But you can't explain why facts are the way they are.
Science can explain how things happen but it has trouble truly explaining why. Science helps define those natural facts, defines how it is they all operate within each other, defines how it is that we perceive them, but all in all, science can't explain why it all is the way it is. It's a bit tricky to wrap your head around, I know.
I know astrophysicists who are devoutly religious... first and foremost, they turn to the science to explain the universe as it exists. For them, god answers a completely different set of questions.
Well exactly. Personally, I think Science answers the how and Religion answers the why.
The problem is that most people get mixed up in the difference of the two. How something happens and Why something happens are two different questions. Why often implies some motivation by some entity for the action preformed. How did this post come about? I typed keys and clicked submit and the internet had a bunch of traffic etc etc. Why did this post come about? Because I, as a person, decided to type this out to you.
As a thought experiment, I would ask you why grass is green. You can go and explain that the chlorophyll is green and a major component. And you can explain that the chemical make up of chlorophyll typically has an Electromagnetic absorption to certain colours and that green is the visible colour it reflects. And you can explain that it's a certain frequency in the EM spectrum that is green and how exactly the absorption of other light works, and you could go on forever explaining the process. All you would be doing is explaining how the grass is green. And you can ask "How" an infinite number of times, and I think that often drives scientific progress.
But you only need to ask "Why" once, and ultimately you know, that you just don't know. You don't know if there is some omni-potent being who decided exactly how the universe would operate. You don't know if there is anything after all this. Personally I like to think there is, as I find it a bit comforting to know that there'd be something at the end, or else why bother at all. At least, that's my philosophy.
The point is that Steam is worse than what we used to have. It might well be better than what some "physical media" has become, but its still a step in the WRONG direction.
Oh absolutely, but I also think what physical media today is worse than what we used to have. You make a good point about consoles, which typicall don't have draconian DRM methods. In terms of PC gaming though, there are very few titles that don't have some form of annoying DRM that I find are worth the extra $10-20 just so that I can go to a store, stick it on a shelf, and hopefully give it away some day.
If you don't like Steams method than you shouldn't have any issues sharing it around the family on the moral principles of the matter, and should they take any action against you, you would probably have a solid enough case to fight it. Valve would step down from bad press.
I would like to live in an ideal world where I only had to buy one copy of Total Annihilation and all my friends could join me on a LAN, but those days are over. I'd much rather be spending 20 dollars for a game for me and a friend on a Christmas Sale than I would be spending 80 dollars so we both have a physical copy.
If you wait for the Good deals to come around, Steam is essentially the same price as Renting games from a local blockbuster, and thats the kind of mentality you need when using it.
currency which is intrinsically backed (i.e. coins) are always worth something, especially after whomever was backing the paper versions has faded into obsolescence.
Gold (or whatever you make your coins out of) has no intrinsic worth - the only reason we value it is because it is scarce and pretty. Given a world famine, try using gold to trade for something when all everyone wants is food. The value of that gold is determined by the demand for it, and if there is no demand...
And if you think gold will always be in demand, I'd like to point out the example of using shells as money, or any other ancient form of commodity money.
Gold has intrinsic worth - it is highly maleable, conductive, reflective. We've used it in circuity, we've used it on space ships, we put it on our jewelry. There is an application for Gold in just about every facet of the modern world. We just don't use it so much because of its rarity.
In a world of Famine, everyone'll want food, sure. Some people will have their food. They'll want tools to produce more food. Some of those tools could be crafted with the help of Gold.
Your last line doesn't even make sense. Those ancient forms of money were just valued on whatever their most precious resource was at the time, probably food. The shells are to food as coins are to gold. Now that human education has reached a point where we know what Gold is good for, it will always have value. Saying that Gold is worthless is like saying that Wood is worthless, you wouldn't know how much you need it until there isn't any, and right now, there isn't a lot of Gold.
The only way Gold would lose its value is if we stumbled across a planet or moon littered with it, or somehow found an amazingly huge deposit of it really deep down.
Any Developer who wanted to sell private information had access to your personal info and copied it to their own personal database as soon as the info became available. The 3 days it took to revert down was basically just long enough for Zynga to update their tables. And just like Facebook never deleting your profile, the developer doesn't delete the data they had access to.
So I mean, re-enabling the feature would only be there to keep their data up to speed
Suddenly, simply having to take good care of your CDs doesn't seen all that awful. They can be passed around to who you want, when you want, and they don't disappear on you.
Of course, defective games infested with disc-checks and nasty DRM and anti-copying technology have eroded away so much of the convenience of physical media that people like you actually prefer to be locked into steams model.
Which is exactly what we are saying.
Physical media was good. There was a time where it had its place. Then the companies wanted to have their DRM and eat cake too. It's led to much frustration in the community. Once broadband penetration grew, digital downloads came to fruition. Now with less hassle than physical media, auto-installing, auto-updating, less $ and do it from home, things are good.
Even physical media games TODAY can't be passed around like they used to. Any MMO, or Battlefield games, or Spore, or a slew of Ubisoft games, or Starcraft 2, or more, require you to make an account with the publisher. That account is meant so that only 1 person can play their one copy of the game.
The way to get around the whole "Family sharing" thing is to have every family member have their own Steam account, and when you want a game for your 7 year old, you gift it to your 7 year old's account. He has access to it, you have access to his account (being his parent), and he has some material to learn how to share with brothers and sisters.
There is a reason why some of us prefer to be locked into steams model; it's far easier to set up than the physical media. If a game has been out for 1 year or more, sometimes its cheaper to buy 2 copies on Steam for you and a friend than it is to buy 1 used disc from Gamestop and try to image it for a friend. The times have changed, the CD Swapping, copying, one for everyone days have died. Insisting on physical media now where you can't share the game because you have to login to the publisher's site anyways is ridiculous. What do you gain by that?
As opposed to releasing mosquitoes into a room that may or may not have carried the Malaria plasmodium?
I'm sorry but I just can't stop laughing at this.
Were there people in the room? You should probably state that. I mean "Releasing mosquitos into a room" doesn't sound all that bad. I occaisonally release my pet into the yard that may or may not have a bad odour when wet. Does that make me as evil as Bill Gates?
Perhaps, but I think its a good idea that some study goes into this. I've experienced this weird effect personally. Having JUST gotten an Android phone this past month (I know, what took me so long) I asked a buddy of mine what apps he has that are handy. I figured I'd grab iTriage in case of emergencies, and that 3G Watchdog to keep an eye on my data usage. He recommended Angry Birds as a game, so I downloaded it and played it a bit.
I didn't think much of it, having played Bloons on Flash for the PC years ago, and then Worms before that, and some manner of tank game before that - I've noticed that theres always some addictive parabolic gravity based game here or there.
THEN my girlfriend got a hold of my new phone. Testing out the apps she stumbled across Angry Birds. She can't put it down. I absolutely can't understand it. She'll get her attention devoted to it. Enough to a point where I'm driving and we'll be having a conversation and she'll be playing the game at the same time, and then she'll go "Oh darn... shoot..." and then when I stop talking she goes "oh yeah... I'm still listening. Open Source, Microsoft, Yada yada. Continue" (perhaps I shouldn't BORE her with certain topics but it shows that she can't even fake an attention span while playing the game). She's killed my battery more than a few times just playing Angry Birds while driving across the city. She hasn't been a gamer like me and been exposed to this type of game before.
I wonder if its the same reason we like to throw rocks in the river and/or make them skip, or put basketball through hoops, kick balls into nets, or swing clubs at them to make them land in a tiny hole. I think there might be something deeply engrained into every human mind that enjoys this, and I'm curious to see what they find.
You're just jealous that us Canadians have managed to find new and interesting ways to butcher the English language while ya'll just drop letters n shorten words.
How do you tell the difference between a blob of dark matter and a black hole?
Gravitational pull is probably the biggest factor. A black hole simply gets so massive that at one point the gravitational pull is so strong that not even light can escape. It will have objects orbitting around it like planets orbit stars except at distances far greater than a star would normally hold.
Dark Matter, on the other hand, simply seems to have the gravitational pull of a regular star, but doesn't emit any light.
One thing to note is that when we observe things out there, it's not just a 2D plane we're observing but a great deal of depth is involved. When observing a black hole, the light behind the black hole will get sucked into the black hole if it happens to cross the event horizon. This will create a nice black circle in the sky. However dark matter, on the other hand, would not stop the light behind it from reaching our eyes, it might bend it a little but nothing too extreme.
The only difference between the two is that one is considered illegal!
In most cases with the upper class, "Tax avoision" is basing your company in another country so that you don't have to pay the taxes associated with operating in the country you do your business in. Doesn't that seem a bit sleezy to you? That the only difference between paying a few thousand dollars and no money at all is by having putting a receptionist in Jamaica?
It's basically using the services the government provides you without actually paying into it.
Taxation is _NOT_ supposed to balance out the wealth.
It has been ever since you were taxed on percentage of income instead of a flat rate. If you don't like it like that, why not write a letter to your representative.
How many of these people do you think have $10,000 USD sitting around?
There are lots of people who live paycheck to paycheck, perhaps more than you realize. And it's not that they don't know how to save money, its that they are stuck working dead end jobs like Gas Station attendants or WalMart greeters, and about 80% of their income goes towards living expenses like rent, food, utilities, phone bills, etc. The rest is spent on the 1 dinner and a movie a month to keep their sanity, and then birthday and Christmas presents when they come around.
For some people, saving up 10 thousand dollars would quite literally mean giving up everything you enjoy in life for over 2 years.
I can only assume you are talking about Dilios from 300. But yes, you are right. Turning the blind one away to tell the rest of Greece about the battle of thermopylae sure did work out great for them. Was that a great documentary or what?
The problem is that the system is set up that only the rich can evade taxes. Factory line worker Joe Blow doesn't make enough to go put it all away in a secret swiss bank account, nor does he have enough to hire an accountant to manage some holding companies abroad, etc etc.
Most people on Slashdot think evading taxes is immoral based on the fact that it's an exploit in the tax laws that only the rich can afford to do. If it were possible for anyone and everyone to avoid paying taxes, I don't think anyone would mind. We're all just pissed off that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, and taxation is supposed to help balance that out.
I don't recall hearing Wikileaks making this announcement at all though - it sounds like someone handed over some big leaks than immediately turned the corner to the local news outlet and said "GUESS WHAT I JUST HANDED TO WIKILEAKS".
This news report is by some other news agency, not Wikileaks.
Slashdot Mirror
You can't WIN a concert, and that's the most important thing in life, right? Winning at any cost?
I have a psycho ex-g/f who once claimed to have "won" a conversation.
A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.
Contrary to popular belief, there are comparisons you can make between Apples and Oranges.
For instance, Oranges hold more Vitamin C.
You can go ahead and mod me off-topic, I just think its about time people stop saying you can't compare Apples and Oranges.
But you can't explain why facts are the way they are.
Science can explain how things happen but it has trouble truly explaining why. Science helps define those natural facts, defines how it is they all operate within each other, defines how it is that we perceive them, but all in all, science can't explain why it all is the way it is. It's a bit tricky to wrap your head around, I know.
I guess Adrenaline is worth more than dopamine?
That is still a how, like Natural Selection.
That is still not why. Why is green more likely to reproduce or have more surviving offspring?
Then once you answer that question, I'll ask why to that. Eventually we'll keep going until you say "I don't know".
I know astrophysicists who are devoutly religious ... first and foremost, they turn to the science to explain the universe as it exists. For them, god answers a completely different set of questions.
Well exactly. Personally, I think Science answers the how and Religion answers the why.
The problem is that most people get mixed up in the difference of the two. How something happens and Why something happens are two different questions. Why often implies some motivation by some entity for the action preformed. How did this post come about? I typed keys and clicked submit and the internet had a bunch of traffic etc etc. Why did this post come about? Because I, as a person, decided to type this out to you.
As a thought experiment, I would ask you why grass is green. You can go and explain that the chlorophyll is green and a major component. And you can explain that the chemical make up of chlorophyll typically has an Electromagnetic absorption to certain colours and that green is the visible colour it reflects. And you can explain that it's a certain frequency in the EM spectrum that is green and how exactly the absorption of other light works, and you could go on forever explaining the process. All you would be doing is explaining how the grass is green. And you can ask "How" an infinite number of times, and I think that often drives scientific progress.
But you only need to ask "Why" once, and ultimately you know, that you just don't know. You don't know if there is some omni-potent being who decided exactly how the universe would operate. You don't know if there is anything after all this. Personally I like to think there is, as I find it a bit comforting to know that there'd be something at the end, or else why bother at all. At least, that's my philosophy.
The point is that Steam is worse than what we used to have. It might well be better than what some "physical media" has become, but its still a step in the WRONG direction.
Oh absolutely, but I also think what physical media today is worse than what we used to have. You make a good point about consoles, which typicall don't have draconian DRM methods. In terms of PC gaming though, there are very few titles that don't have some form of annoying DRM that I find are worth the extra $10-20 just so that I can go to a store, stick it on a shelf, and hopefully give it away some day.
If you don't like Steams method than you shouldn't have any issues sharing it around the family on the moral principles of the matter, and should they take any action against you, you would probably have a solid enough case to fight it. Valve would step down from bad press.
I would like to live in an ideal world where I only had to buy one copy of Total Annihilation and all my friends could join me on a LAN, but those days are over. I'd much rather be spending 20 dollars for a game for me and a friend on a Christmas Sale than I would be spending 80 dollars so we both have a physical copy.
If you wait for the Good deals to come around, Steam is essentially the same price as Renting games from a local blockbuster, and thats the kind of mentality you need when using it.
Gold (or whatever you make your coins out of) has no intrinsic worth - the only reason we value it is because it is scarce and pretty. Given a world famine, try using gold to trade for something when all everyone wants is food. The value of that gold is determined by the demand for it, and if there is no demand...
And if you think gold will always be in demand, I'd like to point out the example of using shells as money, or any other ancient form of commodity money.
Gold has intrinsic worth - it is highly maleable, conductive, reflective. We've used it in circuity, we've used it on space ships, we put it on our jewelry. There is an application for Gold in just about every facet of the modern world. We just don't use it so much because of its rarity.
In a world of Famine, everyone'll want food, sure. Some people will have their food. They'll want tools to produce more food. Some of those tools could be crafted with the help of Gold.
Your last line doesn't even make sense. Those ancient forms of money were just valued on whatever their most precious resource was at the time, probably food. The shells are to food as coins are to gold. Now that human education has reached a point where we know what Gold is good for, it will always have value. Saying that Gold is worthless is like saying that Wood is worthless, you wouldn't know how much you need it until there isn't any, and right now, there isn't a lot of Gold.
The only way Gold would lose its value is if we stumbled across a planet or moon littered with it, or somehow found an amazingly huge deposit of it really deep down.
In his defense, at least he didn't get all sweaty while clapping on stage for 20 minutes chanting nothing but "Developers".
Steve Jobs looks pretty good when you compare him to other industry CEOs.
It's moot anyways.
Any Developer who wanted to sell private information had access to your personal info and copied it to their own personal database as soon as the info became available. The 3 days it took to revert down was basically just long enough for Zynga to update their tables. And just like Facebook never deleting your profile, the developer doesn't delete the data they had access to.
So I mean, re-enabling the feature would only be there to keep their data up to speed
Suddenly, simply having to take good care of your CDs doesn't seen all that awful. They can be passed around to who you want, when you want, and they don't disappear on you.
Of course, defective games infested with disc-checks and nasty DRM and anti-copying technology have eroded away so much of the convenience of physical media that people like you actually prefer to be locked into steams model.
Which is exactly what we are saying.
Physical media was good. There was a time where it had its place. Then the companies wanted to have their DRM and eat cake too. It's led to much frustration in the community. Once broadband penetration grew, digital downloads came to fruition. Now with less hassle than physical media, auto-installing, auto-updating, less $ and do it from home, things are good.
Even physical media games TODAY can't be passed around like they used to. Any MMO, or Battlefield games, or Spore, or a slew of Ubisoft games, or Starcraft 2, or more, require you to make an account with the publisher. That account is meant so that only 1 person can play their one copy of the game.
The way to get around the whole "Family sharing" thing is to have every family member have their own Steam account, and when you want a game for your 7 year old, you gift it to your 7 year old's account. He has access to it, you have access to his account (being his parent), and he has some material to learn how to share with brothers and sisters.
There is a reason why some of us prefer to be locked into steams model; it's far easier to set up than the physical media. If a game has been out for 1 year or more, sometimes its cheaper to buy 2 copies on Steam for you and a friend than it is to buy 1 used disc from Gamestop and try to image it for a friend. The times have changed, the CD Swapping, copying, one for everyone days have died. Insisting on physical media now where you can't share the game because you have to login to the publisher's site anyways is ridiculous. What do you gain by that?
As opposed to releasing mosquitoes into a room that may or may not have carried the Malaria plasmodium?
I'm sorry but I just can't stop laughing at this.
Were there people in the room? You should probably state that. I mean "Releasing mosquitos into a room" doesn't sound all that bad. I occaisonally release my pet into the yard that may or may not have a bad odour when wet. Does that make me as evil as Bill Gates?
Perhaps, but I think its a good idea that some study goes into this. I've experienced this weird effect personally. Having JUST gotten an Android phone this past month (I know, what took me so long) I asked a buddy of mine what apps he has that are handy. I figured I'd grab iTriage in case of emergencies, and that 3G Watchdog to keep an eye on my data usage. He recommended Angry Birds as a game, so I downloaded it and played it a bit.
I didn't think much of it, having played Bloons on Flash for the PC years ago, and then Worms before that, and some manner of tank game before that - I've noticed that theres always some addictive parabolic gravity based game here or there.
THEN my girlfriend got a hold of my new phone. Testing out the apps she stumbled across Angry Birds. She can't put it down. I absolutely can't understand it. She'll get her attention devoted to it. Enough to a point where I'm driving and we'll be having a conversation and she'll be playing the game at the same time, and then she'll go "Oh darn... shoot..." and then when I stop talking she goes "oh yeah... I'm still listening. Open Source, Microsoft, Yada yada. Continue" (perhaps I shouldn't BORE her with certain topics but it shows that she can't even fake an attention span while playing the game). She's killed my battery more than a few times just playing Angry Birds while driving across the city. She hasn't been a gamer like me and been exposed to this type of game before.
I wonder if its the same reason we like to throw rocks in the river and/or make them skip, or put basketball through hoops, kick balls into nets, or swing clubs at them to make them land in a tiny hole. I think there might be something deeply engrained into every human mind that enjoys this, and I'm curious to see what they find.
You're just jealous that us Canadians have managed to find new and interesting ways to butcher the English language while ya'll just drop letters n shorten words.
Good thing the US isn't at involved in any military action with anyone.
Oh wait. is that WoT thing still going?
I was almost killed in a Chess game where I tried to perform an En Passant and my opponent thought I was making up rules to cheat.
He even went so far as to claim I enterred the Wikipedia article myself earlier that week.
How do you tell the difference between a blob of dark matter and a black hole?
Gravitational pull is probably the biggest factor. A black hole simply gets so massive that at one point the gravitational pull is so strong that not even light can escape. It will have objects orbitting around it like planets orbit stars except at distances far greater than a star would normally hold.
Dark Matter, on the other hand, simply seems to have the gravitational pull of a regular star, but doesn't emit any light.
One thing to note is that when we observe things out there, it's not just a 2D plane we're observing but a great deal of depth is involved. When observing a black hole, the light behind the black hole will get sucked into the black hole if it happens to cross the event horizon. This will create a nice black circle in the sky. However dark matter, on the other hand, would not stop the light behind it from reaching our eyes, it might bend it a little but nothing too extreme.
The only difference between the two is that one is considered illegal!
In most cases with the upper class, "Tax avoision" is basing your company in another country so that you don't have to pay the taxes associated with operating in the country you do your business in. Doesn't that seem a bit sleezy to you? That the only difference between paying a few thousand dollars and no money at all is by having putting a receptionist in Jamaica?
It's basically using the services the government provides you without actually paying into it.
Taxation is _NOT_ supposed to balance out the wealth.
It has been ever since you were taxed on percentage of income instead of a flat rate. If you don't like it like that, why not write a letter to your representative.
Don't shoot me, I'm just the messenger.
How many of these people do you think have $10,000 USD sitting around?
There are lots of people who live paycheck to paycheck, perhaps more than you realize. And it's not that they don't know how to save money, its that they are stuck working dead end jobs like Gas Station attendants or WalMart greeters, and about 80% of their income goes towards living expenses like rent, food, utilities, phone bills, etc. The rest is spent on the 1 dinner and a movie a month to keep their sanity, and then birthday and Christmas presents when they come around.
For some people, saving up 10 thousand dollars would quite literally mean giving up everything you enjoy in life for over 2 years.
I can only assume you are talking about Dilios from 300. But yes, you are right. Turning the blind one away to tell the rest of Greece about the battle of thermopylae sure did work out great for them. Was that a great documentary or what?
Think of how much money we could flush on NASA if rich people weren't evading their taxes.
Wait... That didn't sound right...
The problem is that the system is set up that only the rich can evade taxes. Factory line worker Joe Blow doesn't make enough to go put it all away in a secret swiss bank account, nor does he have enough to hire an accountant to manage some holding companies abroad, etc etc.
Most people on Slashdot think evading taxes is immoral based on the fact that it's an exploit in the tax laws that only the rich can afford to do. If it were possible for anyone and everyone to avoid paying taxes, I don't think anyone would mind. We're all just pissed off that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, and taxation is supposed to help balance that out.
I don't recall hearing Wikileaks making this announcement at all though - it sounds like someone handed over some big leaks than immediately turned the corner to the local news outlet and said "GUESS WHAT I JUST HANDED TO WIKILEAKS".
This news report is by some other news agency, not Wikileaks.
I think the major problem with that is that you often don't have multiplayer for a lot of those BitTorrented games.