The first picture in the article has it "as seen in the Jurassic age" (http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/39379000/jp g/_39379242_203.jpg) --- of course the plant is IN A POT. I didn't know that before humans had the bronze age and the iron age the dinosaurs had the terracotta age.
That's an extremely good point -- and I admit, a lot of artists don't mature. I love Placebo but not one of their albums is perfect, they put out a couple of very very good songs and a lot of other filler, and I don't mind it because as a whole it is still nets positive.
As far as Badly Drawn Boy and Elliot Smith -- they're worlds apart. It's sort of like comparing The Doors and Led Zeppelin. I already have one 70's band that wrote sprawling songs, why do I need two? I don't see anything wrong with that thinking. It's the same way I feel about horror movies. I got a few and I'm happy with that and there's the people that don't think you're a cineaste unless you've got Mario Bava's completed works - neither of us is wrong. My (your) interest in horror movies (wispy acoustic rock) is limited, and we seek out what is good but don't need to delve into intricacies of the genre.
This is not my "cool way of proving I am alternative" as someone has suggested. I am simply trying to share what I like. Please note that many of these are heavily RIAA-pushed artists, others are not.
My only point is, please research unknown artists. It's a treasure trove.
OK, I am absolutely sick and tired of hearing people complain about how there is "no good music" that has been released in the past couple of years. This is the most ludicrous statement I have ever heard. When you say "no good music has been released in the past couple of years" you really mean "the music that is marketed to me by my local ClearChannel radio station and my Viacom Cable TV music networks is not satisfying me" -- that's like saying "the era of good sports cars is over" and using only Kias as a point of reference.
So, for your information, I am going to list brilliant albums of the past ten years (even half-brilliant ones), and categorize them by genre. Please try one of these out -- you're not guaranteed to love each one, but I do. If you hate all of these, then you don't have good taste in music to begin with...:-)
Rock/Alternative/Folk/etc
Badly Drawn Boy - The Hour of Bewilderbeast a-ha - Minor Earth Major Sky Grandaddy - The Sophtware Slump Radiohead - OK Computer Beck - Sea Change Beck - Mutations Clinic - Internal Wrangler Coldplay - A Rush of Blood to the Head Elliot Smith - XO Yo La Tengo - And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out The Hives - Veni Vidi Vicious The Flaming Lips - The Soft Bulletin The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Hey Mercedes - Every Night Fireworks Brand New - Deja Entendu At The Drive In - Relationship of Command Hot Water Music - No Division Sting - Brand New Day Counting Crows - Hard Candy Ben Folds - Rockin The Suburbs Ben Folds Five - Whatever and Ever Amen Thrice - Illusion of Safety John Mayer - Room For Squares
Jazz/Blues/Classical/etc
Don Byron - A Fine Line: Arias and Lieder Soulive - Turn It Out Kronos Quartet - Nuevo Clint Mansell and Kronos Quartet - Requiem for a Dream OST Christian McBride - Vertical Vision Pat Martino - Live at Yoshi's Pat Metheny - Speaking of Now Greyboy Allstars - A Town Called Earth Tan Dun - Hero OST
Electronic/Techno/Ambient
Air - Moon Safari DJ Shadow - The Private Press DJ Shadow - Endtroducing... Goldfrapp - Felt Mountain Royksopp - Melody A.M. Crystal Method - Vegas Sigur Ros - Agaetis Byrjun UNKLE - Psyence Fiction Turin Brakes - The Optimist
Hip-Hop/Rap/R&B/Urban
Breakestra - Live Mix Part I & II D'Angelo - Voodoo Greyboy - Mastered the Art Mos Def and Talib Kweli - Black Star The Roots - Things Fall Apart Quannum - Solesides Greatest Bumps The Coup - Steal This Cannibal Ox - The Cold Vein Deltron 3030 - Deltron 3030 Mr. Lif - I Phantom RZA - Ghost Dog OST Jurassic 5 - EP
Again, you're not guaranteed to love each and every single on these -- but it's a good start. More info on any of these: AMG: All Music Guide
The total lack of quality is in your ability to search out decent musicians.
It's not hard with movies. You go to your cineplex and there's, what, 5 new movies per month? 8?
There are dozens if not hundreds of CD releases each month -- it's much harded to keep up with. Now, in those, I know that there are absolutely brilliant albums. I know because I've listened to them, and I still listen to them.
My suggestion? Spend some time reading AMG -- ask your hip friends what they are listening to. And stop listening to radio which is apparently what you are judging all music by.
No, the general quality of entertainers (notice I did not say "musicians" or "artists") on MTV (a channel you watch) has decreased.
STOP COMPLAINING! Who cares what MTV has to offer!
Artists on MTV / ClearChannel radio might constitute the majority of music industry sales but it's only because of people like you perpetuating these idiots. DON'T BUY CRAP MUSIC. That's the best way for music to improve.
I've spent plenty of money on Radiohead, Coldplay, Kronos Quarter, Placebo, John Coltrane, DJ Shadow, Turin Brakes, Goldfrapp, Money Mark, Yo La Tengo, Spiritualized, Royksopp, MC Paul Barman, and countless others. Why? Because I haven't allowed myself to be marketed to by the major labels or Viacom's television network or magazines, and I pick up stuff based on what I like, not what I am told to like.
Now, this might be a revolutionary way of thinking, but I'm sick and tired of people complaining they don't like artists that are being marketed to them. Go get yourself some taste in music and free will and discover artists on your own and stop complaining about the newest Creed album.
Spend time destroying a power supply? I just take it to the daycare and let some 3 year olds have at it. They're at it with eating utensils, watering the motherboard, putting peanut butter sandwiches in the disk drives, throwing the sound card -- it akes about 10 minutes for the damn thing to be obliterated.
Sure, you lose a few lives when the cute little tots start putting forks inside the power supply, but that's the price you pay for progress.
Game Plot: This should serve as an example of why you should not download files from sites in Poland, especially when the file is described with a string of text similar to this: "sjavjenky rommy... boljay noxwob. bolshi fight za homosex (!!!)". This game is quite literally the single most concentrated mass of gay that I have ever in my life encountered. It's like a huge, flaming gay star exploded and collapsed in on itself, sucking itself down into a black, gay hole. The incredibly flagrant homosexuality in this game eclipses that of Gundam Wing: Endless Duel by several billion orders of magnitude. Endless Duel had intermission screens with the main characters in loose-fitting tank-tops. This game has large, oiled men in thongs with fairy wings dancing on flowers. It has huge, shadowy men thrusting their pelvises at the screen and characters whose combat moves include such powerhouse attacks as the "bend over and present your bare buttocks to your opponent, who happens to be a hugely muscled bald man wearing a loincloth." I don't think there really is a plot to this game. If there is, I really, really, really don't want to know it.
Weapons: Since this is a fighting game, each character has their own range of attacks and moves. The actual control layout is pretty good, and the movement (all the characters can fly, and so can move in any direction) makes it a rather unique experience. There're a wide range of attacks and they're matched with a good, intuitive control scheme. However, most of the good points about the gameplay mechanics are balanced out by the fact that THE GAME IS FULL OF NAKED MEN. ALL THE MOVES INVOLVE SOME DEGREE OF IMPLIED SODOMY. Super Mario Brothers was a good game, but if they replaced Mario with a muscleman in a speedo who "grew larger" when he touched "a mushroom", NOBODY, ANYWHERE, WOULD EVER, EVER PLAY THE GAME, EXCEPT MAYBE FRAGMASTER.
God, this is the WORST GAME EVER.
Enemies: Since this is a gay sex fighting game, the player characters and the enemies are all the same. There are 8 characters, each with his or her own style, technique, and HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE SEXUAL INNUENDO. The characters include a lithe, loinclothed muscleman, a tight-pants kung fu guy, a woman who controls the ugliest pair of cherubs in existence, an Elvis robot, and a cute girl who seems to have had her lower body and the top of her head ripped off, with the remaining parts being surgically bolted to a tiny flying steamship which is crewed by three tiny, naked men. Further objections to good taste include a nude man in a flying bathtub, THE MOTHERFUCKING GOD OF WAR, and a strange blue thing which appears to be made out of latex. I have no idea what that blue thing is, but I'll probably be seeing it a lot in my forthcoming nightmares.
Number of Levels: Since this is a gay sex game, the "levels" are simply backgrounds that appear while your characters are "fighting" in midair. The various backgrounds include a field of giant flowers (complete with horrible, horrible fairies), a male version of the Statue of Liberty (with tiny male figures silhouetted in the eye windows), what is apparently a temple to lesbian and gay sex, a dreamy nightscape with the sun and the moon gazing lustfully at each other, and a real, honest-to-god mantrain complete with boxcars hauling suspiciously phallic vegetables. There are only 8 enemies in the game, with two fights per enemy, which makes about 16 actual fights to win the game, assuming no ties. There actually isn't that much variety, and the game isn't very long.
Number of Bosses: No bosses. If you get caught playing this at work, you won't have a boss anymore either, unless the guy at the head of the unemployment line counts.
Defining Moment: That would probably be the part right after the shock of seeing all the naked men wore off, at which point I realized that the game had a lot of sound effects too. Specifically, a lot of voice samples. You can probably see where this is going. Grunting, moaning, slapping, pounding, and various other (thankfully) unidentifiable audio samples grace this work. And what a piece of work it is.
Season of Mists (Book 4): Sandman travels to Hell to find a love that he had forsaken hundreds of years ago. Amazon.
The Doll's House (Book 2): An introduction to the Sandman with slightly better art than the first volume. Oh yeah, and there's a serial killer convention too. Amazon
Eventhough I have linked from Amazon you probably want to support your local comic shop and get it there.
While you're there, pick up a tome or two of Bone, Hellboy, Powers, Batman: Dark Knight Returns, and The Watchmen.
Worse than that, it's not even a good cover up. The same people who direct the legal team must be in charge of directing their graphic design intern.
Intern: "Uh, sir, what should I do with this red hat here?" Mr. Turd McShitforbrains (VP): "Erm... mmm." * stares at screen * Mr. T McS: "OK, uh, select a black airbrush, 80%, multiply. Just sort of let it hover over the hat, AND THEN MAKE A DIAGONAL LINE THROUGH HIS SHIRT." Intern: "Like this?" * looks at result * Mr. T McS: "Ohhh yeah" * pantomimes driving a golf ball * Mr. T McS: "Good work -- you've been promoted to the litigations squad."
Now I admit I browse at 2, so someone may have mentioned this. But with Half-Life (the original first version), you also needed a valid product code to download patches and play online. From what I remember, there was no way to get around this, and while Half-Life was released illegally you still couldn't play online.
If they give you 30 days with this, how is it any different?
The other core difference is that the other jobs took more than 10 years to move offshore, this has taken around 2.
IT industry began in 2001? It has taken since the beginning of the IT industry for this to happen. It's gonna happen to almost every industry. Real estate and medicine are two that I know will not be affected as much. But I think that what is happening with the IT sector is going to happen with a lot of financial companies. Would you mind having your stockbroker be just as good but living in Singapore and making $50,000 instead of $1.5m?
Oh, that must be why the gap between the rich and the poor is shrinking across the capitalistic world.
I think you have your wires crossed. Market economics ultimately makes a few people very wealthy and most people extremely poor.
Depending on what you read, the gap is not shrinking (or it is). That's fine, I'm not going to get into that argument.
But yes, in market economies, a lot of people get rich, and a lot of people fail to become as rich. That is how things work, unfortunately. But I would rather have this in a million years than any other system.
I cherish the ability to get paid for what I do and have a good chance within reason to get paid more by going to a competitor or switching industries. I can still do that currently (although not as well as I may have been able to in 1998). I like the fact that in this country, and especially in this state (Delaware, which is ridiculously business-friendly) I can start my own business and compete against my current employer. I'm not going to, I don't want to, but it's a possibility.
Capitalism rewards the cunning, the creative, and doesn't reward a lot of others. It's just like a lot of business? Who makes the most money? The people on the top. If you own a business, or are close to owning it, or own part of it, you are going to make money. Then it just sorts of trickles down. The way to get wealthy, or at least stay well-off is in some sense own your own business.
If you don't want to own your own business, then go to one of the many socialist countries in the world and complain about capitalism there.;-)
Nope, what is hillarious is that all that is required to prevent this is legislation requiring any american company to pay any employee US equivalent wages for the job they do, regardless of the work they are doing.
If you ran a business and you had $150,000 in salary to give out per year, and you needed to set up a team of three programmers, how would you pay these people?
1. Paul (US), who is sharp but codes very slow. Requires to be paid $50,000.
2. Ganesh (India), same as Paul. Requires to be paid $15,000.
3. Cindy (US), can do the work of two people, very sharp, dedicated, and fast. Requires to be paid $75,000.
4. William (US), can't code worth a damn. Requires to be paid $30,000.
If I owned the business, I would hire Cindy and Ganesh. Now, with your legislation, Instead of this costing me $90,000, it would cost me $150,000 (need to pay Ganesh as much as Cindy). Or to keep costs down, I hire William and Ganesh and Paul $50k + $50k + $50k = $150,000 but now I am overpaying William and he sucks.
No, keep the government out of the market, especially when it comes to wages. Yes, there should be a minimum wage, but your idea is ridiculous.
New jobs aren't created instantaneously. It might take a year, but more than likely it will take five years, or ten years or longer.
This is the same thing that happened to manufacturing. The "goods" (computer chips / VPN support) are now being produced somewhere else (Taiwan / India). This transition is not slow at all. If you really sat down and thought about it, this shift could be predicted 10-15 years ago. And if we think about it now, there's another industry that many times is overpaid (looking at it globally) that will be outsourced abroad soon as well. The finance sector? Possibly...
But imagine if the manufacturing jobs never went overseas. Imagine if market efficiencies didn't exist and the US just tariffed foreign goods so that anything imported was 3x as expensive.
You wouldn't have an IT job, there wouldn't be Slashdot, we'd all be working in manufacturing, clinging on to something we were good at 50 years ago.
And this is not to say we're not good at manufacturing now, or good at IT now -- it just means that it is time for us to find the next thing we're good at. That's how Americans thrive(and to an extent, our friends in the UK and other developed countries). We get really good at something, specialize in it, make tons of money, and 20-30 years down the road (because face it, jobs were not going to Indians in 1985) other people EVENTUALLY learn how to do it and then do it cheaper.
But now we've had a long time to get better at something else. And that might not be IT. It might be medicine, or finance, or another industry altogether and that's where the jobs are being created. You might not get that job, you might not have the skills for that job, but that job has been created.
Another thing to think about it: It is impossible for all jobs to go overseas. Companies still need people, IT people as well, in-house. You can't do everything over the phone, or over the internet. You can do a lot, but not everything. That's one of the reasons the health care sector is going to boom over the next 10-20 years. Lots of Americans getting older, and you know what, you can't outsource nursing to West Bumblefuckhikzstan.
This is all part of the "unfairness" of the market economies... It's good for everyone in the long run, but single people sometimes get screwed over.
Slashdot Mirror
The first picture in the article has it "as seen in the Jurassic age" (http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/39379000/jp g/_39379242_203.jpg) --- of course the plant is IN A POT. I didn't know that before humans had the bronze age and the iron age the dinosaurs had the terracotta age.
Why do I want to drive a Prius in Gran Turismo? I play Gran Turismo so I can drive S4s and Ruf CTR-2s, not cars my mom would own.
Off-topic but obligatory Simpsons quote:
Marge: Come on, Homer. Japan will be fun! You liked Rashomon.
Homer: That's not how *I* remember it.
You forgot:
3) Profit!!!!
That's an extremely good point -- and I admit, a lot of artists don't mature. I love Placebo but not one of their albums is perfect, they put out a couple of very very good songs and a lot of other filler, and I don't mind it because as a whole it is still nets positive.
As far as Badly Drawn Boy and Elliot Smith -- they're worlds apart. It's sort of like comparing The Doors and Led Zeppelin. I already have one 70's band that wrote sprawling songs, why do I need two? I don't see anything wrong with that thinking. It's the same way I feel about horror movies. I got a few and I'm happy with that and there's the people that don't think you're a cineaste unless you've got Mario Bava's completed works - neither of us is wrong. My (your) interest in horror movies (wispy acoustic rock) is limited, and we seek out what is good but don't need to delve into intricacies of the genre.
I didn't fire off a list of bands to prove I am "alternative" -- what possibly could I gain from having /. readers believe I am cool?
:)
And are you making fun of Bob Dylan with that last comment??
Actually I decided to list them here.
This is not my "cool way of proving I am alternative" as someone has suggested. I am simply trying to share what I like. Please note that many of these are heavily RIAA-pushed artists, others are not.
My only point is, please research unknown artists. It's a treasure trove.
OK, I am absolutely sick and tired of hearing people complain about how there is "no good music" that has been released in the past couple of years. This is the most ludicrous statement I have ever heard. When you say "no good music has been released in the past couple of years" you really mean "the music that is marketed to me by my local ClearChannel radio station and my Viacom Cable TV music networks is not satisfying me" -- that's like saying "the era of good sports cars is over" and using only Kias as a point of reference.
:-)
So, for your information, I am going to list brilliant albums of the past ten years (even half-brilliant ones), and categorize them by genre. Please try one of these out -- you're not guaranteed to love each one, but I do. If you hate all of these, then you don't have good taste in music to begin with...
Rock/Alternative/Folk/etc
Badly Drawn Boy - The Hour of Bewilderbeast
a-ha - Minor Earth Major Sky
Grandaddy - The Sophtware Slump
Radiohead - OK Computer
Beck - Sea Change
Beck - Mutations
Clinic - Internal Wrangler
Coldplay - A Rush of Blood to the Head
Elliot Smith - XO
Yo La Tengo - And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out
The Hives - Veni Vidi Vicious
The Flaming Lips - The Soft Bulletin
The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
Hey Mercedes - Every Night Fireworks
Brand New - Deja Entendu
At The Drive In - Relationship of Command
Hot Water Music - No Division
Sting - Brand New Day
Counting Crows - Hard Candy
Ben Folds - Rockin The Suburbs
Ben Folds Five - Whatever and Ever Amen
Thrice - Illusion of Safety
John Mayer - Room For Squares
Jazz/Blues/Classical/etc
Don Byron - A Fine Line: Arias and Lieder
Soulive - Turn It Out
Kronos Quartet - Nuevo
Clint Mansell and Kronos Quartet - Requiem for a Dream OST
Christian McBride - Vertical Vision
Pat Martino - Live at Yoshi's
Pat Metheny - Speaking of Now
Greyboy Allstars - A Town Called Earth
Tan Dun - Hero OST
Electronic/Techno/Ambient
Air - Moon Safari
DJ Shadow - The Private Press
DJ Shadow - Endtroducing...
Goldfrapp - Felt Mountain
Royksopp - Melody A.M.
Crystal Method - Vegas
Sigur Ros - Agaetis Byrjun
UNKLE - Psyence Fiction
Turin Brakes - The Optimist
Hip-Hop/Rap/R&B/Urban
Breakestra - Live Mix Part I & II
D'Angelo - Voodoo
Greyboy - Mastered the Art
Mos Def and Talib Kweli - Black Star
The Roots - Things Fall Apart
Quannum - Solesides Greatest Bumps
The Coup - Steal This
Cannibal Ox - The Cold Vein
Deltron 3030 - Deltron 3030
Mr. Lif - I Phantom
RZA - Ghost Dog OST
Jurassic 5 - EP
Again, you're not guaranteed to love each and every single on these -- but it's a good start. More info on any of these: AMG: All Music Guide
The total lack of quality is in your ability to search out decent musicians.
It's not hard with movies. You go to your cineplex and there's, what, 5 new movies per month? 8?
There are dozens if not hundreds of CD releases each month -- it's much harded to keep up with. Now, in those, I know that there are absolutely brilliant albums. I know because I've listened to them, and I still listen to them.
My suggestion? Spend some time reading AMG -- ask your hip friends what they are listening to. And stop listening to radio which is apparently what you are judging all music by.
No, the general quality of entertainers (notice I did not say "musicians" or "artists") on MTV (a channel you watch) has decreased.
STOP COMPLAINING! Who cares what MTV has to offer!
Artists on MTV / ClearChannel radio might constitute the majority of music industry sales but it's only because of people like you perpetuating these idiots. DON'T BUY CRAP MUSIC. That's the best way for music to improve.
I've spent plenty of money on Radiohead, Coldplay, Kronos Quarter, Placebo, John Coltrane, DJ Shadow, Turin Brakes, Goldfrapp, Money Mark, Yo La Tengo, Spiritualized, Royksopp, MC Paul Barman, and countless others. Why? Because I haven't allowed myself to be marketed to by the major labels or Viacom's television network or magazines, and I pick up stuff based on what I like, not what I am told to like.
Now, this might be a revolutionary way of thinking, but I'm sick and tired of people complaining they don't like artists that are being marketed to them. Go get yourself some taste in music and free will and discover artists on your own and stop complaining about the newest Creed album.
Yet, it was a phenomenon worthy enough of a Keanu Reeves movie.
Spend time destroying a power supply? I just take it to the daycare and let some 3 year olds have at it. They're at it with eating utensils, watering the motherboard, putting peanut butter sandwiches in the disk drives, throwing the sound card -- it akes about 10 minutes for the damn thing to be obliterated.
Sure, you lose a few lives when the cute little tots start putting forks inside the power supply, but that's the price you pay for progress.
Game Plot: This should serve as an example of why you should not download files from sites in Poland, especially when the file is described with a string of text similar to this: "sjavjenky rommy... boljay noxwob. bolshi fight za homosex (!!!)". This game is quite literally the single most concentrated mass of gay that I have ever in my life encountered. It's like a huge, flaming gay star exploded and collapsed in on itself, sucking itself down into a black, gay hole. The incredibly flagrant homosexuality in this game eclipses that of Gundam Wing: Endless Duel by several billion orders of magnitude. Endless Duel had intermission screens with the main characters in loose-fitting tank-tops. This game has large, oiled men in thongs with fairy wings dancing on flowers. It has huge, shadowy men thrusting their pelvises at the screen and characters whose combat moves include such powerhouse attacks as the "bend over and present your bare buttocks to your opponent, who happens to be a hugely muscled bald man wearing a loincloth." I don't think there really is a plot to this game. If there is, I really, really, really don't want to know it.
Weapons: Since this is a fighting game, each character has their own range of attacks and moves. The actual control layout is pretty good, and the movement (all the characters can fly, and so can move in any direction) makes it a rather unique experience. There're a wide range of attacks and they're matched with a good, intuitive control scheme. However, most of the good points about the gameplay mechanics are balanced out by the fact that THE GAME IS FULL OF NAKED MEN. ALL THE MOVES INVOLVE SOME DEGREE OF IMPLIED SODOMY. Super Mario Brothers was a good game, but if they replaced Mario with a muscleman in a speedo who "grew larger" when he touched "a mushroom", NOBODY, ANYWHERE, WOULD EVER, EVER PLAY THE GAME, EXCEPT MAYBE FRAGMASTER.
God, this is the WORST GAME EVER.
Enemies: Since this is a gay sex fighting game, the player characters and the enemies are all the same. There are 8 characters, each with his or her own style, technique, and HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE SEXUAL INNUENDO. The characters include a lithe, loinclothed muscleman, a tight-pants kung fu guy, a woman who controls the ugliest pair of cherubs in existence, an Elvis robot, and a cute girl who seems to have had her lower body and the top of her head ripped off, with the remaining parts being surgically bolted to a tiny flying steamship which is crewed by three tiny, naked men. Further objections to good taste include a nude man in a flying bathtub, THE MOTHERFUCKING GOD OF WAR, and a strange blue thing which appears to be made out of latex. I have no idea what that blue thing is, but I'll probably be seeing it a lot in my forthcoming nightmares.
Number of Levels: Since this is a gay sex game, the "levels" are simply backgrounds that appear while your characters are "fighting" in midair. The various backgrounds include a field of giant flowers (complete with horrible, horrible fairies), a male version of the Statue of Liberty (with tiny male figures silhouetted in the eye windows), what is apparently a temple to lesbian and gay sex, a dreamy nightscape with the sun and the moon gazing lustfully at each other, and a real, honest-to-god mantrain complete with boxcars hauling suspiciously phallic vegetables. There are only 8 enemies in the game, with two fights per enemy, which makes about 16 actual fights to win the game, assuming no ties. There actually isn't that much variety, and the game isn't very long.
Number of Bosses: No bosses. If you get caught playing this at work, you won't have a boss anymore either, unless the guy at the head of the unemployment line counts.
Defining Moment: That would probably be the part right after the shock of seeing all the naked men wore off, at which point I realized that the game had a lot of sound effects too. Specifically, a lot of voice samples. You can probably see where this is going. Grunting, moaning, slapping, pounding, and various other (thankfully) unidentifiable audio samples grace this work. And what a piece of work it is.
Mmmmmmm...
Microsoft's only comeback I can think of is that, at least, they patented ones and zeroes.
Eventhough I have linked from Amazon you probably want to support your local comic shop and get it there.
While you're there, pick up a tome or two of Bone, Hellboy, Powers, Batman: Dark Knight Returns, and The Watchmen.
IIRC, this was a book with illustrations, not a comic book (or "sequential art graphic novel").
Worse than that, it's not even a good cover up. The same people who direct the legal team must be in charge of directing their graphic design intern.
Intern: "Uh, sir, what should I do with this red hat here?"
Mr. Turd McShitforbrains (VP): "Erm... mmm."
* stares at screen *
Mr. T McS: "OK, uh, select a black airbrush, 80%, multiply. Just sort of let it hover over the hat, AND THEN MAKE A DIAGONAL LINE THROUGH HIS SHIRT."
Intern: "Like this?"
* looks at result *
Mr. T McS: "Ohhh yeah"
* pantomimes driving a golf ball *
Mr. T McS: "Good work -- you've been promoted to the litigations squad."
I'm still waiting for Skittlebrau.
Now I admit I browse at 2, so someone may have mentioned this. But with Half-Life (the original first version), you also needed a valid product code to download patches and play online. From what I remember, there was no way to get around this, and while Half-Life was released illegally you still couldn't play online.
If they give you 30 days with this, how is it any different?
Incorporate or get rich, There's $18 books at your bookstore that will show you how to do it. If you don't do it, you're lazy.
If we don't produce anything, were do we get the $ to consume everything we do??
IT industry began in 2001? It has taken since the beginning of the IT industry for this to happen. It's gonna happen to almost every industry. Real estate and medicine are two that I know will not be affected as much. But I think that what is happening with the IT sector is going to happen with a lot of financial companies. Would you mind having your stockbroker be just as good but living in Singapore and making $50,000 instead of $1.5m?
But yes, in market economies, a lot of people get rich, and a lot of people fail to become as rich. That is how things work, unfortunately. But I would rather have this in a million years than any other system.
I cherish the ability to get paid for what I do and have a good chance within reason to get paid more by going to a competitor or switching industries. I can still do that currently (although not as well as I may have been able to in 1998). I like the fact that in this country, and especially in this state (Delaware, which is ridiculously business-friendly) I can start my own business and compete against my current employer. I'm not going to, I don't want to, but it's a possibility.
Capitalism rewards the cunning, the creative, and doesn't reward a lot of others. It's just like a lot of business? Who makes the most money? The people on the top. If you own a business, or are close to owning it, or own part of it, you are going to make money. Then it just sorts of trickles down. The way to get wealthy, or at least stay well-off is in some sense own your own business.
If you don't want to own your own business, then go to one of the many socialist countries in the world and complain about capitalism there. ;-)
If I owned the business, I would hire Cindy and Ganesh. Now, with your legislation, Instead of this costing me $90,000, it would cost me $150,000 (need to pay Ganesh as much as Cindy). Or to keep costs down, I hire William and Ganesh and Paul $50k + $50k + $50k = $150,000 but now I am overpaying William and he sucks.
No, keep the government out of the market, especially when it comes to wages. Yes, there should be a minimum wage, but your idea is ridiculous.
It won't work.
This is the same thing that happened to manufacturing. The "goods" (computer chips / VPN support) are now being produced somewhere else (Taiwan / India). This transition is not slow at all. If you really sat down and thought about it, this shift could be predicted 10-15 years ago. And if we think about it now, there's another industry that many times is overpaid (looking at it globally) that will be outsourced abroad soon as well. The finance sector? Possibly...
But imagine if the manufacturing jobs never went overseas. Imagine if market efficiencies didn't exist and the US just tariffed foreign goods so that anything imported was 3x as expensive.
You wouldn't have an IT job, there wouldn't be Slashdot, we'd all be working in manufacturing, clinging on to something we were good at 50 years ago.
And this is not to say we're not good at manufacturing now, or good at IT now -- it just means that it is time for us to find the next thing we're good at. That's how Americans thrive(and to an extent, our friends in the UK and other developed countries). We get really good at something, specialize in it, make tons of money, and 20-30 years down the road (because face it, jobs were not going to Indians in 1985) other people EVENTUALLY learn how to do it and then do it cheaper.
But now we've had a long time to get better at something else. And that might not be IT. It might be medicine, or finance, or another industry altogether and that's where the jobs are being created. You might not get that job, you might not have the skills for that job, but that job has been created.
Another thing to think about it: It is impossible for all jobs to go overseas. Companies still need people, IT people as well, in-house. You can't do everything over the phone, or over the internet. You can do a lot, but not everything. That's one of the reasons the health care sector is going to boom over the next 10-20 years. Lots of Americans getting older, and you know what, you can't outsource nursing to West Bumblefuckhikzstan.
This is all part of the "unfairness" of the market economies... It's good for everyone in the long run, but single people sometimes get screwed over.