Yeah, especially when you realize it has to weigh less than 1320 pounds to qualify for the sports plane designation they need. And for that matter, how on earth will this thing even be drivable in bad weather? Seems to me the least bit of wind gusts would have you all over the road.
If it were up to me, you'd always be able to create alternate characters at the same level as your highest character on a realm is. Those that WANT to learn to play that character in a group, will. Those that don't, won't. It makes no difference whether they start at 1 or 69 -- if they don't want to learn, they won't. All too true. I don't know how many high and max-level players I've grouped with who hadn't a clue how to play in a party, despite having leveled their character from level 1.
Hastening the grind from 20 to 60 is definitely a good move that's likely to keep players interested in the game.
I guess that depends on your definitions of vibrant, distinctive, and shallow.
While I enjoyed every one of Jordan's books, I found the characters all quite similar and very shallow, and though the world was definitely interesting, I found the cultures much less vibrant and distinctive than Tolkien's. His characters are all so similar that he had to come up with some particular peculiar mannerism of some kind to try to make them unique. But they basically all think and act the same way. Not as badly so as with Dave Eddings (his became so stale after about two books I couldn't take it any more) but still bad nonetheless.
To sum up my opinion, Jordan had a great imagination. He just flat sucked at writing. But his fantasy world he imagined made his books worth reading, despite his lack of writing skill.
You're wrong. I very much doubt you've ever read any of Tolkien's works besides The Hobbit and LotR. If you have, well then clearly his books simply were not for you. I've read every single one of Jordan's books I've found (Yes, even the WoT prequel and the Conan Chronicles) and while he's got a very intriguing fantasy world and a great story, his writing is very lack-luster and his fantasy world is barely a drop in a bucket compared to Tolkien's. Even Raymond Feist's fantasy world is much grander than Jordan's, and it still pales in comparison to Tolkien's creation.
This was a waste of time, the languages added absolutely nothing to the story. They were there just to be there. And that line very succinctly shows how wrong you are.
...but that's just my opinion Maybe, but I have a feeling that most of us who have read both Martin and Jordan share that opinion. Another author whose writing style I've really enjoyed is Robin Hobb.
If you play online PC games, you're the right demographic for XFire. Xfire is not about public chat rooms, it's about having an IM app that lets you chat with your gaming buddies, see what game they're playing, chat with them in-game without minimizing/tabbing/etc., and - depending on the game - hop into the same game with them. Of course now you can also create chat rooms (which can only be accessed by receiving an invite from someone already in the room), do VOIP chat, and even group VOIP chat by creating a chat room and using VOIP in it. In my gaming clan, I'm the youngest member at age 26. Our ages range all the way up to over 50. Adding people to your friends list is a 2-way agreement. Someone won't be able to add you to their friends list unless you allow them. And you can set it up so no one but your friends will ever be able to see you online or anything about you.
That covers the basics, but there's still more features available as well. I've been using Xfire for years now, and it's become a must-have app for me.
I hope the new generation of musicians refuse to sign record labels with major companies. Considering how powerful a home studio can now be, it's a whole lot more feasible than it was 30 years ago.. Yeah, that would be nice. But I'm not that optimistic. Given how many bands there are out there these days, you know there's going to be some that take the bait.
Like I said, I was merely making a simple observation. I personally couldn't care less how much you commit.
Therefore I will not make promises that amount to "until death do us part". I promise I will try to raise the kid with all the love and wisdom I can muster. I promise to honour my partner, but I will not be lured into the naive and stupidly romantic gesture of telling everyone this will be "forever". That's definitely not the kind of "commitment" I'd be looking for in a partner myself. Hence my "lack of commitment" comment. If your girl is fine with that, good for you.
In absurdum meaning that I will not push my atheism to the point where I am the spiritual equivalent of a vegan. To make the analogy clear, I can understand people who would rather not eat meat out of principle, but to push it to the point where eggs, milk, butter, leather shoes or woolen sweaters are off the market too is just over-zealous and illogical. Yeah?
I'm fine with going to one, as long was we don't have to call it marriage. Sounds pretty "in absurdum" to me.
No. You are grossly misunderstanding me. I do not have anything against the words "marriage", "husband" or "wife" per se. They are fine words to indicate a partnership of some sorts. A connection. So are you just waffling, or did you not really mean what you said earlier?
What I am not fine with is the fact that I have observed that countries that are run by religion to a larger degree such as Israel, even though there is some improvement of late, push marriage in its full religious glory. Furthermore, the gentlemen rabbis do not deem it necessary to give people that make different life-style choices an equal set of rights.
Now in the Netherlands, again, the situation is different. Anyone can get a civil marriage, a registered partnership in the form of a notary-drafted contract or simply live together under the same roof for x amount of time, and have their rights recognized to a much larger degree. Be they gay, straight, religious or not. Well, at least we mostly agree on that. Religion definitely has no business trying to run a country.
You don't know me. I am living under the same roof as my partner. We manage, pool and plan all of our assets together, shared to a 100% without reservation. We are expecting a baby boy. This responsibility is huge, and I am well aware of it. Of course I don't know you. But you as much as came right out and said you have a lack of commitment.
How much more do you want me to be committed? Will a pink slip signed by some clergyman or whoever keep me more committed than that? If you look at divorce statistics all over the world I would argue that there are plenty of people that have commitment issues even though they do tie the knot.
All I'm saying is that I don't know how our lives will fare in the long run, and I'm being realistic when I say that. How much do I want you to be committed? Since it doesn't impact me at all, I really don't care in the least. I was simply making an observation. No, a pink slip doesn't make you more committed. Nor does the word "marriage". In fact, "marriage" has almost completely lost its meaning these days. It really doesn't matter what you call it - it's about making a life-long commitment to someone you care about. That's what makes the original idea of marriage so powerful: it's about committing to living your life with someone until you die, knowing full well that there's going to be lots of problems and hurdles to overcome along the way. Of course it's not easy. Of course you can't possibly know what your life is going to be like in 20 years. That's what makes true "marriage" so special. Unfortunately, most people today take it much too lightly.
Customers should know how the system works before they buy. And if they didn't bother to find out, and they waited too long to get it at the same price, then it's their own tough luck.
I think this is a novel idea, and hopefully it will work well.
My only question is, will they go strictly by number of sales for a song overall, or will they continuously monitor popularity of each MP3 and then reduce the price again once the popularity drops?
However, I am not atheistic in absurdum. I'm sorry, what?
A notary doesn't have that function anymore and in Holland hasn't had that function for over 300 years. I'm fine with going to one, as long was we don't have to call it marriage. Oh, so you're fine with one word that had it's roots in organized religion, but not another? Marriage is no more religious these days than the notary. Seems to me like you just have some issues with commitment.
Also don't forget the obvious fact that the PSP isn't really the sort of gadget most people carry around in their pocket or take to work. But having some real video games in your cell phone (as opposed to most of the lack-luster fare you can download to your phone by paying $7.99) has a lot of potential. You know, some people have lots of "contacts" to add in their phone, and for some reason it takes a while...
You missed what I believe he was trying to imply. With the internet, yes it's easy to find more band members, equipment, etc. Yes it's easy to get your music available for millions of people to listen to. The problem is, it's not in the public eye. It's just on some obscure MySpace page. Yes, anyone with internet access who wants to listen to it could potentially do that, but first they have to find it. And that's what makes radio so effective even now. Anywhere you happen to be, there's only so many stations you can pick up. And if you're the type of person who listens only to FM, where most music is played, that number drops down to only a few dozen. So if your tune gets on the radio, you know that the people interested in hearing the type of tunes you're playing will hear it.
And with so many bands playing and releasing their music on the internet these days, that's never going to change, even if someone made a website to function as a central depository to catalog music. There's just simply way too much of it available. Chances of more than a few hundred people ever hearing your music are pretty much non-existent, unless it's heavily promoted.
So I guess that's why he's saying the internet is killing music. Yes, it gives you a world-wide venue, but it makes it harder for people to find it. Of course, making your stuff available on the internet does not automatically preclude your band also having a local presence, but it often happens by default as it's so much easier to simply upload your music than it is to find local gigs, haul your equipment around, etc.
no. get some perspective. hammers and screwdrivers do not have an end use licence agreement. yes of course it is up to the seller to determine the terms of the sale. its called a contract. Wow. This post is the biggest load of horseshit I've seen on/. in some time. No it's not a contract. It's an EULA. And companies have already gotten in trouble for ridiculous over-restrictive EULAs. (And if you don't already know the difference between a real contract and an EULA, why the fuck are you even posting here?)
Are you suggesting that all contracts are unenforceable? If you rent a house, you sign a form to say you will not do X, Y and Z, maybe not to have any pets, or leave the house unattended. Ever heard of apples and oranges? Big clue: when you're renting something, it's not yours. Of course the owner has the right to tell you what you may or may not do with his property. Once you sell something, it's no longer yours. That's it. End of deal. The only organization that has control over what you do with something you purchased is the government. The manufacturer has not even a shred of such control. Anyone who thinks they do is only fooling themselves. Unfortunately, big corporations are gaining far too much indirect control by buying politicians and controlling government, and that is what must change.
If I invent product X, who are you, or the government to dictate the terms under which I profit from my invention? The l;egaility of mod chipping is hardly a secret. And if I buy your product X, who are you to dictate what I can or cannot do with my property? If it must be done, that's the jurisdiction of government, not you. If you don't like what I do with your X that I bought, all you can legally do is ask me not to do it, and/or appeal to the government.
Well, I really don't see them making a WoW clone. I would expect them to make more of an online version of Morrowind and Oblivion. Since that would be awesome and it's more or less what I'd expect from them, I really hope I'm not unpleasantly surprised.
It's not about percentage. It's about knowing that if I see a patrol car, they (possibly) know where my car is. If there's no patrol car in sight, they don't know where my car is at that moment. As long as they're only allowed to put them on patrol cars, I'm fine with it. If they push to be allowed to plant them wherever they like, we'll worry about that when the time comes. I personally am skeptical that will happen any time soon. Regardless, I find this whole uproar a bit absurd, considering the same thing is already being done (and has been for years) with credit/debit card data. Every time you use your card, that's a data-point of when you were at a certain location in the past. So maybe we should start suing everyone for keeping that data too?
I believe it. They make it very clear when you get your license that it's a privilege as opposed to a right, and it it's fairly obvious why. Cars are dangerous even in the hands of the most skilled, and much more so in the hands of the not-so-skilled. Every time you take your car down the highway at more than 30MPH you're endangering other people if you're not capable of controlling your vehicle. Darn right it's a privilege, and one that should be much more restricted than it is in the US.
Wow, talk about an apples and oranges comparison. With a tracking chip, they can know where your car is all the time, every minute of every day. With this scanner, even assuming they keep a record of every single plate they scan, all they have is a location of where they saw your plate somewhere in the past. And not only that, it's going to be on patrol cars, which means they actually have to be there to get that scan. This in itself makes it much more acceptable than devices like traffic cams that take a picture of your plate when you run a red light.
I'll assume you've never heard of negligent homicide, or involuntary manslaughter. The fact is that most crime does not require intent, if it did, we wouldn't have the phrase "Ignorance of the law is no excuse." You go ahead and assume that. Meanwhile I'm going to assume he meant someone has to have some control over the situation for it to be a crime. If you're driving down the road following all traffic safety regulations and someone jumps in front of your car and you kill him, that's not a crime.
No, actually it's called taking responsibility for your own fucking mistake. If you set the price wrong, you suffer the consequences. If some customer comes in and lets you know you set the price wrong, you thank them buy letting them off with the discount (that's going to cost you what, a whopping $30-$50?) and be happy it got caught before 50 dishonest people found the same error and ran off with your discounted gas. If your employee made the mistake and can't compensate for it, you either give them a second chance or fire them. To borrow from Orange Crush, it's the cost of doing business. Plain and simple. Don't like it, don't try to run a business. If you can't handle giving a customer a free tank of gas for reporting a pricing error, then you should sell your fucking gas station and work for someone else, just like everyone else does who doesn't know how to run a business.
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Yeah, especially when you realize it has to weigh less than 1320 pounds to qualify for the sports plane designation they need. And for that matter, how on earth will this thing even be drivable in bad weather? Seems to me the least bit of wind gusts would have you all over the road.
Hastening the grind from 20 to 60 is definitely a good move that's likely to keep players interested in the game.
I guess that depends on your definitions of vibrant, distinctive, and shallow.
While I enjoyed every one of Jordan's books, I found the characters all quite similar and very shallow, and though the world was definitely interesting, I found the cultures much less vibrant and distinctive than Tolkien's. His characters are all so similar that he had to come up with some particular peculiar mannerism of some kind to try to make them unique. But they basically all think and act the same way. Not as badly so as with Dave Eddings (his became so stale after about two books I couldn't take it any more) but still bad nonetheless.
To sum up my opinion, Jordan had a great imagination. He just flat sucked at writing. But his fantasy world he imagined made his books worth reading, despite his lack of writing skill.
...but that's just my opinion Maybe, but I have a feeling that most of us who have read both Martin and Jordan share that opinion. Another author whose writing style I've really enjoyed is Robin Hobb.If you play online PC games, you're the right demographic for XFire. Xfire is not about public chat rooms, it's about having an IM app that lets you chat with your gaming buddies, see what game they're playing, chat with them in-game without minimizing/tabbing/etc., and - depending on the game - hop into the same game with them. Of course now you can also create chat rooms (which can only be accessed by receiving an invite from someone already in the room), do VOIP chat, and even group VOIP chat by creating a chat room and using VOIP in it. In my gaming clan, I'm the youngest member at age 26. Our ages range all the way up to over 50. Adding people to your friends list is a 2-way agreement. Someone won't be able to add you to their friends list unless you allow them. And you can set it up so no one but your friends will ever be able to see you online or anything about you.
That covers the basics, but there's still more features available as well. I've been using Xfire for years now, and it's become a must-have app for me.
Now in the Netherlands, again, the situation is different. Anyone can get a civil marriage, a registered partnership in the form of a notary-drafted contract or simply live together under the same roof for x amount of time, and have their rights recognized to a much larger degree. Be they gay, straight, religious or not. Well, at least we mostly agree on that. Religion definitely has no business trying to run a country. You don't know me. I am living under the same roof as my partner. We manage, pool and plan all of our assets together, shared to a 100% without reservation. We are expecting a baby boy. This responsibility is huge, and I am well aware of it. Of course I don't know you. But you as much as came right out and said you have a lack of commitment. How much more do you want me to be committed? Will a pink slip signed by some clergyman or whoever keep me more committed than that? If you look at divorce statistics all over the world I would argue that there are plenty of people that have commitment issues even though they do tie the knot.
All I'm saying is that I don't know how our lives will fare in the long run, and I'm being realistic when I say that. How much do I want you to be committed? Since it doesn't impact me at all, I really don't care in the least. I was simply making an observation. No, a pink slip doesn't make you more committed. Nor does the word "marriage". In fact, "marriage" has almost completely lost its meaning these days. It really doesn't matter what you call it - it's about making a life-long commitment to someone you care about. That's what makes the original idea of marriage so powerful: it's about committing to living your life with someone until you die, knowing full well that there's going to be lots of problems and hurdles to overcome along the way. Of course it's not easy. Of course you can't possibly know what your life is going to be like in 20 years. That's what makes true "marriage" so special. Unfortunately, most people today take it much too lightly.
Customers should know how the system works before they buy. And if they didn't bother to find out, and they waited too long to get it at the same price, then it's their own tough luck.
I think this is a novel idea, and hopefully it will work well.
My only question is, will they go strictly by number of sales for a song overall, or will they continuously monitor popularity of each MP3 and then reduce the price again once the popularity drops?
Kralnor. :) And btw, my staff is a good one!
I myself have very little love for MS, but this is one time I'm glad they won. When it comes to patent trolls, the alternative is always better.
Hopefully the same thing will happen in that stupid touchscreen keyboard troll case.
Patent trolls can suck it.
Also don't forget the obvious fact that the PSP isn't really the sort of gadget most people carry around in their pocket or take to work. But having some real video games in your cell phone (as opposed to most of the lack-luster fare you can download to your phone by paying $7.99) has a lot of potential. You know, some people have lots of "contacts" to add in their phone, and for some reason it takes a while...
Now that sounds like a copy of Vista I might actually consider for a trial run.
You missed what I believe he was trying to imply. With the internet, yes it's easy to find more band members, equipment, etc. Yes it's easy to get your music available for millions of people to listen to. The problem is, it's not in the public eye. It's just on some obscure MySpace page. Yes, anyone with internet access who wants to listen to it could potentially do that, but first they have to find it. And that's what makes radio so effective even now. Anywhere you happen to be, there's only so many stations you can pick up. And if you're the type of person who listens only to FM, where most music is played, that number drops down to only a few dozen. So if your tune gets on the radio, you know that the people interested in hearing the type of tunes you're playing will hear it.
And with so many bands playing and releasing their music on the internet these days, that's never going to change, even if someone made a website to function as a central depository to catalog music. There's just simply way too much of it available. Chances of more than a few hundred people ever hearing your music are pretty much non-existent, unless it's heavily promoted.
So I guess that's why he's saying the internet is killing music. Yes, it gives you a world-wide venue, but it makes it harder for people to find it. Of course, making your stuff available on the internet does not automatically preclude your band also having a local presence, but it often happens by default as it's so much easier to simply upload your music than it is to find local gigs, haul your equipment around, etc.
Well, I really don't see them making a WoW clone. I would expect them to make more of an online version of Morrowind and Oblivion. Since that would be awesome and it's more or less what I'd expect from them, I really hope I'm not unpleasantly surprised.
It's not about percentage. It's about knowing that if I see a patrol car, they (possibly) know where my car is. If there's no patrol car in sight, they don't know where my car is at that moment. As long as they're only allowed to put them on patrol cars, I'm fine with it. If they push to be allowed to plant them wherever they like, we'll worry about that when the time comes. I personally am skeptical that will happen any time soon. Regardless, I find this whole uproar a bit absurd, considering the same thing is already being done (and has been for years) with credit/debit card data. Every time you use your card, that's a data-point of when you were at a certain location in the past. So maybe we should start suing everyone for keeping that data too?
I believe it. They make it very clear when you get your license that it's a privilege as opposed to a right, and it it's fairly obvious why. Cars are dangerous even in the hands of the most skilled, and much more so in the hands of the not-so-skilled. Every time you take your car down the highway at more than 30MPH you're endangering other people if you're not capable of controlling your vehicle. Darn right it's a privilege, and one that should be much more restricted than it is in the US.
Wow, talk about an apples and oranges comparison. With a tracking chip, they can know where your car is all the time, every minute of every day. With this scanner, even assuming they keep a record of every single plate they scan, all they have is a location of where they saw your plate somewhere in the past. And not only that, it's going to be on patrol cars, which means they actually have to be there to get that scan. This in itself makes it much more acceptable than devices like traffic cams that take a picture of your plate when you run a red light.
So basically, it's going to let police use license plates for what they were actually intended for? Awesome.
No, actually it's called taking responsibility for your own fucking mistake. If you set the price wrong, you suffer the consequences. If some customer comes in and lets you know you set the price wrong, you thank them buy letting them off with the discount (that's going to cost you what, a whopping $30-$50?) and be happy it got caught before 50 dishonest people found the same error and ran off with your discounted gas. If your employee made the mistake and can't compensate for it, you either give them a second chance or fire them. To borrow from Orange Crush, it's the cost of doing business. Plain and simple. Don't like it, don't try to run a business. If you can't handle giving a customer a free tank of gas for reporting a pricing error, then you should sell your fucking gas station and work for someone else, just like everyone else does who doesn't know how to run a business.
It's called context. Ever heard of it?