What is salt on the wound (of advertising itself) is the fact that consumers are ultimately paying for the advertising. Products and services cost more because companies advertise (and use expensive packaging). So even if you are not paying for the entertainment up front, you probably pay your share one way or another. In theory, you are actually paying MORE in the long run by having commercials because you have to pay people to produce and deliver them. Advertising agencies are pulling a heafty sum out of the whole deal. But I guess the argument against this is that we probably wouldn't have such an entertainment system at all if there weren't such a massive capitalist system. I mean, if you cut out all advertising and just had people pay straight up for their entertainment, where would the economy be?
That said, a lot of creative things can be done on a small budget.
As far as "nothing stopping me," the courts have made it very clear that I cannot express Christian ideas, cannot use Christian images, cannot perform Christian ceremonies or even mention that I'm a Christian. if any of that occurs on public land, in public schools, or in government buildings, if there are any non-Christians who would be offended by them
Oh give me a friekin' break! There is no law (or court) that says you can't mention that you are Christian on public land. You aren't going to generate any sympathy with this kind of nonsense.
Ordering someone to remove their Bible from view, or forbidding the word "Christmas" from being used in conjuction with the holiday in schools, or confiscating Bibles from students who are reading from them in study hall, these are "prohibiting free exercise".
I would agree that this would be going way too far. Do you have a cite about students havung Bible comficated? Is it a rule somewhere? Or just over individuals making bad decisions trying to play it "safe." Also note that this isn't just about religion. Schools are going to strange extremes in many other subjects. Everyone gets so offended so easily these days (including Christians).
One small quibble. "Secularists" are not out to squash public expression of religion. They are out to squash publicly funded and endorsed expression of religion. There is a difference. Other than that, all I can say is "Boo Hoo." You sound like a whiny (white) redneck after desegregation who finds that he has to wait an extra 30 seconds in line for the water fountain because negros are drinking from it too. No sympathy here. Face it, Americans are finally opening up to the fact that it is a big world out there and Christianity is not the only game in town. You're fighting a losing battle.
You obviously don't subscribe to the "Warrior Jesus" view. This is how many Fundamentalists see Jesus. And they take it literally. Also, they often discount "works" as being important. I heard one Fundamentalist claim that the entire book of James (where "works" are emphasized) was only put in the Bible to demonstrate what righteous sounding heresy sounds like. Sole Fide, brother!
Oh, i seriously doubt that game designers are thinking "We gave the chicks big breasts so we need to make the males huge." No, it is about power. It is fantasy. Part of the fantasy is playing a huge male figure (if a figher/hero character, of course).
Depends on how large (and bureaucratic) the company is and how close you are with the management and the reason for resigniation. I resigned as co-sysadmin/developer and retained root access to most of the servers long after my 2 week notice was up and I had moved out of state. Of course, I had been there 8 years and I left on good terms.
You mean it just sits there and doesn't do anything to disturb the current course of the plane? And this is news? Level flight is easy. Just adjust the trim and don't touch anything. Then again, maybe a F-22 jet is a little different than a single prop Cessna.:-P
That's not how it works anymore. You can also set automatic actions if there is lag, like auto-defense and auto-attacking.
I know. I played it briefly. TomeNet loses much of what makes Tome so great to play. No serious Tome/Nethack player would trust "auto attack." Tome is more like Chess than it is like Diablo.
For the last decade I dreamed of a multiplayer, online Nethack. Then I found TOME. Then I tried TomeNet... and I realized what a bad idea my dream was. The problem with putting a game like Tome or Nethack online is that they are turn based. Both games are designed in such a way that players are expected to sit back and think about certain moves. And when the player stops, the game stops. It does not map well to realtime. Each player is going to want to move at their own pace. Then you have to find some way to coordinate NPC movement with varying player speeds.
When it comes down to it, what is the difference between EXP and skill points? At some level you are going to have to be awarded some kind of points for the use of a skill. Whether you call it EXP or SP, what's the difference? It doesn't really matter how much skill the player has. His character still has to hack away with a sword, for example, to get experience/skill with swords.
Years ago, I maintained a MUD that had online creation. Certain players could extend the world and create items and such. Of course, it was all text based, but it really wasn't a lot of work to add the code to the regular MUD code. I can't imagine it would be too difficult to do with an MMOG. The trick would be in the user interface. It is one thing to build maps and items (a lot of single player games have this already). But scripting good quests could be a fair amount of work.
I think a lot of it has to do with the sheer size or corporate entities like Walmart and Target. I imagine it would be a lot more difficlt to rationalize (and depersonalize) theft from a mom and pop shop. IMHO, this is just one symptom of capitalism failing society.
While I agree that it is still stealing (and wrong) even if you don't get caught, I dont' think it necessarily has anything to do with the laws against it. Laws do NOT define morality (at least for me). It is perfectly conceivable that the law can be wrong. The DMCA is a perfect example.
I have 2 WinXP desktop systems and a WinXP laptop. Uptime for me is generally measured in weeks. My restarts are mostly due to power outages, patches, or software installs. Or, every so often, the laptop will work itself into a frenzy and need to be restarted after 2-3 weeks. The game PC restarts a bit more frequently, mostly due to funky PC games.
And you call this stable??
"XP is stable and only crashes due to bad device drivers... unless I install some software, apply a patch, it just works itself into a frenzy after 2-3 weeks, or a game causes problems. But really, it is all about the device drivers."
This isn't exactly true. Windows does have significant limitations on replacing files which are in use. In some cases you simply cannot do an in place upgrade. A reboot is required in Windows not because you can't restart processes, but because you can't replace files while they are in use. Sorry, but Windows and LInux are simply not on the same level here. Linux is, in fact, inherently easier (and safer) to upgrade without a reboot.
Obviously it is always safest to just reboot, but sometimes that is not the most optimal situation. If I am running a mission critical server and need some uber-important update, I don't want to have to reboot just to implement it. I want the option of updating without a reboot. This isn't just about desktop computers, you know. Well, maybe it is for Microsoft....
Yeah, but do ALL programs obey symbolic links as if they were regular files? Can you symbolically link a folder as well as a file? I've been burned by similar half implemented "features" in Windows before. Like I know Windows technicallly has the ability to mount a filesystem inside another filesystem (as opposed to making new drive letters) but I have found that not all applications like this. One of my biggest Windows pet peaves is drive letters. I wish they would die with the DOS they rode in on. But I digress...
I dunno, Debian, for example, goes to some effort to restart services which depend on an updated core library. If you are really worried about it, you are free to restart all the services/applications at your leisure. (can you say that about Windows?) About the only process that you can't completely restart manually (AFAIK) is "init."
What is the big deal? Have you ever actually had a serious problem on a unix system from having two versions of a library in memory? I haven't.
Who needs to invest in commercial scanners? There are free ones ones there. ClamAV, for example has been working great for my company. Not only does it catch viruses as attachments, but it identifies phishing emails as well. Indeed, one has to wonder what took Google so long.
-matthew
Re:There are several competing systems like this
on
High-Tech RepoMan
·
· Score: 1
Depnds on the state as far as title/lien details go. For a federal view, see this link.
"Achieving full ownership. When buying a vehicle with cash, you receive immediate ownership of the vehicle. When purchasing a vehicle with an installment sales contract or loan, you pay down the loan balance and eventually build equity in the vehicle. You receive full ownership of the vehicle after you make your final payment."
There is "ownership." And there is "full ownership." If you have only payed off $1,000 of the loan, you only own a portion of the car.
Huh? They have to turn off the car some time, don't they? Leaving it running at work gives them 8 extra hours MAX of drive time. What is the signifcance? They take it home, shut the car off and can't get to work the next morning. Also, how does this cause accidents?
Are you sure you can you legally keep your car registered in OK and live in IL? I just moved from IL to OR and I found out that I have to register my car in OR within a few months of moving here (or is that getting my license here?) or I am subject to fines. Could just be an Oregon thing, but you should make sure you are legit.
Also, what kind of car do you own? Most any modern car should pass IL emissions tests. Your car has to be in pretty bad shape to fail. Well, none of *my* cars ever failed...
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What is salt on the wound (of advertising itself) is the fact that consumers are ultimately paying for the advertising. Products and services cost more because companies advertise (and use expensive packaging). So even if you are not paying for the entertainment up front, you probably pay your share one way or another. In theory, you are actually paying MORE in the long run by having commercials because you have to pay people to produce and deliver them. Advertising agencies are pulling a heafty sum out of the whole deal. But I guess the argument against this is that we probably wouldn't have such an entertainment system at all if there weren't such a massive capitalist system. I mean, if you cut out all advertising and just had people pay straight up for their entertainment, where would the economy be?
That said, a lot of creative things can be done on a small budget.
-matthew
Oh give me a friekin' break! There is no law (or court) that says you can't mention that you are Christian on public land. You aren't going to generate any sympathy with this kind of nonsense.
Ordering someone to remove their Bible from view, or forbidding the word "Christmas" from being used in conjuction with the holiday in schools, or confiscating Bibles from students who are reading from them in study hall, these are "prohibiting free exercise".
I would agree that this would be going way too far. Do you have a cite about students havung Bible comficated? Is it a rule somewhere? Or just over individuals making bad decisions trying to play it "safe." Also note that this isn't just about religion. Schools are going to strange extremes in many other subjects. Everyone gets so offended so easily these days (including Christians).
-matthew
One small quibble. "Secularists" are not out to squash public expression of religion. They are out to squash publicly funded and endorsed expression of religion. There is a difference. Other than that, all I can say is "Boo Hoo." You sound like a whiny (white) redneck after desegregation who finds that he has to wait an extra 30 seconds in line for the water fountain because negros are drinking from it too. No sympathy here. Face it, Americans are finally opening up to the fact that it is a big world out there and Christianity is not the only game in town. You're fighting a losing battle.
-matthew
You obviously don't subscribe to the "Warrior Jesus" view. This is how many Fundamentalists see Jesus. And they take it literally. Also, they often discount "works" as being important. I heard one Fundamentalist claim that the entire book of James (where "works" are emphasized) was only put in the Bible to demonstrate what righteous sounding heresy sounds like. Sole Fide, brother!
-matthew
Oh, i seriously doubt that game designers are thinking "We gave the chicks big breasts so we need to make the males huge." No, it is about power. It is fantasy. Part of the fantasy is playing a huge male figure (if a figher/hero character, of course).
-matthew
Depends on how large (and bureaucratic) the company is and how close you are with the management and the reason for resigniation. I resigned as co-sysadmin/developer and retained root access to most of the servers long after my 2 week notice was up and I had moved out of state. Of course, I had been there 8 years and I left on good terms.
-matthew
Because you probably spent half your time swinging swords at orcs who swore a lot and taunted you. That is how I learned German.
-mattthew
You mean it just sits there and doesn't do anything to disturb the current course of the plane? And this is news? Level flight is easy. Just adjust the trim and don't touch anything. Then again, maybe a F-22 jet is a little different than a single prop Cessna. :-P
-matthew
I know. I played it briefly. TomeNet loses much of what makes Tome so great to play. No serious Tome/Nethack player would trust "auto attack." Tome is more like Chess than it is like Diablo.
-matthew
For the last decade I dreamed of a multiplayer, online Nethack. Then I found TOME. Then I tried TomeNet... and I realized what a bad idea my dream was. The problem with putting a game like Tome or Nethack online is that they are turn based. Both games are designed in such a way that players are expected to sit back and think about certain moves. And when the player stops, the game stops. It does not map well to realtime. Each player is going to want to move at their own pace. Then you have to find some way to coordinate NPC movement with varying player speeds.
-matthew
When it comes down to it, what is the difference between EXP and skill points? At some level you are going to have to be awarded some kind of points for the use of a skill. Whether you call it EXP or SP, what's the difference? It doesn't really matter how much skill the player has. His character still has to hack away with a sword, for example, to get experience/skill with swords.
-matthew
Years ago, I maintained a MUD that had online creation. Certain players could extend the world and create items and such. Of course, it was all text based, but it really wasn't a lot of work to add the code to the regular MUD code. I can't imagine it would be too difficult to do with an MMOG. The trick would be in the user interface. It is one thing to build maps and items (a lot of single player games have this already). But scripting good quests could be a fair amount of work.
-matthew
I think a lot of it has to do with the sheer size or corporate entities like Walmart and Target. I imagine it would be a lot more difficlt to rationalize (and depersonalize) theft from a mom and pop shop. IMHO, this is just one symptom of capitalism failing society.
-matthew
While I agree that it is still stealing (and wrong) even if you don't get caught, I dont' think it necessarily has anything to do with the laws against it. Laws do NOT define morality (at least for me). It is perfectly conceivable that the law can be wrong. The DMCA is a perfect example.
-matthew
And you call this stable??
"XP is stable and only crashes due to bad device drivers... unless I install some software, apply a patch, it just works itself into a frenzy after 2-3 weeks, or a game causes problems. But really, it is all about the device drivers."
WTF?
-matthew
I bet it still has cryptic 8.3 .DLL names and drive letters (ugh) too.
This isn't exactly true. Windows does have significant limitations on replacing files which are in use. In some cases you simply cannot do an in place upgrade. A reboot is required in Windows not because you can't restart processes, but because you can't replace files while they are in use. Sorry, but Windows and LInux are simply not on the same level here. Linux is, in fact, inherently easier (and safer) to upgrade without a reboot.
Obviously it is always safest to just reboot, but sometimes that is not the most optimal situation. If I am running a mission critical server and need some uber-important update, I don't want to have to reboot just to implement it. I want the option of updating without a reboot. This isn't just about desktop computers, you know. Well, maybe it is for Microsoft....
-matthew
And maybe one day they will actually find a sane naming convention for dll's too. Gotta love seeing files like "DGWG32.DLL" all over a Windows system.
-matthew
Yeah, but do ALL programs obey symbolic links as if they were regular files? Can you symbolically link a folder as well as a file? I've been burned by similar half implemented "features" in Windows before. Like I know Windows technicallly has the ability to mount a filesystem inside another filesystem (as opposed to making new drive letters) but I have found that not all applications like this. One of my biggest Windows pet peaves is drive letters. I wish they would die with the DOS they rode in on. But I digress...
-matthew
I dunno, Debian, for example, goes to some effort to restart services which depend on an updated core library. If you are really worried about it, you are free to restart all the services/applications at your leisure. (can you say that about Windows?) About the only process that you can't completely restart manually (AFAIK) is "init."
What is the big deal? Have you ever actually had a serious problem on a unix system from having two versions of a library in memory? I haven't.
-matthew
Oh, AJAX will make all webmail systems just like Mail.app
Who needs to invest in commercial scanners? There are free ones ones there. ClamAV, for example has been working great for my company. Not only does it catch viruses as attachments, but it identifies phishing emails as well. Indeed, one has to wonder what took Google so long.
-matthew
"Achieving full ownership. When buying a vehicle with cash, you receive immediate ownership of the vehicle. When purchasing a vehicle with an installment sales contract or loan, you pay down the loan balance and eventually build equity in the vehicle. You receive full ownership of the vehicle after you make your final payment."
There is "ownership." And there is "full ownership." If you have only payed off $1,000 of the loan, you only own a portion of the car.
-matthew
Huh? They have to turn off the car some time, don't they? Leaving it running at work gives them 8 extra hours MAX of drive time. What is the signifcance? They take it home, shut the car off and can't get to work the next morning. Also, how does this cause accidents?
-matthew
Are you sure you can you legally keep your car registered in OK and live in IL? I just moved from IL to OR and I found out that I have to register my car in OR within a few months of moving here (or is that getting my license here?) or I am subject to fines. Could just be an Oregon thing, but you should make sure you are legit.
Also, what kind of car do you own? Most any modern car should pass IL emissions tests. Your car has to be in pretty bad shape to fail. Well, none of *my* cars ever failed...
-matthew