The country that has bought Sukhois, tanks and 100,000 AK-103's, is planning to build a manufacturing plant of Russian rifles, and oppresses peaceful marches has decided to ban 'violent' video games because they 'promote violence and can alter the behavior of children.'
Just because a country purchases utilities of force says nothing. What they do with them says everything. If a country employs them for their own protection from genuine threats, there is nothing wrong with them building or purchasing automat kalashnikovs.
As for the video games promoting violence and altering the behavior of children, I do not believe this has been scientifically proved or disproved. And it may be hard if not impossible to do. I would recommend, when dealing with a populace, that you stick to common sense like 'acts of violence have been around long before video games' and point out that there is no statistical correlation between increased violence and increased violence in video games.
Chavez promoted the use of traditional toys like the Yo-Yo and Trompo, and suggested that electronic toys like 'the Nintendo' be put aside because they promote 'egoism, individualism and violence.'
Right, because it would be horrible if your kids got video games that made them think. We're dealing with politicians, not the populace here. I feel horrible for Venezuelan gamers but I wonder if this doesn't have to do more with the feelings that games convey to people more so than the violence. I can't help but think that CoD and other games that tell the stories of men who fought and died to stop fascists like Hitler and Mussolini must make other dictators afraid of that sense of freedom being conveyed -- and the violence to stop them being employed! It's possible this ban is more so a significance of the importance of games as a cultural medium. That might be reaching a bit far but I would guess there's some truth to it. Probably just as simple as Chavez trying to appeal to the older generations for support and using video games as a scapegoat.
TV didn't get boring. TV always was boring. You just fell out of the large cross section that is the target of the major networks. Maybe you grew up, maybe your tastes changed or maybe you got sick of it. Don't get me wrong, I still watch Adult Swim now and then but everything else is by and large off the radar. I overhear my coworkers talking about modern TV and it's pretty painful. You can make a show called "The <insert adjective here> Housewives of <insert location here> County" and you'd have an instant success (Ex: "The Virtual Housewives of Warcraft County"). There's nothing wrong with them liking it, I just can't see how one derives entertainment from it. Adult Swim is doomed though, ask a hundred people on the street about it and see how many watch it. It's a shame but I realize I'm just part of the minority.
In my opinion, TiVo died by no one's fault but their own. TiVo enjoyed success and then sat and watched as Cox and Comcast (where I live) introduced DVR boxes into their packages that essential did what TiVo did. Maybe TiVo couldn't stop it? Maybe their trying to stop it with patent litigation? Who knows? TiVo needed to make itself more attractive to counter this and it just never did it for me. I never had TiVo because of the cost but I've had a DVR for a while.
I don't think the blame lies on popular TV, it's as predictable and vapid as ever.
Great! Just what we need! More ways people can walk around staring at a device in their hands while being utterly oblivious to their surroundings. And yet this is all about informing them of their surroundings. Oh, the irony...
I enjoy driving while looking through Terminator Vision on my iPhone. I have an app that tells me the year, make and model of the vehicle I'm about to make contact with. Then I use my iGun application to finish them off.
So if Time didn't file the DMCA notice, and DC Comics didn't file the DMCA notice, and the original photographer did not file the DMCA notice, then who exactly did?"
Mabye it was Barack Obama?
You're probably joking (as we're running out of possibilities) but might I remind you of Hustler Magazine Vs Jerry Falwell? In which Falwell was considered a public figure and in a "unanimous 8-0 decision (Justice Kennedy took no part in the consideration or decision of the case), that the First Amendment's free-speech guarantee prohibits awarding damages to public figures to compensate for emotional distress intentionally inflicted upon them." I'm no lawyer but I heavily doubt that the DMCA would make this any different. If people could prosecute on that basis, the celebrities would hit tabloids with the DMCA left and right... might even hit the mainstream news if they do a story that reflects them poorly. Perhaps the person who took the original photograph that was modified might have issued it but I'm not clear on whether that was Time's photographer or another by another licensing agreement. My guess is that Time's legal team or publishing house or right hand knee jerk issued a DMCA while the people answering the phones and writing articles had no idea bout it.
Warning: this site gives a whole new meaning to "Flash heavy."
They have a non-flash site if you need to complete this training and receive your certificate and you can't have flash. Not sure how they are running the audio but that's available as well.
I gotta admit it's not as entertaining as the zoom down into the city flash animation when instead of that you get:
Screen 1 of 48. Screen title, Intro. A block in any city, U S A. The camera zooms into a bank A T M. The A T M screen reads, no funds available. The camera zooms into another A T M, and again, no funds are available. Cut to an office in a building. Camera zooms into computer screen on desk. C N N website is on screen, displaying news headlines that support audio. Camera zooms to P D A on desk. P D A displays news headlines that support audio. Camera zooms to fax machine. Document on machine displays news headlines that support audio.
Also, you might encounter some problems with words and acronyms that are pronounced like IA (Information Assurance)
Screen 4 of 48. Screen title, What is I Ay? Image of worker at desk with computer. The computer monitor displays a warning...
If you were pouring the concrete, why didn't you put it outside of the concrete? You would probably incur less structural risk... although I doubt a pipe that small would have much effect. More and more people are building new houses with geothermal exchange to help mitigate costs in heating and cooling.
Of starcraft 2 with time travel. game starts, then "nuclear launch detected" with a blinking red light on your command center.
According to what I saw in the first video, this wouldn't be possible. Rather, you are able to fight in the past that has real influences on your present but you aren't able to truly fight your opponent when they are starting out. On top of that, you can see where your opponent is in your time stream. And on top of that, you can speed up how fast you flow through time. Since most RTS's are based on reaction time (hence the title of the genre), it becomes very obvious to me that the default strategy is to get into the game and crank your speed up as fast as it will go. Then beat your opponent to your resource rich future and send units back in time. Always fight as far back in the past as you can.
Of course, they limit how far back you can go and how much influence you have in the past but this is a new balance that would make for interesting game play. I have a feeling that my above observations are learned early on in the learning curve.
But in your scenario, you would both be in the future launching nuclear warheads on each other in the past. I doubt this game will include such far reaching weapons for the simple fact of confusing alternate realities.
They didn't address what happens if you constantly send the same unit back in time from multiple points in your stream to generate an army at one point. I guess the 'update waves' are a function to control that.
Your fears are not unfounded. As someone who has had "e-mail forensics" done on his company's MS Exchange during an investigation of a coworker, I can assure you that while it may not be something that you've done to trigger this it does happen. And nobody wants to be in a compromising position should their relationship with their employer goes bad.
So your solution is simple: send him an e-mail explaining that this new laptop is going to function as your main personal laptop with family photos and videos and whatnot. Tell him that you'd love to accept the $1,250 as an award or included with your next paycheck as special compensation but the laptop won't be inventoried or tagged by the company. Make it clear it's your property and not a company asset. Offer to bring in the invoice for him to look at if he's concerned you're buying a car with it instead and get it in writing. If you get the money awarded to you to do with as you see fit but you have an informal agreement that this will go toward your personal laptop, everything should be fine.
Is to try to overrule the verdict of the scientific community because that verdict is going to reduce many business's profit margins and put some of them out of business.
Let's not beat around the bush and cut straight to the chase: they want the court to rule in favor of either economic well being or environmental well being. It's no coincidence to me that this hand is being forced as our country comes out of a lengthy and somewhat painful recession and the people in power now many nod toward the environment unlike the people in power for the past eight years. It's not that the commerce people "don't like it"... it's more so that it has a very measurable effect on them and everyone knows it.
As presiding judge over Slashdot Court and after hearing the above testimonies from expert witnesses, I hereby order the environment to remain at least three hundred feet away from all businesses and places of commerce. Failure to do so will result in a one hundred dollar fine to mother nature and her related entities.
The "virus"mentioned in the screen shot isn't much of a virus. It's a trojan that only installs if you're stupid enough...
I could put Ubuntu on a netbook and give it to my sister and she'd have no clue how to use it. But you can bet every last cent that if the source code to a virus was presented to her she would have it compiled (with all the right flags set to target her correct OSX version) and installed in a few minutes. It's borderline magic. Did you know they have LimeWire on Macs now? She managed to find that, install it and learn how to use it on her own but didn't have a clue as to how to move pictures from her old Windows machine to her MacBook. If only curing cancer compromised your computer, she'd have that done in a heart beat.
I knew she would be better off with a mac but your statement of "anybody who uses a Mac knows" makes me cringe. Bottom line: do not underestimate stupidity.
There is currently no way to remove yourself from this newsletter subscription. I hope you knew what you were doing when you subscribed!
Having completed reading your first newsletter (posted above), I found it vapid and devoid of the call to Microsoftalypse that I look for in all the periodicals I read (most notably my own newsletter entitled eldavojohn's Microsoftalypse that has a staggeringly high readership of a one eldavojohn of Slashdot.org).
Furthermore, to my horror, I noticed it was sent using an account from a hotmail.com address. Considering this datum, I found your footnote warning eerily apt. I shall post a scathing review of your newsletter (seven times longer than necessary) under the guise of frequent and unquestioned Slashdot contributor Bennett Haselton on the morrow. Good day, sir!
A mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves.
Your plan to put 64 bit copies of Windows in the ground and cover them with grave stones and dirt intrigues me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
The wrong way is to change an article to make it look like "Wikipedia" supports your position. If people read that Wikipedia says that roach racing is an inhumane practice, will it matter? It's just a free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. The die-hard fans of cruelty to cockroaches would simply reach for their revert buttons and scowl at how their opponents are trying to skew the article.
The right way to push your point of view is to provide the facts that led you to believe what you do. Cite academic references on the prevalence of arthritis in insect athletes. Provide an external link to a videotape of a famous blatellid athlete falling to his doom from the table of honor. If the facts led you to a point of view, they'll lead others to the same point of view.
I want to wipe out the opposing point of view from the article
The wrong way to kneecap your opposition is to delete his "bogus" claims, sources and all, from the article. Never mind the revert war -- do you want your audience to remain vulnerable to the fallacies he raises? No, if he's raising a point that's been raised before, then you should be able to find rebuttals that people have made to it before. Again, provide your facts and sources. The battle goes not to the swiftest reverter, nor to the most strongly worded edit, but to those who persevere in their research and dig up citable sources for every fact that can be found.
There are an infinite number of perspectives on a subject, even if you are aware of only two. At the least, consider what ideas and assumptions you and your opponents share as common ground, and also what alternative solutions to a problem can be found that rely on neither your side's assumptions nor the other's for their validity. If you want to succeed in making an article include the facts about your point of view, accept that your point of view when you finish may be more informed than when you began.
I have a great company and I want to promote it on Wikipedia
The wrong way to promote your company is with blatant advertising and vanity links. They'll only get you in trouble and lead in the long term to suppression of future attempts.
The more wrong way is to start a brand new article about your company. Not only will you have trouble with policy, but imagine if you succeed! Then you'll have a page that you have to constantly monitor against vandalism, and you could lose control of it to some disgruntled former employee who can dig up true unflattering information and keep it in place permanently. Besides, how many people would read the article anyway?
The right way to promote your company is to bear in mind that "advertising" on Wikipedia can indeed be bought with the right currency - information. If you can provide a good, thorough, useful reference on a subject on your company Web site, then you can cite it sparingly in relevant articles and thereby establish your company as a legitimate, trustworthy authority. Literally or figuratively, go into the ba
"2% of their profits" isn't something you could possibly know. They are claiming that cutting the players reduced their system load by 20%, so the loss of 2% of their revenues might have been offset by lower per user costs and increased their profits, even if they never make it up new users.
It's likely that you were just being sloppy, but what does that matter?
So you're telling me that on that day, on June 22nd, they sold 20% of the servers they had bought and they cut 20% of their jobs that maintained them? You might be able to convince me that they experienced a small immediate savings in power or that in the future months to come they had to purchase less servers than they would have initially. But on June 22nd, they cut their subscriptions by 2% in one day. That's an immediate effect, how they come back from that can be done in many ways including reduced server growth and job cuts. But on that day, no matter how you cut it, their profits were reduced by 2%... nothing "sloppy" about saying that. I guess gamers always manage to find a way to be ungrateful.
They shouldn't pat themselves on the back too hard over this. The playerbase has been pushing for it for years.
I don't play the game, but these guys just forfeited 2% of their profits. And you're saying "about time"?
Knowingly cutting that kind of revenue requires more than balls, my friend. That requires the confidence that doing this is going to bring at least that 2% back. That it does not scare away more that are exploiting that haven't been caught. These guys took a chance for ideals of the players. There should be nothing but kudos from the community and an understanding that they have your best interests in mind despite scandals in the past.
I applaud their efforts and found the analysis of "unholy rage" more extensive than anything I've ever seen an MMO release. It almost makes me want to pick up the game and see what it's about. The only thing holding me back is that I have heard it's quite monotonous at first.
Give it to my sister. If her laptop and last five cell phones are any indication, it'll end up with vodka dumped on it after a party or smashed to pieces in the middle of the street or even at the bottom of a toilet in a club. You would never believe how frequently that last one happens.
I swear jean designers are in cahoots with cell phone manufacturers. Just slip your hard drive into the back pocket of a girl in a night club wearing tight jeans... aw, who am I kidding, this is Slashdot.
The average welding torch, meanwhile, is a fully paid-up member of the "life-threatening but enormously enjoyable" club - and there's no denying that a 3,000-degree flame would reduce the average hard disk platter to a pool of reflective liquid quicker than you could say "data protection". It's a superb suggestion from Steve, who also put forward the angle grinder for consideration. We're worried about him.
A not as messy method might be a spot welder. They go by different names but my dad's shop used to have a nice adjustable Miller spot welder that would function great for sheet metal work. Anyway, I can envision a homemade spot welder (very trivial to make) with a stand around it and two wooden 2' by 2' pieces of plywood with a handle grip sticking up and two hard drive holes counter sunk with a quarter inch lip to hold each drive (for 3.5" and 2.5" drives). Place the hard drive in the selected hole and clamp your spot welder on it and go to town. Mark your initials in it and you should have a pretty solid drive with no mess, no metal shreds laying around, no flying debris or sparks and probably easier to store/recycle/transport. Man, I wish I didn't live in the city and had a wood and metal machine shop.
In regards to server and mechanics development: What are the biggest deficiencies you see in new hires and college grads? Are there any paradigms in the game development professional world that game and graphics courses in college don't seem to cover? When a new developer starts, what are the basic things you teach them first? Do you ever have to take time unlearning things that are pervasive in say, web development? Are there any patterns or architectural paradigms that hold importance above all else in online games?
In regards to the artists of graphics and world design and modeling: What are the biggest deficiencies you see in new hires and college grads? Is the "art" aspects of your games something that can be learned or do you have a few talented visionaries driving the group? I've been impressed with the mood in Diablo and the beautiful scenery in certain areas of World of Warcraft. Is that a single person at work or a large group adding a little brush stroke to the whole painting?
To the World of Warcraft team: your work is censored in China. Is this negative or an unavoidable necessity? Does it ever bother you on a personal level that you slave over skeletons and zombies and stories involving them only to have 1/5 of the world relegated to some modified version of your work? Would you rather error on the side of cultural sensitivity? I had heard rumors that panda-like characters will never be in World of Warcraft due to them being a cherished icon of China. Is it true that real world politics play a role in what you do and don't do in your game? Do you ever feel restricted or cautious because of this? Do you ever find yourself musing on how great a scenario or character would be but then reject it because so-and-so would have a field day in court with it?
To the planning divisions of all teams: My coworker and I love every single one of your games. But we don't love your release dates. We'd almost appreciate it if there was no release date until you know 100% about it. Your delays vary wildly and have lead both of us to be extremely dubious even when we hear reports like Starcraft II delayed until 2010. We've taken to an X-Files approach: Trust No One. Lest you get your hopes dashed. Why are release dates given when they almost always get pushed back? Is this something you just have to do so marketing has time to hype? Is there any effort to fix these estimation problems? Why aren't you assigning a larger variance and learning from past experiences by now?
I understand this happens by and large everywhere in software development but you guys are epitome of online games. If you can't give solid release dates, no one can.
Assuming Diablo/Starcraft are going to be on this, what are you doing to fix, improve, update, solidify Battle.net? Last I heard, we can't use Starcraft II on a LAN so how are you going to ensure us that Battle.net is valid replacement in terms of speed, security and reliability? Will Battle.net be completely redone from what it was in the Diablo days?
To the World of Warcraft team, I have been playing the expansion but largely left the World of Warcraft in search of something else after frustration from reduced effort to level. This isn't a new trend, I recall experience received from quests being increased for certain level ranges. This is, of course, a tactic to entice new players. But it has by and large been a very negative turn for the game. I feel that your recruit a friend program is also quite negative to existing players as I have coworkers who can mill out two level sixties in two or three weekends if they can borrow another person's account.
Have you seen any other negative feedback about this? Has anyone complained? You sit as the largest online game, is growth really so important that game mecahnics need to be changed to entice new players?
In my honest opinion, you are selling yourselves short. The players see less quest content now because of increased experience. While they get to end content faster, they pass up a lot of areas and beautiful terrain just purely because they don't have to go there. What does the future hold as you strive to cut out content? The ability to start at level (current expansion cap - 20)?
So the spec is complete, but were not gonna tell you what it says!
Doesn't make sense!
The article says they're working on getting it to be backward compliant with the current PCIe specs. You probably don't want to start building to the spec until that's in place anyway. You can find a lot of information on PCIe 3.0 on the FAQ on their site. If you're a member of PCI SIG, you might even be able to get the preliminary spec, who knows?
Slashdot Mirror
The country that has bought Sukhois, tanks and 100,000 AK-103's, is planning to build a manufacturing plant of Russian rifles, and oppresses peaceful marches has decided to ban 'violent' video games because they 'promote violence and can alter the behavior of children.'
Just because a country purchases utilities of force says nothing. What they do with them says everything. If a country employs them for their own protection from genuine threats, there is nothing wrong with them building or purchasing automat kalashnikovs.
As for the video games promoting violence and altering the behavior of children, I do not believe this has been scientifically proved or disproved. And it may be hard if not impossible to do. I would recommend, when dealing with a populace, that you stick to common sense like 'acts of violence have been around long before video games' and point out that there is no statistical correlation between increased violence and increased violence in video games.
Chavez promoted the use of traditional toys like the Yo-Yo and Trompo, and suggested that electronic toys like 'the Nintendo' be put aside because they promote 'egoism, individualism and violence.'
Right, because it would be horrible if your kids got video games that made them think. We're dealing with politicians, not the populace here. I feel horrible for Venezuelan gamers but I wonder if this doesn't have to do more with the feelings that games convey to people more so than the violence. I can't help but think that CoD and other games that tell the stories of men who fought and died to stop fascists like Hitler and Mussolini must make other dictators afraid of that sense of freedom being conveyed -- and the violence to stop them being employed! It's possible this ban is more so a significance of the importance of games as a cultural medium. That might be reaching a bit far but I would guess there's some truth to it. Probably just as simple as Chavez trying to appeal to the older generations for support and using video games as a scapegoat.
TiVo was cool... but then TV got boring.
TV didn't get boring. TV always was boring. You just fell out of the large cross section that is the target of the major networks. Maybe you grew up, maybe your tastes changed or maybe you got sick of it. Don't get me wrong, I still watch Adult Swim now and then but everything else is by and large off the radar. I overhear my coworkers talking about modern TV and it's pretty painful. You can make a show called "The <insert adjective here> Housewives of <insert location here> County" and you'd have an instant success (Ex: "The Virtual Housewives of Warcraft County"). There's nothing wrong with them liking it, I just can't see how one derives entertainment from it. Adult Swim is doomed though, ask a hundred people on the street about it and see how many watch it. It's a shame but I realize I'm just part of the minority.
In my opinion, TiVo died by no one's fault but their own. TiVo enjoyed success and then sat and watched as Cox and Comcast (where I live) introduced DVR boxes into their packages that essential did what TiVo did. Maybe TiVo couldn't stop it? Maybe their trying to stop it with patent litigation? Who knows? TiVo needed to make itself more attractive to counter this and it just never did it for me. I never had TiVo because of the cost but I've had a DVR for a while.
I don't think the blame lies on popular TV, it's as predictable and vapid as ever.
Great! Just what we need! More ways people can walk around staring at a device in their hands while being utterly oblivious to their surroundings. And yet this is all about informing them of their surroundings. Oh, the irony...
I enjoy driving while looking through Terminator Vision on my iPhone. I have an app that tells me the year, make and model of the vehicle I'm about to make contact with. Then I use my iGun application to finish them off.
Mabye it was Barack Obama?
You're probably joking (as we're running out of possibilities) but might I remind you of Hustler Magazine Vs Jerry Falwell? In which Falwell was considered a public figure and in a "unanimous 8-0 decision (Justice Kennedy took no part in the consideration or decision of the case), that the First Amendment's free-speech guarantee prohibits awarding damages to public figures to compensate for emotional distress intentionally inflicted upon them." I'm no lawyer but I heavily doubt that the DMCA would make this any different. If people could prosecute on that basis, the celebrities would hit tabloids with the DMCA left and right ... might even hit the mainstream news if they do a story that reflects them poorly. Perhaps the person who took the original photograph that was modified might have issued it but I'm not clear on whether that was Time's photographer or another by another licensing agreement. My guess is that Time's legal team or publishing house or right hand knee jerk issued a DMCA while the people answering the phones and writing articles had no idea bout it.
Warning: this site gives a whole new meaning to "Flash heavy."
They have a non-flash site if you need to complete this training and receive your certificate and you can't have flash. Not sure how they are running the audio but that's available as well.
I gotta admit it's not as entertaining as the zoom down into the city flash animation when instead of that you get:
Screen 1 of 48. Screen title, Intro. A block in any city, U S A. The camera zooms into a bank A T M. The A T M screen reads, no funds available. The camera zooms into another A T M, and again, no funds are available. Cut to an office in a building. Camera zooms into computer screen on desk. C N N website is on screen, displaying news headlines that support audio. Camera zooms to P D A on desk. P D A displays news headlines that support audio. Camera zooms to fax machine. Document on machine displays news headlines that support audio.
Also, you might encounter some problems with words and acronyms that are pronounced like IA (Information Assurance)
Screen 4 of 48. Screen title, What is I Ay? Image of worker at desk with computer. The computer monitor displays a warning ...
If you were pouring the concrete, why didn't you put it outside of the concrete? You would probably incur less structural risk ... although I doubt a pipe that small would have much effect. More and more people are building new houses with geothermal exchange to help mitigate costs in heating and cooling.
Of starcraft 2 with time travel. game starts, then "nuclear launch detected" with a blinking red light on your command center.
According to what I saw in the first video, this wouldn't be possible. Rather, you are able to fight in the past that has real influences on your present but you aren't able to truly fight your opponent when they are starting out. On top of that, you can see where your opponent is in your time stream. And on top of that, you can speed up how fast you flow through time. Since most RTS's are based on reaction time (hence the title of the genre), it becomes very obvious to me that the default strategy is to get into the game and crank your speed up as fast as it will go. Then beat your opponent to your resource rich future and send units back in time. Always fight as far back in the past as you can.
Of course, they limit how far back you can go and how much influence you have in the past but this is a new balance that would make for interesting game play. I have a feeling that my above observations are learned early on in the learning curve.
But in your scenario, you would both be in the future launching nuclear warheads on each other in the past. I doubt this game will include such far reaching weapons for the simple fact of confusing alternate realities.
They didn't address what happens if you constantly send the same unit back in time from multiple points in your stream to generate an army at one point. I guess the 'update waves' are a function to control that.
Unlikely, but scary.
Your fears are not unfounded. As someone who has had "e-mail forensics" done on his company's MS Exchange during an investigation of a coworker, I can assure you that while it may not be something that you've done to trigger this it does happen. And nobody wants to be in a compromising position should their relationship with their employer goes bad.
So your solution is simple: send him an e-mail explaining that this new laptop is going to function as your main personal laptop with family photos and videos and whatnot. Tell him that you'd love to accept the $1,250 as an award or included with your next paycheck as special compensation but the laptop won't be inventoried or tagged by the company. Make it clear it's your property and not a company asset. Offer to bring in the invoice for him to look at if he's concerned you're buying a car with it instead and get it in writing. If you get the money awarded to you to do with as you see fit but you have an informal agreement that this will go toward your personal laptop, everything should be fine.
Is to try to overrule the verdict of the scientific community because that verdict is going to reduce many business's profit margins and put some of them out of business.
Let's not beat around the bush and cut straight to the chase: they want the court to rule in favor of either economic well being or environmental well being. It's no coincidence to me that this hand is being forced as our country comes out of a lengthy and somewhat painful recession and the people in power now many nod toward the environment unlike the people in power for the past eight years. It's not that the commerce people "don't like it" ... it's more so that it has a very measurable effect on them and everyone knows it.
As presiding judge over Slashdot Court and after hearing the above testimonies from expert witnesses, I hereby order the environment to remain at least three hundred feet away from all businesses and places of commerce. Failure to do so will result in a one hundred dollar fine to mother nature and her related entities.
*bangs gavel*
The "virus"mentioned in the screen shot isn't much of a virus. It's a trojan that only installs if you're stupid enough ...
I could put Ubuntu on a netbook and give it to my sister and she'd have no clue how to use it. But you can bet every last cent that if the source code to a virus was presented to her she would have it compiled (with all the right flags set to target her correct OSX version) and installed in a few minutes. It's borderline magic. Did you know they have LimeWire on Macs now? She managed to find that, install it and learn how to use it on her own but didn't have a clue as to how to move pictures from her old Windows machine to her MacBook. If only curing cancer compromised your computer, she'd have that done in a heart beat.
I knew she would be better off with a mac but your statement of "anybody who uses a Mac knows" makes me cringe. Bottom line: do not underestimate stupidity.
laughing @Slashdot eldavojohn watches the last journalistic integrity ebb #apple #mac #antivirus #snowleopard #security
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Having completed reading your first newsletter (posted above), I found it vapid and devoid of the call to Microsoftalypse that I look for in all the periodicals I read (most notably my own newsletter entitled eldavojohn's Microsoftalypse that has a staggeringly high readership of a one eldavojohn of Slashdot.org).
Furthermore, to my horror, I noticed it was sent using an account from a hotmail.com address. Considering this datum, I found your footnote warning eerily apt. I shall post a scathing review of your newsletter (seven times longer than necessary) under the guise of frequent and unquestioned Slashdot contributor Bennett Haselton on the morrow. Good day, sir!
In fact, you can barrow someone's 64 bit disk ...
Barrow:
A mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves.
Your plan to put 64 bit copies of Windows in the ground and cover them with grave stones and dirt intrigues me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
If your contribution is indeed impartial ...
Sounds like someone needs to visit the Ignore all rules article which is approved policy for editing the English Wikipedia.
For one, this "control freak" measure can be used, for example, to prevent mad scientologists ...
In fact, in their section on how to break all the rules, they teach the right and wrong ways to push your agenda:
"2% of their profits" isn't something you could possibly know. They are claiming that cutting the players reduced their system load by 20%, so the loss of 2% of their revenues might have been offset by lower per user costs and increased their profits, even if they never make it up new users.
It's likely that you were just being sloppy, but what does that matter?
So you're telling me that on that day, on June 22nd, they sold 20% of the servers they had bought and they cut 20% of their jobs that maintained them? You might be able to convince me that they experienced a small immediate savings in power or that in the future months to come they had to purchase less servers than they would have initially. But on June 22nd, they cut their subscriptions by 2% in one day. That's an immediate effect, how they come back from that can be done in many ways including reduced server growth and job cuts. But on that day, no matter how you cut it, their profits were reduced by 2% ... nothing "sloppy" about saying that. I guess gamers always manage to find a way to be ungrateful.
They shouldn't pat themselves on the back too hard over this. The playerbase has been pushing for it for years.
I don't play the game, but these guys just forfeited 2% of their profits. And you're saying "about time"?
Knowingly cutting that kind of revenue requires more than balls, my friend. That requires the confidence that doing this is going to bring at least that 2% back. That it does not scare away more that are exploiting that haven't been caught. These guys took a chance for ideals of the players. There should be nothing but kudos from the community and an understanding that they have your best interests in mind despite scandals in the past.
I applaud their efforts and found the analysis of "unholy rage" more extensive than anything I've ever seen an MMO release. It almost makes me want to pick up the game and see what it's about. The only thing holding me back is that I have heard it's quite monotonous at first.
Give it to my sister. If her laptop and last five cell phones are any indication, it'll end up with vodka dumped on it after a party or smashed to pieces in the middle of the street or even at the bottom of a toilet in a club. You would never believe how frequently that last one happens.
... aw, who am I kidding, this is Slashdot.
I swear jean designers are in cahoots with cell phone manufacturers. Just slip your hard drive into the back pocket of a girl in a night club wearing tight jeans
The average welding torch, meanwhile, is a fully paid-up member of the "life-threatening but enormously enjoyable" club - and there's no denying that a 3,000-degree flame would reduce the average hard disk platter to a pool of reflective liquid quicker than you could say "data protection". It's a superb suggestion from Steve, who also put forward the angle grinder for consideration. We're worried about him.
A not as messy method might be a spot welder. They go by different names but my dad's shop used to have a nice adjustable Miller spot welder that would function great for sheet metal work. Anyway, I can envision a homemade spot welder (very trivial to make) with a stand around it and two wooden 2' by 2' pieces of plywood with a handle grip sticking up and two hard drive holes counter sunk with a quarter inch lip to hold each drive (for 3.5" and 2.5" drives). Place the hard drive in the selected hole and clamp your spot welder on it and go to town. Mark your initials in it and you should have a pretty solid drive with no mess, no metal shreds laying around, no flying debris or sparks and probably easier to store/recycle/transport. Man, I wish I didn't live in the city and had a wood and metal machine shop.
In regards to server and mechanics development: What are the biggest deficiencies you see in new hires and college grads? Are there any paradigms in the game development professional world that game and graphics courses in college don't seem to cover? When a new developer starts, what are the basic things you teach them first? Do you ever have to take time unlearning things that are pervasive in say, web development? Are there any patterns or architectural paradigms that hold importance above all else in online games?
In regards to the artists of graphics and world design and modeling: What are the biggest deficiencies you see in new hires and college grads? Is the "art" aspects of your games something that can be learned or do you have a few talented visionaries driving the group? I've been impressed with the mood in Diablo and the beautiful scenery in certain areas of World of Warcraft. Is that a single person at work or a large group adding a little brush stroke to the whole painting?
To the World of Warcraft team: your work is censored in China. Is this negative or an unavoidable necessity? Does it ever bother you on a personal level that you slave over skeletons and zombies and stories involving them only to have 1/5 of the world relegated to some modified version of your work? Would you rather error on the side of cultural sensitivity? I had heard rumors that panda-like characters will never be in World of Warcraft due to them being a cherished icon of China. Is it true that real world politics play a role in what you do and don't do in your game? Do you ever feel restricted or cautious because of this? Do you ever find yourself musing on how great a scenario or character would be but then reject it because so-and-so would have a field day in court with it?
To the planning divisions of all teams: My coworker and I love every single one of your games. But we don't love your release dates. We'd almost appreciate it if there was no release date until you know 100% about it. Your delays vary wildly and have lead both of us to be extremely dubious even when we hear reports like Starcraft II delayed until 2010. We've taken to an X-Files approach: Trust No One. Lest you get your hopes dashed. Why are release dates given when they almost always get pushed back? Is this something you just have to do so marketing has time to hype? Is there any effort to fix these estimation problems? Why aren't you assigning a larger variance and learning from past experiences by now?
I understand this happens by and large everywhere in software development but you guys are epitome of online games. If you can't give solid release dates, no one can.
Assuming Diablo/Starcraft are going to be on this, what are you doing to fix, improve, update, solidify Battle.net? Last I heard, we can't use Starcraft II on a LAN so how are you going to ensure us that Battle.net is valid replacement in terms of speed, security and reliability? Will Battle.net be completely redone from what it was in the Diablo days?
To the World of Warcraft team, I have been playing the expansion but largely left the World of Warcraft in search of something else after frustration from reduced effort to level. This isn't a new trend, I recall experience received from quests being increased for certain level ranges. This is, of course, a tactic to entice new players. But it has by and large been a very negative turn for the game. I feel that your recruit a friend program is also quite negative to existing players as I have coworkers who can mill out two level sixties in two or three weekends if they can borrow another person's account.
Have you seen any other negative feedback about this? Has anyone complained? You sit as the largest online game, is growth really so important that game mecahnics need to be changed to entice new players?
In my honest opinion, you are selling yourselves short. The players see less quest content now because of increased experience. While they get to end content faster, they pass up a lot of areas and beautiful terrain just purely because they don't have to go there. What does the future hold as you strive to cut out content? The ability to start at level (current expansion cap - 20)?
So the spec is complete, but were not gonna tell you what it says!
Doesn't make sense!
The article says they're working on getting it to be backward compliant with the current PCIe specs. You probably don't want to start building to the spec until that's in place anyway. You can find a lot of information on PCIe 3.0 on the FAQ on their site. If you're a member of PCI SIG, you might even be able to get the preliminary spec, who knows?