I'll admit I'm not well informed on the issue. Here are a couple of questions anyway:
How closely are you watching? The sugarcane fields could easily have been jungle 15 years ago. Are you sure they weren't?
Let me take these. I am a Brazilian and have some familiarity with the theme. The sugar cane plantation in Brazil is concentrated in two regions. #1 is the State of São Paulo, SE Brazil, the most populated area of the country. #2 is the State of Pernambuco, on the NE coast. Both of these states are home to the oldest towns in Brazil: it is where Portuguese colonization begun. The city of São Vicente, on the coast of the State of São Paulo, was founded in 1580, if I am not mistaken. The City of São Paulo itself is over 400 years old. Olinda, in the State of Pernambuco, was also one of the oldest areas of colonial exploration in Brazil -- it was disputed between Dutch and Portuguese settlers in the 1600's . At the time both the Dutch and the Portuguese were fighting for sugar cane plantation land. After expelled, the Dutch colonist went to the caribbean to (you guess) grow sugar cane. Soo... what I mean to say, the sugar cane areas were not deforestated 15 years ago. More like 150 years ago or, in some cases, 400 years ago.
Both Pernambuco and São Paulo are thousands of miles from the Amazon rain forest, by the way (which is of course huge, but not the whole of Brazil -- in fact very little of the Brazilian population is in it or close to it).
Could the land being used to grow sugarcane be used to grow food otherwise? Is land being cleared to grow food so other land can be used for sugarcane?
Of course the land could be used to grow food. But Brazil is a major exporting country for most food items already, and stopping with sugar cane would only change the profile of the exports. Land is being cleared, you are right, to grow food -- soy beans and cattle are the frontier -- but the advance is much more in the semi-arid "cerrado" region (western Bahia state, for example) and in the "Pantanal" marsh land in the Brazilian mid-west (Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul states) -- these are NOT the amazon rain forest. As the previous poster said, unfortunately the amazon is being brought down much more for the wood itself than for building productive agriculture.
And it is not for the lack of laws -- if I may add. The wood extraction happens in indian reservations, national parks and government owned land illegally, protected often times by gun-holding criminals and corrupt authorities (wild west memories, anyone?). In fact the government laws sometimes hurt what they are trying to protect -- a tropical agriculture that could take place in the amazon rain forest would be palm trees (for palm oil, bio diesel, etc.). However, since the amazon rain forest is protected by law if you have 100 acres in the forest you can only bring down 10%-20% of it to grow other things -- which nobody finds interesting to do. In the end, if lawful ways are not economical, the unlawful way wins.
The answers to questions like these aren't easy or clear. I certainly don't have them.
Information exchange is a beginning. Take a look at maps of the country, look for São Paulo State, Pernambuco and the Amazon Jungle. You will see what I talked about. Brazil is larger than the continental USA, and tremendously varied in terms of climate, soil, vegetation, demographic and income distribution.
Ethanol engines have more power, true. FlexFuel (GM's Gas/E85 hybrid) engines have less power on E85 than they do on Gas.
Do you realize that the article I pointed to (here again) was discussing a GM FlexFuel (Gas/Ethanol Hybrid) engine as well ? It seems that GM's Brazilian FlexFuel engine, unlike the one you talk about, is able to have more power on Ethanol than on Gas.
So the tricky part is getting Brazil to reduce their own tarriffs at the same time. The WSJ article is desperately short on this aspect of the bill, and how the Brazil market currently stands tarriff wise.
You are aiming at the wrong direction. Brazil is extremely competitive in virtually all agricultural products, and have comparatively little import tariffs for those things in place. Also consider that Argentina, just south of the border, complements with temperate/mediterranean products what the tropical/temperate agriculture of Brazil cannot supply.
Fact of the matter is, with the exception of the American Sugar/Ethanol lobby, which protects an inefficient sector, the United States usually sits on the same side of the table as Canada, Australia, Brazil, Argentina and most other Latin American countries when it comes to negotiating lower agricultural tariffs. On the other side of the table are highly protective Japan and Europe -- and that's where you should be aiming at as a potential market.
Of course as the Chinese and the Indian economy grow all of these potential (or actual) "agricultural powers" should not fear the lack of a market.
Interesting post. Let me add to your point #4 with some information from Brazil, where properly designed ethanol engines have, in fact, been built for a while.
4) Ethanol has less power per volume then gas. That means those flex fuel vehicles are going to lose mileage AND power on E85. A proper E85+ designed engine could improve the power issue (Ethanol's higher octane rating allows for higher compression, which leads to more power and better efficiency).
It is not true that ethanol engines have less power, quite the opposite. This is a fact taken into consideration by anyone shopping for an auto in Brazil in the past decade. Consider for instance this article discussing GM's Astra Multifuel, a vehicle launched in the market in September 2004, and which runs on a choice of three fuels: Gasoline, Ethanol, and Compressed Natural Gas. I drive one of these Astras myself, though without the CNG option installed.
The article is in Portuguese, and I quote the interesting bit:
Potência máxima com gasolina: 121 cv a 5.200 rpm. Potência máxima com álcool: 127,6 cv a 5.200 rpm. Potência máxima com GNV: 105,8 cv a 5.200 rpm
Torque máximo com gasolina: 18,3 kgfm a 2.600 rpm. Torque máximo com álcool: 19,6 kgfm a 2.600 rpm. Torque máximo com GNV: 16,4 kgfm a 2.600 rpm.
I guess the above can be understood without BabelFish. Keep in mind that "cv" means "hp" (cavalo vapor = horse power): the same engine on ethanol (álcool) gets 5.4% more power and 7.1% more torque.
Never having thought about why (I am an electrical engineer, not mechanical) I googled a bit and found an interesting explanation. It is also in Portuguese, but I translate below the interesting part:
O álcool hidratado utilizado como combustível no Brasil tem duas particularidades: alta resistência à detonação (como se tivesse alta octanagem, embora o álcool não possua octanas) e baixo poder calorífico (gera menos energia na queima que a gasolina). Em função dessas características, o motor a álcool pode utilizar taxa de compressão mais elevada, mas requer uma relação estequiométrica diferenciada, ou seja, a mistura ar-combustível tem de ser mais rica (com mais combustível) que no motor a gasolina. Na prática, isso significa que o motor a álcool pode obter mais potência e torque -- o que não ocorre em alguns casos por simples escolha do fabricante --, mas consume mais combustível.
Translation: The hydrated alcohol used as fuel in Brazil has two peculiarities: high resistance to detonation (as if it had high octane, though alcohol does not possess octanes) and low calorific power (less energy generated compared to the same amount of gasoline burned). Due to these characteristics, the alcohol (ethanol) engine can use higher compression, but it requires a differentiated stechiometric relation, that is, the air-fuel mixture has to be richer (with more fuel) than in the gasoline engine. In practice that means that the ethanol engine can get more power and torque -- when it does not is due to a choice from the manufacturer -- but it uses more fuel.
Once John and Dave have shipped their machines with pre-loaded pirate copies of Windows, they can't update them - but Microsoft can.
As long as the nagging is regional, all a hacker would have to do is make the pirated windows copy identify itself to the MS update server as being from one of the countries which are nag-free. Then it will not download the nagging code. Easier than hacking may be just to bring the pirate master-copy from abroad, to the same effect (if the language is adequate to the user -- english, for instance).
The point of this program is not to nag people who knowingly pirated Windows. They're just going to uninstall/hack it or whatever. It's to notify people who DON'T know that they're using a pirated XP install. Then they know not to buy computers from "John's Shady Computer Store" in the future.
If people can hack away the nagging window that John from the Shady Store can't then it is a Darwin Award to John: he deserves to be out of business. OTOH there's always "Dave's Shady Computer Store" across the street from John.
Why would Apple care if the app is "ported" to the Mac? If it can be run in virtualization, it essentially is already "ported"!
MS could let the virtualization solution work 100% great for a while until mac ports are abandoned. Then start patching windows/releasing new windows versions that stay one step away from working OK inside a virtualization environment (through legal means or technical secrets). And then have mac os owners in a limbo (no mac ports, win versions not quite working).
Unless not only OS X but also OS X Apps stand out as Looking & Feeling significantly better than Win Apps in virtualization mode (so the Mac Ports niche is defended) -- and this may very well be the case.
Lenovo is not the first case. See P&O and Unocal. I am sure Dell and other competing suppliers to the government have nothing to do with it, though. They wouldn't...
This all the more senseless considering what another WSJ article says about the Bush Administration's latest national-security strategy report:
" Much of the 2006 document is devoted to the administration's desire to spread free trade, assist overseas development, promote effective governments and combat protectionism. The fear of protectionism is a new theme in this year's strategy, reflecting increased concerns within the administration that growing jitters over international trade and investment could imperil the growth of the world economy. " (italics mine)
He is quoted out of context, and is hard to know what exactly he meant by "stop looking for the next big thing" quote. As far as I know, he may be saying that his job is not to hold a crystal ball in hand and try to predict the next big thing (neither should you). And he does *not* say there is nothing new to be discovered. He only says it is harder to come by these things in the tech world today. Elsewhere in the article it stands out clear that he is busy seeking to enable innovation, instead of getting worried about what the "next big thing" will be. So clearly he does not discard the power of innovation.
One cental remark he makes, that "innovation today is more about services, process, business models or cultural innovation than just product innovation" sounds *very* well put, IMHO. Let us not forget which sort of innovation Google, eBay, Yahoo, Amazon, Orkut, LinkedIn, Napster (the original), iTunes, and even Slashdot itself, among others, brought to the world -- hint: it is not technical.
Indeed, by adding more rules and systems, you can drive away more casual players because they have no chance of understanding what is going on and making reasonable decisions.
Good point. I agree with it, in general, but not when it is applied to RPGs, in particular. If the game is the rules, and the story is only an excuse or a spice (for instance, in Settlers of Cattan, other classic board games and even, dare i say, RTS games such as StarCraft and AoE), then a lot is lost and nothing gained when going for an extra ounce of realism.
However I understand RPGs are a distinct game concept which brings to the forefront narratives, descriptions and (an illusion of) the widest, true to real life, range of decisions and paths. Knowing much about the specific stats would deviate players from the "what would I do if I were there" mood, and close the door to players experimenting with the world. I can imagine someone finding a new weapon and not knowing before hand whether it is better or worse than the old one, but having an intuition (from the context and the description) on whether it is (or isn't) and later on perhaps perceiving (with usage) the truth. Always learning in a qualitative, not quantitative manner.
In DnD dices are just a way to keep the story going, and a way to add a level of impartiality that no human DM could achieve without them. The fact that dice rolls are visible to the player in PnP D&D does not help the Role Play at all. IMHO if more complicated stats can lead to a greater probability of players believing that the narrative "feels right", then let them be.
Joel Spolsky, who has a nice blog called "Joel on Software", wrote a very thought provoking article back in 2000. It is called "Incentive Pay Considered Harmful". He discusses how *not* to manage smart, highly educated employees. Since Joel is a programmer who used to work at MS, his case comes directly from Redmond.
Same here, only replace "Commodore 64" for "Sinclair ZX 81" and "NES" for "Atari 2600".
To be precise, the Sinclair ZX 81 was a clone made in Brazil called TK 82-C. Exact clone, down to the membrane keyboard. Oh the memories. Z80 processor, 2 kilobytes memory shared for video -- video was max resolution 44 by 64 pixels (screen was 32 characters wide by 22 characters tall). Today you can have the whole thing on a browser... See it here: http://www.vavasour.ca/jeff/ts1000/
Having played way more games of risk online on the web than Id care to admit I have rationalized the following principles as the usual strategy for playing with/against humans in the "conquer the world" usual rules. I think it describes very well the plot in most games among experienced risk players, and unfortunately for the sake of the fun it also means these games draag until someone loses their patience and either abandons the game right away or does it by breaking principle number 4 below.
1) Pick a continent and signalize it as being yours, by concentrating troop deployment there. You can choose the region as the one where you have proportionally more starting territories, and where your opponents have few. This usually happens in the first (simultaneous) troop deployment cycle. If you are lucky, you will be the sole player claiming a continent. (this works for all continents except Asia).
2) Most of the time prefer defense, and patience, instead of offense. If for instance someone else has a troop stack in the region you want, reinforce around it (except a single way out) and wait. Only make sure you grab a territory and a card every turn. The usual exception for the defense rule is opportunistic: if for instance you trade cards and believe you can grab and defend a territory, attack and definitely do it.
3) When you are attacking (in ealy-mid game), pick one opponent to attack, try not to have two fronts. Do not stop attacking that opponent until he is out of the game, or completely disconnected from you on the map, as he may (being human) hold on only to screw you up at a critical point later. If a second front opens up early, however, consider immediately retreating your forces from your first targets territories, and concentrating all troops in defeding your base-continent.
4) In mid to late game stages, be extremely careful when deciding to attack. It is very usual for end games to be a stale mate, with troops piling up and up and up among (tipically) three remaining players. In that scenario, the only strategy for winning is trying (hoping, waiting) not to be the first one being attacked nor the first one attacking, since those two will burn their troop piles among themselves leaving the third player with full forces to ride to the victory. If, in turn, you *are* attacked, in that stalemate scenario, then either close your border back, reinforce and wait, or go full force and try to hurt your attacker as much as you can (possibly at the same time opening up room for said third player, as having his favor may mean he will let you be the last one surviving before he conquers the world).
5) It is interesting that if you are playing for points (and depending on the scoring system) then you can change from a strategy of domination to a strategy of survival, if you see you are falling behind in strength. That may mean putting all of your reinforcements in a single territory, and moving that pile to (usually) Asia. Then just wait and keep reinforcing. People will tend to avoid attacking you if your pile is large enough until the last thing they do in the game. And while they are not attacking you they may be attacking each other so much that they may get weak and leave you some room to aspire for domination. But be happy as you can almost always guarantee being the last survivor before the winner dominates the board.
That sums it up... How is that for programming an AI Player ?
Well, the article does mention that the practice may prevent another Enron. Can you imagine someone saying at a public company board: "I caught my boss manipulating numers!" ?
Then again, emails to the CEO couldnt have helped Enron: The CEO was involved...
Why do you make that assumption? You have no idea what a 'free-range' cow is eating, or what diseases it had.
Well, at least I know it is not eating the remains of other cows. Can you guess how mad cow disease spreads among cows ? Non-free-range cows are often being fed with protein that comes from... cow meat and bone meal ! Like in those trashy zombie movies, non-free-range cows do eat cow brains. I dont care what type of grass they find to eat out in the range, but I certainly dont imagine they will start eating each others brains...
Humans??? (Score:2, Interesting) what i never understood was the scientific reasoning behind how a "long time ago" in a "galaxy far far away" a species identical to humans (so much to be called by the same name IIRC) evolved and is technologically superior by probably a few centuries to a millenium to us. Anyone have any ideas?
Re:Humans??? (Score:0) Fine, but one of them looks a lot like Harrison Ford. Whats the chances of that, buddy?
Great reply, AC! Just reposting with Karma bonus since most people filter away (Score:0) comments. Sorry I dont have mod points.
A credit card is a tiny size of a cell phone, and actually, you don't even need a physical card to use one. They're already universally accepted.
Two points.
First, no matter how small it is, it is too large compared to softtware inside the cell phone, if you will be carrying a cell phone anyway.
Second, credit/debit cards are far from universally accepted. The beauty of a cell phone is that it can be both the credit card and the card terminal, meaning it can both be charged and charge. You may one day transfer money from your cell phone to a friends cell phone, whether you two are standing next to each other on the sidewalk, or one hundred miles apart.
What better mean to force some diversity in the gameplay at last ?
What better mean to incentive creativity and diversity in creating patents ? "Patent Everything" could be the game industrys new motto. And no games are needed to be granted a patent! Not even bad games!
This to me sends a bad signal: The DHS may be institucionalizing itself as a pillar of xenophobia in the US of A, and it is trying to reach well beyond its original role.
I see a potential vicious circle in the build, with DHS attracting more and more xenophobe weirdos, through publicity around acts like this, and thus becoming more and more extreme in its views. This is not going to help world peace the least, such a nationalistic movement popping up in the heart of the last remaining super power. Pity.
You are thinking about Freenet. Not well implemented or popular today, but certainly a file sharers last ditch against interference from the powers-that-be.
Wikipedia says the following about Freenet: The system has no central servers, is peer-to-peer, and is not subject to the control of any one individual or organization. Even the designers of Freenet do not have any control over the overall system. The system is designed so that information stored in the system is encrypted and replicated across a large number of continuously-changing anonymized computers around the world. It is extremely difficult for an attacker to find out which participants are hosting a given file, since the contents of each file are encrypted, and can also be broken into sections that are distributed over many different computers.
Worldwide revenue loss due to software piracy was estimated at $33 billion for 2004 with about 1/3 of the software used being illegal.
I *do not* intend to start a flame war. But I do find it amusing that depending on the political/partisan inclination of the writer the excerpt above could have been:
Worldwide utility gains due to software piracy were estimated as worth $33 billion for 2004. Through piracy aproximately 50% more users were able to be entertained or to be more productive than otherwise. Through piracy millions of people who would not have economic conditions to buy software were given their own copy. As such it was one of the key factors helping promote digital inclusion and minimizing the digital divide. In 2004, we are confident to say, the world was a more 'equal opportunities' environment... thanks to piracy.
Overrated, Flamebait colors! Modders, what are you thinking? This is no 5, Insightful.
The USA went through the legal effort to break up AT&T because of monopolistic practices, yet half of Europe went to great lengths to _create_ their own monopolies.
This poster seems to ignore that the breakup of AT&T transformed one country wide monopoly into several regional monopolies. SBC, the baby bell which acquired the other baby bell Ameritech, serves Chicago. Bell Atlantic, the baby bell which had acquired the other baby bell Nynex, and merged with baby bell GTE to form Verizon, serves New York City. SO WHAT ?
SBC serves Chicago, Verizon serves New York City, France Telecom serves Paris, Deutsche Telekom serves Berlin, and British Telecom serves London.
Many companies, a quasi monopoly, in all cases. It is the fine print that matters, both in Europe and in America. It doesnt matter the least how many baby bells there are, or whether they belong to the state or to investors, as long as the government sets rules (and enforces them!) which facilitate alternative players to compete. The AT&T breakup, I will repeat, meant zilt.
By the way, every single Office app other than MS Office and every single OS other than Windows include some kind of free PDF printing capability.
PDF995 (the PDF making utility for windows you are linking to) is a fair program. It is adware, though, in the sense that it opens up their web site on a browser every time you do some printing.
That is why I moved on to CutePDF, which works just as well. The latest versions stopped being freeware but they still have the 100% freeware version for download in their web site: http://www.cutepdf.com/products/CutePDF/writer.asp
Slashdot Mirror
I'll admit I'm not well informed on the issue. Here are a couple of questions anyway:
How closely are you watching? The sugarcane fields could easily have been jungle 15 years ago. Are you sure they weren't?
Let me take these. I am a Brazilian and have some familiarity with the theme.
The sugar cane plantation in Brazil is concentrated in two regions. #1 is the State of São Paulo, SE Brazil, the most populated area of the country. #2 is the State of Pernambuco, on the NE coast. Both of these states are home to the oldest towns in Brazil: it is where Portuguese colonization begun. The city of São Vicente, on the coast of the State of São Paulo, was founded in 1580, if I am not mistaken. The City of São Paulo itself is over 400 years old. Olinda, in the State of Pernambuco, was also one of the oldest areas of colonial exploration in Brazil -- it was disputed between Dutch and Portuguese settlers in the 1600's . At the time both the Dutch and the Portuguese were fighting for sugar cane plantation land. After expelled, the Dutch colonist went to the caribbean to (you guess) grow sugar cane. Soo... what I mean to say, the sugar cane areas were not deforestated 15 years ago. More like 150 years ago or, in some cases, 400 years ago.
Both Pernambuco and São Paulo are thousands of miles from the Amazon rain forest, by the way (which is of course huge, but not the whole of Brazil -- in fact very little of the Brazilian population is in it or close to it).
Could the land being used to grow sugarcane be used to grow food otherwise? Is land being cleared to grow food so other land can be used for sugarcane?
Of course the land could be used to grow food. But Brazil is a major exporting country for most food items already, and stopping with sugar cane would only change the profile of the exports. Land is being cleared, you are right, to grow food -- soy beans and cattle are the frontier -- but the advance is much more in the semi-arid "cerrado" region (western Bahia state, for example) and in the "Pantanal" marsh land in the Brazilian mid-west (Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul states) -- these are NOT the amazon rain forest. As the previous poster said, unfortunately the amazon is being brought down much more for the wood itself than for building productive agriculture.
And it is not for the lack of laws -- if I may add. The wood extraction happens in indian reservations, national parks and government owned land illegally, protected often times by gun-holding criminals and corrupt authorities (wild west memories, anyone?). In fact the government laws sometimes hurt what they are trying to protect -- a tropical agriculture that could take place in the amazon rain forest would be palm trees (for palm oil, bio diesel, etc.). However, since the amazon rain forest is protected by law if you have 100 acres in the forest you can only bring down 10%-20% of it to grow other things -- which nobody finds interesting to do. In the end, if lawful ways are not economical, the unlawful way wins.
The answers to questions like these aren't easy or clear. I certainly don't have them.
Information exchange is a beginning. Take a look at maps of the country, look for São Paulo State, Pernambuco and the Amazon Jungle. You will see what I talked about. Brazil is larger than the continental USA, and tremendously varied in terms of climate, soil, vegetation, demographic and income distribution.
-Ricardo
You are aiming at the wrong direction. Brazil is extremely competitive in virtually all agricultural products, and have comparatively little import tariffs for those things in place. Also consider that Argentina, just south of the border, complements with temperate/mediterranean products what the tropical/temperate agriculture of Brazil cannot supply.
Fact of the matter is, with the exception of the American Sugar/Ethanol lobby, which protects an inefficient sector, the United States usually sits on the same side of the table as Canada, Australia, Brazil, Argentina and most other Latin American countries when it comes to negotiating lower agricultural tariffs. On the other side of the table are highly protective Japan and Europe -- and that's where you should be aiming at as a potential market.
Of course as the Chinese and the Indian economy grow all of these potential (or actual) "agricultural powers" should not fear the lack of a market.
It is not true that ethanol engines have less power, quite the opposite. This is a fact taken into consideration by anyone shopping for an auto in Brazil in the past decade. Consider for instance this article discussing GM's Astra Multifuel, a vehicle launched in the market in September 2004, and which runs on a choice of three fuels: Gasoline, Ethanol, and Compressed Natural Gas. I drive one of these Astras myself, though without the CNG option installed.
The article is in Portuguese, and I quote the interesting bit:
I guess the above can be understood without BabelFish. Keep in mind that "cv" means "hp" (cavalo vapor = horse power): the same engine on ethanol (álcool) gets 5.4% more power and 7.1% more torque.
Never having thought about why (I am an electrical engineer, not mechanical) I googled a bit and found an interesting explanation. It is also in Portuguese, but I translate below the interesting part:
Cheers...
-Ricardo
Once John and Dave have shipped their machines with pre-loaded pirate copies of Windows, they can't update them - but Microsoft can.
As long as the nagging is regional, all a hacker would have to do is make the pirated windows copy identify itself to the MS update server as being from one of the countries which are nag-free. Then it will not download the nagging code. Easier than hacking may be just to bring the pirate master-copy from abroad, to the same effect (if the language is adequate to the user -- english, for instance).
The point of this program is not to nag people who knowingly pirated Windows. They're just going to uninstall/hack it or whatever. It's to notify people who DON'T know that they're using a pirated XP install. Then they know not to buy computers from "John's Shady Computer Store" in the future.
If people can hack away the nagging window that John from the Shady Store can't then it is a Darwin Award to John: he deserves to be out of business. OTOH there's always "Dave's Shady Computer Store" across the street from John.
Why would Apple care if the app is "ported" to the Mac? If it can be run in virtualization, it essentially is already "ported"!
MS could let the virtualization solution work 100% great for a while until mac ports are abandoned. Then start patching windows/releasing new windows versions that stay one step away from working OK inside a virtualization environment (through legal means or technical secrets). And then have mac os owners in a limbo (no mac ports, win versions not quite working).
Unless not only OS X but also OS X Apps stand out as Looking & Feeling significantly better than Win Apps in virtualization mode (so the Mac Ports niche is defended) -- and this may very well be the case.
-Ricardo
There's one well articulated post.
Well, I would pick a couple of other words:
Economic Protectionism.
Lenovo is not the first case. See P&O and Unocal. I am sure Dell and other competing suppliers to the government have nothing to do with it, though. They wouldn't...
This all the more senseless considering what another WSJ article says about the Bush Administration's latest national-security strategy report:
" Much of the 2006 document is devoted to the administration's desire to spread free trade, assist overseas development, promote effective governments and combat protectionism. The fear of protectionism is a new theme in this year's strategy, reflecting increased concerns within the administration that growing jitters over international trade and investment could imperil the
growth of the world economy. " (italics mine)
He is quoted out of context, and is hard to know what exactly he meant
by "stop looking for the next big thing" quote. As far as I know, he may be saying that his job is not to hold a crystal ball in hand and try to predict the next big thing (neither should you). And he does *not* say there is nothing new to be discovered. He only says it is harder to come by these things in the tech world today. Elsewhere in the article it stands out clear that he is busy seeking to enable innovation, instead of getting worried about what the "next big thing" will be. So clearly he does not discard the power of innovation.
One cental remark he makes, that "innovation today is more about services, process, business models or cultural innovation than just product innovation" sounds *very* well put, IMHO. Let us not forget which sort of innovation Google, eBay, Yahoo, Amazon, Orkut, LinkedIn, Napster (the original), iTunes, and even Slashdot itself, among others, brought to the world -- hint: it is not technical.
Indeed, by adding more rules and systems, you can drive away more casual players because they have no chance of understanding what is going on and making reasonable decisions.
Good point. I agree with it, in general, but not when it is applied to RPGs, in particular. If the game is the rules, and the story is only an excuse or a spice (for instance, in Settlers of Cattan, other classic board games and even, dare i say, RTS games such as StarCraft and AoE), then a lot is lost and nothing gained when going for an extra ounce of realism.
However I understand RPGs are a distinct game concept which brings to the forefront narratives, descriptions and (an illusion of) the widest, true to real life, range of decisions and paths. Knowing much about the specific stats would deviate players from the "what would I do if I were there" mood, and close the door to players experimenting with the world. I can imagine someone finding a new weapon and not knowing before hand whether it is better or worse than the old one, but having an intuition (from the context and the description) on whether it is (or isn't) and later on perhaps perceiving (with usage) the truth. Always learning in a qualitative, not quantitative manner.
In DnD dices are just a way to keep the story going, and a way to add a level of impartiality that no human DM could achieve without them. The fact that dice rolls are visible to the player in PnP D&D does not help the Role Play at all. IMHO if more complicated stats can lead to a greater probability of players believing that the narrative "feels right", then let them be.
Joel Spolsky, who has a nice blog called "Joel on Software",
wrote a very thought provoking article back in 2000. It is
called "Incentive Pay Considered Harmful".
He discusses how *not* to manage smart, highly educated employees.
Since Joel is a programmer who used to work at MS, his case comes directly
from Redmond.
Same here, only replace "Commodore 64" for "Sinclair ZX 81" and "NES" for "Atari 2600".
To be precise, the Sinclair ZX 81 was a clone made in Brazil called TK 82-C. Exact clone, down to the membrane keyboard. Oh the memories. Z80 processor, 2 kilobytes memory shared for video -- video was max resolution 44 by 64 pixels (screen was 32 characters wide by 22 characters tall). Today you can have the whole thing on a browser... See it here:
http://www.vavasour.ca/jeff/ts1000/
"Hard work often pays off after time,
but laziness always pays off now."
http://www.despair.com/proc24x30pri.html
Having played way more games of risk online on the web than Id care to admit I have rationalized the following principles as the usual strategy for playing with/against humans in the "conquer the world" usual rules. I think it describes very well the plot in most games among experienced risk players, and unfortunately for the sake of the fun it also means these games draag until someone loses their patience and either abandons the game right away or does it by breaking principle number 4 below.
1) Pick a continent and signalize it as being yours, by concentrating troop deployment there. You can choose the region as the one where you have proportionally more starting territories, and where your opponents have few. This usually happens in the first (simultaneous) troop deployment cycle. If you are lucky, you will be the sole player claiming a continent. (this works for all continents except Asia).
2) Most of the time prefer defense, and patience, instead of offense. If for instance someone else has a troop stack in the region you want, reinforce around it (except a single way out) and wait. Only make sure you grab a territory and a card every turn. The usual exception for the defense rule is opportunistic: if for instance you trade cards and believe you can grab and defend a territory, attack and definitely do it.
3) When you are attacking (in ealy-mid game), pick one opponent to attack, try not to have two fronts. Do not stop attacking that opponent until he is out of the game, or completely disconnected from you on the map, as he may (being human) hold on only to screw you up at a critical point later. If a second front opens up early, however, consider immediately retreating your forces from your first targets territories, and concentrating all troops in defeding your base-continent.
4) In mid to late game stages, be extremely careful when deciding to attack. It is very usual for end games to be a stale mate, with troops piling up and up and up among (tipically) three remaining players. In that scenario, the only strategy for winning is trying (hoping, waiting) not to be the first one being attacked nor the first one attacking, since those two will burn their troop piles among themselves leaving the third player with full forces to ride to the victory. If, in turn, you *are* attacked, in that stalemate scenario, then either close your border back, reinforce and wait, or go full force and try to hurt your attacker as much as you can (possibly at the same time opening up room for said third player, as having his favor may mean he will let you be the last one surviving before he conquers the world).
5) It is interesting that if you are playing for points (and depending on the scoring system) then you can change from a strategy of domination to a strategy of survival, if you see you are falling behind in strength. That may mean putting all of your reinforcements in a single territory, and moving that pile to (usually) Asia. Then just wait and keep reinforcing. People will tend to avoid attacking you if your pile is large enough until the last thing they do in the game. And while they are not attacking you they may be attacking each other so much that they may get weak and leave you some room to aspire for domination. But be happy as you can almost always guarantee being the last survivor before the winner dominates the board.
That sums it up... How is that for programming an AI Player ?
Well, the article does mention that the practice
may prevent another Enron. Can you imagine someone
saying at a public company board: "I caught my boss
manipulating numers!" ?
Then again, emails to the CEO couldnt have helped Enron:
The CEO was involved...
Why do you make that assumption? You have no idea what a 'free-range' cow is eating, or what diseases it had.
t m
Well, at least I know it is not eating the remains of other cows. Can you guess how mad cow disease spreads among cows ? Non-free-range cows are often being fed with protein that comes from... cow meat and bone meal ! Like in those trashy zombie movies, non-free-range cows do eat cow brains. I dont care what type of grass they find to eat out in the range, but I certainly dont imagine they will start eating each others brains...
For more info:
Brazil's Vegetarian Cows Don't Go Mad
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0107-04.h
A credit card is a tiny size of a cell phone, and actually, you don't even need a physical card to use one. They're already universally accepted.
Two points.
First, no matter how small it is, it is too large compared to softtware inside the cell phone, if you will be carrying a cell phone anyway.
Second, credit/debit cards are far from universally accepted. The beauty of a cell phone is that it can be both the credit card and the card terminal, meaning it can both be charged and charge. You may one day transfer money from your cell phone to a friends cell phone, whether you two are standing next to each other on the sidewalk, or one hundred miles apart.
What better mean to force some diversity in the gameplay at last ?
What better mean to incentive creativity and diversity in creating patents ? "Patent Everything" could be the game industrys new motto. And no games are needed to be granted a patent! Not even bad games!
This to me sends a bad signal: The DHS may be institucionalizing itself as a pillar of xenophobia in the US of A, and it is trying to reach well beyond its original role.
I see a potential vicious circle in the build, with DHS attracting more and more xenophobe weirdos, through publicity around acts like this, and thus becoming more and more extreme in its views. This is not going to help world peace the least, such a nationalistic movement popping up in the heart of the last remaining super power. Pity.
Overrated, Flamebait colors! Modders, what are you thinking? This is no 5, Insightful.
The USA went through the legal effort to break up AT&T because of monopolistic practices, yet half of Europe went to great lengths to _create_ their own monopolies.
This poster seems to ignore that the breakup of AT&T transformed one country wide monopoly into several regional monopolies. SBC, the baby bell which acquired the other baby bell Ameritech, serves Chicago. Bell Atlantic, the baby bell which had acquired the other baby bell Nynex, and merged with baby bell GTE to form Verizon, serves New York City. SO WHAT ?
SBC serves Chicago, Verizon serves New York City, France Telecom serves Paris, Deutsche Telekom serves Berlin, and British Telecom serves London.
Many companies, a quasi monopoly, in all cases. It is the fine print that matters, both in Europe and in America. It doesnt matter the least how many baby bells there are, or whether they belong to the state or to investors, as long as the government sets rules (and enforces them!) which facilitate alternative players to compete. The AT&T breakup, I will repeat, meant zilt.
That is why I moved on to CutePDF, which works just as well. The latest versions stopped being freeware but they still have the 100% freeware version for download in their web site:
http://www.cutepdf.com/products/CutePDF/writer.as