Woohoo! The Skins will kick the Dolphins' collective asses, and Apple will release a weird looking computer they call Macintosh. (And I'll finally get that slot car setup I've been wanting for Christmas!)
So you're suggesting raising the taxes on capital gains to the level of income tax? That's a huge penalty on normal investors as well. I think a better solution would be to tax any compensation for employment by a company at the applicable income tax rate (or perhaps a few points higher) at the time of sale. Basically tax deferred.
Except they sold the friggin stocks so they're billionaires, and what happens to Google now really won't affect them one way or another, except perhaps that the rest of their stock might not be worth $1B when they get around to selling it. It's generally Not a Good Thing when executives sell off lots of stock. See: Enron, Worldnet AT&T, et al.
I'm not saying they're going to let Google free fall, because I believe it's their love child and they'd probably sink all $1B back into the company before watching it go belly up, but it's not exactly encouraging for investors to see that. Of course, given a share price of $440, investors aren't exactly being rational in the first place.
Not all of them. If you'd (finished) RTFA, you may have gotten to the part at the end that says:
"Customers of TVMyPod, launched in November, order an iPod plus the CDs, movies and TV shows they want. TVMyPod then buys the disks, loads them on the iPod, and ships the iPod and all the disks to the customer, says TVMyPod co-founder David Onigman.
Even that raises legal questions, because most DVDs are encrypted to prevent them from being copied. "The question that needs to be asked is, if you buy a DVD, are you allowed to put it onto an iPod?" Onigman says.
That is indeed the more interesting question. Why would I not be allowed to put it on an iPod? Or anything else?
The DMCA allows circumvention for interoperability, so it seems like a legitimate purpose. And really, one wonders what the purpose of encryption is when so many uses are, or could be construed as, legitimate. From what I understand, it's only illegal to circumvent copy protection to make illegal copies. But it's already illegal to make illegal copies (otherwise what kind of copies would they be? Right.. legal). The DMCA seems more like a group hug between Congress and Abra^h^h^h^hHollywood than anything else. A slight nod, wink, and a pat on the ass. RRraaoww.
should have no effect on the day-to-day operations, which will still be run by the current management team and company founders in conjunction with SCE
Yeah, that's the first thing any new boss says. "You guys are doing a great job here. Nothing's gonna change much, I'm just gonna sit back and let you people keep doing what you're good at." I give it 14 days before the new rules kick in, and 30 days max before the pink slips and LORs go-a-flyin'.
Since the article (which was little more than the summary) sucks at least as hard as the actual game, I went ahead and found an equally less revealing post by Ian Bogost who seems to be the programmer. Additionally I found an MTV review (no need to thank me; it was linked from the first article) which has the enlightening quote: "We're hoping this experience is a gateway drug to more sophisticated critique."
Although somehow I have difficulty imagining a serious discussion relating a video game to a gateway drug.
Oh, also you can download it for (amazingly enough) FREE, from here or here.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go bathe after being such a dirty karma whore.
OMG, it's the new Doc Ruby, spreading his paranoia and FUD to the Slashdot masses. I just wonder how you can type while you're waving your hands in the air like that?
The DMCA (C ostensibly standing for Copyright) only applies to circumventing copy protection. Interoperability is explicitly listed as a legitimate reason for circumvention. More likely it will violate the EULA, but that doesn't make it illegal, nor is the EULA necessarily enforcable.
What they didn't mention was that this gene was found in Cylon-human hybrid fetus blood. While the short term results are promising, long term implications are not yet fully understood. Use at your own risk!
I don't think it's at all the same, and marginalizing the risks of MMORPGs is a disservice all around. TV != MMORPG. While both require that you spend the currency of "time," MMORPGs are inherently more demanding of that time, possibly at the expense of whatever is going on around you. On the surface, they seem equitable since time=time, but when you expore deeper, you quickly realize that's not the case.
If you want to, say, answer the door while you're watching TV, you either pause it, miss some content, or don't answer the door. If you want to do the same thing while you're playing an MMORPG, you can't pause it, you may die (resulting in some sort of penalty, even if it's just more time required to run back to your corpse), or you can.. not answer the door. The evaluation of real life requirement vs. in-game requirement is one which is weighted in favor of the game. Postponement of a real-life requirement, whatever that might be, is almost always less detrimental than postponing an in-game requirement, and one necessarily comes at the cost of the other. At first this is no big deal, but unlike TV, as people invest more time in the game, the game takes on a larger significance. Postponing of minor responsibilities can quickly escalate into postponing major responsibilities as people lose perspective. Just as any other addiction, this can happen quickly for some, slowly for others, and simply not at all for still others. That some people are not susceptible does not marginalize the susceptibility of others.
Watching TV may "require" a set amount of time, but that time can be divided relatively easily, and missing parts of it is usually not detrimental to the overall experience. Playing an MMORPG, especially at higher levels, requires blocks of time usually measured in hours, and any diversion during that time can result in ultimate loss of the goal (the reason for playing). A raid, for example, may require that multiple people coordinate their actions, and the failure of any one person will result in a loss for everyone. While this is a challenging and enjoyable experience, it is not the same as watching TV, and it precludes unexpected real-life events from interfering unless they're significant. Your friend needs a ride? Your daughter makes a mess? Do you sacrifice the goals of 50 other people, or continue to play? Many people are inclined to weigh the "needs" of 50 other people above their own, or their friend, whom they would almost certainly accomodate were they just watching TV. Further, if one chooses to attend to real-life events at the expense of playing, they will likely be shunned from future participation in events in-game, because nobody wants people they can't rely on; they might as well have no help at all.
MMORPGs are more like gambling than games of skill. Rewards are typically random (although initially there is the dependable reward of leveling over time), and the game never ends. I won't get into the details of why gambling is addictive, but it's worth noting the similarity.
Add to this that MMORPGs are individual (or pseudo-social) activities, whereas watching TV is often (or just as easily) a social activity. Nobody else really wants to watch you play, and unless you have multiple computers, they can't participate either. (Although localized multiple-person participation, when possible, does help to offset the requirements of the game vs. some requirements of real life, since one person can often attend to the other requirements as necessary. That doesn't help when the requirements are personal, such as sleep or hygiene, but overall it's probably a net gain.)
I'm not anti-MMORPG, but I am pro-informed playing. People should realize the requirements which are not readily apparent, especially to the uninitiated, and people around them should notice signs that the person is having difficulty distinguishing between the importance of the game versus the importance of real-world events.
Are you kidding? SMB is the best thing that ever happened to us. People now believe they can stop us by jumping on our impenetrable shells. Boy are they in for a surprise. Hahahahaha...
Is the EFI cachable? And if so, wouldn't it be possible to create a custom boot which cached custom EFIs so you could experiement without overwriting the nvram/eeprom/whatever? Alternatively, if everything else is the same between intelMacs and typical PCs, wouldn't you be able to cache an EFI to boot MacOS?
TTL is not a current-intensive design. There is some amount of current, but the only reason your CPU draws a significant amount of power (current x voltage) is because there are millions of transistors. The transistors will not draw more current to compensate unless there's a current feedback loop (there isn't, otherwise you wouldn't need, or even be able to have, external voltage controls); they'll simply cease to function properly. There is a feedback loop for the power supply on the motherboard (just a regulator really), but that's what we're manipulating, so overcurrent issues shouldn't exist. More importantly, the regulators on the motherboard should prevent overcurrent conditions.
The designs are trade secrets, so we'll probably never know for sure, but it doesn't even make sense to put any sort of voltage/current regulation on the chip itself since a) real-estate is at a premium b) regulators need to be relatively large, since they handle ALL the current for the CPU and c) they generate a LOT of heat. I haven't looked at laptop motherboards, but on a desktop motherboard, you'll see usually 3-6 transistors mounted vertically screwed to heat sinks near where the power supply connects. Touch them if you want. The heat sinks should be grounded, so the only thing you'll probably hurt is your fingers.
But what if some deadly bacteria got blown into space by something like a cometary collision, then died out on earth, and was brought BACK to earth to save mankind from himself? Wait, I'm getting my conspiracy theories crossed. I'll get back to you.
Yeah, I watched the Daily Show too. I think the exact quote was, "Scientists believe that these particles are the pristine remains of the material that formed the planets and other bodies some 4.6 billion years ago or 6000 years ago, depending... on whether or not you're wrong."
What are you talking about?!? The Blogosphere (with a capital B to denote its importance) provides us with a source of essential and insightful information and critical discussion as evidenced by the GP's own weblog, as you can see from the samples below:
Well, I'm still sick posted by Christoopher Gilliard @ 12:05 AM 0 comments
been sick posted by Christoopher Gilliard @ 2:52 PM 0 comments
Indian Food I got some Indian food tonight. Chicken Pekora and Lamb Curry. Yummmmm..... The only bad thing is that now I feel a little sick. Soar throught. [See? The food makes his throat soar like it has wings. Little throat wings.] posted by Christoopher Gilliard @ 12:12 AM 0 comments
Hot pic Talk about perfect body along with a great Bikini. posted by Christoopher Gilliard @ 1:23 AM 0 comments
Picking a Sofa I've been looking at Sofas recently. posted by Christoopher Gilliard @ 9:37 PM 0 comments
Misspelling of own name and lack of comments notwithstanding, I'm sure I never would have seen that Hot Pic were it not for the wonderfulness that is the Blogosphere. (Really, that chick is hot.)
Slashdot Mirror
2008 is looking more and more like 1984.
Woohoo! The Skins will kick the Dolphins' collective asses, and Apple will release a weird looking computer they call Macintosh. (And I'll finally get that slot car setup I've been wanting for Christmas!)
So you're suggesting raising the taxes on capital gains to the level of income tax? That's a huge penalty on normal investors as well. I think a better solution would be to tax any compensation for employment by a company at the applicable income tax rate (or perhaps a few points higher) at the time of sale. Basically tax deferred.
Except they sold the friggin stocks so they're billionaires, and what happens to Google now really won't affect them one way or another, except perhaps that the rest of their stock might not be worth $1B when they get around to selling it. It's generally Not a Good Thing when executives sell off lots of stock. See: Enron, Worldnet AT&T, et al.
I'm not saying they're going to let Google free fall, because I believe it's their love child and they'd probably sink all $1B back into the company before watching it go belly up, but it's not exactly encouraging for investors to see that. Of course, given a share price of $440, investors aren't exactly being rational in the first place.
The DMCA allows circumvention for interoperability, so it seems like a legitimate purpose. And really, one wonders what the purpose of encryption is when so many uses are, or could be construed as, legitimate. From what I understand, it's only illegal to circumvent copy protection to make illegal copies. But it's already illegal to make illegal copies (otherwise what kind of copies would they be? Right.. legal). The DMCA seems more like a group hug between Congress and Abra^h^h^h^hHollywood than anything else. A slight nod, wink, and a pat on the ass. RRraaoww.
should have no effect on the day-to-day operations, which will still be run by the current management team and company founders in conjunction with SCE
Yeah, that's the first thing any new boss says. "You guys are doing a great job here. Nothing's gonna change much, I'm just gonna sit back and let you people keep doing what you're good at." I give it 14 days before the new rules kick in, and 30 days max before the pink slips and LORs go-a-flyin'.
Since the article (which was little more than the summary) sucks at least as hard as the actual game, I went ahead and found an equally less revealing post by Ian Bogost who seems to be the programmer. Additionally I found an MTV review (no need to thank me; it was linked from the first article) which has the enlightening quote: "We're hoping this experience is a gateway drug to more sophisticated critique."
Although somehow I have difficulty imagining a serious discussion relating a video game to a gateway drug.
Oh, also you can download it for (amazingly enough) FREE, from here or here.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go bathe after being such a dirty karma whore.
OMG, it's the new Doc Ruby, spreading his paranoia and FUD to the Slashdot masses. I just wonder how you can type while you're waving your hands in the air like that?
Nevermind, I don't want to know.
Which is actually a very good thing, a fact which everyone seems to be conveniently ignoring.
The DMCA (C ostensibly standing for Copyright) only applies to circumventing copy protection. Interoperability is explicitly listed as a legitimate reason for circumvention. More likely it will violate the EULA, but that doesn't make it illegal, nor is the EULA necessarily enforcable.
What they didn't mention was that this gene was found in Cylon-human hybrid fetus blood. While the short term results are promising, long term implications are not yet fully understood. Use at your own risk!
I don't think it's at all the same, and marginalizing the risks of MMORPGs is a disservice all around. TV != MMORPG. While both require that you spend the currency of "time," MMORPGs are inherently more demanding of that time, possibly at the expense of whatever is going on around you. On the surface, they seem equitable since time=time, but when you expore deeper, you quickly realize that's not the case.
If you want to, say, answer the door while you're watching TV, you either pause it, miss some content, or don't answer the door. If you want to do the same thing while you're playing an MMORPG, you can't pause it, you may die (resulting in some sort of penalty, even if it's just more time required to run back to your corpse), or you can.. not answer the door. The evaluation of real life requirement vs. in-game requirement is one which is weighted in favor of the game. Postponement of a real-life requirement, whatever that might be, is almost always less detrimental than postponing an in-game requirement, and one necessarily comes at the cost of the other. At first this is no big deal, but unlike TV, as people invest more time in the game, the game takes on a larger significance. Postponing of minor responsibilities can quickly escalate into postponing major responsibilities as people lose perspective. Just as any other addiction, this can happen quickly for some, slowly for others, and simply not at all for still others. That some people are not susceptible does not marginalize the susceptibility of others.
Watching TV may "require" a set amount of time, but that time can be divided relatively easily, and missing parts of it is usually not detrimental to the overall experience. Playing an MMORPG, especially at higher levels, requires blocks of time usually measured in hours, and any diversion during that time can result in ultimate loss of the goal (the reason for playing). A raid, for example, may require that multiple people coordinate their actions, and the failure of any one person will result in a loss for everyone. While this is a challenging and enjoyable experience, it is not the same as watching TV, and it precludes unexpected real-life events from interfering unless they're significant. Your friend needs a ride? Your daughter makes a mess? Do you sacrifice the goals of 50 other people, or continue to play? Many people are inclined to weigh the "needs" of 50 other people above their own, or their friend, whom they would almost certainly accomodate were they just watching TV. Further, if one chooses to attend to real-life events at the expense of playing, they will likely be shunned from future participation in events in-game, because nobody wants people they can't rely on; they might as well have no help at all.
MMORPGs are more like gambling than games of skill. Rewards are typically random (although initially there is the dependable reward of leveling over time), and the game never ends. I won't get into the details of why gambling is addictive, but it's worth noting the similarity.
Add to this that MMORPGs are individual (or pseudo-social) activities, whereas watching TV is often (or just as easily) a social activity. Nobody else really wants to watch you play, and unless you have multiple computers, they can't participate either. (Although localized multiple-person participation, when possible, does help to offset the requirements of the game vs. some requirements of real life, since one person can often attend to the other requirements as necessary. That doesn't help when the requirements are personal, such as sleep or hygiene, but overall it's probably a net gain.)
I'm not anti-MMORPG, but I am pro-informed playing. People should realize the requirements which are not readily apparent, especially to the uninitiated, and people around them should notice signs that the person is having difficulty distinguishing between the importance of the game versus the importance of real-world events.
Right, but the result was the same.. server fscked.
Newsforge is healing people? Hallelujah!
Are you kidding? SMB is the best thing that ever happened to us. People now believe they can stop us by jumping on our impenetrable shells. Boy are they in for a surprise. Hahahahaha...
Sorry, I meant to say CMOS, but I was thinking about TTL at the same time.
Is the EFI cachable? And if so, wouldn't it be possible to create a custom boot which cached custom EFIs so you could experiement without overwriting the nvram/eeprom/whatever? Alternatively, if everything else is the same between intelMacs and typical PCs, wouldn't you be able to cache an EFI to boot MacOS?
TTL is not a current-intensive design. There is some amount of current, but the only reason your CPU draws a significant amount of power (current x voltage) is because there are millions of transistors. The transistors will not draw more current to compensate unless there's a current feedback loop (there isn't, otherwise you wouldn't need, or even be able to have, external voltage controls); they'll simply cease to function properly. There is a feedback loop for the power supply on the motherboard (just a regulator really), but that's what we're manipulating, so overcurrent issues shouldn't exist. More importantly, the regulators on the motherboard should prevent overcurrent conditions.
The designs are trade secrets, so we'll probably never know for sure, but it doesn't even make sense to put any sort of voltage/current regulation on the chip itself since a) real-estate is at a premium b) regulators need to be relatively large, since they handle ALL the current for the CPU and c) they generate a LOT of heat. I haven't looked at laptop motherboards, but on a desktop motherboard, you'll see usually 3-6 transistors mounted vertically screwed to heat sinks near where the power supply connects. Touch them if you want. The heat sinks should be grounded, so the only thing you'll probably hurt is your fingers.
Chocolate?!? Try a strip club. Just get too drunk there or you might end up another kind of broke.
But what if some deadly bacteria got blown into space by something like a cometary collision, then died out on earth, and was brought BACK to earth to save mankind from himself? Wait, I'm getting my conspiracy theories crossed. I'll get back to you.
Almost any organism not actually evolving with current Earth life would probably be killed, rather than killing.
Tell that to the space dinosaurs. I'm sure they'll be sure to.. savor.. your opinion.
Yeah, I watched the Daily Show too. I think the exact quote was, "Scientists believe that these particles are the pristine remains of the material that formed the planets and other bodies some 4.6 billion years ago or 6000 years ago, depending... on whether or not you're wrong."
Well DUH!
UCLA is just an anagram for the ACLU. Sneaky left-wing radicals.. thought we wouldn't notice.
BLOGS R TEH FUTURE! DONT H*!
Suspended animation? Dr. Nick was suspended after this little accident:
"The kneebone's connected to the... something. The something's connected to the... red thing. The red thing's connected to my wrist watch... Uh oh."
Better yet, join the Google Air Force and you can drop some Google bombs.
KABOOM!