AFAIK the US recruted scientists from the "Buran"-project (the russian shuttle) to upgrade their own technology
Wrong. The US uses their rocket scientists to keep them from seeking employment from less savory nations who might want experienced rocket scientists to help them lob things halfway around the world. The entire International Space Station is, IMHO, a jobs program for unemployed Russian space scientists. Well, maybe not the whole thing....
I live in Texas, and need an affordable way to cool the wort during brewing (and this is especially important for lager) On the upside, the temperature is dropping so it is brew time now! Woohoo!
the rich are wasting vast amounts of the country's money on useless trinkets
First of all, what do I care what rich folk do with their money? In fact, I was just thinking the other day how I could manage to liberate these rich from large quantities of their money in exchange for various goods and services that most people would pass up as extravogent. What happens to me in this hypothetical sense and what happens in a very real sense every day is that those trinket buying rich generate jobs and wealth in the areas they buy in. Just go around to various "antique shops" around small towns and you will see how old crap that is nothing but rotted trash becomes a prized treasure for various buyers. That may seem silly (and to me it is) yet it is part of a healthy economy.
No one was forced to buy those trinkets. However, I noticed that you used the phrase "...of the country's money..." and was curious what you meant. Are you suggesting that these rich are somehow stealing from others and using it to line their mansions with anything from the used underwear of Elvis to 1200 foot dog houses stocked full of steak for their little barking rats they call dogs? Perhaps they are using tax money for this somehow? If so, then by all means that should be pursued and prosecuted with the upmost vigilence.
This is most unsettling so please let us all know how the US's money is being wasted on useless trinkets. I am sure that all here are thoughtful folk who understand that the best way to limit that theft and spending is to limit the powers that allow it to exist in the first place. Instead of writing laws or consitutions that say, "And congress shall have the power to buy things that are cool and hip with the public" perhaps we should look into something that is better engineered and learns from the successes and mistakes of history. Those lessons teach us that the very power we use to control others is the same power used to control us. Thus the idea of limited government was formed to preserve a healthy country founded upon liberty, not on class hatred that is self mutilating. One only has to go as far back as the 16th amendment and the events/environment leading up to its ratification to see that something borne of hatred and lust burns only us and not the ones we lash out against. Before it was even through both houses, the uber-rich of the time had already created various engines that allowed exemptions and exceptions to their lifestyles that were just not possible to the average, much less poor citizen.
So, from someone who wishes to see his area grow in prosperity and the country's poor to prosper I would ask that you find another vent for your hatred and malice as it will only do the poor harm.
The ONLY problem I have with the rich and their extravagencies is when such spending overtakes their good sense and they allow hypocrisy to control their outward activities and movements. Next thing you know, we are all told it is our duty under the flag to support various special interests with our own hard earned cash. Can't these pampered, priveledged brats use their own money instead? What happened to voluntary contributions? Hint: If spending is justified as being "what the people" want and yet falls within the area of what people can do themselves, then why is that spending necessary? Should Congress pass laws that pay government workers to bath you and feed you? If you have an itch on your leg, should you call the government to send a social worker to scratch it for you?
In the time of the 16th amendment the saying was "soak the rich." I wonder what stupid, self harming catch-phrase will be used these days? "For the Children" seems to no longer be the vogue thing to say, so it will be interesting to see what logic-trumping chant pops up next.
Letting companies go willy nilly has been the destruction of the internet and is what allows spam. Our backbone internet providers enter secret agreements with spammers and provide them havens. I say we need to outlaw this crap and this is the easiest way to deal with it. There is absolutely no constitutional argument against this, either.
Does the same thing happen with the Postal Service? Is it legal? Should it not be?
I agree that the law has not addressed the spam problem, but consider this. If theives break into your home often and vandalize your property and threaten your life and often among the thieves are professional locksmiths, is the solution to make locksmithing illegal and ban its training? Or is the problem the thief?
I personally think that spam is invasion of privacy or trespassing just like if a salesman bothers an office or home with a sign clearly stating "NO SOLICITING." There are methods to advertise through opt-in lists or just regular banners and so forth without resorting to forcing it on you. Perhaps "new" laws are not the answer but just enforcing the ones we already have is.
As for your statement about comparing highways to information pathways that is like comparing the printing press to a car. Not an entirely unaccurate comparison, but we are getting dangerously close to confusing commerce with freedom of speech. By forcing the filtration compliance of edge devices, the pattern is brought to light of using those very laws to decide what is "appropriate" for all Americans.
Punish the spammers, not the spam victims. I don't want to be "safe" from spam at the expense of having information filtered by some bureaucrats in DC anymore than I would want my choice of doctor, gun, book, or method of opinion expression dictated by someone else.
Perhaps it can be treated like a security accreditation. Known spammers and spam "locations" can be published allowing for sites to filter at will. If you want to keep that accreditation you will comply, but then there are always other accreditations to get that don't include those sites.
Since we all know how efficient and effective the government is in micromanaging things like this I guess the question is: do you want solutions or loopholes? BTW, why must it be the Federal government that does this? And since when was "its happening" mean "its constitutional?"
without advocating any and all spam-fighting measures I should point out that your second solution is outside the role of the United States Government. If the US gov wants to put such filters and blocks on their own gateways then they are more than welcome too. However, as the US is not China the gateway routers are not owned by the government and can not be treated as such. Companies will have to clue in here.
well its good that one game will improve hearing since perhaps the loss of eyesight will not be so bad. Maybe this game idea can be put into a DareDevil franchise release.
I think your post hits the spot. I have observed for example in the arena of electronic gaming that anyone who calls negative attention (or even just makes the observation) to a game taking 2 to 3 patches just to become relatively stable or that only meets about 2/3 of the features is flamed as a troll. Fanboys have choked out the real fans it seems and any demand of quality has thus been choked out by a crowd that is willing to pay 50 dollars for crap. Many of these games are trully frustrating because in playing them (or just in reading the FAQ's and features lists) you realize how good it CAN be if a bit more attention is paid to quality and implementing the features they said they would. (often also when the assortment of game data file readers come out you can see how they did indeed start to implement the lusted after but missing features yet cut them)
The perceived mentality is that instead of these games being designed and implemented with filling a niche in mind, they simply threw in crowd pleasers to attract a larger market. This is of course the fault of the consumer. Consumers often forget that they vote with their feet and if they shell out the scratch for crap then they both give a vote of confidence for that type of game as well as that type of development method (throwing in useless crowd pleasing crap).
Next you come to the stability of the game. How frustrating it is to have your game crash every 5 to 10 minutes, lose saved games or have to reinstall your entire OS to "get it working" is only superceeded by the fanboy responses you get if you ask for help often. People will just mouth things like "your video card sucks, buy a better one" even if your video card does in fact not seem to exhibit problems with other games. It is a straw man argument given that your hardware is to blame and no fault lies with the software developer. Granted there are times (ATI) when either the hardware or drivers are really just sub-par (going back to this argument anyway) in which case contacting them will get a finger pointed right back at the software developer. (One example is Neverwinter Nights and ATI cards)
A common situation given that a game is both buggy or just does not do what it said it would do is where the effort seems to be placed by the developer into adding more chrome and not fixing or stabilizing the existing chrome or feature set. However, the non entertainment portions of the software industry do nothing different so I should not expect too much from various software pieces. I always try to wait for reviews these products first but sometimes I will admit I don't do a good job. However sometime it is hard to find quality reviews whether because of the unethical selling out of reviewers or simply just a lack of professional objectivity. With games, what will always stick out in my mind as how reviews can be so unreliable is the reviews of Ultima Ascension (or 9). I have always loved Ultima and realized I had high expectations at first. However my expectations were dashed merely be seeing the lack of fan and customer commitment by EA for this game and what info we did get was rather scary. 6 years development time resulted in a game that was largely unplayable. I won't go into the discontinuity of story, lack of good gameplay, weak story and overall disappointment when compared to other Ultimas (and considering this was the last one) but just by focusing on in game play, stability and quality it was a pile of dung. I forget how many patches it took to become a bit playable but it was by no surprise a group of dedicated fans that wrote a final patch that helped the stability the most. (at least it made it so that it would play for more than 15 minutes without locking up the entire system or exiting) Of course some other good folks also released various mods to the dialog and some other elements (if I remember correctly) that made the game feel more immersive and more Ultima-like.
and that is also why we get so many cookie cutter games as well, IMHO. It is rather amusing to watch some brand new type of game that so many publishers openly scoff at to bring in the hoards of money and then 2 years later you have 30 versions of that game with only names and some art differentiated. Look at how (like it or not) so many of the MMOG's are just clones. The producers say, "no we will not put X in, because consumers do not like X."
I figure we need to get some good investors (as in stock market and such) to help clue in the suits as to the difference between high, mid and low risk ventures. If they want big dividends then they had best avoid the current trend as market saturation will kill any good profits. They have in the past successfully banked upon the mentality of "gotta have all the latest gadgets" that many had during hmmm... the dot com era. Other than teenagers who have parental units that believe in parenting through the random shelling out of cash an items, I think there are not that many around who will snatch up all the games as before.
Going back to investment theory, it seems to me that unlike low risk/stable stocks there is no real long term for games. MMOG's one were thought to have this potential but seeing how much money they daily pour into those scares some off. (however, MMOG's are the trend now apparently) Eventually a really good MMORPG will come out and through its compelling and unique environment draw away a lot of business from the other games. Sad thing is, then those other games will migrate over to the new one instead of wisely focusing on niches and doing what you do best (don't try to be a bit good to everyone, be the best to some)
back during the Ultima Online beta many expressed distaste of EA's customer support. Many places detail the treatment of testers then customers (or rather just the way that known bugs were ignored in favor of "enhancements" and extensions). EQ came along and many jumped ship (or Captained both... must live on that planet with 36 hour days and only 4 hours of sleep). After the honeymoon was over however, many reported that the customer service showed signs it was flat out sick of dealing with its customers. I feel sympothy for them but they should be professional. I and my wife decided we would like to get back into the game of MMOG so I did a bit of research at that time on the various MMOG's out then. What I came across was a varied array of horror stories dealing all with customer service. I read about how players had their accounts suspended and then terminated often when they were actually the victim of hacking attacks. (it was hard to filter through the BS, but some presented their cases very well to include providing what evidence they had and Verant/SOE responses.
I was warned by some that in the unlikely event that my account was somehow compromised through no fault or negligence of my own then by reporting it there was a high probability that my account would be permanently deleted. I thought that was odd and so decided to verify the policy with Sony.
Looking online at their site, I did multiple searches through the knowledge available and perused everything from the FAQ's and posted legal mumbo jumbo. However, it appeared that all that was ever mentioned was, "We are not responsible for securing your computer or network." OK, that doesn't sound unreasonable at all. However, past experience also knew that this could easily be just an ambigious coverall attempt to justify stupid decisions upon their part. I needed hard facts so why not ask their friendly customer service reps (that was before the trend to call it "customer care" appeared I believe).
What happened next seemed at first to be sadly just another fine example of dealing with customer service and tech support today. I first stated my question. Then stated after that more specifics about it, including what I was NOT asking. I also pointed out clearly at the beginning that I had read as much info as I could find on their site and included the relevant FAQ portions that I felt did not fully answer my question. First response back? Noise. It appeared that an automated system went through and mined my question with the customer rep only reading the scripts output. He responded that I look at the FAQ and restated what I myself had quoted in my email regarding their "responsibility." (BTW, my questions were basically "If I take precautions of firewall, anti virus, spyware checking, yadda yadda yadda, what would happen if someone somehow managed to crack my account?" and also "In such a case as this, would Verant and SOE's policy allow banning of the victim's (me) account?")
I responded with a generic statement up front of "please read this email in its entirety as the original query was not addressed" and proceeded to then quote my original question. I really could not think of another way to post it.
This time it seems he read a bit more. He then proceeded to quote from the FAQ how each banning case goes through a review process... yet did not say that it was possible. Time for response numero dos.
This time he addressed the portion of my query about the compromised account review policy... but still did not give a concrete answer as to whether their policy allowed them to ban the victims account. (I had explicitly asked this every time). Well I guess I will fire up another response.
This time I apparently had worn him down a bit (and I refrained from calling him a turdstain or anything else like that) and he testily responded that the security of the accounts was solely the responsibility of the user. He then seemed to use his own words to paraphrase the parts of the FAQ about, "don't give yo
Meanwhile in Crime news...
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Gas Goes Solid
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the European chapter of "Overeaters Anonymous" is still missing. The group was on its annual "Purge Fest" that served both as a reward for previous successful weight loss as well as a sort of "marti gras of eating" as the chaiman of this year's 500 member even told reporters. Apparently it was common practice to not just eat glutonous foods in general but to pick an assortment of foods that would result in discomfort, bloating and any of a number of specific "negative" side effects in order to psychologically set the stage for the next weeks beginning of "No-Crunch time." No-Crunch time is the crucible where only water and the barest of essential nutrients are combined with rigorous exercise resulting in a raised metabolism and raised awareness of how you can indeed conquer your eating disorder with the help of your bretheren.
This years splurge was titled "Legion of Legumes" which would seem to explain why the members were last seen entering "Boha's Bean Paradise" in the outskirts of Tokyo wearing shirts with "Flatus is Fortuitus" and "Beano is for Whimps."
Heck, I say just embed them in those little plastic shoot-thru thingies (Red or Blue for emphasis) and label them "RFID". Then they'd be useful for inventory, and everyone would remove them after purchase. Why do they have to be part of the clothing?
Where have you been? Surely you see how current fashion trends are to replay much of the 70's so why not expect a revival of wearing tags on your clothes? Minnie Pearl did it, then later all the homies did it! Perhaps the techno aspects of this will in itself be part of the fashion somehow.
BTW, this is a joke moderators don't mod things unless you read it all.
I think that many on both "sides" see this and many other problems involving conflict and potential conflict as being the result of willful and evil acts against others. Take the person who is driving around town and is playing with their radio when they should be watching the road... LOOK OUT! Oh no, you just ran into a parked car. That is negligence. Malevolence would be if you purposely hit the car for any reason.
Perhaps this is similar to your definition of trust. Do you trust strangers? You shouldn't and here's why. Trust is a state earned by those who demonstrate a consistency of action and intent that is in the best interest of what you consider good. That may be you at the top of the chain (with most people it is) or it may be the organization you are in or just other people in general around you. If you refer to someone as a "good person" with the justification of "he/she is nice to me" when it is plainly obvious that said person is an ass to everyone else... that says a lot about your ethos and trust. This mentality plays out in views of government as well, sadly.
Would you trust a child with a grenade? Then why trust the government with your private life and liberties? The child is not evil, just incompetent. I work with many government employees and I can tell you that it is not the ethical and hard working ones that are decision makers. Perhaps by being burned out or just because their "any casualty is acceptable in my climb up the ladder" mentality set them as a kindred spirit to those that hire and promote... who knows? The result is an environment that promotes sloth and blind bureacracy over real quality of results. This is how you get screwed.
"You can trust them, they are from the government." Based on what criteria do they filter out the self serving? What makes me say, "Yes, this is an organization that requires and encourages ethical and professional behavior"? Just because their paycheck comes directly from the department of Treasury does not make them trustworthy. No thanks, I will reserve my trust to those I have seen demonstate that they have earned it.
you make a good point. I would point out myself that perhaps you should have left out the all encompasing "You have nothing to fear if you are not doing anything wrong" part at the end. Sure, most would see that as the major theme of your post and I agree that way too many become emotional over this when they are not really sure why. Take the war in Iraq as an example: there are some very good reasons (as in logic and reason) out there to why we should not have invaded even covering if Sadam indeed has full working WMD with delivery systems. Things to ponder which I did and felt that a) those points are now obviously academic and b) I didn't feel they trumped the current situation completely. Either way, you will not hear those points made much at all if any unless you go to the right places. Most people are of the "no blood for oil" type; which does nothing but attract other mindless sheep and certainly does not enlighten. The vast majority of the vocal public are also nationlistic "go team" oriented so that they will conveniently filter any reality down to only the parts they feel justify their current positions and then present those as the ONLY facts in existence. This is an extension of the sports fan mentality that causes anything from barroom brawls to full stampedes that kill and maim for life simply over a F'ing GAME.
I applaud your method of pointing out some bits of critical thought and inspiring others to do the same, at least in the first 3/4 of your post. I don't really see that much of a problem with someone working hard to get to my private life, surpassing safeguards I have and keeping a record of me and my activities... or do I? I think what many feel is that the "illegal search and seizure" is related to how we correspond first and then more weakly to how we do business and play. Logic dictates that we observe the reality of situations and those things that are simply a "given" (those that we cannot change). Credit records are one of those. However, ledgers of purchase activity are not in any way new. 100 years ago, what would have been the attitude towards the government arbitrarily (i.e. without warrant or rather 'A' warrant) searching through private company/organization records on individuals in order to find any potential threats to what is labled as national security? What about the same but done by private individuals and organizations/companies? I would guess about the same as now, a mixed bag of about the same proportions (and equally due to a mixture of willful ignorance, emotional reactions and sheepish self-slavery mentality).
I guess the question is this: If we take the attitude of not bothering to cover our tracks of things that simply are too "easy" to observe because they are too easy to observe then should we prepare ourselves to not being too surprised when that information is used against us? As I said in the beginning, basically what the theme is that I am getting from your post is "if you are not doing anything wrong then you have nothing to fear." Yet WRONG is the problem here. The framers of the Declaration of Independance, Constitution and specifically the Bill of Rights knew that it is a dangerous gamble to allow the government the freedom to declare what is right and wrong... too much, keep in mind. Murder, theft, etc... yet those fall under the premise of "do what you will as long as you do not infringe upon somone elses private ability to do as they will." If I want to kick someones ass then I will damn well have to find someone willing to let me beat on them. Forcing myself upon someone does away with their desire to NOT be assaulted (and I stand a good chance in a healthily armed and trained populace of getting my own clocked cleaned out).
The argument of "people can have too much freedom" which I have heard myself on occassion is a sad way of saying "you owe the state." These people who say such are self described conservatives who haven't realized that such sentiment is what socialism is based upon.
to add my own bit (a small bit at that) to what you said, I think that it is interesting that these myopic MBA's simply do not understand investment theory. You do NOT go into a high risk investment venture without being able to loose ALL the money you are putting in, much like any gambling. They take this wisdom and try to cram it into mid and long term investment as well. I would on one hand never expect a company like General Mills to go outside of its very stable market for some large hair brained idea. It is simply not what they do. However, setting up a venture capitalist subsidiary or fund would allow them to use a portion of their massive, stable capital inside a "disposable" safety box (like what a bomb squad will place a potential bomb into whilst the robot sadly pokes and prods it (poor robot:)). If it bombs then it does not affect the rest of the business.
These MBA's should not apply the same frightened-schoolgirl strategies to every market. If they want to be in a more stable market, then get into precious metals and groceries. They should then proceed to do so, IMHO as quickly as possible to make room for those with vision backed with a bit of greed.
or that is what they say, however I am laughing my butt off from what you wrote! Thanks for the laughs but if I see you I will punch you in the face for making me spit up my drink! Hahaha, keep it coming
Hello, this is Bill *slight static**Hello, _Mr or Mrs. Bill Gatees_, this is a reminder of your friendly authorities* Ummm, its Gates, G, A, T... *It has come to our attention that your software is sold not on the basis of quality and efficiency but through manipulation of the sheepish masses and equally sheepish decision makers.* Look, if this is about those Halloween papers, I can explain... you see I have this ferret... *It is also known that your software causes millions in lost annual revenue and is a playground for both virus and cracker alike. Your policy of taking existing or emerging standards and adjusting them so that no choice is available to the user, administrator or developer goes against the innovative nature of the USA.* Well, you see we at Microsoft call that "embrace and extend." By focusing the majority of our energies upon marketing and legal we are able to put just the right spin... I mean "angular momentum" upon the issues people never knew they were interested in. Furthermore, our latest.NET intitiative uses... *_Mr. or Mrs. Gatees*, you are hereby ordered to, for the first time in your history to actually INNOVATE and come up with SOLUTIONS that people and business needs and by playing in this wonderful game of Free Market Capitalism you increase both the wealth and productivity/output of the nation and thus increase prosperity for not just our great nation but the whole world* Ummm, did I mention I am the richest man in the world. Logically I am thus right in everything I have done, or at least more than anyone else before. *slight pause**Bitch, please**slight pause**that is illogical and proves that not only must you not be the best to be the richest but you prove how stupid people are that blindly support you when you kick them**slight pause**As I was saying...* HEY! You responded to my speech, this isn't just a recording. You use speech recognition and lexical parsing... and it works! Who wrote you and your underlying system environment? **HAAAHAAAHAAAHAAA***Obvsiously not anyone you employ**Ahem**As I was droning, you are hereby ordered to actually compete by having a superior product, not tricky advertising, shady deals or hypocritical patent lawsuits. If you wish to live off the fruits of our society and economy than you too must till the soil and grow your own orchards instead of buying up some farms and burning the rest. You will be spammed with this message at an increasing frequency up to and to include once every 5 minutes if you do not begin to compete in the marketplace.* You have no idea what you are suggesting. How will you enforce this? *By first eliminating the government mandated monopolies of your software inside the government and eliminating those who obviously have no business making purchasing or architecture decisions in the government and contracting arenas. Then the natural order of thigns will progress, resulting in your worst nightmare... an informed and quality conscious minded consumer base.* NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOO! *HAAHAAHAAHAA**I love my thread execution space* (job, btw)
as someone pointed out before that in 1918 we fought to bring about democracy to the world... yet it also empowered the Nazi's, the Chinese and the Soviets.
The thing is, how could it have been done better? In order to learn you have to ask that, but yet even in hindsight it is hard to really get a clear and consistent answer. One that is not trumped by other more probable events from the change of action. Great sci-fi fodder, but it is still the ol' chain of consequences like the single flipping of a coin causing 1 million people to die later on. (btw, if a butterfly flapping its wings can cause a hurricane then some of my flatulence has GOT to have caused some of the big solar flares last solar max:)
Yes, I am kidding... don't over analyze this please.
I should point out that as a Christian I am appalled not only at actions performed erroneously in the name of Christ, God or whatever... but tend to agree with the saying that nothing has intereferred more with the relationship between Man and God than organized religion. I respect your decisions but ask that you reflect on truth and facts not necessarily the ramblings of anyone for or against certain faiths (including myself).
Remember that "religion" can cover just about any mindless obedience of policy and rules including government and choice of programming language (if you have never seen a flame war between VB folk and well... anyone else then you should search out some on the web (note I hate VB but am not an "anti-VB" zealot either)). If a very non faith or diety based "religion" popped up today involving the purification of our bodies and lives by not eating meat, not smoking or drinking, and making sure we had the absolute best in hygiene habits and quickly got out of control (over 100 years) would it be fair to say that anyone who for personal reasons did not drink or smoke and excercised regularly was a mindless puppet or was bad? Not unless he supported the negative actions of the new "religion." More importantly, if hygiene and sanitation is touted as the upmost of importance for life by these zealots yet they employ chemical and biological weapons to further their cause then wouldn't you say they themselves are not following the faith?
The key point is that you can get this murderous, mindless zeal with or without any particular faith system. The majority of people are too lazy to ever stop and think for themselves as critical thought, independent analysis and personal responsibility are frightening to them. An example is how you will find the very religious group of "anti-religious" (or better, "anti-Christian") self labled scientific community and its followers that so eagerly bash any Christian as an illogical, mindless simpleton yet will blindly follow the "scientific facts" that they themselves have neither proved much less even known the people who made them. I have never understood why so many see science as in competition with faith. To me, science is the explanation of how the universe that God created actually works. (I base my distaste of most theories of evolution and thus apart from adaptation based really upon scientific knowledge and personal distrust of those who shove such outlandish theories down our throuts) Nothing beats the zeal of theorists who will refuse to observe facts that may interfere with their biased opinions. Science is great if followed correctly and used to discover knowledge therefore an ethical scientist will when asked about religion admit if his knowledge of religious text is from manuscript and word of mouth or by understanding of its meaning. Thusly he/she will admit that there are theories then there are proven facts and that even the best mathematical theorem is merely an abstraction of reality and subject to error and thus to emotional zeal from its "faithful believers." We could easily have a religion of science you know... Stupid is stupid, regardless of what Stupid's underlying justifications are.
Actually, didn't BioWare strip the on-disc copy protection from NeverWinter Nights?
That's been a pretty good seller for them, I understand.
And now from my post in the above was a reply to:
I know this has been done with various levels of success in the past but it just seems that this here is a major focus. Furthermore I know that it is relatively easy to obtain cracks and images to download from various sites yet the issue here is one of business confidence.
Actually the history of that game was indeed a lesson that many should learn: most copy protection schemes do little but punish the honest and law abiding consumers. The game had MANY problems that after multiple patches it was confirmed that the SecureROM method used (if I remember correctly) was basically a piece of crap.
I am not saying "I hope it doesn't work out" and am not saying that it has not worked in the past... what I _AM_ saying is that due to the (from this post) focus upon the LACK of copy protection of any form then the results will be watched much more closely and used as fodder for various arguments more than other games in the past. I just hope that the end result is not more fuel for the argument of all games requiring copy protection. Or put another way, I do not appreciate copy protection interfering with my code or as a consumer with my game. Why spend all that time optimizing software that is brought to its knees from a "protection" scheme.
Any message aimed at rhetorical spewing (for justifications) thieves is not intended as this is only a focus on my hopes for the results.
I thought of throwing in NWN specifically but was lazy with my coverall... oh well, what are ya gonna do?
I really would like to see this system work for them but am afraid that it could possibly blow up in their face. This would not only be bad as it would punish them for placing trust in consumers but would only serve to give valuable ammunition to those that wish to eliminate fair use. Other companies would surely not ever dare such a thing any more than they would attempt to have a product based business model and then open source. (A service model CAN work with this assuming, like any business that there aren't incompetents running the show). I know this has been done with various levels of success in the past but it just seems that this here is a major focus. Furthermore I know that it is relatively easy to obtain cracks and images to download from various sites yet the issue here is one of business confidence.
On another related issue, I am hoping that the "Internet distribution business model" starts showing a more vibrant show of support soon. The ability to save money by taking out the middleman is just about always wanted. Add to that the possibility of increasing quality and diversity of games by reducing the groupthink draconian measures from the publisher. Every little bit helps I suppose.
a bit off topic I realize, but just the thought of possibilities of creating virtual worlds much like someone would mod a game just makes me want to dive right into my simulation books... well right after I play a bit more MOO III.
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Wrong. The US uses their rocket scientists to keep them from seeking employment from less savory nations who might want experienced rocket scientists to help them lob things halfway around the world. The entire International Space Station is, IMHO, a jobs program for unemployed Russian space scientists. Well, maybe not the whole thing....
I live in Texas, and need an affordable way to cool the wort during brewing (and this is especially important for lager) On the upside, the temperature is dropping so it is brew time now! Woohoo!
No one was forced to buy those trinkets. However, I noticed that you used the phrase "...of the country's money..." and was curious what you meant. Are you suggesting that these rich are somehow stealing from others and using it to line their mansions with anything from the used underwear of Elvis to 1200 foot dog houses stocked full of steak for their little barking rats they call dogs? Perhaps they are using tax money for this somehow? If so, then by all means that should be pursued and prosecuted with the upmost vigilence.
This is most unsettling so please let us all know how the US's money is being wasted on useless trinkets. I am sure that all here are thoughtful folk who understand that the best way to limit that theft and spending is to limit the powers that allow it to exist in the first place. Instead of writing laws or consitutions that say, "And congress shall have the power to buy things that are cool and hip with the public" perhaps we should look into something that is better engineered and learns from the successes and mistakes of history. Those lessons teach us that the very power we use to control others is the same power used to control us. Thus the idea of limited government was formed to preserve a healthy country founded upon liberty, not on class hatred that is self mutilating. One only has to go as far back as the 16th amendment and the events/environment leading up to its ratification to see that something borne of hatred and lust burns only us and not the ones we lash out against. Before it was even through both houses, the uber-rich of the time had already created various engines that allowed exemptions and exceptions to their lifestyles that were just not possible to the average, much less poor citizen.
So, from someone who wishes to see his area grow in prosperity and the country's poor to prosper I would ask that you find another vent for your hatred and malice as it will only do the poor harm.
The ONLY problem I have with the rich and their extravagencies is when such spending overtakes their good sense and they allow hypocrisy to control their outward activities and movements. Next thing you know, we are all told it is our duty under the flag to support various special interests with our own hard earned cash. Can't these pampered, priveledged brats use their own money instead? What happened to voluntary contributions? Hint: If spending is justified as being "what the people" want and yet falls within the area of what people can do themselves, then why is that spending necessary? Should Congress pass laws that pay government workers to bath you and feed you? If you have an itch on your leg, should you call the government to send a social worker to scratch it for you?
In the time of the 16th amendment the saying was "soak the rich." I wonder what stupid, self harming catch-phrase will be used these days? "For the Children" seems to no longer be the vogue thing to say, so it will be interesting to see what logic-trumping chant pops up next.
unveiling from my AC cloak
Does the same thing happen with the Postal Service? Is it legal? Should it not be?
I agree that the law has not addressed the spam problem, but consider this. If theives break into your home often and vandalize your property and threaten your life and often among the thieves are professional locksmiths, is the solution to make locksmithing illegal and ban its training? Or is the problem the thief?
I personally think that spam is invasion of privacy or trespassing just like if a salesman bothers an office or home with a sign clearly stating "NO SOLICITING." There are methods to advertise through opt-in lists or just regular banners and so forth without resorting to forcing it on you. Perhaps "new" laws are not the answer but just enforcing the ones we already have is.
As for your statement about comparing highways to information pathways that is like comparing the printing press to a car. Not an entirely unaccurate comparison, but we are getting dangerously close to confusing commerce with freedom of speech. By forcing the filtration compliance of edge devices, the pattern is brought to light of using those very laws to decide what is "appropriate" for all Americans.
Punish the spammers, not the spam victims. I don't want to be "safe" from spam at the expense of having information filtered by some bureaucrats in DC anymore than I would want my choice of doctor, gun, book, or method of opinion expression dictated by someone else.
Perhaps it can be treated like a security accreditation. Known spammers and spam "locations" can be published allowing for sites to filter at will. If you want to keep that accreditation you will comply, but then there are always other accreditations to get that don't include those sites.
Since we all know how efficient and effective the government is in micromanaging things like this I guess the question is: do you want solutions or loopholes? BTW, why must it be the Federal government that does this? And since when was "its happening" mean "its constitutional?"
without advocating any and all spam-fighting measures I should point out that your second solution is outside the role of the United States Government. If the US gov wants to put such filters and blocks on their own gateways then they are more than welcome too. However, as the US is not China the gateway routers are not owned by the government and can not be treated as such. Companies will have to clue in here.
No... nevermind, I take that all back.
The perceived mentality is that instead of these games being designed and implemented with filling a niche in mind, they simply threw in crowd pleasers to attract a larger market. This is of course the fault of the consumer. Consumers often forget that they vote with their feet and if they shell out the scratch for crap then they both give a vote of confidence for that type of game as well as that type of development method (throwing in useless crowd pleasing crap).
Next you come to the stability of the game. How frustrating it is to have your game crash every 5 to 10 minutes, lose saved games or have to reinstall your entire OS to "get it working" is only superceeded by the fanboy responses you get if you ask for help often. People will just mouth things like "your video card sucks, buy a better one" even if your video card does in fact not seem to exhibit problems with other games. It is a straw man argument given that your hardware is to blame and no fault lies with the software developer. Granted there are times (ATI) when either the hardware or drivers are really just sub-par (going back to this argument anyway) in which case contacting them will get a finger pointed right back at the software developer. (One example is Neverwinter Nights and ATI cards)
A common situation given that a game is both buggy or just does not do what it said it would do is where the effort seems to be placed by the developer into adding more chrome and not fixing or stabilizing the existing chrome or feature set. However, the non entertainment portions of the software industry do nothing different so I should not expect too much from various software pieces. I always try to wait for reviews these products first but sometimes I will admit I don't do a good job. However sometime it is hard to find quality reviews whether because of the unethical selling out of reviewers or simply just a lack of professional objectivity. With games, what will always stick out in my mind as how reviews can be so unreliable is the reviews of Ultima Ascension (or 9). I have always loved Ultima and realized I had high expectations at first. However my expectations were dashed merely be seeing the lack of fan and customer commitment by EA for this game and what info we did get was rather scary. 6 years development time resulted in a game that was largely unplayable. I won't go into the discontinuity of story, lack of good gameplay, weak story and overall disappointment when compared to other Ultimas (and considering this was the last one) but just by focusing on in game play, stability and quality it was a pile of dung. I forget how many patches it took to become a bit playable but it was by no surprise a group of dedicated fans that wrote a final patch that helped the stability the most. (at least it made it so that it would play for more than 15 minutes without locking up the entire system or exiting) Of course some other good folks also released various mods to the dialog and some other elements (if I remember correctly) that made the game feel more immersive and more Ultima-like.
I figure we need to get some good investors (as in stock market and such) to help clue in the suits as to the difference between high, mid and low risk ventures. If they want big dividends then they had best avoid the current trend as market saturation will kill any good profits. They have in the past successfully banked upon the mentality of "gotta have all the latest gadgets" that many had during hmmm... the dot com era. Other than teenagers who have parental units that believe in parenting through the random shelling out of cash an items, I think there are not that many around who will snatch up all the games as before.
Going back to investment theory, it seems to me that unlike low risk/stable stocks there is no real long term for games. MMOG's one were thought to have this potential but seeing how much money they daily pour into those scares some off. (however, MMOG's are the trend now apparently) Eventually a really good MMORPG will come out and through its compelling and unique environment draw away a lot of business from the other games. Sad thing is, then those other games will migrate over to the new one instead of wisely focusing on niches and doing what you do best (don't try to be a bit good to everyone, be the best to some)
I feel sympothy for them but they should be professional. I and my wife decided we would like to get back into the game of MMOG so I did a bit of research at that time on the various MMOG's out then. What I came across was a varied array of horror stories dealing all with customer service. I read about how players had their accounts suspended and then terminated often when they were actually the victim of hacking attacks. (it was hard to filter through the BS, but some presented their cases very well to include providing what evidence they had and Verant/SOE responses.
I was warned by some that in the unlikely event that my account was somehow compromised through no fault or negligence of my own then by reporting it there was a high probability that my account would be permanently deleted. I thought that was odd and so decided to verify the policy with Sony.
Looking online at their site, I did multiple searches through the knowledge available and perused everything from the FAQ's and posted legal mumbo jumbo. However, it appeared that all that was ever mentioned was, "We are not responsible for securing your computer or network." OK, that doesn't sound unreasonable at all. However, past experience also knew that this could easily be just an ambigious coverall attempt to justify stupid decisions upon their part. I needed hard facts so why not ask their friendly customer service reps (that was before the trend to call it "customer care" appeared I believe).
What happened next seemed at first to be sadly just another fine example of dealing with customer service and tech support today. I first stated my question. Then stated after that more specifics about it, including what I was NOT asking. I also pointed out clearly at the beginning that I had read as much info as I could find on their site and included the relevant FAQ portions that I felt did not fully answer my question. First response back? Noise. It appeared that an automated system went through and mined my question with the customer rep only reading the scripts output. He responded that I look at the FAQ and restated what I myself had quoted in my email regarding their "responsibility." (BTW, my questions were basically "If I take precautions of firewall, anti virus, spyware checking, yadda yadda yadda, what would happen if someone somehow managed to crack my account?" and also "In such a case as this, would Verant and SOE's policy allow banning of the victim's (me) account?")
I responded with a generic statement up front of "please read this email in its entirety as the original query was not addressed" and proceeded to then quote my original question. I really could not think of another way to post it.
This time it seems he read a bit more. He then proceeded to quote from the FAQ how each banning case goes through a review process... yet did not say that it was possible. Time for response numero dos.
This time he addressed the portion of my query about the compromised account review policy... but still did not give a concrete answer as to whether their policy allowed them to ban the victims account. (I had explicitly asked this every time). Well I guess I will fire up another response.
This time I apparently had worn him down a bit (and I refrained from calling him a turdstain or anything else like that) and he testily responded that the security of the accounts was solely the responsibility of the user. He then seemed to use his own words to paraphrase the parts of the FAQ about, "don't give yo
This years splurge was titled "Legion of Legumes" which would seem to explain why the members were last seen entering "Boha's Bean Paradise" in the outskirts of Tokyo wearing shirts with "Flatus is Fortuitus" and "Beano is for Whimps."
BTW, this is a joke moderators don't mod things unless you read it all.
Perhaps this is similar to your definition of trust. Do you trust strangers? You shouldn't and here's why. Trust is a state earned by those who demonstrate a consistency of action and intent that is in the best interest of what you consider good. That may be you at the top of the chain (with most people it is) or it may be the organization you are in or just other people in general around you. If you refer to someone as a "good person" with the justification of "he/she is nice to me" when it is plainly obvious that said person is an ass to everyone else... that says a lot about your ethos and trust. This mentality plays out in views of government as well, sadly.
Would you trust a child with a grenade? Then why trust the government with your private life and liberties? The child is not evil, just incompetent. I work with many government employees and I can tell you that it is not the ethical and hard working ones that are decision makers. Perhaps by being burned out or just because their "any casualty is acceptable in my climb up the ladder" mentality set them as a kindred spirit to those that hire and promote... who knows? The result is an environment that promotes sloth and blind bureacracy over real quality of results. This is how you get screwed.
"You can trust them, they are from the government." Based on what criteria do they filter out the self serving? What makes me say, "Yes, this is an organization that requires and encourages ethical and professional behavior"? Just because their paycheck comes directly from the department of Treasury does not make them trustworthy. No thanks, I will reserve my trust to those I have seen demonstate that they have earned it.
I applaud your method of pointing out some bits of critical thought and inspiring others to do the same, at least in the first 3/4 of your post. I don't really see that much of a problem with someone working hard to get to my private life, surpassing safeguards I have and keeping a record of me and my activities... or do I? I think what many feel is that the "illegal search and seizure" is related to how we correspond first and then more weakly to how we do business and play. Logic dictates that we observe the reality of situations and those things that are simply a "given" (those that we cannot change). Credit records are one of those. However, ledgers of purchase activity are not in any way new. 100 years ago, what would have been the attitude towards the government arbitrarily (i.e. without warrant or rather 'A' warrant) searching through private company/organization records on individuals in order to find any potential threats to what is labled as national security? What about the same but done by private individuals and organizations/companies? I would guess about the same as now, a mixed bag of about the same proportions (and equally due to a mixture of willful ignorance, emotional reactions and sheepish self-slavery mentality).
I guess the question is this: If we take the attitude of not bothering to cover our tracks of things that simply are too "easy" to observe because they are too easy to observe then should we prepare ourselves to not being too surprised when that information is used against us? As I said in the beginning, basically what the theme is that I am getting from your post is "if you are not doing anything wrong then you have nothing to fear." Yet WRONG is the problem here. The framers of the Declaration of Independance, Constitution and specifically the Bill of Rights knew that it is a dangerous gamble to allow the government the freedom to declare what is right and wrong... too much, keep in mind. Murder, theft, etc... yet those fall under the premise of "do what you will as long as you do not infringe upon somone elses private ability to do as they will." If I want to kick someones ass then I will damn well have to find someone willing to let me beat on them. Forcing myself upon someone does away with their desire to NOT be assaulted (and I stand a good chance in a healthily armed and trained populace of getting my own clocked cleaned out).
The argument of "people can have too much freedom" which I have heard myself on occassion is a sad way of saying "you owe the state." These people who say such are self described conservatives who haven't realized that such sentiment is what socialism is based upon.
These MBA's should not apply the same frightened-schoolgirl strategies to every market. If they want to be in a more stable market, then get into precious metals and groceries. They should then proceed to do so, IMHO as quickly as possible to make room for those with vision backed with a bit of greed.
I wonder how often moderators actually read the guidelines...
or that is what they say, however I am laughing my butt off from what you wrote! Thanks for the laughs but if I see you I will punch you in the face for making me spit up my drink! Hahaha, keep it coming
Hello, this is Bill .NET intitiative uses...O OOOOOOOOOOO!
*slight static**Hello, _Mr or Mrs. Bill Gatees_, this is a reminder of your friendly authorities*
Ummm, its Gates, G, A, T...
*It has come to our attention that your software is sold not on the basis of quality and efficiency but through manipulation of the sheepish masses and equally sheepish decision makers.*
Look, if this is about those Halloween papers, I can explain... you see I have this ferret...
*It is also known that your software causes millions in lost annual revenue and is a playground for both virus and cracker alike. Your policy of taking existing or emerging standards and adjusting them so that no choice is available to the user, administrator or developer goes against the innovative nature of the USA.*
Well, you see we at Microsoft call that "embrace and extend." By focusing the majority of our energies upon marketing and legal we are able to put just the right spin... I mean "angular momentum" upon the issues people never knew they were interested in. Furthermore, our latest
*_Mr. or Mrs. Gatees*, you are hereby ordered to, for the first time in your history to actually INNOVATE and come up with SOLUTIONS that people and business needs and by playing in this wonderful game of Free Market Capitalism you increase both the wealth and productivity/output of the nation and thus increase prosperity for not just our great nation but the whole world*
Ummm, did I mention I am the richest man in the world. Logically I am thus right in everything I have done, or at least more than anyone else before.
*slight pause**Bitch, please**slight pause**that is illogical and proves that not only must you not be the best to be the richest but you prove how stupid people are that blindly support you when you kick them**slight pause**As I was saying...*
HEY! You responded to my speech, this isn't just a recording. You use speech recognition and lexical parsing... and it works! Who wrote you and your underlying system environment?
**HAAAHAAAHAAAHAAA***Obvsiously not anyone you employ**Ahem**As I was droning, you are hereby ordered to actually compete by having a superior product, not tricky advertising, shady deals or hypocritical patent lawsuits. If you wish to live off the fruits of our society and economy than you too must till the soil and grow your own orchards instead of buying up some farms and burning the rest. You will be spammed with this message at an increasing frequency up to and to include once every 5 minutes if you do not begin to compete in the marketplace.*
You have no idea what you are suggesting. How will you enforce this?
*By first eliminating the government mandated monopolies of your software inside the government and eliminating those who obviously have no business making purchasing or architecture decisions in the government and contracting arenas. Then the natural order of thigns will progress, resulting in your worst nightmare... an informed and quality conscious minded consumer base.*
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
*HAAHAAHAAHAA**I love my thread execution space* (job, btw)
does Anthrax mix well with Jack Daniels?
The thing is, how could it have been done better? In order to learn you have to ask that, but yet even in hindsight it is hard to really get a clear and consistent answer. One that is not trumped by other more probable events from the change of action. Great sci-fi fodder, but it is still the ol' chain of consequences like the single flipping of a coin causing 1 million people to die later on. (btw, if a butterfly flapping its wings can cause a hurricane then some of my flatulence has GOT to have caused some of the big solar flares last solar max :)
Yes, I am kidding... don't over analyze this please.
Remember that "religion" can cover just about any mindless obedience of policy and rules including government and choice of programming language (if you have never seen a flame war between VB folk and well... anyone else then you should search out some on the web (note I hate VB but am not an "anti-VB" zealot either)). If a very non faith or diety based "religion" popped up today involving the purification of our bodies and lives by not eating meat, not smoking or drinking, and making sure we had the absolute best in hygiene habits and quickly got out of control (over 100 years) would it be fair to say that anyone who for personal reasons did not drink or smoke and excercised regularly was a mindless puppet or was bad? Not unless he supported the negative actions of the new "religion." More importantly, if hygiene and sanitation is touted as the upmost of importance for life by these zealots yet they employ chemical and biological weapons to further their cause then wouldn't you say they themselves are not following the faith?
The key point is that you can get this murderous, mindless zeal with or without any particular faith system. The majority of people are too lazy to ever stop and think for themselves as critical thought, independent analysis and personal responsibility are frightening to them. An example is how you will find the very religious group of "anti-religious" (or better, "anti-Christian") self labled scientific community and its followers that so eagerly bash any Christian as an illogical, mindless simpleton yet will blindly follow the "scientific facts" that they themselves have neither proved much less even known the people who made them. I have never understood why so many see science as in competition with faith. To me, science is the explanation of how the universe that God created actually works. (I base my distaste of most theories of evolution and thus apart from adaptation based really upon scientific knowledge and personal distrust of those who shove such outlandish theories down our throuts) Nothing beats the zeal of theorists who will refuse to observe facts that may interfere with their biased opinions. Science is great if followed correctly and used to discover knowledge therefore an ethical scientist will when asked about religion admit if his knowledge of religious text is from manuscript and word of mouth or by understanding of its meaning. Thusly he/she will admit that there are theories then there are proven facts and that even the best mathematical theorem is merely an abstraction of reality and subject to error and thus to emotional zeal from its "faithful believers." We could easily have a religion of science you know... Stupid is stupid, regardless of what Stupid's underlying justifications are.
And now from my post in the above was a reply to:
Actually the history of that game was indeed a lesson that many should learn: most copy protection schemes do little but punish the honest and law abiding consumers. The game had MANY problems that after multiple patches it was confirmed that the SecureROM method used (if I remember correctly) was basically a piece of crap.
I am not saying "I hope it doesn't work out" and am not saying that it has not worked in the past... what I _AM_ saying is that due to the (from this post) focus upon the LACK of copy protection of any form then the results will be watched much more closely and used as fodder for various arguments more than other games in the past. I just hope that the end result is not more fuel for the argument of all games requiring copy protection. Or put another way, I do not appreciate copy protection interfering with my code or as a consumer with my game. Why spend all that time optimizing software that is brought to its knees from a "protection" scheme.
Any message aimed at rhetorical spewing (for justifications) thieves is not intended as this is only a focus on my hopes for the results.
I thought of throwing in NWN specifically but was lazy with my coverall... oh well, what are ya gonna do?
On another related issue, I am hoping that the "Internet distribution business model" starts showing a more vibrant show of support soon. The ability to save money by taking out the middleman is just about always wanted. Add to that the possibility of increasing quality and diversity of games by reducing the groupthink draconian measures from the publisher. Every little bit helps I suppose.
a bit off topic I realize, but just the thought of possibilities of creating virtual worlds much like someone would mod a game just makes me want to dive right into my simulation books... well right after I play a bit more MOO III.