Free speech has long been interpreted by the US Supreme Court to be to be political speech. Not that libel or slander can't be political but that's why it is ok to publically humiliate Jerry Falwell, but not your neighbor who isn't a public figure. This is also why shouting fire in a crowded theater is not protected speech.
Of course, not everyone agrees with this stuff, and original intent is not perfectly understood (nor have all Courts been a fan of the 1st amendment). But it is still your right to bitch about it, because that would be political speech.:)
For argument's sake, lets compare this 90 days in confinement to crack the HD to XX amount of time of extraordinary rendition (ie. government condoned torture).
Confinement: * Lengthy process * Hardware and Keeping-Up-With-the-Jones investments in (cryptology) technology * Various specialists and bureaucrats * Confinement costs * Innovative technology shift could make policy failure-prone
Extraordinary Rendition: * Quite probably illegal under international law (which undermines our credibility to enforce international law) * Moderate costs (flight, personel, etc) * Creates dependency on undemocratic regimes * False-positives don't risk mission success * Likelihood of faster than 90 day turn around much higher (perhaps reduced to hours or days) * Possible torture of someone who truly doesn't know passphrase
Any other options besides these two?
Because it looks like status quo is the winning choice. That would be choosing both. You can even publically say you are for confinement only, and then secretly use extraordinary rendition when it suits your national-defense purposes. This also may avoid sticky international objections.
For argument's sake, lets compare this 90 days in confinement to crack the HD to XX amount of time of extraordinary rendition (ie. government condoned torture).
Confinement: * Lengthy process * Hardware and Keeping-Up-With-the-Jones investments in (cryptology) technology * Various specialists and bureaucrats * Confinement costs * Innovative technology shift could make policy failure-prone
Extraordinary Rendition: * Quite probably illegal under international law (which undermines our credibility to enforce international law) * Moderate costs (flight, personel, etc) * Creates dependency on undemocratic regimes * False-positives don't risk mission success * Likelihood of faster than 90 day turn around much higher (perhaps reduced to hours or days) * Possible torture of someone who truly doesn't know passphrase
Any other options besides these two?
Because it looks like status quo is the winning choice. That would be choosing both. You can even publically say you are for confinement only, and then secretly use extraordinary rendition when it suits your national-defense purposes. Also, this may avoid sticky international objections.
I could careless that you believe the League of Conservation Voters as well as every union in existence corrupt. That's your worldview. I'm sure others take the opposing view. The facts simply put, show both union membership and political power on the decline (regardless of the effectiveness of 527s).
What I find troubling is that you are using 527s as a way to attack these political enemies of yours. It seems to be unions are imploding just fine by themselves. 527s are red herring to real campaign finance reform.
If you'd prefer, we can stop focusing narrowly on 527s which are just one part of the campaign finance and expand the the scope to other fundraising efforts. When you do this, you will see Republicans have a $200 million advantage in hardmoney and the two parties are equal in softmoney.
BTW, the problem with 527s is not who rounds out the top 10, but how the money is spent and who is accountable when lies and distortions and broadcast with this money. Sorry to impede on your worldview.
Historically, unions have endorsed numerous Republican candidates. The reason is simple. When Republicans are hostile to unions, unions don't give money to Republicans in significant quanities.
Republican hostility towards unions is the cause of unions going Democrat. Not the effect. Talk to many union officials and you'd find they'd love for Republicans to again court their vote.
Same goes for environmentalist groups. I have yet to meet a serious Republican who was against the environment both in general principle and in specifics. Yet, the Republican political elite continue to be hostile towards regulations due to their sworn belief in so-called free market capitalism (doublespeak code phrase for corporate welfare).
Checking the 2004 expenditures, the Swift Boat Vets with their $17M is "massive" compared to America Coming Together's $79M. Sorry, $17M isn't much in the scheme of big politics. And truthfully, neither is $79 million. $300+ million has been spent in my state of California on a special election in which no candidates are running. But that's neither here nor there. No one accuses America Coming Together as unfairly influencing the election, but Swift Boat Veterans are accused of this all the time because of their controversial approach to the facts.
Are we talking about (1)vote buying, (2)election fairness or the (3)expenditure of money when we talk of campaign finance reform? The first two are the important ones. The amount of money spent is irrelevent if you address the first two problems.
And yet, the elephant in the room is still that the rich have vast advantages over any other socio-economic group regardless of the existences of 527s.
Parent post seems to have to same issues of ommission the Slashdot article suffered from.
We can use 2006, an off-year election, as the be all end all dataset if that feels more comfortable.
As you said only three of the top ten are declaritively Republican. Numbers 1, 3, and 10 are unions. If you are one of the people who believe Republicans never attempt to represent the view of the working man, then I guess unions would be Democrat in a two party system.
Number 8 is League of Conservation Voters. Environmentalists. If you are one of the people who believe Republicans never attempt to represent the view of environmental advocates, then I guess the League of Conservation Voters would be Democrat in a two party system.
Number 2, America Coming Together, and number 6, Emily's List, seems to be the only declaratively Democratic 527s.
I think this establishes that 527s are neither a Republican or Democratic stronghold, and we haven't even begun to account for those 527s that appear suddenly with massive amounts of cash near the end of the election cycle (in 2004 a good example would be Swift Boat Veterans for Truth). We also aren't accounting for which socio-economic group benefits the most from current campaign finance laws, 527s or otherwise. I'd make you the bet that it isn't the guy who has four bucks taken out of each pay check that ends up in in a 527.
Bill Thompson's article is tantamount to treason! The pinko socio-communist's subtext is to stifle innovation and the American way of life! Won't someone think of the investors/owners?!? They've worked too hard at making as much money with as little work to be weighed down by having to pay for liability insurance! Hell, they might have to stop outsourcing development to India if they want serious quality control. And do you know what that leads to? I don't know either, but it couldn't be good for stock prices. Is there anything more sacred than that? Don't lie either you, bastage.
"I don't think there are four million people in the world who really want to play online games every month," said Michael Pachter, a research analyst for Wedbush Morgan, a securities firm. "World of Warcraft is such an exception. I frankly think it's the buzz factor, and eventually it will come back to the mean, maybe a million subscribers."
"It may continue to grow in China," Mr. Pachter added, "but not in Europe or the U.S. We don't need the imaginary outlet to feel a sense of accomplishment here. It just doesn't work in the U.S. It just doesn't make any sense."
Mental note from when I become rich and/or powerful. Don't trust the advice of Wedbush Morgan.
Since the PvP patch was implemented players were given the choice of grinding in instances or grinding in instanced PvP (for the most part) as a way to aquire items. Almost every serious PvPer I have talked to describes WoW as item intense (as compared to (Ultima Online style) skill or (Quake style) twitch). This leads to literally hundreds of hours being spent collecting the phattest of loot so one can have a higher chance of combat success.
People also describe instanced PvP option as santized and boring, lacking risk and reward (some of the rewards are simply an opportunity to spend money). Friends have mine have dedicated much of their waking hours to the PvP option and find personal skill, teamwork and composure in a fight is much less important than the sheer hours played to achieve PvP rewards.
What is Blizzard doing to titilate the more hardcore PvP crowd which doesn't want to spend 18 hours a day in a PvE instance or similiar amounts in instanced PvP (much of which is waiting in queues for the match to start)?
Is the ability to conquer and control towns ever going to be implemented? Will casual gamers who level capped their avatar and know their class as well as anyone ever have a reasonably equal chance as someone who has no life and put in hundreds if not thousands of hours collecting epic items?
My feeling is because, at least in America, unless you are listening to radio, most sportscasters do their damnedest to appear as unbiased as possible. Which leads to very poor commentary as not to offend anyone. This also why when obvious faux pas do happen sportscasters jump all over it because this is the one time they get to put some real emotion into it.
This actually one of Madden's strengthes and why he is still on the air, sometimes he still speaks his mind, or whatever is left in there.;)
Most is inane chatter but some games you can appreciate the sportscasters. But usually this means we aren't too concious of their existence.
I think the point is Microsoft was late to the game. They didn't invent html and so on. A body of various (and relatively few) intellectuals brought it to this point. Microsoft is trying to change the game midstream (after sabotaging Netscape btw), not some victim of the game.
Can anyone post a NON-biased view of why this is happening and the past history of why the FBI in conjuction with other international agencies raided them in the past? Oh wait, that's impossible (but please try).
Let's just hope it doesn't drop packets every 60 seconds (+/- 30 secs) like my wireless-g set up. Makes game playing, especially FPSs a less than optimal experience.
The university probably doesn't pay much but there are many unemployed American citizens such as me who would welcome the opportunity to visit Germany and solve your spam problems. All the facts of this article suggest the problem is in implementation, not in technical feasiblity.
Before EA gutted the UO team and started taking it on a rambling development path towards an Everquest clone, Ultima Online was quite an amazingly complex and intriguing game. Despite contemporary wisdom 2d games have plenty of potential if not more than 3d games. UO of 1999-2000 is considered the greatest MMORPG ever for just about any play style besides ph@t l3wt collectors who hate risking said phat loot and even then it did ok.
There are a whole lot of UO emulated player run shards alive and kicking today. Many are attempting to recreate that era for UO which changed, like I said when EA gutted the OSI team. I have found www.preuor.com the best shard for that purpose. They have meticulously made efforts to recreate the small things that made UO great. Try it, you'll be surprised how fun a 2d game mmorpg can actually be and best of all its free (no monthly fee or game purchase required).
And here I thought I had an advantage of living in the past, present and future on a whim. I was hoping those living in the present only and needing to go into debt to buy a new pair of shoes (or whatnot) they'll wear once were the unevolved animals.
Slashdot Mirror
Free speech has long been interpreted by the US Supreme Court to be to be political speech. Not that libel or slander can't be political but that's why it is ok to publically humiliate Jerry Falwell, but not your neighbor who isn't a public figure. This is also why shouting fire in a crowded theater is not protected speech.
:)
Of course, not everyone agrees with this stuff, and original intent is not perfectly understood (nor have all Courts been a fan of the 1st amendment). But it is still your right to bitch about it, because that would be political speech.
For argument's sake, lets compare this 90 days in confinement to crack the HD to XX amount of time of extraordinary rendition (ie. government condoned torture).
Confinement:
* Lengthy process
* Hardware and Keeping-Up-With-the-Jones investments in (cryptology) technology
* Various specialists and bureaucrats
* Confinement costs
* Innovative technology shift could make policy failure-prone
Extraordinary Rendition:
* Quite probably illegal under international law (which undermines our credibility to enforce international law)
* Moderate costs (flight, personel, etc)
* Creates dependency on undemocratic regimes
* False-positives don't risk mission success
* Likelihood of faster than 90 day turn around much higher (perhaps reduced to hours or days)
* Possible torture of someone who truly doesn't know passphrase
Any other options besides these two?
Because it looks like status quo is the winning choice. That would be choosing both. You can even publically say you are for confinement only, and then secretly use extraordinary rendition when it suits your national-defense purposes. This also may avoid sticky international objections.
For argument's sake, lets compare this 90 days in confinement to crack the HD to XX amount of time of extraordinary rendition (ie. government condoned torture).
Confinement:
* Lengthy process
* Hardware and Keeping-Up-With-the-Jones investments in (cryptology) technology
* Various specialists and bureaucrats
* Confinement costs
* Innovative technology shift could make policy failure-prone
Extraordinary Rendition:
* Quite probably illegal under international law (which undermines our credibility to enforce international law)
* Moderate costs (flight, personel, etc)
* Creates dependency on undemocratic regimes
* False-positives don't risk mission success
* Likelihood of faster than 90 day turn around much higher (perhaps reduced to hours or days)
* Possible torture of someone who truly doesn't know passphrase
Any other options besides these two?
Because it looks like status quo is the winning choice. That would be choosing both. You can even publically say you are for confinement only, and then secretly use extraordinary rendition when it suits your national-defense purposes. Also, this may avoid sticky international objections.
Maybe I'm not objective enough.
I could careless that you believe the League of Conservation Voters as well as every union in existence corrupt. That's your worldview. I'm sure others take the opposing view. The facts simply put, show both union membership and political power on the decline (regardless of the effectiveness of 527s).
What I find troubling is that you are using 527s as a way to attack these political enemies of yours. It seems to be unions are imploding just fine by themselves. 527s are red herring to real campaign finance reform.
If you'd prefer, we can stop focusing narrowly on 527s which are just one part of the campaign finance and expand the the scope to other fundraising efforts. When you do this, you will see Republicans have a $200 million advantage in hardmoney and the two parties are equal in softmoney.
? cycle=2002
http://www.opensecrets.org/bigpicture/ptytots.asp
BTW, the problem with 527s is not who rounds out the top 10, but how the money is spent and who is accountable when lies and distortions and broadcast with this money. Sorry to impede on your worldview.
You are confusing cause and effect.
Historically, unions have endorsed numerous Republican candidates. The reason is simple. When Republicans are hostile to unions, unions don't give money to Republicans in significant quanities.
Republican hostility towards unions is the cause of unions going Democrat. Not the effect. Talk to many union officials and you'd find they'd love for Republicans to again court their vote.
Same goes for environmentalist groups. I have yet to meet a serious Republican who was against the environment both in general principle and in specifics. Yet, the Republican political elite continue to be hostile towards regulations due to their sworn belief in so-called free market capitalism (doublespeak code phrase for corporate welfare).
Checking the 2004 expenditures, the Swift Boat Vets with their $17M is "massive" compared to America Coming Together's $79M. Sorry, $17M isn't much in the scheme of big politics.
And truthfully, neither is $79 million. $300+ million has been spent in my state of California on a special election in which no candidates are running. But that's neither here nor there. No one accuses America Coming Together as unfairly influencing the election, but Swift Boat Veterans are accused of this all the time because of their controversial approach to the facts.
Are we talking about (1)vote buying, (2)election fairness or the (3)expenditure of money when we talk of campaign finance reform? The first two are the important ones. The amount of money spent is irrelevent if you address the first two problems.
And yet, the elephant in the room is still that the rich have vast advantages over any other socio-economic group regardless of the existences of 527s.
Parent post seems to have to same issues of ommission the Slashdot article suffered from.
We can use 2006, an off-year election, as the be all end all dataset if that feels more comfortable.
As you said only three of the top ten are declaritively Republican. Numbers 1, 3, and 10 are unions. If you are one of the people who believe Republicans never attempt to represent the view of the working man, then I guess unions would be Democrat in a two party system.
Number 8 is League of Conservation Voters. Environmentalists. If you are one of the people who believe Republicans never attempt to represent the view of environmental advocates, then I guess the League of Conservation Voters would be Democrat in a two party system.
Number 2, America Coming Together, and number 6, Emily's List, seems to be the only declaratively Democratic 527s.
I think this establishes that 527s are neither a Republican or Democratic stronghold, and we haven't even begun to account for those 527s that appear suddenly with massive amounts of cash near the end of the election cycle (in 2004 a good example would be Swift Boat Veterans for Truth). We also aren't accounting for which socio-economic group benefits the most from current campaign finance laws, 527s or otherwise. I'd make you the bet that it isn't the guy who has four bucks taken out of each pay check that ends up in in a 527.
So what's stopping me from having science insert that gene into my offspring?
Bill Thompson's article is tantamount to treason! The pinko socio-communist's subtext is to stifle innovation and the American way of life! Won't someone think of the investors/owners?!? They've worked too hard at making as much money with as little work to be weighed down by having to pay for liability insurance! Hell, they might have to stop outsourcing development to India if they want serious quality control. And do you know what that leads to? I don't know either, but it couldn't be good for stock prices. Is there anything more sacred than that? Don't lie either you, bastage.
If a company sitting on $50+ billion in cash has run out of time then Slashdot is a serious news organization.
They call it GuildWars ;)
No they don't. =(
Mental note from when I become rich and/or powerful. Don't trust the advice of Wedbush Morgan.
Anyone check that?
Since the PvP patch was implemented players were given the choice of grinding in instances or grinding in instanced PvP (for the most part) as a way to aquire items. Almost every serious PvPer I have talked to describes WoW as item intense (as compared to (Ultima Online style) skill or (Quake style) twitch). This leads to literally hundreds of hours being spent collecting the phattest of loot so one can have a higher chance of combat success.
People also describe instanced PvP option as santized and boring, lacking risk and reward (some of the rewards are simply an opportunity to spend money). Friends have mine have dedicated much of their waking hours to the PvP option and find personal skill, teamwork and composure in a fight is much less important than the sheer hours played to achieve PvP rewards.
What is Blizzard doing to titilate the more hardcore PvP crowd which doesn't want to spend 18 hours a day in a PvE instance or similiar amounts in instanced PvP (much of which is waiting in queues for the match to start)?
Is the ability to conquer and control towns ever going to be implemented? Will casual gamers who level capped their avatar and know their class as well as anyone ever have a reasonably equal chance as someone who has no life and put in hundreds if not thousands of hours collecting epic items?
My feeling is because, at least in America, unless you are listening to radio, most sportscasters do their damnedest to appear as unbiased as possible. Which leads to very poor commentary as not to offend anyone. This also why when obvious faux pas do happen sportscasters jump all over it because this is the one time they get to put some real emotion into it.
;)
This actually one of Madden's strengthes and why he is still on the air, sometimes he still speaks his mind, or whatever is left in there.
Most is inane chatter but some games you can appreciate the sportscasters. But usually this means we aren't too concious of their existence.
I think the point is Microsoft was late to the game. They didn't invent html and so on. A body of various (and relatively few) intellectuals brought it to this point. Microsoft is trying to change the game midstream (after sabotaging Netscape btw), not some victim of the game.
Can anyone post a NON-biased view of why this is happening and the past history of why the FBI in conjuction with other international agencies raided them in the past? Oh wait, that's impossible (but please try).
Let's just hope it doesn't drop packets every 60 seconds (+/- 30 secs) like my wireless-g set up. Makes game playing, especially FPSs a less than optimal experience.
Other than that I love wireless.
Well, at least Linksys has posted an actual fix, though only in alpha form. There are also 3rd party flash updates as well.
The university probably doesn't pay much but there are many unemployed American citizens such as me who would welcome the opportunity to visit Germany and solve your spam problems. All the facts of this article suggest the problem is in implementation, not in technical feasiblity.
Yeah, even with client prediction, Quake is going to be a bit of a bitch!
you basically described my experience to the T in the FPS genre.
AC, you're refering to the wtfman server I believe. the preuor.com one has none of those problems.
Before EA gutted the UO team and started taking it on a rambling development path towards an Everquest clone, Ultima Online was quite an amazingly complex and intriguing game. Despite contemporary wisdom 2d games have plenty of potential if not more than 3d games. UO of 1999-2000 is considered the greatest MMORPG ever for just about any play style besides ph@t l3wt collectors who hate risking said phat loot and even then it did ok.
There are a whole lot of UO emulated player run shards alive and kicking today. Many are attempting to recreate that era for UO which changed, like I said when EA gutted the OSI team. I have found www.preuor.com the best shard for that purpose. They have meticulously made efforts to recreate the small things that made UO great. Try it, you'll be surprised how fun a 2d game mmorpg can actually be and best of all its free (no monthly fee or game purchase required).
www.preuor.com
And here I thought I had an advantage of living in the past, present and future on a whim. I was hoping those living in the present only and needing to go into debt to buy a new pair of shoes (or whatnot) they'll wear once were the unevolved animals.