The website's starting to go slow, so I'm posting the text of the epitaph from http://www.wcnews.com/:
Goodbye, Origin
For twenty two years Origin Systems set the tone for the computer gaming. Ultima, Wing Commander and dozens of others set the gold standard for which the rest of the industry could only hope to catch up. This era has finally come to an end as Electronic Arts readies an announcement that it will shut down the Austin-based Origin studio.
This is not the end for Ultima or Wing Commander. Ultima Online will now be run from California, and development of Ultima X will continue on the west coast. Hopes that another Wing Commander game would be developed in Austin were dashed long ago; the longtime belief that a California-based EA team would develop the next Wing Commander title may, ironically, be bolstered by this news.
What it is, however, is a tremendous moral loss on all fronts. Origin Systems will always be the ultimate symbol of gaming's greatest days, and its dissolution to a faceless corporate entity is, sadly, equally symbolic of the world today. Origin entertained, challenged and inspired our generation in a way that seems impossible today. Though the individuals who developed our games long ago moved on to greater careers, the very existence of the company itself continued to stand for something special; something amazing.
The CIC will continue to dedicate itself to Origin's legacy - we will redouble our efforts to archive anything and everything related to the company. We will strike to make the world remember what Origin meant. I wanted to end with a quote - something plithy and literary to express the meaning of such an ending. I came up with only this:
With your carrier destroyed, you drift endlessly through the void.
Why is everybody going offtopic? Dragging religion and Darwinism into all this... it's sad. You guys should sit down and properly discuss an old, old ship found in an old, old swamp. Stick to the story, guys!
yeah, and it's one of those "little things" you can do for someone, isn't it? Just a post to say you care, that sort of thing.
Nothing beats a real card, but while I can't remember most of the real cards I've got (though I've got em in a drawer somewhere) I sure can remember a lot of the e-cards, particularly those sent by friends when I was feeling down or something. Gotta love the internet! =)
What can we, as Internet users, do to get the message around? I mean, sure, education, but despite computers going from being something for mathematicians to something for everybody in ten years, most of the people I know still treat computers are something that should "Just Work". Any suggestions?
(Legal question: Tarring and feathering would be out of the question for anyone who propagates worms, right? Or could we argue violation of the Right to be Left in Peace?)
oops... silly me... obviously, I meant your Microsoft(R) Windows(TM) Media Player. Nope, sorry, the quick file replacement is a feature found only on Microsoft(R) systems. Us poor Linux lusers will have to use 'apt-get install' or other equally slow technique.
That's the point! There's no "crapware" - it's a simple file overwrite! If you're running as Admin..., you won't notice at all - your media player will just suddenly stop working.
... "This time, I'm here to screw up your computer and install a virus! How about that? Let's get started..."
Why do the poor virus writers go through all this trouble anyways? Don't they know they can get 60% of the machines out there with just an e-mail with an attachment?
Then again, nowadays a lot of attention is being focused on trojan horses. What about real viruses - something not even hackers can figure out easily? It can't be too hard to write a trojan horse which pretends to be a cool little game for a month or so - before deleting all your files. Can it?
Then again, it looks like if they can make it reliable enough, it could make a big difference - if the fishermen are throwing out 1/3rd of their catch. And even if they can't - it'll save the money until it breaks down, then they just do it the old fashioned way until they get back to harbour! So it's allowed to be either pretty cheap or pretty reliable.
TOTALLY off-topic, I know (there goes my karma!) but I remember this one incident when I was at a theatre watching a play. Suddenly in the middle - despite warnings to turn cell phones off - somebody's phone goes off in the audience. It keeps ringing for a rather embarressing period of time, too - probably the guy couldn't find the phone or something.
About half-an-hour later, the same phone (or a similar ringtone) goes off as well. This time, one of the leading actors - who is in the middle of a scene where he's supposed to be angry at his dad - shouts at his dad, "we must do..., but first, " and turning to the audience, "somebody has to turn their goddamn phone off!". Then, after a minute or two of shouting at us, he continued on with the play.
My point is, phones can beextremely irritating to people, and I think they have a right to treat people like little children if that's how the people insist on behaving. My 0.02 Rs worth.
People have been calling for help from non-cell phones for ages. If you're in a place - library, office, whatever - odds are there is a real phone around somewhere. Hell, if you're being jammed, there's probably a large group of people around who would be interrupted if you were to use your phone - and who could help you in a crisis.
The problem would be - as someone else pointed out - automated devices, like heart monitors which try to phone the docter. But I guess they would be designed to issue some kind of warning too right?
Yeah, that happened to a friend of mine recently. Poor guy accidently downloaded a 200MB file although he had no idea what was in it! Then he looked and found it was a lot of IndustrialSecrets[tm]!
Perhaps you mean "If you were in India for medical treatment, you should get yourself checked for AIDS"? Sorry to disappoint, but you can't get AIDS just by walking around in Bombay or something you know...
Once you bring that up, it's only a few steps away from `1984'... and then you've gotta ask yourself, if government really wanted to stop the 'Net, could we actually do anything about it? Look at China,
the FBI's Carnivore, etc.
Personally, I think that if anything's going to save the Internet from being taken over, it's the money. There's a enough money in the Internet - both as investments, in the form of intercontinental cables, etc. as well as in Internet companies to swing any government's opinion on the matter. Of course, if it comes down to a difference between money and principle, guess which most governments will take:)?
And firebird^H^H^H^Hfox does it for google... it could be argued that's even worse than Microsoft, since there you get shot off on an I'm Feeling Lucky, while microsoft gives you a list of close matches and lets you choose one. I've had too many times when I mistyped a URL, got shot off to another page entirely, and then had to go back and do a "google URL" to find what I was looking for.
Also, M$'s way sends you back to a Microsoft page - which is expected, since MS has a search service (along with one copy of every single other web application). But Mozilla choose Google fairly arbitrarily - why not use Yahoo? Or Wikipedia? And anyone who argues "it's the #1 search option" gets a free copy of IE, the #1 browser, from your good friends at Monopolysoft;)
It's all in the language. I love the bit where he says "There seems little doubt that SCO was targeted - illegally and unacceptably, lest anyone be in any doubt - because it has enraged many people devoted to the Linux operating system". Anyone who doesn't know the real story will come out of it believing
That it's certain that the virus was designed as an attack against SCO.
That the common enragement of a (very!) large group of people somehow (magically?) translated into the virus.
That those "people devoted to the Linux operating system" orchestrated this attack as a deliberate rebuff.
It's like war reporting: perfectly accurate in the facts, but with the language polished up to give a very specific interpretation of the facts. Lovely job, Mr. Evans.
Slashdot Mirror
Pleeeeeeease don't let MS get their hands on this one, mister!
One and two
Goodbye, Origin
For twenty two years Origin Systems set the tone for the computer gaming. Ultima, Wing Commander and dozens of others set the gold standard for which the rest of the industry could only hope to catch up. This era has finally come to an end as Electronic Arts readies an announcement that it will shut down the Austin-based Origin studio.
This is not the end for Ultima or Wing Commander. Ultima Online will now be run from California, and development of Ultima X will continue on the west coast. Hopes that another Wing Commander game would be developed in Austin were dashed long ago; the longtime belief that a California-based EA team would develop the next Wing Commander title may, ironically, be bolstered by this news.
What it is, however, is a tremendous moral loss on all fronts. Origin Systems will always be the ultimate symbol of gaming's greatest days, and its dissolution to a faceless corporate entity is, sadly, equally symbolic of the world today. Origin entertained, challenged and inspired our generation in a way that seems impossible today. Though the individuals who developed our games long ago moved on to greater careers, the very existence of the company itself continued to stand for something special; something amazing.
The CIC will continue to dedicate itself to Origin's legacy - we will redouble our efforts to archive anything and everything related to the company. We will strike to make the world remember what Origin meant. I wanted to end with a quote - something plithy and literary to express the meaning of such an ending. I came up with only this:
Why is everybody going offtopic? Dragging religion and Darwinism into all this ... it's sad. You guys should sit down and properly discuss an old, old ship found in an old, old swamp. Stick to the story, guys!
Nothing beats a real card, but while I can't remember most of the real cards I've got (though I've got em in a drawer somewhere) I sure can remember a lot of the e-cards, particularly those sent by friends when I was feeling down or something. Gotta love the internet! =)
What can we, as Internet users, do to get the message around? I mean, sure, education, but despite computers going from being something for mathematicians to something for everybody in ten years, most of the people I know still treat computers are something that should "Just Work". Any suggestions?
(Legal question: Tarring and feathering would be out of the question for anyone who propagates worms, right? Or could we argue violation of the Right to be Left in Peace?)
oops ... silly me ... obviously, I meant your Microsoft(R) Windows(TM) Media Player. Nope, sorry, the quick file replacement is a feature found only on Microsoft(R) systems. Us poor Linux lusers will have to use 'apt-get install' or other equally slow technique.
I think you have to be Administrator for the re-write to work. Then again, most of the people I know run as administrator, so ...
That's the point! There's no "crapware" - it's a simple file overwrite! If you're running as Admin..., you won't notice at all - your media player will just suddenly stop working.
Why do the poor virus writers go through all this trouble anyways? Don't they know they can get 60% of the machines out there with just an e-mail with an attachment?
Then again, nowadays a lot of attention is being focused on trojan horses. What about real viruses - something not even hackers can figure out easily? It can't be too hard to write a trojan horse which pretends to be a cool little game for a month or so - before deleting all your files. Can it?
Then again, it looks like if they can make it reliable enough, it could make a big difference - if the fishermen are throwing out 1/3rd of their catch. And even if they can't - it'll save the money until it breaks down, then they just do it the old fashioned way until they get back to harbour! So it's allowed to be either pretty cheap or pretty reliable.
About half-an-hour later, the same phone (or a similar ringtone) goes off as well. This time, one of the leading actors - who is in the middle of a scene where he's supposed to be angry at his dad - shouts at his dad, "we must do ..., but first, " and turning to the audience, "somebody has to turn their goddamn phone off!". Then, after a minute or two of shouting at us, he continued on with the play.
My point is, phones can be extremely irritating to people, and I think they have a right to treat people like little children if that's how the people insist on behaving. My 0.02 Rs worth.
... and don't make/recieve phone calls when doing so would be irritating for others!
The problem would be - as someone else pointed out - automated devices, like heart monitors which try to phone the docter. But I guess they would be designed to issue some kind of warning too right?
Can a phone number be slashdotted? :) I think we're about to find out!
Here's the Clicky
Of course, all that superstition I don't go for. Can anyone sell me 420-4242? ;)
Right, that'll convince them ...
Perhaps you mean "If you were in India for medical treatment, you should get yourself checked for AIDS"? Sorry to disappoint, but you can't get AIDS just by walking around in Bombay or something you know ...
I don't see it!
Once you bring that up, it's only a few steps away from `1984' ... and then you've gotta ask yourself, if government really wanted to stop the 'Net, could we actually do anything about it? Look at China,
the FBI's Carnivore, etc.
Personally, I think that if anything's going to save the Internet from being taken over, it's the money. There's a enough money in the Internet - both as investments, in the form of intercontinental cables, etc. as well as in Internet companies to swing any government's opinion on the matter. Of course, if it comes down to a difference between money and principle, guess which most governments will take :)?
Of course! They both copied it from SCO, The One True Source Of Everything. =) (someone had to say it)
And firebird^H^H^H^Hfox does it for google ... it could be argued that's even worse than Microsoft, since there you get shot off on an I'm Feeling Lucky, while microsoft gives you a list of close matches and lets you choose one. I've had too many times when I mistyped a URL, got shot off to another page entirely, and then had to go back and do a "google URL" to find what I was looking for.
;)
Also, M$'s way sends you back to a Microsoft page - which is expected, since MS has a search service (along with one copy of every single other web application). But Mozilla choose Google fairly arbitrarily - why not use Yahoo? Or Wikipedia? And anyone who argues "it's the #1 search option" gets a free copy of IE, the #1 browser, from your good friends at Monopolysoft
This is .org and .com! When does Verisign's lease expire? Can ICANN turn over the license to someone else?
It's all in the language. I love the bit where he says "There seems little doubt that SCO was targeted - illegally and unacceptably, lest anyone be in any doubt - because it has enraged many people devoted to the Linux operating system". Anyone who doesn't know the real story will come out of it believing
It's like war reporting: perfectly accurate in the facts, but with the language polished up to give a very specific interpretation of the facts. Lovely job, Mr. Evans.