I found that the realm transfers and also the cross-realm battlegrounds (and later the LFG tool), did a more subtle damage on our realm - it killed the sense of community.
It quickly went from a world where people knew each other to a world of strangers.
It might be worth taking a look at the Helios Project, (Website: http://www.heliosinitiative.org/ , Blog of bloke running it: http://linuxlock.blogspot.com/ ), as this is exactly what they do, collect together donated PCs and stuff, and provide refurbished PCs with Linux on to people on a charitable basis (predominantly disadvantaged kids I believe). (And they do some training etc as well I think).
Anyway, a lot of the postings on their have been quite interesting over the years, and I think they currently use either Ubuntu or Linux Mint.
While I'm not a fan of the idea, "Mess up that pull? That will be $5 to cover my repair costs please." seems a bit of a kneejerk response.
In one of the FAQs on the subject they discuss "Hardcore mode", which has perma-death, and is blocked from the cash auction house, explicitly because on character death you lose all items, and that could lead to loss of items paid for with cash:
If my character dies in Hardcore mode, will I lose the items that I purchased in the "Hardcore-only" gold-based auction house for that character? Yes. Again, Hardcore-mode characters will only have access to a "Hardcore-only" gold-based auction house, not the currency-based auction house, and will not be able to trade with non-Hardcore characters. Hardcore is an optional mode designed for players who enjoy playing with the risk of permanently losing their character if the character dies, and that includes the items they acquired with that character.
So I think it's reasonable to assume that items are similarly not going to be degraded or devalued in a way that requires futher monetary outlay to restore in the game.
Also, I find it very strange indeed that Google can make these claims, highly dangerous claims to make about anyone considering what they can do to your reputation or indeed your life, and then refuse to give you a single reason why they did it. Not even a hint of a reason, just a brick wall.
From reading the article, I got the impression that Google did not "make these claims, highly dangerous claims to make about anyone considering what they can do to your reputation or indeed your life", in fact they went out of their way to avoid making that claim, in that their legal folks wouldn't let them the user why his account had been shut down, and it was only after a lot of digging on the user's part that a Google chap was allowed to tell him what had happened and why.
According to my reading of the text of the legislation (IANAL, or a copper or familiar with legal stuff in any way...), probably not different at all.
It merely refers to "protected information" and "key", with no reference as to the manner of the protection or the form of the key, I assume that it applies equally to an encrypted file and a crypto key or to a physical document or object in a secure container and the key or method for opening for the container.
Addons hosted on addons.mozilla.org are now automatically checked for compatibility with new versions (by checking API calls used by the addon) and are bumped to show as compatible. If not, an email gets sent to the addon developer alerting them to the fact their addon is broken, and what exactly is broken about it.
(Legally compel you to reveal crypto keys or render the relevant information intelligible that is. Well, you could refuse, but that's an offence obviously. Section 49 of Part III of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIPA)).
The first bit sounds more like a design issue than a problem with network speed, if you're really saturating your uplinks in this way, and heavily utilising the network infrastructure, I suspect you might want something a bit more robust than the setup you have described.
"A 24-port 10/100 with 2 port 10Gb will be a killer product when it emerges, is standardised, and cheap enough. Hell, I could use it NOW."
To be honest, the price difference between a 24x10/100 + 2x10Gb and a 24x10/100/1000 + 2x10Gb would probably be so insignificant that people just wouldn't bother with either making it or buying it. The improvements in the step up from 10/100Mb to 1Gb are far more than just speed - proper standardised negotiation for a start, which is notoriously piss-poor on 10/100Mb. And those products already do exist, bit expensive, like $1.5-2.5k or something probably
"10Gb should be available today"
Er... it is? Heck, 40Gb is available today. Expensive admitedly, but most definitely available.
Here in the UK, petrol (aka 'gas') is priced in pounds per litre (£/l), but car mileage is in miles per gallon. Enjoy working out your petrol cost per mile there.
Compare with more metric countries in Europe, where the car mileage is in litres per kilometre (l/km), so we just multiply the two together:
fuel cost in £/l x mileage in l/km = fuel cost in £/km
Far more simple, and something that your average consumer would find quite useful!
I believe the requirement of generating an EUI-64 address from the MAC address of the network interface isn't an absolute 'must', but a 'should', i.e. you can generate the last 64 bits of the IPv6 address in a different way if you wish (I think the RFC mentions doing this for privacy reasons?), the major requirement being that it is unique within the/64 subnet.
I think Windows Vista used EUI-64 to generate the last 64 bits of an IPv6 address, but Windows 7 generates it randomly?
Also - slightly misleading summary - from the various news articles discussing this, it appears she won a local community "Most Courageous Child" award, and as part of it was given the opportunity to go to Brussels and sit in on and interpret for an environment committee meeting - not quite sure how much of a prize that is!
I believe the issue is mostly that the deep packet inspection kit that the ISPs use to classify and throttle/shape traffic are unable to distingush between Warcraft traffic and Bittorrent traffic since the changes made for Cataclysm, until signatures/filters/etc are updated to classify the traffic correctly, but in many cases they seem to be taking their own sweet time about doing it (or aren't capable of doing it).
Note that I don't really have a huge problem with traffic shaping as done by an ISP, as long as the customer is well informed as to exactly what is going on and why, some ISPs are better at cummunicating this than others.
I know several people who have changed ISP over this issue, but obviously this isn't an option in some areas where there isn't really much competition.
Seconded - works great on my Torch - there were few rough edges in places, but the developer seems quite active and responsive to feedback - they get fixed quickly.
I agree absolutely - from reading the article (I know - a completely unfashionable and unforgivable thing to do here on/.) I take this to be very specifically a malware checker, that checks a given site/URL for malware, either directly or uses the cached result of the last check if it was checked within the last 24 hours.
Is this not very similar to the google safe site service that's built into Firefox and other browsers?
Oh, and I love the justification for claiming that it records what customers do... "They said it doesn't record anything at all conencted to the user, but they might be lying, so sod it, lets just claim that they record absolutely everything." (That's high quality Daily Mail level journalism there...)
I kinda have to use FAT32 on USB disks (including a 250GB one - amusing that I have to use Linux to partition/format it), purely because I want to use them to play back video on a Playstation, so no NTFS support there.
My impression of this project from the media coverage over the last year or so was that it is a standardisation effort for Internet connected set-top boxes. i.e. consistent user interface, applications, widgets, hardware capabilities, etc, and a joint effort between all the UK television channels (with the notable exception of Rupert Murdoch/News Corp, who are un-surprisingly a little bit anti) and some hardware manufacturers.
i.e. it's not so much about creation of new technologies, more about making sure that manufacturers and content providers are all working from the same page?
So that we can avoid all the crap that has been seen with the many set top boxes recently where one does hulu or whatever, another does iPlayer, another does Netflix, and each one doesn't do the others, and needs a custom app for each platform.
Reading through the comments on here, no-one seems to be looking at it from that point of view - but seem to be taking the stance of 'OMG!! We don't need new IPTV protocols/containers/codecs/etc'.
I always thought that their intent is really not too disimilar to GoogleTV - standardise the platform so everyone can get on with watching stuff, or selling people stuff to watch without worrying about which versions of which devices etc.
If you follow the article through to the manufacturers product description page, they mention using multiple antennas and 'locking on' to the best local cell base station, presumably using some variant of phased array/beam forming/etc to minimise interference etc.
Although it's hard to tell from the pictures, the unit does look fairly large compared to a dongle, maybe about the size of a large dog food tin can? (i.e. next size up tin can from a normal size one) (But that is pure guestimation based on comparison of what looks like an ethernet socket towars the bottom).
The version of the article on engadget (here) seems a little more informative:
"We're starting to see that philosophy play out today with the introduction of Windows Embedded Handheld, which is essentially a warmed-over version of WinMo 6.5.3 with some key UI and enterprise-focused enhancements. Microsoft is specifically calling out an "extended support life-cycle" for the platform, a sign that these phones aren't for the gotta-have-it crowd -- instead, the company intends to push these things through corporate fleets where Windows Mobile has traditionally dominated, places where Windows Phone's flashy stylings and locked-down underpinnings won't have the same draw."
Mostly seems this *is* Windows Mobile 6.5 in all but name.
These folks - http://www.samknows.com/ - do a similar thing in the UK conencted to ofcom (similar body to FCC), and a look at the website indicates it actually probably is them.
Slashdot Mirror
I found that the realm transfers and also the cross-realm battlegrounds (and later the LFG tool), did a more subtle damage on our realm - it killed the sense of community.
It quickly went from a world where people knew each other to a world of strangers.
It might be worth taking a look at the Helios Project, (Website: http://www.heliosinitiative.org/ , Blog of bloke running it: http://linuxlock.blogspot.com/ ), as this is exactly what they do, collect together donated PCs and stuff, and provide refurbished PCs with Linux on to people on a charitable basis (predominantly disadvantaged kids I believe). (And they do some training etc as well I think).
Anyway, a lot of the postings on their have been quite interesting over the years, and I think they currently use either Ubuntu or Linux Mint.
While I'm not a fan of the idea, "Mess up that pull? That will be $5 to cover my repair costs please." seems a bit of a kneejerk response.
In one of the FAQs on the subject they discuss "Hardcore mode", which has perma-death, and is blocked from the cash auction house, explicitly because on character death you lose all items, and that could lead to loss of items paid for with cash:
If my character dies in Hardcore mode, will I lose the items that I purchased in the "Hardcore-only" gold-based auction house for that character?
Yes. Again, Hardcore-mode characters will only have access to a "Hardcore-only" gold-based auction house, not the currency-based auction house, and will not be able to trade with non-Hardcore characters. Hardcore is an optional mode designed for players who enjoy playing with the risk of permanently losing their character if the character dies, and that includes the items they acquired with that character.
So I think it's reasonable to assume that items are similarly not going to be degraded or devalued in a way that requires futher monetary outlay to restore in the game.
Also, I find it very strange indeed that Google can make these claims, highly dangerous claims to make about anyone considering what they can do to your reputation or indeed your life, and then refuse to give you a single reason why they did it. Not even a hint of a reason, just a brick wall.
From reading the article, I got the impression that Google did not "make these claims, highly dangerous claims to make about anyone considering what they can do to your reputation or indeed your life", in fact they went out of their way to avoid making that claim, in that their legal folks wouldn't let them the user why his account had been shut down, and it was only after a lot of digging on the user's part that a Google chap was allowed to tell him what had happened and why.
According to my reading of the text of the legislation (IANAL, or a copper or familiar with legal stuff in any way...), probably not different at all.
It merely refers to "protected information" and "key", with no reference as to the manner of the protection or the form of the key, I assume that it applies equally to an encrypted file and a crypto key or to a physical document or object in a secure container and the key or method for opening for the container.
Addons hosted on addons.mozilla.org are now automatically checked for compatibility with new versions (by checking API calls used by the addon) and are bumped to show as compatible. If not, an email gets sent to the addon developer alerting them to the fact their addon is broken, and what exactly is broken about it.
This will start happening for the release of 6.
"...are now automatically checked..."
"This will start happening for the release of 6."
Er... well which is it?
... they already can.
(Legally compel you to reveal crypto keys or render the relevant information intelligible that is. Well, you could refuse, but that's an offence obviously. Section 49 of Part III of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIPA)).
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/23/section/49
The first bit sounds more like a design issue than a problem with network speed, if you're really saturating your uplinks in this way, and heavily utilising the network infrastructure, I suspect you might want something a bit more robust than the setup you have described.
"A 24-port 10/100 with 2 port 10Gb will be a killer product when it emerges, is standardised, and cheap enough. Hell, I could use it NOW."
To be honest, the price difference between a 24x10/100 + 2x10Gb and a 24x10/100/1000 + 2x10Gb would probably be so insignificant that people just wouldn't bother with either making it or buying it. The improvements in the step up from 10/100Mb to 1Gb are far more than just speed - proper standardised negotiation for a start, which is notoriously piss-poor on 10/100Mb. And those products already do exist, bit expensive, like $1.5-2.5k or something probably
"10Gb should be available today"
Er... it is? Heck, 40Gb is available today. Expensive admitedly, but most definitely available.
An interesting comment on this....
Here in the UK, petrol (aka 'gas') is priced in pounds per litre (£/l), but car mileage is in miles per gallon. Enjoy working out your petrol cost per mile there.
Compare with more metric countries in Europe, where the car mileage is in litres per kilometre (l/km), so we just multiply the two together:
fuel cost in £/l x mileage in l/km = fuel cost in £/km
Far more simple, and something that your average consumer would find quite useful!
I believe the requirement of generating an EUI-64 address from the MAC address of the network interface isn't an absolute 'must', but a 'should', i.e. you can generate the last 64 bits of the IPv6 address in a different way if you wish (I think the RFC mentions doing this for privacy reasons?), the major requirement being that it is unique within the /64 subnet.
I think Windows Vista used EUI-64 to generate the last 64 bits of an IPv6 address, but Windows 7 generates it randomly?
Since the original link seems broken:
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Alexia Sloane
Also - slightly misleading summary - from the various news articles discussing this, it appears she won a local community "Most Courageous Child" award, and as part of it was given the opportunity to go to Brussels and sit in on and interpret for an environment committee meeting - not quite sure how much of a prize that is!
And also worth adding:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1568009046?page=1
Discussions regarding bittorrent throttling at Rogers affecting Warcraft from mid-December.
This is pretty much old news, this has been seen ever since Cataclysm was released.
http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/01/14/the-lawbringer-net-neutrality-and-mmos/
I believe the issue is mostly that the deep packet inspection kit that the ISPs use to classify and throttle/shape traffic are unable to distingush between Warcraft traffic and Bittorrent traffic since the changes made for Cataclysm, until signatures/filters/etc are updated to classify the traffic correctly, but in many cases they seem to be taking their own sweet time about doing it (or aren't capable of doing it).
Note that I don't really have a huge problem with traffic shaping as done by an ISP, as long as the customer is well informed as to exactly what is going on and why, some ISPs are better at cummunicating this than others.
I know several people who have changed ISP over this issue, but obviously this isn't an option in some areas where there isn't really much competition.
Seconded - works great on my Torch - there were few rough edges in places, but the developer seems quite active and responsive to feedback - they get fixed quickly.
This may help...
Sounds a touch like it....
I agree absolutely - from reading the article (I know - a completely unfashionable and unforgivable thing to do here on /.) I take this to be very specifically a malware checker, that checks a given site/URL for malware, either directly or uses the cached result of the last check if it was checked within the last 24 hours.
Is this not very similar to the google safe site service that's built into Firefox and other browsers?
Oh, and I love the justification for claiming that it records what customers do... "They said it doesn't record anything at all conencted to the user, but they might be lying, so sod it, lets just claim that they record absolutely everything." (That's high quality Daily Mail level journalism there...)
I kinda have to use FAT32 on USB disks (including a 250GB one - amusing that I have to use Linux to partition/format it), purely because I want to use them to play back video on a Playstation, so no NTFS support there.
My impression of this project from the media coverage over the last year or so was that it is a standardisation effort for Internet connected set-top boxes. i.e. consistent user interface, applications, widgets, hardware capabilities, etc, and a joint effort between all the UK television channels (with the notable exception of Rupert Murdoch/News Corp, who are un-surprisingly a little bit anti) and some hardware manufacturers.
i.e. it's not so much about creation of new technologies, more about making sure that manufacturers and content providers are all working from the same page?
So that we can avoid all the crap that has been seen with the many set top boxes recently where one does hulu or whatever, another does iPlayer, another does Netflix, and each one doesn't do the others, and needs a custom app for each platform.
Reading through the comments on here, no-one seems to be looking at it from that point of view - but seem to be taking the stance of 'OMG!! We don't need new IPTV protocols/containers/codecs/etc'.
I always thought that their intent is really not too disimilar to GoogleTV - standardise the platform so everyone can get on with watching stuff, or selling people stuff to watch without worrying about which versions of which devices etc.
If you follow the article through to the manufacturers product description page, they mention using multiple antennas and 'locking on' to the best local cell base station, presumably using some variant of phased array/beam forming/etc to minimise interference etc.
Although it's hard to tell from the pictures, the unit does look fairly large compared to a dongle, maybe about the size of a large dog food tin can? (i.e. next size up tin can from a normal size one) (But that is pure guestimation based on comparison of what looks like an ethernet socket towars the bottom).
It seems that acting can lead to the highest offices in places other than California.
Or.... the entire USA perhaps? (Although admitedly he was also the Govenor of California before that apparently if wikipedia is to be believed).
Wierd, I always thought this was a cock reference...
Never occured to me that someone used it as a slogan.
"We're starting to see that philosophy play out today with the introduction of Windows Embedded Handheld, which is essentially a warmed-over version of WinMo 6.5.3 with some key UI and enterprise-focused enhancements. Microsoft is specifically calling out an "extended support life-cycle" for the platform, a sign that these phones aren't for the gotta-have-it crowd -- instead, the company intends to push these things through corporate fleets where Windows Mobile has traditionally dominated, places where Windows Phone's flashy stylings and locked-down underpinnings won't have the same draw."
Mostly seems this *is* Windows Mobile 6.5 in all but name.
These folks - http://www.samknows.com/ - do a similar thing in the UK conencted to ofcom (similar body to FCC), and a look at the website indicates it actually probably is them.
The Interior Department's Mineral Management Service perhaps? (http://www.mms.gov/)