Progress is often diffuse and if it has happened before you are born you tend to take it for granted. It's nice to get to know about someone who was more productive in half an hour than most are in all their life. This men is truly an inspiration in his tireless effort to perform his craft, advance the sciences and make people get better.
you might but you'll probably be wrong. Criticisms of WoW usually boil down to questioning the MMORPG formula (besides the point) or a perceived lack of attention to your most favorite activity in the game (PvP v PvE etc). The way blizzard treats it's customers, the art in WoW, the wealth of content, the game mechanics and the technical side of client and server are largely impeccable. Seriously, reading the flagshipped.com site or having a look at AoC really reminded me what an outstanding game WoW is and there really is no game in the genre that plays in the same league as WoW.
I wonder about the PvP / PvE segregation in WoW as well and hope they'll integrate the two more tightly in the future. As you point out it would be cool to gain XP from killing players and that would also quickly put a stop to BG twinking (though I'm not sure if blizzard actually wants to encourage it). Also it could add more varity in a PvE raiding game if for example they would borrow the LoTRO PvP idea of player controlled monsters either recruited from the raid (e.g. random player becomes hostile to the raid) or a raid v raid battle versus an other raid in the instance.
Server stability was in issue with WoW but then again, WoW success took the whole industry by suprise. Nobody is in a position to say "told you so" when a game sells in weeks what was projected for the whole year. Aside from that WoW is and was a highly polished game with an error rate that is probably lower than most other commercial software. AOC? Yeah, the did servers right but forgot to make stats work and have don't have any quests past 40... I would rather play an excellent game on shitty servers then vice versa.
You sound a lot like a person with this "Chief" in the title. I still have to disagree with you: premature releases (which is not the same as incomplete but incompleteness certainly indicates prematurity) kill games and make laughing stock of the company and publisher. Lost future sales because of this is not easy to estimate but I'll give you an example: I tried AOC and it was unoptimized, unbalanced, bland, incomplete and buggy. I told around 15 people who as a direct consequence did not buy the title. You can do the math...
could go either way: if the reason that people are waiting for WAR is that they are through all the content (cause let's remember that most people probably don't quit WoW because they are infuriated about the game) then a WAR release after WOTLK could harm them. Generally I agree with you though: time to market is important but in the MMORPG market games get killed by lackluster releases (see AOC). I wonder why that lesson has not been learned. I also wonder why for all the great talent game studios assemble there seems to be nobody that is able to plan worth a damn. Had the WAR guys targeted their release for 2009 I think they would have completed the game in time and on quality (budget, maybe not but as always: pick two).
i don't understand what the ethical problem with suicide / assisted suicide is supposed to be. If anything, at the very least everybody owns themselves and has the right to shutdown his body and mind if he so wishes...
Mass transportation stinks literally, it slaves you to it's schedule, it's run as a public institution and therefore constantly battles with reliability issues. If you ride during rush hours you'll never get a seat or even miss the bus/train because it's full. If you go on off hours schedules are often erratic or require you to take a large detour. I tried riding the train for half a year and it's just hell on earth and this in germany! There is always some fucker who needs to eat kilos of garlic appearantly, children screaming, girls bickering etc etc etc pp. How in the hell can you read with this noise?
If you need to change trains/bus/tram you always need 5-10 minute buffer so you'll not miss your connection when something goes wrong (like fucking rail-cleaners at 9 on a work day that the tram needs to wait for). Now change 2 times: 15 minute buffer time that you spend standing around in the cold. You can't work late because the stupid bus won't go past 8 etc etc. The tram station is 15 minutes by food so I take the bike, except it get's stolen because some asshole decides to steal all bikes at the tram station that day and NOBODY notices or even cares, certainly not the tram operators...
Mass transportation sucks! Individual transpotation is an evolution over mass transit and we are not going to go back!
no no no! It's all local co-op, no pesky hydrocarbons involved there. Don't you know, energy usage, transportation and civilization are bad, bad, bad and we should all take this young lad as our example!
> Since Java itself never mattered except to sell books, I still don't see why opening it matters.
This is exactly what smileys are for! Anyways, I don't know what's up with all the Java hate seeing how most OSS uses it. Ruby doesn't have unicode support for christ sake! Flame that if you really need to...
I agree. But where is it? Judging from the animations I've seen it was a very pool-like impact with lot's of mass being ejected at high speeds... where is it now?
It's exactly not EVERY neutron star. Only every neutron star that is hit by such a blackhole. Since the formation of these blackholes is also hypothetical and the last word about neutron star formation is probably also not spoken there is indeed no data, no quantification, only some assumptions.
The last I've read about these blackholes (sorry, no source, german news article) spoke about a formation rate of some thousand (3000 if I recall correctly) since the beginning of our universe. I don't think that we would be able to tell if even a million neutron stars where missing universe-wide....
how do you know the real rate of neutron star formation? How do you know the real rate of these blackholes forming? Again, I don't believe that anything bad will happen and at first I was thinking "look at those fearmongers" BUT the counter arguments provided are so just so weak especially in light of the fact that time and time again it's shown that we don't yet have a comprehensive picture of the universe. Not so long ago e.g. the whole galactic distance measuring was called in question because there appear to be some stars that behave in a way we hadn't known of before. And that also goes for blackholes...
I'm certainly no fearmonger and I believe the world is gonna be a-okay after LHC does it's thing BUT the arguments presented from "your" side are not very convincing.
- This happens in nature also. Yes, but not very often and probably less often on the surface of a planet
- We would see neutron stars, white dwarfs being consumed by these kind of objects. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence as they say...
- LHC created blackholes will evaporate. Really? This might be the first time hawking radiation is observable... what if hawking is wrong?
AFAIK, and please correct me on this: isn't hawking radiation a prediction that hasn't been obeserved in the universe?
Also, I read that what the LHC is doing would occure naturally as well. I also read that this is not exactly a common event, maybe a few thousand since the beginning of the univers. So, what's the chance that anything like this ever happened near a planet?
funny and interesting. Probably they would just 'see' in bands where the fog is transparent, like x-rays:-)
Seriously though, I think earth-like is basic sensationalism. It distracts a little from the great progress the planet hunters have made by going from detecting super Js to super Es which are almost two orders of magnitude smaller in less then ten years. They should just stick with "rocky" or "mercurian" until the day they find a planet where water could exist as a liquid.
Thanks for the very insightful post. Could you also explain the common comments about red dwarfs with small orbit planets: temperature might be okay but radiation would be a problem. Doesn't make sense to me since I assume that the power output would decrease in all bands, not only the infrared and visible light. Would a close orbit to a white dwarf (also?) pose radiation issues?
From the very link you've posted:
Cambridge Energy Research Associates authored a report [38] that is critical of Hubbert influenced predictions:
" Despite his valuable contribution, M. King Hubbert's methodology falls down because it does not consider likely resource growth, application of new technology, basic commercial factors, or the impact of geopolitics on production. His approach does not work in all cases-including on the United States itself-and cannot reliably model a global production outlook. Put more simply, the case for the imminent peak is flawed. As it is, production in 2005 in the Lower 48 in the United States was 66 percent higher than Hubbert projected.
So: peak oil is a lie. Especially when it's used in the sense that occurs Real Soon Now(TM) and will be a disaster to the global economy (Hubbert's graph itself doesn't support this assertion). In the very trivial sense of "there will be a time N where the amount of oil that can be extracted is lower than at N-1" it's right but boring.
Yes, being a rebellious smart ass will make the laws of thermodynamics disappear! You can't fuel a car with it's own exhaust period. No amount of thinking outside the box will ever change that fact because it's a fundamental rule of our universe.
See, if it feels like an investment you are doing it wrong. I wish all you guys that think playing the game is "working for items" would just quit. Would cut down on the whiners, BG 'underperformers' and the raid slackers massively.
I disagree... a friend of mine started sometime after me, was and is a complete newbie as is appearant when looking at his talents;)... Making money he could though. It's ridiculously easy to do nowadaysm easier than leveling a hard class (warrior) solo...
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Progress is often diffuse and if it has happened before you are born you tend to take it for granted. It's nice to get to know about someone who was more productive in half an hour than most are in all their life. This men is truly an inspiration in his tireless effort to perform his craft, advance the sciences and make people get better.
Thank you and may you rest in peace.
you might but you'll probably be wrong. Criticisms of WoW usually boil down to questioning the MMORPG formula (besides the point) or a perceived lack of attention to your most favorite activity in the game (PvP v PvE etc). The way blizzard treats it's customers, the art in WoW, the wealth of content, the game mechanics and the technical side of client and server are largely impeccable. Seriously, reading the flagshipped.com site or having a look at AoC really reminded me what an outstanding game WoW is and there really is no game in the genre that plays in the same league as WoW.
Ironic considering that D3 will probably make Blizzard billions :)
I wonder about the PvP / PvE segregation in WoW as well and hope they'll integrate the two more tightly in the future. As you point out it would be cool to gain XP from killing players and that would also quickly put a stop to BG twinking (though I'm not sure if blizzard actually wants to encourage it). Also it could add more varity in a PvE raiding game if for example they would borrow the LoTRO PvP idea of player controlled monsters either recruited from the raid (e.g. random player becomes hostile to the raid) or a raid v raid battle versus an other raid in the instance.
Server stability was in issue with WoW but then again, WoW success took the whole industry by suprise. Nobody is in a position to say "told you so" when a game sells in weeks what was projected for the whole year. Aside from that WoW is and was a highly polished game with an error rate that is probably lower than most other commercial software. AOC? Yeah, the did servers right but forgot to make stats work and have don't have any quests past 40 ... I would rather play an excellent game on shitty servers then vice versa.
You sound a lot like a person with this "Chief" in the title. I still have to disagree with you: premature releases (which is not the same as incomplete but incompleteness certainly indicates prematurity) kill games and make laughing stock of the company and publisher. Lost future sales because of this is not easy to estimate but I'll give you an example: I tried AOC and it was unoptimized, unbalanced, bland, incomplete and buggy. I told around 15 people who as a direct consequence did not buy the title. You can do the math ...
could go either way: if the reason that people are waiting for WAR is that they are through all the content (cause let's remember that most people probably don't quit WoW because they are infuriated about the game) then a WAR release after WOTLK could harm them. Generally I agree with you though: time to market is important but in the MMORPG market games get killed by lackluster releases (see AOC). I wonder why that lesson has not been learned. I also wonder why for all the great talent game studios assemble there seems to be nobody that is able to plan worth a damn. Had the WAR guys targeted their release for 2009 I think they would have completed the game in time and on quality (budget, maybe not but as always: pick two).
I wonder how many people think (like me) that the bard class would be awesome :)
i don't understand what the ethical problem with suicide / assisted suicide is supposed to be. If anything, at the very least everybody owns themselves and has the right to shutdown his body and mind if he so wishes ...
this argument is so weak, it can't even hold the crutches you've provided ... we already have the term "over qualified".
Mass transportation stinks literally, it slaves you to it's schedule, it's run as a public institution and therefore constantly battles with reliability issues. If you ride during rush hours you'll never get a seat or even miss the bus/train because it's full. If you go on off hours schedules are often erratic or require you to take a large detour. I tried riding the train for half a year and it's just hell on earth and this in germany! There is always some fucker who needs to eat kilos of garlic appearantly, children screaming, girls bickering etc etc etc pp. How in the hell can you read with this noise? If you need to change trains/bus/tram you always need 5-10 minute buffer so you'll not miss your connection when something goes wrong (like fucking rail-cleaners at 9 on a work day that the tram needs to wait for). Now change 2 times: 15 minute buffer time that you spend standing around in the cold. You can't work late because the stupid bus won't go past 8 etc etc. The tram station is 15 minutes by food so I take the bike, except it get's stolen because some asshole decides to steal all bikes at the tram station that day and NOBODY notices or even cares, certainly not the tram operators ...
Mass transportation sucks! Individual transpotation is an evolution over mass transit and we are not going to go back!
no no no! It's all local co-op, no pesky hydrocarbons involved there. Don't you know, energy usage, transportation and civilization are bad, bad, bad and we should all take this young lad as our example!
> Since Java itself never mattered except to sell books, I still don't see why opening it matters. This is exactly what smileys are for! Anyways, I don't know what's up with all the Java hate seeing how most OSS uses it. Ruby doesn't have unicode support for christ sake! Flame that if you really need to ...
I agree. But where is it? Judging from the animations I've seen it was a very pool-like impact with lot's of mass being ejected at high speeds ... where is it now?
It's exactly not EVERY neutron star. Only every neutron star that is hit by such a blackhole. Since the formation of these blackholes is also hypothetical and the last word about neutron star formation is probably also not spoken there is indeed no data, no quantification, only some assumptions.
....
The last I've read about these blackholes (sorry, no source, german news article) spoke about a formation rate of some thousand (3000 if I recall correctly) since the beginning of our universe. I don't think that we would be able to tell if even a million neutron stars where missing universe-wide
how do you know the real rate of neutron star formation? How do you know the real rate of these blackholes forming? Again, I don't believe that anything bad will happen and at first I was thinking "look at those fearmongers" BUT the counter arguments provided are so just so weak especially in light of the fact that time and time again it's shown that we don't yet have a comprehensive picture of the universe. Not so long ago e.g. the whole galactic distance measuring was called in question because there appear to be some stars that behave in a way we hadn't known of before. And that also goes for blackholes ...
I'm certainly no fearmonger and I believe the world is gonna be a-okay after LHC does it's thing BUT the arguments presented from "your" side are not very convincing.
... ... what if hawking is wrong?
- This happens in nature also. Yes, but not very often and probably less often on the surface of a planet
- We would see neutron stars, white dwarfs being consumed by these kind of objects. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence as they say
- LHC created blackholes will evaporate. Really? This might be the first time hawking radiation is observable
AFAIK, and please correct me on this: isn't hawking radiation a prediction that hasn't been obeserved in the universe?
Also, I read that what the LHC is doing would occure naturally as well. I also read that this is not exactly a common event, maybe a few thousand since the beginning of the univers. So, what's the chance that anything like this ever happened near a planet?
funny and interesting. Probably they would just 'see' in bands where the fog is transparent, like x-rays :-)
Seriously though, I think earth-like is basic sensationalism. It distracts a little from the great progress the planet hunters have made by going from detecting super Js to super Es which are almost two orders of magnitude smaller in less then ten years. They should just stick with "rocky" or "mercurian" until the day they find a planet where water could exist as a liquid.
Thanks for the very insightful post. Could you also explain the common comments about red dwarfs with small orbit planets: temperature might be okay but radiation would be a problem. Doesn't make sense to me since I assume that the power output would decrease in all bands, not only the infrared and visible light. Would a close orbit to a white dwarf (also?) pose radiation issues?
Cambridge Energy Research Associates authored a report [38] that is critical of Hubbert influenced predictions: " Despite his valuable contribution, M. King Hubbert's methodology falls down because it does not consider likely resource growth, application of new technology, basic commercial factors, or the impact of geopolitics on production. His approach does not work in all cases-including on the United States itself-and cannot reliably model a global production outlook. Put more simply, the case for the imminent peak is flawed. As it is, production in 2005 in the Lower 48 in the United States was 66 percent higher than Hubbert projected.
So: peak oil is a lie. Especially when it's used in the sense that occurs Real Soon Now(TM) and will be a disaster to the global economy (Hubbert's graph itself doesn't support this assertion). In the very trivial sense of "there will be a time N where the amount of oil that can be extracted is lower than at N-1" it's right but boring.
peak oil is a lie.
Yes, being a rebellious smart ass will make the laws of thermodynamics disappear! You can't fuel a car with it's own exhaust period. No amount of thinking outside the box will ever change that fact because it's a fundamental rule of our universe.
See, if it feels like an investment you are doing it wrong. I wish all you guys that think playing the game is "working for items" would just quit. Would cut down on the whiners, BG 'underperformers' and the raid slackers massively.
I disagree ... a friend of mine started sometime after me, was and is a complete newbie as is appearant when looking at his talents ;) ... Making money he could though. It's ridiculously easy to do nowadaysm easier than leveling a hard class (warrior) solo ...