Americans have always had more choices and as such were not as dependent on needing an alternative. One thing that shocked me was how much my brother in law pays for the same exact software down under. I can see it in pricing on a lot of things.
America had several advantages, a larger number of people united by one language and culture with open borders for a longer time. The free movement of ideas has no limits when it came to states but country lines are a whole 'nuther thing. Plus, how long has it been since all the checkpoints have been removed?
Same idea, with freedom being offered comes the orgy effect... you can't get enough
How many are too afraid to take on a new job because they feel they might not measure up?
How many are too lazy to learn new skills because it might be hard, get in the way of WOW, or posting on boards?
How many people would not take a lower paying job because it bruises their ego?
Really, if you don't have a job ANY job is better. I worked at a grocery store for a stint while going to classes at night... at one time I held down two jobs costing me 12 to 14 hours of my day to stay ahead. Guess what, those working only 40 hours a day won't get anywhere. I could school work in those over 40 hours.
There are a lot of jobs out there. If you go through life in your 9 to 5 relying on things never changing you will get stung. When the job you had is lost it can be blamed on the economy many times, however not being able to get a new one rest on yourself more than not.
there is no threat of a theocracy in the US from the current candidates. Considering the church that the one candidate went to I would think the biggest threat would be on the left this year. Go figure, it is also the group desperately trying to prove their religious enough for the moderates. The only times I hear about the candidates on the right's religious views is when people mock them on message boards on from the press.
is where why so many people think that there is no accountability - in other words, why is no one allowed to hold a person to account for their words. Free speech doesn't mean there is no repercussion for saying something wrong on purpose, especially if its slander.
The fact they discussed it at school and possibly handed out material related to it matters. Just because "its on the internet" doesn't excuse them from disrupting school. It had no other intended purpose but to malign. Whats next? Create banners and place them on highway signs with a persons picture implying child sex?
Attacking school officials becomes school business when it disrupts the school. How could this not?
This should be an education to a student that slandering people is never right.
Hell, if this were reversed I would support him suing her and her parents. Taking money from them might be more worthwhile since they are trying to act as the victim now. That last part is what really torques, go cause a bunch of trouble and then portray yourself as the victim when called to accounts.
I really think a lot of this is being fed to us out of context
The Japanese giving the best chance because of their technological superiority over the Chinese.
Why those two cultures? Because of how they work. The US effort would be bogged down by politically expedient (read correct) requirements that would doom it before it got off the ground. Look at the last really major undertaking in this country too see how government control by special interest groups kills any chance for the large scale projects to work (ref: The Big Dig). Hell we can't even agree on a good BDB design because we are too busy appeasing groups not even related to the real task at hand
Europe, too busy trying to hide the fact immigrants are causing a drag on them and certain SI groups are also showing dominance one way or another.
Russia? To busy trying to the USSR again with Emperor for Life Putin. Too broke to do anything but sail rusty ships around and dig itself financially into a hole trying to buy non-rusty stuff.
No, either China or Japan who both can conjure up real nationalistic pride. Hell Japan recently elected a budget cutting tax cutting nationalist. Both compete fiercely with each other while other countries rattle broken sabers all day or just trade insults.
Japan could do it. I hope they do. They always feel the need to be better than the rest of us, just be glad their society was able to adapt this need and energy into peaceful outcomes.
For the most part what iTunes and its like have done is allow us to zero in on the music we like instead of having to take the whole album and suffer through the filler.
I still think a USB distribution system would be ideal for movies. Then anyplace could have a kiosk to distribute movies (even games if extended that far). Give the user a usb-key (branded for your business of course) and they could come to your kiosk or even store (for the luddites who want dvd) and without intervention just get the movie of their choice.
But music, nah, if I want a song it is just that, one song.
With the current population imbalance, like 3 to 1, its not much fun being order anyway.
and don't fret over the quotes about it not being like wow, or being better. It is just different. The biggest problem seems to be that Chaos got the better of it.
I used to love Wikipedia, but it has been guided into a ditch. They are have a very distinct world view and anything not fitting into that gets removed completely or edited out. There are certain subjects you cannot keep to their own page if on the site at all even with real sources simply because it does not fit their view of what is right.
I use Wikipedia to find only stuff I don't lose value with if its wrong Like episode names from tv series When movies came out songs by artist people who passed away nearly a hundred years or more ago formula compositions math
Current events, political, environmental, or religious, you have got to be kidding me.
First point, everyone knew it was coming THIS year.
Second point, the announcement date is exactly two months from release date.
Third point, if Blizzard wanted to pee on Mythic's party they would do something in game which makes pvp/raiders not want to miss out on.
Fourth point, with 10 million subs do think Blizzard cares what Mythic does? Considering the amount of content/features chopped from WH I am amazed it actually played decently.
Fifth point, WH has a serious balance problem, enough so people are having fits. 3:1 is not healthy for PvP.
already have found ways around the 5th I don't see how it would protect citizens from stuff like this. After all, what good is the fifth if they can declare not-guilty of murder and then get locked up on a second trial using a hate crime attack?
Never believe a creative and abusive government won't get the end result it wants, your rights violated, fine, they will sue the property because it doesn't have rights. That is how they managed to pull off seizure laws which basically give the government the right to take what they want and you have to prove otherwise.
Yeah, when the Constitution starts to mean something again for the average citizen other than questions on "Who is smarter than a 5th grader" let me know, seems to have been run over for forty or so years
That is the crux of the matter. While they are not happy with current cell phone rates they still pay them. Even when there are viable alternatives I have seen people go with specific carriers because of the phones offered or the "deal" offered when joining.
See the problem Google would face here is political.
If they invest in building better broadband in the United States they would have to go where told after awhile, if not upfront. Otherwise they would get vilified if here was offended or wanted to be offended.
It was like when high speed cable was being rolled out in my area, it HAD to go into certain neighborhoods, less than 10% uptake, before coming to mine because otherwise it would not have been "fair".
I am all for them going into countries like they provided they aren't paying some damn warlord to pad his wallet or sell out people for what they post.
you want me to fund all those companies who want to saddle me with DRM?
Really, what everyday businesses need this?
I am not sure how it is in the UK but in America the largest number of people employed are employed by small businesses. This whole idea of "must have bigger pipes" looks like support for content providers who rarely if ever are small businesses. Worse these usually are the same companies using DRM and copyright laws as a hammer across the world.
I look at it this way, if the costs are to be taken up by the public then some guarantee of unimpeded access to content should be required.
You get your combo store identity and Movie device all in one.
If anything this would make the stores even cheaper to run. Instead of having to have people behind the counter they have kiosks which you can choose which movie(s) you want. Heck you could eliminate the store in its entirety and just have kiosks at the mall, your grocery store, even the corner gas station. Everyone can get in on it.
Take your "device", pick what you want, swipe your debit/cc and your off.
All they need to do is get the transfer speed up to something sufficient for DVD quality movies. You could tier this by selling different sized devices which of course could store more movies or even games. Don't try to fit different technology into what the old is, imagine the possibilities granted by it.
Broadband penetration will never be complete enough to satisfy the studios or entrepreneurs
So four opposed; of eighteen; are upset and that makes ISO suddenly irrelevant? Fifty one approved.
Really it comes across as sore losers, nationalism, or at worse just more anti-Microsoft FUD. Look, you can't win them all. Just be glad we have a standard that we can work from. I have read the wiki articles on it, the back pages, and some blogs, and the only thing that comes across is just how rabid some people are. In some cases it went to the point of just being stupid.
If we were to dismiss the relevance of a standardization committee every time they made a choice we didn't like we would not have any.
I am so tired of people always screaming for long prison terms. The priorities people have make me sad. It used to be that murder and rape were considered the worst crimes yet your bound to get less time for these than many of the new crimes that we invent. When you can take a life and get less time than for taking their money the society you live in has a serious problem.
funny how many of the people who will complain about computer crime are all for having the government take stuff from other people.
What they deliver in UI usually is far worse than other companies. One thing I remembered from my LOTRO days was how their UI came off half finished. Parts of the UI would have an appropriate fantasy-rpg look while other parts looked liked a PDA from DOOM3.
I think it is interesting Turbine is looking towards consoles for success. With two of the biggest names ever in gaming titles you would think any competent company could hit a home run. I know, they don't publish their numbers and its rumored that LOTRO has a significant population, but the one measure of a game's success is how many fan sites exist and better yet, how many independent and active message boards exist for the game.
Look, if they or anyone else wants to make a MMORPG then introduce a custom controller. It worked for Guitar Hero. Sorry, but that game would never have worked otherwise. Why hamstring your MMORPG out of the gate trying to work with the base controller? Voice chat would get past the need for a keyboard. You can add support for a keyboard but just get a custom controller. If you think the market is large enough to support a MMORPG then it should be more than sufficient to support the controller.
you solve this by creating the community that will support you. The problem with sites like this is that there are many people who claim to be fans, provided someone or something they don't like is the focus, but they don't donate. They are just riding on the bandwagon because it feels good to be part of something, even anonymously.
the one thing the internet exposes with great frequency is the number of people who want something for nothing. They are all lined up in support until someone asks for money.
was that the majority of farms produced less than 20% of their rated power per year.
Amazing that Pelosi likes them, wait, no its not, she's invested in them, in particular that guy from Texas.
I am all for a super transport system but I want it backed by nuclear to handle base loads and allow us to truly get coal off line. If its good enough to have Germany switch gears what is our problem?
I am so sick of a Congress more concerned about piss ant groups, having to many to satisfy, that we get the shaft.
We stopped being the government when we allowed ourselves to be divided among petty lines with cute little labels like Democrat and Republican.
That money coming out of Exxon which you claim is coming back to the people CAME FROM THE DAMN PEOPLE. What, does Exxon just magically print dollars it gives to the government? Is there some kind of money fairy in your world?
Any dollar, ANY, that Exxon paid in taxes came out of THE PEOPLE'S pocket. There is no other source. The people earn incomes, which are taxed, and buy services, which are taxed, and buy products, which are taxed. Do you understand now?
Dollars are earned by individuals. They are from direct work, investment, sale of capital, etc. They are taxed. The remains are the people's to spend as they see fit. However hidden from the ignorant is that for everything they buy there are more taxes embedded.
I know, there are evil rich people who pay 35% and you pay 28% but its not fair they still have more dollars. What has this country come to if we are so filled with spite and envy that we begrudge anyone doing better than us or set limits on how well any one person is allowed to do?
Don't go off track and vilify a corporation. They are owned by people; either directly or indirectly; and they employ people. They are nothing more than a giant shell that the government loves to exploit by using them to collect money from the people's paycheck (because too many are only concerned with what they take home and not what they actually earned) and they can collect yet again when the remains are spent to buy stuff.
If consumers, for that matter income earners, had a true understanding of their tax load they would be up in arms. It is one thing to ask for this, that, and the other thing, from your government when you don't know the cost.
So governments do what they do best, they hide the tax. What is the number way to hide the real tax from the taxpayer? Embed it. This means hide it in the cost of goods and services. Lets use an oil company like Exxon for fun, after all its accused of having WINFALL profits. In 2006, Exxon's EBT (earnings before tax) was $67.4 billion, it paid $27.9 billion in taxes (41.4% tax rate), and its NIAT (net income after tax), or profit, was $39.5 billion. So, where does that 27.9 BILLION dollars come from. The taxpayer. Exxon merely wrote the check for all the dollars it collected from you and me to pay it.
The politicians win on every front here, they can hide the true cost of the tax load on the American worker and vilify any corporation that makes big numbers as being against the poor, downtrodden, hungry, or my favorite "children".
Ignorance and envy are the two greatest weapons the politicians employ and from watching the current elections it really pays off
Slashdot Mirror
Americans have always had more choices and as such were not as dependent on needing an alternative. One thing that shocked me was how much my brother in law pays for the same exact software down under. I can see it in pricing on a lot of things.
America had several advantages, a larger number of people united by one language and culture with open borders for a longer time. The free movement of ideas has no limits when it came to states but country lines are a whole 'nuther thing. Plus, how long has it been since all the checkpoints have been removed?
Same idea, with freedom being offered comes the orgy effect... you can't get enough
Let us ask other questions.
How many are too afraid to take on a new job because they feel they might not measure up?
How many are too lazy to learn new skills because it might be hard, get in the way of WOW, or posting on boards?
How many people would not take a lower paying job because it bruises their ego?
Really, if you don't have a job ANY job is better. I worked at a grocery store for a stint while going to classes at night... at one time I held down two jobs costing me 12 to 14 hours of my day to stay ahead. Guess what, those working only 40 hours a day won't get anywhere. I could school work in those over 40 hours.
There are a lot of jobs out there. If you go through life in your 9 to 5 relying on things never changing you will get stung. When the job you had is lost it can be blamed on the economy many times, however not being able to get a new one rest on yourself more than not.
there is no threat of a theocracy in the US from the current candidates. Considering the church that the one candidate went to I would think the biggest threat would be on the left this year. Go figure, it is also the group desperately trying to prove their religious enough for the moderates. The only times I hear about the candidates on the right's religious views is when people mock them on message boards on from the press.
Too many people fall for the "I will send you X+Y and you send me back Y with the item".
Besides if your dealing on the net the protection of a CC is a must
is where why so many people think that there is no accountability - in other words, why is no one allowed to hold a person to account for their words. Free speech doesn't mean there is no repercussion for saying something wrong on purpose, especially if its slander.
The fact they discussed it at school and possibly handed out material related to it matters. Just because "its on the internet" doesn't excuse them from disrupting school. It had no other intended purpose but to malign. Whats next? Create banners and place them on highway signs with a persons picture implying child sex?
Attacking school officials becomes school business when it disrupts the school. How could this not?
This should be an education to a student that slandering people is never right.
Hell, if this were reversed I would support him suing her and her parents. Taking money from them might be more worthwhile since they are trying to act as the victim now. That last part is what really torques, go cause a bunch of trouble and then portray yourself as the victim when called to accounts.
I really think a lot of this is being fed to us out of context
The Japanese giving the best chance because of their technological superiority over the Chinese.
Why those two cultures? Because of how they work. The US effort would be bogged down by politically expedient (read correct) requirements that would doom it before it got off the ground. Look at the last really major undertaking in this country too see how government control by special interest groups kills any chance for the large scale projects to work (ref: The Big Dig). Hell we can't even agree on a good BDB design because we are too busy appeasing groups not even related to the real task at hand
Europe, too busy trying to hide the fact immigrants are causing a drag on them and certain SI groups are also showing dominance one way or another.
Russia? To busy trying to the USSR again with Emperor for Life Putin. Too broke to do anything but sail rusty ships around and dig itself financially into a hole trying to buy non-rusty stuff.
No, either China or Japan who both can conjure up real nationalistic pride. Hell Japan recently elected a budget cutting tax cutting nationalist. Both compete fiercely with each other while other countries rattle broken sabers all day or just trade insults.
Japan could do it. I hope they do. They always feel the need to be better than the rest of us, just be glad their society was able to adapt this need and energy into peaceful outcomes.
For the most part what iTunes and its like have done is allow us to zero in on the music we like instead of having to take the whole album and suffer through the filler.
I still think a USB distribution system would be ideal for movies. Then anyplace could have a kiosk to distribute movies (even games if extended that far). Give the user a usb-key (branded for your business of course) and they could come to your kiosk or even store (for the luddites who want dvd) and without intervention just get the movie of their choice.
But music, nah, if I want a song it is just that, one song.
has become less important that those who administrate it on Wikipedia.
I threw in the towel last year, it really is more annoying to work on articles than rewarding.
With the current population imbalance, like 3 to 1, its not much fun being order anyway.
and don't fret over the quotes about it not being like wow, or being better. It is just different. The biggest problem seems to be that Chaos got the better of it.
I used to love Wikipedia, but it has been guided into a ditch. They are have a very distinct world view and anything not fitting into that gets removed completely or edited out. There are certain subjects you cannot keep to their own page if on the site at all even with real sources simply because it does not fit their view of what is right.
I use Wikipedia to find only stuff I don't lose value with if its wrong
Like episode names from tv series
When movies came out
songs by artist
people who passed away nearly a hundred years or more ago
formula compositions
math
Current events, political, environmental, or religious, you have got to be kidding me.
First point, everyone knew it was coming THIS year.
Second point, the announcement date is exactly two months from release date.
Third point, if Blizzard wanted to pee on Mythic's party they would do something in game which makes pvp/raiders not want to miss out on.
Fourth point, with 10 million subs do think Blizzard cares what Mythic does? Considering the amount of content/features chopped from WH I am amazed it actually played decently.
Fifth point, WH has a serious balance problem, enough so people are having fits. 3:1 is not healthy for PvP.
already have found ways around the 5th I don't see how it would protect citizens from stuff like this. After all, what good is the fifth if they can declare not-guilty of murder and then get locked up on a second trial using a hate crime attack?
Never believe a creative and abusive government won't get the end result it wants, your rights violated, fine, they will sue the property because it doesn't have rights. That is how they managed to pull off seizure laws which basically give the government the right to take what they want and you have to prove otherwise.
Yeah, when the Constitution starts to mean something again for the average citizen other than questions on "Who is smarter than a 5th grader" let me know, seems to have been run over for forty or so years
people are more likely to assume the good will of others if they are like themselves, being race, religion, sex, or nationality.
Of course extreme situations can change this behavior.
That is the crux of the matter. While they are not happy with current cell phone rates they still pay them. Even when there are viable alternatives I have seen people go with specific carriers because of the phones offered or the "deal" offered when joining.
because you tainted the discussion before we had it.
Opinion is fine, that is what the discussion section is for, the quality of slashdot is diminished with summaries such as the one used
See the problem Google would face here is political.
If they invest in building better broadband in the United States they would have to go where told after awhile, if not upfront. Otherwise they would get vilified if here was offended or wanted to be offended.
It was like when high speed cable was being rolled out in my area, it HAD to go into certain neighborhoods, less than 10% uptake, before coming to mine because otherwise it would not have been "fair".
I am all for them going into countries like they provided they aren't paying some damn warlord to pad his wallet or sell out people for what they post.
you want me to fund all those companies who want to saddle me with DRM?
Really, what everyday businesses need this?
I am not sure how it is in the UK but in America the largest number of people employed are employed by small businesses. This whole idea of "must have bigger pipes" looks like support for content providers who rarely if ever are small businesses. Worse these usually are the same companies using DRM and copyright laws as a hammer across the world.
I look at it this way, if the costs are to be taken up by the public then some guarantee of unimpeded access to content should be required.
You get your combo store identity and Movie device all in one.
If anything this would make the stores even cheaper to run. Instead of having to have people behind the counter they have kiosks which you can choose which movie(s) you want. Heck you could eliminate the store in its entirety and just have kiosks at the mall, your grocery store, even the corner gas station. Everyone can get in on it.
Take your "device", pick what you want, swipe your debit/cc and your off.
All they need to do is get the transfer speed up to something sufficient for DVD quality movies. You could tier this by selling different sized devices which of course could store more movies or even games. Don't try to fit different technology into what the old is, imagine the possibilities granted by it.
Broadband penetration will never be complete enough to satisfy the studios or entrepreneurs
So four opposed; of eighteen; are upset and that makes ISO suddenly irrelevant? Fifty one approved.
Really it comes across as sore losers, nationalism, or at worse just more anti-Microsoft FUD. Look, you can't win them all. Just be glad we have a standard that we can work from. I have read the wiki articles on it, the back pages, and some blogs, and the only thing that comes across is just how rabid some people are. In some cases it went to the point of just being stupid.
If we were to dismiss the relevance of a standardization committee every time they made a choice we didn't like we would not have any.
I am so tired of people always screaming for long prison terms. The priorities people have make me sad. It used to be that murder and rape were considered the worst crimes yet your bound to get less time for these than many of the new crimes that we invent. When you can take a life and get less time than for taking their money the society you live in has a serious problem.
funny how many of the people who will complain about computer crime are all for having the government take stuff from other people.
What they deliver in UI usually is far worse than other companies. One thing I remembered from my LOTRO days was how their UI came off half finished. Parts of the UI would have an appropriate fantasy-rpg look while other parts looked liked a PDA from DOOM3.
I think it is interesting Turbine is looking towards consoles for success. With two of the biggest names ever in gaming titles you would think any competent company could hit a home run. I know, they don't publish their numbers and its rumored that LOTRO has a significant population, but the one measure of a game's success is how many fan sites exist and better yet, how many independent and active message boards exist for the game.
Look, if they or anyone else wants to make a MMORPG then introduce a custom controller. It worked for Guitar Hero. Sorry, but that game would never have worked otherwise. Why hamstring your MMORPG out of the gate trying to work with the base controller? Voice chat would get past the need for a keyboard. You can add support for a keyboard but just get a custom controller. If you think the market is large enough to support a MMORPG then it should be more than sufficient to support the controller.
you solve this by creating the community that will support you. The problem with sites like this is that there are many people who claim to be fans, provided someone or something they don't like is the focus, but they don't donate. They are just riding on the bandwagon because it feels good to be part of something, even anonymously.
the one thing the internet exposes with great frequency is the number of people who want something for nothing. They are all lined up in support until someone asks for money.
was that the majority of farms produced less than 20% of their rated power per year.
Amazing that Pelosi likes them, wait, no its not, she's invested in them, in particular that guy from Texas.
I am all for a super transport system but I want it backed by nuclear to handle base loads and allow us to truly get coal off line. If its good enough to have Germany switch gears what is our problem?
I am so sick of a Congress more concerned about piss ant groups, having to many to satisfy, that we get the shaft.
What part of EMBEDDED don't people understand.
WE THE PEOPLE ARE NOT THE GOVERNMENT.
We stopped being the government when we allowed ourselves to be divided among petty lines with cute little labels like Democrat and Republican.
That money coming out of Exxon which you claim is coming back to the people CAME FROM THE DAMN PEOPLE. What, does Exxon just magically print dollars it gives to the government? Is there some kind of money fairy in your world?
Any dollar, ANY, that Exxon paid in taxes came out of THE PEOPLE'S pocket. There is no other source. The people earn incomes, which are taxed, and buy services, which are taxed, and buy products, which are taxed. Do you understand now?
Dollars are earned by individuals. They are from direct work, investment, sale of capital, etc. They are taxed. The remains are the people's to spend as they see fit. However hidden from the ignorant is that for everything they buy there are more taxes embedded.
I know, there are evil rich people who pay 35% and you pay 28% but its not fair they still have more dollars. What has this country come to if we are so filled with spite and envy that we begrudge anyone doing better than us or set limits on how well any one person is allowed to do?
Don't go off track and vilify a corporation. They are owned by people; either directly or indirectly; and they employ people. They are nothing more than a giant shell that the government loves to exploit by using them to collect money from the people's paycheck (because too many are only concerned with what they take home and not what they actually earned) and they can collect yet again when the remains are spent to buy stuff.
Damn.
If consumers, for that matter income earners, had a true understanding of their tax load they would be up in arms. It is one thing to ask for this, that, and the other thing, from your government when you don't know the cost.
So governments do what they do best, they hide the tax. What is the number way to hide the real tax from the taxpayer? Embed it. This means hide it in the cost of goods and services. Lets use an oil company like Exxon for fun, after all its accused of having WINFALL profits. In 2006, Exxon's EBT (earnings before tax) was $67.4 billion, it paid $27.9 billion in taxes (41.4% tax rate), and its NIAT (net income after tax), or profit, was $39.5 billion. So, where does that 27.9 BILLION dollars come from. The taxpayer. Exxon merely wrote the check for all the dollars it collected from you and me to pay it.
The politicians win on every front here, they can hide the true cost of the tax load on the American worker and vilify any corporation that makes big numbers as being against the poor, downtrodden, hungry, or my favorite "children".
Ignorance and envy are the two greatest weapons the politicians employ and from watching the current elections it really pays off