go away and leave our customers alone" discussions with them.
There is not enough data contained in the question to formulate the answer.
Is it 7 programmers taking 7 months EACH to write their 7 programs, or 7 programmers each taking one month to write their 7 programs, thereby totally 7 man-months of work?
No mention of what the counts were (other than the vague mention of being related to identity theft) exactly.
Is this precedent setting for spam cases, or is this just more case law for identity theft?
No link for further details...if I didn't know better, I'd suggest it was written by a regular Slashdot commenter who couldn't be bothered to do any more leg work to support their point.
So, any one know of a link for more information?...
Canada has on several occasions refused to extradite US citizens back to the States unless given assurances they would not face the death penalty.
It's not just it's own nationals a country can protect under extradition laws.
Of course, that was some time back, I'm sure the current environment (post 9/11, post us not playing along on the Iraq invasion) would engender a different reaction on both sides of that debate the next time it comes up.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm guessing at least part of the infatuation is that player's want it.
I play a fair amount of Diablo2 these days, and while not a MMO in the classic sense, it shares many of the traits.
In it, you have the choice of playing "hardcore" (die and you're gone period) or "softcore" (die and you lose xps & cash, all your items are with your body and need to be recovered, etc).
LOTS of players, myself included, choose to play hardcore. It's the extra rush of knowing the death is indeed permanent.
I would think that CoH and any other MMO would do well to cater to both mindsets.
Actually, that's a good point. You DO see that - in fact I see it every day with our current development manager. He's a great guy, knows his stuff, has a real hard time being a hard a$$.
So, his boss will go to him with an unreasonable request, one I know he can't possibly execute in the time frame given without altering every other project's deliverable date (I play at being a Project Manager here, so I know the other dates) and he won't dig in his heels right away.
That does contribute to the problem - in that he's feeding bad information up the food chain.
or actually, shoot the correct messenger.
... well, forever.
This isn't "developers" making the promises, it's "business executives". It's not news, it's been that way throughout the software industry for
Developers, and by extension QA people and Production Support people live under the mantra that "just one more tweak and it'll be perfect". And that's "A Good Thing".
Marketing & Business types live under the mantra "opportunity cost & time to market". That, surprisingly enough, is also "A Good Thing" since money coming in allows developers the opportunity to write.
Those conflicting forces, when balanced with common sense and proper risk management, lead to the proper compromise of quality vs. timeliness.
The issue becomes bad, when "but we made a promise to our customers/shareholders and we can't lose face" becomes the over-riding concern and "but the software doesn't actually work yet" gets lost in the shuffle.
Too many companies in these days of "what have you done for me lately" quarterly profit/loss statement-driven management have lost the ability to think long term.
This seems consistant to me with some relatively recent decisions around EULA-type contracts (too lazy to go look them up, going from memory here) that were decided basically along the same lines...
It's long, it's boring, it's indecipherable, and it's clickable without reading. There is in fact no implied consent to the terms of the contract.
Actually, I didn't use the term "right" applied to television, that card was first played in this discussion by those arguing "I have a right to inflict my desire for silence on other people"
Not in so many words of course, but that's their basic arguement -- "I'm more important than you"
And the person who wants to be distracted by the TV to avoid thinking about his miserable life on the road, never seeing his family? When he arrives at said gate, and the TV is off, and he has no mechanism to turn it back on?
....
Explain to me how his life is better again, please, I'm missing it.
Oh wait, you don't care about him because your right to not have the TV on [which you admit is at some other gate that you're not even using] is somehow more important than his right to have it on?
sociopath? No, that's not it.
malaprope? No, that's not it either.
What would be the appropriate word for someone who so obviously scorns and disdains their fellow man?
That's the part of the arguement I don't understand from all the people who are arguing the "this is a great idea!" side of the debate.
... but no, their arguements all boil down to something like "you can't tell me what to watch but I can tell you what you can't watch" ... as they hold their breath until they turn blue in the face and fall on the floor kicking and pounding their tiny little fists.
Somehow their right to turn the TV off trumps my right to watch. Not on your life.
Now, their right to "not watch"? That's different. They can exercise that right to their heart's content - as long as it doesn't interfere with mine. They can leave. They can close their eyes. They can turn their head. Any number of things
The mind boggles at the logic.
Sheesh. You're at a gym and you're complaining about walking all the way across the room to turn the damn thing off?
Ask someone (who works in said gym) to turn it off for you - they have the resonsibility for balancing the needs of the "want to watchers" against the needs of the "don't want to watchers", not you.
Does you're "use responsibly" mantra include asking anyone else in the area whether they might actually want to watch, or would you just turn it off and leave it to them to turn it back on again.
Sorry, no dice.
You're not serious are you?
Lessee, I'm exposed to second hand smoke - my choices to protect myself are to "leave the location" or "stop breathing".
I'm exposed to a public TV - my choices are "leave the location" or "turn my head away".
yeah, I can totally see how they have the same impact...
The right to putting out an abandoned smoldering cigarette (no arguement there) that's at your table or "in your space" cannot be equated with surrepticiously (bad spellers inc.) turning off a public TV.
With the cigarette, you can be sure that you know the potential impact of your actions - it's abandoned, no one will care. Concerning the TV, will you exercise the same degree of compassion? Will you ask if anyone minds? No, you'll use the device to turn it off, and to hell with anyone who might have been watching.
Even if you only used the device in a location where no one else was present (your abandoned laundreymat for example) will you remember to turn it back on when you leave? Or will you more likely leave it off, thus depriving the next person who comes along who might have WANTED some mind-numbing TV to take the edge off the mind-numbing tedium of hanging around waiting for their clothes to dry?
The product website is back up, spent a few minutes purusing it. No place to put up comments directly, and no "contact us" type email address.
....
The arrogance (or perhaps I should put it down to sheer stupidity instead as per the axiom) of these people is amazing. All the links to anti-TV establishments (many of whom must be glued to the tube since their website are staler than week old cold pizza) full of rants (but no ability to engage in discourse) about "TV is bad, and we know what's good for you".
It's my brain, and someone else's property - you have no rights to either, so leave the TV alone.
Presumably, the owner of the TV has assumed (or been requested) to provide a service by having a TV there. Customer's therefore expect said service to be provided, and would be well within their "range of expected/understood reactions" to beat the tar out of some elitist snob who saw fit to deprive them of their enjoyment of said service.
To the poster who claimed "don't blame the tool, punish the abuser" --- I would liken this to hacking facilitation tools. It's sole purpose is to be abused by inflicting someone's narrow views (in secret so they don't have to face scrutiny for their actions) on another group.
And the spurious claim regarding "when I'm alone in the airport I'd love to be able to turn off the TV without disturbing the staff"? You think the staff won't react to the TV going off without explanation? You've just interupted their productivity while they come and investigate why the TV went off in the first place. Or interupted their productivity when someone else comes along to ask them to have it turned on. Sorry, I'm not buying.
It's a tool who sole purpose is abuse, and to try and cloak it with a veneer of goodness and light is misguided or disingenius.
Likening public area TV to second-hand smoke? C'mon people
humerous interlude here:
.exe file and do I trust it?
Couple of nights ago I installed XP SP2 via the Windows Updater. It starts nagging me about not having Virus Scanner that it recognizes, and suggests several free alternative (commercial products that are offering lengthy free trials).
Fine I says, I'll take one. Download it. And Windows bitches that it doesn't recognize the author of the
wtf?
You people can't get it together enough to sign a download that you know is getting presented via the Windows Nag Control box?
Giving my on-line ID a bad name with his poorly named "phishing enabler" app.
Must track him down and BURN him.
The Canadian company I work for now has been doing this redirection thing (in the same industry as the original patent holder LodgeNet) for 7 years.
...
I believe that we went through the "proof of prior art" business with the Nomadix patent already this year, it appears we'll have to do it again.
The problem of course is that it's expensive and onerous to file with the USPTO, so we've limited ourselves to "go away and leave our customers alone" discussions with them.
Yeah, the system is broken
There is not enough data contained in the question to formulate the answer.
Is it 7 programmers taking 7 months EACH to write their 7 programs, or 7 programmers each taking one month to write their 7 programs, thereby totally 7 man-months of work?
No mention of what the counts were (other than the vague mention of being related to identity theft) exactly.
Is this precedent setting for spam cases, or is this just more case law for identity theft?
No link for further details...if I didn't know better, I'd suggest it was written by a regular Slashdot commenter who couldn't be bothered to do any more leg work to support their point.
So, any one know of a link for more information?...
Nah, it's obviously a nod to Paranoia, the old RPG game...
"Of course the computer is my friend, why do you ask?"
Hmm, how about "Fritter Rightsaway"??
heh.
The obvious crime being committed here is "Mental BATTERY".
Canada has on several occasions refused to extradite US citizens back to the States unless given assurances they would not face the death penalty.
It's not just it's own nationals a country can protect under extradition laws.
Of course, that was some time back, I'm sure the current environment (post 9/11, post us not playing along on the Iraq invasion) would engender a different reaction on both sides of that debate the next time it comes up.
"We want to be fair and reasonable. The intent here is not to make money, nor is the intent to win a lawsuit," Lamy said.
..... Oh wait. Never mind...
Since when do lawyers file lawsuits they don't intend to win?
100 years of not being backed up?
That's some seriously old hardware there!!
Who knew
www.mofo.com as their web site address?
What will those whacky legal professionals come up with next?
You first ok? ;-)
See here/ 0015247&mode=thread&tid=141
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/12/11
In Canada, the answer is "no".