I would imagine that Google could easily expand their caching technology to facilitate the preservation of everything everyone has to say on the internet.
I can understand where the Libraries are coming from. In an effort to chronicle the growth of human culture they keep archives of literature, periodicals and most other media, so why not the internet?
4Chan is just a community. Sure it is full of immature people who participate in illicit and often illegal activity, but the last time I checked, Verizon is not the enforcers of Federal, State or Local law in any jurisdiction. If Verizon thinks that members of 4Chan are participating in illegal activities on American soil, then they are well within their rights (as far as I know) to present their information to the proper authorities who can then take action.
Of course this will raise the usual "Your Rights Online" discussions about whether it is legal or a breech of privacy for Verizon to release that information.
Nonetheless, you can't have Net Neutrality and then kick 4Chan off the internet. It just doesn't work that way (except in China).
But what if you want to PLAY GAMES and WATCH MOVIES?!?!?!
Then what will you do? Will you buy a movie player and buy a gaming console. I had a similar question when I wanted a portable gaming system and I wanted an MP3 player that could display images and play video.
Then the Playstation Portable solved my dilemma.
Why should you go out and buy multiple tools to do the job of one tool, it's inefficient.
Evolution, the way Darwin described it, does not continue in the human race. Darwin's model of evolution is a science of "Natural Selection." This is otherwise known as "survival of the fittest".
Humans are not a people who promote this concept. We put our sick in hospitals, we extend the lives of the terminally ill, we allow people with disease to live, we pay taxes to aid the disabled.
I am not against any of these things. They are the morally right thing to do.
However, they inhibit evolution. By allowing people with genetic disorders or family histories of genetic disorders to procreate and pass on their traits we are destroying Natural Selection.
People who are blind recieve disability pay. Animals who are blind (and normally aren't) get killed and eaten.
People who can't walk get special privileges to help make their daily lives more manageable. Animals who can't travel under there own power get killed and eaten.
People who have genetic disabilites such as Parkinsons, Epilepsy, and Cerberal Palsy, or family histories of disease e.g. Diabetes, High Cholestorol, Heart Problems get taken care of in medical treatment facilities largely funded by tax money.
Animals with genetic disabilities or disease get... you guessed it... killed and eaten.
Animals follow the path of Survival of the Fittest evolution, humans do everything we can to hinder that process. We do not evolve the way Darwin explained it. We evolve emotionally, culturally, and technologically, but not physically. This may be the ultimate downfall of mankind as diseases like the Avian Flu and Cancer are simply too much for our weak bodies to handle. Diseases and Viruses continue to evolve physically leaving us in the dust.
Stem Cell research needs to make up for our lack of physical evolution by finding cures to diseases that will otherwise cause the extinction of our race.
Have you people ever even heard of MICROSOFT? You know, the company that dupes all of its users into buying their software for extraordinary prices and then forces them to only use other software they produce with it?
Windows XP Pro costs $200. You need that to run your PC. It's either Windows or Linux and most people opt for the former and shell out the $$$ for it.
Microsoft is the company that forces all its software upon you when you purchase a Dell or an HP. They're the company that makes you agree to an EULA simply by opening the packaging to read the EULA you've just committed to. You never even read it? How can that work? You can't even view the EULAs on Microsoft's website without searching deep into the network. Microsoft is the company that makes all its software (Windows, IE, Office) work very well together but provides security holes for hackers to destroy your machine with.
Microsoft is the company that fought an Antitrust lawsuit in America and in Europe. An Antitrust Lawsuit means they were accused of essentially being an Evil Empire but now everyone is so quick to forget about this and lash at the throat of SONY who did nothing but give you all the Playstation 2.
Sony put some game importer out of business. Microsoft has put countless software companies out of business or bought them out.
Sony is pricing the Playstation 3 at ~$600. Microsoft will be charging about half as much for Windows Vista which is just a piece of Software.
Sony has made a lot of mistakes in the past year, but this is no reason to jump onto the Microsoft Bandwagon because if you look at the big picture Microsoft has always been an Evil Empire and Sony is just having some problems.
Television does earn more than this, but not by very much. NBC is expecting a revenue of ~$12 Billion USD this year which is only $2 Billion more than the gaming industry made two years ago.
The Gaming Industry is quickly overtaking all other forms of entertainment as far as revenue is concerned. Whether or not that reflects the percentage of the population playing games vs. watching tv is a question I don't have the answer to.
According to Friday's update from NASA, everything on the ISS is fine and dandy. The station is operating on 3 of the gyro's which is A-OK because it can work on 2 if necessary.
The situation is being assessed but things continue to progress. Other "minor" problems include the fact that the Russian Oxygen generator has stopped working as well.
Someone mentioned the Tax issue above and this falls under the same logic. The US government taxes companies such as Blizzard, Sony of America, etc. They also tax companies such as EBay.
This is because all of those companies are American and then pass the buck to the user in the form of monthly fees (MMOs) and service charges (EBay).
Since all of those companies have to turn over a portion of their profits to the gov't they don't care what kind of gambling shenanigans are taking place in their games.
Since online gambling sites are predominantly offshore, the gov't gets no slice of the proverbial pie and therefore insists that if they don't get dessert, then NO ONE gets dessert.
Although it seems logical to those of us with rational minds that:
A) The game has a 17+ Rating, you must be 17 to purchase and B) The kid was NOT 17 that C) The kid's guardians are at fault for providing him the game.
However, in the world of Jack Thompson it goes like this:
A) The game has a 17+ Rating, So it should have never been made to begin with. and B) The kid was NOT 17 so he's a completely innocent unscathed fragile human being therfore C) We blame the ESRB and the Game Shop owners for not properly regulating video games because parents in the midwest dont have time to make sure their children dont have guns. They're too busy drinking, voting for republicans, and beating their children for not cleaning the barn quick enough.
I think there needs to be a compromise between the current system of watching movies of the game and the proposed system of having the ESRB play games in their entirety. I know, I know, heaven forbid anyone propose a compromise instead of just forcing one extreme or the other.
Why can't the gaming companies suggest a rating for their game (within reason)? When Nintendo puts out a new Mario game or EA puts out the next Madden game, they have a very good idea of what the rating on the game is. There is precedent and there are obvious reasons for this.
Games that are suggested to be T or M will need to be more thoroughly reviewed by the ESRB. If you look at the numbers there is really a small percentage of video games produced annually that fall into these categories. This way the ESRB doesn't have to play through every new DDR Song, all the Side Scrollers, and heaven forbid they have to play Reader Rabbit.
[I have a good mental image of a big testing lab at the ESRB HQ with men in lab coats playing DDR and some middle-aged women rigorously testing Reader Rabbit to make sure it really is acceptable for All Ages]
Every NASA mission and research endeavor has an incredible Return on Investment that far outweighs the risks. The Space Station is no exception. Especially when you consider NASA's goal of putting an orbiting station around the Moon and returning humans to our Lunar satellite within 15 years of now.
While museums, planetariums, and all the other "pet projects" listed are indeed worthy choices for funding, this is a situation where if you have X dollars and X+Y projects to spend them on, go find Y more dollars.
Is 59,000 Accounts enough to make a dent in WoW? Is 2,000 enough in FFXI? Is a lesson really learned here?
The latest reports cite WoW having 6.5 Million Accounts. FFXI has 500,000. The average account in FFXI has 3.4 characters. I haven't seen an official number for WoW but I know the max is 50 characters per account. Lets say each account has 5, on average. (I could be pulling that out of nowhere)
So Blizzard gets rid of almost 1% of its population and Square dumps half of that, relatively. The general consensus in both games is that there are much more than 1% of the players engaging in RMT or Using 3rd Party Tools. In FFXI (which is what I play most) the average player will tell you that at least 25% of the accounts engage in RMT. This may not be the truth but its how most people feel. I'm sure the sentiment in WoW is similar.
If 25% of accounts do engage in RMT then Blizzard and Square have managed to eliminate 2~4 % of the problem in their respective games. Imagine if your local police force only caught and punished 2~4 % of the crooks and thieves in your town.
Would that be an acceptable amount?
I don't think the lesson will be learned until these numbers increase drastically.
I'm not entirely sure how the economy is doing in EQ but I can tell you that Sony is indeed selling items for Everquest 2 on their website. http://eq2.stationexchange.com/ Also, I recall hearing Square-Enix announce that they will consider using a similar system in a future MMO, but retro-applying it to FFXI is out of the question.
Also, to defend FFXI here, they did not ban 2000 accounts for RMT, they banned 2000 accounts for using third-party tools that primarily allow players to move at much higher speeds through the game. For those of you who play WoW and don't have a reference, imagine your character's normal speed being that as if he were on a mount.
It gives the cheater a completely unfair advantage and thus warrants account ban/suspension.
Everyone, and by everyone I often mean stupid people, seems to be jumping on the "Its All The Oil Companies' Fault" bandwagon. Lets look at this logically people. If you were running a business, a multi-national conglomorate perhaps, you are in it to make money. Lots of money. More money than say, the Tobacco industry.
Now lets say in order to make that money you need a business plan. I'm not an economist or an accountant (maybe one can back me up on this) but I believe that a business plan that involves an outlook such as "in 50 years we will have no more product to sell, so we'll just belly up, close down all the factories, shut down the business, and call it quits".
Seem likely to you? Not to me. Oil companies are out there to make money. A lot of money. For a very long time. I would be highly surprised if they weren't already looking for ways to monopolize and corner the market for alternative fuel sources, especially the viable ones like Ethanol and others that are mentioned in abundance in comments below.
If they hated us and wanted to run their businesses into the ground like some people believe then why don't they charge us $4 a gallon? Why not $5 or $6. They run the fuel industry, not us. They do it because its a poor business strategy, and Oil is nothing but a big business.
Anyone who thinks that Robotics is not Computer Science has never actually worked with a robot. Robots encompass Mechanical Engineering, Computer Engineering, and Computer Science.
MechE provides the muscles, the bones, the skin, and the structure of the robot.
CompE provides the nervous system, the veins and arteries, the heart, and the hormones.
CompSci provides the brain.
Take any one of these disciplines away and the robot fails.
Good fun indeed. I've done similar projects. However I've always felt that AI that is rooted in an environment that is completely deterministic, such as another computer program, is not as challenging as putting a piece of software into the real world.
The "predators" you're staving off are also A.I. and therefore have the same limitations and adhere to the same rules. Try programming a robot to go out into the Amazon Jungle and evade true predators that have no hardware limitations on their thinking.
This is the application of A.I. that belongs in high level CompSci courses and in graduate work.
The Sony AIBO (before it was discontinued) cost $2,000. However, schools are allowed to buy them for educational purposes at a discounted price of ~$1,700. This is a robust platform, and not everyone needs one.
As far as personal robots goe, the B.O.E. Educational robots go for $100 ~ $500 depending on quality. The lower end is a little more pricey than your average new textbook.
At Lehigh University where I just finished up my B.S. in Computer Engineering I was able to take part in the creation and infusion of a robotics curriculum into our CompSci department. The response was incredibly positive. When we opened up our course catalogues one semester to find that "Real-Time Vision Processing for Autonomous Robots" would be a course offered along with "Mobile Robotics" and "Robocup" we were ecstatic.
Artificial Intelligence has always been a big seller in CompSci departments but it has been theoretical. Imagine taking an entry level course on C++ and not being able to write code on a computer. Theory without application has its limits. Robotics brings practical, observable results to the realm of A.I.
Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday the Engineering School invites prospective students to tour the labs. Part of their tour is the CompSci robotics lab. They are privy to demonstrations of work being done with the Sony AIBO and several other robots that were all made in the labs.
Needless to say that the biggest thrill for almost all the prospective students (and especially their parents) are the robots. They are simply enthralled by the thought that at our university we have computers that can (to an extent) think for themselves.
Computer Science as a college discipline has come to a point where departments that don't incorporate robotics soon will find their enrollment dwindling!
This almost comes back to a very key issue that revolves around the Patriot Act. That is whether or not Americans have a constitutional right to privacy. Most educated people can tell you that the US Constitution in no way, shape, or form ever gives its citizens a right to privacy.
There are some protections in the 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 9th ammendments to the constitution. In addition, several supreme court cases (contraception, interracial marriage, and abortion) have resulted in rulings that protect, to some level, a citizen's privacy.
So if you ask yourself, does the government have the right to search a private webserver for data specifically about you, you really need to ask, where did you get the right to make that information private.
I don't think its right, and I have written my congressman and senators telling them that a right to privacy needs to exist to combat the Patriot Act, but it's the way things are.
If you want a right to privacy move to Canada:
There is no explicit right to privacy in Canada's Constitution and Charter of Rights and Freedoms.[785] However, in interpreting Section 8 of the Charter, which grants the right to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure, Canada's courts have recognized an individual's right to a reasonable expectation of privacy.[786]
It seems to me that the possibilities for uses of this application of SOAP would be highly beneficial. My initial thought would be the ability to filter your Google searches so that websites that are potentially carrying MalWare are either flagged or not shown at all.
The 15% of sites that are reputable sites being attacked are the biggest threat. These are probably websites people visit often, and people should be warned. Perhaps even web browsers such as firefox and i.e. could incorporate the API into a toolbar and warn users before a dangerous site loads.
My only question is how long does it take for the API to verify the potential threat of a webserver? Is it fast enough for these applications to be feasible? No one wants to wait for their websites to load.
I think we'll easily see a lot of people going out and getting the system with Project Gotham Racing 3 and Madden '06 as their first two titles. They were very popular on the XBox and will most likely be so for the 360. Sports titles, remember, are still one of the dominant genres of console games and Madden is one of the most prominent of them.
I thought the traditional way to sell out your platform was to make a good system with good games. I believe it took several years for the PS2 to drop from $300. This isn't Nintendo we're talking about, who will just cut prices because it's Monday.
Do you have any evidence of the legality of such a system?
It seems this is a system that will be run through reserves anyways. In order to reserve a system you'll simply have to reserve two games as well. I suspect retailers will attempt to sell out through reserves only so they don't have to actually sell any systems when it releases. Then they can go back to normal business on the following day of selling systems and games.
All three of the next-gen systems will be online in one way or another, but I prefer the model Sony and Nintendo are using, which is much more relaxed and feels less forced.
The PS2 never felt like it had to be an online system nor does the Cube. The XBox however truly lends it self to Multiplayer games. Let's face it, single player modes in Halo and most of the Tom Clancy games were fairly lackluster in replay value and overall storylines. Sure they were fun, but paled in comparison to some of the stuff coming out on the other systems (Mario: Anything, for example).
The XBox games are almost dependant on the multiplayer modes. Developers seemed to have put far more effort into that end of the spectrum than on other systems and it's because Microsoft has encouraged it, if not forced it.
Sony leaves it up to the game developers to decide if they want to include internet capabilities for their games. They are the ones who should make the decisions anyways, and they are the ones who should define the client properties, not Sony.
Take FFXI for example. Squeenix provides the client for that, but I am wary to see how it will interact with XBox live. Who want's to listen to 9 year olds whining about chocolate milk while you're questing for your level cap.
This brings up another point: XBox Live has a very negative stigma of being dominated by immature and brash gamers, something that doesn't need to be explained but is worth mentioning.
In short, XBox Live caters to a specific type of gamer and a specific type of game genre, and if Sony doesn't want to go down that route it has nothing to do with the capabilities of their system.
Is this really so lofty of a goal for Mircrosoft to set for their new system. Retailers should have no issue finding 20 reservists for the system. This is similar to the numbers of reservists for most other consoles (XBox, GC, PS2) and is probably a very small portion of the consumer base for any given retailer.
Each customer must also purchase 2 games. It's obviously a given that everyone will be buying at least one game (Halo 3) and then why not any of the other promising titles that come out with the release. Most (if not all) gamers like to diversify their playing experience.
The big issue here is the money of course. The premium system already will run $400 and games (I haven't checked the exact price yet) will probably run the standard $50. Anyone who is going to shell out the $400 (or $300) for the system will probably manage to scrounge up another $100 for two games.
I'll be surprised if Microsoft doesn't manage to sell out the 360 on the first day.
Slashdot Mirror
I would imagine that Google could easily expand their caching technology to facilitate the preservation of everything everyone has to say on the internet. I can understand where the Libraries are coming from. In an effort to chronicle the growth of human culture they keep archives of literature, periodicals and most other media, so why not the internet?
4Chan is just a community. Sure it is full of immature people who participate in illicit and often illegal activity, but the last time I checked, Verizon is not the enforcers of Federal, State or Local law in any jurisdiction. If Verizon thinks that members of 4Chan are participating in illegal activities on American soil, then they are well within their rights (as far as I know) to present their information to the proper authorities who can then take action. Of course this will raise the usual "Your Rights Online" discussions about whether it is legal or a breech of privacy for Verizon to release that information. Nonetheless, you can't have Net Neutrality and then kick 4Chan off the internet. It just doesn't work that way (except in China).
But what if you want to PLAY GAMES and WATCH MOVIES?!?!?!
Then what will you do? Will you buy a movie player and buy a gaming console. I had a similar question when I wanted a portable gaming system and I wanted an MP3 player that could display images and play video.
Then the Playstation Portable solved my dilemma.
Why should you go out and buy multiple tools to do the job of one tool, it's inefficient.
Evolution, the way Darwin described it, does not continue in the human race. Darwin's model of evolution is a science of "Natural Selection." This is otherwise known as "survival of the fittest".
Humans are not a people who promote this concept. We put our sick in hospitals, we extend the lives of the terminally ill, we allow people with disease to live, we pay taxes to aid the disabled.
I am not against any of these things. They are the morally right thing to do.
However, they inhibit evolution. By allowing people with genetic disorders or family histories of genetic disorders to procreate and pass on their traits we are destroying Natural Selection.
People who are blind recieve disability pay. Animals who are blind (and normally aren't) get killed and eaten.
People who can't walk get special privileges to help make their daily lives more manageable. Animals who can't travel under there own power get killed and eaten.
People who have genetic disabilites such as Parkinsons, Epilepsy, and Cerberal Palsy, or family histories of disease e.g. Diabetes, High Cholestorol, Heart Problems get taken care of in medical treatment facilities largely funded by tax money.
Animals with genetic disabilities or disease get... you guessed it... killed and eaten.
Animals follow the path of Survival of the Fittest evolution, humans do everything we can to hinder that process. We do not evolve the way Darwin explained it. We evolve emotionally, culturally, and technologically, but not physically. This may be the ultimate downfall of mankind as diseases like the Avian Flu and Cancer are simply too much for our weak bodies to handle. Diseases and Viruses continue to evolve physically leaving us in the dust.
Stem Cell research needs to make up for our lack of physical evolution by finding cures to diseases that will otherwise cause the extinction of our race.
Have you people ever even heard of MICROSOFT? You know, the company that dupes all of its users into buying their software for extraordinary prices and then forces them to only use other software they produce with it?
Windows XP Pro costs $200. You need that to run your PC. It's either Windows or Linux and most people opt for the former and shell out the $$$ for it.
Microsoft is the company that forces all its software upon you when you purchase a Dell or an HP. They're the company that makes you agree to an EULA simply by opening the packaging to read the EULA you've just committed to. You never even read it? How can that work? You can't even view the EULAs on Microsoft's website without searching deep into the network. Microsoft is the company that makes all its software (Windows, IE, Office) work very well together but provides security holes for hackers to destroy your machine with.
Microsoft is the company that fought an Antitrust lawsuit in America and in Europe. An Antitrust Lawsuit means they were accused of essentially being an Evil Empire but now everyone is so quick to forget about this and lash at the throat of SONY who did nothing but give you all the Playstation 2.
Sony put some game importer out of business.
Microsoft has put countless software companies out of business or bought them out.
Sony is pricing the Playstation 3 at ~$600.
Microsoft will be charging about half as much for Windows Vista which is just a piece of Software.
Sony has made a lot of mistakes in the past year, but this is no reason to jump onto the Microsoft Bandwagon because if you look at the big picture Microsoft has always been an Evil Empire and Sony is just having some problems.
You are slightly inaccurate in your comparison of Movies/TV to Video Games.
c hi-0508230159aug23,1,6023554.story?coll=chi-leisur etempo-hed
This is from an old Chicago Tribune article:
"the video game industry rang up more than $9.9 billion in North America in 2004 versus Hollywood's North American box office of $9.4 billion" http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/
Television does earn more than this, but not by very much. NBC is expecting a revenue of ~$12 Billion USD this year which is only $2 Billion more than the gaming industry made two years ago.
The Gaming Industry is quickly overtaking all other forms of entertainment as far as revenue is concerned. Whether or not that reflects the percentage of the population playing games vs. watching tv is a question I don't have the answer to.
According to Friday's update from NASA, everything on the ISS is fine and dandy. The station is operating on 3 of the gyro's which is A-OK because it can work on 2 if necessary.
4 4_station_status.html
The situation is being assessed but things continue to progress. Other "minor" problems include the fact that the Russian Oxygen generator has stopped working as well.
http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2006/oct/HQ_SS060
Someone mentioned the Tax issue above and this falls under the same logic. The US government taxes companies such as Blizzard, Sony of America, etc. They also tax companies such as EBay.
This is because all of those companies are American and then pass the buck to the user in the form of monthly fees (MMOs) and service charges (EBay).
Since all of those companies have to turn over a portion of their profits to the gov't they don't care what kind of gambling shenanigans are taking place in their games.
Since online gambling sites are predominantly offshore, the gov't gets no slice of the proverbial pie and therefore insists that if they don't get dessert, then NO ONE gets dessert.
Although it seems logical to those of us with rational minds that:
A) The game has a 17+ Rating, you must be 17 to purchase
and
B) The kid was NOT 17
that
C) The kid's guardians are at fault for providing him the game.
However, in the world of Jack Thompson it goes like this:
A) The game has a 17+ Rating, So it should have never been made to begin with.
and
B) The kid was NOT 17 so he's a completely innocent unscathed fragile human being
therfore
C) We blame the ESRB and the Game Shop owners for not properly regulating video games because parents in the midwest dont have time to make sure their children dont have guns. They're too busy drinking, voting for republicans, and beating their children for not cleaning the barn quick enough.
I think there needs to be a compromise between the current system of watching movies of the game and the proposed system of having the ESRB play games in their entirety. I know, I know, heaven forbid anyone propose a compromise instead of just forcing one extreme or the other.
Why can't the gaming companies suggest a rating for their game (within reason)? When Nintendo puts out a new Mario game or EA puts out the next Madden game, they have a very good idea of what the rating on the game is. There is precedent and there are obvious reasons for this.
Games that are suggested to be T or M will need to be more thoroughly reviewed by the ESRB. If you look at the numbers there is really a small percentage of video games produced annually that fall into these categories. This way the ESRB doesn't have to play through every new DDR Song, all the Side Scrollers, and heaven forbid they have to play Reader Rabbit.
[I have a good mental image of a big testing lab at the ESRB HQ with men in lab coats playing DDR and some middle-aged women rigorously testing Reader Rabbit to make sure it really is acceptable for All Ages]
Every NASA mission and research endeavor has an incredible Return on Investment that far outweighs the risks. The Space Station is no exception. Especially when you consider NASA's goal of putting an orbiting station around the Moon and returning humans to our Lunar satellite within 15 years of now.
While museums, planetariums, and all the other "pet projects" listed are indeed worthy choices for funding, this is a situation where if you have X dollars and X+Y projects to spend them on, go find Y more dollars.
Is 59,000 Accounts enough to make a dent in WoW? Is 2,000 enough in FFXI? Is a lesson really learned here?
The latest reports cite WoW having 6.5 Million Accounts. FFXI has 500,000. The average account in FFXI has 3.4 characters. I haven't seen an official number for WoW but I know the max is 50 characters per account. Lets say each account has 5, on average. (I could be pulling that out of nowhere)
WoW Acct Removal % = 0.9 %
FFXI Acct Removal % = 0.4 %
So Blizzard gets rid of almost 1% of its population and Square dumps half of that, relatively. The general consensus in both games is that there are much more than 1% of the players engaging in RMT or Using 3rd Party Tools. In FFXI (which is what I play most) the average player will tell you that at least 25% of the accounts engage in RMT. This may not be the truth but its how most people feel. I'm sure the sentiment in WoW is similar.
If 25% of accounts do engage in RMT then Blizzard and Square have managed to eliminate 2~4 % of the problem in their respective games. Imagine if your local police force only caught and punished 2~4 % of the crooks and thieves in your town.
Would that be an acceptable amount?
I don't think the lesson will be learned until these numbers increase drastically.
I'm not entirely sure how the economy is doing in EQ but I can tell you that Sony is indeed selling items for Everquest 2 on their website. http://eq2.stationexchange.com/ Also, I recall hearing Square-Enix announce that they will consider using a similar system in a future MMO, but retro-applying it to FFXI is out of the question.
Also, to defend FFXI here, they did not ban 2000 accounts for RMT, they banned 2000 accounts for using third-party tools that primarily allow players to move at much higher speeds through the game. For those of you who play WoW and don't have a reference, imagine your character's normal speed being that as if he were on a mount.
It gives the cheater a completely unfair advantage and thus warrants account ban/suspension.
Everyone, and by everyone I often mean stupid people, seems to be jumping on the "Its All The Oil Companies' Fault" bandwagon. Lets look at this logically people. If you were running a business, a multi-national conglomorate perhaps, you are in it to make money. Lots of money. More money than say, the Tobacco industry.
Now lets say in order to make that money you need a business plan. I'm not an economist or an accountant (maybe one can back me up on this) but I believe that a business plan that involves an outlook such as "in 50 years we will have no more product to sell, so we'll just belly up, close down all the factories, shut down the business, and call it quits".
Seem likely to you? Not to me. Oil companies are out there to make money. A lot of money. For a very long time. I would be highly surprised if they weren't already looking for ways to monopolize and corner the market for alternative fuel sources, especially the viable ones like Ethanol and others that are mentioned in abundance in comments below.
If they hated us and wanted to run their businesses into the ground like some people believe then why don't they charge us $4 a gallon? Why not $5 or $6. They run the fuel industry, not us. They do it because its a poor business strategy, and Oil is nothing but a big business.
Anyone who thinks that Robotics is not Computer Science has never actually worked with a robot. Robots encompass Mechanical Engineering, Computer Engineering, and Computer Science.
MechE provides the muscles, the bones, the skin, and the structure of the robot.
CompE provides the nervous system, the veins and arteries, the heart, and the hormones.
CompSci provides the brain.
Take any one of these disciplines away and the robot fails.
Good fun indeed. I've done similar projects. However I've always felt that AI that is rooted in an environment that is completely deterministic, such as another computer program, is not as challenging as putting a piece of software into the real world.
The "predators" you're staving off are also A.I. and therefore have the same limitations and adhere to the same rules. Try programming a robot to go out into the Amazon Jungle and evade true predators that have no hardware limitations on their thinking.
This is the application of A.I. that belongs in high level CompSci courses and in graduate work.
The Sony AIBO (before it was discontinued) cost $2,000. However, schools are allowed to buy them for educational purposes at a discounted price of ~$1,700. This is a robust platform, and not everyone needs one. As far as personal robots goe, the B.O.E. Educational robots go for $100 ~ $500 depending on quality. The lower end is a little more pricey than your average new textbook.
At Lehigh University where I just finished up my B.S. in Computer Engineering I was able to take part in the creation and infusion of a robotics curriculum into our CompSci department. The response was incredibly positive. When we opened up our course catalogues one semester to find that "Real-Time Vision Processing for Autonomous Robots" would be a course offered along with "Mobile Robotics" and "Robocup" we were ecstatic. Artificial Intelligence has always been a big seller in CompSci departments but it has been theoretical. Imagine taking an entry level course on C++ and not being able to write code on a computer. Theory without application has its limits. Robotics brings practical, observable results to the realm of A.I. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday the Engineering School invites prospective students to tour the labs. Part of their tour is the CompSci robotics lab. They are privy to demonstrations of work being done with the Sony AIBO and several other robots that were all made in the labs. Needless to say that the biggest thrill for almost all the prospective students (and especially their parents) are the robots. They are simply enthralled by the thought that at our university we have computers that can (to an extent) think for themselves. Computer Science as a college discipline has come to a point where departments that don't incorporate robotics soon will find their enrollment dwindling!
There are some protections in the 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 9th ammendments to the constitution. In addition, several supreme court cases (contraception, interracial marriage, and abortion) have resulted in rulings that protect, to some level, a citizen's privacy.
So if you ask yourself, does the government have the right to search a private webserver for data specifically about you, you really need to ask, where did you get the right to make that information private.
I don't think its right, and I have written my congressman and senators telling them that a right to privacy needs to exist to combat the Patriot Act, but it's the way things are.
If you want a right to privacy move to Canada:
It seems to me that the possibilities for uses of this application of SOAP would be highly beneficial. My initial thought would be the ability to filter your Google searches so that websites that are potentially carrying MalWare are either flagged or not shown at all.
The 15% of sites that are reputable sites being attacked are the biggest threat. These are probably websites people visit often, and people should be warned. Perhaps even web browsers such as firefox and i.e. could incorporate the API into a toolbar and warn users before a dangerous site loads.
My only question is how long does it take for the API to verify the potential threat of a webserver? Is it fast enough for these applications to be feasible? No one wants to wait for their websites to load.
I think we'll easily see a lot of people going out and getting the system with Project Gotham Racing 3 and Madden '06 as their first two titles. They were very popular on the XBox and will most likely be so for the 360. Sports titles, remember, are still one of the dominant genres of console games and Madden is one of the most prominent of them.
I thought the traditional way to sell out your platform was to make a good system with good games. I believe it took several years for the PS2 to drop from $300. This isn't Nintendo we're talking about, who will just cut prices because it's Monday.
It seems this is a system that will be run through reserves anyways. In order to reserve a system you'll simply have to reserve two games as well. I suspect retailers will attempt to sell out through reserves only so they don't have to actually sell any systems when it releases. Then they can go back to normal business on the following day of selling systems and games.
The PS2 never felt like it had to be an online system nor does the Cube. The XBox however truly lends it self to Multiplayer games. Let's face it, single player modes in Halo and most of the Tom Clancy games were fairly lackluster in replay value and overall storylines. Sure they were fun, but paled in comparison to some of the stuff coming out on the other systems (Mario: Anything, for example).
The XBox games are almost dependant on the multiplayer modes. Developers seemed to have put far more effort into that end of the spectrum than on other systems and it's because Microsoft has encouraged it, if not forced it.
Sony leaves it up to the game developers to decide if they want to include internet capabilities for their games. They are the ones who should make the decisions anyways, and they are the ones who should define the client properties, not Sony.
Take FFXI for example. Squeenix provides the client for that, but I am wary to see how it will interact with XBox live. Who want's to listen to 9 year olds whining about chocolate milk while you're questing for your level cap.
This brings up another point: XBox Live has a very negative stigma of being dominated by immature and brash gamers, something that doesn't need to be explained but is worth mentioning.
In short, XBox Live caters to a specific type of gamer and a specific type of game genre, and if Sony doesn't want to go down that route it has nothing to do with the capabilities of their system.
Is this really so lofty of a goal for Mircrosoft to set for their new system. Retailers should have no issue finding 20 reservists for the system. This is similar to the numbers of reservists for most other consoles (XBox, GC, PS2) and is probably a very small portion of the consumer base for any given retailer.
Each customer must also purchase 2 games. It's obviously a given that everyone will be buying at least one game (Halo 3) and then why not any of the other promising titles that come out with the release. Most (if not all) gamers like to diversify their playing experience.
The big issue here is the money of course. The premium system already will run $400 and games (I haven't checked the exact price yet) will probably run the standard $50. Anyone who is going to shell out the $400 (or $300) for the system will probably manage to scrounge up another $100 for two games.
I'll be surprised if Microsoft doesn't manage to sell out the 360 on the first day.