If you are looking for a free to play browser rts, try War of Legends. The games is published by Jagex makers of Runescape, a company that generally treats its customers well.
War of Legends was also launched at the beginning of April, so I wonder if EA is forcing Lord of Ultima out the door to compete. It's tough to compete with Jagex in the browser game space though. After all, Runescape has something like 6 million players (5 million free, 1 million subscribers).
Not being able to catch up to a veteran is one of the drawbacks of the single server for all players that Eve uses.
Don't know if Lord of Ultima will have more than one server; but competing games like Jagex's War of Legends have multiple servers, with new ones coming always online. If veteran players are dominating the old servers, you can just start up on one of the new.
I've been using Slackware since '96, and I continue to use it in various capacities today. Installing Slackware and playing with it, writing programs for it, was seriously the best thing I ever did for my knowledge of computers and for Unix environments. I have skills that far surpass any of my co-workers or friends, and have often been the only one that could sort out issues with any sort of Unix environment.
I had the same experience, except with the computer science degree I was taking part time.
I ended up getting an A+ in the unix course (my other grades were usually in the B+/A-) range almost strictly from my prior knowledge gained from using Slackware day after day on my desktop.
I even got something like 105% on a midterm after the instructer had to curve it after most of the class bombed.
Regnum Online: Realm vs. Realm fantasy 3D MMORPG produced by NGD Studios, an Argentinian game company. Has just opened up their first English language server, is completely distributed over the web, AND has a native Linux client (that runs flawlessly on Slack 12.1 with ATI drivers).
I am curious if you ever had any qualms about making a career out of attacking other peoples' hard work.
While some films featured on your show were shoddy and amateurish, many just lacked a mainstream presentation. When one sets aside the markers we are conditioned to expect in a "good" film (slick sets, smooth acting, professionalism instead of enthusiasm or originality), there is alot to be gained by watching and understanding the films you have slighted. At the very least these film-makers had a sensiblity and a point-of-view not available in mainstream, Hollywood productions (I thinking particularly of the films of Ted V. Mikels -- who I believe was one of your foremost punching bags). To make them the target of mockery was really an exercise in conformism -- something I thought the geek/scientic community was supposed to be against.
One has only to read through the comments left at the Internet Movie Database on films featured on your show, to see page after page of the kind of derision towards the work of these men and women you have inspired (example: Girl with the Gold Boots by Mikels). Do you think that this kind of mob mentality is the permanent legacy of your show?
I use Feedburner heavily for various blogs and podcasts; and if you asked me a year ago about the Google take-over, I would have said great (or, who cares?).
But since then I've seen too many half-assed Google projects (especially around rss feeds: the Google reader for example is terrible compared to a competitor like Bloglines). Google recently redid the presentation of the statistics service they aquired (Google Analytics), making it worse. Feedburner is currently a great service that is intuitive, innovative and easy to use. But when Google gets through with it, I fear it too be half-assed.
As it has no doubt been said by others, Google is shaping up to be another Microsoft: using its dominance in one area (search), to force consumers into using inferior products. Google is doing it though by "killing with kindness" -- buying up the innovators and strangling them, rather then Microsoft's heavy tactics.
I had the same experience when I went back to visit the Royal Tyrrell Musem in Drumheller, Alberta -- perhaps the premiere dinosaur museum in North America, if not the world -- and was shocked to see how it had changed in the fifteen years since I'd been there.
I had the same experience as the parent -- the well-made dioramas and informative visual displays and had been replaced by literal flashing lights, kiosks, ominous music and so forth. I actually did learn something, but that was from an old exhibit that was in a wing slated for renovation and covered in dust (and one I remembered from my last visit) -- it probably isn't there now.
But I think the clock will eventually start swinging back. Why go to a museum to look at a computer/video? Just watch it over broadband. If the museums want to keep their doors open and attract patrons, they'll have to resurrect their old mandate (if any of the old currators are left alive).
Internet stations that stream almost completely music are being saddled with outrageously usurious fees.
Soma FM predicts their fees will rise from $20,000 today to $600,000 for 2006, and $1,000,000 in 2007.
Loosing stations like Soma would suck. I listen to a little bit of normal broadcast radio (usually just the urban hit station to pick up the occasional deserving top 20 hit), but otherwise its internet only.
This is very serious for Wikipedia in the real world. You can pretty much assume all the hagiographies written in the media recently will end. Essjay lied to the New Yorker and a pulitzer prize winning reporter; and Jimbo Wales backed him up. This will taint every serious article written by a journalist from this point forward.
As for Wikipedia and academia, this is the death-knell. The ultimate authority at Wikipedia -- Wales -- stated plainly that faked credentials don't matter. Like lying to a journalist, Wikipedia just won't recover. Every academic now has a professional duty to make their students exclude Wikipedia.
In recent years, Creative Commons has gone in an 'Open Source' direction, far from the principles of the Free Software Foundation that CC founder Lawrence Lessig said inspired his movement in the first place (cue howling anti-RMS Slashdotters).
In fact, in the recent GPLv3 furor, Lessig came down on the side of Linus Torvalds, against Richard Stallman. This is when I first began questioning the value of supporting CC by using one of their licenses.
It seems, like others in the 'Open Source' movement, CC has mades its compromises and now plays nicely with those who want to make a ton of money off of user generated content (MySpace, Rupert Murdoch anyone?), without necessarily preserving the rights of users.
This is why Eric Raymond coined the phrase "Open Source" in the first place. He said there was no way a corporative executive was going to accept anything with the word "free" attached to it (as in "Free Software"). So it was changed to OSS to disguise these ideals for the corporate push.
The whole Open Source movement began in 1998 as a way to get GPL'd software accepted by the corporate world. At this point, getting upset about corporations overlooking the "Free as freedom" part is just muddle-headed thinking.
(Which is why RMS always insists on using precise phrases like Treacherous Computing or GNU/Linux so the fundamental idea is always clear. People attack him for this, but once again, he is proven right).
Academics can help build a strong Wikipedia by continuing to write strong peer-reviewed articles published in established journals.
These are after all exactly the sources that Wikipedia, the encyclopedia written by non-experts, requires for a subject to be found "notable" and thus suitable for inclusion in WP.
A contraction? Yes, despite all the chest-beating.
Another dynamic of a typical market seems to be at play here: scarcity.
Indie stuff is rarer on the p2p networks than the major, big label artists. Its difficult to find whole albums, or much beyond whatever underground/sub-genre/or local scene hits an indie artist has had. If the music in question is a few years old, it becomes even rarer on p2p.
So if you want to scratch that itch, you have to pay for the tracks from iTunes, or the artist's website. (That's in addition to the willingness of the average music fan to support these types of artists directly).
Rtorrent is by far the torrent client with the smallest footprint.
I tried them all to get one that worked on a 486 with 60MB RAM and no X. Rtorrent (with ncurses ui) was the only one that didn't max out the resources.
Now I can turn my 4Ghz energy hog off at night, and do my downloading on the 486, which uses about as much electricity as a light bulb.
On the other hand, Novell may have done Free Software a great service.
All those who lambasted RMS for the explicitness of GPLv3 may now have to reconsider their opposition. This includes organizations like Red Hat and OSDL, who called the FSF approach "extremist."
Slashdot Mirror
TFA does not actually put a stake through the heart of a fine-tuned universe.
In fact, it actually lends more support to the view that the universe is fine-tuned for one form of life: us.
The article's conclusion is based on the premise that a God would want to create lots of life, and so the constant should be more positive.
But the Biblical view is that humanity is unique (for various reasons). The value of the constant being negative would seem to support this.
If you are looking for a free to play browser rts, try War of Legends. The games is published by Jagex makers of Runescape, a company that generally treats its customers well.
War of Legends was also launched at the beginning of April, so I wonder if EA is forcing Lord of Ultima out the door to compete. It's tough to compete with Jagex in the browser game space though. After all, Runescape has something like 6 million players (5 million free, 1 million subscribers).
Not being able to catch up to a veteran is one of the drawbacks of the single server for all players that Eve uses.
Don't know if Lord of Ultima will have more than one server; but competing games like Jagex's War of Legends have multiple servers, with new ones coming always online. If veteran players are dominating the old servers, you can just start up on one of the new.
I've been using Slackware since '96, and I continue to use it in various capacities today. Installing Slackware and playing with it, writing programs for it, was seriously the best thing I ever did for my knowledge of computers and for Unix environments. I have skills that far surpass any of my co-workers or friends, and have often been the only one that could sort out issues with any sort of Unix environment.
I had the same experience, except with the computer science degree I was taking part time.
I ended up getting an A+ in the unix course (my other grades were usually in the B+/A-) range almost strictly from my prior knowledge gained from using Slackware day after day on my desktop.
I even got something like 105% on a midterm after the instructer had to curve it after most of the class bombed.
The only thing that matters is that open standards are implemented, then we all win.
Except for Bill Gates -- he loses.
The answer is crowd-sourcing.
1) Drop input costs to near zero by giving average casual game-player (5 year old to granny) easy Web 2.0 flash game-design api.
2) ???
3) Profit
Regnum Online: Realm vs. Realm fantasy 3D MMORPG produced by NGD Studios, an Argentinian game company. Has just opened up their first English language server, is completely distributed over the web, AND has a native Linux client (that runs flawlessly on Slack 12.1 with ATI drivers).
I am curious if you ever had any qualms about making a career out of attacking other peoples' hard work.
While some films featured on your show were shoddy and amateurish, many just lacked a mainstream presentation. When one sets aside the markers we are conditioned to expect in a "good" film (slick sets, smooth acting, professionalism instead of enthusiasm or originality), there is alot to be gained by watching and understanding the films you have slighted. At the very least these film-makers had a sensiblity and a point-of-view not available in mainstream, Hollywood productions (I thinking particularly of the films of Ted V. Mikels -- who I believe was one of your foremost punching bags). To make them the target of mockery was really an exercise in conformism -- something I thought the geek/scientic community was supposed to be against.
One has only to read through the comments left at the Internet Movie Database on films featured on your show, to see page after page of the kind of derision towards the work of these men and women you have inspired (example: Girl with the Gold Boots by Mikels). Do you think that this kind of mob mentality is the permanent legacy of your show?
I use Feedburner heavily for various blogs and podcasts; and if you asked me a year ago about the Google take-over, I would have said great (or, who cares?).
But since then I've seen too many half-assed Google projects (especially around rss feeds: the Google reader for example is terrible compared to a competitor like Bloglines). Google recently redid the presentation of the statistics service they aquired (Google Analytics), making it worse. Feedburner is currently a great service that is intuitive, innovative and easy to use. But when Google gets through with it, I fear it too be half-assed.
As it has no doubt been said by others, Google is shaping up to be another Microsoft: using its dominance in one area (search), to force consumers into using inferior products. Google is doing it though by "killing with kindness" -- buying up the innovators and strangling them, rather then Microsoft's heavy tactics.
I had the same experience when I went back to visit the Royal Tyrrell Musem in Drumheller, Alberta -- perhaps the premiere dinosaur museum in North America, if not the world -- and was shocked to see how it had changed in the fifteen years since I'd been there.
I had the same experience as the parent -- the well-made dioramas and informative visual displays and had been replaced by literal flashing lights, kiosks, ominous music and so forth. I actually did learn something, but that was from an old exhibit that was in a wing slated for renovation and covered in dust (and one I remembered from my last visit) -- it probably isn't there now.
But I think the clock will eventually start swinging back. Why go to a museum to look at a computer/video? Just watch it over broadband. If the museums want to keep their doors open and attract patrons, they'll have to resurrect their old mandate (if any of the old currators are left alive).
Internet stations that stream almost completely music are being saddled with outrageously usurious fees.
Soma FM predicts their fees will rise from $20,000 today to $600,000 for 2006, and $1,000,000 in 2007.
Loosing stations like Soma would suck. I listen to a little bit of normal broadcast radio (usually just the urban hit station to pick up the occasional deserving top 20 hit), but otherwise its internet only.
Mod the parent up.
This is very serious for Wikipedia in the real world. You can pretty much assume all the hagiographies written in the media recently will end. Essjay lied to the New Yorker and a pulitzer prize winning reporter; and Jimbo Wales backed him up. This will taint every serious article written by a journalist from this point forward.
As for Wikipedia and academia, this is the death-knell. The ultimate authority at Wikipedia -- Wales -- stated plainly that faked credentials don't matter. Like lying to a journalist, Wikipedia just won't recover. Every academic now has a professional duty to make their students exclude Wikipedia.
I prefer TCO:
Turd Collection Organizer.
In recent years, Creative Commons has gone in an 'Open Source' direction, far from the principles of the Free Software Foundation that CC founder Lawrence Lessig said inspired his movement in the first place (cue howling anti-RMS Slashdotters).
In fact, in the recent GPLv3 furor, Lessig came down on the side of Linus Torvalds, against Richard Stallman. This is when I first began questioning the value of supporting CC by using one of their licenses.
It seems, like others in the 'Open Source' movement, CC has mades its compromises and now plays nicely with those who want to make a ton of money off of user generated content (MySpace, Rupert Murdoch anyone?), without necessarily preserving the rights of users.
CC now resides in the ESR category.
Or giving Louis L'Amour the Congressional Gold Medal and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
..not a bug.
This is why Eric Raymond coined the phrase "Open Source" in the first place. He said there was no way a corporative executive was going to accept anything with the word "free" attached to it (as in "Free Software"). So it was changed to OSS to disguise these ideals for the corporate push.
The whole Open Source movement began in 1998 as a way to get GPL'd software accepted by the corporate world. At this point, getting upset about corporations overlooking the "Free as freedom" part is just muddle-headed thinking.
(Which is why RMS always insists on using precise phrases like Treacherous Computing or GNU/Linux so the fundamental idea is always clear. People attack him for this, but once again, he is proven right).
Academics can help build a strong Wikipedia by continuing to write strong peer-reviewed articles published in established journals.
These are after all exactly the sources that Wikipedia, the encyclopedia written by non-experts, requires for a subject to be found "notable" and thus suitable for inclusion in WP.
A contraction? Yes, despite all the chest-beating.
I believe 1985 called...
Alternately, we can nominate everyone; then give it to no one. Everyone dies.
Alfred Nobel invented dynamite, didn't he? Hmmm.
For those who are not sure who or what Wikipedia is, please consult: http://www.wikitruth.info/
Another dynamic of a typical market seems to be at play here: scarcity.
Indie stuff is rarer on the p2p networks than the major, big label artists. Its difficult to find whole albums, or much beyond whatever underground/sub-genre/or local scene hits an indie artist has had. If the music in question is a few years old, it becomes even rarer on p2p.
So if you want to scratch that itch, you have to pay for the tracks from iTunes, or the artist's website. (That's in addition to the willingness of the average music fan to support these types of artists directly).
At that point did you reach for your gun?
Rtorrent is by far the torrent client with the smallest footprint.
I tried them all to get one that worked on a 486 with 60MB RAM and no X. Rtorrent (with ncurses ui) was the only one that didn't max out the resources.
Now I can turn my 4Ghz energy hog off at night, and do my downloading on the 486, which uses about as much electricity as a light bulb.
(For ed2k on the same machine I use mldonkey.
Cannibal Mercenary.
On the other hand, Novell may have done Free Software a great service.
All those who lambasted RMS for the explicitness of GPLv3 may now have to reconsider their opposition. This includes organizations like Red Hat and OSDL, who called the FSF approach "extremist."
Who's the extremist now?