amendments 4, 6, 7 and 9 have been blown to shit, just off the top of my head.
It's a ridiculous document either way, and frankly I'm tired of hearing about it.
When a company wants to convince me that I want something, I prefer that they have as little knowledge of my psychology as possible. I'm not abnormally gullible, but I do know that we can all be manipulated to some degree.
politically naive? This has nothing to do with politics in any sense and everything to do with entrepreneurship. She intends to find something which will allow one company to prevail, and then make a shitload of money before releasing that information.
She might claim moral high-ground in front of the press, but it's patently obvious that this is about money, pure and simple. Issues of politics are 100% irrelevant.
fuel expenditure is not constant, I think takeoff requires a significant energy investment. By increasing the distance traveled, you divide that investment across a greater distance, increasing efficiency.
8 of the top 20 highest US box office grosses in history are from movies released in the past five years. I won't say the industry hasn't contracted, but that metric suggests to me it isn't in any serious trouble.
The industry (your industry, I'm assuming) has indulged in decadence for so long, they seem to have forgotten that movies don't need to cost 500 000 000 to make. That's why they're bleeding cash, in my opinion.
I've skimmed parts of the first report, so let me give this a shot, and if I'm missing something feel free to let me know.
The report states that the firing of Commissioner Monegan was perfectly legal on the grounds that Alaskan law states that department heads "serve at the pleasure of the governor" and therefore can be terminated without justification. So nothing illegal there.
The alleged abuses, however, don't really have to do with the firings. The report found that in pressuring Monegan and other subordinates to fire Wooten, governor Palin engaged in "official action by her inaction if not her participation" contrary to AS 39.52.110(a) of the ethics act. She was legally allowed to fire Wooten. She was not legally allowed to pressure her subordinates in order to advance her personal agenda. The key distinction to take away from this is that even if she hadn't fired anyone, she would still have violated state ethics laws.
Of course, this is contingent on the assumption that the governor wanted Wooten fired for personal reasons, and not because she genuinely felt his employment was detrimental to the state of Alaska. I didn't pore through all the evidence in even the one report I looked at, so I can't make any sort of definitive judgment here, but the extraordinary perseverance by the governor and her husband to have Wooten fired suggest personal motives; to so aggressively pursue a single civil servant, over a period of longer than two years, without relenting even after Wooten was investigated and disciplined, looks a lot like a vendetta.
Personally, I don't think this is a huge deal. It requires a fairly literal parsing of the law to find the governor guilty, and in either case it doesn't strike me as a particularly severe offense. All the same, it seems that governor Palin violated state ethics laws, and at the very least she violated the spirit of the law. The media could possibly have taken a more measured stance in reporting this, but it certainly had to be reported.
Of course, a schizophrenic campaign is partly to blame, but if I recall correctly he was losing well before he started to pander to the base (the palin selection comes to mind). To not shift rightward would have been to concede. The only scenario I can envision in which McCain would have won, ceteris paribus, is if he had started as neo-conservative as he ended up.
your response was measured, and pleasantly free of the vitriol and rhetoric we tend to see whenever these two ideologies collide.
The only issue I want to raise is this:
Once I'm safe....THEN, I'll worry about others.
You could always be safer than you are, and you can never be completely safe (replace "safe" with "comfortable" and the same holds true). Therefore the question becomes, at what point (if any) does the marginal benefit of helping someone else exceed the marginal cost in terms of benefit we forgo for ourselves? For some, the tipping point might be as soon as they can pay their utility bills and rent. For others, it might come once hey can afford a second car and a summer home. For still others, there is no point at which another person's benefit is worth even the smallest self-sacrifice.
I won't paint this as a republican/democratic issue because it's not really that binary. It's simply that people have varying definitions of security, and a man with half what you have might feel safe and prepared to give charitably, while a man with a hundred times what you have might still feel the need for more. When the imbalance can be this vast, perhaps it is time for some type of redistribution to be at least considered.
you're right, I was being overly vitriolic. I think my point stand though.
How about this: You can have something that tells an engaging and meaningful story in a branching [2kgames.com], linear [playthisthing.com], or emergent [interactivestory.net] interactive environment. You can have something that something that makes a satirical [playthisthing.com] or philosophical [sourceforge.net] statement through its mechanics. You can have a game that elegantly tells a science-fiction story [wikipedia.org], simply and unpretentiously.
You're right, and that's what I was trying to say, although I wasn't quite sure how to say it. His claim that all games are immature simply doesn't hold water, precisely because of the examples you cite. So I tried to parse his message further, and based on the ideals he proposed, it seems that he wants products which are not only educational or enlightening, but which also dispense with any pretense of being entertainment. I made the point that these, too, exist.
Maybe I misread the whole thing. It would help if he provided an example including not just the function of his ideal game, but how it would be applied.
I also stand by my parting remark. If the author was criticizing or evaluating a game, that would be swell, but I'm just sick of the meta-commentary is all. It's vague and poorly thought out. I visit these websites to see products examined, or to read interviews with noteworthy personages. Not for lengthy diatribes about the aggregate state of gaming today.
You can have something which is completely utilitarian, which is not a game. These programs exist: Iraqi culture simulations, reflex training programs, etc.
You can also have something which has a sense of whimsy and fun. This is a game, and some of them have the potential to make you think or to awe you with their beauty.
I don't know what the author is bitching about. He wants games without the fun, it would seem; games which take themselves as seriously as he does. Those just aren't games.
He thinks games are a medium on the level of television. This is wrong. The computer is the medium. Games are merely a flavor of program, much as game-shows are flavor of television. Do you expect your game-shows to "progress intellectually" as you age?
Fucking games journalists. Enough pretentious, bullshit opinion pieces. Get back to your fucking jobs.
We tax taxi companies, we tax airlines, we tax plumbers and mechanics, and we tax pizzerias. Probably the Chinese do too. Why wouldn't the same apply to someone whose service is related to a video game?
I would have no problem with that. But since they're trying to apply a specific 20% tax to a specific class of transactions, it becomes necessary to clearly define those transactions. You're right though, it would make much more logical sense to tax this stuff like any other investment income.
I'm curious to see how precisely they define virtual currency. If they're using something like "property which has no physical manifestation, and is not legal tender, but which may be exchanged in certain markets for legal tender", then congratulations china, you just slapped a 20% tax on a whole range of derivatives and options traded in stock markets worldwide. Mind you, not entirely sure I disagree with doing that, in principle anyways.
You're right to address this issue. I'm proud of our health-care system in Canada, but every once in a while a story makes the news about a terminal patient who wants a half-million dollar treatment to potentially extend their lifespan by a year or so. It's a tough one to contemplate, difficult to solidly justify in either direction.
A potential solution might be a physician, elected by other physicians or by the public, who approves or denies treatments over a certain cost on a state-wide basis. These decisions would be made based on medical fact, rather than financial incentives for an insurance company. It's problematic though, and you don't have to look very far to see that.
I still think fewer people suffer under socialized medicine, and if we really want to call ourselves a society, that has to be a high priority.
well if we're talking about emergency rooms, people don't go when it's convenient so much as when they have a fucking emergency .
Even in the case of a trip to the doctor's office, which people will schedule for when it's convenient, the only change would be an increase in demand. Those offices aren't going to vanish simply because somebody else is reimbursing the doctors. So yes, you might have to wait a short time longer to get a check-up, or you might even have to schedule that check-up for the next day. These are small sacrifices, and it seems awfully cold-hearted not to extend care to your fellow man on the grounds that it will be mildly inconvenient.
for Obama, taxes also includes monies the government pays out.
Don't worry, I'm not American so I won't be voting uninformed today. I was just hoping you could explain this to me, since I hadn't heard of it before.
I don't doubt that they CAN kick people just for the fuck of it. ITT we illustrate that we won't fucking stand for it. I'm done with this company now and forever.
"I'm just looking forward to when the data gets lost."
From the summary of that post. 3 hours ago.
...Holy Crap.
We know they're abusing their power. We know that they're incompetent!
And it never changes! It just happens again and again and again!
I don't know whether to laugh or cry or scream or kill or just give up anymore. I just don't know.
Slashdot Mirror
He got modded +5, so can we please lay this tired meme to rest? nobody thinks what you imply they do.
amendments 4, 6, 7 and 9 have been blown to shit, just off the top of my head.
It's a ridiculous document either way, and frankly I'm tired of hearing about it.
When a company wants to convince me that I want something, I prefer that they have as little knowledge of my psychology as possible. I'm not abnormally gullible, but I do know that we can all be manipulated to some degree.
politically naive? This has nothing to do with politics in any sense and everything to do with entrepreneurship. She intends to find something which will allow one company to prevail, and then make a shitload of money before releasing that information.
She might claim moral high-ground in front of the press, but it's patently obvious that this is about money, pure and simple. Issues of politics are 100% irrelevant.
The technology, known as the Windows Device Driver Model, or WDDM, was dropped in part because a widely used Intel "915 chipset" would not support it,
I'm not very knowledgeable technically so that's all I can tell you
But really, if its no the intelligent, wealthy population of the planet [...]
Wealthy, sure, but intelligent? Don't get ahead of yourself.
fuel expenditure is not constant, I think takeoff requires a significant energy investment. By increasing the distance traveled, you divide that investment across a greater distance, increasing efficiency.
what's wrong with texting?
8 of the top 20 highest US box office grosses in history are from movies released in the past five years. I won't say the industry hasn't contracted, but that metric suggests to me it isn't in any serious trouble.
The industry (your industry, I'm assuming) has indulged in decadence for so long, they seem to have forgotten that movies don't need to cost 500 000 000 to make. That's why they're bleeding cash, in my opinion.
I've skimmed parts of the first report, so let me give this a shot, and if I'm missing something feel free to let me know.
The report states that the firing of Commissioner Monegan was perfectly legal on the grounds that Alaskan law states that department heads "serve at the pleasure of the governor" and therefore can be terminated without justification. So nothing illegal there.
The alleged abuses, however, don't really have to do with the firings. The report found that in pressuring Monegan and other subordinates to fire Wooten, governor Palin engaged in "official action by her inaction if not her participation" contrary to AS 39.52.110(a) of the ethics act.
She was legally allowed to fire Wooten. She was not legally allowed to pressure her subordinates in order to advance her personal agenda. The key distinction to take away from this is that even if she hadn't fired anyone, she would still have violated state ethics laws.
Of course, this is contingent on the assumption that the governor wanted Wooten fired for personal reasons, and not because she genuinely felt his employment was detrimental to the state of Alaska. I didn't pore through all the evidence in even the one report I looked at, so I can't make any sort of definitive judgment here, but the extraordinary perseverance by the governor and her husband to have Wooten fired suggest personal motives; to so aggressively pursue a single civil servant, over a period of longer than two years, without relenting even after Wooten was investigated and disciplined, looks a lot like a vendetta.
Personally, I don't think this is a huge deal. It requires a fairly literal parsing of the law to find the governor guilty, and in either case it doesn't strike me as a particularly severe offense. All the same, it seems that governor Palin violated state ethics laws, and at the very least she violated the spirit of the law. The media could possibly have taken a more measured stance in reporting this, but it certainly had to be reported.
Of course, a schizophrenic campaign is partly to blame, but if I recall correctly he was losing well before he started to pander to the base (the palin selection comes to mind). To not shift rightward would have been to concede. The only scenario I can envision in which McCain would have won, ceteris paribus, is if he had started as neo-conservative as he ended up.
The only issue I want to raise is this:
Once I'm safe....THEN, I'll worry about others.
You could always be safer than you are, and you can never be completely safe (replace "safe" with "comfortable" and the same holds true). Therefore the question becomes, at what point (if any) does the marginal benefit of helping someone else exceed the marginal cost in terms of benefit we forgo for ourselves? For some, the tipping point might be as soon as they can pay their utility bills and rent. For others, it might come once hey can afford a second car and a summer home. For still others, there is no point at which another person's benefit is worth even the smallest self-sacrifice.
I won't paint this as a republican/democratic issue because it's not really that binary. It's simply that people have varying definitions of security, and a man with half what you have might feel safe and prepared to give charitably, while a man with a hundred times what you have might still feel the need for more. When the imbalance can be this vast, perhaps it is time for some type of redistribution to be at least considered.
caustic horse laugh?
How about this: You can have something that tells an engaging and meaningful story in a branching [2kgames.com], linear [playthisthing.com], or emergent [interactivestory.net] interactive environment. You can have something that something that makes a satirical [playthisthing.com] or philosophical [sourceforge.net] statement through its mechanics. You can have a game that elegantly tells a science-fiction story [wikipedia.org], simply and unpretentiously.
You're right, and that's what I was trying to say, although I wasn't quite sure how to say it. His claim that all games are immature simply doesn't hold water, precisely because of the examples you cite. So I tried to parse his message further, and based on the ideals he proposed, it seems that he wants products which are not only educational or enlightening, but which also dispense with any pretense of being entertainment. I made the point that these, too, exist.
Maybe I misread the whole thing. It would help if he provided an example including not just the function of his ideal game, but how it would be applied.
I also stand by my parting remark. If the author was criticizing or evaluating a game, that would be swell, but I'm just sick of the meta-commentary is all. It's vague and poorly thought out. I visit these websites to see products examined, or to read interviews with noteworthy personages. Not for lengthy diatribes about the aggregate state of gaming today.
dude I was so going to quote Ico. Also, Shadow of the Colossus.
this thing sucks because it is not some other thing.
You can have something which is completely utilitarian, which is not a game. These programs exist: Iraqi culture simulations, reflex training programs, etc.
You can also have something which has a sense of whimsy and fun. This is a game, and some of them have the potential to make you think or to awe you with their beauty.
I don't know what the author is bitching about. He wants games without the fun, it would seem; games which take themselves as seriously as he does. Those just aren't games.
He thinks games are a medium on the level of television. This is wrong. The computer is the medium. Games are merely a flavor of program, much as game-shows are flavor of television. Do you expect your game-shows to "progress intellectually" as you age?
Fucking games journalists. Enough pretentious, bullshit opinion pieces. Get back to your fucking jobs.
We tax taxi companies, we tax airlines, we tax plumbers and mechanics, and we tax pizzerias. Probably the Chinese do too. Why wouldn't the same apply to someone whose service is related to a video game?
I would have no problem with that. But since they're trying to apply a specific 20% tax to a specific class of transactions, it becomes necessary to clearly define those transactions. You're right though, it would make much more logical sense to tax this stuff like any other investment income.
I'm curious to see how precisely they define virtual currency. If they're using something like "property which has no physical manifestation, and is not legal tender, but which may be exchanged in certain markets for legal tender", then congratulations china, you just slapped a 20% tax on a whole range of derivatives and options traded in stock markets worldwide. Mind you, not entirely sure I disagree with doing that, in principle anyways.
You're right to address this issue. I'm proud of our health-care system in Canada, but every once in a while a story makes the news about a terminal patient who wants a half-million dollar treatment to potentially extend their lifespan by a year or so. It's a tough one to contemplate, difficult to solidly justify in either direction.
A potential solution might be a physician, elected by other physicians or by the public, who approves or denies treatments over a certain cost on a state-wide basis. These decisions would be made based on medical fact, rather than financial incentives for an insurance company. It's problematic though, and you don't have to look very far to see that.
I still think fewer people suffer under socialized medicine, and if we really want to call ourselves a society, that has to be a high priority.
lol better service at circuit city.
Your point is solid though, I just thought that part was funny.
well if we're talking about emergency rooms, people don't go when it's convenient so much as when they have a fucking emergency .
Even in the case of a trip to the doctor's office, which people will schedule for when it's convenient, the only change would be an increase in demand. Those offices aren't going to vanish simply because somebody else is reimbursing the doctors. So yes, you might have to wait a short time longer to get a check-up, or you might even have to schedule that check-up for the next day. These are small sacrifices, and it seems awfully cold-hearted not to extend care to your fellow man on the grounds that it will be mildly inconvenient.
for Obama, taxes also includes monies the government pays out.
Don't worry, I'm not American so I won't be voting uninformed today. I was just hoping you could explain this to me, since I hadn't heard of it before.
I don't doubt that they CAN kick people just for the fuck of it. ITT we illustrate that we won't fucking stand for it. I'm done with this company now and forever.
engine breaking is not bad for the car in anyway.
and porcelain breaking is not bad for plates.
"I'm just looking forward to when the data gets lost."
From the summary of that post. 3 hours ago.
...Holy Crap.
We know they're abusing their power. We know that they're incompetent!
And it never changes! It just happens again and again and again!
I don't know whether to laugh or cry or scream or kill or just give up anymore. I just don't know.