Really? What sort of problems did you encounter exactly?
Apart from some of the cut content the game seemed pretty polished to me and was good fun.
I didn't encounter anything that would suggest this was a game not fit for release.
I think they should've just held off on release and finished off the content, that was all that was missing. They tried to do in 2 years what took Blizzard over 6 years and did a damn good job, the codebase was clearly solid- never encountered any instability issues either client or server side. The graphics weren't groundbreaking but I think the goal there was to make sure it was accessible to as many people as possible.
Most importantly, as far as MMOs go it was actually fun unlike many others, but the reason I quit is because MMOs aren't exactly high on the fun scale anyway. I'd rather play non-MMO games because I feel I'm getting more enjoyment for the time put in to them.
I think realistically they'll have to replace most aluminimum as part of the governments planned 2mbps minimum anyway, so hopefully it shouldn't be a problem for too much longer.
The wire doesn't need changing for the most part, ignoring the fact the UK already has a decent amount of fibre already, even copper isn't really inherently any worse than radio for the range of data transfer we're talking about.
It's really the tech. in the local cabinets that needs changing but that isn't getting changed. BT is planning to take years and years to roll out ADSL2 (I think they're expecting completion by 2012 to 2014) yet the mobile operators have repeatedly managed to show they can upgrade to new tech. much faster when it comes out.
The only reason fibre is mentioned in reports about upgrading the UK's broadband infrastructure is because there's a strong belief it has much more long term potential, but that hasn't stopped live tests in some countries from demonstrating 100mbps and such over older copper connections.
The point is that if mobile operators were running the fixed line infrastructure as they do the mobile infrastructure you can guarantee they'd have this kit in already or within a few years at most, whilst BT wouldn't get something like that in until at least 2020 because first they'd have to finish off ADSL2 taking them to 2012, then they'd say the UK is fine now for at least 2 - 3 years, then they'd accept things need improving, this would be followed by a 2 year study and pushing for government subsidies, followed by 1 year of trials and then they'd spend the next 3 years rolling it out. This is how ADSL and ADSL Max rollouts were done and by the time ADSL2 is complete, it'll be almost the same for that too.
...how far ahead our mobile infrastructure is in the UK compared to our archaic fixed line infrastructure.
It's just a shame mobile broadband is rather expensive still, but then I guess that's the answer as to why our mobile infrastructure is so far ahead- because unlike fixed line ISPs it isn't offering £5 a month or even "free" "unlimited" broadband packages.
Rather than reply point by point, I'm interested to know more what you're getting at.
Are you really saying you feel the Wii offers a superior DLC experience because although you pay the same amount and get much less for it (multiplayer modes, save game abilities, updated graphics, live integration, additional content, better product testing to ensure it works well with modern screens etc.) the content can be downloaded in say maybe 12minutes rather than 15minutes on even the slowest broadband connections? Even the UK, which is severely lagging in broadband speeds worldwide is due to push BT for a minimum of 2mbps connections for everyone.
I know you mentioned bandwidth caps too but I've yet to see an ISP wish such harsh caps that the difference in size between Nintendo DLC content and Xbox live DLC content wasn't irrelevant compared to the amount of allowance you have.
I don't mean to flame, but that really does sound like one of the weakest arguments I've ever heard in favour of one console over another and I'd be suprised if it was ever a factor in anyone's decision in choosing a console. Even early on in this console generation it would've been a push, but we've had over 2 years now since then so storage and average broadband speeds have increased even further. Certainly with the next generation probably not too many years off (2010 - 2011 probably) then sizes are bound to increase even further.
Perhaps I've misunderstood what you're getting at and your point is different, but if so I'm not really sure what it is.
"And besides. If we start allowing sex everywhere on television, that will soon be the ONLY thing on television."
Wrong. The very fact it's somewhat taboo is the reason it's used, because it attracts viewers. If it was always on no one would care. You can't stand out and attract viewers if you're only doing what everyone else is doing. This has been demonstrated many times in lots of European countries with much more lax laws on what's acceptable to be shown on TV. If you let this kind of thing play out, people will eventually get fed up of it. We're seeing this happen with reality TV in the UK, the likes of Big Brother are in decline now because our TV was flooded with it, there's much more of a backlash against it when it tries to take things further than it's ever taken them before. Reality TV has gone from something pretty much every channel was doing back to Channel 4's niche, where even there it's losing viewers quite drastically year on year, soon it wont even be worth bothering with. Channel 5 used to show porn every Friday night but they soon got bored of that as viewing figures eventually declined. One of our biggest comedians, Frank Skinner recently looked into swearing and whether it was really even necessary and now cuts the amount of swearing he uses drastically after deciding it's not, others are beginning to follow after the realisation that "Yeah we can do it, but it's doesn't really help much".
This is the same problem we have with with racist words and swear words, they only have impact because they're kept taboo, said regularly and often by everyone then "fuck" would be no more problematic to say than "damn".
You see this is the irony with those who push for things to remain taboo, it is that very fact that causes them to remain offensive to some in the first place. There is no evidence that allowing people to become desensitized to these things leads to any decline in society either because it's something that's been happening for years, after all with my example above, the word "damn" itself used to be a looked down upon.
So don't worry, seeing sex, swearing or anything like that wont cause your kids to grow up to be drooling apes, it'll allow them to grow up as open minded individuals who are capable of putting reason over reaction and who simply aren't phased by such trivial (and perfectly natural) things.
Of course, that or you could hide them from these things and allow them to become people who get angry at them when they inevitable encounter them instead, anger that ultimately achieves nothing but to repeat the very cycle of anger you talk of.
The fact is, your kids will encounter this stuff eventually, the problem is they wont be prepared for it and people in that situation often act irrationally and eratically.
The Czech republic is great for things that simply don't make sense.
When I went there two years ago walking through Prague I had many "WTF??" moments from the giant mechanical clock that every hour has weird little characters like skeletons and such come out and start spinning round through to the guy on the bridge with his little music machine with the monkey sat on top to the various peices of artwork in the city to our hungover tour guide, Ishtovar.
It's certainly a quirky place, very different to what we're used to in most Western cities. I guess it's got a lot to do with soviet era influence maybe but I've no idea!
From what I understand there's still quite a lot of hatred between Sunni and Shia groups. If I recall correctly, Bin Laden actually threatened Iran not so many years ago because it was Iranian sponsored Shia militia they were arming to fight al Qaeda's Sunni militia in Iraq. The Sunni militia realised siding with al Qaeda was a bad idea and dropped them, telling the US and Iraqis who most of the al Qaeda sympathisers were allowing them to catch them and shut down al Qaeda's network in Iraq. This was coupled with the US surge and the Iraqi army asserting it's authority against Moqtada Sadr's Iranian sponsored militia resulting in the reduction in violence we have in Iraq today.
Of course Iran does support Sunni militia where it helps them politicially to the extent that they're the enemy of their enemy (the West) but this only goes so far, certainly I do not believe Iran has any involvement with the militia in Pakistan, that seems to be a wholly Sunni affair run by al Qaeda and the Taliban (Iran hated the Taliban too for what it's worth). This isn't to say of course that some Iranian weaponry makes it's way to the Sunni militia but only in the same way the Pakistani militias are running round with US weapons hijacked from convoys trying to get through the Khyber pass in Afghanistan and the likes.
At the end of the day, whilst we most certainly can accuse Iran of sponsoring terrorism (Hezbollah is the most obvious and demonstrable) we must be careful not to weaken our argument by suggesting they're behind all terrorist groups. This is the mistake the US made with it's axis of evil claim and it's initial coupling of Iraq as something to do with the war on terror when in fact Iraq really had little to do with terrorist regimes bar those it sponsored to attack southern Iran.
Regarding Afghanistan, Iran has serious problems with opium addictions in it's country (and I mean serious- we're talking hundreds of thousands, perhaps a million addicts). This opium comes straight out of Afghanistan and the money goes towards funding the Taliban. Iran wouldn't admit it now, but initially they offered to help deal with Afghanisan in the wake of 9/11 and just like the Russians, secretly want the Afghanistan problem solved. Many people cite the Afghan war as an unjust war and claim the US shouldn't be there based on the fact Iraq really was a rather unjust war but the reality is Afghanistan and Iraq were polar opposites in terms of the right thing to do, there is hardly a country on Earth be it the US' best friend or worst enemy that doesn't truly have an interest in seeing the Afghanistan/North West Pakistan problem solved.
One final point is that when focussing on Iran as we do we must be careful not to forget Syria. Only last year Israel blew up a viable nuclear weapons plant there after all, Iran and Syria have identical goals, they're probably not even far off each other in terms of capability judging by the fact Israel felt their program was enough of a threat to risk their pilots lives against newly deployed state of the art Russian SAMs, invade their territory and hit it with multiple airstrikes. Syria is of course also guilty of funding terrorism. Perhaps the only real difference between Iran and Syria is that one likes to shout about it and gloat to the world and the other keeps it quiet and under wraps. The only upside of it is you can guarantee that if we dealt with the Iran problem or the Syria problem be it through diplomacy or military action that the other would soon bow down and admit defeat as they would suddenly find themselves very alone in the world, Syria and Iran have each other and North Korea but even other Arab nations- Saudia Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and so on would rather see them dealt with than they would see them get stronger.
"Respect. The USA does not treat countries without nukes with the same kind of respect as they do otherwise."
Really? What makes you say that.
I don't see the US treating China, France, North Korea and Russia any better than it treats countries like Japan, Germany, South Korea, Australia, Canada to name a few.
Hell, it's even launching attacks on Pakistani territory and they're a nuclear equipped nation, it's not like it's attacking Iranian territory is it?
But isn't it then a problem of wanting things both ways?
Are all the people who just do it as a hobby separate to those who complain about Microsoft's dominance and OSS struggling to increase marketshare in many areas?
I suppose it depends what the community's goal is, if it is to increase marketshare and just generally make software better for everyone by decreasing Microsoft's dominance then it has to be more than just a hobby. If however it's to remain just a hobby, it can't ever expect to be increase marketshare at an increased rate and may even start to see the trend reverse.
Certainly different people have different reasons for writing OSS code, but I suspect those who do it just as a hobby are more often than not also those who are guilty of complaining about Microsoft's dominance when they could do something about it. Of course there will be those who are content doing what they do without much care for the end result, but certainly I don't think that describes everyone developing OSS software.
We do need different distros for different needs, the problem is there's also a lot of distros filling the same needs and some do a pretty poor job of it such that the resources would be better spent on a competing distro. We don't want to lose all competition altogether but there are certainly some distros out there that are wasting time duplicating effort and bringing nothing to the table to show for it.
No the difference is that Nintendo is effectively just sending you ROMs for emulators. XBox live titles are complete new versions.
Nintendo effectively just takes old ROMs and just puts them up on the marketplace, live arcade games are actually built as new applications using the existing assets, sometimes offering whole new game modes and new graphics whilst keeping the classic modes and graphics available as options. On games like Sonic the Hedgehog for example you can now save, some people may not care about that option but others like to be able to load up a game, have a quick bash at it before they have to go out then save and quit without having to start from scratch next time. Because some of the Nintendo titles are just ROMs I encounter issues where they just don't work right with HD screens also, this is another important advantage of Microsoft's method of doing it because they have a decent certification process that ensures the games will work okay on modern screens.
The important thing to realise though of course is that a lot of XBox live file sizes are uncompressed too, so when it comes down the pipe it actually comes down faster as it's compressed/decrompressed on the fly. If it says 80mb, it just means it's 80mb of space that it'll use on disk, not necessarily 80mb to download.
The other important point is that yeah, Doom on XBox live may well be 8 times bigger than it was on the PC but my net connection is over 150x as fast as my connection was back then so I don't see it as a big deal proportionally, particularly when you can just press the Xbox button on your controller, select your friend from your friends list, press X to invite them and have them press the Xbox button at their end and a to accept to join a game. We're talking maybe 5 minutes to download a game? When you factor in the sometimes sluggishness of Nintendo's store I'm not convinced it's any longer to get the game purchased and downloaded realistically, but you get more for it.
I do have both a Wii and a 360 but if a game (e.g. Sonic, Ecco) is out on both platforms I'll always choose the 360, because there's nothing in it pricewise and I get more for my money in terms of an updated game. The Wii has a better selection of classics certainly, so it has the advantage there in that I can sometimes get titles I couldn't on the 360, I'm not saying it's all bad. I'm just saying a negligible increase in download time is irrelevant compared to the benefits.
Surely it's better to measure the amount of electricity generated by a particular method per head of population or total consumption of electricity or similar?
The US is a bigger country with a bigger population than Germany, it is therefore surely not that spectacular if it has overtaken a vastly smaller country in wind power generation. What matters is when it overtakes it in proportion to some other relevant statistic.
With the vast amounts of open land the US has it's more of a surprise it can't generate more wind, and particularly with states like Arizona, New Mexico etc. more solar than most other countries already.
Even that doesn't count because although they're the same games they have different features.
The 360 has XBox live integration and achievements for example, so it's not as if the game in question is even the same across all platforms.
It really is the most pointless test ever, we're talking about effectively different games, for different hardware platforms, from different servers.
We may as well compare the whiteness of the consoles and claim the PS3 is a failure because it's black, the Xbox comes second place because it has a black and a white version and the Wii is the winner because it's white through and through.
I have not ignored your point, I merely stated I've never encountered it in private sector.
I have no denied it exists at all, I have encountered it in public sector, but not listening to employees who actually put effort into their points rather than just whining briefly to their superiors about problems is a trait of bad management and I have only ever encountered that level of bad management in public sector.
Regardless, you still completely ignored my original point regarding this- that even if you are in that situation at the end of the day, you either accept it and deal with it as part of your job or get a new job informing the highest levels of your old workplace why you left- lack of management foresight, and again, send them, including the CEO that report. I'm sure you'll tell me how hard that is in the current economic climate, but I managed to fine and I'm sure with the wealth of experience you keep telling us about you wouldn't have a problem either.
I don't expect you to understand this, as checking your other posts you seem to repeatedly twist people's posts in your mind to say things to yourself that they didn't actually say so it already seems quite clear you only want to read what you want to read. Your constant flouting of the experience card, simply assuming you have more than anyone else and now the "I've asked my friends and they all agree with me" card doesn't strengthen your point either, it instead screams insecurity.
It'd be nice if you could actually post without having to resort to such childish comments and whilst actually reading what other people write as they write it rather than how you want to read it, is that really so much to ask?
I've yet to encounter a single private sector company that wont pay attention to a report that explains how they can improve stability of their computer systems and gain real cost savings. You'd have to work for some pretty crap companies for them to ignore opportunies to improve profitability.
You can make yourself listened to easily if you tell people what you want to hear, but no you wont get anywhere if you just whine "Windows is crap, it's Windows' fault". You also have to provide the answers as well as the problems, again, something many IT people fail to do and wonder why they're not listened to.
The only exception is public sector where no accountability exists and where there's no benefit to management of cost savings, but we all know public sector is crap already.
"You are calling people ineffectual whiners when in fact they are just describing their actual business situation (or in my case, someone else's). THAT does nobody any good."
The point is, solutions exist, if people are describing their situation in a negative manner whilst simultaneously ignoring the options available to solve their predicament then yes, they are just whiners.
Any manager is going to think you're bullshitting them if you just throw up excuses ad-hoc and quite rightly so. If however you put together a report explaining the issues and providing possible solutions (i.e. move to OSS) and instead refer your boss to that if they don't pay attention to it the first time then they're more likely to pay attention and listen.
If your boss still wont listen then as I say, well, at the end of the day, you get paid, so why care at that point? If the problem is your boss making life difficult for you then leave, giving reasons why to both him and his superiors and get a job elsewhere.
No one wants to deal with someone that just sits there and whines about someone elses software without actually providing viable solutions over ad-hoc excuses. Microsoft etc. aren't going to change until there's a real threat from OSS so what's the point annoying everyone else by whining about it as if it will if you're not willing to take real action to change it?
No need to be condescending towards the guy, I can see why he disagrees with you.
The biggest flaw in your argument is your repeated insistence that Microsoft installs things secretly and without permission. Sorry, but if you've been in the business as long as you say then you must know that Microsoft doesn't in fact do as you say. Even when you install Windows initially you have to specifically enable Windows updates but if you install updates separately you explicitly accept an agreement each and every time.
You cannot on one hand accept these agreements and then on the other claim you knew nothing of them, that's simply playing ignorant and ignorance is no excuse for surprise that when you give permission for Microsoft to install or modify arbitrary files on your system that they do just that.
The fact is you don't know what ANY Microsoft update really adds or changes, particularly service packs. You're right to complain that MS doesn't give more information about what is and isn't in a patch, but you'll find Apple is just as bad with iTunes for Windows and it's installation of Bonjour, some DNS service that runs in the background, and their more recent attempts to make it sneak on Safari and Quicktime also.
We need to be provided more data about what comes with automated installations industry-wide but I'd argue what we should really be focussing on in this particular case is not that Microsoft is distributing something with automatic updates (although it can be used as an example for that when pushing for industry-wide improvements) but that it's distributing something that sends data to untrusted servers- that's the bigger problem for me. I can buy the automated installation, it's something I already accept and that anyone working in IT for a while should be able to accept, what I can't buy is the fact they're installing something that sends data, that's my real problem here with MS.
Some years ago (we're talking Windows 95 kinda era here), I knew even on an MS OS what data was being sent to and from my machine, when and by what but nowadays I absolutely could not tell you every service that sends/receives data on my system. Whether it's Windows itself, whether it's Steam or many other peices of software transmitting data back to some server. I am more concerned about this, the constant unchecked sending and receiving of data to/from my system. What makes it worse is that there has, rightly or wrongly been a major bastardisation of protocols in recent years partly due to the web 2.0 revolution so even if you know what protocols are being used, you still don't necessarily know anymore what is being sent/received over those protocols unless you actively monitor them.
Quality of software has improved over the years with Microsoft even though it may not seem so, their software is much more stable and much more secure than it has ever been (although some might argue that's not saying much but to be fair, Windows 2003 and 2008 server are pretty solid) but whilst they continuously harden their apps they're also slipping in crap like genuine advantage and the likes and that covert transfer of information is going to ensure Microsoft can never provide the security of Linux/Unix variants where you still at least have much more control over what does and doesn't come and go from your system.
The fact is, if you truly want control over your system, what data is sent and received, what is installed with patches and updates then you're using the wrong OS. Complaining that an MS update has installed a Firefox extension is ignorant of a much bigger problem that effects both Windows itself and the set of Windows software that is equally guilty- be it Apple's, Sun's or even Google's. Getting mad at Microsoft for doing what they've always done and what their competitors do is pointless, moving to a platform where this doesn't happen is arguably the only way to get them to listen.
As a disclaimer, I don't use Linux, I use Vista so I too am guilty but whilst these things irk me I've we
For starters, I'm suprised with all the talk about cloning Mammoths and such no one thought to start with something simpler like the Yangtze river dolphin that went extinct just last year. Certainly there's no problem getting DNA samples for that. It's nice then to see there are scientific groups starting with something a little more realistic before considering moving on to the longer extinct species.
But here's my concern, it's not that getting DNA is the issue as such, the problem is getting enough DNA that's genetically diverse enough to maintain a healthy population. If we manage to get the DNA of a mammoth and bring it back then great, that's fine but what then? I'm not convinced we can get DNA from a diverse enough selection of a species to maintain a healthy population. Mammoths aside, do we likely have diverse enough set of DNA from the Yangtze river dolphin, our most recent loss, let alone from this Ibex which died out 8 or 9 years ago?
If we're serious about cloning as a technique to bring back extinct species, then the reality is we need to be archiving DNA from thousands of members of each endangered species now. A lack of diversity in a species brought back by cloning is simply going to lead to their extinction again.
This is a problem that's already affecting some of the flora that is close to extinction. We have in recent years lost (or very likely lost) species of flora from the wild but yet have them en-masse in cultivation. Perhaps a good example is Echnocactus grusonii, otherwise known as the golden barrel cactus which almost everyone will have seen as they can be purchased in nearly every garden centre worldwide. It's somewhat of a success story that the plant (which is pretty impressive) will be available for future generations to see, but it's also rather a problem in that most of them out there all stem from a single plant. As one plant can provide millions of seeds most nurseries will just take those seeds and plant them en-masse (usually in Spanish fields in Europe, but using similar methods in the southern US and China). Each seed will have some genetic diversity if cross-pollination occured between two separate plans but this by itself isn't enough.
To provide an example, anyone who has been to Arizona or lives there will know that it's a pretty diverse state in terms of climate and one of it's most picturesque plants the Saguaro cactus (Carnegia gigantea) grows across large parts of the state, ranging from some of the lower lying areas, through to some of the high er lying areas, now the problem is that those living in the hottest parts of the state, such as down by Tucson wont see temperatures anywhere near as low as those at higher, colder areas. Furthermore, some populations will be prone to suffering snow sometimes, and getting a lot more went and damp than others due to increased humidity in some areas and this is the crux of the problem. We could not take seeds from a population that has grown in the desert regions for thousands of years and plant them in the colder, wetter regions and expect them to survive as a population, therefore if a species like this were to go extinct and we only had viable seed from a specific region it is possible that they would be limited to that region, it would take thousands and thousands years for natural selection to select those hardy enough to move from that region back to the areas they previously inhabited, but during that time the reintroduced population is at risk due to the much smaller areas they'd occupy. Currently, many species are critically endangered for exactly this reason, they may grow in areas no bigger than a small village, and those areas are all too often at risk- a current example is Arrojadoa marylanae which exists only a small quartz hill range in Brazil that is currently targetted for mining of the quartz, destruction of this small area will lead to extinction of at least one, maybe multiple species of flora from our planet, and it currently doesn't seem to be that we have enough samples of this held sa
Wouldn't it be better to wait until it's actually released and we've all had chance to play it before deciding it's not as good as Dawn of War and Starcraft? I love DoW (really looking forward to DoW2 in a few weeks in fact) and Starcraft as much as the next RTS player, but I'm not sure why you're suggesting there's a problem with it in comparison when it's not even out.
It may rock, it may suck. Personally, I'll wait until I've actually, you know, played it, before deciding either way.
I'm actually quite a big XBox fan, I think the 360 is the best console out there quite honestly because it simply has so many fun games.
But even I have to wonder what they mean by Halo brought console FPS to the masses in a way Goldeneye couldn't? Halo 2 only just sold as many units as Goldeneye and they're roughly the join top selling console FPS of all time. Whilst I think the Halo series rocks, suggesting they were over and above Goldeneye in terms of their success is outright false unless you're considering the entire series of Halo vs. the single release of Goldeneye which is like comparing apples and oranges.
I'm really looking forward to Halo Wars, but I'm a little puzzled by that particular comment. I just find it odd of all the console FPS games on the market, the only one they could think to compare against was the only one that has actually sold as many units as the highest selling Halo game!
But is it really any use? If it moves in a direction when started from the bottom of the tank is it actually of any practical use? presumably it's only the buoyancy action combined with it's shape that thrust it forward such that if you start it near the surface it wont do anything.
Effectively rather than forward motion, does this only offer diagonal upwards motion? i.e. can it work without being started some distance below the surface?
I'm not sure crossing the atlantic would be that fun if you have to be dragged to the ocean floor repeatedly and launched diagonally upwards in the general direction.
Slashdot Mirror
Really? What sort of problems did you encounter exactly?
Apart from some of the cut content the game seemed pretty polished to me and was good fun.
I didn't encounter anything that would suggest this was a game not fit for release.
I think they should've just held off on release and finished off the content, that was all that was missing. They tried to do in 2 years what took Blizzard over 6 years and did a damn good job, the codebase was clearly solid- never encountered any instability issues either client or server side. The graphics weren't groundbreaking but I think the goal there was to make sure it was accessible to as many people as possible.
Most importantly, as far as MMOs go it was actually fun unlike many others, but the reason I quit is because MMOs aren't exactly high on the fun scale anyway. I'd rather play non-MMO games because I feel I'm getting more enjoyment for the time put in to them.
I think realistically they'll have to replace most aluminimum as part of the governments planned 2mbps minimum anyway, so hopefully it shouldn't be a problem for too much longer.
The wire doesn't need changing for the most part, ignoring the fact the UK already has a decent amount of fibre already, even copper isn't really inherently any worse than radio for the range of data transfer we're talking about.
It's really the tech. in the local cabinets that needs changing but that isn't getting changed. BT is planning to take years and years to roll out ADSL2 (I think they're expecting completion by 2012 to 2014) yet the mobile operators have repeatedly managed to show they can upgrade to new tech. much faster when it comes out.
The only reason fibre is mentioned in reports about upgrading the UK's broadband infrastructure is because there's a strong belief it has much more long term potential, but that hasn't stopped live tests in some countries from demonstrating 100mbps and such over older copper connections.
The point is that if mobile operators were running the fixed line infrastructure as they do the mobile infrastructure you can guarantee they'd have this kit in already or within a few years at most, whilst BT wouldn't get something like that in until at least 2020 because first they'd have to finish off ADSL2 taking them to 2012, then they'd say the UK is fine now for at least 2 - 3 years, then they'd accept things need improving, this would be followed by a 2 year study and pushing for government subsidies, followed by 1 year of trials and then they'd spend the next 3 years rolling it out. This is how ADSL and ADSL Max rollouts were done and by the time ADSL2 is complete, it'll be almost the same for that too.
So yeah, it never ceases to amaze me...
...how far ahead our mobile infrastructure is in the UK compared to our archaic fixed line infrastructure.
It's just a shame mobile broadband is rather expensive still, but then I guess that's the answer as to why our mobile infrastructure is so far ahead- because unlike fixed line ISPs it isn't offering £5 a month or even "free" "unlimited" broadband packages.
Yeah fair point ;) Didn't really put two and two together there!
Presumably then it's just the way Czech arts and such have pretty much always been.
Rather than reply point by point, I'm interested to know more what you're getting at.
Are you really saying you feel the Wii offers a superior DLC experience because although you pay the same amount and get much less for it (multiplayer modes, save game abilities, updated graphics, live integration, additional content, better product testing to ensure it works well with modern screens etc.) the content can be downloaded in say maybe 12minutes rather than 15minutes on even the slowest broadband connections? Even the UK, which is severely lagging in broadband speeds worldwide is due to push BT for a minimum of 2mbps connections for everyone.
I know you mentioned bandwidth caps too but I've yet to see an ISP wish such harsh caps that the difference in size between Nintendo DLC content and Xbox live DLC content wasn't irrelevant compared to the amount of allowance you have.
I don't mean to flame, but that really does sound like one of the weakest arguments I've ever heard in favour of one console over another and I'd be suprised if it was ever a factor in anyone's decision in choosing a console. Even early on in this console generation it would've been a push, but we've had over 2 years now since then so storage and average broadband speeds have increased even further. Certainly with the next generation probably not too many years off (2010 - 2011 probably) then sizes are bound to increase even further.
Perhaps I've misunderstood what you're getting at and your point is different, but if so I'm not really sure what it is.
"And besides. If we start allowing sex everywhere on television, that will soon be the ONLY thing on television."
Wrong. The very fact it's somewhat taboo is the reason it's used, because it attracts viewers. If it was always on no one would care. You can't stand out and attract viewers if you're only doing what everyone else is doing. This has been demonstrated many times in lots of European countries with much more lax laws on what's acceptable to be shown on TV. If you let this kind of thing play out, people will eventually get fed up of it. We're seeing this happen with reality TV in the UK, the likes of Big Brother are in decline now because our TV was flooded with it, there's much more of a backlash against it when it tries to take things further than it's ever taken them before. Reality TV has gone from something pretty much every channel was doing back to Channel 4's niche, where even there it's losing viewers quite drastically year on year, soon it wont even be worth bothering with. Channel 5 used to show porn every Friday night but they soon got bored of that as viewing figures eventually declined. One of our biggest comedians, Frank Skinner recently looked into swearing and whether it was really even necessary and now cuts the amount of swearing he uses drastically after deciding it's not, others are beginning to follow after the realisation that "Yeah we can do it, but it's doesn't really help much".
This is the same problem we have with with racist words and swear words, they only have impact because they're kept taboo, said regularly and often by everyone then "fuck" would be no more problematic to say than "damn".
You see this is the irony with those who push for things to remain taboo, it is that very fact that causes them to remain offensive to some in the first place. There is no evidence that allowing people to become desensitized to these things leads to any decline in society either because it's something that's been happening for years, after all with my example above, the word "damn" itself used to be a looked down upon.
So don't worry, seeing sex, swearing or anything like that wont cause your kids to grow up to be drooling apes, it'll allow them to grow up as open minded individuals who are capable of putting reason over reaction and who simply aren't phased by such trivial (and perfectly natural) things.
Of course, that or you could hide them from these things and allow them to become people who get angry at them when they inevitable encounter them instead, anger that ultimately achieves nothing but to repeat the very cycle of anger you talk of.
The fact is, your kids will encounter this stuff eventually, the problem is they wont be prepared for it and people in that situation often act irrationally and eratically.
The Czech republic is great for things that simply don't make sense.
When I went there two years ago walking through Prague I had many "WTF??" moments from the giant mechanical clock that every hour has weird little characters like skeletons and such come out and start spinning round through to the guy on the bridge with his little music machine with the monkey sat on top to the various peices of artwork in the city to our hungover tour guide, Ishtovar.
It's certainly a quirky place, very different to what we're used to in most Western cities. I guess it's got a lot to do with soviet era influence maybe but I've no idea!
Well worth a visit though.
I'm not sure they actually fund ALL of those.
From what I understand there's still quite a lot of hatred between Sunni and Shia groups. If I recall correctly, Bin Laden actually threatened Iran not so many years ago because it was Iranian sponsored Shia militia they were arming to fight al Qaeda's Sunni militia in Iraq. The Sunni militia realised siding with al Qaeda was a bad idea and dropped them, telling the US and Iraqis who most of the al Qaeda sympathisers were allowing them to catch them and shut down al Qaeda's network in Iraq. This was coupled with the US surge and the Iraqi army asserting it's authority against Moqtada Sadr's Iranian sponsored militia resulting in the reduction in violence we have in Iraq today.
Of course Iran does support Sunni militia where it helps them politicially to the extent that they're the enemy of their enemy (the West) but this only goes so far, certainly I do not believe Iran has any involvement with the militia in Pakistan, that seems to be a wholly Sunni affair run by al Qaeda and the Taliban (Iran hated the Taliban too for what it's worth). This isn't to say of course that some Iranian weaponry makes it's way to the Sunni militia but only in the same way the Pakistani militias are running round with US weapons hijacked from convoys trying to get through the Khyber pass in Afghanistan and the likes.
At the end of the day, whilst we most certainly can accuse Iran of sponsoring terrorism (Hezbollah is the most obvious and demonstrable) we must be careful not to weaken our argument by suggesting they're behind all terrorist groups. This is the mistake the US made with it's axis of evil claim and it's initial coupling of Iraq as something to do with the war on terror when in fact Iraq really had little to do with terrorist regimes bar those it sponsored to attack southern Iran.
Regarding Afghanistan, Iran has serious problems with opium addictions in it's country (and I mean serious- we're talking hundreds of thousands, perhaps a million addicts). This opium comes straight out of Afghanistan and the money goes towards funding the Taliban. Iran wouldn't admit it now, but initially they offered to help deal with Afghanisan in the wake of 9/11 and just like the Russians, secretly want the Afghanistan problem solved. Many people cite the Afghan war as an unjust war and claim the US shouldn't be there based on the fact Iraq really was a rather unjust war but the reality is Afghanistan and Iraq were polar opposites in terms of the right thing to do, there is hardly a country on Earth be it the US' best friend or worst enemy that doesn't truly have an interest in seeing the Afghanistan/North West Pakistan problem solved.
One final point is that when focussing on Iran as we do we must be careful not to forget Syria. Only last year Israel blew up a viable nuclear weapons plant there after all, Iran and Syria have identical goals, they're probably not even far off each other in terms of capability judging by the fact Israel felt their program was enough of a threat to risk their pilots lives against newly deployed state of the art Russian SAMs, invade their territory and hit it with multiple airstrikes. Syria is of course also guilty of funding terrorism. Perhaps the only real difference between Iran and Syria is that one likes to shout about it and gloat to the world and the other keeps it quiet and under wraps. The only upside of it is you can guarantee that if we dealt with the Iran problem or the Syria problem be it through diplomacy or military action that the other would soon bow down and admit defeat as they would suddenly find themselves very alone in the world, Syria and Iran have each other and North Korea but even other Arab nations- Saudia Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and so on would rather see them dealt with than they would see them get stronger.
"Respect. The USA does not treat countries without nukes with the same kind of respect as they do otherwise."
Really? What makes you say that.
I don't see the US treating China, France, North Korea and Russia any better than it treats countries like Japan, Germany, South Korea, Australia, Canada to name a few.
Hell, it's even launching attacks on Pakistani territory and they're a nuclear equipped nation, it's not like it's attacking Iranian territory is it?
But isn't it then a problem of wanting things both ways?
Are all the people who just do it as a hobby separate to those who complain about Microsoft's dominance and OSS struggling to increase marketshare in many areas?
I suppose it depends what the community's goal is, if it is to increase marketshare and just generally make software better for everyone by decreasing Microsoft's dominance then it has to be more than just a hobby. If however it's to remain just a hobby, it can't ever expect to be increase marketshare at an increased rate and may even start to see the trend reverse.
Certainly different people have different reasons for writing OSS code, but I suspect those who do it just as a hobby are more often than not also those who are guilty of complaining about Microsoft's dominance when they could do something about it. Of course there will be those who are content doing what they do without much care for the end result, but certainly I don't think that describes everyone developing OSS software.
Kind of.
We do need different distros for different needs, the problem is there's also a lot of distros filling the same needs and some do a pretty poor job of it such that the resources would be better spent on a competing distro. We don't want to lose all competition altogether but there are certainly some distros out there that are wasting time duplicating effort and bringing nothing to the table to show for it.
No the difference is that Nintendo is effectively just sending you ROMs for emulators. XBox live titles are complete new versions.
Nintendo effectively just takes old ROMs and just puts them up on the marketplace, live arcade games are actually built as new applications using the existing assets, sometimes offering whole new game modes and new graphics whilst keeping the classic modes and graphics available as options. On games like Sonic the Hedgehog for example you can now save, some people may not care about that option but others like to be able to load up a game, have a quick bash at it before they have to go out then save and quit without having to start from scratch next time. Because some of the Nintendo titles are just ROMs I encounter issues where they just don't work right with HD screens also, this is another important advantage of Microsoft's method of doing it because they have a decent certification process that ensures the games will work okay on modern screens.
The important thing to realise though of course is that a lot of XBox live file sizes are uncompressed too, so when it comes down the pipe it actually comes down faster as it's compressed/decrompressed on the fly. If it says 80mb, it just means it's 80mb of space that it'll use on disk, not necessarily 80mb to download.
The other important point is that yeah, Doom on XBox live may well be 8 times bigger than it was on the PC but my net connection is over 150x as fast as my connection was back then so I don't see it as a big deal proportionally, particularly when you can just press the Xbox button on your controller, select your friend from your friends list, press X to invite them and have them press the Xbox button at their end and a to accept to join a game. We're talking maybe 5 minutes to download a game? When you factor in the sometimes sluggishness of Nintendo's store I'm not convinced it's any longer to get the game purchased and downloaded realistically, but you get more for it.
I do have both a Wii and a 360 but if a game (e.g. Sonic, Ecco) is out on both platforms I'll always choose the 360, because there's nothing in it pricewise and I get more for my money in terms of an updated game. The Wii has a better selection of classics certainly, so it has the advantage there in that I can sometimes get titles I couldn't on the 360, I'm not saying it's all bad. I'm just saying a negligible increase in download time is irrelevant compared to the benefits.
Surely it's better to measure the amount of electricity generated by a particular method per head of population or total consumption of electricity or similar?
The US is a bigger country with a bigger population than Germany, it is therefore surely not that spectacular if it has overtaken a vastly smaller country in wind power generation. What matters is when it overtakes it in proportion to some other relevant statistic.
With the vast amounts of open land the US has it's more of a surprise it can't generate more wind, and particularly with states like Arizona, New Mexico etc. more solar than most other countries already.
Even that doesn't count because although they're the same games they have different features.
The 360 has XBox live integration and achievements for example, so it's not as if the game in question is even the same across all platforms.
It really is the most pointless test ever, we're talking about effectively different games, for different hardware platforms, from different servers.
We may as well compare the whiteness of the consoles and claim the PS3 is a failure because it's black, the Xbox comes second place because it has a black and a white version and the Wii is the winner because it's white through and through.
I have not ignored your point, I merely stated I've never encountered it in private sector.
I have no denied it exists at all, I have encountered it in public sector, but not listening to employees who actually put effort into their points rather than just whining briefly to their superiors about problems is a trait of bad management and I have only ever encountered that level of bad management in public sector.
Regardless, you still completely ignored my original point regarding this- that even if you are in that situation at the end of the day, you either accept it and deal with it as part of your job or get a new job informing the highest levels of your old workplace why you left- lack of management foresight, and again, send them, including the CEO that report. I'm sure you'll tell me how hard that is in the current economic climate, but I managed to fine and I'm sure with the wealth of experience you keep telling us about you wouldn't have a problem either.
I don't expect you to understand this, as checking your other posts you seem to repeatedly twist people's posts in your mind to say things to yourself that they didn't actually say so it already seems quite clear you only want to read what you want to read. Your constant flouting of the experience card, simply assuming you have more than anyone else and now the "I've asked my friends and they all agree with me" card doesn't strengthen your point either, it instead screams insecurity.
It'd be nice if you could actually post without having to resort to such childish comments and whilst actually reading what other people write as they write it rather than how you want to read it, is that really so much to ask?
I've yet to encounter a single private sector company that wont pay attention to a report that explains how they can improve stability of their computer systems and gain real cost savings. You'd have to work for some pretty crap companies for them to ignore opportunies to improve profitability.
You can make yourself listened to easily if you tell people what you want to hear, but no you wont get anywhere if you just whine "Windows is crap, it's Windows' fault". You also have to provide the answers as well as the problems, again, something many IT people fail to do and wonder why they're not listened to.
The only exception is public sector where no accountability exists and where there's no benefit to management of cost savings, but we all know public sector is crap already.
"You are calling people ineffectual whiners when in fact they are just describing their actual business situation (or in my case, someone else's). THAT does nobody any good."
The point is, solutions exist, if people are describing their situation in a negative manner whilst simultaneously ignoring the options available to solve their predicament then yes, they are just whiners.
No that's wrong, you have to enable automatic updates to even get critical updates.
I have Vista set to let me choose which to download and no patch is installed on my system without my acceptance.
I'm not sure you actually read a word I said.
Any manager is going to think you're bullshitting them if you just throw up excuses ad-hoc and quite rightly so. If however you put together a report explaining the issues and providing possible solutions (i.e. move to OSS) and instead refer your boss to that if they don't pay attention to it the first time then they're more likely to pay attention and listen.
If your boss still wont listen then as I say, well, at the end of the day, you get paid, so why care at that point? If the problem is your boss making life difficult for you then leave, giving reasons why to both him and his superiors and get a job elsewhere.
No one wants to deal with someone that just sits there and whines about someone elses software without actually providing viable solutions over ad-hoc excuses. Microsoft etc. aren't going to change until there's a real threat from OSS so what's the point annoying everyone else by whining about it as if it will if you're not willing to take real action to change it?
No need to be condescending towards the guy, I can see why he disagrees with you.
The biggest flaw in your argument is your repeated insistence that Microsoft installs things secretly and without permission. Sorry, but if you've been in the business as long as you say then you must know that Microsoft doesn't in fact do as you say. Even when you install Windows initially you have to specifically enable Windows updates but if you install updates separately you explicitly accept an agreement each and every time.
You cannot on one hand accept these agreements and then on the other claim you knew nothing of them, that's simply playing ignorant and ignorance is no excuse for surprise that when you give permission for Microsoft to install or modify arbitrary files on your system that they do just that.
The fact is you don't know what ANY Microsoft update really adds or changes, particularly service packs. You're right to complain that MS doesn't give more information about what is and isn't in a patch, but you'll find Apple is just as bad with iTunes for Windows and it's installation of Bonjour, some DNS service that runs in the background, and their more recent attempts to make it sneak on Safari and Quicktime also.
We need to be provided more data about what comes with automated installations industry-wide but I'd argue what we should really be focussing on in this particular case is not that Microsoft is distributing something with automatic updates (although it can be used as an example for that when pushing for industry-wide improvements) but that it's distributing something that sends data to untrusted servers- that's the bigger problem for me. I can buy the automated installation, it's something I already accept and that anyone working in IT for a while should be able to accept, what I can't buy is the fact they're installing something that sends data, that's my real problem here with MS.
Some years ago (we're talking Windows 95 kinda era here), I knew even on an MS OS what data was being sent to and from my machine, when and by what but nowadays I absolutely could not tell you every service that sends/receives data on my system. Whether it's Windows itself, whether it's Steam or many other peices of software transmitting data back to some server. I am more concerned about this, the constant unchecked sending and receiving of data to/from my system. What makes it worse is that there has, rightly or wrongly been a major bastardisation of protocols in recent years partly due to the web 2.0 revolution so even if you know what protocols are being used, you still don't necessarily know anymore what is being sent/received over those protocols unless you actively monitor them.
Quality of software has improved over the years with Microsoft even though it may not seem so, their software is much more stable and much more secure than it has ever been (although some might argue that's not saying much but to be fair, Windows 2003 and 2008 server are pretty solid) but whilst they continuously harden their apps they're also slipping in crap like genuine advantage and the likes and that covert transfer of information is going to ensure Microsoft can never provide the security of Linux/Unix variants where you still at least have much more control over what does and doesn't come and go from your system.
The fact is, if you truly want control over your system, what data is sent and received, what is installed with patches and updates then you're using the wrong OS. Complaining that an MS update has installed a Firefox extension is ignorant of a much bigger problem that effects both Windows itself and the set of Windows software that is equally guilty- be it Apple's, Sun's or even Google's. Getting mad at Microsoft for doing what they've always done and what their competitors do is pointless, moving to a platform where this doesn't happen is arguably the only way to get them to listen.
As a disclaimer, I don't use Linux, I use Vista so I too am guilty but whilst these things irk me I've we
For starters, I'm suprised with all the talk about cloning Mammoths and such no one thought to start with something simpler like the Yangtze river dolphin that went extinct just last year. Certainly there's no problem getting DNA samples for that. It's nice then to see there are scientific groups starting with something a little more realistic before considering moving on to the longer extinct species.
But here's my concern, it's not that getting DNA is the issue as such, the problem is getting enough DNA that's genetically diverse enough to maintain a healthy population. If we manage to get the DNA of a mammoth and bring it back then great, that's fine but what then? I'm not convinced we can get DNA from a diverse enough selection of a species to maintain a healthy population. Mammoths aside, do we likely have diverse enough set of DNA from the Yangtze river dolphin, our most recent loss, let alone from this Ibex which died out 8 or 9 years ago?
If we're serious about cloning as a technique to bring back extinct species, then the reality is we need to be archiving DNA from thousands of members of each endangered species now. A lack of diversity in a species brought back by cloning is simply going to lead to their extinction again.
This is a problem that's already affecting some of the flora that is close to extinction. We have in recent years lost (or very likely lost) species of flora from the wild but yet have them en-masse in cultivation. Perhaps a good example is Echnocactus grusonii, otherwise known as the golden barrel cactus which almost everyone will have seen as they can be purchased in nearly every garden centre worldwide. It's somewhat of a success story that the plant (which is pretty impressive) will be available for future generations to see, but it's also rather a problem in that most of them out there all stem from a single plant. As one plant can provide millions of seeds most nurseries will just take those seeds and plant them en-masse (usually in Spanish fields in Europe, but using similar methods in the southern US and China). Each seed will have some genetic diversity if cross-pollination occured between two separate plans but this by itself isn't enough.
To provide an example, anyone who has been to Arizona or lives there will know that it's a pretty diverse state in terms of climate and one of it's most picturesque plants the Saguaro cactus (Carnegia gigantea) grows across large parts of the state, ranging from some of the lower lying areas, through to some of the high er lying areas, now the problem is that those living in the hottest parts of the state, such as down by Tucson wont see temperatures anywhere near as low as those at higher, colder areas. Furthermore, some populations will be prone to suffering snow sometimes, and getting a lot more went and damp than others due to increased humidity in some areas and this is the crux of the problem. We could not take seeds from a population that has grown in the desert regions for thousands of years and plant them in the colder, wetter regions and expect them to survive as a population, therefore if a species like this were to go extinct and we only had viable seed from a specific region it is possible that they would be limited to that region, it would take thousands and thousands years for natural selection to select those hardy enough to move from that region back to the areas they previously inhabited, but during that time the reintroduced population is at risk due to the much smaller areas they'd occupy. Currently, many species are critically endangered for exactly this reason, they may grow in areas no bigger than a small village, and those areas are all too often at risk- a current example is Arrojadoa marylanae which exists only a small quartz hill range in Brazil that is currently targetted for mining of the quartz, destruction of this small area will lead to extinction of at least one, maybe multiple species of flora from our planet, and it currently doesn't seem to be that we have enough samples of this held sa
Wouldn't it be better to wait until it's actually released and we've all had chance to play it before deciding it's not as good as Dawn of War and Starcraft? I love DoW (really looking forward to DoW2 in a few weeks in fact) and Starcraft as much as the next RTS player, but I'm not sure why you're suggesting there's a problem with it in comparison when it's not even out.
It may rock, it may suck. Personally, I'll wait until I've actually, you know, played it, before deciding either way.
I'm actually quite a big XBox fan, I think the 360 is the best console out there quite honestly because it simply has so many fun games.
But even I have to wonder what they mean by Halo brought console FPS to the masses in a way Goldeneye couldn't? Halo 2 only just sold as many units as Goldeneye and they're roughly the join top selling console FPS of all time. Whilst I think the Halo series rocks, suggesting they were over and above Goldeneye in terms of their success is outright false unless you're considering the entire series of Halo vs. the single release of Goldeneye which is like comparing apples and oranges.
I'm really looking forward to Halo Wars, but I'm a little puzzled by that particular comment. I just find it odd of all the console FPS games on the market, the only one they could think to compare against was the only one that has actually sold as many units as the highest selling Halo game!
But is it really any use? If it moves in a direction when started from the bottom of the tank is it actually of any practical use? presumably it's only the buoyancy action combined with it's shape that thrust it forward such that if you start it near the surface it wont do anything.
Effectively rather than forward motion, does this only offer diagonal upwards motion? i.e. can it work without being started some distance below the surface?
I'm not sure crossing the atlantic would be that fun if you have to be dragged to the ocean floor repeatedly and launched diagonally upwards in the general direction.
I'm suprised she hasn't offered to just go and try and shoot it dead from a helicopter yet.