Russell Lewis Executive Vice President, General Manager VeriSign Naming and Directory Services 21345 Ridgetop Circle LS2-3-2 Dulles, VA 20166-6503
Re: Deployment of SiteFinder Service
Dear Rusty:
This letter is further to the advisory posted by ICANN on 19 September 2003 regarding the changes to the operation of the.com and.net Top Level Domains announced by VeriSign on 15 September 2003, and in response to your letter of 21 September 2003. These changes involved the introduction (for the first time in the.com and.net domains) of a so-called "wildcard" mechanism that changes the expected error response for Internet traffic that would otherwise have resulted in a "no domain" response, and redirects that traffic to a VeriSign-operated webpage with links to alternative choices and to a search engine.
Because of numerous indications that these unannounced changes have had very significant impacts on a wide range of Internet users and applications, ICANN on 19 September 2003 asked VeriSign to voluntarily suspend these changes, and return to the previous behavior of.com and.net, until more information could be gathered on the impact of these changes. On 21 September 2003, VeriSign refused to honor that request. In the time since then, ICANN has had further opportunity to consider the technical and practical consequences of these changes, and to evaluate whether these unilateral actions by VeriSign were consistent with its contractual obligations to ICANN.
Based on the information currently available to us, it appears that these changes have had a substantial adverse effect on the core operation of the DNS, on the stability of the Internet, and on the relevant domains, and may have additional adverse effects in the future. These effects appear to be significant, including effects on web browsing, certain email services and applications, sequenced lookup services and a pervasive problem of incompatibility with other established protocols. In addition, the responses of various persons and entities to the changes made by VeriSign may themselves adversely affect the continued effective functioning of the Internet, the DNS and the.com and.net domains. Under these circumstances, the only prudent course of action consistent with ICANN's coordination mission is to insist that VeriSign suspend these changes pending further evaluation and study, including (but certainly not limited to) the public meeting already scheduled by ICANN's Security and Stability Advisory Committee on 7 October in Washington, D.C.
In addition, our review of the.com and.net registry agreements between ICANN and VeriSign leads us to the conclusion that VeriSign's unilateral and unannounced changes to the operation of the.com and.net Top Level Domains are not consistent with material provisions of both agreements. These inconsistencies include violation of the Code of Conduct and equal access provisions, failure to comply with the obligation to act as a neutral registry service provider, failure to comply with the Registry Registrar Protocol, failure to comply with domain registration provisions, and provision of an unauthorized Registry Service. These inconsistencies with VeriSign's obligations under the.com and.net registry agreements are additional reasons why the changes in question must be suspended pending further evaluation and discussion between ICANN and VeriSign.
Given these conclusions, please consider this a formal demand to return the operation of the.com and.net domains to their state before the 15 September changes, pending further technical, operational and legal evaluation. A failure to comply with this demand will require ICANN
It's only going to get weirder than this, now. I was asked once why a colleague was always causing problems. It seemed impossible to figure out why he did what he did. My comment was--you're assuming there is a real purpose behind his actions. Sometimes, people simply operate at a level above their intellectual capacity and what you take for malice is merely an inability to comprehend the consequences of their actions. So far, in my humble opinion, McBride has acted rationally within the precepts of his beliefs. For whatever reason, he believes that he owns the very concept of Unix; therefore, he will do whatever he can to make that appearance occur. He will open his company to lawsuits (tying up his goal to owning all of Unix) if he attempts to bills; therefore, they've changed their view again. This is called cognitive dissidence in psychology--bring your attitudes inline with your actions when your original attitudes contradict acted behavior. The old "given a choice between changing one's mind or proving you don't have to, nine times out of ten people get busy on the proof." My guess is that they're diligently working on the suits for a bunch of other people (continue scare) and digging up all they can on the history of Unix to attempt to pervert it even more (continue fud). And, they have to kill BSD as a loophole for source; otherwise, they're in deep doo-doo in court since it seems they didn't realize that what they took is from BSD. On the other hand, they could do something completely different. Just because they are rational with in their beliefs, doesn't mean they're predictable; hence, grab some popcorn for your morbid curiosity and watch, like I am. Hell, it's better than anything on Fox.:o)
In order to make a system that did not have an absolutely massive address space on packets (which would have made addressing massively complex), the system was developed to use four numbers to represent each unique place on the internet. Any device that needs to contact a place makes a call first to a Domain Name Server to determine what IP address to contact on the internet for a given name. However, due to the way IP addresses are handed out, IP addresses are often jointly pooled. The problem is the lack of address space in only using four numbers (4 billion combinations really isn't enough due to the way they were segemented for use). So, by fault of complexity, it is not possible to block on name. The internet was designed to be used, not abused. It is its greatest strength and weakness.
I've really been thinking of getting one of these, but so far the reviews have been less than stellar. Not that that the product is bad, but few of them really tell anything more than what I can read on the product homepage. Does it work well? Is it hard to use? Does it have a hard time with video formats or is the decode pretty rebust? How good is the Divx support? I've really wanted a cheap player that can access my library of videos, but I hear the comments that the windows software has short-commings. Any comments would be appreciated.
I think a major aspect is the strong communities it forms. For all the people who just want to go out and kill, they often get killed. There *are* battle tactics and not using them generally results in death. This leads to groups forming and if you cause problems, people no longer want to group with you. This is why I enjoy the game so much. I've got a group of friends whom I've been on numerous hunts and can trust them to fight to the end, if need be. Also, I *LIKE* the fact that there isn't any loot on creatures because then when I manufacture stuff people have a reason to buy it. The trade system economics are a little up/down, at the moment. But, that's understandable until people find a good value to place things. Finally, as far as credits not being available, here is the trick: Get two non-faction, search-n-destroy missions each that pay well (i.e. 1000+ credits), all are in the same direction (i.e. N), and get three friends (NOT twenty) and run the missions. You can make some EASY money. Trust me, I don't have money issues.
Dancers are damn popular, actually. There are plenty of people who have ZERO interest in combat and just want to be socialites. I heard of some wild parties at the cantinas with people setting up whole shows choreographed. I want to see some of these shows. As I said, this is about community, not sole-wanton destruction.
There is commentary at the bottom, but here is the important part:
Top Ten Reasons: Why YOU donâ(TM)t want to be playing SWG.
10. If youâ(TM)re mad that you cannot fight Darth Vader so you can show youâ(TM)re l337, then you donâ(TM)t want to be playing SWG. 9. If youâ(TM)re mad that you cannot play a Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker or some other SW character, then you donâ(TM)t want to be playing SWG. 8. If youâ(TM)re mad that you cannot jump âoefor real,â then you donâ(TM)t want to be playing SWG. 7. If you ordered the game âoeagainst your better judgment,â then you donâ(TM)t want to be playing SWG. 6. If youâ(TM)re mad because you are choosing to pay $15 a month, but you live paycheck to paycheck and cannot afford to spend $144 for $12 a month, then you donâ(TM)t want to be playing SWG. 5. If youâ(TM)re mad because you have to give up lower skills to attain higher ones thus preventing you from having your uber-ultra-hella-mule-bounty-hunter-survey-medic character, then you donâ(TM)t want to be playing SWG. 4. If youâ(TM)re mad because you may or may not get your game on the 26th because of limited quantities, then you donâ(TM)t want to be playing SWG. 3. If youâ(TM)re mad because you did not like something in the beta, vented on the board, but refused to saying anything âoebecause of the NDA,â then you donâ(TM)t want to be playing SWG. 2. If youâ(TM)re mad because the server you decided to join will not be up in first batch of galaxies and all your friends are dumping you to join other servers (hence really arenâ(TM)t your friends), then you donâ(TM)t want to be playing SWG.
And, the top reason why you shouldnâ(TM)t be playing SWGâ¦
1. If youâ(TM)re so mad over a frickinâ(TM) videogame, because you have so little perspective on life, that you have to vent your rage on a web page, you donâ(TM)t want to be playing SWG.
Two friends of mine were in the beta and I wish I had been. I'd go over one of their houses and watch, play and talk about the mechanics of the game. The one thing we all always walked away thinking was how refined the game mechanics are compared to UO. Here are some important points:
1. Combat is "real-time, turn based." Having the fastest connection with a machine at 270 fps is no better than one with 15 fps. If you're smart, though, you'll use the MULTITUDE of combat moves to appropriately shift your stance for range, weapon, defense, etc. You don't have to be fast, you have to be smart about your combat and you will have to interact as teams to take down big creatures or goals. 2. You cannot have an uber-character. Another cool thing is that you have to give up lower skills to continue to gain higher ones. The days of all the characters you have making you self-sufficient and having no reason to interact with lower characters is gone. You will have to interact with lower characters to continue your trade. 3. The skills are interwoven such there isnâ(TM)t an unimportant trade. You can heal yourself, you can learn new skills and you can get things you need yourself, but to do it well and fast requires other people. Dancers to remove battle fatigue, combat medics to support you in combat, artisans to make better weapons (there are no lootables on creatures as far as weapons, shields, etc), leaders group squads and, of course, combat specialists in hand-to-hand, pistols, rifles and carabineers. You will have to interact with other characters to get things done. 4. There are NO NPCs that can sell goods. Players must craft all goods and there are taxes on various things. The rampant inflation that is common on other MMOGS, in theory, should not happen because it will based on the actions of the players. It will not be forced up people using tricks in the game to force up generation of money, plus the richer you are the more you have to do to support tha
I've got a 16x DVD-RW and doing a full disc burn it takes about 3.5 mins. My 16x laptop takes 6.5 mins and my 8x CDRW takes about 8 mins. I'd say there is a discrepancy in there, someplace.
This is a side note, but I got my Toshiba laptop with CD-RW and it quoted 16x burn speeds. The software shows x16, but it certainly does not burn at that speed, more like 12x. I wasn't too thrilled about it, but the laptop wasn't bought for that purpose so I let it slide.
It appears SCO is expanding their threats to
everyone else.
Linux software companies could also become SCO targets. "Do we have potential issues with Red Hat, SuSE and other commercial Linux distributors--yes, we might," Sontag said, adding that chances for negotiating with such companies appear to be slim.
I'm in the mood tonight to respond. FYI, I'm 30, I've long since graduated from programming to design, and no I did not make the numbers up. I'll leave you to understand how to cull since you've obviously would rather insult me than ask how it could possibly be done. I bet if you've bought a used car within the last five years you've even used the database without even knowing about it. We actually had to put in a timer that artificially shows retrieving information from the database taking five seconds because we got tired of people calling up and complaining that it wasn't possible to do reports that quickly. They should know! They ran FoxPro or MS Access! *Laugh* Interesting to note, on a side note, that Oracle 9 not too long ago released the technique in their system, but they've not really taken advantage of it, yet. I'm still waiting for the click of the light to turn on. Sometimes, my son, it is just as important in a system to what it is you *don't* do, as it is what you *do* do..
But, if I'm going to be as melodramatic as you in return, then I'll have to say, "*sigh* Programmers.. when will they ever peek their heads up beyond their code and twinkies and their own little toys." You guys are so linear and fall so easily into single-loop learning. If you've not seen the technique before, it must be impossible if you cannot immediately see how it could work. It's attitudes like that gets the computer industry in a mess.
Oh, and yes, the code is for humans. If you ever graduate to design you'll understand the importance of true power in the real world--the ability to make others be more productive. With your logic it should be a requirement to understand all material science of a car in order to let a driver use one so they can make, replace or mend any part that could go wrong. The high-level concepts and completeness are the only main concern so that the few can enable the many. This is exactly why you don't have the foggiest clue *how* they chose the crumple zones on your car. A well designed functional design will always offset tweaking of coding. BASIC can teach all of those concepts without issue. But, if you knew design you would have realized that your CPU argument doesn't hold water because the issue is really how to handle the I/O bottleneck, which is asynchronous. So, your 1 CPU per record doesn't even work because you don't understand how buffering works-- it is possible to have a well below 1 CPU per record count rate, but I digress. Any company worth their salt will terminate you if no one but you can follow the code. But, given your references to school I'm guessing you're 22 and in school still (having just patted yourself on the back for using the wrong math). I'm actually back in school getting a business degree. Been there, done your job, and dealt with your kind. Rather flame than learn. I understand the mess the world is in it is because programmers think they can design and if it doesn't meet their criteria you blast instead of ask. Design is hard work and takes a great deal of effort and knowledge to balance competing criteria. But, my software doesn't crash, it doesn't explode, its lightning fast and is easily maintainable. Not by magic, but design. If you actually want to learn, pick up "The Inmates Are Running the Asylum."
Reading your profile shows a profane attitude to the world. Personally, I think you've got a lot of anger problems you need to work on. Bringing up Microsoft only shows that like to troll. You have an irrational hatred you're trying to project onto me. Good luck, son.
I've got news for you: not everyone wants or can be the expert programmer. I used to argue "if people would just learn how to use pointers then everything would be fine." It doesn't work that way. You cannot dictate to people how much they are going to learn nor to management what others need to learn. Been there, done that, doesn't work. In a perfect world, we'd all learn the power tools and move along. In fact, it was because I expected people to learn simple things like pointers that decreased my job security. Management had the correct attitude, if the people do not want to train and you can find a way to make them as effective, then do it. It's smug people like you who think your doing people a favor by forcing them to work to the point of incompetence. "Pointers are a very simple concept; if you can't figure them out, I'd say it's time for a new profession." Screw you. I've got friends who are happy doing what they do and they'll never figure pointers out.
I'm not going get into the sarcasm of database technology. It wasn't SQL, it ran a billion plus records and did reports across them in a hundredth of second, and no-- it did not make up results.
You're damn right I think ten lines of code is better. It's DEBUGABLE and followable. Code is for humans, not computers. In all the software I have written, I've gotten the compliment that they can understand what I have written and what I was trying to do. It is the single line mentality that generates bugs; buffer overflows, stack faults, untraceable values, etc. We had this argument at work, FYI. So, we monitored the two camps for number of bugs that showed up. Our team's mantra was "White space is good!" Use all the comments, multiple lines you can. Never do more than one thing per line. At the end of three months of production work the error rate was over fifteen-times higher in "but we can do it efficiently all on one line" camp.
Back to the point of the article, though. BASIC allows training and it is not the be-all and end-all. It is, however, an excellent place to start and to give people the opportunity to see many different things that they may come across. You, my friend, are an apologetic. Different people have different skills and to bluntly treat people all the same and then apologize that the system is just that complex and some people aren't going to get it is just wrong.
This may be a folly question, but I've always wondered why if we're so worried about ozone depleation, why not just mandate countries need to produce an amount to offset the destruction we supposedly cause?
From a person who has actually WORKED in the industry for twenty years, let me make a few points. As far as the industry is concerned, a language the achieves the desired goals in the easiest format wins. There is a reason why financial institutions run on Cobol: C++ doesn't not have jack to Cobol's built in indexing system for files. Data processing is lightning fast for minuplation of data. PL/I is still in use because of its clean procedural style and manipulation of memory without error prone coded type casting. I am absolutedly amazed that anyone would seriously consider programming a GUI C++. The framework required just to get an application running is idiotic. Finally, the attitude that "programmers absolutely have to know how to work with memory" is the Unix mentality that has held on strong for decades. The simple truth is that direct memory management is NOT necessary for 99% applications and when it is it can always be abstracted away into a procedure/object. I have personally written tools that allowed junior programmers to program things way beyond their design abilities because instead of taking the attitude that they had better learn how to do things, I abstrated the system for them. I then made a simple framework and explained what was needed to get it to work, but NOT how it worked. They produced a lot of useful code.
Finally, VisualBASIC is a wonderful language that is designed for building applications, not tweeking every bit of code. I have done high-performance databases, TCP/IP software, etc in HOURS. The excellent aspect of VB is that you abstract to events and can test is piece as needed. Before anyone says, "but VB doesn't have pointers! I need pointers!" The answer is: it most certainly DOES have them, but the whole system is hidden in handles, the way it should be. There is absoluted ZERO reason to use a pointer directly with an offset in an application. I gave up pointers years ago when figured out that 99% of bugs come from them. I use the language's built-in features for resolving structures and my software doesn't crash..
BASIC is the best place to start with programing because you can introduce basic features of all languages. The trick is that you have to have a firm hand on teaching good programming practice. The most amusing thing is that code programming practice is the furthest thing from C/C++ programmers minds. All they care about is "look, I can do that on ONE LINE, though.."
I think this is a good point. It would be interesting if part of every license agreement companies demanded they get to put in a revoke code into the system. Any debate and then "boom," eveyone's systems shut down. Granted, is should be horrible PR, but given the 90's predilection for sacrifice of users for the almighty dollar..
This is the biggest issue I've ever had every time I've tried to do a LAN party: Set the start times for the beginning of any game and hold it. If you don't and allow anyone to say, "But just wait a minute while I configure my system," you'll never get anything done. If you're up and ready, you're in.. Of course, if you have games where people who can come and go as they please, it's not an issue.
They can't bomb this way other than their own case. All it takes is finding out what 80 lines they are referring to and then checking the distros for when they showed up. I suspect it *is* the case that SCO released their own code. If it got out it would clearly show their fubar and this is why they are being so careful about to who they show it. In court you can argue whether or not some fact can be presented, but in the court of public opinion, you cannot.
This is true; however, the logic that I follow is that the code in question was actually code jointly developed in the Montrey (sp?) project and was not released to public. Or, if it was, all they have to claim is some standard piece of code that does roughly the same thing in Linux that IBM joined. In other words, documentation may be great, but I have a hard time believing it is perfect. They just have to go for something that they see does not have a review process for it and snag it. Now, I'm not disagreeing that it is not wise nor fraught with peril. I was just thinking that this might be an after-the-fact approach: Find something in code that compiles nearly the same way in SCO and call it stolen. After all, for as many dumb things I've seen criminals do this would just be another entry in the list..
A thought just occurred to me: What if SCO appropriated Linux code? If their aim is to present a position to IBM for buy-out, why not copy a bit of Linux code that has been introduced in the last year into SCO, go back to the back ups, alter a few time stamps and insert the code into SCO Unix? Then, *poof*! Instant infringment! The very fact that they want to keep things under wraps until trial is because they are going to petition the court to keep the code secret--we will *never* get to see the infringing code. I suspect that they very much want to keep what has been "stolen" under wraps so that only lawyers will get to decide whether it was stolen or not and not someone with a technological clue.
Slashdot Mirror
3 October 2003
.com and .net Top Level Domains announced by VeriSign on 15 September 2003, and in response to your letter of 21 September 2003. These changes involved the introduction (for the first time in the .com and .net domains) of a so-called "wildcard" mechanism that changes the expected error response for Internet traffic that would otherwise have resulted in a "no domain" response, and redirects that traffic to a VeriSign-operated webpage with links to alternative choices and to a search engine.
.com and .net, until more information could be gathered on the impact of these changes. On 21 September 2003, VeriSign refused to honor that request. In the time since then, ICANN has had further opportunity to consider the technical and practical consequences of these changes, and to evaluate whether these unilateral actions by VeriSign were consistent with its contractual obligations to ICANN.
.com and .net domains. Under these circumstances, the only prudent course of action consistent with ICANN's coordination mission is to insist that VeriSign suspend these changes pending further evaluation and study, including (but certainly not limited to) the public meeting already scheduled by ICANN's Security and Stability Advisory Committee on 7 October in Washington, D.C.
.com and .net registry agreements between ICANN and VeriSign leads us to the conclusion that VeriSign's unilateral and unannounced changes to the operation of the .com and .net Top Level Domains are not consistent with material provisions of both agreements. These inconsistencies include violation of the Code of Conduct and equal access provisions, failure to comply with the obligation to act as a neutral registry service provider, failure to comply with the Registry Registrar Protocol, failure to comply with domain registration provisions, and provision of an unauthorized Registry Service. These inconsistencies with VeriSign's obligations under the .com and .net registry agreements are additional reasons why the changes in question must be suspended pending further evaluation and discussion between ICANN and VeriSign.
.com and .net domains to their state before the 15 September changes, pending further technical, operational and legal evaluation. A failure to comply with this demand will require ICANN
Via E-mail and U.S. Mail
Russell Lewis
Executive Vice President, General Manager
VeriSign Naming and Directory Services
21345 Ridgetop Circle LS2-3-2
Dulles, VA 20166-6503
Re: Deployment of SiteFinder Service
Dear Rusty:
This letter is further to the advisory posted by ICANN on 19 September 2003 regarding the changes to the operation of the
Because of numerous indications that these unannounced changes have had very significant impacts on a wide range of Internet users and applications, ICANN on 19 September 2003 asked VeriSign to voluntarily suspend these changes, and return to the previous behavior of
Based on the information currently available to us, it appears that these changes have had a substantial adverse effect on the core operation of the DNS, on the stability of the Internet, and on the relevant domains, and may have additional adverse effects in the future. These effects appear to be significant, including effects on web browsing, certain email services and applications, sequenced lookup services and a pervasive problem of incompatibility with other established protocols. In addition, the responses of various persons and entities to the changes made by VeriSign may themselves adversely affect the continued effective functioning of the Internet, the DNS and the
In addition, our review of the
Given these conclusions, please consider this a formal demand to return the operation of the
You are correct. My bad for not paying closer attention to the spell checker. =)
Bel, the mostly sane..
It's only going to get weirder than this, now. I was asked once why a colleague was always causing problems. It seemed impossible to figure out why he did what he did. My comment was--you're assuming there is a real purpose behind his actions. Sometimes, people simply operate at a level above their intellectual capacity and what you take for malice is merely an inability to comprehend the consequences of their actions. So far, in my humble opinion, McBride has acted rationally within the precepts of his beliefs. For whatever reason, he believes that he owns the very concept of Unix; therefore, he will do whatever he can to make that appearance occur. He will open his company to lawsuits (tying up his goal to owning all of Unix) if he attempts to bills; therefore, they've changed their view again. This is called cognitive dissidence in psychology--bring your attitudes inline with your actions when your original attitudes contradict acted behavior. The old "given a choice between changing one's mind or proving you don't have to, nine times out of ten people get busy on the proof." My guess is that they're diligently working on the suits for a bunch of other people (continue scare) and digging up all they can on the history of Unix to attempt to pervert it even more (continue fud). And, they have to kill BSD as a loophole for source; otherwise, they're in deep doo-doo in court since it seems they didn't realize that what they took is from BSD. On the other hand, they could do something completely different. Just because they are rational with in their beliefs, doesn't mean they're predictable; hence, grab some popcorn for your morbid curiosity and watch, like I am. Hell, it's better than anything on Fox. :o)
Bel, the mostly sane..
In order to make a system that did not have an absolutely massive address space on packets (which would have made addressing massively complex), the system was developed to use four numbers to represent each unique place on the internet. Any device that needs to contact a place makes a call first to a Domain Name Server to determine what IP address to contact on the internet for a given name. However, due to the way IP addresses are handed out, IP addresses are often jointly pooled. The problem is the lack of address space in only using four numbers (4 billion combinations really isn't enough due to the way they were segemented for use). So, by fault of complexity, it is not possible to block on name. The internet was designed to be used, not abused. It is its greatest strength and weakness.
Bel, the mostly sane..
I've really been thinking of getting one of these, but so far the reviews have been less than stellar. Not that that the product is bad, but few of them really tell anything more than what I can read on the product homepage. Does it work well? Is it hard to use? Does it have a hard time with video formats or is the decode pretty rebust? How good is the Divx support? I've really wanted a cheap player that can access my library of videos, but I hear the comments that the windows software has short-commings. Any comments would be appreciated.
Thanks,
I think a major aspect is the strong communities it forms. For all the people who just want to go out and kill, they often get killed. There *are* battle tactics and not using them generally results in death. This leads to groups forming and if you cause problems, people no longer want to group with you. This is why I enjoy the game so much. I've got a group of friends whom I've been on numerous hunts and can trust them to fight to the end, if need be. Also, I *LIKE* the fact that there isn't any loot on creatures because then when I manufacture stuff people have a reason to buy it. The trade system economics are a little up/down, at the moment. But, that's understandable until people find a good value to place things. Finally, as far as credits not being available, here is the trick: Get two non-faction, search-n-destroy missions each that pay well (i.e. 1000+ credits), all are in the same direction (i.e. N), and get three friends (NOT twenty) and run the missions. You can make some EASY money. Trust me, I don't have money issues.
Dancers are damn popular, actually. There are plenty of people who have ZERO interest in combat and just want to be socialites. I heard of some wild parties at the cantinas with people setting up whole shows choreographed. I want to see some of these shows. As I said, this is about community, not sole-wanton destruction.
There is commentary at the bottom, but here is the important part:
Top Ten Reasons:
Why YOU donâ(TM)t want to be playing SWG.
10. If youâ(TM)re mad that you cannot fight Darth Vader so you can show youâ(TM)re l337, then you donâ(TM)t want to be playing SWG.
9. If youâ(TM)re mad that you cannot play a Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker or some other SW character, then you donâ(TM)t want to be playing SWG.
8. If youâ(TM)re mad that you cannot jump âoefor real,â then you donâ(TM)t want to be playing SWG.
7. If you ordered the game âoeagainst your better judgment,â then you donâ(TM)t want to be playing SWG.
6. If youâ(TM)re mad because you are choosing to pay $15 a month, but you live paycheck to paycheck and cannot afford to spend $144 for $12 a month, then you donâ(TM)t want to be playing SWG.
5. If youâ(TM)re mad because you have to give up lower skills to attain higher ones thus preventing you from having your uber-ultra-hella-mule-bounty-hunter-survey-medic character, then you donâ(TM)t want to be playing SWG.
4. If youâ(TM)re mad because you may or may not get your game on the 26th because of limited quantities, then you donâ(TM)t want to be playing SWG.
3. If youâ(TM)re mad because you did not like something in the beta, vented on the board, but refused to saying anything âoebecause of the NDA,â then you donâ(TM)t want to be playing SWG.
2. If youâ(TM)re mad because the server you decided to join will not be up in first batch of galaxies and all your friends are dumping you to join other servers (hence really arenâ(TM)t your friends), then you donâ(TM)t want to be playing SWG.
And, the top reason why you shouldnâ(TM)t be playing SWGâ¦
1. If youâ(TM)re so mad over a frickinâ(TM) videogame, because you have so little perspective on life, that you have to vent your rage on a web page, you donâ(TM)t want to be playing SWG.
Two friends of mine were in the beta and I wish I had been. I'd go over one of their houses and watch, play and talk about the mechanics of the game. The one thing we all always walked away thinking was how refined the game mechanics are compared to UO. Here are some important points:
1. Combat is "real-time, turn based." Having the fastest connection with a machine at 270 fps is no better than one with 15 fps. If you're smart, though, you'll use the MULTITUDE of combat moves to appropriately shift your stance for range, weapon, defense, etc. You don't have to be fast, you have to be smart about your combat and you will have to interact as teams to take down big creatures or goals.
2. You cannot have an uber-character. Another cool thing is that you have to give up lower skills to continue to gain higher ones. The days of all the characters you have making you self-sufficient and having no reason to interact with lower characters is gone. You will have to interact with lower characters to continue your trade.
3. The skills are interwoven such there isnâ(TM)t an unimportant trade. You can heal yourself, you can learn new skills and you can get things you need yourself, but to do it well and fast requires other people. Dancers to remove battle fatigue, combat medics to support you in combat, artisans to make better weapons (there are no lootables on creatures as far as weapons, shields, etc), leaders group squads and, of course, combat specialists in hand-to-hand, pistols, rifles and carabineers. You will have to interact with other characters to get things done.
4. There are NO NPCs that can sell goods. Players must craft all goods and there are taxes on various things. The rampant inflation that is common on other MMOGS, in theory, should not happen because it will based on the actions of the players. It will not be forced up people using tricks in the game to force up generation of money, plus the richer you are the more you have to do to support tha
..because no one would be afraid of the dread pirate Orin!
I've got a 16x DVD-RW and doing a full disc burn it takes about 3.5 mins. My 16x laptop takes 6.5 mins and my 8x CDRW takes about 8 mins. I'd say there is a discrepancy in there, someplace.
Oh, well..
This is a side note, but I got my Toshiba laptop with CD-RW and it quoted 16x burn speeds. The software shows x16, but it certainly does not burn at that speed, more like 12x. I wasn't too thrilled about it, but the laptop wasn't bought for that purpose so I let it slide.
Because logic and reason have nothing to do with the situation.
Linux software companies could also become SCO targets. "Do we have potential issues with Red Hat, SuSE and other commercial Linux distributors--yes, we might," Sontag said, adding that chances for negotiating with such companies appear to be slim.
But, if I'm going to be as melodramatic as you in return, then I'll have to say, "*sigh* Programmers.. when will they ever peek their heads up beyond their code and twinkies and their own little toys." You guys are so linear and fall so easily into single-loop learning. If you've not seen the technique before, it must be impossible if you cannot immediately see how it could work. It's attitudes like that gets the computer industry in a mess.
Oh, and yes, the code is for humans. If you ever graduate to design you'll understand the importance of true power in the real world--the ability to make others be more productive. With your logic it should be a requirement to understand all material science of a car in order to let a driver use one so they can make, replace or mend any part that could go wrong. The high-level concepts and completeness are the only main concern so that the few can enable the many. This is exactly why you don't have the foggiest clue *how* they chose the crumple zones on your car. A well designed functional design will always offset tweaking of coding. BASIC can teach all of those concepts without issue. But, if you knew design you would have realized that your CPU argument doesn't hold water because the issue is really how to handle the I/O bottleneck, which is asynchronous. So, your 1 CPU per record doesn't even work because you don't understand how buffering works-- it is possible to have a well below 1 CPU per record count rate, but I digress. Any company worth their salt will terminate you if no one but you can follow the code. But, given your references to school I'm guessing you're 22 and in school still (having just patted yourself on the back for using the wrong math). I'm actually back in school getting a business degree. Been there, done your job, and dealt with your kind. Rather flame than learn. I understand the mess the world is in it is because programmers think they can design and if it doesn't meet their criteria you blast instead of ask. Design is hard work and takes a great deal of effort and knowledge to balance competing criteria. But, my software doesn't crash, it doesn't explode, its lightning fast and is easily maintainable. Not by magic, but design. If you actually want to learn, pick up "The Inmates Are Running the Asylum."
Reading your profile shows a profane attitude to the world. Personally, I think you've got a lot of anger problems you need to work on. Bringing up Microsoft only shows that like to troll. You have an irrational hatred you're trying to project onto me. Good luck, son.
I've got news for you: not everyone wants or can be the expert programmer. I used to argue "if people would just learn how to use pointers then everything would be fine." It doesn't work that way. You cannot dictate to people how much they are going to learn nor to management what others need to learn. Been there, done that, doesn't work. In a perfect world, we'd all learn the power tools and move along. In fact, it was because I expected people to learn simple things like pointers that decreased my job security. Management had the correct attitude, if the people do not want to train and you can find a way to make them as effective, then do it. It's smug people like you who think your doing people a favor by forcing them to work to the point of incompetence. "Pointers are a very simple concept; if you can't figure them out, I'd say it's time for a new profession." Screw you. I've got friends who are happy doing what they do and they'll never figure pointers out.
I'm not going get into the sarcasm of database technology. It wasn't SQL, it ran a billion plus records and did reports across them in a hundredth of second, and no-- it did not make up results.
You're damn right I think ten lines of code is better. It's DEBUGABLE and followable. Code is for humans, not computers. In all the software I have written, I've gotten the compliment that they can understand what I have written and what I was trying to do. It is the single line mentality that generates bugs; buffer overflows, stack faults, untraceable values, etc. We had this argument at work, FYI. So, we monitored the two camps for number of bugs that showed up. Our team's mantra was "White space is good!" Use all the comments, multiple lines you can. Never do more than one thing per line. At the end of three months of production work the error rate was over fifteen-times higher in "but we can do it efficiently all on one line" camp.
Back to the point of the article, though. BASIC allows training and it is not the be-all and end-all. It is, however, an excellent place to start and to give people the opportunity to see many different things that they may come across. You, my friend, are an apologetic. Different people have different skills and to bluntly treat people all the same and then apologize that the system is just that complex and some people aren't going to get it is just wrong.
This may be a folly question, but I've always wondered why if we're so worried about ozone depleation, why not just mandate countries need to produce an amount to offset the destruction we supposedly cause?
Finally, VisualBASIC is a wonderful language that is designed for building applications, not tweeking every bit of code. I have done high-performance databases, TCP/IP software, etc in HOURS. The excellent aspect of VB is that you abstract to events and can test is piece as needed. Before anyone says, "but VB doesn't have pointers! I need pointers!" The answer is: it most certainly DOES have them, but the whole system is hidden in handles, the way it should be. There is absoluted ZERO reason to use a pointer directly with an offset in an application. I gave up pointers years ago when figured out that 99% of bugs come from them. I use the language's built-in features for resolving structures and my software doesn't crash..
BASIC is the best place to start with programing because you can introduce basic features of all languages. The trick is that you have to have a firm hand on teaching good programming practice. The most amusing thing is that code programming practice is the furthest thing from C/C++ programmers minds. All they care about is "look, I can do that on ONE LINE, though.."
I think this is a good point. It would be interesting if part of every license agreement companies demanded they get to put in a revoke code into the system. Any debate and then "boom," eveyone's systems shut down. Granted, is should be horrible PR, but given the 90's predilection for sacrifice of users for the almighty dollar..
This is the biggest issue I've ever had every time I've tried to do a LAN party: Set the start times for the beginning of any game and hold it. If you don't and allow anyone to say, "But just wait a minute while I configure my system," you'll never get anything done. If you're up and ready, you're in.. Of course, if you have games where people who can come and go as they please, it's not an issue.
They can't bomb this way other than their own case. All it takes is finding out what 80 lines they are referring to and then checking the distros for when they showed up. I suspect it *is* the case that SCO released their own code. If it got out it would clearly show their fubar and this is why they are being so careful about to who they show it. In court you can argue whether or not some fact can be presented, but in the court of public opinion, you cannot.
I think the smart move is just to break the songs up into pieces. New Dance Orchestra is basically one song broken into 30 pieces.
At least I thought the joke was funny..
This is true; however, the logic that I follow is that the code in question was actually code jointly developed in the Montrey (sp?) project and was not released to public. Or, if it was, all they have to claim is some standard piece of code that does roughly the same thing in Linux that IBM joined. In other words, documentation may be great, but I have a hard time believing it is perfect. They just have to go for something that they see does not have a review process for it and snag it. Now, I'm not disagreeing that it is not wise nor fraught with peril. I was just thinking that this might be an after-the-fact approach: Find something in code that compiles nearly the same way in SCO and call it stolen. After all, for as many dumb things I've seen criminals do this would just be another entry in the list..
A thought just occurred to me: What if SCO appropriated Linux code? If their aim is to present a position to IBM for buy-out, why not copy a bit of Linux code that has been introduced in the last year into SCO, go back to the back ups, alter a few time stamps and insert the code into SCO Unix? Then, *poof*! Instant infringment! The very fact that they want to keep things under wraps until trial is because they are going to petition the court to keep the code secret--we will *never* get to see the infringing code. I suspect that they very much want to keep what has been "stolen" under wraps so that only lawyers will get to decide whether it was stolen or not and not someone with a technological clue.
One problem with this: How did Neo stop the machines in "real life?" That ain't reality.. That's the big clue.