It disgusts me how little sense of real community/. folks have. CmdrTaco has been a major force in keeping this place together for years, and you constantly make use of the fruits of his labor.
It just shows what ingrates a lot of people are. I run a website with a large number of users (since 1996) which is competely volunteer and only few state their appreciation. But they are quick to whine.;)
On this issue, I played WoW extensively for the 1 week trial, and I do recall reading the TOS which said no titles of authority allowed in the names. No commercial references, etc. Like most things today, I think its not so much the TOS violation, but its the heavy-handed action -- little explanation with no recourse or any sense that you got a fair 'hearing'. Lets not forgot, the person they are 'pissing off' is a paying customer.
For commodity products, I agree that that kind of pricing is annoying, but I also agree with the parent's sentiments. At half a million dollars, you're not talking a simple sign-the-credit-card purchase, you're negotiating a deal. And putting a reference price up there doesn't help the vendor in deal-making. The other problem is that putting your price on the internet exposes your pricing structure to your competitors and potential competitors, which is in the consumer's interest, but not in the company's interest (especially in the newer stages of product development and sales). Why should a business provide its competitors with a roadmap?
A few comments on this. First, while a complete PB system is probably very expensive, the website I was talking about was selling 'raid boxes'. These are not that expensive, without a price its tough to know, but perhaps $10-15k? Second, the biggest problem is that I am NOT NEGOTIATING A DEAL! I am an engineer and I'm looking to filter which products are potential candidates. I'm not a procurement person or a 'buyer'. I don't do money and am not usually authorized to negotiate anything on a companies (or my clients behalf). Third, I don't buy the security by obscurity argument that posting a price list (or even ballbark figures) exposes you secret pricing structure to your competitors. Your competitors know your prices and will find out. Finally, as far as the sales guys wanting me on their lead lists - well, I dont appreciate phone calls from these guys. As I said, I'm the engineer, not someone who can negotiate contracts -- I'm not the guy to call. Secondly, if I call 10 vendors to get price info (or even tech details) and I rule out 8 of them, I still get calls from all 10. Multiply this by all the various projects (or even brainstorms) I have and it gets out of control. Some will stop calling when I ask, but many or pushing and persistent at wasting my time.
Well, in a lot of cases, they don't want to be fielding calls from everyone who gets it in their head they need a Freakin Huge Array(tm) but can't really afford it.
And that is exactly my point. When I am researching how to engineer something I don't start by thinking I need a Freaking Huge Array. I start by searching for what technologies are available, what their costs are, how I can use them, and whether the design makes sense. If they put price info (ballpark) I can avoid wasting their time and my time. If the price is too high or the product doesn't do what I need its going to get crossed of my list for that particular application. The real issue here is that the sales guys want to be secretive for their pricing for two reasons. 1) They think that if only they could talk to me and convince me that I need their product no matter what, I'll buy it. 99.9% of the time they don't understand how I am using the product and add no value - they just want to make the sale and will say anything to get the sale. 2) They sometimes think if they can figure out my budget they can charge me more than someone else (deeper pockets).
Of course all this back and forth just cost me X number of days per vendor when I could have figured out that they were too expensive in the first place. A lot of times in engineering you can accomplish the same thing many different ways. Knowing the product price is outside a range of what I'm looking for just means I'll accomplish it another way or need to change a design parameter.
And I was questioning whether or not a low-cost solution to a petabyte storage array made from commodity hardware is even possible.
BTW, the product mentioned doesn't approach this. The largest turnkey item they offer is a 9TB (24 bay raid box).
Well 'finding' perspective customers, and weeding out those that will choke when they hear the price are two different things. Maybe they figure if you're not serious enough to talk with a salesman, you're not serious enough to require their assistance.
See I thought that in a market driven economy that my needs as a customer is important. Give me the information so that I can be the one to make judgement calls about my needs. You make it sound like I should be grateful that the company is willing to even speak with me.
Total BS. You know all that increased productivity that American workers are responsible for? That is due to IT, computerization, automation. In fact despite our increases in productivity, wages have not increased as much to reward it. For a decade our productivity has helped us compete.
I called it retail price, but you can call it whatever you want. The sales people have a price list and it would be helpful to have that info available (in a non-binding/ballpark way) on their website when evaluating products. One of the benefits of the web is being able to do the research and evaluate products. Having to phone a sales person and wait 2 days for a reply, be forced onto a sales lead list, and finding out the product price was far outside your budget is very common with these products. It negates the benefit of the website!
As far as how custom these are, I am not so sure. Most likely just a combination of COTS products ganged together. The web is a dynamic medium, there is no reason they cannot update their prices (like other vendors do) regularly.
The original poster asked for a low cost commodity solution. Someone posted this 'falconstor' link. I went to their site looking for cost range and I see ' For more information about how FalconStor appliances are right for your business and for purchasing information, click here. A FalconStor representative will contact you.' How is that using the web in a helpful way to prospective consumers? And how come my accurate critic of using the web to evaluate products (which I do a lot) is considered a troll?
I didn't think it was very fun and I agree the AI is very stupid. The pathing AI is bad - I had to constantly micromanage my units who wouldn't do what I told them. Trying to build walls around my cities was an exercise in frustration due to the rubber band effect. Get the walls to line up and close was a problem.
As you say, simply opening / closing gates around the cities caused the enemy AI to charged / flee. All you need to do it put archers on the walls and toggle the doors and the enemy will be picked off as the enemy keeps running towards and away from you.
Trying to get my creature to help building was a problem. Even in builder mode he would not also do as I commanded.
I uninstalled the game without finishing about 1/2 thru.
He asked for low cost commodity hardware. The fact that no price is mentioned and you need to contact a sales droid for a quote is an instant red-flag. I hate vendors who do not put price lists, even 'retail' prices on their product pages. I realize they may have different price levels based on quantity, but there is a value to seeing that a product is in the '$1000-$1500' range versus the '$120000-$150000' range. Having the contact sales droids who will put your name/phone number on a sales list and harrass you just to find out the price range turns me off of a lot of these outfits. I do a lot of product research and selection using the Internet. I favor outfits who allow me to get all the info online without contacting a sales rep. Many times if I cannot get the info on the web and I cannot get a price on the first phone call without providing sales lead information, I skip them.
And I think you are correct. I still believe what I said is MS overall strategy, but in the context of the interview question, you are right that the $500 media library refers to $500 worth of DRM songs, photos, etc.
Why is this hard to believe? Notice that he called the 360 a 'digital media library' not a 'game machine'. MS wants to get a foothold in this area, lock it up with their proprietary DRM, and force everyone else out of the market. That is their strategy - they just need acceptance from others to allow it.
I an not interested in pen/paper RPG's much at all and I've been programming since the mid 80's. I find them pretty boring. Same with Sci-Fi--hate it. I attempted playing D&D a few times as well as Cyberpunk and it just didn't appeal to me. However, I love to program and solve problems. I even tried the Neverwinter Nights RPG PC game and it bored me.
Why do I not like RPGs? I prefer action and do not like a lot of background story or reading. I do not get excited about some made up world with hard to pronounce names and I find when playing a computer version of these games, I'm constantly hitting escape to skip the backstory dialog. I want to solve a puzzle not read a story.
This is disgusting. Basically it is a patent for 'speed dial'. Rather than relying on the landline method of a user dialing an 800 number, entering a pin code, and then the phone number they want to call--this patent preprograms the phone with the '800 number' and 'pin code' which is automatically sent when the user hits their 'send' button.
The patent quotes prior art (apparently the call an 800 number method is prior art) and states 'Those skilled in the art will understand and appreciate that the prepaid land-based telecommunications system described in the D'Urso patent is fundamentally different from the cellular-based telecommunications system of the present invention.'
However, the fact that there is a branch of knowledge called "Constitutional Law", and that there are judges and lawyers who don't understand this document and how it may apply to cases of which they are party to, brings into question the entire system as it currently stands:
Actually, I think this reflects more on your ignorance of the field than the judges and lawyers. Being versed in 'Constitutional Law' is more than memorizing the document. The document is ambiguous - it was drafted by debate and compromise. Even the 'founding fathers' had differences of what it means - see the Federalist Papers - news articles written to convince the public that it should be ratified. However it is more than that, not just the document but the case law/precedent.
There is little black and white in Constitutional Law - things are fuzzy because trying to address complex issues using the ambiguous English language is tough. Its important to determine what the writers of the documeant and how that applies to a changing society.
My *guess* is that someone got the story wrong. My *guess* is that
Microsoft wants to use its one-time-only DRM capability with the HD DVD
in conjunction with Intels effort to 'get the data onto the server'. I think by the time the story made its way around the campfire it was modified.
First this is an environment waste as well. However, next time you think of where Microsoft is spending its R&D Money, recall this from the article:
"The new generation of DVD disc will spearhead a fresh assault by Microsoft on the home-entertainment market. A big chunk of its $7bn research budget is spent on digital rights management (DRM). A senior source in the company says Microsoft is in talks with the main electronics manufacturers about developing DVD players to play the new discs. And when the movie industry does find the courage to move to a fully internet-based distribution model, Microsoft wants its DRM software to be the industry standard, giving it dominance of the server market, and the telecoms and cable companies that need to store and manage their video-on-demand services."
Well, I was around during that time and most consumers rejected copy protected floppies in the 80's. Copy protection on floppies was a problem. It was not always compatible and caused problems. Some argued that some of the schemes even put extra wear and tear on the floppy drives trying to seek to invalid sectors. There was also the fair-use argument that people couldn't make backups of their valuable media for their own use.
Some more expensive programs came with 'dongles' that were even worse. In order to run the software you had to reconfigure your parallel port with a hardware device. If you ran several of these high end programs such as Autocad you had all these dongles daisy chained - it was insane. Plus it caused problems with certain software / printers.
Despite the so called copy protection, people still defeated it, yet everyone suffered. I just don't think DRM works - its costs are way higher than its benefits. I've got 6 machines here at home, I can see DRM restricting me to one machine or only working under windows despite that I dual boot XP / Linux.
I love to read all the free marketeers here tell us that the free market will fix this - it won't. All the large studios who control the content are supporting this en block. The consumer doesn't stand a chance. Any concessions that are made might allow me the 'privledge' of copying only on a machine running on an Intel(c) Trusted Computer under Microsoft(c) Longhorn but thats it.
Can anyone explain to this techie how the following is possible:
From their website: "To access and use your BlackDog, you merely plug it in to your host computer's USB port* and BlackDog takes over! Your host machine's monitor, keyboard, mouse, and Internet connection are taken over by BlackDog for the duration of your session, when you are done, you simply remove BlackDog and everything on the host is returned to its original state."
It sounds amazing until I wonder if all they are doing is putting an autoplay file on there that launches VNC or something.
At one time I 'wrote' a BBS 'rap-song' that I used to joke around with a fellow Sysop around 1985. I don't recall the song, but I remember the chorus of something like 'Goo-Goo Ack-Ack. When I am all alone, I take out my computer and I hook it to the phone'. It was called the Punter Rap. It was kinda styled after Dear Yvette by L.L. Cool J.
Slashdot Mirror
It just shows what ingrates a lot of people are. I run a website with a large number of users (since 1996) which is competely volunteer and only few state their appreciation. But they are quick to whine. ;)
On this issue, I played WoW extensively for the 1 week trial, and I do recall reading the TOS which said no titles of authority allowed in the names. No commercial references, etc. Like most things today, I think its not so much the TOS violation, but its the heavy-handed action -- little explanation with no recourse or any sense that you got a fair 'hearing'. Lets not forgot, the person they are 'pissing off' is a paying customer.
A few comments on this. First, while a complete PB system is probably very expensive, the website I was talking about was selling 'raid boxes'. These are not that expensive, without a price its tough to know, but perhaps $10-15k? Second, the biggest problem is that I am NOT NEGOTIATING A DEAL! I am an engineer and I'm looking to filter which products are potential candidates. I'm not a procurement person or a 'buyer'. I don't do money and am not usually authorized to negotiate anything on a companies (or my clients behalf). Third, I don't buy the security by obscurity argument that posting a price list (or even ballbark figures) exposes you secret pricing structure to your competitors. Your competitors know your prices and will find out. Finally, as far as the sales guys wanting me on their lead lists - well, I dont appreciate phone calls from these guys. As I said, I'm the engineer, not someone who can negotiate contracts -- I'm not the guy to call. Secondly, if I call 10 vendors to get price info (or even tech details) and I rule out 8 of them, I still get calls from all 10. Multiply this by all the various projects (or even brainstorms) I have and it gets out of control. Some will stop calling when I ask, but many or pushing and persistent at wasting my time.
And that is exactly my point. When I am researching how to engineer something I don't start by thinking I need a Freaking Huge Array. I start by searching for what technologies are available, what their costs are, how I can use them, and whether the design makes sense. If they put price info (ballpark) I can avoid wasting their time and my time. If the price is too high or the product doesn't do what I need its going to get crossed of my list for that particular application. The real issue here is that the sales guys want to be secretive for their pricing for two reasons. 1) They think that if only they could talk to me and convince me that I need their product no matter what, I'll buy it. 99.9% of the time they don't understand how I am using the product and add no value - they just want to make the sale and will say anything to get the sale. 2) They sometimes think if they can figure out my budget they can charge me more than someone else (deeper pockets).
Of course all this back and forth just cost me X number of days per vendor when I could have figured out that they were too expensive in the first place. A lot of times in engineering you can accomplish the same thing many different ways. Knowing the product price is outside a range of what I'm looking for just means I'll accomplish it another way or need to change a design parameter.
And I was questioning whether or not a low-cost solution to a petabyte storage array made from commodity hardware is even possible.
BTW, the product mentioned doesn't approach this. The largest turnkey item they offer is a 9TB (24 bay raid box).
Well 'finding' perspective customers, and weeding out those that will choke when they hear the price are two different things. Maybe they figure if you're not serious enough to talk with a salesman, you're not serious enough to require their assistance.
See I thought that in a market driven economy that my needs as a customer is important. Give me the information so that I can be the one to make judgement calls about my needs. You make it sound like I should be grateful that the company is willing to even speak with me.
I dont understand your point. Physical plant is worth something and I believe it increases the value/quality of the output.
Total BS. You know all that increased productivity that American workers are responsible for? That is due to IT, computerization, automation. In fact despite our increases in productivity, wages have not increased as much to reward it. For a decade our productivity has helped us compete.
As far as how custom these are, I am not so sure. Most likely just a combination of COTS products ganged together. The web is a dynamic medium, there is no reason they cannot update their prices (like other vendors do) regularly.
The original poster asked for a low cost commodity solution. Someone posted this 'falconstor' link. I went to their site looking for cost range and I see ' For more information about how FalconStor appliances are right for your business and for purchasing information, click here. A FalconStor representative will contact you.' How is that using the web in a helpful way to prospective consumers? And how come my accurate critic of using the web to evaluate products (which I do a lot) is considered a troll?
As you say, simply opening / closing gates around the cities caused the enemy AI to charged / flee. All you need to do it put archers on the walls and toggle the doors and the enemy will be picked off as the enemy keeps running towards and away from you.
Trying to get my creature to help building was a problem. Even in builder mode he would not also do as I commanded.
I uninstalled the game without finishing about 1/2 thru.
He asked for low cost commodity hardware. The fact that no price is mentioned and you need to contact a sales droid for a quote is an instant red-flag. I hate vendors who do not put price lists, even 'retail' prices on their product pages. I realize they may have different price levels based on quantity, but there is a value to seeing that a product is in the '$1000-$1500' range versus the '$120000-$150000' range. Having the contact sales droids who will put your name/phone number on a sales list and harrass you just to find out the price range turns me off of a lot of these outfits. I do a lot of product research and selection using the Internet. I favor outfits who allow me to get all the info online without contacting a sales rep. Many times if I cannot get the info on the web and I cannot get a price on the first phone call without providing sales lead information, I skip them.
This volume is edited by two of the original three editors, Chris DiBona (former Slashdot editor) - nuff said?
And I think you are correct. I still believe what I said is MS overall strategy, but in the context of the interview question, you are right that the $500 media library refers to $500 worth of DRM songs, photos, etc.
Why is this hard to believe? Notice that he called the 360 a 'digital media library' not a 'game machine'. MS wants to get a foothold in this area, lock it up with their proprietary DRM, and force everyone else out of the market. That is their strategy - they just need acceptance from others to allow it.
Why do I not like RPGs? I prefer action and do not like a lot of background story or reading. I do not get excited about some made up world with hard to pronounce names and I find when playing a computer version of these games, I'm constantly hitting escape to skip the backstory dialog. I want to solve a puzzle not read a story.
Check out the 'history' http://www.wizards.com/dnd/DnDArchives_History.asp
The patent quotes prior art (apparently the call an 800 number method is prior art) and states 'Those skilled in the art will understand and appreciate that the prepaid land-based telecommunications system described in the D'Urso patent is fundamentally different from the cellular-based telecommunications system of the present invention.'
Actually, I think this reflects more on your ignorance of the field than the judges and lawyers. Being versed in 'Constitutional Law' is more than memorizing the document. The document is ambiguous - it was drafted by debate and compromise. Even the 'founding fathers' had differences of what it means - see the Federalist Papers - news articles written to convince the public that it should be ratified. However it is more than that, not just the document but the case law/precedent.
There is little black and white in Constitutional Law - things are fuzzy because trying to address complex issues using the ambiguous English language is tough. Its important to determine what the writers of the documeant and how that applies to a changing society.
My *guess* is that someone got the story wrong. My *guess* is that Microsoft wants to use its one-time-only DRM capability with the HD DVD in conjunction with Intels effort to 'get the data onto the server'. I think by the time the story made its way around the campfire it was modified.
"The new generation of DVD disc will spearhead a fresh assault by Microsoft on the home-entertainment market. A big chunk of its $7bn research budget is spent on digital rights management (DRM). A senior source in the company says Microsoft is in talks with the main electronics manufacturers about developing DVD players to play the new discs. And when the movie industry does find the courage to move to a fully internet-based distribution model, Microsoft wants its DRM software to be the industry standard, giving it dominance of the server market, and the telecoms and cable companies that need to store and manage their video-on-demand services."
Some more expensive programs came with 'dongles' that were even worse. In order to run the software you had to reconfigure your parallel port with a hardware device. If you ran several of these high end programs such as Autocad you had all these dongles daisy chained - it was insane. Plus it caused problems with certain software / printers.
Despite the so called copy protection, people still defeated it, yet everyone suffered. I just don't think DRM works - its costs are way higher than its benefits. I've got 6 machines here at home, I can see DRM restricting me to one machine or only working under windows despite that I dual boot XP / Linux.
I love to read all the free marketeers here tell us that the free market will fix this - it won't. All the large studios who control the content are supporting this en block. The consumer doesn't stand a chance. Any concessions that are made might allow me the 'privledge' of copying only on a machine running on an Intel(c) Trusted Computer under Microsoft(c) Longhorn but thats it.
Any technology can be used for malicious purposes. Its the ying/yang of any invention.
You (and I) gave that up when we moved to a rural area. There are benefits to living in a more populated community. Pooling resources is one of them.
From their website: "To access and use your BlackDog, you merely plug it in to your host computer's USB port* and BlackDog takes over! Your host machine's monitor, keyboard, mouse, and Internet connection are taken over by BlackDog for the duration of your session, when you are done, you simply remove BlackDog and everything on the host is returned to its original state."
It sounds amazing until I wonder if all they are doing is putting an autoplay file on there that launches VNC or something.
Addressee Refused Delivery
They fly it back - For a picture: http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Photo/STS-Ferry/S mall/EC95-43279-3.jpg
At one time I 'wrote' a BBS 'rap-song' that I used to joke around with a fellow Sysop around 1985. I don't recall the song, but I remember the chorus of something like 'Goo-Goo Ack-Ack. When I am all alone, I take out my computer and I hook it to the phone'. It was called the Punter Rap. It was kinda styled after Dear Yvette by L.L. Cool J.
"The beauty of daylight-saving time is that it just makes everyone feel sunnier," said Reps. Edward Markey, D-Massachusetts