I just don't get how Blizzard are calling whisps that "corrupted" and "posessed" demons (SAtyrs in this case) and twisted their appearance to match the demons from outland (Eredar) as Draenei. Makes no sense whatsoever..
Oh.. wait... forgot who I was talking about.
It's a real shame to see what was a great backstory and lore in a gameworld being so shamelessly bend over and violated for the sake of fitting game dynamics they'd like into the game world.
For what it matters. vonageipo.com and vonage.com are both showing identical ownership in Whois. If someone is scamming using this they hijacked or spoofed the name , email, and phone number of the actual vonage DNS admin.
a) End point service providers. This is your cable company, or your local baby bell. They get data from a backbone out to your house. They also get some business data on there too.
b) The serious infrastructure builders. These are the AT&T, MCI, etc companies (some of which are affiliated or have business operations in group A as well) Who spend lots of money to build out fiber lines and other things which are not part of the common carrier network but instead are backbone links which to some degree string together the internet.
Group B has put tons of cash into making the internet BBF (bigger better faster). At this point they are wanting to do what all companies do and maximize the return for their shareholders. None of them are talking about making it impossible to get to google, or wherever. What they are wanting to do is offer higher speed traffic paths to these large companies for a premium.
To correct one of the bad previous analogies...
I order a pizza. I have a choice between Pepperoni Hut and Pizza Schmizza. I can order from either for the same price, but I know Pepperoni Hut gets the pizza to me faster. Why? Because Pepperoni Hut gives it's driver $.50 to take the tollway and lop 5 minutes off the drive time. Who will I consistently choose for my pizza services? End result Pepperoni Hut takes a hit on profit margins to provide faster services. Or I pay $.50 more for hotter fresher pizza.
As I was mentioning to my liberal arch-nemesis here at my place of employment on the same debate. When the internet started growing (thank Al Gore of course) it did so because of e-commerce, it did so because companies started investing in it. Before that point you had two groups financing the internet, the military and colleges (think back to Milnet/Arapanet days) and neither of them had any distinct desire to make money off the business world. At that point (Companies investing) the liberal college Birkenstock and long hair hippie net crowd sold a piece of their souls to the corporate machine (The military machine kept on chugging along and didn't care as long as they stayed out of the military networks...)
Hear that at the door? It's the corporate machine knocking.. something about collecting a debt.
I have a colo'd server tucked away running 5.3 which simply has no reason for me to every consider updating it off that. There's a certain beauty to it being a "start up and forget about it" box.
It looks like this iteration of the "console wars" will be between two factions/
Faster, prettier, newer technology
v.
Innovative and unique gaming experience.
Two of the competitors are betting heavily on the first option, one is on the second. Sony just slipped back to the betting window just before race time to also put a little money on number 2.. just in case.. since the odds are heavy against it.
If what the Time article (sorry no link) said about Wii is right I might just buy one hoping for a Star Wars franchise game to come out so I can get some immersive light saber action in.
"If you would like to use the Aero desktop interface for a mode advanced look and feel for your desktop you can do this the following ways:
Click here to purchase the Aero upgrade from the MS website Click here to enable Ad Sponsored Areo for free (Ads will appear in the background as widgets)"
They make money either way, people get an option of getting the pretty eye candy for "free" via ad sponsoring.
One thing some of you folks might want to consider is that this might be the rumbling of the "big bear" waking up finally.
MS built an empire on some core products. They have rested on those laurels for a while now. They built pretty houses, donated to charity, even threw the occasional chair. Maybe this is them waking up and saying "well what do we want to do now? Hey! Let's actually get back into the serious software business!"
What they have initially to lay out is more capital then most second world nations. You can claim all you want that MS can't buy innovation with money, that they have to find people that "love" their work and all those are at Google or whatever. But I would hold that with deep enough pockets they can start going around to people with big but hard to quantify ideas and say "here's a bucket of money if you think you can make your idea happen".
They might be gearing up to take the Yahoo/Google approach to software and services development and throw several things at the proverbial wall to see what sticks.
As much as the mantra of/. is that all things MS are big, stupid, hated, and evil I would encourage people not to count out the big bear just yet.
Will be the first BIG Virus/Trojan/Worm for OS X to hit and hit hard.
I agree most Mac people I know don't even think about security. If they do they just wrap themselves in the "Apple is immune to viruses" blanket and suck their collective artsy fartsy thumbs.
Someone will write it. Some nasty malicious code and they won't even have to be as sneaky as the windows guys in getting an end user to run/install it because they won't think anything could adverse affect their "immune" mac.
It will happen.. when it does.. you all owe me a dollar... or a cookie.. or at least a haiku about pudding cups.
I don't want an RFID which simply spews out "yes this is Churla" to any device requesting my identity because that it far too easy to spoof. Anything transmitted is just a transmission and on the most basic level can be recorded and rebroadcast by someone else.
This brings around the point that you would still need a second means of authentication anyways. meaning either a password/code to enter that you knew, or possibly some biometrics like fingerprints/retina scans. I don't trust facial geometry scanning because it also is dupable easier than stealing a retina.
We had both the original VHS release , and the widescreen reworked release in my house. Both on VHS.
My wife and I agreed that the prequels were such tripe that they were not worth buying. We had a reasonably new dog in the house. The original cut VHS tapes were a victim of that dogs house training phase, and it almost killed the dog. (Not eating the tapes, but my wifes reaction and near murderous rampage when seeing them destroyed)
Now I will have something to put in her stocking for xmas and unfortunately give Lucas money in the process. Also, we will have truely educational and non watered down versions to show our yet to be born kids. (Same reason I have School House Rock on DVD with the unmolested "manifest destiny" track)
ohmigawd I was going down the street and I saw this Nintendo console and I said Wiiiiiiiiii
(Shameless threebrain reference, but I know a bunch of you get it...)
On a more serious note, what I really see this as is a big gamble on the part of Nintendo. They are hoping to create a catchy enough name that the name gets a life of it's own on some level. It's a big gamble, and one I would not have put the remaining reputation of the company on myself.
From a development standpoint, the thing to note here is that I would be willing to bet they're going to target marketing on this more at the child audience and much less at the young adult/adult audience (which is basically how the gamecube worked out for them.) At that level then you can target what kind of game development you are going to do on this platform. Don't expect a bunch of high concept fantasy rpg's and gory blood drenched FPS's on this one. Expect a lot of -Kart , generic sports game, generic mario franchise extension, and stuff your 6 year old niece/nephew won't be able to get enough of. All packaged in a name easy enough for a 3 year old to chant.
One of the biggest challenges facing almost every support center and TAC I have worked with/in in my career is simple. If someone is really on the ball and works tech support they are at that same time soaking up knowledge, and usually getting free certifications from the company in their products (if the company has certs). This means that in a year or two they have much better skills at handling the software than the customers who are IT pros at these various companies. The software company doesn't want to pay much for support people because they view support as a cost center and need to pay bottom dollar (ergo outsourcing) when in fact some are actual profit centers.
End result? Good technician leaves support company to work for one of the customers, usually netting a 20-30% (or more) raise. Software company loses a year or two of knowledge and skill on the phone. I know of one company which believes all tech support jobs are "lateral moves" meaning someone can go L1 to L2 to L3 and literally never get a raise based on the promotions. These companies wonder why every 2-2.5 years they have an exodus of all their most skilled people.
Basically people use working at a call center as "On the Job Training"
The solution? Companies pay more for support people in order to keep skilled workers. The cost of that? Users have to pay more for support. Since users don't want to pay more for support (well a few will once they realize the return on it in quality, but still). This means companies won't pay more for tech support people, which means the cycle will continue.
What exactly is Vista going to do that other people *cough*.mac*cough* haven't already done?
If it's one thing you can't accuse microsoft of it's coming up with that many new and innovative net technologies.
I think this sounds a lot like the EU lawyers trying to play the "LOOK OUT IT'S THE BOOGEYMAN!" defense. If they have solid evidence on MS then present it and uphold the anti-trust rulings. Don't try to claim that by not taking a pre-emptive strike of some kind legally against Vista that you're going to doom the internet.
You will be able to tell they're ready to make serious money on this when they offer a cut rate discounted license for "Windows 2003 server, virtual machine edition" On top of "Windows Virtual Server"
This way, you get a VMware ESX style OS to handle virtual servers on the box which would presumably come with some set number of windows server licenses, and a per virtual server licensing option for windows running on virtualization options other than MS's own.
Sell in option would be to do server consolidation for companies. The pitch? "Let us consolidate these 10 servers onto one box for you, you save the yearly maintenance costs on 9 servers, and we credit your account part of what those 2003 server licenses are costing on all of them to help subsidize the virtualization software with double that number of virtual windows servers licensed on it."
The potential is here for it to be truly insidious.
I believe following a Wue Wei in this matter and seeking a Tao of OS would dictate that you did not decide either OS, but rather whichever OS more naturally handled a task would be the one that was chosen.
By advocating that only one OS is "the way" you are denying that fact that the Tao is in all things, and ergo, all things are part of the Tao.
They are basically claiming that having verifiable serialization on software is a patent?
How many software companies sell software where the real purchase you make is the "CD-key" or "activation key". This means all of them are violating this persons patent. There's no way this was a recent invention. And wouldn't it go back further to the early Netware days with serial numbers then? I think this gets to the point or an idea which is basic enough that it doesn't warrant a patent as as "non common sense".
Wait.. I mentioned common sense in a discussion about US Patent law. I feel both dirty.. and confused...
I won't claim that Microsoft is not just getting some of what they like to dish out. But you believe that the patent system is wrong and flawed then any misuse of it is misuse no matter who the plaintiff and/or defendant are.
Why do people continue to buy Sony products when Sony has been slipping?
Why do people continue to buy Microsoft software if it's known not to be the best out there?
Why do people eat at McDonalds instead of the mom and pop diner 2 blocks away that serves better burgers?
It's all name and brand recognition. People bought IBM notebooks because IBM had a name behind them, and in many cases also supplied all the bigger infrastructure and server pieces.
Now that same laptop isn't an IBM anymore. Like a high dollar luxury car manufacturer that also releases the same cars produced in the same way, but with a less expensive nameplate on them loses market value.
What used to have a Lexus nameplate on it, now has a Toyota nameplate. And has to complete on a different scale.
I work at a company which has extolled repeatedly in town hall meetings with the VP's of the division that in order to keep employees they will do whatever is needed to ensure that the best talent doesn't walk out the door.
In response it seems that significant raises are only given when you walk in the door with an offer letter from somewhere else.
People who don't fill out a single thing on the employee input section of their review forms get just the same as people who put in volumes on what they've accomplished.
Most supervisors have gotten to the point where they might as well have a key fob with a recording of "well you know how this company is..." on it in relation to questions about why people here are paid so much less than industry average for their skill and talent levels.
And as you can guess we have lost our most talented people with a speed and efficiency of a chainsaw wielding maniac clearing out a catholic school girl locker room.
I will believe anything that any manager says about putting employees first and customers second when they can come back in a year and say "this is what we did to put that into play and these are the rewards" , until then it's blowing sunshine up someones rear and that gets boring.
Slashdot Mirror
I just don't get how Blizzard are calling whisps that "corrupted" and "posessed" demons (SAtyrs in this case) and twisted their appearance to match the demons from outland (Eredar) as Draenei. Makes no sense whatsoever..
Oh.. wait... forgot who I was talking about.
It's a real shame to see what was a great backstory and lore in a gameworld being so shamelessly bend over and violated for the sake of fitting game dynamics they'd like into the game world.
Sony vs. Microsoft , Tortoise vs. Snail... In a gunfight.
:)
There, I fixed it for you
For what it matters. vonageipo.com and vonage.com are both showing identical ownership in Whois. If someone is scamming using this they hijacked or spoofed the name , email, and phone number of the actual vonage DNS admin.
To raise money for the new "SO you want to actually GET THROUGH to customers on our cablemodems" tariff which is upcoming.
Any of them Red perchance?
And are any of them broadcasting us pictures of Hitler?
There are two groups to look at here.
a) End point service providers. This is your cable company, or your local baby bell. They get data from a backbone out to your house. They also get some business data on there too.
b) The serious infrastructure builders. These are the AT&T, MCI, etc companies (some of which are affiliated or have business operations in group A as well) Who spend lots of money to build out fiber lines and other things which are not part of the common carrier network but instead are backbone links which to some degree string together the internet.
Group B has put tons of cash into making the internet BBF (bigger better faster). At this point they are wanting to do what all companies do and maximize the return for their shareholders. None of them are talking about making it impossible to get to google, or wherever. What they are wanting to do is offer higher speed traffic paths to these large companies for a premium.
To correct one of the bad previous analogies...
I order a pizza. I have a choice between Pepperoni Hut and Pizza Schmizza.
I can order from either for the same price, but I know Pepperoni Hut gets the pizza to me faster.
Why? Because Pepperoni Hut gives it's driver $.50 to take the tollway and lop 5 minutes off the drive time.
Who will I consistently choose for my pizza services?
End result Pepperoni Hut takes a hit on profit margins to provide faster services. Or I pay $.50 more for hotter fresher pizza.
As I was mentioning to my liberal arch-nemesis here at my place of employment on the same debate. When the internet started growing (thank Al Gore of course) it did so because of e-commerce, it did so because companies started investing in it. Before that point you had two groups financing the internet, the military and colleges (think back to Milnet/Arapanet days) and neither of them had any distinct desire to make money off the business world. At that point (Companies investing) the liberal college Birkenstock and long hair hippie net crowd sold a piece of their souls to the corporate machine (The military machine kept on chugging along and didn't care as long as they stayed out of the military networks...)
Hear that at the door? It's the corporate machine knocking.. something about collecting a debt.
I'm in exactly the same boat.
I have a colo'd server tucked away running 5.3 which simply has no reason for me to every consider updating it off that. There's a certain beauty to it being a "start up and forget about it" box.
It looks like this iteration of the "console wars" will be between two factions/
Faster, prettier, newer technology
v.
Innovative and unique gaming experience.
Two of the competitors are betting heavily on the first option, one is on the second. Sony just slipped back to the betting window just before race time to also put a little money on number 2.. just in case.. since the odds are heavy against it.
If what the Time article (sorry no link) said about Wii is right I might just buy one hoping for a Star Wars franchise game to come out so I can get some immersive light saber action in.
"If you would like to use the Aero desktop interface for a mode advanced look and feel for your desktop you can do this the following ways:
Click here to purchase the Aero upgrade from the MS website
Click here to enable Ad Sponsored Areo for free (Ads will appear in the background as widgets)"
They make money either way, people get an option of getting the pretty eye candy for "free" via ad sponsoring.
One thing some of you folks might want to consider is that this might be the rumbling of the "big bear" waking up finally.
/. is that all things MS are big, stupid, hated, and evil I would encourage people not to count out the big bear just yet.
MS built an empire on some core products. They have rested on those laurels for a while now. They built pretty houses, donated to charity, even threw the occasional chair. Maybe this is them waking up and saying "well what do we want to do now? Hey! Let's actually get back into the serious software business!"
What they have initially to lay out is more capital then most second world nations. You can claim all you want that MS can't buy innovation with money, that they have to find people that "love" their work and all those are at Google or whatever. But I would hold that with deep enough pockets they can start going around to people with big but hard to quantify ideas and say "here's a bucket of money if you think you can make your idea happen".
They might be gearing up to take the Yahoo/Google approach to software and services development and throw several things at the proverbial wall to see what sticks.
As much as the mantra of
Will be the first BIG Virus/Trojan/Worm for OS X to hit and hit hard.
I agree most Mac people I know don't even think about security. If they do they just wrap themselves in the "Apple is immune to viruses" blanket and suck their collective artsy fartsy thumbs.
Someone will write it. Some nasty malicious code and they won't even have to be as sneaky as the windows guys in getting an end user to run/install it because they won't think anything could adverse affect their "immune" mac.
It will happen.. when it does.. you all owe me a dollar... or a cookie.. or at least a haiku about pudding cups.
I don't want an RFID which simply spews out "yes this is Churla" to any device requesting my identity because that it far too easy to spoof. Anything transmitted is just a transmission and on the most basic level can be recorded and rebroadcast by someone else.
This brings around the point that you would still need a second means of authentication anyways. meaning either a password/code to enter that you knew, or possibly some biometrics like fingerprints/retina scans. I don't trust facial geometry scanning because it also is dupable easier than stealing a retina.
We had both the original VHS release , and the widescreen reworked release in my house. Both on VHS.
My wife and I agreed that the prequels were such tripe that they were not worth buying. We had a reasonably new dog in the house. The original cut VHS tapes were a victim of that dogs house training phase, and it almost killed the dog. (Not eating the tapes, but my wifes reaction and near murderous rampage when seeing them destroyed)
Now I will have something to put in her stocking for xmas and unfortunately give Lucas money in the process. Also, we will have truely educational and non watered down versions to show our yet to be born kids. (Same reason I have School House Rock on DVD with the unmolested "manifest destiny" track)
Yes,
But it's a dark dark place (the sun never shines there).
And what gaming geek WOULDN'T want to be there?
Yes...
But 37.5% of all stats presented by people are made up on the fly.
Only about 2.31% of people know that by adding numbers after the decimal point the average person considers the number "more credible".
ohmigawd I was going down the street and I saw this Nintendo console and I said Wiiiiiiiiii
(Shameless threebrain reference, but I know a bunch of you get it...)
On a more serious note, what I really see this as is a big gamble on the part of Nintendo. They are hoping to create a catchy enough name that the name gets a life of it's own on some level. It's a big gamble, and one I would not have put the remaining reputation of the company on myself.
From a development standpoint, the thing to note here is that I would be willing to bet they're going to target marketing on this more at the child audience and much less at the young adult/adult audience (which is basically how the gamecube worked out for them.) At that level then you can target what kind of game development you are going to do on this platform. Don't expect a bunch of high concept fantasy rpg's and gory blood drenched FPS's on this one. Expect a lot of -Kart , generic sports game, generic mario franchise extension, and stuff your 6 year old niece/nephew won't be able to get enough of. All packaged in a name easy enough for a 3 year old to chant.
One of the biggest challenges facing almost every support center and TAC I have worked with/in in my career is simple. If someone is really on the ball and works tech support they are at that same time soaking up knowledge, and usually getting free certifications from the company in their products (if the company has certs). This means that in a year or two they have much better skills at handling the software than the customers who are IT pros at these various companies. The software company doesn't want to pay much for support people because they view support as a cost center and need to pay bottom dollar (ergo outsourcing) when in fact some are actual profit centers.
End result? Good technician leaves support company to work for one of the customers, usually netting a 20-30% (or more) raise. Software company loses a year or two of knowledge and skill on the phone. I know of one company which believes all tech support jobs are "lateral moves" meaning someone can go L1 to L2 to L3 and literally never get a raise based on the promotions. These companies wonder why every 2-2.5 years they have an exodus of all their most skilled people.
Basically people use working at a call center as "On the Job Training"
The solution? Companies pay more for support people in order to keep skilled workers. The cost of that? Users have to pay more for support. Since users don't want to pay more for support (well a few will once they realize the return on it in quality, but still). This means companies won't pay more for tech support people, which means the cycle will continue.
Welcome to the machine.
What exactly is Vista going to do that other people *cough*.mac*cough* haven't already done?
If it's one thing you can't accuse microsoft of it's coming up with that many new and innovative net technologies.
I think this sounds a lot like the EU lawyers trying to play the "LOOK OUT IT'S THE BOOGEYMAN!" defense. If they have solid evidence on MS then present it and uphold the anti-trust rulings. Don't try to claim that by not taking a pre-emptive strike of some kind legally against Vista that you're going to doom the internet.
Actually..
Back in the day.. when I worked a shourt tour of Duty at MS there was a semi regular (like 2 times a mont) BBQ outside with kegs.. and yes.. free.
You will be able to tell they're ready to make serious money on this when they offer a cut rate discounted license for "Windows 2003 server, virtual machine edition" On top of "Windows Virtual Server"
This way, you get a VMware ESX style OS to handle virtual servers on the box which would presumably come with some set number of windows server licenses, and a per virtual server licensing option for windows running on virtualization options other than MS's own.
Sell in option would be to do server consolidation for companies. The pitch? "Let us consolidate these 10 servers onto one box for you, you save the yearly maintenance costs on 9 servers, and we credit your account part of what those 2003 server licenses are costing on all of them to help subsidize the virtualization software with double that number of virtual windows servers licensed on it."
The potential is here for it to be truly insidious.
I believe following a Wue Wei in this matter and seeking a Tao of OS would dictate that you did not decide either OS, but rather whichever OS more naturally handled a task would be the one that was chosen.
By advocating that only one OS is "the way" you are denying that fact that the Tao is in all things, and ergo, all things are part of the Tao.
They are basically claiming that having verifiable serialization on software is a patent?
How many software companies sell software where the real purchase you make is the "CD-key" or "activation key". This means all of them are violating this persons patent. There's no way this was a recent invention. And wouldn't it go back further to the early Netware days with serial numbers then? I think this gets to the point or an idea which is basic enough that it doesn't warrant a patent as as "non common sense".
Wait.. I mentioned common sense in a discussion about US Patent law. I feel both dirty.. and confused...
I won't claim that Microsoft is not just getting some of what they like to dish out. But you believe that the patent system is wrong and flawed then any misuse of it is misuse no matter who the plaintiff and/or defendant are.
Why do people continue to buy Sony products when Sony has been slipping?
Why do people continue to buy Microsoft software if it's known not to be the best out there?
Why do people eat at McDonalds instead of the mom and pop diner 2 blocks away that serves better burgers?
It's all name and brand recognition. People bought IBM notebooks because IBM had a name behind them, and in many cases also supplied all the bigger infrastructure and server pieces.
Now that same laptop isn't an IBM anymore. Like a high dollar luxury car manufacturer that also releases the same cars produced in the same way, but with a less expensive nameplate on them loses market value.
What used to have a Lexus nameplate on it, now has a Toyota nameplate. And has to complete on a different scale.
I work at a company which has extolled repeatedly in town hall meetings with the VP's of the division that in order to keep employees they will do whatever is needed to ensure that the best talent doesn't walk out the door.
In response it seems that significant raises are only given when you walk in the door with an offer letter from somewhere else.
People who don't fill out a single thing on the employee input section of their review forms get just the same as people who put in volumes on what they've accomplished.
Most supervisors have gotten to the point where they might as well have a key fob with a recording of "well you know how this company is..." on it in relation to questions about why people here are paid so much less than industry average for their skill and talent levels.
And as you can guess we have lost our most talented people with a speed and efficiency of a chainsaw wielding maniac clearing out a catholic school girl locker room.
I will believe anything that any manager says about putting employees first and customers second when they can come back in a year and say "this is what we did to put that into play and these are the rewards" , until then it's blowing sunshine up someones rear and that gets boring.
**rant mode deactivated..**