If I was going to don my Tinfoil hat for this one, I'd pin the culprits higher up the chain: RIAA for instance.
Apple/iTunes is, for better or worse, as close to an "old style" marketplace as you can get. The files easily traceable, proprietary, and all the powers that be get their cut of sales, while keeping all the starving artists starving.
A service like megabox would be counter to all of that. Most importantly, the powers that be would NOT get their free money, and we simply can't have that.
The sort-of did change the name a while ago, by removing the periods. It's no longer M.T.V. as an initialism for "Music Television," but rather just 3 letters, with no greater purpose.
Good. No, great! If a channel can't muster a lineup of shows that garners enough of a following to justify its own existence, let it die.
I think you'll find a much higher quality of programming when people have direct control over what gets their support and what doesn't. I could easily pick 20 channels out of the 1000+ currently offered as part of the basic Cox package and never miss a beat. I'd even make this sweet deal: I'll pay 25-30% of the current price for 2% of the current content.
I fully believe that both can exist. You can still have your sprawling story- and character-driven games, full of intrigue and lore, lasting hundreds of hours, and you can also have online multiplayer arenas.... but they should be kept separate. Games like DotA, League of Legends, Team Fortress 2 etc make no pretence about story, characterization(*), plot, immersion or anything like that. They don't try to be anything other than a way to play tag with your friends over the internet.
The problem comes from lazy studios, which is why I agree strongly with your original point. In the real world, there are just too many lazy people; production companies that want to pad out their games, sell a few more copies (or perhaps sell some online widgets) by cramming multiplayer into a game where it doesn't belong... looking at you ME3. Or trying to sell you a character driven story mode, that ends up lasting all of 3 hours: your generic Call of Modern Bad Company Field 37 is probably the biggest offenders I can think of in that category. Either way, a studio diverts resources from what the fans really want, into a line of programming they're not very good at, and the end result is always to the detriment of the player. We can also dive into the issue of MMO style games being "ruined forever" by the advent of PvP and the balancing issues inherent therein... but that's a can of worms I'll leave closed.
(*) for the record, despite being in the non-story, just-here-to-shoot-our-friends category... hats off to the TF2 guys for actually building enough characterization through their "Meet The Team" videos to make the classes feel fun and unique. *doff*
This is just a great way to increase revenue in airports. Follow me on this
Let the TSA hire "models" (both male and female) in screening roles.
Let passengers opt out, and for an additional charge, they can PICK their groper.
"Hi, here's $20, can the hot brunette please fondle my business? I swear I don't have anything illegal, but (s)he really needs to check thoroughly. Thanks"
RE: Renex... tradition and COST are the main reason for umpires. It's why Baseball and Soccer (football or fóótbaal or whatever) are two of the most popular sports in the world: Low barrier of entry.
What exactly do you need to play soccer? One ball among 20-or-so players... and maybe some rocks or backpacks or whatever to use as goals. Likewise baseball (or stickball for the N.Yarkers) can be played with 1 stick/bat and 1 ball between dozens of kids, and whatever random junk to use as bases (including but not limted to parked cars, that tree over there, this ant hill here, and the scuff-mark I just kicked in the dirt). It's cheap, it's easy, so it's popular. Adding any sort of computerized or digital aspect to the game will ruin that. So the point I'm struggling laboriously to reach is... you'll never see computerized balls/strikes in baseball. To do so would be to alienate a good portion of their fanbase.
Now, to the more salient point at hand... the problem with a knuckleball is unpredictability. The pitcher literally has very little control over where that little thing is going to go. A fastball travels in a predictable manner, likewise with sliders, curves, etc. And a trained batter can identify the pitcher's grip as he releases the ball to hopefully get a general idea of what's coming at him. A knuckleball? Who knows?? The pitcher sure doesn't, so the batter hasn't got a prayer.
The only hard part, from a pitchers perspective, is being able to get that knuckler over the plate with enough consistency that batters don't just take walks or run up your pitch count. If you can do that, well...
Luckily for me, I still have one of those super-high-tech devices that allows me to fast forward, rewind, or whatever else I feel like doing with my recorded programs
It's called a fucking V.C.R.
It's a little pathetic when 1980s tech has better features than "cutting edge" stuff, 30+ years later. (OK, so strictly speaking, VCR is mid-70's tech, but as a child of the 80s, I consider the VCR an integral part of my childhood.)
When I go to iTunes/Amazon/etc and download some old Black Sabbath jams, I don't run the risk of having them mislabeled as "Ozzy." They also come with the metadata tags fully filled out, names are all spelled correctly, album art is accurate, and everything else that a music loving person like myself would enjoy. I can download entire albums at the click of a button and have them cataloged, named correctly and set to play in the order originally intended without having to worry if the file of Track 3 contains the first few second of Track 4, making for a messy exchange when listening.
Are these minor things? Well, yeah. They're absolutely minor little nit-picks that probably wouldn't bother the majority of music listeners, when compared with the allure of "free." But then again, bottled water tasting a bit better is a minor thing too, and it certainly hasn't stopped that from catching on. And for me, the conveniences I've mentioned here are WORTH $0.99 per song. I'd rather spend the dollar than go through and fix all that crap myself (because I will be fixing all that crap if I torrent)
Libertarian nonsense might not outright fix the issue, but if your pot dealer could open a shop next to the local grocery store, it might tip the scales toward the more ethical.
Besides which, that's entertainment programming, not news.
Nail - Head.
Cops was an entertainment show. It was popular because it was fun an entertaining. The problem lies in the fact that news seems to be emulating that style these days. More entertainment, more fun, less facts.
Unless there's some other existing rule preventing video in a certain location or a certain very specific activity (i.e. no cameras in courtrooms, no pervy upskirt-cams) then cops, civvies and anyone else should be free and clear to record the days activities. Be it on a Polaroid, cell phone, high tech news camera, or with watercolors.
Then again, a cop has never told me not to record something. I've captured audio from every traffic stop I've been a part of, and never been stopped.
Seems strangely ironic that you're crying for an offline mode in a thread that spells out exactly why there will not be an offline mode for a LONG LONG time.
Real Money
The little bits and bytes of data that make up your "Infinity+1 Sword" will never reside on your computer, thus making it much MUCH more difficult to duplicate the items in-game. Probably not impossible, but sufficiently difficult to dissuade the vast majority of players. Given the rampant duping in D2, Blizzard had to do something, now that there's real money on the line here.
Now... a decade or so down the road, when everyone has moved onto Diablo 4, then I can see the potential for an "offline mode" patch that moves everything client side, and eliminated the D3 RMAH
Actually... that would be EXACTLY the reason I want the video kept public.
When a nosy neighbor or prospective employer asks about that 2am visit, I can direct them to the video. The boring, tired, 2am video of my wife and I in our PJs, answering the door and looking very sleepy.
Plus, cameras following the cops around on their patrols in much preferred to cameras posted up all around the city.
I think your fantasy world is much simpler than who to trust...
Simply put, the media will play whatever story gives them better ratings. Truth ("official" or otherwise) has been irrelevant in the news cycle for a while now. They could have two videos of the same altercation, each drastically edited to show their respective film'er in the positive light, and the news wouldn't hesitate to play them back to back.
I seem to recall that show focusing on the "fun" stuff (for varying definitions of fun). I never saw a single episode where a cop rolled around his beat for 30 minutes, and cut to credits. I don't even recall seeing a routine stop. Imagine that episode: cop flashes his lights, car pulls over, speeding ticket issued, no drama, motorist apologizes for the violation and goes about their business. That's boring, doesn't get airtime.
Every episode had some form of chase, either on foot on in the cars, or they had cops tackling drunken rednecks or breaking up fights, getting shot at, etc. That's exciting, that's what airs.
Fast-forward to the current situation: protests. We-the-people don't want to see video of cops politely asking 15 times for someone to clear out. We get bored watching police standing around while protesters peacefully demonstrate, which is what's actually happening 95% of the time. We want the videos where someone gets punched, or slapped in cuffs and dragged away from their tent... even if you have to cut out the previous 6 hours of the cop telling people that they're not allowed to take a crap in the grass.
Which is pretty much exactly what I was getting at.
Don't tell student "evolution exists, remember finch #1, #5 and #13 for this Friday's test." Show them where the evolution theory comes from, present the evidence and let them figure it out for themselves.
P.S. Gravity was still just a "theory" less than 100 years ago.
A "little" danger is relative to how you define "rocket."
Strictly speaking, a rocket engine is just something that uses propellant to create force downward in order to achieve lift upwards, in keeping with Newton's 3rd. If you turn that trusty old baking soda volcano upside down, it might just be a rocket. Probably won't achieve lift, because of the weight, wide opening, low propellant velocity and a variety of other reasons... but that's exactly what you can explore with your students. Lets get this thing lifted off!
Start with the obvious one, weight. Any kid can see that this thing is probably too heavy to fly... so shave off some weight and try again... from there, teach them how the muzzle velocity affects things, and on and on. Get the kids thinking about what they're doing, with a clear goal (get this thing lifted off) and let them figure it out. Bonus points for making things like "Rocket Flight" part of the advanced lessons, make it a reward. If you do well on your test about Newton's Laws, we'll get to put that 3rd law into action...
Slashdot Mirror
If I was going to don my Tinfoil hat for this one, I'd pin the culprits higher up the chain: RIAA for instance.
Apple/iTunes is, for better or worse, as close to an "old style" marketplace as you can get. The files easily traceable, proprietary, and all the powers that be get their cut of sales, while keeping all the starving artists starving.
A service like megabox would be counter to all of that. Most importantly, the powers that be would NOT get their free money, and we simply can't have that.
Unsure if troll, or honest effort to top the dumbest thing heard all day.
The sort-of did change the name a while ago, by removing the periods. It's no longer M.T.V. as an initialism for "Music Television," but rather just 3 letters, with no greater purpose.
Good. No, great! If a channel can't muster a lineup of shows that garners enough of a following to justify its own existence, let it die.
I think you'll find a much higher quality of programming when people have direct control over what gets their support and what doesn't. I could easily pick 20 channels out of the 1000+ currently offered as part of the basic Cox package and never miss a beat. I'd even make this sweet deal: I'll pay 25-30% of the current price for 2% of the current content.
Disagree in theory, sadly agree in practice.
I fully believe that both can exist. You can still have your sprawling story- and character-driven games, full of intrigue and lore, lasting hundreds of hours, and you can also have online multiplayer arenas.... but they should be kept separate. Games like DotA, League of Legends, Team Fortress 2 etc make no pretence about story, characterization(*), plot, immersion or anything like that. They don't try to be anything other than a way to play tag with your friends over the internet.
The problem comes from lazy studios, which is why I agree strongly with your original point. In the real world, there are just too many lazy people; production companies that want to pad out their games, sell a few more copies (or perhaps sell some online widgets) by cramming multiplayer into a game where it doesn't belong ... looking at you ME3. Or trying to sell you a character driven story mode, that ends up lasting all of 3 hours: your generic Call of Modern Bad Company Field 37 is probably the biggest offenders I can think of in that category. Either way, a studio diverts resources from what the fans really want, into a line of programming they're not very good at, and the end result is always to the detriment of the player. We can also dive into the issue of MMO style games being "ruined forever" by the advent of PvP and the balancing issues inherent therein ... but that's a can of worms I'll leave closed.
(*) for the record, despite being in the non-story, just-here-to-shoot-our-friends category... hats off to the TF2 guys for actually building enough characterization through their "Meet The Team" videos to make the classes feel fun and unique. *doff*
The next challenge is decrypting Finnegans Wake.
Does that make this article a techn piece?
the -ology suffix clearly implies that technology is the "study of tech," not the devices themselves.
This is just a great way to increase revenue in airports. Follow me on this
Let the TSA hire "models" (both male and female) in screening roles.
Let passengers opt out, and for an additional charge, they can PICK their groper.
"Hi, here's $20, can the hot brunette please fondle my business? I swear I don't have anything illegal, but (s)he really needs to check thoroughly. Thanks"
RE: Renex ... tradition and COST are the main reason for umpires. It's why Baseball and Soccer (football or fóótbaal or whatever) are two of the most popular sports in the world: Low barrier of entry.
What exactly do you need to play soccer? One ball among 20-or-so players ... and maybe some rocks or backpacks or whatever to use as goals. Likewise baseball (or stickball for the N.Yarkers) can be played with 1 stick/bat and 1 ball between dozens of kids, and whatever random junk to use as bases (including but not limted to parked cars, that tree over there, this ant hill here, and the scuff-mark I just kicked in the dirt). It's cheap, it's easy, so it's popular. Adding any sort of computerized or digital aspect to the game will ruin that. So the point I'm struggling laboriously to reach is ... you'll never see computerized balls/strikes in baseball. To do so would be to alienate a good portion of their fanbase.
Now, to the more salient point at hand... the problem with a knuckleball is unpredictability. The pitcher literally has very little control over where that little thing is going to go. A fastball travels in a predictable manner, likewise with sliders, curves, etc. And a trained batter can identify the pitcher's grip as he releases the ball to hopefully get a general idea of what's coming at him. A knuckleball? Who knows?? The pitcher sure doesn't, so the batter hasn't got a prayer.
The only hard part, from a pitchers perspective, is being able to get that knuckler over the plate with enough consistency that batters don't just take walks or run up your pitch count. If you can do that, well ...
Luckily for me, I still have one of those super-high-tech devices that allows me to fast forward, rewind, or whatever else I feel like doing with my recorded programs
It's called a fucking V.C.R.
It's a little pathetic when 1980s tech has better features than "cutting edge" stuff, 30+ years later. (OK, so strictly speaking, VCR is mid-70's tech, but as a child of the 80s, I consider the VCR an integral part of my childhood.)
Give a person a gun, and the can rob a bank
Give a person a bank, and the can rob a country.
Oh but they CAN bottle music better.
When I go to iTunes/Amazon/etc and download some old Black Sabbath jams, I don't run the risk of having them mislabeled as "Ozzy." They also come with the metadata tags fully filled out, names are all spelled correctly, album art is accurate, and everything else that a music loving person like myself would enjoy. I can download entire albums at the click of a button and have them cataloged, named correctly and set to play in the order originally intended without having to worry if the file of Track 3 contains the first few second of Track 4, making for a messy exchange when listening.
Are these minor things? Well, yeah. They're absolutely minor little nit-picks that probably wouldn't bother the majority of music listeners, when compared with the allure of "free." But then again, bottled water tasting a bit better is a minor thing too, and it certainly hasn't stopped that from catching on. And for me, the conveniences I've mentioned here are WORTH $0.99 per song. I'd rather spend the dollar than go through and fix all that crap myself (because I will be fixing all that crap if I torrent)
Crap.
Or is it?
But then how will I play Diablo??
Libertarian nonsense might not outright fix the issue, but if your pot dealer could open a shop next to the local grocery store, it might tip the scales toward the more ethical.
Besides which, that's entertainment programming, not news.
Nail - Head.
Cops was an entertainment show. It was popular because it was fun an entertaining. The problem lies in the fact that news seems to be emulating that style these days. More entertainment, more fun, less facts.
That part I'm not OK with, personally.
Unless there's some other existing rule preventing video in a certain location or a certain very specific activity (i.e. no cameras in courtrooms, no pervy upskirt-cams) then cops, civvies and anyone else should be free and clear to record the days activities. Be it on a Polaroid, cell phone, high tech news camera, or with watercolors.
Then again, a cop has never told me not to record something. I've captured audio from every traffic stop I've been a part of, and never been stopped.
Seems strangely ironic that you're crying for an offline mode in a thread that spells out exactly why there will not be an offline mode for a LONG LONG time.
Real Money
The little bits and bytes of data that make up your "Infinity+1 Sword" will never reside on your computer, thus making it much MUCH more difficult to duplicate the items in-game. Probably not impossible, but sufficiently difficult to dissuade the vast majority of players. Given the rampant duping in D2, Blizzard had to do something, now that there's real money on the line here.
Now... a decade or so down the road, when everyone has moved onto Diablo 4, then I can see the potential for an "offline mode" patch that moves everything client side, and eliminated the D3 RMAH
Actually... that would be EXACTLY the reason I want the video kept public.
When a nosy neighbor or prospective employer asks about that 2am visit, I can direct them to the video. The boring, tired, 2am video of my wife and I in our PJs, answering the door and looking very sleepy.
Plus, cameras following the cops around on their patrols in much preferred to cameras posted up all around the city.
They're American citizens, same as anyone else filming these protests. They don't lose the right to own/use a camera when they put on a badge.
I think your fantasy world is much simpler than who to trust...
Simply put, the media will play whatever story gives them better ratings. Truth ("official" or otherwise) has been irrelevant in the news cycle for a while now. They could have two videos of the same altercation, each drastically edited to show their respective film'er in the positive light, and the news wouldn't hesitate to play them back to back.
I seem to recall that show focusing on the "fun" stuff (for varying definitions of fun). I never saw a single episode where a cop rolled around his beat for 30 minutes, and cut to credits. I don't even recall seeing a routine stop. Imagine that episode: cop flashes his lights, car pulls over, speeding ticket issued, no drama, motorist apologizes for the violation and goes about their business. That's boring, doesn't get airtime.
Every episode had some form of chase, either on foot on in the cars, or they had cops tackling drunken rednecks or breaking up fights, getting shot at, etc. That's exciting, that's what airs.
Fast-forward to the current situation: protests. We-the-people don't want to see video of cops politely asking 15 times for someone to clear out. We get bored watching police standing around while protesters peacefully demonstrate, which is what's actually happening 95% of the time. We want the videos where someone gets punched, or slapped in cuffs and dragged away from their tent... even if you have to cut out the previous 6 hours of the cop telling people that they're not allowed to take a crap in the grass.
pfft. I meet people without brains every day... though I suppose "meeting" isn't the best terminology, as they're usually posting AC.
P.S. a more proper use of that old adage would be ", until I met a man with no head"
Which is pretty much exactly what I was getting at.
Don't tell student "evolution exists, remember finch #1, #5 and #13 for this Friday's test." Show them where the evolution theory comes from, present the evidence and let them figure it out for themselves.
P.S. Gravity was still just a "theory" less than 100 years ago.
A "little" danger is relative to how you define "rocket."
Strictly speaking, a rocket engine is just something that uses propellant to create force downward in order to achieve lift upwards, in keeping with Newton's 3rd. If you turn that trusty old baking soda volcano upside down, it might just be a rocket. Probably won't achieve lift, because of the weight, wide opening, low propellant velocity and a variety of other reasons ... but that's exactly what you can explore with your students. Lets get this thing lifted off!
Start with the obvious one, weight. Any kid can see that this thing is probably too heavy to fly ... so shave off some weight and try again... from there, teach them how the muzzle velocity affects things, and on and on. Get the kids thinking about what they're doing, with a clear goal (get this thing lifted off) and let them figure it out. Bonus points for making things like "Rocket Flight" part of the advanced lessons, make it a reward. If you do well on your test about Newton's Laws, we'll get to put that 3rd law into action...