I don't understand why every company wants to be the biggest company in the world. So what if someone ships more units than you, or has a bigger revenue.
Because it has become the received wisdom that a company should be number one or number two in a given business, or it should get out of that business. Jack Welch championed this notion during his immensely successful tenure at GE, and most management now subscribes to it. Whether or not it's *true* may be another matter, but most CEOs these days run their company on this principle.
Ahem, I seem to remember another Mac developer known as Bungie that created some damn fine RTS games in the Myth series.
The Myth series was indeed fine, and Bungie did do a good job bringing it to the Mac. However, it's not real-time strategy, but rather real-time tactical. RTS means resource collection with unit production from those resources is part of the game.
Final Fantasy XI had a smooth US launch, but that was mostly because it had been out for almost a year in Japan (the first US release came bundled with the first expansion!). I've heard that the initial Japan release was somewhat rougher.
Are you kidding? Ice VI was possibly the best of the series, and Ice VII was a real breakthrough. Full 3-D and just amazing cutscenes. Ice X was too girly, though, and Ice X-2 was worse.
I actually have an old issue of Analog (ca. 1965) with an article by John Campbell which discusses SPACEWAR. The blurb for the story talks about how it's a fascinating game, but ordinary people will never play it because the "gameboard" costs tens of thousands of dollars (back when that was a heckuva lot more money, too)! Even SF writers can fail to see the oncoming rush of progress.
My playstation isn't an electrical outlet tester. I'll rephrase though. It tells me nothing useful that the absence of a lit LED would tell me.
It tells the Sony helpdesk something very useful when someone calls in with a problem. "The PS2 isn't doing anything!" "Are any lights on?" "Yes, there's a little red light on the power switch." <OK, I know he's at least got the thing plugged in.>
My playstation isn't an electrical outlet tester. I'll rephrase though. It tells me nothing useful that the absence of a lit LED would tell me.
It tells the Sony helpdesk something very useful when someone calls in with a problem. "The PS/2 isn't doing anything!" "Are any lights on?" "Yes, there's a little red light on the power switch"
don't mind lights that mean something useful. A nice moderately dim green LED that is only on when the system is on is fine. Changing it to red when the system is off is worthless, it tells me nothing that the absence of a lit LED would tell me.
It tells you the system is plugged in to a live outlet.
That interpretation does not follow from the given text. The text clearly states: "Thou shalt not kill", period.
The original hebrew text is "Lo tirzach", which is usually translated by modern scholars as "You shall not murder", although googling around seems to show some disagreement on the subject.
She was too cheap to buy a PC when I got one in '82, so she had her brother in law, who worked for IBM, get her a discounted IBM desktop machine of some sort, whose name I can't recall. It had a tiny little 8 inch CRT, 16k of RAM, a tape drive as the only storage, and APL http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APL_(programming_lang uage)/ as an embedded language in it.
Sounds like an IBM 5100. Does this look like what you had?
Quick! Find Liechtenstein on a map. How about San Marino? No cheating with Google Maps.
Without referencing anything, I know San Marino is in north-central Italy, and Liechtenstein is on the Swiss border, with Austria, I think, but it might be Germany.
Some of this is being taken care of by game publishers picking up old games and reissuing. C&C:RA can be had in a form that runs just fine under Vista, no tweaking required, by buying EA's C&C: The First Decade compilation, which gets you *every* pre-C&C 3 C&C game, and they all run fine on XP or Vista. Sim City 2000 can be found on Game Tap, along with a lot of other classics (including, in fact, C&C 1 and C&C:RA, as well as X-COM and a lot of other classics), and they're coming out with a "remastered" version of the original Tomb Raider.
You've got it the wrong away around. What the OP is saying is that one's profession affects *other people's* property taxes. In the US, the public schools are run and paid for by the local government, which gets most of its revenue from property taxes. The schools are generally far and away the biggest item in the local government budget, so it is not too inaccurate to regard the teacher's salaries as being paid for by the local property tax.
Also, this is not "commercial speech". Commercial speech is when the speech applies solely to the economic interests of the speaker and the audience. For the most part, commercial speech is advertising. This is not commercial speech.
Darwin in action, then. If you don't know where you live, you've got bigger problems than trying to give the right directions to the emergency services.
You know, sometimes people who call 911 are *unable to speak*. You may be having a stroke, to pick an example. Standard procedure for the 911 operator when 911 is called but no one talks on the other end is to dispatch emergency response to the phone number's location, for precisely this reason. Which can be done only when the 911 operator knows where the phone number is, of course.
This is simply logic: the law of the excluded middle; either A or not A.
But it is also a classic logical fallacy--forcing a choice between alternatives that are in fact not the only ones. "Abandon your principles or quit!" is an example of the fallacy.
OTOH, simply refusing to do something unethical doesn't always wind up with you losing your job.
And here you yourself admit you're using the fallacy.
Starting it during the first wouldn't make much sense gameplay wise, because Melkor only became a problem at the start of the second IIRC; (hence no bad guy to fight)
You're a bit scrambled; Melkor was a problem even *before* the First Age. The First Age included the great wars of the Noldor against Melkor/Morgoth and the Elves' eventual defeat, and the War of Wrath when the Valar threw Morgoth down and exiled him forever, which was the end of the First Age. Morgoth wasn't around for the Second Age, which was largely the age of Numenor, until Sauron corrupted it and it was destroyed. Sauron's downthrow by the exiled Numenoreans under Elendil, Amandil and Isildur, in the Last Alliance with the Elves under Gil-Galad, was the end of the Second Age.
plus it'd mean the elves would be probably the only playable race.;)
No, there were Men in the First Age, and Dwarves as well. With some applied intelligence, they could be made playable races. The Elves were definitely in the ascendant in those days however, particularly in Beleriand, which is where a First Age MMORPG would almost have to be set.
There are kinda hints during the Karazhan quest that hint that the "real" Medivh, the human trapped within, is actually a good guy.
Did you play Warcraft III? Medivh is certainly a good guy now, whether or not he was responsible for his earlier actions. He's the prophet who tries to lead everyone to Kalimdor, where he knows the only chance to resist the Burning Legion exists. He is the prime mover in creating the grand Horde--Night Elf--Human alliance that beat the Burning Legion and killed Archimonde.
Looking through WoWWiki on him, I see you meet an evil Medivh in a quest, but that's because you're going back in time to when he opened the Black Portal for the Orcs.
still don't understand what makes algorithms and software OBVIOUSLY not patentable. Also, stop misusing the word "mathematical". I am not a proponent of software patents; I just don't see what makes software patents so different from other patents, and I haven't seen a single logical argument against software patents that doesn't involve circular reasoning.
Because a patent has to be (or least used to have to be) for a *device*. What's more, for a device that can be operated for some useful purpose. Abandoning that principle was, IMHO, not a good decision. You could patent a device that included software, and people couldn't replicate the device as a whole. But you couldn't just patent software; algorithms and methods are not devices.
So basically you think it's hopeless from the start.
No, but I think history provides ample evidence that depending on the kindness of strangers is not a good way to proceed. It's not hopeless; you just have to take into account the people who will want to manipulate the system to their advantage, and the fact that the integrity and intelligence of the average person is, well, average.
Checks and balances. Buying someone does not equate to them having loyalty to you. As soon as their greed or desires bring them to see you as an enemy they will turn on you.
It does when you get to select who you're buying. Our hypothetical buying-the-elections president would have been careful to select and fund Congressman and Senator candidates he could have an iron hold over. And, in any case, why would their greed or desires turn against this president? He's put them in office, he'll keep them in office--as long as they're loyal. Where's their upside to selling him out?
I'm really more interested in the possible downsides of public voting
We've been explaining the downsides at some length. You don't seem to want to listen--or learn any history about how corruption has controlled democracies, either.
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Because it has become the received wisdom that a company should be number one or number two in a given business, or it should get out of that business. Jack Welch championed this notion during his immensely successful tenure at GE, and most management now subscribes to it. Whether or not it's *true* may be another matter, but most CEOs these days run their company on this principle.
Chris Mattern
The Myth series was indeed fine, and Bungie did do a good job bringing it to the Mac. However, it's not real-time strategy, but rather real-time tactical. RTS means resource collection with unit production from those resources is part of the game.
Chris Mattern
At that price, I'd expect to get the Optimus *Prime* keyboard, and it better transform into the leader of the Autobots, too!
Chris Mattern
"Clearly, Tassadar has failed us. You must not."
Generally followed by: "We must defeat the dwarves!" "We ARE the dwarves." "Oh."
Chris Mattern
I thought it was the sound Tweeky makes.
"DTDTDT, that's right, Buck."
Chris Mattern
Final Fantasy XI had a smooth US launch, but that was mostly because it had been out for almost a year in Japan (the first US release came bundled with the first expansion!). I've heard that the initial Japan release was somewhat rougher.
Chris Mattern
Are you kidding? Ice VI was possibly the best of the series, and Ice VII was a real breakthrough. Full 3-D and just amazing cutscenes. Ice X was too girly, though, and Ice X-2 was worse.
Chris Mattern
I actually have an old issue of Analog (ca. 1965) with an article by John Campbell which discusses SPACEWAR. The blurb for the story talks about how it's a fascinating game, but ordinary people will never play it because the "gameboard" costs tens of thousands of dollars (back when that was a heckuva lot more money, too)! Even SF writers can fail to see the oncoming rush of progress.
Chris Mattern
I don't know about you, but my landline phone has a switch for turning the ringer off.
Chris Mattern
It tells the Sony helpdesk something very useful when someone calls in with a problem. "The PS2 isn't doing anything!" "Are any lights on?" "Yes, there's a little red light on the power switch." <OK, I know he's at least got the thing plugged in.>
Chris Mattern
It tells the Sony helpdesk something very useful when someone calls in with a problem. "The PS/2 isn't doing anything!" "Are any lights on?" "Yes, there's a little red light on the power switch"
Chris Mattern
It tells you the system is plugged in to a live outlet.
Chris Mattern
The original hebrew text is "Lo tirzach", which is usually translated by modern scholars as "You shall not murder", although googling around seems to show some disagreement on the subject.
Chris Mattern
Sounds like an IBM 5100. Does this look like what you had?
Chris Mattern
Without referencing anything, I know San Marino is in north-central Italy, and Liechtenstein is on the Swiss border, with Austria, I think, but it might be Germany.
Chris Mattern
Some of this is being taken care of by game publishers picking up old games and reissuing. C&C:RA can be had in a form that runs just fine under Vista, no tweaking required, by buying EA's C&C: The First Decade compilation, which gets you *every* pre-C&C 3 C&C game, and they all run fine on XP or Vista. Sim City 2000 can be found on Game Tap, along with a lot of other classics (including, in fact, C&C 1 and C&C:RA, as well as X-COM and a lot of other classics), and they're coming out with a "remastered" version of the original Tomb Raider.
Chris Mattern
You've got it the wrong away around. What the OP is saying is that one's profession affects *other people's* property taxes. In the US, the public schools are run and paid for by the local government, which gets most of its revenue from property taxes. The schools are generally far and away the biggest item in the local government budget, so it is not too inaccurate to regard the teacher's salaries as being paid for by the local property tax.
Chris Mattern
Also, this is not "commercial speech". Commercial speech is when the speech applies solely to the economic interests of the speaker and the audience. For the most part, commercial speech is advertising. This is not commercial speech.
Chris Mattern
You know, sometimes people who call 911 are *unable to speak*. You may be having a stroke, to pick an example. Standard procedure for the 911 operator when 911 is called but no one talks on the other end is to dispatch emergency response to the phone number's location, for precisely this reason. Which can be done only when the 911 operator knows where the phone number is, of course.
Chris Mattern
But it is also a classic logical fallacy--forcing a choice between alternatives that are in fact not the only ones. "Abandon your principles or quit!" is an example of the fallacy.
And here you yourself admit you're using the fallacy.
Chris Mattern
You're a bit scrambled; Melkor was a problem even *before* the First Age. The First Age included the great wars of the Noldor against Melkor/Morgoth and the Elves' eventual defeat, and the War of Wrath when the Valar threw Morgoth down and exiled him forever, which was the end of the First Age. Morgoth wasn't around for the Second Age, which was largely the age of Numenor, until Sauron corrupted it and it was destroyed. Sauron's downthrow by the exiled Numenoreans under Elendil, Amandil and Isildur, in the Last Alliance with the Elves under Gil-Galad, was the end of the Second Age.
No, there were Men in the First Age, and Dwarves as well. With some applied intelligence, they could be made playable races. The Elves were definitely in the ascendant in those days however, particularly in Beleriand, which is where a First Age MMORPG would almost have to be set.
Chris Mattern
Did you play Warcraft III? Medivh is certainly a good guy now, whether or not he was responsible for his earlier actions. He's the prophet who tries to lead everyone to Kalimdor, where he knows the only chance to resist the Burning Legion exists. He is the prime mover in creating the grand Horde--Night Elf--Human alliance that beat the Burning Legion and killed Archimonde.
Looking through WoWWiki on him, I see you meet an evil Medivh in a quest, but that's because you're going back in time to when he opened the Black Portal for the Orcs.
Chris Mattern
Because a patent has to be (or least used to have to be) for a *device*. What's more, for a device that can be operated for some useful purpose. Abandoning that principle was, IMHO, not a good decision. You could patent a device that included software, and people couldn't replicate the device as a whole. But you couldn't just patent software; algorithms and methods are not devices.
Chris Mattern
If I have to take off my glasses, the movie will just be a blur. But it will be a 3D blur!
Chris Mattern
No, but I think history provides ample evidence that depending on the kindness of strangers is not a good way to proceed. It's not hopeless; you just have to take into account the people who will want to manipulate the system to their advantage, and the fact that the integrity and intelligence of the average person is, well, average.
It does when you get to select who you're buying. Our hypothetical buying-the-elections president would have been careful to select and fund Congressman and Senator candidates he could have an iron hold over. And, in any case, why would their greed or desires turn against this president? He's put them in office, he'll keep them in office--as long as they're loyal. Where's their upside to selling him out?
We've been explaining the downsides at some length. You don't seem to want to listen--or learn any history about how corruption has controlled democracies, either.
Chris Mattern