"CmdrTaco, Repeat after me: 'Their image is ruined. Their image is ruined.'"
Um... no, it's not. Right, wrong, the Gallup Polls never lie. The average American feels that Microsoft is a company that came out on top through hard work and perserverance (the "American Way (TM)") and that their presence in the industry is an overwhelmingly good thing.
Personally, I'm waiting for the day when Linux developers have to appear before the HUAC.
"It really *is* over, MS is no longer what it used to be, and it is downhill from here."
Let me tell you about this.NET thing that seems to be catching on... I just got a propoganda pamphlet about it today in the mail, in fact...
"That doesn't come screaming out of the page at me as 'being all on Microsoft's side.'"
That's becuase a total 180 wouldn't look good in the eyes of the voting public. And even then, "I'm not continuing because they won't accept the punishment" sounds like a cop-out to me.
"they have more money than all 19 states in the suit put together"
You'd be surprised, especially with New York thrown into the mix. Recent fed bugets have been around $2 trillion lately, and they don't even charge sales tax.
"And who the fuck can fill up a terabyte in an appreciable amount of time?"
*cough* Microsoft *cough*
Seriously, though, if operating systems and other applications continue their trend of bigger = better, this can be a real problem. Most apps have been steadily doubling in size pretty quickly in the past decade, and I don't see them slowing down very soon as companies continue to weigh down everything from text editors on up with 3-D animated AI help agents and digitally-recorded audio help.
"So you absolutly don't know anything about the level of certainty about global warning. Maybe it is scientifically certain, but media misrepresents it. You don't know."
Occam's Razor: It's simpler (and more probable) for the media to tell the truth than to perpetuate a cover-up for over a decade. I'm afraid you're going to need proof to the contrary before you'll convince me of that possibility.
"But you conveniently left out that on the "global warming" subject, there are many other groups then scientists who have extremely tremedous economical interests ; and you left out that your beloved (or not) American president, the man who has the most political power on the planet Earth, was funded by such people."
First off, this is just unlreated to what I was talking about. The brunt of my post was about scientists trying to advance their name by making noise. Secondly, there are those that would argue with you that Jiang Zemin is the most politically powerful person on the planet.
As for these "vested economic interests" in the oil industry you talk about, I'm not sure how exactly they come into play. They need to keep a good public appearance, and it would be easier for them to maintain an appearance of honesty if they were genuinely honest than to try a cover-up. The fewer deep, dark secrets you have, the fewer that come out. And an industry-wide cover-up about the safety of a product coming to the surface just isn't profitable. Take a look at the recent examples of Phillip-Morris, Ford, and Bridgestone/Firestone.
They also have a lot to lose if the sea level rises. Not only do most of the people in the US live near the oceans, but so do most of the oil refineries. It helps to build them closer to the ports the VLCCs come into. I doubt moving a refinery is very cheap.
"For 40 years, the Tobacco Institute, an "independant" institute, has been successful in dismissing the dangers of the cigarette by using expression like "the cigarette controversy".
The 40 years of Surgeon General's warnings suggest that they were not "successful" in dismissing these dangers. And I'm failing to see the analogy in comparing something discovered in repeated closed laboratory environments to something that really can't be experimented on one way or the other.
"You must realize that you were maybe just doing exactly the same."
Thanks for proving some of my points for me. Instead of, say, providing links to data collected of the levels of ozone in the atmosphere, emissions levels, as well as reasoned arguments that the two are connected (giving me the chance to form my own opinion), you simply blamed a huge invisible conspiracy (media), called one side names ("The Man"), and essentially declared every scientist that disagrees with the opinion of the rest of the world a lackey of the oil industry (your little tobacco analogy).
First off, I have no firm opinions of my own about global warming. I've never been interested in the subject enough to sit down and look at the data myself, and it would be kinda unethical to make an uninformed judgement.
With that said, I think some of the problem with the believability of these scientists with some people (especially in the US) is that scientists are human after all. Often they view their reputation as being more important than the work they do. Being right is less important than being famous.
So when one political group or another starts to protest something as "dangerous science," there's always at least a few people in the community willing to back up their claims. They do this mostly because you get more attention by running around waving your arms shouting about how the world is going to end than you do by saying "Oh, stop worrying, it's going to be alright." And the fewer of your colleages that agree with you, the better. No need to share the limelight with anyone else.
To make matters worse, it's often quite easy to manipulate data in a way to make what you're saying seem true or more favorable. Anybody who's heard of last year's presidential debates knows that Democrats were against giving tax breaks to "the wealthiest 1%," not "the wealthiest 2.6 million people."
This leaves us with a scientific community where, instead of having everybody who calls themselves a scientist making rational decisions and rational statements, we've had physicists telling us about how nuclear energy is the root of all evil, medical doctors explaining the need to "detoxify" our bodies, and we've had biologists passionately arguing for creationism.
(While these views may or may not be true, most of the arguments for these sides that I've heard are mostly along the lines of "I'm right, and if you don't agree with me, then you're either blind or a fool." It's tough at times to figure out where "science" ends and "scientology" begins.)
People can only take so much of this before they get tired of these boys crying "Wolf!" So when they next see a meterologist on TV telling us about how we need to change or perish, beating their podium ala Kruschev, a lot of them are just going to roll their eyes and keep on changing the channel.
Combine this with rational (and seemingly valid) arguments on both sides of the fence, as well as differences in opinion about how the problem should be solved ("The US should/shouldn't be the one to drop emissions the most."), and global warming becomes a very confused issue.
Canada Post (and most other "snail mail" folks, especially the USPS) are trying to figure out what to do with this new-fangled internet thing. They're floundering around trying to figure out what to do with it, and more often then not they end up competing with it instead of integrating.
First they try this goofy PosteCS system which, as far as I can tell, is directly trying to compete with encrypted e-mail (we can blame the US, Canada, AND France for this dumb idea).
Then they try this eBillPay idea to send checks through the internet, which is competing with exactly the same service that is offered by most major banks (actually, since everybody seems to call it "eBillPay," I'm not sure who really is in control of it).
And finally in the case of Canada Post, they decide trying to branch out into an entirely new realm: The ISP business. This is really interesting in and of itself because they'll have to outsource at least part of it to the local telecommunications people (I'm not sure what's state-owned up there and what's not).
The USPS seems to be getting some sense and doing more with the net. According to their website, they'll print letters and cards and such and mail them instead of just checks (which sounds a lot like a telegram). But that still has to compete with e-mail.
Personally, I think their best bet is to become digital certificate authorities/digital key signatories/something along those lines. It could be seen as an expansion of their existing services instead of branching out into new ones, as a lot of what they offer is confirmation of mailing, delivery, receipt, insurance, protecting message/package from point A to point B, and so on.
And since it's already a fellony to defraud them and they have their own law enforcement arm, they could do a hell of a lot more than what Verisign could do when they gave a Microsoft certificate to the wrong guy ("I'm sorry, you'll have to download this new Windows patch... We promise it won't happen again!").
Hell, if I can get my passport at the post office...
... I still can't get anything beyond a 56k connection out here in the boonies. And even then it would be a long-distance call without this "extended local" scam the phone company has going.
Until I see it at my curb or two-way satellite (or even ISDN) comes down in price in a major way, I don't care.
I love my TI-92+. How could you not love the most poweful calculator on the face of the planet? It's a graphing calculator and a book of integration tables all rolled into one, with the added advantage of being able to solve ordinary differential equations (symbollicly, even). A real life-saver when you've got a lot of partial differential equations to do in your homework. I've yet to see anything better on the market.
However, different teachers have different policies about calculators. Some won't allow graphing calculators because they can store text (so can the old TI-68 scientific, but it doesn't look like a graphing calculator). Some will allow graphing calculators, but not ones the size of a VHS tape, complete with QWERTY keypad (even though the TI-89 has the same capabilities in a normal-looking design).
I'm fine with these policies for the most part, but it begins to irk me when, say, they won't allow calculators that can store text, but will allow a crib sheet. Or they won't allow a calculator that can do symbollic integration, but they will allow a book of integration tables. These sound an awful lot like "I won't allow technoligical aids because I don't understnad them."
When I find I have a particularly anal-retentive teacher, having my father's old sliderule handy is greaty for making a loud statement without saying a word, sticking out like a sore thumb in a room full of people pushing buttons. As long as you don't have notes written on it or anything, there's nothing they can say about you using it.
As for figuring out how to use it, my father had a pair of small books on their use, one of which was a book my grandfather got from the War Department while he was in the Navy. They're not hard to learn (easier to learn than most scientific calculators if you already know a thing or two about logarithms, as there's no different button layouts to get used to or Reverse Polish Notation), and I find they also help reinforce ideas about logarithms (you can SEE why log(a*b) = log(a) + log(b)).
While I'm not a rabid collecter with 300 sliderules (what a freak... now if he collected calculators...:) ), I'm glad I've got mine.
"It was due it before the Game Boy Advance, and would thus allow them to get their games out before the rush."
So, what you're saying is that Squaresoft totally ignored Sega's example?
"Bandai had already announced plans for interoperability between the WonderSwan and the Playstation 2."
And also ignored SNK's example to boot?
"But given that the market for nostalgic rereleases is generally larger in Japan than the US, they didn't take any major damage."
Nostalgic re-releases are one thing. Two games that may never see this side of the Pacific are something else.
"As for treating non-Japanese gamers as second-class: well, yeah. Duh. Square is a Japanese company. The console industry is significantly larger in Japan, not to mention that Square's stock-in-trade, console RPGs, have always been bigger draws in Japan."
Enix, on the other hand, is in exactly the same situation, yet that has not prevented them from building a top-notch localization arm. While Enix of America has given us Dragon Warrior games with flashier title screens, updated graphics, and even entire scenes that the Japanese audience didn't see until the Super Famicom remixes, the only memorable things that Squaresoft's US arm has given us are translation flubs like "spoony bard" and "this guy are sick."
And as if that weren't enough, Squaresoft decided that the normal version of Final Fantasy IV might be a little too hard for us, so gave us the EastyType game with just about every character's special move disabled. And they were also afraid that calling those games IV and VI might hurt our heads, so they decided to confuse people for years afterwards by renumbering them.
After that, Japan go Final Fantasy V while we got Final Fantasy Mystic Quest (later released as Final Fantasy USA in Japan). Enough said.
While Square may be a Japanese company with mostly Japanese interests, the way they've all but ignored the US while Enix gave us the benefit of the doubt and released the first four Dragon Quest games (and almost the fifth) has shown a large gap between that which Square has done and what they could have done. And I have yet to hear an acceptable explaination for this difference.
"The US got the special edition of Final Fantasy VII (our regular edition) months before Japan,"
Wow, a game with two new monsters, monsters that only the true die-hards would really want to spend time levelling up to mess with. I'll keep in mind the "advantages" Square gave me when next I manage to accidentally submerge on top of Emerald WEAPON again.
And the way they had the time to add in two new monsters and assorted items but were unable to show the script to a grammar-checking program suggests that the deluxe version already existed in Japanese before translation, and the decision of translating it before releasing it to the Japanese audience was more spontaneous than anything else.
"... That the president of Nintendo hates Squaresoft because they left the N64 for the Playstation (the reason the Playstation caught on so well) in 1995. They left because the cartridges that Nintendo had decided to use were too small to hold FF7 the way that Squaresoft had decided to create it."
You're over-simplifying it. First off, if Resident Evil 2 could fit on a cart, so can Final Fantasy. It would be even easier if they didn't insist on pre-rendering everything.
However, in general, Squaresoft left Nintendo over a difference of opinions over how games should be made. Nintenedo's pilosophy has always been "game first, flashy stuff later," which they've been operating under for a long time. For example, it was more important for the original Game Boy to have better games than to be technologically superior to the Lynx and Game Gear.
On the other hand, Squaresoft would rather make a/v masterpieces and put a game in there afterwards; less of a game, more of an interactive movie, even going so far as to make a non-interactive movie.
There were other less-important arguments between the two (the cart size of Enix's Dragon Quest V comes to mind), but this was the biggie. In the end Nintendo said "not on my hardware," so Squaresoft went off to find different hardware.
I also feel it's wrong to place all the blame on Yamauchi. The bad blood flows both ways. For example, if Squaresoft was interested in turning a profit, would they have re-released their first three Final Fantasy games for WonderSwan Color instead of Game Boy Advance? That act can only be seen as an attempt at a direct (but poorly thought out) attack at Nintendo's cash cow. They only started talking about GBA development after they finally realized (duh!) that the GBA is the superior platform, both from a technology and sales POV. But Nintendo said "no" to that...
... since not long before that Squaresoft went out of their way to not write games for the GameCube. They've announced plans to bring Final Fantasy XI to both PS2 and Xbox, but haven't even bothered to ask for GameCube dev kits. Doesn't that sound a bit targeted to you?
Their differences at the start of it all was philosophical, but it's been getting more and more personal. I think the current state of affairs are more Squaresoft's fault than Nintendo, but others see it differently. All in all, though, it's not entirely one side's fault.
Sqaure has been saying for several months now that, while Final Fantasy X will be a PS2 exclusive, Final Fantasy XI (a. k. a. Final EverQuest) will be for both PS2 and Xbox. Note that I didn't say GameCube. This has been on IGN's site for a while (and I'm too lazy to look up the address for you).
I don't recall which system(s) Square said their re-releases of VII, VIII, and IX will be for, but I wouldn't be surprised if they also excluded GameCube.
Before peeing all over yourself in joy about the possibility of Squaresoft on GameCube, remember that this is a company that decided to develop for the no-name WonderSwan (is it even still alive in Japan?) instead of Game Boy Advandce (talk about your fumbled no-brainers). They're still in the mentality that they need to compete with Nintendo, to prove that they're somehow a better software hosue than the big N. They're still trying to say "Our games can sell hardware just as well as yours can!" Even if that means going down with sinking ships.
Not to mention Square has historically treated non-Japanese gamers as second-class (if not third), but that's a whole other rant to begin with.
Personally, I'm waiting for the system announcement for Dragon Quest/Warrior VIII (not to mention American versions of V and VI would be nice).
" Geee, that sounds so much easier than just using that 'funds transfer' thingy my bank's internet banking application allows me to use."
1.) Funds transers require the payor to know all sorts of information about the payee (their bank, account number, any other information required for verification)
2.) Funds transfers require the payee to have a bank account to begin with. A person with no bank account (or at least someone who doesn't want to involve their bank account) can take a check that I wrote to a branch of my bank and get the cash.
3.) Many banks charge a fee to send or receive wire transfers. Although I seem to have a kick-ass bank (God, I'm getting old...) that lets me send for free, that doesn't mean that the person I'm paying can receive it for free.
"Why do the banks *have* to be at the center of it all the time? I know they are, but let's remember, the bank does not have a god-given right to make money off every human money transaction. I should be able to pay you without paying someone else a fee as well; or at least, not just paying the bank."
First off, free checking. I don't pay my bank for my checking account or even my checks. If you're paying, you need to change banks.:)
Secondly, until I get a Jetson's-esque pneumatic tube from my desk to the desk of the particular artist I want to pay, there will always have to be some sort of intermediary to take my money from point A to point B. You can either use the "Give him the money and I'll pay you back later" method (credit card), or "you already have my money, give some to him" method (check). (I'm ignoring Western Union because they're expensive). Either of those methods require someone who handles money for a living, storing and/or lending. By definition, a bank.
"A competitive market of micropayment providers would be good, all linked together."
While I love Freenet as much as the next guy, that only solves part of the problem. Hosting is free, but making comics still won't pay the rent. So the strip will be done part-time while the artist works full-time at something else, meaning the strip won't exactly be all that it could be.
There are a couple of favorites that I have with web comics. I wish the artists could work at it full-time, because I wanna read more of it (call me selfish...).
"I dearly love Penny Arcade, but I'm not going to pay for it if I can get it free!"
What just about everybody fails to see, though, is that "getting it for free" is only temporary, no matter what. You pay for it after initially looking at it for free (billing, donations, what have you), or nobody pays anything and the site goes down. Either way you're not looking at it any more. At least the first scenario gives you the option to continue reading at a later date if you feel it's worth the money.
So you'll have to decide your own priorities. You claim to love PA dearly. If you're not willing to part with some pocket change to keep it going, then perhaps you don't love PA as dearly as you claim, especially if you rate it below pocket change. You'd rather be able to buy a pack of gum than read it?
Of course, if you'd rather wait until a comic makes big-time syndication before you're willing to read it (so they can pay for the site, saving your precious coinage), then you shouldn't even bother to read lame comics like PA that will never get anywhere. I mean, c'mon, if it was any good, somebody else would be paying money for it by now.
Sound harsh? Your words, not mine. Or at least the only logical conclusion of your statement. Just think, your unwillingness to support art that you enjoy is helping to give industry groups like the MPAA and RIAA a good name. Without these fine folks around to tell customers what they really want, pre-packaging it in hype and marketing, nobody could afford to be creative.
When next I hear yet another boy band on yet another top 10 radio station, it will remind me of you. N'Sync wouldn't be able to survive without teriffic fans like you around to support them through inaction.
The main problem with micropayments as they are now (at least from my own POV) is that they're all credit-card based. Just the process of using the credit card to pay an individual requires at least two middlemen scalping money from both ends.
First off, the person paying the money has to have a credit card to begin with. Even if you're unAmerican and pay off the balance of your card every month, they'll still find ways to turn a profit off of you, even if it means selling your name out to advertisers ("We at Discover Card thought you might be interested in...")
And then to access the credit card's proprietary network infrastructure in order to GET a payment, you either need to set up an account with the credit card people directly, or (which is more likely for people looking for micropayments) go throgh another middleman like Paypal. Either way costs the payee money as well.
So what do I think would be a better alternative? We have OpenPGP (which still seems quite secure), we have electronic signature laws on the books... how about e-mailing a check?
First off, checking accounts cost the payor inherently less, because it's dealing with money the bank already has (and can earn interest off of), as opposed to the lending-on-the-spot concept of credit cards. As for the payee, the only fees that come along for them are bounced check fees from their bank (which can be passed along back to the payor if agreed upon).
Imagine this: You send an e-mail to whoever you want to send money to. You include your street address, unique check number, "pay to the order of" stuff, routing number... all the stuff you'd include in a real check. For the signature, you use a private key for which your bank has access to the public key specifically for that purpose. The recipient needs only forward the document on to their bank to have the check deposited.
Beyond that, the only thing that a real check would have and this one wouldn't would be copy protection. The only threat from copying is doctoring the copy (the bank isn't going to process check #512 twice). Doctoring is prevented by the signature process (hashing). If you're still a little squeamish, you make the signature time-sensitive according to taste.
If after that, you still aren't sure about using one of these, either you have no faith in encryption algorythms, or you're too paranoid to use a paper check to begin with.
It's cheaper for the payor, it's cheaper for the payee, it's cheaper for the bank (automate the whole thing and fewer warm bodies need to be employed to read my chicken-scratch handwriting), and digitally signing the "paperwork" instantly makes it more secure than most on-line credit card transactions.
...
Or I could be talking out of my ass again and I should go back to playing StarCraft.:) Though I'm now considering talking to my bank and asking what they think of electronic signing like this...
So, if we want to give money to Mandrake (beyond just forking over cash for their distro), should we take the selfless route and donate through Paypal, or do we take the mildly selfish route and buy a few shares of it?
At any rate, I love Mandrake. I never thought I could ever love a bunch of Frogs this much. Personally, I think that if any distro is going to successfully conquer the laptop, it will be Mandrake.
I'd rather use an algorythm that is pretty much proven by the cryptographic and mathematical community to be unbreakable than some new one that has yet to be proven (or, more importantly, disproven). Cryptography is not a science where newer=better.
...And don't let the door hit you in the ass!
on
Compaq Shifts Focus
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· Score: 2
So Compaq is trying to become the Sega of the computer industry. "Good riddence," I say! Aside from being Microsoft's personal bitch in the PC market (always ready to agree with whatever Microsoft said that week), I'd have to say that they were the #1 culprit of putting extremely proprietary stuff into what is supposed to be a fairly open PC/AT/Wintel/whatever archtecture ("Whadya mean my HDD won't work if I don't buy it straight from Compaq!?!"). If Apple ever went into the PC market, they'd look like Compaqs.
So good-bye, so long, and I hope to see you disappear from NASDAQ soon.
Well, like the mod line said, "flamebait." OK, I'll bite.:)
"Unbiased Article: "Their protagonist is a former litigator..." PROTAGONIST?"
Legal-ese. Calling her the protagonist is the same as calling her the plaintiff. That, and the idea is that Rogers "antagonized" her first.
"$300 for compensation - $300 won't make up for the time she spends, the harassment, and legal fees."
Assuming that she's not representing herself. To be a judge, you first have to be a lawyer. Also, renting out a few vacation cottages usually doesn't require you to be there 9-5.
"$500 for breach of contract - Rogers claims their contract makes no guarantee of service or compensation. Nice contract. So basically, they don't even guarantee that they do anything for the fee. That makes it hard to say they breached it."
Then it depends on if that particular clause is legal. If such a clause is against the law, then it doesn't matter what the paperwork says.
If "anything goes" in contracts, then builders could get out of lawsuits for collapsing buildings, and organized crime wouldn't be illegal ("But your honor, the contract said that if he fell behind on his payments I could break his kneecaps, blow up his house, shoot his family...")
"$5000 punitive damages - Rogers contract exempts them from punitive damages. That's why she has to go for breach of contract - else the $5000, which is the real heart of this matter, would be thrown out."
Again, it depends if Rogers is legally allowed to back out of said punitive damages.
"Many Slashdotters would probably PAY money to not be mass marketed. These people consider it a $5000 damage!"
Check out the by-line/motto when you come in here next time: News for Nerds. The fact that these damned "reality" TV shows suck doesn't prevent them from becoming cultural icons. And following social dogma can be a big thing, especially in... say... high school. That, and I'd also lump in the collection nazis and telemarketing demons into those punitive damages. Hell, considering the fact that this is Canadian play money we're talking about, I'd ask for double for that kind of crap.:)
Which reminds me: "Compensation" covers only losses that come directly from Rogers' breach-of-contract (the actual lost connections). "Damages" is everything else not directly covered by the contract, but outside problems caused by Rogers' action/inaction (no "Survivor," missed customers because of website problems, harassing phone calls, making her drag them to court to begin with, etc...)
This is lamer than the dead King posts. If Louis Armstrong died today, he'd be over 100. We're talking about a musician who made it big in the 1920's here.
John Lee Hooker, yes, he died recently, but...
Hell, the goate.cx posts make more sense than these.
Slashdot Mirror
You're the one here assuming that all Muslims agree with Taliban rhetoric and methodology. That sounds even more narrow to me.
Um... no, it's not. Right, wrong, the Gallup Polls never lie. The average American feels that Microsoft is a company that came out on top through hard work and perserverance (the "American Way (TM)") and that their presence in the industry is an overwhelmingly good thing.
Personally, I'm waiting for the day when Linux developers have to appear before the HUAC.
"It really *is* over, MS is no longer what it used to be, and it is downhill from here."
Let me tell you about this .NET thing that seems to be catching on... I just got a propoganda pamphlet about it today in the mail, in fact...
That's becuase a total 180 wouldn't look good in the eyes of the voting public. And even then, "I'm not continuing because they won't accept the punishment" sounds like a cop-out to me.
"they have more money than all 19 states in the suit put together"
You'd be surprised, especially with New York thrown into the mix. Recent fed bugets have been around $2 trillion lately, and they don't even charge sales tax.
*cough* Microsoft *cough*
Seriously, though, if operating systems and other applications continue their trend of bigger = better, this can be a real problem. Most apps have been steadily doubling in size pretty quickly in the past decade, and I don't see them slowing down very soon as companies continue to weigh down everything from text editors on up with 3-D animated AI help agents and digitally-recorded audio help.
Occam's Razor: It's simpler (and more probable) for the media to tell the truth than to perpetuate a cover-up for over a decade. I'm afraid you're going to need proof to the contrary before you'll convince me of that possibility.
"But you conveniently left out that on the "global warming" subject, there are many other groups then scientists who have extremely tremedous economical interests ; and you left out that your beloved (or not) American president, the man who has the most political power on the planet Earth, was funded by such people."
First off, this is just unlreated to what I was talking about. The brunt of my post was about scientists trying to advance their name by making noise. Secondly, there are those that would argue with you that Jiang Zemin is the most politically powerful person on the planet.
As for these "vested economic interests" in the oil industry you talk about, I'm not sure how exactly they come into play. They need to keep a good public appearance, and it would be easier for them to maintain an appearance of honesty if they were genuinely honest than to try a cover-up. The fewer deep, dark secrets you have, the fewer that come out. And an industry-wide cover-up about the safety of a product coming to the surface just isn't profitable. Take a look at the recent examples of Phillip-Morris, Ford, and Bridgestone/Firestone.
They also have a lot to lose if the sea level rises. Not only do most of the people in the US live near the oceans, but so do most of the oil refineries. It helps to build them closer to the ports the VLCCs come into. I doubt moving a refinery is very cheap.
"For 40 years, the Tobacco Institute, an "independant" institute, has been successful in dismissing the dangers of the cigarette by using expression like "the cigarette controversy".
The 40 years of Surgeon General's warnings suggest that they were not "successful" in dismissing these dangers. And I'm failing to see the analogy in comparing something discovered in repeated closed laboratory environments to something that really can't be experimented on one way or the other.
"You must realize that you were maybe just doing exactly the same."
Thanks for proving some of my points for me. Instead of, say, providing links to data collected of the levels of ozone in the atmosphere, emissions levels, as well as reasoned arguments that the two are connected (giving me the chance to form my own opinion), you simply blamed a huge invisible conspiracy (media), called one side names ("The Man"), and essentially declared every scientist that disagrees with the opinion of the rest of the world a lackey of the oil industry (your little tobacco analogy).
You're giving your side a bad name.
With that said, I think some of the problem with the believability of these scientists with some people (especially in the US) is that scientists are human after all. Often they view their reputation as being more important than the work they do. Being right is less important than being famous.
So when one political group or another starts to protest something as "dangerous science," there's always at least a few people in the community willing to back up their claims. They do this mostly because you get more attention by running around waving your arms shouting about how the world is going to end than you do by saying "Oh, stop worrying, it's going to be alright." And the fewer of your colleages that agree with you, the better. No need to share the limelight with anyone else.
To make matters worse, it's often quite easy to manipulate data in a way to make what you're saying seem true or more favorable. Anybody who's heard of last year's presidential debates knows that Democrats were against giving tax breaks to "the wealthiest 1%," not "the wealthiest 2.6 million people."
This leaves us with a scientific community where, instead of having everybody who calls themselves a scientist making rational decisions and rational statements, we've had physicists telling us about how nuclear energy is the root of all evil, medical doctors explaining the need to "detoxify" our bodies, and we've had biologists passionately arguing for creationism.
(While these views may or may not be true, most of the arguments for these sides that I've heard are mostly along the lines of "I'm right, and if you don't agree with me, then you're either blind or a fool." It's tough at times to figure out where "science" ends and "scientology" begins.)
People can only take so much of this before they get tired of these boys crying "Wolf!" So when they next see a meterologist on TV telling us about how we need to change or perish, beating their podium ala Kruschev, a lot of them are just going to roll their eyes and keep on changing the channel.
Combine this with rational (and seemingly valid) arguments on both sides of the fence, as well as differences in opinion about how the problem should be solved ("The US should/shouldn't be the one to drop emissions the most."), and global warming becomes a very confused issue.
Because if we take it and run with it first before Microsoft really gets down to business, WE can be the ones to "embrace and extend."
First they try this goofy PosteCS system which, as far as I can tell, is directly trying to compete with encrypted e-mail (we can blame the US, Canada, AND France for this dumb idea).
Then they try this eBillPay idea to send checks through the internet, which is competing with exactly the same service that is offered by most major banks (actually, since everybody seems to call it "eBillPay," I'm not sure who really is in control of it).
And finally in the case of Canada Post, they decide trying to branch out into an entirely new realm: The ISP business. This is really interesting in and of itself because they'll have to outsource at least part of it to the local telecommunications people (I'm not sure what's state-owned up there and what's not).
The USPS seems to be getting some sense and doing more with the net. According to their website, they'll print letters and cards and such and mail them instead of just checks (which sounds a lot like a telegram). But that still has to compete with e-mail.
Personally, I think their best bet is to become digital certificate authorities/digital key signatories/something along those lines. It could be seen as an expansion of their existing services instead of branching out into new ones, as a lot of what they offer is confirmation of mailing, delivery, receipt, insurance, protecting message/package from point A to point B, and so on.
And since it's already a fellony to defraud them and they have their own law enforcement arm, they could do a hell of a lot more than what Verisign could do when they gave a Microsoft certificate to the wrong guy ("I'm sorry, you'll have to download this new Windows patch... We promise it won't happen again!").
Hell, if I can get my passport at the post office...
They're on Conxion. You know, the same people who made the news around here for leaving copies of XP Beta lying around for the general public to snag?
Until I see it at my curb or two-way satellite (or even ISDN) comes down in price in a major way, I don't care.
However, different teachers have different policies about calculators. Some won't allow graphing calculators because they can store text (so can the old TI-68 scientific, but it doesn't look like a graphing calculator). Some will allow graphing calculators, but not ones the size of a VHS tape, complete with QWERTY keypad (even though the TI-89 has the same capabilities in a normal-looking design).
I'm fine with these policies for the most part, but it begins to irk me when, say, they won't allow calculators that can store text, but will allow a crib sheet. Or they won't allow a calculator that can do symbollic integration, but they will allow a book of integration tables. These sound an awful lot like "I won't allow technoligical aids because I don't understnad them."
When I find I have a particularly anal-retentive teacher, having my father's old sliderule handy is greaty for making a loud statement without saying a word, sticking out like a sore thumb in a room full of people pushing buttons. As long as you don't have notes written on it or anything, there's nothing they can say about you using it.
As for figuring out how to use it, my father had a pair of small books on their use, one of which was a book my grandfather got from the War Department while he was in the Navy. They're not hard to learn (easier to learn than most scientific calculators if you already know a thing or two about logarithms, as there's no different button layouts to get used to or Reverse Polish Notation), and I find they also help reinforce ideas about logarithms (you can SEE why log(a*b) = log(a) + log(b)).
While I'm not a rabid collecter with 300 sliderules (what a freak... now if he collected calculators... :) ), I'm glad I've got mine.
So, what you're saying is that Squaresoft totally ignored Sega's example?
"Bandai had already announced plans for interoperability between the WonderSwan and the Playstation 2."
And also ignored SNK's example to boot?
"But given that the market for nostalgic rereleases is generally larger in Japan than the US, they didn't take any major damage."
Nostalgic re-releases are one thing. Two games that may never see this side of the Pacific are something else.
"As for treating non-Japanese gamers as second-class: well, yeah. Duh. Square is a Japanese company. The console industry is significantly larger in Japan, not to mention that Square's stock-in-trade, console RPGs, have always been bigger draws in Japan."
Enix, on the other hand, is in exactly the same situation, yet that has not prevented them from building a top-notch localization arm. While Enix of America has given us Dragon Warrior games with flashier title screens, updated graphics, and even entire scenes that the Japanese audience didn't see until the Super Famicom remixes, the only memorable things that Squaresoft's US arm has given us are translation flubs like "spoony bard" and "this guy are sick."
And as if that weren't enough, Squaresoft decided that the normal version of Final Fantasy IV might be a little too hard for us, so gave us the EastyType game with just about every character's special move disabled. And they were also afraid that calling those games IV and VI might hurt our heads, so they decided to confuse people for years afterwards by renumbering them.
After that, Japan go Final Fantasy V while we got Final Fantasy Mystic Quest (later released as Final Fantasy USA in Japan). Enough said.
While Square may be a Japanese company with mostly Japanese interests, the way they've all but ignored the US while Enix gave us the benefit of the doubt and released the first four Dragon Quest games (and almost the fifth) has shown a large gap between that which Square has done and what they could have done. And I have yet to hear an acceptable explaination for this difference.
"The US got the special edition of Final Fantasy VII (our regular edition) months before Japan,"
Wow, a game with two new monsters, monsters that only the true die-hards would really want to spend time levelling up to mess with. I'll keep in mind the "advantages" Square gave me when next I manage to accidentally submerge on top of Emerald WEAPON again.
And the way they had the time to add in two new monsters and assorted items but were unable to show the script to a grammar-checking program suggests that the deluxe version already existed in Japanese before translation, and the decision of translating it before releasing it to the Japanese audience was more spontaneous than anything else.
How so Nintendo, and how not so Square?
You're over-simplifying it. First off, if Resident Evil 2 could fit on a cart, so can Final Fantasy. It would be even easier if they didn't insist on pre-rendering everything.
However, in general, Squaresoft left Nintendo over a difference of opinions over how games should be made. Nintenedo's pilosophy has always been "game first, flashy stuff later," which they've been operating under for a long time. For example, it was more important for the original Game Boy to have better games than to be technologically superior to the Lynx and Game Gear.
On the other hand, Squaresoft would rather make a/v masterpieces and put a game in there afterwards; less of a game, more of an interactive movie, even going so far as to make a non-interactive movie.
There were other less-important arguments between the two (the cart size of Enix's Dragon Quest V comes to mind), but this was the biggie. In the end Nintendo said "not on my hardware," so Squaresoft went off to find different hardware.
I also feel it's wrong to place all the blame on Yamauchi. The bad blood flows both ways. For example, if Squaresoft was interested in turning a profit, would they have re-released their first three Final Fantasy games for WonderSwan Color instead of Game Boy Advance? That act can only be seen as an attempt at a direct (but poorly thought out) attack at Nintendo's cash cow. They only started talking about GBA development after they finally realized (duh!) that the GBA is the superior platform, both from a technology and sales POV. But Nintendo said "no" to that...
Their differences at the start of it all was philosophical, but it's been getting more and more personal. I think the current state of affairs are more Squaresoft's fault than Nintendo, but others see it differently. All in all, though, it's not entirely one side's fault.
I don't recall which system(s) Square said their re-releases of VII, VIII, and IX will be for, but I wouldn't be surprised if they also excluded GameCube.
Before peeing all over yourself in joy about the possibility of Squaresoft on GameCube, remember that this is a company that decided to develop for the no-name WonderSwan (is it even still alive in Japan?) instead of Game Boy Advandce (talk about your fumbled no-brainers). They're still in the mentality that they need to compete with Nintendo, to prove that they're somehow a better software hosue than the big N. They're still trying to say "Our games can sell hardware just as well as yours can!" Even if that means going down with sinking ships.
Not to mention Square has historically treated non-Japanese gamers as second-class (if not third), but that's a whole other rant to begin with.
Personally, I'm waiting for the system announcement for Dragon Quest/Warrior VIII (not to mention American versions of V and VI would be nice).
1.) Funds transers require the payor to know all sorts of information about the payee (their bank, account number, any other information required for verification)
2.) Funds transfers require the payee to have a bank account to begin with. A person with no bank account (or at least someone who doesn't want to involve their bank account) can take a check that I wrote to a branch of my bank and get the cash.
3.) Many banks charge a fee to send or receive wire transfers. Although I seem to have a kick-ass bank (God, I'm getting old...) that lets me send for free, that doesn't mean that the person I'm paying can receive it for free.
First off, free checking. I don't pay my bank for my checking account or even my checks. If you're paying, you need to change banks. :)
Secondly, until I get a Jetson's-esque pneumatic tube from my desk to the desk of the particular artist I want to pay, there will always have to be some sort of intermediary to take my money from point A to point B. You can either use the "Give him the money and I'll pay you back later" method (credit card), or "you already have my money, give some to him" method (check). (I'm ignoring Western Union because they're expensive). Either of those methods require someone who handles money for a living, storing and/or lending. By definition, a bank.
"A competitive market of micropayment providers would be good, all linked together."
There are a couple of favorites that I have with web comics. I wish the artists could work at it full-time, because I wanna read more of it (call me selfish...).
What just about everybody fails to see, though, is that "getting it for free" is only temporary, no matter what. You pay for it after initially looking at it for free (billing, donations, what have you), or nobody pays anything and the site goes down. Either way you're not looking at it any more. At least the first scenario gives you the option to continue reading at a later date if you feel it's worth the money.
So you'll have to decide your own priorities. You claim to love PA dearly. If you're not willing to part with some pocket change to keep it going, then perhaps you don't love PA as dearly as you claim, especially if you rate it below pocket change. You'd rather be able to buy a pack of gum than read it?
Of course, if you'd rather wait until a comic makes big-time syndication before you're willing to read it (so they can pay for the site, saving your precious coinage), then you shouldn't even bother to read lame comics like PA that will never get anywhere. I mean, c'mon, if it was any good, somebody else would be paying money for it by now.
Sound harsh? Your words, not mine. Or at least the only logical conclusion of your statement. Just think, your unwillingness to support art that you enjoy is helping to give industry groups like the MPAA and RIAA a good name. Without these fine folks around to tell customers what they really want, pre-packaging it in hype and marketing, nobody could afford to be creative.
When next I hear yet another boy band on yet another top 10 radio station, it will remind me of you. N'Sync wouldn't be able to survive without teriffic fans like you around to support them through inaction.
First off, the person paying the money has to have a credit card to begin with. Even if you're unAmerican and pay off the balance of your card every month, they'll still find ways to turn a profit off of you, even if it means selling your name out to advertisers ("We at Discover Card thought you might be interested in...")
And then to access the credit card's proprietary network infrastructure in order to GET a payment, you either need to set up an account with the credit card people directly, or (which is more likely for people looking for micropayments) go throgh another middleman like Paypal. Either way costs the payee money as well.
So what do I think would be a better alternative? We have OpenPGP (which still seems quite secure), we have electronic signature laws on the books... how about e-mailing a check?
First off, checking accounts cost the payor inherently less, because it's dealing with money the bank already has (and can earn interest off of), as opposed to the lending-on-the-spot concept of credit cards. As for the payee, the only fees that come along for them are bounced check fees from their bank (which can be passed along back to the payor if agreed upon).
Imagine this: You send an e-mail to whoever you want to send money to. You include your street address, unique check number, "pay to the order of" stuff, routing number... all the stuff you'd include in a real check. For the signature, you use a private key for which your bank has access to the public key specifically for that purpose. The recipient needs only forward the document on to their bank to have the check deposited.
Beyond that, the only thing that a real check would have and this one wouldn't would be copy protection. The only threat from copying is doctoring the copy (the bank isn't going to process check #512 twice). Doctoring is prevented by the signature process (hashing). If you're still a little squeamish, you make the signature time-sensitive according to taste.
If after that, you still aren't sure about using one of these, either you have no faith in encryption algorythms, or you're too paranoid to use a paper check to begin with.
It's cheaper for the payor, it's cheaper for the payee, it's cheaper for the bank (automate the whole thing and fewer warm bodies need to be employed to read my chicken-scratch handwriting), and digitally signing the "paperwork" instantly makes it more secure than most on-line credit card transactions.
Or I could be talking out of my ass again and I should go back to playing StarCraft. :) Though I'm now considering talking to my bank and asking what they think of electronic signing like this...
At any rate, I love Mandrake. I never thought I could ever love a bunch of Frogs this much. Personally, I think that if any distro is going to successfully conquer the laptop, it will be Mandrake.
I'd rather use an algorythm that is pretty much proven by the cryptographic and mathematical community to be unbreakable than some new one that has yet to be proven (or, more importantly, disproven). Cryptography is not a science where newer=better.
So good-bye, so long, and I hope to see you disappear from NASDAQ soon.
"Unbiased Article: "Their protagonist is a former litigator..." PROTAGONIST?"
Legal-ese. Calling her the protagonist is the same as calling her the plaintiff. That, and the idea is that Rogers "antagonized" her first.
"$300 for compensation - $300 won't make up for the time she spends, the harassment, and legal fees."
Assuming that she's not representing herself. To be a judge, you first have to be a lawyer. Also, renting out a few vacation cottages usually doesn't require you to be there 9-5.
"$500 for breach of contract - Rogers claims their contract makes no guarantee of service or compensation. Nice contract. So basically, they don't even guarantee that they do anything for the fee. That makes it hard to say they breached it."
Then it depends on if that particular clause is legal. If such a clause is against the law, then it doesn't matter what the paperwork says.
If "anything goes" in contracts, then builders could get out of lawsuits for collapsing buildings, and organized crime wouldn't be illegal ("But your honor, the contract said that if he fell behind on his payments I could break his kneecaps, blow up his house, shoot his family...")
"$5000 punitive damages - Rogers contract exempts them from punitive damages. That's why she has to go for breach of contract - else the $5000, which is the real heart of this matter, would be thrown out."
Again, it depends if Rogers is legally allowed to back out of said punitive damages.
"Many Slashdotters would probably PAY money to not be mass marketed. These people consider it a $5000 damage!"
Check out the by-line/motto when you come in here next time: News for Nerds. The fact that these damned "reality" TV shows suck doesn't prevent them from becoming cultural icons. And following social dogma can be a big thing, especially in... say... high school. That, and I'd also lump in the collection nazis and telemarketing demons into those punitive damages. Hell, considering the fact that this is Canadian play money we're talking about, I'd ask for double for that kind of crap. :)
Which reminds me: "Compensation" covers only losses that come directly from Rogers' breach-of-contract (the actual lost connections). "Damages" is everything else not directly covered by the contract, but outside problems caused by Rogers' action/inaction (no "Survivor," missed customers because of website problems, harassing phone calls, making her drag them to court to begin with, etc...)
However, IANAL.
John Lee Hooker, yes, he died recently, but...
Hell, the goate.cx posts make more sense than these.