JP Morgan back in the 20's (or earlier?) said something like "once the shoe shine boys and taxicab drivers start talking about stocks, its time to get out"
Actually that was Joseph Kennedy, who sold in the summer of 1929, supposedly because a shoeshine boy gave him a stock tip. And the story is probably totally apocryphal - Kennedy himself denied it.
Of course free speech isn't an absolute. I'll bring up the tired but true example of yelling fire in a theater. Why wouldn't this apply to the net as well?
The "yelling fire" example
is terribly misunderstood
is usually used to make flawed analogies
doesn't prove that the right to free speech is any less absolute
doesn't, in any case, justify any federal laws abridging free speech.
Damaging a person's property is always illegal, and should be actionable regardless of whether or not words (speech) are involved. One can say something fraudulent, and the fact that spoken words are involved doesn't protect one from charges of fraud.
It's obvious that the constitution was a failed experiment. I mean, now we even argue over whether "congress shall make no law" actually means "congress shall make some laws, if they can show a compelling interest..." Even if the framers were in favor of a number of restrictions on speech (as I'm sure some of them were) they agreed that these things should be done at the state level, not the federal level.
I'm a little shocked there are none yet. Likely reason is that mozilla skins are a little too hard to make. But people still have enough time to make lame Star Trek skins.
The Genesis could display up to 80 sprites at once, the SNES displayed up to 128. The SNES could also make sprites up to 64x64 pixels in size, compared to the Genesis maximum of 32x32. The Genesis could display up to 20 sprites on the same scan line, provided they were small sprites; the SNES could display 32 sprites on the same scan line. During the first two years after the SNES came out, quite a few of the popular games had major issues with slowdown and flicker. The bulk of this was due to programmers' unfamiliarity with the new system. Similarly the first Genesis games didn't take advantage of their hardware very well, either. In the end the SNES was able to pull off better performance due to superior graphics hardware. A fast CPU is nice, but on a game console it isn't as important as good graphics hardware.
[snip]... Sonic the Hedgehog died along with Sega's plan to stop making consoles.
Actually, new sonic games are in the works right now. Sega has been working on sonic for the GBA, probably since late last summer. (btw, there is a sonic game for the pocket neo-geo) Most likely Sonic will also someday appear on the non-portable consoles as well.
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Re:In the end, it's all about the games....
on
Mario's Revenge?
·
· Score: 2
Of course, to call a victory to Nintendo's return is probably premature, as we have no idea what kind of games they will offer. For all we know, the games offered with Nitendo's cube (as well as MS's X-box) may be just as uninspiring as the games on the PS2.
The strange thing is, we will have little idea what the games will be like for a couple of months still. Nintendo is purposely keeping quiet about the games in development and they have bound all licensees with NDAs. Developers are allowed to announce what they're working on, but no playable demos (other than Miyamoto's surreal Mario demo) have been shown - the video reel shown at spaceworld was made up of non-interactive cut scenes and FMV. Supposedly the secrecy will allow Nintendo to keep a lid on the hype so they can blow us all away at E3.
In short I think if there are some good playable games showing at E3, Nintendo's future is virtually guaranteed. If it looks like the games won't be ready, they could languish in Sony's (or Microsoft's) shadow for a few more years still. Actually, if key games aren't ready in time for the console's launch, Nintendo will almost certainly delay the release.
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Re:Probably not going to happen
on
Mario's Revenge?
·
· Score: 1
Also, dvd playback will NOT be an option on the Game Cube, and Nintendo has said that they'll market this as a gaming-only machine. Well, that rules out the CASUAL gamers, who would rather buy a gaming unit WITH dvd playback instead of two seperate machines. Not a good move on Nintendo's part, especially since I know people who were sold on the PS2 simply because of the dvd playback.
Yes, and Sony loses money on every consumer who does this. They sell the console below cost as a loss leader and recoup the losses on licensing fees. All things being equal it would have been better for Sony if these people had waited until they found a game they wanted before buying the console; that way Sony would at least make up for their loss more quickly.
Plus, I've had the luxery of playing the Metal Gear Solid 2 demo since its Japanese release.
Yeah but grammar nazi neither underlined nor italicized. He used quotes. I like the grammar nazi, but with a handle like that, you're just asking to be scrutinized.
You don't need imaginary numbers to define the mandelbrot set. Start with point (x[1],y[1]). When you do the iterations, x[next] = x[previous]^2 - y^2 + x[1] and y[next] = -y[previous]^2 + y[1].
And the image shown is most definitely a rendering of the mandelbrot set. Other than that, you're right that complex numbers and cartesian coordinate systems weren't used when this drawing was supposedly made. The article even claims the monk performed 70 iterations on each point to test whether or not it was in the set! It took my Commodore 128 almost 24 hours exactly to do a 320x200 picture that only tested points for 12 iterations. The implication is that the monk performed 1,008,000 calculations just to create the 120x120 grid. April fool.
Oh, and wouldn't it be nice if slashdot supported the tag?
I disagree. AMD's success is a sign that people - whether or not they are clueless about microprocessors - care very little about brand names. (There are a few anti-intel fanatics who are the exception to this rule). Intel's attempts to pump up their brand name are obviously a failure with the general public. Most of the people who bought an AMD from Gateway or suchlike probably don't even know what AMD is. I'm glad AMD isn't wasting dumploads of money on establishing a brand name. Consumers see little reason to care.
My own impressions about the development of relativity theory come from Kip Thorne's entertaining book _Black Holes & Time Warps_. It has a heavy emphasis on history for a book of its type.
General Relativity however is a whole other story. Most historians of the field doubt it would have been developed for quite some time, possibly as late as the 1970's or maybe even later.
Could you explain yourself a little more? I'm completely surprised by your suggestion because the development of GR didn't depend that heavily on Einstein. For instance, the concept of spacetime really originated with Minkowski. Einstein, for his part, did not have a tremendous mastery of mathematics, so he sought help from a professor of mathematics when he began his work on GR. The great mathematician David Hilbert, who had been following Einstein's work, independently discovered the correct law of warpage of spacetime slightly earlier than Einstein did. Hilbert acknowledged that the important conceptual leaps were Einstein's, however.
You don't fight poverty by giving free money away - not in the long run. Poverty is defeated by building industries and providing the poor with productive paying jobs.
... but then:
Now, what is free software going to do except put professional programmers out of business? [...snip...] It's self-defeating; you can't help the economic status of people by destroying the economy they live in!
End with something totally outrageous.
I mean, how many economies have been destroyed by free software so far?
Nice troll but you're getting annoying. You're as bad as a karma whore.
AA batteries, up to 15 hours (that's probably a very optimistic estimate, though). Not bad, considering that it's better than the SNES in almost every way, except for having fewer buttons and lower resolution. See this GBA FAQ for more details.
The US is in the same position as Japan five years ago... (they had property inflation rather than asset).
You mean 11 years ago. And the Japanese had both a real estate *and* a financial assett bubble - generally, their stocks were even more overvalued than most American stocks are, judging by price/earnings ratios.
Last night the major Japanese stock index, the Nikkei 225, reached lows it hadn't seen since 1985. The index is now down to less than 1/3 of its all-time high. I don't think the US is about to get hurt as badly as Japan was, but this information ought to be pointed out to all the people who think stocks always go up.
Another even better example is Hong Kong, which was not democratic under British rule because the residents of Hong Kong didn't get to vote for their leaders. Also, unlike Singapore, Hong Kong doesn't have so many anal-retentive/conservative laws banning things like oral sex and chewing gum in public. And finally, Hong Kong is more capitalistic in the sense that the government involves itself in the economy less.
Re:Capital is imaginary(gold has intrinsic value?)
on
The Mystery of Capital
·
· Score: 1
Once upon a time, money was based on physical assets. Now capital has become fiduciary - meaning it is not based on any physical assets at all. To explain, in the UK one Pound Sterling used to be one pound of gold by weight. Now it is just valued for its intrinsic value to people. If noone exchanges money fro gold, the intrinsic value of money is irrelevant. Everyone wants money, therefore money is valuable, QED.
Isn't it a little arbitrary for you to say that a piece of paper has no intrinsic value, but gold does? (yes I know gold has industrial and jewelry uses, but the vast majority of it sits in vaults and serves monetary functions). You are failing to realize why certain things become money in the first place.
Furthermore you are going on to draw conclusions from your lack of understanding about what/why money is what it is. I think that is why you say capital is not based on any physical assets - which is a total non sequitor, anyway. "Capital" is a short word for "the means of production." Capital goods are different from consumer goods - you don't get capital goods to consume them, you get them to make you more productive at making other goods. Anything that helps you to produce things can be a capital good. So factory equipment are factory goods. To the extent that you use them to make things, your household tools can also possibly be considered capital. A farm tractor is also capital. You can begin to see how the lack of capital is something that separates the poor countries from the rich ones. A farmer who has to plow with a mule may work harder than his (say) american counterparts, but since american farmers have more capital (tractors as opposed to mules), they are able to produce more.
It is nonsense for you to say that "capital will be pure ideas" in 25 years. Many physical, real-world tasks - like producing food - will still need to be done, and capital equipment will be used to do them. I think you've just been confused by the abstract, intangible nature of financial tools - money, bonds, stocks - which are used to allocate and transfer capital.
The only truth to your comments - a truth I think you stumbled on accidentally - is that knowledge is a type of capital. There are plenty of abstract types of capital like this - for instance, reputational capital. These types of capital are intangible but they are incredibly important - knowledge is necessary to make other types of physical capital, for instance.
History isn't over (let's not abuse the meaning of Fukuyama's words-that annoys him). Money will continue to exist. Physical forms of capital will continue to be important.
For great justice, before writing a couple of paragraphs about these topics you could at least take the time to learn the vocabulary first. I think you could benefit from reading some of DeSoto's books and articles.
Sorry to come down so hard, but your ideas on money are nothing short of crankish.
Also all modern currency is based real estate ( including the mineral rights and the people above it ). Hong kong is the best example of it. The government hold onto the realestate until there currency gets to strong and then they release some realestate and the currency gets put back into check.
Do you actually have any idea how Hong Kong's currency board works? It has absolutely no connection to government real estate. Most of the land in HK (about the size of Washington, D.C.) is privately owned anyway. The Hong Kong dollar is backed by U.S. dollars. A rigid currency board system ensures that the central bank always has enough U.S. dollars in reserve to back up its own issues. And incidentally, the HKD was never devalued, even though land prices went down.
Japan example "bubble burst" has to do with bad lending based on overvalued realestate prices slam the currency
As for Japan, the Japanese currency is actually worth more against the USD now that their real estate prices have plummeted. If you want to know why real estate isn't very liquid in Japan, 90% taxes on land sales are the answer. Also it's worth mentioning that the bubble in the late 80's was promoted by the central bank's actions, only in the last 3 years have they gotten serious about cleaning up bad loans and little has been accomplished in this direction IMO.
Re:They're coming back with AIDS
on
GeekCorps v2.0
·
· Score: 1
You got me there, I assumed Africa's death rate due to aids was at least remotely comparable to North America's (less than half a million dead to AIDS for all years, and hopefully getting much better).
In defense of my emphasis on malaria, I do still think it's worth emphasizing that disease, especially since it is much cheaper to combat.
To change the subject, here's one final thought on the future of Africa. In 1945, Japan was a bombed-out wreck. Its population was so malnourished that generations of Americans grew up thinking Japanese were naturally short. Today they are one of the few richest nations on earth. Yet compared to Africa, Japan is devoid of arable land and most natural resources.
Any third world country could potentially experience this kind of economic miracle.
Re:They're coming back with AIDS
on
GeekCorps v2.0
·
· Score: 1
The importance of AIDS in Africa has been drastically overinflated for political correctness reasons. Far more Africans are affected by malaria. Don't get me wrong, AIDS is a very bad disease, especially in Africa. But far, far more people die every year due to inadequate measures to eradicate mosquitos. Worldwide, an outrageous 500 million people contract malaria every year, and 2 million die from it.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually that was Joseph Kennedy, who sold in the summer of 1929, supposedly because a shoeshine boy gave him a stock tip. And the story is probably totally apocryphal - Kennedy himself denied it.
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No. I first got the image from zanyvg.overclocked.org (the game is called Battlerangers) and I've been cracking up about it ever since.
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The "yelling fire" example
- is terribly misunderstood
- is usually used to make flawed analogies
- doesn't prove that the right to free speech is any less absolute
- doesn't, in any case, justify any federal laws abridging free speech.
Damaging a person's property is always illegal, and should be actionable regardless of whether or not words (speech) are involved. One can say something fraudulent, and the fact that spoken words are involved doesn't protect one from charges of fraud.It's obvious that the constitution was a failed experiment. I mean, now we even argue over whether "congress shall make no law" actually means "congress shall make some laws, if they can show a compelling interest..." Even if the framers were in favor of a number of restrictions on speech (as I'm sure some of them were) they agreed that these things should be done at the state level, not the federal level.
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Well, we are talking about Michael Sims here. He has a history of obnoxious, petty immature behavior.
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I'm a little shocked there are none yet. Likely reason is that mozilla skins are a little too hard to make. But people still have enough time to make lame Star Trek skins.
--
The Genesis could display up to 80 sprites at once, the SNES displayed up to 128. The SNES could also make sprites up to 64x64 pixels in size, compared to the Genesis maximum of 32x32. The Genesis could display up to 20 sprites on the same scan line, provided they were small sprites; the SNES could display 32 sprites on the same scan line. During the first two years after the SNES came out, quite a few of the popular games had major issues with slowdown and flicker. The bulk of this was due to programmers' unfamiliarity with the new system. Similarly the first Genesis games didn't take advantage of their hardware very well, either. In the end the SNES was able to pull off better performance due to superior graphics hardware. A fast CPU is nice, but on a game console it isn't as important as good graphics hardware.
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The strange thing is, we will have little idea what the games will be like for a couple of months still. Nintendo is purposely keeping quiet about the games in development and they have bound all licensees with NDAs. Developers are allowed to announce what they're working on, but no playable demos (other than Miyamoto's surreal Mario demo) have been shown - the video reel shown at spaceworld was made up of non-interactive cut scenes and FMV. Supposedly the secrecy will allow Nintendo to keep a lid on the hype so they can blow us all away at E3.
In short I think if there are some good playable games showing at E3, Nintendo's future is virtually guaranteed. If it looks like the games won't be ready, they could languish in Sony's (or Microsoft's) shadow for a few more years still. Actually, if key games aren't ready in time for the console's launch, Nintendo will almost certainly delay the release.
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Yes, and Sony loses money on every consumer who does this. They sell the console below cost as a loss leader and recoup the losses on licensing fees. All things being equal it would have been better for Sony if these people had waited until they found a game they wanted before buying the console; that way Sony would at least make up for their loss more quickly.
Please tell us how you got to be so lucky!
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Yeah but grammar nazi neither underlined nor italicized. He used quotes. I like the grammar nazi, but with a handle like that, you're just asking to be scrutinized.
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Don't you mean "alludes"? And shouldn't a book title be underlined?
All in good fun. And my punctuation is intentional.
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I meant to say tag
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Oh, and wouldn't it be nice if slashdot supported the tag?
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I disagree. AMD's success is a sign that people - whether or not they are clueless about microprocessors - care very little about brand names. (There are a few anti-intel fanatics who are the exception to this rule). Intel's attempts to pump up their brand name are obviously a failure with the general public. Most of the people who bought an AMD from Gateway or suchlike probably don't even know what AMD is. I'm glad AMD isn't wasting dumploads of money on establishing a brand name. Consumers see little reason to care.
--
All your base are belong to us. You have no chance to survive make your time.
My own impressions about the development of relativity theory come from Kip Thorne's entertaining book _Black Holes & Time Warps_. It has a heavy emphasis on history for a book of its type.
Start out with something reasonable...
I mean, how many economies have been destroyed by free software so far?
Nice troll but you're getting annoying. You're as bad as a karma whore.
AA batteries, up to 15 hours (that's probably a very optimistic estimate, though). Not bad, considering that it's better than the SNES in almost every way, except for having fewer buttons and lower resolution. See this GBA FAQ for more details.
Last night the major Japanese stock index, the Nikkei 225, reached lows it hadn't seen since 1985. The index is now down to less than 1/3 of its all-time high. I don't think the US is about to get hurt as badly as Japan was, but this information ought to be pointed out to all the people who think stocks always go up.
Another even better example is Hong Kong, which was not democratic under British rule because the residents of Hong Kong didn't get to vote for their leaders. Also, unlike Singapore, Hong Kong doesn't have so many anal-retentive/conservative laws banning things like oral sex and chewing gum in public. And finally, Hong Kong is more capitalistic in the sense that the government involves itself in the economy less.
Furthermore you are going on to draw conclusions from your lack of understanding about what/why money is what it is. I think that is why you say capital is not based on any physical assets - which is a total non sequitor, anyway. "Capital" is a short word for "the means of production." Capital goods are different from consumer goods - you don't get capital goods to consume them, you get them to make you more productive at making other goods. Anything that helps you to produce things can be a capital good. So factory equipment are factory goods. To the extent that you use them to make things, your household tools can also possibly be considered capital. A farm tractor is also capital. You can begin to see how the lack of capital is something that separates the poor countries from the rich ones. A farmer who has to plow with a mule may work harder than his (say) american counterparts, but since american farmers have more capital (tractors as opposed to mules), they are able to produce more.
It is nonsense for you to say that "capital will be pure ideas" in 25 years. Many physical, real-world tasks - like producing food - will still need to be done, and capital equipment will be used to do them. I think you've just been confused by the abstract, intangible nature of financial tools - money, bonds, stocks - which are used to allocate and transfer capital.
The only truth to your comments - a truth I think you stumbled on accidentally - is that knowledge is a type of capital. There are plenty of abstract types of capital like this - for instance, reputational capital. These types of capital are intangible but they are incredibly important - knowledge is necessary to make other types of physical capital, for instance.
History isn't over (let's not abuse the meaning of Fukuyama's words-that annoys him). Money will continue to exist. Physical forms of capital will continue to be important.
For great justice, before writing a couple of paragraphs about these topics you could at least take the time to learn the vocabulary first. I think you could benefit from reading some of DeSoto's books and articles.
In defense of my emphasis on malaria, I do still think it's worth emphasizing that disease, especially since it is much cheaper to combat.
To change the subject, here's one final thought on the future of Africa. In 1945, Japan was a bombed-out wreck. Its population was so malnourished that generations of Americans grew up thinking Japanese were naturally short. Today they are one of the few richest nations on earth. Yet compared to Africa, Japan is devoid of arable land and most natural resources.
Any third world country could potentially experience this kind of economic miracle.
The importance of AIDS in Africa has been drastically overinflated for political correctness reasons. Far more Africans are affected by malaria.
Don't get me wrong, AIDS is a very bad disease, especially in Africa. But far, far more people die every year due to inadequate measures to eradicate mosquitos.
Worldwide, an outrageous 500 million people contract malaria every year, and 2 million die from it.