I wonder just how much of it had to do with EA's various sports-related deals. The rumors of a $1B exclusivity contract with the NFL a few years back certainly raised some eyebrows at the time. Could this small bump in their fiscal affairs have anything to do with it?
But there is Starcraft so it's not a total snub of Blizzard, which has been one of the most consistently high-quality producers (albeit slow) in the field.
And besides there are hordes of "cartoonish" Mario-like games that made the list that were in no way should have qualified them for "top", so apparently there was a bias going into it.
This is absolutely 100% correct. If you can deal with a little bit of German, BSW is infinitely more interested if you prefer strategy-type boardgames rather than word games or exercises in dice-rolling.
If you're interested, there's an English language support site at: www.brettspielwelt.info that can get you started.
They violated the law and should be prosecuted. What's the problem? Nobody except a blind partisan is going to think that this is a good thing for a democracy.
So your point is what? Hmm?
Oh, I see... it's tit for tat... some Democrats break the law, so it's alright that Republicans do comparable misdeeds, if not worse because they're actually sanctioned by the Republican party and its agents.
So do everyone a favor and stop with the childish finger-pointing. Everyone here knows there is corruption on both sides, so your foolish comment does nothing to solve the problems.
Why don't I ever seem to have moderator points when I need them??
Having seen school budgets and taken coursework on school budgets and having had a hand in compiling a departmental school budget, I can state with some certainty that if a small group of influential people wants to hide something, they will hide it.
Granted, there are some amounts of money that can't be hidden, but this particular scam involved getting districts to buy too much unnecessary equiment (1 network server per classroom in one case) and overcharging for it because the districts didn't follow competitive-bidding procedures.
I guess the point I'm trying to make is that even though the budget process is "public," a lot of the particulars are obfuscated by those few who control the budget pen. There's always a fair amount of pork in any budget (schools included), but this particular scheme involved defrauding the federal government (as opposed to defrauding the citizens of a town), which is what is landing them in hot water.
"LINDON, Utah, Oct. 16/PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The SCO(R) Group (SCO) (Nasdaq: SCOX - News), the owner of the UNIX operating system, today announced it has received a $50 million private investment led by BayStar Capital, an investment fund that is a leader in providing negotiated private equity placements in publicly traded companies."
Was SCO ever legally determined to own Unix? I can't keep track of the things that SCO claims to legally own anymore.
When will programmers stop equating difficulty with the computer "cheating" to make it better?
As one example, even on the easiest level of CivIII, the computer players somehow, magically, know more about the map and areas they cannot possibly have seen (even by trading maps with each other). Only by clamping down on the computer players' ability to produce units/buildings does it rein in its knowledge. At the higher levels, not only does it know more about the map than a human player ever could, it outproduces you dramatically.
Would it really have been that difficult to come up with an AI that did not cheat by violating the fog of war? I could understand it if at the highest levels this happened, but when it's pretty obvious on the easiest level, it shows a lack of interest in working on making the AI truly challenging, but rather taking a one-size-fits-all approach and altering the difficulty by manipulating non-AI facets of the game.
Even with the latest announcement threatening to litigate, SCO's stock price is not up. Perhaps investors are finally wising up now that Darl and his fellow execs have already dumped most of their stock.
The only problem being that imnsho Heroes of Might and Magic IV is an awful game. To me, and perhaps I am strange (Ah, who am I fooling? I *am* strange) games such as HOMM and Railroad Tycoon suffer greatly when they try to take simple, cartoonish graphics and fairly simple play and then port them over to being "realistic".
The fun is in the game play, not the trumped-up graphics, so when HOMM4 and RT2 were nice to look at, but not fun to play, they lost my interest in those franchises.
Also, one of my most favorite games was Master of Magic, a silly little turn-based game, but hours of fun to play because there were many possibilities of how to play the game. And the graphics were simple and effective, too.
Let's see if I understand this. Some of the people here are advocating changing the network settings and then outright *lying* to your *professional* colleagues about why you've done what you had to do to preserve the integrity of the network.
And then you complain that the same people you've lied to are such utter incompetents about technology. How can you expect them to ever learn if you tell stupid lies to them?
Furthermore, some of these crackpots are the same people who will whine and complain if something about their own workplace were changed and they weren't given satisfactory answers. Hypocrites, the lot of them.
Just do what you have to do and be honest in why you're doing it. Sure you can gloss over some of the specifics, but explain to any reasonable person that you're having bandwidth issues and that person will begrudgingly accept your explanation. If you run into problems, you have to advocate your position with your supervisors better until they do understand the costs and headaches that the current system has.
The kid is not allowed to complete his research project? Good God! Haven't you ever heard of a 'book' called an 'encyclopedia' before? Or how about going home (or to a friend's house) to use an 'uncensored' search? Or how about asking Mom and Dad (or even the *gasp* teacher!) for help?
Since when is the Internet the end-all and be-all of research?
Somehow in years past, without the Internet, children have learned about World War I. Don't exaggerate that a.kids site would make research impossible. I think most people would agree that if there is money* to be made by companies running a.kids website, they will do it. And if the.kids domain were regulated to make sure that the content was both kid-friendly _and_ educational, companies would have to be foolish to ignore the potential of investing in this market.
Is this a solution to the problem of censorship? No. But as things stand now, due to parental pressure schools are and will continute censoring their students' access to the Internet. And while I would rather have totally uncensored access in my classroom and watch the students like hawks when they are accessing it _or_ have strongly filtered access (as I would have an encyclopedia in my classroom) where I don't have to worry too much about what they are looking at, instead I have a bastardized mix of the two. Most 'offensive' sites are blocked, but the censorship software my district uses is by no means perfect. So, I am forced to watch frustrating searches which yield site after site that get blocked because they are on a free web server, wasting valuable minutes of class time trying to find a few websites that my students can actually access.
And, inasmuch as we might find it distasteful, if a school district were to permit access only to.kids,.gov, and.edu sites, it would not be the end of research. Trying to claim otherwise is just plain silly.
Anyway, that's my $.02.
-Bill
*By money, include things such as advertising, product placement and sales, even brand loyalty (such as getting kids to use google.com at home by familiarizing them with google.kids at school).
Just to note, speaking as a public school teacher, the comment that we're paid for 12 months of the year is inaccurate.
In the district where I work, we are paid to work 184 days per year. There are no checks rolling in in the summertime unless you choose to have your 10 months of salary spread across 12 months (for those people who can't handle budgeting their own finances accordingly).
Finally, the ending comment is pretty much accurate. The salaries aren't bad (who wouldn't want to be paid more?), but the main problem lies in the situation we're put in: Government "oversight" (that is, the amount of testing and paperwork is absolutely maddening). And while sometimes the kids are a challenge and the parents are insane, it's our overall love of helping children learn and the desire to make the world a somewhat better place that keeps most of us in the classroom...
``Absolute anonymity breeds absolute irresponsibility,'' he said. ``We need a thumbprint Java card in the hand of everybody in the country.''
Somehow giving up one's privacy will "breed" responsibility? Funny, I don't remember learning to be responsible by having everyone know all the details of my personal life. Yet here's this character lecturing Americans that we need to give up any semblance of privacy in order to be responsible citizens. Feh.
Besides, the last time I checked, many of the most evil acts in history were perpetrated by people who were quite well known to everyone else. I'm not sure that I see the positive correlation between being anonymous and being irresponsible and whether *America* will truly benefit from this scheme.
Furthermore, when he says "We", does he mean the citizens of the US? Why do I suspect he is talking about Sun, its CEO, and its investors and not the citizens of the US?
Finally, I wonder if this petty dictator-wannabe's "Java card" will let everyone he interacts with to know just how much of a threat he is to our basic human liberties... I suspect not...
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, but more importantly, you can also strip the DRM from the soundtracks.
I wonder just how much of it had to do with EA's various sports-related deals. The rumors of a $1B exclusivity contract with the NFL a few years back certainly raised some eyebrows at the time. Could this small bump in their fiscal affairs have anything to do with it?
Wouldn't goldenpalace be a better comparison?
Will G4 and GameSpot have the foresight to mutually produce a show called G-Spot?
Of course, most Slashdotters won't get it.
No Diablo.
No Diablo II.
No Warcraft.
No WoW.
But there is Starcraft so it's not a total snub of Blizzard, which has been one of the most consistently high-quality producers (albeit slow) in the field.
And besides there are hordes of "cartoonish" Mario-like games that made the list that were in no way should have qualified them for "top", so apparently there was a bias going into it.
and four Coldplay tickets too?
Hot damn! Sign me up!
The first three digits are based on location.
http://www.ssa.gov/foia/stateweb.html
Is this anything like the RIAA giving estimated losses due to copyright infringement? If so, I think we all know it's a bit overstated.
Was this a MicroSoft product by any chance?
Well, if you're looking for someone to act as the Eater of Worlds, may I suggest Rush Limbaugh:
http://www.e-sheep.com/rusheats/000.html
This is absolutely 100% correct. If you can deal with a little bit of German, BSW is infinitely more interested if you prefer strategy-type boardgames rather than word games or exercises in dice-rolling.
If you're interested, there's an English language support site at: www.brettspielwelt.info that can get you started.
Isn't that what I said?
Jeez... Read what I wrote.
What about it?
They violated the law and should be prosecuted. What's the problem? Nobody except a blind partisan is going to think that this is a good thing for a democracy.
So your point is what? Hmm?
Oh, I see... it's tit for tat... some Democrats break the law, so it's alright that Republicans do comparable misdeeds, if not worse because they're actually sanctioned by the Republican party and its agents.
So do everyone a favor and stop with the childish finger-pointing. Everyone here knows there is corruption on both sides, so your foolish comment does nothing to solve the problems.
Why don't I ever seem to have moderator points when I need them??
Idiot.
To put Iran firmly in the Axis of Evil.
And even if you have a small circle of friends, it will be a lot smaller after playing Diplomacy with them.
If you've ever played Diplomacy, you know what I mean.
Having seen school budgets and taken coursework on school budgets and having had a hand in compiling a departmental school budget, I can state with some certainty that if a small group of influential people wants to hide something, they will hide it.
Granted, there are some amounts of money that can't be hidden, but this particular scam involved getting districts to buy too much unnecessary equiment (1 network server per classroom in one case) and overcharging for it because the districts didn't follow competitive-bidding procedures.
I guess the point I'm trying to make is that even though the budget process is "public," a lot of the particulars are obfuscated by those few who control the budget pen. There's always a fair amount of pork in any budget (schools included), but this particular scheme involved defrauding the federal government (as opposed to defrauding the citizens of a town), which is what is landing them in hot water.
"LINDON, Utah, Oct. 16 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The SCO(R) Group (SCO) (Nasdaq: SCOX - News), the owner of the UNIX operating system, today announced it has received a $50 million private investment led by BayStar Capital, an investment fund that is a leader in providing negotiated private equity placements in publicly traded companies."
Was SCO ever legally determined to own Unix? I can't keep track of the things that SCO claims to legally own anymore.
When will programmers stop equating difficulty with the computer "cheating" to make it better?
As one example, even on the easiest level of CivIII, the computer players somehow, magically, know more about the map and areas they cannot possibly have seen (even by trading maps with each other). Only by clamping down on the computer players' ability to produce units/buildings does it rein in its knowledge. At the higher levels, not only does it know more about the map than a human player ever could, it outproduces you dramatically.
Would it really have been that difficult to come up with an AI that did not cheat by violating the fog of war? I could understand it if at the highest levels this happened, but when it's pretty obvious on the easiest level, it shows a lack of interest in working on making the AI truly challenging, but rather taking a one-size-fits-all approach and altering the difficulty by manipulating non-AI facets of the game.
A change in Darl's approach might be needed soon.
Even with the latest announcement threatening to litigate, SCO's stock price is not up. Perhaps investors are finally wising up now that Darl and his fellow execs have already dumped most of their stock.
Hey, it's possible!
The only problem being that imnsho Heroes of Might and Magic IV is an awful game. To me, and perhaps I am strange (Ah, who am I fooling? I *am* strange) games such as HOMM and Railroad Tycoon suffer greatly when they try to take simple, cartoonish graphics and fairly simple play and then port them over to being "realistic".
The fun is in the game play, not the trumped-up graphics, so when HOMM4 and RT2 were nice to look at, but not fun to play, they lost my interest in those franchises.
Also, one of my most favorite games was Master of Magic, a silly little turn-based game, but hours of fun to play because there were many possibilities of how to play the game. And the graphics were simple and effective, too.
-Bill
Let's see if I understand this. Some of the people here are advocating changing the network settings and then outright *lying* to your *professional* colleagues about why you've done what you had to do to preserve the integrity of the network.
And then you complain that the same people you've lied to are such utter incompetents about technology. How can you expect them to ever learn if you tell stupid lies to them?
Furthermore, some of these crackpots are the same people who will whine and complain if something about their own workplace were changed and they weren't given satisfactory answers. Hypocrites, the lot of them.
Just do what you have to do and be honest in why you're doing it. Sure you can gloss over some of the specifics, but explain to any reasonable person that you're having bandwidth issues and that person will begrudgingly accept your explanation. If you run into problems, you have to advocate your position with your supervisors better until they do understand the costs and headaches that the current system has.
My $.02
The kid is not allowed to complete his research project? Good God! Haven't you ever heard of a 'book' called an 'encyclopedia' before? Or how about going home (or to a friend's house) to use an 'uncensored' search? Or how about asking Mom and Dad (or even the *gasp* teacher!) for help?
.kids site would make research impossible. I think most people would agree that if there is money* to be made by companies running a .kids website, they will do it. And if the .kids domain were regulated to make sure that the content was both kid-friendly _and_ educational, companies would have to be foolish to ignore the potential of investing in this market.
.kids, .gov, and .edu sites, it would not be the end of research. Trying to claim otherwise is just plain silly.
Since when is the Internet the end-all and be-all of research?
Somehow in years past, without the Internet, children have learned about World War I. Don't exaggerate that a
Is this a solution to the problem of censorship? No. But as things stand now, due to parental pressure schools are and will continute censoring their students' access to the Internet. And while I would rather have totally uncensored access in my classroom and watch the students like hawks when they are accessing it _or_ have strongly filtered access (as I would have an encyclopedia in my classroom) where I don't have to worry too much about what they are looking at, instead I have a bastardized mix of the two. Most 'offensive' sites are blocked, but the censorship software my district uses is by no means perfect. So, I am forced to watch frustrating searches which yield site after site that get blocked because they are on a free web server, wasting valuable minutes of class time trying to find a few websites that my students can actually access.
And, inasmuch as we might find it distasteful, if a school district were to permit access only to
Anyway, that's my $.02.
-Bill
*By money, include things such as advertising, product placement and sales, even brand loyalty (such as getting kids to use google.com at home by familiarizing them with google.kids at school).
Just to note, speaking as a public school teacher, the comment that we're paid for 12 months of the year is inaccurate.
In the district where I work, we are paid to work 184 days per year. There are no checks rolling in in the summertime unless you choose to have your 10 months of salary spread across 12 months (for those people who can't handle budgeting their own finances accordingly).
Finally, the ending comment is pretty much accurate. The salaries aren't bad (who wouldn't want to be paid more?), but the main problem lies in the situation we're put in: Government "oversight" (that is, the amount of testing and paperwork is absolutely maddening). And while sometimes the kids are a challenge and the parents are insane, it's our overall love of helping children learn and the desire to make the world a somewhat better place that keeps most of us in the classroom...
``Absolute anonymity breeds absolute irresponsibility,'' he said. ``We need a thumbprint Java card in the hand of everybody in the country.''
Somehow giving up one's privacy will "breed" responsibility? Funny, I don't remember learning to be responsible by having everyone know all the details of my personal life. Yet here's this character lecturing Americans that we need to give up any semblance of privacy in order to be responsible citizens. Feh.
Besides, the last time I checked, many of the most evil acts in history were perpetrated by people who were quite well known to everyone else. I'm not sure that I see the positive correlation between being anonymous and being irresponsible and whether *America* will truly benefit from this scheme.
Furthermore, when he says "We", does he mean the citizens of the US? Why do I suspect he is talking about Sun, its CEO, and its investors and not the citizens of the US?
Finally, I wonder if this petty dictator-wannabe's "Java card" will let everyone he interacts with to know just how much of a threat he is to our basic human liberties... I suspect not...