The fact of the matter is that the claim is not entirely ungrounded.
It just so happens that there are more people who own a console than there are people who game on their PC.
It used to be that the Console was inferior mostly due to not having much in networking capabilities. I can play Counterstrike with friends over the net, but in order to play Golden-eye, we needed to be in the same room.
When consoles caught up (meaning when X-box Live was created) this evened the playing field and Consoles grew larger and larger.
And now the selection in Consoles has exploded compared to how it was before. Microsoft, Play Station, and Nintendo, all had their territories marked when they brought out their next-gen. Nintendo went for the motion sensing, the 360 went for launch titles, and the PS3 went for Blu Ray, all of which has served each of them well, and now that it's reached the end-game you'll notice they've all started to copy each other. Both Sony and Microsoft have motion sensing products to be launched soon here, Nintendo announced tons of new games at e3 recently, and Sony is now trying to compete with Microsoft's online live service.
The fact of the matter is - PC's haven't really done anything innovative in the last decade. So when half the PC Developers on the planet wanted to jump on board with the consoles for their various reasons, the PC became the red-headed stepchild. They sure haven't died but they lost A LOT of popularity.
The average teenager today would probably define PC gaming as Farmville or Mafiawars, since there isn't a whole lot going on for the PC that isn't already on their console.
Name a game for the PC which either A) Doesn't have a console port or B) The PC version outsold the console port AND C) Sold over 1,000,000 copies.
So yes, while PC gaming still has enough games coming out to be as awesome as ever, the population of them tend to be much lower. I have more trouble finding enough people in my group of friends who want to play TF2, but there is an abundance of people to play Halo 3 with. This was not the case when Starcraft, Diablo 2, and Counter-strike were king. There was a day when PC games were the games to play, because in order to play Golden-eye you had to be sitting in the same room.
There's a little thing called Starcraft 2 that, even if you don't really like it or care about it, will be making a huge impact on the PC market.
How do you figure? Don't get me wrong, I do think it'll sell well, but I don't think it'll spur many more developers to start on PC games. Whether the game is a success or not a lot of its build up is that its a sequel to a great classic and that its being published by the biggest PC games publisher in the world, Actiblizzardvision.
Games like Starcraft II and Diablo III might actually stifle PC gaming. One thing about Blizzards games is that they tend to be addicting. I myself spent countless hours playing D2, which didn't leave a whole lot of room for other PC games. When you played Starcraft, how many other PC games did you buy around that time? What about Diablo? Blockbuster games are not always a good thing.
The thing is that those benefits for a gaming PC also transcend into ALL OTHER ASPECTS of how you use your PC. I'll admit, not a whole lot of people use visual studio or dreamweaver at home, but having a gaming rig definately helps with software development and web development.
But even for the home user, watching movies, or playing music, whilst reading a forum and chatting on a messaging program - More RAM and CPU horsepower go a long way, you're almost better off investing in those regardless of gaming or not.
No one in my circle of friends has had to actually spend 300-500 dollars on a "run of the mill" PC. For those people, I ask around for people old PC's they don't use anymore. There is usually a family that has an old one they consider obsolete, collecting dust in the Garage or something. I pick it up, clean the dust, put a fresh XP installation on there, grab the drivers, Open Office, and give to them.
And I get the impression I'm not the only one who does this - or at least I'm sure lots of IT guys offer special rates and discounts for that kind of service. Maybe thats one of the reasons why consoles took off a few years ago. People could get their PC's to do the basics for a negligable amount, and then it came down to "$1000 for a gaming PC, or $300 for a console?" Whereas before it was "$200 for a PC upgrade, or 300 for a console?"
Ummm... Have you ever been to New York City? $50k is baller in the boonies, but impoverished in Manhattan.
The GP is right, any argument for protectionism in the US is an argument for protectionism at smaller scales.
That same 50K will buy the same brand new car at any car dealership.
It's true, living in Manhattan is more expensive. That doesn't devalue the money at all, its just mostly just the cost of housing. It's not like a chocolate bar costs signifigantly more in Manhattan than in the boonies.
Bad example, it is very clear cut: the business operates in the US, and the work was done in the US, so the profit was made in the US.
And thats the issue right now with offshoring. My company is based in the Cayman islands, we took your order in the cayman islands, processed your request in the caymans islands, and merely sent a response to our shipping department in the states and they shipped it to Canada. The product went through many stages of development itself, being bought wholesale from a chinese market, modified by our company which has locations in the states and in the Caymans Islands, so which exact factory it was produced from requires more investigation.
My example was to point out that you can't just say "Where the work was done, tax it" - because businesses will operate in anywhere from 7 to a dozen countries each office doing its little bit to effectively dodge as many tax Laws as possible.
Your post is balanced on a tower of incorrect unstated assumptions.
Oh probably, but this is the internet!
There is no mythical place with the cheapest labor prices and an infinite supply of labor.
Umm, well, China has pretty cheap labour, and 3+ billion people to do it, and because its so much its practically infinite.
Sub-what-standard wages? Where does the "standard" wage come from?
A standard wage is the earnings associated with the cost of living required to maintain a good quality of life. Grade 10 Social Studies, did you skip class or something?
Oh, are they? They couldn't possibly think up new, better, more enjoyable jobs could they?
You can't just "Think up" a job and make money. I'd like to think up "Pie eating" as a job, and get paid to eat pies. No, sadly, Jobs are based upon what positions are available at companies willing to pay employees. The big issue is that companies would rather NOT pay employees, or if they have to, would like to pay them very little. Since the government regulates a minimum pay, these jobs go to countries where the government regulated minimum pay is the lowest.
Apparently you are also missing the very obvious fact that consumers who buy goods actually benefit because the goods are cheaper.
Well, yes, it IS nice that my new Computer fully decked out with all the latest features ONLY costs maybe 1 or 2 thousand dollars, when really the matierals that make up the computer itself probably cost way more. However, if I make minumum wage and housing costs so much, I'll never afford it. It's a shame the way that works, choosing food over a new TV.
it seems somewhat arbitrary that you choose nations as your granularity. Why not states?
Silly Goose, because Nations operate under different dollars and dollar amounts! An American Dollar is worth an American Dollar all across America. However, An American Dollar could be worth more or less than the Canadian Dollar depending on how lucky those Canucks are getting. Now a lot of regulation goes into Canada and US trade (see Lumber) because they are so close. However, since China is really far away their trade can be a little more free.
Take Gasoline for example. In Canada, we have to regulate our Gas prices to match the United States (and they to ours, its a mutual agreement kind of thing) even if one of us technically has more gasoline than the other. Why? Well, if Gasoline was signifigantly cheaper in say... Alberta (with the oilsands and all) then there would be nothing from stopping some Montana based company from driving hundreds of tankers up, buying up all the oil, and driving it south to make a profit.
It's unlikely though, that anyone would go and buy a product over in China where it is cheaper, than bring it back to the states. So free trade is a little more lenient with further countries. (Don't get me wrong, thats not the only thing that plays a part).
So thats where corporations come in and fill that gap. They'll make the product where its cheaper and ship it back to you, thus, THEY make the savings.
By UT mods, I don't mean game mods, I mean the in-game modifiers, like Low-grav, Double Jump, Vampire, etc. They come with the game and you can just enact them when you start a quickgame or multiplayer match.
1) I never said anything about Frat Boys, that was H4rr4r. I was simply saying the ONLY thing I can't give Halo Credit for was originality. It is a great game, and I think it actually takes more skill than most FPS because of its lower field of view, the slower jump and general movement controls.
2) The only difference between Homage and Ripoff is the intention. Sure, you can call Halo a homage if it makes you feel any better, but the point is that it isn't original. Thats all I am really saying. But yes, originality is lacking A LOT lately. If you can name more than titles announced this year that don't have a predecessor than ones announced this year that do, (excluding Kinect specifics) than I think my point is illustrated.
3) I must have been mistaken about Marathon, it's been a while since I've played it, but I thought the first level of shield recharged (though not the full thing). Either way, the concept of regenerative health or shields is not a new one. If you had the difficulty on Easy for Dark Forces 2 the first bit of your shields regenerated. (Otherwise not)
Well you could take the Armor and/or health recharge mods that have been in every Unreal Tournament game since the beginning, you could look at one of Bungie's older titles, Marathon. If you want to consider games that aren't first person shooters but have recharging shields, X-wings vs Tie Fighter was a good space sim that featured it. I mean any Protoss unit in Starcraft also does it.
If I want to think of a game that didn't really rip off the films, I might say something like Mirror's Edge? Don't get me wrong its not the greatest game in the world, but it certainly was a little more unique in it's style. One might say Half Life 2, but even there you could draw SOME lines, though its really stretching it.
The "Wide-brush" concepts that Halo Ripped off are not so wide brush at all. Watch Apone's Dropship Speech in Aliens and then go through the opening of the first Halo. with Sarg Johnson. You can tell they deliberately copied that character, as either a joke or a homage or what-not, but despite how much you may love that Character he wasn't Bungie's creation. I mean, if you don't think the elites are rip-offs of Predators, I can't do much but point out how similar their mouths are, they both use cloaking technology, they both prefer Melee... I mean it's not like the similarities are subtle.
One might say that. Keep in Mind Halo (the original) that spun everything into play first came out for the Mac, then the PC, and THEN the X box - so it's as much the "Blizzard for the console set" as much as it is a "Blizzard for the PC" - also keep in mind Blizzard made Starcraft64 so its not like they are free of the console bash.
1) I like Halo as much as the next guy. Have all in the series, play #3 quite a bit to this day.
2) While Halo is a great series, they've not brought ANY new ideas. Rather, they have emulated the other ideas that have existed in many many games before it, but made it mesh very well together. Recharging shield and health was around before Halo, weapon reload times, carrying only two weapons.
I like Halo, and it IS a good game, but one thing I can't ever give it credit for is originality - which ripped a lot of stuff from Aliens and Predator films, the same way Starcraft did.
He basically says that being able to move products and goods without taxation caused this scenario where labour can be sent over-seas to a country with lower wages. This generally means that either that country has all the jobs or other countries have to lower their wages to stay competitive. This also reflects the quality of products and services, since you are paying substandard wages and basically taking people who need money to survive and not people who work because they enjoy it. On the flip side, the middle class in the more prosperous nations are left without the jobs they'd need to get by, or they'd take sub-standard (for their country) wages and scrape along the bottom.
I don't know if this is accurate to what happens but it basically works like this: China and the US make deals to let companies operate in each others borders. Computer Technician jobs from the States get offshored to China because China offers the lowest wages for that kind of work, so Company A can save money on support thus increasing profits. Because of this, the existing Americans that work in Tech support must either move to and work in China (Almost making them more Chinese citizens than American), or find another job. Tech Support in India was also at a low cost but since China and the US made this deal, and China is offering lower wages, India must lower their wages to stay competitive.
Had "Free" trade not been enacted, meaning, labour, products, services, etc, getting taxed appropriately, none of this would have happened.
You'll have a hard time getting 4% of the vote without booty to pay them off and doing it would be illegal before you get into parliament. Also, you missed the point entirely in that they have to move the Servers INSIDE parliament for them to be outside of jurisdiction, so unless you plan on pirating from INSIDE the building, your point is moot.
This guy doesn't see of it as his money to determine where it ends up. He is just doing his part. He does not require a monetary award for his actions, he believes the benefit will come from him doing his work.
He's not a mathmetician for his own benefit, so he's basically trying to say that by saying "Take the money out of the equation".
There's no denying there are climate changes going around. But
1.calling it man-made is complete speculation at the current point(yes it is, there's correlation at best, no proof of causality)
2.calling it warming is kind of fucked up since it's warming in some places, and cooling in others
3.no proof either that anything we do can change anything about it.
1) When we put everything on a timeline, and imagine what the world would be like without humans, we get a rough estimate of what the world should be like. Everyone knows, yes, the Earth goes through hot and cold cycles. Everyone knows there were a few ice ages, everyone knows a lot of dinosaurs lived in tropical climates. When we project where we should be, we are off. When we do estimates on how much our carbon emissions should affect the temperature, and then do estimates on how much we've released at each stage of human development, they line up pretty close to the records and what our temperature currently is. Again, a lot of it is based on "estimates" but they are not without some science or evidence behind them. That is to say, what we've boiled down to in our best logic is that each ton of carbon emissions we make affects the temperature of the Earth. And we've drawn some conclusions that match our data to suggest that we have made an impact.
2) Its only cooler in other places because its warmer in other places. Places where there is precipitation find more precipitation because there is more evaporation heading into the atmosphere. It makes good sense when you look at it. Things like jet streams work similarily.
3) We don't know if we can reverse it, there isn't a whole lot we can say on that front other than "Lets hope Mother Nature works it out" - but if we're right that we are affecting the temperature, then it is in our best interest to stop doing that, to preserve our species. Keep in mind those hot and cold cycles take A LONG time to sway back and forth, so I mean it might be handy to have global warming during an ice age but not so much during a heat wave. So by stopping our Carbon emissions, we can effectively buy more time. Who knows, this global warming by nature COULD in fact be some impending doom that will end human life on Earth. But if we manage to stop our carbon emissions in the next 30 years, maybe that will buy us an extra couple hundred years in space research to get off this rock.
Slashdot Mirror
The competitors are GOOGLE and APPLE, which have done more than just created a phone operating system, so they get a lot of buzz.
The fact that these two names come up more than twice Daily might have something to do with why I'd be interested in their phone business.
The fact of the matter is that the claim is not entirely ungrounded.
It just so happens that there are more people who own a console than there are people who game on their PC.
It used to be that the Console was inferior mostly due to not having much in networking capabilities. I can play Counterstrike with friends over the net, but in order to play Golden-eye, we needed to be in the same room.
When consoles caught up (meaning when X-box Live was created) this evened the playing field and Consoles grew larger and larger.
And now the selection in Consoles has exploded compared to how it was before. Microsoft, Play Station, and Nintendo, all had their territories marked when they brought out their next-gen. Nintendo went for the motion sensing, the 360 went for launch titles, and the PS3 went for Blu Ray, all of which has served each of them well, and now that it's reached the end-game you'll notice they've all started to copy each other. Both Sony and Microsoft have motion sensing products to be launched soon here, Nintendo announced tons of new games at e3 recently, and Sony is now trying to compete with Microsoft's online live service.
The fact of the matter is - PC's haven't really done anything innovative in the last decade. So when half the PC Developers on the planet wanted to jump on board with the consoles for their various reasons, the PC became the red-headed stepchild. They sure haven't died but they lost A LOT of popularity.
The average teenager today would probably define PC gaming as Farmville or Mafiawars, since there isn't a whole lot going on for the PC that isn't already on their console.
Yes, actually.
Name a game for the PC which either
A) Doesn't have a console port
or
B) The PC version outsold the console port
AND
C) Sold over 1,000,000 copies.
So yes, while PC gaming still has enough games coming out to be as awesome as ever, the population of them tend to be much lower. I have more trouble finding enough people in my group of friends who want to play TF2, but there is an abundance of people to play Halo 3 with. This was not the case when Starcraft, Diablo 2, and Counter-strike were king. There was a day when PC games were the games to play, because in order to play Golden-eye you had to be sitting in the same room.
There's a little thing called Starcraft 2 that, even if you don't really like it or care about it, will be making a huge impact on the PC market.
How do you figure? Don't get me wrong, I do think it'll sell well, but I don't think it'll spur many more developers to start on PC games. Whether the game is a success or not a lot of its build up is that its a sequel to a great classic and that its being published by the biggest PC games publisher in the world, Actiblizzardvision.
Games like Starcraft II and Diablo III might actually stifle PC gaming. One thing about Blizzards games is that they tend to be addicting. I myself spent countless hours playing D2, which didn't leave a whole lot of room for other PC games. When you played Starcraft, how many other PC games did you buy around that time? What about Diablo? Blockbuster games are not always a good thing.
This has always been the case with Epic.
Their Unreal Engine has been one of the most popular engines to date.
The thing is that those benefits for a gaming PC also transcend into ALL OTHER ASPECTS of how you use your PC. I'll admit, not a whole lot of people use visual studio or dreamweaver at home, but having a gaming rig definately helps with software development and web development.
But even for the home user, watching movies, or playing music, whilst reading a forum and chatting on a messaging program - More RAM and CPU horsepower go a long way, you're almost better off investing in those regardless of gaming or not.
No one in my circle of friends has had to actually spend 300-500 dollars on a "run of the mill" PC. For those people, I ask around for people old PC's they don't use anymore. There is usually a family that has an old one they consider obsolete, collecting dust in the Garage or something. I pick it up, clean the dust, put a fresh XP installation on there, grab the drivers, Open Office, and give to them.
And I get the impression I'm not the only one who does this - or at least I'm sure lots of IT guys offer special rates and discounts for that kind of service. Maybe thats one of the reasons why consoles took off a few years ago. People could get their PC's to do the basics for a negligable amount, and then it came down to "$1000 for a gaming PC, or $300 for a console?" Whereas before it was "$200 for a PC upgrade, or 300 for a console?"
The study has more flaws than I can count on both hands. Unless of course I use binary. Than its got 3 less.
Ummm... Have you ever been to New York City? $50k is baller in the boonies, but impoverished in Manhattan.
The GP is right, any argument for protectionism in the US is an argument for protectionism at smaller scales.
That same 50K will buy the same brand new car at any car dealership.
It's true, living in Manhattan is more expensive. That doesn't devalue the money at all, its just mostly just the cost of housing. It's not like a chocolate bar costs signifigantly more in Manhattan than in the boonies.
Bad example, it is very clear cut: the business operates in the US, and the work was done in the US, so the profit was made in the US.
And thats the issue right now with offshoring. My company is based in the Cayman islands, we took your order in the cayman islands, processed your request in the caymans islands, and merely sent a response to our shipping department in the states and they shipped it to Canada. The product went through many stages of development itself, being bought wholesale from a chinese market, modified by our company which has locations in the states and in the Caymans Islands, so which exact factory it was produced from requires more investigation.
My example was to point out that you can't just say "Where the work was done, tax it" - because businesses will operate in anywhere from 7 to a dozen countries each office doing its little bit to effectively dodge as many tax Laws as possible.
Your post is balanced on a tower of incorrect unstated assumptions.
Oh probably, but this is the internet!
There is no mythical place with the cheapest labor prices and an infinite supply of labor.
Umm, well, China has pretty cheap labour, and 3+ billion people to do it, and because its so much its practically infinite.
Sub-what-standard wages? Where does the "standard" wage come from?
A standard wage is the earnings associated with the cost of living required to maintain a good quality of life. Grade 10 Social Studies, did you skip class or something?
Oh, are they? They couldn't possibly think up new, better, more enjoyable jobs could they?
You can't just "Think up" a job and make money. I'd like to think up "Pie eating" as a job, and get paid to eat pies. No, sadly, Jobs are based upon what positions are available at companies willing to pay employees. The big issue is that companies would rather NOT pay employees, or if they have to, would like to pay them very little. Since the government regulates a minimum pay, these jobs go to countries where the government regulated minimum pay is the lowest.
Apparently you are also missing the very obvious fact that consumers who buy goods actually benefit because the goods are cheaper.
Well, yes, it IS nice that my new Computer fully decked out with all the latest features ONLY costs maybe 1 or 2 thousand dollars, when really the matierals that make up the computer itself probably cost way more. However, if I make minumum wage and housing costs so much, I'll never afford it. It's a shame the way that works, choosing food over a new TV.
it seems somewhat arbitrary that you choose nations as your granularity. Why not states?
Silly Goose, because Nations operate under different dollars and dollar amounts! An American Dollar is worth an American Dollar all across America. However, An American Dollar could be worth more or less than the Canadian Dollar depending on how lucky those Canucks are getting. Now a lot of regulation goes into Canada and US trade (see Lumber) because they are so close. However, since China is really far away their trade can be a little more free.
Take Gasoline for example. In Canada, we have to regulate our Gas prices to match the United States (and they to ours, its a mutual agreement kind of thing) even if one of us technically has more gasoline than the other. Why? Well, if Gasoline was signifigantly cheaper in say... Alberta (with the oilsands and all) then there would be nothing from stopping some Montana based company from driving hundreds of tankers up, buying up all the oil, and driving it south to make a profit.
It's unlikely though, that anyone would go and buy a product over in China where it is cheaper, than bring it back to the states. So free trade is a little more lenient with further countries. (Don't get me wrong, thats not the only thing that plays a part).
So thats where corporations come in and fill that gap. They'll make the product where its cheaper and ship it back to you, thus, THEY make the savings.
By UT mods, I don't mean game mods, I mean the in-game modifiers, like Low-grav, Double Jump, Vampire, etc. They come with the game and you can just enact them when you start a quickgame or multiplayer match.
1) I never said anything about Frat Boys, that was H4rr4r. I was simply saying the ONLY thing I can't give Halo Credit for was originality. It is a great game, and I think it actually takes more skill than most FPS because of its lower field of view, the slower jump and general movement controls.
2) The only difference between Homage and Ripoff is the intention. Sure, you can call Halo a homage if it makes you feel any better, but the point is that it isn't original. Thats all I am really saying. But yes, originality is lacking A LOT lately. If you can name more than titles announced this year that don't have a predecessor than ones announced this year that do, (excluding Kinect specifics) than I think my point is illustrated.
3) I must have been mistaken about Marathon, it's been a while since I've played it, but I thought the first level of shield recharged (though not the full thing). Either way, the concept of regenerative health or shields is not a new one. If you had the difficulty on Easy for Dark Forces 2 the first bit of your shields regenerated. (Otherwise not)
Well you could take the Armor and/or health recharge mods that have been in every Unreal Tournament game since the beginning, you could look at one of Bungie's older titles, Marathon. If you want to consider games that aren't first person shooters but have recharging shields, X-wings vs Tie Fighter was a good space sim that featured it. I mean any Protoss unit in Starcraft also does it.
If I want to think of a game that didn't really rip off the films, I might say something like Mirror's Edge? Don't get me wrong its not the greatest game in the world, but it certainly was a little more unique in it's style. One might say Half Life 2, but even there you could draw SOME lines, though its really stretching it.
The "Wide-brush" concepts that Halo Ripped off are not so wide brush at all. Watch Apone's Dropship Speech in Aliens and then go through the opening of the first Halo. with Sarg Johnson. You can tell they deliberately copied that character, as either a joke or a homage or what-not, but despite how much you may love that Character he wasn't Bungie's creation. I mean, if you don't think the elites are rip-offs of Predators, I can't do much but point out how similar their mouths are, they both use cloaking technology, they both prefer Melee... I mean it's not like the similarities are subtle.
What else should I say...
One might say that. Keep in Mind Halo (the original) that spun everything into play first came out for the Mac, then the PC, and THEN the X box - so it's as much the "Blizzard for the console set" as much as it is a "Blizzard for the PC" - also keep in mind Blizzard made Starcraft64 so its not like they are free of the console bash.
I don't know, how many 4k torrents are there and how many people will be accessing it at a time.
Any of the ones that made the genre?
What defines the Genre?
First Person
Halo does that.
Shooter
Halo also does that. Who'd a thunk!
Two points.
1) I like Halo as much as the next guy. Have all in the series, play #3 quite a bit to this day.
2) While Halo is a great series, they've not brought ANY new ideas. Rather, they have emulated the other ideas that have existed in many many games before it, but made it mesh very well together. Recharging shield and health was around before Halo, weapon reload times, carrying only two weapons.
I like Halo, and it IS a good game, but one thing I can't ever give it credit for is originality - which ripped a lot of stuff from Aliens and Predator films, the same way Starcraft did.
Wait, what?
Which part whooshed past you?
He basically says that being able to move products and goods without taxation caused this scenario where labour can be sent over-seas to a country with lower wages. This generally means that either that country has all the jobs or other countries have to lower their wages to stay competitive. This also reflects the quality of products and services, since you are paying substandard wages and basically taking people who need money to survive and not people who work because they enjoy it. On the flip side, the middle class in the more prosperous nations are left without the jobs they'd need to get by, or they'd take sub-standard (for their country) wages and scrape along the bottom.
I don't know if this is accurate to what happens but it basically works like this:
China and the US make deals to let companies operate in each others borders. Computer Technician jobs from the States get offshored to China because China offers the lowest wages for that kind of work, so Company A can save money on support thus increasing profits. Because of this, the existing Americans that work in Tech support must either move to and work in China (Almost making them more Chinese citizens than American), or find another job. Tech Support in India was also at a low cost but since China and the US made this deal, and China is offering lower wages, India must lower their wages to stay competitive.
Had "Free" trade not been enacted, meaning, labour, products, services, etc, getting taxed appropriately, none of this would have happened.
Okay, so I live in Canada, your business is in the states. I order something online.
Where was the money earned?
I'll let you in on MY method to cure the common hangover:
A Mickey of Captain Morgan's.
Why? What shooter would YOU propose?
As if Swedish women weren't enough incentive.
Mmmm
YAAAAA-aaaaaa
You'll have a hard time getting 4% of the vote without booty to pay them off and doing it would be illegal before you get into parliament. Also, you missed the point entirely in that they have to move the Servers INSIDE parliament for them to be outside of jurisdiction, so unless you plan on pirating from INSIDE the building, your point is moot.
And now its up to you to post the next link :P
First off, charities can get quite political.
This guy doesn't see of it as his money to determine where it ends up. He is just doing his part. He does not require a monetary award for his actions, he believes the benefit will come from him doing his work.
He's not a mathmetician for his own benefit, so he's basically trying to say that by saying "Take the money out of the equation".
Haha, see what I did there?
There's no denying there are climate changes going around. But
1.calling it man-made is complete speculation at the current point(yes it is, there's correlation at best, no proof of causality)
2.calling it warming is kind of fucked up since it's warming in some places, and cooling in others
3.no proof either that anything we do can change anything about it.
1) When we put everything on a timeline, and imagine what the world would be like without humans, we get a rough estimate of what the world should be like. Everyone knows, yes, the Earth goes through hot and cold cycles. Everyone knows there were a few ice ages, everyone knows a lot of dinosaurs lived in tropical climates. When we project where we should be, we are off. When we do estimates on how much our carbon emissions should affect the temperature, and then do estimates on how much we've released at each stage of human development, they line up pretty close to the records and what our temperature currently is. Again, a lot of it is based on "estimates" but they are not without some science or evidence behind them. That is to say, what we've boiled down to in our best logic is that each ton of carbon emissions we make affects the temperature of the Earth. And we've drawn some conclusions that match our data to suggest that we have made an impact.
2) Its only cooler in other places because its warmer in other places. Places where there is precipitation find more precipitation because there is more evaporation heading into the atmosphere. It makes good sense when you look at it. Things like jet streams work similarily.
3) We don't know if we can reverse it, there isn't a whole lot we can say on that front other than "Lets hope Mother Nature works it out" - but if we're right that we are affecting the temperature, then it is in our best interest to stop doing that, to preserve our species. Keep in mind those hot and cold cycles take A LONG time to sway back and forth, so I mean it might be handy to have global warming during an ice age but not so much during a heat wave. So by stopping our Carbon emissions, we can effectively buy more time. Who knows, this global warming by nature COULD in fact be some impending doom that will end human life on Earth. But if we manage to stop our carbon emissions in the next 30 years, maybe that will buy us an extra couple hundred years in space research to get off this rock.
Thats kind of where I see the debate right now.