Or you can tell another story in the same universe?
What would be the point?
Seriously. They always suck. They invariably feel like someone is just trying to milk the name of the franchise or worse its bad fan-fic. Like the non-Asimov foundation books. People who buy those, I don't know, I just don't get it... I mean I get wanting more Robots/Empire/Foundation novels... but there aren't any more. Deal with it. That's all there is.
I walk into a bookstore and see a wall of Trek, Star Wars, Dune, etc books, and I just shake my head.
...Linux reaches 3% of usage share among slashdot users... but seriously, what's the figure?
That's a really interesting question. What do you mean by usage? As in "use linux as the primary on the desktop"? That might well be 3%.
For example, me, I'm posting and do most of my desktop work on Vista Ultimate x64. (I need windows for a lot of what I do. I use Virtual PC with WinXP, Win2k, and Win98 VMs on my desktop as well.)
However, I do have linux on a laptop that my wife mostly uses, and my home office server is ubuntu server with 3 VMware VMs running on it (centos, debian, & windows server 2008). And I dabble with other distros on a spare pc...
So I use linux far and away beyond having a live CD that I booted up from once and consider myself a linux user... but still my desktop is vista, and I spend most of my 'desktop' time in Vista. Which side would I count towards?
I'd expect to be counted as Windows. I suspect there are a lot of bonafide linux users like me.
If I had a laptop, I might want to sit on the couch and compute, but I wonder what the bandwidth difference between wireless and cabled? I've used wireless and it seems zippy, but I've never done any serious downloading with it.
downloading something to or from from another PC on the lan? massive differences. downloading something to or from the internet? virtually no difference, the internet is the bottleneck.
The reason they're pushing for these caps and fees is to protect their TV business. They aren't hurting for capacity.
All ISPs are pushing for caps, even those that don't have TV services.
Get back to me when comcast has a traffic meter so you can see if you're close and charges something close to reasonable fees for overage.
My broadband ISP (shaw) has this feature and my mobile provider (telus) has this feature too. I'm actually surprised comcast doesn't.
As for the reasonable fees for overage, personally I favor a notification and bandwidth throttle instead. I think most users would rather have their service cut back than to start racking up charges, even reasonable charges. And then those customers that want their speed back could choose to up their plan, or authorize payment for a few extra GB or whatever.
The reverse could be said of people who use voip to avoid paying for higher cost telephone service...
1) as opposed to you who transfer files via bittorrent instead of ordering CD/DVDs of the data via snail mail the way it used to be? Or instead of dialing long distance to modems attached to the systems that have data you want?
2) voip is the future; eventually there will be no dedicated phone service in a lot of places. And even today, a lot of POTS in some countries is bridged to the internet. QoS isn't going away. QoS shouldn't go away.
As someone who uses both voip and torrents I actually noticed my own call quality degrade when I had torrents running full bore. So I use QoS to prioritize voip on my lan. It made a big difference and its a feature I appreciate.
If they don't want to pay more,...
Bandwidth is a limited resource. There are two ways of dealing with this.
Either we:
a) pay for the priority of our packets, and even allocate which packets have priority. e.g. the ISP charges $5 for 1GB MB high, $1 for 1GB regular, and $0.20 for 1GB low. So you set Windows/Linux updates and torrents to low, and voip to high... leave everything else and get your monthly bill. If you want your torrents a few secodns faster you can bump them up to high too, and pay through the nose for them....or...
b) The ISP can give you reasonable bandwidth cap, and manage things intelligently to deliver all its customers the best possible service, so that all internet applications are usable and run well.
Most ISPs have gone with b) for now, but if you'd prefer an a) model, tell your ISP that's the route you'd prefer; I'm sure if enough people want to pay per GB per QoS level, the ISP will accomodate you.
Neutrality means indifferent treatment of all packets, regardless their purpose, destination or source.
In a dictionary reading of the word "neutrality", perhaps.
But "Network Neutrality" as an issue, as a matter of public policy, refers ONLY to differential treatment of packets based on their source/destination (ie... whether the packets are from youtube vs yahoo), and whether ISPs can extract payment from yahoo or google to alter the treatment.
Last I checked its not 'Selected Network Neutrality'.
And the word 'Network' applies to sewers, arteries, road systems, electicity distribution, canals, social networks...
So if you are in favour of "Network Neutrality" does this mean you think all networks must be neutral? That ambulances shouldn't have right of way? That the power company shouldn't prioritize restoring electricity to the nuclear plant and railyards before it restores power to a few farms on the edge of town? That you shouldn't be able to have different levels of access to contacts on facebook?
Last I checked it was called "Network Neutrality" not "Internet Neutrality". See how stupid it is to apply dictionary definitions to something like this.
"Network Neutrality" as an issue, has nothing to do with road networks, nothing to do with television networks, and nothing to do with service based QoS packet prioritization.
To me these statements are completely contradictory.
They aren't. Network neutrality relates to degrading packets based on where they come from (and extracting payments from those external sources to restore priority). QoS relates to prioritizing packets based on what service they represent.
Some services need better connections than others. Voip, First-Person-Shooters, etc need good connections. email & bittorrent don't. If the pipe is congested it makes perfect sense to drop email / bit torrent packets to keep the voip and games running smoothly.
I don't recall my neighbors choice to use his internet as a phone making my choice to use mine as a TV any less valid, yet that is in effect exactly what they are stating.
Get over yourself. Your torrents take a couple extra minutes at worst. Do you recall your choice to use bittorrent making his choice to use voip COMPLETELY invalid, as in, it doesn't work because of packet loss.
Or maybe you are of the school that says the ISP should buy more capacity so they don't this problem?
If so, get over yourself. 1) You don't want to pay more. And they would have to raise rates to add bandwidth. 2) There isn't a realistic amount they could add that would ever be enough anyway.
Bottom line, learn the difference between net neutrality and QoS. And even if you disagree with QoS, that's fine, but don't confuse yourself into thinking it has anything to do with net neutrality.
On a related note, I'm genuinely curious: what's the average salary for developers look like in the countries to which companies often outsource work, like India and China?
Software Engineer / Developer / Programmer with 5-10 yrs experience makes a media salary of around 430k Rupees. (between 8.5k and 9k US.) Interestingly, 10-20yrs experience is actually lower. (I'd guess they've got less in demand skillsets.)
Who knows if this will be modded as a troll or not, but, with each new version of OO.org, I download it, try it out, and then head back to Microsoft Office 2003/7.
There is nothing wrong with Office 2003/2007. They are very good products. If you -have- Office 2003/2007 and you need to be saving as.xls or.doc anyway, you might as well use it. I can't really imagine anyone who HAS office 2007 switching to OOo unless they want to use odf, or are switching to Linux... or something like that.
However, if you didn't have Office 2007, ask yourself whether you find the free OOo so 'clunky' that you'd shell out $150 for Office Home and Student just to avoid using it at home? Or $400+ to use it at work?
Maybe you would... maybe you wouldn't. But I can tell you a lot of people wouldn't. And are happy to put up with OOo's relatively minor shortcomings to get off the MS Office upgrade treadmill.
This is a story regarding the countersuit to an Apple DMCA takedown notice. The EFF want publicity for this case.
The streisand effect would relate to apple's attempt to supress a few people talking about this on some forum and to shut the forum down, and now a lot more people are aware of the topic, the forum, and are talking about it.
Now try invading a city of 4 million heavily armed Americans and see how far you get.
The VAST majority of Americans qualify as 'unarmed' to 'barely armed', not 'heavily armed'. But that aside I agree.
The difficult part is starting a revolution, not defending yourself against the all-powerful military. The difficult part is waiting for the situation to be bad enough to get the average guy off his ass and into the garage making pipe bombs.
Again agreed.
My point wasn't so much that the military had to fragment in order for you to have a fighting chance against the military, but rather that if the military didn't fragment the revolution didn't have the significant public support / political clout it would need to rise above being a 'terrorist group'.
And on the flip side -- if the revolution did have enough public support to fragment the military, then whether or not you had the right to carry 9mm handguns is mostly moot, because you'll have access to much heavier weapons and soldiers trained to use them.
Software freedom is useless. Scott McNally was right years ago: "Privacy is a myth" and it's about time that we stop giving attention-starved sociopaths like RMS any air.
Privacy is just one issue.
For example, the ability to access your data in the way you've become accustomed after your vendor decides they don't feel like being in business anymore is another.
Laugh all you want but here in the US our Government can't compel us to turn over an encryption key and detain American citizens for 45 (or is it 90 now?) days without charges.
The US can't torture prisoners either. Oh wait...
Your argument assumes the government is constrained by the laws it passes. Given that its happy to exceed those constraints at will, and is not held accountable even after the fact, even after a change in administration, its a pretty false sense of security.
And we still have our guns;)
They will be worthless until the revolution comes. And even during a revolution you'll be relying on the military fragmenting (both to weaken the state and to arm your side). That will be far more important than your personal small arms. To put it bluntly, if the military doesn't fragment it won't be much of a revolution. (And you'll need to pray NATO/UN allies... etc, etc doesn't send additional forces to bolster the state side.)
And if you pull that gun out by yourself before the revolution you are just a criminal shooting at the police. That will just compound your problems... and you won't get much public sympathy either.
Software-as-service is only free if you own or have consistent access to a given computer. For the millions of people throughout the world who have been given the ability to use online applications for free (at cybercafes, etc) even though they could never afford a computer, RMS' line is almost insulting.
Hey slaves! You aren't free. You need to throw off the yoke of slavery and be free.
For the millions of slaves who couldn't afford food and shelter, who were provided for by their masters, such a sentiment is almost insulting.
Freedom isn't free. It has a price. And if you "can't afford to be free", you are on the fast track to "slavery", and it should be your first objective to get off that train.
Becoming too reliant on 'aid' and 'free stuff' is worse than not having it at all.
Send me message if you want me to continue my licensing rant in detail.
Ok... I'll bite...what did they say?
Next rant: Windows Vista.. Stop telling me it is better than Windows XP.
But it is.
Next rant: Why are you forcing Vista on everyone that buys a computer in the store?!
Because Vista is the current version. And people who buy computers in a store should get the current version. XP is essentially discontinued except for businesses that REALLY need it, and netbooks. Personally I can't wait for it to be all dead.
Next rant: DRM. Fucking stop it. Start enabling people - not disabling them. Stop listening to media companies that are trying to force you to handicap your operating system. People pay for stuff that's convenient. Make it convenient as possible. Stop installing WGA spyware on everyones' computers.
DRM is virtually a non-issue in Vista. Go ahead, install some non-MPAA signed video drivers. The worst that will happen is your bluray player won't work. It sucks that its there, but Microsoft is actually doing a pretty good job of balancing things.
Next rant: Stop changing interfaces for the hell of changing interfaces. Give me a 'compatibility mode' interface.... I want my fucking classic startmenu.
1995 was not the pinacle of GUI design. Just because you are used to it doesn't mean it was ever good. Suck it up and roll with progress. Sometimes it takes a step backwards, but its mostly forwards.
Next rant: Stop adding more steps in the process to get anything done!!! In Windows 95, Startmenu > Programs displayed everything..
Yep, and having more start menu items than fit on the screen sucks. Even after the panel expands itself horizontally.
Then.. Windows 98/ME/XP started scrolling and hiding shit by default.. How the fuck is that more convenient?
Yes it was annoying, but it solved the problem of so much stuff installed that never gets used preventing you from conveniently accessing what you do use. It wasn't the best solution, but it was a start. Vista's and OSx's solution -- using search is far better. Try it. I never look at the all programs list anymore... i just type the first few letters of the name of the program... and the really common stuff I pinned.
How about changing an IP address? It is easier and quicker in XP than Vista.. How about changing resolution? so much easier in XP than Vista.. or Windows 7..
Are these things really you do all that often that its worth a rant? And XP's UI for setting up multiple monitors wasn't great. (better than linux tho.)
Next rant: Stop choosing the dumbass options for everyone by default.. give a 'poweruser' setting during setup so Windows explorer doesn't try to hide exensions, hide details, hide operating system files..
If you are such a power user build a short.reg file stick it on a usb key for storage and double click it after you install to apply all these settings. I'm not happy with a lot of the defaults of my Linux and OSX installs either.
Next rant: No puppy dogs.
Really? You liked that little brown search dog? I never did; little bugger never seemed to find anything.
Next rant: Build disk-imaging into the OS. Let me install a drive, go to disk manager, and copy my old drive.. It's easy as hell to program.. And it's easy as hell to do in linux.. make it easy to do in Windows.
But... but... Norton will sue them for cutting them out of that market...kidding... that would be a nice feature.
Next rant: Stop wasting GUI space.. How is a thicker window border any more convenient?
Oh come now, its not like you're running 800x600 anymore... are you? are you? I pity you. Me, I don't really relish trying to pick at 2pixel wide widgets on a 24" screen. That said, your comments about scalable windows is the direction I'd like to see things go too.
Nearly all broadcast/cable/satellite HD is 1080i or 720p. (And 1080i vs 720p is a wash... higher resolution but interlaced vs lower but progressive scan), and its usually compressed which isn't doing anyone any favours.
A DVD upscaled to 720p vs 1080p doesn't really look any different. And most console games even on the new HD consoles aren't 1080p.
So what does that leave? Blu-ray, and the future.
For me, I don't have any intention of getting bluray, and if a 720p TV was at the right price, I'd go for it. Actually; I bought a 720p HDTV... but it was 4.5 years ago and I don't think there was an affordable 1080p set on the market.
Today, 720p is pretty entry level for HD, but at the price you can get it at, its not a bad deal, and as I outlined above, the only current application for it blu-ray. So if you aren't jumping on that bandwagon, it'll hold you for several years just fine. And by then... you can take your savings and buy a 1080p set for less than you'd pay for a 720p set today...
But yeah, if *I* were buying a new TV today, I'd probably get something 1080p @ 120Hz, but my parents? an inexpensive 720p set would make a lot more sense.
The only question is how long (how much repetition) it takes them to get there. Traditionally more repetitions to complete = "harder" (take Ikaruga, for instance).
I disagree. That is over simplifying. I won't beat Ikaruga by just trying it over and over again. I have to actually improve my game play, memorize the attack patterns, and develop better firing solutions... mere repetition isn't really going to help although I do have to repeat in order to improve. But I have to actively improve and master the levels too.
I know, I have Ikaruga for the cube. Its hard. I'm stuck on one of the level bosses. I'm playing Soldier Blade at the moment - stuck on the boss of operation 5 of 7... and I haven't finished R-Type either (also stuck on level 5 of 8).
What can I say, I like shmups...
WoW, on the other hand, up until the endgame, you DON'T have to *improve your gameplay* to advance, you just have to *play* to advance.
I won't see the 4th level of Ikaruga until I get good enough to beat the 3rd. I'd get to 80th level in Wow without getting any better at the game than I was at 20th. And even if I get stuck on a particular encounter, I level up as I play, so it gradually gets easier... so even if I don't improve I'll eventually just over power it.
MMOG 'grinding' is a completely different beast from shmup 'grinding'. MMOG grinding is completely mindless.
But repeating the same thing over and over again is rarely fun.
Agreed. It can only set you back so far. (This my frustration with R-Type... 3 continues max... and it takes several 5-10 minutes to get to where I'm stuck; so to 'practice' level 5, I have to spend a too much time replaying levels 1-4 which I've mastered... (well level 4 still gets me sometimes).
Multiplayer is hard because it's a zero-sum competition.... Only one team can win a given round.
That's true for tic-tac-toe too. And playing 100 rounds of tic-tac-toe is tedious no matter who or what your opponent is. Making something multiplayer doesn't make it 'harder'... or even 'interesting'.
and a lot harder to measure than the binary exclusion most "hardcore" WOW players seem to be looking for. They want "my little brother will never ever do this", not "I did this 2 months earlier and twice as well as my little brother"
Why play WoW then? The other mmogs offer all the exclusion they could ever want. Playing WoW and being a "hardcore mmo player that complainings the game isn't hard enough" is like racing Ford Fiesta's and complaining they aren't fast enough. If you want to go faster, get a Mustang, or a Porsche, or an F1 car...
There are lots of faster cars than fiestas and harder mmogs than Wow.
I'm not sure that "harder" makes sense in the context of RPGs (or perhaps single player games entirely). It isn't "hard" to sit around grinding things.
'harder' for video games is typically definable as 'complexity of the task you need to perform' and the 'tolerances within you must perform it'. Time / repetition is irrelevant. Although time and repetition may be what you need to learn the task, and bring your performance to within tolerances to complete it.
In non-RPG single player games difficulty is managed through time and repetition too.
You are confusing difficulty with the time it takes to learn/master the skills required. To advance you must perform well.
Yeah, you can advance anyway, if you're patient enough.
Depends on your definition of 'advance'. Yes, in any mmorpg you can get to max-level without learning more than the barest game play skills.
I prefer mmo's where there are fewer options for that, and more places designed to challenge me, where I have to play well to succeed. EQ1 had lots of this. Yes, EQ1 had 'safe camps' too, that you could go 'grind' in virtually complete safety... if you wanted to, but then you'd miss the majority of the interesting parts of the game, even at the low levels.
WoW is the opposite, most of the game is easy.
PVP, on the other hand, can truly be "hard". You can play PVP all night and day and still lose every single time.
Say what now? How is pvp 'harder'? Hardly. I've played against bots that were more difficult to beat than any human. And I don't even find PvP terribly interesting, because there is no exploration/discovery component. My opponents are always cookie cutter clones of the ones I fought yesterday. They have the same spells and abilities and tactics as yesterday. And those are the same ones I have. And they use them the same way I do.
Sometimes they are better players than I; sometimes I am a better player than them. And its fun to match skills with them and see who'll win... but its more tedious than PvE, because it never changes.
At least when I fight a 'new' pve encounter (ie that I haven't fought before) it might surprise me with a new trick or script or trigger or spell or effect or gear... or something I haven't already seen.
It's a shame they don't open source the code that drives the analytics.. That'd be sweet.
But it wouldn't give them access to all the traffic on your site (and everyone elses that uses their analytics.) I was pretty pissed when they bought urchin (the company that made what is now 'google analytics') because they the first thing google did was prevent you from hosting the analytics yourself.
On that note is there a good FOSS analytics package, preferably one that works well cross platform?
I really hope Blizzard knows they're doing a Good Thing, and won't succumb to the idiots demanding Everyone have to waste excessive amounts of time to play the game, just because those few people have nothing else to do. (or more realistically, refuse to do anything else)
ROFLMAO. WoW is the culmination of all the idiots in all the harder games demanding that things be easier and more convenient and more accessible.
I don't play WoW precisely because its too easy. I don't want to waste excessive amounts of time playing a game, but I don't want to log in and know that no matter how retarded I play, I'll still advance anyway. I -like- my advancement being tied to my performance.
But I don't disagree with you. Blizzard shouldn't change WoW for me. Millions of people like it the way it is, and I'm happy for them. But its not for me. I want some something harder, and I'll play something else.
For me, my complaint is I don't like to "raid" and I don't like to solo. Soloing is boring and being part of a 20+ man force doesn't appeal to me. I don't like to schedule around that many people; I don't like the politics with that many people. Hell I don't KNOW that many people, and have little interest in making 'in game only friends'; I have enough trouble keeping in touch with my real friends. So I like to go in with 1 to 2 friends and challenge content -- which is something WoW doesn't really cater too well.
Slashdot Mirror
Or you can tell another story in the same universe?
What would be the point?
Seriously. They always suck. They invariably feel like someone is just trying to milk the name of the franchise or worse its bad fan-fic. Like the non-Asimov foundation books. People who buy those, I don't know, I just don't get it... I mean I get wanting more Robots/Empire/Foundation novels... but there aren't any more. Deal with it. That's all there is.
I walk into a bookstore and see a wall of Trek, Star Wars, Dune, etc books, and I just shake my head.
Or perhaps the Firefly series and the creation of the Reavers.
IMO creating the reavers was a minor setback compared to what 'curing agression' did to everybody else.
Somehow, I manage not to have sex, without the benefit of this amazing technology you describe...
Well, yeah, but with this amazing technology you'll not have it that much better!!
...Linux reaches 3% of usage share among slashdot users... but seriously, what's the figure?
That's a really interesting question. What do you mean by usage? As in "use linux as the primary on the desktop"? That might well be 3%.
For example, me, I'm posting and do most of my desktop work on Vista Ultimate x64. (I need windows for a lot of what I do. I use Virtual PC with WinXP, Win2k, and Win98 VMs on my desktop as well.)
However, I do have linux on a laptop that my wife mostly uses, and my home office server is ubuntu server with 3 VMware VMs running on it (centos, debian, & windows server 2008). And I dabble with other distros on a spare pc...
So I use linux far and away beyond having a live CD that I booted up from once and consider myself a linux user... but still my desktop is vista, and I spend most of my 'desktop' time in Vista. Which side would I count towards?
I'd expect to be counted as Windows. I suspect there are a lot of bonafide linux users like me.
If I had a laptop, I might want to sit on the couch and compute, but I wonder what the bandwidth difference between wireless and cabled? I've used wireless and it seems zippy, but I've never done any serious downloading with it.
downloading something to or from from another PC on the lan? massive differences.
downloading something to or from the internet? virtually no difference, the internet is the bottleneck.
Don't be a freeper.
A what now?
The reason they're pushing for these caps and fees is to protect their TV business. They aren't hurting for capacity.
All ISPs are pushing for caps, even those that don't have TV services.
Get back to me when comcast has a traffic meter so you can see if you're close and charges something close to reasonable fees for overage.
My broadband ISP (shaw) has this feature and my mobile provider (telus) has this feature too. I'm actually surprised comcast doesn't.
As for the reasonable fees for overage, personally I favor a notification and bandwidth throttle instead. I think most users would rather have their service cut back than to start racking up charges, even reasonable charges. And then those customers that want their speed back could choose to up their plan, or authorize payment for a few extra GB or whatever.
Also, fix your quoting
Meh, I don't care for this look.
Is this sounding like a familiar political system?
I read about such a thing in school. I hope they bring it to the USA one day. ;)
I call straw man.
I wouldn't. It will make you look foolish.
The reverse could be said of people who use voip to avoid paying for higher cost telephone service...
1) as opposed to you who transfer files via bittorrent instead of ordering CD/DVDs of the data via snail mail the way it used to be? Or instead of dialing long distance to modems attached to the systems that have data you want?
2) voip is the future; eventually there will be no dedicated phone service in a lot of places. And even today, a lot of POTS in some countries is bridged to the internet. QoS isn't going away. QoS shouldn't go away.
As someone who uses both voip and torrents I actually noticed my own call quality degrade when I had torrents running full bore. So I use QoS to prioritize voip on my lan. It made a big difference and its a feature I appreciate.
If they don't want to pay more,...
Bandwidth is a limited resource. There are two ways of dealing with this.
Either we:
a) pay for the priority of our packets, and even allocate which packets have priority. e.g. the ISP charges $5 for 1GB MB high, $1 for 1GB regular, and $0.20 for 1GB low. So you set Windows/Linux updates and torrents to low, and voip to high... leave everything else and get your monthly bill. If you want your torrents a few secodns faster you can bump them up to high too, and pay through the nose for them. ...or...
b) The ISP can give you reasonable bandwidth cap, and manage things intelligently to deliver all its customers the best possible service, so that all internet applications are usable and run well.
Most ISPs have gone with b) for now, but if you'd prefer an a) model, tell your ISP that's the route you'd prefer; I'm sure if enough people want to pay per GB per QoS level, the ISP will accomodate you.
Neutrality means indifferent treatment of all packets, regardless their purpose, destination or source.
In a dictionary reading of the word "neutrality", perhaps.
But "Network Neutrality" as an issue, as a matter of public policy, refers ONLY to differential treatment of packets based on their source/destination (ie... whether the packets are from youtube vs yahoo), and whether ISPs can extract payment from yahoo or google to alter the treatment.
Last I checked its not 'Selected Network Neutrality'.
And the word 'Network' applies to sewers, arteries, road systems, electicity distribution, canals, social networks...
So if you are in favour of "Network Neutrality" does this mean you think all networks must be neutral? That ambulances shouldn't have right of way? That the power company shouldn't prioritize restoring electricity to the nuclear plant and railyards before it restores power to a few farms on the edge of town? That you shouldn't be able to have different levels of access to contacts on facebook?
Last I checked it was called "Network Neutrality" not "Internet Neutrality". See how stupid it is to apply dictionary definitions to something like this.
"Network Neutrality" as an issue, has nothing to do with road networks, nothing to do with television networks, and nothing to do with service based QoS packet prioritization.
To me these statements are completely contradictory.
They aren't. Network neutrality relates to degrading packets based on where they come from (and extracting payments from those external sources to restore priority). QoS relates to prioritizing packets based on what service they represent.
Some services need better connections than others. Voip, First-Person-Shooters, etc need good connections. email & bittorrent don't. If the pipe is congested it makes perfect sense to drop email / bit torrent packets to keep the voip and games running smoothly.
I don't recall my neighbors choice to use his internet as a phone making my choice to use mine as a TV any less valid, yet that is in effect exactly what they are stating.
Get over yourself. Your torrents take a couple extra minutes at worst. Do you recall your choice to use bittorrent making his choice to use voip COMPLETELY invalid, as in, it doesn't work because of packet loss.
Or maybe you are of the school that says the ISP should buy more capacity so they don't this problem?
If so, get over yourself.
1) You don't want to pay more. And they would have to raise rates to add bandwidth.
2) There isn't a realistic amount they could add that would ever be enough anyway.
Bottom line, learn the difference between net neutrality and QoS. And even if you disagree with QoS, that's fine, but don't confuse yourself into thinking it has anything to do with net neutrality.
On a related note, I'm genuinely curious: what's the average salary for developers look like in the countries to which companies often outsource work, like India and China?
If this is to be believed:
http://www.payscale.com/research/IN/Job=Software_Engineer_%2F_Developer_%2F_Programmer/Salary
Software Engineer / Developer / Programmer with 5-10 yrs experience makes a media salary of around 430k Rupees. (between 8.5k and 9k US.) Interestingly, 10-20yrs experience is actually lower. (I'd guess they've got less in demand skillsets.)
Who knows if this will be modded as a troll or not, but, with each new version of OO.org, I download it, try it out, and then head back to Microsoft Office 2003/7.
There is nothing wrong with Office 2003/2007. They are very good products. If you -have- Office 2003/2007 and you need to be saving as .xls or .doc anyway, you might as well use it. I can't really imagine anyone who HAS office 2007 switching to OOo unless they want to use odf, or are switching to Linux... or something like that.
However, if you didn't have Office 2007, ask yourself whether you find the free OOo so 'clunky' that you'd shell out $150 for Office Home and Student just to avoid using it at home? Or $400+ to use it at work?
Maybe you would... maybe you wouldn't. But I can tell you a lot of people wouldn't. And are happy to put up with OOo's relatively minor shortcomings to get off the MS Office upgrade treadmill.
This is a story regarding the countersuit to an Apple DMCA takedown notice. The EFF want publicity for this case.
The streisand effect would relate to apple's attempt to supress a few people talking about this on some forum and to shut the forum down, and now a lot more people are aware of the topic, the forum, and are talking about it.
Now try invading a city of 4 million heavily armed Americans and see how far you get.
The VAST majority of Americans qualify as 'unarmed' to 'barely armed', not 'heavily armed'. But that aside I agree.
The difficult part is starting a revolution, not defending yourself against the all-powerful military. The difficult part is waiting for the situation to be bad enough to get the average guy off his ass and into the garage making pipe bombs.
Again agreed.
My point wasn't so much that the military had to fragment in order for you to have a fighting chance against the military, but rather that if the military didn't fragment the revolution didn't have the significant public support / political clout it would need to rise above being a 'terrorist group'.
And on the flip side -- if the revolution did have enough public support to fragment the military, then whether or not you had the right to carry 9mm handguns is mostly moot, because you'll have access to much heavier weapons and soldiers trained to use them.
Software freedom is useless. Scott McNally was right years ago: "Privacy is a myth" and it's about time that we stop giving attention-starved sociopaths like RMS any air.
Privacy is just one issue.
For example, the ability to access your data in the way you've become accustomed after your vendor decides they don't feel like being in business anymore is another.
Laugh all you want but here in the US our Government can't compel us to turn over an encryption key and detain American citizens for 45 (or is it 90 now?) days without charges.
The US can't torture prisoners either. Oh wait...
Your argument assumes the government is constrained by the laws it passes. Given that its happy to exceed those constraints at will, and is not held accountable even after the fact, even after a change in administration, its a pretty false sense of security.
And we still have our guns ;)
They will be worthless until the revolution comes. And even during a revolution you'll be relying on the military fragmenting (both to weaken the state and to arm your side). That will be far more important than your personal small arms. To put it bluntly, if the military doesn't fragment it won't be much of a revolution. (And you'll need to pray NATO/UN allies... etc, etc doesn't send additional forces to bolster the state side.)
And if you pull that gun out by yourself before the revolution you are just a criminal shooting at the police. That will just compound your problems... and you won't get much public sympathy either.
More false security.
Software-as-service is only free if you own or have consistent access to a given computer. For the millions of people throughout the world who have been given the ability to use online applications for free (at cybercafes, etc) even though they could never afford a computer, RMS' line is almost insulting.
Hey slaves! You aren't free. You need to throw off the yoke of slavery and be free.
For the millions of slaves who couldn't afford food and shelter, who were provided for by their masters, such a sentiment is almost insulting.
Freedom isn't free. It has a price. And if you "can't afford to be free", you are on the fast track to "slavery", and it should be your first objective to get off that train.
Becoming too reliant on 'aid' and 'free stuff' is worse than not having it at all.
And what does this mean for mobile computing?
Run your own server? Problem solved.
Send me message if you want me to continue my licensing rant in detail.
Ok... I'll bite...what did they say?
Next rant: Windows Vista.. Stop telling me it is better than Windows XP.
But it is.
Next rant: Why are you forcing Vista on everyone that buys a computer in the store?!
Because Vista is the current version. And people who buy computers in a store should get the current version.
XP is essentially discontinued except for businesses that REALLY need it, and netbooks. Personally I can't wait for it to be all dead.
Next rant: DRM. Fucking stop it. Start enabling people - not disabling them. Stop listening to media companies that are trying to force you to handicap your operating system. People pay for stuff that's convenient. Make it convenient as possible. Stop installing WGA spyware on everyones' computers.
DRM is virtually a non-issue in Vista. Go ahead, install some non-MPAA signed video drivers. The worst that will happen is your bluray player won't work. It sucks that its there, but Microsoft is actually doing a pretty good job of balancing things.
Next rant: Stop changing interfaces for the hell of changing interfaces. Give me a 'compatibility mode' interface.... I want my fucking classic startmenu.
1995 was not the pinacle of GUI design. Just because you are used to it doesn't mean it was ever good. Suck it up and roll with progress. Sometimes it takes a step backwards, but its mostly forwards.
Next rant: Stop adding more steps in the process to get anything done!!! In Windows 95, Startmenu > Programs displayed everything..
Yep, and having more start menu items than fit on the screen sucks. Even after the panel expands itself horizontally.
Then.. Windows 98/ME/XP started scrolling and hiding shit by default.. How the fuck is that more convenient?
Yes it was annoying, but it solved the problem of so much stuff installed that never gets used preventing you from conveniently accessing what you do use. It wasn't the best solution, but it was a start. Vista's and OSx's solution -- using search is far better. Try it. I never look at the all programs list anymore... i just type the first few letters of the name of the program... and the really common stuff I pinned.
How about changing an IP address? It is easier and quicker in XP than Vista.. How about changing resolution? so much easier in XP than Vista.. or Windows 7..
Are these things really you do all that often that its worth a rant? And XP's UI for setting up multiple monitors wasn't great. (better than linux tho.)
Next rant: Stop choosing the dumbass options for everyone by default.. give a 'poweruser' setting during setup so Windows explorer doesn't try to hide exensions, hide details, hide operating system files..
If you are such a power user build a short .reg file stick it on a usb key for storage and double click it after you install to apply all these settings. I'm not happy with a lot of the defaults of my Linux and OSX installs either.
Next rant: No puppy dogs.
Really? You liked that little brown search dog? I never did; little bugger never seemed to find anything.
Next rant: Build disk-imaging into the OS. Let me install a drive, go to disk manager, and copy my old drive.. It's easy as hell to program.. And it's easy as hell to do in linux.. make it easy to do in Windows.
But... but... Norton will sue them for cutting them out of that market...kidding... that would be a nice feature.
Next rant: Stop wasting GUI space.. How is a thicker window border any more convenient?
Oh come now, its not like you're running 800x600 anymore... are you? are you? I pity you. Me, I don't really relish trying to pick at 2pixel wide widgets on a 24" screen. That said, your comments about scalable windows is the direction I'd like to see things go too.
[...]
Most of those I cut I agreed with.
Full HD == 1080p in my book.
Meh.
Nearly all broadcast/cable/satellite HD is 1080i or 720p. (And 1080i vs 720p is a wash... higher resolution but interlaced vs lower but progressive scan), and its usually compressed which isn't doing anyone any favours.
A DVD upscaled to 720p vs 1080p doesn't really look any different. And most console games even on the new HD consoles aren't 1080p.
So what does that leave? Blu-ray, and the future.
For me, I don't have any intention of getting bluray, and if a 720p TV was at the right price, I'd go for it. Actually; I bought a 720p HDTV... but it was 4.5 years ago and I don't think there was an affordable 1080p set on the market.
Today, 720p is pretty entry level for HD, but at the price you can get it at, its not a bad deal, and as I outlined above, the only current application for it blu-ray. So if you aren't jumping on that bandwagon, it'll hold you for several years just fine. And by then... you can take your savings and buy a 1080p set for less than you'd pay for a 720p set today...
But yeah, if *I* were buying a new TV today, I'd probably get something 1080p @ 120Hz, but my parents? an inexpensive 720p set would make a lot more sense.
Tiger direct is awful. Pay just a little bit more at NewEgg and get actual customer service.
I was going to bemoan the fact that newegg doesn't deliver to canada, but lo... newegg.ca is up and running... when did that happen?
Wooo... Although I've been very happy with ncix. Competition is good.
The only question is how long (how much repetition) it takes them to get there. Traditionally more repetitions to complete = "harder" (take Ikaruga, for instance).
I disagree. That is over simplifying. I won't beat Ikaruga by just trying it over and over again. I have to actually improve my game play, memorize the attack patterns, and develop better firing solutions... mere repetition isn't really going to help although I do have to repeat in order to improve. But I have to actively improve and master the levels too.
I know, I have Ikaruga for the cube. Its hard. I'm stuck on one of the level bosses. I'm playing Soldier Blade at the moment - stuck on the boss of operation 5 of 7... and I haven't finished R-Type either (also stuck on level 5 of 8).
What can I say, I like shmups...
WoW, on the other hand, up until the endgame, you DON'T have to *improve your gameplay* to advance, you just have to *play* to advance.
I won't see the 4th level of Ikaruga until I get good enough to beat the 3rd. I'd get to 80th level in Wow without getting any better at the game than I was at 20th. And even if I get stuck on a particular encounter, I level up as I play, so it gradually gets easier... so even if I don't improve I'll eventually just over power it.
MMOG 'grinding' is a completely different beast from shmup 'grinding'. MMOG grinding is completely mindless.
But repeating the same thing over and over again is rarely fun.
Agreed. It can only set you back so far. (This my frustration with R-Type... 3 continues max... and it takes several 5-10 minutes to get to where I'm stuck; so to 'practice' level 5, I have to spend a too much time replaying levels 1-4 which I've mastered... (well level 4 still gets me sometimes).
Multiplayer is hard because it's a zero-sum competition. ... Only one team can win a given round.
That's true for tic-tac-toe too. And playing 100 rounds of tic-tac-toe is tedious no matter who or what your opponent is. Making something multiplayer doesn't make it 'harder'... or even 'interesting'.
and a lot harder to measure than the binary exclusion most "hardcore" WOW players seem to be looking for. They want "my little brother will never ever do this", not "I did this 2 months earlier and twice as well as my little brother"
Why play WoW then? The other mmogs offer all the exclusion they could ever want. Playing WoW and being a "hardcore mmo player that complainings the game isn't hard enough" is like racing Ford Fiesta's and complaining they aren't fast enough. If you want to go faster, get a Mustang, or a Porsche, or an F1 car...
There are lots of faster cars than fiestas and harder mmogs than Wow.
I'm not sure that "harder" makes sense in the context of RPGs (or perhaps single player games entirely). It isn't "hard" to sit around grinding things.
'harder' for video games is typically definable as 'complexity of the task you need to perform' and the 'tolerances within you must perform it'. Time / repetition is irrelevant. Although time and repetition may be what you need to learn the task, and bring your performance to within tolerances to complete it.
In non-RPG single player games difficulty is managed through time and repetition too.
You are confusing difficulty with the time it takes to learn/master the skills required.
To advance you must perform well.
Yeah, you can advance anyway, if you're patient enough.
Depends on your definition of 'advance'. Yes, in any mmorpg you can get to max-level without learning more than the barest game play skills.
I prefer mmo's where there are fewer options for that, and more places designed to challenge me, where I have to play well to succeed. EQ1 had lots of this. Yes, EQ1 had 'safe camps' too, that you could go 'grind' in virtually complete safety... if you wanted to, but then you'd miss the majority of the interesting parts of the game, even at the low levels.
WoW is the opposite, most of the game is easy.
PVP, on the other hand, can truly be "hard". You can play PVP all night and day and still lose every single time.
Say what now? How is pvp 'harder'? Hardly. I've played against bots that were more difficult to beat than any human. And I don't even find PvP terribly interesting, because there is no exploration/discovery component. My opponents are always cookie cutter clones of the ones I fought yesterday. They have the same spells and abilities and tactics as yesterday. And those are the same ones I have. And they use them the same way I do.
Sometimes they are better players than I; sometimes I am a better player than them. And its fun to match skills with them and see who'll win... but its more tedious than PvE, because it never changes.
At least when I fight a 'new' pve encounter (ie that I haven't fought before) it might surprise me with a new trick or script or trigger or spell or effect or gear... or something I haven't already seen.
No, that's still available: http://www.google.com/urchin/index.html
Cool. That's good to know. Thanks for correcting me.
Yea, how is anyone supposed to figure out how to use it with only the complete API reference
That is beside the point. He wants to HOST the analytics himself so google doesn't have access to all the raw analytics data.
It's a shame they don't open source the code that drives the analytics.. That'd be sweet.
But it wouldn't give them access to all the traffic on your site (and everyone elses that uses their analytics.) I was pretty pissed when they bought urchin (the company that made what is now 'google analytics') because they the first thing google did was prevent you from hosting the analytics yourself.
On that note is there a good FOSS analytics package, preferably one that works well cross platform?
I really hope Blizzard knows they're doing a Good Thing, and won't succumb to the idiots demanding Everyone have to waste excessive amounts of time to play the game, just because those few people have nothing else to do. (or more realistically, refuse to do anything else)
ROFLMAO. WoW is the culmination of all the idiots in all the harder games demanding that things be easier and more convenient and more accessible.
I don't play WoW precisely because its too easy. I don't want to waste excessive amounts of time playing a game, but I don't want to log in and know that no matter how retarded I play, I'll still advance anyway. I -like- my advancement being tied to my performance.
But I don't disagree with you. Blizzard shouldn't change WoW for me. Millions of people like it the way it is, and I'm happy for them. But its not for me. I want some something harder, and I'll play something else.
For me, my complaint is I don't like to "raid" and I don't like to solo. Soloing is boring and being part of a 20+ man force doesn't appeal to me. I don't like to schedule around that many people; I don't like the politics with that many people. Hell I don't KNOW that many people, and have little interest in making 'in game only friends'; I have enough trouble keeping in touch with my real friends. So I like to go in with 1 to 2 friends and challenge content -- which is something WoW doesn't really cater too well.