It's not that Google can't or couldn't create a successful operating system... it's that for the vast majority of Windows users, they're not going to switch OS's. Let's face it... a large chunk of the common users of the world are not suddenly going to go "Aha! I'll switch to Linux!" They're relatively happy and comfortable with an OS that they are familiar with. It's much the same with corporate customers. They go with Microsoft products, not necessarily because they're the best, but because when they upgrade it tends to require the least amount of retraining time as compared to learning an entirely new line of software products.
Likewise, Microsoft can create a search engine, but that doesn't mean that people are going to abandon Google in droves, simply because it's developed by Microsoft. Google has the market share... something like two-thirds of all web searches (at least in the U.S.) are done through Google. Hell, it's been a verb for years now. "Let me google that and get back to you." Is 'Bing' going to get that same level of brand awareness? No. But Microsoft is not that concerned if it does. Sure, they'd like it to, but they're not going to lose any sleep if it doesn't steal a good-sized chuck of Google's market share.
Good lord, no. I've played mostly on the Alliance side, but I've created a few Horde characters. And every time, I wonder, "Why did I stop playing my old Horde character. OH YES. THE BARRENS."
Wrong. At the very least, the paper has the ethical responsibility of verifying that the person who wrote the letter to the editor sent it in. I cannot recall the last newspaper I have seen that did not include the notice that all letters to the editor must include some form of contact information. Ostensibly, this is so they can verify the writer's identity before publisher an inflammatory letter.
Amazing.... you're an anonymous moron. On Slashdot.
Who ever would have suspected that?
The polling data you link to doesn't mention any reasons as to why anyone voted for Obama or McCain. Yes, it breaks it down by race, income, education, and when they decided who to vote for... but there's a lack of reasons why.
Piss off, you troglodyte, and take your crapola with you.
Congratulations, you're setting a new standard for dense. Not only did you not read the article, you didn't even read the Slashdot summary.
Using [these] criteria the researchers found that wind energy could not only supply all of the world's energy requirements, but it could provide over forty times the world's current electrical consumption and over five times the global use of total energy needs."
Over 40 times the electrical consumption, and over five times the global use of total energy needs. I'm repeating that part because it's important.
That alone says we'd only have to put up one-fortieth of "covering the entire globe in massive obelisks" to meet all of the current electrical consumption, and it's not even the entire globe because of the areas removed based on the criteria they set. And let's face it, even that won't happen, because of the whole "not in my backyard" syndrome.
Let's say, for sake of argument, that you convert to Catholic Christianity. While there are classes to bring you up to speed on your new religion's dogma and so forth, they're either free or relatively cheap. You also (and here's the important part) DO NOT NEED TO TAKE THEM. You can go to a Catholic Church and participate in the Sunday Services (sing hymns, take communion, etc.) without having to pay a dime.
The Church of Scientology, on the other hand, has courses and auditing sessions that are required. They cost money. It requires spending many thousands of dollars to take all the OT classes. And it's only after you've spent those many thousands of dollars and been brainwashed for months (if not years), that you find out about Xenu and Teeagaack and all the cheesy sci-fi elements of this so-called religion.
Yeah, that's right. All the stuff that we/.ers generally know about the CoS? It's not public knowledge. (Okay, it's a little more public after that one South Park episode), but the point is still there. There's not some super-secret version of the Bible that you only get to look at after 15 years of faithful service and huge stacks of cash donations to the Vatican. There's no super-secret version of the Qu'ran or the Talmud.
And how many other religions do you know of that have trade secrets? Yeah, the Church of Scientology protects the OT coursework under the laws governing trade secrets. Funny thing, that.... I don't recall the Communion class I took as a wee nipper requiring a non-disclosure agreement.
The CoS is a business and a scam masquerading as a religion.
It's a reference to the Sherlock Holmes story "The Bohemian Scandal", wherein, Holmes explains to Watson that the note that he (Holmes) has received was written by a German, based on the sentence structure.
The drawback to coming with no baggage is that the developers then have to create the backstory. Sometimes you get good backstory, sometimes you get bad backstory.
And you also have to create a non-conflicting framework for the setting. (I'm going to segue into pen-and-paper RPGs for a bit here.) In, say, ShadowRun, you had these things called skillwires. If you wanted to be Dan Danger, Master of Gun-fu (no, that's not a spelling error, it's what we called the guy with dual pistols), you slotted a Pistols 6 skillchip. The problem was that, given the time and money, you could have a skillchip for every combat skill, ever.
Imagine translating that to an MMORPG. I'm not saying ever sci-fi based MMORPG would have to have skillwires or something similar, but if they did, there would be no real limitation on why every character wouldn't have every skill.
Or, another standard of sci-fi... transporters. Penny Arcade did a strip on how that would affect questing.
Or, as you mentioned, ranged weapons. Yeah, in Star Trek, a phaser set on kill... well, it kills. Hrm. That would be real popular with the PvP crowd, and I suspect it would make leveling a breeze, but you know.... just don't see it happening.
It's easier, in fantasy games, to justify things, that in a sci-fi setting would leave even the greatest Rick Berman fanboy going "no fucking way!"
The problem is, those games are single-player. There's a lower threshold for satisfaction.
When you have a MMORPG, does it make sense for every PC to crowd into one city per planet? While there has to be some sort of defining limitation so your developers aren't cranking out dozens of game worlds every month, there has to be more then "Here on Planet X, you can go to the city, and the environs within immediate eyesight of the the city."
Er, so why can't we also send a message to teens that being dumbasses and taking naked pics of themselves is probably not the smartest fucking thing to do?
I mean, even ignoring the fact that it's pervert bait to any pedophile who gets his hands on it, once you send such a pic out, you're basically giving up any chance that it's not going to get spread around.
And who wants that kind of thing haunting them years later?
I may not necessarily like the choice, but Obama is free to pick whomever he wants for the job. To the best of my knowledge, they still have to be confirmed to the post by Congress. (Which, yes, will probably be a done-deal anyway.)
Okay, so he was an RIAA lawyer. So what? Yes, the RIAA has done some incredibly stupid things in their lawsuit strategy, but a lawyer is supposedly to zealously represent their clients. Not half-ass it.
I mean, let's face it... how many albums have you heard recently that had maybe one or two good/catchy tracks, and the rest of the album was pure crapola? I'd much rather pay a couple of bucks for the relatively few songs I tend to like off of an album rather then pay $15-$20 for the entire CD and only ever listen to the same few tracks.
they spent all the time making the game look very very pretty (which, I must admit, it is), and none of it creating anything for any of the professions. There are glaring holes in most of the professions, not to mention the things that have been broken since the launch of the expansion (and let's be fair, in one case, for the last four years), and don't seem to be on the "Fix anytime soon" list.
I don't know about that, but Texas does have a very strong "Castle Doctrine" defense. The short version is, if you're threatened... ANYWHERE, you don't have a duty to attempt to retreat before using lethal force in response. This results in quite a few burglaries a year ending up with the criminals being killed. (And yet, there are still burglaries in Texas... strange.)
Slashdot Mirror
Really, you can't lay the fact that ECW is on there to the name change. ECW has been on that station since 2006.
The buggy whip industry.
Obviously, you know the wrong 98% of the population.
It's not that Google can't or couldn't create a successful operating system... it's that for the vast majority of Windows users, they're not going to switch OS's. Let's face it... a large chunk of the common users of the world are not suddenly going to go "Aha! I'll switch to Linux!" They're relatively happy and comfortable with an OS that they are familiar with. It's much the same with corporate customers. They go with Microsoft products, not necessarily because they're the best, but because when they upgrade it tends to require the least amount of retraining time as compared to learning an entirely new line of software products.
Likewise, Microsoft can create a search engine, but that doesn't mean that people are going to abandon Google in droves, simply because it's developed by Microsoft. Google has the market share... something like two-thirds of all web searches (at least in the U.S.) are done through Google. Hell, it's been a verb for years now. "Let me google that and get back to you." Is 'Bing' going to get that same level of brand awareness? No. But Microsoft is not that concerned if it does. Sure, they'd like it to, but they're not going to lose any sleep if it doesn't steal a good-sized chuck of Google's market share.
Good lord, no. I've played mostly on the Alliance side, but I've created a few Horde characters. And every time, I wonder, "Why did I stop playing my old Horde character. OH YES. THE BARRENS."
Wrong. At the very least, the paper has the ethical responsibility of verifying that the person who wrote the letter to the editor sent it in. I cannot recall the last newspaper I have seen that did not include the notice that all letters to the editor must include some form of contact information. Ostensibly, this is so they can verify the writer's identity before publisher an inflammatory letter.
Obviously, this paper failed to do that.
Posting the same crapola multiple times doesn't make it informative.
Amazing.... you're an anonymous moron. On Slashdot.
Who ever would have suspected that?
The polling data you link to doesn't mention any reasons as to why anyone voted for Obama or McCain. Yes, it breaks it down by race, income, education, and when they decided who to vote for... but there's a lack of reasons why.
Piss off, you troglodyte, and take your crapola with you.
Congratulations, you're setting a new standard for dense. Not only did you not read the article, you didn't even read the Slashdot summary.
Over 40 times the electrical consumption, and over five times the global use of total energy needs. I'm repeating that part because it's important.
That alone says we'd only have to put up one-fortieth of "covering the entire globe in massive obelisks" to meet all of the current electrical consumption, and it's not even the entire globe because of the areas removed based on the criteria they set. And let's face it, even that won't happen, because of the whole "not in my backyard" syndrome.
There's a difference though.
Let's say, for sake of argument, that you convert to Catholic Christianity. While there are classes to bring you up to speed on your new religion's dogma and so forth, they're either free or relatively cheap. You also (and here's the important part) DO NOT NEED TO TAKE THEM. You can go to a Catholic Church and participate in the Sunday Services (sing hymns, take communion, etc.) without having to pay a dime.
The Church of Scientology, on the other hand, has courses and auditing sessions that are required. They cost money. It requires spending many thousands of dollars to take all the OT classes. And it's only after you've spent those many thousands of dollars and been brainwashed for months (if not years), that you find out about Xenu and Teeagaack and all the cheesy sci-fi elements of this so-called religion.
Yeah, that's right. All the stuff that we /.ers generally know about the CoS? It's not public knowledge. (Okay, it's a little more public after that one South Park episode), but the point is still there. There's not some super-secret version of the Bible that you only get to look at after 15 years of faithful service and huge stacks of cash donations to the Vatican. There's no super-secret version of the Qu'ran or the Talmud.
And how many other religions do you know of that have trade secrets? Yeah, the Church of Scientology protects the OT coursework under the laws governing trade secrets. Funny thing, that.... I don't recall the Communion class I took as a wee nipper requiring a non-disclosure agreement.
The CoS is a business and a scam masquerading as a religion.
It's a reference to the Sherlock Holmes story "The Bohemian Scandal", wherein, Holmes explains to Watson that the note that he (Holmes) has received was written by a German, based on the sentence structure.
Mmmmm.... pony sandwich.... Mmmmmm
The drawback to coming with no baggage is that the developers then have to create the backstory. Sometimes you get good backstory, sometimes you get bad backstory.
And you also have to create a non-conflicting framework for the setting. (I'm going to segue into pen-and-paper RPGs for a bit here.) In, say, ShadowRun, you had these things called skillwires. If you wanted to be Dan Danger, Master of Gun-fu (no, that's not a spelling error, it's what we called the guy with dual pistols), you slotted a Pistols 6 skillchip. The problem was that, given the time and money, you could have a skillchip for every combat skill, ever.
Imagine translating that to an MMORPG. I'm not saying ever sci-fi based MMORPG would have to have skillwires or something similar, but if they did, there would be no real limitation on why every character wouldn't have every skill.
Or, another standard of sci-fi... transporters. Penny Arcade did a strip on how that would affect questing.
Or, as you mentioned, ranged weapons. Yeah, in Star Trek, a phaser set on kill... well, it kills. Hrm. That would be real popular with the PvP crowd, and I suspect it would make leveling a breeze, but you know.... just don't see it happening.
It's easier, in fantasy games, to justify things, that in a sci-fi setting would leave even the greatest Rick Berman fanboy going "no fucking way!"
The problem is, those games are single-player. There's a lower threshold for satisfaction.
When you have a MMORPG, does it make sense for every PC to crowd into one city per planet? While there has to be some sort of defining limitation so your developers aren't cranking out dozens of game worlds every month, there has to be more then "Here on Planet X, you can go to the city, and the environs within immediate eyesight of the the city."
Er, so why can't we also send a message to teens that being dumbasses and taking naked pics of themselves is probably not the smartest fucking thing to do?
I mean, even ignoring the fact that it's pervert bait to any pedophile who gets his hands on it, once you send such a pic out, you're basically giving up any chance that it's not going to get spread around.
And who wants that kind of thing haunting them years later?
Yeah, good luck with that. I'd like to see an addon so powerful and popular that the lack of it would cause WoW to lose millions of subscribers.
So how does that work if someone downloads two songs from the same album?
Is that one lost sale or two?
hippies... hippies... they say they want to save the world, but all they do is smoke pot and smell bad.
I may not necessarily like the choice, but Obama is free to pick whomever he wants for the job. To the best of my knowledge, they still have to be confirmed to the post by Congress. (Which, yes, will probably be a done-deal anyway.)
Okay, so he was an RIAA lawyer. So what? Yes, the RIAA has done some incredibly stupid things in their lawsuit strategy, but a lawyer is supposedly to zealously represent their clients. Not half-ass it.
I double dog dare you to do this.
Because being knighted by some alcoholic bum on the corner named Steve means fuck all, you amazing twit.
Here's the difference.
We say they're a cult. (Cult (noun) - a small, unpopular religion)
They say they're a religion. (Religion (noun) - a large, popular cult.)
The U.S. Government happens to agree with them right now. So, for legal purposes (i.e. in a courtroom), they are a religion.
I disagree that 99 cents a track is a bad deal.
I mean, let's face it... how many albums have you heard recently that had maybe one or two good/catchy tracks, and the rest of the album was pure crapola? I'd much rather pay a couple of bucks for the relatively few songs I tend to like off of an album rather then pay $15-$20 for the entire CD and only ever listen to the same few tracks.
they spent all the time making the game look very very pretty (which, I must admit, it is), and none of it creating anything for any of the professions. There are glaring holes in most of the professions, not to mention the things that have been broken since the launch of the expansion (and let's be fair, in one case, for the last four years), and don't seem to be on the "Fix anytime soon" list.
I don't know about that, but Texas does have a very strong "Castle Doctrine" defense. The short version is, if you're threatened... ANYWHERE, you don't have a duty to attempt to retreat before using lethal force in response. This results in quite a few burglaries a year ending up with the criminals being killed. (And yet, there are still burglaries in Texas... strange.)