"When [a] user sees a system running Vista on a PC with integrated graphics, and then sees Vista on a PC with a powerful graphics [board] in it, there will be no discussion -- they will go for the better looking system if they can possibly afford it," Peddie said in a statement.
What I find most amusing about this quote is that when I see a GUI and a command line, I go for the command line. So I'd say these 'tards have about as much of a notion of the many types of people that use their UI as a mole has a notion of General Relativity.
I watch with glee and hope that M$ suffers tremendously at the hands of large companies and regular consumers that are just not willing to upgrade their hardward to Captain Amazing levels, and are pretty pissed that they get to have a threadbare UI as a substitute.
Thank God I'm switching to a Powerbook on my next purchase. Maybe I'll get an inexpensive linux laptop, too just because I can and look at pretty windows with E or Gnome or whatever. I just can't imagine that M$ will come up with a new UI so amazing that I will start shitting bricks immediately when I see it because I need it so badly.
Pretty windows or sufficiently functional windows and $1000 in my pocket? Gee. I just can't decide.
Given the intelligence of some of the bigwigs these days, I think that load of BS might still work.
Grunt: (load of BS)
Bigwig: Ah, excellent work. I had wondered how we would solve that problem. Glad to see you're all on top of it.
"Once your dead, nothing smells bad anymore."
on
WoW the Next "Golf"?
·
· Score: 1
I'm sitting here with several of my coworkers in Tarren Mills tavern and we're having a dry raspy chuckle about your post.
I continue to wonder when and how they will address that problem. Perhaps they have been maintaining an internal stackless Python fork...
With 23,000 simultaneous users, I don't think they've got much of a problem with their version of Python. Maybe WoW should upgrade their version of C++.
What horror movie screenplay will be the first to feature the bathroom scene?
Joe Blow is one of the first to move into a new super metroplex. Apartments, retail outlets, movie theatres, gymnasiums, self cleaning-bathrooms. You name it; it's all right next door.
Joe heads over to the gym and works up an appetite, so he heads over to Taco Bell (such convenience), and then over to catch a movie.
[Later that night]
Taco Bell is not sitting well with Joe, and Joe heads for the self-cleaning bathroom to live up to his name. No need for the toilet paper protectant here: "This shit is self-cleaning!" thinks Joe. He sits down whistling and prepares to do his business, when suddenly--the lights go out.
The whistling stops and then Joe calls out, "Hey, that's not funny. Turn the lights back on!"
[Cue the Super Ultraviolet Cleaning Rays of Reactive Oxidative Death.]
And then the screaming starts and Joe burns. Sure he could stand up and run out, but this is a Hollywood production. Bad luck for Joe.
In the words of John Haddon, "Why build one, when you can build two for twice the price?" We should build two and target both the pole and the equator. Example: two mars landers. Good idea.
Redundancy is always key and it is more efficient to built two highly probably successes than one extremely probably success.
In real life, gays are inclined to group together, just as almost all people enjoy associating with people that have similar interests or values. So associating with people like you is part of being you.
Blizzard is basically saying, "We want gay people to play our game. We just don't want them to be who they are while they give us their money, because there are more intolerant paying customers than their are flaming gay ones and we want the most money possible."
It's that simple. Whatever policy generates the most revenue and is still legal is what they will do. Any other statement like "We want to do right by our players," is a play on your emotions. It is also bullshit.
All I'm saying is if you send 40 male dwarfs down into a mine for a month, all alone, something is going to happen. And then when Hurin Little-Too-Manly and Glib Lightboots finally emerge from the mine and return home, if you don't let them talk about things and work out their feelings with their family, the shit is going to hit the fan.
Hrm,:). Anyone know how to turn of the infernal "fasten seat-belt" beeping on a Honda Civic? It's not that I don't want buckle up. I will. I just hate a machine telling me what to do. Sometimes I'll drive to the store with the thing beeping just to spite it...which is retarded since it's an unthinking machine...but...I...just...can't...help...myself.
BEEEEEEEEEEEEP
:) You made the bad assumption that PS3 will even arrive in the US this year:) Probably not until 2007. Anyway, related to my earlier post, Sony already has a huge infrastructure which supports Sony Online Entertainment ventures like EQ2. It's not as much of a stretch as some people make out.
Still, a significant product offering without doubt. Perhaps this is part of the reason that Sony hasn't breathed an official word about the PS2 release date.
Well, Sony has been in the EQ game for a while. Sony Online Entertainment. So I have no idea why people would think that Sony has to pull an infrastructure do Live-like functionality out of a hat.
I'm wondering when gaming consoles will have these same services on an HDTV. Tivo/VOIP, Web, Email, games. One of the games would have to be Quicken, though.
I don't see much indication that Google has the experience or inclination to play ball in the hardware market, though. They might partner with someone to do it, but their whole focus has been in software.
In some ways, I think gaming consoles will ultimately be what topples M$ as they evolve toward a more multi-purpose consolidated media device in the home. Of course, people say it will come from the computer end, but the cost model for consoles is pretty compelling to a consumer because vendors are subsidizing very nice hardware and recouping the cost in software revenue. That's not the model that computer hardware is designed around (everything is components and the software and hardware vendors are loosely couples).
Anyway, I don't think Google would go the device route at this point. Might be interesting if they partnered with a console company to bring all that functionality to an HDTV though.
When those facts (and they are facts) are taken into account, how much actual evidence is there that the current climate change is due to human causes?
The timescale is the critical point missing from your facts. Most global climate change occurs on a geological timescale. What we are seeing, is unfolding in our lifetime. We are still at a point where most people can ascribe the measured changes as natural. I suspect there will still be such proponents (though not many) when the few of us left are living on a baked potato.
No facts here to support an argument, but I do know two things. Cooling has happened very rapidly in the geological past, but global warming to the extent that we are seeing has not. The other thing I know is that it is insane to think that we have no effect on the environment and that what we are seeing is nothing more than a natural process.
In less than 50 years the concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere has gone from 270ppm to 375ppm. That is a huge impact that is directly attributable to us and has increased in step with industrialization. It is absolutely definite that we are causing accelerated warming. It is as definite as the fact that Venus' atmosphere is 96% carbon dioxide and, as a result, the surface temperature is nearly 500 degrees Celsius.
I get a little upset, I must admit, when people even consider attributing change we have created to natural causes. Look at the deforestation occuring in the rainforests. 1.5 acres per second. What once covered 14% of the planets surface now covers 6% and at the current unabated rate, it will be entirely gone in less than 50 years. We did that.
Desertification of midwestern United States? When the first settlers came to North American and displaced the indigenous populations, they also pressed west and destroyed the currently existing ecosystems (buffalo were entirely eradicated in mass slaughter events). Then we used our burgeoning cattle industry to overgraze thousands of acres of land and brought about the desertification so prevalent in the western states. We did that.
The list goes on and on, if you just take the time to look. It is insane to think that 6 billion human beings are not responsible for the tremendous changes we are all experience in a timespan less than a century which is less than a blink of the eye to the Earth. If you grow plants in your own home, you will know that just a few plants can have a profound effect on the air quality in your home and they have a significant effect on the humidity as well. Well, 6 billion people have a profound effect on the Earth.
I appreciate people taking the Devil's Advocate perspective and trying to curb the alarmism that some people fall prey to, but there are real and serious problems that we are creating. 50 years from now we may pay a terrible price for that, and if the chances of that are even 50/50, or even 20%, we are insane to not act quickly and decisively to do the right thing.
Yep. Well, geez. Sometimes I feel like 90% of my relationships are bribery based. It's like, "What have you done for me?" 24/7. With some of my acquaintances, I actually keep score because they are insanely predictable. "Will this person contact me about such and such?" Let me check the Chet-O-Meter. Oh yes, I'm in the positive, he will.
In some ways, lobbying, bribery, whatever you want to call it is a basic function of the human psyche. There's nothing more hilarious then doing nice things for people you know and then repeatedly refusing all their attempts to "pay you back". One of my friends is all about food, so I did something nice for them and for about three months they tried to give me food. Of course, I hardly eat a thing, and I do not eat sugar. Pretty much every item that was offer, I declined.
Drove the poor bastard crazy. He actually started avoiding me because he had this "debt" that he was unable to pay back because I kept declining "things" he offered and said not to worry about it because I did not need anything.
So there you go. Humans are whacked. If you want to see an odd human, find the one that makes completely anonymous donations to the things that they care about. Very uncommon. Most people are dying to be recognized (even if it's very subtle and private), and most people are dying to know who gave the gift.
I'm interested in as few people dying as possible. The most likely scenario is that a minority take responsibility for doing what is right, and they, along with everyone else are fucked by the oblivious majority.
Not good for anyone, mindless minion or otherwise. Yet there seems to be little help for it.
I knew what to do about climate change other than talk about the reality of it. I bought the most fuel efficient car I could, and drive as infrequently as possible. Recycle everything I can. That is just one person drifting in a big river where the prevailing current is "Consume, consume, consume!"
There are many individuals out there that are trying to do the right thing, but they are still the minority. A minority that tries to educate itself and do what is right. A minority that has the luxury to do it. A minority that the government need only placate.
The government does not need to listen to those that are distraught about the melting of the polar caps or the descrease in biodiversity, or the rising temperatures that are causing sweeping climatic change in our lifetime. Because caring about these things does not lead to wealth and power. And wealth and power is what the government hears.
A very small number of people in this world have true power to change it on a global scale. How many of those people do you personally know? I suspect, though I do now know enough to confirm it, that a small handful of people in the oil industry hold enough power (through corporate power, wealth, and political connections) to reverse much of the damage we are doing to the environment.
How many people would it really take in our government to sway the Senate and the Congress toward definite positive action on these matters? How many key voices, including the President's, would it take to gain the support necessary to establish a firm plan for independence from fossil fuels?
What can an individual do? What can an individual do that individuals are not already doing: scientists and reports and political activists. What good are their sincere efforts? Our government spends more money trying to find a terrorist than it does trying to protect the Earth from the damage we are doing. A terrorist strikes at a nation, but our globally irresponsible environmental policies strike at the Earth itself. We're the worse terrorist on the planet.
This process would take nearly 2 years to complete, and there's no way in hell you're going to AQ40 or this new zone without being decked out in Epics.
And that's 2 years at how many hours per day? 4, 6, 8?
My preferred approach to new content would be to drop pretty and thematic items in the more difficult dungeons but to not increase their power. I would much rather see the end-game dungeons center around player skill, rather than item power.
The problem with this is that it is not the best money-maker for Blizzard. The way they have it now, they have sucked a lot of hardcore players into an endless gerbil cage run of equipment upgrades. This is good for business (although you could argue that if enough people becoming addicted and seek help which involves quitting WoW, the equation will go the other way). And those that hate the end-game farming, still want the opportunity to see the cool content in the end-game, so they start an alt and get to 40. Then they become frustrated with the mind-numbing grind, and start another alt. Then they want to see the end-game and get to 40. Then they become frustrated and make an alt. Then they...
In my opinion, WoW is optimized for profit and that profit exploits the most addictive aspects of player psychology to ensure high subscription rate and revenue. The sad thing is that many players of these games are looking for an addictive behavior that will give them a cycle of "accomplishment" ("Got my next epic!") that has no end. Many people really are looking for a full escape from a real life where "accomplishment" is a lot less clear cut than reaching the next player level. Those of us that would rather pay $15/mo and log on for a few hours a week and still have a fulfilling experience are the minority. Or rather, let me say that those of us that insist on balance, and will not play a brain-sucking game that only rewards addictive behavior are in the minority. Therefore, the most money is had by catering to the majority. And that majority largely consists of the hardcore grind addicts and the people with a bad case of altitis ("How many level 40s do you have?"). I was in the latter category.
I left WoW six months ago, and although I would really enjoy taking a stroll in NEX and AQ, there is no way that I will sacrifice a few hours of life each day for 2 years to do it. I took that time over the past 6 months and found a nice house instead; a real one.
Slashdot Mirror
Hey, I peaked long, long, long ago and I'm still going (sortof). I think this whole oil peak issue is overstated.
I watch with glee and hope that M$ suffers tremendously at the hands of large companies and regular consumers that are just not willing to upgrade their hardward to Captain Amazing levels, and are pretty pissed that they get to have a threadbare UI as a substitute.
Thank God I'm switching to a Powerbook on my next purchase. Maybe I'll get an inexpensive linux laptop, too just because I can and look at pretty windows with E or Gnome or whatever. I just can't imagine that M$ will come up with a new UI so amazing that I will start shitting bricks immediately when I see it because I need it so badly.
Pretty windows or sufficiently functional windows and $1000 in my pocket? Gee. I just can't decide.
Given the intelligence of some of the bigwigs these days, I think that load of BS might still work. Grunt: (load of BS) Bigwig: Ah, excellent work. I had wondered how we would solve that problem. Glad to see you're all on top of it.
I'm sitting here with several of my coworkers in Tarren Mills tavern and we're having a dry raspy chuckle about your post.
"John, I want you to build me a house. And I want you to build it with just a hammer."
Myself, no. But I hear that's a pretty popular thing in some circles, :-).
*chuckle*
Joe Blow is one of the first to move into a new super metroplex. Apartments, retail outlets, movie theatres, gymnasiums, self cleaning-bathrooms. You name it; it's all right next door.
Joe heads over to the gym and works up an appetite, so he heads over to Taco Bell (such convenience), and then over to catch a movie.
[Later that night]
Taco Bell is not sitting well with Joe, and Joe heads for the self-cleaning bathroom to live up to his name. No need for the toilet paper protectant here: "This shit is self-cleaning!" thinks Joe. He sits down whistling and prepares to do his business, when suddenly--the lights go out.
The whistling stops and then Joe calls out, "Hey, that's not funny. Turn the lights back on!"
[Cue the Super Ultraviolet Cleaning Rays of Reactive Oxidative Death.]
And then the screaming starts and Joe burns. Sure he could stand up and run out, but this is a Hollywood production. Bad luck for Joe.
Redundancy is always key and it is more efficient to built two highly probably successes than one extremely probably success.
Blizzard is basically saying, "We want gay people to play our game. We just don't want them to be who they are while they give us their money, because there are more intolerant paying customers than their are flaming gay ones and we want the most money possible."
It's that simple. Whatever policy generates the most revenue and is still legal is what they will do. Any other statement like "We want to do right by our players," is a play on your emotions. It is also bullshit.
No they don't! *searches around frantically for a "Cancel" button*
All I'm saying is if you send 40 male dwarfs down into a mine for a month, all alone, something is going to happen. And then when Hurin Little-Too-Manly and Glib Lightboots finally emerge from the mine and return home, if you don't let them talk about things and work out their feelings with their family, the shit is going to hit the fan.
Hrm, :). Anyone know how to turn of the infernal "fasten seat-belt" beeping on a Honda Civic? It's not that I don't want buckle up. I will. I just hate a machine telling me what to do. Sometimes I'll drive to the store with the thing beeping just to spite it...which is retarded since it's an unthinking machine...but...I...just...can't...help...myself.
BEEEEEEEEEEEEP
It is true, which is why I always keep my partner properly hydrated.
Still, a significant product offering without doubt. Perhaps this is part of the reason that Sony hasn't breathed an official word about the PS2 release date.
Well, Sony has been in the EQ game for a while. Sony Online Entertainment. So I have no idea why people would think that Sony has to pull an infrastructure do Live-like functionality out of a hat.
I don't see much indication that Google has the experience or inclination to play ball in the hardware market, though. They might partner with someone to do it, but their whole focus has been in software.
In some ways, I think gaming consoles will ultimately be what topples M$ as they evolve toward a more multi-purpose consolidated media device in the home. Of course, people say it will come from the computer end, but the cost model for consoles is pretty compelling to a consumer because vendors are subsidizing very nice hardware and recouping the cost in software revenue. That's not the model that computer hardware is designed around (everything is components and the software and hardware vendors are loosely couples).
Anyway, I don't think Google would go the device route at this point. Might be interesting if they partnered with a console company to bring all that functionality to an HDTV though.
No facts here to support an argument, but I do know two things. Cooling has happened very rapidly in the geological past, but global warming to the extent that we are seeing has not. The other thing I know is that it is insane to think that we have no effect on the environment and that what we are seeing is nothing more than a natural process.
In less than 50 years the concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere has gone from 270ppm to 375ppm. That is a huge impact that is directly attributable to us and has increased in step with industrialization. It is absolutely definite that we are causing accelerated warming. It is as definite as the fact that Venus' atmosphere is 96% carbon dioxide and, as a result, the surface temperature is nearly 500 degrees Celsius.
I get a little upset, I must admit, when people even consider attributing change we have created to natural causes. Look at the deforestation occuring in the rainforests. 1.5 acres per second. What once covered 14% of the planets surface now covers 6% and at the current unabated rate, it will be entirely gone in less than 50 years. We did that.
Desertification of midwestern United States? When the first settlers came to North American and displaced the indigenous populations, they also pressed west and destroyed the currently existing ecosystems (buffalo were entirely eradicated in mass slaughter events). Then we used our burgeoning cattle industry to overgraze thousands of acres of land and brought about the desertification so prevalent in the western states. We did that.
The list goes on and on, if you just take the time to look. It is insane to think that 6 billion human beings are not responsible for the tremendous changes we are all experience in a timespan less than a century which is less than a blink of the eye to the Earth. If you grow plants in your own home, you will know that just a few plants can have a profound effect on the air quality in your home and they have a significant effect on the humidity as well. Well, 6 billion people have a profound effect on the Earth.
I appreciate people taking the Devil's Advocate perspective and trying to curb the alarmism that some people fall prey to, but there are real and serious problems that we are creating. 50 years from now we may pay a terrible price for that, and if the chances of that are even 50/50, or even 20%, we are insane to not act quickly and decisively to do the right thing.
Global warming is not an issue in WoW, so why would I care about it? :-)
In some ways, lobbying, bribery, whatever you want to call it is a basic function of the human psyche. There's nothing more hilarious then doing nice things for people you know and then repeatedly refusing all their attempts to "pay you back". One of my friends is all about food, so I did something nice for them and for about three months they tried to give me food. Of course, I hardly eat a thing, and I do not eat sugar. Pretty much every item that was offer, I declined.
Drove the poor bastard crazy. He actually started avoiding me because he had this "debt" that he was unable to pay back because I kept declining "things" he offered and said not to worry about it because I did not need anything.
So there you go. Humans are whacked. If you want to see an odd human, find the one that makes completely anonymous donations to the things that they care about. Very uncommon. Most people are dying to be recognized (even if it's very subtle and private), and most people are dying to know who gave the gift.
Human nature.
Not good for anyone, mindless minion or otherwise. Yet there seems to be little help for it.
There are many individuals out there that are trying to do the right thing, but they are still the minority. A minority that tries to educate itself and do what is right. A minority that has the luxury to do it. A minority that the government need only placate.
The government does not need to listen to those that are distraught about the melting of the polar caps or the descrease in biodiversity, or the rising temperatures that are causing sweeping climatic change in our lifetime. Because caring about these things does not lead to wealth and power. And wealth and power is what the government hears.
A very small number of people in this world have true power to change it on a global scale. How many of those people do you personally know? I suspect, though I do now know enough to confirm it, that a small handful of people in the oil industry hold enough power (through corporate power, wealth, and political connections) to reverse much of the damage we are doing to the environment.
How many people would it really take in our government to sway the Senate and the Congress toward definite positive action on these matters? How many key voices, including the President's, would it take to gain the support necessary to establish a firm plan for independence from fossil fuels?
What can an individual do? What can an individual do that individuals are not already doing: scientists and reports and political activists. What good are their sincere efforts? Our government spends more money trying to find a terrorist than it does trying to protect the Earth from the damage we are doing. A terrorist strikes at a nation, but our globally irresponsible environmental policies strike at the Earth itself. We're the worse terrorist on the planet.
My preferred approach to new content would be to drop pretty and thematic items in the more difficult dungeons but to not increase their power. I would much rather see the end-game dungeons center around player skill, rather than item power.
The problem with this is that it is not the best money-maker for Blizzard. The way they have it now, they have sucked a lot of hardcore players into an endless gerbil cage run of equipment upgrades. This is good for business (although you could argue that if enough people becoming addicted and seek help which involves quitting WoW, the equation will go the other way). And those that hate the end-game farming, still want the opportunity to see the cool content in the end-game, so they start an alt and get to 40. Then they become frustrated with the mind-numbing grind, and start another alt. Then they want to see the end-game and get to 40. Then they become frustrated and make an alt. Then they...
In my opinion, WoW is optimized for profit and that profit exploits the most addictive aspects of player psychology to ensure high subscription rate and revenue. The sad thing is that many players of these games are looking for an addictive behavior that will give them a cycle of "accomplishment" ("Got my next epic!") that has no end. Many people really are looking for a full escape from a real life where "accomplishment" is a lot less clear cut than reaching the next player level. Those of us that would rather pay $15/mo and log on for a few hours a week and still have a fulfilling experience are the minority. Or rather, let me say that those of us that insist on balance, and will not play a brain-sucking game that only rewards addictive behavior are in the minority. Therefore, the most money is had by catering to the majority. And that majority largely consists of the hardcore grind addicts and the people with a bad case of altitis ("How many level 40s do you have?"). I was in the latter category.
I left WoW six months ago, and although I would really enjoy taking a stroll in NEX and AQ, there is no way that I will sacrifice a few hours of life each day for 2 years to do it. I took that time over the past 6 months and found a nice house instead; a real one.