No, I don't remember that - because I have never been to those sites. I do not now, nor have I ever participated in software piracy or any software piracy affiliated organization.
I want to be absolutely clear on this because if anyone were to read this I would want them to know that I am not a software pirate. I also support the war on terror, the president's agenda, and the Republican Party.
Wow. I really thought the whole SWG thing was quite frankly a pathetic capitlization upon the genre until I read this.
The sentiment you're expressing more or less exactly mirrors the kind of disgust I'd expect the average joe to feel towards the elitist, aristocratic, and entrenched Jedis depicted in Episodes I, II, and III.
Interesting how the social system of the game mirrors the social system of the fictional universe in that respect.
Doubtful. Bush isn't going to take on Iran because they
1 - Actually -=HAVE=- weapons of mass destruction. When you invade a country that has WMDs there is the real risk they'll USE them. One might argue that the fact that we were willing to invade Iraq in the first place demonstrates that we knew there were no weapons there.
2 - Haven't been bombed into the stone age by the US military in a previous war. The Iraqi war was a resounding suceess (at first) because we'd allready fought it in 1991. Iran hasn't been slapped around once before -- so it's not as if we can just roll in there. We might actually have to conquer the place before we invade.
Nah - Iran would be too much trouble for this administration.
"Makes it easy for me to ignore your silliness." -- This is a sentence fragment.
"There is zero correlation..." -- The appropriate form is "no correlation." Your use of the word "zero" when you mean "no" or "none" is inadvisable at best an incorrect at worst.
"That you perceive..." "That you make..." -- This structure is awkward. You should revise it. "I doubt your scientific acumen because you make this generalization based on...."
I would say there are a minority of Catholics that follow all church dogma, such as the anti-birth control stance, but nowhere in Catholic dogma or other writings does the church teach creationism. I think I can confidently say that any conforming Catholic school, run by Marianists or Jesuits post Vatican II, have taught the theory of evolution as fact.
That's what I said... ok, you said it better, but that was my point. Most American Catholics differ from the Church's established viewpoint on a few things - most significantly the morality of birth control. I agree with you, most Catholics don't ascribe to creationism and don't fit the "extremist" mold.
What I was trying to get at is that Catholics, like other religions in this country, have nuts and that those nuts tend to use their religion to support their belifes rather than their belifes to support their religion.
It's a big mess.
I also checked up on the capitalization bit, and was rather interested to find out that you're right. I'd always been taught that lower case "c" catholic meant christian... guess not. From Wikipedia: Capitalization is no sure guide to denominational affiliation. It may indicate formal affiliation with the Roman Catholic Church or it may not. Capitalization may merely indicate a wish to stress the holy and solemn nature of the spiritual body of believers and a desire for all Christians to be one.
It would be anachronistic to attribute significance to capitalization or lack of capitalization in printings of texts dating from before the last few centuries or in translations of those texts, since the originals were written in unmixed majuscule or minuscule letters. Translations even of modern texts into English often follow the usage of the original language. For instance, since French normally capitalizes only the first word of the title of an entity, the adjective "catholique", following the noun "Église", has a lower-case initial. Texts in Latin generally follow this usage, not the English practice.
Not to be a grammar Nazi, but this is worth pointing out.
catholic == Christian Catholic == The Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic (big C) population of the United States breaks down to roughly 80% mainstream and 20% extremists. The 20% are the ones that hold with Vatican doctrine on birth control, spout the creationist doctrine, and generally give other Catholics a bad name.
Random bit of trivia. John Kerry (Catholic - MA) was informed that he would no longer be allowed to take communion at certain Catholic churches because of his refusal to come down legislatively against Roe v. Wade. Strangely, no one seems to deny pro-death penalty Republicans the sacrament of communion.
The antidote is relevant because Americans are increasingly using Religion to justify their political and ideological beliefs instead of building those believes around the fundamental morality dictated by their religion. Politics has, for many, even the highly religious, become a second religion in and of itself.
I think you're using the term "Commoditization" in a different way than I would.
While I ponder what you mean by the word, let me interject my views here. Yes, Apple has turned down a path of trying to sell innovation... but only sort of. Apple is more in the buisness of selling "little and cute."
I don't mean that in a derogitory fassion. Little and Cute seems to be making them buckets of money. I think that Apple's revenue stream comes from a fundamentally different viewpoint on the same basic idea. Apple sells brand name consumer electronics. They have a look and feel to them that says "I'm an Apple." Like many consumer electronics, they do exactly what they're billed as doing and little else. In the case of the iPod line is this restrictive, but appropriate.
In the case of the G4 line, this is less restrictive (though still somewhat limiting for those who don't fall into the Unix poweruser category). Fundamentally though, I think that Apple's success stems more from their successfull attempts to brand their systems as more of a appliance than a tool. There is a fine line that they are walking with the desktop/laptop products they make, but even in that case, there is definately a feel to them as being less generalized than a pc.
Apple has definately hit on something here, but they have to keep running. The question for the next eight years will be this. Can Apple summon the willpower to keep running?
Put very simply, if Sony wants to charge $10 then they're going to have to bend over backwards on this.
A new release DVD cost, lets assume, $20.
$20 New DVD $02 But I don't get packaging. Minus $2. $01 I don't get fixed media. I have to store this myself. Minus $1 $05 DRMed to hell! I can't make backups! Minus $5. $05 I have to download it and pay for the bandwidth. Minus $5. ---- $8
Well there's the $8. Now if they don't screw up ANYTHING else that's fine and I'd probably buy it... but only for a new DVD. No way would I shell out $8 for a DRM copy of 2001 or something. God help them if they install rootkits.
On a related note - I assume everyone saw the rather clever exploit for WoW using the Sony rootkit? If not, security focus has it.
My point was that in traditional media the campaign has to SAY that the communication is from the campaign. No such laws exist for internet based communication.
I think that you've touched on something really important here without even realizing it.
When you're watching television, and a political advertisement comes on, you did not opt into receiving that communication. You did not seek it out, you did not take the initiative to view it. The same is true of direct mail-- it came into your mailbox, and so you're going to at least give it a cursory look.
What makes those different than the so called "astroturfing" that is mentioned in the grandparent? Quite simply, it is that these are overt and obvious attempts by a campaign to sway your opinion. Astroturfing and blogs (at present) don't have the same kind of restrictions.
I'm not saying that J. Random Citizen's blog should say "Paid for by J. Random Citizen" at the bottom of each post, but if J. Random Citizen is, in fact, J. Random Campaign Employee, then it definately should make very clear that these views are being paid for by a campaign.
When Senator Kerry or President Bush's ads ran last year, we saw the "I'm John Kerry/George Bush and I approved this message" at the end.
Slap that kind of a regulation into place and then rewrite the law to indicate that only individuals not compensated by, or directly volunteering for a regulated political party/action committee/organization are exempt.
Otherwise, you're turning a decent law into a gaping loophole.
I saw that same documentary in a (reall bad) college biology class. The long and the short of it was that his ancestors were in a village that got infected with plague and just closed the city gates for two years. The people that survived had this mutation (either single or double) and their decendents have a much better chance against AIDS since it hijacks the immune system the same way plague does.
I also recall that researchers took samples of his blood and tried to use it to culture HIV. They put in something like 100,000 times the concentration of the virus that should be necessary to get a culture going -- and his immune system just killed it.
I also recall there being some mention of him having to watch many of his partners/friends die as AIDS was sweeping the gay community in NYC at the time. He had real guilt and survival issues following that. Facinating documentary. I recomend it to anyone that can turn up a copy. Anyone know what it was called?
Excelent critique. The implication of aimbot being that their engine and network system is suspect enough to allow explotation of the software could well cut into the game's reputation as a fair standard.
Too bad you've been moderated a troll. I'd mod you up but I've allready commented on this story.
Reading over your story though, it doesn't sound like it's the same thing. There are supraficial similarities, but ultimately it's just that. Supraficial.
I think the difference between moderation and Blizard's rules enforcement system is the concentration of power rather than the diffusion of power. When someone mods down one of my post because they disagree with my politics, I'm annoyed - but not angry. If what I said is well thoughtout and relevant, the bad moderation will be canceled out. Many people can moderate - and so the odd jerk is canceled out by the weight of numbers.
Blizard has very few GMs -- which isn't really so much of a problem. But that the GMs are really the last level of appeal in the game and (more often than not) the last level of appeal at all makes the lack of oversight all the more troubling.
You go to great pains in your recounting of events to point out that this whole thing is probably silly - but I disagree with you there. Sure, WOW isn't your social security card, but it is a service you're paying for. Clearly, the name you chose is not confusing, nor does it in any way supplant any of the promotions that the game hands out. In any sane customer relations system, you would be granted an exception to the rule. That's what customer care is supposed to be about -- saving the individual from the system.
Not as far as I know. Now keep in mind that I started with version 1.0 and patched half way through the game, so I've still not seen the other side of level 4.
I've been playing with Black and White for a while now and, while the game is impressive, there are some worthwhile complaints.
First, all replayability (if that's a word) is derived from going through the same storyline each time. You can change your behavior or your creature's, but ultimately there is no multiplayer capability and no "skirmish" capability as most of us are used to it in RTS games.
Second, the game, much like the first, as a tendency to want to overeducate the user. Skipping the tutorial section is optional, but you're still bombareded with tutorial style quests throughout the first two lands. Moreover, many of these quests are tied to Tribute, a strategic asset in the game. Skipping the quests, obnoxious as they are, hurts you in your godly persuits.
Third, your citizens desires aren't terribly clear. There are certain desires, such as a want for grain, ore, houses, etc which are obvious. Other times, your citizens want more free time, or more sleep. No where in the games documentation do we find out how to give citizens more sleep... and while things for people to do DURING their free time abound, there's little in the way of methods to create it.
At the same time, B&W has other excelent characteristics. The creature is less personable than in the previous version, but is also more intelligent. He helps now more than he hinders. I for one spent most of my time in B&W1 trying to get my creature not to destroy everything.
Overall the world as presented is spectacular. While it's easy to be distracted by the constraints placed on what is supposed to be a God game, the fact of the matter is that a great deal of freedom exists in the B&W engine. If you can get past the tutorials and deal with the fact that you can't just toss a fireball into an enemy city on a whim, the game is a lot of fun.
I'd highly recomend it. On a side note, I'd also highly recomend making sure your PC exceeds the system reqs quite substantially. By all accounts, the estimations of Lion's Head as to what runs their software are off kilter.
And lets amend your historical corrections. Anyone with any degree of intellectual honesty credits the Clinton Administration with balancing the budget. Since I'm not going to make that assertion without facts to back it up...
Business Week, 5/19/97: "Clinton's 1993 budget cuts, which reduced projected red ink by more than $400 billion over five years, sparked a major drop in interest rates that helped boost investment in all the equipment and systems that brought forth the New Age economy of technological innovation and rising productivity."
Goldman Sachs, March 1998: "on the policy side, trade, fiscal, and monetary policies have been excellent, working in ways that have facilitated growth without inflation. The Clinton Administration has worked to liberalize trade and has used any revenue windfalls to reduce the federal budget deficit."
U.S. News & World Report, 6/17/96: "President Clinton's budget deficit program begun in 1993... [led] to lower interest rates, which begat greater investment growth (by double digits since 1993, the highest rate since the Kennedy administration), which begat three-plus years of solid economic growth averaging 2.6 percent annually, 50 percent higher than during the Bush presidency."
Paul Volcker, former Federal Reserve Chairman, Audacity, Fall 1994: "The deficit has come down, and I give the Clinton Administration and President Clinton himself a lot of credit for that... and I think we're seeing some benefits."
While we're on the topic, the government shutdown was as much the fault of the Republican Majority in Congress and Clinton's. Alexis de Tocqueville once said that it is the nature of American Democracy to "view as virtuous an incomplete conquest." The willingness of BOTH the Republican Congress and the Democratic Whitehouse to ignore this sage wisdom was the cause of the shutdown. It takes two to tango.
While you're quite right that some of the actions taken by the Clinton administration militarily didn't turn out for the best, those actions were not unilateral invasions of a sovereign country with neither the backing nor support of the UN or NATO. Moreover, our involvement did not turn into the most costly and deadly American overseas deployment since Vietnam. As to Rwanda -- it was a tragic failure, and one for which I'll never forgive the Clinton Administration. It's good to see that Bush learned from that failure and is responding in the Sudan.... oh... wait....
Your depiction of the Plame case goes from evasive to outright lies, so we'll clear that up.
1 - You're right, no crime has technically been committed if no one was aware that Plame was undercover at the time since you can't expose someone who you don't know to be undercover. 2 - Plame WAS undercover at the time, according to ABC News. 3 - Even presidents are innocent until proven guilty in this country. Clinton was never convicted of perjury. That said, what he did smacks of dishonesty and was unquestionably wrong. Speaking of perjury -- it's interesting that the testimonies of Rove, Cheney, and Bush, and the various reporters being questioned are not only divergent, but don't even line up from session to session. You might see some GOP perjury indictments before this is all over.
Final Correction -- Your mischaracterization of Katrina is fairly misleading as well. A hurricane breaching New Orleans levees was on the FEMA list of nightmare scenarios. Bush's budget priorities transferred funds away from the Corps of Engineers levee projects, contributing to the collapse.
Also, don't forget that you can heap blame upon the state of Louisiana as much as you want - but the failure to Federalize the National Guard rests with one man alone. Bush had the authority to act and failed to. Did the state government screw up? Yes. But Bush -=LET=- them screw up. That matters.
I think the mouse and keyboard define a paradigm of control that has been very successfull - but by no means perfect. The mouse is a better aiming mechanism than, for example, a joystick, but still not better than an actual pointing mechanism like a gun.
There has to exist some compromise between a tool built for the job and a tool built for all jobs - at last as long as we're defining our tools in a physical world. While a gun like object would probably be a better pointing mechanism for Quake 4, it's likely not the best pointing mechanism for Black and White 2.
As the price of technologies like gyroscopic pointing devices and virtual keyboards come into the range of the average user, we may see a change in game controllers. In a battle where the controller preferance is no longer the defining characteristic seperating PC gaming from a living room set top box, the increased expense and varied specifications of the PC will likely prove a fatal blow to the platform.
Ignoring my keyboard and mouse - I'd much rather be doing my gaming on a 40+ inch HD Tv with a nice Dolby 5.1-7.1 surround system than at my PC. With comparable prices between those two systems, Joe Sixpack isn't going to buy PC games if the interface suddenly doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter if a swimmer has the best fins in the world if the guys in speedos mate more frequently and have enough progeny to ensure that some survive the attacks of their quicker swimming brethren.
That IS fitness. If that's the case then the speedos are fitter (is that a word?) than the flippers. Fitness in the evolutionary sense of the term doesn't mean the strongest, the most powerfull, or the most impressive -- it means the most capable to pass on genetic material.
Sometimes that means avoiding starving to death. Sometimes that means getting a lot of action. The only evolutionary measure of the "fittest" is (s)he who has the most kids. Promiscuity, then, is the quintessential evolutionary trait.
Now that I stop to think about it, maybe THAT'S the problem the I.Ders have with evolution.
Your annalogy has flaws, which I'll address before delving into the issue directly.
First - the concept of loyalty to the state vs loyalty to the individual is a relevant topic of discussion in social studies. The concept of a supernatural force is not a relevant topic of discussion in a science class.
Second - the Federal Government has no LEGAL authority over the state education system. Save for the incorporation of the bill of rights upon the states by the 14th Ammendment to the Constitution, the Feds have not a great deal of buisness telling the states what to do with their educational systems.
Were that to occur I would object to the Federal Governments intrusion upon my state and upon (dare I say it) my state's rights. I would also point out the fact that normative statements like "loyalty to your country was more important than personal freedom" don't belong in a social science curriculum any more than religion belongs in a science class.
I'd object morally to the encroachment of facism on my life - certainly. But my moral objections aren't appropriate in a public school. Indeed, it would be hippocracy of the first order to presume that my moralities in reguard to Facism deserve state enforcement.
I still don't think that anyone is accusing these reactionaries of being morons. Zelots, yes. Morons no.
But the you're a moron bit is by FAR the minority. What is being discussed is the unwillingness of a growing portion of American society to accecpt that they will be challenged intellectualy in the world.
Not understanding something doesn't make it irrelevant. This is easiest from the point of view of a technical professional.
How many people do you know who are intimidated by computers and therefore decide that there is nothing on the internet or having to do with computers worth learning?
This is the attitude that many in the scientific community are fighting against. "I don't understand how evolution could work and I can't wrap my brain around number bigger than a million, so it must be God" is a fine attitude if you don't work in Biology -- but to pass that along to your children (who may someday want to work in that field) is a disservice.
Again, tapping into IT -- most people don't understand how a computer actualy works. If you don't work in the IT industry and just don't want to deal with computers - well - that's your decision. But if you then decide that your children can't learn about programing and basic electrical engineering because it violates your belifes about how computers work -- is that fair to your kids?
As a society we have deemed the scientific method, rather than the institution of the [cC]hurch the final arbiter of what is true and not true. You have the right to reject that if you so choose. Your school system does not have that right. If you don't want your kids to belive in Evolution then you have the right to send them to Sunday school and tell them that the things that their Biology teach is telling them are wrong.
While doing those things though, it is neither correct nor Christian to demean those people who are honestly trying to learn about the world you live in. You may think that your God does not approve of their work - but your God has also told you not to judge them.
What makes you so sure that your view of the world is perfect? How can you remove the speck from your brother's eye while there is a great plank in your own?
Religion and science have never been incompatable -- they're a lot like oil and water. They work well together. They just don't mix.
Slashdot Mirror
No, I don't remember that - because I have never been to those sites. I do not now, nor have I ever participated in software piracy or any software piracy affiliated organization.
I want to be absolutely clear on this because if anyone were to read this I would want them to know that I am not a software pirate. I also support the war on terror, the president's agenda, and the Republican Party.
Please don't send me to Gitmo.
Wow. I really thought the whole SWG thing was quite frankly a pathetic capitlization upon the genre until I read this.
The sentiment you're expressing more or less exactly mirrors the kind of disgust I'd expect the average joe to feel towards the elitist, aristocratic, and entrenched Jedis depicted in Episodes I, II, and III.
Interesting how the social system of the game mirrors the social system of the fictional universe in that respect.
Doubtful. Bush isn't going to take on Iran because they
1 - Actually -=HAVE=- weapons of mass destruction. When you invade a country that has WMDs there is the real risk they'll USE them. One might argue that the fact that we were willing to invade Iraq in the first place demonstrates that we knew there were no weapons there.
2 - Haven't been bombed into the stone age by the US military in a previous war. The Iraqi war was a resounding suceess (at first) because we'd allready fought it in 1991. Iran hasn't been slapped around once before -- so it's not as if we can just roll in there. We might actually have to conquer the place before we invade.
Nah - Iran would be too much trouble for this administration.
Grammar Trolling the Grammar Troll:
"Makes it easy for me to ignore your silliness." -- This is a sentence fragment.
"There is zero correlation..." -- The appropriate form is "no correlation." Your use of the word "zero" when you mean "no" or "none" is inadvisable at best an incorrect at worst.
"That you perceive..." "That you make..." -- This structure is awkward. You should revise it. "I doubt your scientific acumen because you make this generalization based on...."
Cheers!
I would say there are a minority of Catholics that follow all church dogma, such as the anti-birth control stance, but nowhere in Catholic dogma or other writings does the church teach creationism. I think I can confidently say that any conforming Catholic school, run by Marianists or Jesuits post Vatican II, have taught the theory of evolution as fact.
That's what I said... ok, you said it better, but that was my point. Most American Catholics differ from the Church's established viewpoint on a few things - most significantly the morality of birth control. I agree with you, most Catholics don't ascribe to creationism and don't fit the "extremist" mold.
What I was trying to get at is that Catholics, like other religions in this country, have nuts and that those nuts tend to use their religion to support their belifes rather than their belifes to support their religion.
It's a big mess.
I also checked up on the capitalization bit, and was rather interested to find out that you're right. I'd always been taught that lower case "c" catholic meant christian... guess not. From Wikipedia: Capitalization is no sure guide to denominational affiliation. It may indicate formal affiliation with the Roman Catholic Church or it may not. Capitalization may merely indicate a wish to stress the holy and solemn nature of the spiritual body of believers and a desire for all Christians to be one.
It would be anachronistic to attribute significance to capitalization or lack of capitalization in printings of texts dating from before the last few centuries or in translations of those texts, since the originals were written in unmixed majuscule or minuscule letters. Translations even of modern texts into English often follow the usage of the original language. For instance, since French normally capitalizes only the first word of the title of an entity, the adjective "catholique", following the noun "Église", has a lower-case initial. Texts in Latin generally follow this usage, not the English practice.
Not to be a grammar Nazi, but this is worth pointing out.
catholic == Christian
Catholic == The Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic (big C) population of the United States breaks down to roughly 80% mainstream and 20% extremists. The 20% are the ones that hold with Vatican doctrine on birth control, spout the creationist doctrine, and generally give other Catholics a bad name.
Random bit of trivia. John Kerry (Catholic - MA) was informed that he would no longer be allowed to take communion at certain Catholic churches because of his refusal to come down legislatively against Roe v. Wade. Strangely, no one seems to deny pro-death penalty Republicans the sacrament of communion.
The antidote is relevant because Americans are increasingly using Religion to justify their political and ideological beliefs instead of building those believes around the fundamental morality dictated by their religion. Politics has, for many, even the highly religious, become a second religion in and of itself.
I think you're using the term "Commoditization" in a different way than I would.
While I ponder what you mean by the word, let me interject my views here. Yes, Apple has turned down a path of trying to sell innovation... but only sort of. Apple is more in the buisness of selling "little and cute."
I don't mean that in a derogitory fassion. Little and Cute seems to be making them buckets of money. I think that Apple's revenue stream comes from a fundamentally different viewpoint on the same basic idea. Apple sells brand name consumer electronics. They have a look and feel to them that says "I'm an Apple." Like many consumer electronics, they do exactly what they're billed as doing and little else. In the case of the iPod line is this restrictive, but appropriate.
In the case of the G4 line, this is less restrictive (though still somewhat limiting for those who don't fall into the Unix poweruser category). Fundamentally though, I think that Apple's success stems more from their successfull attempts to brand their systems as more of a appliance than a tool. There is a fine line that they are walking with the desktop/laptop products they make, but even in that case, there is definately a feel to them as being less generalized than a pc.
Apple has definately hit on something here, but they have to keep running. The question for the next eight years will be this. Can Apple summon the willpower to keep running?
Wow. I suck.
My hat is off to you sir. Well done.
Put very simply, if Sony wants to charge $10 then they're going to have to bend over backwards on this.
A new release DVD cost, lets assume, $20.
$20 New DVD
$02 But I don't get packaging. Minus $2.
$01 I don't get fixed media. I have to store this myself. Minus $1
$05 DRMed to hell! I can't make backups! Minus $5.
$05 I have to download it and pay for the bandwidth. Minus $5.
----
$8
Well there's the $8. Now if they don't screw up ANYTHING else that's fine and I'd probably buy it... but only for a new DVD. No way would I shell out $8 for a DRM copy of 2001 or something. God help them if they install rootkits.
On a related note - I assume everyone saw the rather clever exploit for WoW using the Sony rootkit? If not, security focus has it.
My point was that in traditional media the campaign has to SAY that the communication is from the campaign. No such laws exist for internet based communication.
I think that you've touched on something really important here without even realizing it.
When you're watching television, and a political advertisement comes on, you did not opt into receiving that communication. You did not seek it out, you did not take the initiative to view it. The same is true of direct mail-- it came into your mailbox, and so you're going to at least give it a cursory look.
What makes those different than the so called "astroturfing" that is mentioned in the grandparent? Quite simply, it is that these are overt and obvious attempts by a campaign to sway your opinion. Astroturfing and blogs (at present) don't have the same kind of restrictions.
I'm not saying that J. Random Citizen's blog should say "Paid for by J. Random Citizen" at the bottom of each post, but if J. Random Citizen is, in fact, J. Random Campaign Employee, then it definately should make very clear that these views are being paid for by a campaign.
When Senator Kerry or President Bush's ads ran last year, we saw the "I'm John Kerry/George Bush and I approved this message" at the end.
Slap that kind of a regulation into place and then rewrite the law to indicate that only individuals not compensated by, or directly volunteering for a regulated political party/action committee/organization are exempt.
Otherwise, you're turning a decent law into a gaping loophole.
I saw that same documentary in a (reall bad) college biology class. The long and the short of it was that his ancestors were in a village that got infected with plague and just closed the city gates for two years. The people that survived had this mutation (either single or double) and their decendents have a much better chance against AIDS since it hijacks the immune system the same way plague does.
I also recall that researchers took samples of his blood and tried to use it to culture HIV. They put in something like 100,000 times the concentration of the virus that should be necessary to get a culture going -- and his immune system just killed it.
I also recall there being some mention of him having to watch many of his partners/friends die as AIDS was sweeping the gay community in NYC at the time. He had real guilt and survival issues following that. Facinating documentary. I recomend it to anyone that can turn up a copy. Anyone know what it was called?
Excelent critique. The implication of aimbot being that their engine and network system is suspect enough to allow explotation of the software could well cut into the game's reputation as a fair standard.
Too bad you've been moderated a troll. I'd mod you up but I've allready commented on this story.
Reading over your story though, it doesn't sound like it's the same thing. There are supraficial similarities, but ultimately it's just that. Supraficial.
I think the difference between moderation and Blizard's rules enforcement system is the concentration of power rather than the diffusion of power. When someone mods down one of my post because they disagree with my politics, I'm annoyed - but not angry. If what I said is well thoughtout and relevant, the bad moderation will be canceled out. Many people can moderate - and so the odd jerk is canceled out by the weight of numbers.
Blizard has very few GMs -- which isn't really so much of a problem. But that the GMs are really the last level of appeal in the game and (more often than not) the last level of appeal at all makes the lack of oversight all the more troubling.
You go to great pains in your recounting of events to point out that this whole thing is probably silly - but I disagree with you there. Sure, WOW isn't your social security card, but it is a service you're paying for. Clearly, the name you chose is not confusing, nor does it in any way supplant any of the promotions that the game hands out. In any sane customer relations system, you would be granted an exception to the rule. That's what customer care is supposed to be about -- saving the individual from the system.
"I don't care a lick what the bulk of the "rest of the world" thinks with regard to US policy"
Mr. President?
Not as far as I know. Now keep in mind that I started with version 1.0 and patched half way through the game, so I've still not seen the other side of level 4.
I've been playing with Black and White for a while now and, while the game is impressive, there are some worthwhile complaints.
First, all replayability (if that's a word) is derived from going through the same storyline each time. You can change your behavior or your creature's, but ultimately there is no multiplayer capability and no "skirmish" capability as most of us are used to it in RTS games.
Second, the game, much like the first, as a tendency to want to overeducate the user. Skipping the tutorial section is optional, but you're still bombareded with tutorial style quests throughout the first two lands. Moreover, many of these quests are tied to Tribute, a strategic asset in the game. Skipping the quests, obnoxious as they are, hurts you in your godly persuits.
Third, your citizens desires aren't terribly clear. There are certain desires, such as a want for grain, ore, houses, etc which are obvious. Other times, your citizens want more free time, or more sleep. No where in the games documentation do we find out how to give citizens more sleep... and while things for people to do DURING their free time abound, there's little in the way of methods to create it.
At the same time, B&W has other excelent characteristics. The creature is less personable than in the previous version, but is also more intelligent. He helps now more than he hinders. I for one spent most of my time in B&W1 trying to get my creature not to destroy everything.
Overall the world as presented is spectacular. While it's easy to be distracted by the constraints placed on what is supposed to be a God game, the fact of the matter is that a great deal of freedom exists in the B&W engine. If you can get past the tutorials and deal with the fact that you can't just toss a fireball into an enemy city on a whim, the game is a lot of fun.
I'd highly recomend it. On a side note, I'd also highly recomend making sure your PC exceeds the system reqs quite substantially. By all accounts, the estimations of Lion's Head as to what runs their software are off kilter.
And lets amend your historical corrections. Anyone with any degree of intellectual honesty credits the Clinton Administration with balancing the budget. Since I'm not going to make that assertion without facts to back it up...
Business Week, 5/19/97: "Clinton's 1993 budget cuts, which reduced projected red ink by more than $400 billion over five years, sparked a major drop in interest rates that helped boost investment in all the equipment and systems that brought forth the New Age economy of technological innovation and rising productivity."
Goldman Sachs, March 1998: "on the policy side, trade, fiscal, and monetary policies have been excellent, working in ways that have facilitated growth without inflation. The Clinton Administration has worked to liberalize trade and has used any revenue windfalls to reduce the federal budget deficit."
U.S. News & World Report, 6/17/96: "President Clinton's budget deficit program begun in 1993... [led] to lower interest rates, which begat greater investment growth (by double digits since 1993, the highest rate since the Kennedy administration), which begat three-plus years of solid economic growth averaging 2.6 percent annually, 50 percent higher than during the Bush presidency."
Paul Volcker, former Federal Reserve Chairman, Audacity, Fall 1994: "The deficit has come down, and I give the Clinton Administration and President Clinton himself a lot of credit for that... and I think we're seeing some benefits."
While we're on the topic, the government shutdown was as much the fault of the Republican Majority in Congress and Clinton's. Alexis de Tocqueville once said that it is the nature of American Democracy to "view as virtuous an incomplete conquest." The willingness of BOTH the Republican Congress and the Democratic Whitehouse to ignore this sage wisdom was the cause of the shutdown. It takes two to tango.
While you're quite right that some of the actions taken by the Clinton administration militarily didn't turn out for the best, those actions were not unilateral invasions of a sovereign country with neither the backing nor support of the UN or NATO. Moreover, our involvement did not turn into the most costly and deadly American overseas deployment since Vietnam. As to Rwanda -- it was a tragic failure, and one for which I'll never forgive the Clinton Administration. It's good to see that Bush learned from that failure and is responding in the Sudan.... oh... wait....
Your depiction of the Plame case goes from evasive to outright lies, so we'll clear that up.
1 - You're right, no crime has technically been committed if no one was aware that Plame was undercover at the time since you can't expose someone who you don't know to be undercover.
2 - Plame WAS undercover at the time, according to ABC News.
3 - Even presidents are innocent until proven guilty in this country. Clinton was never convicted of perjury. That said, what he did smacks of dishonesty and was unquestionably wrong. Speaking of perjury -- it's interesting that the testimonies of Rove, Cheney, and Bush, and the various reporters being questioned are not only divergent, but don't even line up from session to session. You might see some GOP perjury indictments before this is all over.
Final Correction -- Your mischaracterization of Katrina is fairly misleading as well. A hurricane breaching New Orleans levees was on the FEMA list of nightmare scenarios. Bush's budget priorities transferred funds away from the Corps of Engineers levee projects, contributing to the collapse.
Also, don't forget that you can heap blame upon the state of Louisiana as much as you want - but the failure to Federalize the National Guard rests with one man alone. Bush had the authority to act and failed to. Did the state government screw up? Yes. But Bush -=LET=- them screw up. That matters.
I think the mouse and keyboard define a paradigm of control that has been very successfull - but by no means perfect. The mouse is a better aiming mechanism than, for example, a joystick, but still not better than an actual pointing mechanism like a gun.
There has to exist some compromise between a tool built for the job and a tool built for all jobs - at last as long as we're defining our tools in a physical world. While a gun like object would probably be a better pointing mechanism for Quake 4, it's likely not the best pointing mechanism for Black and White 2.
As the price of technologies like gyroscopic pointing devices and virtual keyboards come into the range of the average user, we may see a change in game controllers. In a battle where the controller preferance is no longer the defining characteristic seperating PC gaming from a living room set top box, the increased expense and varied specifications of the PC will likely prove a fatal blow to the platform.
Ignoring my keyboard and mouse - I'd much rather be doing my gaming on a 40+ inch HD Tv with a nice Dolby 5.1-7.1 surround system than at my PC. With comparable prices between those two systems, Joe Sixpack isn't going to buy PC games if the interface suddenly doesn't matter.
I can assure you that you won't get any problems from the cops if you do this.
Now you'll have some very short lived arguments with some of America's larger trucking companies... but you probably won't feel a thing.
This is why slashdot needs a javascript enabled method of expanding threads....
Guess that got lost in the jumble.
It doesn't matter if a swimmer has the best fins in the world if the guys in speedos mate more frequently and have enough progeny to ensure that some survive the attacks of their quicker swimming brethren.
That IS fitness. If that's the case then the speedos are fitter (is that a word?) than the flippers. Fitness in the evolutionary sense of the term doesn't mean the strongest, the most powerfull, or the most impressive -- it means the most capable to pass on genetic material.
Sometimes that means avoiding starving to death. Sometimes that means getting a lot of action. The only evolutionary measure of the "fittest" is (s)he who has the most kids. Promiscuity, then, is the quintessential evolutionary trait.
Now that I stop to think about it, maybe THAT'S the problem the I.Ders have with evolution.
Your annalogy has flaws, which I'll address before delving into the issue directly.
First - the concept of loyalty to the state vs loyalty to the individual is a relevant topic of discussion in social studies. The concept of a supernatural force is not a relevant topic of discussion in a science class.
Second - the Federal Government has no LEGAL authority over the state education system. Save for the incorporation of the bill of rights upon the states by the 14th Ammendment to the Constitution, the Feds have not a great deal of buisness telling the states what to do with their educational systems.
Were that to occur I would object to the Federal Governments intrusion upon my state and upon (dare I say it) my state's rights. I would also point out the fact that normative statements like "loyalty to your country was more important than personal freedom" don't belong in a social science curriculum any more than religion belongs in a science class.
I'd object morally to the encroachment of facism on my life - certainly. But my moral objections aren't appropriate in a public school. Indeed, it would be hippocracy of the first order to presume that my moralities in reguard to Facism deserve state enforcement.
I still don't think that anyone is accusing these reactionaries of being morons. Zelots, yes. Morons no.
But the you're a moron bit is by FAR the minority. What is being discussed is the unwillingness of a growing portion of American society to accecpt that they will be challenged intellectualy in the world.
Not understanding something doesn't make it irrelevant. This is easiest from the point of view of a technical professional.
How many people do you know who are intimidated by computers and therefore decide that there is nothing on the internet or having to do with computers worth learning?
This is the attitude that many in the scientific community are fighting against. "I don't understand how evolution could work and I can't wrap my brain around number bigger than a million, so it must be God" is a fine attitude if you don't work in Biology -- but to pass that along to your children (who may someday want to work in that field) is a disservice.
Again, tapping into IT -- most people don't understand how a computer actualy works. If you don't work in the IT industry and just don't want to deal with computers - well - that's your decision. But if you then decide that your children can't learn about programing and basic electrical engineering because it violates your belifes about how computers work -- is that fair to your kids?
As a society we have deemed the scientific method, rather than the institution of the [cC]hurch the final arbiter of what is true and not true. You have the right to reject that if you so choose. Your school system does not have that right. If you don't want your kids to belive in Evolution then you have the right to send them to Sunday school and tell them that the things that their Biology teach is telling them are wrong.
While doing those things though, it is neither correct nor Christian to demean those people who are honestly trying to learn about the world you live in. You may think that your God does not approve of their work - but your God has also told you not to judge them.
What makes you so sure that your view of the world is perfect? How can you remove the speck from your brother's eye while there is a great plank in your own?
Religion and science have never been incompatable -- they're a lot like oil and water. They work well together. They just don't mix.
Alternitively, you only need one oriface to lose it, but two at a time makes you loose.
Mmmmmmm.... visual memory.....