Some day, when they're done shilling their so-called "expansion content" and the complete, ne-plus-ultra pack is available on Steam for $20 or $30, maybeâ"maybeâ"I'll buy it and find out if there was a good game under all the shameless greed.
If you liked Civ 2/3/4 and AC, IMHO, there really isn't. Combat got more intricate in some ways and simplified in others, and every other aspect of the game is drastically simplified.
That's exactly it. The USPS does something that, from a profit point of view, is a terrible idea.
Yet that terrible idea provides a huge value to the country, even an economic value in terms of the tax revenue generated by businesses that could not otherwise exist.
FedEx's cost per package for a SmartPost package (vs. Ground or Air) is, in fact, dramatically lower. Granted, they also have smaller margins on SmartPost.
Basically what you're describing is called zone skipping, and the USPS / FedEx / UPS have collaborated and thrown a fair amount of money to make it possible, so I assume it has to work out in the USPS's favor in some way.
Amazon free shipping tends to use FedEx's version of this scheme.
Because it performs a valuable service that there still isn't any combination of complete substittues for. (Anyone who thinks UPS or FedEx could just step in on the mail or stuff-delivery end doesn't know shit about the shipping industry and should be treated as such.)
For example: Do you like Amazon or Netflix? They wouldn't exist without the USPS.
Security in typical companies is a last thought and overruled at every turn.
To be fair (and not with respect to patching in specific) I think it's hard to come up with a sensible corporate security policy that actually creates a reasonable level of security without getting in the way of the business.
At one place I worked, very rigorous security policies were in place around migrating programs and database changes into their production environment -- so rigorous, in fact, that the developers were forced to (long story short) architect their solutions in a much less secure way than they would like in order to meet their deadlines.
For a few years, a friend of mine had the kind of security consulting job wherein companies would hire him to try to compromise their systems and provide them with recommendations of what they needed to do to tighten up their security. I thought that sounded like a lot of fun when he first described it, but he then added that it was actually a really boring and depressing job most days because the same small handful of unpatched exploits would give him root or the equivalent on 95%+ of companies systems in under 5 minutes.
That was a couple years ago (he's since doing a different job) but I doubt things are much different.
If by "illustrates your point" you mean "makes a bad analogy involving Nazis" I'll give you that.
No one is doing crack because they think it's some kind of moral imperative; if someone is, it's not because they're a paragon of virtue, it's because they're an idiot.
All made by prisoners who were probably put in to jail thanks to our ridiculous "War on Drugs" and politicians who want to appear tough on crime.
Without arguing that the "War on Drugs" is a good idea or in some way fair, don't you have to be at least a little stupid to get involved with drugs knowing that you could spend your days alternating between having to telemarket and being pounded in the ass as a result?
I mean, there's lots of things I'd like to do that I don't agree with the laws on, but orange jumpsuit is a terrible look for me and so I don't.
So why doesn't Microsoft sue? Because it would be a public relations nightmare - just as it was for SCO. That is the nail in the coffin for this FUD for me. Microsoft are just not stupid enough to put themselves in the position of such a David and Goliath lawsuit by going after the open source community.
And, really, something like the closest cousin of the Streisand Effect -- by taking an Open Source alternative/competitor seriously enough to sue Microsoft would instantly provide them with more advertising, PR, and usage than they'd probably get in 20 years on their own.
It seems to me that if he was thinking ahead enough to borrow that router from work to cover his ass, you'd think he might realize that there'd be a paper trail involved in borrowing that router, and that his ass wouldn't be so nicely covered.
You would think that, but sometimes very technically smart people are dumb about murder, especially with regards to what makes them look guilty in court.
At one point it seemed like Sony had a pretty good idea to better compete with the (at the time, less expensive and better established) XBox: offer free online play. You bought a more expensive console, but hey, you get the online stuff for free and you're making up the money there.
Except now it seems like they made that work, financially, by hiring cheap developers who didn't have the most basic idea of what they were doing.
Slashdot Mirror
Some day, when they're done shilling their so-called "expansion content" and the complete, ne-plus-ultra pack is available on Steam for $20 or $30, maybeâ"maybeâ"I'll buy it and find out if there was a good game under all the shameless greed.
If you liked Civ 2/3/4 and AC, IMHO, there really isn't. Combat got more intricate in some ways and simplified in others, and every other aspect of the game is drastically simplified.
Call me when your country is a fraction of the size of ours and has as much empty space as ours.
Anyone can run a functioning postal system in France. Running one in the U.S. or Canada is a whole different beast.
That's exactly it. The USPS does something that, from a profit point of view, is a terrible idea.
Yet that terrible idea provides a huge value to the country, even an economic value in terms of the tax revenue generated by businesses that could not otherwise exist.
That's why the free market can't replace it.
well when USPS shuts down those services can and will step in to fill a need, and I trust each one of those WAY more than USPS.
Fortunately I already addressed this angle in the very post you're responding to. :)
I always choose UPS or FedEx for Amazon, and stream Netflix.
Sure; but neither of those options would exist without free-delivery Amazon and snail-mail Netflix.
There probably will come a day when that isn't true. Today isn't that day.
FedEx's cost per package for a SmartPost package (vs. Ground or Air) is, in fact, dramatically lower. Granted, they also have smaller margins on SmartPost.
Basically what you're describing is called zone skipping, and the USPS / FedEx / UPS have collaborated and thrown a fair amount of money to make it possible, so I assume it has to work out in the USPS's favor in some way.
Amazon free shipping tends to use FedEx's version of this scheme.
Because it performs a valuable service that there still isn't any combination of complete substittues for. (Anyone who thinks UPS or FedEx could just step in on the mail or stuff-delivery end doesn't know shit about the shipping industry and should be treated as such.)
For example: Do you like Amazon or Netflix? They wouldn't exist without the USPS.
Security in typical companies is a last thought and overruled at every turn.
To be fair (and not with respect to patching in specific) I think it's hard to come up with a sensible corporate security policy that actually creates a reasonable level of security without getting in the way of the business.
At one place I worked, very rigorous security policies were in place around migrating programs and database changes into their production environment -- so rigorous, in fact, that the developers were forced to (long story short) architect their solutions in a much less secure way than they would like in order to meet their deadlines.
You laugh, but when you think about it and weigh PSN against XBox Live, Sony failed so hard they made Microsoft's security look good by comparison.
That's a special kind of failure. That's the full retard, if you will.
Yeah.
For a few years, a friend of mine had the kind of security consulting job wherein companies would hire him to try to compromise their systems and provide them with recommendations of what they needed to do to tighten up their security. I thought that sounded like a lot of fun when he first described it, but he then added that it was actually a really boring and depressing job most days because the same small handful of unpatched exploits would give him root or the equivalent on 95%+ of companies systems in under 5 minutes.
That was a couple years ago (he's since doing a different job) but I doubt things are much different.
Hey, there's an optimist left on /.!
Because then it's harder to control your experience and, not coincidentally, charge you for it?
Apple's runnin' a business, here!
So you're saying that you have 5,000 Macs that aren't used by people? :)
Do they sit idle, or are they operated by barnyard animals of some kind?
... because people are born pot dealers?
If by "illustrates your point" you mean "makes a bad analogy involving Nazis" I'll give you that.
No one is doing crack because they think it's some kind of moral imperative; if someone is, it's not because they're a paragon of virtue, it's because they're an idiot.
All made by prisoners who were probably put in to jail thanks to our ridiculous "War on Drugs" and politicians who want to appear tough on crime.
Without arguing that the "War on Drugs" is a good idea or in some way fair, don't you have to be at least a little stupid to get involved with drugs knowing that you could spend your days alternating between having to telemarket and being pounded in the ass as a result?
I mean, there's lots of things I'd like to do that I don't agree with the laws on, but orange jumpsuit is a terrible look for me and so I don't.
Nobody was talking to you. Get back in the corner.
So why doesn't Microsoft sue? Because it would be a public relations nightmare - just as it was for SCO. That is the nail in the coffin for this FUD for me. Microsoft are just not stupid enough to put themselves in the position of such a David and Goliath lawsuit by going after the open source community.
And, really, something like the closest cousin of the Streisand Effect -- by taking an Open Source alternative/competitor seriously enough to sue Microsoft would instantly provide them with more advertising, PR, and usage than they'd probably get in 20 years on their own.
I can only say that if you had given .NET a try in the last, say, half-decade you'd be pretty pleasantly surprised.
Since I know Microsoft well, that is all the reason I need to avoid Mono now and forever.
The saying goes: if a cat sits on a hot stove, it'll never sit on a hot stove again -- but it'll never sit on a cold one again, either.
It seems to me that if he was thinking ahead enough to borrow that router from work to cover his ass, you'd think he might realize that there'd be a paper trail involved in borrowing that router, and that his ass wouldn't be so nicely covered.
You would think that, but sometimes very technically smart people are dumb about murder, especially with regards to what makes them look guilty in court.
I so don't know why this was modded funny.
At one point it seemed like Sony had a pretty good idea to better compete with the (at the time, less expensive and better established) XBox: offer free online play. You bought a more expensive console, but hey, you get the online stuff for free and you're making up the money there.
Except now it seems like they made that work, financially, by hiring cheap developers who didn't have the most basic idea of what they were doing.
Not inherently, no. But it still is better.
XBox Live is one of the few things Microsoft actually got right with respect to the XBox.
Incredibly 80% of their profits come just from apps for middle managers, hairdressers and telephone sanitizers.
Sounds like Apple will be in trouble if anyone ever puts those people on a doomed spaceship.
That, and the other people will die from a disease contracted from an unsanitized telephone. But these things happen.