That's pretty much what I've been advocating. "Loser Pays", with the variant that the loser must pay the winner's legal fees up to the amount equal to the minimum of the two side's spending.
Rich corp spends $50,000 suing poor single mom, who spends $1,000 defending herself. They win, she pays $1,000 of their expenses. They lose, they pay $1,000 of the mom's expenses.
Two Rich cops sue each other: They each spend $1,000,000. Loser pays full amount.
I think this would have the effect of making penalties fairer, and provide incentive to both sides to keep legal costs in check. I like loser pays, but if unchecked, it could serve as a tool of intimidation for wealthy companies and individuals.
Right. There's no reason that two fingerprints can't be alike, but if there was a significant rate of erroneous matches, it would have been noticed by now. If two matching fingerprints are found, and one of them is the victim's spouse, and the other is an old lady who lives a thousand miles away, I don't think it weakens the prosecutor's case much.
What is more likely to cause error are matches from incomplete or smudged fingerprints that are presented as more reliable matches than they really are.
What are they supposed to do? The evidence points towards a suspect that the courts have found innocent. They can't just switch to the runner-up suspect, and they can't retry the same suspect. If some startling new evidence came up that pointed towards someone new, they'd probably press charges again... but I doubt that happens very often in real life.
I questioned that statement, also. I mean, this is far _less_ even than anybody would have imagined. This sales this generation will end with (1) Wii (2) 360 (3) PS3. The only real drama is whether the PS3 can scrape into 2nd place ahead of the 360.
Coupled with the fact that the Wii is more profitable than the other two consoles, it's a done deal. Nintendo's won this round.
It's also insulting. It states flat-out that "Anyone who disagrees with me, has no brain."
Which is a terrible arguing technique, but it's also a consistent refrain from the left. Check out all the ego-stroking by leftist college kids in any political thread. It's bad from either side.
Most likely, they are hourly employees with a commission based on sales. Not a huge commission, but enough that the motivated ones probably won't stick on the phone for too long once it's obvious you're gaming them.
However, motivated people don't work that job for long.
That's all correct, and I'll add one more point: There are legal standards about those 'nuisance calls' that need to be met. If more than a certain percentage of calls have more than a certain period of silence, the telemarketer can get substantial fines.
I think you misunderstand. It's not that the Vista users haven't upgraded to DX10... it's that they don't have a DX10 capable graphics card. And that isn't a casual upgrade.
It'll do a better job of interesting people than current comics do, which cater solely to an small, incestuous niche audience. Ok, not all of them do, but the majority of the mags in the marvelous worlds of Marvel and DC have shriveled to small and dark figments of what they were in the 60's, 70's, and 80's.
Conversely, a much higher percentage of liberals than conservatives believe the US administration was involved in the 9/11 attacks. (I don't have a cite, but heck, do I need one?) There's morons on both sides, they just have different moronic beliefs.
Wow, your post is close to delusional. There's a couple anti-Zonk posters in every game thread that criticize him about his PS3 stance; It's particularly funny, because they post in critical articles, neutral articles, and positive articles (like this one).
They don't seem to realize that press coverage of the PS3 was nearly uniformly critical. It went critical the moment the price was announced, stayed critical, and just within the last few months has Sony's press gotten better.
For Zonk to have posted predominately positive articles during that period... well, it might not have been even possible. But it would have certainly been much greater evidence of editorial bias than the articles we did get.
I've seen demographic research that the Democrats tend to be either highly or poorly educated; Republicans tend to be in between. I would think that speaks to social standing being the distinguisher, rather than intelligence.
Also, women are far more likely to be Democrat than men are. Clearly there are other factors at play than simply being 'smart enough to be a Democrat.'
And as a friendly piece of advice: Be careful with your reasoning here. When you set up a cycle where you rate people as intelligent or worthwhile when they agree with you, and stupid when they don't, you have created a positive feedback system that prevents you from ever reconsidering your views. And some of your view are wrong (some of everybody's views are wrong).
It's funny... I think graphics have gotten to the point to where an accurate comparison can no longer be made. They're chaotic systems now, with different features and capabilities interacting with each other in weird and unpredictable ways.
I think both systems are in generally the same class. Other than that, what can be said? One system streams textures faster, another can apply more pixel filters, etc., etc. Does faster loading from a hard drive cache count as better graphics? What about a simpler architecture that makes coding graphics easier? About all you can do is compare on a game-by-game basis.
I think you're spot on, although I think the sweet spot for HD transition is probably not this Christmas, but a year from now. There's still a lot of people that don't care enough about picture quality to pay close to a thousand dollars for it. I won't bother with it until it gets down to at least sub $500, and I'm comfortably middle-class.
You're right, but I think the grandparent post was wrong in linking graphics/physics/AI together. Graphics quality depends greatly on hardware, while the sad AI in current games is primarily a software issue.
I know that some designers have claimed that the increased power of the PS3 and 360 allow better AI, but I don't buy it. I think AI is written up to the level of barely adequate, and then all further resources (both hardware and human) are put towards graphics.
So, yes, I agree we're decades away from a really good computer AI that allows creative responses to your actions. But I don't think that it's strictly a question of console power. It's a question of priorities. Once we stop caring about increasingly incremental improvements in graphics, developers will begin working on other parts of the experience.
Certainly bias is brought to the argument, but that is unavoidable, and not necessarily bad. This sort of discussion can not be held in isolation from other beliefs. People have different fundamental philosophical principles, and they are sometimes sensible only when looking at a wide variety of issues.
My own viewpoint is that the issue of harm to an adult from cigarettes is absolutely irrelevant. Libertarian based, you could say. The issue then resolves to: Is there any reason, then, that children should not be given the same right to choose as adults?
To really answer that question, you have to broaden the scope much wider than 'smoking.' The whole issue of parenthood, rights and diminished capacity, so forth are brought into the mix. Here, my viewpoint is that given children the same rights as adults would immediately doom the entire human race; hence, it's not a particularly rational choice. The argument then becomes just a question of how far you can restrict the rights of children, which is arbitrary to a degree, and less fundamental.
Part of the reason I argue philosophy less than I used to, is that I've found that arguing particular points (like cigarette smoking for minors) can be factored down to certain primary beliefs, at which point the argument stalls or begins repeating. That's a potential problem with this technique of requesting arguments over a certain issue; it may focus on particulars of the topic at large (such as the effect of smoke on juvenile lung tissue), but not address the larger scope of the bigger philosophical issues, which is the level at which all these decisions are made, anyway.
When something becomes self-aware. I'm as objective as the next guy; but nothing is worth anything without someone who attributes it, subjectively, value. Without life, it would make no sense to say anything is more valuable than anything else. (I don't mean subjective as unbased if reality... that's bad. I mean subjective in the sense as from a particular viewpoint.)
Things are of value for one reason and one reason only: People want something. They want to live, they want to reproduce, they want to understand, they want to see beauty.
I don't think environmentalism is the important issue here. I'm more interested in what impact the economic development of the moon will have on international relations.
Now, that's a more reasonable concern. I think it's a problem that needs solved, but it's not an insolvable problem. I would imagine that by the time we can really begin raping the moon's resources in appreciable quantities, there will be some political guidelines in place.
This is a very harmful idea. A certain amount of environmentalism makes sense; disrupting ecosystems can have harmful repercussions, as can running out of non-renewable resources, etc.
But this idea of preserving the lunar environment seems to me to be based on the idea that objects are better left untouched by humanity. That things should be left untouched, even when it is detrimental to humanity, and no worse than neutral to our ecosystem. This is the type of nonsense that, in the extreme, calls for humanity to let itself go extinct, so as to stop our plundering of the Earth.
Nothing in nature is a value, without something living that gives it that worth.
Hmm. There are about 4,000 Walmarts in the United States. If each sold thirty, that's another 120,000 HD players on the sold.
According to Wikipedia: As of April 18, 2007, (on the first "birthday" of HD DVD),[35] the HD DVD camp reported that they had sold 100,000 dedicated HD DVD units in the U.S. alone, (not including any computers with HD DVD drives or Xbox 360 add-ons drives--the latter of which was reported to have sold 92,000 units during the Christmas holiday season).[36]
It seems that the number of HD-DVD players have nearly doubled in one day.
So what do you propose? We just let people on planes as if they were buses?
Actually, what's wrong with that? There's been one security measure since 9/11 that is truly effective: Locked cockpit doors. That has eliminated all threat of planes being used as guided missiles. Given that, what's the difference between a plane and a bus?
You honestly think Gore would have started 2 wars after 9/11?
Maybe. He certainly would have started at least one. But I don't think the point was that he would have done everything exactly the same as Bush, but that they are both unconcerned with constitutional principles, and beholden to special interests and influence peddling. They aren't both bought by the same players, but they are both bought.
Slashdot Mirror
That's pretty much what I've been advocating. "Loser Pays", with the variant that the loser must pay the winner's legal fees up to the amount equal to the minimum of the two side's spending.
Rich corp spends $50,000 suing poor single mom, who spends $1,000 defending herself. They win, she pays $1,000 of their expenses. They lose, they pay $1,000 of the mom's expenses.
Two Rich cops sue each other: They each spend $1,000,000. Loser pays full amount.
I think this would have the effect of making penalties fairer, and provide incentive to both sides to keep legal costs in check. I like loser pays, but if unchecked, it could serve as a tool of intimidation for wealthy companies and individuals.
Right. There's no reason that two fingerprints can't be alike, but if there was a significant rate of erroneous matches, it would have been noticed by now. If two matching fingerprints are found, and one of them is the victim's spouse, and the other is an old lady who lives a thousand miles away, I don't think it weakens the prosecutor's case much.
What is more likely to cause error are matches from incomplete or smudged fingerprints that are presented as more reliable matches than they really are.
What are they supposed to do? The evidence points towards a suspect that the courts have found innocent. They can't just switch to the runner-up suspect, and they can't retry the same suspect. If some startling new evidence came up that pointed towards someone new, they'd probably press charges again... but I doubt that happens very often in real life.
I questioned that statement, also. I mean, this is far _less_ even than anybody would have imagined. This sales this generation will end with (1) Wii (2) 360 (3) PS3. The only real drama is whether the PS3 can scrape into 2nd place ahead of the 360.
Coupled with the fact that the Wii is more profitable than the other two consoles, it's a done deal. Nintendo's won this round.
It's also insulting. It states flat-out that "Anyone who disagrees with me, has no brain."
Which is a terrible arguing technique, but it's also a consistent refrain from the left. Check out all the ego-stroking by leftist college kids in any political thread. It's bad from either side.
Better harmonics and a warmer picture! It doesn't have the harsh, digital flavor of NTSC resolutions.
Most likely, they are hourly employees with a commission based on sales. Not a huge commission, but enough that the motivated ones probably won't stick on the phone for too long once it's obvious you're gaming them.
However, motivated people don't work that job for long.
That's all correct, and I'll add one more point: There are legal standards about those 'nuisance calls' that need to be met. If more than a certain percentage of calls have more than a certain period of silence, the telemarketer can get substantial fines.
I think you misunderstand. It's not that the Vista users haven't upgraded to DX10... it's that they don't have a DX10 capable graphics card. And that isn't a casual upgrade.
It'll do a better job of interesting people than current comics do, which cater solely to an small, incestuous niche audience. Ok, not all of them do, but the majority of the mags in the marvelous worlds of Marvel and DC have shriveled to small and dark figments of what they were in the 60's, 70's, and 80's.
Conversely, a much higher percentage of liberals than conservatives believe the US administration was involved in the 9/11 attacks. (I don't have a cite, but heck, do I need one?) There's morons on both sides, they just have different moronic beliefs.
Wow, your post is close to delusional. There's a couple anti-Zonk posters in every game thread that criticize him about his PS3 stance; It's particularly funny, because they post in critical articles, neutral articles, and positive articles (like this one).
They don't seem to realize that press coverage of the PS3 was nearly uniformly critical. It went critical the moment the price was announced, stayed critical, and just within the last few months has Sony's press gotten better.
For Zonk to have posted predominately positive articles during that period... well, it might not have been even possible. But it would have certainly been much greater evidence of editorial bias than the articles we did get.
I've seen demographic research that the Democrats tend to be either highly or poorly educated; Republicans tend to be in between. I would think that speaks to social standing being the distinguisher, rather than intelligence.
Also, women are far more likely to be Democrat than men are. Clearly there are other factors at play than simply being 'smart enough to be a Democrat.'
And as a friendly piece of advice: Be careful with your reasoning here. When you set up a cycle where you rate people as intelligent or worthwhile when they agree with you, and stupid when they don't, you have created a positive feedback system that prevents you from ever reconsidering your views. And some of your view are wrong (some of everybody's views are wrong).
It's funny... I think graphics have gotten to the point to where an accurate comparison can no longer be made. They're chaotic systems now, with different features and capabilities interacting with each other in weird and unpredictable ways.
I think both systems are in generally the same class. Other than that, what can be said? One system streams textures faster, another can apply more pixel filters, etc., etc. Does faster loading from a hard drive cache count as better graphics? What about a simpler architecture that makes coding graphics easier? About all you can do is compare on a game-by-game basis.
I think you're spot on, although I think the sweet spot for HD transition is probably not this Christmas, but a year from now. There's still a lot of people that don't care enough about picture quality to pay close to a thousand dollars for it. I won't bother with it until it gets down to at least sub $500, and I'm comfortably middle-class.
You're right, but I think the grandparent post was wrong in linking graphics/physics/AI together. Graphics quality depends greatly on hardware, while the sad AI in current games is primarily a software issue.
I know that some designers have claimed that the increased power of the PS3 and 360 allow better AI, but I don't buy it. I think AI is written up to the level of barely adequate, and then all further resources (both hardware and human) are put towards graphics.
So, yes, I agree we're decades away from a really good computer AI that allows creative responses to your actions. But I don't think that it's strictly a question of console power. It's a question of priorities. Once we stop caring about increasingly incremental improvements in graphics, developers will begin working on other parts of the experience.
Certainly bias is brought to the argument, but that is unavoidable, and not necessarily bad. This sort of discussion can not be held in isolation from other beliefs. People have different fundamental philosophical principles, and they are sometimes sensible only when looking at a wide variety of issues.
My own viewpoint is that the issue of harm to an adult from cigarettes is absolutely irrelevant. Libertarian based, you could say. The issue then resolves to: Is there any reason, then, that children should not be given the same right to choose as adults?
To really answer that question, you have to broaden the scope much wider than 'smoking.' The whole issue of parenthood, rights and diminished capacity, so forth are brought into the mix. Here, my viewpoint is that given children the same rights as adults would immediately doom the entire human race; hence, it's not a particularly rational choice. The argument then becomes just a question of how far you can restrict the rights of children, which is arbitrary to a degree, and less fundamental.
Part of the reason I argue philosophy less than I used to, is that I've found that arguing particular points (like cigarette smoking for minors) can be factored down to certain primary beliefs, at which point the argument stalls or begins repeating. That's a potential problem with this technique of requesting arguments over a certain issue; it may focus on particulars of the topic at large (such as the effect of smoke on juvenile lung tissue), but not address the larger scope of the bigger philosophical issues, which is the level at which all these decisions are made, anyway.
When something becomes self-aware. I'm as objective as the next guy; but nothing is worth anything without someone who attributes it, subjectively, value. Without life, it would make no sense to say anything is more valuable than anything else. (I don't mean subjective as unbased if reality... that's bad. I mean subjective in the sense as from a particular viewpoint.)
Things are of value for one reason and one reason only: People want something. They want to live, they want to reproduce, they want to understand, they want to see beauty.
I don't think environmentalism is the important issue here. I'm more interested in what impact the economic development of the moon will have on international relations.
Now, that's a more reasonable concern. I think it's a problem that needs solved, but it's not an insolvable problem. I would imagine that by the time we can really begin raping the moon's resources in appreciable quantities, there will be some political guidelines in place.
It's funny that he's being accused of blatantly copying the show's premise, yet nobody seems to agree who he's ripping off:
Gunslinger Girls
Dark City
All My Sins Remembered
Joe 90
AphroditeX
Neuromancer
Did all of those shows rip off each other?
This is a very harmful idea. A certain amount of environmentalism makes sense; disrupting ecosystems can have harmful repercussions, as can running out of non-renewable resources, etc.
But this idea of preserving the lunar environment seems to me to be based on the idea that objects are better left untouched by humanity. That things should be left untouched, even when it is detrimental to humanity, and no worse than neutral to our ecosystem. This is the type of nonsense that, in the extreme, calls for humanity to let itself go extinct, so as to stop our plundering of the Earth.
Nothing in nature is a value, without something living that gives it that worth.
Hmm. There are about 4,000 Walmarts in the United States. If each sold thirty, that's another 120,000 HD players on the sold.
According to Wikipedia: As of April 18, 2007, (on the first "birthday" of HD DVD),[35] the HD DVD camp reported that they had sold 100,000 dedicated HD DVD units in the U.S. alone, (not including any computers with HD DVD drives or Xbox 360 add-ons drives--the latter of which was reported to have sold 92,000 units during the Christmas holiday season).[36]
It seems that the number of HD-DVD players have nearly doubled in one day.
So what do you propose? We just let people on planes as if they were buses? Actually, what's wrong with that? There's been one security measure since 9/11 that is truly effective: Locked cockpit doors. That has eliminated all threat of planes being used as guided missiles. Given that, what's the difference between a plane and a bus?
You honestly think Gore would have started 2 wars after 9/11?
Maybe. He certainly would have started at least one. But I don't think the point was that he would have done everything exactly the same as Bush, but that they are both unconcerned with constitutional principles, and beholden to special interests and influence peddling. They aren't both bought by the same players, but they are both bought.
What annoys me the most in this area is people that choose long complex passwords and stick a bit of paper with that password to their laptop
That's why "Dinner at 8 - Call Janice" is such a great password. Hidden in plain sight.