learn how to make our own subsistence crops, raise our own chickens and build our own shelters?
BTW the existence and massive size of the open source movement is proof positive that people would still invent and research things despite a lack of a workerbee world; necessity, not profit, is the mother of invention.
These forums gobble up a lot of bandwidth and that means money is needed to fund them.
Without subscribers they'll cease to exist, but if they force the issue, they are alienating the people who made their forums great, and that's logical - in the new order of things, the contributors don't get paid for making the site great, but they have to pay to contribute.
A lot of businesses nowadays forget that capitalism goes both ways.
My solution would be to either use the Slashdot "contribute if you want to" format, or pay dividends to the top members. Ack, scratch that last one. How would I know who's the top contributors?! Because some trolls gave 'em the highest rep?! Hmmmm... I think the Slashdot idea is the best solution.
People want to hear something different for a change. What's coming out of your high and mighty corporations nowadays is not evil robot stuff but actually much worse - market researched, Simon approved, homogenous cr-er, stuff.
Citizens media may be poorly represented by this particular podcast outfit, but in general, many more people will now be able to get their stuff out there without dealing with the piles of red tape and ass kissing and casting couchesque bull crap that plagues entertainment today.
The problem with corporations is they throw out everything that isn't market proven. They don't take risks. Risk taking is what made Elvis and the rest of our entertainment greats of the past. So yeah, it is corporations vs the rest of us. It isn't the automatons that's the problem; it's the market-enforced conformity.
Feel free to disagree with me and explain to us what exactly makes Britney Spears 100% great music, or what else being produced out there by the big labels is of much better quality.
Training in broadcasting means nothing without real talent. Real talent has a better chance of being put out there by citizens' media. The crap always sinks to the bottom.
That game had very, VERY graphics for its time. And some of the graphics add-ons/improvements by modders, I found I could make "reality" scene screenshots from Morrowind. Most non-gamer people that saw my Morrowind screenshots did a double take as they routinely mistook it as some real place or some cinematic-quality photo. The character animations in Morrowind weren't exactly as realistic as, say, UT2004 (which came out years later), but it did look pretty close to cinematic when you watched Morrowind in action.
But aside from the graphics (and many people even think Morrowind's graphics was crap in its day), Morrowind had a hell of a lot of story lines. It literally had more side quests (and side quests spawned by side quests) than the US Army has bullets. It had night, day, and varied weather as well. You could spend an hour or more sitting around and reading the books you found in the game and learning the histories and cultures of the world you played in. You could go exploring in any little nook and cranny and expect something different going on just about all the time. What you did in Morrowind had consequences, too. You could be a criminal and pay a fine, be a wanted fugitive, or sit in prison for what you did. You could even get a permanent death penalty and find yourself at war with every single guard in that world. You could choose to kill someone or show them mercy (in some cases) and people would remember you for it either way. A single gamer would spend over a year exploring the entire world of Morrowind just one time. And that's just to play it as a particular species, for a particular faction. Then they went back and played it as another race for another faction. Then you had all the killer mods that added tons of new lands, new mega-quests, and so on.
You could, as a single player, befriend NPCs and assemble a team, like some other RPGs. These NPCs followed you kind of like bots in a FPS, instead of being "locked" at your side, and they were good at following you, for the most part. User mods created even better "follower" companions, with their own long, engrossing stories and complex dynamic reactions to your behaviors.
Morrowind's interface was by far the best I've ever seen, it didn't take long for me to learn it and there was a lot to play with. Morrowind's RPG system was the best I've seen - it had no arbitrary level limits except your skills maxed out at 100. In all cases you gained better skills simply by doing them successfully, repeatedly, and you gained levels and increased vital stats by increasing certain key skills you defined at the start of the game.
Morrowind, of course, had its fallbacks. Stores stayed open 24/7 instead of opening and closing at certain times. There were relatively few people around in the cities; this is no doubt because of the limitations of the CPU and its ability to keep "mental" track of - much less graphically render - Morrowind NPCs. People did not come and go, they just wandered around one particular area. Enemies did not follow you into buildings to pursue a fight. You could not enter a building and see what was going on outside. But again, these limitations were the result of CPU limitations.
IMO, Morrowind was and still is the absolute pinnacle in nonlinear gaming. It even eclipses Deus Ex in every single possible sense. It literally stretched the limit of CPU power but the bang you got for your buck was measured in megatons.
What would I like to see? TES III Morrowind done on the UT2004 graphics engine with UT2004 style sports. You Morrowind fans would know what I mean lol!
* Who can kill the most Cliff Racers in 30 seconds? * Three Way Capture the flag: Redoran vs Hlaalu vs Telvanni. * Onslaught: choose your faction! * Rescue-or-Capture-the-slave: Imperial Legion vs the Dunmer
and so on.
Anyway... Morrowind aimed for what people call "Total Immersion" and "World Building", and in my opinion it hit the mark in a way that games might not hit it for years to come.
"Prometheus Nuclear Systems and Technology will focus on enabling NASA missions by researching and developing nuclear sources that will provide power to innovative scientific instruments and robotic systems, large and small propulsion systems that run on electricity and high-speed communications systems. The nuclear power sources would allow us to extensively explore our closest celestial neighbor, the Moon, as well as Mars and other destinations. Eventually, these power sources would support human explorers as they travel through space and explore other worlds.
The first proposed mission within Prometheus Nuclear Systems and Technology would be a mission to Jupiter, the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (JIMO), which represents a new class of mission capabilities far beyond those possible with current power and propulsion systems. Powered by a space nuclear reactor and propelled by electric ion engines, the spacecraft would make up-close, long-term orbiting visits to three of the solar system's most intriguing moons- Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. Beneath their icy surfaces, these moons may contain oceans of water that could have provided an environment that may have harbored life."
http://prometheus.jpl.nasa.gov/index.cfm?pageL1= mi ssions
Beats the heck out of me what that has to do with militarizing space. Besides, IMO, nuclear power is a lot less environmentally dangerous than other power sources except maybe solar energy (which might not work when you're x billion miles from the sun).
PCs do sharpen the problem solving skills of those who work with their innards, but they offer *plenty* of opportunity for distractions (costing lots of focus ability).
The challenge, when in front of a computer screen, is to avoid being constantly distracted.
that allowing computers to constantly shift your focus from one thing to the other, impairs your long term ability to focus on one thing and imprint it on your brain in serious depth.
My prescribed solution (IMHO)? A weekend per month secluded from all electronica, preferably with someone else, along with non-technical books, and one or more chess sets. Or better yet, a program once a month that provides a rewarding experience that reinforces one's ability to just **focus**.
I wouldn't laugh. Neither would the rest of the world, which exports chiefly to the US and which would suffer if US consumers were forced to cut back on spending due to higher energy prices.
I'm not meaning to insult fans of the world trade organization here. I'm just saying that the it's scary to see the United States even being ASKED to bow down to the WTO. Of course, the US probably created the WTO, and if so this is exactly why I oppose the US trying to make rules for the world. Those rules eventually get rammed back up our own butts.
I say respect the sovereignty of America and of the rest of the world and only violate someone's sovereignty when our country is CLEARLY threatened.
That being said, Canada is free to retaliate as they please... it is, after all, their country.
(note, I'm not intending to be a troll or post flamebait here... I'm trying to make a genuine point.)
"(sarcasm)No, their governments just seize the money they do have just because of their race or political stance. All while the US has programs independent of the government to help those in need.(/sarcasm)"
Did I forget to mention that thhe citizens of each of the above mentioned countries (except MAYBE India) have longer life expectancies than Americans? Or that the US health care system produces as many deaths by medical malpractice per capita as any other industrialized country, and actually more per capita than most?
As for confiscating wealth, well you have three choices - the Government will take some in taxes and give you care automatically; or the health insurance companies will gouge you deeply for it; or you can keep your money and play die-of-cancer roulette.
America is not a land without risk but to die because you are poor and there's life saving care available and they won't give it to you because you have no money, is negligent homicide by every definition of the word even though the Libertarians like to put their hands to their ears and scream "LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA!" about it. Oh yeah, and to shortcircuit your Emergency Room argument... ER does not provide early effective treatment for cancer. No money, no insurance? No treatments, period.
"I should know.
The part I left out of my original post was that I was born with a condition known as Tetrology of Follot [discovery.com] (pronounced "Fa-loh"). I was an oddity, a condition that was very rarely seen in the medical profession. Correcting my heart condition would also have been very expensive if the doctor hadn't waved his cost and a childhood disease help organization step in to cover much of the cost. There are a lot of people I owe my very existence to, not the least of them a lot of people who were praying for me."
You got very lucky. Most uninsured people die of that kind of stuff.
I'd rather have my health care guaranteed to be covered by an organization which has set rules I can more reliably count on, than hope and pray that a charity organization will like me enough to pay for my health care. The Government has set rules I can reliably count on. Charities are more whimsical than Governments by orders of magnitude.
I believe what you're advocating is faith-based health care for the poor... you pray for it and if you get lucky, you get care. That doesn't cut it in a civilized society. That's why health insurance aka private based medical care is an epidemic that the entire industrialized world wants to keep contained in the US. No one outside the US wants this mess... no one.
Oh yeah and did I forget to mention that the lack of HMO paperwork shuffles contributes to the fact that Canada and Japan both have lower costs per capita for top notch health care than the US? And get this... many US companies are relocating to Canada because of cheaper health care. See for example: Hollywood (Star Trek Enterprise, anyone?).
BTW before you say America attracts so many immigrants... the only country we're sucking dry of citizens is Mexico. The rest of the world is happy to go along its way and (except for regimes like China/Cuba) allow those few who have a problem with it all, to come to America. Canada is happy. Europe is happy. Japan is happy. Happy enough that they absolutely do not want our health care system.
If America's health care system is so great, then how come no one else wants to touch it with a 12 meter pole?
> Not bullshit. Their citizens don't go bankrupt because their bodies happened to be unfortunate enough to get cancer. Nor are they denied organ transplants because they're poor.
As for immigration, you'll change your tune about all that when Al Qaeda comes in from Mexico and nukes your A-double-lightning-strikes to kingdom come or hits you with a lethal case of the sniffles.
We may be getting all kinds of immigrants but the brain power is not coming to America as much any more, that's a verified fact.
By the way... China is now proposing a tech alliance with India. I bet you don't know what that means. Hint: where is most of our high tech consumer hardware made now?
'Now if we could only collapse the damn social support system here in the US, we might be able to regain some of the brains and brawn we've been losing."
We never had it in the first place. Our brain power has traditionally come from foreign countries like Germany, Japan, China and India, three of which have much better social support than America. Germans stopped emigrating a while back. Chinese and East Indians are now emigrating less because their own countries are getting better. The Japanese stopped coming a long time ago.
The brain drain into America is now slowing down.
Want to see proof? Read this: http://www.rediff.com/money/2005/feb/16indi a.htm
Slashdot Mirror
We'd
*gasp*
*ack* *shudder* *screaaaaaaaaaaaaaam*
learn how to make our own subsistence crops, raise our own chickens and build our own shelters?
BTW the existence and massive size of the open source movement is proof positive that people would still invent and research things despite a lack of a workerbee world; necessity, not profit, is the mother of invention.
Simple. You'd spend more time doing things you want to do instead of laboring for someone else's profits and grand visions of the world.
Insects make great drones. Humans should be able to aspire to something beyond the status of a workerbee.
irrelevant.
Word processors take up no real space at all, just virtual space on a hard drive.
We're talking about real physical space with real physical power drain here.
I'd like to see your proof that the average salary in NA is "tracking up".
Oh my God, what has happened to /. 's moderation??
and damned if you don't.
These forums gobble up a lot of bandwidth and that means money is needed to fund them.
Without subscribers they'll cease to exist, but if they force the issue, they are alienating the people who made their forums great, and that's logical - in the new order of things, the contributors don't get paid for making the site great, but they have to pay to contribute.
A lot of businesses nowadays forget that capitalism goes both ways.
My solution would be to either use the Slashdot "contribute if you want to" format, or pay dividends to the top members. Ack, scratch that last one. How would I know who's the top contributors?! Because some trolls gave 'em the highest rep?! Hmmmm... I think the Slashdot idea is the best solution.
The problem is not corporations but rather when people put the pursuit of money in higher priority than the pursuit of art and the passion thereof.
People want to hear something different for a change. What's coming out of your high and mighty corporations nowadays is not evil robot stuff but actually much worse - market researched, Simon approved, homogenous cr-er, stuff.
Citizens media may be poorly represented by this particular podcast outfit, but in general, many more people will now be able to get their stuff out there without dealing with the piles of red tape and ass kissing and casting couchesque bull crap that plagues entertainment today.
The problem with corporations is they throw out everything that isn't market proven. They don't take risks. Risk taking is what made Elvis and the rest of our entertainment greats of the past. So yeah, it is corporations vs the rest of us. It isn't the automatons that's the problem; it's the market-enforced conformity.
Feel free to disagree with me and explain to us what exactly makes Britney Spears 100% great music, or what else being produced out there by the big labels is of much better quality.
Training in broadcasting means nothing without real talent. Real talent has a better chance of being put out there by citizens' media. The crap always sinks to the bottom.
Well, except for William Hung...
That game had very, VERY graphics for its time. And some of the graphics add-ons/improvements by modders, I found I could make "reality" scene screenshots from Morrowind. Most non-gamer people that saw my Morrowind screenshots did a double take as they routinely mistook it as some real place or some cinematic-quality photo. The character animations in Morrowind weren't exactly as realistic as, say, UT2004 (which came out years later), but it did look pretty close to cinematic when you watched Morrowind in action.
But aside from the graphics (and many people even think Morrowind's graphics was crap in its day), Morrowind had a hell of a lot of story lines. It literally had more side quests (and side quests spawned by side quests) than the US Army has bullets. It had night, day, and varied weather as well. You could spend an hour or more sitting around and reading the books you found in the game and learning the histories and cultures of the world you played in. You could go exploring in any little nook and cranny and expect something different going on just about all the time. What you did in Morrowind had consequences, too. You could be a criminal and pay a fine, be a wanted fugitive, or sit in prison for what you did. You could even get a permanent death penalty and find yourself at war with every single guard in that world. You could choose to kill someone or show them mercy (in some cases) and people would remember you for it either way. A single gamer would spend over a year exploring the entire world of Morrowind just one time. And that's just to play it as a particular species, for a particular faction. Then they went back and played it as another race for another faction. Then you had all the killer mods that added tons of new lands, new mega-quests, and so on.
You could, as a single player, befriend NPCs and assemble a team, like some other RPGs. These NPCs followed you kind of like bots in a FPS, instead of being "locked" at your side, and they were good at following you, for the most part. User mods created even better "follower" companions, with their own long, engrossing stories and complex dynamic reactions to your behaviors.
Morrowind's interface was by far the best I've ever seen, it didn't take long for me to learn it and there was a lot to play with. Morrowind's RPG system was the best I've seen - it had no arbitrary level limits except your skills maxed out at 100. In all cases you gained better skills simply by doing them successfully, repeatedly, and you gained levels and increased vital stats by increasing certain key skills you defined at the start of the game.
Morrowind, of course, had its fallbacks. Stores stayed open 24/7 instead of opening and closing at certain times. There were relatively few people around in the cities; this is no doubt because of the limitations of the CPU and its ability to keep "mental" track of - much less graphically render - Morrowind NPCs. People did not come and go, they just wandered around one particular area. Enemies did not follow you into buildings to pursue a fight. You could not enter a building and see what was going on outside. But again, these limitations were the result of CPU limitations.
IMO, Morrowind was and still is the absolute pinnacle in nonlinear gaming. It even eclipses Deus Ex in every single possible sense. It literally stretched the limit of CPU power but the bang you got for your buck was measured in megatons.
What would I like to see? TES III Morrowind done on the UT2004 graphics engine with UT2004 style sports. You Morrowind fans would know what I mean lol!
* Who can kill the most Cliff Racers in 30 seconds?
* Three Way Capture the flag: Redoran vs Hlaalu vs Telvanni.
* Onslaught: choose your faction!
* Rescue-or-Capture-the-slave: Imperial Legion vs the Dunmer
and so on.
Anyway... Morrowind aimed for what people call "Total Immersion" and "World Building", and in my opinion it hit the mark in a way that games might not hit it for years to come.
"Prometheus Nuclear Systems and Technology will focus on enabling NASA missions by researching and developing nuclear sources that will provide power to innovative scientific instruments and robotic systems, large and small propulsion systems that run on electricity and high-speed communications systems. The nuclear power sources would allow us to extensively explore our closest celestial neighbor, the Moon, as well as Mars and other destinations. Eventually, these power sources would support human explorers as they travel through space and explore other worlds.
= mi ssions
The first proposed mission within Prometheus Nuclear Systems and Technology would be a mission to Jupiter, the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (JIMO), which represents a new class of mission capabilities far beyond those possible with current power and propulsion systems. Powered by a space nuclear reactor and propelled by electric ion engines, the spacecraft would make up-close, long-term orbiting visits to three of the solar system's most intriguing moons- Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. Beneath their icy surfaces, these moons may contain oceans of water that could have provided an environment that may have harbored life."
http://prometheus.jpl.nasa.gov/index.cfm?pageL1
Beats the heck out of me what that has to do with militarizing space. Besides, IMO, nuclear power is a lot less environmentally dangerous than other power sources except maybe solar energy (which might not work when you're x billion miles from the sun).
If he's rich or powerful then he's a valid human being. Otherwise, he isn't.
to put millions of humans into hibernation in underground vaults while the people on the surface pollute themselves into extinction.
If nothing went wrong then they'd awaken x thousand years later and be repatriated. Or start a revolution. Or take down the Matrix. Or something...
PCs do sharpen the problem solving skills of those who work with their innards, but they offer *plenty* of opportunity for distractions (costing lots of focus ability).
The challenge, when in front of a computer screen, is to avoid being constantly distracted.
that allowing computers to constantly shift your focus from one thing to the other, impairs your long term ability to focus on one thing and imprint it on your brain in serious depth.
My prescribed solution (IMHO)? A weekend per month secluded from all electronica, preferably with someone else, along with non-technical books, and one or more chess sets. Or better yet, a program once a month that provides a rewarding experience that reinforces one's ability to just **focus**.
And delete it off of there ASAP. :)
Anyone know how to do that?
So I'll be alive when Duke Nukem Forever is finally released. :)
>
God forbid both things happen simultaneously.
I wouldn't laugh. Neither would the rest of the world, which exports chiefly to the US and which would suffer if US consumers were forced to cut back on spending due to higher energy prices.
:)
BTW thanks for the info on the WTO
I'm not meaning to insult fans of the world trade organization here. I'm just saying that the it's scary to see the United States even being ASKED to bow down to the WTO. Of course, the US probably created the WTO, and if so this is exactly why I oppose the US trying to make rules for the world. Those rules eventually get rammed back up our own butts.
I say respect the sovereignty of America and of the rest of the world and only violate someone's sovereignty when our country is CLEARLY threatened.
That being said, Canada is free to retaliate as they please... it is, after all, their country.
(note, I'm not intending to be a troll or post flamebait here... I'm trying to make a genuine point.)
LOL, translate that into inches and Dr Seuss will thank you. :)
"(sarcasm)No, their governments just seize the money they do have just because of their race or political stance. All while the US has programs independent of the government to help those in need.(/sarcasm)"
Did I forget to mention that thhe citizens of each of the above mentioned countries (except MAYBE India) have longer life expectancies than Americans? Or that the US health care system produces as many deaths by medical malpractice per capita as any other industrialized country, and actually more per capita than most?
As for confiscating wealth, well you have three choices - the Government will take some in taxes and give you care automatically; or the health insurance companies will gouge you deeply for it; or you can keep your money and play die-of-cancer roulette.
America is not a land without risk but to die because you are poor and there's life saving care available and they won't give it to you because you have no money, is negligent homicide by every definition of the word even though the Libertarians like to put their hands to their ears and scream "LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA!" about it. Oh yeah, and to shortcircuit your Emergency Room argument... ER does not provide early effective treatment for cancer. No money, no insurance? No treatments, period.
"I should know.
The part I left out of my original post was that I was born with a condition known as Tetrology of Follot [discovery.com] (pronounced "Fa-loh"). I was an oddity, a condition that was very rarely seen in the medical profession. Correcting my heart condition would also have been very expensive if the doctor hadn't waved his cost and a childhood disease help organization step in to cover much of the cost. There are a lot of people I owe my very existence to, not the least of them a lot of people who were praying for me."
You got very lucky. Most uninsured people die of that kind of stuff.
I'd rather have my health care guaranteed to be covered by an organization which has set rules I can more reliably count on, than hope and pray that a charity organization will like me enough to pay for my health care. The Government has set rules I can reliably count on. Charities are more whimsical than Governments by orders of magnitude.
I believe what you're advocating is faith-based health care for the poor... you pray for it and if you get lucky, you get care. That doesn't cut it in a civilized society. That's why health insurance aka private based medical care is an epidemic that the entire industrialized world wants to keep contained in the US. No one outside the US wants this mess... no one.
Oh yeah and did I forget to mention that the lack of HMO paperwork shuffles contributes to the fact that Canada and Japan both have lower costs per capita for top notch health care than the US? And get this... many US companies are relocating to Canada because of cheaper health care. See for example: Hollywood (Star Trek Enterprise, anyone?).
BTW before you say America attracts so many immigrants... the only country we're sucking dry of citizens is Mexico. The rest of the world is happy to go along its way and (except for regimes like China/Cuba) allow those few who have a problem with it all, to come to America. Canada is happy. Europe is happy. Japan is happy. Happy enough that they absolutely do not want our health care system.
If America's health care system is so great, then how come no one else wants to touch it with a 12 meter pole?
>
Not bullshit. Their citizens don't go bankrupt because their bodies happened to be unfortunate enough to get cancer. Nor are they denied organ transplants because they're poor.
As for immigration, you'll change your tune about all that when Al Qaeda comes in from Mexico and nukes your A-double-lightning-strikes to kingdom come or hits you with a lethal case of the sniffles.
We may be getting all kinds of immigrants but the brain power is not coming to America as much any more, that's a verified fact.
By the way... China is now proposing a tech alliance with India. I bet you don't know what that means. Hint: where is most of our high tech consumer hardware made now?
Lots of tech lords have problems with spelling.
'Now if we could only collapse the damn social support system here in the US, we might be able to regain some of the brains and brawn we've been losing."
i a.htm
We never had it in the first place. Our brain power has traditionally come from foreign countries like Germany, Japan, China and India, three of which have much better social support than America. Germans stopped emigrating a while back. Chinese and East Indians are now emigrating less because their own countries are getting better. The Japanese stopped coming a long time ago.
The brain drain into America is now slowing down.
Want to see proof? Read this:
http://www.rediff.com/money/2005/feb/16ind
Someone please mod Mr Ghost's post up, sheesh.