... you woudln't save any time. Honestly, putting your items through the X-ray machine and stepping through the magnetic scanner is quicker than the near-body-cavity search they gave him. If everyone opted to do it just to save from showing ID's (whether an ideological move or a time-saving one) then the time-savers would be going back to the X-ray lines...
The Grateful Dead encouraged sharing of fan recordings, etc. So you would tape a concert or a mix and share dubs of that tape. Which didn't sound that hot compared to a LP. Most people went out and bought the LP for 2 reasons: ( (1) more convenient (2) sounds better )
Zoom ahead how many years? Now we have the internet and you can get the album quicker than running to the store (kill reason #1) and if you encode it right the quality is the same or at least undiscernable to the untrained ear (kill reason #2)
Now I'm a firm believer that there is a middle ground but JPB is way off base saying they can just take "their" model nowadays. Times have changed, man!
The other point is people who are interested in politics online aren't just going to search for "politics"... they are going to put in "Republican" or "Democrat". Right there, you have halved the popularity of politics vs. "Father's day". Or "Enron" or one of the slang words referring to the debacle further divides the search popularity. Politics is so diverse it won't show up as a top ranking "key-word".... its just numbers.
That, and (for example) when I really want to read about politics I generally have my news sources lined up. I don't need to search for a basic key word every day to check up on the GOP. Whereas when I want to check up on the latest microcontroller offerings from COMPANY_X or something I heard from a coworker, or find a gift for mother's day... that's different.
the issue is that most people (in the US at least) don't care about democracy. They use the Internet to search for thinds that require little actual thinking. Right now top searches for Google are: the omen, french open, and father's day.
No... yeah of course those three are going to be popular because they are common. Plenty of people make uncommon searches. But the thing about diverse searches is... if we all made the same diverse searches... wait for it... they woudln't be uncommon or diverse anymore! Just because the most popular searches are brain-dead doesn't mean everyone is brain-dead, it just means that there is a common thread among people.
Bill Gates and Ballmer for the last 10+ years have been managers, not programmers or technically minded people. I can secure a box better than them. Believe me, my box is clean. I have a hardware firewall - takes 5 minutes to configure - and a few clicks in the control panel and my computer remains up-to-date and virus/spyware free. I don't visit seedy sites. I am sorry if your computer is malware infested. It really isn't that hard to keep it under control. Hardware firewall and auto updates are the 2 best keys to defense.
not the average box, windows or linux, of the average slashdotter.
What sickens me is how quick you technically minded people are to give into Google. You have perfectly good computers with perfectly good (free or reasonably priced) software. Yet you throw your personal information at Google to store for an indefinite amount of time. You don't retain control anymore. Same problem happens with GMail.
If you have ever used GMail they display the message "Draft saved" every few seconds while you compose an email. That means a copy resides on their server. Presumably the same will happen with the spreadsheet. They will have a copy, like it or not.
OK, then make fliers and start handing out your personal information on the streets. Your data is your responsibility. I'm not quite sure what you are saying (there is at least 1 typo in there) but I'm assuming you are referring to taxes which are between your employer and you and the IRS, not the rest of the known world (Unless you pay via credit card... but then you screwed up). You need to take steps to keep your finances private.
as a personal example, I know it'd be handy for keeping a record of my yearly finances, for which full blown Excel is frankly overkill.
That is exactly why I want a full-blown Excel. Do you really want to do your finances online? Have a copy of that residing on google's server where it is stored or "cached"? They put out these services to aggregate your life, to advertize to you. You are there to make money, that's all they care about. Your privacy be damned.
If you want to make that information public then by all means do. But programs like Excel and Quicken are there to keep finances private. That's a good thing.
Very happily married, 1 son, masters degree... I MMO to relax after my son is in bed and my wife is satisfied (She does too, we have fun playing together). Thanks for the advice but it seems I've progressed beyond you, son.
You obviously have played no MMO besides World of Warcrap:)
Try playing a real MMO. Everquest Titanium (first 10 expansions) is $19.99 at Walmart or as a digital download. First month is free. I've played hardcore for over four years now on the same character for three and a half of those. There are many zones I have yet to reach and although I've capped my level I haven't capped my maximum experiance gain. There is plenty of stuff to do, and the expansions keep coming if you want them (I haven't purchased the last three, just because I have enough stuff to do... )
Unlimited in the sense that there is no "end" to the game... no final level, etc. Enough content to keep you busy for years. You can play as much or as little as you want, whereas with an episode, once you play it... there isn't much fun in playing it again.
A MMO will run you $20-$50 for the base package and $15 a month, and will provide you with an unlimited number of hours of entertainment. It amortizes much nicer. I'll admit I don't purchase many games - but my brother does, and most of his games last him more than 20-40 hours, and at a top sticker price of what, $30-$50, that is a lot cheaper. ($2.50 down to less than $1 an hour, if even, depending on the price breakdown). Myself I am a MMO fan, you can't beat the price... I've been playing the same MMO for 4 years and my gaming budget is exactly $100 a year... the yearly subscription fee to Everquest. I play roughly 2 hours a night... 13 cents an hour.
Compare apples to apples. I mean, we could try and compare this to a hooker, the game would come out a lot cheaper, but come on... which would you pick? (assuming it is a morally valid choice, etc, YMMV)
WoW may have some of the qualities you describe, but it's not right to claim they only exist in WoW; they've been in one game or another since the dawn of gaming, from old single player games through the MMOs.
Sure, they exist in multiple games, but WoW has all of those attributes. Most preceeding games only had some.
Regarding travel: I have no problem with mass transport. Mass transport is a Good Thing!!! It builds community. Having to wait for the tram/boat/spacecraft allows players to chat, buff, do a little jig. Hopping a griff, setting the autopilot and getting a soda does not.
#5: I think your description is a little vague. Can you cite some specific comparisons?
There are a lot of interesting game mechanics that just don't exist in WoW. Same goes for scripted events. I really don't have time to spell out every last detail for you (I am at the end of my lunchbreak). There are just a lot of things that can be done in EQ that can't be done in WoW.
Are all 5 million subscribers 'mindless'?
I'd argue most of them are. Its the mcDonalds argument. They make a cheap-ass burger that is convenient and easy. The latter two properties also apply to WoW. That's why it is popular. Convenient and easy. Some of us want a challenge.
Is your wife mindless?
No. She used to be a hardcore raider in EQ. But she played a support class and when our son was born she gave it up. She plays WoW and falls into the category of "housewives" who have an hour here or there (baby sleeping). She honestly doesn't play that much and now that our son sleeps through the night (I took a 1 year hiatus myself) she is going to sell her account and join me in Everquest again. Speaking purely from an EQ point of view, we lost a lot of people that November, but they trickled back after maybe 6 months. They figured out the game really wasn't all it was craked up to be, again, when you have played a game that requires skill and attention, and then go to a game where you can presss auto attack and win (ok, a slight simplification, but compared to EQ where I solo mobs that would 1-round me) you get bored and you come back home. I think I mentioned it in this thread already, but EQ is opening up 2 more servers in June... with old world content... people like the challenge.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm a mid-20's white male and I get pulled over for "random inspections" more often than "random" ...
... you woudln't save any time. Honestly, putting your items through the X-ray machine and stepping through the magnetic scanner is quicker than the near-body-cavity search they gave him. If everyone opted to do it just to save from showing ID's (whether an ideological move or a time-saving one) then the time-savers would be going back to the X-ray lines ...
The Grateful Dead encouraged sharing of fan recordings, etc. So you would tape a concert or a mix and share dubs of that tape. Which didn't sound that hot compared to a LP. Most people went out and bought the LP for 2 reasons: ( (1) more convenient (2) sounds better )
Zoom ahead how many years? Now we have the internet and you can get the album quicker than running to the store (kill reason #1) and if you encode it right the quality is the same or at least undiscernable to the untrained ear (kill reason #2)
Now I'm a firm believer that there is a middle ground but JPB is way off base saying they can just take "their" model nowadays. Times have changed, man!
Google is nothing more than a moden-day telco. Between GMail and GTalk and google "dark fiber" they are becoming the modern day telco.
The other point is people who are interested in politics online aren't just going to search for "politics" ... they are going to put in "Republican" or "Democrat". Right there, you have halved the popularity of politics vs. "Father's day". Or "Enron" or one of the slang words referring to the debacle further divides the search popularity. Politics is so diverse it won't show up as a top ranking "key-word".... its just numbers.
... that's different.
That, and (for example) when I really want to read about politics I generally have my news sources lined up. I don't need to search for a basic key word every day to check up on the GOP. Whereas when I want to check up on the latest microcontroller offerings from COMPANY_X or something I heard from a coworker, or find a gift for mother's day
0.53 slugs for the engineers in the house
the issue is that most people (in the US at least) don't care about democracy. They use the Internet to search for thinds that require little actual thinking. Right now top searches for Google are: the omen, french open, and father's day.
... if we all made the same diverse searches ... wait for it ... they woudln't be uncommon or diverse anymore! Just because the most popular searches are brain-dead doesn't mean everyone is brain-dead, it just means that there is a common thread among people.
No... yeah of course those three are going to be popular because they are common. Plenty of people make uncommon searches. But the thing about diverse searches is
Bill Gates and Ballmer for the last 10+ years have been managers, not programmers or technically minded people. I can secure a box better than them. Believe me, my box is clean. I have a hardware firewall - takes 5 minutes to configure - and a few clicks in the control panel and my computer remains up-to-date and virus/spyware free. I don't visit seedy sites. I am sorry if your computer is malware infested. It really isn't that hard to keep it under control. Hardware firewall and auto updates are the 2 best keys to defense.
Google is far safer than is your window's box.
not my windows box
not the average box, windows or linux, of the average slashdotter.
What sickens me is how quick you technically minded people are to give into Google. You have perfectly good computers with perfectly good (free or reasonably priced) software. Yet you throw your personal information at Google to store for an indefinite amount of time. You don't retain control anymore. Same problem happens with GMail.
But it's free.
"those who exchange personal information for free software deserve neither" -me
The Almighty Cache...
If you have ever used GMail they display the message "Draft saved" every few seconds while you compose an email. That means a copy resides on their server. Presumably the same will happen with the spreadsheet. They will have a copy, like it or not.
OK, then make fliers and start handing out your personal information on the streets. Your data is your responsibility. I'm not quite sure what you are saying (there is at least 1 typo in there) but I'm assuming you are referring to taxes which are between your employer and you and the IRS, not the rest of the known world (Unless you pay via credit card... but then you screwed up). You need to take steps to keep your finances private.
... and you really want Google to know all that? Guess I'm old fashioned, I prefer to hold my cards a little closer to my chest.
as a personal example, I know it'd be handy for keeping a record of my yearly finances, for which full blown Excel is frankly overkill.
That is exactly why I want a full-blown Excel. Do you really want to do your finances online? Have a copy of that residing on google's server where it is stored or "cached"? They put out these services to aggregate your life, to advertize to you. You are there to make money, that's all they care about. Your privacy be damned.
If you want to make that information public then by all means do. But programs like Excel and Quicken are there to keep finances private. That's a good thing.
Very happily married, 1 son, masters degree ... I MMO to relax after my son is in bed and my wife is satisfied (She does too, we have fun playing together). Thanks for the advice but it seems I've progressed beyond you, son.
You obviously have played no MMO besides World of Warcrap :)
... )
Try playing a real MMO. Everquest Titanium (first 10 expansions) is $19.99 at Walmart or as a digital download. First month is free. I've played hardcore for over four years now on the same character for three and a half of those. There are many zones I have yet to reach and although I've capped my level I haven't capped my maximum experiance gain. There is plenty of stuff to do, and the expansions keep coming if you want them (I haven't purchased the last three, just because I have enough stuff to do
provide no audit trail
... )
You can provide an audit trail in Excel:
Tools->Share Workbook->click "Multiple Users"->click "Advanced"->select how many days you want to keep a history for.
(It might not be good enough for HIPAA or SA but there is an audit trail
Unlimited in the sense that there is no "end" to the game... no final level, etc. Enough content to keep you busy for years. You can play as much or as little as you want, whereas with an episode, once you play it... there isn't much fun in playing it again.
A MMO will run you $20-$50 for the base package and $15 a month, and will provide you with an unlimited number of hours of entertainment. It amortizes much nicer. I'll admit I don't purchase many games - but my brother does, and most of his games last him more than 20-40 hours, and at a top sticker price of what, $30-$50, that is a lot cheaper. ($2.50 down to less than $1 an hour, if even, depending on the price breakdown). Myself I am a MMO fan, you can't beat the price... I've been playing the same MMO for 4 years and my gaming budget is exactly $100 a year ... the yearly subscription fee to Everquest. I play roughly 2 hours a night... 13 cents an hour.
Compare apples to apples. I mean, we could try and compare this to a hooker, the game would come out a lot cheaper, but come on... which would you pick? (assuming it is a morally valid choice, etc, YMMV)
I'm a man fanboy.
Well I knew macs were gay. But now we have evidence their users are too.
Remember there is a difference between open source and free software... the source can be open but you can still charge for it.
You know what they say about companies with big footprints.
They wear big shoes.
Star still has security through obscurity.
Not really. The virus writers have access to the source code. If they wanted to go deeper than macro viruses.
WoW may have some of the qualities you describe, but it's not right to claim they only exist in WoW; they've been in one game or another since the dawn of gaming, from old single player games through the MMOs.
Sure, they exist in multiple games, but WoW has all of those attributes. Most preceeding games only had some.
Regarding travel: I have no problem with mass transport. Mass transport is a Good Thing!!! It builds community. Having to wait for the tram/boat/spacecraft allows players to chat, buff, do a little jig. Hopping a griff, setting the autopilot and getting a soda does not.
#5: I think your description is a little vague. Can you cite some specific comparisons?
There are a lot of interesting game mechanics that just don't exist in WoW. Same goes for scripted events. I really don't have time to spell out every last detail for you (I am at the end of my lunchbreak). There are just a lot of things that can be done in EQ that can't be done in WoW. Are all 5 million subscribers 'mindless'?
I'd argue most of them are. Its the mcDonalds argument. They make a cheap-ass burger that is convenient and easy. The latter two properties also apply to WoW. That's why it is popular. Convenient and easy. Some of us want a challenge.
Is your wife mindless?
No. She used to be a hardcore raider in EQ. But she played a support class and when our son was born she gave it up. She plays WoW and falls into the category of "housewives" who have an hour here or there (baby sleeping). She honestly doesn't play that much and now that our son sleeps through the night (I took a 1 year hiatus myself) she is going to sell her account and join me in Everquest again. Speaking purely from an EQ point of view, we lost a lot of people that November, but they trickled back after maybe 6 months. They figured out the game really wasn't all it was craked up to be, again, when you have played a game that requires skill and attention, and then go to a game where you can presss auto attack and win (ok, a slight simplification, but compared to EQ where I solo mobs that would 1-round me) you get bored and you come back home. I think I mentioned it in this thread already, but EQ is opening up 2 more servers in June... with old world content... people like the challenge.
end of transmission