Ah yes. Because all those government regulations protecting us from predatory corporations have eliminated our freedom to be free. If only we could eliminate the FDA.
You're a retard, you know that? He just said he barely makes enough to support himself despite working hard every day. The top 20% of the country owns 87% of the wealth. The bottom 60% owns less than 1% of the wealth. What the heck is anyone supposed to do when half of those paupers vote for politicians who want to give MORE money to the rich?
Don't really care about your other points, but the 70s economic stagflation had a lot to do with a critical misunderstanding of how the economy was changing, how Keynesian economic principles affected growth, and the oil shock. I don't know if you have actually read about any of this though.
It's a shame they removed the religion aspect of Civ 4. While it was at times clunky and had a confusing implementation (forcing a great deal of irritating micromanagement), the effect religion has had on societies historically has perhaps been greater than any other factor. Even today religious extremism plays a huge role in politics and world affairs. I was hoping they'd refine the mechanism to make it more sensible and enjoyable, but it seems they were scared of being politically incorrect and avoided controversy by removing it altogether.
I never thought of it that way. I was kind of annoyed that he equated the utter insanity on the right with what goes on in the left during his rally to sanity promotion on his show. Nothing on the left compares to the problems Bush Jr. caused or how crazy Tea Partiers are, or how screwed up the Republican Party has become over the last 30 years, but when you put it that way I guess I can see why he would try to emphasize rationality even if it requires stretching the fabric of truth a bit.
The Fed is intervening because there's no one else to pull us out of the hole you narrow-minded twit. Just shut your mouth, eat your government-subsidized meat burger, and stop bothering the intelligent people with your rants.
Equating the outrage on "the Left" with what's going on on the Right is bullshit. I don't think that Bush is Hitler-- but he did lie us into the wrong war, he did refuse to include the costs of his wars in the budget, he did sign executive statements claiming the laws Congress passed didn't apply to him. He did everything in his power to make sure the Rich didn't have to pay any taxes and made sure not to put any oversight on Wall Street that would have, say, prevented the collapse of the economy. He brought back torture and wanted to overturn Habeus Corpus. He wiretapped Americans illegally when all he had to do was ask for permission from the FISA court to do it legally. Obama has been a disappointment to, but to equate the nut-jobs on the Right who think Obama is a Muslim and was born in Kenya and is a Socialist is shit. Obama may not be perfect, but when you equate the hapless Democrats with the ignorant, deceitful, moronic Republicans you are helping deliver this country back into the hands of those who got us into the mess we're in today. You can't possibly want Boener running the show, can you?
I think you're just bitter they don't agree with your inherent bias. They are even keeled and make fun of whoever is available to make fun of. And they most *definitely* do not take themselves seriously. I don't know what show you're watching to come to that conclusion.
Barney Frank in 2007 was part of the Congressional financial committee, and tried to enact legislative reform on banking regulations. He was stymied by, surprise surprise, Republicans.
If we raised taxes back to the levels they were at in our most prosperous era- the three decades after WWII- not only would we balance the budget but we'd have massive surpluses every year with which to pay off the debt. Of course people making over $3 million a year would howl bloody murder having to pay 90% of their income in taxes. I'd personally have no problem raising that bracket to 5 or 10 million, but either way the rich would become apoplectic with rage.
I'm all in favor of restoring sanity-- but equating the outrage on "the Left" with what's going on on the Right is bullshit. I don't think that Bush is Hitler-- but he did lie us into the wrong war, he did refuse to include the costs of his wars in the budget, he did sign executive statements claiming the laws Congress passed didn't apply to him. He did everything in his power to make sure the Rich didn't have to pay any taxes and made sure not to put any oversight on Wall Street that would have, say, prevented the collapse of the economy. He brought back torture and wanted to overturn Habeus Corpus. He wiretapped Americans illegally when all he had to do was ask for permission from the FISA court to do it legally. Obama has been a disappointment to, but to equate the nut-jobs on the Right who think Obama is a Muslim and was born in Kenya and is a Socialist is shit. Obama may not be perfect, but when you treat the hapless Democrats with the ignorant, deceitful, moronic Republicans you are helping deliver this country back into the hands of those who got us into the mess we're in today. You can't possibly want Boener running the show, can you?
Actually Android users use more data than iPhone users, and yet Verizon has never had any network issues. AT&T's troubles were caused by a deliberate decrease in annual capex meant to pump up their stock price. Their profits have tripled from 2005 to 2008, while their capex has dropped significantly each year.
I thought we used our military intelligence on the enemy. I don't remember voting for our president and current government to use its powers to harm those who value liberty over secrecy. It would be interesting to hear more details about Julian's tipsters' info.
Getting the media to "run with it" isn't much of an accomplishment in this era of 24 hour news cycles. I don't assign a great deal of respect to their integrity or seriousness.
But you get free access to these books, and you can download them from the comfort of your house. I don't like DRM either, but renting something for free doesn't strike me as a problem.
Are you really that idiotic? If you don't have the money to feed yourself, how do you "raise yourself"? Do you honestly believe your own success was entirely the result of you "pulling yourself up from the bootstraps"? Let's drop you in the middle of Somalia and see how far your hard work gets you.
Whenever someone says "take from others" they reveal themselves to be a selfish prick who can't wrap their head around the fact that they live within a system that allows them to succeed, and without help from that system poor people have no chance of succeeding.
Well that's funny, considering the fundamental principles that have driven internet growth have until now been all about net neutrality. There are always crazy anti-net neutrality advocates whining about governments regulating what "might" happen instead of what is happening. If this isn't proof enough that strong net neutrality regulation is needed to prevent the balkanization of the internet, then I don't know what is.
Physical costs have also plummeted. And the industry has moved to disc-based games. Development platforms cost less (adjusted for inflation.)
How do you think the physical cost of a PS1 disc compares to a modern-day Blu-Ray or DVD?
Which comes from people trying to one-up each other. It's a bubble, just like the housing market. The industry is doing this to itself.
Trying to "one-up" the competition is... being competitive. A bubble implies an industry is much more highly valued than it actually is. I really don't think that's the problem. Even EA recently came out and said that game development budgets have peaked. $100 million seems to be the maximum in their minds for the time being.
Here's a tip: the secondhand market actually helps stimulate the primary market. The fact that a gamer (or driver, or reader) knows that they can resell their item makes them more likely to buy it at full price.
And who buys those used discs? Potential customers whose money could have gone to the game developers (who would have lowered prices if there were no resellers, as they do on Steam).
All the while, the producers are building up cred with the people who can't afford to buy things at full price. One day, they will be able to--they won't have to wait for and fight over used games--and then they will become the new primary customers.
Building up cred? Do you live in a fantasy world or something? Why wait and fight over used games when they can buy them on the cheap for brand-new, like on Steam? No resellers means cheaper prices overall.
That Sony and Microsoft can't do this isn't really the consumer's fault--yet game devs treat consumers like shit if they even think about buying a game used.
I don't appreciate the focus on casual gamers Nintendo has taken with the Wii. I enjoy the visual stimulation of increasingly beautiful games. Yes gameplay is of primary importance, but visuals add to the immersion and overall enjoyment for me and many others.
That's not true. It's like Xerox ignoring the potential of the mouse. It's refusing to acknowledge the potential of market disrupting innovations. Google has 50-100 experiments running at any one time. As far as I can tell Kodak didn't even experiment with their engineers' innovations, besides presenting it to an audience. They let their conservative shareholders control the direction of the company too much.
The interesting thing is that despite the various examples present in history, just as many companies, if not more, still cling to the entrenched mindset instead of attempting to innovate. Heck, look at Blockbuster, now filing for bankruptcy. My theory is that once people have a lot of money, they're afraid to experiment with it, even if that will bring in more money. So instead they cling to old ways of thinking and ultimately lose in the long run. Engineering types aren't exactly striking gold with their annual salaries, so they're not necessarily encumbered with worrying about the "financial implications" of design innovations or market shifts. I think some companies try to remedy this problem by bringing on engineers to be a part of the corporate structure, but often times the culture and mindset clash is just too great and it fails to work out. Look at Microsoft's recent firing of J. Allard and their nixing of the Courier.
Not to come across as a corporate shill, but the price of games has not changed over the last 10+ years. Well actually they've *come down* since the atari days. The problem is with games' exponentially rising budgets the industry can't sustain itself. People won't even accept price increases to keep up with inflation. They think games that give them tens of hours of game time and fun are far too expensive relative to a $10-15 movie that gives them less than 2 hours of immersion.
Think about it. $50 spent on a Nintendo game in 1985 (and there were often costlier games) would cost $98.37 today. Looking at a more recent period of time, a $50 PS1 game would in '95 cost 69.71 today. And yet the uproar over the bump up to $60 for current generation games was immense.
The games industry isn't growing its hardcore base anymore. That's why Nintendo shifted its focus to casual gamers. It wasn't about "losing the console wars" for them. They didn't lose any money on the Gamecube or N64. But they were around during the gaming market crash of the early 80's. They see the writing on the wall of the current industry. Look at a game like All Points Bulletin. It was a massive, $100 million MMO that utterly bombed. That kind of loss scares away investors. It leaves a black scar on the industry. Unlike movies, however, aside from MMOs there is no growth potential for hardcore games. You think the Chinese or Indians will ever start paying for games, having been raised on the idea that pirating is the norm? Maybe in 20, 30 years when those countries form a legitimate middle class that doesn't have to spend a month's salary just to buy a decent cell phone, but the industry can't wait that long (in case you're wondering, no I don't believe piracy has an effect on sales in general; most pirates wouldn't have bought the game anyways. This is more a reflection on the difficulty of finding new, affluent markets to purchase such expensive products).
And as for pricing cheaper, even if they did they would eventually be undercut by Gamestop and other used game sellers. Most old games are dropped in price eventually, but people still prefer used because they're almost always cheaper. If there were no way to sell used games, companies would be much more eager to drop prices in order to breath life into the tail of a product's lifespan (just look at Steam for a perfect example of what I'm talking about).
Slashdot Mirror
Ah yes. Because all those government regulations protecting us from predatory corporations have eliminated our freedom to be free. If only we could eliminate the FDA.
You're a retard, you know that? He just said he barely makes enough to support himself despite working hard every day. The top 20% of the country owns 87% of the wealth. The bottom 60% owns less than 1% of the wealth. What the heck is anyone supposed to do when half of those paupers vote for politicians who want to give MORE money to the rich?
Don't really care about your other points, but the 70s economic stagflation had a lot to do with a critical misunderstanding of how the economy was changing, how Keynesian economic principles affected growth, and the oil shock. I don't know if you have actually read about any of this though.
It's a shame they removed the religion aspect of Civ 4. While it was at times clunky and had a confusing implementation (forcing a great deal of irritating micromanagement), the effect religion has had on societies historically has perhaps been greater than any other factor. Even today religious extremism plays a huge role in politics and world affairs. I was hoping they'd refine the mechanism to make it more sensible and enjoyable, but it seems they were scared of being politically incorrect and avoided controversy by removing it altogether.
I never thought of it that way. I was kind of annoyed that he equated the utter insanity on the right with what goes on in the left during his rally to sanity promotion on his show. Nothing on the left compares to the problems Bush Jr. caused or how crazy Tea Partiers are, or how screwed up the Republican Party has become over the last 30 years, but when you put it that way I guess I can see why he would try to emphasize rationality even if it requires stretching the fabric of truth a bit.
The Fed is intervening because there's no one else to pull us out of the hole you narrow-minded twit. Just shut your mouth, eat your government-subsidized meat burger, and stop bothering the intelligent people with your rants.
Equating the outrage on "the Left" with what's going on on the Right is bullshit. I don't think that Bush is Hitler-- but he did lie us into the wrong war, he did refuse to include the costs of his wars in the budget, he did sign executive statements claiming the laws Congress passed didn't apply to him. He did everything in his power to make sure the Rich didn't have to pay any taxes and made sure not to put any oversight on Wall Street that would have, say, prevented the collapse of the economy. He brought back torture and wanted to overturn Habeus Corpus. He wiretapped Americans illegally when all he had to do was ask for permission from the FISA court to do it legally. Obama has been a disappointment to, but to equate the nut-jobs on the Right who think Obama is a Muslim and was born in Kenya and is a Socialist is shit. Obama may not be perfect, but when you equate the hapless Democrats with the ignorant, deceitful, moronic Republicans you are helping deliver this country back into the hands of those who got us into the mess we're in today. You can't possibly want Boener running the show, can you?
I think you're just bitter they don't agree with your inherent bias. They are even keeled and make fun of whoever is available to make fun of. And they most *definitely* do not take themselves seriously. I don't know what show you're watching to come to that conclusion.
Barney Frank in 2007 was part of the Congressional financial committee, and tried to enact legislative reform on banking regulations. He was stymied by, surprise surprise, Republicans.
If we raised taxes back to the levels they were at in our most prosperous era- the three decades after WWII- not only would we balance the budget but we'd have massive surpluses every year with which to pay off the debt. Of course people making over $3 million a year would howl bloody murder having to pay 90% of their income in taxes. I'd personally have no problem raising that bracket to 5 or 10 million, but either way the rich would become apoplectic with rage.
I'm all in favor of restoring sanity-- but equating the outrage on "the Left" with what's going on on the Right is bullshit. I don't think that Bush is Hitler-- but he did lie us into the wrong war, he did refuse to include the costs of his wars in the budget, he did sign executive statements claiming the laws Congress passed didn't apply to him. He did everything in his power to make sure the Rich didn't have to pay any taxes and made sure not to put any oversight on Wall Street that would have, say, prevented the collapse of the economy. He brought back torture and wanted to overturn Habeus Corpus. He wiretapped Americans illegally when all he had to do was ask for permission from the FISA court to do it legally. Obama has been a disappointment to, but to equate the nut-jobs on the Right who think Obama is a Muslim and was born in Kenya and is a Socialist is shit. Obama may not be perfect, but when you treat the hapless Democrats with the ignorant, deceitful, moronic Republicans you are helping deliver this country back into the hands of those who got us into the mess we're in today. You can't possibly want Boener running the show, can you?
Actually Android users use more data than iPhone users, and yet Verizon has never had any network issues. AT&T's troubles were caused by a deliberate decrease in annual capex meant to pump up their stock price. Their profits have tripled from 2005 to 2008, while their capex has dropped significantly each year.
I thought we used our military intelligence on the enemy. I don't remember voting for our president and current government to use its powers to harm those who value liberty over secrecy. It would be interesting to hear more details about Julian's tipsters' info.
Getting the media to "run with it" isn't much of an accomplishment in this era of 24 hour news cycles. I don't assign a great deal of respect to their integrity or seriousness.
But you get free access to these books, and you can download them from the comfort of your house. I don't like DRM either, but renting something for free doesn't strike me as a problem.
Are you really that idiotic? If you don't have the money to feed yourself, how do you "raise yourself"? Do you honestly believe your own success was entirely the result of you "pulling yourself up from the bootstraps"? Let's drop you in the middle of Somalia and see how far your hard work gets you.
Whenever someone says "take from others" they reveal themselves to be a selfish prick who can't wrap their head around the fact that they live within a system that allows them to succeed, and without help from that system poor people have no chance of succeeding.
Well that's funny, considering the fundamental principles that have driven internet growth have until now been all about net neutrality. There are always crazy anti-net neutrality advocates whining about governments regulating what "might" happen instead of what is happening. If this isn't proof enough that strong net neutrality regulation is needed to prevent the balkanization of the internet, then I don't know what is.
Right, and that explains why they were so dominant during the N64 and Gamecube eras. Oh wait...
Physical costs have also plummeted. And the industry has moved to disc-based games. Development platforms cost less (adjusted for inflation.)
How do you think the physical cost of a PS1 disc compares to a modern-day Blu-Ray or DVD?
Which comes from people trying to one-up each other. It's a bubble, just like the housing market. The industry is doing this to itself.
Trying to "one-up" the competition is... being competitive. A bubble implies an industry is much more highly valued than it actually is. I really don't think that's the problem. Even EA recently came out and said that game development budgets have peaked. $100 million seems to be the maximum in their minds for the time being.
Here's a tip: the secondhand market actually helps stimulate the primary market. The fact that a gamer (or driver, or reader) knows that they can resell their item makes them more likely to buy it at full price.
And who buys those used discs? Potential customers whose money could have gone to the game developers (who would have lowered prices if there were no resellers, as they do on Steam).
All the while, the producers are building up cred with the people who can't afford to buy things at full price. One day, they will be able to--they won't have to wait for and fight over used games--and then they will become the new primary customers.
Building up cred? Do you live in a fantasy world or something? Why wait and fight over used games when they can buy them on the cheap for brand-new, like on Steam? No resellers means cheaper prices overall.
That Sony and Microsoft can't do this isn't really the consumer's fault--yet game devs treat consumers like shit if they even think about buying a game used.
I don't appreciate the focus on casual gamers Nintendo has taken with the Wii. I enjoy the visual stimulation of increasingly beautiful games. Yes gameplay is of primary importance, but visuals add to the immersion and overall enjoyment for me and many others.
That's true, but more a function of the weakening of labor unions and the conservative shift of the populace.
That's not true. It's like Xerox ignoring the potential of the mouse. It's refusing to acknowledge the potential of market disrupting innovations. Google has 50-100 experiments running at any one time. As far as I can tell Kodak didn't even experiment with their engineers' innovations, besides presenting it to an audience. They let their conservative shareholders control the direction of the company too much.
The interesting thing is that despite the various examples present in history, just as many companies, if not more, still cling to the entrenched mindset instead of attempting to innovate. Heck, look at Blockbuster, now filing for bankruptcy. My theory is that once people have a lot of money, they're afraid to experiment with it, even if that will bring in more money. So instead they cling to old ways of thinking and ultimately lose in the long run. Engineering types aren't exactly striking gold with their annual salaries, so they're not necessarily encumbered with worrying about the "financial implications" of design innovations or market shifts. I think some companies try to remedy this problem by bringing on engineers to be a part of the corporate structure, but often times the culture and mindset clash is just too great and it fails to work out. Look at Microsoft's recent firing of J. Allard and their nixing of the Courier.
Drat.
What kind of disease do French girls have, and why would I want to cure them anyways?
Not to come across as a corporate shill, but the price of games has not changed over the last 10+ years. Well actually they've *come down* since the atari days. The problem is with games' exponentially rising budgets the industry can't sustain itself. People won't even accept price increases to keep up with inflation. They think games that give them tens of hours of game time and fun are far too expensive relative to a $10-15 movie that gives them less than 2 hours of immersion.
Think about it. $50 spent on a Nintendo game in 1985 (and there were often costlier games) would cost $98.37 today. Looking at a more recent period of time, a $50 PS1 game would in '95 cost 69.71 today. And yet the uproar over the bump up to $60 for current generation games was immense.
The games industry isn't growing its hardcore base anymore. That's why Nintendo shifted its focus to casual gamers. It wasn't about "losing the console wars" for them. They didn't lose any money on the Gamecube or N64. But they were around during the gaming market crash of the early 80's. They see the writing on the wall of the current industry. Look at a game like All Points Bulletin. It was a massive, $100 million MMO that utterly bombed. That kind of loss scares away investors. It leaves a black scar on the industry. Unlike movies, however, aside from MMOs there is no growth potential for hardcore games. You think the Chinese or Indians will ever start paying for games, having been raised on the idea that pirating is the norm? Maybe in 20, 30 years when those countries form a legitimate middle class that doesn't have to spend a month's salary just to buy a decent cell phone, but the industry can't wait that long (in case you're wondering, no I don't believe piracy has an effect on sales in general; most pirates wouldn't have bought the game anyways. This is more a reflection on the difficulty of finding new, affluent markets to purchase such expensive products).
And as for pricing cheaper, even if they did they would eventually be undercut by Gamestop and other used game sellers. Most old games are dropped in price eventually, but people still prefer used because they're almost always cheaper. If there were no way to sell used games, companies would be much more eager to drop prices in order to breath life into the tail of a product's lifespan (just look at Steam for a perfect example of what I'm talking about).