Well... M-W defines sexual intercourse as: heterosexual intercourse involving penetration of the vagina by the penis.
Which is the original version and the meaning. (As in coitus.)
The very term (sexual intercourse) implies a male-female connection. It is a modern shifting of the term to imply sexual intercourse as anything else.
The secondary definition in webster lists sex + sodomy as a definition for sex. Which would've made sex in texas illegal until recently and probably comes from the colloquial and legal 'sexual assault' addressed in a bit.
We could ramble on about this, but, yes... sex (classically and I think legally) means coitus.
However, many states have lumped together a bunch of things under "sexual assault" and this might be where the watering of the term comes from in modern usage.
When did we forget that it's OK to do an investigation which turns up no evidence of guilt?
Right around the time "probable cause" made it OK to ignore the constitution and [investigate|terrorize|go on a fishing expedition with] anyone the powers that be don't like.
This would also be right around the same time that the whole "double jeopardy" thing got worked around by filing state charges and then federal charges back-to-back or after losing in one arena.
The "fraud charge" gambit probably references some technicality in WHY he wanted them evil-smarty-things that no honest (stupid|docile|sheep) citizen would want.
The government's agenda for a while has been Citizen = stupid. After all, no citizen should be able to create or research or learn anything without A) A university to pay money to or B) a large corporation in which to be enslaved, right?
Judge Jordan wrote on an issued order: 'The attached exhibit, which includes several graphic images of oral and genital sex between adult males , was filed electronically in the docket in this case, without prior permission from the court... To the extent that the other attorney's alleged conduct is in any way relevant... there was no need for Mr. Thompson to file these graphic images in the public record. A simple reference to the website and its alleged links would have sufficed...'"
emphasis mine
I was trying to figure out if this was going to trigger my [salacious|sacrilege] engine, but Judge Jordan seems to need [a|an] [biology|English] lesson. I believe we either someone is not what they appear to be or we have a case of poor English skills.
The quote should've been "which includes several graphic images of sodomy between adult males".
Technically, given definitions in modern dictionaries, two males cannot have sex. I know billy boy clinton would back me up on that, but it is true and he was right. He didn't have sex with an intern in the Oval Office given their statements. He sodomized an intern in the Oval Office.
Of course, I have no idea what kind of case this is, but the attorney putting forward this kind of material is attempting to shock or outrage the jury or judge. Sounds like a standard legal ploy to me.
As an aside, is anyone shocked by this stuff any longer? And would it have the same tone if it were two females? And can two females, given the (christian biblical) origin of the word commit sodomy if they are enjoying cunnilingus?
Webster's 2nd definition: a person who champions the less accepted cause for the sake of argument.
It is my contention this is precisely the meaning intended, as I felt an argument for the RIAA having good prior business sense would've been somewhat unpopular on Slashdot.
Perhaps you would've had a point had you suggested that my argument was oblique to the topic at hand and that I really hadn't been championing a contested point of view. (And I'd rebut.) But your assertion that my word usage was incorrect is... incorrect.
No, "downgrade rights" make good business sense for MICROSOFT... don't forget, downgrade rights requires the more expensive licenses for Vista. Microsoft still gets their money for Vista when you downgrade, and can chalk up another sale (of Vista) for their marketing boys to spin.
Well, not really. Downgrade rights do chalk up a sale but not really "help" miker$of, but that wasn't my point. (And more on that in a second.
My point was: if clients are not buying Dells, for example, because they don't want vista and all Dell sells are vista PCs; doesn't it make sense for Dell to put pressure on miker$of to cough up a method for them to do so? Or if the method always was there, to provide what people want to buy?
While such an action does allow miker$of some spin room for damage control, saying indirectly that their new product isn't as good as their old one is not good business. It digs them in deeper when they try to spur people to upgrade. It also pisses off shareholders which threatens their executive-ness. My guess is they will slobber some marketing drool over it to make it Vista SP1 or some stupid nonsense and just try again. Failing that they will have to spend the bucks to rebrand.
It isn't called a "reward in heaven" negotiating tactic for nothing.
(looked in wikipedia) there isn't an article on the principle, but it bears describing here:
a "reward in heaven" premise is: You give me something of worth today, and in the future, I PROMISE to give you something of equal or greater value.
The problem here is there no guarantee, requiring faith. Hence the analogy.
Don't buy crippled content unless you are happy with using that content ONCE for the price or know, in advance, that you can de-cripple it in an acceptable manner with acceptable loss at an acceptable price.
The problem I see with fluctuating the price due to popularity, given the vendor's lack of anything approaching ethics, is the fairness of these numbers.
It wouldn't be above them to pad the numbers on EVERY song to push prices up to the "maximum" or to add automated orders to increase the price based on traffic to the songs. Or just outright lie about the pricing.
Any business, government, or any other model that depends on "the weal and cooperation of your fellow man" isn't taking into consideration human nature. Such an endeavor is doomed before it begins.
In fact, this is how the USA lost control over its government. Never trust anyone with anything you value when you have no verification. "Trust us" = "We're telling you a lie, sucker"
It makes good business sense for the PC manufacturers.
If they're seeing squawking clients in the valuable before-christmas season, they should do something. And if a downgrade to XP is what it takes... then so be it.
The manufacturers might be partners with miker$of when it is convenient, but a friend-coerced is a pretty fair-weather friend. I imagine that business arrangement works both ways and miker$of is under some pressure from stockholders to sell their product.
For the record to someone that mentioned a PC on which XP wouldn't run... I recently had to reload a spanky-new gateway *shudder* PC at the office. It had linux on it (which ran like a champ as a SERVER for HUNDREDS OF USERS (database, app server, web server, samba, DNS, and so on) and we were reloading it for a developer to use as as desktop. I know it will barely run Vista and make his life miserable.
XP won't run on it because Intel doesn't make (a working set of)drivers for the board's SATA controller. Not for XP. I tried Professional, Home, and even Server 2003 to make sure. Won't run. Bluescreens before you see the GUI. Tried both pre and post DRM versions (Original, SP1, and SP2 ++DRM). No XP "love". Looked on their website and they sorta support XP, but couldn't find a way to order one with that OS. (I was going to order one, clone the HD's magic partition, and take it back.)
The company didn't want to buy a PATA drive to put on a single chain with the UDMA66 DVD-ROM. I don't blame them.
I poked around both intel's and gutway's sites (which is kind of like sticking your hand in a public toilet by the way...) for an hour or two to no avail. Google-is-evil-ified the motherboard and SATA controller to see if anyone had other ideas. Lots of problems and no solutions later I ditched this idea.
Intel provides Linux support, why not XP? They have an XP driver listed, and I tried all 3 choices (which loads the same driver *sigh*), but still I get the friendly BSOD I know so well.
I won't rule out the idea that I might've missed something, but the probability is sliding fast towards nil.
I didn't have a copy of vista, and won't be having one. A glance at the side of the PC says that it is for Home Premium Two-Steps Left or some such version. Gutway doesn't do recovery CDs, putting the image on a recovery partition at the front of the disk for the client to burn. It evidently got erased before I received the PC.
as an annoying sidenote, the thing doesn't have a floppy drive, so I had to open the side of the case and connect a floppy before I could mash F6 to load a driver from floppy.
Anyway, I won't give the developer vista as he's already had the black feather pointed at him (the only one in the shop, because some of our clients downgraded to vista). He just looks pitiful when someone suggests he might be getting vista again. Everyone in the office has stopped teasing him about it because... well... it is meaner than tasering a mental patient in a wheelchair.
I've never seen an analysis of why record companies do what they do (other than being greedy bastards and damned good business people until recently).
So, with reservation, I put on my horns and red suit. Grab my pitchfork. And trim up my Van Dyke, for I am (today) the Devil's Advocate.
Ladies and gentlemen of the Peanut Gallery:
Many years ago, media (then record) companies searched the world over for the best talent, signed them to contracts, and published their records. They courted the best artists and tried like hell to sign the best ones, arguing amongst them selves for the best of the best.
At some point, right around the '70's I'd guess, media companies got hit by their first clue bus (my guess would be because of a glut of "Artists" post 60's): Why be in control of a bunch of bitchy artists? After all, people really don't know good music from bad for the most part; and as technology progressed, why, they really don't have to sing at all do they?
So, over the years since, media companies began NOT searching for artists, but seeking a more common "artist" creature. Then THEY would be in control. To people like my 'client', control is everything.
Why do you think pretty much all music = pre-digested crap? Did all artists suddenly die after the 70's? Nope. They're off doing something else now. Their services were no longer wanted.
In any event, media companies began searching for the minimum talent that technology and professional song writers could fashion into an "artist". As technology grew, the incident of occurrence of these creatures grew until you, good sir and madam, sitting at your keyboard are likely (+50%) material for a new "rawk shtar" or "pawp tawrtleete" or "wrap gangstahh" or "shit-kicking tear-in-my-beer slinger". Artist = product, not person.
So the record companies began to spend huge amounts of cash (which formerly would've gone to the artists) to promote their "artists". Now, the "artist" was transmuted from being a person into real "intellectual property"; an invention of the media company. Dick with the company and BWAFF! no more artist. Now they were in control of production. It was a very wise move.
They toned their little fledglings, guided them, plumped up their little egos to fantastic proportions, encouraged divergent behavior (as people like leaders and often mistake insanity/passion as inspiration - Joan of Arc), and have media consultants adjust their image to make them popular.
The fact that this course has devastating psychological consequences for the "artists" is... acceptable collateral damage to my 'clients'.
Along with this we have thousands of no or medium-talent retards scrambling to be a product. The end effect, of course, is the media companies' complete control over artist manufacturing.
They invested in research to find out exactly what the MOST people wanted, and found out it was... whatever anyone else liked (for the masses, I mean; not you, the discerning reader *cough-cough*), and thus was born the hydra of crap-music. That was the day music died.
My 'clients' continued on this way for a while, shoveling money into the various media markets to excrete their product into the mainstream and into our ears. For years we fed them billions of dollars.
Then they realized to make more money and to make their conquest complete they needed to own the distribution outlets as well! Eureka! Naked music execs ran down the streets naked!
Media companies began buying up media content services: radios, concert venues, and in concert with the movie industry (on the same track as well) news papers and magazines.
Now they own the manufacture, transportation, and distribution of a very fat cash cow: music.
All they have to do is figure out what a group of people want and vomit out some music and artists tuned to cater to them. My 'clients' have proved viciously effective in this regard. Media companies make damn fine capitalists.
I would imagine that the business owners are attempting to "fool" google's ranking system. They just assume that Dean Hunt is trying and beating them and they're crying foul.
Customers aren't qualified to comment, as in political surveys. They also tend to be management types who have a pathological need to seem smart.
Coupled with the psychological predisposition, given no additional evidence, an affirmative response will be provided.
Such that if you asked:
Do you think, in general, that it is a good idea that Wizerbangslopinpop and Akerwhackdoodle are snifflewagging the shooterscoots?
They'll say yes most of the time. Nor will they be inclined to ask questions as this would mean they are not "in the know", which is presumably why the survey people are asking them in the first place. (Of course, the marketdroids just tell them this because it gets them in the door and some face time.)
The smarter ones will try to hedge around the unknowns to glean some sort of contextual meaning, but still are likely not to know what they are talking about.
Hence, the exercise is good for comic relief and spin-value, but not for much else.
On a personal note: When I was in High School (way too many years ago...*sigh*), I did a survey for extra credit in Psych. I had a simple survey for science class with a single question:
"For extra credit equivalent to a 9 weeks exam, would you take a frontal lobotomy instead?"
I admit that I tinkered with the context clues in the sentence by equating taking a test with the likely unknown "frontal lobotomy", however 65% (roughly) of the respondents (out of a pool of ~100) said they would be happy to.
The psych instructor got pretty irritated at having to explain that he was not going to perform lobotomies on students in lieu of a 9weeks exam. But, I did learn a great deal, laughed myself to tears, and I got an A!
I've had a good bit of experience with Russian and former Soviet client state IT people.
The thing that struck me as odd at first is that an overwhelming number of them were very smart people, unlike the corporate code-slinger herd in the US.
I thought about that and realized that this would be where a brilliant, non-academic, former Soviet would be. What better place to leverage a low cost of living and high rate of return without leaving home?
The value / $ of working with them seems to be exceptional as well. Their English is pretty good even at the worst. They work during the night (due to time difference), so changes to running systems can naturally be done during off hours.
Being ex-Soviets, they had to put up with mind-killing hours of stupid, useless, inane, egotistical, and inefficient processes similar to most US businesses today, making them fairly resistant to burn-out.
If you couple this with the idea that ex-Soviets, in order to survive, had to be highly pragmatic and focused, and are highly motivated and genuinely thrilled with the chance to indulge in capitalism, the conclusion is obvious...
Simplicity and elegance is the goal/key to anything good. Period.
What does nature/evolution/god strive for whenever it creates anything? Not complexity. Not obfuscation. Not useless bolted on bullshit from marketing. It creates simplicity, succinctness, and a swift elegant execution of a given task.
Properly designed software and hardware is an evolutionary process wherein a single item/program/work is designed for a given environment.
First, the initial design is created that does one thing well and robustly. This design is aimed at a certain type of user. A simple paint program is not and should not be the same thing as GIMP or Photoshop. They aren't the same program, nor the same goal.
Second, over time, additional features that make the unit work are added and those that aren't used are removed.
Third, every single item, bit, part, or line of code is examined for superfluousness. If this test fails, it is redesigned or removed.
Fourth, when it works and works well, DO NOT add additional junk. The work is finished. Just stop. I admit, this is similar to artistry (which good programming is), but an overworked painting is crap. Same with hardware/software.
That being said, the root of much of the crapware that is out there now is hinted at in TFA.
With six years of experience running my own software company I can tell you that nothing we have ever done at Fog Creek has increased our revenue more than releasing a new version with more features. Nothing. The flow to our bottom line from new versions with new features is absolutely undeniable.... When we tried Google ads,... we could barely see the effect on the bottom line. When a new version comes out with new features, we see a sudden, undeniable, substantial, and permanent increase in revenue.
So, basically, this article isn't about software or hardware or simplicity at all. It is about the old, tired, and diseased management bullshit you see in every other firm.
The method goes like this:
Someone creates a nice program that is elegant and does what it does. (Say uTorrent)
It becomes wildly popular because it is small, fast, and efficient and does what it does.
Shortly, all the practical additions have been added. It isn't overworked. It doesn't surf the werldwudweab. It doesn't download music from iTunes. It doesn't order my pizza or read my email or run activex scripts willynilly in the background for virus writers to use. It doesn't spy on me for no apparent reason, either.
The software/hardware/item flourishes, as it has evolved perfectly for its current environment.
Then, either the author gets infected with greed, or it gets sold off (As the artist is finished; no more work is needed unless the environment changes and the work needs to evolve.).
The new owners decide they want some more munny. munny, munny, munny. So, they begin to "value add" useless crap, and just enough (ala quickbooks, who's name is a mockery btw if you've used the latest versions) to spur the poor populace into upgrading. Sometimes, they've purchased it because it is a threat to what they're doing. In which case they destroy it, to make way for their crappy and more expensive offering. (uTorrent is destined for this. They will destroy, bloat, mangle, or cripple the software, and it is sad.)
Someone else then creates a stripped down version that cuts out all the crap once the original program is bloated out of recognition... and it flourishes.
Goto 1.
This last one is particularly galling to me, as my clients spend hundreds of thousands of dollars every year on useless software. The owner or manager cannot be persuaded that the last practical evolution in miker$of office was 5.0, the first wysiwyg version. Everything since then has been
If comScore isn't being devious or underhanded, why don't they have a clear install/operation routine that warns you every time you fire up a web-browser session?
All it would take is a box, perhaps giving you an opt-out for that session or simply just recording URLs. This would still provide accurate and interesting data. Especially in the latter.
Then the marketing droids would see which kinds of information people didn't want them to track.
I'm guessing they chose the spyware/malware route (which I see this software as) because they realized the obvious: who, in their right minds, would allow all their web surfing habits to go to someone else?
Additionally, how long do you think it is going to take for someone to alter the URL/IP in the software to send that data to another proxy? How long would it take any non-very-technical user to figure out this had been done?
Here is some interesting information from a book on my shelf on Arson:
From: Fire Investigation; DAÉID, NIAMH NIC; CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL, USA, 2004. ISBN: 0-415-24891-4
(Excerpt: Chapter 1)
A fire develops through a number of fairly predictable stages. Initially a source of ignition is required at a site suitable for flaming combustion to occur. The materials begin to burn in a sustained ignition with an open flame which remains once the initial source of ignition is removed. This ignition is localised to the first fuel ignited. The fire plume emits hot gases generating a heat flux. These gases typically containing soot, water vapour, CO2, SO2 and other toxic gases. Convection carries these products and heat to the upper parts of the compartment and draws oxygen in at the bottom to sustain combustion. The increasing gas layer at the ceiling radiates heat into the room.
Growth Period
Convection and radiation spread the flames upwards and outwards from the original fuel package until nearby fuels reach their AIT and become involved in the fire. Radiative heat may spread the fire laterally depending on factors such as the proximity of fuel packages to each other. The fire grows by progressively spreading to involve adjacent combustible items. Hot gases composed of toxic gases, partially combusted pyrolysis products, soot and smoke rise to form a fuel rich layer at the ceiling, the temperature of which steadily increases. The lower part of the room will still be rich in oxygen and the rate of burning within the area
continues to increase with a consequent increasing release of heat. As the fuel rich gas layer gets lower it may eventually ignite as some of its constituents may reach their AIT or by direct flame contact. This stage is called flameover and involves a rolling flame front within the hot gas layer.
Flashover
Even without flameover occurring the hot gas layer is radiating heat into the room. This causes items in the room to progressively heat up and when the layer reaches a temperature of approximetely 600C it is generating approximately 20 kW/m [2]. In a normally proportioned room this is sufficient to raise the temperature of cellulosic fuels within the room (furniture, carpets, etc.) to their AIT and simultaneously ignite in a process called flashover. Flashover is a transition from a fire involving one fuel package after another to a fire which involves all available fuel in the compartment. At the time of flashover, ventilation in the compartment becomes a restriction on the amount of oxygen available for combustion to occur, and the minimum size fire that can go to flashover in a given room is a function of the ventilation provided through an opening (ventilation factor).
Post-Flashover
Fire is a balancing act between fuel, heat and air. If the ventilation is limited then the fire will progress at a slower rate involving slower temperature rise and greater production of smoke. Ignition of the smoke layer will take longer or may only occur outside of the compartment if the oxygen supply is limited. If the fuel does not burn fast enough or produce enough heat, flashover may not be reached. Once post-flashover or steady state is reached all involved fuels will continue to burn as long as oxygen is available until the fuel is consumed.
Smouldering
Eventually, as the fuel available becomes exhausted open flaming combustion becomes gradually less and glowing combustion becomes more prevalent. This can also occur if the oxygen levels in a developing fire drops (below c.16%). The fuel may still remain in a heated state and the reintroduction of oxygen can cause the fire to re-ignite with explosive speed. Such a scenario is sometimes called backdraft.
AIT: Automatic Ignition Temperature (as in 451 Fahrenheit)
In general, if arson investigation used to be like TFA states, then yes, I'd say that it has come a long way baby
The 'big media' conglomerates have always been geriatric/glacial in their movements into new technology.
I'm thinking this is worthy of note on just how fast they are um... talking about this. They probably see it as targeting a key demographic (the teenager - young adult crowd), which it does and would.
*deep breath* The reason, I'm guessing, for the seemingly slow movement would be the decision makers are older, fiscal conservatives who are fearful of new technology and systems/processes that transcend general media broadcast methods.
I had to chuckle over "a Web video player that could play clips". TFA doesn't go into enough detail, but it leads one to assume that it is a web client similar to what we have been using for YouTube. (May the Master Control Program derez it softly into oblivion.)
However, in the context, the hypothetical player could be either a physical web-appliance (doubtful) or a program that runs on a PC with web connectivity (similar to Media Player Classic).
I would imagine that they want complete control over the project and will want a proprietary codec/format that they can load with DRM. Given their feelings (and their lawyer's) on the subject, this is fairly obvious. If this were not the case, I'd imagine they would use Apple Quicktime.
It is also obvious that Walt Disney wouldn't want to join in on this just yet. They are berserk about their intellectual property rights.
Given their track record, I'm slightly impressed. I think they will mess it up by being over-protective of their rights by having some snake-oil salesman tell them what they want to hear, but I'm still (mildly) impressed.
The article seems to say they only use Microsoft solutions to provide their security.
emphasis mine on the following.
from the article:
a program run from the network scans the computer for security
The scanning program coordinates with Microsoft's methods for deploying patches
Microsoft's preferred antivirus software must be installed
They never mention that the "scanning program" is a miker$of product. It could be, but the article doesn't say. With all the marketing buzziness, you'd guess they'd have mentioned this.
They surely use another company's product for their anti virus. I do not believe they've bought a viable antivirus company yet.
I would guess they are using something like a ported copy of nessus or similar. It would be the height of embarrassment for them to admit to using Linux to probe for security flaws.
Other than that it is a fluff marketing piece. I wouldn't have expected them to be truthful or even aware of the number of successful breaches at miker$of.
gives itself free advertising for other products in its portfolio
and derives monetary or other substantial benefit
and values this service for money
Do they, then, have to mark as "income" the money they create in this manner? I mean, the point would be moot if they "paid themselves" and then marked that as income. (And also created a business expense I guess.)
Do they have to bid, like the others, or do they simply bid[0] = bid.highest() + 1 where bid[0] is google's "bid"? If so, does this violate their own bidding rules? It appears by the article that they do bid fairly.
However, if they do not use "real money" to do so, or record any "created money" as income (as it is value, as it is valuable, since they sell it as a service), isn't this a problem legally?
And it isn't so much that miker$of buys and mods crapware, which they do, but on top of it they try their damnedest to make it just incompatible enough to cause headaches for anyone who wants to work with them. I have no reason to expect that they will do differently here. They have a very valid reason for doing so. Open Office is getting closer to being good. This is a quick way to muddy the waters before a real standard gets established and undoes them.
Think that my view is unfair? Try to creating (pretty much any standard) compliant websites that play well with internut explunger 7. Without hacks. Bring painkillers and/or inebriants of choice.
That being said, miker$of has a right to make a profit and is under no obligation to make their software compatible with anyone, or if you believe the validity of the EULA, make it work at all.
I stopped using winamp when they removed the stream-saving feature "because no one wanted that". I do not imagine I will ever use winamp again. I use QCD Player for my media player and I see no reason to change. (Note: This is not Quintessential Media Player, which I think is junk.)
The current versions of winternals software work fine. However, they will become obsolete soon, so the quest for replacements (either programmed by my own lazy and not-as-good hand, or found elsewhere) has begun. RootkitRevealer is the worst loss, I think. The others will age well enough.
I don't believe that there is plenty of room for competition in MMORPGs.
The total subscriber numbers for active game players (such that many people only put their bandwidth into a single game, which doesn't overly bother MMORPG companies, as they are getting paid at that point) represent people holding accounts on multiple game systems.
Guild Wars is a good example. I have an account there, but I haven't logged on in months. Am I an "active subscriber"? I would say not.
Because of Sony's muti-game pass thing, I have access (and an account even though I haven't played some of them in years) to MxO, Eq, Eq2, and SWG. I would imagine they might count these as 4 subscriptions instead of 1. A few years ago, these didn't exist. So it might reflect a "created" user.
So, some part of that curve would simply be people holding onto more accounts. At one point I had something like 4 or 5 accounts going. I'm only 1 human though and ultimately now have 2 accounts, although I held onto accounts I didn't play (actively) for years on occasion.
I think the MMORPG world is being delusional if they think the mass population is going to get into MMORPGs. It is a subset of the population that has reached, or is reaching saturation.
That being said, the only way to compete will be to cannibalize users from other systems.
One problem with this approach is the threat of the "next best thing". MMORPGs seem to lose (having seen this several times first-hand now) a lot of players when a new game comes out. I imagine they don't cancel their accounts (as some number seem to return in some cases) if they have been playing for a while, so this doesn't immediately hit the numbers. However, the longer they are away, the less chance they will return.
Another problem is the threat of hopelessness. If a player cannot reasonably expect to ever reach the end game, why bother playing. I know that a number of people will argue this point, and they do have valid arguments, but the fact remains; a significant portion of players will go to another game in hopes of being in the endgame crowd. EQ1 has fallen into this trap and will likely maintain the players it has left for the rest of its days. Eve Online has this problem, but it is not so pronounced. (I like Eve and think it's underrated, but the PVP and griefing will turn some people off. They are trying to fix this actively now.)
Conversely, shallow games, which are usually marketed initially to the "casual" player, bottom out, and people leave. This was the problem with Call of Heroes (in the beginning, I haven't played it since the first month), as well as the disastrous Dungeons and Dragons Online (I lasted, again, a month).
Additionally, MMORPG companies still haven't figured out the "magic balance" that will attract the most number of players. Something always seems to be 'wrong'. Arguably, WoW (which I have never tried and won't play because I do not like the graphics) has hit on the best formula, as it seems to be currently most popular.
It will be interesting to see how WoW stands up to the test of time. Their quandary is: leave the game as it is and process new users through the treadmill (which I see as the best option, and create a new treadmill for end-game users), or extend the game and risk pissing the newer players off by moving the bar. This second option made me finally stop playing EQ1. 75 levels and 1000+ AAs is just too much.
How interesting do you think a game would be, such as WoW, in which you play your character, then, at the end, you ascend to the next game in the series? They could bring out a new game (with a new engine if needed to keep up with graphics) and have the characters advance into it. When an older game neared obsolescence (which interestingly hasn't happened yet; even Ultima Online is still chugging along), the bar could be moved to the 2nd game in the tier.
As for a Firefly game (I lovety-love-love Firefly!), I have the same dismal dread
When buying from a merchant, don't repeatedly poke them if they do not immediately turn your way. They don't multi-task as well.
When buying from a merchant at the counter, do not hop up and down on the counter in impatience. The guards don't like that.
Don't jump off of balconies in an attempt to shorten run distance.
While the world is decidedly carebear, permadeath is enforced, so take heed.
Heal spells cost incredible amounts of cash.
DO NOT strafe around people while talking to them in impatience.
The guards have no sense of humor when it comes to a little PVP.
Griefing can get you beaten silly.
Beggars are still hated.
Girls in the real world have a built in knock-back system if you try to oggle their polygons too closely.
Some of them also have a pet called "a Muscle-Bound Boyfriend" that you need to watch out for.
Unlike some worlds, stuff laying on the ground or on shelves is not to be taken willy-nilly. Such a thing could lead to being flagged a thief by the guards.
Small animals you might meet are not there for newbies.
The lack of portals and transport spells sucks(!). Lobby for a patch.
Do not use/shout, such as: (SHOUTING): "can i get loc of girlz plz thx?!?!?!"
Earning money in that game is a pain, but comes with a charisma modifier.
Your avatar needs daily maintenance, such as a bath, or suffer a charisma penalty.
It's FREE!!!! But... cannot be uninstalled without crashing the system.
Even with all the ad hominem in there, losing your argument before it starts; I'll rebut.
So... basically, 27 years ago this guy had a drug case, and more than 40 years ago had an aggravated assault and burglary charge. From this they were supposed to deduce that this guy was going to logic bomb them?
I'll probably be modded down for this, but either you are a microfocused moron or you are disingenuously filtering the facts to make you point.
Not only was he convicted in the 1960's but he had charges filed against him every decade since then. Either he was incredibly unlucky or there's a good chance this guy couldn't keep from making trouble.
Aside from your clumsy (and rather disingenious) either a or b argument, what part of charges filed != conviction are you not able to understand? If they didn't convict, what kind of charges were they?
If you are an American, why would you consider someone guilty when the courts proved (or at least implied) they were innocent?
I understand why companies feel the need to do criminal background checks to absolve themselves of a possible lawsuit.
A lawsuit? Because of Paine Webber's lack of due diligence, they lost more than a day's worth of trading and over three million dollars in trying to recover the damage done. It borders on imbecility to try and argue that they did the right thing by not performing a background check.
I guess you went from "need to do criminal background checks" to me trying to argue that they somehow did the "right thing by not performing a background check." No idea where you got this. The point that I tried to make, again, is that I felt that a criminal background check would not always prevent what happened. I also made the point that the man pointing this out in the article makes his living selling background checks.
One of the engineers I hired had a drug conviction...
Good for you to hire her. Nevertheless, the ex-drug-addled employee you trot out is hardly a counter story. Clearly you knew she had a problem before your hired her (probably, and ironically, because of a background check). You assessed the risks and decided to make a choice. Furthermore, your employee knew that you knew, which I'm sure had no small influence on her decisions not to abuse while under your watch. Yet for some idiotic reason you want to deprive other managers of having this very same sort of information when hiring.
Laughable curmudgery aside, *shakes head* I have no idea how you're bouncing from point A to somewhere in the Andromeda galaxy. My point here was, for those that didn't get what I felt was fairly obvious; a criminal conviction does not forever make one a slavering, evil, child molesting, instant no-hire. It was also an appeal to pity, which while it is not a factual argument, is still valid in debate.
Talk about 2nd class citizens. Do they understand that over 2% of the population is in prison and a considerable portion of people living today have been in prison or convicted of some offense at one point or another?
I can't tell if this is parody or you're genuinely being stupid. Hiring managers abuse all sorts of criteria. Don't have your master's degree? Sorry, we're not interested. Don't have five years of experience in technology X? Not qualified. In hiring people in the tech industry, a criminal record is hardly the only arbitrary filter. Life is full of petty idiocies (like your mod up, for example). Live with it.
*sigh* So your contention here is that: because managers abuse all sorts of criteria, it is somehow less-bad that they abuse this one? Or something?
Further, I'm not limiting my statement to this particular case. That would make me, what was it, oh yes. Micro-focused. I
Slashdot Mirror
Well... M-W defines sexual intercourse as: heterosexual intercourse involving penetration of the vagina by the penis.
Which is the original version and the meaning. (As in coitus.)
The very term (sexual intercourse) implies a male-female connection. It is a modern shifting of the term to imply sexual intercourse as anything else.
The secondary definition in webster lists sex + sodomy as a definition for sex. Which would've made sex in texas illegal until recently and probably comes from the colloquial and legal 'sexual assault' addressed in a bit.
We could ramble on about this, but, yes... sex (classically and I think legally) means coitus.
However, many states have lumped together a bunch of things under "sexual assault" and this might be where the watering of the term comes from in modern usage.
Anyway, that's my two cents. I'm not a linguist.
C.E.
Right around the time "probable cause" made it OK to ignore the constitution and [investigate|terrorize|go on a fishing expedition with] anyone the powers that be don't like.
This would also be right around the same time that the whole "double jeopardy" thing got worked around by filing state charges and then federal charges back-to-back or after losing in one arena.
The "fraud charge" gambit probably references some technicality in WHY he wanted them evil-smarty-things that no honest (stupid|docile|sheep) citizen would want.
The government's agenda for a while has been Citizen = stupid. After all, no citizen should be able to create or research or learn anything without A) A university to pay money to or B) a large corporation in which to be enslaved, right?
C.E.
emphasis mine
I was trying to figure out if this was going to trigger my [salacious|sacrilege] engine, but Judge Jordan seems to need [a|an] [biology|English] lesson. I believe we either someone is not what they appear to be or we have a case of poor English skills.
The quote should've been "which includes several graphic images of sodomy between adult males".
Technically, given definitions in modern dictionaries, two males cannot have sex. I know billy boy clinton would back me up on that, but it is true and he was right. He didn't have sex with an intern in the Oval Office given their statements. He sodomized an intern in the Oval Office.
Of course, I have no idea what kind of case this is, but the attorney putting forward this kind of material is attempting to shock or outrage the jury or judge. Sounds like a standard legal ploy to me.
As an aside, is anyone shocked by this stuff any longer? And would it have the same tone if it were two females? And can two females, given the (christian biblical) origin of the word commit sodomy if they are enjoying cunnilingus?
C.E.It is a good thing you're AC, sir or ma'am.
Webster's 2nd definition: a person who champions the less accepted cause for the sake of argument.
It is my contention this is precisely the meaning intended, as I felt an argument for the RIAA having good prior business sense would've been somewhat unpopular on Slashdot.
Perhaps you would've had a point had you suggested that my argument was oblique to the topic at hand and that I really hadn't been championing a contested point of view. (And I'd rebut.) But your assertion that my word usage was incorrect is... incorrect.
C.E.
Well, not really. Downgrade rights do chalk up a sale but not really "help" miker$of, but that wasn't my point. (And more on that in a second.
My point was: if clients are not buying Dells, for example, because they don't want vista and all Dell sells are vista PCs; doesn't it make sense for Dell to put pressure on miker$of to cough up a method for them to do so? Or if the method always was there, to provide what people want to buy?
While such an action does allow miker$of some spin room for damage control, saying indirectly that their new product isn't as good as their old one is not good business. It digs them in deeper when they try to spur people to upgrade. It also pisses off shareholders which threatens their executive-ness. My guess is they will slobber some marketing drool over it to make it Vista SP1 or some stupid nonsense and just try again. Failing that they will have to spend the bucks to rebrand.
C.E.
I tried that. (In this particular bios the setting is ATA = [Legacy | Native].) Did no good. Same issue.
FYI,
CE.
It isn't called a "reward in heaven" negotiating tactic for nothing.
(looked in wikipedia) there isn't an article on the principle, but it bears describing here:
a "reward in heaven" premise is: You give me something of worth today, and in the future, I PROMISE to give you something of equal or greater value.
The problem here is there no guarantee, requiring faith. Hence the analogy.
Don't buy crippled content unless you are happy with using that content ONCE for the price or know, in advance, that you can de-cripple it in an acceptable manner with acceptable loss at an acceptable price.
Don't be a sucker.
The problem I see with fluctuating the price due to popularity, given the vendor's lack of anything approaching ethics, is the fairness of these numbers.
It wouldn't be above them to pad the numbers on EVERY song to push prices up to the "maximum" or to add automated orders to increase the price based on traffic to the songs. Or just outright lie about the pricing.
Any business, government, or any other model that depends on "the weal and cooperation of your fellow man" isn't taking into consideration human nature. Such an endeavor is doomed before it begins.
In fact, this is how the USA lost control over its government. Never trust anyone with anything you value when you have no verification. "Trust us" = "We're telling you a lie, sucker"
CE.
It makes good business sense for the PC manufacturers.
If they're seeing squawking clients in the valuable before-christmas season, they should do something. And if a downgrade to XP is what it takes... then so be it.
The manufacturers might be partners with miker$of when it is convenient, but a friend-coerced is a pretty fair-weather friend. I imagine that business arrangement works both ways and miker$of is under some pressure from stockholders to sell their product.
For the record to someone that mentioned a PC on which XP wouldn't run... I recently had to reload a spanky-new gateway *shudder* PC at the office. It had linux on it (which ran like a champ as a SERVER for HUNDREDS OF USERS (database, app server, web server, samba, DNS, and so on) and we were reloading it for a developer to use as as desktop. I know it will barely run Vista and make his life miserable.
XP won't run on it because Intel doesn't make (a working set of)drivers for the board's SATA controller. Not for XP. I tried Professional, Home, and even Server 2003 to make sure. Won't run. Bluescreens before you see the GUI. Tried both pre and post DRM versions (Original, SP1, and SP2 ++DRM). No XP "love". Looked on their website and they sorta support XP, but couldn't find a way to order one with that OS. (I was going to order one, clone the HD's magic partition, and take it back.)
The company didn't want to buy a PATA drive to put on a single chain with the UDMA66 DVD-ROM. I don't blame them.
I poked around both intel's and gutway's sites (which is kind of like sticking your hand in a public toilet by the way...) for an hour or two to no avail. Google-is-evil-ified the motherboard and SATA controller to see if anyone had other ideas. Lots of problems and no solutions later I ditched this idea.
Intel provides Linux support, why not XP? They have an XP driver listed, and I tried all 3 choices (which loads the same driver *sigh*), but still I get the friendly BSOD I know so well.
I won't rule out the idea that I might've missed something, but the probability is sliding fast towards nil.
I didn't have a copy of vista, and won't be having one. A glance at the side of the PC says that it is for Home Premium Two-Steps Left or some such version. Gutway doesn't do recovery CDs, putting the image on a recovery partition at the front of the disk for the client to burn. It evidently got erased before I received the PC.
as an annoying sidenote, the thing doesn't have a floppy drive, so I had to open the side of the case and connect a floppy before I could mash F6 to load a driver from floppy.
Anyway, I won't give the developer vista as he's already had the black feather pointed at him (the only one in the shop, because some of our clients downgraded to vista). He just looks pitiful when someone suggests he might be getting vista again. Everyone in the office has stopped teasing him about it because... well... it is meaner than tasering a mental patient in a wheelchair.
CE.
I've never seen an analysis of why record companies do what they do (other than being greedy bastards and damned good business people until recently).
So, with reservation, I put on my horns and red suit. Grab my pitchfork. And trim up my Van Dyke, for I am (today) the Devil's Advocate.
Ladies and gentlemen of the Peanut Gallery:
Many years ago, media (then record) companies searched the world over for the best talent, signed them to contracts, and published their records. They courted the best artists and tried like hell to sign the best ones, arguing amongst them selves for the best of the best.
At some point, right around the '70's I'd guess, media companies got hit by their first clue bus (my guess would be because of a glut of "Artists" post 60's): Why be in control of a bunch of bitchy artists? After all, people really don't know good music from bad for the most part; and as technology progressed, why, they really don't have to sing at all do they?
So, over the years since, media companies began NOT searching for artists, but seeking a more common "artist" creature. Then THEY would be in control. To people like my 'client', control is everything.
Why do you think pretty much all music = pre-digested crap? Did all artists suddenly die after the 70's? Nope. They're off doing something else now. Their services were no longer wanted.
In any event, media companies began searching for the minimum talent that technology and professional song writers could fashion into an "artist". As technology grew, the incident of occurrence of these creatures grew until you, good sir and madam, sitting at your keyboard are likely (+50%) material for a new "rawk shtar" or "pawp tawrtleete" or "wrap gangstahh" or "shit-kicking tear-in-my-beer slinger". Artist = product, not person.
So the record companies began to spend huge amounts of cash (which formerly would've gone to the artists) to promote their "artists". Now, the "artist" was transmuted from being a person into real "intellectual property"; an invention of the media company. Dick with the company and BWAFF! no more artist. Now they were in control of production. It was a very wise move.
They toned their little fledglings, guided them, plumped up their little egos to fantastic proportions, encouraged divergent behavior (as people like leaders and often mistake insanity/passion as inspiration - Joan of Arc), and have media consultants adjust their image to make them popular.
The fact that this course has devastating psychological consequences for the "artists" is... acceptable collateral damage to my 'clients'.
Along with this we have thousands of no or medium-talent retards scrambling to be a product. The end effect, of course, is the media companies' complete control over artist manufacturing.
They invested in research to find out exactly what the MOST people wanted, and found out it was... whatever anyone else liked (for the masses, I mean; not you, the discerning reader *cough-cough*), and thus was born the hydra of crap-music. That was the day music died.
My 'clients' continued on this way for a while, shoveling money into the various media markets to excrete their product into the mainstream and into our ears. For years we fed them billions of dollars.
Then they realized to make more money and to make their conquest complete they needed to own the distribution outlets as well! Eureka! Naked music execs ran down the streets naked!
Media companies began buying up media content services: radios, concert venues, and in concert with the movie industry (on the same track as well) news papers and magazines.
Now they own the manufacture, transportation, and distribution of a very fat cash cow: music.
All they have to do is figure out what a group of people want and vomit out some music and artists tuned to cater to them. My 'clients' have proved viciously effective in this regard. Media companies make damn fine capitalists.
Since song writers cost so much mon
I would imagine that the business owners are attempting to "fool" google's ranking system. They just assume that Dean Hunt is trying and beating them and they're crying foul.
Perhaps they paid someone like a search engine placement company and feel a little angry at being cheated?
Customers aren't qualified to comment, as in political surveys. They also tend to be management types who have a pathological need to seem smart.
Coupled with the psychological predisposition, given no additional evidence, an affirmative response will be provided.
Such that if you asked:
Do you think, in general, that it is a good idea that Wizerbangslopinpop and Akerwhackdoodle are snifflewagging the shooterscoots?
They'll say yes most of the time. Nor will they be inclined to ask questions as this would mean they are not "in the know", which is presumably why the survey people are asking them in the first place. (Of course, the marketdroids just tell them this because it gets them in the door and some face time.)
The smarter ones will try to hedge around the unknowns to glean some sort of contextual meaning, but still are likely not to know what they are talking about.
Hence, the exercise is good for comic relief and spin-value, but not for much else.
On a personal note: When I was in High School (way too many years ago...*sigh*), I did a survey for extra credit in Psych. I had a simple survey for science class with a single question:
"For extra credit equivalent to a 9 weeks exam, would you take a frontal lobotomy instead?"
I admit that I tinkered with the context clues in the sentence by equating taking a test with the likely unknown "frontal lobotomy", however 65% (roughly) of the respondents (out of a pool of ~100) said they would be happy to.
The psych instructor got pretty irritated at having to explain that he was not going to perform lobotomies on students in lieu of a 9weeks exam. But, I did learn a great deal, laughed myself to tears, and I got an A!
I've had a good bit of experience with Russian and former Soviet client state IT people.
The thing that struck me as odd at first is that an overwhelming number of them were very smart people, unlike the corporate code-slinger herd in the US.
I thought about that and realized that this would be where a brilliant, non-academic, former Soviet would be. What better place to leverage a low cost of living and high rate of return without leaving home?
The value / $ of working with them seems to be exceptional as well. Their English is pretty good even at the worst. They work during the night (due to time difference), so changes to running systems can naturally be done during off hours.
Being ex-Soviets, they had to put up with mind-killing hours of stupid, useless, inane, egotistical, and inefficient processes similar to most US businesses today, making them fairly resistant to burn-out.
If you couple this with the idea that ex-Soviets, in order to survive, had to be highly pragmatic and focused, and are highly motivated and genuinely thrilled with the chance to indulge in capitalism, the conclusion is obvious...
Why wouldn't a company hire someone like this?
Simplicity and elegance is the goal/key to anything good. Period.
What does nature/evolution/god strive for whenever it creates anything? Not complexity. Not obfuscation. Not useless bolted on bullshit from marketing. It creates simplicity, succinctness, and a swift elegant execution of a given task.
Properly designed software and hardware is an evolutionary process wherein a single item/program/work is designed for a given environment.
First, the initial design is created that does one thing well and robustly. This design is aimed at a certain type of user. A simple paint program is not and should not be the same thing as GIMP or Photoshop. They aren't the same program, nor the same goal.
Second, over time, additional features that make the unit work are added and those that aren't used are removed.
Third, every single item, bit, part, or line of code is examined for superfluousness. If this test fails, it is redesigned or removed.
Fourth, when it works and works well, DO NOT add additional junk. The work is finished. Just stop. I admit, this is similar to artistry (which good programming is), but an overworked painting is crap. Same with hardware/software.
That being said, the root of much of the crapware that is out there now is hinted at in TFA.
So, basically, this article isn't about software or hardware or simplicity at all. It is about the old, tired, and diseased management bullshit you see in every other firm.
The method goes like this:
This last one is particularly galling to me, as my clients spend hundreds of thousands of dollars every year on useless software. The owner or manager cannot be persuaded that the last practical evolution in miker$of office was 5.0, the first wysiwyg version. Everything since then has been
If comScore isn't being devious or underhanded, why don't they have a clear install/operation routine that warns you every time you fire up a web-browser session?
All it would take is a box, perhaps giving you an opt-out for that session or simply just recording URLs. This would still provide accurate and interesting data. Especially in the latter.
Then the marketing droids would see which kinds of information people didn't want them to track.
I'm guessing they chose the spyware/malware route (which I see this software as) because they realized the obvious: who, in their right minds, would allow all their web surfing habits to go to someone else?
Additionally, how long do you think it is going to take for someone to alter the URL/IP in the software to send that data to another proxy? How long would it take any non-very-technical user to figure out this had been done?
Step 1: Obtain one of these. (Or at least the lead character so time-warped.)
Step 2: Update property insurance.
Step 3: Obtain lots of sweets and caffeine and sprinkle liberally.
Step 4: (Optional) Record via web-cams, cut up into holiday movie, and profit!
Here is some interesting information from a book on my shelf on Arson:
From: Fire Investigation; DAÉID, NIAMH NIC; CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL, USA, 2004. ISBN: 0-415-24891-4
(Excerpt: Chapter 1)
AIT: Automatic Ignition Temperature (as in 451 Fahrenheit)
In general, if arson investigation used to be like TFA states, then yes, I'd say that it has come a long way baby
The 'big media' conglomerates have always been geriatric/glacial in their movements into new technology.
I'm thinking this is worthy of note on just how fast they are um... talking about this. They probably see it as targeting a key demographic (the teenager - young adult crowd), which it does and would.
*deep breath* The reason, I'm guessing, for the seemingly slow movement would be the decision makers are older, fiscal conservatives who are fearful of new technology and systems/processes that transcend general media broadcast methods.
I had to chuckle over "a Web video player that could play clips". TFA doesn't go into enough detail, but it leads one to assume that it is a web client similar to what we have been using for YouTube. (May the Master Control Program derez it softly into oblivion.)
However, in the context, the hypothetical player could be either a physical web-appliance (doubtful) or a program that runs on a PC with web connectivity (similar to Media Player Classic).
I would imagine that they want complete control over the project and will want a proprietary codec/format that they can load with DRM. Given their feelings (and their lawyer's) on the subject, this is fairly obvious. If this were not the case, I'd imagine they would use Apple Quicktime.
It is also obvious that Walt Disney wouldn't want to join in on this just yet. They are berserk about their intellectual property rights.
Given their track record, I'm slightly impressed. I think they will mess it up by being over-protective of their rights by having some snake-oil salesman tell them what they want to hear, but I'm still (mildly) impressed.
emphasis mine on the following.
from the article:
They never mention that the "scanning program" is a miker$of product. It could be, but the article doesn't say. With all the marketing buzziness, you'd guess they'd have mentioned this.
They surely use another company's product for their anti virus. I do not believe they've bought a viable antivirus company yet.
I would guess they are using something like a ported copy of nessus or similar. It would be the height of embarrassment for them to admit to using Linux to probe for security flaws.
Other than that it is a fluff marketing piece. I wouldn't have expected them to be truthful or even aware of the number of successful breaches at miker$of.
If google:
Do they, then, have to mark as "income" the money they create in this manner? I mean, the point would be moot if they "paid themselves" and then marked that as income. (And also created a business expense I guess.)
Do they have to bid, like the others, or do they simply bid[0] = bid.highest() + 1 where bid[0] is google's "bid"? If so, does this violate their own bidding rules? It appears by the article that they do bid fairly.
However, if they do not use "real money" to do so, or record any "created money" as income (as it is value, as it is valuable, since they sell it as a service), isn't this a problem legally?
A perfect description of printing in vb.net.
And it isn't so much that miker$of buys and mods crapware, which they do, but on top of it they try their damnedest to make it just incompatible enough to cause headaches for anyone who wants to work with them. I have no reason to expect that they will do differently here. They have a very valid reason for doing so. Open Office is getting closer to being good. This is a quick way to muddy the waters before a real standard gets established and undoes them.
Think that my view is unfair? Try to creating (pretty much any standard) compliant websites that play well with internut explunger 7. Without hacks. Bring painkillers and/or inebriants of choice.
That being said, miker$of has a right to make a profit and is under no obligation to make their software compatible with anyone, or if you believe the validity of the EULA, make it work at all.
I stopped using winamp when they removed the stream-saving feature "because no one wanted that". I do not imagine I will ever use winamp again. I use QCD Player for my media player and I see no reason to change. (Note: This is not Quintessential Media Player, which I think is junk.)
The current versions of winternals software work fine. However, they will become obsolete soon, so the quest for replacements (either programmed by my own lazy and not-as-good hand, or found elsewhere) has begun. RootkitRevealer is the worst loss, I think. The others will age well enough.
I don't believe that there is plenty of room for competition in MMORPGs.
The total subscriber numbers for active game players (such that many people only put their bandwidth into a single game, which doesn't overly bother MMORPG companies, as they are getting paid at that point) represent people holding accounts on multiple game systems.
Guild Wars is a good example. I have an account there, but I haven't logged on in months. Am I an "active subscriber"? I would say not.
Because of Sony's muti-game pass thing, I have access (and an account even though I haven't played some of them in years) to MxO, Eq, Eq2, and SWG. I would imagine they might count these as 4 subscriptions instead of 1. A few years ago, these didn't exist. So it might reflect a "created" user.
So, some part of that curve would simply be people holding onto more accounts. At one point I had something like 4 or 5 accounts going. I'm only 1 human though and ultimately now have 2 accounts, although I held onto accounts I didn't play (actively) for years on occasion.
I think the MMORPG world is being delusional if they think the mass population is going to get into MMORPGs. It is a subset of the population that has reached, or is reaching saturation.
That being said, the only way to compete will be to cannibalize users from other systems.
One problem with this approach is the threat of the "next best thing". MMORPGs seem to lose (having seen this several times first-hand now) a lot of players when a new game comes out. I imagine they don't cancel their accounts (as some number seem to return in some cases) if they have been playing for a while, so this doesn't immediately hit the numbers. However, the longer they are away, the less chance they will return.
Another problem is the threat of hopelessness. If a player cannot reasonably expect to ever reach the end game, why bother playing. I know that a number of people will argue this point, and they do have valid arguments, but the fact remains; a significant portion of players will go to another game in hopes of being in the endgame crowd. EQ1 has fallen into this trap and will likely maintain the players it has left for the rest of its days. Eve Online has this problem, but it is not so pronounced. (I like Eve and think it's underrated, but the PVP and griefing will turn some people off. They are trying to fix this actively now.)
Conversely, shallow games, which are usually marketed initially to the "casual" player, bottom out, and people leave. This was the problem with Call of Heroes (in the beginning, I haven't played it since the first month), as well as the disastrous Dungeons and Dragons Online (I lasted, again, a month).
Additionally, MMORPG companies still haven't figured out the "magic balance" that will attract the most number of players. Something always seems to be 'wrong'. Arguably, WoW (which I have never tried and won't play because I do not like the graphics) has hit on the best formula, as it seems to be currently most popular.
It will be interesting to see how WoW stands up to the test of time. Their quandary is: leave the game as it is and process new users through the treadmill (which I see as the best option, and create a new treadmill for end-game users), or extend the game and risk pissing the newer players off by moving the bar. This second option made me finally stop playing EQ1. 75 levels and 1000+ AAs is just too much.
How interesting do you think a game would be, such as WoW, in which you play your character, then, at the end, you ascend to the next game in the series? They could bring out a new game (with a new engine if needed to keep up with graphics) and have the characters advance into it. When an older game neared obsolescence (which interestingly hasn't happened yet; even Ultima Online is still chugging along), the bar could be moved to the 2nd game in the tier.
As for a Firefly game (I lovety-love-love Firefly!), I have the same dismal dread
Some things to remember:
All I could think of for the moment.
Aside from your clumsy (and rather disingenious) either a or b argument, what part of charges filed != conviction are you not able to understand? If they didn't convict, what kind of charges were they?
If you are an American, why would you consider someone guilty when the courts proved (or at least implied) they were innocent?
I guess you went from "need to do criminal background checks" to me trying to argue that they somehow did the "right thing by not performing a background check." No idea where you got this. The point that I tried to make, again, is that I felt that a criminal background check would not always prevent what happened. I also made the point that the man pointing this out in the article makes his living selling background checks.
Laughable curmudgery aside, *shakes head* I have no idea how you're bouncing from point A to somewhere in the Andromeda galaxy. My point here was, for those that didn't get what I felt was fairly obvious; a criminal conviction does not forever make one a slavering, evil, child molesting, instant no-hire. It was also an appeal to pity, which while it is not a factual argument, is still valid in debate.
*sigh* So your contention here is that: because managers abuse all sorts of criteria, it is somehow less-bad that they abuse this one? Or something?
Further, I'm not limiting my statement to this particular case. That would make me, what was it, oh yes. Micro-focused. I