It's the best example of the kind of collaboration we've got going on. I think the collaboration would be better, if it was simply someone with enough balls to say "Hey, George, an Amos and Andy alien is a titanically stupid idea. You should rethink that."
Oh, and listening to him would be a good idea too.
More technical gizmos don't make a basically bad idea any less bad.
While it's really, really fun to play "tinfoil hattery", think for a second.
I'm pretty sure that budget of $2 trillion isn't just lying around, money waiting to be used. It might be paying for things like, oh, highways, medicare, aircraft carriers, bridges to nowhere, etc. Could $2 billion probably be "found"? Sure, but it's not like it's manna from heaven.
Secondly, you can't just haul any dude off the street with a knowledge of Arabic, and have him start translating documents. In just about every case, a document has to be translated from the original by TWO different translators, and then the two translations refined together by a third (government can't afford to trust mistranslations either by accident or on purpose). All of these official translators must have an adequate security clearance, which takes 6 months or more.
And as far as "telegraphing" our next move, most of these docs are government docs (probably worthless) at elast 4 years old. I don't think there's a lot of danger in this.
Somehow, people who personally hate George Bush manage to simultaneously believe his government is capable of staggering stupidity (didn't they see a hurricane coming?) and simultaneously amazing subtlety like this.
If there were statements about WMD in these docs, wouldn't the administration simply, I dunno, PUBLICIZE IT?
They're going to cost about $4 billion each, but with their reduced crews due to automation, they'll save lots of money to taxpayers during their 50 years of use.
The moment we start designing warships specifically to reduce their operating costs over their lifespans, is the moment that a tragedy is lurking in the future.
I'm not saying "damn the costs, full contractors ahead!" at all, but shouldn't a navy (and by extension, all parts of the military) be given a cost parameter and build the most EFFECTIVE combat systems within that budget?
Because I see that (from TFA) they are being heralded as wonderfully efficient and low cost carriers, but nowhere do I see anything about how effectively they will FIGHT...um, shouldn't that be the point? A warship is purpose built to make war more effectively. That's all.
The TFA closes by mentioning they will arrive just in time for the centennial of the First World War. Ironically, part of the reasons for British naval dominance over a much newer and frankly better-built Kriegsmarine was that a) the Germans had put (for some logical reasons, it has to be admitted) much of their reliance in battlecruisers, which in wartime were found to be horrible compromises. Battlecruisers were lightly armored, heavily gunned ships meant to be overarmed for anything that could catch them, and too fast for anything that could outgun them. In practice, it was the opposite: they were underarmored for anything that they could catch, and their heavy guns (the general measure of ship potency at the time) constantly misled most admirals to use them as heavy line-of-battle ships, for which they were terrifically unsuited. b) the leaders of the British Admiralty essentially were willing to bugger the British treasury to built fully capable ships with as few compromises as possible, the result being the HMS Dreadnought, which effectively obsoleted all other ships of the time.
Want to save money? Heck, let's convert half the hull space to cargo, and let the ships carry breakbulk around the world to offset their costs! Stupid idea? Absolutely. But not a great deal stupider than deliberately removing the flexibility and capability of a modern ship's personnel and replacing them with fallible and inflexible automation.
Let's see, you have two people in a household that are 'gamers'.
One has a bedtime, one can stay up all night.
One has homework, the other has a boss that can be placated (to a point).
One has (perhaps) an allowance or a part time job, so $50 for a game is a major investment, the other has a REAL job where dropping $3000 for a new computer may be about a similar investment.
Which one would be prone to hardcore gaming addiction?
As far as adults are concerned, the only thing that can stop us are spouses, and, well, this IS slashdot...
1. Submit pointless little non article comparing in-game screenshots from ancient games with promo shots of newest games, without any real comparison or even fucking text. 2. ?? 3. Profit.*
* until your server starts smoking from the people coming from slashdot actually EXPECTING something to read.
Whoever approved this one for the frontpage should be immediately dumped from the editoral staff or at least put on probation.
The bottom line: Too many cooks spoil the broth, high end tools are essential to success, and you need to manage the amount of innovation to attempt with one project. No, the bottom line is that a big name, previous success, talent, money, and 'vision' (whatever the hell that is) isn't enough to create a compelling, fun product.
It doesn't help that they totally were ass-backwards from the beginning, fixating on the medium and not the message. Garriott brothers, please meet John Romero. You've just re-invented fire, congratulations.
I look forward to seeing the transcript of this talk, if it's available, as it could be a useful negative object lesson on how NOT to go about designing something.
Look, if you have a fun game-concept, and it will be made FUNNER by putting it into the MMOG gamespace, great. Good luck. But to say 'hey, we've got this cool concept of playing a game with a gajillion other people and making a pile of money, let's design something for it' is about the equivalent of when you got your first cell phone, and called your friend and said "hey, I'm talking to you on a cell phone!" "COOL!" (silence) "OK, say something" (silence) "No, you say something." (etc.)
Having a good way to COMMUNICATE a concept or game experience isn't a substitute for having a game concept to begin with. Duh. I don't really blame them, not directly: if they weren't surrounded by fanbois that are busy collecting their nail clippings to sell on ebay, SOMEONE should have had the commonsense to say "guys, STUPID concept!". Kind of a George Lucas Syndrome.
They dropped 75% of the code, all of the art, 20% of the art, and about 50% of the design. Once that shifted, everyone 'got it'. Everyone 'got it', and liked it. Everyone was on the same page for the first time, so everyone knew their part. Their results now matched expectations, and the project took off.
The game is now very large, and moving fast, so there are many challenges. 50+ people in Austin, 10+ in LA, 30+ in China, 5+ in Seoul, plus a bunch of outsourcing. They just couldn't find enough people who could contribute to the game's art at the level they wanted in the US. Management has gained a number of layers, which makes holding the quality bar high difficult.
Does that smell like Daikatana to anyone else? Sounds like desperate retrofitting to match 'legendary game designer' expectations, riffling through talent until they find enough people to 'buy into' the 'vision' (aka 'swallow the koolaide for a paycheck'). "Managment has gained a number of layers" WTF does that mean? Sounds like design-by-consensus to me, and we ALL know how wonderfully that works out.
I have one last cliche that seems appropriate: "dead on arrival".
Kids MUCH younger than that can certainly link concepts to phonemes, why not object?
I mean, tell a 6 month old "no", even in a rising tone (non-negatively inflected, in english) and they get the concept. How hard is it to believe that they can tie concept-object? Seems logical to me.
Although I have to say I know a lot of adults that could use a refresher course.
But I expect that in the US they are going to find that they need to add something a little less programmatic and a little more confrontational to keep people's interest up - guards, guns (like the army's MILES systems), etc.
Otherwise it's a puzzle orienteering course with distractions. Not that that wouldn't be interesting, but add in the necessity of keeping watch for guards and it gets 10x more interesting.
Instead of "Copy Protection Firms Encourage Piracy" it might be more accurate to title it "Russian Software firm re-invents 2nd-oldest profession, extortion ala 'protection racket'."
Gee, mister, it sure would be a SHAME if your store BURNT DOWN. Perhaps if you were to share your profits with us, we would MAKE SURE something like that WOULDN'T HAPPEN. If you choose not to participate in our generosity, who KNOWS what MIGHT happen?
Sounds like someone could use an axe-handle across the knees.
I'd say it has everything to do with the general age of the individuals running the depts, or if they have a particular 'understanding' of the internet beyond that of their peers.
Look at businesses in the late 90s: you had young tyros running companies that understood both the opportunities and (more significantly in this context) the risks of the internet. They flourished. Then you had the bricks and mortaor companies that took FOREVER to get off the ground, with their hidebound executive and department managers who were all of a generation for whome VCRs were 'new' and the internet something between cable tv and the telephone but not really understood. There were some foresightful managers who 'got it' but most of their peers didn't
I'm guessing, given the generally behind-the-curve nature of non-defense government agencies, that they are still just evolving out of this mindset. The departments with the occasional leader who 'gets it' are very clear on their understanding of what they need to do. The others? Well, until there's an administrative change, they're going to limp along, connecting to the web as ordered but not really understanding why they're doing it.
Copiers are just too expensive to sprinkle around a floor and PC-scanner solutions are just too big, complicated and time intensive for the users.
So I'm not sure what you are looking for? There is no 'magic wand' that will scan reams of paper and put them on an FTP site short of a mechanical solution. Either you get a relatively expensive unit that does it quickly, or get cheap desktop solutions that are slow and a PITA to use, IMO.
As usual, you can have fast, cheap, or good - pick 2.
We have a Konica C350 bizhub that's quite reasonable and includes scan-to-ftp functions that result in it being no different than a copy solution - put the stack of papers on the feed tray, hit scan-to-ftp and it chews through them.
Also fully configurable as to what format the scan is - pdf, jpg, tif, and even some others i haven't used.
While I wholeheartedly agree with you in looking forward to the arrival (or revalation) of the Islamic "Martin Luther", the frightening thing is, can you imagine a Reformation, Counter-Reformation, and The Thirty Years' War in an age of nuclear/chemical/biological weapons?
THAT war resulted in a mortality rate of from 15-20% up to 33% generally for peoples north of the alps, south of the Baltic, and west of the Vistula, with muzzleloaders, pikes, and disease as the best killers of the time. I fear we're far more efficient. I don't know that the Arab people could SURVIVE their Martin Luther.
Might I comment from the PoV of an actual game reviewer? I used to write for a number of media, from computer game sites like www.strategy-gaming.com to Computer Gaming Monthly magazine.
Previews are simply that, PREVIEWS. Someone hands you something that isn't finished, and basically says "hey, it's still got some rough edges, but what do you think?".
Would it be fair to take them to task for things that are wrong? It's NOT DONE.
Personally, I would tend to be positive (or at least optimistic) on previews, but was also willing to make pointed comments about what I thought might indicate that they were going down a wrong path, for example.
So no, I didn't expect some sort of tit-for-tat, although I suppose there may have been one implied. Yes, if I'd be a harsh ass about things, I doubt they'd have let me get early peeks at their products.
Is that some sort of great conspiracy? Not really.
Books are free/cheap. eBooks and readers are expensive for no particular value (ie. as much as the *AAs would like to believe otherwise, I actually prefer to OWN something tangible when I hand over money, if I have the choice). Books free? Yeah, effectively: - Libraries - friends - the stacks and stacks of books in my attic that i haven't read yet, all bought from used-book stores, garage sales, flea markets, etc.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a 'gadget' sort of guy. I love gizmos.
Successful model for ebooks? Here you go: I have a [device] of whatever OS (palm, WinCE, whatever). I walk into the airport, go to the news stand and look through the available publications (or pop it on from anywhere in the terminal and browse wirelessly). I find five or six periodicals and a sci fi book that I'd like to read, select them, hit download. I get a popup saying that they are each $0.25. The book is $1. I hit ok, and in a moment I have them on my [device] and I run to catch my plane. (Alternately, when I turn it on and my 'subscribed' publications are available, it asks right away if I'm interested in downloading them.)
The key elements: - NO proprietary software bullshit - SEAMLESS integration with my account and micropayments - MICROPRICING that recognizes that for this content, you didn't have to hack down a tree to print it, suck oil from the ground to distribute it, or pay anyone's salary/rent to sell it. If major news papers can do all those things for a buck, why would an e-magazine cost more than a quarter of THAT? Hell, I'd even give you feedback on rating articles I like, adverts I bothered to look at, etc that you can use to improve/sell your content. The data stream CAN be two-way, you know? - SPEED fast downloads. It shouldn't take me longer to download a magazine than it would take to pick the real one off the shelf, stand in line, and pay for it. I know wireless doesn't always have that phat a bandwidth, so do the ipod thing and give it a USB base port, so I can physically go to cutting edge news stands and get the data REALLY fast. But I should be able to browse the index of items without needing to be connected. - SCREEN. Reading is already a visually intensive/demanding process. Your screen should have at least 75dpi (video) resolution in all light levels (plus a variable backlight...actually a feature where it can improve over books! You can read in the dark!) - LIBRARY kick a few bucks into project gutenberg, and offer their enormous collection of free ebooks for....FREE. - BATTERY work on battery life, or use extremely low-power screens because if I'm sitting in a hammock reading for 4 hours, I don't want to worry that I won't be able to keep reading unless I find a plugin. - WATERPROOF again, an improvement over books. I'd like to be able to take it camping or to the beach and not be terrified it's going to get wrecked.
In other words, play to the ebook STRENGTHS: flexibility, cheap distribution (because electrons really are free), portability, low light readability.
...do we need to include the outrageously small probability of life developing...
Well that's just the POINT, isn't it? I mean, right now we have liquid water on one planet, where life developed. Statistical correlation of 1.0 (great!) over a sample size of 1 (not so great).
Neither you, nor I, nor Carl Sagan, nor all the scientists at NASA knows/knew whether the 'probability of life' is large, small, or somewhere in between. What we're talking about though is DOUBLING our sample size which is a pretty big deal, although still doesn't get us very far (statistically speaking).
They said from the beginning that they wouldn't provide typical forecasts. Nobody forced anyone to buy their stock.
Predictably the stock is less stable, and will presumeably (according to simple capitalism) be valued slightly lower because Wall Street prefers stability.
Done.
Carping about "oh they should do this" or "should do that" is stupid. You bought it, you don't like the conditions or the company, you sell it. If you have lost value, well, you've just been bitchslapped by 'the invisible hand' (plus your own unrealistic expectations).
By this same criterion, I'm desperately afraid that within a short (evolutionary) time we're going to have Raccoons that either: - are lightning quick - are low to the ground and have a tough carapace that can withstand 2-ton impacts at 75 mph - quickly become super-intelligent and drive SUVs because everyone "knows" they're safer on the highways.
I think in any of these possibilities, it's going to be nearly impossible to get them the hell out of your garbage cans anymore.
Yet, ironically Thoreau would go on to DEFEND the violent actions of John Brown at Harper's Ferry, ""I do not wish to kill or be killed, but I can foresee circumstances in which both these things would be by me unavoidable."
So obviously his emphasis was on the JUSTICE of the conflict, not on the commission of violence.
The justice of a conflict, I submit, is indeterminable for its contemporaries. The overarching JUSTICE of a war can only be seen with any degree of value at the arm's length of decades, when ephemeral, inflammatory passions are (one hopes) somewhat cooled by time.
Certainly it's fashionable and trendy to call any war unjust; just as likely there are those on the other side of the issue that would insist otherwise.
Instead I have to contend with some modern-day version of a bureaucrat in the bowels of some Orwellian Ministry of Truth.
Yes, because heaven forbid it might be possible that a MILITARY person might have any more factual information on a military event, right? I mean, *everyone* knows that those dumb soldiers are only interested in counteracting your ABSOLUTELY OBJECTIVE opinion by whitewashing it with dirty apologist propoganda, probably ordered directly from the desk of teh debbil George Bush HIMSELF!
Looking at the edits, it certainly seems that there is legitimate controversy (and some dubious sources for the original stories) regarding the incident. One might reasonably ask why the doubts surrounding the story were missing from your original version, but that would probably make me just a shill for the Orwellian Ministry of Truth, right?
You did read the original post, right? We're talking about the context of soldiers serving in a war zone.
So your exceptions for the first are irrelevant. They ARE in uniform and performing official duties.
Second amendment: so you're saying that Joe Private in the Army can bring his collection of hunting rifles or.44 automag to Baghdad? I didn't know that, if that's true.
Third (for the poster below) - ok yes, if your quarters are OFF BASE then yes, it still applies. But for the soldiers in army housing (again, we're talking about the soldiers SERVING in a war zone) it does apply.
Fourth - probably also applies WHILE IN A WAR ZONE.
Fifth through Ninth: I'll say it again, I'M NOT A LAWYER, but I invite you to read carefully the interesting article at http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m6007/is _2002_Wntr/ai_103136519/pg_1 that very clearly lays out the distinct differences in the way a proceeding would occur using a criminal in the State of VA vs the same criminal as subject to the UCMJ.
I don't like to insult people, but you can in this situation be a complete and total idiot. Learn2Read, then post.
Then you deeply misunderstand what 'enlistment' in the MILITARY means. As far as the Bill of Rights:
* First Amendment - Freedom of speech, press, religion, peaceable assembly, and to petition the government = mostly lost. You are not allowed to speak freely, assemble other then as ordered, nor to petition the government except as through the chain of command.
* Second Amendment - Right to keep and bear arms. = mostly lost. You are only entitled to arms as ordered.
* Third Amendment - Protection from quartering of troops. = lost. The army can assign you to bunk with someone or someone to bunk with you at any time, for any reason.
* Fourth Amendment - Protection from unreasonable search and seizure. = lost. The military can search your private effects at any time.
* Fifth Amendment - Due process, double jeopardy, self-incrimination, private property. = IANAL, not sure how many of these are still available during a Court Martial, but I know that many of them DON'T apply.
* Sixth Amendment - Trial by jury and other rights of the accused. mostly lost = no jury trial, you get a counsellor, but are tried by a panel. There is not necessarily an appeal, as you can be summarily executed in situations judged to be in extremis.
* Seventh Amendment - Civil trial by jury. Dunno about civil matters while you are subject to the UCMJ.
* Eighth Amendment - Prohibition of excessive bail, as well as cruel or unusual punishment. Again, I don't know that there IS bail for military prisoners.
* Ninth Amendment - Protection of rights not specifically enumerated in the Bill of Rights.
* Tenth Amendment - Powers of states and people - not applicable
Enlist in the military they OWN you. You can, in situations, be ordered to perform what amounts to indirect suicide.
Cost of missing 6 weeks worth of ocean surface temperature, a quarter's loss of micromeasurement of ocean surface levels, or a year's worth of rainforest acreage photographs: pretty much nothing.
Cost of leaving a dictator in power: (excerpts from: http://www.weeklystandard.com/Utilities/printer_pr eview.asp?idArticle=3889&R=) "Four months before Saddam's fall, Human Rights Watch estimated that up to 290,000 people had "disappeared" since the late 1970s and were presumed dead. The Coalition Provisional Authority's human rights office estimates that 300,000 bodies are contained in the numerous mass graves. "And that's the lower end of the estimates," said one CPA spokesperson. In fact, the accumulated credible reports make the likely number at least 400,000 to 450,000. So, by a conservative estimate, the regime was killing civilians at an average rate of at least 16,000 a year between 1979 and March 2003." (Of course, any numbers of killings do not include many thousands of cases of torture, rape, amputation, branding, and other atrocities committed by Saddam's regime that stopped short of death.) [Furthermore,] U.N. economic sanctions were also killing civilians. Critics regularly claimed sanctions caused 4,000 to 5,000 Iraqi children to die per month from poor nutrition and health care. UNICEF attributed some 500,000 unnecessary deaths to the sanctions in the 1990s. The sanctions remained in place as long as Saddam's regime refused to comply with international requirements. Liberation made it possible to lift the sanctions almost immediately--thus saving approximately 60,000 lives a year, if we use UNICEF's numbers.
Meanwhile in many sections of Iraq, people have their first clean water, their first reliable electricity, their first real sewer system, ever. Hundreds of schools, dozens of hospitals exist where no service was available for at least 20 years.
Yeah, what *were* we thinking? We should have saved the money and spent it on satellites!
I know it's TERRIBLY fashionable among some circles to be against the war. But I think your throwaway comment that the money was 'pissed away' is somewhat hyperbolic, if not a downright lie.
"Money is a substitute for time or skill. Next on the news: sun comes up in the east. Back to you Jim."
Look, wherever 2 people are competing, the playing field is NEVER precisely even. Person A might be unemployed and living at mom & dad's, so he can spend 12 hours a day 'perfecting' his game, and farming 000's of trashmobs for phat lewt drops; player B might have to work 60 hours a week, and use the game as relaxing escapism.
The only problem comes when B feels he should/needs to compete with A. He cannot match the time commitment of A, so he can offset some of A's advantage with money.
I'm guessing this is a far bigger problem on PVP servers than on PvE, but in any case there's going to be the matter of "comparing e-penis size".
Face it, what we have is h4rdc0r3 gamers, who for one brief shining moment were able to be superior to the people with lives (family, jobs, committments, etc.), who are objecting to the ability for the people with lives to shortcut the 'grind' and super-equip their characters as if they had run Molten Core 10 times themselves. (And FWIW, it's been going on for 10+ years as any newbie who tried to enter a MUD will tell you, there was a "Cult of the E-penis" even in MUDs, where the 'wizards' gaveth and tooketh at [arbitrary] will...)
There's nothing inherently unethical about this. As far as Blizzard is concerned, these items were earned fairly, by playing the game (ie not hacked). The fact that someone later sells them for RL cash is irrelevant to Blizzard, as it should be. Accept that there are two routes to ubergeardom: - spend 12 hours a day mindlessly grinding mobs for drops - probably what, about 10g/hour return? 120g for 12 hours. - spend those 12 hours a day WORKING AT A REAL JOB and use the money to buy gold and loot. ($9/hour at the local burger place * 12 hours = $108 less taxes equals about $70. This buys you about 500g.
The lesson? Get a job, and don't spend so much time at your computer, dude. Personally, I don't see that as a bad lesson to this little morality play.
Look at what happened with King Kong: In 2005 Hollywood remade (for the second time!) for $hundreds of million$ a movie originally made in 1933, and nobody went to see it so the movie tanked.
What Hollywood sees: we made an expensive movie that tanked. Ergo: Expensive movies bad!
What the rest of us see: the 2nd remake of a 70-year old idea. Creativity nonexistent.
Is it any wonder Hollywood is struggling with such obviously stupid people running the show? There are brilliant people in the movie business, they just aren't in charge.
Slashdot Mirror
It's the best example of the kind of collaboration we've got going on.
I think the collaboration would be better, if it was simply someone with enough balls to say "Hey, George, an Amos and Andy alien is a titanically stupid idea. You should rethink that."
Oh, and listening to him would be a good idea too.
More technical gizmos don't make a basically bad idea any less bad.
While it's really, really fun to play "tinfoil hattery", think for a second.
I'm pretty sure that budget of $2 trillion isn't just lying around, money waiting to be used. It might be paying for things like, oh, highways, medicare, aircraft carriers, bridges to nowhere, etc. Could $2 billion probably be "found"? Sure, but it's not like it's manna from heaven.
Secondly, you can't just haul any dude off the street with a knowledge of Arabic, and have him start translating documents. In just about every case, a document has to be translated from the original by TWO different translators, and then the two translations refined together by a third (government can't afford to trust mistranslations either by accident or on purpose). All of these official translators must have an adequate security clearance, which takes 6 months or more.
And as far as "telegraphing" our next move, most of these docs are government docs (probably worthless) at elast 4 years old. I don't think there's a lot of danger in this.
Somehow, people who personally hate George Bush manage to simultaneously believe his government is capable of staggering stupidity (didn't they see a hurricane coming?) and simultaneously amazing subtlety like this.
If there were statements about WMD in these docs, wouldn't the administration simply, I dunno, PUBLICIZE IT?
They're going to cost about $4 billion each, but with their reduced crews due to automation, they'll save lots of money to taxpayers during their 50 years of use.
The moment we start designing warships specifically to reduce their operating costs over their lifespans, is the moment that a tragedy is lurking in the future.
I'm not saying "damn the costs, full contractors ahead!" at all, but shouldn't a navy (and by extension, all parts of the military) be given a cost parameter and build the most EFFECTIVE combat systems within that budget?
Because I see that (from TFA) they are being heralded as wonderfully efficient and low cost carriers, but nowhere do I see anything about how effectively they will FIGHT...um, shouldn't that be the point? A warship is purpose built to make war more effectively. That's all.
The TFA closes by mentioning they will arrive just in time for the centennial of the First World War. Ironically, part of the reasons for British naval dominance over a much newer and frankly better-built Kriegsmarine was that
a) the Germans had put (for some logical reasons, it has to be admitted) much of their reliance in battlecruisers, which in wartime were found to be horrible compromises. Battlecruisers were lightly armored, heavily gunned ships meant to be overarmed for anything that could catch them, and too fast for anything that could outgun them. In practice, it was the opposite: they were underarmored for anything that they could catch, and their heavy guns (the general measure of ship potency at the time) constantly misled most admirals to use them as heavy line-of-battle ships, for which they were terrifically unsuited.
b) the leaders of the British Admiralty essentially were willing to bugger the British treasury to built fully capable ships with as few compromises as possible, the result being the HMS Dreadnought, which effectively obsoleted all other ships of the time.
Want to save money? Heck, let's convert half the hull space to cargo, and let the ships carry breakbulk around the world to offset their costs! Stupid idea? Absolutely. But not a great deal stupider than deliberately removing the flexibility and capability of a modern ship's personnel and replacing them with fallible and inflexible automation.
Let's see, you have two people in a household that are 'gamers'.
One has a bedtime, one can stay up all night.
One has homework, the other has a boss that can be placated (to a point).
One has (perhaps) an allowance or a part time job, so $50 for a game is a major investment, the other has a REAL job where dropping $3000 for a new computer may be about a similar investment.
Which one would be prone to hardcore gaming addiction?
As far as adults are concerned, the only thing that can stop us are spouses, and, well, this IS slashdot...
1. Submit pointless little non article comparing in-game screenshots from ancient games with promo shots of newest games, without any real comparison or even fucking text.
2. ??
3. Profit.*
* until your server starts smoking from the people coming from slashdot actually EXPECTING something to read.
Whoever approved this one for the frontpage should be immediately dumped from the editoral staff or at least put on probation.
The bottom line: Too many cooks spoil the broth, high end tools are essential to success, and you need to manage the amount of innovation to attempt with one project.
No, the bottom line is that a big name, previous success, talent, money, and 'vision' (whatever the hell that is) isn't enough to create a compelling, fun product.
It doesn't help that they totally were ass-backwards from the beginning, fixating on the medium and not the message. Garriott brothers, please meet John Romero. You've just re-invented fire, congratulations.
I look forward to seeing the transcript of this talk, if it's available, as it could be a useful negative object lesson on how NOT to go about designing something.
Look, if you have a fun game-concept, and it will be made FUNNER by putting it into the MMOG gamespace, great. Good luck. But to say 'hey, we've got this cool concept of playing a game with a gajillion other people and making a pile of money, let's design something for it' is about the equivalent of when you got your first cell phone, and called your friend and said "hey, I'm talking to you on a cell phone!" "COOL!" (silence) "OK, say something" (silence) "No, you say something." (etc.)
Having a good way to COMMUNICATE a concept or game experience isn't a substitute for having a game concept to begin with. Duh. I don't really blame them, not directly: if they weren't surrounded by fanbois that are busy collecting their nail clippings to sell on ebay, SOMEONE should have had the commonsense to say "guys, STUPID concept!". Kind of a George Lucas Syndrome.
They dropped 75% of the code, all of the art, 20% of the art, and about 50% of the design. Once that shifted, everyone 'got it'. Everyone 'got it', and liked it. Everyone was on the same page for the first time, so everyone knew their part. Their results now matched expectations, and the project took off.
The game is now very large, and moving fast, so there are many challenges. 50+ people in Austin, 10+ in LA, 30+ in China, 5+ in Seoul, plus a bunch of outsourcing. They just couldn't find enough people who could contribute to the game's art at the level they wanted in the US. Management has gained a number of layers, which makes holding the quality bar high difficult.
Does that smell like Daikatana to anyone else?
Sounds like desperate retrofitting to match 'legendary game designer' expectations, riffling through talent until they find enough people to 'buy into' the 'vision' (aka 'swallow the koolaide for a paycheck'). "Managment has gained a number of layers" WTF does that mean? Sounds like design-by-consensus to me, and we ALL know how wonderfully that works out.
I have one last cliche that seems appropriate: "dead on arrival".
Kids MUCH younger than that can certainly link concepts to phonemes, why not object?
I mean, tell a 6 month old "no", even in a rising tone (non-negatively inflected, in english) and they get the concept. How hard is it to believe that they can tie concept-object? Seems logical to me.
Although I have to say I know a lot of adults that could use a refresher course.
But I expect that in the US they are going to find that they need to add something a little less programmatic and a little more confrontational to keep people's interest up - guards, guns (like the army's MILES systems), etc.
Otherwise it's a puzzle orienteering course with distractions. Not that that wouldn't be interesting, but add in the necessity of keeping watch for guards and it gets 10x more interesting.
Instead of "Copy Protection Firms Encourage Piracy" it might be more accurate to title it "Russian Software firm re-invents 2nd-oldest profession, extortion ala 'protection racket'."
Gee, mister, it sure would be a SHAME if your store BURNT DOWN. Perhaps if you were to share your profits with us, we would MAKE SURE something like that WOULDN'T HAPPEN. If you choose not to participate in our generosity, who KNOWS what MIGHT happen?
Sounds like someone could use an axe-handle across the knees.
I'd say it has everything to do with the general age of the individuals running the depts, or if they have a particular 'understanding' of the internet beyond that of their peers.
Look at businesses in the late 90s: you had young tyros running companies that understood both the opportunities and (more significantly in this context) the risks of the internet. They flourished. Then you had the bricks and mortaor companies that took FOREVER to get off the ground, with their hidebound executive and department managers who were all of a generation for whome VCRs were 'new' and the internet something between cable tv and the telephone but not really understood. There were some foresightful managers who 'got it' but most of their peers didn't
I'm guessing, given the generally behind-the-curve nature of non-defense government agencies, that they are still just evolving out of this mindset. The departments with the occasional leader who 'gets it' are very clear on their understanding of what they need to do. The others? Well, until there's an administrative change, they're going to limp along, connecting to the web as ordered but not really understanding why they're doing it.
Copiers are just too expensive to sprinkle around a floor and PC-scanner solutions are just too big, complicated and time intensive for the users.
So I'm not sure what you are looking for? There is no 'magic wand' that will scan reams of paper and put them on an FTP site short of a mechanical solution. Either you get a relatively expensive unit that does it quickly, or get cheap desktop solutions that are slow and a PITA to use, IMO.
As usual, you can have fast, cheap, or good - pick 2.
We have a Konica C350 bizhub that's quite reasonable and includes scan-to-ftp functions that result in it being no different than a copy solution - put the stack of papers on the feed tray, hit scan-to-ftp and it chews through them.
Also fully configurable as to what format the scan is - pdf, jpg, tif, and even some others i haven't used.
While I wholeheartedly agree with you in looking forward to the arrival (or revalation) of the Islamic "Martin Luther", the frightening thing is, can you imagine a Reformation, Counter-Reformation, and The Thirty Years' War in an age of nuclear/chemical/biological weapons?
THAT war resulted in a mortality rate of from 15-20% up to 33% generally for peoples north of the alps, south of the Baltic, and west of the Vistula, with muzzleloaders, pikes, and disease as the best killers of the time. I fear we're far more efficient. I don't know that the Arab people could SURVIVE their Martin Luther.
Might I comment from the PoV of an actual game reviewer?
I used to write for a number of media, from computer game sites like www.strategy-gaming.com to Computer Gaming Monthly magazine.
Previews are simply that, PREVIEWS.
Someone hands you something that isn't finished, and basically says "hey, it's still got some rough edges, but what do you think?".
Would it be fair to take them to task for things that are wrong? It's NOT DONE.
Personally, I would tend to be positive (or at least optimistic) on previews, but was also willing to make pointed comments about what I thought might indicate that they were going down a wrong path, for example.
So no, I didn't expect some sort of tit-for-tat, although I suppose there may have been one implied. Yes, if I'd be a harsh ass about things, I doubt they'd have let me get early peeks at their products.
Is that some sort of great conspiracy? Not really.
Books are free/cheap. eBooks and readers are expensive for no particular value (ie. as much as the *AAs would like to believe otherwise, I actually prefer to OWN something tangible when I hand over money, if I have the choice). Books free? Yeah, effectively:
- Libraries
- friends
- the stacks and stacks of books in my attic that i haven't read yet, all bought from used-book stores, garage sales, flea markets, etc.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a 'gadget' sort of guy. I love gizmos.
Successful model for ebooks?
Here you go:
I have a [device] of whatever OS (palm, WinCE, whatever).
I walk into the airport, go to the news stand and look through the available publications (or pop it on from anywhere in the terminal and browse wirelessly).
I find five or six periodicals and a sci fi book that I'd like to read, select them, hit download.
I get a popup saying that they are each $0.25. The book is $1.
I hit ok, and in a moment I have them on my [device] and I run to catch my plane.
(Alternately, when I turn it on and my 'subscribed' publications are available, it asks right away if I'm interested in downloading them.)
The key elements:
- NO proprietary software bullshit
- SEAMLESS integration with my account and micropayments
- MICROPRICING that recognizes that for this content, you didn't have to hack down a tree to print it, suck oil from the ground to distribute it, or pay anyone's salary/rent to sell it. If major news papers can do all those things for a buck, why would an e-magazine cost more than a quarter of THAT? Hell, I'd even give you feedback on rating articles I like, adverts I bothered to look at, etc that you can use to improve/sell your content. The data stream CAN be two-way, you know?
- SPEED fast downloads. It shouldn't take me longer to download a magazine than it would take to pick the real one off the shelf, stand in line, and pay for it. I know wireless doesn't always have that phat a bandwidth, so do the ipod thing and give it a USB base port, so I can physically go to cutting edge news stands and get the data REALLY fast. But I should be able to browse the index of items without needing to be connected.
- SCREEN. Reading is already a visually intensive/demanding process. Your screen should have at least 75dpi (video) resolution in all light levels (plus a variable backlight...actually a feature where it can improve over books! You can read in the dark!)
- LIBRARY kick a few bucks into project gutenberg, and offer their enormous collection of free ebooks for....FREE.
- BATTERY work on battery life, or use extremely low-power screens because if I'm sitting in a hammock reading for 4 hours, I don't want to worry that I won't be able to keep reading unless I find a plugin.
- WATERPROOF again, an improvement over books. I'd like to be able to take it camping or to the beach and not be terrified it's going to get wrecked.
In other words, play to the ebook STRENGTHS: flexibility, cheap distribution (because electrons really are free), portability, low light readability.
...do we need to include the outrageously small probability of life developing...
Well that's just the POINT, isn't it?
I mean, right now we have liquid water on one planet, where life developed. Statistical correlation of 1.0 (great!) over a sample size of 1 (not so great).
Neither you, nor I, nor Carl Sagan, nor all the scientists at NASA knows/knew whether the 'probability of life' is large, small, or somewhere in between. What we're talking about though is DOUBLING our sample size which is a pretty big deal, although still doesn't get us very far (statistically speaking).
'Caveat Emptor'
They said from the beginning that they wouldn't provide typical forecasts.
Nobody forced anyone to buy their stock.
Predictably the stock is less stable, and will presumeably (according to simple capitalism) be valued slightly lower because Wall Street prefers stability.
Done.
Carping about "oh they should do this" or "should do that" is stupid. You bought it, you don't like the conditions or the company, you sell it. If you have lost value, well, you've just been bitchslapped by 'the invisible hand' (plus your own unrealistic expectations).
By this same criterion, I'm desperately afraid that within a short (evolutionary) time we're going to have Raccoons that either:
- are lightning quick
- are low to the ground and have a tough carapace that can withstand 2-ton impacts at 75 mph
- quickly become super-intelligent and drive SUVs because everyone "knows" they're safer on the highways.
I think in any of these possibilities, it's going to be nearly impossible to get them the hell out of your garbage cans anymore.
Yet, ironically Thoreau would go on to DEFEND the violent actions of John Brown at Harper's Ferry, ""I do not wish to kill or be killed, but I can foresee circumstances in which both these things would be by me unavoidable."
So obviously his emphasis was on the JUSTICE of the conflict, not on the commission of violence.
The justice of a conflict, I submit, is indeterminable for its contemporaries. The overarching JUSTICE of a war can only be seen with any degree of value at the arm's length of decades, when ephemeral, inflammatory passions are (one hopes) somewhat cooled by time.
Certainly it's fashionable and trendy to call any war unjust; just as likely there are those on the other side of the issue that would insist otherwise.
Instead I have to contend with some modern-day version of a bureaucrat in the bowels of some Orwellian Ministry of Truth.
Yes, because heaven forbid it might be possible that a MILITARY person might have any more factual information on a military event, right? I mean, *everyone* knows that those dumb soldiers are only interested in counteracting your ABSOLUTELY OBJECTIVE opinion by whitewashing it with dirty apologist propoganda, probably ordered directly from the desk of teh debbil George Bush HIMSELF!
Looking at the edits, it certainly seems that there is legitimate controversy (and some dubious sources for the original stories) regarding the incident. One might reasonably ask why the doubts surrounding the story were missing from your original version, but that would probably make me just a shill for the Orwellian Ministry of Truth, right?
You did read the original post, right? We're talking about the context of soldiers serving in a war zone.
.44 automag to Baghdad? I didn't know that, if that's true.
s _2002_Wntr/ai_103136519/pg_1 that very clearly lays out the distinct differences in the way a proceeding would occur using a criminal in the State of VA vs the same criminal as subject to the UCMJ.
So your exceptions for the first are irrelevant. They ARE in uniform and performing official duties.
Second amendment: so you're saying that Joe Private in the Army can bring his collection of hunting rifles or
Third (for the poster below) - ok yes, if your quarters are OFF BASE then yes, it still applies. But for the soldiers in army housing (again, we're talking about the soldiers SERVING in a war zone) it does apply.
Fourth - probably also applies WHILE IN A WAR ZONE.
Fifth through Ninth: I'll say it again, I'M NOT A LAWYER, but I invite you to read carefully the interesting article at http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m6007/i
I don't like to insult people, but you can in this situation be a complete and total idiot. Learn2Read, then post.
How about we link to the ARTICLE http://ninthwavedesigns.typepad.com/guilded_lilies /2006/03/annie_get_your_.html rather than linking to someone's lameass blog that REFERENCES the link to the article?
Editors should catch this crap.
Then you deeply misunderstand what 'enlistment' in the MILITARY means.
As far as the Bill of Rights:
* First Amendment - Freedom of speech, press, religion, peaceable assembly, and to petition the government = mostly lost. You are not allowed to speak freely, assemble other then as ordered, nor to petition the government except as through the chain of command.
* Second Amendment - Right to keep and bear arms. = mostly lost. You are only entitled to arms as ordered.
* Third Amendment - Protection from quartering of troops. = lost. The army can assign you to bunk with someone or someone to bunk with you at any time, for any reason.
* Fourth Amendment - Protection from unreasonable search and seizure. = lost. The military can search your private effects at any time.
* Fifth Amendment - Due process, double jeopardy, self-incrimination, private property. = IANAL, not sure how many of these are still available during a Court Martial, but I know that many of them DON'T apply.
* Sixth Amendment - Trial by jury and other rights of the accused. mostly lost = no jury trial, you get a counsellor, but are tried by a panel. There is not necessarily an appeal, as you can be summarily executed in situations judged to be in extremis.
* Seventh Amendment - Civil trial by jury. Dunno about civil matters while you are subject to the UCMJ.
* Eighth Amendment - Prohibition of excessive bail, as well as cruel or unusual punishment. Again, I don't know that there IS bail for military prisoners.
* Ninth Amendment - Protection of rights not specifically enumerated in the Bill of Rights.
* Tenth Amendment - Powers of states and people - not applicable
Enlist in the military they OWN you. You can, in situations, be ordered to perform what amounts to indirect suicide.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UCMJ
Cost of missing 6 weeks worth of ocean surface temperature, a quarter's loss of micromeasurement of ocean surface levels, or a year's worth of rainforest acreage photographs: pretty much nothing.
r eview.asp?idArticle=3889&R=)
Cost of leaving a dictator in power: (excerpts from: http://www.weeklystandard.com/Utilities/printer_p
"Four months before Saddam's fall, Human Rights Watch estimated that up to 290,000 people had "disappeared" since the late 1970s and were presumed dead. The Coalition Provisional Authority's human rights office estimates that 300,000 bodies are contained in the numerous mass graves. "And that's the lower end of the estimates," said one CPA spokesperson. In fact, the accumulated credible reports make the likely number at least 400,000 to 450,000. So, by a conservative estimate, the regime was killing civilians at an average rate of at least 16,000 a year between 1979 and March 2003."
(Of course, any numbers of killings do not include many thousands of cases of torture, rape, amputation, branding, and other atrocities committed by Saddam's regime that stopped short of death.)
[Furthermore,] U.N. economic sanctions were also killing civilians. Critics regularly claimed sanctions caused 4,000 to 5,000 Iraqi children to die per month from poor nutrition and health care. UNICEF attributed some 500,000 unnecessary deaths to the sanctions in the 1990s. The sanctions remained in place as long as Saddam's regime refused to comply with international requirements. Liberation made it possible to lift the sanctions almost immediately--thus saving approximately 60,000 lives a year, if we use UNICEF's numbers.
Meanwhile in many sections of Iraq, people have their first clean water, their first reliable electricity, their first real sewer system, ever. Hundreds of schools, dozens of hospitals exist where no service was available for at least 20 years.
Yeah, what *were* we thinking? We should have saved the money and spent it on satellites!
I know it's TERRIBLY fashionable among some circles to be against the war. But I think your throwaway comment that the money was 'pissed away' is somewhat hyperbolic, if not a downright lie.
Just mod me (troll) now.
"Money is a substitute for time or skill. Next on the news: sun comes up in the east. Back to you Jim."
Look, wherever 2 people are competing, the playing field is NEVER precisely even.
Person A might be unemployed and living at mom & dad's, so he can spend 12 hours a day 'perfecting' his game, and farming 000's of trashmobs for phat lewt drops; player B might have to work 60 hours a week, and use the game as relaxing escapism.
The only problem comes when B feels he should/needs to compete with A. He cannot match the time commitment of A, so he can offset some of A's advantage with money.
I'm guessing this is a far bigger problem on PVP servers than on PvE, but in any case there's going to be the matter of "comparing e-penis size".
Face it, what we have is h4rdc0r3 gamers, who for one brief shining moment were able to be superior to the people with lives (family, jobs, committments, etc.), who are objecting to the ability for the people with lives to shortcut the 'grind' and super-equip their characters as if they had run Molten Core 10 times themselves. (And FWIW, it's been going on for 10+ years as any newbie who tried to enter a MUD will tell you, there was a "Cult of the E-penis" even in MUDs, where the 'wizards' gaveth and tooketh at [arbitrary] will...)
There's nothing inherently unethical about this. As far as Blizzard is concerned, these items were earned fairly, by playing the game (ie not hacked). The fact that someone later sells them for RL cash is irrelevant to Blizzard, as it should be. Accept that there are two routes to ubergeardom:
- spend 12 hours a day mindlessly grinding mobs for drops - probably what, about 10g/hour return? 120g for 12 hours.
- spend those 12 hours a day WORKING AT A REAL JOB and use the money to buy gold and loot. ($9/hour at the local burger place * 12 hours = $108 less taxes equals about $70. This buys you about 500g.
The lesson? Get a job, and don't spend so much time at your computer, dude.
Personally, I don't see that as a bad lesson to this little morality play.
Look at what happened with King Kong.
Indeed.
Look at what happened with King Kong:
In 2005 Hollywood remade (for the second time!) for $hundreds of million$ a movie originally made in 1933, and nobody went to see it so the movie tanked.
What Hollywood sees: we made an expensive movie that tanked. Ergo: Expensive movies bad!
What the rest of us see: the 2nd remake of a 70-year old idea. Creativity nonexistent.
Is it any wonder Hollywood is struggling with such obviously stupid people running the show? There are brilliant people in the movie business, they just aren't in charge.