Right, the forgery issue was always a red herring, perhaps the most successful one in history. What the memo said has been confirmed to be true, while the memo itself may be a forgery. Liberals think it was planted by Rove, conservatives think it was planted by desperate liberals. Conservatives win this one though because disproving this one piece of evidence has somehow caused the public to ignore the rest of the case.
If I forge a document stating that Hawaii is one of the 50 United States, does it make it any less true?
See this CBS article discussing Marian Carr Knox's discussion of the memos and the veracity of the claims.
You've stumbled on the most secretest secret of slashdot; no one would read the comments at all if the trolls didn't engage immediately and pick fights. Every once in a while they promote a known troll to the front page to keep things interesting.
That's proof by *false* analogy buddy. Your wiki link is only helpful if you demonstrate that the analogy is false. Also, an argument by way of analogy is a fine way to make a normative argument, even if it's not a good way to construct a formal proof. This is because norms are in fact quite imprecise and depend greatly on context; a good analogy between things that are alike in meaningful ways can provide a great deal of insight into how to approach an issue.
Does anyone know if there's a good collection of free (as in speech) midi files? I found a classical archive from the University of Arizona, but most sites seem to be silent on the subject of copyright and attribution. Any pointers would be much appreciated.
Don't you get it? He's bad cop. There are a million good cops out there- Linus, ESR, Bruce Perens, Eben Moglen, etc. etc. Movements don't get anywhere by being polite.
Still, he's no maniac- he just sticks to his guns and people who don't like his principles get upset about it.
Did you say this in your best crotchety old man voice?
The people you're calling myopic are the ones who want the books to go *into* the search engines. Until then, the information in those books is locked behind a wall of time. You can dig through it, but your expected return for time invested is often not nearly worth it.
Besides, isn't myopia something you get from spending too much time reading... books?
Another problem is that corporations are treated as Natural Persons under U.S. law, so they have basically all the rights of people and few of the responsibilities.
Another problem is that the free market has a very difficult time with the tragedy of the commons problem- short term corporate gain all too often conflicts with long term social and environmental well being.
There are more problems. And don't get me started on the incompatibility of idea ownership and competition.
Yes... so everyone will be disappointed with the unofficial servers and play the official ones anyway, unless they don't want to for reasons that are not obvious to you but are to us.
duh there's other mmorpg's, but they are not suitable replacements. WoW service is sold by only one vendor.
Coke is the only Coke vendor, but it's more or less replaceable by pepsi. If Coke were the only vendor for cola, there would be a problem.
The main reason for them running all their own servers is economic,
This is called "monopoly rent" in economic circles. I'm not saying they're stupid, I'm just saying that competition (the engine of capitalism) is good for consumers.
A server admin who cheated for herself would find her server become less popular, don't you think? Same reason why blizzard people don't (in theory) do this.
There may be an issue related to different standards when you go between persistent worlds, so you regulate what can come through from one persistent world to the next, kind of like customs when you go to the airport.
So instead of a single persistent universe, you'd have lots of persistent universes. The servers ought to be allowed but not required to charge their users.
Through the magic of capitalism, the best ones would gain reputations and become popular, and perhaps the other servers would eclipse the official one, perhaps not.
The question you really have to ask yourself is, how many other players can you really possibly interact with in a meaningful way? Is there a point to having more than 10,000 players you don't know on the same server as you?
You could create a system to allow movement between servers that have passport-type agreements; in the game world the journey between them could be represented as a travelling over an ocean or something, I care not. It's possible but not really necessary to allow the persistent worlds to interoperate.
Finally, the best part of having unofficial servers available would be that your original investment in buying the game wouldn't be wasted if the official server is down, or if Blizzard's data center floods, etc.
If there were unofficial servers (or even the promise of unofficial server code someday) I would buy WoW, until then I won't.
You're right in a sense though- I feel this way about all mmorpg's, and I am sad when franchises that I like move in that direction.
A troll is just trying to get a reaction by saying something inflammatorily incorrect or irrelevant. I was trying to raise an important issue directly related to the topic.
Right- I think Blizzard should run a server... but also allow alternate servers that don't interact with theirs. I want thousands of players online at the same time in the same world because it's the best, not b/c it's the only, one.
I think you're right, setting up such a server is probably very hard, and if only Blizzard has the skill and will to run a decent one, fine. So long as I'm not *required* to use their server to play at all.
Slashdot Mirror
Someone needs to read their David Brin.
Right, the forgery issue was always a red herring, perhaps the most successful one in history. What the memo said has been confirmed to be true, while the memo itself may be a forgery. Liberals think it was planted by Rove, conservatives think it was planted by desperate liberals. Conservatives win this one though because disproving this one piece of evidence has somehow caused the public to ignore the rest of the case.
If I forge a document stating that Hawaii is one of the 50 United States, does it make it any less true?
See this CBS article discussing Marian Carr Knox's discussion of the memos and the veracity of the claims.
You've stumbled on the most secretest secret of slashdot; no one would read the comments at all if the trolls didn't engage immediately and pick fights. Every once in a while they promote a known troll to the front page to keep things interesting.
Nostradamus you ain't :)
Welcome to Slashdot.
That's proof by *false* analogy buddy. Your wiki link is only helpful if you demonstrate that the analogy is false. Also, an argument by way of analogy is a fine way to make a normative argument, even if it's not a good way to construct a formal proof. This is because norms are in fact quite imprecise and depend greatly on context; a good analogy between things that are alike in meaningful ways can provide a great deal of insight into how to approach an issue.
Does anyone know if there's a good collection of free (as in speech) midi files? I found a classical archive from the University of Arizona, but most sites seem to be silent on the subject of copyright and attribution. Any pointers would be much appreciated.
It's letting people hear his perspective. Some people are convinced.
Don't you get it? He's bad cop. There are a million good cops out there- Linus, ESR, Bruce Perens, Eben Moglen, etc. etc. Movements don't get anywhere by being polite.
Still, he's no maniac- he just sticks to his guns and people who don't like his principles get upset about it.
He just doesn't support people who disagree with him, and for that you call him a maniac? Ooook.
Every time someone flips out about Stallman's insistence on calling it "Gnu/Linux" instead of linux, his complaint gets another airing.
Think about that, and then come back and tell me Stallman doesn't pick his battles wisely.
er, that should be "insult", but I think you get the point.
"Will you do me a favor and speak at my club? It's called 'mild insight to your life's work'.
"Um, no thanks, but call me if you change the name."
"MANIAC!!!"
Geez...
The author of frankenlies is an anonymous coward, and for good reason. I
correct her many misstatements
here.
Did you say this in your best crotchety old man voice?
The people you're calling myopic are the ones who want the books to go *into* the search engines. Until then, the information in those books is locked behind a wall of time. You can dig through it, but your expected return for time invested is often not nearly worth it.
Besides, isn't myopia something you get from spending too much time reading... books?
Another problem is that corporations are treated as Natural Persons under U.S. law, so they have basically all the rights of people and few of the responsibilities.
Another problem is that the free market has a very difficult time with the tragedy of the commons problem- short term corporate gain all too often conflicts with long term social and environmental well being.
There are more problems. And don't get me started on the incompatibility of idea ownership and competition.
Yes... so everyone will be disappointed with the unofficial servers and play the official ones anyway, unless they don't want to for reasons that are not obvious to you but are to us.
duh there's other mmorpg's, but they are not suitable replacements. WoW service is sold by only one vendor.
Coke is the only Coke vendor, but it's more or less replaceable by pepsi. If Coke were the only vendor for cola, there would be a problem.
The main reason for them running all their own servers is economic,
This is called "monopoly rent" in economic circles. I'm not saying they're stupid, I'm just saying that competition (the engine of capitalism) is good for consumers.
No, that's the magic of monopoly. I'm interested in competition; there is only one vendor for WoW service.
A server admin who cheated for herself would find her server become less popular, don't you think? Same reason why blizzard people don't (in theory) do this.
There may be an issue related to different standards when you go between persistent worlds, so you regulate what can come through from one persistent world to the next, kind of like customs when you go to the airport.
Walk with me into hypothetical-land for a moment.
So instead of a single persistent universe, you'd have lots of persistent universes. The servers ought to be allowed but not required to charge their users.
Through the magic of capitalism, the best ones would gain reputations and become popular, and perhaps the other servers would eclipse the official one, perhaps not.
The question you really have to ask yourself is, how many other players can you really possibly interact with in a meaningful way? Is there a point to having more than 10,000 players you don't know on the same server as you?
You could create a system to allow movement between servers that have passport-type agreements; in the game world the journey between them could be represented as a travelling over an ocean or something, I care not. It's possible but not really necessary to allow the persistent worlds to interoperate.
Finally, the best part of having unofficial servers available would be that your original investment in buying the game wouldn't be wasted if the official server is down, or if Blizzard's data center floods, etc.
If there were unofficial servers (or even the promise of unofficial server code someday) I would buy WoW, until then I won't.
No, I understand very well.
I have this problem with MMORPG's in general, but in principle there's no reason that unofficial servers couldn't exist.
What makes me sad is that the warcraft franchise is moving from a standalone model to a subscription model.
Um, planeshift perhaps?
You're right in a sense though- I feel this way about all mmorpg's, and I am sad when franchises that I like move in that direction.
A troll is just trying to get a reaction by saying something inflammatorily incorrect or irrelevant. I was trying to raise an important issue directly related to the topic.
I don't think you should.
unacceptable to them, which makes me think they had secret plans to sell the game in the future.
Forgive me for being obtuse, but do you really think that's a secret?
Um, whoever rated this troll needs to go a little easy on the mod finger. I'm really quite serious.
Right- I think Blizzard should run a server... but also allow alternate servers that don't interact with theirs. I want thousands of players online at the same time in the same world because it's the best, not b/c it's the only, one.
I think you're right, setting up such a server is probably very hard, and if only Blizzard has the skill and will to run a decent one, fine. So long as I'm not *required* to use their server to play at all.