I keep hoping their strategy of putting out really, really awful music will finally be effective. Unfortunately, it doesn't even work as well as the marijuana==terrorism campaigns.
"Has anyone else noticed that everyone in videogames is idealized? Men are all super muscular or pretty boys, girls are all tall and big breated. Videogames are meant to be an escape, not a acurate depiction of life, that is boring."
Has anyone noticed that less than half of/. posters RTFA? Oh, right-- everyone's noticed that.
If you'd even read just the Tomb Raider part, you'd realize that the editorial had nothing to do with complaining about large-breasted heroines. Unfortunately, this extremely insightful and well-written article is doomed to be immediately lumped into that category by most people who hear about it, but just can't spare a few minutes to read it.
I agree with everything you said, except about coming up with your own adventures. The high-rated modules at planetneverwinter (or bioware links to them and, um, someone else-- nwnvault?) are great, and much better than what you're likely to make your first few times out.
Aside from that, yeah. Private servers all the way-- the pubs are only for when your buddies aren't around.
I've been playing PC and XBox games for the past 6 months, and I finally went back to my PS2 to play a few games. I popped in Jak and Daxter-- oh, man. You know the feeling when you've been thinking about playing your NES games for a long time, and you finally go back and toss in Kid Icarus, and it's nowhere near as nice looking as you remember it? That's what I got with the PS2.
PS2 games look hideous. GTA3, DMC, MGS2, a couple others are quite nice. But the visuals on your typical PS2 title are wretched. And this does effect the game-- low res, washed out textures hurt the ability to have compelling environments, and to really differentiate one area from another. Everything blends together in a blurry (yet somehow still pointy) mess, and environmental detail goes so low that you can't even think about having real density of things to interact with, because you couldn't even see them.
Ugh. Maybe it's partly just the PS2 games. DC games still get me excited-- it seems like that platform had more cool, new games in its short lifespan than the PS2 has had to date.
The H1-B system is not about freedom. It's about giving employers another tool to exploit their employees.
"Seriously though, if you want foreign workers to demand a higher pay, abolish H1B visas and other such bureaucracies. Give a green card to anyone who comes to work in America. This way, without the noose of H1 visa, foreign workers will also demand a higher pay as per free market dictates."
I thought I entirely disagreed with your post, until I got all the way to the end of it. Opposition to H1-Bs is not hypocrisy. While it's inevitable that some people will want to be protectionist about our labor market (short-term self-interest is a very powerful motivator, after all), I think some of the opposition to the H1-B program is the abuse it allows.
It's hazardous to tie someone's thinking about the H1-B situation to their overall opinions on freedom of immigration, because it's a bad system that artificially drives wages below their market value. How can even the most ardent free-immigration supporter agree with a system that enables exploitation of the immigrants at the same time as it decreases quality of life for citizens?
So, yes-- H1-B is strictly inferior to granting a green card to the foreign worker for everyone except the employer, who of course is quite happy with the additional leverage over their employee.
"Microsoft is asking the game developers to do more work and don't let them control it. For example, it might be feasible to let gamers use online services for free (see above) to boost sales. Or the game might be so good, that you want to charge much more. On XBox, both is impossible - MS just won't let game-publishers make their business decisions."
Huh? Sure they can charge-- MS isn't dictating that they can't charge a monthly fee.
"I've been to the last couple of GDCs and seen independent gaming's "best of the best". I've also downloaded hundreds of demos from independent developers. They're not very good."
Orbz was sweet. Uplink was small-time, and very good. Insaniquarium was a fun dealie for a while. What do all three of these have in common? They're good for a short amount of playtime. Why don't I mind that they lack longevity? They're cheap; and most big budget games lose my interest after a couple hours anyway.
"The other side of the coin is presentation. Game costs are ballooning and people expect their games to look like Gran Turismo and Tekken and you WILL be knocked by the consumer, the press and the almighty retailer if you fall short."
If you're charging 10-15 bucks for your game, they're quite forgiving, actually.
"A group of independent developers with a staff of six will find it tough to compete. Even if they have kick-ass gameplay, without polished presentation it will never hit the over-crowded store shelves."
No one with a clue is suggesting that indies try to get on store shelves. You can't get into Walmart, don't even try.
"I think we're better off trying to balance the power between developer and publisher AND publisher and retailer (the former will never happen without the latter), so that developers have a better ability to stick to their guns."
There are two inherent conflicts which this doesn't solve, and which make the niche for indie games quite clear:
a) Innovation is risky; polish is expensive. Testing a new mechanic for the first time shouldn't be done in a $5 million title-- it's a waste of money. You WILL need to change things. Look at Sims Online-- did they really need to spend that much money on polish to discover that the mechanics didn't work?
b) Big titles need big sales. You can't target a 200,000 person niche with a $5 million title. Say you're really successful, and hit 25% of that niche-- you sell 50,000 titles. An indie would LOVE those sales. EA would take a serious loss. Besides, if you're into, say, naval simulations, you'll do without the pretty cutscenes and be happy for the deep gameplay without all the frills.
People are going to buy EQ2, go "ooh, ahh", log in, appreciate New Freeport's amenities, walk outside and fight a couple of rats, and go back to their level 65 guys in EQ. Why would they want to level up on rats again in a game with 1/10 the content of EQ?
Or they could leave the fucking stone age of game design and not have you level treadmill on rats.
"The problem isn't lack of competition, quite the opposite, more competition means more companies each with redundant staff and bureaucracies."
"Only those that are natural monopolies. There's only one road directly outside your house."
The geography outside my house has nothing to do with the managerial overhead required to run a large company. Redundant overhead is a drawback present in all businesses, not simply those who have to lay lots of cable. In fact, it seems to me that the drawback is much less a problem of redundant staff, and much more a problem of redundant capital investment-- laying the cable.
"The problem isn't lack of competition, quite the opposite, more competition means more companies each with redundant staff and bureaucracies."
You could say that about every business. Do you believe every market should be controlled by only one company? Should the government choose a monopoly for every sector?
I doubt that, but it does make it quite apparent that you're glossing over the drawbacks to governmental regulation, and completely ignoring the benefits of competition. If the only tradeoff were reduction of beauracracy, we could have the government make all our cars and run all our restauarants.
See, that's the thing. I'm sure most people at SOE know this. But the multi-million dollar question is: how the hell does a game that's so far from mainstream get strung along in development for this long?
I doubt it'll happen, but I really wish Game Dev Mag could get one of their really insightful and honest post-mortems for this project. It'd be an excellent case study of all sorts of things to watch out for.
nVidia is in a much better situation than 3dfx was-- that comparison isn't even close. Before the Voodoo5 came out, 3dfx was already strapped for cash, had gone years since its last decently selling cards, and had almost no OEM contracts. nVidia's finances aren't so precarious as leave the company bankrupt after one or two failed cycles.
All games are not created equal. Console games are a very different experience from PC games. I enjoy both, but sometimes I'm in a console mood, and sometimes I'm in a PC mood. It's like asking why everyone doesn't play sports in a field instead of a swimming pool-- swimming pools are more expensive, and it's all just sports, right?
Besides that, you're exaggerating about the need to upgrade. The equation would still come out in favor of consoles, but unless you always have to play every game at max settings, most games will run comfortably on a fairly old rig. 1-2 years is only necessary if you need to play the latest and greatest 3-D graphics showoffs, but most of those suffer in the gameplay department anyway (check the reviews for Unreal 2). RAM is cheap nowadays. So is a GeForce3. That'll turn a sub-GHz system into something easily able to play most popular games right now (BF1942 being the notable exception).
Still, the price is somewhat moot. If you're a PC gamer and you can afford it, console games won't cut it. Neverwinter Nights on a console? Never. Take the XBox version of Morrowind? Please-- and miss out on all the great mods?
The big guys are looking at moving towards more and more online distribution (witness Valve's Steam). As people get used to that idea, it can only help indie developers and publishers of indie games.
So I totally agree with your post; however, I'd like to add something.
Studios are going to continue to be hit-driven, perhaps more even than they are today, as the non-hits get weeded out in the struggle for shelf space at WalMart. There's no business sense in EA going for a 50,000-seller-- but plenty of money to be made for a smaller business.
Indies can serve two markets far better than the big publishers, and the big publishers won't even want to compete. First, they can target niches-- a submarine simulation will not sell a million copies, it won't be a franchise, and it won't support a company with a large international publishing structure to support. Second, indie developers can take risks with gameplay ideas. EA has to evolve gameplay-- anything too new, like Battlezone, and you'll only get the hardcore gaming audience. But jaded gamers grown sick of sequels and spinoffs and franchises will be more than willing to plunk down $15 for a small-time game that does some new things, even if it still has rough edges.
I think Orbz fits into that second part. It's not a mega-production-value, 60-person-team game with cinematics and kooky NPCs. It won't be on WalMart's shelf next to Ratchet and Clank. It's a great example of what indie games can bring that big publishers can't.
As a fairly jaded gamer, I really do hope indie game development grows substantially over the next several years. It'll bring a lot more creativity to an industry that's increasingly learned to play it safe.
"I don't know how much you make a year but after paying for a modest house and barely enough food to live on do you just give the rest of your money away? If not you're a hypocrite."
What are you talking about? I never stated my opinion on welfare, unemployment benefits, or the current president in my post. I simply said that if you vote Republican and are shocked when they cut benefits, you're not the sharpest tool in the shed. Your argument seems crafted against some point I never made.
"I'm not rich, but I'll appreciate the no tax on dividends. See 75% of Americans own stocks these days."
Most of those 75% own most or all of their stock through their already tax-sheltered accounts (401(k)), and would receive no benefit from the current proposition.
"While I sympathize with their intent, it would have been a remarkable abrogation of Congressional power for the Court to have struck down the SBCTEA."
I disagree-- Breyer's opinion pointed out three ways in which this law could most certainly have been considered unconstitutional.
"The Constitution's Copyright Clause grants Congress the power to promote the Progress of Science by securing for limited Times to Authors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings. The statute before us, the 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, extends the term of most existing copyrights to 95 years and that of many new copyrights to 70 years after the author's death. The economic effect of this 20-year extension--the longest blanket extension since the Nation's founding--is to make the copyright term not limited, but virtually perpetual. Its primary legal effect is to grant the extended term not to authors, but to their heirs, estates, or corporate successors. And most importantly, its practical effect is not to promote, but to inhibit, the progress of Science-- by which word the Framers meant learning or knowledge."
Now, if you look at his last point-- looking at intent-- you might notice a remarkable similarity between that, and the rationale for limiting the right of people to keep and bear arms. While the Supreme Court is more than happy to infringe second amendment rights based on a qualifying clause, they completely reject that when discussing copyright. It's very selective interpretation.
This sort of limitation on Congress's power would certainly not be unprecedented either-- Stevens points out a case where they did almost exactly what Eldred was asking for patents, and rejected the authority of Congress to extend the term of patents that had already been granted.
And even if you're to look at this extremely literally, the right to secure inventions to their authors means that any law that allows copyright to be assigned to the estate after death should be struck down.
There's plenty of precedent for the Supreme Court ruling towards requests like Eldred's. They certainly could have done so again, and it appears justified by the Constitution. This is another example of the Supreme Court making up their minds first, and finding justification later.
"As always, though, the President's approval rating remains unchanged even as American attitudes slowly change...."
And there we go right back to me feeling superior to them.:) The NYT had a pretty good article about rising unemployment and the shitty economy. In one interview with an unemployed man who wasn't going to receive any more benefits (not even with the recent extention; he was laid off too early), the man claimed he felt betrayed, surprised, and so on.
Yes, that's right. An unemployed man feeling "betrayed" by a Republican president who isn't giving him money for not working. Wasn't that blatantly fucking obvious from the get-go? Wait-- you mean that if I vote for the Republican candidate, I'll get less welfare and social services? Run that by me again. Hold on a minute-- this from the man who vowed to cut taxes on inheritances over $1 million? Who's crusading for elimination of the tax on dividends, which will primarily effect people earning several hundred thousand dollars a year?
If people can't figure out that the Republicans are NOT the party to vote for if you want a larger unemployment check, they're too fucking stupid to vote.
I do think (well, hope anyway) that person was anomalous. So, while I think exactly the same thing when I read the post you were responding to-- that is, I think "Grow up, you ignorant, self-important fuckwit that assumes that everyone else is stupid"-- I also see the reason he's started to think that. Anyone with half a brain and 10 minutes a day on the newspaper knew who they were voting for.
"You expect objectivity and balance from a news organization?"
It seems to me that worse sins are committed in the name of objectivity than would occur if the news orgs simply owned up, and reported what they wanted to. Many (poor) news outlets attempt to cast both sides of an issue as equivalent, which is all well and good, until you note that they extend it to an issue which has 99% of everyone on one side, and the loonies on the other. I've even seen fainthearted attempts to claim that Darwin's theory of evolution and creationism have the same amount of scientific basis, and that's with fairly liberal west coast papers. Ugh.
I believe you; in fact, I knew it, but forgot it (or conveniently left it out:) ) when doing my example. Yes, so unfortunately the little interface I made up couldn't spit out the percentage. It could tell you how much money it was going to take away just as easily, and then explain it with lots of confusing numbers, which-- come to think of it-- might be better.:P
Having a progressive income tax adds little if any complexity to paying your taxes. Let's look at the e-file interface for the two solutions. First, your regressive flat tax:
"How much did you make last year?" Input: $40,000 "Okay, you pay 18% in taxes. That's $7,200. Have a nice day!"
or for someone else:
"How much did you make last year?" Input: $20,000 "Okay, you pay 18% in taxes. That's $3,600. Have a nice day!"
Okay, now a progressive graduated income tax:
"How much did you make last year?" Input: $40,000 "Okay, you pay 18% in taxes. That's $7,200. Have a nice day!"
or for someone else:
"How much did you make last year?" Input: $20,000 "Okay, you pay 5% in taxes. That's $1,000. Have a nice day!"
I don't see that one system is harder for your average filer to figure out than another. The complexity of the tax code makes no case for a flat tax-- it's just a nice name for politicians to throw around, while giving something to the rich.
The complexity of the tax code could be lessened by eliminating deductions for charitable donations, or removing the ridiculous complexity involved in investing (oh, shit, AMT! Hey, it's been a year and a half, is this capital gains or income?), or axing tax-deferred IRAs, or any number of other oddities in the tax code. There are hundreds of little things that make your life difficult when trying to properly pay your taxes-- and none of them would be fixed by switching to a flat tax.
"I don't watch it (mostly because the theme song is about as sweet to my ears as the sound of a cat sliding down a blackboard), but save Farscape, and then save Firefly , wich I do like : )"
Firefly totally shocked me by being excellent. I was expecting a show I might tolerate on occasion if I was really, really desparate. Instead, I got a show that was innovative and polished. Filming techniques and plot structures in many of the episodes were strikingly different from the same old crap pumped out night after night all over TV.
Firefly stands as a great show in its own right, not just as a good sci fi show. It's really unfortunate it got canned-- it'll probably open another slot for some shitty CSI ripoff.
It's important to note, however, that in many cases the Walmart version isn't the same as the version you get elsewhere. Even if a game is rated M, there's a good chance the Walmart version has removed a few swear words, turned off blood or changed the color, that sort of thing.
Slashdot Mirror
"Same thing thats going to make Star Wars boring. Nobody can really be a Jedi or they'd be unstoppable."
:)
Well, seeing as players can be a Jedi in SWG, it might be time to rethink your theory.
I keep hoping their strategy of putting out really, really awful music will finally be effective. Unfortunately, it doesn't even work as well as the marijuana==terrorism campaigns.
"Has anyone else noticed that everyone in videogames is idealized? Men are all super muscular or pretty boys, girls are all tall and big breated. Videogames are meant to be an escape, not a acurate depiction of life, that is boring."
/. posters RTFA? Oh, right-- everyone's noticed that.
Has anyone noticed that less than half of
If you'd even read just the Tomb Raider part, you'd realize that the editorial had nothing to do with complaining about large-breasted heroines. Unfortunately, this extremely insightful and well-written article is doomed to be immediately lumped into that category by most people who hear about it, but just can't spare a few minutes to read it.
I agree with everything you said, except about coming up with your own adventures. The high-rated modules at planetneverwinter (or bioware links to them and, um, someone else-- nwnvault?) are great, and much better than what you're likely to make your first few times out.
Aside from that, yeah. Private servers all the way-- the pubs are only for when your buddies aren't around.
Pretty enough?
I've been playing PC and XBox games for the past 6 months, and I finally went back to my PS2 to play a few games. I popped in Jak and Daxter-- oh, man. You know the feeling when you've been thinking about playing your NES games for a long time, and you finally go back and toss in Kid Icarus, and it's nowhere near as nice looking as you remember it? That's what I got with the PS2.
PS2 games look hideous. GTA3, DMC, MGS2, a couple others are quite nice. But the visuals on your typical PS2 title are wretched. And this does effect the game-- low res, washed out textures hurt the ability to have compelling environments, and to really differentiate one area from another. Everything blends together in a blurry (yet somehow still pointy) mess, and environmental detail goes so low that you can't even think about having real density of things to interact with, because you couldn't even see them.
Ugh. Maybe it's partly just the PS2 games. DC games still get me excited-- it seems like that platform had more cool, new games in its short lifespan than the PS2 has had to date.
The H1-B system is not about freedom. It's about giving employers another tool to exploit their employees.
"Seriously though, if you want foreign workers to demand a higher pay, abolish H1B visas and other such bureaucracies. Give a green card to anyone who comes to work in America. This way, without the noose of H1 visa, foreign workers will also demand a higher pay as per free market dictates."
I thought I entirely disagreed with your post, until I got all the way to the end of it. Opposition to H1-Bs is not hypocrisy. While it's inevitable that some people will want to be protectionist about our labor market (short-term self-interest is a very powerful motivator, after all), I think some of the opposition to the H1-B program is the abuse it allows.
It's hazardous to tie someone's thinking about the H1-B situation to their overall opinions on freedom of immigration, because it's a bad system that artificially drives wages below their market value. How can even the most ardent free-immigration supporter agree with a system that enables exploitation of the immigrants at the same time as it decreases quality of life for citizens?
So, yes-- H1-B is strictly inferior to granting a green card to the foreign worker for everyone except the employer, who of course is quite happy with the additional leverage over their employee.
"Microsoft is asking the game developers to do more work and don't let them control it. For example, it might be feasible to let gamers use online services for free (see above) to boost sales. Or the game might be so good, that you want to charge much more. On XBox, both is impossible - MS just won't let game-publishers make their business decisions."
Huh? Sure they can charge-- MS isn't dictating that they can't charge a monthly fee.
"I've been to the last couple of GDCs and seen independent gaming's "best of the best". I've also downloaded hundreds of demos from independent developers. They're not very good."
Orbz was sweet. Uplink was small-time, and very good. Insaniquarium was a fun dealie for a while. What do all three of these have in common? They're good for a short amount of playtime. Why don't I mind that they lack longevity? They're cheap; and most big budget games lose my interest after a couple hours anyway.
"The other side of the coin is presentation. Game costs are ballooning and people expect their games to look like Gran Turismo and Tekken and you WILL be knocked by the consumer, the press and the almighty retailer if you fall short."
If you're charging 10-15 bucks for your game, they're quite forgiving, actually.
"A group of independent developers with a staff of six will find it tough to compete. Even if they have kick-ass gameplay, without polished presentation it will never hit the over-crowded store shelves."
No one with a clue is suggesting that indies try to get on store shelves. You can't get into Walmart, don't even try.
"I think we're better off trying to balance the power between developer and publisher AND publisher and retailer (the former will never happen without the latter), so that developers have a better ability to stick to their guns."
There are two inherent conflicts which this doesn't solve, and which make the niche for indie games quite clear:
a) Innovation is risky; polish is expensive. Testing a new mechanic for the first time shouldn't be done in a $5 million title-- it's a waste of money. You WILL need to change things. Look at Sims Online-- did they really need to spend that much money on polish to discover that the mechanics didn't work?
b) Big titles need big sales. You can't target a 200,000 person niche with a $5 million title. Say you're really successful, and hit 25% of that niche-- you sell 50,000 titles. An indie would LOVE those sales. EA would take a serious loss. Besides, if you're into, say, naval simulations, you'll do without the pretty cutscenes and be happy for the deep gameplay without all the frills.
People are going to buy EQ2, go "ooh, ahh", log in, appreciate New Freeport's amenities, walk outside and fight a couple of rats, and go back to their level 65 guys in EQ. Why would they want to level up on rats again in a game with 1/10 the content of EQ?
Or they could leave the fucking stone age of game design and not have you level treadmill on rats.
"The problem isn't lack of competition, quite the opposite, more competition means more companies each with redundant staff and bureaucracies."
"Only those that are natural monopolies. There's only one road directly outside your house."
The geography outside my house has nothing to do with the managerial overhead required to run a large company. Redundant overhead is a drawback present in all businesses, not simply those who have to lay lots of cable. In fact, it seems to me that the drawback is much less a problem of redundant staff, and much more a problem of redundant capital investment-- laying the cable.
"The problem isn't lack of competition, quite the opposite, more competition means more companies each with redundant staff and bureaucracies."
You could say that about every business. Do you believe every market should be controlled by only one company? Should the government choose a monopoly for every sector?
I doubt that, but it does make it quite apparent that you're glossing over the drawbacks to governmental regulation, and completely ignoring the benefits of competition. If the only tradeoff were reduction of beauracracy, we could have the government make all our cars and run all our restauarants.
See, that's the thing. I'm sure most people at SOE know this. But the multi-million dollar question is: how the hell does a game that's so far from mainstream get strung along in development for this long?
I doubt it'll happen, but I really wish Game Dev Mag could get one of their really insightful and honest post-mortems for this project. It'd be an excellent case study of all sorts of things to watch out for.
nVidia is in a much better situation than 3dfx was-- that comparison isn't even close. Before the Voodoo5 came out, 3dfx was already strapped for cash, had gone years since its last decently selling cards, and had almost no OEM contracts. nVidia's finances aren't so precarious as leave the company bankrupt after one or two failed cycles.
All games are not created equal. Console games are a very different experience from PC games. I enjoy both, but sometimes I'm in a console mood, and sometimes I'm in a PC mood. It's like asking why everyone doesn't play sports in a field instead of a swimming pool-- swimming pools are more expensive, and it's all just sports, right?
Besides that, you're exaggerating about the need to upgrade. The equation would still come out in favor of consoles, but unless you always have to play every game at max settings, most games will run comfortably on a fairly old rig. 1-2 years is only necessary if you need to play the latest and greatest 3-D graphics showoffs, but most of those suffer in the gameplay department anyway (check the reviews for Unreal 2). RAM is cheap nowadays. So is a GeForce3. That'll turn a sub-GHz system into something easily able to play most popular games right now (BF1942 being the notable exception).
Still, the price is somewhat moot. If you're a PC gamer and you can afford it, console games won't cut it. Neverwinter Nights on a console? Never. Take the XBox version of Morrowind? Please-- and miss out on all the great mods?
Buy uplink.
Go Orbz! Go Garage Games! :)
The big guys are looking at moving towards more and more online distribution (witness Valve's Steam). As people get used to that idea, it can only help indie developers and publishers of indie games.
So I totally agree with your post; however, I'd like to add something.
Studios are going to continue to be hit-driven, perhaps more even than they are today, as the non-hits get weeded out in the struggle for shelf space at WalMart. There's no business sense in EA going for a 50,000-seller-- but plenty of money to be made for a smaller business.
Indies can serve two markets far better than the big publishers, and the big publishers won't even want to compete. First, they can target niches-- a submarine simulation will not sell a million copies, it won't be a franchise, and it won't support a company with a large international publishing structure to support. Second, indie developers can take risks with gameplay ideas. EA has to evolve gameplay-- anything too new, like Battlezone, and you'll only get the hardcore gaming audience. But jaded gamers grown sick of sequels and spinoffs and franchises will be more than willing to plunk down $15 for a small-time game that does some new things, even if it still has rough edges.
I think Orbz fits into that second part. It's not a mega-production-value, 60-person-team game with cinematics and kooky NPCs. It won't be on WalMart's shelf next to Ratchet and Clank. It's a great example of what indie games can bring that big publishers can't.
As a fairly jaded gamer, I really do hope indie game development grows substantially over the next several years. It'll bring a lot more creativity to an industry that's increasingly learned to play it safe.
(BTW, congrats on Orbz-- it's a lot of fun!)
"I don't know how much you make a year but after paying for a modest house and barely enough food to live on do you just give the rest of your money away? If not you're a hypocrite."
What are you talking about? I never stated my opinion on welfare, unemployment benefits, or the current president in my post. I simply said that if you vote Republican and are shocked when they cut benefits, you're not the sharpest tool in the shed. Your argument seems crafted against some point I never made.
"I'm not rich, but I'll appreciate the no tax on dividends. See 75% of Americans own stocks these days."
Most of those 75% own most or all of their stock through their already tax-sheltered accounts (401(k)), and would receive no benefit from the current proposition.
"While I sympathize with their intent, it would have been a remarkable abrogation of Congressional power for the Court to have struck down the SBCTEA."
I disagree-- Breyer's opinion pointed out three ways in which this law could most certainly have been considered unconstitutional.
"The Constitution's Copyright Clause grants Congress the power to promote the Progress of Science by securing for limited Times to Authors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings. The statute before us, the 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, extends the term of most existing copyrights to 95 years and that of many new copyrights to 70 years after the author's death. The economic effect of this 20-year extension--the longest blanket extension since the Nation's founding--is to make the copyright term not limited, but virtually perpetual. Its primary legal effect is to grant the extended term not to authors, but to their heirs, estates, or corporate successors. And most importantly, its practical effect is not to promote, but to inhibit, the progress of Science-- by which word the Framers meant learning or knowledge."
Now, if you look at his last point-- looking at intent-- you might notice a remarkable similarity between that, and the rationale for limiting the right of people to keep and bear arms. While the Supreme Court is more than happy to infringe second amendment rights based on a qualifying clause, they completely reject that when discussing copyright. It's very selective interpretation.
This sort of limitation on Congress's power would certainly not be unprecedented either-- Stevens points out a case where they did almost exactly what Eldred was asking for patents, and rejected the authority of Congress to extend the term of patents that had already been granted.
And even if you're to look at this extremely literally, the right to secure inventions to their authors means that any law that allows copyright to be assigned to the estate after death should be struck down.
There's plenty of precedent for the Supreme Court ruling towards requests like Eldred's. They certainly could have done so again, and it appears justified by the Constitution. This is another example of the Supreme Court making up their minds first, and finding justification later.
"As always, though, the President's approval rating remains unchanged even as American attitudes slowly change...."
:) The NYT had a pretty good article about rising unemployment and the shitty economy. In one interview with an unemployed man who wasn't going to receive any more benefits (not even with the recent extention; he was laid off too early), the man claimed he felt betrayed, surprised, and so on.
And there we go right back to me feeling superior to them.
Yes, that's right. An unemployed man feeling "betrayed" by a Republican president who isn't giving him money for not working. Wasn't that blatantly fucking obvious from the get-go? Wait-- you mean that if I vote for the Republican candidate, I'll get less welfare and social services? Run that by me again. Hold on a minute-- this from the man who vowed to cut taxes on inheritances over $1 million? Who's crusading for elimination of the tax on dividends, which will primarily effect people earning several hundred thousand dollars a year?
If people can't figure out that the Republicans are NOT the party to vote for if you want a larger unemployment check, they're too fucking stupid to vote.
I do think (well, hope anyway) that person was anomalous. So, while I think exactly the same thing when I read the post you were responding to-- that is, I think "Grow up, you ignorant, self-important fuckwit that assumes that everyone else is stupid"-- I also see the reason he's started to think that. Anyone with half a brain and 10 minutes a day on the newspaper knew who they were voting for.
"You expect objectivity and balance from a news organization?"
It seems to me that worse sins are committed in the name of objectivity than would occur if the news orgs simply owned up, and reported what they wanted to. Many (poor) news outlets attempt to cast both sides of an issue as equivalent, which is all well and good, until you note that they extend it to an issue which has 99% of everyone on one side, and the loonies on the other. I've even seen fainthearted attempts to claim that Darwin's theory of evolution and creationism have the same amount of scientific basis, and that's with fairly liberal west coast papers. Ugh.
I've been wondering for a while if they'd just give up and go the way of Nike.
I believe you; in fact, I knew it, but forgot it (or conveniently left it out :) ) when doing my example. Yes, so unfortunately the little interface I made up couldn't spit out the percentage. It could tell you how much money it was going to take away just as easily, and then explain it with lots of confusing numbers, which-- come to think of it-- might be better. :P
"If only we went to a flat tax."
Having a progressive income tax adds little if any complexity to paying your taxes. Let's look at the e-file interface for the two solutions. First, your regressive flat tax:
"How much did you make last year?"
Input: $40,000
"Okay, you pay 18% in taxes. That's $7,200. Have a nice day!"
or for someone else:
"How much did you make last year?"
Input: $20,000
"Okay, you pay 18% in taxes. That's $3,600. Have a nice day!"
Okay, now a progressive graduated income tax:
"How much did you make last year?"
Input: $40,000
"Okay, you pay 18% in taxes. That's $7,200. Have a nice day!"
or for someone else:
"How much did you make last year?"
Input: $20,000
"Okay, you pay 5% in taxes. That's $1,000. Have a nice day!"
I don't see that one system is harder for your average filer to figure out than another. The complexity of the tax code makes no case for a flat tax-- it's just a nice name for politicians to throw around, while giving something to the rich.
The complexity of the tax code could be lessened by eliminating deductions for charitable donations, or removing the ridiculous complexity involved in investing (oh, shit, AMT! Hey, it's been a year and a half, is this capital gains or income?), or axing tax-deferred IRAs, or any number of other oddities in the tax code. There are hundreds of little things that make your life difficult when trying to properly pay your taxes-- and none of them would be fixed by switching to a flat tax.
"I don't watch it (mostly because the theme song is about as sweet to my ears as the sound of a cat sliding down a blackboard), but save Farscape, and then save Firefly , wich I do like : )"
Firefly totally shocked me by being excellent. I was expecting a show I might tolerate on occasion if I was really, really desparate. Instead, I got a show that was innovative and polished. Filming techniques and plot structures in many of the episodes were strikingly different from the same old crap pumped out night after night all over TV.
Firefly stands as a great show in its own right, not just as a good sci fi show. It's really unfortunate it got canned-- it'll probably open another slot for some shitty CSI ripoff.
It's important to note, however, that in many cases the Walmart version isn't the same as the version you get elsewhere. Even if a game is rated M, there's a good chance the Walmart version has removed a few swear words, turned off blood or changed the color, that sort of thing.