I've got a 8800 GTS 640 (picked it up for $315 shipped though...) that I was thinking of swapping out for a GTX (although I've been thinking for the last few days... maybe I'll just see if I can't sell my GTS and pick up a GT, pocket $50-100... and wait for the GTX replacement card)
Once you've got a decent system together (mine's based around a mildly OCed e6750), then you've got to ask yourself if you'd rather pay the $200-400 for a console, or for a video card to turn your computer into a better gaming system than said console. As there's a lot of non-gaming applications that you'll want a decent speed processor for, this is a situation that quite a lot of people are in. Hell, my dad's looking at putting together a c2d system... and he's hardly the gamer type.
Now, as to picking up a 360 or something instead? Why? With my GTS I'm running Oblivion at 1600x1200 with all eye-candy at max and 4x AA with nice framerates. Looks way nicer than it would on the 360. Most of the 360 games that I've seen have horrible AA and haven't really impressed me... at least with a PC I can adjust settings so that I get the image quality/frame rate that's works for me.
Now all that said, I've got a Wii. But then, unlike the 360, it's not simply a repackaged low-end gaming PC... they're doing something new that my PC won't.:)
How about the guy that says that it appears to be billions of years old, but there's no way of telling if our universe was created 4000 years ago (or 2 seconds ago) but with a history.
I mean, even Jesus freaks admit that Adam and Eve were created as adults and knowing language and how to walk... ie... history...
Ah... so lets say that there was a purely hypothetical law saying that if you know a Jew you have to turn them in so they can be summarily executed... you wouldn't call this morally wrong and disobey it?
Or... that wasn't democratically decided on?
How about slavery in the US then?
Law and ethics/morality are seperate, although (sadly) they're often confused.
"Unfortunately, it probably takes a lot longer then 72 hours for any intelligence gathered to reach a person who can actually use the intelligence. 72 hours is 3x too long for a television show and probably 1/10th of the time needed for the intelligence bureaucracy to do anything with it."
I'm really not sure what point you're trying to make here... but it sounds like you're confused about what the current law allows and reacting to the timeframe without understanding what the timeframe relates to.
The powers that be can do thier survelience, then after it has been done and while they are acting on that information go to a court and say "Hey, we spied on these people, here's why and here's why we couldn't wait to ask you before we did it; do you think that we were right to do so?"
And you'd have no objection to officials having a camera in your bedroom either. I mean, it's obvious that they'd only use it if they thought a serious crime was being committed. I can't see how a corrupt official could misuse it.
The solution is simple... offer more than one New Game option. Have one be the original with all the visuals redone, but gameplay remaining the same. Hell, even keep the same bugs, (such as item duplication) that were in the original. This'll keep the purists happy:)
Then offer a different new game option that maintains the story, but with certain aspects remade. Maybe revamp the battle system, expand the golden saucer (and make it an online multiplayer experience?), and whatever other changes you want to make. You'll still get some fans bitching, but it won't be nearly as bad.
Depends how you define successful. Personally, I consider making your living from it being pretty successful. I'd consider doing performances nation-wide (nation-wide being all over the US) being successful as well. Just because you're not aware of the groups doesn't mean they're not out there... it's just typically for relatively niche markets. Take a look at the world of Celtic music for an example.
Happened to me with a couple of CDs that I picked up a few weeks ago. (Was at GenCon, fell in love with The Muses, bought 6 CDs...) Anyways, one of those CDs I wind up skipping over half the songs on when it's turn comes up in my cars changer. I keep it in because there's 2-3 songs on it that I really like.
It does happen... but yeah, it's not something that I hit often.
You sound a lot like me... I'm always using words in conversation that I have no clue how to pronounce.
And if I need to spell something, I have a lot more luck if I write it down to see the entire "glyph", rather than thinking about the individual letters.
On a related side note, this has got me thinking about how I spell when I type. I've realized that I don't think of the letters so much as I think of patterns that I move my fingers through. Our brains are a strange strange beast...
You know why they increased the number of activations from 2 to 5?
Because people are standing up and saying that we're not going to buy it the way it is. 2k is busy trying to figure out how little they can change it and make people happy.
Perhaps enough of the naysayers will be happy with the steps 2k has taken. I can't speak for the others... but so far I'm not. Maybe my reaction stems from the fact that they're treating thier customers like paroled criminals. Doesn't really matter, I just know I'm not supporting that behavior. *shrug*
Well, I've got 2 samsung 204Bs. Due to needing to RMA one a year ago, I've got two with differing firmware (you can tell that it's different because when you get deep enough into one of the color selection menu's there's some slight differences).
Anyways, the new system that I was putting together I wound up having a situation where one monitor was intermittently going blank, then coming back after anywhere from a few tenths of a second to a few seconds. It would have period where it would be doing this every 2-10 seconds or so for up to 5 minutes... then it'd be fine for 5 minutes ot a few hours. When it was doing this, I would sometimes see pixel noise (indicative of borderline a signal) Annoying part is that the monitor worked perfectly when hooked up to my old system.
Behavior remained the same despite switching which monitor was hooked up to which DVI port, despite OS, despite drivers, etc, etc.
Did a lot of googling, and eventually (a few weeks later) discovered that for a short period that there were some 204Bs made that didn't get along with newer NVIDIA cards, and that Samsung should RMA it with no problem. I just tried to hunt up the info again, but couldn't hit the exact search that found it the first time. I've got it bookmarked on another system. I'll try to remember to post it later.
Anyways, I was trying to sort that out along with my motherboard and my ram not getting along. Took me a while to seperate symptoms and diagnose that the ram was causing the other stuff. (even though the ram would run memtest for 10+ hours no probs... XD)
Add on top of that MS taking 3-4 weeks to ship Vista... and we've got the next two installs... me installing the 32 bit flavor to play with while I wait for the 64 bit one to arrive.... whee!
Yeah... because everyone knows that a silent boycott works so much better than a vocal one!
"I got news for you, there's gonna be a crack"
O RLY?
Then why the hell did 2k bother with securom in the first place? Because they like alienating potential customers?
And the game definately looks great. It definately looks very entertaining. It definately looks like it's worth the $45, $60, or whatever. However, to me (and evidently to a lot of others), it is not worth the copy protection crap.
Evidently it is to you. We differ.
On a side note, I hope the irony of complaining about "whiney skript kiddies" in the middle of your very whiney post was intentional...:)
And... you completely ignored the I'd have run through 5 activations within the first month part of it.
Now, yes, I could probably manage to keep the thing working, if I remembered to uninstall the game before I formatted (as if formatting and reinstalling wasn't annoying enough...) and 2k might even follow through on thier promise to untimebomb it.
Short answer is I don't really care. I don't want to put up with that crap, much less support it. It's the same reason I've only bought music from independent labels and artists for the last 5-7 years. If they want my business they can damn well treat me with respect. Until then I'll spend my money elsewhere. Like on Space Empires V.
And I'm sure that you research which factory your (existing) monitors come from and what version of the (non-upgradable) firmware they have when you're putting together a new system.
For me the securom installation crap is a deal-breaker.
Without that I would have bought it following the first round of post-release reviews. I just finished putting together a new gaming system, and would love to have this game.
However, I'm not going to put up with this crap. There's other games, they might not be quite as spiffy or have the same storyline, but they're still fun. I'll play those instead.
I'm not interested in shelling out my cash for a game that could well turn into a paperweight (and a poor one at that) somewhere down the line when the activation server goes away. Or when I've installed for the Nth + 1 time, or whatever. When I buy a game, I want to know that that game will continue to work. I *still* periodically install MOO2 and play it... and I've had that CD for 10 years now. If MOO2 was protected like this game is I would have had to have quit playing it years and years ago.
As for 5 installs... I've installed Oblivion around 4 times in the past month. I'll be installing it at least once or twice more in the next week or two. Why? Because I'm going through that many OS installs dealing with intermittent issues arising from hardware conflicts in my new build. (and MS is slower than hell shipping Vista) If I'd gotten BioShock, I'd be looking at around a month of intermittent gameplay, then viola, no more activations.... yay! Now I get to play phone tag!
Screw that.
When they provide me a product that doesn't self-destruct, I'll provide them with my cash in return.
It was a quite small portion of the vendor room... maybe 20% at the outside, and off in it's own little corner. I avoided it for the most part... wandered through to see crysis and SC2. Interestingly, for the majority of the time there weren't even lines to play.
Personally I was dissapointed by the sheer volumn of RPGs... I've heard that Origins is far more tabletop oriented, so I'll be giving that a try next year instead. (Besides, that's where the *big* SFB tourny is held...)
"The video game industry has *not* taken care of this itself. It apparently refuses to."
Care to back that up?
Essentially the same system is in place for movies and video games. If anything video game ratings are more restrictive than movie ratings. Both rating systems are voluntarily enforced by retailers, and if you look at any major video/game retailer you'll see very similar if not identical policies are in place regarding the sale of games and movies to minors.
Did you miss the "potential" part of "potential problem"?
The scientific consensus is that global warming is most definately happening. That it is anthropogenic in nature.
It may or may not pose a problem. If it is a problem we may or may not be able to do anything about it.
However, those two "may or may nots" never get talked about. Why?
Because there's a large proportion of the population that is, without any knowledge of the subject, willing to loudly declare that the the very idea of global warming is preposterous.
Also, you might note, that I made no statements regarding the beliefs of the poster with respect to climate change... yet you accuse me of creating a strawman backed by that assertation... irony anyone?
You do realize that there's no legislation making it illegal for minors to buy violent movies?
You do realize that the only meaningful difference in the sale of violent movies and games comes from apathetic parents that when they hear "game" they translate it as "appropriate for 10 year old"?
Get parents to treat games the same way they do movies, i.e. get them to check the freaking rating before letting little Johnny have it, and there won't be an issue.
But... that requires parents take responsibility. Nope, can't have that! Lets pass some laws instead!
But there is no possibility of real discussions so long as one party to the discussions refuses to acknowledge that there is a potential problem. The preponderance of evidence says that global warming is happening and that it is anthropogenic.
What should be done about that? Anything?
Who knows... there hasn't been an opportunity to discuss that. Instead, all of the efforts made by the non-fanatics has been focused on attempting to educate the large proportion of the population who are sadly actively working at remaining ignorant in an attempt to completely ignore the issue by denying that there is an issue.
If you really want real discussion, then work at getting people to admit that global warming exists. Until that happens there can't be any discussion of what actions to take, or even if we should take any action at all.
Lets postulate the existance of an group against US involvement in Iraq. Lets assume that as of now the group hasn't performed any violent actions. Lets assume that the group publically decries violent actions, and claims that all monies are used for lobbying and paying expenses.
Now lets say that your friend is against the war, and decide's to give this group some money. Or maybe your friend can't afford to give the money, so just help's them out by donating some time, recruiting or whatever.
Now, lets say that our intelligent services assert (rightly or wrongly) that the group is secretly planning to perform some attack in the future.
Now, with no judicial oversight; with no due process; with no recourse; your friend has all of his assets frozen.
What's he do?
Why, he comes to you. Being embarassed and whatnot, he asks for some help, but doesn't really want to explain why. You figure he lost his job, or is in the beginning of a messy divorce or who knows what. But he's your friend so you want to help him out. Maybe you give him a loan... maybe you just let him sleep on your couch. Maybe you just tell him that you can't help him, but you talk to a mutual friend later, and your mutual friend decides to help him out.
Congrats! You've just gotten your assets frozen too!
Are you still sure that you're not uncomfortable with the scope of the order?
I'm talking about egregious abuses of power. Those are far different from scandals.
You mention using the FBI to investigate political opponents. If true (and I don't know enough to have an opinion on it's validity), it'd definately be an abuse of power. You should have been driving for impeachment when Clinton was in power. If I'd been involved with politics then, I may well have been (dependant upon the facts); I'm rather impartial to party.
But... you then go and shoot yourself in the foot; you manage to make sure noone is going to take you seriously by going off on conspiracy theories and ancient history that's unrelated to Clinton's presidency. You show that you really can't differentiate between a scandal and something that's serious.
Finally, you seem to take the stance that we should ignore any abuses that the current administration is taking because past administrations were abusive as well. Hardly seems like a way to bring about an improvement in our government to me...
Slashdot Mirror
I've got a 8800 GTS 640 (picked it up for $315 shipped though...) that I was thinking of swapping out for a GTX (although I've been thinking for the last few days... maybe I'll just see if I can't sell my GTS and pick up a GT, pocket $50-100... and wait for the GTX replacement card)
:)
Once you've got a decent system together (mine's based around a mildly OCed e6750), then you've got to ask yourself if you'd rather pay the $200-400 for a console, or for a video card to turn your computer into a better gaming system than said console. As there's a lot of non-gaming applications that you'll want a decent speed processor for, this is a situation that quite a lot of people are in. Hell, my dad's looking at putting together a c2d system... and he's hardly the gamer type.
Now, as to picking up a 360 or something instead? Why? With my GTS I'm running Oblivion at 1600x1200 with all eye-candy at max and 4x AA with nice framerates. Looks way nicer than it would on the 360. Most of the 360 games that I've seen have horrible AA and haven't really impressed me... at least with a PC I can adjust settings so that I get the image quality/frame rate that's works for me.
Now all that said, I've got a Wii. But then, unlike the 360, it's not simply a repackaged low-end gaming PC... they're doing something new that my PC won't.
How about the guy that says that it appears to be billions of years old, but there's no way of telling if our universe was created 4000 years ago (or 2 seconds ago) but with a history.
I mean, even Jesus freaks admit that Adam and Eve were created as adults and knowing language and how to walk... ie... history...
Then you get both sets of votes!
Right?
Ah... so lets say that there was a purely hypothetical law saying that if you know a Jew you have to turn them in so they can be summarily executed... you wouldn't call this morally wrong and disobey it?
Or... that wasn't democratically decided on?
How about slavery in the US then?
Law and ethics/morality are seperate, although (sadly) they're often confused.
"Unfortunately, it probably takes a lot longer then 72 hours for any intelligence gathered to reach a person who can actually use the intelligence. 72 hours is 3x too long for a television show and probably 1/10th of the time needed for the intelligence bureaucracy to do anything with it."
I'm really not sure what point you're trying to make here... but it sounds like you're confused about what the current law allows and reacting to the timeframe without understanding what the timeframe relates to.
The powers that be can do thier survelience, then after it has been done and while they are acting on that information go to a court and say "Hey, we spied on these people, here's why and here's why we couldn't wait to ask you before we did it; do you think that we were right to do so?"
And you'd have no objection to officials having a camera in your bedroom either. I mean, it's obvious that they'd only use it if they thought a serious crime was being committed. I can't see how a corrupt official could misuse it.
The solution is simple... offer more than one New Game option. Have one be the original with all the visuals redone, but gameplay remaining the same. Hell, even keep the same bugs, (such as item duplication) that were in the original. This'll keep the purists happy :)
Then offer a different new game option that maintains the story, but with certain aspects remade. Maybe revamp the battle system, expand the golden saucer (and make it an online multiplayer experience?), and whatever other changes you want to make. You'll still get some fans bitching, but it won't be nearly as bad.
Who said anything about insecurity?
I'd simply rather look at a gal's rear than a guy's. I'm sure that holds true for the person you replied to as well.
Or do you call it "insecurity" when I check out the gals and not the guys when I visit the local bar?
Depends how you define successful. Personally, I consider making your living from it being pretty successful. I'd consider doing performances nation-wide (nation-wide being all over the US) being successful as well. Just because you're not aware of the groups doesn't mean they're not out there... it's just typically for relatively niche markets. Take a look at the world of Celtic music for an example.
Happened to me with a couple of CDs that I picked up a few weeks ago. (Was at GenCon, fell in love with The Muses, bought 6 CDs...) Anyways, one of those CDs I wind up skipping over half the songs on when it's turn comes up in my cars changer. I keep it in because there's 2-3 songs on it that I really like.
It does happen... but yeah, it's not something that I hit often.
You sound a lot like me... I'm always using words in conversation that I have no clue how to pronounce.
And if I need to spell something, I have a lot more luck if I write it down to see the entire "glyph", rather than thinking about the individual letters.
On a related side note, this has got me thinking about how I spell when I type. I've realized that I don't think of the letters so much as I think of patterns that I move my fingers through. Our brains are a strange strange beast...
Given that this is slashdot and all... I've got to wonder why you didn't whip up a quick script to do your internal reversing? :P
And... you know why?
You know why they increased the number of activations from 2 to 5?
Because people are standing up and saying that we're not going to buy it the way it is. 2k is busy trying to figure out how little they can change it and make people happy.
Perhaps enough of the naysayers will be happy with the steps 2k has taken. I can't speak for the others... but so far I'm not. Maybe my reaction stems from the fact that they're treating thier customers like paroled criminals. Doesn't really matter, I just know I'm not supporting that behavior. *shrug*
Well, I've got 2 samsung 204Bs. Due to needing to RMA one a year ago, I've got two with differing firmware (you can tell that it's different because when you get deep enough into one of the color selection menu's there's some slight differences).
Anyways, the new system that I was putting together I wound up having a situation where one monitor was intermittently going blank, then coming back after anywhere from a few tenths of a second to a few seconds. It would have period where it would be doing this every 2-10 seconds or so for up to 5 minutes... then it'd be fine for 5 minutes ot a few hours. When it was doing this, I would sometimes see pixel noise (indicative of borderline a signal) Annoying part is that the monitor worked perfectly when hooked up to my old system.
Behavior remained the same despite switching which monitor was hooked up to which DVI port, despite OS, despite drivers, etc, etc.
Did a lot of googling, and eventually (a few weeks later) discovered that for a short period that there were some 204Bs made that didn't get along with newer NVIDIA cards, and that Samsung should RMA it with no problem. I just tried to hunt up the info again, but couldn't hit the exact search that found it the first time. I've got it bookmarked on another system. I'll try to remember to post it later.
Anyways, I was trying to sort that out along with my motherboard and my ram not getting along. Took me a while to seperate symptoms and diagnose that the ram was causing the other stuff. (even though the ram would run memtest for 10+ hours no probs... XD)
Add on top of that MS taking 3-4 weeks to ship Vista... and we've got the next two installs... me installing the 32 bit flavor to play with while I wait for the 64 bit one to arrive.... whee!
Yeah... because everyone knows that a silent boycott works so much better than a vocal one!
:)
"I got news for you, there's gonna be a crack"
O RLY?
Then why the hell did 2k bother with securom in the first place? Because they like alienating potential customers?
And the game definately looks great. It definately looks very entertaining. It definately looks like it's worth the $45, $60, or whatever. However, to me (and evidently to a lot of others), it is not worth the copy protection crap.
Evidently it is to you. We differ.
On a side note, I hope the irony of complaining about "whiney skript kiddies" in the middle of your very whiney post was intentional...
And... you completely ignored the I'd have run through 5 activations within the first month part of it.
Now, yes, I could probably manage to keep the thing working, if I remembered to uninstall the game before I formatted (as if formatting and reinstalling wasn't annoying enough...) and 2k might even follow through on thier promise to untimebomb it.
Short answer is I don't really care. I don't want to put up with that crap, much less support it. It's the same reason I've only bought music from independent labels and artists for the last 5-7 years. If they want my business they can damn well treat me with respect. Until then I'll spend my money elsewhere. Like on Space Empires V.
And I'm sure that you research which factory your (existing) monitors come from and what version of the (non-upgradable) firmware they have when you're putting together a new system.
:)
Gotta love trolls
For me the securom installation crap is a deal-breaker.
Without that I would have bought it following the first round of post-release reviews. I just finished putting together a new gaming system, and would love to have this game.
However, I'm not going to put up with this crap. There's other games, they might not be quite as spiffy or have the same storyline, but they're still fun. I'll play those instead.
I'm not interested in shelling out my cash for a game that could well turn into a paperweight (and a poor one at that) somewhere down the line when the activation server goes away. Or when I've installed for the Nth + 1 time, or whatever. When I buy a game, I want to know that that game will continue to work. I *still* periodically install MOO2 and play it... and I've had that CD for 10 years now. If MOO2 was protected like this game is I would have had to have quit playing it years and years ago.
As for 5 installs... I've installed Oblivion around 4 times in the past month. I'll be installing it at least once or twice more in the next week or two. Why? Because I'm going through that many OS installs dealing with intermittent issues arising from hardware conflicts in my new build. (and MS is slower than hell shipping Vista) If I'd gotten BioShock, I'd be looking at around a month of intermittent gameplay, then viola, no more activations.... yay! Now I get to play phone tag!
Screw that.
When they provide me a product that doesn't self-destruct, I'll provide them with my cash in return.
It was a quite small portion of the vendor room... maybe 20% at the outside, and off in it's own little corner. I avoided it for the most part... wandered through to see crysis and SC2. Interestingly, for the majority of the time there weren't even lines to play.
Personally I was dissapointed by the sheer volumn of RPGs... I've heard that Origins is far more tabletop oriented, so I'll be giving that a try next year instead. (Besides, that's where the *big* SFB tourny is held...)
"The video game industry has *not* taken care of this itself. It apparently refuses to."
Care to back that up?
Essentially the same system is in place for movies and video games. If anything video game ratings are more restrictive than movie ratings. Both rating systems are voluntarily enforced by retailers, and if you look at any major video/game retailer you'll see very similar if not identical policies are in place regarding the sale of games and movies to minors.
Did you miss the "potential" part of "potential problem"?
The scientific consensus is that global warming is most definately happening. That it is anthropogenic in nature.
It may or may not pose a problem. If it is a problem we may or may not be able to do anything about it.
However, those two "may or may nots" never get talked about. Why?
Because there's a large proportion of the population that is, without any knowledge of the subject, willing to loudly declare that the the very idea of global warming is preposterous.
Also, you might note, that I made no statements regarding the beliefs of the poster with respect to climate change... yet you accuse me of creating a strawman backed by that assertation... irony anyone?
You do realize that there's no legislation making it illegal for minors to buy violent movies?
You do realize that the only meaningful difference in the sale of violent movies and games comes from apathetic parents that when they hear "game" they translate it as "appropriate for 10 year old"?
Get parents to treat games the same way they do movies, i.e. get them to check the freaking rating before letting little Johnny have it, and there won't be an issue.
But... that requires parents take responsibility. Nope, can't have that! Lets pass some laws instead!
*sigh*
"We'd be a lot better served by real discussions"
Indeed.
But there is no possibility of real discussions so long as one party to the discussions refuses to acknowledge that there is a potential problem. The preponderance of evidence says that global warming is happening and that it is anthropogenic.
What should be done about that? Anything?
Who knows... there hasn't been an opportunity to discuss that. Instead, all of the efforts made by the non-fanatics has been focused on attempting to educate the large proportion of the population who are sadly actively working at remaining ignorant in an attempt to completely ignore the issue by denying that there is an issue.
If you really want real discussion, then work at getting people to admit that global warming exists. Until that happens there can't be any discussion of what actions to take, or even if we should take any action at all.
So... lets lay this out for you.
Lets postulate the existance of an group against US involvement in Iraq. Lets assume that as of now the group hasn't performed any violent actions. Lets assume that the group publically decries violent actions, and claims that all monies are used for lobbying and paying expenses.
Now lets say that your friend is against the war, and decide's to give this group some money. Or maybe your friend can't afford to give the money, so just help's them out by donating some time, recruiting or whatever.
Now, lets say that our intelligent services assert (rightly or wrongly) that the group is secretly planning to perform some attack in the future.
Now, with no judicial oversight; with no due process; with no recourse; your friend has all of his assets frozen.
What's he do?
Why, he comes to you. Being embarassed and whatnot, he asks for some help, but doesn't really want to explain why. You figure he lost his job, or is in the beginning of a messy divorce or who knows what. But he's your friend so you want to help him out. Maybe you give him a loan... maybe you just let him sleep on your couch. Maybe you just tell him that you can't help him, but you talk to a mutual friend later, and your mutual friend decides to help him out.
Congrats! You've just gotten your assets frozen too!
Are you still sure that you're not uncomfortable with the scope of the order?
It doesn't have 90 GB of storage.
It loses 90 GB of storage.
As to how much HD content it can store, RTFA. (31 hrs for the expensive one, 20 hrs for the new one)
A republic would be 2 wolves and a sheep voting for who's going to decide what's for dinner.
Either way the sheep's hosed.
I'm talking about egregious abuses of power. Those are far different from scandals.
You mention using the FBI to investigate political opponents. If true (and I don't know enough to have an opinion on it's validity), it'd definately be an abuse of power. You should have been driving for impeachment when Clinton was in power. If I'd been involved with politics then, I may well have been (dependant upon the facts); I'm rather impartial to party.
But... you then go and shoot yourself in the foot; you manage to make sure noone is going to take you seriously by going off on conspiracy theories and ancient history that's unrelated to Clinton's presidency. You show that you really can't differentiate between a scandal and something that's serious.
Finally, you seem to take the stance that we should ignore any abuses that the current administration is taking because past administrations were abusive as well. Hardly seems like a way to bring about an improvement in our government to me...