Instead, we see Exxon offering money for the predetermined outcome of 'scientific' research. And from the article (you DID read it right?): (emphasis mine below)
The letters were sent by Kenneth Green, a visiting scholar at AEI, who confirmed that the organisation had approached scientists, economists and policy analysts to write articles for an independent review that would highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the IPCC report.
"Right now, the whole debate is polarised," he said. "One group says that anyone with any doubts whatsoever are deniers and the other group is saying that anyone who wants to take action is alarmist. We don't think that approach has a lot of utility for intelligent policy." Definitely sounds like "Exxon offering money for the predetermined outcome" to me. Oh wait, they want the strengths and weaknesses.
But it's all academic (pun intended) anyways. If you question any aspect of any of it, your credentials are pulled. What a great atmosphere to foster discussion and research in.
However, one has to consider court costs. Dinky MMOG Designer #32 won't likely be able to much. Imagine how much money eBay's legal department would waste if Sony's horde of lawyers were to raise the banner and go to war. There was a series of comics about this quite some time ago over on GU Comics back in 2001. They are: Verant vs. eBay and Verant vs. eBay vs. Sony.
(for those who don't know, Verant was the original developer house for Everquest. Sony owned it (at least most of it, I'm not 100% clear on this), and has since taken over the title entirely under their Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) division)
Standard Oil was the reason for the introduction of Antitrust laws in the USA, not AT&T (Bell, whatever). Yes they got hammered by them, but they were not the first, nor the ones that prompted their creation in the first place. What, you thought "Esso" was just a funny-sounding name? Ess-O. SO. Standard Oil.
If there were skeptics, on ANY topic, who is going to FUND them except if you have a stake in it? For any viewpoint in any issue, ONLY the people that stand to lose if the issue goes the other way will fund research supporting them. Thus saying that big oil is funding most of the research that contradicts "prevailing opinion" makes 100% sense. Do you actually expect the Sierra Club to fund a study who's goal is skepticism?
This comes from confusing cause & effect. The studies don't come out a certain way because the group funding them dictates that it should, but only because the only ones LOOKING for an opposite outcome are those with something to lose. A very slight difference, but it's still critical to understanding it. The first is straight-out lying. The 2nd can happen with the most honest of intentions. I'm not saying that's the case here, but to dismiss it automatically as the 1st just means your mind is made up without even looking at what evidence may exist.
The Miligram study already exists, we don't need to re-try it to ensure that people will follow orders.
Actually that's EXACTLY what needs to happen to be able to either verify, or dismiss any study. It either needs to be repeatable to a reasonable degree of certainty, or disproven. Repeatability is an intrinsic mark of science. Now perhaps the COST of repeating is so high as to never do it (physical or mental damage to the subjects), but just saying "it's been done" is not sufficient reason to deny recreating the study.
And adding an aspect where the subjects KNOW the pain is virtual... that's an interesting twist IMO, and well worth examining.
How about, when you're being tailgated, there's maybe a reason? Like you're going too slow? And that's irregardless of what you think you should be going, the speed limit, conditions, etc. If somebody wants to get by you on the road, in 99.99% of the cases, LET THEM BY.
Tailgating connected to road rage, etc? No kidding! They're tailgating because they're frustrated with drivers. They wouldn't BE tailgating if they could get by the driver in front of them easily, but when you have cars 3-4 across all going the same speed... well it's about the only way to get across to ANY of them that they're impeding traffic flow.
Gridlock is different. That's not the same. But normal driving conditions, if you're being tailgated, YOU are the one going too slowly, so GET OUT OF THE WAY!
That's the largest fallacy continually presented in any climate-change (or otherwise controversial topics involving science) that "consensus" is necessary. Hint: it is NOT necessary. If 99.9% of reports say one thing, but only ONE says the opposite, but the SINGLE report is verifiable, and has no flaws, it INVALIDATES the rest of the body of knowledge. Usually it also has to address WHY the previous work was incorrect, what errors they made, etc, but the whole premise of the Scientific Method is of reproducibility, and verifiable results. The doctors who figured out that most stomach ulcers were the result of bacteria that could be easily treated with antibiotics was a discovery that flew in the face of 100s of years of data and "proof" that stress caused ulcers... but the bacterial cause hypothesis was proven right. It took a bit of time, but they were right.
I'll say it again: Science has nothing to do with consensus. All that is required to resolve different viewpoints is to find who's ignoring evidence, has bad evidence-gathering, or who's not following correct processes for analysis. Where there's conflict you have to address it head-on and find out who's right. You can't both be right, so conflict only means that somebody (or both) are not trying to find out WHY somebody has reached a conclusion, not just saying "well I have more people that agree with me, therefore I'm right." That's opinion, not science. If anybody EVER uses that argument, it proves that they are no longer using science. The ONLY place where there can be two viewpoints held scientifically that remain in conflict is where there remains significant uncertainty over the evidence itself, in which case the 3rd point of view "I don't know what's actually happening" is actually the most scientifically correct.
True that they make a profit on the hardware of each one, but that still doesn't cover all of the development & marketing costs overall for the company for this entire project.
What about Water Vapor (or vapour, depending on where you live)? I've heard that's a major contributor... though the talk you hear about it is... a heated discussion at the very least (flamefests usually).
I'd say that the best way to start one is to have it on a site that has an existing topic that's non-political. For example, the politics section over on eq1.eqsummoners.com is attached to a Magician Class board for the game Everquest. But the Politics section is almost-completely populated by people that either play the game or used to play the game, which gives the range of opinions to be extreme. It has a slight bias, as obviously you must be in a certain financial situation to be able to play a game like EQ, but other than that, just about everything is represented (I think all that we don't have is a facist and a communist that admits it to themselves (IMO we have a couple that are in denial;) ), but just about everything else is there).
The most I think somebody can ask for is that a place wasn't created with a specific political view in mind, and this board satisfies that as well as is possible. A place that isn't clicked on because it was in a link from a sig (that in itself is an effort, and/or shows something), but just because it "exists" near something else you were interested in, and you might just click on it one day because you're slightly curious.
On the wiki article on this they mention how this game has been in development before Prey was released, and as mentioned, the guys from Narbacular Drop were HIRED to do this. So accusations of copying would be rather hard to make stick.
And besides, I'd rather have good ideas taken wherever they may go. The danger of course is to lose the thing ABOUT the feature that made it good in the "original," but as this seems to be only enhancing the possibilities, I say "go for it Valve."
You're absolutely right jizz. Now for examples of games that do this right I'd point to games like Metroid, and The Legend of Zelda. Both of these games are "item-centric," giving the player increased abilities as time goes on, and yet they also keep the core mechanics there, so that the game experience at the end isn't drastically changed from the beginning. If you're awesome with a sword at the beginning, it will still serve you well at the end. And the Metroid games are the same, in that as long as you're good at the core shoot/dodge/jumping maneuvers, those are almost-always worth more than the best weapons around.
So getting the balance right is why games like those two have become greats: they keep the game interesting and fresh all the way through, while still not invalidating what made them fun at the beginning. I'm sure there's other examples of this around, but there are few that have historically done it as well as these franchises have.
Thinking about it, Mega Man might be an argument for EITHER side, but I think it's worth mentioning as something else that can go either way depending on your perspective (and I'm referring to classic Mega Man, not whatever's been done lately that radically changes things).
(and if others have good examples of doing it right, that'd be great to mention too)
I've heard that variation as well, though it was composed in such a way that it was a woman phoning HP tech support for her HP computer. The rest is pretty much the same of course (though unlike the version in this thread, the woman is more "meek" rather than belligerent.
Ya, but Kefka was bat-shit insane. COMPLETELY gone. He re-formed the WORLD. What did Seph do? Try and destroy a city or two? BAH! He MAY have tried to destroy the world with a meteor, but Kefka actually did it!
This is the reason though why I wanted to point out chickenpox so clearly: even for adults, MOST times Chickenpox IS non-life-threatening, AND non-severe. Now it's MUCH more common to be severe in adults, but still, it's generally seen as "benign," and thus I didn't want any possibility of misconception with it: it's damned dangerous for the child if their mother gets it while pregnant.
Hence even for seemingly-benign things, do NOT try and "test the waters" with people that are pregnant. A BAD idea. ALWAYS.
Your theory may hold some merit in some cases, but is 100% wrong in others. Just take a look at the Wikipedia entry for Chickenpox to see how dangerous that disease is if the Mother gets it while she's pregnant: basically the baby can be completely screwed.
Basically, I wouldn't recommend ANY mother to PURSUE disease while pregnant. It's probably not the end of the world in the vast majority of cases (there are considerable barriers to disease for the unborn child naturally through the placenta, etc), but do NOT think that it's always beneficial, or even some of the time without a lot better evidence.
I've actually had (non-technical) people say to me when I recommend Firefox "But it's only 1.5! IE is all the way up to 6.0!" They honestly think version numbers "greater is better" between different products.
He has a voice, but only uses it rarely. For example, he doesn't use it every time you jump, or use a fireball, etc, but WILL use it at the ends of levels, and i THINK while wall-jumping, though I could be wrong on that. Basically, his voice IS there, but it's rare. It's not like the "every jump" of SM64, etc, so not annoying at all IMO, though YMMV of course.
As for the review, the "*-A" comment is patently wrong. "A" doesn't mean "Aquatic", but rather that it's just the first secret stage of the level. All of the purely secret stages have letter names rather than number ones, so level 3-A, 3-B, etc. Off the top of my head, I KNOW 7-A is NOT aquatic in any respect. Judging by the screenshots, Zonk didn't go past World 1, so maybe that's why he's confused, but for everybody else, the "numbered" stages are normal, and the "lettered" ones are secret.
As for me, I enjoyed this game, but it really was way too short. I was never a "Mario Guru", but what I really thought this game was missing was a set of super-tough levels, ala the ones AFTER the Star Road in Super Mario World (Gnarly, Tubular, etc). Levels that take 10, 20, or MORE lives to get past even one of them. Those extremely unique (and challenging) levels from that game just straight-out don't exist, and even the vast majority of the "secret" exits are painfully obvious. I think I had to hit Gamefaqs for less than 3 secret exits, and maybe a half-dozen TOTAL of the star coins, because they were THAT obvious. I missed only ONE warp cannon from "just playing", and that's just a shame. And the SAME method to access both secret worlds? That's just incredibly weak.
As somebody above also stated, most of the items were uninspired, and not really all that useful in a general sense OUTSIDE of an extremely specific secret. The selection from SMB3 was best (along with item storage), but at least SMW had GOOD items, and a good Yoshi mechanic to add more variety too. NSMB has neither of these. Honestly, the best item in the game is the Fire Flower, and it's good to the point of being just-about overpowered, as extremely few enemies don't die in one hit to it, and thus it's never all that "dangerous" while you have it.
So I was mildly disappointed. It's fun to go through, just don't expect many "on the edge" challenges. I'd rather have the game itself to be at about the current difficulty, but throw up large "side areas" with massive challenge that the "casual" could never get through, but would provide longevity to others. SMW had this, and SMB3 didn't need it due to the length of the base game (along with the better variety of alternate paths). This is the main thing that NSMB was missing for me.
It was IGN (I think) that put together that mock-up photo, and said it was such, so there was no intential deception.
But as some of the people in the comments on the Eurogamer article mention, it's 100% possible that this controller plugs into the Wii remote, and NOT into the console... which would make sense IMO: why have a long cable to the machine, when you can just have a small one to the remote, which can be on the armrest of the chair, or wherever. Makes perfect sense to me. Not REQUIRED of course (could just be a cable to the machine), but fully possible.
As for the controller itself... I'm a little wary of the placement of the analog sticks. I was never a huge fan of the dual-shock-type controller stick setup, so I wonder how well it'll really work for N64 games "reaching" over to use the sticks (and it has nothing to do with hand size, as mine are massive). I think I'd still try and use my GCN controller if possible (that was confirmed a while ago that you can just plug those straight in), small as it is.
Slashdot Mirror
"Right now, the whole debate is polarised," he said. "One group says that anyone with any doubts whatsoever are deniers and the other group is saying that anyone who wants to take action is alarmist. We don't think that approach has a lot of utility for intelligent policy." Definitely sounds like "Exxon offering money for the predetermined outcome" to me. Oh wait, they want the strengths and weaknesses.
But it's all academic (pun intended) anyways. If you question any aspect of any of it, your credentials are pulled. What a great atmosphere to foster discussion and research in.
Verant vs. eBay and
Verant vs. eBay vs. Sony.
(for those who don't know, Verant was the original developer house for Everquest. Sony owned it (at least most of it, I'm not 100% clear on this), and has since taken over the title entirely under their Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) division)
Standard Oil was the reason for the introduction of Antitrust laws in the USA, not AT&T (Bell, whatever). Yes they got hammered by them, but they were not the first, nor the ones that prompted their creation in the first place. What, you thought "Esso" was just a funny-sounding name? Ess-O. SO. Standard Oil.
If there were skeptics, on ANY topic, who is going to FUND them except if you have a stake in it? For any viewpoint in any issue, ONLY the people that stand to lose if the issue goes the other way will fund research supporting them. Thus saying that big oil is funding most of the research that contradicts "prevailing opinion" makes 100% sense. Do you actually expect the Sierra Club to fund a study who's goal is skepticism?
This comes from confusing cause & effect. The studies don't come out a certain way because the group funding them dictates that it should, but only because the only ones LOOKING for an opposite outcome are those with something to lose. A very slight difference, but it's still critical to understanding it. The first is straight-out lying. The 2nd can happen with the most honest of intentions. I'm not saying that's the case here, but to dismiss it automatically as the 1st just means your mind is made up without even looking at what evidence may exist.
Actually that's EXACTLY what needs to happen to be able to either verify, or dismiss any study. It either needs to be repeatable to a reasonable degree of certainty, or disproven. Repeatability is an intrinsic mark of science. Now perhaps the COST of repeating is so high as to never do it (physical or mental damage to the subjects), but just saying "it's been done" is not sufficient reason to deny recreating the study.
And adding an aspect where the subjects KNOW the pain is virtual... that's an interesting twist IMO, and well worth examining.
How about, when you're being tailgated, there's maybe a reason? Like you're going too slow? And that's irregardless of what you think you should be going, the speed limit, conditions, etc. If somebody wants to get by you on the road, in 99.99% of the cases, LET THEM BY.
Tailgating connected to road rage, etc? No kidding! They're tailgating because they're frustrated with drivers. They wouldn't BE tailgating if they could get by the driver in front of them easily, but when you have cars 3-4 across all going the same speed... well it's about the only way to get across to ANY of them that they're impeding traffic flow.
Gridlock is different. That's not the same. But normal driving conditions, if you're being tailgated, YOU are the one going too slowly, so GET OUT OF THE WAY!
That's the largest fallacy continually presented in any climate-change (or otherwise controversial topics involving science) that "consensus" is necessary. Hint: it is NOT necessary. If 99.9% of reports say one thing, but only ONE says the opposite, but the SINGLE report is verifiable, and has no flaws, it INVALIDATES the rest of the body of knowledge. Usually it also has to address WHY the previous work was incorrect, what errors they made, etc, but the whole premise of the Scientific Method is of reproducibility, and verifiable results. The doctors who figured out that most stomach ulcers were the result of bacteria that could be easily treated with antibiotics was a discovery that flew in the face of 100s of years of data and "proof" that stress caused ulcers... but the bacterial cause hypothesis was proven right. It took a bit of time, but they were right.
I'll say it again: Science has nothing to do with consensus. All that is required to resolve different viewpoints is to find who's ignoring evidence, has bad evidence-gathering, or who's not following correct processes for analysis. Where there's conflict you have to address it head-on and find out who's right. You can't both be right, so conflict only means that somebody (or both) are not trying to find out WHY somebody has reached a conclusion, not just saying "well I have more people that agree with me, therefore I'm right." That's opinion, not science. If anybody EVER uses that argument, it proves that they are no longer using science. The ONLY place where there can be two viewpoints held scientifically that remain in conflict is where there remains significant uncertainty over the evidence itself, in which case the 3rd point of view "I don't know what's actually happening" is actually the most scientifically correct.
True that they make a profit on the hardware of each one, but that still doesn't cover all of the development & marketing costs overall for the company for this entire project.
The OP's question is quite valid.
You know, I can't believe I didn't see my own pun. That was actually unintentional.
hehe
What about Water Vapor (or vapour, depending on where you live)? I've heard that's a major contributor... though the talk you hear about it is... a heated discussion at the very least (flamefests usually).
I'd say that the best way to start one is to have it on a site that has an existing topic that's non-political. For example, the politics section over on eq1.eqsummoners.com is attached to a Magician Class board for the game Everquest. But the Politics section is almost-completely populated by people that either play the game or used to play the game, which gives the range of opinions to be extreme. It has a slight bias, as obviously you must be in a certain financial situation to be able to play a game like EQ, but other than that, just about everything is represented (I think all that we don't have is a facist and a communist that admits it to themselves (IMO we have a couple that are in denial ;) ), but just about everything else is there).
The most I think somebody can ask for is that a place wasn't created with a specific political view in mind, and this board satisfies that as well as is possible. A place that isn't clicked on because it was in a link from a sig (that in itself is an effort, and/or shows something), but just because it "exists" near something else you were interested in, and you might just click on it one day because you're slightly curious.
I dunno. Though it's small, seems big enough for two meals at least.
;)
Think of the Original XBox though! Probably big enough for a month or two if it were edible!
On the wiki article on this they mention how this game has been in development before Prey was released, and as mentioned, the guys from Narbacular Drop were HIRED to do this. So accusations of copying would be rather hard to make stick.
And besides, I'd rather have good ideas taken wherever they may go. The danger of course is to lose the thing ABOUT the feature that made it good in the "original," but as this seems to be only enhancing the possibilities, I say "go for it Valve."
You're absolutely right jizz. Now for examples of games that do this right I'd point to games like Metroid, and The Legend of Zelda. Both of these games are "item-centric," giving the player increased abilities as time goes on, and yet they also keep the core mechanics there, so that the game experience at the end isn't drastically changed from the beginning. If you're awesome with a sword at the beginning, it will still serve you well at the end. And the Metroid games are the same, in that as long as you're good at the core shoot/dodge/jumping maneuvers, those are almost-always worth more than the best weapons around.
So getting the balance right is why games like those two have become greats: they keep the game interesting and fresh all the way through, while still not invalidating what made them fun at the beginning. I'm sure there's other examples of this around, but there are few that have historically done it as well as these franchises have.
Thinking about it, Mega Man might be an argument for EITHER side, but I think it's worth mentioning as something else that can go either way depending on your perspective (and I'm referring to classic Mega Man, not whatever's been done lately that radically changes things).
(and if others have good examples of doing it right, that'd be great to mention too)
I've heard that variation as well, though it was composed in such a way that it was a woman phoning HP tech support for her HP computer. The rest is pretty much the same of course (though unlike the version in this thread, the woman is more "meek" rather than belligerent.
Ya, but Kefka was bat-shit insane. COMPLETELY gone. He re-formed the WORLD. What did Seph do? Try and destroy a city or two? BAH! He MAY have tried to destroy the world with a meteor, but Kefka actually did it!
Though when you think about it, I think it'd be WORSE to not have indications that you are among such. Better to have the detector than not!
This is the reason though why I wanted to point out chickenpox so clearly: even for adults, MOST times Chickenpox IS non-life-threatening, AND non-severe. Now it's MUCH more common to be severe in adults, but still, it's generally seen as "benign," and thus I didn't want any possibility of misconception with it: it's damned dangerous for the child if their mother gets it while pregnant.
Hence even for seemingly-benign things, do NOT try and "test the waters" with people that are pregnant. A BAD idea. ALWAYS.
Your theory may hold some merit in some cases, but is 100% wrong in others. Just take a look at the Wikipedia entry for Chickenpox to see how dangerous that disease is if the Mother gets it while she's pregnant: basically the baby can be completely screwed.
Basically, I wouldn't recommend ANY mother to PURSUE disease while pregnant. It's probably not the end of the world in the vast majority of cases (there are considerable barriers to disease for the unborn child naturally through the placenta, etc), but do NOT think that it's always beneficial, or even some of the time without a lot better evidence.
I've actually had (non-technical) people say to me when I recommend Firefox "But it's only 1.5! IE is all the way up to 6.0!" They honestly think version numbers "greater is better" between different products.
He has a voice, but only uses it rarely. For example, he doesn't use it every time you jump, or use a fireball, etc, but WILL use it at the ends of levels, and i THINK while wall-jumping, though I could be wrong on that. Basically, his voice IS there, but it's rare. It's not like the "every jump" of SM64, etc, so not annoying at all IMO, though YMMV of course.
As for the review, the "*-A" comment is patently wrong. "A" doesn't mean "Aquatic", but rather that it's just the first secret stage of the level. All of the purely secret stages have letter names rather than number ones, so level 3-A, 3-B, etc. Off the top of my head, I KNOW 7-A is NOT aquatic in any respect. Judging by the screenshots, Zonk didn't go past World 1, so maybe that's why he's confused, but for everybody else, the "numbered" stages are normal, and the "lettered" ones are secret.
As for me, I enjoyed this game, but it really was way too short. I was never a "Mario Guru", but what I really thought this game was missing was a set of super-tough levels, ala the ones AFTER the Star Road in Super Mario World (Gnarly, Tubular, etc). Levels that take 10, 20, or MORE lives to get past even one of them. Those extremely unique (and challenging) levels from that game just straight-out don't exist, and even the vast majority of the "secret" exits are painfully obvious. I think I had to hit Gamefaqs for less than 3 secret exits, and maybe a half-dozen TOTAL of the star coins, because they were THAT obvious. I missed only ONE warp cannon from "just playing", and that's just a shame. And the SAME method to access both secret worlds? That's just incredibly weak.
As somebody above also stated, most of the items were uninspired, and not really all that useful in a general sense OUTSIDE of an extremely specific secret. The selection from SMB3 was best (along with item storage), but at least SMW had GOOD items, and a good Yoshi mechanic to add more variety too. NSMB has neither of these. Honestly, the best item in the game is the Fire Flower, and it's good to the point of being just-about overpowered, as extremely few enemies don't die in one hit to it, and thus it's never all that "dangerous" while you have it.
So I was mildly disappointed. It's fun to go through, just don't expect many "on the edge" challenges. I'd rather have the game itself to be at about the current difficulty, but throw up large "side areas" with massive challenge that the "casual" could never get through, but would provide longevity to others. SMW had this, and SMB3 didn't need it due to the length of the base game (along with the better variety of alternate paths). This is the main thing that NSMB was missing for me.
It was IGN (I think) that put together that mock-up photo, and said it was such, so there was no intential deception.
But as some of the people in the comments on the Eurogamer article mention, it's 100% possible that this controller plugs into the Wii remote, and NOT into the console... which would make sense IMO: why have a long cable to the machine, when you can just have a small one to the remote, which can be on the armrest of the chair, or wherever. Makes perfect sense to me. Not REQUIRED of course (could just be a cable to the machine), but fully possible.
As for the controller itself... I'm a little wary of the placement of the analog sticks. I was never a huge fan of the dual-shock-type controller stick setup, so I wonder how well it'll really work for N64 games "reaching" over to use the sticks (and it has nothing to do with hand size, as mine are massive). I think I'd still try and use my GCN controller if possible (that was confirmed a while ago that you can just plug those straight in), small as it is.
He's a guy who seems to post quite a few duplicate stories... sometimes with only 2 or 3 stories between the dupes too. ;)
Remember that the lack of evidence of "The Ultimate Evil"'s existance is proof of its nefarious intent.
I especially liked how it would be out in Korea first.
Nice touch.