The only reason Everquest did poorly is because they were messing with the cash cow. That and Blizzard has a MUCH bigger following in the PC gaming world than SOE did/does. Having released Warcraft 2 & 3, Starcraft, and Diablo 1 & 2, World of Warcraft basically followed on the heals of successful launch after successful launch... particularly with Warcraft 3. Also, people were waiting to see which game played better. I don't remember specifics of the time, but I believe WoW gained the advantage with better gameplay and graphics that knocked your socks off. Of course, Everquest 2 had excellent graphics, but the gameplay wasn't as appealing (for whatever reason) and people were starting to get fed up with SOEs treatment of players (sounds somewhat familiar of the current WoW complaints).
Case in point...
I completely bombed an interview... didn't think I'd get a call back. Strangely, I did. Apparently, I need more confidence in myself. But I bombed the second interview. (I just don't test well.) Anyway, I recommended a friend of mine, who is admittedly *much* better than I. He got offered the job after the first interview with a pay worthy of his hire. (Now I'm kicking myself because of my lack of confidence.)
Epilogue: So, I'm not going to software engineer. I've got ability, just not talent or experience (yet). My current skills are elsewhere and are excellent. Though, I may try at that company again at some point in the future.
The one thing that got me started on using Linux (though I had installed Linux a dozen times previously) is MythTV. Granted, that application has potential pits, but it could be the killer app that even non-geeks could learn to love. My brother, an attorney, was surprised when I got on his computer at his home and started recording a program using MythWeb running on my pc at my home.
Actually, Dell does offer a no OS option. Of course, this is only on their server-class computers and they make sure you know you are not getting a computer that can be turned on and instantly working. Of course, if you are in the server-class section, hopefully you know what you are doing.
So, it was either take the RAID out or face telling 20 people that that was their last day of employment.
If a server is that important, then it justifies the comment for backup. If you have a couple simple external harddrives and use one to backup over the weekend, while the other one sits offsite. Then switch the two on Monday morning. You don't have to risk carrying much out.
But, having said that, congrats on the award and being brave.
A quick search on ebay seems to indicateabout 13,000+ consoles, many (first 11 pages sorted by lowest price) with a starting point of $1.00 (+-). Although, sorted by "ending first", you get a range from $1300 to $3000 (with the latter having 40 some-odd bids). $2000 seems to be the average.
I was also going to say, with no real back up, that there is a good reason the game industry is shying away from Sony. You can't jerk around your customer, your content creator, and your staff too much or they will jump ship. But my backup is in the headline summary. Sony seems to be arrogant, and apparently its arrogancy is not just toward its consumer. (Everquest anyone?)
Ahh, but the Mac commercials aren't saying it's harder to do, they're implying that it isn't possible at all. And I pointed out 3 or 4 programs that do those "fun" things. Anyway, Ulead VideoStudio and Pinnacle Studio both output to the iPod, PSP, WMA, DivX, and MPEG4 formats.
Also, with a PC, you can easily load a *nix distro and get a lot of those tools for that. Granted, none of this is very efficient, even on the mac. Particularly video editing. To get good video editing equipment requires a few thousand dollars and specialized computer equipment for the mixing.
But you forget... Macs have more FUN! Because, uh, PCs... they do work and boring stuff. You see, Mac's do pictures and movies and sound... um, well, uh just like the PC with Google's Picasso, Pinnacle Studio/Ulead VideoStudio, and Sony Sound Forge.
(I would have modded you... but as you can see, somebody didn't like one of my posts a few months back.)
Step 1: Click the button.
Step 2: Right-click somewhere else.
Step 3: walk away for days.
Step 4:...
Step 5: Profit.
(Maybe not as easy as 3 steps, but you get the idea.)
It is true that Atari was already on the way down, but ET not put the wooden stake in the heart, it nailed the coffin shut, covered it in concrete, and then threw it into the ocean.
Atari produced... well, I was about to spout a myth that Atari produced more ET cartridges than there were owners of the console (it is only true of Pac-Man). But, Atari sank $20+ million on the rights, shoved the project down one programmer's throat and said make it in 6-7 months... in time for Christmas. After having an excess of 2.5 million unsold cartridges (add on the cost of making those), and you have the reason why this game killed Atari, and why Atari killed the console gaming market for almost 4 years. (As mentioned before, Nintendo had to market the ROB as an educational toy that needed the console. Fortunately, kids aren't as dumb as marketing investors, and bought up the console and chucked the ROB.)
Okay, first, and the easiest. Those stupid Mac commercials that claim they are more "fun" than a PC. It's blatantly obvious they haven't mentioned PC Gaming (which, IMHO, is far superior than console gaming) because then it would fall flat on their face. Sure, a Mac has a lot of features out of the box than a MS Windows loaded PC. But if MS tried something like that, lots of people would (rightly so) be up in arms. Anyway, if people are willing to try Macs, they are willing to try Linux on cheaper hardware.
Second, what's the deal with the IBM commercials making the user feel completely stupid. In fact, it makes the point of saying everyone except Big Blue is stupid. Why are they insistant on insulting their target audience?
You've got to wonder about Juno. When Google announce 1GB of storage space and Yahoo! and MSN followed shortly by increasing space from 5MB to 20MB to 1GB, Juno decreased storage from 5MB to 2MB... and then reduced their free service even more by discontinuing their offline storage, and then making you pay for that 2MB of storage. Problem for me is that I can't even delete my Juno account. It's too bad, Juno was a decent service when it was relevant.
Sure Wal-mart is not a monopoly, they've got competition. Microsoft is not a monopoly either... but I think we can all agree that they used monopolistic practices to force companies like Dell, HP, Compaq, etc., to not install Netscape on their PCs. Wal-mart may not be a monopoly, but they are certainly acting like one.
That is an excellent idea. I would like to be informed of anything like this. Being a tech support for many home users, I've recently stopped support for Win98 and only supported ME a couple of times (I usually *upgraded* them to Win98se). Anyway, I do believe that anyone coming to me with irrecoverable Win98 boxes will get Ubuntu, or some other distro with OOo, Firefox, and all the other cool FOSS out there.
Being a relatively new Linux user, but in school for BS in CECS, and having worked IT for the past 5 years in a Microsoft world, I figured Gentoo would be something good for me to bite into and learn the details of linux as I built it. As is my usual nature, I tend to do installs 2, 3, or more times to get it right. Gentoo was no different.
I did plan early. I knew exactly how my partition structure should be for my mythtv box. (Largest partition for/video, separate partitions for/boot,/,/home, etc) Long story short, I spent several months trying to get stuff working, and until the recent release, I didn't know I could get video on my tv using X. (agpgart, or lack thereof, was my problem.) But then, mythtv was having issues installing properly.
I gave up and went to Ubuntu. Everything is working nicely except audio, my experience with gentoo allowed me to understand, in part, what I was doing on the command line. I've got all the cool features up and running, though, I'm not sure exactly how secure all my "appliances" are, there are too many config files... but it's a work in progress.
oops, also worlds is correct if you are trying to mean more than one world. However, the way you used it, it was meant to be possessive, therefore "world's" is correct.
However, that is a grammatical error, not necessarily a spelling error. Again, I was trying to be funny:b
Slashdot Mirror
The only reason Everquest did poorly is because they were messing with the cash cow. That and Blizzard has a MUCH bigger following in the PC gaming world than SOE did/does. Having released Warcraft 2 & 3, Starcraft, and Diablo 1 & 2, World of Warcraft basically followed on the heals of successful launch after successful launch... particularly with Warcraft 3. Also, people were waiting to see which game played better. I don't remember specifics of the time, but I believe WoW gained the advantage with better gameplay and graphics that knocked your socks off. Of course, Everquest 2 had excellent graphics, but the gameplay wasn't as appealing (for whatever reason) and people were starting to get fed up with SOEs treatment of players (sounds somewhat familiar of the current WoW complaints).
Case in point... I completely bombed an interview... didn't think I'd get a call back. Strangely, I did. Apparently, I need more confidence in myself. But I bombed the second interview. (I just don't test well.) Anyway, I recommended a friend of mine, who is admittedly *much* better than I. He got offered the job after the first interview with a pay worthy of his hire. (Now I'm kicking myself because of my lack of confidence.) Epilogue: So, I'm not going to software engineer. I've got ability, just not talent or experience (yet). My current skills are elsewhere and are excellent. Though, I may try at that company again at some point in the future.
That is a really good thesis. I enjoyed reading it. I have one disagreement, but my disagreement does not have solid footing.
As of yet, there is no killer app for Linux, nor for 64-bit hardware.
The one thing that got me started on using Linux (though I had installed Linux a dozen times previously) is MythTV. Granted, that application has potential pits, but it could be the killer app that even non-geeks could learn to love. My brother, an attorney, was surprised when I got on his computer at his home and started recording a program using MythWeb running on my pc at my home.
Actually, Dell does offer a no OS option. Of course, this is only on their server-class computers and they make sure you know you are not getting a computer that can be turned on and instantly working. Of course, if you are in the server-class section, hopefully you know what you are doing.
Cool! You got a $2400 bonus, from which to pay taxes on. But, then, I guess you could write it off as moving expenses. +2400-2400+59 = $59, I guess.
Hmm, I think that's backwards...
females understand boobs, but the male still likes to concentrate on it.
And no one had to get shot or mugged while purchasing, or waiting to purchase, one.
A quick search on ebay seems to indicateabout 13,000+ consoles, many (first 11 pages sorted by lowest price) with a starting point of $1.00 (+-). Although, sorted by "ending first", you get a range from $1300 to $3000 (with the latter having 40 some-odd bids). $2000 seems to be the average.
I was also going to say, with no real back up, that there is a good reason the game industry is shying away from Sony. You can't jerk around your customer, your content creator, and your staff too much or they will jump ship. But my backup is in the headline summary. Sony seems to be arrogant, and apparently its arrogancy is not just toward its consumer. (Everquest anyone?)
This was modded insightful? Now THAT'S funny!
Ahh, but the Mac commercials aren't saying it's harder to do, they're implying that it isn't possible at all. And I pointed out 3 or 4 programs that do those "fun" things. Anyway, Ulead VideoStudio and Pinnacle Studio both output to the iPod, PSP, WMA, DivX, and MPEG4 formats.
Also, with a PC, you can easily load a *nix distro and get a lot of those tools for that. Granted, none of this is very efficient, even on the mac. Particularly video editing. To get good video editing equipment requires a few thousand dollars and specialized computer equipment for the mixing.
But you forget... Macs have more FUN!
Because, uh, PCs... they do work and boring stuff.
You see, Mac's do pictures and movies and sound... um, well, uh just like the PC with Google's Picasso, Pinnacle Studio/Ulead VideoStudio, and Sony Sound Forge.
(I would have modded you... but as you can see, somebody didn't like one of my posts a few months back.)
If they gave you any actual content, you might try to hold them to it.
Step 1: Click the button. Step 2: Right-click somewhere else. Step 3: walk away for days. Step 4: ...
Step 5: Profit.
(Maybe not as easy as 3 steps, but you get the idea.)
It is true that Atari was already on the way down, but ET not put the wooden stake in the heart, it nailed the coffin shut, covered it in concrete, and then threw it into the ocean.
... well, I was about to spout a myth that Atari produced more ET cartridges than there were owners of the console (it is only true of Pac-Man). But, Atari sank $20+ million on the rights, shoved the project down one programmer's throat and said make it in 6-7 months... in time for Christmas. After having an excess of 2.5 million unsold cartridges (add on the cost of making those), and you have the reason why this game killed Atari, and why Atari killed the console gaming market for almost 4 years. (As mentioned before, Nintendo had to market the ROB as an educational toy that needed the console. Fortunately, kids aren't as dumb as marketing investors, and bought up the console and chucked the ROB.)
Atari produced
Okay, first, and the easiest. Those stupid Mac commercials that claim they are more "fun" than a PC. It's blatantly obvious they haven't mentioned PC Gaming (which, IMHO, is far superior than console gaming) because then it would fall flat on their face. Sure, a Mac has a lot of features out of the box than a MS Windows loaded PC. But if MS tried something like that, lots of people would (rightly so) be up in arms. Anyway, if people are willing to try Macs, they are willing to try Linux on cheaper hardware. Second, what's the deal with the IBM commercials making the user feel completely stupid. In fact, it makes the point of saying everyone except Big Blue is stupid. Why are they insistant on insulting their target audience?
You've got to wonder about Juno. When Google announce 1GB of storage space and Yahoo! and MSN followed shortly by increasing space from 5MB to 20MB to 1GB, Juno decreased storage from 5MB to 2MB... and then reduced their free service even more by discontinuing their offline storage, and then making you pay for that 2MB of storage. Problem for me is that I can't even delete my Juno account. It's too bad, Juno was a decent service when it was relevant.
Sure Wal-mart is not a monopoly, they've got competition. Microsoft is not a monopoly either... but I think we can all agree that they used monopolistic practices to force companies like Dell, HP, Compaq, etc., to not install Netscape on their PCs. Wal-mart may not be a monopoly, but they are certainly acting like one.
But, the bands make much better music in their poverty stricken, angst ridden state. I say keep them poor!
That is an excellent idea. I would like to be informed of anything like this. Being a tech support for many home users, I've recently stopped support for Win98 and only supported ME a couple of times (I usually *upgraded* them to Win98se). Anyway, I do believe that anyone coming to me with irrecoverable Win98 boxes will get Ubuntu, or some other distro with OOo, Firefox, and all the other cool FOSS out there.
Being a relatively new Linux user, but in school for BS in CECS, and having worked IT for the past 5 years in a Microsoft world, I figured Gentoo would be something good for me to bite into and learn the details of linux as I built it. As is my usual nature, I tend to do installs 2, 3, or more times to get it right. Gentoo was no different.
I did plan early. I knew exactly how my partition structure should be for my mythtv box. (Largest partition for /video, separate partitions for /boot, /, /home, etc) Long story short, I spent several months trying to get stuff working, and until the recent release, I didn't know I could get video on my tv using X. (agpgart, or lack thereof, was my problem.) But then, mythtv was having issues installing properly.
I gave up and went to Ubuntu. Everything is working nicely except audio, my experience with gentoo allowed me to understand, in part, what I was doing on the command line. I've got all the cool features up and running, though, I'm not sure exactly how secure all my "appliances" are, there are too many config files... but it's a work in progress.
oops, also worlds is correct if you are trying to mean more than one world. However, the way you used it, it was meant to be possessive, therefore "world's" is correct. However, that is a grammatical error, not necessarily a spelling error. Again, I was trying to be funny :b
And had you used a Microsoft Internet Explorer, with its best of class spell checker, it might have actually caught your one or two spelling mistakes.
Darn, so close. $ factor 759119 759119: 53 14323