What an incredibly empty interview. Don't talk to him at all in depth about what he wants with an MMOG; don't talk to him about how he would want to bridge the gap from 'puzzle games' (as he referred to current MMOGs) to real role-playing games. Don't talk about his history with RPGs and games in general. Don't talk to him about the current state of the RPG market and why it's dying...
What a missed opportunity. SJ knows better than most the difficulty of adapting a single system (GURPS) to a multitude of players in a multitude of different settings. It would be terrifically interesting to really pick his brain on what he wants out of an MMOG, what he has played BESIDES Puzzle Pirates (that was a depressing answer, it would have been interesting to find out if he'd tried anything more than an avatar-based MUD for puzzle-playing...:( ).
All in all, even for an infinite medium like the Internet, that was a waste of space.
Right....it's global cooling blah blah blah "ice age is coming" blah blah blah...then in about 20 years astronomers will do a 180 and suddenly declare that Pluto is on the brink of runaway warming that will somehow (vague hand-waving here) destroy everything.
Since the whole "I drive an SUV because it's safer" thing is pretty much just a conscious or subconscious rationalization of some people's desperate need to display their wealth/power/potency, I guess I'm not surprised.
What's next, are we going to have a study that proves living in a capacious 15,000 sq ft house really isn't any more comfortable than a typical smaller home?
I don't think it's 'phear of the t3chn0logy' that's stopping adoption of LTA craft. It's practicality. Right now, the LTA craft provide an unattractive compromise between cost/speed.
If you want it there fast, or if it's really lightweight/small, you ship by truck or air. If you can wait a long time, or if it's really heavy, you ship it by rail/sea/barge.
LTA craft offer the load capacity of air (poor), at the speed of oceanfreight (slow).
What, aside from some very narrow-range applications (heavy lift of non-urgent bulk cargo into rough undeveloped areas) would this be good for?
Let's be clear about who is doing what to whom, shall we?
Television is not provided gratis to the viewing public out of the generosity of some media mogul's heart (or space formerly therefore).
Television is a MEANS of delivering viewer eyeballs to advertiser content. They 'bait' you with 24 minutes of programming per half hour, and then hope you don't notice that they 'switch' to advertising for at least 6 minutes. (Admittedly, lately they've gotten more subtle about the switch part by using product placement, and cheapened the bait with 'Reality' TV, but the principle's the same.)
Hi-def will be a way for these companies to put out more attractive bait. (OK, actually what happened was that the digital compression algorithms have allowed them to squeeze more analog signals into the allowed bandwidth, more like dropping LOTS of shitty-baited hooks in the water instead of something particularly attractive. Gov't is mandating that they use only the 'pretty bait'.)
So could someone explain to me why the US gov't is subsidising a privately owned and MASSIVELY profit-generating product delivery system?
The above post should be taken with a grain of salt, however, since apparently he's more concerned with whining than actually stating facts accurately.
I play a Hunter, so that's the only class I can speak to. His comments about Hunter pets are flat-out wrong. PET SPEEDS are made equivalent, but pet attack speed, damage, and secondary attack modes remain quite different (Broken Tooth remains 1.0 attack speed, Ursius 2.30 attack speed). Further pets remain differentiated by what skills they can learn, and the effects of these skills. So there is still a great deal of gameplay in the hunter's pet choice.
Further, I know a lot of warlocks that are delighted with some of the changes, so it's not entirely gloom and doom.
Look, Blizzard doesn't do anything 100% perfect, few of us do. But by and large this patch is what it's meant to be, a tweaking of gameplay with some additional content. That's pretty much it.
1) Much of this stems from the ignorance/provincalism of Americans. Once the meme of "Chinese" as gold farmers was established - with some justification, mind you - it fits the concept of 'asian as worker ant toiling mindlessly' so popular to a certain individualist demographic here. Same for the Anglo-xenophobia. Most Americans don't even own a passport, much less speak a foreign language - and unfortunately, assume someone who can't speak english doesn't 'belong'.
2) In TFA, let's avoid guilt-by association, particularly regarding the more extreme language of extermination: "he only good kind of farmer is a dead one. [WoW, M, 38] Yes. I enjoy killing gold farmers repeatedly. I play on PvP servers. [WoW, M, 26] In Lineage 2 there were constantly Korea farmers and we hated them and killed them constantly. I can honestly say the way Korean players acted in that game was enough for myself and my guild to stereotype Korean teenagers, then hunt them down and kill them all. [WoW, M, 40] They are talking about FARMERS, not Chinese. Even the mention of Koreans is hardly egregious; the overwhelming majority of Lineage players are korean.
The problem with farmers is that they are seen to be exploiting the system. If the game allows an exploit to continue unchecked, then it's the developers fault, but since the developers can't be directly messed-with (read the forums, they are certainly being directly insulted about it regularly), "Chinese Farmers" make a handy scapegoat in the best/worst lynch-mob tradition.
I think TFA goes quite a bit too far, however: The theme of immigrant worker being harassed by Westerners who feel they own the land and can arbitrate what constitutes as acceptable labor is one that is hard to escape. Another player draws out why this is so frustrating for her. Please. If there is something in the game that shows up once every 18 hours, and because there is ALWAYS a farmer camped on it, that destroys the fun value of that encounter. People harass FARMERS. Yes, suggesting that they are all Chinese is overtly racist and wrong. But this doesn't ipso facto mean that harassing farmers is wrong.
And let's finally not mix cause and effect too carelessly: remember WHY the farmers and their offline gold for sale sells so well? Because of the artificial rarity and ridiculously inflated pricing....caused by the commercialized farming of these same rare items.
By way of visualization, I've always thought of the sum of human achievement/knowledge as an expanding circle, from the center point of complete ignorance.
If you presume human intellectual power is pretty much constant and is likewise represented by a circle of the totality of what a person can comprehend/know, logically then in the early stages of human endeavor it's possible for a single extraordinary person to understand a significant fraction of the extant human ideas.
Look at the giants of the renaissance - da Vinci of course, but others as well. Most of them were not only scientists (encompassing physics, chemistry, astronomy at the very least), but were painters, theologians, philosophers, heck, they were probably even good cooks.
But now, as the scope of human knowledge has continued to inflate, take this same sized circle of a single person and it can no longer cover a signficant amount of area, but is relegated to either a generalism (in the center, eschewing all the cutting edge knowledge around the boundaries) or specialization in one narrow field and perhaps one or two closely related others.
I dunno, as a visualization it works for me.
Horse & Buggy makers, move over
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...is an information architect, an advocate of expanding the boundaries of librarianship in an Internet age...
Perhaps it's just me, but I find the attempts by librarians to stay 'relevant', while understandable, to be just a little bit pathetic.
Like the "crusade" by the librarians against the Patriot act (which, if you think about it sounded more like the result of some wierd Illuminati internal fight) a few years ago, librarians (like newspapers, and mass-media conglomerates) seem to think that they had some sort of a role as a gatekeeper to information. Guardianship & responsibility seems to have morphed into a sense of ownership. They had the meta-information, so to speak, about where information could be found. Now whether it's out of simple self-interest or some more elevated emotion, librarians seem to see themselves as some sort of special secular 'priestly' class - which is patently absurd in so many, many ways. The point of the internet is that for a reasonably intelligent person the internet doesn't NEED a gatekeeper, it doesn't NEED interpretation. Yes, there is a wealth of information out there. But thanks to search engines and human ingenuity the requirement to have an 'information specialist' just seems more and more of an anachronism.
While their role hasn't disappeared entirely, I find it less and less relevant. When's the last time you asked a librarian a question? Not to say that they're not busy: there are many people for whom it's simpler and more comfortable to ask a librarian than to type a question into Google. So perhaps the horse- and buggy maker analogy is imprecise, are librarians going to be relegated to the role of Leader Dogs for the internet-incapable?
Not defending the Draeni theory at all, but there are actually quite a few places where they could 'shoehorn' in a 'forgotten, hidden' secretive race.
Considering they are going to slip the Blood Elves in North of EPL, how hard would it be to put the Draeni east of Wetlands, east OR west of the Burning Steppes, south of Un'Goro, or even between Un'Goro and Feralas? Heck, they could stick them in a corner of Hyjal for that matter.
No, there may be LORE reasons, there may be GAMEPLAY reasons, but there are certainly no GEOGRAPHIC reasons that they can't slip the Draeni in somewhere, at least no reasons that are worse than for any other race.
European iPods ship with a volume limiter for this reason.
Seriously?
If true, this is a nearly perfect analogy between the US and Europe then.
1) European (government/corporations) do something that is sensible given the risk, and shows a level of concern for it's citizens/customers. There may be a commercial motive (can they charge more for it? Probably...) but it's not a clear one. 2) On the other hand, I, as an American, in my gut find this a ridiculous limitation of what is actually a rather trivial freedom. Sell me a volume limited ipod and I'd be annoyed that I can't turn it up as loud as I need/want, despite the risks.
All that is fine, but any research that doesn't mention porn must be flawed;) Your last comment was meant, I suppose, to be tongue in cheek. I don't think it's wrong, however. Anyone who has 'existed' online since the early days of the WWW *knows* that pr0n has not only been endemic to the 'net experience' but has in fact driven many of its key technologies - audio, then video streaming for example.
I understand that many people are squeamish about the subject, but if we're making a serious survey of net use, you're right - to entirely OMIT pr0n as a subject leaves an, er, gaping hole in the data.
It would be practically like a survey of automobile use without referring to commuting.
I look at learning systems and see that the best, most successful ones seem more and more like human infants - learn by mimicry, with reinforcement by reward/punishment.
Is it phylogenic that whatever we create will develop the same way we ended up doing so, or is it a form-follows-function result?
While I understand the good faith efforts of people to implement working cures faster, I think this is incredibly thin ice to tread on.
Let's all keep in mind Barnum's Maxim when we hasten to implement all those "great" cures out there, that the (pokey, old fashioned, heartless gov/corps) don't immediately start distributing. There are LOTS of examples where the "perfect cure" ended up having heartbreakingly bad collateral consequences. Thalidomide, anyone?
If you, as a terminally ill patient, are willing to make yourself into a medical experiment that's cool - you will good or bad end up advancing medical knowledge to the benefit of all of us. (In fact, my father is still alive and thriving today due to a then-experimental bone marrow replacement technique.) But when you sign up for this stuff, you MUST then accept the consequences of being a lab rat, ie. you may die.
But make these decisions for YOURSELF, not for others. For the bulk of the population, the nice, long duration exhaustive testing works just fine. I personally think it's irresponsible for a scientist or a doctor to advocate this for anyone else.
Part of it is that newspapers are having the darndest time accepting transparency as part of the medium.
For example, the local paper (Minneapolis Star-Tribune) won't break out for potential customers its visitor count by who comes to read the stories and who visits just to read classifieds or wantads. That's indicative of a "this information is ours and we'll use it the way we want to" attitude which, in an OPEN marketplace like the web, means that advertisers will simply spend their money elsewhere.
Eventually, even the readers feel this and - as a news source - the site dies.
Particularly when the only real NEWS you get from your paper is the local news (just go to Reuters or AP or other free sites for quicker world/national news), and even THAT is dying in this age of giant multicity media conglomerates that have let their local coverage die in favor of a stream from some HQ somewhere else....congratulations, they're being pwned by a media stream that's QUICKER, CHEAPER, and (frankly speaking) more reliable than their 19th-century business model.
US Government collecting any (even anonymized) data on any citizens = "OMFG BusH is a NAZI! Fascist oPPressors! AARgh the sky is faLl1ing! Here come the black helicopxt0rz!"
European governments collaborating to introduce a system which will allow the tracking of individuals movements, effectively a DoHS fantasy system, but which is being pitched as being in 'opposition' to the US: (orgasm)
No double standard there, certainly?
And the reason for the US caveat on the ability to disable the system? Because if we knew terrorists were using GPS to guide missile aiming systems for attacks on European targets, we'd happily mess up the system to disable their attack. Frankly, we can't be so sure you'd return the favor lately.
So we don't even know for sure if trees (and their ability to absorb CO2) are net warmers or coolers of the environment....yet we should sign on for hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars in programs which will 'reduce global warming'?
R-i-g-h-t.
Look, I think that it's patently obvious that 5 billion people cooking things, burning fuels, and generally living energy-intensive lives must be warming the planet (whether this is moreso than natural cycles is up for debate). But the whole 'Kyoto' religion smacks of Environmentalist's "Intelligent Design" - ie 'we don't really know WTF we are talking about, but just trust us, this is the RIGHT thing to do!'
Coupled with a healthy dose of white, western intellectualist guilt, and ample resentment of the first world by the third world, (with a dash of anti-globalization thrown in) and I see Kyoto and the efforts to effectively hobble Western Industrial societies as little more than a post-colonial revenge.
We hear many, many stories about how the industrial western societies (mainly the US) have ruined and continue to ruin the world. I'd say that an increase in average human lifespan in 1900 of 44 to whatever it is now (82) is a good thing, brought on entirely through the benefits of industrialized, advanced western societies.
Of course, at the root, environmentalists would be afraid to admit it, but they'd ultimately probably prefer a goodly chunk of these still-living humans to die.
I think that goes directly back to what Benjamin Franklin was saying when he talked about people who give up freedom for security deserve neither. Regular as the tide, this comment comes up in every discussion about the Patriot Act.
Let me ask you a question: Have you ever stopped at a stop sign? Because the moment you do that, or obey the speed limit, or a whole host of other laws you've just traded an essential liberty (freedom of movement) for security (ie to not get hit by another driver).
We do it all the time. You can't kill that pointy-haired boss you don't like, because the law prohibits it - in exchange, you get the protection that (probably) the people who don't like you won't get to kill you either. In a sense, the trading of some liberties in exchange for securities is the essence of being civilized.
That aphorism by Ben Franklin is one of his most empty-headed statements ever, and it's parroted by every empty-headed civil libertarian (and fashionable liberal) who never really bothers to think about what it says or means.
GS: Why do you think George Lucas saw the importance of games so early, and why was he able to capitalize on it so relatively well? MR: I think he actually didn't see the importance early.
GS: George Lucas is a god! I want him to have meh babiez! MR: Actually, he had no vision and isn't that great of a director and didn't even LIKE video games. Star Wars was literally ripped from Kurosawa, Empire was directed by someone else, in RotJ he brought us Ewoks, in TPM he brought us Jar Jar and the last movie could be entirely summed up by the word "younglings". What crack are you smoking that you love him so?
I mean, here we have an interesting, non-duped, scientific post, and someone has to make such a massively stupid comparison, I guess to try to make a political point?
Tell you what, drop OBL from extra-atmospheric height so he bounces around and lands spread-eagle in the desert, and we'd probably find him.
Then again, he's probably hiding in Canada, where he can blend in with the local population better.
Responding to the "4 million" article, it's simple, really:
Take a quick analysis of the people criticizing the game in blogs, in forums, and on the web....what do they all have in common? Surprise! They're on their computers and, to judge by the amount they write, they have AMPLE spare time.
No wonder these particular people (self-evidently overrepresented in forums, etc) are bored with the game. If you have 500 hours of spare time in as little as 2 months (I've heard of people levelling to 60 in less than a month, which is conceivable, I guess), then YES, THE GAME DOESN'T HAVE ENOUGH CONTENT FOR YOU.
But the secret is no secret. *Most* people don't have this sort of time. *Most* people work for a living, 50+ hours per week, and with home, family, and community commitments can spend something like 10 hours per week online. That means for most people, getting to 60 takes something under a year.
Plus WoW really excels at giving the player a huge variety of experiences - from the many different races and classes with totally different skills and tactics, to the zones. There are an AMPLE number of zones that really FEEL different - Tanaris, Winterspring, Burning Steppes all come to mind, but even very similar places 'feel' unique - Feralas, Ashenvale, Felwood...all deciduous forests but each somehow interesting in their own way. Levelling up a Tauren hunter in the Barrens is 1000% different from the experience of a Gnome Mage in Dun Morogh. So every time the player gets slightly bored, they can amuse themselves with a totally different 'alt' experience.
WoW keeps it very fresh for the bulk of the experience of the average player. Yes, the uberl33ts find it goes too fast, and I will admit that I personally am a little bored at 60 since there is absolutely no solo content for a topped out player. I came to WoW because WW2OL was fun, but required 3-4 hour blocks of time to accomplish anything. Now, at 60 in WoW, it's the same story. So I have a couple of alts I'm working on levelling, and despite having played the game almost exclusively for nearly a year, the adventures with these new alts are really quite fun.
Plus, the expansion pack will then once again open advancement for us 60s sick of bumping against the glass ceiling. I for one will certainly buy 2 of them - Blizz, just sign me up.
So if other companies want to mimic WoW's success, they should IMO take note of a few salient points: - realize that your clientele are NOT the diehard gamers whinging in your forums. - test, test, test. Because your most lucrative market is not those hardcore gamers, your game *MUST* *MUST* be stable as a rock. Force them to reboot a couple of times, or have a game that locks up, and the casual player will simply return it or give up. They won't struggle with complex patches and system settings. It must play smoothly and entertain right out of the box. - test, test, test. Again, make sure that UI is dead-simple. Not simplistic, people do want to be engaged by what they are doing, but simple. Frankly, most people at this user level like clicking the mouse. Key commands are useful shortcuts, but let them do almost everything with their mouse, and they'll have fun. - content. ironically, it's the casual gamers that will be the sharpest critics of your game and content. Hardcore players will put up with goofy graphics, etc while casual players, if it's ugly they simply will grow tired of it soon. Variety is the spice of life, even virtually. Killing rats forever is BORING. Running through the same endless forest is BORING. There are a wonderful variety of quests in WoW (admittedly, ony a fairly small % are really creative), enough to always keep you wondering what's next. THAT'S WHERE YOU MAKE YOUR $$$.
US House Judiciary Committee this past week seeks to plug "Anal. Hole". Several congressmen have been interested in the "Anal. Hole" issue, and have been reported as commenting that the Anal. Hole was brought to their attention by lobbyists and they will lick the problem immediately.
Slashdot Mirror
What an incredibly empty interview.
:( ).
Don't talk to him at all in depth about what he wants with an MMOG; don't talk to him about how he would want to bridge the gap from 'puzzle games' (as he referred to current MMOGs) to real role-playing games. Don't talk about his history with RPGs and games in general. Don't talk to him about the current state of the RPG market and why it's dying...
What a missed opportunity. SJ knows better than most the difficulty of adapting a single system (GURPS) to a multitude of players in a multitude of different settings. It would be terrifically interesting to really pick his brain on what he wants out of an MMOG, what he has played BESIDES Puzzle Pirates (that was a depressing answer, it would have been interesting to find out if he'd tried anything more than an avatar-based MUD for puzzle-playing...
All in all, even for an infinite medium like the Internet, that was a waste of space.
Right....it's global cooling blah blah blah "ice age is coming" blah blah blah ...then in about 20 years astronomers will do a 180 and suddenly declare that Pluto is on the brink of runaway warming that will somehow (vague hand-waving here) destroy everything.
Oh, and it's Bush's fault.
Since the whole "I drive an SUV because it's safer" thing is pretty much just a conscious or subconscious rationalization of some people's desperate need to display their wealth/power/potency, I guess I'm not surprised.
What's next, are we going to have a study that proves living in a capacious 15,000 sq ft house really isn't any more comfortable than a typical smaller home?
I don't think it's 'phear of the t3chn0logy' that's stopping adoption of LTA craft. It's practicality. Right now, the LTA craft provide an unattractive compromise between cost/speed.
If you want it there fast, or if it's really lightweight/small, you ship by truck or air.
If you can wait a long time, or if it's really heavy, you ship it by rail/sea/barge.
LTA craft offer the load capacity of air (poor), at the speed of oceanfreight (slow).
What, aside from some very narrow-range applications (heavy lift of non-urgent bulk cargo into rough undeveloped areas) would this be good for?
Let's be clear about who is doing what to whom, shall we?
Television is not provided gratis to the viewing public out of the generosity of some media mogul's heart (or space formerly therefore).
Television is a MEANS of delivering viewer eyeballs to advertiser content. They 'bait' you with 24 minutes of programming per half hour, and then hope you don't notice that they 'switch' to advertising for at least 6 minutes. (Admittedly, lately they've gotten more subtle about the switch part by using product placement, and cheapened the bait with 'Reality' TV, but the principle's the same.)
Hi-def will be a way for these companies to put out more attractive bait. (OK, actually what happened was that the digital compression algorithms have allowed them to squeeze more analog signals into the allowed bandwidth, more like dropping LOTS of shitty-baited hooks in the water instead of something particularly attractive. Gov't is mandating that they use only the 'pretty bait'.)
So could someone explain to me why the US gov't is subsidising a privately owned and MASSIVELY profit-generating product delivery system?
^^^ Paladin player, obviously?
t es.html
The above post should be taken with a grain of salt, however, since apparently he's more concerned with whining than actually stating facts accurately.
I play a Hunter, so that's the only class I can speak to. His comments about Hunter pets are flat-out wrong. PET SPEEDS are made equivalent, but pet attack speed, damage, and secondary attack modes remain quite different (Broken Tooth remains 1.0 attack speed, Ursius 2.30 attack speed). Further pets remain differentiated by what skills they can learn, and the effects of these skills. So there is still a great deal of gameplay in the hunter's pet choice.
Patch notes here: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/patchno
Further, I know a lot of warlocks that are delighted with some of the changes, so it's not entirely gloom and doom.
Look, Blizzard doesn't do anything 100% perfect, few of us do. But by and large this patch is what it's meant to be, a tweaking of gameplay with some additional content. That's pretty much it.
1) Much of this stems from the ignorance/provincalism of Americans. Once the meme of "Chinese" as gold farmers was established - with some justification, mind you - it fits the concept of 'asian as worker ant toiling mindlessly' so popular to a certain individualist demographic here. Same for the Anglo-xenophobia. Most Americans don't even own a passport, much less speak a foreign language - and unfortunately, assume someone who can't speak english doesn't 'belong'.
2) In TFA, let's avoid guilt-by association, particularly regarding the more extreme language of extermination:
"he only good kind of farmer is a dead one. [WoW, M, 38]
Yes. I enjoy killing gold farmers repeatedly. I play on PvP servers. [WoW, M, 26]
In Lineage 2 there were constantly Korea farmers and we hated them and killed them constantly. I can honestly say the way Korean players acted in that game was enough for myself and my guild to stereotype Korean teenagers, then hunt them down and kill them all. [WoW, M, 40]
They are talking about FARMERS, not Chinese. Even the mention of Koreans is hardly egregious; the overwhelming majority of Lineage players are korean.
The problem with farmers is that they are seen to be exploiting the system. If the game allows an exploit to continue unchecked, then it's the developers fault, but since the developers can't be directly messed-with (read the forums, they are certainly being directly insulted about it regularly), "Chinese Farmers" make a handy scapegoat in the best/worst lynch-mob tradition.
I think TFA goes quite a bit too far, however:
The theme of immigrant worker being harassed by Westerners who feel they own the land and can arbitrate what constitutes as acceptable labor is one that is hard to escape. Another player draws out why this is so frustrating for her.
Please. If there is something in the game that shows up once every 18 hours, and because there is ALWAYS a farmer camped on it, that destroys the fun value of that encounter. People harass FARMERS. Yes, suggesting that they are all Chinese is overtly racist and wrong. But this doesn't ipso facto mean that harassing farmers is wrong.
And let's finally not mix cause and effect too carelessly: remember WHY the farmers and their offline gold for sale sells so well? Because of the artificial rarity and ridiculously inflated pricing....caused by the commercialized farming of these same rare items.
By way of visualization, I've always thought of the sum of human achievement/knowledge as an expanding circle, from the center point of complete ignorance.
If you presume human intellectual power is pretty much constant and is likewise represented by a circle of the totality of what a person can comprehend/know, logically then in the early stages of human endeavor it's possible for a single extraordinary person to understand a significant fraction of the extant human ideas.
Look at the giants of the renaissance - da Vinci of course, but others as well. Most of them were not only scientists (encompassing physics, chemistry, astronomy at the very least), but were painters, theologians, philosophers, heck, they were probably even good cooks.
But now, as the scope of human knowledge has continued to inflate, take this same sized circle of a single person and it can no longer cover a signficant amount of area, but is relegated to either a generalism (in the center, eschewing all the cutting edge knowledge around the boundaries) or specialization in one narrow field and perhaps one or two closely related others.
I dunno, as a visualization it works for me.
...is an information architect, an advocate of expanding the boundaries of librarianship in an Internet age...
Perhaps it's just me, but I find the attempts by librarians to stay 'relevant', while understandable, to be just a little bit pathetic.
Like the "crusade" by the librarians against the Patriot act (which, if you think about it sounded more like the result of some wierd Illuminati internal fight) a few years ago, librarians (like newspapers, and mass-media conglomerates) seem to think that they had some sort of a role as a gatekeeper to information. Guardianship & responsibility seems to have morphed into a sense of ownership. They had the meta-information, so to speak, about where information could be found. Now whether it's out of simple self-interest or some more elevated emotion, librarians seem to see themselves as some sort of special secular 'priestly' class - which is patently absurd in so many, many ways. The point of the internet is that for a reasonably intelligent person the internet doesn't NEED a gatekeeper, it doesn't NEED interpretation. Yes, there is a wealth of information out there. But thanks to search engines and human ingenuity the requirement to have an 'information specialist' just seems more and more of an anachronism.
While their role hasn't disappeared entirely, I find it less and less relevant. When's the last time you asked a librarian a question? Not to say that they're not busy: there are many people for whom it's simpler and more comfortable to ask a librarian than to type a question into Google. So perhaps the horse- and buggy maker analogy is imprecise, are librarians going to be relegated to the role of Leader Dogs for the internet-incapable?
Not defending the Draeni theory at all, but there are actually quite a few places where they could 'shoehorn' in a 'forgotten, hidden' secretive race.
Considering they are going to slip the Blood Elves in North of EPL, how hard would it be to put the Draeni east of Wetlands, east OR west of the Burning Steppes, south of Un'Goro, or even between Un'Goro and Feralas? Heck, they could stick them in a corner of Hyjal for that matter.
No, there may be LORE reasons, there may be GAMEPLAY reasons, but there are certainly no GEOGRAPHIC reasons that they can't slip the Draeni in somewhere, at least no reasons that are worse than for any other race.
European iPods ship with a volume limiter for this reason.
Seriously?
If true, this is a nearly perfect analogy between the US and Europe then.
1) European (government/corporations) do something that is sensible given the risk, and shows a level of concern for it's citizens/customers. There may be a commercial motive (can they charge more for it? Probably...) but it's not a clear one.
2) On the other hand, I, as an American, in my gut find this a ridiculous limitation of what is actually a rather trivial freedom. Sell me a volume limited ipod and I'd be annoyed that I can't turn it up as loud as I need/want, despite the risks.
Funny and Iconic.
All that is fine, but any research that doesn't mention porn must be flawed ;)
Your last comment was meant, I suppose, to be tongue in cheek. I don't think it's wrong, however. Anyone who has 'existed' online since the early days of the WWW *knows* that pr0n has not only been endemic to the 'net experience' but has in fact driven many of its key technologies - audio, then video streaming for example.
I understand that many people are squeamish about the subject, but if we're making a serious survey of net use, you're right - to entirely OMIT pr0n as a subject leaves an, er, gaping hole in the data.
It would be practically like a survey of automobile use without referring to commuting.
Is this really a surprise?
I look at learning systems and see that the best, most successful ones seem more and more like human infants - learn by mimicry, with reinforcement by reward/punishment.
Is it phylogenic that whatever we create will develop the same way we ended up doing so, or is it a form-follows-function result?
While I understand the good faith efforts of people to implement working cures faster, I think this is incredibly thin ice to tread on.
Let's all keep in mind Barnum's Maxim when we hasten to implement all those "great" cures out there, that the (pokey, old fashioned, heartless gov/corps) don't immediately start distributing. There are LOTS of examples where the "perfect cure" ended up having heartbreakingly bad collateral consequences. Thalidomide, anyone?
If you, as a terminally ill patient, are willing to make yourself into a medical experiment that's cool - you will good or bad end up advancing medical knowledge to the benefit of all of us. (In fact, my father is still alive and thriving today due to a then-experimental bone marrow replacement technique.) But when you sign up for this stuff, you MUST then accept the consequences of being a lab rat, ie. you may die.
But make these decisions for YOURSELF, not for others. For the bulk of the population, the nice, long duration exhaustive testing works just fine. I personally think it's irresponsible for a scientist or a doctor to advocate this for anyone else.
Part of it is that newspapers are having the darndest time accepting transparency as part of the medium.
For example, the local paper (Minneapolis Star-Tribune) won't break out for potential customers its visitor count by who comes to read the stories and who visits just to read classifieds or wantads. That's indicative of a "this information is ours and we'll use it the way we want to" attitude which, in an OPEN marketplace like the web, means that advertisers will simply spend their money elsewhere.
Eventually, even the readers feel this and - as a news source - the site dies.
Particularly when the only real NEWS you get from your paper is the local news (just go to Reuters or AP or other free sites for quicker world/national news), and even THAT is dying in this age of giant multicity media conglomerates that have let their local coverage die in favor of a stream from some HQ somewhere else....congratulations, they're being pwned by a media stream that's QUICKER, CHEAPER, and (frankly speaking) more reliable than their 19th-century business model.
US Government collecting any (even anonymized) data on any citizens = "OMFG BusH is a NAZI! Fascist oPPressors! AARgh the sky is faLl1ing! Here come the black helicopxt0rz!"
European governments collaborating to introduce a system which will allow the tracking of individuals movements, effectively a DoHS fantasy system, but which is being pitched as being in 'opposition' to the US: (orgasm)
No double standard there, certainly?
And the reason for the US caveat on the ability to disable the system? Because if we knew terrorists were using GPS to guide missile aiming systems for attacks on European targets, we'd happily mess up the system to disable their attack.
Frankly, we can't be so sure you'd return the favor lately.
So we don't even know for sure if trees (and their ability to absorb CO2) are net warmers or coolers of the environment....yet we should sign on for hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars in programs which will 'reduce global warming'?
R-i-g-h-t.
Look, I think that it's patently obvious that 5 billion people cooking things, burning fuels, and generally living energy-intensive lives must be warming the planet (whether this is moreso than natural cycles is up for debate). But the whole 'Kyoto' religion smacks of Environmentalist's "Intelligent Design" - ie 'we don't really know WTF we are talking about, but just trust us, this is the RIGHT thing to do!'
Coupled with a healthy dose of white, western intellectualist guilt, and ample resentment of the first world by the third world, (with a dash of anti-globalization thrown in) and I see Kyoto and the efforts to effectively hobble Western Industrial societies as little more than a post-colonial revenge.
We hear many, many stories about how the industrial western societies (mainly the US) have ruined and continue to ruin the world. I'd say that an increase in average human lifespan in 1900 of 44 to whatever it is now (82) is a good thing, brought on entirely through the benefits of industrialized, advanced western societies.
Of course, at the root, environmentalists would be afraid to admit it, but they'd ultimately probably prefer a goodly chunk of these still-living humans to die.
Thanks Google, Merry Christmas!
This is slashdot; we will in any case.
I think that goes directly back to what Benjamin Franklin was saying when he talked about people who give up freedom for security deserve neither.
Regular as the tide, this comment comes up in every discussion about the Patriot Act.
Let me ask you a question: Have you ever stopped at a stop sign?
Because the moment you do that, or obey the speed limit, or a whole host of other laws you've just traded an essential liberty (freedom of movement) for security (ie to not get hit by another driver).
We do it all the time. You can't kill that pointy-haired boss you don't like, because the law prohibits it - in exchange, you get the protection that (probably) the people who don't like you won't get to kill you either.
In a sense, the trading of some liberties in exchange for securities is the essence of being civilized.
That aphorism by Ben Franklin is one of his most empty-headed statements ever, and it's parroted by every empty-headed civil libertarian (and fashionable liberal) who never really bothers to think about what it says or means.
GS: Why do you think George Lucas saw the importance of games so early, and why was he able to capitalize on it so relatively well? MR: I think he actually didn't see the importance early.
GS: George Lucas is a god! I want him to have meh babiez!
MR: Actually, he had no vision and isn't that great of a director and didn't even LIKE video games. Star Wars was literally ripped from Kurosawa, Empire was directed by someone else, in RotJ he brought us Ewoks, in TPM he brought us Jar Jar and the last movie could be entirely summed up by the word "younglings". What crack are you smoking that you love him so?
(fairly loose translation)
Greenpeace and PETA.
Hm.
The latter publicly advocates terroristic acts (for them, apparently justifiable).
The former, known to fund organizations like Earth First.
So yes, they ARE terrorists or support them significantly. I'm cheering for the US Gov't black helicopters on this one, thanks.
Why wasn't this modded "troll"?
I mean, here we have an interesting, non-duped, scientific post, and someone has to make such a massively stupid comparison, I guess to try to make a political point?
Tell you what, drop OBL from extra-atmospheric height so he bounces around and lands spread-eagle in the desert, and we'd probably find him.
Then again, he's probably hiding in Canada, where he can blend in with the local population better.
Responding to the "4 million" article, it's simple, really:
Take a quick analysis of the people criticizing the game in blogs, in forums, and on the web....what do they all have in common? Surprise! They're on their computers and, to judge by the amount they write, they have AMPLE spare time.
No wonder these particular people (self-evidently overrepresented in forums, etc) are bored with the game. If you have 500 hours of spare time in as little as 2 months (I've heard of people levelling to 60 in less than a month, which is conceivable, I guess), then YES, THE GAME DOESN'T HAVE ENOUGH CONTENT FOR YOU.
But the secret is no secret. *Most* people don't have this sort of time. *Most* people work for a living, 50+ hours per week, and with home, family, and community commitments can spend something like 10 hours per week online. That means for most people, getting to 60 takes something under a year.
Plus WoW really excels at giving the player a huge variety of experiences - from the many different races and classes with totally different skills and tactics, to the zones. There are an AMPLE number of zones that really FEEL different - Tanaris, Winterspring, Burning Steppes all come to mind, but even very similar places 'feel' unique - Feralas, Ashenvale, Felwood...all deciduous forests but each somehow interesting in their own way. Levelling up a Tauren hunter in the Barrens is 1000% different from the experience of a Gnome Mage in Dun Morogh. So every time the player gets slightly bored, they can amuse themselves with a totally different 'alt' experience.
WoW keeps it very fresh for the bulk of the experience of the average player. Yes, the uberl33ts find it goes too fast, and I will admit that I personally am a little bored at 60 since there is absolutely no solo content for a topped out player. I came to WoW because WW2OL was fun, but required 3-4 hour blocks of time to accomplish anything. Now, at 60 in WoW, it's the same story. So I have a couple of alts I'm working on levelling, and despite having played the game almost exclusively for nearly a year, the adventures with these new alts are really quite fun.
Plus, the expansion pack will then once again open advancement for us 60s sick of bumping against the glass ceiling. I for one will certainly buy 2 of them - Blizz, just sign me up.
So if other companies want to mimic WoW's success, they should IMO take note of a few salient points:
- realize that your clientele are NOT the diehard gamers whinging in your forums.
- test, test, test. Because your most lucrative market is not those hardcore gamers, your game *MUST* *MUST* be stable as a rock. Force them to reboot a couple of times, or have a game that locks up, and the casual player will simply return it or give up. They won't struggle with complex patches and system settings. It must play smoothly and entertain right out of the box.
- test, test, test. Again, make sure that UI is dead-simple. Not simplistic, people do want to be engaged by what they are doing, but simple. Frankly, most people at this user level like clicking the mouse. Key commands are useful shortcuts, but let them do almost everything with their mouse, and they'll have fun.
- content. ironically, it's the casual gamers that will be the sharpest critics of your game and content. Hardcore players will put up with goofy graphics, etc while casual players, if it's ugly they simply will grow tired of it soon. Variety is the spice of life, even virtually. Killing rats forever is BORING. Running through the same endless forest is BORING. There are a wonderful variety of quests in WoW (admittedly, ony a fairly small % are really creative), enough to always keep you wondering what's next. THAT'S WHERE YOU MAKE YOUR $$$.
US House Judiciary Committee this past week seeks to plug "Anal. Hole". Several congressmen have been interested in the "Anal. Hole" issue, and have been reported as commenting that the Anal. Hole was brought to their attention by lobbyists and they will lick the problem immediately.