The WoW effect. When too many virgins converge. The smell of an un-showered teen with stale cheeto bits on his shirt with the same underwear worn for the past week all help keep the status quo.
Unfortunately, starting a new civilization on another planet is prohibitively expensive.
Think about the support structure needed to really START a new civilization.
You need the basics first.
Water
Food
Electricity
Healthcare (doctors and basic equipment for emergencies)
After that you're going to need places to live and work. I mean, when you're out there, someone has to be making a profit to make it worth even going (yes, that's the world we live in). So you have to assume there is something to mine/create that makes it worthwhile to even be there.
But with all that stuff, it has to come FROM somewhere so you have a bit of a chicken and the egg issue. How do you get all the raw steel, machinery, etc, up to START to build, let alone start to create a worthwhile place to live and work?
So you either fedex (read: rocket/shuttle) all those raw materials up there, or you somehow mine/smelt/forge/create everything, but then you need the stuff TO mine/smelt/forge/create.
With the costs of "shipping" being astronomically high right now, something on the order of hundreds to thousands PER POUND? Just who do you think has the money to SERIOUSLY look into actually creating a moon base?
I'd LOVE for it to happen, but the earth is much cheaper to exploit right now, until the corporations see MORE profit on other worlds, we aren't going to be seeing a push. Even if the government funds such an initiative and subsidizes the startup costs, what company is really going to take that risk?
Part of the problem, at least in America, is that nudity is for behind CLOSED DOORS ONLY.
It doesn't matter what you're born with. It doesn't matter that your body is essentially the same as 50% of the rest of the human population.
It only matters that the politicians, for whatever personal, political, or religious reasons, made nudity essentially illegal.
I remember being in Finland not too many years ago. I'm sitting there watching some tv at my aunts house and commercials came on. There was a rather homely guy walking around his yard, nude, full frontal nudity. Ok, I'm shocked (I'm about 15 at this point). It was a cell phone commercial, apparently. I didn't catch the details as I was just utterly floored by what I just saw. In the US, someone would be in prison/fired/fined so heavily for that.
The US just doesn't understand that the human body is nothing more than an animals body. We're more complex in some ways, but we're essentially the same. We all have bits and pieces that help us walk, talk, see, and procreate.
We just ignore and try to forget about that procreate part. We even make a lot of it illegal. Go figure.
If you're a nudist and you take a picture of yourself, is that a portrait or porn?
If an 18 year old takes a nude picture of himself in order to study on art technique, is that picture porn?
If a minor does either of those things, is it porn?
Personally, I believe that nude/sexual pictures or video taken for the intent of mass distribution and/or profit, should be considered porn or child porn.
When is it ok to have a picture of a nude child? When you were 3 months old being held by your mother in the sink? Is that ok? How about a picture of you bathing when you were 3 with your little brother? Is that ok? How about when you were in the back yard running through the sprinkler, yes nude, when you were 6?
They hide it simply for the fact that noone can claim the show was where they learned how to do it.
It makes zero difference if the information is readily available, the show simply CYA'd themselves by simply not divulging that information on the air.
If a case ever goes to court involving explosives/thermite/etc, the show "MythBusters" simply can't be blamed.
NY State Law (also the law in every other state I've lived in):
Â1175. Obstructing traffic at intersection.
When vehicular traffic is stopped on the opposite side of an intersection, no person shall drive a vehicle into such intersection, except when making a turn unless there is adequate space on the opposite side of the intersection to accommodate the vehicle he is driving notwithstanding the indication of a traffic control signal which would permit him to proceed.
I understand where you are coming from, but no thank you. I just see an Academy series simply degrading into another 90210 or any of the multitude of other "kids in school/college" shows that are/were out in force.
I mean seriously, we have enough shows dramatizing the trials and tribbleations of kids in school.
Computers + TV
on
Why TV Lost
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
While I realize the internet will be a conduit for TV, sooner rather than later, nothing will get me to watch tv and/or movies in my computer chair when I have nice leather couch to sit on in front of my 46" LCD.
I also realize that it will probably become easier to integrate our computers with our entertainment centers, nothing, at least at this point, makes me want to sit in front of the TV on my leather couch to surf/write emails/program/etc.
I really don't care how nicely the 2 will end up playing together. In the end, it's two seperate things that I use. Sometimes I want to sit upright in an office chair and get some work done, some playing done, or just some random stuff done. Other times I want to throw a blanket on my lap with a drink and veg to a movie.
I just don't see them mixing perfectly. I can't see them replacing either one. We will just simply have the need for both.
"All it takes to see the ignorance is a perusal of the defenses presented for this game by a lot of the people who feel the need to defend their choice of entertainment"
But it's fine for you to try and attack peoples choice of entertainment.
Because, obviously the only thing people get WoW for is to chat.. Right? There is no game as well? One with a HUGE world to do MANY things in? No you're right, we pay so we get AIM with pretty backgrounds.
If you don't like the game, great, don't play. But your ignorance and hyperbole is laughable at best. Obviously you have issues with WoW, so stop posting in threads about it. You're just coming across as an ignorant troll.
Obviously, if something is free, you can't complain about arbitrary restrictions. If you pay for it, then you can.
Yes yes... You pay taxes which go into making this "free" service. I get it. We still technically pay. However, if you are only planning on using this to fill in the gaps between using paid-for services, being able to have access to federal sites, email, basic surfing, IM, etc is still worth it.
If I'm out on the road, I can still get my email. I can still keep in contact with family. I can still get directions/maps. I can still get weather reports and satellite imagery. Without the "free" internet, I can't do any of that unless I pay a nice premium on my cell phone.
I think most people will fail in the "what the primary purpose" of this will be. No, it is NOT a replacement for your 5+ mbit connection. Sorry.
Then again, if you're out of a job, or having real issues with cash, or only NEED email access, then guess what, you're in luck!
Obviously you can't be looking for 10mbps connections to watch streaming video and download isos. But think about a simple internet connection that allows for basic web browsing, email use, IM texting, etc.
Out on the road? Can't find an open WiFi hotspot to check google maps? Solved.
Out on the road? Want to download the newest HD episode of your show? Ya, you're going to want to get a connection from a paid-for ISP.
You can interact with players and still be in your own raids when you want to. There is a TON of solo content in the game, should people ignore those because they "aren't interacting" while doing a quest? I'm sure there are plenty of times he just wants to play without having to monitor 36 instances and tons of keyboards/mouses.
It always amazes me how much time/effort/money people will put into their hobbies. However, I'm curious why he stopped at 36. A WoW raid can be up to 40 and in the still current expansion, it's 25 (generally). If you're going to run 36 and pay _thousands_ of dollars for it, why not tack on 4 more and have a full raid? Technical limitation? Ran out of funds?
Then again, maybe he actually wanted 4 slots open to "show off"? If I was crazy enough to do something like this, I know I wouldn't want to keep it all to myself, friends/enemies would have to partake!
And this is a good example! Why change, update, or innovate if you have no competition? Throw a little in there and all of a sudden the things people actually wanted, are given!
I'm going to have to disagree, as well as agree with you here.
I do agree that back 5 or 10 years ago, Diablo 1 and 2 were fun on a lan. More Diablo 1, however. Now Diablo 2 was about the time I started getting access to high speed net connections and frankly, being restricted to playing and trading with only a couple friends got really old.
Fast forward to now and honestly, I can barely remember my last "lan party". We had rented a local hall of some sort (can't remember specifics) and had about 40 people. That was about 6 years ago. I honestly don't see myself going to a lan party unless it's a hosted event for a big team game (CS, etc).
For me and ALL of my friends, the days of LAN parties are over. The WHOLE reason for throwing them was to have a super low latency "tournament" feel. So we could all play together and not worry about lag. Well, lag is a thing of the past. Everyone who is still interested in gaming still meet up, online, to game. Renting a hall and having 20+ people lug machines around, well, it's a thing of the past. A really fun memory! Oh the times, but still, just a memory.
I can't see the touchscreen being anything more than a gimmick. But that tends to go against what the box is made for in the first place? Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this a simple computer to be able to do web/email/office work? Non-graphics intensive, etc?
Adding a touchscreen would allow you to do what exactly? I can't see it adding ease to surfing/word processing.... However, the HDD space could be useful, so kudos there...
Agreed, and I used rough numbers all around. Fact of the matter is that WoW is a billion+ dollar making game which was put out by a company that puts out #1 ranked titles year after year.
"For the full year ended March 2008, Activision had revenue of $2.8 billion, operating margins of 16.55% and operating income of $479.61 million. For the calendar year 2007, Blizzard's revenue was $1.2 billion, up 58% year-over-year. Operating margins at Blizzard were estimated at 40% in the Vivendi press release announcing the spin-off. The combined company reported revenue of over $1 billion in the June quarter and according to this BusinessWeek article, Activision Blizzard is projected to have annual revenues of nearly $4.5 billion."
He's AC for obvious reasons.. But food for thought. People paying money for something they want isn't a new concept. Some people spend wayyy more than that a month on booze and/or cigarettes.
Why bash someone for paying a nominal amount of money for entertainment?
Worlds largest game developer (arguably) throws a convention where they are profiling their biggest titles (starcraft/warcraft/diablo). Yes, this gets attention.
Quick math:
10,000,000 world of warcraft subscriptions equals:
10,000,000 copies of wow @ $40 a pop = $400,000,000
10,000,000 active subscriptions @ $15 a pop = $1,800,000,000 per year.
We're over 2 billion dollars for 1 game for 1 year (it's been out for 4 years now AND has 1 expansion out with another releasing).
This isn't some rinkidink little company, they ARE the mmo scene AND the RTS scene (arguably).
It makes news, sorry.
P.S. Did you not get to go to Blizzcon? If that was just a rant, there is still time to fly down for tomorrows show.
I'm pretty sure half of the benefit of counseling is to have another humans opinion, a professional one at that. Thinking I wouldn't care to talk to a robot about my issues, regardless of how far away from humans I am.
Ok, it is a pointless app. Fine. The issue is that it is expensive. However, expensive is a subjective term. What if he had made this $0.99? Would Apple have pulled it?
How about $1.99?
how about $4.99?
$9.99?
$19.99?
$99.99?
$249.99?
Awful, AWFUL ideas. I'm not trolling either.
Look, the economy isn't broken, but it is inflating. Looking past that, however, your ideas would simply destroy the economy. Why even HAVE an auction house if you want strict pricing? What would be the point?
Second, not being able to pick/mine "gray" items? I'm sorry, but that would utterly destroy the tradeskill system. Pick up Jewelcrafting and you are a max skill miner? Well, tough, you can't get copper to start making low level rings, etc. Hope that some level 10 is mining it for you so they can get next to nothing on your "set price" auction house.
You should at least PLAY the games you make suggestions for.
Slashdot Mirror
I would definitely subscribe. For the articles of course.
Basically, girls and women run away.
Think about the support structure needed to really START a new civilization.
You need the basics first.
Water
Food
Electricity
Healthcare (doctors and basic equipment for emergencies)
After that you're going to need places to live and work. I mean, when you're out there, someone has to be making a profit to make it worth even going (yes, that's the world we live in). So you have to assume there is something to mine/create that makes it worthwhile to even be there.
But with all that stuff, it has to come FROM somewhere so you have a bit of a chicken and the egg issue. How do you get all the raw steel, machinery, etc, up to START to build, let alone start to create a worthwhile place to live and work?
So you either fedex (read: rocket/shuttle) all those raw materials up there, or you somehow mine/smelt/forge/create everything, but then you need the stuff TO mine/smelt/forge/create.
With the costs of "shipping" being astronomically high right now, something on the order of hundreds to thousands PER POUND? Just who do you think has the money to SERIOUSLY look into actually creating a moon base?
I'd LOVE for it to happen, but the earth is much cheaper to exploit right now, until the corporations see MORE profit on other worlds, we aren't going to be seeing a push. Even if the government funds such an initiative and subsidizes the startup costs, what company is really going to take that risk?
It doesn't matter what you're born with. It doesn't matter that your body is essentially the same as 50% of the rest of the human population.
It only matters that the politicians, for whatever personal, political, or religious reasons, made nudity essentially illegal.
I remember being in Finland not too many years ago. I'm sitting there watching some tv at my aunts house and commercials came on. There was a rather homely guy walking around his yard, nude, full frontal nudity. Ok, I'm shocked (I'm about 15 at this point). It was a cell phone commercial, apparently. I didn't catch the details as I was just utterly floored by what I just saw. In the US, someone would be in prison/fired/fined so heavily for that.
The US just doesn't understand that the human body is nothing more than an animals body. We're more complex in some ways, but we're essentially the same. We all have bits and pieces that help us walk, talk, see, and procreate.
We just ignore and try to forget about that procreate part. We even make a lot of it illegal. Go figure.
If an 18 year old takes a nude picture of himself in order to study on art technique, is that picture porn?
If a minor does either of those things, is it porn?
Personally, I believe that nude/sexual pictures or video taken for the intent of mass distribution and/or profit, should be considered porn or child porn.
When is it ok to have a picture of a nude child? When you were 3 months old being held by your mother in the sink? Is that ok? How about a picture of you bathing when you were 3 with your little brother? Is that ok? How about when you were in the back yard running through the sprinkler, yes nude, when you were 6?
It makes zero difference if the information is readily available, the show simply CYA'd themselves by simply not divulging that information on the air.
If a case ever goes to court involving explosives/thermite/etc, the show "MythBusters" simply can't be blamed.
Traffic stops for MANY reasons, to say that you don't have enough time to respond appropriately to stopped traffic 5 cars up is silly.
Â1175. Obstructing traffic at intersection.
When vehicular traffic is stopped on the opposite side of an intersection, no person shall drive a vehicle into such intersection, except when making a turn unless there is adequate space on the opposite side of the intersection to accommodate the vehicle he is driving notwithstanding the indication of a traffic control signal which would permit him to proceed.
http://www.nysgtsc.state.ny.us/rowa-vt.htm#1175
Sad that people don't know simple traffic laws which shouldn't even need to be listed as they should be common sense.
I mean seriously, we have enough shows dramatizing the trials and tribbleations of kids in school.
I also realize that it will probably become easier to integrate our computers with our entertainment centers, nothing, at least at this point, makes me want to sit in front of the TV on my leather couch to surf/write emails/program/etc.
I really don't care how nicely the 2 will end up playing together. In the end, it's two seperate things that I use. Sometimes I want to sit upright in an office chair and get some work done, some playing done, or just some random stuff done. Other times I want to throw a blanket on my lap with a drink and veg to a movie.
I just don't see them mixing perfectly. I can't see them replacing either one. We will just simply have the need for both.
But it's fine for you to try and attack peoples choice of entertainment.
Glad to see your priorities are straight.
If you don't like the game, great, don't play. But your ignorance and hyperbole is laughable at best. Obviously you have issues with WoW, so stop posting in threads about it. You're just coming across as an ignorant troll.
Yes yes... You pay taxes which go into making this "free" service. I get it. We still technically pay. However, if you are only planning on using this to fill in the gaps between using paid-for services, being able to have access to federal sites, email, basic surfing, IM, etc is still worth it.
If I'm out on the road, I can still get my email. I can still keep in contact with family. I can still get directions/maps. I can still get weather reports and satellite imagery. Without the "free" internet, I can't do any of that unless I pay a nice premium on my cell phone.
I think most people will fail in the "what the primary purpose" of this will be. No, it is NOT a replacement for your 5+ mbit connection. Sorry.
Then again, if you're out of a job, or having real issues with cash, or only NEED email access, then guess what, you're in luck!
Out on the road? Can't find an open WiFi hotspot to check google maps? Solved.
Out on the road? Want to download the newest HD episode of your show? Ya, you're going to want to get a connection from a paid-for ISP.
You can interact with players and still be in your own raids when you want to. There is a TON of solo content in the game, should people ignore those because they "aren't interacting" while doing a quest? I'm sure there are plenty of times he just wants to play without having to monitor 36 instances and tons of keyboards/mouses.
It always amazes me how much time/effort/money people will put into their hobbies. However, I'm curious why he stopped at 36. A WoW raid can be up to 40 and in the still current expansion, it's 25 (generally). If you're going to run 36 and pay _thousands_ of dollars for it, why not tack on 4 more and have a full raid? Technical limitation? Ran out of funds?
Then again, maybe he actually wanted 4 slots open to "show off"? If I was crazy enough to do something like this, I know I wouldn't want to keep it all to myself, friends/enemies would have to partake!
And this is a good example! Why change, update, or innovate if you have no competition? Throw a little in there and all of a sudden the things people actually wanted, are given!
I'm going to have to disagree, as well as agree with you here.
I do agree that back 5 or 10 years ago, Diablo 1 and 2 were fun on a lan. More Diablo 1, however. Now Diablo 2 was about the time I started getting access to high speed net connections and frankly, being restricted to playing and trading with only a couple friends got really old.
Fast forward to now and honestly, I can barely remember my last "lan party". We had rented a local hall of some sort (can't remember specifics) and had about 40 people. That was about 6 years ago. I honestly don't see myself going to a lan party unless it's a hosted event for a big team game (CS, etc).
For me and ALL of my friends, the days of LAN parties are over. The WHOLE reason for throwing them was to have a super low latency "tournament" feel. So we could all play together and not worry about lag. Well, lag is a thing of the past. Everyone who is still interested in gaming still meet up, online, to game. Renting a hall and having 20+ people lug machines around, well, it's a thing of the past. A really fun memory! Oh the times, but still, just a memory.
I can't see the touchscreen being anything more than a gimmick. But that tends to go against what the box is made for in the first place? Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this a simple computer to be able to do web/email/office work? Non-graphics intensive, etc?
Adding a touchscreen would allow you to do what exactly? I can't see it adding ease to surfing/word processing.... However, the HDD space could be useful, so kudos there...
Agreed, and I used rough numbers all around. Fact of the matter is that WoW is a billion+ dollar making game which was put out by a company that puts out #1 ranked titles year after year.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/94051-ride-out-the-recession-with-activision-blizzard
"For the full year ended March 2008, Activision had revenue of $2.8 billion, operating margins of 16.55% and operating income of $479.61 million. For the calendar year 2007, Blizzard's revenue was $1.2 billion, up 58% year-over-year. Operating margins at Blizzard were estimated at 40% in the Vivendi press release announcing the spin-off. The combined company reported revenue of over $1 billion in the June quarter and according to this BusinessWeek article, Activision Blizzard is projected to have annual revenues of nearly $4.5 billion."
Check the link.
He's AC for obvious reasons.. But food for thought. People paying money for something they want isn't a new concept. Some people spend wayyy more than that a month on booze and/or cigarettes.
Why bash someone for paying a nominal amount of money for entertainment?
Worlds largest game developer (arguably) throws a convention where they are profiling their biggest titles (starcraft/warcraft/diablo). Yes, this gets attention.
Quick math:
10,000,000 world of warcraft subscriptions equals:
10,000,000 copies of wow @ $40 a pop = $400,000,000
10,000,000 active subscriptions @ $15 a pop = $1,800,000,000 per year.
We're over 2 billion dollars for 1 game for 1 year (it's been out for 4 years now AND has 1 expansion out with another releasing).
This isn't some rinkidink little company, they ARE the mmo scene AND the RTS scene (arguably).
It makes news, sorry.
P.S. Did you not get to go to Blizzcon? If that was just a rant, there is still time to fly down for tomorrows show.
I'm pretty sure half of the benefit of counseling is to have another humans opinion, a professional one at that. Thinking I wouldn't care to talk to a robot about my issues, regardless of how far away from humans I am.
How about $1.99?
how about $4.99?
$9.99?
$19.99?
$99.99?
$249.99?
When does it become "too expensive"?
Awful, AWFUL ideas. I'm not trolling either.
Look, the economy isn't broken, but it is inflating. Looking past that, however, your ideas would simply destroy the economy. Why even HAVE an auction house if you want strict pricing? What would be the point?
Second, not being able to pick/mine "gray" items? I'm sorry, but that would utterly destroy the tradeskill system. Pick up Jewelcrafting and you are a max skill miner? Well, tough, you can't get copper to start making low level rings, etc. Hope that some level 10 is mining it for you so they can get next to nothing on your "set price" auction house.
You should at least PLAY the games you make suggestions for.