The theory is that free trade will turn them into a democracy. So far its proven to be hooey. Are we going to allow this shit to keep going on decade after decade with the delusion that eating KFC will make them democracy?
Frankly, yes. The effects of soft power, barring "breaking point" moments, really can't be measured by any finer unit than decades. When dealing with China, it's probably safest to measure in 20-year increments, at least. Ask yourself: is the China of today honestly no better than the China of 20 years ago? Do you believe that confrontation, antagonism, isolation, or aggression would somehow effect change faster, or improve our overall situation?
Do you really have such contempt for the astonishing amounts of soft power our nation has at its disposal that you can see it as nothing more than "eating KFC"? Just how much longer do you think we can successfully threaten, arrogate, and force our way through the world?
Recently, I've moved from a house that had an electric water heater to a house with a gas water heater. Sadly for me, this means that I'll no longer be able to use my custom-built circuit monitoring hardware (which uses a Linux-based electricity usage tracking app I wrote myself!) to estimate what percentage of my monthly electrical bill was used to generate hot water. However, the real question is: is it really a good idea to pound on the gas main with a ball-peen hammer?
Humans are natural, hence they are part of natural selection. This false dichotomy between nature and man is, frankly, just so much hippie bullshit.
Similarly, as humans are natural, and plastic is created by applying various (perfectly natural) physical and chemical processes to (perfectly natural) petrochemicals, one can reasonably call plastics "natural", as well.
It makes one wonder why we even bother having the word "artificial" in the first place.
(hippies are even more out of vogue than pinko commies and anarchists; we're on terrorists and illegal immigrants, now. You should really update your playbook.)
The more sensitive among us might think this is a bad thing but it frees up resources for the fittest to become even fitter.
What makes you think that we homo sapiens fall into the "fittest" category in this case?
What makes you think we've got a better shot at making "the cut" than trees, grass, rats, corn, ants, plankton, robins, mushrooms, or (the perennial favorite) cockroaches?
If your answer is "because we're intelligent", ask yourself why the dolphins died out before the insects in this particular area. For as awesome as we are, we're not nearly as well-equipped to battle extinction by environment change as we'd like to think.
It also details some of the past uses of the technology and gives a nice overview of just how far the technology has come from the earliest missile-guidance sensor equipment."
See, I think we should re-incorporate early guidance systems into modern-day game controllers.
I mean, think about it: game controllers with trained pigeons in 'em! That'd take force-feedback to a whole new level!
Now an engineering student has proposed a way to teraform only a kilometer of Mars.
...while technologically astounding, I fail to see the utility in being able to do this.
Now, if we're talking about a square kilometer of Mars, that'd be a different matter...
On the Topic of Not-So-Fun Design
on
Game Breakers
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Does anybody else find it just a tad rich that 1-up.com is dissing bad design decisions in a six-page, rollover popup ad-laden, narrow-column, cluttered article?
...I mean, the actual content of page one occupies maybe 10% of the page. The other 90% of the page is devoted to big, flashy ads, stripey backgrounds, a rat's nests of irrelevant links, and other stuff that really just doesn't add much to the experience of reading an article.
If they can't satisfy the demand, why don't they raise the price until the demand exactly matches the offer, and lower the price later on as production ramps up?
Because a) finding that magic price in a largely unknown market (the "Blue Ocean" Nintendo is targeting) is not easy, and b) that'd be insanely bad PR since they've already announced a set price.
Right now, Nintendo is riding high on community goodwill. That's likely going to be worth considerably more in the long run than an extra few bucks on each early sale in exchange for pissing everybody off.
Why is the "money" motive so much more a target of approbation, even if, the wrong commited to that end isn't as bad as that committed to other ends?
Honestly, I don't agree that it is more of a target of approbation than religious conversion, anti-industry forces, or sending blacks to Africa. Certainly to some people it is, but it's just that: some people. Generally speaking, the topic that most pushes your buttons is going to be a topic that hits home. For some people, that topic is corporations. For others, it's religious fundamentalism. For yet others, it's political ideology.
The issue with corporations goes beyond money, however. The real root of the issue is power. Today, large multinationals tend to have more power than most sovereign nations. This is something new in the course of human history; never before have corporations, in general, been so effective at clashing with and influencing governments. A corporation in todays world can wield the power of a nation. The key difference between corporations and nations in this respect is that a nation is charged with protecting the interests of its citizens, whereas a corporation is charged with protecting the interests of its shareholders. At the very least, this should give you pause; what does it portend for society when the strength of the corporation waxes as the strength of the nation wanes?
But I'll always run into the wall: people have more relaxed standards for those polluting to "create the mood" than for those polluting to "earn money". My question here is: why?
Because most people act in their own self-interest. It takes a concerted effort, thoughtful examination of the world we share, and serious introspection not to automatically act in your own self-interest, which is part of why it's so hard to convince others of the importance of the greater good--regardless whether you're addressing a corporate officer or your next-door neighbor.
Corporations are in a special position: they're exponentially larger and more powerful than any given individual. If more corporations can demonstrate moral leadership, they'll set a good example for the rest of us to follow. If they set an example of putting the bottom line first, then how can we not expect others to do the same?
Many groups are out to pursue their interests at the expense of others. Instead of money, they may be after the shutdown of industrial society, or conversion to some type of Christianity, or sending blacks back to Africa. You can find these supposed impurities in anyone's motives. What makes "the pursuit of money" different?
There's nothing wrong with the pursuit of money, and I never said anything of the sort. There is something wrong, in my opinion, with letting the pursuit of money trump what is best for society as a whole. I'm not suggesting that the distinction is always easy or obvious. I'm asserting that there's something not right about acting in a manner which places your own personal gain over the well-being of those around you. Furthermore, I'm not suggesting that we should be villified for being imperfect creatures; we're all going to make mistakes and bad decisions. Rather, I'm saying that we should strive place a higher value on the well-being of society as a whole than on the well-being of our own selves and associates.
I genuinely believe that a happy, healthy society is more important than a happy, healthy me. That doesn't mean that I'm going to work myself to death trying to right every wrong I see. It does mean that I try to consider the consequences of my actions, and strive not do something that would harm others--even if it would bring me considerable personal gain. It isn't always an easy or obvious choice, and often I'm not even aware that a choice is being made; but by striving to be a good person, it helps me actually be a good person.
Yes, I'm an idealist. Frankly, it helps me be an honest, good person, even though I have trouble living up to my own ideals. My country was founded by idealists, and despite their mistakes and shortcomings, I think they did a damn good job, on balance.
In any case, my air is dirty around Winter. The fact that it's non-profit, non-corporations burning the wood is little consolation.
Why not pursue a solution to this problem, then? Why not go to your local government and propose restrictions on wood burning? You can't be the only person out there who finds it offensive, and you can make a solid case that it's in the best interest of your community to restrict the burning of wood.
I tend to agree with you that corporations are made out to be greater evils than they really are.
That said, this hatred of corporations didn't emerge from a vacuum, and it isn't simply irrational jealousy of success. There are a lot of corporations out there which have behaved and continue to behave in morally reprehensible ways. They're generally run by decent human beings, but these decent human beings generally put financal gain over greater good.
Trouble is, they're expected to do so. They answer first and foremost to their stockholders. When they're faced with a choice between either maximizing profit for their own shareholders or doing what is in the best interests of everyone, most corporations take the former path. If they don't, they have to wade through a storm of shareholder anger and legal action.
So, while a lot of criticism of corporations is over the top, it's disingenuous for one to scratch one's head and wonder aloud what's wrong with all this idiots whining about evil corporations. There's plenty of reason for the average Joe to be wary of corporations. Corporations don't exist to watch out for the Little Guy. Corporations exist to make money. No, a corporation won't go out of its way to step on the Little Guy--but if there's money to be made and it's legal to do so, don't expect them to stand up for the Little Guy, either. They won't demolish your grandmother's house out of spite or malice, but they also won't hesitate to get her out of the way if she's holding up plans for a highly profitable new shopping center.
Therein lies the "evil" of corporations. They're not out to get us, but when it comes down to the wire, their own profits are more important to them than the greater good. If that doesn't make you wary, it should.
The idea of a "how to sue" guide is personally rather sickning, unless your helping someone fight a big evil corporation dumping sewage into your water supply or something like that. Just because they call you? Sorry, no thanks. Annoying yes. Worth suing? No. No. And more NO.
...what if the autodialer is somebody hawking usurious home loans?
What if the autodialer is performing push-polls which disseminate lies about an opposition candidate, e.g. "Jon Doe supports legislation designed to help terrorists attack America"?
What if the autodialer is a scam artist?
Autodialers are attractive to fraudsters, con artists, dirty politicians, loan sharks--in general, scumbags with few qualms about bilking the general public for their own personal gain. They're the spammers of the phone world; some of it is legit, more of it is hazy, a lot of it is flat-out illegal, and all of it is a nuisance. Is it not worth our time and energy to try to keep these people from being public nuisance? Can you think of a better venue for stopping these scumbags than a court of law?
Believe me, there are more Grey Gamers than you think. Of all the email I've received regarding my own game, I'd say a good 15-25% of it has been from retirees, grandparents, and other people d'un certain âge. Not the majority, by any stretch of the imagination, but a surprisingly strong showing, given that I hadn't even realized that the Grey Gamer existed.
I think Nintendo stands a very good chance of striking gold with this strategy.
welcome to politics. its nasty. always was, always will be [...] so i say: no regulation
Love.
War.
Politics.
Industry.
Commodities Trading.
Real Estate.
Sporting Events.
Academia.
Pretty much any situation where people allow ambition and greed to supercede ethics and morality is, without regulation, nasty. The minute you deregulate something, the sleaze comes crawling out of the woodwork; all it takes is a fraction of a fraction to ruin it for everyone.
The sad truth is that an individual can get very, very far in life by cheating, lying, stealing, killing, and basically living live with callous disregard for the well-being of one's fellow man. For much of human history, this was the norm; there's a reason Hobbes described the nature of human life as "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." The fittest do indeed survive, but odds are very, very, very, very good that you, me, and most everyone we know don't fall into the "fittest" category. No matter how good we think we are, there's somebody out there who'd be willing to snap our necks for personal gain without so much as blinking.
Some degree of regulation is what allows our great, if imperfect, society to function as well as it does. Take away all regulation, take away all rules, and you'll be left with a game where the victor will be he who bites the deepest, punches the hardest, and gouges out more eyes than anyone else. Excessive regulation can and does stifle progress, but excessive deregulation gives the worst types of people the best advantage over the rest of us.
It goes beyond that. For any elected office beyond the scope of "local", you're going to have party strongholds dotted about the landscape: rich suburbs, rural areas, inner cities, college towns and the like. Each voting district is going to have its own demographic makeup, and a candidate will almost always have at least a few "core" precincts where he knows he has a solid lead and will soundly beat his opponent. Any campaign manager worth his salt will have a very good idea of where these strongholds are.
Now, let's say that the House Race for the fifth district in the state of Ficticia is down to the wire. Candidate Smith has a strong showing in the densely populated Ficticia City, where he's beating Candidate Doe by a two-to-one margin. On the other hand, Candidate Doe has a solid lead in Uniform Heights, Graded Meadow, Irongate Estates, Culvertdale, and the other suburbs and exurbs of Ficticia City. Between the two areas, the candidates are locked in a dead heat, and accusations of voter intimidation have been flying thick.
Let's assume that of these two candidates actually is planning to engage in wholesale vote fraud. Should he do it in all districts, in a district he's sure to carry, a district that's split about 50/50, or a district where his opponent is likely to win?
If he throws the vote in a district where the two candidates are neck and neck or where his opponent is likely to win, his opponent's supporters will be more likely to notice tabulation discrepancies. A closer-than-projected result in a district that was supposed to be a "lock" for his opponent--or a wider victory in a contested area--will not go unnoticed, because most people expect voter fraud to occur in places where the person committing the fraud is the underdog. Because the point of voter fraud is to "win", most people assume that a potential fraudster would try to rig the "obvious" areas: the areas where the fraudster is vulnerable or likely to lose.
If, however, the fraudster's "core" areas report a stronger than expected performance, people are much more inclined to assume that it was the last minute get-out-the-vote operation, or strong appeals to the base, or whatever. People simply don't expect others to cheat where they've already "won".
In the end, it doesn't matter which candidate "won" which precincts; what matters is the total across all precincts. If a candidate inflates his performance in his own backyard, his opponent is less likely to notice that it happened...
Folks, if there's gonna be wholesale election fraud, a smart fraudster is going to do it where nobody is looking. Don't expect it to take place in the precincts that make the news for irregularities.
Expect it to take place in places where Candidate X carries 70-75% of the vote.
That is, expect it to take place in places where Candidate X carries 75-80% of the vote.
If you don't want anyone to notice you're doing it, do it where nobody will notice; if the election is close enough (which so many of them are,) your candidate will carry the day.
Frankly, your "profession" probably had very little to do with your divorce. I'd bet good money that your personality (and hers) had an order of magnitude more to do with it.
My wife and I are both in a position where we work long, hard hours. The thing is, we're both willing (and often do) drop whatever we're doing in an instant to help the other out--even if "help out" is nothing more than "just sit here with me for a while."
Marriage, done well, is hard work. Marriage, done well, is telling your wife to put her feet up and relax while you do the laundry or cook dinner--never mind that you're both exhausted from a long day's work and you'd really rather just play video games if you had the choice. Marriage, done well, is moving to a new city so that your spouse can pursue a promising new job. Marriage, done well, is near-constant attention, care, and dedication. That said, it's easily the most satisfying, fulfilling, entertaining and educational thing I've ever done, and I don't regret a second of it.
My grandfather-in-law had some sound advice on how to make a marriage work. He told me that marriage is a 90/10 proposition: each partner should expect to do 90% of the work themselves and only expect 10% from the other.
How much did you give your wife and family? How often did you ask your wife to wait until you were done doing whatever it was you were doing? How many times did you tell your wife not to bother cleaning the kitchen or bathroom and instead do it yourself? How many hours a day did you spend "free time" in front of the computer?
Do you genuinely believe that the fact that you write web pages played a significant role in the collapse of your own household?
Sony anticipated people putting things on top of it. That's why they shaped it like a George Foreman grill. Anything put on top with slide right of without a good balancing act.
I'd bet that you could get non-rigid items to rest on top of it just fine.
Slashdot Mirror
Frankly, yes. The effects of soft power, barring "breaking point" moments, really can't be measured by any finer unit than decades. When dealing with China, it's probably safest to measure in 20-year increments, at least. Ask yourself: is the China of today honestly no better than the China of 20 years ago? Do you believe that confrontation, antagonism, isolation, or aggression would somehow effect change faster, or improve our overall situation?
Do you really have such contempt for the astonishing amounts of soft power our nation has at its disposal that you can see it as nothing more than "eating KFC"? Just how much longer do you think we can successfully threaten, arrogate, and force our way through the world?
Recently, I've moved from a house that had an electric water heater to a house with a gas water heater. Sadly for me, this means that I'll no longer be able to use my custom-built circuit monitoring hardware (which uses a Linux-based electricity usage tracking app I wrote myself!) to estimate what percentage of my monthly electrical bill was used to generate hot water. However, the real question is: is it really a good idea to pound on the gas main with a ball-peen hammer?
Still less space than a Nomad. Hella-lame.
Case Study: Sega Dreamcast.
Similarly, as humans are natural, and plastic is created by applying various (perfectly natural) physical and chemical processes to (perfectly natural) petrochemicals, one can reasonably call plastics "natural", as well.
It makes one wonder why we even bother having the word "artificial" in the first place.
(hippies are even more out of vogue than pinko commies and anarchists; we're on terrorists and illegal immigrants, now. You should really update your playbook.)
What makes you think that we homo sapiens fall into the "fittest" category in this case?
What makes you think we've got a better shot at making "the cut" than trees, grass, rats, corn, ants, plankton, robins, mushrooms, or (the perennial favorite) cockroaches?
If your answer is "because we're intelligent", ask yourself why the dolphins died out before the insects in this particular area. For as awesome as we are, we're not nearly as well-equipped to battle extinction by environment change as we'd like to think.
See, I think we should re-incorporate early guidance systems into modern-day game controllers.
I mean, think about it: game controllers with trained pigeons in 'em! That'd take force-feedback to a whole new level!
Now, if we're talking about a square kilometer of Mars, that'd be a different matter...
I'll believe it when I see it.
Because a) finding that magic price in a largely unknown market (the "Blue Ocean" Nintendo is targeting) is not easy, and b) that'd be insanely bad PR since they've already announced a set price.
Right now, Nintendo is riding high on community goodwill. That's likely going to be worth considerably more in the long run than an extra few bucks on each early sale in exchange for pissing everybody off.
Honestly, I don't agree that it is more of a target of approbation than religious conversion, anti-industry forces, or sending blacks to Africa. Certainly to some people it is, but it's just that: some people. Generally speaking, the topic that most pushes your buttons is going to be a topic that hits home. For some people, that topic is corporations. For others, it's religious fundamentalism. For yet others, it's political ideology.
The issue with corporations goes beyond money, however. The real root of the issue is power. Today, large multinationals tend to have more power than most sovereign nations. This is something new in the course of human history; never before have corporations, in general, been so effective at clashing with and influencing governments. A corporation in todays world can wield the power of a nation. The key difference between corporations and nations in this respect is that a nation is charged with protecting the interests of its citizens, whereas a corporation is charged with protecting the interests of its shareholders. At the very least, this should give you pause; what does it portend for society when the strength of the corporation waxes as the strength of the nation wanes?
Because most people act in their own self-interest. It takes a concerted effort, thoughtful examination of the world we share, and serious introspection not to automatically act in your own self-interest, which is part of why it's so hard to convince others of the importance of the greater good--regardless whether you're addressing a corporate officer or your next-door neighbor.
Corporations are in a special position: they're exponentially larger and more powerful than any given individual. If more corporations can demonstrate moral leadership, they'll set a good example for the rest of us to follow. If they set an example of putting the bottom line first, then how can we not expect others to do the same?
There's nothing wrong with the pursuit of money, and I never said anything of the sort. There is something wrong, in my opinion, with letting the pursuit of money trump what is best for society as a whole. I'm not suggesting that the distinction is always easy or obvious. I'm asserting that there's something not right about acting in a manner which places your own personal gain over the well-being of those around you. Furthermore, I'm not suggesting that we should be villified for being imperfect creatures; we're all going to make mistakes and bad decisions. Rather, I'm saying that we should strive place a higher value on the well-being of society as a whole than on the well-being of our own selves and associates.
I genuinely believe that a happy, healthy society is more important than a happy, healthy me. That doesn't mean that I'm going to work myself to death trying to right every wrong I see. It does mean that I try to consider the consequences of my actions, and strive not do something that would harm others--even if it would bring me considerable personal gain. It isn't always an easy or obvious choice, and often I'm not even aware that a choice is being made; but by striving to be a good person, it helps me actually be a good person.
Yes, I'm an idealist. Frankly, it helps me be an honest, good person, even though I have trouble living up to my own ideals. My country was founded by idealists, and despite their mistakes and shortcomings, I think they did a damn good job, on balance.
Why not pursue a solution to this problem, then? Why not go to your local government and propose restrictions on wood burning? You can't be the only person out there who finds it offensive, and you can make a solid case that it's in the best interest of your community to restrict the burning of wood.
That said, this hatred of corporations didn't emerge from a vacuum, and it isn't simply irrational jealousy of success. There are a lot of corporations out there which have behaved and continue to behave in morally reprehensible ways. They're generally run by decent human beings, but these decent human beings generally put financal gain over greater good.
Trouble is, they're expected to do so. They answer first and foremost to their stockholders. When they're faced with a choice between either maximizing profit for their own shareholders or doing what is in the best interests of everyone, most corporations take the former path. If they don't, they have to wade through a storm of shareholder anger and legal action.
So, while a lot of criticism of corporations is over the top, it's disingenuous for one to scratch one's head and wonder aloud what's wrong with all this idiots whining about evil corporations. There's plenty of reason for the average Joe to be wary of corporations. Corporations don't exist to watch out for the Little Guy. Corporations exist to make money. No, a corporation won't go out of its way to step on the Little Guy--but if there's money to be made and it's legal to do so, don't expect them to stand up for the Little Guy, either. They won't demolish your grandmother's house out of spite or malice, but they also won't hesitate to get her out of the way if she's holding up plans for a highly profitable new shopping center.
Therein lies the "evil" of corporations. They're not out to get us, but when it comes down to the wire, their own profits are more important to them than the greater good. If that doesn't make you wary, it should.
What if the autodialer is performing push-polls which disseminate lies about an opposition candidate, e.g. "Jon Doe supports legislation designed to help terrorists attack America"?
What if the autodialer is a scam artist?
Autodialers are attractive to fraudsters, con artists, dirty politicians, loan sharks--in general, scumbags with few qualms about bilking the general public for their own personal gain. They're the spammers of the phone world; some of it is legit, more of it is hazy, a lot of it is flat-out illegal, and all of it is a nuisance. Is it not worth our time and energy to try to keep these people from being public nuisance? Can you think of a better venue for stopping these scumbags than a court of law?
Monyneux Molyneux? Molyneux Molyneux Molyneux.
Point, Anonymous Coward.
I think Nintendo stands a very good chance of striking gold with this strategy.
I haven't looked lately; can you still find a Red Book compliant CD in music stores anymore?
Love.
War.
Politics.
Industry.
Commodities Trading.
Real Estate.
Sporting Events.
Academia.
Pretty much any situation where people allow ambition and greed to supercede ethics and morality is, without regulation, nasty. The minute you deregulate something, the sleaze comes crawling out of the woodwork; all it takes is a fraction of a fraction to ruin it for everyone.
The sad truth is that an individual can get very, very far in life by cheating, lying, stealing, killing, and basically living live with callous disregard for the well-being of one's fellow man. For much of human history, this was the norm; there's a reason Hobbes described the nature of human life as "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." The fittest do indeed survive, but odds are very, very, very, very good that you, me, and most everyone we know don't fall into the "fittest" category. No matter how good we think we are, there's somebody out there who'd be willing to snap our necks for personal gain without so much as blinking.
Some degree of regulation is what allows our great, if imperfect, society to function as well as it does. Take away all regulation, take away all rules, and you'll be left with a game where the victor will be he who bites the deepest, punches the hardest, and gouges out more eyes than anyone else. Excessive regulation can and does stifle progress, but excessive deregulation gives the worst types of people the best advantage over the rest of us.
Now, let's say that the House Race for the fifth district in the state of Ficticia is down to the wire. Candidate Smith has a strong showing in the densely populated Ficticia City, where he's beating Candidate Doe by a two-to-one margin. On the other hand, Candidate Doe has a solid lead in Uniform Heights, Graded Meadow, Irongate Estates, Culvertdale, and the other suburbs and exurbs of Ficticia City. Between the two areas, the candidates are locked in a dead heat, and accusations of voter intimidation have been flying thick.
Let's assume that of these two candidates actually is planning to engage in wholesale vote fraud. Should he do it in all districts, in a district he's sure to carry, a district that's split about 50/50, or a district where his opponent is likely to win?
If he throws the vote in a district where the two candidates are neck and neck or where his opponent is likely to win, his opponent's supporters will be more likely to notice tabulation discrepancies. A closer-than-projected result in a district that was supposed to be a "lock" for his opponent--or a wider victory in a contested area--will not go unnoticed, because most people expect voter fraud to occur in places where the person committing the fraud is the underdog. Because the point of voter fraud is to "win", most people assume that a potential fraudster would try to rig the "obvious" areas: the areas where the fraudster is vulnerable or likely to lose.
If, however, the fraudster's "core" areas report a stronger than expected performance, people are much more inclined to assume that it was the last minute get-out-the-vote operation, or strong appeals to the base, or whatever. People simply don't expect others to cheat where they've already "won".
In the end, it doesn't matter which candidate "won" which precincts; what matters is the total across all precincts. If a candidate inflates his performance in his own backyard, his opponent is less likely to notice that it happened...
Folks, if there's gonna be wholesale election fraud, a smart fraudster is going to do it where nobody is looking. Don't expect it to take place in the precincts that make the news for irregularities.
Expect it to take place in places where Candidate X carries 70-75% of the vote.
That is, expect it to take place in places where Candidate X carries 75-80% of the vote.
If you don't want anyone to notice you're doing it, do it where nobody will notice; if the election is close enough (which so many of them are,) your candidate will carry the day.
BARF!
My wife and I are both in a position where we work long, hard hours. The thing is, we're both willing (and often do) drop whatever we're doing in an instant to help the other out--even if "help out" is nothing more than "just sit here with me for a while."
Marriage, done well, is hard work. Marriage, done well, is telling your wife to put her feet up and relax while you do the laundry or cook dinner--never mind that you're both exhausted from a long day's work and you'd really rather just play video games if you had the choice. Marriage, done well, is moving to a new city so that your spouse can pursue a promising new job. Marriage, done well, is near-constant attention, care, and dedication. That said, it's easily the most satisfying, fulfilling, entertaining and educational thing I've ever done, and I don't regret a second of it.
My grandfather-in-law had some sound advice on how to make a marriage work. He told me that marriage is a 90/10 proposition: each partner should expect to do 90% of the work themselves and only expect 10% from the other.
How much did you give your wife and family? How often did you ask your wife to wait until you were done doing whatever it was you were doing? How many times did you tell your wife not to bother cleaning the kitchen or bathroom and instead do it yourself? How many hours a day did you spend "free time" in front of the computer?
Do you genuinely believe that the fact that you write web pages played a significant role in the collapse of your own household?
I'd bet that you could get non-rigid items to rest on top of it just fine.
A strategy guide, for example.