And for those of you wondering, it gets even MORE ridiculous than that.
One of the main Propogators of Mayanism believes he is the "heir of the legacy of Pacal Votan and the instrument of his prophecy, Telektonon".
Basically he believes he is a decendant of an Ancient Mayan King, despite not being Mayan himself, and that he is spiritually channelling this doomsday warning to the rest of the world.
When asked for any phyiscal evidence he'll point to this one stele/stela (which is basically a big rock full of mayan inscriptions) - this particular inscription which is terribly worn that basically says "Something will happen" on that date, the end of the Baktun. It's pretty much impossible to tell what exactly that something is, as the deterioration has taken its toll.
To really understand it though, it helps to know how the Ancient Mayan culture kind of worked. It's not uncommon for us to glorify figures of the past, like say Lincoln, and it's not odd to find us defining mini eras, like a Golden age. What seperates us from the Mayans is that because the Mayans were so spiritual and ritualistic in their lifestyle (though what ancient society wasn't?) - is that the Mayans liked to project into the future these greats date. Like fundamental Christians who believe in the Rapture and the Earth being engulfed in fires and flames while Jesus saves all the good people. Most fundies haven't gone as far as to say a certain date but in Mayan culture it wasn't uncommon. For example, if they thought at the end of a Katun that such and such God would return, a King might make an inscription about how great he is, just like that God who's coming in a few hundred years.
Now that you understand the basis of the prophecies, it all starts to seem a bit silly, right? Given that almost every king in Ancient Maya did this practice of "Prophecy" - and that none of them have come true for the past thousand years, it really throws a shadow of doubt over this 2012 end of the world thing. Here's the real kicker though - The Mayans have many prophecies predicting their society lasting long past 2012, I am pretty sure I saw one inscription dated as far ahead as like 12010 or something, (possibly a typo?). And given how most of their way of life was wiped out when the Westerners came, destroying all but a handful of books and a couple dozen cities - its an oddity on how they didn't see that one coming and weren't better prepared for it.
I mean, there are still people who are of Mayan descendant and they keep their traditions alive, passing it down through generations, trying to live seperate of society, and even they get really annoyed by all this sensationalism about this end of the world prophecy. It's ridiculous.
A typical Blackberry user, while probably not a technical elite, has more years of experience using a computer
I think you are being generous to the Blackberry users.
In my work as a help desk technician, who tirelessly has to make sure everyone's email works on Blackberry, iPhone, Android, WinMobile, etc - I've learned that Unless you are competant enough with computers to know how to avoid malware you are not any safer or more capable with your phone than any other phone provider.
Simply "Using windows longer" does not constitute any more strength against malware attacks. My parents have used Windows for almost as long as I have been alive, yet they still manage to catch something new every year.
I wish they'd spend 8 million to get Cell phone jammers at theatres. If there is ONE place where reception should not be possible its half way into a great drama.
It is just a web site. Just like Slashdot. Is this sitegoing to be considered a TV station? Are they going to try and foolishly enforce those laws on us as well?
I never understand how it is that anyone - be it in Law or in Politics or anywhere - has trouble making the distinction between what YouTube is and a TV Station.
I feel it's not often enough that WE point out the obvious oddity that WE all can Identify together and laugh at the jokes WE share, even put each other on a friend/foe list, But the underlying meme WE all keep coming back to is WE have no friends!
You can call it super lame and totally laugh at me, but there are a few people on here that I barely even interact with that I would consider myself a "Friend" with even if it isn't mutual.
For example, I would be thrilled to bump into Eldavojohn at a conference and actually hold a lengthy conversation in person, as opposed to the current standard of writing out 5 paragraph posts to completely convey a message in a manner that removes any uncertainty. And sometimes Pojut makes me laugh and I know that if we were in front of each other we could probably keep a joke going long enough to create an inside joke that no one else would get later on. I could go on but I think I've reached the point:
While we have no friends, at least we're having fun together!
And Happy New Years. Yes I've already started drinking.
Then you have not kept up with how "targeted ads" work at all.
The "Search" part of it is actually the most minimal part of it. Merely by mentioning "Video Games" in my Likes on Facebook, and using it at my home computer, I'd now opened myself up to Adservers to track my IP, and give me endless ads for World of Warcraft.
Basically, they want to know you better by using social networking to track who your friends are and what their interests are, because friends usually share similar interests.
Sure, I might not SAY I'm a big fan of Ping Pong, but if I happen to hang out with a bunch of people who say they are, and have them on a social network's friend list, than Google might show an ad for it every odd once in a while to see if I bite.
I can't be sure, but I think basically they want to be able to tell if you are you across your facebook AND your twitter to be sure to target your ads specifically to you. And then if you sign up for a LinkedIn you'll also already be profiled.
I think anyways. I've always imagined that some of this kind of stuff already goes down, but I suppose Goog's just wants the rights to be the only one allowed to do it? Like patenting their idea to track you everywhere?
I dunno. I'm rather apathetic today. Probably something in the water.
Well, we also used VMWare to kind of sandbox some of our classes, like web design and Object Oriented programming, and to get our feet wet in Linux.
However, that being said, putting this app inside a VM negates the purpose of it, as it would be trivial to just browse on the host machine while the VM appears to be in full attention.
The teacher would recommend you bookmark your browser before entering class, and being the student, you have to cater to him, not the other way around.
It's typical of the old testament, where God was supposedly way more vengeful. Keep in mind the Pharoah had already spread the order to kill the first born of the Jews so by that point he was getting even and then some. I think "was a jerk to Moses" is putting it very lightly. Enslaving a particular race or faction is a little bit more than just being a jerk.
Now - there are some sources that point to say that what was considered 'slave labour' back then was not exactly what we today would consider slave labour. They might have earned wages, they might have been well fed, they might have even gotten the Sabbath off. The only real reason it would have been considered slave labour is that you likely didn't have the freedom to quit your job. If you were told to make brick you likely spent your day making brick, but it was not necessarily in shackles, or under the lash of a whip, or more than say 10 hours a day. Archaeology tends to be a touchy subject when they start investigating the biblical stories - but its glaringly obvious when you look at the facts: These massive monuments the Ancient Pharoahs built took almost their entire lives to build, there is no way you could go on from king to king of oppressive behavior without massive slave revolts, resulting in major casualties ultimately deteriorating the work force. It's far more likely that slaves were treated well enough to keep them subdued, though that might seem harsh, it wasn't that different less than 200 years ago. In fact the whole book of Exodus doesn't have a whole lot of Arky to support it, but of course it is kind of an embarassing story and the only historians back then were people meant to spread propoganda so it's unlikely they would record it if it did happen. There are artifacts here and there that seem to corroborate the times but nothing substantial.
A lot of people like to claim the Bible itself is the best historical record, and while that has some basis, it is obviously a source dating to the past, that actually makes it harder to put faith in. Imagine a thousand years worth of the telephone game, you know the one where you whisper in the ear of the person next to you till it reaches the end and you see how different it is from the original. Imagine how much of the Bible was spoken tradition before it was written down. The same can be said of the The Iliad, but you don't see as many people following Zeus today. Both of these were just stories at some point. I often wonder what it is about the Bible that has so many people captivated. I have read it myself more than once, and even the lighter and easier to read translations still seem pretty dry. Then again, so do most history textbooks.
What were we talking about again? I got off track.
I was relatively annoyed at the time, but I had a professor a couple years ago handle it with a bit of software. Now - being CS students we were all issued laptops so the situation was of course a little bit different, these were technically the school computers and not the student's own laptops, but I could see it working regardless. I guess whether schools should be allowed to install software on student computers to get an edge on cutting down distractions is another debate topic.
But anyways, getting ahead of myself. For the life of me I can't remember what it was called. Chalkboard? something School-y. So what this software does is it first off, closes any other non critical programs you have open. MSN messenger and its similar apps, Internet Explorer and the other browsers, any games, etc etc. Next it would check you in to the classroom session your teacher set up. This way he could take attendance of anyone that was there, not that he ever incorporated that into the grade, but just made note. Next, the software will report what applications are open or attempt to open to the Teacher. Things like notepad and Microsoft word were of course allowed, but things like World of Warcraft were not. So if you kept spamming some App hoping to get it open the teacher would be alerted and he could just send you away if you didn't want to be there.
On top of that - the app was handy in that it would basically take over everyone's computer to show a power point presentation on everyone's computer at once and have it follow along at his pace, which it would also store a local copy should you want to go look at it later for notes. As well, if you were home sick, you could still join this session, and if the prof wore his microphone you could actually listen in on the audio (or if you were in the back of the class, put on headphones and listen in). and unless you got a Doctor's note explaining why you couldn't spend an hour and a half of the afternoon on the laptop in bed, you were expected to attend the class from home.
All in all, it was some pretty neat software, its a shame the course was business management, something not all too interesting to Computer Science students. Now - don't get me wrong, there were ways around it, and being young CS students it didn't take long for us to find these work-arounds, but I think for the average everday Liberal Arts Major it could keep things locked down.
This is a *perfect* example of how *some* politics *does* need to go on behind closed doors, and that *some* amount of secrecy is, in fact, necessary.
That depends on who's side you are on, isn't it?
Why can't you just admit that wikileaks, to put it succinctly, fucked up?
Because some of us believe that being open and truthful, even at the cost of social stability, or 'democratic progress', is more important.
This isn't about the world and what they think of Mugabe. This is about Mugabe's actions as a dictator within his nation. The man can now, quite legitimately, demonstrate that those people fighting for reform in Zimbabwe were, in fact, *supportive* of sanctions that have hurt the Zimbabwean people.
Which is - in fact, quite democratic of him to do. I don't really know what is so wrong about a dictator that tries to gain the support of his people. Tell you what, here in Canada, I'd rather have a dictator who looked out for my interests than have a democracy that bends towards everything the US asks.
Now, in this particular scenario, I wouldn't really want Mugabe being in charge, but if it is as you said: Not about what the world thinks of Mugabe, then I don't see anything wrong with what Wikileaks had done.
If say perhaps, in a backwards universe, Zimbabwe were run by a dictator who made deals with other countries that harmed the Zimbabwain people, and Wikileaks opened it up for the world to view and that started a coup to overthrow the corrupt government, Wikileaks would be hailed as hero.
The only reason why you think Wikileaks fucked up is that you don't like Mugabe, but you specifically state its not about Mugabe.
I don't see how they've managed to call this undemocratic - nothing undemocratic has been done yet. Even though your or I might dislike Mugabe, him gaining popular support is part of the democratic process. It's the exact point of democracy. I am surprised at how they manage to label this as undemocratic when just as bad smear campaigns make the local television stations in the US.
What happened was Anti-American. Not Anti-Democracy. People need to stop using Freedom, Democracy, Liberty, and other similar terms as synonyms for America. Mugabe would be a fool to scrap the democratic process if he had popular support of the people, and any under-handed rigging for the next elections he might set up could be just as possible in the States as anywhere else.
It's funny, as AG he brings up charges against the Prime Minister which might have been, in fact, not in the interest of the Zimbabwe people (knowing how the US likes to exploit developing nations and all that).
However, worse crimes are done by US Officials and the judicial system does nearly nothing about it. I wonder which state is actually more democratic right now.
You know what the highest Grossing Movie was last year? Avatar. You know what the most pirated movie was last Year? Avatar. The year before that? Dark Night. For both again. The year before that? Pirates of the Caribbean: At world's End. For both!
There is a direct correlation between the most pirated movies, and the highest grossing movies. Honestly most pirates will either see it at home, like it, then go see it with their friends, or they'll have seen it with their friends, then go download it at home. People are already paying for the damn product, the **AAs are just wanting people to have to pay multiple times for the same product, over and over again.
Is there any guess as to why there's so much resistance?
I don't think it can function without the fixed price system working in sync.
Sooner or later more people will get used to paying less than $60 for a game by using a digital download like the Humble Bundle and sales through Steam. I don't think I can ever justify paying even $40 for a game ever again, just in my experience. I've now come to think that full feature titles are only worth about $20 - and if they aren't on sale throughout the year, they will be eventually. When I can get any number of indie titles for 5 or under, that's even more reason.
Eventually it'll reach a point where I think $20 is almost too much, and that $5 is average, and that a "Pay what you want - oh sweet, only $1" scheme might take over. Which won't be nearly as profitable.
I need those higher up publishers ripping people off in order to keep my perception of a games worth in perspective.
And then years down the road, pay what you want turns into basically freeware.
Slashdot Mirror
And for those of you wondering, it gets even MORE ridiculous than that.
One of the main Propogators of Mayanism believes he is the "heir of the legacy of Pacal Votan and the instrument of his prophecy, Telektonon".
Basically he believes he is a decendant of an Ancient Mayan King, despite not being Mayan himself, and that he is spiritually channelling this doomsday warning to the rest of the world.
When asked for any phyiscal evidence he'll point to this one stele/stela (which is basically a big rock full of mayan inscriptions) - this particular inscription which is terribly worn that basically says "Something will happen" on that date, the end of the Baktun. It's pretty much impossible to tell what exactly that something is, as the deterioration has taken its toll.
To really understand it though, it helps to know how the Ancient Mayan culture kind of worked. It's not uncommon for us to glorify figures of the past, like say Lincoln, and it's not odd to find us defining mini eras, like a Golden age. What seperates us from the Mayans is that because the Mayans were so spiritual and ritualistic in their lifestyle (though what ancient society wasn't?) - is that the Mayans liked to project into the future these greats date. Like fundamental Christians who believe in the Rapture and the Earth being engulfed in fires and flames while Jesus saves all the good people. Most fundies haven't gone as far as to say a certain date but in Mayan culture it wasn't uncommon. For example, if they thought at the end of a Katun that such and such God would return, a King might make an inscription about how great he is, just like that God who's coming in a few hundred years.
Now that you understand the basis of the prophecies, it all starts to seem a bit silly, right? Given that almost every king in Ancient Maya did this practice of "Prophecy" - and that none of them have come true for the past thousand years, it really throws a shadow of doubt over this 2012 end of the world thing. Here's the real kicker though - The Mayans have many prophecies predicting their society lasting long past 2012, I am pretty sure I saw one inscription dated as far ahead as like 12010 or something, (possibly a typo?). And given how most of their way of life was wiped out when the Westerners came, destroying all but a handful of books and a couple dozen cities - its an oddity on how they didn't see that one coming and weren't better prepared for it.
I mean, there are still people who are of Mayan descendant and they keep their traditions alive, passing it down through generations, trying to live seperate of society, and even they get really annoyed by all this sensationalism about this end of the world prophecy. It's ridiculous.
A typical Blackberry user, while probably not a technical elite, has more years of experience using a computer
I think you are being generous to the Blackberry users.
In my work as a help desk technician, who tirelessly has to make sure everyone's email works on Blackberry, iPhone, Android, WinMobile, etc - I've learned that Unless you are competant enough with computers to know how to avoid malware you are not any safer or more capable with your phone than any other phone provider.
Simply "Using windows longer" does not constitute any more strength against malware attacks. My parents have used Windows for almost as long as I have been alive, yet they still manage to catch something new every year.
I wish they'd spend 8 million to get Cell phone jammers at theatres. If there is ONE place where reception should not be possible its half way into a great drama.
I know, exactly!
It is just a web site. Just like Slashdot. Is this sitegoing to be considered a TV station? Are they going to try and foolishly enforce those laws on us as well?
I never understand how it is that anyone - be it in Law or in Politics or anywhere - has trouble making the distinction between what YouTube is and a TV Station.
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
Who was it who said that?
I feel it's not often enough that WE point out the obvious oddity that WE all can Identify together and laugh at the jokes WE share, even put each other on a friend/foe list, But the underlying meme WE all keep coming back to is WE have no friends!
You can call it super lame and totally laugh at me, but there are a few people on here that I barely even interact with that I would consider myself a "Friend" with even if it isn't mutual.
For example, I would be thrilled to bump into Eldavojohn at a conference and actually hold a lengthy conversation in person, as opposed to the current standard of writing out 5 paragraph posts to completely convey a message in a manner that removes any uncertainty. And sometimes Pojut makes me laugh and I know that if we were in front of each other we could probably keep a joke going long enough to create an inside joke that no one else would get later on. I could go on but I think I've reached the point:
While we have no friends, at least we're having fun together!
And Happy New Years. Yes I've already started drinking.
When deep space exploration ramps up, it'll be the corporations that name everything, the IBM Stellar Sphere, the Microsoft Galaxy, Planet Starbucks.
Then you have not kept up with how "targeted ads" work at all.
The "Search" part of it is actually the most minimal part of it. Merely by mentioning "Video Games" in my Likes on Facebook, and using it at my home computer, I'd now opened myself up to Adservers to track my IP, and give me endless ads for World of Warcraft.
Basically, they want to know you better by using social networking to track who your friends are and what their interests are, because friends usually share similar interests.
Sure, I might not SAY I'm a big fan of Ping Pong, but if I happen to hang out with a bunch of people who say they are, and have them on a social network's friend list, than Google might show an ad for it every odd once in a while to see if I bite.
In Canada, all thats required is a disclaimer saying "Are you over 18? Click continue - or click here to go away".
No one said it was a new method, just that they are patenting it.
I can't be sure, but I think basically they want to be able to tell if you are you across your facebook AND your twitter to be sure to target your ads specifically to you. And then if you sign up for a LinkedIn you'll also already be profiled.
I think anyways. I've always imagined that some of this kind of stuff already goes down, but I suppose Goog's just wants the rights to be the only one allowed to do it? Like patenting their idea to track you everywhere?
I dunno. I'm rather apathetic today. Probably something in the water.
This is clearly a Euro-central idea and thus in Asia its left wing and in North America its Right wing.
I think that the post-9/11 security measures are bad and unconstitutional
Okay, so then where do you see them stopping?
Well, we also used VMWare to kind of sandbox some of our classes, like web design and Object Oriented programming, and to get our feet wet in Linux.
However, that being said, putting this app inside a VM negates the purpose of it, as it would be trivial to just browse on the host machine while the VM appears to be in full attention.
The teacher would recommend you bookmark your browser before entering class, and being the student, you have to cater to him, not the other way around.
Too many to choose from?
We didn't want to Slashdot Skype and cause any more issues.
It's typical of the old testament, where God was supposedly way more vengeful. Keep in mind the Pharoah had already spread the order to kill the first born of the Jews so by that point he was getting even and then some. I think "was a jerk to Moses" is putting it very lightly. Enslaving a particular race or faction is a little bit more than just being a jerk.
Now - there are some sources that point to say that what was considered 'slave labour' back then was not exactly what we today would consider slave labour. They might have earned wages, they might have been well fed, they might have even gotten the Sabbath off. The only real reason it would have been considered slave labour is that you likely didn't have the freedom to quit your job. If you were told to make brick you likely spent your day making brick, but it was not necessarily in shackles, or under the lash of a whip, or more than say 10 hours a day. Archaeology tends to be a touchy subject when they start investigating the biblical stories - but its glaringly obvious when you look at the facts: These massive monuments the Ancient Pharoahs built took almost their entire lives to build, there is no way you could go on from king to king of oppressive behavior without massive slave revolts, resulting in major casualties ultimately deteriorating the work force. It's far more likely that slaves were treated well enough to keep them subdued, though that might seem harsh, it wasn't that different less than 200 years ago. In fact the whole book of Exodus doesn't have a whole lot of Arky to support it, but of course it is kind of an embarassing story and the only historians back then were people meant to spread propoganda so it's unlikely they would record it if it did happen. There are artifacts here and there that seem to corroborate the times but nothing substantial.
A lot of people like to claim the Bible itself is the best historical record, and while that has some basis, it is obviously a source dating to the past, that actually makes it harder to put faith in. Imagine a thousand years worth of the telephone game, you know the one where you whisper in the ear of the person next to you till it reaches the end and you see how different it is from the original. Imagine how much of the Bible was spoken tradition before it was written down. The same can be said of the The Iliad, but you don't see as many people following Zeus today. Both of these were just stories at some point. I often wonder what it is about the Bible that has so many people captivated. I have read it myself more than once, and even the lighter and easier to read translations still seem pretty dry. Then again, so do most history textbooks.
What were we talking about again? I got off track.
Oh right. Amazon. Sounds like business as usual.
You are of course assuming everyone has a dollar.
I was relatively annoyed at the time, but I had a professor a couple years ago handle it with a bit of software. Now - being CS students we were all issued laptops so the situation was of course a little bit different, these were technically the school computers and not the student's own laptops, but I could see it working regardless. I guess whether schools should be allowed to install software on student computers to get an edge on cutting down distractions is another debate topic.
But anyways, getting ahead of myself. For the life of me I can't remember what it was called. Chalkboard? something School-y. So what this software does is it first off, closes any other non critical programs you have open. MSN messenger and its similar apps, Internet Explorer and the other browsers, any games, etc etc. Next it would check you in to the classroom session your teacher set up. This way he could take attendance of anyone that was there, not that he ever incorporated that into the grade, but just made note. Next, the software will report what applications are open or attempt to open to the Teacher. Things like notepad and Microsoft word were of course allowed, but things like World of Warcraft were not. So if you kept spamming some App hoping to get it open the teacher would be alerted and he could just send you away if you didn't want to be there.
On top of that - the app was handy in that it would basically take over everyone's computer to show a power point presentation on everyone's computer at once and have it follow along at his pace, which it would also store a local copy should you want to go look at it later for notes. As well, if you were home sick, you could still join this session, and if the prof wore his microphone you could actually listen in on the audio (or if you were in the back of the class, put on headphones and listen in). and unless you got a Doctor's note explaining why you couldn't spend an hour and a half of the afternoon on the laptop in bed, you were expected to attend the class from home.
All in all, it was some pretty neat software, its a shame the course was business management, something not all too interesting to Computer Science students. Now - don't get me wrong, there were ways around it, and being young CS students it didn't take long for us to find these work-arounds, but I think for the average everday Liberal Arts Major it could keep things locked down.
This is a *perfect* example of how *some* politics *does* need to go on behind closed doors, and that *some* amount of secrecy is, in fact, necessary.
That depends on who's side you are on, isn't it?
Why can't you just admit that wikileaks, to put it succinctly, fucked up?
Because some of us believe that being open and truthful, even at the cost of social stability, or 'democratic progress', is more important.
This isn't about the world and what they think of Mugabe. This is about Mugabe's actions as a dictator within his nation. The man can now, quite legitimately, demonstrate that those people fighting for reform in Zimbabwe were, in fact, *supportive* of sanctions that have hurt the Zimbabwean people.
Which is - in fact, quite democratic of him to do. I don't really know what is so wrong about a dictator that tries to gain the support of his people. Tell you what, here in Canada, I'd rather have a dictator who looked out for my interests than have a democracy that bends towards everything the US asks.
Now, in this particular scenario, I wouldn't really want Mugabe being in charge, but if it is as you said: Not about what the world thinks of Mugabe, then I don't see anything wrong with what Wikileaks had done.
If say perhaps, in a backwards universe, Zimbabwe were run by a dictator who made deals with other countries that harmed the Zimbabwain people, and Wikileaks opened it up for the world to view and that started a coup to overthrow the corrupt government, Wikileaks would be hailed as hero.
The only reason why you think Wikileaks fucked up is that you don't like Mugabe, but you specifically state its not about Mugabe.
I don't see how they've managed to call this undemocratic - nothing undemocratic has been done yet. Even though your or I might dislike Mugabe, him gaining popular support is part of the democratic process. It's the exact point of democracy. I am surprised at how they manage to label this as undemocratic when just as bad smear campaigns make the local television stations in the US.
What happened was Anti-American. Not Anti-Democracy. People need to stop using Freedom, Democracy, Liberty, and other similar terms as synonyms for America. Mugabe would be a fool to scrap the democratic process if he had popular support of the people, and any under-handed rigging for the next elections he might set up could be just as possible in the States as anywhere else.
It's funny, as AG he brings up charges against the Prime Minister which might have been, in fact, not in the interest of the Zimbabwe people (knowing how the US likes to exploit developing nations and all that).
However, worse crimes are done by US Officials and the judicial system does nearly nothing about it. I wonder which state is actually more democratic right now.
They can't even handle their own server farm?
Because the government NEVER contracts out ANYTHING. Its all in house right?
No seriously, where have you been?
Once, before an Elementary School exam, a friend of mine said
"If you aren't cheating, you aren't trying"
He then went on to get 98% on that exam. I have always wondered to this day how much of that grade he earned.
It's actually helping it.
You know what the highest Grossing Movie was last year? Avatar. You know what the most pirated movie was last Year? Avatar. The year before that? Dark Night. For both again. The year before that? Pirates of the Caribbean: At world's End. For both!
There is a direct correlation between the most pirated movies, and the highest grossing movies. Honestly most pirates will either see it at home, like it, then go see it with their friends, or they'll have seen it with their friends, then go download it at home. People are already paying for the damn product, the **AAs are just wanting people to have to pay multiple times for the same product, over and over again.
Is there any guess as to why there's so much resistance?
I don't think it can function without the fixed price system working in sync.
Sooner or later more people will get used to paying less than $60 for a game by using a digital download like the Humble Bundle and sales through Steam. I don't think I can ever justify paying even $40 for a game ever again, just in my experience. I've now come to think that full feature titles are only worth about $20 - and if they aren't on sale throughout the year, they will be eventually. When I can get any number of indie titles for 5 or under, that's even more reason.
Eventually it'll reach a point where I think $20 is almost too much, and that $5 is average, and that a "Pay what you want - oh sweet, only $1" scheme might take over. Which won't be nearly as profitable.
I need those higher up publishers ripping people off in order to keep my perception of a games worth in perspective.
And then years down the road, pay what you want turns into basically freeware.