I have actually considered going to Japan and teaching English, so let me ask you: Is there no way you can teach the normal slow lesson plan, but engage the other students with practice talk in the mean time?
It seems to me that it would get ALL the students familiar with how English sounds, would give practice to those who are actively interested, and would encourage the rest of them to want to learn enough to participate.
There will always be some that can't be reached, but I have to wonder if there's not ways to encourage the rest like this.
"exactly how does one safely rebel against a system where the real "bad guys" hold all the cards"
By refusing to play the game. I mean that literally and figuratively both, in this instance. Just like nuclear war, the only way to win is not to play.
If you buy the DRMd game, you encourage their behavior. If you pirate the game, you are breaking the law. (Not to mention doing something that's immoral/unethical.) If you do both, you've got both bad points. If you do neither, they lose revenue and all you miss out on is one of the games this year. Not a real big deal with so much other entertainment to pick from, including making your own entertainment. (Which is easier than ever, these days.)
Your main problem is that not everyone objects strongly enough, or has the sense to know what they are encouraging. Either way, they continue to buy the games and the company's revenue isn't decreased by much.
Personally, I actually ended up choosing another option by default: Play on consoles instead of PCs. They're DRM'd to the hilt, too, but at least it never gets in my way. It never trashes my computer or causes a game not to work or to work poorly. PC game developers are complaining about the PC market dwindling, but don't realize they are causing it themselves. The need for constantly better hardware along with asinine DRM is shrinking it constantly. I'm sure there are other factors as well, but those 2 are the most complained about.
I've got a third reason: They are sick of having their favorite software not be supported when the new version of their OS comes out.
I won't deny that it happens in Linux, too, but I've seen a lot more niche software just go belly-up when a new OS comes out than Open Source software. And at least the OS software, a user can fix it if the original developer doesn't want to.
In fact, I had something like this happen not too long ago with a fractal generator... There was a new version for Linux of it, but no Windows version. My friend has an irrational hatred of Linux and wanted the Windows version. So I set up the compile environment and compiled the new one for Windows. For a closed-source program, this just wouldn't have been possible.
I actually do that. Whenever I'm up against something that isn't 100% clear, I'll put a series of comments that describe what's going to happen and then fill in the code.
Most of the time the comments change, but it definitely helps keep things clear... Especially if people in the office have a tendency to interrupt while you're trying to think.
My personal 'usable' lower limit is 15 fps. So everyone is different and telling them not to bother if it doesn't hit your personal limit is pointless.
I always thought those were from assholes that like to piss everyone off. They just put their filth in random 'clean' groups to pollute them, not for any real reason. Just like griefers in games, they have no reason other than just to piss people off.
It's not so hard. I met a woman who had an unreasonable fear/hatred of pornography. She had never seen any, and would not even consider that it isn't unhealthy. Everything about it was obviously wrong to her.
It wasn't religion, either... She didn't go to church or anything.
So all you have to do is find someone completely nuts and there you go. I've seen quite a few court cases on the net that fit the bill for 'completely nuts puritanical judge'.
And your solution is... For the 'casual developers' to get together and make an alternative?
You're insulting the developers of X (including everyone who -could- do it, if they chose) and then telling those very same people that they need to get to work and make a completely new system that does basically the same thing.
How the hell did you get modded insightful on that?
They can only produce so many at a time. The article is claiming that they are shipping them mostly to Europe because they'll get more profit per item there, while the supply is limited. Once the supply can meet the demand in Europe, they'll start shipping a LOT more to the US.
Of course, that's only if you actually believe this is why it happened. This is a single incident that has no official word from the company... It's just something wild-ass guess that everyone is taking as fact.
Why would you think the lowest tier of service is appropriate for you? It's obviously meant for granny who uses the internet only on Sundays.
Try the 40GB one instead... You think you can use up that bandwidth with EQ or WoW? Even if you erased the game and re-downloaded every week, I doubt you'd manage 40GB in a month. (I don't know if you can actually do that on EQ or WoW, but you can on Guild Wars.)
I think that's their point. They state that 5% of their users use 50% of the bandwidth. They -want- to drive the users (aka 'Abusers'*) away that use so much bandwidth. This whole plan is designed to leave their regular users alone while driving off the abusers.
Their mistake lies in the fact that those abusers are the techies, and the techies recommend things to all the non-techies. And in addition, tv-over-internet is going to be more and more common, so it won't be 5% doing the 50% soon... It'll be a lot more evenly spread. As if that weren't enough, those media content providers will be very ticked that they are losing customers because of practices like this, and the proverbial feces will hit the fan from that side, too.
* I know, I was called one 15 years ago for the same reason... I was #3 on that service at the time. I left, and convinced others to leave as well... And they don't exist now.
Agreed. I just set up my DIR-655's QoS the other day and the different is amazing. I used to be able to upload 30K/s max (half my line speed). Any more, and I couldn't browse the web at a reasonable speed.
After setting up the QoS (it's supposed to be automatic, but the odd nature of BitTorrent seems to confuse it) I can now upload 55K/s and still browse the web fine. I tried 60K/s, but it appears that is just too much. Even the torrents cap out at 59K/s total.
That's personal preference. I've been (trying) to use KPDF and XPDF for a while now and they lack features. KPDF won't print an A4 shrunk down to Letter size, and XPDF is ugly as hell. As the Adobe Reader for Linux works and looks fine, I find myself using it after all to view PDFs in Linux. I haven't been using it more than a week now, but I haven't found any features that are missing from it.
No, it doesn't need to be buggy. Complicated and feature-loaded will do the same thing. The average business-class computer user can -not- configure his/her own system. That's why they buy the support package.
Even if they've got an on-staff tech guy, it's likely he doesn't know -everything- and will eventually have to reach out for support. The options are to let him flail around on live systems and try fixes that he found on random websites, or buy a support package and make sure he's got the best chance to fix it quickly and properly.
Exactly. And if a legit company tells them 'Go fsck yourself.' and they get DoS'd, Media Defender will have even more criminal charges against them. I hope other companies refuse to answer when MD asks them, so this will happen over and over.
Actually, he said the addon modules, not the game itself. They've been pirated, too, though. It really didn't work, the modules were just so lame that not many people bothered stealing them.
First, I can't believe they've never heard of Bit Torrent. They're actively asking for mirrors because they are overloaded. -sigh-
Second, why all the irrationality on here? This -does- serve a purpose for some people. I prefer Quanta Plus as my web IDE and as far as I know, there isn't a version that runs on windows yet. I'm hoping someone will make it run on KDE4-Win soon and save me the hassle of something like this.
But even once I get that, there are other apps that I'll want to be able to run (or test!) in Linux, even if I'm actually in Windows at the time.
I just bought a tablet PC and as much as I love Kubuntu, tablets and tablet PCs do not run well with Linux. I'm not going to sacrifice functionality that I already have just to run Linux, but I would prefer that 'free' (as in speech) software run on it as well. Lemme say that again more clearly: I should be free to run it on any operating system I choose.
You just managed to say the same thing as the guy above you, but with less understanding and more condescension.
In case you didn't notice, 'furii-taimaazu' is 'free timers' and 'furiita' is 'freeters'. It's not japanese, it's a load word from english that's been shortened japanese-style.
Or a hardware issue. If the hardware is bad and software manages to push it over the edge, it might crash other software at the same time.
It's been a -long- time since anything other than compiz crashed Xorg for me. (I've got onboard Intel video, and trying to run an opengl game with compiz is instant crash.)
That's not to say it's not happening solely in software for him, but just because Xorg crashes doesn't mean Xorg has a bug.
You can't give directions to someone that doesn't know where they are going. It's like he said 'I want to go to a restaurant' but refused to give you any further information. You can tell him about the area restaurants until you're blue in the face without any guarantee you'll talk about one that he'll like.
If he doesn't know what's wrong with giving access to the database, he -is- lost. He's looking for logic to back up his gut feeling.
Baen does indeed have some really good stuff. I went through a goodly portion of their free library, and then decided to buy some of the few sequels that weren't free yet. (I say yet because most were already free, and at least one of the ones I paid for is now free... I haven't checked since then, though.)
After that, I started taking chances on their 'webscriptions' and was very pleased. They've gotten quite a bit of money from me since then. Only 1 month so far as been more disappointing than good. I'll be throwing them more money in the future.
As far as 'good' and 'mediocre' go, I agree with you. However, a truly great and intuitive interface wouldn't need documentation hardly at all. It would be so easy to use, and everything so obvious that nobody would ever look at the documentation.
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I have actually considered going to Japan and teaching English, so let me ask you: Is there no way you can teach the normal slow lesson plan, but engage the other students with practice talk in the mean time?
It seems to me that it would get ALL the students familiar with how English sounds, would give practice to those who are actively interested, and would encourage the rest of them to want to learn enough to participate.
There will always be some that can't be reached, but I have to wonder if there's not ways to encourage the rest like this.
"exactly how does one safely rebel against a system where the real "bad guys" hold all the cards"
By refusing to play the game. I mean that literally and figuratively both, in this instance. Just like nuclear war, the only way to win is not to play.
If you buy the DRMd game, you encourage their behavior.
If you pirate the game, you are breaking the law. (Not to mention doing something that's immoral/unethical.)
If you do both, you've got both bad points.
If you do neither, they lose revenue and all you miss out on is one of the games this year. Not a real big deal with so much other entertainment to pick from, including making your own entertainment. (Which is easier than ever, these days.)
Your main problem is that not everyone objects strongly enough, or has the sense to know what they are encouraging. Either way, they continue to buy the games and the company's revenue isn't decreased by much.
Personally, I actually ended up choosing another option by default: Play on consoles instead of PCs. They're DRM'd to the hilt, too, but at least it never gets in my way. It never trashes my computer or causes a game not to work or to work poorly. PC game developers are complaining about the PC market dwindling, but don't realize they are causing it themselves. The need for constantly better hardware along with asinine DRM is shrinking it constantly. I'm sure there are other factors as well, but those 2 are the most complained about.
I've got a third reason: They are sick of having their favorite software not be supported when the new version of their OS comes out.
I won't deny that it happens in Linux, too, but I've seen a lot more niche software just go belly-up when a new OS comes out than Open Source software. And at least the OS software, a user can fix it if the original developer doesn't want to.
In fact, I had something like this happen not too long ago with a fractal generator... There was a new version for Linux of it, but no Windows version. My friend has an irrational hatred of Linux and wanted the Windows version. So I set up the compile environment and compiled the new one for Windows. For a closed-source program, this just wouldn't have been possible.
I actually do that. Whenever I'm up against something that isn't 100% clear, I'll put a series of comments that describe what's going to happen and then fill in the code.
Most of the time the comments change, but it definitely helps keep things clear... Especially if people in the office have a tendency to interrupt while you're trying to think.
Actually, I've never met her. How did I miss out on that?
Seriously, though... We don't know her, we know OF her. That's a HUGE difference.
My personal 'usable' lower limit is 15 fps. So everyone is different and telling them not to bother if it doesn't hit your personal limit is pointless.
I always thought those were from assholes that like to piss everyone off. They just put their filth in random 'clean' groups to pollute them, not for any real reason. Just like griefers in games, they have no reason other than just to piss people off.
It's not so hard. I met a woman who had an unreasonable fear/hatred of pornography. She had never seen any, and would not even consider that it isn't unhealthy. Everything about it was obviously wrong to her.
It wasn't religion, either... She didn't go to church or anything.
So all you have to do is find someone completely nuts and there you go. I've seen quite a few court cases on the net that fit the bill for 'completely nuts puritanical judge'.
And your solution is... For the 'casual developers' to get together and make an alternative?
You're insulting the developers of X (including everyone who -could- do it, if they chose) and then telling those very same people that they need to get to work and make a completely new system that does basically the same thing.
How the hell did you get modded insightful on that?
You forgot z:number of units available.
They can only produce so many at a time. The article is claiming that they are shipping them mostly to Europe because they'll get more profit per item there, while the supply is limited. Once the supply can meet the demand in Europe, they'll start shipping a LOT more to the US.
Of course, that's only if you actually believe this is why it happened. This is a single incident that has no official word from the company... It's just something wild-ass guess that everyone is taking as fact.
Why would you think the lowest tier of service is appropriate for you? It's obviously meant for granny who uses the internet only on Sundays.
Try the 40GB one instead... You think you can use up that bandwidth with EQ or WoW? Even if you erased the game and re-downloaded every week, I doubt you'd manage 40GB in a month. (I don't know if you can actually do that on EQ or WoW, but you can on Guild Wars.)
I think that's their point. They state that 5% of their users use 50% of the bandwidth. They -want- to drive the users (aka 'Abusers'*) away that use so much bandwidth. This whole plan is designed to leave their regular users alone while driving off the abusers.
Their mistake lies in the fact that those abusers are the techies, and the techies recommend things to all the non-techies. And in addition, tv-over-internet is going to be more and more common, so it won't be 5% doing the 50% soon... It'll be a lot more evenly spread. As if that weren't enough, those media content providers will be very ticked that they are losing customers because of practices like this, and the proverbial feces will hit the fan from that side, too.
* I know, I was called one 15 years ago for the same reason... I was #3 on that service at the time. I left, and convinced others to leave as well... And they don't exist now.
"1 megabit-month = 3600 sec per hr * 24 hrs * 30 days / 8 bits per byte = 324 gigabytes"
So, 1 megabit-month = 324 gigabytes? Huh? I'm not sure what you were trying to do there, but your 'math' is screwy.
Agreed. I just set up my DIR-655's QoS the other day and the different is amazing. I used to be able to upload 30K/s max (half my line speed). Any more, and I couldn't browse the web at a reasonable speed.
After setting up the QoS (it's supposed to be automatic, but the odd nature of BitTorrent seems to confuse it) I can now upload 55K/s and still browse the web fine. I tried 60K/s, but it appears that is just too much. Even the torrents cap out at 59K/s total.
That's personal preference. I've been (trying) to use KPDF and XPDF for a while now and they lack features. KPDF won't print an A4 shrunk down to Letter size, and XPDF is ugly as hell. As the Adobe Reader for Linux works and looks fine, I find myself using it after all to view PDFs in Linux. I haven't been using it more than a week now, but I haven't found any features that are missing from it.
No, it doesn't need to be buggy. Complicated and feature-loaded will do the same thing. The average business-class computer user can -not- configure his/her own system. That's why they buy the support package.
Even if they've got an on-staff tech guy, it's likely he doesn't know -everything- and will eventually have to reach out for support. The options are to let him flail around on live systems and try fixes that he found on random websites, or buy a support package and make sure he's got the best chance to fix it quickly and properly.
Exactly. And if a legit company tells them 'Go fsck yourself.' and they get DoS'd, Media Defender will have even more criminal charges against them. I hope other companies refuse to answer when MD asks them, so this will happen over and over.
Actually, he said the addon modules, not the game itself. They've been pirated, too, though. It really didn't work, the modules were just so lame that not many people bothered stealing them.
First, I can't believe they've never heard of Bit Torrent. They're actively asking for mirrors because they are overloaded. -sigh-
Second, why all the irrationality on here? This -does- serve a purpose for some people. I prefer Quanta Plus as my web IDE and as far as I know, there isn't a version that runs on windows yet. I'm hoping someone will make it run on KDE4-Win soon and save me the hassle of something like this.
But even once I get that, there are other apps that I'll want to be able to run (or test!) in Linux, even if I'm actually in Windows at the time.
I just bought a tablet PC and as much as I love Kubuntu, tablets and tablet PCs do not run well with Linux. I'm not going to sacrifice functionality that I already have just to run Linux, but I would prefer that 'free' (as in speech) software run on it as well. Lemme say that again more clearly: I should be free to run it on any operating system I choose.
This helps support that freedom, and I like it.
You just managed to say the same thing as the guy above you, but with less understanding and more condescension.
In case you didn't notice, 'furii-taimaazu' is 'free timers' and 'furiita' is 'freeters'. It's not japanese, it's a load word from english that's been shortened japanese-style.
Or a hardware issue. If the hardware is bad and software manages to push it over the edge, it might crash other software at the same time.
It's been a -long- time since anything other than compiz crashed Xorg for me. (I've got onboard Intel video, and trying to run an opengl game with compiz is instant crash.)
That's not to say it's not happening solely in software for him, but just because Xorg crashes doesn't mean Xorg has a bug.
You can't give directions to someone that doesn't know where they are going. It's like he said 'I want to go to a restaurant' but refused to give you any further information. You can tell him about the area restaurants until you're blue in the face without any guarantee you'll talk about one that he'll like.
If he doesn't know what's wrong with giving access to the database, he -is- lost. He's looking for logic to back up his gut feeling.
You are correct that there is no 'monthly' fee, but there IS a monthly offering (webscriptions) and that's what he meant by a 'monthly fee'.
Once you are hooked on Baen, it's more like a monthly fee than books you purchase when you want. Hehe.
Baen does indeed have some really good stuff. I went through a goodly portion of their free library, and then decided to buy some of the few sequels that weren't free yet. (I say yet because most were already free, and at least one of the ones I paid for is now free... I haven't checked since then, though.)
After that, I started taking chances on their 'webscriptions' and was very pleased. They've gotten quite a bit of money from me since then. Only 1 month so far as been more disappointing than good. I'll be throwing them more money in the future.
As far as 'good' and 'mediocre' go, I agree with you. However, a truly great and intuitive interface wouldn't need documentation hardly at all. It would be so easy to use, and everything so obvious that nobody would ever look at the documentation.