Ok, what you remember is correct, but what your memory forgot is that you just described what happens on the video card itself in hardware. What you've described is a very crude description of HDCP. That doesn't affect the performance of the OS. Also, it was 30x per MINUTE, not per second. This is the same reason why some of your bluray players get out of "sync" with your TV on early implementations of HDCP for *gasp* 2 seconds and then resync (30 times per minute = 2 seconds). The DRM portion of vista is not much more than moving the requesting playback of DRM'ed media into ring 0 so that userland code can't muck with it. A side effect of that is that it's also more efficient -- not slowed down since requests to IO ports and memory blocks for DMA transfer don't get intercepted.
The rest of the post (Blocking IO, etc etc) is just conjecture on your part, and is completely false.
Probably not what you were looking for exactly, but here you go, from MSDN, a bug report regarding fork() in the posix subsystem, that proves it is part of the subsystem:
"A POSIX-based program may leak Private Bytes and Non Paged Pool Bytes if the parent process uses the fork() function." http://support.microsoft.com/kb/252193
------- Here's an article describing how fork() under posix for windows is actually implemented using copy-on-write:
That's acceptable, but then again, why does the EU seem to think they can base their fine on sales made in other countries where perhaps this behavior isn't illegal? Seems kind of like the Europeans are trying to force their law on the rest of the world.
I said base the fine on sales made in other countries. Unless your interpretation is that all of intels revenue comes 100% from the EU, they are effectively basing their fine on income made in other parts of the world where it may or may not be illegal.
That's acceptable, but then again, why does the EU seem to think they can base their fine on sales made in other countries where perhaps this behavior isn't illegal? Seems kind of like the Europeans are trying to force their law on the rest of the world.
A hardcore gamer is someone who is a hardcore GAMER, as in, someone who plays a ton of games. Using your example of tic-tac-toe, if someone plays a couple of games and decides, "hey, even though this is the same thing, over and over and over again, with the outcome basically decided on the first move, but I like it!" and then spends 80 hours a week playing online tic-tac-toe, they are NOT a hardcore gamer. They just have an addiction.
I wouldn't argue that someone who plays many games, can't be a hardcore gamer, but I also wouldn't say someone who plays just a single game isn't. I don't totally disagree with it, but I don't totally agree with it either. It's more open to opinion, and perhaps circumstances. The difference being a general hardcore gamer, and one that specializes in only a single game. I would say they both are. You say you have to play more than 1 game to be considered a hardcore gamer. Different argument, but I can see both sides, but I lean towards them both being considered a hardcore gamer.
The rest of your post confuses hardcore with being good. They aren't necessarily inclusive nor exclusive of each other. Typically the more dedicated you are, the better you become, but not always, and often there is a limit to which dedication will take you alone. Being a good player can either come quickly through skill, or it can often come slower if you are dedicated enough. Becoming a great player often requires both, and becoming the best always requires both. Hardcore is the term to refer to ones dedication to something, not how good they are at it, although it's easy to mix the two as they often go hand in hand.
I'll also assume the "you" refer to, is the generic "you" and not me specifically, because outside of what I've said about my past experience in playing MMOs, you don't know anything about my gaming background or habits (past or present).
How can a casual WoW player NOT be a casual gamer?
Just because a hardcare WoW player isn't necessarily a hardcore gamer, does not imply the opposite, and I never said as such. However, since you brought it up, it's possible for a casual player in a particular game to NOT be a casual gamer if the game is on the extreme side of needing dedication (Which WoW isn't), or if WoW isn't the only game they play.
What other game (if you want the best gear) FORCES you to spend MONTHS raiding 3 nights a week to get the best gear? How is that casual friendly??
Everquest, Linage, Linage 2, Everquest 2, Dark Ages of Camelot, even City of Heroes did when it started, Ultima Online, Neverwinter Nights, etc etc etc
My WoW guild was raiding 3 nights a week, as I said, I played between 15-18 hours a week with them, that covers all 3 raids we did a week. Guild members were only required to attend 2 of the 3, many did, and many were in the games best gear when the latest expansion came out (Full tier 6 or better). So it's quite possible, as I experienced it first hand.
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Lastly, it is apparent that you are getting confused and trying to discuss casual WoW play, hardcore WoW gamers, casual gamers, and hardcore gamers, and mixing and matching them in places as if they are interchangable, and they aren't. Any further discussion, I suggest you stick to what the article describes. WoW is by far the most casual friendly MMO on the market (that has any reasonable player base), and arguably the least hardcore player/gamer friendly of the popular MMOs.
"Casual friendly" does not mean you can max out everything in the game with little time investment. It means that you can quite literally log in, play for 15-30 minutes at a time, anytime you want, and be productive doing so. No commitment to log in at any particular time is necessary, nor the need to stay logged in for long periods of time. Yes, if you want raid gear, you have to commit to the length of the raid, which is anywhere from an hour to 3 hours, typically. And yes, in WoW, you can get gear that was close to the best you can get with a very minimal amount of time spent per week through the arena (an hour a week). Getting better gear than that is possible, but to get "raid worthy" doesn't require more than a few hours a week. Remember, this is the game where a guild went from having NO characters at all (they all started new characters) to killing the hardest end boss in the game (at the time, Illidan) in under two weeks. All in gear much worse than a full arena set.
And that brings me back to my point. WoW does not require the same amount of dedication as many of the prior MMOs did. You can play casually (5-20 hours per week) and still get to the point where you are raiding if you want. You CAN see everything in the game in under two weeks, which simply isn't/wasn't possible in older MMOs, so it's easier to get into the game and be productive. It's easier to max out your character as well. The most you can raid for is 15-20 hours a week if you aren't wiping. WoW is a dumbed down, simplified MMO for the masses that requires less dedication than MMOs have previously.
You say it simply isn't possible, but I've done it, so apparently it is.
I didn't say 20 must be casual because it is not 80. However, you haven't given any criteria that says why anything more than 10 hours is hardcore. I'm just pointing out that what people consider "hardcore" for a WoW player wouldn't have been considered even a raider in EQ, let alone a hardcore player, not even close. *THAT* makes WoW a lot more casual friendly than the older, more hardcore oriented MMOs like EQ.
You seem to have confused a casual WoW player with a casual gamer. They aren't the same thing. You apparently aren't a hardcore gamer. That's fine, it isn't for everyone. However, as a hardcore gamer, I can definately say that WoW is a good example of how games have moved away from the hardcore gamers and become more casual gamer friendly.
Also "you have maxed out pretty much anything, you are not casual" isn't logical either because it makes the assumption that maxing out everything in a game by definition makes you a hardcore gamer. So considering that if you play tic-tac-toe, on offense if you start with the middle square, there are really only like 4 different unique type ways the game can progress, and on defense, there is only 3. So using your definition of a hardcore gamer, if I play 7 games of tic-tac-toe, I am now a hardcore gamer, because I have done it all. Doing everything in a game designed to be casual does not make you a hardcore gamer, sorry.
And yes, being a casual player is measured on a bell curve. Casual = average. Hardcore = top few percent.
From the dictionary definition of hardcore: "the most dedicated, unfailingly loyal faction of a group or organization". The most dedicated. It doesn't say the people who are more than x. It's the *MOST* dedicated, meaning the top end of the scale. You will find the amount of time people play MMOs in hours per week follows a bell curve, so yes, it definately does get measured on a bell curve. Just not your idea of what is more than x, where x is a lot for YOU. Because YOU apparently aren't near the top of the curve.
For an MMO, 20 hours a week is casual gaming. I played WoW for a long time (And EQ before that). I was in a raiding guild in WoW, one of the best on our server, and I only had to play for 15 hours a week. It got to the point where after those 15 hours there was literally nothing for me to do. I had all the best equipment I could, the highest level, and more gold than I was spending. I eventually decided to max out every faction in the game, and got pretty close to doing it before I finally just quit out of boredom.
Compare that to Everquest where in my raiding guild, we played at a *minimum* of 80 hours a week. Every week. There were literally many many days where the guild (of 100+) would go into work the next day with an hour or two (or no) of sleep. Sometimes the entire (or vast majority) would call into work "sick" to either recoup, camp a spawn. Raids were 72+ people, not like WoW where the maximum raid size is 25 people. Raids don't have mobs they have to spawn camp for hours/days. Even with a raid schedule like that, and in a guild that could/did dominate the vast majority of spawns, I wouldn't have the best gear available in every slot (Probably like 1/2 in last expansions best, and 1/2 in the current one). See there is a huge difference between these two games. One where 80+ hours a week and you aren't even half done with the big things, and one where 15 hours a week and you are completely done, even with the minor stuff.
In WoW, you have your own neat little raid instances set aside for you, so you can schedule your raids whenever is most convenient to you. In EQ, the spawns happen when they happen (in 24 hours from last kill +-1 hour, in 72 hours from the last kill +-3 hours, or in a week +-7 hours). If your guild wants a particular week spawn mob, then you block off 14 hours, and your guild has to be ready to kill it within a few minutes of it spawning, or the next guild will kill it. Every member has to be online, and doing a smaller raid with all the necessary consumables on them and ready to switch and run to the other spawn as soon as it comes up. You don't "schedule" it on the calendar... 7pm Thursday, kill god of something.
Casual gamers look and say, wow, I only play 20 hours, that's hardcore! Real hardcore gamers chuckle and laugh at 20 hours (and maybe feel a little bit embarrassed at exactly how many hours they really do play). Heck 20 hours, that's a saturday. By that definition, I could be a "hardcore" gamer in 4 different MMOs all the same time, lol.
I think you vastly overestimate how many people live in "rural" areas. The top 30 (of 363) metropolitan areas alone make up for the majority of the US population.
But I will concede that there are many pockets in the US that are stuck with just a single cable company, and the best they can get is 6Mbps download, although, dish services are available ANYWHERE in the US that have 6Mbps service, so no less than that. If you think there is somewhere that is stuck with 4Mbps as the fastest they can get, they haven't looked very hard, or they require something other than just a fast download speed (like extremely low ping times for ultra competitive fps shooters, etc).
I would disagree, but then I remember when my DSL was at most 1.5Mbps down, 384k up. Now I can get 18Mbps down DSL. As for cable, it used to be 4Mbps, and now I can get up to 50Mbps if I wanted, just a few years later. I wouldn't call that very little progress over time, and considering that comcast just rolled out DOCSIS 3, when it's either just ratified, or is about to be, I would say their infrastructure is far beyond bare minimum. Then again, I remember when I was paying $12/hour in phone bills, $50/mo in phone line charges, and had to fork over $1200 in hardware costs for 2 modems so that I could bond them together. All for a 112k down connection. How you can think that, is simply amazing.
I don't know what your definition of "most" is, but I can say it isn't the majority. Here in the far west Chicago suburbs (30+ miles out), we pay $63 (before package deals, discounts, promos, etc) for 22/5Mbps cable from comcast. We can also get DSL from AT&T for $65/mo for 18Mbps down.
I don't know what monopoly you are referring to here in the US. I can get 4 major types of (residental) internet service at my house. DSL, cable, dish, and cellular. Inside each of those major tpes are multiple companies offering service typically. I can get DSL from a handful of different businesses. Cable internet I can only get from Comcast, currently. Dish I can get from 2 different major providers (and a slew of smaller ones), and atleast 3 different cellular internet plans.
In fact of those, I currently have 3 coming to my house (cable internet - 22Mbps down/5Mbps up, dsl - 6Mbps down/768Mbps up, and cellular). I have one computer on comcast, one on dsl, and my iphone on AT&T cellular.
Your original comment follows 2.1, again: My position was that the EC is going after an unusually large number of American companies, and when doing so, it has an unusually large conviction rate, of which lands some of the highest fines. You ignored that position, and tried to say that because the DoJ has sued at least one foreign company that the EC can't possibly be specifically targeting American companies, and then went on to prove that argument. Sorry, but perhaps you should learn what a strawman argument is. I am going to ignore your bait, as nothing you've said disproves or even helps to disprove my point, even <bold>if</bold> everything you've said is correct.
It's a perfect example of a strawman argument. <quote> The straw man fallacy occurs in the following pattern:
1. Person A has position X.
2. Person B ignores X and instead presents position Y. Y is a distorted version of X and can be set up in several ways, including:
1. Presenting a misrepresentation of the opponent's position and then refuting it, thus giving the appearance that the opponent's actual position has been refuted.[1]
2. Quoting an opponent's words out of context â€" i.e. choosing quotations which are intentionally misrepresentative of the opponent's actual intentions (see contextomy and quote mining).[2]
3. Presenting someone who defends a position poorly as the defender, then refuting that person's arguments - thus giving the appearance that every upholder of that position (and thus the position itself) has been defeated.[1]
4. Inventing a fictitious persona with actions or beliefs which are then criticized, implying that the person represents a group of whom the speaker is critical.
5. Oversimplifying an opponent's argument, then attacking this oversimplified version.
3. Person B attacks position Y, concluding that X is false/incorrect/flawed. This sort of "reasoning" is fallacious, because attacking a distorted version of a position fails to constitute an attack on the actual position. </quote>
My position was that the EC is going after an unusually large number of American companies, and when doing so, it has an unusually large conviction rate, of which lands some of the highest fines. You ignored that position, and tried to say that because the DoJ has sued at least one foreign company that the EC can't possibly be specifically targeting American companies, and then went on to prove that argument. Sorry, but perhaps you should learn what a strawman argument is. I am going to ignore your bait, as nothing you've said disproves or even helps to disprove my point, even <bold>if</bold> everything you've said is correct.
Biometrics aren't typically used as the only security, they are used to increase security. So yes, many biometric systems will fail if you have access to the hardware, and/or you build a fake sensor to relay the data to the system. The replay could happen at the sensor level, but not at the network level. At the network level, it'd be secured from replay through other means (Salt/hash, encryption, etc).
You will notice even in the movies with biometric security, not only do you need the biometrics (which can be faked) but you also need a password, and typically a key (or fob/keycard) as well. Biometrics on the other hand is great for keeping out all but the most determined hacking attempts, and they likely have to have access to your biometric information (Face, fingerprint, palm print, and/or retina scan). *ALL* locks are breakable/hackable/pickable. It's just a matter of difficulty. Biometrics adds difficulty, it doesn't make it impossible. Nor is it appropriate in all cases, but, it is nice in many many more cases than it is currently used in.
That's a strawman argument and you know it. It isn't the fact that the EC or the DoJ can and does file cases against foreign companies that do business within their jurisdiction. It's the fact that the EC has an abnormally high percentage of their cases (In both number of cases, the percentage of guilty verdicts, and the amount of fines) towards American companies specifically. The cases the EC files are typically malicious, baseless or highly subjective in nature, and against American companies. That does matter.
Considering the EU only comprises 30% of Microsoft's revenue, and supposedly how many EU countries are dictating they don't/can't use commercial products (lol, how "free" is a country who has that dictated to them), I can't wait for the EU market to shrink to such a small amount that it's no longer worth it to Microsoft to have an official presence there. Then the EU can try sucking on it's own teet for a while and see how far that gets you.
As a side note, biometrics for VPN's are nothing more than basically a very long password. But they can't be replayed because the biometric data is combined with a key that the server sends down. So replaying it would be worthless unless you can figure out how to get the server to give you the same key again, which it's designed not to do;-)
Here's a press release that might help you start your search for answers. http://www.itweb.co.za/office/securedata/0703120805.htm there it talks about RSA, it's SecureID, and third parties involved. Google the companies involved and look at their products and FAQs, it'll help you understand a lot better than I could explain it to you.
First, about VPN/SSH: You configure your VPN so that user "KingMotley" can only be authenticated from an address that begins with 67.xxx.xxx.xxx, because I always connect from home with comcast. All comcast IP's are in that range. It also requires a password, and a key fob (RSA number generator thing). Now, unless the hardware is hacked by a bug, having just my password is useless, as is stealing my key fob without having my password. Lastly, even if the key fob is bypassed somehow, and my password is known, you still have to connect from comcast (or know to use a comcast IP).
After all that, assuming you can bypass all that, you STILL are protected by SSH's password. SSH should still be set up to only accept connections from the IP address range the VPN would normally give out the clients, protecting it from bypassing the VPN, or a different compromised server (The server IP address shouldn't be in the range the VPN would give out). It's not replacing the protection of SSH with VPN, it's layering it. You need to be able to break through the VPN and SSH protections faster than I can detect your hack attempts. That isn't likely.
Slashdot Mirror
Once.
Insightful, lol.
Ok, what you remember is correct, but what your memory forgot is that you just described what happens on the video card itself in hardware. What you've described is a very crude description of HDCP. That doesn't affect the performance of the OS. Also, it was 30x per MINUTE, not per second. This is the same reason why some of your bluray players get out of "sync" with your TV on early implementations of HDCP for *gasp* 2 seconds and then resync (30 times per minute = 2 seconds). The DRM portion of vista is not much more than moving the requesting playback of DRM'ed media into ring 0 so that userland code can't muck with it. A side effect of that is that it's also more efficient -- not slowed down since requests to IO ports and memory blocks for DMA transfer don't get intercepted.
The rest of the post (Blocking IO, etc etc) is just conjecture on your part, and is completely false.
Raid 5 is great, if you like painfully slow writes, and have space to waste.
Probably not what you were looking for exactly, but here you go, from MSDN, a bug report regarding fork() in the posix subsystem, that proves it is part of the subsystem:
"A POSIX-based program may leak Private Bytes and Non Paged Pool Bytes if the parent process uses the fork() function."
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/252193
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Here's an article describing how fork() under posix for windows is actually implemented using copy-on-write:
"In POSIX, there is a fork() instruction that basically creates two copies of the same program."
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/103858
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Here's the part where they announce the support of pThreads and sync functions:
"With the release of SFU 3.5, this development environment now includes support for POSIX threads (Pthreads) and the POSIX semaphore functions."
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb463209.aspx
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All of these were found by going to Microsoft's technet found at: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/default.aspx, and using the hard to guess search terms "posix fork", these were in the first 10 results.
That's acceptable, but then again, why does the EU seem to think they can base their fine on sales made in other countries where perhaps this behavior isn't illegal? Seems kind of like the Europeans are trying to force their law on the rest of the world.
I said base the fine on sales made in other countries. Unless your interpretation is that all of intels revenue comes 100% from the EU, they are effectively basing their fine on income made in other parts of the world where it may or may not be illegal.
That's acceptable, but then again, why does the EU seem to think they can base their fine on sales made in other countries where perhaps this behavior isn't illegal? Seems kind of like the Europeans are trying to force their law on the rest of the world.
A hardcore gamer is someone who is a hardcore GAMER, as in, someone who plays a ton of games. Using your example of tic-tac-toe, if someone plays a couple of games and decides, "hey, even though this is the same thing, over and over and over again, with the outcome basically decided on the first move, but I like it!" and then spends 80 hours a week playing online tic-tac-toe, they are NOT a hardcore gamer. They just have an addiction.
I wouldn't argue that someone who plays many games, can't be a hardcore gamer, but I also wouldn't say someone who plays just a single game isn't. I don't totally disagree with it, but I don't totally agree with it either. It's more open to opinion, and perhaps circumstances. The difference being a general hardcore gamer, and one that specializes in only a single game. I would say they both are. You say you have to play more than 1 game to be considered a hardcore gamer. Different argument, but I can see both sides, but I lean towards them both being considered a hardcore gamer.
The rest of your post confuses hardcore with being good. They aren't necessarily inclusive nor exclusive of each other. Typically the more dedicated you are, the better you become, but not always, and often there is a limit to which dedication will take you alone. Being a good player can either come quickly through skill, or it can often come slower if you are dedicated enough. Becoming a great player often requires both, and becoming the best always requires both. Hardcore is the term to refer to ones dedication to something, not how good they are at it, although it's easy to mix the two as they often go hand in hand.
I'll also assume the "you" refer to, is the generic "you" and not me specifically, because outside of what I've said about my past experience in playing MMOs, you don't know anything about my gaming background or habits (past or present).
prove they fit a bell curve.
From "The Daedalus Project"
by Nick Yee
http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/000758.php
Is WoW not a game???
Of course it is.
How can a casual WoW player NOT be a casual gamer?
Just because a hardcare WoW player isn't necessarily a hardcore gamer, does not imply the opposite, and I never said as such. However, since you brought it up, it's possible for a casual player in a particular game to NOT be a casual gamer if the game is on the extreme side of needing dedication (Which WoW isn't), or if WoW isn't the only game they play.
What other game (if you want the best gear) FORCES you to spend MONTHS raiding 3 nights a week to get the best gear? How is that casual friendly??
Everquest, Linage, Linage 2, Everquest 2, Dark Ages of Camelot, even City of Heroes did when it started, Ultima Online, Neverwinter Nights, etc etc etc
My WoW guild was raiding 3 nights a week, as I said, I played between 15-18 hours a week with them, that covers all 3 raids we did a week. Guild members were only required to attend 2 of the 3, many did, and many were in the games best gear when the latest expansion came out (Full tier 6 or better). So it's quite possible, as I experienced it first hand.
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Lastly, it is apparent that you are getting confused and trying to discuss casual WoW play, hardcore WoW gamers, casual gamers, and hardcore gamers, and mixing and matching them in places as if they are interchangable, and they aren't. Any further discussion, I suggest you stick to what the article describes. WoW is by far the most casual friendly MMO on the market (that has any reasonable player base), and arguably the least hardcore player/gamer friendly of the popular MMOs.
"Casual friendly" does not mean you can max out everything in the game with little time investment. It means that you can quite literally log in, play for 15-30 minutes at a time, anytime you want, and be productive doing so. No commitment to log in at any particular time is necessary, nor the need to stay logged in for long periods of time. Yes, if you want raid gear, you have to commit to the length of the raid, which is anywhere from an hour to 3 hours, typically. And yes, in WoW, you can get gear that was close to the best you can get with a very minimal amount of time spent per week through the arena (an hour a week). Getting better gear than that is possible, but to get "raid worthy" doesn't require more than a few hours a week. Remember, this is the game where a guild went from having NO characters at all (they all started new characters) to killing the hardest end boss in the game (at the time, Illidan) in under two weeks. All in gear much worse than a full arena set.
And that brings me back to my point. WoW does not require the same amount of dedication as many of the prior MMOs did. You can play casually (5-20 hours per week) and still get to the point where you are raiding if you want. You CAN see everything in the game in under two weeks, which simply isn't/wasn't possible in older MMOs, so it's easier to get into the game and be productive. It's easier to max out your character as well. The most you can raid for is 15-20 hours a week if you aren't wiping. WoW is a dumbed down, simplified MMO for the masses that requires less dedication than MMOs have previously.
You say it simply isn't possible, but I've done it, so apparently it is.
I didn't say 20 must be casual because it is not 80. However, you haven't given any criteria that says why anything more than 10 hours is hardcore. I'm just pointing out that what people consider "hardcore" for a WoW player wouldn't have been considered even a raider in EQ, let alone a hardcore player, not even close. *THAT* makes WoW a lot more casual friendly than the older, more hardcore oriented MMOs like EQ.
You seem to have confused a casual WoW player with a casual gamer. They aren't the same thing. You apparently aren't a hardcore gamer. That's fine, it isn't for everyone. However, as a hardcore gamer, I can definately say that WoW is a good example of how games have moved away from the hardcore gamers and become more casual gamer friendly.
Also "you have maxed out pretty much anything, you are not casual" isn't logical either because it makes the assumption that maxing out everything in a game by definition makes you a hardcore gamer. So considering that if you play tic-tac-toe, on offense if you start with the middle square, there are really only like 4 different unique type ways the game can progress, and on defense, there is only 3. So using your definition of a hardcore gamer, if I play 7 games of tic-tac-toe, I am now a hardcore gamer, because I have done it all. Doing everything in a game designed to be casual does not make you a hardcore gamer, sorry.
And yes, being a casual player is measured on a bell curve. Casual = average. Hardcore = top few percent.
From the dictionary definition of hardcore: "the most dedicated, unfailingly loyal faction of a group or organization". The most dedicated. It doesn't say the people who are more than x. It's the *MOST* dedicated, meaning the top end of the scale. You will find the amount of time people play MMOs in hours per week follows a bell curve, so yes, it definately does get measured on a bell curve. Just not your idea of what is more than x, where x is a lot for YOU. Because YOU apparently aren't near the top of the curve.
For an MMO, 20 hours a week is casual gaming. I played WoW for a long time (And EQ before that). I was in a raiding guild in WoW, one of the best on our server, and I only had to play for 15 hours a week. It got to the point where after those 15 hours there was literally nothing for me to do. I had all the best equipment I could, the highest level, and more gold than I was spending. I eventually decided to max out every faction in the game, and got pretty close to doing it before I finally just quit out of boredom.
Compare that to Everquest where in my raiding guild, we played at a *minimum* of 80 hours a week. Every week. There were literally many many days where the guild (of 100+) would go into work the next day with an hour or two (or no) of sleep. Sometimes the entire (or vast majority) would call into work "sick" to either recoup, camp a spawn. Raids were 72+ people, not like WoW where the maximum raid size is 25 people. Raids don't have mobs they have to spawn camp for hours/days. Even with a raid schedule like that, and in a guild that could/did dominate the vast majority of spawns, I wouldn't have the best gear available in every slot (Probably like 1/2 in last expansions best, and 1/2 in the current one). See there is a huge difference between these two games. One where 80+ hours a week and you aren't even half done with the big things, and one where 15 hours a week and you are completely done, even with the minor stuff.
In WoW, you have your own neat little raid instances set aside for you, so you can schedule your raids whenever is most convenient to you. In EQ, the spawns happen when they happen (in 24 hours from last kill +-1 hour, in 72 hours from the last kill +-3 hours, or in a week +-7 hours). If your guild wants a particular week spawn mob, then you block off 14 hours, and your guild has to be ready to kill it within a few minutes of it spawning, or the next guild will kill it. Every member has to be online, and doing a smaller raid with all the necessary consumables on them and ready to switch and run to the other spawn as soon as it comes up. You don't "schedule" it on the calendar... 7pm Thursday, kill god of something.
Casual gamers look and say, wow, I only play 20 hours, that's hardcore! Real hardcore gamers chuckle and laugh at 20 hours (and maybe feel a little bit embarrassed at exactly how many hours they really do play). Heck 20 hours, that's a saturday. By that definition, I could be a "hardcore" gamer in 4 different MMOs all the same time, lol.
I think you vastly overestimate how many people live in "rural" areas. The top 30 (of 363) metropolitan areas alone make up for the majority of the US population.
But I will concede that there are many pockets in the US that are stuck with just a single cable company, and the best they can get is 6Mbps download, although, dish services are available ANYWHERE in the US that have 6Mbps service, so no less than that. If you think there is somewhere that is stuck with 4Mbps as the fastest they can get, they haven't looked very hard, or they require something other than just a fast download speed (like extremely low ping times for ultra competitive fps shooters, etc).
I would disagree, but then I remember when my DSL was at most 1.5Mbps down, 384k up. Now I can get 18Mbps down DSL. As for cable, it used to be 4Mbps, and now I can get up to 50Mbps if I wanted, just a few years later. I wouldn't call that very little progress over time, and considering that comcast just rolled out DOCSIS 3, when it's either just ratified, or is about to be, I would say their infrastructure is far beyond bare minimum. Then again, I remember when I was paying $12/hour in phone bills, $50/mo in phone line charges, and had to fork over $1200 in hardware costs for 2 modems so that I could bond them together. All for a 112k down connection. How you can think that, is simply amazing.
That's a crappy idea.
I don't know what your definition of "most" is, but I can say it isn't the majority. Here in the far west Chicago suburbs (30+ miles out), we pay $63 (before package deals, discounts, promos, etc) for 22/5Mbps cable from comcast. We can also get DSL from AT&T for $65/mo for 18Mbps down.
I don't know what monopoly you are referring to here in the US. I can get 4 major types of (residental) internet service at my house. DSL, cable, dish, and cellular. Inside each of those major tpes are multiple companies offering service typically. I can get DSL from a handful of different businesses. Cable internet I can only get from Comcast, currently. Dish I can get from 2 different major providers (and a slew of smaller ones), and atleast 3 different cellular internet plans.
In fact of those, I currently have 3 coming to my house (cable internet - 22Mbps down/5Mbps up, dsl - 6Mbps down/768Mbps up, and cellular). I have one computer on comcast, one on dsl, and my iphone on AT&T cellular.
I think you meant 10g. The cost goes down after a while if you don't respec. Also, it never costs more than 50g.
Your original comment follows 2.1, again:
My position was that the EC is going after an unusually large number of American companies, and when doing so, it has an unusually large conviction rate, of which lands some of the highest fines. You ignored that position, and tried to say that because the DoJ has sued at least one foreign company that the EC can't possibly be specifically targeting American companies, and then went on to prove that argument. Sorry, but perhaps you should learn what a strawman argument is. I am going to ignore your bait, as nothing you've said disproves or even helps to disprove my point, even <bold>if</bold> everything you've said is correct.
It's a perfect example of a strawman argument.
<quote>
The straw man fallacy occurs in the following pattern:
1. Person A has position X.
2. Person B ignores X and instead presents position Y.
Y is a distorted version of X and can be set up in several ways, including:
1. Presenting a misrepresentation of the opponent's position and then refuting it, thus giving the appearance that the opponent's actual position has been refuted.[1]
2. Quoting an opponent's words out of context â€" i.e. choosing quotations which are intentionally misrepresentative of the opponent's actual intentions (see contextomy and quote mining).[2]
3. Presenting someone who defends a position poorly as the defender, then refuting that person's arguments - thus giving the appearance that every upholder of that position (and thus the position itself) has been defeated.[1]
4. Inventing a fictitious persona with actions or beliefs which are then criticized, implying that the person represents a group of whom the speaker is critical.
5. Oversimplifying an opponent's argument, then attacking this oversimplified version.
3. Person B attacks position Y, concluding that X is false/incorrect/flawed.
This sort of "reasoning" is fallacious, because attacking a distorted version of a position fails to constitute an attack on the actual position.
</quote>
My position was that the EC is going after an unusually large number of American companies, and when doing so, it has an unusually large conviction rate, of which lands some of the highest fines. You ignored that position, and tried to say that because the DoJ has sued at least one foreign company that the EC can't possibly be specifically targeting American companies, and then went on to prove that argument. Sorry, but perhaps you should learn what a strawman argument is. I am going to ignore your bait, as nothing you've said disproves or even helps to disprove my point, even <bold>if</bold> everything you've said is correct.
Biometrics aren't typically used as the only security, they are used to increase security. So yes, many biometric systems will fail if you have access to the hardware, and/or you build a fake sensor to relay the data to the system. The replay could happen at the sensor level, but not at the network level. At the network level, it'd be secured from replay through other means (Salt/hash, encryption, etc).
You will notice even in the movies with biometric security, not only do you need the biometrics (which can be faked) but you also need a password, and typically a key (or fob/keycard) as well. Biometrics on the other hand is great for keeping out all but the most determined hacking attempts, and they likely have to have access to your biometric information (Face, fingerprint, palm print, and/or retina scan). *ALL* locks are breakable/hackable/pickable. It's just a matter of difficulty. Biometrics adds difficulty, it doesn't make it impossible. Nor is it appropriate in all cases, but, it is nice in many many more cases than it is currently used in.
No, it isn't. It may still use the inet library, it may (possibly) use the trident renderer, but that isn't IE.
That's a strawman argument and you know it. It isn't the fact that the EC or the DoJ can and does file cases against foreign companies that do business within their jurisdiction. It's the fact that the EC has an abnormally high percentage of their cases (In both number of cases, the percentage of guilty verdicts, and the amount of fines) towards American companies specifically. The cases the EC files are typically malicious, baseless or highly subjective in nature, and against American companies. That does matter.
Considering the EU only comprises 30% of Microsoft's revenue, and supposedly how many EU countries are dictating they don't/can't use commercial products (lol, how "free" is a country who has that dictated to them), I can't wait for the EU market to shrink to such a small amount that it's no longer worth it to Microsoft to have an official presence there. Then the EU can try sucking on it's own teet for a while and see how far that gets you.
You do realize that 3 of those 5 aren't European, right?
As a side note, biometrics for VPN's are nothing more than basically a very long password. But they can't be replayed because the biometric data is combined with a key that the server sends down. So replaying it would be worthless unless you can figure out how to get the server to give you the same key again, which it's designed not to do ;-)
Here's a press release that might help you start your search for answers. http://www.itweb.co.za/office/securedata/0703120805.htm there it talks about RSA, it's SecureID, and third parties involved. Google the companies involved and look at their products and FAQs, it'll help you understand a lot better than I could explain it to you.
First, about VPN/SSH:
You configure your VPN so that user "KingMotley" can only be authenticated from an address that begins with 67.xxx.xxx.xxx, because I always connect from home with comcast. All comcast IP's are in that range. It also requires a password, and a key fob (RSA number generator thing). Now, unless the hardware is hacked by a bug, having just my password is useless, as is stealing my key fob without having my password. Lastly, even if the key fob is bypassed somehow, and my password is known, you still have to connect from comcast (or know to use a comcast IP).
After all that, assuming you can bypass all that, you STILL are protected by SSH's password. SSH should still be set up to only accept connections from the IP address range the VPN would normally give out the clients, protecting it from bypassing the VPN, or a different compromised server (The server IP address shouldn't be in the range the VPN would give out). It's not replacing the protection of SSH with VPN, it's layering it. You need to be able to break through the VPN and SSH protections faster than I can detect your hack attempts. That isn't likely.
Or perhaps the EC is just retarded, as they have shown themselves to be.