Toricelli is tacking on a very small alteration to an existing law. While concerns raised at wired.com about the wordsmithing of the amendment are valid, the bill has only been referred to the Judiciary Committee, which means that it won't even get back to the Senate floor without a Consideration and Mark-up Session, during which (I would think), the bill will be re-written for clarity.
In addition, violation of this section of the amendment would NEVER result in a Secret Service investigation, even after the proposed modifications of subsection (c). The authority of the Secret Service is confined to violations of sections (a)(2)(A) and (a)(2)(B) of 18 USC 1830, NOT section (a)(8).
That's if it even gets that far, which is wishful thinking, at best.
Advertisements have been digitally inserted into baseball games since the beginning of the 2000 season. Those billboards you see up against the backstop, and in center field? They might not be the billboards that are displayed at the ballpark, if there even are billboards.
Frankly, you sound like one of those old-school gamers who always complain that new games aren't as good as the old ones. Have you ever played Super Mario Kart? Or Chrono Trigger, or Xenogears?
Oh, yes, you've got me pegged. I'm old school. Those darned whippersnappers and their new-fangled games. Since you are unfamiliar with sarcasm, I will close the cash register at this point.
I find it odd that because I mentioned Pac-Man as being addictive, you assume that I'm this nostalgia freak who hates everything new. I like a lot of new games. Chrono Cross might be the best game I've ever played. Quake 2 is outstanding when you've got a bunch of friends with low ping counts. But what I don't like is game companies pushing polys and polishing CG video in order to put a pretty package around a big box of crap (which was the case with FF8). And that seems to be happening more and more.
I've played Mario Kart... and I'm sorry, but unless you're about five years old, it gets real boring real quick (and that's pretty much the story for most games on N64). Chrono Trigger was awesome... so was Xenogears, and Chrono Cross, and Final Fantasies 3, 7, and 9, but role-playing games (for me anyway) lack immediate replayability. Chrono Trigger was a bit of an exception because of New Game+, but still... when you've logged fifty hours to beat a game, how much incentive is there to log another fifty hours into a game to reveal the same storyline, the same characters, the same ending?
Pac-Man was, in my opinion, only popular because there was almost no competition at the time.
True. Outside of Pac-Man, there was really only Asteroids, Battlezone, Missile Command, Warrior, Lunar Lander, Breakout, Football, Defender, Berzerk, Gunfight, Space Invaders, and God knows how many other games. There were plenty of gamers (and games) in arcades before Pac-Man. Pac-Man just brought them out in droves - it caused a Yen shortage in Japan! As you can see, I tend to consider your opinion an uninformed one.
But who plays Pac-Man these days?
I played Pac-Man last night at Jillian's. Well, OK, it was Ms. Pac-Man. In the back corner, by the restrooms, they've got Ms. Pac Man, Centipede, Galaga, Arkenoid, and Tetris, and there's always someone there playing something. Because often times it's more fun to pay a quarter to play for as long as you can than to pay a dollar fifty to race for a minute and a half.
Please, Julius, old games aren't good simply because they're old.
That's true: games suck because they suck, not because of their date of release. I always thought Target Fun sucked, and E.T. was horrible, too. By the same token, Star Wars Demolition is a waste of CD space, and Ken Griffey Jr. Baseball was as poor a baseball game as you'll find (except maybe RBI 2 & 3 on NES, or Home Run on the 2600).
The point is, I still stand by Pac-Man and Tetris. And that's fine if you disagree. Just don't come at me with this "Oh, you're just obsessed with nostalgia" crap. Spare me.
Although commonly known as the Contra Code, the sequence was actually first used in the game Gradius (and later in its sequel, Life Force). Inputting the code after pausing the game gives you the following power:
full firepower
full missiles
full shields
two Options
For those who don't remember, Options are those pulsating blobs of energy that mimic your ship's actions, essentially doubling or tripling your firepower and shielding.
Honestly, Mr. Katz, are you even a gamer? Any gamer worth his salt wouldn't even think of putting Final Fantasy 8, one of the worst of the series, onto a list of 'most addictive games', whether that list was 'now' or 'ever'. Anyone who can stand there and tell you that they found Final Fantasy 8 one of the most addictive games ever needs to be hit over the head with a tackhammer.
Or Pac-Man... how many video games are there that had a song written about them? Yeah, it's old school, but anyone who was cognizant in the early 80s remembers when arcades had to stock multiple Pac-Man machines to meet the demand.
I'd throw Tetris on that list, too. It's been remade about six-thousand times, and people are still buying it.
Hmmmm. 75% of all mutual funds underperform the S&P 500. The S&P 500 has averaged ~12.5% return per year (obviously more in the recent economic boom). I'm not sure how investing $250,000 in a mutual fund translates into "20% easy, $50,000".
"It's not worth the risk. As in risk versus reward, baby." - Charlene Shiherlis, "Heat"
Big fan of The Who. Not a big fan of Styx, although every time I hear that song "Come Sail Away", I have to sing it all the way through...
For general 'Interested-in-The-Who', but not necessarily fans of any particular band, "Who's Next" is definitely their best single album, but if you've got a few extra bucks, pick up "30 Years Of Maximum R&B", the four disc box set they put out four or five years ago.
It has most of "Who's Next" included on it, plus highlights from "Tommy", and the relevant singles including "Magic Bus", "My Generation", "The Kids Are Alright", plus a lot of live stuff and previously unreleased material, along with the standard box set book that details the history of the band. It's a little bit of overkill for the casual fan of The Who, but you can pick it up for about 50 bucks and not have to worry about ever buying another album unless the box set turns you into a die-hard fan.
There's an old saying: You have to spend money in order to make money. It was almost ten years before USA Today posted a profitable quarter. For Biogen it was fifteen. Without doing extensive research, I would guess there's a large number of companies with the same financial history.
> If you chose number one, then thank you for > playing, Mr. Buffett.
It was a figure of speech, similar to "Remember what they didn't teach you at Harvard Business School." Apparently the effect was lost.
Have you seen Amazon's business plan? I would be very interested to know where you got it.
And yes, there is nothing locking people into Amazon for purchases, but they have a ridiculous lead in every conceivable category (page hits, brand name recoginition, sales, etc.) Whether you like them or not, Amazon is really the front runner in internet sales.
1. A company reporting zero net income, with no products or services in its pipeline, dead-end current products and services, no potential new customers, and no industry hype?
2. A company reporting losses in the millions, with a huge customer base, a huge number of potential new customers, millions of dollars in R&D and marketing, tons of industry hype (both good and bad), brand name recognition, and a continuous stream of new products?
If you chose number one, then thank you for playing, Mr. Buffett.
...only I think Priceline has a better case. Priceline is suing Microsoft over what a patent it calls it's 'reverse auction business practice'. Sounds kind of hokey to me, but I think they have a chance.
Priceline gave a ton of technical information to Microsoft about their business. The founder of Priceline met with Expedia's chairman and Bill Gates to discuss a cooperative relationship. Then Microsoft backed out when Priceline wouldn't sell them any shares below the IPO price. Interesting note from Bloomberg is that Gates is reported (by Priceline lawyers... take it as you will) as saying that he wasn't going to let patent infringement get in their way, because so many other companies were suing Microsoft for the same thing, Priceline would have to "get in line".
In this case, though, I seriously doubt that bn.com and Amazon got together to discuss anything mutually beneficial, since they've been suing each other since day one about silly things like which one is "Earth's biggest bookstore" and the like. And I think if they came up with it independently, and implement it even remotely dissimilar on either end, they're going to win the suit.
I think it's pretty clear that they're targeting bn.com because they're a rival. There are a slew of other internet sites that use this 1-Click / Express Lane idea. It's not as cutting edge as they'd like to think.
Amazon could quite easily turn a profit selling things. The reason they're continuously in the red is because they're acquiring a stake in or outright buying more and more other companies (drugstore.com for example), and adding new aspects to the business (electronics, greeting cards, toys, etc.). The more they expand, the more they have to spend.
Do you think Wall Street is stupid? Companies that stay in the red do not continue to rise, bull market or not, unless investors see something in the way they do business.
I'll bet you everything from a diddle-eyed Joe to a damned-if-I-know that the average American doesn't even know what modular arithmetic is. Yes, it is very basic, but then again, 14% of Americans can't locate their own country on a map of the world.
The rest of the world... I can't really speak for.
I think these fall under the category of the 'special math skills' that Amazon says you don't need. Dumb it down a tad. This contest is supposed to be winnable by people who get stumped by crossword puzzles in the USA Today, not by some paranoid lunatic that uses Ordo Novus Seclorum to read his e-mail and encrypts his grocery list so that no one will find out that he's buying stinky cheese and miniature vegatables.
(Wow! Look at the margins on miniature vegatables!)
I mean, come on! Who among us doesn't know how to program into an arcade ROM the ability to determine if that slacker pumping quarters into the box is capable of defending the Frontier against Xur and Ko-Dan Armada? That's what... ten, maybe fifteen lines of assembly code?
"May the luck of the Seven Pillars of Booloo be with you at all times!"
Slashdot Mirror
In addition, violation of this section of the amendment would NEVER result in a Secret Service investigation, even after the proposed modifications of subsection (c). The authority of the Secret Service is confined to violations of sections (a)(2)(A) and (a)(2)(B) of 18 USC 1830, NOT section (a)(8).
That's if it even gets that far, which is wishful thinking, at best.
Move along. Nothing to see here.
Oh, yes, you've got me pegged. I'm old school. Those darned whippersnappers and their new-fangled games. Since you are unfamiliar with sarcasm, I will close the cash register at this point.
I find it odd that because I mentioned Pac-Man as being addictive, you assume that I'm this nostalgia freak who hates everything new. I like a lot of new games. Chrono Cross might be the best game I've ever played. Quake 2 is outstanding when you've got a bunch of friends with low ping counts. But what I don't like is game companies pushing polys and polishing CG video in order to put a pretty package around a big box of crap (which was the case with FF8). And that seems to be happening more and more.
I've played Mario Kart... and I'm sorry, but unless you're about five years old, it gets real boring real quick (and that's pretty much the story for most games on N64). Chrono Trigger was awesome... so was Xenogears, and Chrono Cross, and Final Fantasies 3, 7, and 9, but role-playing games (for me anyway) lack immediate replayability. Chrono Trigger was a bit of an exception because of New Game+, but still... when you've logged fifty hours to beat a game, how much incentive is there to log another fifty hours into a game to reveal the same storyline, the same characters, the same ending?
Pac-Man was, in my opinion, only popular because there was almost no competition at the time.
True. Outside of Pac-Man, there was really only Asteroids, Battlezone, Missile Command, Warrior, Lunar Lander, Breakout, Football, Defender, Berzerk, Gunfight, Space Invaders, and God knows how many other games. There were plenty of gamers (and games) in arcades before Pac-Man. Pac-Man just brought them out in droves - it caused a Yen shortage in Japan! As you can see, I tend to consider your opinion an uninformed one.
But who plays Pac-Man these days?
I played Pac-Man last night at Jillian's. Well, OK, it was Ms. Pac-Man. In the back corner, by the restrooms, they've got Ms. Pac Man, Centipede, Galaga, Arkenoid, and Tetris, and there's always someone there playing something. Because often times it's more fun to pay a quarter to play for as long as you can than to pay a dollar fifty to race for a minute and a half.
Please, Julius, old games aren't good simply because they're old.
That's true: games suck because they suck, not because of their date of release. I always thought Target Fun sucked, and E.T. was horrible, too. By the same token, Star Wars Demolition is a waste of CD space, and Ken Griffey Jr. Baseball was as poor a baseball game as you'll find (except maybe RBI 2 & 3 on NES, or Home Run on the 2600).
The point is, I still stand by Pac-Man and Tetris. And that's fine if you disagree. Just don't come at me with this "Oh, you're just obsessed with nostalgia" crap. Spare me.
full firepower
full missiles
full shields
two Options
For those who don't remember, Options are those pulsating blobs of energy that mimic your ship's actions, essentially doubling or tripling your firepower and shielding.
Or Pac-Man... how many video games are there that had a song written about them? Yeah, it's old school, but anyone who was cognizant in the early 80s remembers when arcades had to stock multiple Pac-Man machines to meet the demand.
I'd throw Tetris on that list, too. It's been remade about six-thousand times, and people are still buying it.
Actually, it's thirty lives per continue, and you should only hit select if you're playing a two-player game.
The tens and fives are both being released next year, and the Treasury hasn't yet decided whether they're going to redesign the one.
Treasury Unveils New $10 and $5 Bills
For general 'Interested-in-The-Who', but not necessarily fans of any particular band, "Who's Next" is definitely their best single album, but if you've got a few extra bucks, pick up "30 Years Of Maximum R&B", the four disc box set they put out four or five years ago.
It has most of "Who's Next" included on it, plus highlights from "Tommy", and the relevant singles including "Magic Bus", "My Generation", "The Kids Are Alright", plus a lot of live stuff and previously unreleased material, along with the standard box set book that details the history of the band. It's a little bit of overkill for the casual fan of The Who, but you can pick it up for about 50 bucks and not have to worry about ever buying another album unless the box set turns you into a die-hard fan.
It was a figure of speech, similar to "Remember what they didn't teach you at Harvard Business School." Apparently the effect was lost.
Have you seen Amazon's business plan? I would be very interested to know where you got it.
And yes, there is nothing locking people into Amazon for purchases, but they have a ridiculous lead in every conceivable category (page hits, brand name recoginition, sales, etc.) Whether you like them or not, Amazon is really the front runner in internet sales.
What's better?
1. A company reporting zero net income, with no products or services in its pipeline, dead-end current products and services, no potential new customers, and no industry hype?
2. A company reporting losses in the millions, with a huge customer base, a huge number of potential new customers, millions of dollars in R&D and marketing, tons of industry hype (both good and bad), brand name recognition, and a continuous stream of new products?
If you chose number one, then thank you for playing, Mr. Buffett.
Priceline gave a ton of technical information to Microsoft about their business. The founder of Priceline met with Expedia's chairman and Bill Gates to discuss a cooperative relationship. Then Microsoft backed out when Priceline wouldn't sell them any shares below the IPO price. Interesting note from Bloomberg is that Gates is reported (by Priceline lawyers... take it as you will) as saying that he wasn't going to let patent infringement get in their way, because so many other companies were suing Microsoft for the same thing, Priceline would have to "get in line".
In this case, though, I seriously doubt that bn.com and Amazon got together to discuss anything mutually beneficial, since they've been suing each other since day one about silly things like which one is "Earth's biggest bookstore" and the like. And I think if they came up with it independently, and implement it even remotely dissimilar on either end, they're going to win the suit.
I think it's pretty clear that they're targeting bn.com because they're a rival. There are a slew of other internet sites that use this 1-Click / Express Lane idea. It's not as cutting edge as they'd like to think.
Do you think Wall Street is stupid? Companies that stay in the red do not continue to rise, bull market or not, unless investors see something in the way they do business.
Read a financial publication once and a while.
The rest of the world... I can't really speak for.
I think these fall under the category of the 'special math skills' that Amazon says you don't need. Dumb it down a tad. This contest is supposed to be winnable by people who get stumped by crossword puzzles in the USA Today, not by some paranoid lunatic that uses Ordo Novus Seclorum to read his e-mail and encrypts his grocery list so that no one will find out that he's buying stinky cheese and miniature vegatables.
(Wow! Look at the margins on miniature vegatables!)
"May the luck of the Seven Pillars of Booloo be with you at all times!"