A fine idea until you consider the fact that the hypothetical malevolent Chinese botnet can be easily controlled from a cybercafe in Australia, or Austria, or even the US. The bots are out here in the west too, not all behind Chinese government firewalls inside the country.
There are the D&D players who eventually get into Wicca and other "majik" kind of stuff to the point where they believe that they can cast spells and talk to spirits...
Or possibly, you know, they might develop an interest in a bona-fide religion, whatever you may personally think of it. Are you suggesting that if someone plays a Cleric in AD&D they are suddenly going to become a rabid Christian fanatic? (Oh maybe not, I forgot that D&D used the trappings of Christian beliefs and religious organizations but didn't actually include the Christian Mythos in Deities and Demigods)
Overall thats a pretty fucking obnoxious attitude to hold in my opinion. Sure, Wicca and other Pagan religions may seem odd or even silly to you, but to many thousands of people they are quite valid as religious beliefs and sincerely held. Me, personally, I think that many members of Christianity believe some utterly whacko things, but its their right to believe what they want so long as it doesn't adversely impact others. Freedom of religion and all that.
Yes I am Wiccan, but believe it or not I became interested in it long before D&D even existed, and years before I started playing it in University:P.
The best way to get rid of these stereotypes is to stop perpetuating them
Now as to the LARPERs, well those guys are batshit crazy so I agree with you there:)
I think you will find that if someone finds any humour in Chuck Norris jokes, they have an INT of less than 8, possibly 5. Anyone with a higher INT value suffers a temporary -6 penalty to their INT score that will last at least 24 hrs.
Chuck Norris is a mediocre martial artist - his only claim to fame and popularity is due to being American. If you want real MA skills, check out Jackie Chan or Tony Jaa, both of whom could kick CN ass without effort:P
Well, I read about Vista, examined it on a friend's system, and decided that I didn't want to pay MS to upgrade to something I didn't need. Instead I decided to move to the Mac. My wife and I now both have new 20" Imac Desktops and she also has the new Macbook Air. MS has almost lost a customer here, except I did go buy a copy of XP SP2 so I could use Bootcamp to run games (City of Heroes/Villains and Pirates of the Burning Sea, both MMORPGs). Same for my wife's desktop.
If we weren't both gamers, we would never need to touch Windows again. If Apple is smart, they will either convince developers to start developing for the Mac as well, or find some way to let the Mac run windows games. So far Parallels and VMWare are not up to the task at least for the games I want to play. If I could break my dependence on gaming I would be completely free of MS entirely.
The difference between running XP and Mac OS/X for me is like the difference between driving a Ford Tempo and driving a BMW. Sure, XP does the things I need it to do, in a mediocre fashion and with plenty of things I find irritating, but Mac OS/X seems to work better, faster, more effectively and more comfortably to me in pretty much every regard. If I need to run most Linux/Unix software, it is capable of doing so. I have a fully capable terminal if needed. I am totally impressed and a complete Mac convert now. Some of this is undoubtedly the geeky joy of discovering a new OS, but mostly its just that things seem to work and work well. Often I find myself looking for how to do something - and based on MS OS experience expecting to have to jump through some hoops to accomplish it - then discovering that its quite simple and userfriendly and there are no hoops.
Meanwhile my friend with the Vista system doesn't have to reboot to play the same games as me, but he does suffer constant problems of various sorts and I don't think hes very happy with it overall.
I think Apple has an opportunity to take a much larger share of the desktop market in the coming year or so. Its already on the move of course, but I see a lot of Mac systems being sold in local stores, a lot more than I used to see - and a lot more stores carrying them that I used to see. I sincerely hope that Apple takes the chance and tries to push itself much further into the market because they have a superior product in my opinion. Competition really is a good thing it seems, and Apple's offerings put Microsoft's to shame at the moment.
* First off, your solutions would leave a battlefield covered with bright white tanks covered with a layer of dirt and branches on top. Presumably covering the sides with dirt won't work so well, and assuming that it means we have a host of highly visable targets (ie a bright white horizontal stripe) that can be shot using standard tank weapons:P
* It doesn't really matter that the laser costs millions of time more than a specific defense. The tank can't shoot back at the aircraft attacking it, and if the laser can be used to take out a few tanks (each of which also costs millions) the cost of the laser will quickly be recouped.
Oh I am not sure on specific laws concerning IM, that has largely been ignored as far as I know, and as I said IANAL.
I also agree that if a company has a written policy that they do not retain IM logs, they would be largely clear of any problems in court, I expect. But if a company didn't have a written policy, and their employees regularly did business dealings or otherwise legally accountable discussions via IM, I can forsee a problem, particularly if they had a policy of destroying any logs that were produced. However you could be entirely correct and the courts might view it as no different than a phone conversation.
I do recall reading of at least one law suit where a company secured agreement to do some renovations to a building via email, didn't keep the email in question in any format at all (their informal policy on email was to delete it all, regardless of content, after 30 days, but this wasn't written down or formalized in any way), and subsequently got sued over those renovations and was unable to produce anything that stated they had permission to go ahead. Now why there wasn't a contract etc, I don't recall but I do recall the judge slamming them for not recording the email and preserving it because it amounted to a legal agreement to proceed with the renovations. By extension if a similar agreement to proceed was reached via an IM conversation (much less likely and again very rare if it ever occurred), I can see a judge having the same opinion. Usually you would get a signature on paper for any such thing but if you failed to do that and failed to retain a transcript of the only go ahead you got, you could pay for it.
Again, I was just pointing out how strict the courts can expect you to be with regards to document retention and using IM (something most people wouldn't think of at all) as an example of where the courts might get picky.
Oh I agree IM traffic could be damaging and probably shouldn't see the light of day in court, just as many phone conversations could be similarly damaging. However, many IM programs do maintain a log and such logs could be discovered during the discovery phase, and most employers don't think about IM at all.
As well, its not me suggesting that backing up IM traffic is a requirement, its more or less defined by the laws in the US as I recall reading about them - again IANAL.
If an IM conversation contained something that could be viewed as a business agreement, then a court could require a party to produce a transcript, period. The party may not be able to do so, but that might be counted against them, so its actually better for a company or organization to either log all IM traffic, or ban the use of IM clients on their network.
The laws on document retention have gotten pretty extreme since Sarbanes-Oxley, and I think courts are likely to be very strict on all parties obeying the rules when it comes to discovery phase.
Oh I forgot, the moment a company enters litigation, they are also supposed to place a Hold order with regards to records created by their organization - ie, absolutely no one deletes or destroys anything. Ie you dont delete email or backups
Actually, if a defendant is unable to produce evidence because it appears to have been deleted when it should be available, a court will usually take that into consideration and may assume that the defendant did that to hide something, and thus hold that against them. The reverse is of course true for the prosecution if they are likewise unable to produce evidence, although the courts will hold an individual to a more reasonable requirement than a large organization which is expected to maintain a higher standard.
Its only if they have a reasonable data retention policy already in place, and can show that the deleted or destroyed information or records were destroyed in accordance with that plan - and that they have been following that plan rigorously and not just in this one instance, that they can justify not producing the records. If for instance they have formally established and been following a records retention policy whereby they state they will destroy email records after holding them in backup for say a 5 year period (higher in some industries where its specified by law how long you must preserve those records), and have done so and thereby cannot produce records from before that period, then a judge should not hold it against them during discovery. They made a plan, stuck to it prior to entering litigation, and the court has to recognize there is a cost associated with maintaining and backing up such data that should have a logical limit when the utility of that data has been reduced by the time that has passed. If however they have not followed that policy, don't have such a policy, or give the appearance of selectively applying it to hide potentially damaging evidence, they can have it held against them (possibly with the assumption that the information in question was damaging), and they can be fined by the court. They can even have the court summarily find in favour of the prosecution. They can be fined if they cannot produce the evidence in a reasonable period of time, and will usually bear the brunt of the cost of producing those records - no matter how difficult or expensive that may be - as long as the other side can produce sufficient cause to justify the importance of that evidence to their case. Sometimes the other side can be required to pay for some of the cost of course, if its reasonable. This can be extended well beyond physical records and emails, to include IM traffic, chat logs etc, all of which an organization bears a responsibility to back up and maintain. You can even be held liable if your backups cannot be restored due to changes to technology over time - you are expected to transfer those backups to a new format, or maintain the old equipment required to restore them etc. If you failed to place backups in offsite storage and they were destroyed in a fire, thats your fault too for not taking reasonable precautions and storing the backups elsewhere. I expect a few companies are going to get bit badly in the next few years when they cannot produce backups of all the IM traffic that passed over their networks for instance - because if anything that happened during those IM sessions has any bearing on anything legal, its a record that needs to be backed up, period. If you and I discuss a business deal, and then I send you an email that just says something like "About our conversation yesterday, lets do it" and the lets do it implies a verbal agreement to pursue a business deal, that email is a legal record, same thing if we agree via IM chat:P
So simply removing evidence by destroying it is not necessarily of any benefit to an organization when they hit the courts. The courts can and should take a very dim view of someone who deliberately destroys damaging evidence:P
IANAL, but I used to work for some who dealt with records retention, discovery etc, and picked up some of the details. Its surprising how many companies and organizations do not have and do not follow a logical retention policy with regards to data (apparently about 40%
The US has a very long history of invading countries, and undermining governments throughout the Caribbean, and Central and South America. The whole concept of Manifest Destiny more or less justifies any invasive or violent actions the US might take doesn't it (I mean in the opinion of those who make US policies). Internally you are a Republic (more or less), externally you have always been working on becoming an Empire I think.
Despite its naysayers - and hey this wouldn't be slashdot if you mentioned a programming/scripting language and dozen people didn't immediately post about how bad the language in question was - PHP is an excellent introduction to web-based programming. Sure, there are other approaches you can take, which may even be far better, Ruby, Python, Java etc, but with PHP you can accomplish something and start learning in very short order and there is still a lot to absorb. I think its a good way to learn programming for the web. I can build something in PHP in a fraction of the time it would take me in Java, and to be honest (IMHO) I think the result is just as effective to the user. PHP is easy to learn, effective enough, and not a bad place to start. At least you will have something to compare it to when you try out other languages down the road.
What really pisses me off is my current XP laptop is certainly going to be the last Windows unit I own so I'll be forced to make the jump on the next one to Ubuntu or OSX. I've grudgingly settled for Microsoft products because it's a shitty platform that also happens to support most of the software I use and shitty support is better than nothing. With OSX I'll still be able to run XP in a VM. Shit. Looks like I'm going to finally become one of those Mac weenies I used to make fun of.
I bought my first PC (a 286 that came with nothing other than DOS) back in like '88/89, for a whopping $2300. From then until August of this year, I was a PC man, buying cases and upgrading the contents in a sort of never ending upgrade cycle. I learned a lot about PC assembly that I would never have learned otherwise, but mostly it was a constant pain in the butt, and undoubtedly very expensive. I learned to loathe each version of Microsoft's Windows along the way as well. 95, 98, 2000, XP - while each was an improvement over the previous versions, each seemed poorly thought out, poorly implemented and buggy as hell. We won't even go into the major pain in the ass of constantly updating antivirus software, antispyware etc. I would love to have switched to a Mac at any point in this cycle, but they were always just out of price reach, and I couln't justify it.
Yes, during this time I did play with various Linux distros, FreeBSD etc. I used them for work mostly and I enjoyed using them immensely, but my home system had to remain under the fell control of MS - because I play games. If you play PC games you *must* run a windows system unless you are prepared to wait a few years for your favourite game to come out for the Mac, and prepared to see only 1 in 50 games ever have a Mac version.
In August, I bought a 20" IMac, installed Bootcamp, installed a clean new copy of XP SP2, and now I have the best of both worlds. When I work on my computer, I do so in OSX, when I want to play games I boot into the toy OS and play one of my games. The only other application I use under Windows at the moment is Firefox because sometimes when you are gaming you need to look up data on a website. Other than that I only spend time in Windows when gaming. If I did need to run an old Windows legacy application, I have a copy of Parallels installed so I can run it virtually if I need to in any case. The IMac and OSX meet all of my needs, and so far faultlessly. I haven't had a single problem, a single glitch, or a single instance of anything I couldn't do under OSX that I used to do under XP, and it all runs faster and more efficiently than it ever did under my XP box. I admit it took some adaption (I don't like OSX file dialogs at all, I miss the tree of folders from Windows immensely) and theres still a lot to learn, but so far the Mac has simply worked perfectly.
I am afraid I am totally converted. The IMac/OSX computing experience is so far above what I had under Windows its like comparing driving a Jaguar to driving a Yugo. It was worth every dollar it cost me to get the beautiful desktop monitor-cum-computer that I ended up with, and I have more room on my (physical) desktop to boot. I expect this system will be more than sufficient for my needs for the next few years - even with gaming taken into consideration - and I won't have to upgrade anything to speak of. If I do decide to upgrade then the old system will have retained a lot of its old value unlike a replaced PC which I usually end up giving away because they are pretty worthless by the time they need replacing. I feel free of the constant recycling and upgrading system I had gotten locked into, and to be honest it feels great. Hopefully it still feels great 3 years from now (I recognize my opinions may have changed by then). Five months in though and I don't regret it in the slightest.
Having been a PC user since my first 286 back in '88 or so, I have to say I am now a total convert to the Mac. I have had zero problems with its hardware, have adapted to the new OS with no problems, and I have Bootcamp and a copy of XP for when I want to play my games.
Honestly I wish I had switched earlier. With Parallels I can use Windows under OSX when I need to, and can easily install a linux distro if I am feeling nostalgic.
The Dell hardware may be fine but the difference in OS is the deciding factor. I don't spend time fighting the OS to accomplish a task the way I did under MSxx.
So what happens when a company - or government - decides that they should beam these sounds into an area they don't want you to stay in, with a continuous and annoying sound/message that dissuades you from remaining? I can see this used to discourage loitering (ie standing around in a public space, which is perfectly legal), I can see it being used to beam political messages. How about "Vote for X" blanketing the parking lot near your polling station?
Shouldn't private companies be required to ensure that the only places they can aim these messages are also on private property? If I am walking down the sidewalk (on city land) I should be free of these messages right?
The potential for abuse is monumental in my opinion.
I served in CFB (Canadian Forces Base) Petawawa for around 7 years (HQ & Sigs Squadron). Yes, its a large area that is mostly uninhabited - but thats because its a military base and those tend to be pretty useless if there are large populations around. Chalk River is just to the North of the base a few miles.
However don't get the impression that its not an okay spot to have a nuclear accident - its 200miles or so upriver from the Nation's capital city Ottawa, it is directly on the Trans-Canada highway (ie one of our major modes of transport across the country) and it back onto Algonquin Park which is the largest Wildlife park in Ontario (an extremely beautiful to boot).
To make a US-based comparison, its about like having an similar accident at Hancock, Maryland (ie about the same distance up river from Washington, along the Potomac (if I am reading the map correctly)) and near a state park (Green Ridge State Forrest, even if its tiny by comparison to Algonquin). Yes there is more population in the Hancock area I imagine. Hang on, isn't there a reactor at Hancock? or is that a different Hancock?
Now, all that said, during the time I was in Petawawa, I knew a few folks who worked at Chalk River or were related to those who did and they all seemed to think it was fairly well run and responsibly managed. I am generally in favour of using Nuclear Power, I just think that we should never allow anyone with a Business Major any authority over these facilities:P
My wife uses Librarything. She found the barcode scanner that automatically searches for the title after you scan it, then finds all the data for you to reduce the typing immensely. You might try it before dissing it:P
Don't mistakenly identify "desire for depth and complexity" with "nitpicky and tedious". You may find complex game elements nitpicky - because that doesn't suit your preferred style of gameplay - but a lot of players want at least the illusion of depth to their game. They like the complexity because - I am supposing - it gives the feeling of accomplishment to master all that complexity. What you view as perfect, I would probably view as shallow, what you view as "tedious" I would probably see as challenging.
Some examples. I used to play Counterstrike quite a bit when it first came out. It was moderately challening (ie, I wasn't very good at it) and it had a sort of immediate gratification aspect to it when I could pull off a headshot on someone or surprise them because I had determined where they would go and put myself in a position to take them out. Eventually I got bored and stopped playing, so bored in fact that i stopped playing FPS entirely.
At the same time more or less, I began playing a crafter in SWG. I found the difficulty of making money playing that game *solely from crafting* a real challenge. Most of my friends thought I was a loon because it seemed truely boring and repetitive, yet I managed to find something in that gameplay that kept me coming back, pre-CU, CU, NGE (all phases of the devolution of the game), it didn't matter. I managed to make well over 200 million credits in that game exclusively from crafting and selling items (no lootwhoring in otherwords).
In Dark Age of Camelot, I was primarily a PvPer. I barely scratched the crafting system because it was so shallow and unrewarding. Yet I played that game for at least 3 years. Why? Because the PvP game, called RvR there, had a Meta-gaming experience where a player could lead armies and get involved in the overall strategy of their realm, not just gank newbies.
Now I am in the beta for Pirates of the Burning Sea, and looking at making a Freetrader with the same intention: I want to master the economy because thats a far more interesting challenge to me than mastering PvP. I will likely try out the PvP but it looks ultimately like I would simply grow bore with the game in the end.
My point here I suppose is that it is quite possible to enjoy the complexity of a highly complex system (ie the crafting system in Starwars or POBS) even though some people find it shallow and uninteresting. for the most part I completely fail to understand how anyone can get any enjoyment at all from games like Halo (I played the first one through with a friend in 18 hrs, never touched it again and wouldn't spend another dime on the franchise, ultimately a complete disappointment to me, yet its a massive bestseller for other players).
Obviously I don't want to have to help my player take a shit every day - since there is little or no skill involved in taking a dump (beyond "don't miss the toilet"), nor sharpen their weapons - but if the game offered the opportunity to affect the performance of that weapon by how you sharpened it, even that might not be true. But don't mistake (your perceived) tedium as some universal truth. Your perception is not everyone's perception.
Thats what I tend to do. I produce web pages which are as generically compatible as possible (meaning I have to give up on a lot of nice features sometimes), usually checking them in Firefox, Safari, Opera etc, then if necessary I tweak them to ensure they aren't completely broken under IE. As long as they are readable under IE thats good enough. I really could care less what MS does with IE, its a sub-par product being developed in a haphazard and irresponsible manner for the sole purpose of supporting Microsoft's monopoly further. I don't think anyone seriously in the know uses IE if they have 2 points of IQ to rub together, the security problems alone should be enough to steer most people away from it. Of all my friends and relations I can only think of one who uses IE on a daily basis, the rest use Firefox.
If we all ignore IE, and continue to support the standards that other browsers are working to support, Microsoft will eventually have to develop their browser to support those same standards. Its percentage has been steadily dropping, and I think that each new version will continue that trend.
Well, I have been reluctant to want to visit the US given the rampant paranoia and siege state that seems to be prevalent down there recently, but this pretty much guarantees I won't ever visit again. Its not that I am a terrorist, its not that I am any sort of threat to anyone, and its not that I have anything to hide in fact, its that I don't want to have a profile that will be retained for 40-years, that will undoubtedly end up being incorrect in some aspect, which I can't update, correct, or most likely even view at any point during that period. Its that I don't want to risk having some mistake result in my being whisked away to some foreign country for a torture session that will produce whatever they want me to say (as erroneous as it will be) because I recognize I wouldn't stand up to sustained torture for very long. The chances are admittedly very very small, but why take any chances. When the mad dog in the junkyard is unpredictable, its better to just stay away from it.
Weighed against the benefits of visiting the USA, I would rather go to just about any other country in the world right now. I sincerely hope you folks manage to straighten things out, find your constitution again, resurrect Habeas Corpus and the rights of the individual, and perhaps find your sanity. As it stands the Terrorists out there are winning the so-called war, because they have convinced your government to turn the US into exactly what the Terrorists claimed it was in the first place.
Its so sad to see all this coming to pass. You folks down in the US have my sincere sympathy:(
Upgraded to Leopard here, no problems whatsoever. Even have my Bootcamp and WinXP SP2 partition working just fine. Everything is as smooth as silk, and my only regret is that I didn't switch to using Macs years ago...
My wife has had no problem with the upgrade to Leopard on her MacBook either.
Oh extremely clever line. Someone mod that up it deserves a reward:P
Obviously few people have heard of the GRU Glavnoje Razvedyvatel'noje Upravlenije - ie Russian Military Intelligence. I will assume that most slashdotters are familiar with the monster by the same name:P
As for the original article, the spy in question did his country at the time a major service. I see no reason why he shouldn't have been honoured. I am sure some comparable US spy has received similiar recognition at some point - if not then something is in order.
On a more geeky note: anyone know why Firefox refused to give me the pulldown to select "HTML Formatted" on this page? I even closed the browser and loaded the page again to repost, same result. HTML Looked correct at first glance. Had to post this from Safari...
In Space, no one can hear you scream Habeus Corpus.:)
At least not in the US where I believe Habeus Corpus has been suspended in a few instances, or am I wrong? Its difficult to keep abreast of the US's slow descent into a police state...
I really hope this helps expand the audience for this game in some manner. It deserves more exposure in my opinion. I have always thought of this as one of the best designed games I have ever seen. Cryptic just seemed to do everything right for the most part. The game has always represented top quality design and development for me.
Sure, its a niche market, its not for everyone, and its got a narrow focus. I admit its limits. But in my opinion no other MMORPG out there (past or present) can hold a candle to COH/COV for the quality of the group combat experience. I am part of a group of folks who regularly revisit the game for months at a time, and its usually because we are unable to find the same addictive high quality group combat experience in other games. The next great hope is Pirates of the Burning Sea, which has some great potential,
Yeah, I just switched to running a new iMac (having been a PC/Windows user since my 286 back in 1989 or so), and I am sure not looking back. However, while I wish that more games supported the Mac natively (and I expect they will as the platform has some real growth now it seems), it doesn't mean you can't play the old games. Bootcamp and a copy of WinXP SP2 ensure that when I want a gaming fix, I can get it pretty easily, then its back to the MacOSX side for serious computer use.
MacOSX is such a superior computing experience, I honestly wish I had switched years ago.
I really wish someone would break Microsoft's stranglehold on gaming, but until then I can continue to dualboot as required.
I believe you will find the answers as to whether or not this model would work in modern Games Theory - about which I know very little I admit. I believe this is referred to as a cooperative strategy, and while it makes great sense generally speaking - it requires a ton of people to commit to purchasing something in advance with zero assurance of a reward in the end. In other words, if I spend $10 on this, I am relying on 10m other people also committing to spend $10 before I get my reward.
I think the result of this is that most people would hang on to their $10 because they get no direct and immediate reward. The most conservative strategy is to wait until everyone else has committed their $10 and the movie is free for download, then spend your money and get the movie download directly
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A fine idea until you consider the fact that the hypothetical malevolent Chinese botnet can be easily controlled from a cybercafe in Australia, or Austria, or even the US. The bots are out here in the west too, not all behind Chinese government firewalls inside the country.
Or possibly, you know, they might develop an interest in a bona-fide religion, whatever you may personally think of it. Are you suggesting that if someone plays a Cleric in AD&D they are suddenly going to become a rabid Christian fanatic? (Oh maybe not, I forgot that D&D used the trappings of Christian beliefs and religious organizations but didn't actually include the Christian Mythos in Deities and Demigods)
Overall thats a pretty fucking obnoxious attitude to hold in my opinion. Sure, Wicca and other Pagan religions may seem odd or even silly to you, but to many thousands of people they are quite valid as religious beliefs and sincerely held. Me, personally, I think that many members of Christianity believe some utterly whacko things, but its their right to believe what they want so long as it doesn't adversely impact others. Freedom of religion and all that.
Yes I am Wiccan, but believe it or not I became interested in it long before D&D even existed, and years before I started playing it in University :P.
The best way to get rid of these stereotypes is to stop perpetuating them
Now as to the LARPERs, well those guys are batshit crazy so I agree with you there :)
I think you will find that if someone finds any humour in Chuck Norris jokes, they have an INT of less than 8, possibly 5. Anyone with a higher INT value suffers a temporary -6 penalty to their INT score that will last at least 24 hrs.
:P
Chuck Norris is a mediocre martial artist - his only claim to fame and popularity is due to being American. If you want real MA skills, check out Jackie Chan or Tony Jaa, both of whom could kick CN ass without effort
Well, I read about Vista, examined it on a friend's system, and decided that I didn't want to pay MS to upgrade to something I didn't need. Instead I decided to move to the Mac. My wife and I now both have new 20" Imac Desktops and she also has the new Macbook Air. MS has almost lost a customer here, except I did go buy a copy of XP SP2 so I could use Bootcamp to run games (City of Heroes/Villains and Pirates of the Burning Sea, both MMORPGs). Same for my wife's desktop.
If we weren't both gamers, we would never need to touch Windows again. If Apple is smart, they will either convince developers to start developing for the Mac as well, or find some way to let the Mac run windows games. So far Parallels and VMWare are not up to the task at least for the games I want to play. If I could break my dependence on gaming I would be completely free of MS entirely.
The difference between running XP and Mac OS/X for me is like the difference between driving a Ford Tempo and driving a BMW. Sure, XP does the things I need it to do, in a mediocre fashion and with plenty of things I find irritating, but Mac OS/X seems to work better, faster, more effectively and more comfortably to me in pretty much every regard. If I need to run most Linux/Unix software, it is capable of doing so. I have a fully capable terminal if needed. I am totally impressed and a complete Mac convert now. Some of this is undoubtedly the geeky joy of discovering a new OS, but mostly its just that things seem to work and work well. Often I find myself looking for how to do something - and based on MS OS experience expecting to have to jump through some hoops to accomplish it - then discovering that its quite simple and userfriendly and there are no hoops.
Meanwhile my friend with the Vista system doesn't have to reboot to play the same games as me, but he does suffer constant problems of various sorts and I don't think hes very happy with it overall.
I think Apple has an opportunity to take a much larger share of the desktop market in the coming year or so. Its already on the move of course, but I see a lot of Mac systems being sold in local stores, a lot more than I used to see - and a lot more stores carrying them that I used to see. I sincerely hope that Apple takes the chance and tries to push itself much further into the market because they have a superior product in my opinion. Competition really is a good thing it seems, and Apple's offerings put Microsoft's to shame at the moment.
Well 2 thoughts:
:P
* First off, your solutions would leave a battlefield covered with bright white tanks covered with a layer of dirt and branches on top. Presumably covering the sides with dirt won't work so well, and assuming that it means we have a host of highly visable targets (ie a bright white horizontal stripe) that can be shot using standard tank weapons
* It doesn't really matter that the laser costs millions of time more than a specific defense. The tank can't shoot back at the aircraft attacking it, and if the laser can be used to take out a few tanks (each of which also costs millions) the cost of the laser will quickly be recouped.
Oh I am not sure on specific laws concerning IM, that has largely been ignored as far as I know, and as I said IANAL.
I also agree that if a company has a written policy that they do not retain IM logs, they would be largely clear of any problems in court, I expect. But if a company didn't have a written policy, and their employees regularly did business dealings or otherwise legally accountable discussions via IM, I can forsee a problem, particularly if they had a policy of destroying any logs that were produced. However you could be entirely correct and the courts might view it as no different than a phone conversation.
I do recall reading of at least one law suit where a company secured agreement to do some renovations to a building via email, didn't keep the email in question in any format at all (their informal policy on email was to delete it all, regardless of content, after 30 days, but this wasn't written down or formalized in any way), and subsequently got sued over those renovations and was unable to produce anything that stated they had permission to go ahead. Now why there wasn't a contract etc, I don't recall but I do recall the judge slamming them for not recording the email and preserving it because it amounted to a legal agreement to proceed with the renovations. By extension if a similar agreement to proceed was reached via an IM conversation (much less likely and again very rare if it ever occurred), I can see a judge having the same opinion. Usually you would get a signature on paper for any such thing but if you failed to do that and failed to retain a transcript of the only go ahead you got, you could pay for it.
Again, I was just pointing out how strict the courts can expect you to be with regards to document retention and using IM (something most people wouldn't think of at all) as an example of where the courts might get picky.
Oh I agree IM traffic could be damaging and probably shouldn't see the light of day in court, just as many phone conversations could be similarly damaging. However, many IM programs do maintain a log and such logs could be discovered during the discovery phase, and most employers don't think about IM at all.
As well, its not me suggesting that backing up IM traffic is a requirement, its more or less defined by the laws in the US as I recall reading about them - again IANAL.
If an IM conversation contained something that could be viewed as a business agreement, then a court could require a party to produce a transcript, period. The party may not be able to do so, but that might be counted against them, so its actually better for a company or organization to either log all IM traffic, or ban the use of IM clients on their network.
The laws on document retention have gotten pretty extreme since Sarbanes-Oxley, and I think courts are likely to be very strict on all parties obeying the rules when it comes to discovery phase.
Oh I forgot, the moment a company enters litigation, they are also supposed to place a Hold order with regards to records created by their organization - ie, absolutely no one deletes or destroys anything. Ie you dont delete email or backups
Actually, if a defendant is unable to produce evidence because it appears to have been deleted when it should be available, a court will usually take that into consideration and may assume that the defendant did that to hide something, and thus hold that against them. The reverse is of course true for the prosecution if they are likewise unable to produce evidence, although the courts will hold an individual to a more reasonable requirement than a large organization which is expected to maintain a higher standard.
:P
:P
Its only if they have a reasonable data retention policy already in place, and can show that the deleted or destroyed information or records were destroyed in accordance with that plan - and that they have been following that plan rigorously and not just in this one instance, that they can justify not producing the records. If for instance they have formally established and been following a records retention policy whereby they state they will destroy email records after holding them in backup for say a 5 year period (higher in some industries where its specified by law how long you must preserve those records), and have done so and thereby cannot produce records from before that period, then a judge should not hold it against them during discovery. They made a plan, stuck to it prior to entering litigation, and the court has to recognize there is a cost associated with maintaining and backing up such data that should have a logical limit when the utility of that data has been reduced by the time that has passed. If however they have not followed that policy, don't have such a policy, or give the appearance of selectively applying it to hide potentially damaging evidence, they can have it held against them (possibly with the assumption that the information in question was damaging), and they can be fined by the court. They can even have the court summarily find in favour of the prosecution. They can be fined if they cannot produce the evidence in a reasonable period of time, and will usually bear the brunt of the cost of producing those records - no matter how difficult or expensive that may be - as long as the other side can produce sufficient cause to justify the importance of that evidence to their case. Sometimes the other side can be required to pay for some of the cost of course, if its reasonable. This can be extended well beyond physical records and emails, to include IM traffic, chat logs etc, all of which an organization bears a responsibility to back up and maintain. You can even be held liable if your backups cannot be restored due to changes to technology over time - you are expected to transfer those backups to a new format, or maintain the old equipment required to restore them etc. If you failed to place backups in offsite storage and they were destroyed in a fire, thats your fault too for not taking reasonable precautions and storing the backups elsewhere. I expect a few companies are going to get bit badly in the next few years when they cannot produce backups of all the IM traffic that passed over their networks for instance - because if anything that happened during those IM sessions has any bearing on anything legal, its a record that needs to be backed up, period. If you and I discuss a business deal, and then I send you an email that just says something like "About our conversation yesterday, lets do it" and the lets do it implies a verbal agreement to pursue a business deal, that email is a legal record, same thing if we agree via IM chat
So simply removing evidence by destroying it is not necessarily of any benefit to an organization when they hit the courts. The courts can and should take a very dim view of someone who deliberately destroys damaging evidence
IANAL, but I used to work for some who dealt with records retention, discovery etc, and picked up some of the details. Its surprising how many companies and organizations do not have and do not follow a logical retention policy with regards to data (apparently about 40%
The US has a very long history of invading countries, and undermining governments throughout the Caribbean, and Central and South America. The whole concept of Manifest Destiny more or less justifies any invasive or violent actions the US might take doesn't it (I mean in the opinion of those who make US policies). Internally you are a Republic (more or less), externally you have always been working on becoming an Empire I think.
Despite its naysayers - and hey this wouldn't be slashdot if you mentioned a programming/scripting language and dozen people didn't immediately post about how bad the language in question was - PHP is an excellent introduction to web-based programming. Sure, there are other approaches you can take, which may even be far better, Ruby, Python, Java etc, but with PHP you can accomplish something and start learning in very short order and there is still a lot to absorb. I think its a good way to learn programming for the web. I can build something in PHP in a fraction of the time it would take me in Java, and to be honest (IMHO) I think the result is just as effective to the user. PHP is easy to learn, effective enough, and not a bad place to start. At least you will have something to compare it to when you try out other languages down the road.
What really pisses me off is my current XP laptop is certainly going to be the last Windows unit I own so I'll be forced to make the jump on the next one to Ubuntu or OSX. I've grudgingly settled for Microsoft products because it's a shitty platform that also happens to support most of the software I use and shitty support is better than nothing. With OSX I'll still be able to run XP in a VM. Shit. Looks like I'm going to finally become one of those Mac weenies I used to make fun of.
I bought my first PC (a 286 that came with nothing other than DOS) back in like '88/89, for a whopping $2300. From then until August of this year, I was a PC man, buying cases and upgrading the contents in a sort of never ending upgrade cycle. I learned a lot about PC assembly that I would never have learned otherwise, but mostly it was a constant pain in the butt, and undoubtedly very expensive. I learned to loathe each version of Microsoft's Windows along the way as well. 95, 98, 2000, XP - while each was an improvement over the previous versions, each seemed poorly thought out, poorly implemented and buggy as hell. We won't even go into the major pain in the ass of constantly updating antivirus software, antispyware etc. I would love to have switched to a Mac at any point in this cycle, but they were always just out of price reach, and I couln't justify it.
Yes, during this time I did play with various Linux distros, FreeBSD etc. I used them for work mostly and I enjoyed using them immensely, but my home system had to remain under the fell control of MS - because I play games. If you play PC games you *must* run a windows system unless you are prepared to wait a few years for your favourite game to come out for the Mac, and prepared to see only 1 in 50 games ever have a Mac version.
In August, I bought a 20" IMac, installed Bootcamp, installed a clean new copy of XP SP2, and now I have the best of both worlds. When I work on my computer, I do so in OSX, when I want to play games I boot into the toy OS and play one of my games. The only other application I use under Windows at the moment is Firefox because sometimes when you are gaming you need to look up data on a website. Other than that I only spend time in Windows when gaming. If I did need to run an old Windows legacy application, I have a copy of Parallels installed so I can run it virtually if I need to in any case. The IMac and OSX meet all of my needs, and so far faultlessly. I haven't had a single problem, a single glitch, or a single instance of anything I couldn't do under OSX that I used to do under XP, and it all runs faster and more efficiently than it ever did under my XP box. I admit it took some adaption (I don't like OSX file dialogs at all, I miss the tree of folders from Windows immensely) and theres still a lot to learn, but so far the Mac has simply worked perfectly.
I am afraid I am totally converted. The IMac/OSX computing experience is so far above what I had under Windows its like comparing driving a Jaguar to driving a Yugo. It was worth every dollar it cost me to get the beautiful desktop monitor-cum-computer that I ended up with, and I have more room on my (physical) desktop to boot. I expect this system will be more than sufficient for my needs for the next few years - even with gaming taken into consideration - and I won't have to upgrade anything to speak of. If I do decide to upgrade then the old system will have retained a lot of its old value unlike a replaced PC which I usually end up giving away because they are pretty worthless by the time they need replacing. I feel free of the constant recycling and upgrading system I had gotten locked into, and to be honest it feels great. Hopefully it still feels great 3 years from now (I recognize my opinions may have changed by then). Five months in though and I don't regret it in the slightest.
Having been a PC user since my first 286 back in '88 or so, I have to say I am now a total convert to the Mac. I have had zero problems with its hardware, have adapted to the new OS with no problems, and I have Bootcamp and a copy of XP for when I want to play my games.
Honestly I wish I had switched earlier. With Parallels I can use Windows under OSX when I need to, and can easily install a linux distro if I am feeling nostalgic.
The Dell hardware may be fine but the difference in OS is the deciding factor. I don't spend time fighting the OS to accomplish a task the way I did under MSxx.
So what happens when a company - or government - decides that they should beam these sounds into an area they don't want you to stay in, with a continuous and annoying sound/message that dissuades you from remaining? I can see this used to discourage loitering (ie standing around in a public space, which is perfectly legal), I can see it being used to beam political messages. How about "Vote for X" blanketing the parking lot near your polling station?
Shouldn't private companies be required to ensure that the only places they can aim these messages are also on private property? If I am walking down the sidewalk (on city land) I should be free of these messages right?
The potential for abuse is monumental in my opinion.
I served in CFB (Canadian Forces Base) Petawawa for around 7 years (HQ & Sigs Squadron). Yes, its a large area that is mostly uninhabited - but thats because its a military base and those tend to be pretty useless if there are large populations around. Chalk River is just to the North of the base a few miles.
:P
However don't get the impression that its not an okay spot to have a nuclear accident - its 200miles or so upriver from the Nation's capital city Ottawa, it is directly on the Trans-Canada highway (ie one of our major modes of transport across the country) and it back onto Algonquin Park which is the largest Wildlife park in Ontario (an extremely beautiful to boot).
To make a US-based comparison, its about like having an similar accident at Hancock, Maryland (ie about the same distance up river from Washington, along the Potomac (if I am reading the map correctly)) and near a state park (Green Ridge State Forrest, even if its tiny by comparison to Algonquin). Yes there is more population in the Hancock area I imagine. Hang on, isn't there a reactor at Hancock? or is that a different Hancock?
Now, all that said, during the time I was in Petawawa, I knew a few folks who worked at Chalk River or were related to those who did and they all seemed to think it was fairly well run and responsibly managed. I am generally in favour of using Nuclear Power, I just think that we should never allow anyone with a Business Major any authority over these facilities
My wife uses Librarything. She found the barcode scanner that automatically searches for the title after you scan it, then finds all the data for you to reduce the typing immensely. You might try it before dissing it :P
Don't mistakenly identify "desire for depth and complexity" with "nitpicky and tedious". You may find complex game elements nitpicky - because that doesn't suit your preferred style of gameplay - but a lot of players want at least the illusion of depth to their game. They like the complexity because - I am supposing - it gives the feeling of accomplishment to master all that complexity. What you view as perfect, I would probably view as shallow, what you view as "tedious" I would probably see as challenging.
Some examples. I used to play Counterstrike quite a bit when it first came out. It was moderately challening (ie, I wasn't very good at it) and it had a sort of immediate gratification aspect to it when I could pull off a headshot on someone or surprise them because I had determined where they would go and put myself in a position to take them out. Eventually I got bored and stopped playing, so bored in fact that i stopped playing FPS entirely.
At the same time more or less, I began playing a crafter in SWG. I found the difficulty of making money playing that game *solely from crafting* a real challenge. Most of my friends thought I was a loon because it seemed truely boring and repetitive, yet I managed to find something in that gameplay that kept me coming back, pre-CU, CU, NGE (all phases of the devolution of the game), it didn't matter. I managed to make well over 200 million credits in that game exclusively from crafting and selling items (no lootwhoring in otherwords).
In Dark Age of Camelot, I was primarily a PvPer. I barely scratched the crafting system because it was so shallow and unrewarding. Yet I played that game for at least 3 years. Why? Because the PvP game, called RvR there, had a Meta-gaming experience where a player could lead armies and get involved in the overall strategy of their realm, not just gank newbies.
Now I am in the beta for Pirates of the Burning Sea, and looking at making a Freetrader with the same intention: I want to master the economy because thats a far more interesting challenge to me than mastering PvP. I will likely try out the PvP but it looks ultimately like I would simply grow bore with the game in the end.
My point here I suppose is that it is quite possible to enjoy the complexity of a highly complex system (ie the crafting system in Starwars or POBS) even though some people find it shallow and uninteresting. for the most part I completely fail to understand how anyone can get any enjoyment at all from games like Halo (I played the first one through with a friend in 18 hrs, never touched it again and wouldn't spend another dime on the franchise, ultimately a complete disappointment to me, yet its a massive bestseller for other players).
Obviously I don't want to have to help my player take a shit every day - since there is little or no skill involved in taking a dump (beyond "don't miss the toilet"), nor sharpen their weapons - but if the game offered the opportunity to affect the performance of that weapon by how you sharpened it, even that might not be true. But don't mistake (your perceived) tedium as some universal truth. Your perception is not everyone's perception.
Thats what I tend to do. I produce web pages which are as generically compatible as possible (meaning I have to give up on a lot of nice features sometimes), usually checking them in Firefox, Safari, Opera etc, then if necessary I tweak them to ensure they aren't completely broken under IE. As long as they are readable under IE thats good enough. I really could care less what MS does with IE, its a sub-par product being developed in a haphazard and irresponsible manner for the sole purpose of supporting Microsoft's monopoly further. I don't think anyone seriously in the know uses IE if they have 2 points of IQ to rub together, the security problems alone should be enough to steer most people away from it. Of all my friends and relations I can only think of one who uses IE on a daily basis, the rest use Firefox.
If we all ignore IE, and continue to support the standards that other browsers are working to support, Microsoft will eventually have to develop their browser to support those same standards. Its percentage has been steadily dropping, and I think that each new version will continue that trend.
Well, I have been reluctant to want to visit the US given the rampant paranoia and siege state that seems to be prevalent down there recently, but this pretty much guarantees I won't ever visit again. Its not that I am a terrorist, its not that I am any sort of threat to anyone, and its not that I have anything to hide in fact, its that I don't want to have a profile that will be retained for 40-years, that will undoubtedly end up being incorrect in some aspect, which I can't update, correct, or most likely even view at any point during that period. Its that I don't want to risk having some mistake result in my being whisked away to some foreign country for a torture session that will produce whatever they want me to say (as erroneous as it will be) because I recognize I wouldn't stand up to sustained torture for very long. The chances are admittedly very very small, but why take any chances. When the mad dog in the junkyard is unpredictable, its better to just stay away from it.
:(
Weighed against the benefits of visiting the USA, I would rather go to just about any other country in the world right now. I sincerely hope you folks manage to straighten things out, find your constitution again, resurrect Habeas Corpus and the rights of the individual, and perhaps find your sanity. As it stands the Terrorists out there are winning the so-called war, because they have convinced your government to turn the US into exactly what the Terrorists claimed it was in the first place.
Its so sad to see all this coming to pass. You folks down in the US have my sincere sympathy
Upgraded to Leopard here, no problems whatsoever. Even have my Bootcamp and WinXP SP2 partition working just fine. Everything is as smooth as silk, and my only regret is that I didn't switch to using Macs years ago...
My wife has had no problem with the upgrade to Leopard on her MacBook either.
Oh extremely clever line. Someone mod that up it deserves a reward :P
Obviously few people have heard of the GRU Glavnoje Razvedyvatel'noje Upravlenije - ie Russian Military Intelligence. I will assume that most slashdotters are familiar with the monster by the same name :P
As for the original article, the spy in question did his country at the time a major service. I see no reason why he shouldn't have been honoured. I am sure some comparable US spy has received similiar recognition at some point - if not then something is in order.
On a more geeky note: anyone know why Firefox refused to give me the pulldown to select "HTML Formatted" on this page? I even closed the browser and loaded the page again to repost, same result. HTML Looked correct at first glance. Had to post this from Safari...In Space, no one can hear you scream Habeus Corpus. :)
At least not in the US where I believe Habeus Corpus has been suspended in a few instances, or am I wrong? Its difficult to keep abreast of the US's slow descent into a police state...
I really hope this helps expand the audience for this game in some manner. It deserves more exposure in my opinion. I have always thought of this as one of the best designed games I have ever seen. Cryptic just seemed to do everything right for the most part. The game has always represented top quality design and development for me.
Sure, its a niche market, its not for everyone, and its got a narrow focus. I admit its limits. But in my opinion no other MMORPG out there (past or present) can hold a candle to COH/COV for the quality of the group combat experience. I am part of a group of folks who regularly revisit the game for months at a time, and its usually because we are unable to find the same addictive high quality group combat experience in other games. The next great hope is Pirates of the Burning Sea, which has some great potential,
Yeah, I just switched to running a new iMac (having been a PC/Windows user since my 286 back in 1989 or so), and I am sure not looking back. However, while I wish that more games supported the Mac natively (and I expect they will as the platform has some real growth now it seems), it doesn't mean you can't play the old games. Bootcamp and a copy of WinXP SP2 ensure that when I want a gaming fix, I can get it pretty easily, then its back to the MacOSX side for serious computer use.
MacOSX is such a superior computing experience, I honestly wish I had switched years ago.
I really wish someone would break Microsoft's stranglehold on gaming, but until then I can continue to dualboot as required.
I believe you will find the answers as to whether or not this model would work in modern Games Theory - about which I know very little I admit. I believe this is referred to as a cooperative strategy, and while it makes great sense generally speaking - it requires a ton of people to commit to purchasing something in advance with zero assurance of a reward in the end. In other words, if I spend $10 on this, I am relying on 10m other people also committing to spend $10 before I get my reward.
I think the result of this is that most people would hang on to their $10 because they get no direct and immediate reward. The most conservative strategy is to wait until everyone else has committed their $10 and the movie is free for download, then spend your money and get the movie download directly