Sony stock plumented when they made the announcement (months ago) that they were only going to be able to ship half of what they planned. Everymoment 1 less PS2 that they can ship is less money that they're making.
This is not Furby's or Cabbage Patch Doll's, that sell purly because of a cultural craze. If Sony is holding back it would be an idiotic move, since we all know that the technology of the PS2 will be outdated soon enough.
I'd love to see these people apply their same test to children who learn with books and who don't. Books, not just computers, disengage us from the world around us, and from the people we live with. Yet few would argue about how books are ruining people minds (though Plato did argue against reading books).
They'll make a profit by sending up individuals for a $few million each. There are plenty of people willing to pay to travel into space (wish I had the spare cash).
What'll be interesting though is when they send someone up and that person gets hurt/killed. Then the law suits come. What country's court system is in control if some is hurt in space? The country that launched the ship? The country that owns the ship and station? Etc, etc.
Looks like a common characteristic of all these items is that they make decisions for you.
What should you eat, your toilet will decide that. What do I need to shop for, the fridge will tell you. Should I add more Garlic to my spaghetti sauce, well the inteli-stove will answer that question for you.
Speaking as a Civ junky I don't know how you can say that "his games are not as famous as he is". True his name does grace Civ and others, but Civ, Civ 2, etc are huge in the gaming community. His godlike status is earned, not because is name is refferced, but because the original Civilization was his brain child, as opposed to being created by a group/team.
I still find Civ to be one of the most mentally challenging games of all time. So many options, possibilities, flexibility, etc. I wish the effort that is put into games like Quake was put into Civ.
A want to disagree with this article by making 3 points. 1) I know that we all like to think that the internet is something unique and revolutionary in human experience, but many of these issues have happened before. Case in point: For the whole issue of downloading music to make our own CD's being squashed by the Gov this is remarkably similar to some years ago (10?) when colleges had their "reader" privilages stopped. Back then teachers could take a bunch of books down to Kinko's and have them photocopy the best parts and create a reader made up of a many books. This helped students 'cause they didn't have to pay for all the books. THis pissed of publishers cause students didn't have buy the books. Eventually the Law came down on the side of the publishers because this could completly circumvented their way to make profits. This has also been causing hell for the zine community for many years. 2) I'm getting really sick of the term "corporatism". I find this term to be a great way to dehumanize the people who actually work for, and manage the corporations. I think this term is becoming increasing used so we can ignore the wishes of anyone who wants to use technology to make money. Though I really want to make my own CD's I can understand someone getting pissed off becuase I'm preventing him/her from making money by doing this. Intellecual propery rights or not that person may have put in a lot of work to produce what I am now redistributing. 3) The line "corporatism discourages creativity" is true, but corporations do an amazing job dumbing down stuff so people who don't want to be creative can use it. This applies to both microsoft putting out a crap OS that people love for familiarity and (somewhat) ease of use, to Hormell putting out tasteless chili, when any of us creative folks could go cook our own chili. Corporations often serve a great service to people "not-in-the-know" in a field, but to those "in-the-know" our thought of as bland and inefficient. Thanks for listening.
I found that phrase pretty odd too. As everyone here I agree Telsa deserves more credit, recognition, etc, but I wouldn't want this guy teaching my kids.
Slashdot Mirror
Sony stock plumented when they made the announcement (months ago) that they were only going to be able to ship half of what they planned. Everymoment 1 less PS2 that they can ship is less money that they're making.
This is not Furby's or Cabbage Patch Doll's, that sell purly because of a cultural craze. If Sony is holding back it would be an idiotic move, since we all know that the technology of the PS2 will be outdated soon enough.
I'd love to see these people apply their same test to children who learn with books and who don't. Books, not just computers, disengage us from the world around us, and from the people we live with. Yet few would argue about how books are ruining people minds (though Plato did argue against reading books).
They'll make a profit by sending up individuals for a $few million each. There are plenty of people willing to pay to travel into space (wish I had the spare cash).
What'll be interesting though is when they send someone up and that person gets hurt/killed. Then the law suits come. What country's court system is in control if some is hurt in space? The country that launched the ship? The country that owns the ship and station? Etc, etc.
Looks like a common characteristic of all these items is that they make decisions for you.
What should you eat, your toilet will decide that. What do I need to shop for, the fridge will tell you. Should I add more Garlic to my spaghetti sauce, well the inteli-stove will answer that question for you.
Speaking as a Civ junky I don't know how you can say that "his games are not as famous as he is". True his name does grace Civ and others, but Civ, Civ 2, etc are huge in the gaming community. His godlike status is earned, not because is name is refferced, but because the original Civilization was his brain child, as opposed to being created by a group/team.
I still find Civ to be one of the most mentally challenging games of all time. So many options, possibilities, flexibility, etc. I wish the effort that is put into games like Quake was put into Civ.
A want to disagree with this article by making 3 points. 1) I know that we all like to think that the internet is something unique and revolutionary in human experience, but many of these issues have happened before. Case in point: For the whole issue of downloading music to make our own CD's being squashed by the Gov this is remarkably similar to some years ago (10?) when colleges had their "reader" privilages stopped. Back then teachers could take a bunch of books down to Kinko's and have them photocopy the best parts and create a reader made up of a many books. This helped students 'cause they didn't have to pay for all the books. THis pissed of publishers cause students didn't have buy the books. Eventually the Law came down on the side of the publishers because this could completly circumvented their way to make profits. This has also been causing hell for the zine community for many years. 2) I'm getting really sick of the term "corporatism". I find this term to be a great way to dehumanize the people who actually work for, and manage the corporations. I think this term is becoming increasing used so we can ignore the wishes of anyone who wants to use technology to make money. Though I really want to make my own CD's I can understand someone getting pissed off becuase I'm preventing him/her from making money by doing this. Intellecual propery rights or not that person may have put in a lot of work to produce what I am now redistributing. 3) The line "corporatism discourages creativity" is true, but corporations do an amazing job dumbing down stuff so people who don't want to be creative can use it. This applies to both microsoft putting out a crap OS that people love for familiarity and (somewhat) ease of use, to Hormell putting out tasteless chili, when any of us creative folks could go cook our own chili. Corporations often serve a great service to people "not-in-the-know" in a field, but to those "in-the-know" our thought of as bland and inefficient. Thanks for listening.
I found that phrase pretty odd too. As everyone here I agree Telsa deserves more credit, recognition, etc, but I wouldn't want this guy teaching my kids.